My favorite musical things from 2011 so far

One of them is this video:

Wye Oak - Fish (Official Video) from City Slang on Vimeo.

Head on over to Collapse Board to find out the rest.

Stuff to read, things to see.

Hello, strangers. If you're sad about the less-frequent posting, I am sorry. It's just the way it goes. Mostly because I hate Blogger so, so much. But there's new stuff I've written here and here. It's about music in funny languages, but do not be afraid! Read it anyway...

Also, this flyer. Mark your calendars. RSVP on Facespace. Draw a circle around it on Google +. Whatever helps get your ass there. Thank you.

Ten reviews of the same record? Yes.

Collapse Board has 10 reviews of the new Cults record. Number 10 is written by me. I thought this might be an exercise in overkill, but instead I've been enjoying reading the different perspectives. I think you'll get more out of reading all 10 of these than if you search the web for 10 different sites. I'm just happy I got to make both a Saint Etienne reference and a joke about Phil Spector. That's a win for me.

Here's the video for the lead off track. A little too literal for my tastes, but certainly one of the best songs on the record.

My Collapse Board debut

Today marks my debut with Collapse Board. Go here to read my feature. I am very excited to start writing more for the site, but I am also a consummate professional about this opportunity. I'm not like, reading Everett True's Wikipedia page and getting all giddy like a nerdy fan girl. Who would do that, right?

Music Critics DO Suck

Yesterday I was e mailed the article "Why Music Critics Suck" by Kelly McClure. Aside from the potty-humor related giveaways (those who know me at all know the words "fart sandwich" would never, ever appear in anything I wrote - other than, for instance, to tell you how I'd never ever write that) the piece could have been written by me. Go read it, and then let's talk about it shall we?

All done? Ok. I appreciate McClure's honesty when she makes this point: "... when I sit down to type out a 150-200 word review, my primary goal is to show the reader how funny, cool, and clever I am. If they also come away with a rough idea of what an album sounds like, then whatever, I guess that’s cool too." Haha! It's funny because it's true! Have I been guilty of this myself as a music writer? There's no doubt. But to be fair, I think I'm way too much of an earnest nerd about music (and more importantly a nerd in general) to let that be my primary objective. So maybe I'm doing it wrong. Regardless, it certainly does seem to be the primary objective for a whole lot of music writer types.

In "Why Music Critics Suck" McClure does a little exercise where she flips to a review and critiques it. Because she encourages the reader to do this along at home, and because I like to follow instructions, I have done this as well. My review is of the new Panda Bear record Tomboy from the newest issue of Rolling Stone with Adele (who I totally don't get - but that's a whole different topic) on the cover. I figured this review would serve the purpose well since I've heard some of Panda Bear's music but nothing from this new record. Let's look at the first two sentences, shall we?
"Noah Lennox makes music swathed in so much synth noise, ambient voices and ricocheting stereophonic WTFs, it can feel like you're swept into a tidal wave of bong water. But life can feel that way too." Hmm. Yes. There is not a single part of that lead sentence that doesn't read like a first person account of a horrific drug induced seizure. It makes me feel sweaty and like I'm going to throw up. Oh, but now with that second sentence, you've opened it up into a metaphor about life. Well - now I get it. We can all relate to those bong water tidal wave days, right? I mean, how many of us haven't had a day that left us feeling like we were being washed away Katrina-style by a stagnant, stale, smoke scented wave of putrid liquid? This is life, people! And we're living it!

What about the rest of the review? Who cares. I already have a direct association between Panda Bear and bong water that will last me the rest Noah Lennox's career. Nice aversion therapy work, Rolling Stone. But I don't think the blame lies solely on the shoulders of the reviewer (in this case a Mr. Will Hermes). An editor - maybe even more than one editor - at Rolling Stone read that and said, "Yes. Let's print this in our magazine." Cool choice, editors.

