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2006:11:29:22:46. Wednesday. DON'T YOU LOVE A SINGER. I don't know if the Long Winters have ever played Madison or if they ever will in the future, but I don't want to imagine how much I'd pay to see them if they came tomorrow. With their last two records -- the new Putting the Days to Bed and 2003's When I Pretend to Fall -- they have made perhaps a perfect power-pop couplet and gone where Death Cab really should have a couple records ago. To be honest, I think the only reason they're not getting the kind of attention lavished upon the New Pornographers is that they don't have a Neko Case. Their cheery songs -- even when the lyrics are downbeat -- are both energizing and day-brightening, and singer/songwriter John Roderick's approach to writing about nostalgia and music has a wicked sneer that belies his Jerry Garcia-like visage. Probably my favorite song on the new album is "(It's A) Departure" (though "Rich Wife" and "The Sky Is Open" are close), which contains these lines:
I like the old days
But not all the old days Only the good! old! days! It's a nice acknowledgment of Roderick's own awareness of where the style comes from and where he's placed himself in the cultural continuum. Like the last couple Portastatic records, it's the sound of a middle-aged guy's young man's reaction to whatever happened to us all since the young folks took over again in the early 1990s.
2006:11:24:19:06. Friday. BE STILL PLEASE. So, the podcast is on a hiatus. I haven't been to any shows lately, and I've been working on the DVD and another project that's not quite ready to talk about yet. I figure I've been doing this every week for a little over a year now, I might as well go on break. I'll be posting clips from the Madison Pop Fest next month, but that'll probably be it until the new year. Meanwhile, one of the shows I ended up not seeing recently was Portastatic while we were in Chicago last weekend, owing mainly to sleep and fatigue. The new album, Be Still Please, is growing on me the same gradual way the last one did, except for the one song that's just lodged itself in my head. "You Blanks" choruses on an amazing encapsulation of what the last six years have meant for at least half the country:
All my songs used to end the same way
"Everything's gonna be OK" You fuckers made that impossible to say It's not enough that we've lost 7,000+ people and something like half a trillion dollars, our moral standing and our national character. We've had hope taken from us. We are desperate and gasping, hoarse from screams that never end. In six years (or maybe a little over eight or twelve) the lights of a thousand new dreams have died, and it's horrible. Some of us have learned to close our eyes and wait until daddy says it's OK. The rest of us have stood and gotten punched in the gut by the machine that killed John Henry, and there's no end in sight. Mac McCaughan's last band's last album came out on September 18, 2001, and on a song called "Phone Sex" contained these lyrics: "Plane crash footage on TV/I know, I know that could be me." It's ironic that on Be Still Please McCaughan writes in less literal terms about the event that "Phone Sex" only coincidentally references. What he's writing isn't really protest music, but what he and the rest of us are doing isn't really protesting. We're all becoming, and it's up to the next few years to tell us what.
2006:11:17:08:00. Friday. NO!: THE ELECTED (#186, OCT 26 2006).
This was our second Elected show of the year -- we saw them open for Metric back in April -- and I remain unimpressed. It's not that they're bad. I actually kind of enjoy both this song and the one I recorded before, "I'll Be Your Man." But they're so inconsequential -- when I listen to Sun, Sun, Sun I have a really hard time picking out which song is which, and when one stops and another begins. It seems like they're constructing an atmosphere more than making music, which is fine as far as it goes, but wasn't enough to keep us at this show for more than a couple songs into their set.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:11:16:08:00. Thursday. NO!: MARGOT & THE NUCLEAR SO AND SO'S (#185, OCT 26 2006).
At the beginning of this clip, Margot singer Richard Edwards notes how cool it is that Union South has a bar downstairs, and challenges any and all comers to venture down to take him on in foosball after the set. I don't know if anybody did, but I do there were noticeably fewer people around for the Elected's set afterwards. We thought about going down to take the challenge ourselves, but quickly realized that we were way too tired for that shit.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:11:15:08:00. Wednesday. NO!: MARGOT & THE NUCLEAR SO AND SO'S (#184, OCT 26 2006).
There was a pretty big crowd on hand to see Margot at Club 770, despite the fact that a) it was their third trip to Madison in four months, b) they were not actually the headliner, and c) Club 770 stinks. I think more people might have watched Margot than watched the Elected later on, and it was nice to get to see them play a full set after their Terrace show got cut short last summer. It was also nice to be treated to this non-album track, the first of I think two they played during their set.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:11:14:08:00. Tuesday. NO!: WHISPERTOWN 2000 (#183, OCT 26 2006).
