Alwood Sisters

Bird & Flower

Moon High

Alwood Sisters

Bird & Flower

Moon High

Receiver

Check out the rest of the photos.

MP3: Way Yes – Walkability

More info here. Poster by Yoni Mizrachi of Maza Blaska.


More info here.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Phantods is keeping it quirky and catchy on “Creature” (Donewaiting staffers are yet to discuss it) which they just so happen to be having a cd release for on Saturday, November 13 at Skully’s with The Receiver and Karate Coyote. (Quick aside, Karate Coyote always make me think of Hong Kong Phooey, might be a better band name too)

Phantods also recently joined patradio for a 5 song live performance at Electraplay.

Check out an acoustic performance of “Revival” and the flier for Saturday night’s show after the jump.

Click here to view the embedded video.

1. Larry Jon Wilson – Larry Jon Wilson
I won’t lie. Talking to Larry Jon and producer Jerry DeCicca (Black Swans) about this album, learning about its origins, and visiting Wilson’s back catalog gave me a heightened appreciation for this masterpiece. So context helps, but even if you know nothing about the back story, this is a stark, beautiful album from start to finish from one of the forgotten country outlaws. Wilson’s Georgia baritone is the sweetest thing I heard this year. For Townes Van Zandt fans, this is required listening.

MP3: Feel Alright Again

2. The Love Language – The Love Language
It’s a rock n’ roll cliché and a PR flack’s dream: Guy breaks up with girl, drinks heavily, pisses off all his friends, eventually sobers up and retreats to his parents’ house to record an album on a four-track. But man does this cliché jangle with some of the best in-the-red pop songs I’ve heard in a while. Stuart McLamb’s Chapel Hill band signed to Merge in October and is slated to have a new release in August, and after seeing the full band (now a 7-piece) put on a terrific show at the Wexner Center in the fall, McLamb’s next outing could be even better with a little help from his friends.

MP3: Manteo I MP3: Lalita

3. Andrew Bird – Noble Beast
Every aspect of Andrew Bird just keeps getting better—his voice; his gorgeous, multi-layered violin arrangements; his whistling. It makes for a backdrop so compelling that he can sing about proto-Sanskrit Minoans, porto-centric Lisboans, Greek Cypriots and Hobis-hots and have you nodding your head in agreement instead of scratching it in confusion.

MP3: Oh No

4. Kurt Vile – Constant Hitmaker; God is Saying This to You…; Childish Prodigy
I’m grouping these together so I can squeeze more in, but all three LPs probably deserve a separate spot for different reasons. God finds Vile filtering his psychedelia through John Fahey and Neil Young; Childish kicks the volume up a notch and tones the lo-fi down; and Hitmaker, the best of the three, plays both sides with casual brilliance. “Freeway” is one of my favorite songs of 2009.

MP3: Freeway

5. The Antlers – Hospice
Hospice is one of only a few albums this year that completely transports me whenever I give it my full attention. (Brian Harnetty’s Silent City is another.) A concept album about a hospice worker and a young patient, the songs swell like Sigur Ros then retreat into gingerly tapped piano, lightly strummed guitar or shimmery synth. It’s in those quiet portions that Silberman employs his alabaster falsetto — more hushed than Jeff Buckley but less wispy than Antony Hegarty. Back in March, the Antlers played a show at Cafe Bourbon St. in front of me and maybe three other people. I’m thinking there’ll be a few more in attendance next time.

MP3: Bear

#6 onward + Columbus list after the jump.

6. David Bazan – Curse Your Branches
We’ve talked about Bazan a lot recently, so I’ll let this photo/video/recap do the explaining. Just know that Bazan’s crisis of faith led him to create the best album of his career.

MP3: Bless This Mess

7. Yo La Tengo – Popular Songs
Yo La Tengo’s performance at Stuart’s Opera House in Nelsonville was my favorite show of the year. It helps that they played a whole lot from this record. I love that no matter how many perfect, three-minute pop songs Ira, Georgia and James write, they’re still not afraid to beat your ass with 10- and 15-minute feedback-laden wallops.

MP3: Here to Fall

8. Bill Callahan – Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle
“Well I used to be darker, then I got lighter, then I got dark again.” This is post-Smog Callahan at his best — sinister and sweet. And the pristine production on this record complements his deep deadpan perfectly. (P.S. It’s been a good year for Drag City.) (P.P.S. Remember that Used Kids performance? Good times.)

