Having a typo on the cover of a magazine isn’t common, and when it happens people love to point it out. But what happens when the entire front page image is wrong? That’s what happened with Melt Magazine.
This is not Modest Mouse:
That’s Band of Horses, actually. It is fixed on their website, though:
Ah well.
The Hell City Tattoo Fest is going on this weekend at the convention center in Columbus. We did a quick walk through last night before the Jane’s Addiction show and it looks to be a really great festival for those into tattooing. We didn’t even enter the main exhibit hall (you have to buy tickets for that) but there is plenty to see/do/buy in the lobby and there is a room where about two dozen tattoo artists are painting on canvas including Guy Aitchison. One of the featured artists is an old friend of mine, Kim Saigh, who appeared on the first three seasons of L.A. Ink.
I talked to Kim a few weeks ago for a feature in this month’s MELT Magazine. Because the type is a little small on the MELT page, you can read the interview that is in MELT after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
Waxploitation has released another awesome benefit album for Darfur featuring a lot of donewaiting.com favorites. 100% of the profits from the release go to Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), Human Rights Watch and Oxfam America. Order the album here.
Tracklisting:
1: Black Moth Super Rainbow – Happy Melted City
2: The Decemberists – After the Bombs (Live Version)
3: Devendra Banhart – White Reggae Troll
4: Diplo – Wassup Wassup (Exclusive Samim Remix)
5: Federico Aubele – Luna Y Sol
6: Gnarls Barkley – Mystery Man
7: LCD Soundsystem – Starry Eyes Original (Causes Exclusive)
8: My Morning Jacket – Highly Suspicious (exclusive VHS or Beta Dee Jays Remix)
9: Matthew Dear – When She Don’t Need Me (Causes Exclusive)
10: Mum – Asleep in a Hiding Place
11: Neon Neon – I Lust U Feat. Cate Le Bon (DJ Eli Escobar Remix)
12: Richard Swift – Wastin’ M’Time
13: RJD2 – Wherever
14: Sharon Jones & Dap-Kings – It Hurts to be Alone
15: Tim & Eric – Petite Feet (Exclusive Devlin & Ghostdad Remix Feat. Sylvia Gordon)
I had complained that it was difficult to go through the 1,800+ band list on SXSW’s site and find what bands had been added and removed. A few hours later, a kind donewaiting.com reader (Jay Sutton) sent me lists of just the bands added and removed. He used computer magic.
Silversun Pickups were added… Amanda Palmer, too… Lots and lots more.. (almost 800).. (Also, although not on the list, PJ Harvey is gonna be there too).
Sadly, bands like The Vaselines and Raveonettes are no longer on the list. Could be an error, but it could also be sadness.
Keep reading for the lists.
Read the rest of this entry »
UPDATE: Click here if you just want to see a list of only the bands removed and added to the list.
I think SXSW does a lot of things right, but I really wish when they did these updates they would do something to show what the changes were… Either put a * next to new names, bold them, something. Ah well, we’ll have the full schedule soon enough. In the meantime, here’s the list of confirmed bands from SXSW. The amount of bands is up to 1,800. And remember, THE LIST IS NOT FINAL.
Read the rest of this entry »
SXSW has updated their band list yet again… These seem like the fastest updates they’ve done in a long time, right? Notables include Grizzly Bear, Au Revoir Simone, The Long Winters, The Raveonettes, Nashville Pussy, Langhorne Slim, THE VASELINES, more. It’s always a bit overwhelming to digest the list and SXSW doesn’t point out the new additions…
Keep reading for the full list.
Read the rest of this entry »
The albums below are the ones I kept turning to when I just wanted to kick back and enjoy some tunes. Sure, there was more artistically challenging stuff released this year than some of the selections below — and I certainly do appreciate that sort of thing — but my year end lists reflect which music ultimately did for me what I think rock and/or roll is ultimately meant to do to any listener: it grabbed me by the heart and/or crotch and wouldn’t let go.
TOP 21 ALBUMS OF 2008
It should be noted I only counted albums released in 2008. If it was released digitally in 2007 it was NOT eligible … which is why you don’t see Radiohead, Robyn or MGMT on this list.
TV on the Radio, Dear Science
This mixture of high art and dance floor squonk not only bears up over repeated listens, it actually gets better. In that most rare of occurrences, the album I found myself turning to again and again too sate my more base musical desires also ended up feeding my intellectual hungers as well.
MP3: Dancing Choose | Buy on Amazon
West’s cold digital soundscape provides the vehicle for his most human album of his career. People are still arguing over this one — and in particular the near unhealthy dose of AutoTune running through the whole thing — but I still say that the whole thing works excellently as both an artistic and emotional statement.