Toward the end of her piece, McClure writes: "I personally can barely find it within myself to care about the memories and feelings of my closest friends, yet alone some critic who lives god knows where and looks like god knows what. Don’t tell me how an album makes you 'feel,' you jerkstore, just tell me how much it costs and I’ll figure out the rest." I agree with this sentiment, but would insert "tell me what it sounds like" for her "tell me how much it costs." I've never once looked to a review for price information. I have read a lot of complaint and criticism about reviews that compare a band or record to other bands or records, and I've never really understood why that's so wrong. First of all, forgive me, but since virtually everything had been done a hundred times before, nothing being created today is so amazingly unique as to allude any comparisons. Secondly, I really don't want to read more of your self-important overly-thesaurus reliant review than I have to. So the more I can get out of it with a cursory glance, the better a review it is. "Something, blah... blah... Trompe le Monde era Pixies meets Bad Brains..." Ok! Let's listen to that! "Something, blah... blah... meandering melodies with superfluous smokey overtones swirled with ether..." Jesus Christ. NEXT!

I'm pretty excited about this Collapse Board business though. I think we'll get along well. Go to there and see what you think...

J Mascis - Several Shades Of Why

Here's a link to a short n' sweet review I wrote of the new J Mascis record from this week's Metro Times. I keep accidentally calling the record Several Shades of Grey because of his hair.

Also, the contest for "most best album cover of the year" ended this day this record was released, yes?

He's playing tomorrow night at the Blind Pig. I'm excited.

I'll be your gay bar. I'll yell it in your ear.

I love getting mysterious mail from Canada. This CD showed up in my mailbox, and like everything Canada sends me, I took the time to listen to it (this is in accordance with an international agreement between Michigan and Canada that may or may not exist). It turns out Rae Spoon's Love Is A Hunter is a pleasant but confusing surprise! Pleasant, because a great deal of it is immediately likable, catchy and good! If Tegan and Sara managed to write songs half as catchy and melodic, I may even consider liking them for more than their hair. Confusing because all reference to Rae Spoon in the accompanying press materials use the pronoun "he." My ears and I have had (what I felt was) a reasoned conversation, and yet my ears are not willing to believe this!

Wikipedia, maybe please help us?

Rae Spoon is a Canadian female-to-male transgender folk/indie singer/songwriter from Calgary, Alberta. Spoon's music has been described as "new skool folk" and "cowboy-folk that's armed to the teeth with punk rock attitude."

Ah-ha! That makes sense. Though I am not so sure about those descriptions (to be fair, any description for anything that includes "school" spelled with a "k" should be considered with deep skepticism). Love Is A Hunter is pretty poppy with lots of well-placed synthy embellishments - good luck hearing "You Can Dance" at a crowded party and not falling in love with the first person you make eye contact with (hint: choose wisely!). "We Can't Be Lovers With These Guns On Each Other" gets points for title alone, but the song is as great as the title. "Love Is A Hunter" has a pretty sweet video - by sweet I mean featuring disturbing cat/fish creatures and an abundance of little legs in bear traps. But you already assumed that I bet:



The point being I highly recommend this? Was that clear?

Music doesn't let you forget

So I just finished reading this book. Here's my Good Reads review. If you're a book nerd, feel free to find me there. I occasionally remember to update it:

Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story by Chuck Klosterman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Our mutual hatred for Eric Clapton, the Doors and Los Angeles allows me to overlook the fact that Chuck Klosterman likes KISS, Rod Stewart and Radiohead.


The part of the book that really surprised me was Klosterman's claim/explanation that Thom Yorke accidentally predicted the events of September 11 with Kid A. Not because I also feel this way about Kid A. I don't even like that record. But he is also the only other person I know of who has a "9/11 record" besides myself.

Mine is Richard Buckner's Impasse. I don't make any claims that Impasse predicted the horror of that day - I could not make this claim since I don't think the record even came out until October 2002. But some of the songs have an eerie "soundtrack for that day" quality to them and I just I cannot unlink that record from those horrors. Particularly the song "I Know What I Knew," a chilling acoustic number that sums up not only everything I love about Richard Buckner, but spills out like the thoughts of a 9/11 survivor/victim/responder/perpetrator:

I know what I knew/But there's some things that you take home with you/Ask me if it's alright/ I can('t) fake it out until I'm fine/Later than I hope I should/I understand it's where I stood

I still feel my stomach sink every time I hear this song.