MP3: Eid Ma Clack Shaw


9. Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca
The great thing about Dirty Projectors is that anything that may come across as high-minded is balanced with something high-spirited. No other band is this brainy and this fun.


10. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion
I know, if you’re a blog reader (or even if you’re not), you’re likely beyond tired of this band and this album. But seriously. The deliciousness of this record cannot be denied.

11. Atlas Sound – Logos
“Walkabout” just may be the best song released this year. More Bradford Cox/Noah Lennox collabs, please.

MP3: Walkabout


12. Justin Townes Earle – Midnight at the Movies
Steve Earle’s boy plays country- and blues-inspired folk songs with the conviction of a modern-day Leadbelly, yet his take on the Replacements’ “Can’t Hardly Wait” shows that though he’s indebted to Americana music, it’s more of a gate than a fence.

MP3: Mama’s Eyes I MP3: What I Mean to You


13. fun. – Aim and Ignite
I wrote earlier that this record “sounds like Freddie Mercury and Paul McCartney getting drunk at a carnival, then catching a Broadway show. There’s copious strings and accordions and Wurlitzers galore, all gallivanting next to Nate Ruess’ impressive, addictive tenor. So ‘fun.’ is exactly that.” This is the best ready-for-radio pop album of 2009.


14. The Mountain Goats – The Life of the World to Come
John Darnielle’s best songs capture the darkness of the human condition yet still feel uplifting in some way—a thread of human dignity facing an overwhelming heartache or obstacle. This Biblical concept album is no different.

MP3: Genesis 3:23


15. Volcano Choir – Unmap
Justin Vernon’s collaboration with Collections of Colonies of Bees proves his voice goes well with anything and everything. Even when he’s talking gibberish in a digital haze.

MP3: Island, IS


(16. XX – XX
OK, last-minute add… I was really late getting around to this record, but, wow… Amazing, super-clean production and sparkling hooks that slowly form like icicles. Good stuff. Looking forward to the Wexner Center show in April.)

Columbus albums:
1. Brian Harnetty – Silent City
2. Wing & Tusk – The Secret of Toadflax Tea
3. The Receiver – Length of Arms
4. Times New Viking – Born Again Revisited
5. The Sun – Don’t Let Your Baby Have All the Fun
6. Sinkane – Sinkane
7. RTFO Bandwagon – Dums Will Survive
8. Monolithic Cloud Parade – Children with Wolf Heads
9. This is My Suitcase – The Keys to Cat Heaven
10. Bird and Flower – Here We Cease Our Motion

MP3: The Receiver – Skin and Bone

This Saturday, Phantods will be hosting a holiday show featuring The Alphabet, Six Gallery and The Receiver. I caught up with Casey Cooper from The Receiver about his thoughts on the holiday season and the coming year.

What can we expect for Saturday night’s show?
This is meant to be a holiday show for The Phantods, with each band invited to play a holiday song or two if they’d like. Phantods asked us to play a little while back. And because we love their music, we were all about playing with them.

Ok, so on a scale of 1-10, how much do you like holiday music?
I’d say overall, about 6. It works for me mostly on Christmas Eve and Day, but that’s about it. I’ve always been a fan of orchestral music, so I can appreciate that aspect of most holiday music played on the radio. The only holiday music that I voluntarily play throughout the span of the season is A Charlie Brown Christmas by Vince Guaraldi Trio. I can listen to that album over and over without getting sick of it.

Continued after the jump

What do you listen to during the cold Ohio months?
I tend to listen to a lot of mellow music during the winter. Anything that comes across as sounding warm I gravitate towards, as I assume most people do during this season. The dark and cold weather make most of us want to stay inside and hibernate, so I think musical tastes generally follow suit.

What 3 albums are you hoping to receive this year?
(three albums I’ve listened to a lot and should already own…but…)
Air “Love 2″
Mew “No More Stories…”
The Beatles “Magical Mystery Tour” (Mono Remaster 2009)

Has The Receiver written any holiday songs? If not, and you were to, what would it be about?
We haven’t ever written any holiday songs. But I do remember writing one of our songs “Strength in Numbers” during a blizzard. I was completely snowed in at the studio I was working in for the weekend, and something about the cold weather had a huge inspiration on the final result. I really wanted a sound that was textured, relaxed, and warm, sort of like a blanket. And we even put sleigh bells over the last half of the song to drive the point home. After three days of steady snow and writing, the song was pretty much finished.

(Per the last year:)
What has been the highlight of 2009 for The Receiver?
The highlight was definitely the final recording/mixing/mastering and release of our new record Length of Arms. We put a lot of work into that album, and it’s been a lot of fun touring and sharing it with friends and fans. The studio process is very exciting as a musician, and it’s always a gratifying experience when you can release what you’ve done behind closed doors.

What are you looking forward to in 2010?
I think I’ll be focusing a lot on writing new material for our third record. We’ve been playing a lot over the past 6 months, so it will be nice to get back into a concentrated writing phase. That’s always my favorite part of the entire musical process. But as always, we’ll be playing on weekends here and there, local and regional. So we have that to look forward to as well.

Do you have any ambitious New Year’s resolutions?
I’d like to put at least 3 hours a day into writing music as often as possible. I’ve been a little lazy these past couple months, and I’m hoping that the new year will inspire me to get busy and become way more productive. So if it all goes well and I can be disciplined, I’ll hopefully have a full album’s worth of new material by the end of next year.

Columbus band Six Gallery inked a deal with German label Superball Music (Trail of Dead). The label, along with label InsideOut, recently announced that they will be cooperating with Century Media Records and EMI Music to distribute their artists’ music worldwide. The official press release will be out soon, but I decided to talk to Six Gallery’s singer/guitarist Daniel Francis (former Pirate) first.

How did this deal with Superball come about and how much time has passed since the beginning stage?
The entire record deal probably took about two months worth of conversation. We emailed someone. He was completely disinterested. We kindly asked him if there was anyone he might know who would like it and here we are..

So I understand SG’s record Breakthroughs in Modern Art will be the first record released on the Superball in 2010?
As far as I know, that is correct.

And it will be distributed in Hollister stores in the US and Canada? What are your thoughts on this?
There’s no reason to not distribute your music as widely as possible. I’m too cool for Hollister? No, I’m not too cool. There’s nothing keeping people who shop there from being uneducated in music. People find bands they like in stranger places.

How do you feel about your music being distributed worldwide?
Awesome. I’m 27. I’ve been working toward this for half of my life now. I’m completely stoked. The more you can get your music into people’s ears, the more they can like you. Or hate you. Either way.

I’m sure you’re excited to be label mates with Trail of Dead.
Yea, they’ve been around for a number of years, strongly supporting their albums. I hope at some point I actually get to meet them.

I’ve noticed that SG has been one of the most proactive, self-promoting bands on the Columbus scene in the last year or so. It has obviously worked in your favor. When you all set out with goals for the band, did you anticipate everything happening the way it did?
Absolutely not. You work as hard as you think you should be working. We have all been on the same page and have all worked really hard. First, when you record the music, it’s good enough or it’s not good enough. After it’s all been made, you just need to make it your job to get it out.

We’ve discussed the importance of Columbus bands being proud of the fact that the music they’ve created is in part due to the environment surrounding them. How do you feel being signed will or will not change your creative processes?
There’s no amount of time or distance that being a product of your environment will change. It will always be a part of you. While you’re making music, where you come from will always be a part of what you’re making.

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Six Gallery will play the 2010 SXSW Festival, and in Columbus you can catch them next at the Holiday Show at Skully’s on December 19th with Phantods, The Receiver and The Alphabet.
(Photo by Alysse Gafkjan)

Harnetty rarely plays live, so catch him when you can. The Black Swans and Super Desserts open the show.

mp3: Brian Harnetty – Sleeping in the Driveway
mp3: Brian Harnetty – Silent City

Here’s how Monolithic Cloud Parade describes the concept behind its debut: “The album tells the story of a pack of turn-of-the-century carnival freak show children with wolf heads who escape their wagon train in a deadly accident one night and head off into the forest to fend for themselves, where they are confronted with fears both real and imaginary.” If you like Neutral Milk Hotel, you’ll dig these guys. Corey Fry has created an ambitious, lo-fi concept album that succeeds much of the time, bizarro storyline and all. Not bad for a guy who couldn’t even play an instrument a couple years ago.

MCP’s record release is at the Scarlet and Grey Cafe with The Lost Revival and Darynyck. It’ll also serve as Darynyck’s farewell show.

mp3: Monolithic Cloud Parade – Airplanes Full of Flames

Another debut concept album, Wing & Tusk’s The Secret of Toadflax Tea tells a story from three different viewpoints: an old monk, a young monk and a doctor, all of whom are on a European island stricken with the black plague, for which the only cure is a drink called Toadflax Tea. But that cure is known only to the monks… Betrayal, murder and heroism ensue.

Along with Harnetty’s Silent City, this is one of my favorite Columbus releases of the year so far. Singer Josh Rea reminds me a lot of David Bazan, a good thing in my book. Wing & tusk takes its folk-rock foundation and builds on it till it reaches the ether, adding strings, horns, beautiful harmonies and such along with way. Epic stuff.

mp3: Wing & Tusk – Home, Sick Home

Concert posters after the jump. Wing & Tusk’s is particularly cool/creepy.

Having good conversation is awesome. Learning stuff is cool as fuck. Live music rules. If only there were more hours in a day to TALK TALK TALK, LEARN LEARN LEARN, AND ROCK ROCK ROCK OH MAN.

I made it out for The Receiver cd release, $hithole Dayfe$t and saw an epic moons set.

MORE MORE

Pictured: The Receiver@Skully’s

I arrived at Skully’s too late to catch Hotel Eden‘s set, but last time I saw him dude was on fire. Reminds me of a way more fun, less pretentious Beck or something.

The Receiver decided to be a three piece this time and have Sean Gardner join them to fill out the sound and it worked well. I can’t really say much about the Receiver that hasn’t been said already so check ‘em out duh.

Pictured: Genghis Green@$hithole Dayfe$t

Soooo I basically went to my first house show or my first house show that good bands actually played at or something, $hithole DayFes$t Hou$e Party was partially curated by Chris Lutzko of The Unholy Two or something and was pretty fucking fun.

When I got there Genghis Green were playing, I was familiar with the name, though I had no idea what they were about or if they were any good. Turns out they’re pretty rad. Kind of like a noodly experimental pop backed by the drummer from Helmet. For realsies dude is bad ass. Don’t know when they are playing again exactly so keep your ears peeled.

Pictured: NLVR@$hithole Dayfe$t

I finally managed to catch the band formerly know as Hugs and kisses and had no idea what to expect. This time around it was basically an acoustic tribal jam session/weirdo acid freakout. The only instrument that was used was a beat up trash can. I’ve gathered that these dudes pretty much do whatever they feel like doing on any given day and keep it fresh by changing it up every time.

Pictured: Gigantopithecus@$hithole Dayfe$t

Gigantopithecus totally blew me away. Two dudes, guitar and drummer, total jammy yet proficient heavy instrumental stoner rick and dude can shrrrrrrrrrrrrrrred. No shit

Pictured: psychedelic horeseshit@$hithole Dayfe$t

After meetin Matt horseshit for the first time, phs suddenly made a little more sense to me than it did before or maybe it was just because they’re sound was meant for garages-dunno but it was my favorite psychedelic horseshit set I have seen to date. I’d love to know how their show at Bourbon Street was later on the same night. I can only imagine it was interesting.

The Unholy Two destroyed and kids were moshing or whatever it’s called. Oh man to be young and dumb again.

SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY

After a long day of helping my brother from another mother work on a COMING SOON SUPER AWESOME BABY BOUTIQUE, I went with a different brother from another mother to check out a Ben Co Presents show at The Summit featuring the musical stylings of Astral Ride, moons and Pontiak.

Astral Ride are well on there way to being a sweet band and should consider using sweet vocal effects to make things sweeter. I look forward to seeing them play again. Go see them on May 21 at Circus.

Pictured: moons@The Summit

HOLY FUCK MOONS ARE FUCKING EPIC AS FUCK. Totally awesome, super tight, psych/stoner/prog/ mindfuck. moons drummer just might be the best drummer in Columbus NO SHIT

Pictured: Pontiak@The Summit

More like Deliverance the band. Dudes were bigtime creepy. Cool as fuck swampy stoner metal. Props to Ben Co for an awesome show.

I still haven’t got that new laptop yet.

I’m going to Rock on the Range this weekend. Wish me luck.