This is the perfect vicious indie-pop Minneapolis-based band of 1986 / 1996 … that didn’t form until 2006 … in Detroit. It is only available digitally at the moment, and that’s the only reason I can think of to explain why everyone is not going ga-ga over this disc. When it gains more exposure next month I predict it’s gonna explode. Simply indispensable.
These Swedes mine shoegaze and 1989 indie-pop a la The Darling Buds to create a sound warmly familiar and immediately arresting. Dreamy guitars and gauzy vocals entrance while solid rhythms ground the songs
Cut Copy stole my hearts with their last minute set at Pitchfork and I have yet to tire of their smart electronic-pop / dance-rock blend nailed down by exuberant melodies. Any time a bunch of boys can create smart dance music that causes throngs of people to just completely lose their shit — and then manage to carry that same vibe over onto their album — you’re going to find us in their fan base.
Yamagata takes her familiar sound a large stylistic leap forward. The song arrangements are daring, the instrumentation is dark and often starkly minimal. This is a world of grays punctuated by brief flashes of color and light. One tends to feel constricted, and the moments when things open up — as on the strings that swell during “Elephants,” it feels as if you’re taking in deep breaths of delicious oxygen. But even the tighter moments exalt as they bind the listener ever closer to Yamagata’s delivery. Buy on Amazon
Tossing off the more lethargic tendencies of the group’s last album, Supergrass return to their harder rockin’ roots, inject a healthy dose of Glam, and finally find their swaggering stride again. We’re extremely glad these grown men decided to re-channel their harder tendencies through equal parts sneer and smile on this album.
Intensely delivered R&B wrasslin’, pop lovin’, Southern rock that delivers equal parts preacher fervor and lover’s lament. Soul searing as it reaches for the height of the skies, and crotch tingling as it revels in, uh, more secular waters. The turbo-charged anthems sit alongside naturally with the more introspective softer pieces to reveal a band comfortable on many terrains.
This explosively and deceptively simple-sounding debut still gets my blood boiling every time I hear it’s infectious beats and chirped vocals. This is the sort of band that is easy to write off as a one-hot wonder until you realized that you are compulsively humming the whole album from start to finish, again and again.
Lykke Li’s minimal electronic pop is informed oh so subtly by the hip-hop aesthetic that when less is more it can be thunderous in its restraint. Her whispers can knock you and her wispy hooks will slip under your skin quietly and then absolutely refuse to let you go, no matter how hard you fight.
Ladyhawke IS Pip Brown, and she expertly handles just about every instrument and arrangement in this surprisingly complex and engaging collection of dance pop firmly based in the day-glo ’80s. After hearing the ’80s mined so clumsily and inexpertly by so many other groups this year we’re tickled to see someone who re-realizes the giddy potential of that era’s more engaging composers.
The Dandy Warhols had to escape the Majors and form their own label in order to fearlessly pursue their own muse again to the listener’s great reward. Droning, funky, propulsive, and dreamy; The Dandys have both regained a steady footing while launching their music back into the stratosphere.
After the double-album preceding this one, Sloan focuses on creating timeless pop-rock that creates sing-alongs you’ve learned the word to a quarter of the way through the first listen. They stun us with their ability to consistently release albums that are, well, consistently great.
The best R&B album of the year. Timeless. Perfect. It’s simultaneously an homage to Stax and Motown while proving that organic, vibrant soul music can both convincingly and honestly be crafted by a younger generation. Saadiq has moved seamlessly between genres in the past but this album proves his talents as a musical chameleon might have located their most honest perch. Buy on Amazon
Deceptively meditative baroque arrangements on The Uglysuit’s debut give way to expansive choruses and swirling walls of well-mannered psychedelia. Live this band is capable of searing your face off, but their album is more likely to find your cheeks streaked with tears.
These West Coasters are handy at transforming drone into hooks, incorporating groovy hooks with guitars turned to 11. The group has discovered expert ways to weave their obvious influences into their sound, for evidence of this check out the deliciously unholy mixture of The Beach Boys, My Bloody Valentine, and The Jesus and Mary Chain on “Two Ways Out.” When I listen to that song I picture the beach on one of those freak of nature days where it’s simultaneously sunny and raining.
The weirdest and most difficult to penetrate R&B album of the year also proves the most interesting view of it’s creator’s core. Badu isn’t delivering your mainstream “smooth grooves,” and instead opts to take you on an extraterrestrial journey through the inner self. Buy on Amazon
These young Brits lost a bit of the ‘67 Pink Floyd freneticism that drew us to them in the first place, but they’ve replaced it with an alarmingly mature grasp of rhythm and dynamics injected into their winning blend of Britpop. The only downside to hearing this more realized sophomore effort? We’re totally jonesing for them to make another trip Satateside so I can see them play live again!