I wonder if Whispertown 2000 are best buds with Rilo Kiley or something. We saw them in March opening for Jenny Lewis at the Pabst Theatre, and again opening for the Elected (Blake Sennett's side project) at Club 770. They're really a much less interesting band than they should be -- the idea of a Rilo Kiley-influenced band of slight popsters featuring two female singers and a lot of acoustics is very appealing to me, but they don't really execute it very well. Since we've seen them twice this year I figured I should record one song from them at least, but the one I picked turned out to be a short a cappella number that featured the non-vocalists members of the band just sitting around. So I guess you'll just have to take my word for it that they're kind of disappointing as a band.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:11:10:08:00. Friday. NO!: JAIL (#182, SEP 23 2006).
A few songs into the set, the lights in the bar started to flicker a bit. Since it was so stormy outside, and there was a giant fan running inside, we figured it was just a momentary brownout. A couple songs later it happened again. Then, during this song, the lights started going all the out and back in with the beat of the song and we realized somebody (behind the bar, perhaps?) was putting together and impromptu stage show for us. So that was kind of nice. Also, at this point in the show a few people in the crowd finally gave into temptation and tried to merge with the band, since there isn't actually in a stage at the River Horse. All in all kind of a hectic, adrenalized show that got pulled off well nonetheless.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:11:08:08:00. Wednesday. NO!: JAIL (#181, SEP 23 2006).
Watching this set was a little like being in the eye of a storm. There were really far too many people inside the bar -- the show was meant to be out in the street, after all -- which produced sort of an organic, constant, wave-type motion in the crowd throughout the set. On top of that, the door was open, letting in a little rain and a lot of wind. The band kept losing their set lists but pressed on confidently nonetheless. Of course, this was before the lights started going crazy...
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:11:08:01:03. DENOUEMENT. Welcome back to America and the real world.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:11:07:10:06. Tuesday. DO YOU THINK WE COULD GO ON FOREVER?
The end of 2006 will also bring the end of Rainer Maria, as the long-running band announced today that they will call it quits after two final shows, taking place December 15 and December 16 at Philadelphia's First Unitarian Church and New York City's Bowery Ballroom. Singer/bassist Caithlin De Marrais, guitarist Kyle Fischer, and drummer William Kuehn released the following statement:
"We are grateful to our new listeners and especially our longtime fans for their endless support and attention. We feel incredibly fortunate to have come up during a unique time in rock music, in a community that grew with us from the Midwest to Brooklyn and beyond. Making records has always been a revelation, and walking onto stage together we found a vision we could share. "For us, this transition can be nothing short of heartbreaking. But for reasons both musical and personal, the three of us have chosen this time to move on." Is Maritime now America's best band? Possibly.
2006:11:06:08:00. Monday. NO!: JAIL (#180, SEP 23 2006).
The day after the Mates of State show, we suddenly found out Jail was playing at Center Street Days (or Center State Daze or possibly Rockerbox) in Milwaukee that evening. The weather was crap, but we drove over anyway and took a big umbrella just in case. When we got there it was pouring, and there didn't seem to be any kind of street festival going on. We found Emily's parents, went to get food and were going to just turn around and head home when her brother called and told us they were playing at River Horse instead of out in the rain. We got over there just in time to hear them open with this new song, playing to basically an entire street fair packed into a relatively small bar. And if anybody reading this found a fleece hoodie in a booth at El Chico Zuma on September 23, well, enjoy.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:11:03:08:00. Friday. NO!: SYSTEM AND STATION (#179, SEP 20 2006).
As you'll hear before the song starts in this clip, this just wasn't System and Station's night. Of the 50-60 people who were there for the Selfish Gene's set, seven were left by the time of this song. On top of being somewhat mismatched with the bill, and it being a Wednesday night, the show started so late that it didn't finally end until 1:45 in the morning, by which point only loud-mouthed drunks and myself remained. It's too bad, because -- aside from the too-loud guitars -- they put on a really good in support of a solid new album. I'd hope they come back again soon, but that seems somehow unlikely after this experience.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:11:02:08:00. Thursday. NO!: SYSTEM AND STATION (#178, SEP 20 2006).
I first heard of System and Station when I randomly found a copy of their last album, In the Twilight, in the public library's local music section. The band used to be based in Madison but moved to Portland a couple years ago. That album didn't really impress me, but I like their new one, Here Is Now, quite a bit. This song is one of several good ones on that record, and hopefully they'll be back soon so I can record some of the others.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:11:01:14:03. Wednesday. MADISON MUSIC PROJECT. A couple weeks ago, Isthmus put on a live showcase for its Madison Music Project, featuring four local acts at the High Noon Saloon, and hired me to produce some online videos of the show. The first, featuring Sean Michael Dargan and his band, is up today at thedailypage.com and the others will be rolled out on Wednesdays to come.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2006:11:01:08:00. NO!: SYSTEM AND STATION (#177, SEP 20 2006).
By the time System and Station finally took the stage it was well past midnight and much of the Selfish Gene's audience had taken off. A few more people left after the band started playing, because they seemed to be turned up to 11 for some reason. The audio in this clip unfortunately reflects this -- it's a good track that suffered some severe distortion from the unholy blast of decibels.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra |
