We're a month away from baseball. The early-spring, hey-how-was-your-winter, let's-run-ten-wind-sprints-and-call-it-a-day kind of baseball, when the big news items are someone's moustache and someone else who strained his back picking up a bucket of batting-practice balls. Prediction: Brian Wilson will arrive in a vehicle and be on TV.
But baseball nonetheless. Or as we call it, hard by the shores of the San Francisco Bay, Melky Time. My hot stove has been busy, and I head into not-quite-spring with an absolutely rockin' rotation.
St. Vincent / Live in Washington D.C.
I don't think I've ever heard anything quite like this. I'm a bit late to the game (what's new?), as Annie Clark, who performs as St. Vincent, has been around several years twisting rock songs into forms that feel unique. Like Grizzly Bear, another alt-rock darling, Clark is excellent at hiding familiar pop-rock forms under hazy electronic layers and behind sharp angles. I'm in thrall. (I'm also a sucker for beautiful women with noisy guitars.) The combination of her spacey vocals, disturbing lyrics, and squalling guitar lines in "Surgeon," the first song of the set, had me from go.
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists / Shake the Sheets
Often called thinking-person's punk, Leo's music certainly runs a plumb line through to the late '70s with its energy; "Shake the Sheets" from 2004 is more early Clash than Ramones. Social consciousness, world awareness, and the ability to hew power chords and ska or reggae flavored backbeats into a single song make "Shake the Sheets," from 2004, a torch bearer for those first few Clash albums. What's different, though, is important: Leo and his band are finely honed blades, their ability to ride a song just this side of chaos makes the best songs thrilling. Check out this clip of Leo solo, performing the first song from "Shake" before a hipster record-store gathering. Note how he sings ahead of and behind the beat but is never off, and the song is all the richer for it. It's expert stuff, and I suspect few punk rockers of any era have had the skills to pull it off.
Andrew Bird / "Eyeoneye"
Since I wrote this a couple years ago, I've come around in a big way to Bird, and after having a breakthrough moment listening to the studio version of "Fiery Crash" on headphones a few weeks ago, I've found myself jonesing for new material. (This live version is stunning, too.) Here it is: the first single from his new album, and although there are familiar sounds (whistling, scientific word play -- the song title is part of the word "reionize") it has a sparer, more echoey sound than previous studio material. Even Bird's voice sounds more distant. Perhaps I'm reading (hearing?) too much into it because Pitchfork says it was recorded in Bird's Illinois barn. (A cold, empty barn?) Remains to be seen what the rest of the LP is like, but if it's all like this, I don't mind a little change of pace. It's always interesting when the artists you've moved steadily toward move away from what you've been enjoying.
Cowboy Junkies / Sing In My Meadow
When people think of the Cowboy Junkies (if they think of anything at all), they probably think of melancholy acoustic tunes or well-crafted adult pop, but the band has its crungy noisy side, the sonic partner of lyricist Michael Timmins' forays into murder ballads and bad love. The miasmic power chords and Bonhamesque drum thump was last heard in abundance a decade ago on the "Open" album, but it's back on Sing in My Meadow, a bait-and-switch title if there ever was one. (No tra-la-la or spring wildflowers here.) Perhaps I've got Zep on the brain these days, but it really feels like the Junkies were listening to a lot of "When the Levee Breaks" and "Kashmir," and some of the grungier stuff from Neil Young (their ultimate hero), when blocking out the main ideas for the songs on "Meadow." (You can hear it all streaming free here.) For true Junkieheads out there, you'll be curious to see they've covered their own "Hunted," more or less in the same vein, with a blistering guitar lead from their long-time "Fifth Junkie" Jeff Bird (no relation to Andrew, as far as I know), but it's more frenetic and with a rawer, less restrained vocal from Margo Timmins.
But baseball nonetheless. Or as we call it, hard by the shores of the San Francisco Bay, Melky Time. My hot stove has been busy, and I head into not-quite-spring with an absolutely rockin' rotation.
St. Vincent / Live in Washington D.C.
I don't think I've ever heard anything quite like this. I'm a bit late to the game (what's new?), as Annie Clark, who performs as St. Vincent, has been around several years twisting rock songs into forms that feel unique. Like Grizzly Bear, another alt-rock darling, Clark is excellent at hiding familiar pop-rock forms under hazy electronic layers and behind sharp angles. I'm in thrall. (I'm also a sucker for beautiful women with noisy guitars.) The combination of her spacey vocals, disturbing lyrics, and squalling guitar lines in "Surgeon," the first song of the set, had me from go.
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists / Shake the Sheets
Often called thinking-person's punk, Leo's music certainly runs a plumb line through to the late '70s with its energy; "Shake the Sheets" from 2004 is more early Clash than Ramones. Social consciousness, world awareness, and the ability to hew power chords and ska or reggae flavored backbeats into a single song make "Shake the Sheets," from 2004, a torch bearer for those first few Clash albums. What's different, though, is important: Leo and his band are finely honed blades, their ability to ride a song just this side of chaos makes the best songs thrilling. Check out this clip of Leo solo, performing the first song from "Shake" before a hipster record-store gathering. Note how he sings ahead of and behind the beat but is never off, and the song is all the richer for it. It's expert stuff, and I suspect few punk rockers of any era have had the skills to pull it off. Andrew Bird / "Eyeoneye"
Since I wrote this a couple years ago, I've come around in a big way to Bird, and after having a breakthrough moment listening to the studio version of "Fiery Crash" on headphones a few weeks ago, I've found myself jonesing for new material. (This live version is stunning, too.) Here it is: the first single from his new album, and although there are familiar sounds (whistling, scientific word play -- the song title is part of the word "reionize") it has a sparer, more echoey sound than previous studio material. Even Bird's voice sounds more distant. Perhaps I'm reading (hearing?) too much into it because Pitchfork says it was recorded in Bird's Illinois barn. (A cold, empty barn?) Remains to be seen what the rest of the LP is like, but if it's all like this, I don't mind a little change of pace. It's always interesting when the artists you've moved steadily toward move away from what you've been enjoying.
Cowboy Junkies / Sing In My Meadow
When people think of the Cowboy Junkies (if they think of anything at all), they probably think of melancholy acoustic tunes or well-crafted adult pop, but the band has its crungy noisy side, the sonic partner of lyricist Michael Timmins' forays into murder ballads and bad love. The miasmic power chords and Bonhamesque drum thump was last heard in abundance a decade ago on the "Open" album, but it's back on Sing in My Meadow, a bait-and-switch title if there ever was one. (No tra-la-la or spring wildflowers here.) Perhaps I've got Zep on the brain these days, but it really feels like the Junkies were listening to a lot of "When the Levee Breaks" and "Kashmir," and some of the grungier stuff from Neil Young (their ultimate hero), when blocking out the main ideas for the songs on "Meadow." (You can hear it all streaming free here.) For true Junkieheads out there, you'll be curious to see they've covered their own "Hunted," more or less in the same vein, with a blistering guitar lead from their long-time "Fifth Junkie" Jeff Bird (no relation to Andrew, as far as I know), but it's more frenetic and with a rawer, less restrained vocal from Margo Timmins.