These kids are equal parts Queen, Big Star, and The Greys … in other words if I didn’t know better we’d mistake this disc for a Jellyfish reunion album. Multilayered choruses with monster sized hooks dominate this disc … and the expansive production puts Jeff Lynne to shame.
Scrap the non-Rivers Cuomo contributions, add the bonus tracks from the “Deluxe Edition,” and you have the best Weezer album in over a decade. Cuomo once again mixes the weird, the catchy, and the downright epic to create songs that move beyond the stadium constructs of the previous disc.
I don’t care if you love or hate Gregg Gillis as a person, or whether you view his mash-ups as “art” or you think he’s just a pandering hack behind a keyboard … Feed The Animals was the soundtrack that just dug into my inner dance party and would not let go. WikipediaRead the rest of this entry »
It’s about time. I saw a bootleg of this being passed around at one of Miranda Sound’s final performances but when I tried to pry it loose from Brian Kopaz’s hands, I nearly lost my life.
Was the wait worth it? Are you kidding me?
I think Sean Gardner probably calls each of his projects “the closest thing to my heart” but I don’t doubt that if he had to pick just one project to pursue in the future, it would be this band which also includes another former Kopaz member (Kevin Davison). The local rags both did in-depth features explaining the nightmare behind the recording of this CD (well, not really nightmare in the recording process itself but the loss of all material due to a hard drive crash) so I won’t go into details here. But, the end result, the songs that were re-recorded, are among the best Sean has committed to CD and the kind that make you think “Man, if these guys relocated to Chicago or Austin or Sweden, they’d get signed to Barsuk/Merge/Dangerbird in a heartbeat”.
I’m kind of a Ken Andrews geek and Melty Melty’s Rise of the Birdmen (free CDs are being given out at the release show) sounds like a trippy daydream featuring Pinback covering Andrews-written material or vice versa, I’m not really sure. There’s a wealth of sublime instrumentation, some computerized flits and flutters (that would make a good name for a song, “Flit and Flutter”) and Sean’s dreamy (seriously) vocals which could sooth babies to sleep.
If my friend Pbro (average yearly concert attendance = 0.23 shows) can make it out for this one, you should (and I should) be able to as well.
Details
Melty Melty, The Slide Machine, Six Gallery, Joe Anderl
@ Ruby Tuesday (1978 Summit St.)
Saturday, Nov.8
Been waiting for this one for a while now – almost a year to be exact. The Hot Damn showed up on my radar after I heard a tune on PatRadio’s podcast last August, the band’s sound decidedly different than the flavor of the year (shit-gaze) here in Columbus. There isn’t anything lo-fi about this foursome, it’s mass market material written for the Alternative Press / Hot Topic / Urban Outfitters crowd and while usually I’d cringe at any band that can sell loads of records to that demographic, there is something about The Hot Damn that makes me really excited.
Matt and Ash were nice enough to send me a copy of the CD earlier this week and I’ve been spending a lot of time digesting it. Really, what I think, is that you get three different bands in one with this self-titled release – there is the post-emo / Warped Tour-ready sounds of the songs sung solely by Matt (do I detect a little Ben Gibbard in his vocal style?); there are the songs that Matt handles the lead vocals and Ash provides the female backup (these songs, like “Lefthand, Righthand”, bring to mind one of my favorites, Helicopter Helicopter); and then you’ve got the songs that Ash sings lead on. Now, I’ve only had one opportunity to see the band live (opening for Great Northern) but I don’t remember Ash really stepping up to the front on many of the songs. Not sure if the songs weren’t written at the time or she’s found a new self-confidence, but the songs she sings (which I’m assuming she wrote as well) bring to mind some of the early ’90s female-led indie rock bands like Madder Rose, The Melting Hopefuls, and even a bit of our hometown heroes, Scrawl. I hope as the band matures, Ash continues to keep up with contributing – as it is, she handles vocals on maybe 1/3 or 1/2 of the songs.
The Hot Damn will throw themselves a CD release party on Friday night at the House of Crave (the club above The Basement). I’d be there if I wasn’t headed to Cincinnati to see Blind Melon. I’m not sure if this is the highest compliment I could throw at the band, but I will say that if The Hot Damn were an out-of-town band, I would do everything in my power to see them every time they play in Columbus. As it is, I’ve missed out on a BUNCH of shows since first discovering them but plan to make up for that over the summer.
You can stream the entire new CD here (do it … it’s FREE to check it out, you’ve got nothing to lose). And you can hear Pat from PatRadio interview the band – and play 4 tracks from the CD – on his most recent podcast here. Hot Damn, indeed!
MP3: Come Around
Check out the way my Thursday night is shaping up: brand new episodes of The Office (8pm), Survivor (9pm) and LOST (10pm) to start off and then a quick 15-minute car ride down to the Ravari Room just in time to catch headliners LIONS take the stage. Does it get any better? (Sorry Devil Moto, I suspect that you’ll be melting faces just as Hurley drops a classic one-liner).