I used to listen to this record on repeat while pouring over information about 9/11 - from legitimate news reports to total conspiracy theory stuff - until I couldn't tell the difference anymore. It was both overwhelming and comforting and probably much more helpful than anything I would've gotten out of laying on a therapist's couch. Or the exact reason why I should've been spending some time on a therapist's couch. It's a toss up, really.

Klosterman also hates Los Angeles. The line "I'm shocked by anyone who doesn't consider Los Angeles to be anything less than a bozo-saturated hellhole" made me incredibly happy. Apologies to my sister Christine who currently lives there. Though Christine, I do recommend you read pages 77 - 82 of Killing Yourself To Live.

The Antlers have a (Twitter) posse.

So on Tuesday I went to see the National, as did many many other people because the Royal Oak Music Theatre was PACKED. It was a good packed though - a "we love this band" packed, not "we heard some band was playing tonight and we had free tickets and thought this would be a great place to drink and talk really loudly over the music" packed, which is usually how shows there feel, and why I don't generally like going to that venue.

The Antlers opened the show. A lot of people have told me how much I should like this band - none more so than my sister, who is so, so gay for them. She made me listen to their record Hospice back when it first came out, and I concluded that it was boring. She concluded that I was dumb. Fine.

But on Tuesday, I was certainly willing to give the Antlers another try. I mean, some bands just sell it live, you know? Well, I was not sold. In fact, my opinion of them remained unchanged. That is why, to kill time while the Antlers played the same song over and over, I sent out the following tweets:

The Antlers were just as boring live as I expected they might be. Apologies to those who are still having a love affair with 'Hospital.'

Apparently The Antlers record is called 'Hospice' not 'Hospital.' Which makes more sense since that is where people go to die.

Were these particularly nice things to say? Well, no. I will admit this. But it is my opinion, yes? Twitter allows opinions. Constantly.

A person who goes by the twitter name of delilah3310, but lists "Peyton D" as their actual name on their Twitter profile replied to my comments. He/she is from New Jersey. Here are those responses:

@LauraWitkowski So are you!

@LauraWitkowski Actually thought that was Detroit.

This first response is very poignant - the point being that I too am as boring live as one might expect me to be. And in fact, this is a totally correct assessment. Nice work.

The second response is saying that people go to Detroit to die. Burn! Ripping on Detroit is so original. Nothing like kicking a city when they're already foreclosed and riddled with bullets.

But this is where things start to get fun - I looked at this person's Twitter page, and immediately noticed some odd things. For instance - no picture. Okay, that's cool - sometimes it takes a few days to find the perfect taken-in-the-bathroom-mirror-with-my-belt-undone shot. I get that. But the second odd thing is delilah3310 has no followers, and is following nobody. Fine - could be a newish account, that's acceptable.

The third thing though? This delilah3310 has only 7 tweets. And ALL of them, are responding to negative tweets about the Antlers. Here are the 5 besides the two sent to me:

@AndyShore I follow The Antlers, not you. I only follow those who offer at least semii-intelligent discourse, which clearly excludes you.

@AndyShore Your comments about The Antlers clearly show us all what an idiot you are. Please spare us your misguided misery.....thanks.

@boners in regard to your recent idiotic comment about The Antlers.

@Chevron_Hubbard you being bored doesnt translate to 'talentless'.... But it does make you sound pathetic.

@Chevron_Hubbard your jealousy is showing...your music going nowhere? I understand your comment now.

My favorite part, of course, is how it says, "I follow The Antlers, not you." Because no you don't! You don't follow anybody at all! In fact, this whole account seems pretty suspicious - do the Antlers themselves or their PR people have a dummy Twitter account to "combat" negative Antlers comments? Am I crazy for thinking that they do?

Also, follow me on Twitter already.

