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Christmas Card

Andy adapted a Christmas song and put a lot of work into it. I adapted a Christmas song.
Recorded in my bedroom with two microphones and a lot of good will.
Take a gander.
Andy - Little Drummer Boy
Kyle - Carol Of The Bells

Posted 24 December 2008 † Kyle § Other ‡ Comments (3)

We Are The Willows - Live at the Grand Little Theatre

Video: The night Eau Claire broke down and turned into some sort of wierd hippie, gypsy, free-loving utopia. Well, utopia if you’re into that sort of thing.

Some voices just ring with sincerity. They make messages more loud, more clear, and they say not only what they mean, but also how much they mean it. It’s the same sort of skill that writers use when they try to show rather than tell the reader a story.

Peter Miller’s voice is one of those voices. He uses it to show you what he means, to put you in the experience, rather than tell you about it. Maybe it’s a product of his sweetly-spun indie-pop melodies, or the way that he sustains and wavers the vowels in his more dramatic words. Probably though, it’s because he sings somewhere around 3 or 4 octaves higher than you’d expect from a grizzly, flannel-wearing, bearded front man. Really, he looks like Paul Bunyan and sings like a 3rd grade choir boy. Is that the greatest compliment I’ve ever given? Most likely.

We Are the Willows is a band that’s easy to love. Its songs are warm, its performances are inviting and its members are genuine. We gave a nod last October when they released their debut EP, Bravery, and we’re eagerly awaiting their upcoming full length.

Please use this link or click on the video above to go to the YouTube page, where you can watch the glory play out in painfully high quality.

Posted 18 December 2008 † Andy § Video ‡ Comments (1)

Noah and the Whale - Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down

Pictured: If the Easter Bunny rolled with a crew, this would be it.

Only a few things in this life make me feel better than blasting “Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down,” through a pair of headphones and riding my bike around town. Those things are corn on the cob, being a master eater of corn of the cob, and Christmas. Just to clarify, there is not one kernel left on the cob when I’m done with it.

Really though, Noah and the Whale’s debut full length was most likely my Summer ‘08 album. It was is fresh, bright and colorful, too much so according to one particularly terrible review, while still maintaining a satisfying amount of drama and tones of sadness that sink in at a level deeper than the surface. The band holds a fairly clear envy of the Magnetic Fields, with bits of DeVotchka and Neutral Milk Hotel thrown in for good measure. That their most poppy song, “5 Years Time,” was recently used in a car ad only multiplies the number of harsh critiques of the band’s overtly cheery and accessible style, but I’m not about to judge bands based on the demographics of their listeners or the commercial use of their music. I’ll judge bands based on how much I enjoy their albums, and this is one I’ve thoroughly enjoyed for months now.

Noah And The Whale - Shape Of My Heart

You get two from these guys. The first is Shape of My Heart, full of peppy handclaps, cute boy-girl vocals and giant horns.

Noah And The Whale - Give A Little Love

The second is Give a Little Love, full of…well, peppy handclaps, cute boy-girl vocals and giant horns. Also, go to their Myspace page and use your spam email address to sign up for their newsletter. They give you a free recording of their new song Sometimes, and they’ll keep you updated on all the tours and shows they play that won’t be anywhere close to you.

Posted 08 December 2008 † Andy § Album Review ‡ Comments (0)

Cousin Cole & Pocketknife - Tambourine Dream

Video: Cranking indie tunes over the phone never actually swoons a room full of ladies lying in their undies. Trust me, it doesn’t. It creeps them out.

Okay, sure, it’s a bit easy. Take a good indie song, or a well known classic rock jam that everyone loves, and add some reverby effects and beat the hell out of a bass drum on Garage Band. Repeat eighteen times, release the tracks on an album and get more famous than half the artists you mixed.

At any rate, Flagrant Foul’s Cousin Cole & Pocketknife are an eardrum’s sick little fetish, perverting innocent songs like Iron & Wine’s “Each Coming Night,” Panda Bear’s “Bros,” and even John Lennon’s “Oh Yoko!,” into twisted predatory dance-clubby versions of themselves. While it does get difficult to wade through the whole album and its everlasting entirety of obnoxious bass drum on every single beat, picking and choosing favorites to blast through your car’s woofers never really tires.

