Archive for September, 2009

akron/family @ the magic stick 9.19.09

before i begin, special thanks to brian for my awesome new header image!

ive been a fan of akron/family for a little over two years now ever since i was introduced to them by ulia. shortly after, my friend nadia saw them live and couldnt stop talking about how great the show was, and ive been waiting to see them ever since and was finally lucky enough to catch them at the magic stick, one of my favorite venues.

so with nadia in tow, we headed downtown in time to catch the first opening act, slaraffenland. someone told me they were from denmark and their music was pretty interesting and excellent. lots of 4 part harmonies and lots and LOTS of instruments, just what i like. this wouldnt be the last we saw of them though.

slaraffenland – meet and greet

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next up was jeffrey lewis. his first song didnt really wow me, but the rest of his set was all about expecting the unexpected. his second song was “the creeping brain” which was performed with a comic book he illustrated and it was pretty excellent. a few songs later he performed an a capella gangsta rap about the mosquitos in maine that had the whole crowd laughing. my favorite line was something about killing a mosquito on the wall and leaving him as a reminder for the rest of his crew.

and finally, the main event…akron/family. after one of the guys cut in front of us in line at the bar (its ok, we forgive you), the show began and i learned something i never knew about akron/family. they are…..a jam band!?! i guess since the majority of my exposure to them was their first album (which was not represented at all during the show), i had no way of knowing or expecting this, but it was a great surprise and definitely brought me back to my days as a quasi hippie. i felt like a fool that i didnt listen to their newest album until after the show but it all made sense anyway. the highlight was of course “ed is a portal”, which the crowd had been waiting for the whole night. in fact, around the 2nd or 3rd song, as the band played a steady drum beat, the audience started chanting the opening “ahhhhhhhhh ah ah ah”s of the song, but the band made us wait, so the crowd really got crazy when they did play it. i ran into my friend kyle at the show, who somehow ended up on stage at one point playing recorder with the band (see pics below). special thanks to kristen kennedy for the pics! hoping to add some pics of the opening acts soon.

a few songs into the set slaraffenland came back on stage with all of their instruments and added to all that was going on. im not even sure how many songs akron/family performed because the whole show was sort of one continuous song. one excellent, exciting and completely entertaining song. the best part was that even though i knew almost none of the songs, i rememered almost all of them when i finally listened to the album. the name of their latest album “set ‘em wild set ‘em free” was clearly not in jest.

akron/family – everyone is guilty

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megafaun – the fade

i first heard this track by megafaun last week and it immediately made the list of upcoming dailybeatz tracks. but then i read a little about the band and was extremely surprised at what i found out, but it makes a lot of sense when you hear the band. as it turns out, the band is made up of brad and phil cook from durham, nc and joe westerlund from eau claire, wi. but before they were megafaun, they were deyarmond edison, and they had one additional member who was, you guessed it, justin vernon aka bon iver. so while i thought his debut “for emma forever ago” was really his first foray, we’ve now discovered that prior to that release, he was involved in projects with both megafaun AND volcano choir. i wonder what else this guys got up his sleeve.

the track is entitled “the fade” off their second album “gather, form and fly” and it is banjo-laden folk goodness any way you slice it. theres a sort of reverb on the never still banjo that just makes this song feel so full when its layered over the harmonies that are laid over most of the lyrics. and if that wasnt enough folk for you, the slide guitar solo (or is it still a banjo?) near the end of the track will probably do it. theyve still got a few tour dates this fall in the states with bon iver and then with the dodos and then theyll be heading overseas for a bit, so catch them if you can.

megafaun – the fade

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air – so light is her footfall

is anyone else really really ridiculously excited for the new air album “love 2″ which is being released on october 5? well, the great news is that we dont have to wait any longer to hear the album! and no, this doesnt have anything to do with torrents or leaks. i found the following note while checking their website today:

On September 28th, take part to an interactive listening party of the brand new AIR album
Monday Sept 28, be the first to listen to the new album LOVE 2 and chat with fans from all over the world.
Rendez-vous here on monday !!!!

so looks like we will get to hear the whole album tomorrow, even if its just streaming. still pretty darn cool if you ask me.

we have all already probably heard a few of the tracks, but todays song is one i hadnt heard before. our first glimpse into the new album was “do the joy”, which sounded like it could have been the song playing in the opening credits of some sort of zombie alien robot horror flick. then we heard the first official single “sing sang sung”, which was kind of the polar opposite of do the joy. an uber happy track. todays track “so light is her footfall” seems to land somewhere in the middle of those two, and so far it seems to be my favorite of the new tracks. [aside: its very difficult to type "footfall" without instinctively typing "football".] theres something real sultry about it and definitely gets me excited to hear the rest of the tracks today during the interactive listening party. im expecting the chat room to be full of haters who will be all like “this is totally not as cool as moon safari and i totally think air is stupid now and i am uber cool because i have liked them for 15 years and you have not” but at least we get to hear the new tracks a bit early.

