Pop Rocks!: Episode 2.6

Ten minutes before leaving my house to go do the show, I read online that my friend Cecile Hernandez, a girl I'd known since sixth grade, was killed in a car crash. She was in the main group of friends that I hung out with in high school and even though I didn't know her that well, I still felt kind of paralyzed. I threw the CDs I'd made for the show into my bag and when I got to the shack I didn't know what to do. I certainly didn't want to do the show I had planned to do (one focusing on the two compilations released by Harriet Records featuring various tunes I've been obsessed with over the past few weeks (this will be on next week). I didn't have the energy. I grabbed some stuff. All I really wanted to do was listen to sad Sarah Records bands, but I didn't really have any around. It's just fucked up, and I really wasn't prepared to deal with something like this. No one close to me has ever died, no one that I've known. And the thing is, even though I didn't really know Cecile all that well, I knew that she was a wonderful person and that she honestly lived her life to the fullest. My friend Judy got me this patch for my bag while she was in Sweden, and since she goes to Notre Dame, I never really had a chance to get it from her. Last Winter or Spring Break she gave it to Cecile to give to me and I never got around to picking it up and it bums me out that I didn't. Anyway, this show sort of turned into a weird mix of emotions. It's a sort of examination of what happens over two hours after finding out something utterly horrible. Eventually, after an hour, I started to feel less awful, but I still didn't really feel like being there, so I attempted to make myself happy (culminating in a short Tullycraft set at the end). Anyway, here's this. Normal programming resumes next week.

Andrew Bird - Heretics (Armchair Apocrypha)
The New Pornographers - Streets of Fire (Twin Cinema)
Low - Cue the Strings (The Great Destroyer)
Destroyer - Foam Hands (Live at the Sled Island Festival)
The Mountain Goats - Shadow Song (Peel Session)
Guided by Voices - The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory (Bee Thousand)
Okkervil River - The Velocity of Saul at the Time of His Conversion (Down the River of Golden Dreams)
Jeff Buckley - Je N' en Connais Pas La Fin (Live at Sin-e)
Elliott Smith - Can't Make a Sound (Figure 8)
John Vanderslice - Dear Sarah Shu (Pixel Revolt)
Neutral Milk Hotel - Two Headed Boy Pt. 2 (In the Aeroplane Over the Sea)
Heavenly - So Little Deserve (Fountain Island comp)
Even as We Speak - One Step Forward (Fountain Island comp)
Spoon - Black Like Me (Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga)
Get Him Eat Him - The Coronation Show (Arms Down)
The Wrens - This Boy is Exhausted (The Meadowlands)
The New Pornographers - Challengers (Challengers)
Wilco - In a Future Age (Summerteeth)
Trembling Blue Stars - Idyllwild (The Last Holy Writer)
Slowdive - Some Velvet Morning (Souvlaki (Bonus Track))
The Swirlies - The Vehicle is Invisible (They Spent Their Wild Youthful Days in the Glittering World of the Salons)
Felt - Sapphire Mansions (Let the Snake Crinkle Their Heads to Death)
Unrest - Make Out Club (Perfect Teeth)
Kleenex Girl Wonder - Don't Wait Up (Ponyoak)
The Close Lobsters - Paper Thin Hotel (Airspace Vol. 2)
The Field Mice - Fabulous Friend (Shadow Factory comp)
Tullycraft - Wild Bikini
Tullycraft - Mental Obsession
Tullycraft - Polaroids From Mars
Tullycraft - Pop Songs Your New Boyfriend's Too Stupid to Know About
Tullycraft - Our Days in Kansas

REVIEWS:

John Vanderslice – Emerald City (Barsuk)
Review: 8/10

Since the breakup of MK Ultra in 2000, John Vanderslice has been putting out one stellar solo album after another and become one of the most consistently great pop songwriters. While he’s always toyed with electronic manipulation in the studio, on 2005’s Pixel Revolt it seemed like his sound was going to be overcome with drum machines and boops & beeps. And in typical JV fasion, he’s done something completely different here. Well, maybe not completely different, but Emerald City is the most stripped down record he’s put out (aside, maybe, the Suddenly It All Went Dark project, in which he recorded all of the songs from Pixel Revolt into a two track (something Jason Molina did with the Magnolia Electric Co record) using only an acoustic guitar). There are electronic elements and traces of studio noodling throughout, but overall this is his most organic sounding album since Cellar Door. Lyrically, nearly every song pertains to the war or post 9/11 America, a topic that was prevalent on Cellar Door and even more so on Pixel Revolt. The title itself is a reference to the green zone in Baghdad, the center for coalition troops in Iraq. The songs are filled with paranoia (From dusk to dawn/Dawn to dusk/The sky will fill/With vaporized dust raining…), war (It was written years before/Same names, same war), references to 9/11 (We ditched out the paradde/And what was there to commemorate/And wahat was left to remember/Not sure what really happened on that day) and the old JV fallback, prescription medication (A tablespoon of codeine/Will put you right to bed). While the songs aren’t as immediately appealing or upbeat as those on previous records, they’re some of the most lasting tunes he’s ever written.

