Yeasayer | dailybeatz

Posts tagged with yeasayer

06/22/2009

dirty projectors – stillness is the move

dirty projectors and bjork

my history with dirty projectors is a short one, but they seem to be turning up everywhere i look. first i heard their duet with david byrne – knotty pine – which is the opening track of the red hot compilation “dark was the night”, and i liked it quite a bit. then i read about their show in new york with bjork. i guess they wrote some original music for five voices and performed at housing works bookstore in new york city with bjork. the show was to benefit housing works, which according to their site works to end the twin crises of aids and homelessness. i wonder if bjork approached them or vice versa. either way, maybe the coolest thing ever. then i heard todays track and loved it. then i was walking to fill up my water at bonnaroo and was lucky enough to walk by their show and catch a few minutes of it. i never really searched out any of these things, so i feel like they are following me, but in a really good way.

then after all this happened, i remembered a video i stumbled upon many moons ago, long before id even heard of dirty projectors. it was on perhaps the coolest site ever for music fans – la blogotheque. this site does a bunch of what it calls “take-away shows”. basically, they pick all of your favorite musicians and film them performing in every day places. like arcade fire in an elevator. and yeasayer at some french apartment afterparty. warning: you may be compelled to watch every single video here, and i think there are about 100. dont say i didnt warn you, but you can thank me later if you havent already been fortunate enough to stumble upon this site. but sure enough i looked back and the crazy man and harmonizing three women that i remembered (although it turns out that the lineup changes up quite a bit) were in fact dirty projectors performing in, yes, some random mcdonalds.

so todays newish song is off their new album “bitte orca” and is rather funky if you ask me. one thing thats for sure is that these ladies can hit the high notes and really belt it out like its their job, which technically i guess it is. this jam, along with the other numerous appearances dirty projectors have made in my life recently (see above) have definitely peaked my curiosity in this group. does anyone have any other recommendations about where to start in their catalogue? something tells me that the sounds of “stillness is the move” are not really their usual sounds and that they are pretty versatile. i only wish i had stayed to catch the rest of their set last week.

UPDATE!!!! its happened yet again. apparently on tuesday, just one day after my post, the band was in a pretty bad car accident, just outside of detroit, aka where i live. fortunately everyone is OK and they are home resting now.

dirty projectors – stillness is the move

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06/17/2009

these modern socks – no one’s gonna miss me

these modern socks

now that im finally back to some sense of normalcy after a weekend of insanity and sleeplessness, its time to present this years bonnaroo lineup with some awards:

best show of the weekend – tie between wilco and phishs second performance

sweatiest performer with tightest clothing – bruce springsteen

best performance i didnt want to go to that turned out to be awesome – amadou and mariam

performance that was as eerie and unique as i hoped for and lived up to all my expectations – yeasayer

biggest disappointment – mgmt. im sure the show was great in the tent but we were so far back and there was some malfunction with the second set of speakers so we couldnt hear any bass. all the people in the tent looked like they were having fun and i heard it sounded great in there.

favorite bar of the weekend – the fruit bar. we subsisted mostly on bars for the weekend. granola bars, fruit bars, all bran bars, etc. but the fruit bar is ridiculously good. its basically a really soft fruit roll up thats about an inch thick. i need to find out if its available in america.

best footwear for the weekend – sanuks – wore them all 3 days with no problems whatsoever.

favorite vendor food – the chicken kabobs from the areppa stands.

shows i most wanted to see but missed because of exhaustion/conflicts – band of horses, phoenix, crystal castles, paul oakenfold, yeah yeah yeahs, grizzly bear.

any other categories youre curious about?

so that about sums it up. the rain was pretty bad on the drive down on thursday but after that it didnt rain again the whole weekend and the mud was minimal and very avoidable which made things about a zillion times better than they would have been. now that bonnaroo is over, you can get excited to hear me talk nonstop about my next getaway to pitchfork festival in chicago for my second year there.

back to the music. todays track is no ones gonna miss me by minneapolis band these modern socks. this group is pretty much electro-pop goodness. i especially like the spaceyness (fake word alert), the the unassuming drumbeat, and the bass explosion near the end of the song. its kind of a pretty sad song, both pretty and sad. kind of like my return home after bonnaroo. pretty because i get to take showers and sleep in beds now, but sad because the excitement is over and im going back to work tomorrow.

these modern socks – no ones gonna miss me

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06/13/2009

bonnaroo preview – yeasayer – tightrope

day 3 of bonnaroo. things have been pretty good so far, except for the herd of hippos that rolled through the campsites last night eating everything and everyone in their paths and the patchouli flu thats been spreading around the festival. just kidding, that didnt happen, or at least if it is going to happen, i dont know about it yet, because its only tuesday and i havent even left. but im going to pretend that im posting live from bonnaroo, even though theres no way in heck im bringing my computer and im pretty confident that i wont get cell phone reception in manchester, tennessee, much less a wireless internet signal. this is a little trick we use in the blogging industry called “saying its one day when its really not”. its pretty sneaky and only us insiders of the biz know about it. lucky for me, the secret dead poet free mason blogger society anonymous teaches you this little trick of the trade after youve had a blog for 3 weeks or more, so i just made the cut.

im pretty excited for the late night shows tonight. i didnt know about the late night shows until a few weeks ago, and if my prior festival experience is any indicator, i have no clue how im going to stay awake for the late night shows, but im gonna try. tonight is going to provide us with the 1-2 punch of yeasayer and mgmt. i was supposed to see mgmt at lolla last year, but we missed them due to the “brand new” debacle (for which we also missed explosions in the sky). ask me about that one later. im not still bitter at all. not in the slightest. what gave you that impression?

anyway, yeasayer is one of those groups for me that has a sound all its own. their album “all hour cymbals” is a strange mix of dark and light. id say 60% dark, and 40% light. if not, then id say 55% dark, 30% light, and 15% viking. that was an obscure reference to the drink order of jeff lewis on bravos “flipping out”. i tried for a long time to find the video clip and couldnt but you should try, its worth it. todays track, tightrope, is part of the red hot compilation entitled dark was the night, put together by the national’s aaron and bryce dessner to help fight hiv. this track is a favorite of mine from the compilation because it shows the brighter and happier side of yeasayer. what say you of this tune?

yeasayer – tightrope

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