air – so light is her footfall

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saturday throwback. bobby hebb – sunny

you wouldnt believe how difficult these throwback posts are. but they are. the good news is that nobody ever reads them anyway, so i dont feel bad about keeping them short and sweet. really really short, and really really sweet. todays song is a classic — “sunny” by bobby hebb. theres about a zillion versions of this song floating around, but nothing really beats the original.

this is maybe one of the happiest and most optimistic songs ever. and it was written at a pretty tough time in hebbs life in the years after his older brother was killed in a fight (though hebb wont really say if it had anything to do with that). now we all know how i feel about key changes. which is that i love them. so when theres two key changes, oh boy, wach out. and you can tell its still popular because its in the top 7,000 songs on amazon which doesnt sound that impressive until you think about how many songs have been released over the last 40+ years. whats not to love about this classic motown tune?

bobby hebb – sunny

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julian casablancas – 11th dimension

its been a pretty great few month span of good music thats been released or thats about to be released and another highly anticipated album is “phrazes of the young”, the solo album of julian casablancas who is better known as the instantly recognizable voice of the strokes. it was really only a matter of time before he released a solo album since both albert hammond jr and fabrizio moretti (as part of little joy) already had pretty well known side projects going. the good news is that all of those acts have been pretty great in my book, and i have a feeling that julians new project wont disappoint either.

while “phrazes of the young” wont be released until october 20, the first track to be released, “11th dimension”, has already become a hit around the blogosphere. the first time i heard it, i knew it was the perfect choice for this weeks friday beat. but be warned, if you are a purist of the strokes, you definitely will not like this song. its pretty much a heavy synth dance track straight out of the 80s. the abrupt ending makes me wonder if the album is going to be some sort of nonstop track where one song flows right into the other. pretty much the perfect song to request at luna on a saturday night. and definitely nothing like the strokes.

julian casablancas – 11th dimension

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bad veins – go home

im going to keep todays post short and sweet, mostly because i cant really find a ton of info about todays band, bad veins. their website is nothing more than a link to buy their debut album. and their myspace told me that theyre from cincinatti. theres a bit more of a bio on their dangerbird records page, which told me that theyre the duo of benjamin davis and sebastien schultz thats been around since 2006 but just put out their self-titled debut album earlier this summer. and theyve gained a ton of acclaim over the past few years solely from their live shows. theyre playing at the lager house here in detroit in a few weeks, so i may have to try to hit up that show.

i havent heard the full album yet, but “go home” is a song that made the dailybeatz list of upcoming tracks the first time i heard it. theres just something really unique about this song. even from the opening seconds of the song, the electronic beat catches your ear, but its really more of slow song. as the song continues, layers of song are continuously added. and just when you forget how the song began, all the layers are removed and youre left with the same opening beat that you started with, this time with a nice saxophone to drag you a bit further into the sonic bliss.

bad veins – go home

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palmyra midwest tour this weekend

brooklyn band palmyra, made up of new jersey childhood friends gina pensiero, sean lango, jon lango, ken roebuck and michigander karl sturk, will be playing some shows around the midwest this weekend promoting their latest album “mis-en-scene”. michiganders and illinoisians should check them out this weekend. i can promise good people, good music, and a good chance of an off the wall cover. and theres a trumpet. a trumpet! heres the skej:

Sep 25 2009 8:00PM
Ted’s House w/ Red Tail Ring (Michael Beauchamp)
213 E. Kingsley St
Ann Arbor, Michigan

Sep 26 2009 9:00PM
Loft 3a w/ Erik Hall (NOMO) and Orange Drink
3036 N. Lincoln
Chicago, Illinois

Sep 27 2009 9:00PM
The Trumbullplex w/ Matt Jones and Red Tail Ring (Michael Beauchamp)
4210 Trumbull St.
Detroit, Michigan

be there or be less cool than you once were. if you need further convincing, check out a few tracks below.

palmyra – regrets

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palmyra – junes disappointment

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fever ray – seven

things have been pretty good for karin dreijer andersson the past few years. besides the continued success of the knife, shes provided vocals for a few tracks for the royksopp albums “the understanding” and one of my favorite albums thus far this year, “junior”. but most notably is that very early this year she released her first solo album under the name fever ray, and in my opinion, her portfolio is strong to quite strong. the first time i listened to the album was early on a cool sunday morning driving through the mostly empty streets of detroit and the subsequent mostly empty highway, and it mood of the album fit the situation perfectly.

the album has quite a few standout tracks, but the one ive been listening to a lot lately is “seven”. and i dont really know why i like it so much. it just seems like sort of a bright spot among all of the darkness on the album. and lets be clear, when i say that, i dont mean the darkness in a bad way, because its not. and if you havent heard any of the fever ray album, you are probably going to think im crazy when i refer to “seven” as a “sort of bright spot”, but keep in mind that everything is relative. there are tons of remixes out there for tons of the songs on this album so keep an eye out for them and love them.

fever ray – seven

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