Monthly Archives: March 2011

Is it me you’re looking for?

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Perhaps the really provocative area for future development lies… in cyborg rock; not the wholehearted embrace of Techno’s methodology, but some kind of interface between real time, hands-on playing and the use of digital effects and enhancement.

–Simon Reynolds

Mogwai

Post-rock is made up of guitars like a regular rock band, but processed through so many filters and effect pedals that it barely sounds like a guitar on the other side of the speaker. Bands of this genre also tend to rebel against the norms of rock bands. Macho posturing and power chords are replaced by lengthy, textural instrumentals and often computers playing a part in the sound of the music.

Todays post is about my favorite Post-Rock band Mogwai from Scotland. They formed in 1995 in Glasgow. The band consists of Stuart Braithwaite (electric guitar, vocals), John Cummings (electric guitar, vocals), Barry Burns (electric guitar, piano, synthesiser, vocals), Dominic Aitchison (bass guitar), and Martin Bulloch (drum kit). The band is named after the creatures from the film Gremlins, although guitarist Braithwaite comments that “it has no significant meaning and we always intended on getting a better one, but like a lot of other things we never got round to it.“

Mogwai’s style could easily be called shoegazing or Math Rock and occasionally instrumental metal. These are all genres that can fall under the heading Post-Rock. Mogwai is at the forefront of the genre and moving it forward with confidence and purpose.

Let’s listen to some Post-Rock shall we? …and before the title of the track throws you completely for a loop, I’ll mention that the band often has a hard time with titles since most of the songs are just instrumentals. The band has said in the FAQ off their website that they sometimes just use strings of words they have “said or seen that sounds good or makes us laugh“.

Here is the closing track from Mogwai’s seventh album, Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will (released 2/14/2011).

Click to listen to Mogwai – You’re Lionel Ritchie

The song starts off almost as something from the score of a movie. Cinematic and shimmering we hear some vocal samples (I’m assuming they are Scottish) that really frame a picture in your head. The song simmers for 4 minutes until the heaviness sets in. The bass comes in like an oppressive force of nature. All the members of the band painting pictures in your ear.

Barry Burns once stated in an interview with Chillville that he and the rest of the band do not like the categorization of Post-Rock because he believes “it overanalyses everything.” I get it. No one wants to be so easily put into a box, forever feeling limited by the parameters of said box. But the thing is… To explain music to others, we sometimes have to put boxes around it, even if they’re just made with pencil.

Set My Soul At Ease

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It was during season 14 of Saturday Night Live that I first heard of Edie Brickell. I watched every episode religiously that year, so that I could return on Monday to the first of many Algebra classes I had failed and re-hash the entire episode with Mike Popowski. We would roll in the aisles laughing about Giant Business Man, Church Chat, Girl Watchers, Sweeney Sisters, The Anal Retentive Chef, Hans and Franz, Pat Stevens, eventually Wayne’s World, then to close out the season the sketch that would absolutely kill – Toonces! Then there were the “commercials.” The Change Bank. I have always loved this one. We can handle requests like that; usually the same day.

Back to Edie Brickell. I watched SNL in the TV in my teenage bedroom. I didn’t have a DVR. There was no such thing. I didn’t have a VCR. Never mind what that is. There was no pause, no rewind, no let’s go look that up online. I had one shot to remember these sketches and one shot to be introduced to some of these artists.

So when this mousy girl from Texas got up and started singing strung-together existential silliness in the song “What I Am”, I just wasn’t sure how to react at first! I joked about it at school. But I looked further and I kind of got into folk sensation Edie Brickell and New Bohemians.

SNL has played a major role in Brickell’s life, since it was during her performance on the show two years later that she met her future husband, Paul Simon. Literally, she was performing a song, he got in the way of the camera, she flubbed her lyric, and then the two were married two years later in 1992. Following this union, they had three children, Brickell released two solo albums, and then reunited with the New Bohemians to record another album. After that Edie and Paul’s son from his first marriage formed a band called The Heavy Circles with a few other famous children. She formed another band with yet more artists last year. The indie and folk flow and creativity that must be going through this woman’s life at all times… Speaking of Bohemian!

So here we are in 2011, and we have a new album not only from Edie Brickell but also from The Gaddabouts, her most recent formation.  Brickell writes a lot of songs on the fly – some get written and recorded the same day – and to keep the sound of her latest solo album pure and organic, she has included several live tracks.  It’s not that she tours, but she does perform live shows here and there.  She opened for one of our favorites, Iron and Wine.

Maybe one of the cleanest, sweetest songs on Brickell’s latest release (self titled) is Track 3, “Been So Good.”

Click to Enjoy Edie Brickell – Been So Good

Don’t forget you’re the best one that I’ve ever known.

