There are hints of change lingering on Band of Horses’ every move; the band’s new album, Infinite Arms, exhibits new, varied sounds and new band members, who each contributed to the songwriting process and helped give the album its varied feel. But change certainly didn’t affect the band’s scope and sincerity.
Infinite Arms is palatable and forward—it introduces itself with no pretension, shakes your hand, welcomes you into its mixture of different styles and sounds, and never pretends to be anything other than a straightforward, enjoyable ear companion. The album boasts music that’s a little bit folk, a little bit Americana, a little bit country, and a little bit indie rock, all the while maintaining familiarity. The beats are driving, the harmonies are simple and warm, and the songs alternate from soft, slow lullabies to active, upbeat melodies.
The first track, “Factory,” feels solemn but uplifting, and is the band’s first foot forward into the music that follows, music that exhibits nostalgia and longing. “Laredo” is a break-up track at its most basic, with lyrics like: “Oh, I’m at a crossroads with myself / I don’t got no one else…But oh, my love, don’t you even know? / And oh, my love, are you really gone?” And even the happiest sounding tracks, songs like “Compliments” and “Dilly,” include wistful, searching lyrics; in the latter, singer Ben Bridwell croons, “I’m reeling in the wrong days, getting behind / why didn’t I think / ‘What in the world?‘” But the harmonies and the driving rhythm of the album relieve lyrics such as these of their heaviness and give listeners the ability to enjoy the album’s big sounds and catchy harmonies.
The album ends with “Neighbors,” a finale that embodies both the nostalgia and the simple beauty of the previous tracks—it, too, is a quiet and searching song, and even at its loudest, the music has a quiet, calming effect. But it’s a suitable farewell to listeners, an assurance from Band of Horses that they have remained true to themselves while embracing change. And Infinite Arms won’t hesitate to show you how those changes were a good thing.
Could the country’s largest single day, non-camping festival be in jeopardy? Kansas City’s Rockfest is the subject of a controversy after the rainy festival damaged the park surrounding a national monument.
Already, Facebook groups have begun popping up to help support keeping the festival in the city.
The Associated Press reports:
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) – A rain-soaked daylong rock concert left one of Kansas City’s major parks so damaged that one city official wants to ban it from returning.
About 55,000 people attended Saturday’s Rockfest in Penn Valley Park and the Liberty Memorial grounds. With rain nearly all day long, the people and equipment used to stage the concert left the park grounds a mess.
A furious Aggie Stackhaus, a member of the Board of Parks and Recreation Commissioners, says she doesn’t want Rockfest back at the park.
The Kansas City Star reports that more than 14 acres of Penn Valley Park need repairs. The city parks department will begin grading, filling ruts and replacing grass on Wednesday.
Joe Litvag, a senior vice president for concert promoter AEG Live, says the company would pay for all damages as quickly as possible.
Repping Austin, TX and Lawrence, KS, rapper/producer Spence returns with his second full album release, Planet Pluto.
The album draws inspiration from electro, drum & bass, and Bollywood with lyrics touching on music criticism, his Texas to Kansas migration, love, pressure and everything else.
Our reviewer, Ali says that James Murphy goes out with bang on this album. There are plenty of great tracks with which to dance and sing along. Read his full review here.
To celebrate the release of the album, we’re giving away an exclusive LCD Soundsystemprint and a copy of the new album. All you have to do to enter is comment and tell us what your favorite dance move is when you’re dancing to LCD Soundsystem. Entries must use a valid email address and you must live in the US to enter (sorry out-of-country readers). We’ll pick a winner Friday, May 21 at 6 p.m. CDT from the entries.
Of course, even if you don’t win, you can and should pick up the album at local stores and on iTunes. The link to buy it on iTunes is here.
This year’s line-up is diverse as ever, with something for everyone, and plenty of new talent to discover. Broken Bells, The Temper Trap, Girls, and Miike Snow are all making their first ACL Festival appearance, and getting a lot of attention from fans and critics alike. Ryan Bingham and The Dead Horses, Robert Randolph & The Family Band, Ozomatli, Nortec Collective, and Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue span a wide array of genres, and reflect the flavor of the Festival and the tastes of what ACL fans have come to expect.
The full line-up listed by day is available at www.aclfestival.com. Single Day Tickets are on-sale today, May 18 at 10 a.m. CDT.
Three-Day Passes for the 9th annual Austin City Limits Music Festival sold-out in 14 hours, a record since the Festival’s inception in 2002. A limited number of Three-Day VIP passes and travel packages are still available.
Austin City Limits Music Festival happens October 8-10 in Zilker Park.