The promo video up above is exactly what you’d expect. They ripped a clip from a major motion picture (The Virgin Suicides) and put their own music into it. I can’t say it’s not great though. Check out the full track list for Tambourine Dream here, and click below to listen to Pocketknife’s Scowling Owl Remix of Joanna Newsom’s “The Book of Right On.”

Cousin Cole & Pocketknife - The Book of Right On

Posted 01 December 2008 † Andy § Album Review § Video ‡ Comments (2)

Zoo Animal - Live at UW-Stout

Video: Two men and a Holly Hansen. The best show not on cable television.

Holly Hansen has been a local favorite of ours for quite a while now. Her solo album, “Buildings,” full of Kimya Dawson/Shelby Sifers-esque minimalist indie-lullabies, was a great introduction to her quaint musicianship and blessed, angel-like voice. We were pretty upset when we heard news that she gave this act up and started a three piece band, fearing that the outcome of involving other members would somehow fail the unreasonably high expectations we hold for Ms. Hansen.

It didn’t, and thank the heavens for the album we got out of it. Zoo Animal’s debut, titled Young Blood, is a very well constructed mix of moody indie-pop and socially conscious messages, or, if you’re not into that, you can still get to down to its high levels of ants-in-the-pants sap-danciness.

Please click on the video above, or here, to go to the actual YouTube page where you can opt to view the action in high quality. I promise, the difference is worth it. Also, be sure to listen to the song My Lord below!

Zoo Animal - My Lord

Posted 07 November 2008 † Andy § Video ‡ Comments (5)

Horse Feathers - House With No Home

Pictured: “Oh, don’t get upset. We’re all ugly.”

The new Horse Feathers is the old Horse Feathers, in a very good way. In the way that their debut, “Words are Dead,” was a soft and touching album that went fairly underappreciated by the majority of listeners, so too is “House With No Home.” What could be called a lack of change on their sophomore full length, shouldn’t be called a lack of creativity or artistic integrity. Horse Feathers reinforces its eloquence, impressively-so, splashing melancholic violins and acoustic guitars together and giving base to Justin Ringle’s spotlessly-clear vocals, somewhat reminiscent of the Great Lake Swimmers’ Tony Dekker, while maintaining Sam Beam-like care for words.

Horse Feathers - Albina

Warning: Do not listen to upon feeling joyous. Save for bouts of sadness, possibly depression, and consume with hot tea, possibly alcohol.

Posted 06 October 2008 † Andy § Album Review ‡ Comments (1)

The Gentle Guest - We Are Bound to Save Some Souls Tonight

Pictured: “I specifically asked for anything but flower print wallpaper.”

“I knew I wanted it to be rowdy,” says Eric Rykal, the man behind [Eau Claire, Wisconsin’s] dirty blues/folk carnival known as The Gentle Guest. “For the first time in my life I was going to play music that was fun for the listener….I wanted to shout and scream and stomp and yell.”

That he did on his band’s sophomore album, “We Are Bound to Save Some Souls Tonight,” which is due for a release on Amble Down Records on the last day of September. It’s nearly a complete departure from the five songs on “Our Little Ruckus,” the group’s soft and careful debut EP from almost a year ago. This time around, Rykal and friends slur through their new full length with a barrage of rustic and drunken Americana tunes, each tinted and twisted by a love for gospel songs, field hollers and old-timey delta blues.

“I felt like this music had some profound sense of time and place that I hadn’t found anywhere else,” says the 21 year old songwriter of the inspiration he found from vintage folk records. “We tried to take the music from that time and place and bring it to this time and place. We made it a little rowdier, a little darker and a little noisier.”

This is an excerpt from an article I wrote for Volume One Magazine. Please visit their brand-spanking-new website, volumeone.org, to read it in its entirety.

The Gentle Guest - Down At The Sill

Down at the Still is the frantically fantastic single from We Are Bound….