Word of advice: Don't drink the 'BP Blast' at Donovan's Pub

Seriously. When I first ordered the drink last night - mostly out of appreciation for the fact they had a BP related drink special - I feared it might be made out of gasoline and dead shrimp. Although I was a little off, I can report with 100% accuracy that it tastes exactly like drinking out of the Gulf of Mexico. I am pretty sure the recipe calls for tequila, oil, salt and blood. This makes it a perfect drink to throw in Tony Hayward's face should you ever have the chance, but not something to actually ingest. Blech.

The one good thing last night was catching the Claps. Not a hodge-podge of sexy-time disease, but an electro-pop three piece from Minneapolis, Minnesota. They were one of two bands (the other was The Funeral and the Twilight) from "MM" (do people call it that? Probably not. And they probably shouldn't.) playing at Donovan's last night. Here's a video of their musics:

CLAPS- Fold from Toast Ghost on Vimeo.

I have not had a chance to listen to their new EP, but it contains a "Sovietpanda" remix of the above track. That's reason enough to like it, yes? They also had little pins (or badges or buttons - whatever you want to call them) and that made me very happy, since collecting these pins is my newest OCD obsession:

See? My collection is fairly small, but if you don't see your band's pin on here I need it please thank you. It has to be this exact size though, or my life will be ruined. I will trade you for something cool.

Detroit Bands - you should REALLY consult with me before making these kinds of decisions

So last Saturday was essentially New Grenada's last show, and now Friendly Foes have officially announced their break-up. FML! IRL! The good news is, the Foes are playing a free show at PJ's Lager House tomorrow night. It's one of your last chances to see them, so go do that.

Knowing that the Foes folks all have other cool bands and projects does ease the pain a bit. However, I do believe the folding of the Foes means that a certain Liz Wittman owes me a Lettercamp Erasure cover. Now more than ever.

Speaking of Lettercamp, this Saturday you can hear the whole new record at Atlas Lounge in Hamtramck. That should be fun and may potentially help the grieving process.

Show Your Support for Foreign Lands this Weekend!

Your Independence Day plans are steeped in good ol' fashion American tradition: An Old Navy flag tee, some little stars n' stripes flags to wave with fervor, and of course a giant shrink wrapped package of colorful fireworks that no amount of patriot day drinking could make unsafe to set off on a metal garbage can lid in your backyard. Who cares if all of these things were made in China or Malaysia! As long as they're not made in Mexico by Mexicans right?! USA! USA!

The big attraction this year is the New Center Park Kick Off celebration extraordinaire starting today and going through Monday! It looks like a really nice space - and for a city that can hardly afford to keep any of its parks open, it's something worth supporting. Obviously the added bonus of freeness sweetens the deal. Lots of great bands: Silverghost, Modernlull, Old Empire, The Beggars, The Juliets, etc. Also face painting and BUBBLES! It says these things are for kids, but as long as you're one of those lovable drunk types, you may be able to convince the nice folks to give you a kitty nose and whiskers.

So go have fun outside. In Detroit. For America.

Aaaaand ACTION! Songs Related To Movie Films

So now that my girlfriend goes to Plymouth every night for her drive-in movie job, she's got a decent commute - one that I am committed to making more tolerable through a series of mix CDs. But I like a challenge, and asked her to assign me various topics or themes for these mixes. The first one was songs related to the movies. I thought it would be fun to open this up to the many folks I know who are music minded, so I asked for suggestions on my Facespace page. Though only a few of those songs made the end mix, I was really happy to see so many great suggestions and this exercise reaffirmed that I have surrounded myself with people of exquisite taste. I have a list of the left over songs and almost have enough for a second mix - so if you think of any more great movie-related songs, please leave them in the comments. Here's the mix:

Aaaaand ACTION! Songs Related To Movie Films

1. Soda Dog Refreshment Squad - Groovy Time For A Movie Time
2. Thrush Hermit - From the Back of the Film (suggested by John)
3. The Long Blondes - Lust In The Movies
4. HorrorPops - Hitchcock Starlet (suggested by Andrea)
5. Morrissey - Drive-In Saturday (live)
6. St. Vincent - Actor Out Of Work
7. Of Montreal - The Actor's Opprobrium
8. Dubstar - I'm In Love With A German Film Star
9. Belle & Sebastian - Like Dylan in the Movies (BBC Session)
10. Rags & Feathers - Silent Movie Starlets (suggested by D'Anne)
11. Thomas Denver Jonsson - Dreams At The Film Club (suggested by D'Anne)
12. Curtis Eller - Buster Keaton (suggested by Scotter)
13. Lambchop - Steve McQueen
14. The Divine Comedy - When The Lights Go Out All Over Europe (suggested by Ras/Michael)
15. Richard Davies - Why Not Bomb The Movies?
16. Earlimart - The Movies
17. Okkervil River - Our Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe
18. April Smith and the Great Picture Show - Movie Loves A Screen
19. The Everly Brothers - Wake Up Little Susie (suggested by Seth)
20. Yo La Tengo - Deeper Into Movies
21. Black Francis - Cinema Star

I would make this one of those fancy mp3 lists that you can go ahead and download and stuff, but I don't want Blogger to shut me down. Because they love to do that apparently. Plus I don't know how! BUT - if you for real want a copy of this mix, I would be happy to make you one. We could trade! It will be like 1998 all over again.

Next challenge? Songs about comics/superheros! Know any good ones? Please leave them in the comments!

Child Bite on Daytrotter

Whoo! Child Bite on Daytrotter!

If your house wasn't robbed, go have FUN this weekend!

It's Memorial Day Weekend! Whoo! Memorial Day is the perfect example of America's greatness. It's a national day of turning a blind eye to our war dead in favor of drunken backyard BBQs and amazing storewide sales! War? What war? I just picked up some choice cuts of grillin' meat and got these cute scoopneck tops two for one at Macy's! I know! USA! USA! USA!

But really Memorial Day as whole is kind of lame. Compare it to, for instance, the yearly Easter celebration in Mexico's Sierra Madre mountains. It is a week long celebration of unparalleled drunkenness and debauchery that features both the burning of a Judas effigy complete with giant wooden erection, and grandmothers running around pretending to hump their grandsons. Makes your red white and blue disposable plates and plastic table cloth seem pretty weak, right?

But Detroit's Memorial Day live music offerings are almost as cool as a burning Judas erection. So you should go check out a show or two. There are several in the sidebar, but many, many more (choices = freedom worth fighting for!). I'll probably be too busy in OCD breakdown mode scrubbing down every inch of wallspace in my house in ("if I can get it clean enough, they can't break in again!") but YOU should probably go to this:

I mean, there's a CHANCE somebody might be able to convince me to leave my house to check it out. And as long as those efforts don't involve your grandmother trying to hump me, I won't stop you from trying.

Put a bright orange dot on yr guitar

Tonight is the Heidelberg Project Rock Benefit at the Magic Stick.

A pretty solid local line up featuring Mich Bassett & the Marthas, Augie & Koko, and Troy Gregory among others. I'm most excited about Noman. I bought their record on a whim a long time ago - mostly because I wanted to be supportive of a local band I'd heard good things about but also because it was on sweet, sweet white vinyl. I then put it on my "need to listen to" shelf, and kind of forgot about it for many months. I finally put it on recently and it is so, so good. So obviously seeing them live is the next logical step.

Also piquing my interest about tonight's show is the listing of "Black Lodge vs. Marco Polio." To me, this means one of two things: either a cage match, or a full blown law suit. I think both would be really fun to watch and worth the price of admission. Hell, I'd even volunteer for jury duty.

Though the Heidelberg Project is best known as a land of soggy teddy bears and polka dots, they also do a lot of cool education and community enrichment stuff. For instance, all proceeds from tonight's show go to the Heidelberg Project’s ACE2 (a pilot program teaching third graders about the arts and community involvement over a 12-week span on-site at the Heidelberg) and Cultural Village (an indoor/outdoor artist space at the Heidelberg that includes children’s programs, a café, an amphitheater, etc.) programs.