The 2010 Austin City Limits Music Festival is generously sponsored by Budweiser, AMD, ZYNC from American Express℠, Austin Ventures, BMI, H-E-B, and Sweet Leaf Tea.
The Eagles
Muse
Phish
The Strokes
M.I.A.
Flaming Lips
LCD Soundsystem
Spoon
Vampire Weekend
Norah Jones
Band of Horses
Monsters of Folk
Deadmau5
Sonic Youth
Gogol Bordello
The National
Robert Earl Keen
The Black Keys
Broken Bells
Slightly Stoopid
Yeasayer
Pat Green
Rebelution Beach House
The Sword
Matt and Kim
The XX
Portugal. The Man
The Temper Trap
Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes
Girls
Ryan Bingham & The Dead Horses
Local Natives
Gaslight Anthem
Lucero
Devandra Barnhart
Blues Traveler
Pete Yorn
The Soft Pack
Gayngs
Amos Lee
Robert Randolph & The Family Band
Ozomatli
Richard Thompson
Martin Sexton
Manchester Orchestra
The Almighty Defenders
Miike Snow
Mountain Goats
Bear In Heaven
Mayer Hawthorne
Midlake
Foals
Switchfoot
Cage The Elephant
JJ Grey & Mofro
Kinky
Angus & Julia Stone
The Morning Benders
Hockey
White Rabbits
David Bazan
Asleep at the Wheel
Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue
Nortec Collective
The Very Best
Beats Antique
Henry Clay People
Blind Pilot
GIVERS
Dawes
Band of Heathens
Charlie Mars
Two Door Cinema Club
Lissie
Sarah Harmer
Constellations
T. Bird and the Breaks
Chief
Frank Turner
Those Darlins
Carolyn Wonderland
Kings Go Forth
The Relatives
The Ettes
Qbeta
Mynamisjohnmichael
Basia Bulat
Balmorhea
Dan Black
The Jane Shermans
The Kicks
Ponderosa
Two Tons of Steel
Caitlin Rose
SPEAK
Run With Bulls
Maxim Ludwig
Gospel Stars
Heavenly Voices
Wesley Bray & The Disciples of Joy
Jones Family Singers
Ashley Cleveland & Kenny Greenberg
Buddy & The Straight Way Travelers
Ruby Jane Smith
Verve Pipe
Frances England
Jellydots
Elizabeth Mitchell
Okee Dokee Brothers
Tom Freund
School of Rock
Q Brothers
For many, braving the frigid temperatures that were only abetted by a breeze off of lake Michigan was worth reliving a band essential to so many musical palettes. Something Corporate was headlining the third Bamboozle festival, which not only marked the band’s third reunion show since their 2005 hiatus, but also the debut of the Bamboozlefestival in Chicago. It was only fitting that Something Corporate ring in the festival for Chicago.
As Andrew McMahon pointed out early in the Something Corporate set, Chicago has a special place in the band’s heart and history. McMahon moved out from under his parent’s wings and spent some time living in the basement of New Found Glory’s Jordan Pundik. There, McMahon wrote several early SoCo songs, several of which they played that night.
It was a night for nostalgia for both the band and fans. It was a night for rediscovery and reliving the love of SoCo music, but it was also a day of discovery. Many of the scene’s rising acts from the last few years as well as a few veterans joined the festival. To the side of the main stage, the festival had a line up from the heart of Chicago.Allister and the harder Treaty of Paris rocked the later evening slots. Hip hop acts like Spose and the Jump Smokers (complete with their own ass-shaking, scantily clad dancers) got the crowd dancing. Earlier acts like I Fight Dragons and The Lifelines really impressed. I Fight Dragons fits in well with the Bamboozle scene, and the Lifelines, while edgier had a nice mix of harder vocals with violin.
The side stage set times fit in between with the bigger name acts over on the main stage. All the Day Holiday played a catchy set to the early arrivers. Though some of their songs started to blend, the guys were energetic and fun. A good way to start off the mainstage. Chicago’s Kill Hannah played a rock set that was easy to dance to if you could take your eyes off the band in their neon make-up and feathers long enough to watch your footing. The band plays an edgy rock, but unlike some of the screamier bands you might have found amongst the other Chicago acts, this band’s music is very accesible as proven by radio singles “Lips Like Morphine” and “Boys N Girls.”
Kill Hannah Set List:
Boys N Girls
New York City Speed
Love You to Death
The Chase
Strobelights
Kennedy
Lips Like Morphine
The next three acts on the main stage are out on tour together, so if you missed Bamboozle, there is still a chance to catch Travie McCoy and the Lazarus Project with 3oh!3 and Cobra Starship. As enjoyable as McCoy’s other project, Gym Class Heroes, is, I kind of enjoyed this current act more. It fit in better with the other music at the fest and they guy is such a strong performer personality wise that I he could have been performing with only a cricket to back him and made that show enjoyable. He would coyly wrap his arms around his lit up mic stand, trot out on to amps and make these really animated facial expressions that almost said more than half his lyrics. Suffice it to say, he is a must-see-live act. Denver’s 3oh!3 followed up Travie and based on the amount of gold-donned girls in the crowd, there was a quite a large turn out to see these guys. Hands spelling out the 3oh!3 sign flew into the air as the guys started out with the whistling-filled single “Starstrukk.” The tunes are easy to sing along to – even a couple of new songs off their upcoming summer release got a good singalong in the crowd. For as much as you want to hate these guys for their womanizing lyrics, they’re pretty darn enjoyable live. We’ll chalk this one up to a guilty pleasure.
Speaking of guilty pleasures, the crowd was ready to get their fangs up with Chicago-darling Gabe Saporta and his current band: Cobra Starship. Flashing lights, confetti and balloons accessorized their set…if you didn’t know any better, it would have been easy to mistake them as the headliners. When it came time for them to play the infamous movie theme song “Snakes on a Plane,” they were all set to invite Travie McCoy back out to perform his part. However, Travie took a backseat to a girl who brought a sign saying she knew all the words to the rap. She was invited up on stage and McCoy filmed her doing the part. There are some who aren’t a fan of Saporta’s current act, aka those who won’t let go of Midtown, but if you let loose and accept the act for a silly, fun-loving dance, pop rock group than it really is a blast to hop around to “Guilty Pleasure” and “Good Girls Go Bad.”
After them, it was time for Something Corporate. Finally seeing Something Corporate was like a dream come true. The band broke up (or went on hiatus or whatever you’d prefer to call it) just when my parents finally gave me permission to go to shows. I’ve been fortunate to see Jack’s Mannequin several times and while the two piano-based rock groups share several similarities, there is a different energy in SoCo shows. A lot of that has to do with how different the lyrics are: the songs of Jack’s are more relationship-based lovelorn songs, while SoCo covers everything from relationships to growing up to simply not liking people. While I’m sure many would say the encore performance of “Konstantine,” beginning with just Andrew at the piano at first would be the evenings highlight, I have to say I thought the show hit its high with “If U C Jordan.” Andrew was stomping (yes, literally stomping on the keys) and sure, we were all throwing up the bird screaming, “FU Jordan,” which probably made anyone in Chicago by that name that could hear us super uncomfortable, but the song was surreal. To be that connected with that many people knowing the song and knowing how great this band was…it was magical. We were like some strange family and it didn’t matter how old we all were or where we were from. What mattered was that we loved this band and we were all having a great time.
I’m still kind of overwhelmed by how great it was…I can’t wait until the fall!
Something Corporate Set List:
Punk Rock Princess
The Astronaut
21 & Invincible
Down
I Want to Save You
She Paints Me Blue
Space
Cavanaugh Park
Watch the Sky
Me and the Moon
Fall
Ruthless
I Woke Up in a Car
If You C Jordan
//
Konstantine
Hurricane
The Line Up:
Main Stage:
4 – 4:35 – All the Day Holiday (pop rock)
5:05 – 5:35 – Kill Hannah (alt rock)
6:06 – 6:35 – Travie McCoy and the Lazarus Project (hip hop/jazz/rock fusion)
7:05 – 7: 45 – 3oh!3 (hip hop/rock)
8:15 – 8:45 – Cobra Starship (pop rock)
9:25 – 10:45 – Something Corporate (alt rock) Side Stage:
3:35 – 4:05 – I Fight Dragons (pop rock)
4:35 – 5:05 – The Lifelines (hard rock)
5:35 – 6:05 – Jump Smokers (hip hop)
6:35 – 7:05 – Spose (hip hop)
7:45 – 8:15 – Treaty of Paris (rock)
8:55 – 9:25 – Allister (pop punk)
And so it comes to LCD Soundsystem‘s third and purported final album. When you’re James Murphy and your previous musical work is the much adored Sound of Silver and you follow it up with your final piece of art, you better go out with a bang. And from the get go Mr. Murphy understands this fact and hesitates not to throw a handful of glitter and confetti into the visual components of our ears.
This Is Happening was not recorded in New York’s DFA studios but rather the sprawling mansion of producer Rick Rubin. And lets clear up an important fact before we discuss and delve into the finiteness of this album. It’s no Sound of Silver, but it doesn’t need to be. When you put out an album that is that sonically impressive, both lyrically and melodically, you don’t need your next one to be as such. You’ve cemented your greatness and your place in the world’s musical oeuvre. All you need to do is underline the fact that you can still craft a few fantastic tunes and that your talent isn’t limited to a fluke. That’s exactly what This Is Happening does. It doesn’t try to be better than its predecessor, but it sure comes close.
The album starts off with a subtle sneakiness with “Dance Yrself Clean.” The track begins and continues for a while to be a slow, quiet puff of breath: a “What, I can’t hear you?” number. You think to yourself, “LCD Soundsystem makes dance music. What is this nonsense?” And your heart sinks a little to think Mr. Murphy has faulted you. The song pitter-patters a bit, joined by spoken vocals, but then the track starts to pick up a little, with soft whistling keyboards that run like a river through the quiet. You feel there might be hope and then when 3:08 hits you are jolted like a mother f*cker with probably the best dance music in a long time. A smack of snare drums that are quickly quenched by some of the deepest fuzzed out synths this side of downtown. The song is a dancefloor cracker. Murphy starts to sing with a “I just woke up from a boozy night” voice and firmly tells you to “Dance yourself clean” from such an evening and perhaps, aptly for him, to take stock of his place in the musical scene as a 40 year old man, as he sings: “Everybody’s getting younger/It’s the end of an era, it’s true.” Amongst this philosophical question of age and place, amongst the filthy percussion, also lies a romantic tune: “Break me into bigger pieces/So some of me is home with you,” a nice juxtaposition between the music and lyrics. “Dance Yrself Clean” is a winner and gets you ready for the rest.
The album follows with “Drunk Girls,” a fun-filled track of nonsense about night out on the town shenanigans, where lacking in lyrics and vocals it makes up in a rocking your head kind of musical style. “One Touch” harks back to Sound of Silver‘s “Get Innocuous”; what an 8 bit LCD Soundsystem video game would sound like. “All I Want” is a bruising sentimentality, mixing rock and dance, evoking the guitar work from Bowie‘s “Heroes,” with Murphy youthfully pouring out thoughts over a doomed relationship: “All I want is your pity/Oh all I want are your bitter tears.” It is a beautiful track with a softness that permeates through the callousness of the singer.
“All I Want” leads into another soft stunner, the album’s second best track, “I Can Change,” which showcases the best singing we’ve heard from Murphy since “All My Friends.” Mr. Murphy needs to croon us like this more often because it really is a wonderful vox box. He fills the track with bubbling synthesizers, a la Gary Numan‘s “Cars,” while coaxing a young thing, “I can change, I can change, if it helps you fall in love.” The song also starts off with some of the best lyrics I’ve heard in a while, “Tell me a line/Make it easy for me/Open your arms/Dance with me until I feel alright.”
“Hit” opens with a sparkle of Asian infused melodies eventually being drowned out by a thick, slobbering bass, as Murphy belts his Fuck You ode to record labels, “You wanted a hit/Well this is how we do hits/You wanted a hit/But that’s not what we do/So leave us alone”. The following two tracks, “Pow Wow” and “Somebody’s Calling Me,” though musically well composed, leave something to be desired.
This Is Happening ends with “What You Need,” and so comes the close of LCD Soundsystem’s offerings to the world, and it closes perfectly, with a neat, nostalgic period. The track perfectly dissipates Murphy’s thoughts over the years of his and his bands stature and significance in the music world, the idea of aging and coming to grips with moving on to the next stages of life, but pondering what sort of legacy was left and what the future holds, leaving us with…”You might forget/Forget the sound of our voice/Still you should not forget, yet/Don’t forget the things that we laughed about.”
This Is Happening will be released on May 17, 2010.
Track Listing:
1. Dance Yrself Clean
2. Drunk Girls
3. One Touch
4. All I Want
5. I Can Change
6. You Wanted A Hit
7. Pow Pow
8. Somebody’s Calling Me
9. Home
Irish trio Two Door Cinema Club was pretty much universally hotly tipped by British music critics last year even before their debut album Tourist History even made it to store shelves in early March 2010. The band received further validation as a one of only of 15 acts to make it on the BBC Sound of 2010 long list. Despite accolades like these, the band have not rested on their laurels, relentlessly touring and easily gaining new fans with their brand of pop / punky hybrid rock, first across Britain and the rest of Europe. Now it appears North America has caught the Two Door bug, with many of the dates on their first-ever headlining tour of our continent selling out. High off playing a great gig the night before at New York’s Bowery Ballroom, they performed at Johnny Brenda’s in Philadelphia’s Fishtown neighborhood last Thursday with two opening acts, Million Young andBad Veins.