Grab the album. Edie Brickell is a talented musician who isn’t always around when you expect her.

Charlie Sheen Is An Asshole, But Let’s Learn From It

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“The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.” – Marcus Aurelius

Watching the one-man circus sideshow known only as Charlie Sheen gave me some fits of anger. Why? Well, his comments on AA are what really made my blood boil. The insinuation that the ideas behind AA were “written for normal people” and that there was a specific path to go by is just disingenuous. Yes, there are the 12 steps. It doesn’t mean that one has to have rigidity in how they practice and follow through on those 12 steps. Anyhow, that wasn’t really what made me upset. It’s the fact that I’ve personally witnessed a life change positively – due to the help they provided – makes me a bit angry. My own mother hit rock bottom from alcoholism almost 20 years ago, and hit the point where she tried to take her own life.

Now, it’s my understanding that the teachings of AA are inspired by Christian teachings. Personally, I’m an atheist. My own mother grew up in a strict Irish-Catholic home, but doesn’t practice, now. She still stays with her mission to stay sober, so it does do some good. The fact that we now have a celebrity slamming a program that helps millions that have nowhere else to go is honestly showing how out of touch he is. His comments about how “special” he was only stoke those flames and show the true amount of disconnect.

His unfortunate path is his own, but he’s now acting out in a manner that affects people in society. The everyday people that he called “losers” that are addicts and know nothing else, for example. It’s sad, really. The anger I originally felt has actually turned into pity. The ranting while talking about how underpaid he was also struck a nerve, as I was an education major in college, and watch as the governors of Wisconsin and New Jersey are openly battling teachers’ unions. Teachers are underpaid. Not Charlie Sheen. This sad arrogance is 100% anger, which he denies.

So what should I do? Do I lash out? I seriously thought about it. The media does play a large role in this, as they keep giving Sheen a podium to stand on. That role is what will likely end up being Sheen’s downfall, as people will quickly tire of the pity he’s asking for. When one out of ten people in our country are without a job, you’d find nary a few that would feel for a man that spent his money irresponsibly by snorting it up his nose. The media will have to take a large part of the blame for joyously allowing one man’s self-destructive behavior to simply worsen and hit a low.

Instead of lashing out, I hit a point where I simply now want to refuse to add gasoline to the fire. The decisions he’s made serve well to teach us all. He really is right in that his kids will learn from him. However, they won’t learn the lessons he thinks. His father, Martin Sheen, has already had enough, and is simply saying that he would be there for his son. There really isn’t shame in it. I can’t say I would be a bigger or better person for wagging my finger at him, though. It’s a natural reaction, of course. My willingness to understand the wrong in being angry is part of how he instead teaches me more about myself and how I could be a better person on my own, as I hope many with drug and alcohol addictions learn to do, too.

To find an AA chapter near you – visit here.
For help with drug addiction – visit here.

Click to Play Daft Punk – Teachers

I Will Meet You In Your Heart

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I am currently smitten  with Minneapolis band Tapes N’ Tapes. The group is named after the boxes of tapes the band had recorded demos on.
Their first full-length album, The Loon, was released in 2005 and was recorded by the band… Indie DIY style. The recording took place in a Wisconsin cabin with no running water.
Tapes N’ Tapes had some great timing with the release of this record. The hype of music blogs had really begun to achieve new heights and prominence. Many up and coming blogs back then wrote up The Loon favorably. They compared them to The Pixies and Pavement. They were hailed as one of the first “Blog Bands”. Then Pitchfork Media gave them a “Best New Music” commendation.
The sophomore effort Walk It Off, released in 2008, was not reviewed so favorably. I think it’s a great piece of work. It’s just a different direction that many people felt had more to do with producer David Fridmann (many consider Fridmann the 5th Flaming Lip for his influence and production on that band).
After a small hiatus, the band is back…and when I mean back, I mean back to basics. Their 2011 release, Outside, was again produced by the band. It is a return to the sound of The Loon. They have regained their status with the bloggers and the fans alike.
I for one can’t stop playing this new album. It seems the band continues to be influenced by The Pixies and Pavement, as well as by Modest Mouse and maybe even The Strokes.
The album got me searching for possible hidden meanings of a track titled Outro placed on the middle of the album. I had, at first, thought that maybe they were making a play on the fact that track 6 might have fallen at the end of side 1 of a cassette tape. I did some math…and the end of track 6 comes in at 19 minutes, 52 seconds.  I was right.  Outro finishes “side 1” with a raucous exit. 
Click to listen to Tapes N’ Tapes – Outro


Short but fucking sweet. There are some great tracks on this album. Buy the album and be sure to check out “Freak Out”, which is the band’s first single, as well as “The Saddest Of All Keys” which I have set to repeat in my car:


Click to listen to Tapes N’ Tapes – Saddest of All Keys