Music + Commerce = ???

The pairing of earnest music and advertising is a controversial and tricky topic. Irresponible record companies and mega-corporations have certainly made some unholy unions between art and commerce but, let's face it, radio is dead, and the music industry is constantly having to reinvent itself in our high tech age to remain profitable. In the right circumstances, young ad agency creatives are able to introduce some of their favorite bands to a whole new audience, and small, or well-run, record labels are able to gain some revenue and greater audience for their talent.

We've seen what VW, iTunes, and the Gap can do for a band on the cusp of economic viability, and that model seems to be catching hold. I just saw a commercial for Seventh Generation Inc. featuring my favorite song of the last three years (Blitzen Trapper's Furr) in the background. Green company + hippie portland band. It seems a truly perfect marriage. The music fits the branding image of seventh generation and requires no compromise on the part of blitzen trapper. The song was already written and recorded, and the company in question doesn't seem to contradict their ideals (i'm sure the constantly touring and hard working trappers didn't mind staying in hotels and eating good food with the extra dough either).



the band's fantastic official video

Free People

I'm gonna toot my own here and post a link to the latest blog entry about Stowe Provisions over at Free People. Toot toot.

Poor mouth.

the eyes get in on the fun here. good find meredith

Beach House

"Wow, this makes my eyes and mouth wish they were ears." My good friend Ruben Nusz with the final word on Beach House's fantastic new album, Teen Dream (which is also getting serious accolades from the likes of Grizzly Bear). Not much improving on that description. Besides being clever and funny, ruben is a talented and hard-working visual artist in Minneapolis.

Best Album of the Year So Far

I know it's early, but, gosh. There's definitely love in somebody.

the Bedroom Community

VIDEO 1
This serves mostly as a 'bedroom community 101' short course with glimpses of the synergy that's being harnessed here. At one point, Ben Frost say's, "on paper this shouldn't work.... but it does". It doesn't just work, it captures something so rare, haunting and beautiful i'm having trouble putting words to it. He's right though. These four horsemen bring together such vastly different backgrounds in life and music that its hard to comprehend how they've arrived so punctually on the same note.

Valgeir Sigurrosson is an Icelandic master of airy, ethereal studio production, having worked with Bjork and Bonnie 'Prince' Billy among others. His recent solo album, Equilibrium, shows that he's beyond capable when coming out from behind the mixing boards to write, play and arrange.

Nico Muhly is a classically trained Julliard graduate come avante garde composer and arranger. He's worked with Phillip Glass, arranged for Antony and the Johnsons, Grizzly Bear, and the National, and scored major motion pictures like 'the Reader'.

Ben Frost is an Australian ex-pat living in Iceland who's work might be the musical equivalent of Roberto Bolano and his 'infrarealism' movement in poetry. His music fits into the larger categories of 'experimental', 'ambient' and 'electronic', with a smattering of industrial, post-rock and metal influences. More than most music, it defies classification. He presents a sophisticated, yet visceral and un-nerving musical experience.

Sam Amidon is the child of folk musicians and has been playing and performing from a very young age. His sound borrows heavily from his appalachian folk roots, Sacred Harp shape note singing, and he makes no secret of being a student of the legacy left behind by harry smith and alan lomax at the smithsonian folkways.

VIDEO 2
Everybody's heard that perfect song at the perfect time at least several times in their life (i hope). Gram Parsons on a shitty old transportable record player while vintage shopping. Sigur Ros when you're geeked out. Centro-matic in the middle of a muggy day with all your friends and lots of cold cold beer. Bob Dylan. Well, have you ever put on a record, on a really nice night, with all the windows open in your house, and felt like the music was coming in from outside instead of the other way around? Like the notes are crawling out of the soil and settling out of the sky like evidence of cells splitting, rock eroding, and god? No? Fuck you, it happens to me sometimes. I don't even need the open windows and acclimate weather here. These pale beauties have watches that read in geologic time and their fingers know every detail of specific glacier's stories. huh? it's like everything's in slow motion and they're not. they know just when to pluck, just when to clap, just how to make their goddamn vocal chords vibrate, and the knowledge is ancient and unerring. i think they just hit the universe's natural frequency. you know, the frequency at which a system will naturally vibrate when it's been set into motion. powerful shit. just ask the poor bastards stuck on the tacoma narrows bridge when the wind and highway traffic combined to hit the bridge's natural frequency in 1940.




Did i mention they're all playing Big Ears? Who's going to Knoxville with me?

Songer Singwriter

This Weekend Bowery Presents and the Brooklyn Vegan presented a benefit show for Haitian relief efforts at the Music Hall of Williamsburg. Annie Clark (aka St. Vincent) and Justin Vernon (aka Bon Iver) reunited (apparently they made a song for something called Twilight that the kids all love) and played several covers together. They even came up with a cutesy She and Him style name (see posting title). Here's hoping that further collaborations are in the cards for these two. Annie Lennox songs sure do age well, no?

Best of 2009

My self esteem must be at an all-time high. You've seen all the experts' lists , but recently i'm convinced that "expert" just means well-connected. So, hey, here's my two cents. In case you couldn't have guessed my two cents may have spent a little time weathering the elements under a softball field bleacher, aquiring a nice patina. Maybe someone spilled a beer down there. Definitely not shiny.


top 10 records in whatever order i thought of them

Animal Collective ^ Merriweather Post Pavilion
the xx ^ xx
Chad Van Gaalen ^ Soft Airplane
Timber Timbre ^ Timber Timbre
St Vincent ^ Actor
the Antlers ^ Hospice
Ben Frost ^ By the Throat
AA Bondy ^ When the Devil's Loose
Olafur Arnalds ^ Found Songs
Lightning Dust ^ Infinite Light

top 5 films

Fantastic Mr. Fox
A Serious Man
Moon
Up
Away We Go


Try not to steal from these people, because they actually give a shit. And sometimes its hard to make money AND give a shit at the same time.

Big Ears 2010

Shit. I might have to skip SXSW this year and save my money for a trip to Tennessee. In just it's second year, the people at Big Ears have curated an incredible lineup of singular, highly expressive artists for this years festival in Knoxville. The group is not large, but, you get to see them perform in gorgeous, intimate, and PROPER settings. With a heavy dose of bedroom community/802, and ambient dub-step performers there promises to be much in the way of collaboration and live experimentation.

TERRY RILEY
DOVEMAN
NICO MUHLY
NADIA SIROTA
SAM AMIDON
IVA BITTOVA
TIM HECKER
BEN FROST
BANG ON A CAN ALL-STARS
JOANNA NEWSOM
VAMPIRE WEEKEND
ANDY MOOR
BRYCE DESSNER
ANDREW WK with THE CALDER QUARTET
GYAN RILEY
THE 802 TOUR
THE NATIONAL
MY BRIGHTEST DIAMOND
JAVELIN
GANG GANG DANCE
ST. VINCENT
THE EX
CLOGS
THE xx
jj
DJ /rupture
BUKE & GASS
ANDREW W.K.
DIRTY PROJECTORS
TRACY SILVERMAN

Seriously, Creepsters

When i hear that a band i've had recommended to me is from Austin, Iceland, or Sweden they automatically move up the priority list of "must-listen- to's". Partly because when a country like Sweden holds their huge music awards ceremony some of the biggest names show up like this. That would be Karin from Fever Ray, committed as always to her every creepy whim. Zooiks!

the Aforementioned Female Folky

I was introduced to Sharon Van Etten's music through some truly serendipitous circumstances. Austin's SXSW is famous for its capacity to introduce new listeners to new musicians (or old listeners to old musicians, or non-discriminating listeners to bad musicians, blah blah blah). Seemingly the entire city turns into a giant RIYL beer party, and that's what i love about it. Even with the expectation of uncovering new musical talent in unexpected locales, my chance encounter with Sharon Van Etten was pretty remarkable. On the recommendation of a friend of a 'friend' i dragged several other friends far off the beaten path and into a truly shitty and ugly space for what was being described as one of the many "unofficial SXSW day parties". This "party" consisted of a couple twelve packs of lone star in a fridge next to a sink full of filthy dishes, an overgrown and littered backyard, a dozen or so on-lookers, a bathroom in the remarkably untidy master bedroom, AND...... the absolutely captivating voice and guitar of Ms. Van Etten. She sat alone in the middle of a half empty living room, with late afternoon light pouring through the west facing window behind her, and sang like the words and notes she projected were the only thing that mattered in the whole world. Her body was quiet and calm but in her eyes you could see she's as raw and wide-open as the winter sky, her strength and vulnerability both at odds and working together.

Fast forward three years and her name keeps leaping out at me. She recently collaborated with She Keeps Bees, provided notable guest vocals on the Antlers album "Hospice", and finally released a proper album, "because i was in love", produced by Espers' Greg Weeks. Lucky, lucky us. That performance at SXSW07 was the kind that makes your hairs stand on end and wonder what the fuck just happened. 'Because i was in love' manages to capture that feeling and sustain it over a 50 minute record. Spare instrumentation accompanies a voice that refuses to be anything but true. She ends up reminding me of Richard Buckner in the way she derives her power from living in her fragility and vulnerability. Not reveling in, or exploiting it, but being aware and respectful of it. The sum of these small parts is anything but sparse. It's full and accomplished and downright breathtaking at times.

Hospice

So, admittedly I’m a latecomer to this record, but it’s so damn good I’m gonna write about it anyways. The cover art and the album title give the listener fair warning of the emotional landscape they’re about to enter. The album’s lyrics, subject matter, and backstory are absolutely devastating, but, then, we’ve heard all that before. What separates this album is its commitment to conveying its complex emotions sonically as well as lyrically.

The seminal Antler, Peter Silberman, reportedly withdrew from his Brooklyn surroundings for over a year, suffering through an experience one can only assume is, at the very least, tangentially related to the story within Hospice. He distilled that anguish into the apartment recordings that would become this record. On the album Silberman tells the story of a man falling in love with a terminally ill patient and the subsequent pitfalls of a romance with a predetermined half-life. This isn’t Hollywood and you already know how the story will end.

Unlike a typical narrative-based album that adheres to a fairly uniform sound (often lo-fi, chamber pop, etc) serving as a backdrop, while relying on prominently featured vocals to tell the story, Hospice swings wildly between skeletal lo-fi folk, ambient compositions, and lush anthemic pop that at times completely obscure the vocals. That is no accident, as Silberman is telling a heartbreaking story of love, illness, loss and grief set mostly amidst the florescent lights and whirring machinery of hospital rooms and hallways. As in real life, when pain and love and joy become too intense to process in real time, words become inadequate to fully articulate the experience. To compensate (or more accurately, complement), Silberman, uses huge sonic shifts to bridge that gap and put the listener in those thin spots between this world and the one we cannot describe. You know, those places that lodge whimpers, yelps, and foreign words firmly in your throat and won‘t let your eyes close. That’s not to say that the lyrics and vocals alike are not gorgeous. Beautifully and intimately recorded in a Brooklyn apartment, Silberman’s falsetto flutters and breaks in all the right places and the sincerity of his approach gilds even questionable lines like “we’re fucked, and not getting un-fucked soon” in pure gold. It also doesn't hurt that up-and-coming female folky Sharon Van Etten lends her lilting, haunted vocals to the voice of the dying lover. This album might ultimately wreck you, but on the way you’ll find all the places high and low and in between.

All the Kings Are Named MJ

I think the people who call the shots over at Wrangler might be bi-polar. They've got Ryan McGinley doing their TV ads in europe, Marc Jacobs designing a ridiculously small premium line in the U.S., and millions of Wal-Mart shoppers rocking denim washes that no one's liked for twenty years. Whatever. They've made righteous pearl snap shirts for decades on end and i love the jeans this tag came with.

You Gotta Know When To Hold 'Em

One look at this bad boy was all it took, but the label didn't hurt either. I found this beauty in Riverside, California, while visiting my brother. We were driving aimlessly in search of entertainment, preferably in the form of a baseball hurling robot and a bat or two, when we stumbled upon the highly recommended dive bar, Sire Club (thanks SAM). I, being on vacation, and the both of us, being sorely in need of a little hair of the proverbial dog, decided that an afternoon beer or two were in order. After enjoying the comforting feeling of being in a midwestern bar despite our left coast location, we ventured back out into the daylight and came upon Rob's Vintique a mere block or so away. Rob absolutely knows his shit. He had two pearl snaps that fit me AND exceeded my lofty expectations of a western shirt, an eddie murphy tour shirt from "Raw", a killer vintage sunglasses collection, AND..... rob recognized the T-shirt i was wearing as a Timber! (despite not bearing the word anywhere). Hardcore boomtown indeed. Kudos rob, kudos sire club, kudos kenny rogers western collection and kudos timberps.

Very Good News Indeed

My current favorite eccentric and maker of beautiful music, Sam Amidon, has announced a release date for his next album. In just two months time we get to experience what lovely sounds Mr. Amidon has unearthed with his dizzyingly talented friends Nico Muhly, Thomas Bartlett, Valgeir Sigurosson, and Beth Orton!!!, among others, while recording in fantasy island. Until then, he's made a song from the album available here.

More Analog Amplification

I once rode an early morning winter train from Beacon, NY, down the Hudson River valley, and into the great city, listening to this record on my headphones. Steaming smokestacks, frosty steel signs of industry awakening, snow dusted hills and cliffs, and the black and rolling river, all in rhythm to the perpetual chug of machinery beneath my body. It was a truly beautiful experience. It also created for me a visual companion for this song that would be hard to match. BUT! this video is spot-on AND has seemingly vintage spinning double horns amidst all its grainy steampunk imagery. Eat your heart out Andrew Bird. Honestly, the video is gorgeous despite my own competing experience, and this piece of music is such a moving investigation of the relationships betweeen technology, atmosphere, humans, and sound. The album itself is now several years old and you can read up on it all you want on these fantastic interwebs, but my affinity for every aspect of this project compels me to at least plant this seed.

Jacques Penoit

It's no H Bar C, Rockmount, or even Wrangler; and that's probably why the pockets are slightly too close together and low on the shirt.... BUT, I LOVE this new addition to my western shirt collection. You might say it's a little bit country, a little bit rock n' roll. Thank you JC Penney's and Room Service Vintage.

WWZD?

probably see you only through a beautiful lacy lense and love you forever and magnificently even though you don't deserve it.

Mi Casa

I've been working on my living room for quite a while and just made some serious progress decorating the walls. Andy Warhol did a lot of the work in the first photo and i got plenty of help from the good people at Yard Dog in the second one. The second photo includes paintings by Mike Egan (top row, middle) and Jon Langford (middle row, right column; and bottom row, left column). The middle piece i found at the citywide garage sale and the remaining pieces i made with vintage stretched fabric and stencils with spray paint.

Creepsters

I don't know what is going on here, but its freaking amazing. A million people could try to make this and it would turn out terrible every time because you can't fake creepy. I keep watching the video and thinking i wish my house was one the neighbors houses.