Florida’s Million Young took to the stage first. Frontman Mike Diaz (guitar, programming) sings dreamy lyrics but is backed by synths and Afrobeat. They sound like what you might imagine would result if Beach House went to the islands and decided to make a record. That’s my impression anyway – other people have compared the band’s sound to South Carolinan Toro y Moi. The vocals are too new age-y for me, but I was really digging the synth and drum sections. Songs like “Mien” and “Cynthia” set early gig-goers gyrating.
I’d seen Bad Veins before, also in the second spot on the bill; they supported We Were Promised Jetpacks in DC in February. Thankfully, singer Benjamin Davis still rocks the telephonic vocals, and drummer Sebastien Schultz is still pounding out the militant beats that pair so well with Davis’ style of sometimes drawn out, sometimes disaffected and Beck-ish, and sometimes theatrical rock singing style. Their tape player, Irene, was employed to add further warmth to the music with strings and brass. Davis commented that “her” location stage right was unusual (usually the tape player is set up in the middle of the stage between them, so that Schultz can reach the play and stop buttons).
However, their set did not seem to be affected by this at all. Songs like the yearning “Gold and Warm” and the groovy “Crosseyed” and “Falling Tide” captivated the audience so much that the crowd was won over, with several fans on the floor and in the balcony shouting with much displeasure when Davis announced they only had one song left. I’m impressed by all that these two guys from Cincinnati can musically and their performance in Philadelphia was no exception. Watch this video of “The Lie” below from South by Southwest 2009, just gorgeous. Definitely check them out. Really, they should be much bigger in America than they are.
For most of the bands I like from overseas, it takes a long time for America to catch on and to ever see them on network television, so I take Two Door Cinema Club‘s appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live earlier this month as an excellent sign that they’ve already been recognized in America as a good bet. (Catch one of the songs they performed for Kimmel below.) When it came time for Two Door’s set on Thursday, there were several teasing moments where the lights went down and went back up again as guitars and gear were checked and re-checked. This gave ample time for latecomers to fill in on both floors when the band finally took the stage, beginning with the engaging love song “Cigarettes in the Theatre,” which I imagine will be their trademark set starter for the foreseeable future.
Listening to a record in the comfort of your bedroom or car is different than seeing that band live, and this can’t be stressed enough in the case of Two Door Cinema Club. Watch for the frenetically played, flying guitars being played by the principal members, bassist Kev Baird, lead guitaristSam Halliday, and lead singer / guitarist Alex Trimble. Drumsticks also fly courtesy of Brighton, England touring drummer Ben Thompson, personally chosen by the band in October to replace the Mac programming employed on their recordings. This is just fun, fast-paced guitar pop with good lyrics. Watching gig-goers go into near trances over the great music made me smile.
The surprises of the evening were the playing of two little-known b-sides, “Hands Off My Cash, Monty” (introduced by Baird with the warning, “you won’t know this one, unless you are a super fan or something“) and “Kids,” which wasn’t the MGMT cover some of us at the front had guessed jokingly when the set lists were first laid out on the stage floor. Both of these sound great live and in truth, either of them would have felt right at home on Tourist History. The crowd enthusiastically clapped in time to the bridge of “Costume Party,” leading me to believe that many of them had already gotten their free mp3 of the song from joining the band’s mailing list.
But if I were to pick the highlights of the night, hands down they would be the songs from the encore. The printed set list did not indicate there would be one, but a big fan at the front commented loudly to the rest of us, “They have to come back. They haven’t played ‘I Can Talk’ yet!” Wise words. After the audience’s insistent chant of “one more song!” the band returned to play “Come Back Home” followed by “I Can Talk.” By then, these lads from Bangor had the Philly crowd eating out of their hand. World domination is next.
Two Door Cinema Club Set List
Cigarettes in the Theatre
Undercover Martyn
Hands Off My Cash, Monty
Do You Want It All
Something Good Can Work
This is the Life
Kids
Costume Party
You’re Not Stubborn
What You Know
Eat That Up, It’s Good for You
//
Come Back Home
I Can Talk
Remix all-stars Hey Champ have been a prepping a new debut album of original material. That’s right, this is all champ.
Star is due out July 13, but while you’re waiting for the album to drop, you can check out the widget below to download two tracks, “Neverest” and “Cold Dust Girl,” off the album for free.
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Concert Calendar
Nov 23, 2011
HaHa Tonka @ Recordbar, Kansas City MO
Nov 25, 2011
Thee Oh Sees @ The Granada, Lawrence KS