Suggested: 4, 5, 2, 1, 6, 7, 3, 8, any
-Ian Hrabe, July 16^th, 2007

Interpol – Our Love to Admire (Capitol)
Review: 2/10

Shut up. On their major label debut, Interpol seem to have set their hearts on making the most boring record that they possibly could. Granted, I maligned Turn on the Bright Lights when it first came out, but grew to love it after the immediate joy that came out of Antics. Of course, in retrospect Turn on the Bright Lights is by far the superior album, but Antics took their moody Joy Division aping and turned out some killer, stripped down dark pop songs. Here, every song sounds like a template for “song that sounds like Interpol.” I've read so many reviews that say this sounds just like The Cure's "Pornography," and it seems like it is impossible for anyone to describe a facet of Interpol's sound without comparing it to another group. This record should sound like Interpol's "Our Love To Admire" but I guess no one really thinks it does. Personally, I think the first two albums are fine, "Turn on the Bright Lights" for it's atmospherics and "Antics" for its unabashed pop-hooks. But this one just sounds tired. The more atmospheric tracks feel stifled by the brighter production and the pop tracks feel like they're trying too hard to please the mainstream radio people. I guess my point is does the world really need this album, and will anyone remember Interpol (much less this album) in ten years? Or is this just an alright, but totally unoriginal, album that reminds us of a couple dozen different bands and albums?

Suggested: 9, 2, 1, 4, 3, 11
-Ian Hrabe, July 16^th, 2007

Against Me! – New Wave (Sire)
Review: 3.5/10

Against Me!, tell me now do you compromise yourself like that? I know it’s clichéd to harp on a punk band for signing to a major, but Against Me? Seriously. I really liked this band a lot and now it sounds like they’ve run their course. This album doesn’t really do anything new (except present their sound through hi-fi production equipment). I guess there is one song where Tom Gabel does a duet with Tegan (who is in a kind of shitty band with her sister Sara) Quin that I actually kind of liked. It’s kind of in the same vein as the Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York” and maybe it’s taking two things that I don’t really like and somehow making it work. It’s the only song that sounds believable, the only song with any real emotion. The rest has been carefully been removed by ace producer Butch Vig (of “shooting Nirvana to superstardom with Nevermind” fame) who has made sure to make a “commercially viable Against Me! Record. And considering that the kids today only like watered down punk rock, he knocked this one out of the park. Some of these songs are OK. The single, “White People For Peace,” although it has pretty generic verses, it also has a fucking incredible chorus. I’d kill to hear this song about the futility and need for protest songs two years ago when it might have meant something. If you don’t pay attention, though, it sounds good. Against Me!’s sense of melody has always been their strong suit and it’s probably the reason why they’re in the position they are now. They write catchy fucking songs with incredible pop hooks. “New Wave” is a pretty good tune. “We can be the bands we want to hear…Are you ready for brave new directions,” Gabel sings. Although punk was sort of born out of major labels, there’s no way these guys are going to be the next Ramones or Sex Pistols, and this album still sounds like a raw deal. (A longer, more futile diatribe can be found inside).

Those anarcho-punks are so…predictable. I feel like a lot of the punks are going to say that this album is great. That Against Me! Should be commended for “trying something different” and even though this is being put out by a major label, it was ultimately the right move for them to make. The move they needed to make. You know what? Fuck that. Why does Against Me! Need to be on a major label? Much like Anti-Flag signing to a major, it makes absolutely no fucking sense for a group so into politics (even if Against Me! Sing about them with their tongues firmly planted in their cheeks) to have their record put out by corporations. I know it’s easy to hark “Sell out! Sell out!” whenever a punk band signs to a major, but for fucks sake what are these guys trying to prove? What are they trying to prove by having Butch Vig (who made Nevermind palatable for the general public and probably, in a roundabout way, drove Kurt Cobain to blow his brains out) suck all of the heart and soul out of their music? The production is pristine and slick, but Against Me!’s sound is not nearly dynamic enough to benefit from it. Their last three albums (even Searching for a Former Clarity) all had songs that were meant to be screamed at the top of someone’s lungs. Regardless of if you liked the band or not, it was impossible to deny that Tom Gable gave a shit when he was singing. His voice is still gravelly during the verses and smooth during the choruses, but he sounds utterly vapid here. And I don’t give a shit about what he’s singing. “We do what we do to survive,” he sings in “Thrash Unreal.” Maybe if the songs were better this album might be forgivable, but seriously, who is going to see this CD at Best Buy and buy it? Who is going to hear the single on the radio and be compelled to buy the album? Considering that they’ve pretty much alienated their audience in favor of selling more records OR, as punk bands like to say, “getting their music/message out to a wider audience,” have they really done what they needed to do to survive?

Suggested: 6, 1, 4, 3, or whatever.
-Ian Hrabe, July 16^th, 2007

Bottom of the Hudson – Fantastic Hawk (Absolutely Kosher)
Review: 5.5/10

This is some pretty straight up indie rock. I feel like the best records I’ve been listening to lately have me wondering how, exactly, they were put together. Every piece seems to be so completely appropriate and complicated, that I wonder how certain songs (say, songs on the new New Pornographers and Spoon records) manage to exist. With this album there is no mystery. I can hear exactly where everything is: guitar, drums, bass, singer. Pretty standard, and while bands can do great things with just those four elements, these guys don’t. I guess these guys used to be a super lo-fi band like Guided by Voices, and you can hear that in the nice studio production, but I feel like if this had been recorded in a bedroom it would sound a lot better. A song like “Rusty Zippers” would sound amazing through a four-track with tape hiss, you know?

Suggested: 4, 3, 8, 10, 5, 12
-Ian Hrabe, July 16^th, 2007

Au – Au (Aagoo/Oedipus)
Review: 8/10

This is a pretty gorgeous avant-folk-pop record out of Portland, OR by a musical prodigy guy named Luke Wyland. It’s full of pastoral instrumentation (banjo, fiddle, saw, mandolin, etc) run through a series of contemporary, slightly experimental filters. The songs range to straightforward avant-pop tunes (“Sum”) to lush soundscapes like “Shelter,” which utilizes Wyland’s skills as a pianist (he’s classically trained) in a very unique way. Despite a number of the tracks being filled to the brim with sound (verging on shoegaze), songs like “Death” and “Honeybee” are stripped down and haunting. Tracks 5 and 8 are instrumentals.

Suggested: 2, 3, 8, 1, 7
-Ian Hrabe, July 16^th, 2007

Oh No! Oh My! – Between the Devil and the Sea (Dim Mak)
Review: 5/10

This is some OK indie/twee pop. Kind of sappy (the first track starts out “yes you are my only hope” sung like some top-40 singer), and not in that good sappy way (i.e. I’d never put it on a mixtape for my girlfriend because she would think I was lame). A certain amount of sentiment is good, but the band needs to A.) Know how to pull it off and B.) Have better lyrics. I’m a complete indiepop dork and I think this is pretty boring. Take that to mean whatever.

Suggested: 3, 4, 2, 5
-Ian Hrabe, July 16^th, 2007

Blitzen Trapper – Wild Mountain Nation (Long Duck Dong)
Review: 7.5/10

“Wait, hasn’t this album received a ton of positive press?” I thought to myself after pulling this record out of the giveaway bin in the music office. Of course, with so many CDs coming in, a few great ones are bound to slip through the cracks, and I am really glad I rescued this one. Considering that the first track is pretty much noise rock and the second is a country fried southern rock jam, I was easily taken aback. But after track three, “Futures & Follies,” a wonderful little pop song, I was won over. Blitzen Trapper’s range and diversity, and their ability to master a handful of different genres, is what makes this a great record. Track 5 sounds like an Animal Collective song, track 6 is a pseudo-lo-fi indie rock tune (that breaks out into Nintendo-esque electros towards the end), track 7 is a backwoods redneck banjo jam (complete with jaw harp!), and track 12 sounds like the Grateful Dead or something. Anyway, these dudes are a bunch of weirdos and you should play their record.

Suggested: 3, 6, 8, 9, 4, 11, 12, 5, 13, 1
-Ian Hrabe, July 16^th, 2007