Jagjaguwar recently released a 7" featuring Will Sheff of Okkervil River and Charles Bissell of The Wrens covering each others songs. For The Wrens fan this is new material to hold you over until they release a followup to the masterpiece The Meadowlands (Get this if you don't have it!)
Sheff does a stripped-down acoustic version of "Ex-Girl Collection" with his vocals up center in the mix, allowing for the magnificent lyrics to be heard loud and clear. Bissell tackles the pop of "It Ends With A Fall," but goes in the opposite direction, building the melodies through dense layers of ambient guitar delay and soft-whispering vocals. This is a must for any big fan of both of these bands.
Couldn't find any of these online so here's the originals. Use your imagination:
For all of you punk/ska/hardcore lovers, today the crazy cool people at Community Records are offering a bunch of full albums to be downloaded legally for free. Check it out here and here's the official word: DOWNLOAD DAY PART TWO
Thursday Dec. 18th
THE FLAMING TSUNAMIS - Fear Everything
STUCK LUCKY/ ARM THE POOR - We Never Sleep Split
TUSKER -Collection
MATT WIXSON - KEASBEY NIGHTS (best of matt collection)
THE MAD CONDUCTOR - Ejemplo (4 song collection)
THE GHOSTWOOD - Development (new orleans favorites)
SUPAFLIES - Rambarded (new orleans favorites)
Please tell everyone you know to come download more free music. These tunes will go up on 18th of December and from then on will be up for FREE DOWNLOAD from this site.
The video crew behind the excellent La Blogotheque, have released a film that documents Arcade Fire and their album Neon Bible. Though a bit too artsy at times, the film gives a good glimpse into the band recording the album, their tour, telephone marketing campaign, and other behind the scenes footage.
I'm not a huge fan of Neon Bible but watching the film there's no mistaking that you get the idea that the record does none of the justice of their live show. In fact, even moments where the band is stripped away and it's just Win and Regine playing the songs sound much more engaging than the record itself. It makes me wish that they would release an album of live acoustic sessions. Anyways, for those looking for a glimpse into the band the documentary comes highly recommended but don't expect a focused narrative. Like the title says it's archives of video taken before, during, and after the release of Neon Bible.
"I know how to do it now. There are nearly thirteen million people in the world. None of those people is an extra. They're all the leads of their own stories. They have to be given their due. "
Charlie Kaufman is one of my favorite screenwriters. He's constantly trying to create something original while maintaining an honest and insightful look at the human emotion. Synecdoche, NY, which is the first film he's both writer and director for, is Kaufman at his most abstract and at the same time ambitiously brilliant. In Adaptation, he wrote himself into the screenplay, illustrating his struggle to write a movie simply about flowers. If this seemed a bit meta then Synecdoche, NY is this times a hundred. The film is about playwright Caden Cotard, a lonely man with strange health problems who is masterfully played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman, struggling to do something in his life so he decides to recreate a ginormous theater piece of New York. While doing this he's trying to maintain relationships with loved ones and at the same time implement their stories into his piece. This creates a conflict in Caden that is both heartbreaking and darkly humorous. The movie starts off normal and gets bizarre pretty fast. It's something that I find much more enjoyable if you don't try to make sense of everything because some things in it just aren't suppose to make sense. Such is life. They are just there.
By the time the credits roll there's a strange overwhelming feeling that I got. I didn't really know what to think or to say. Everyone in the theater sat in silence, trying to comprehend or make sense of it all. It's something that probably drove a lot of people angry, hating the film, but it gave me the feeling of something special. A masterpiece perhaps. Also, it seems to be one of those movies where in repeated viewings you find out more and more new things. I've seen it twice, but there still seems like a lot of little details that I've missed.
Anyways, the score of the movie was done by Jon Brion and the quality of it is no less than other past work he's done: Hard Eight, Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love, Aimee Man, Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind, etc. Light piano and mesmerizing string arrangements. The soundtrack provides a great sense of pondering, self-exploration. It captures the essence of the film perfectly. The standout song of the film "Little Person", sung by a jazz vocalist Deanne Storey depicts the story of everyday people in life. How there are no extras, we are all just leads in our own story, trying to find a connection, whatever that may be.
Caddywhompus is drummer Sean Hart and vocalist/guitarist Chris Rehm, two music industry students at Loyola University New Orleans that are originally from Houston, TX. Dubbing themselves as noise-pop, the band has an experimental sound with progressive rock time-changes galore. Their songs shift multiple genres and moods, but never come to the point of being excessive. "This Is Where We Blaze The Nuggz" has moments of soft ambiance, aggressive wall-of-sound guitar, dancey rhythm, and ends with lovely chanting vocals. Their influences seem to have a wide range as well. Short and sweet "Absinthesizer" is a pop gem with guitar-work that is reminiscent of the indie-rock group Deerhoof. "Untitled #7408" begins with a smooth, steady-uprising beat equivalent to New Order - Ceremony that transcends into a climatic post-rock ending. Think Explosions In The Sky without the overly-long buildups.
Caddywhompus are a new force in the New Orleans indie-rock scene who are pushing the envelope in terms of creating a unique blend of pop music. The free EP they've released so far shows great promise in both their originality and diverseness. Look out for them as they have quite a few shows coming up if you are in the area:
-------------------------------------------------- Dec 13 - Insomkneeacks - Baton Rouge, LA Dec 14 - Dragon's Den - New Orleans, LA Dec 27 - Commerce St Wharehouse - Houston, TX Jan 3 - Notsuoh - Houston, TX Jan 17 - Alabamba Music Box - Mobile, AL Jan 23 - Howlin' Wolf - New Orleans, LA Feb 27 - Dragon's Den - New Orleans, LA
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