I read once they the Heidelberg folks were once planning to cover an entire house with pennies. Did this ever happen? On second thought, maybe do not tell me. I think it would give me an anxiety attack of epic proportions.

Closer to FINE tonight!

So tonight a bunch of hunky, Detroit indie rockers are gonna splash some patchouli on their dream catchers and play lesbian folk covers at the Burton Theatre - Detroit's premiere indie-theatre-that-used-to-be-an-elementary-school.* A very reliable source has informed me that they are "100% positive" that the music starts promptly at 9pm (doors at 8pm) and that "it's going to be really awesome." But even if it wasn't going to be really awesome, you had me with the unambiguous door time.

*The only thing that is accurate about this sentence is the location. The rest is just my interpretation of the facts. Which I don't have.

"I'm hot, and you're not. So if you wanna get with me I'll give ya one shot..."

So this gentleman is bringing the hip hop beats (with a live band, mind you) to Alvin's tonight:


You should come out and see if he manages to rhyme "disestablishmentarianism" like a pro. Also on the bill are Free Moral Agents. I know very little, but it sounds like they will be sweet. One of the Free Moral Agent guys is also in the Mars Volta. The Mars Volta are a King Crimson cover band.

"If things get real, promise to take me somewhere else..."

That line has been going through my head a lot these days. With the world going to hell and the Gulf Coast being swallowed by the most massive oil spill ever and stuff, things are pretty fucking real. The line is from "Feeling Oblivion," which is one of my favorite songs. It is by Turin Brakes. They're from London. They're playing the Pike Room on Wednesday. I just talked to one of 'em briefly for the Metro Times Music Blahg. Read that here. The show will be a good distraction from the world at large. I am very much looking forward to it.

Here's the song in question, set to footage some guy took from a plane? Enjoy:

Thanks for NOTHING Eddie Vedder

On Saturday, May 1st I was on the Ticketmaster web site at 10am waiting for Concrete Blonde tickets to go on sale. My girlfriend loves Concrete Blonde. And I wanted to get these tickets as a birthday gift for her. So I put myself through the hell of an online Ticketmaster purchase for this reason. They say love makes you do foolish things, right?

I won't go into all the details of buying tickets right as they go on sale from the Ticketmaster web site. If you've done it recently you don't want to be reminded. But if you have not, suffice to say it's stressful, annoying, confusing and insulting all at the same time. By the time I was done entering captchas, checking my e mail to get my new password, filling in some sort of MasterCard verification bullshit, I wished I was deaf. That way, I'd never feel the need to buy tickets to any live music event ever again.

I am now more dedicated than ever to not giving Ticketmaster any of my money again. To buy two Concrete Blonde tickets, which are listed on the Majestic website as being $25 each, Ticketmaster charged me $65. I am not great at math. But by my calculations, this means that Ticketmaster made me pay $15 dollars in additional charges. I look at it this way: for me to buy two tickets to this show, I was forced to pay $12.50 for 1/2 an invisible person to also attend, plus $2.50 just for fun!

In addition they offered me, for a price of I believe another $2.50, the option to print my tickets myself. Using my own resources. I could also have them mailed to me. For free. This alone made me wonder if I was in backwards land. That is insane.

My point is, it is worth the extra time it might take to purchase tickets direct from venues or special designated points of sale to circumvent Ticketmaster. And by extension LiveNation. Fuck those guys.

So in case you didn't know - you CAN buy tickets for all Majestic Theatre complex shows at the Garden Bowl. Ticket sales are from 11am to 6pm 7 days a week. There is a $1 additional charge per ticket if you are paying with cash and a $2 additional charge if you are paying with credit/debit.

You can also buy tickets for all upcoming Crofoot shows while you're at the venue. Just ask the bartender. I believe there is no extra charge for cash and a $1 charge for credit/debit. But regardless it's significantly less than Rapemaster.

For shows at St. Andrews, you can buy tickets at the Fillmore box office... I don't think there is an additional charge, but don't quote me on that.

So please do this. For me. For yourself. For Detroit. For Pontiac. For America.