Maybe you’ve heard my woe-is-me-I-missed-SXSW tale, maybe not. One of the biggest regrets I had about missing the festival was missing out on the multiple opportunities I would have had to see LIONS, hometown favorites in Austin.
I’ve said this to people before and have done LIONS a total disservice but I think of their sound as the type Kid Rock would have if he grew up on Sabbath and Blue Cheer (ie early stoner rock) rather than Skynryd (it’s the vocals … Matt D doesn’t do the whole rap-rock thing but there is something in his voice that reminds me of Rock’s when Rock is waving his metal freak flag). Rick Allen of The Other Paper said they sound like Soundgarden pre-Ben Sheppard era.
Cruise_Elroy from the DW message board says the band’s live performance blows away the record stuff which I think is pretty mindblowing itself (check out No Generation, one of those “wish I would have heard this in 2007 so I could have put it on my Best of list” CDs, for recorded evidence). And Cruise also made a Columbus connection to LIONS – lead singer Matt Drenik’s brother Jason is a founding member of Columbus’s Hairy Patt Band.
In the past year LIONS have toured with the Toadies and Blue Cheer and following this short stint of headlining dates will do a few weeks with Local H (damn, Cleveland is the closest show).
So … yeah … go see LIONS.
The legendary soldier culture of ancient Sparta and its battle at Thermopylae provided the perfect subject matter for comic book creator Frank Miller, an ideal story through which to express his manly-man worldview, his penchant for arresting violence and his increasingly right-leaning politics.
The former Batman and Daredevil artist tackled the topic in his late ‘90s graphic novel 300, and now writer/director Zack Snyder (he of the Dawn of the Dead remake) has turned it into a feature film, closely following Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City formula of sticking as close to the source material as possible, and doing most of the work in front of green screens.
It’s hard to imagine a more slavish adaptation. Snyder seems to have used the graphic novel as storyboards, and he’s lovingly re-created whole panels from it. He and his three-person screenwriting team have transposed all of the narration and dialogue, for the most party word for word. Absolutely nothing is subtracted from Miller’s comics, and relatively little is added or changed. Read the rest of this entry »
I was one of many people waiting a long time for this show. I had seen Silversun Pickups @ SXSW back in March. At the time, I was a casual fan. Seeing them live the first time I became a bigger fan. After the Columbus show, I am ready to start their fan club.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
The night began with The Kingdom, indie pop from Portland. The band was good, and the lead singer did a great job of getting the crowd revved up for the rest of the night. I guess my problem with them was I felt like I had been there before musically, and nothing really challenged me during their set. The female keyboardist seems to sing a little more on their recorded material, but live I think she just joined in maybe once? A little bit more of her might have made them more interesting.
The band is made up of two people, Kevin Robinson and Anita Robinson. The amount of sound that this duo creates really blew my mind. At one point, Kevin was playing drums and guitar at the same friggin time.. while singing! Color me impressed. This is a duo that really puts all their energy into their show and it didn’t go unnoticed. Goddamn they’ve just become a favorite band of mine.
VV really set the bar as far as energy was concerned, so Silversun Pickups really had to knock one out of the part to keep the momentum going, and they did. This was the first time the band had played Columbus but judging from the crowd you wouldn’t notice that – people were going crazy all around me. A recent push on local alternative rock radio station CD101 really helps, that’s for sure.
The band played a lot of stuff from their new album, and threw in some songs from their debut EP. They came out for an encore, talked to the audience a lot and seemed to be really having a good time. Normally a band can play for about an hour and I’m ready to check out, but with Silversun I could have had them play all night and I would’ve been happy.
It really is rare to go to a show and have three touring acts come through town and genuinely like playing with each other. The Kingdom, Silversun Pickups and Viva Voce have been on the road for two weeks, and that’s like 5 years in Human Time. To have all three bands interact with each other and gush over one another during every set really has a positive impact on the crowd. The entire night had a positive vibe, and I went home and immediately checked to see if the band was playing in the area any time soon (they’re not, but I have hope).
Erik Kang took some great photos, click on the link to see some more. Read the rest of this entry »
Hot on the footsteps of her appearance at ATP, Yoko Ono is one of the acts scheduled to appear at this year’s Meltdown Festival, curated by Patti Smith.
“The festival will be held in June at the South Bank Centre in central London.
There are big ideas on show, glimpses of her mind. Smith will introduce a homage to Bertolt Brecht as well as using the poetry of William Blake as a theme. Her interpretation of his Songs of Innocence will showcase protest songs – with Sinead O’Connor performing – while Songs of Experience, which will draw on the work of Hendrix and Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, will end the festival. Smith will mark the 30th anniversary of her debut album Horses by performing it in its entirety.”
From The Guardian.