Posted 15 September 2008 † Andy § Album Review ‡ Comments (0)

Damien Jurado - Caught In The Trees

Caught in the Trees, out today on Secretly Canadian, is the album that I’ve been waiting for Damien Jurado to make for years. It is a combination of everything he’s done right in his career and surprise, it’s a great album. I blame Jurado for my expectations. I’ve really liked three or four songs on every album over the last several years, but with each I couldn’t help but feel like he could do better. That’s what happens when you have a perfect song on your resume. Ohio, the opener to his 1999 album for Subpop, Rehearsals for Departure, is the culprit; four chords, one harmonica, three immaculately constructed verses. It might be really lazy fandom on my part, but that song tinted my opinion of everything else he’s done. That said, Caught in the Trees makes good on the promise of Jurado’s unmistakable talent as a songwriter.
Some credit should go to the supporting cast. This album is more of a team effort than anything before it. If the songs weren’t so good, long time collaborator Eric Fisher would have stolen the show like a gypsy in the night. His guitar work is subtle and ballsy, also like a gypsy. Electric guitar, especially on what is ultimately still a folk album, needs a contextual heart. ‘Tis best to be understated. Thanks Eric. Jenna Conrad adds some lovely strings and the lady harmonies that have always complimented Jurado’s voice. While not the voice of past harmonizer, Rosie Thomas, she is no slouch. Not at all.
Jurado has the gift of melancholy. His best stuff is sad. He claims to have two sorts of songs: happy-sounding with semi-dark lyrics or sad-sounding with dark lyrics. Songs about asking god to kill your mentally ill brother is what he means by dark lyrics. I happen to think that the sad ones tend to be more compelling. So I’m a sad sack, sue me. The new material seems to stray from the narrative nature of his previous work into something more personal. Maybe it’s still fiction, but it feels less so. Maybe that’s good fiction.

Damien Jurado - Go First

Posted 09 September 2008 † Kyle § Album Review ‡ Comments (4)

Sea Wolf - Leaves in the River

Pictured: Sea Wolves trying hard to not stick out in a crowd.

Our friends Nick and Adam almost saw Sea Wolf live…almost. Like myself at the time though, they hadn’t heard Leaves in the River, so they left before the band played. A few weeks later, they and I realized their mistake. The songwriting that makes up Leaves in the River thrives on a sweet honesty, like Sea Wolf could have made ten great songs with nothing but an acoustic guitar and softly sung melodies, but it wouldn’t be nearly as exciting as the moments when distorted guitars and clunky dance beats chop into them. It’s those bits of disruption that ends up making the album so memorable and repeatable.

Sea Wolf - Black Dirt

Black Dirt is a great example of the genre-shifting I’m talking about.

Sea Wolf - Middle Distance Runner

Middle Distance Runner is my favorite song from Leaves in the River. I’m also recommending that you watch the video of Sea Wolf performing this song on Hard To Find a Friend’s Backstage Sessions.

Posted 08 September 2008 † Andy § Album Review ‡ Comments (0)

Bark Hide and Horn - National Treasure

Pictured: Yeah, no one’s ever questioned this guy’s love for National Geographic.

It sounds fairly trite, the idea of a band writing its music based on National Geographic articles from the 50s and 60s, but Portland, OR’s Bark Hide and Horn finds its inspiration from these little gems. Articles written about a grizzly’s great revenge on the hunters who killed his mate, honey ants slaving their lives away, a spider who fell in love with his insect-food, and so on and so forth, all become ideas for folkie rock songs. Somewhere in the vicinity of Conor Oberst’s lighter work with a Sufjan-ish style for arrangement, Bark Hide and Horn is mostly soft and careful, floating around acoustic guitar and very prominent lead trumpet parts, but they’re never afraid to throw in a few surprises (spoiler alert: electro-pop parts) to keep our interest.

Bark Hide and Horn - Treasure of the Everglades

Treasure of the Everglades is about two snails breeding. It was instantly good for me, and I think it can be good for you too. Snail breeding, that is.

Posted 22 August 2008 † Andy § Album Review ‡ Comments (2)

Hospital Ships - Oh Ramona

Pictured: Hospital Ships’ Jordan Geiger with big-head cheat code on.

Songwriter Jordan Geiger is (un)known for his writing and singing in Minus Story, and recently for his trumpeting in the band Shearwater. With his new project, Hospital Ships, Geiger steps into his own even more.

The creativity that flows through Oh, Ramona is similar to that heard from Islands. The layers and layers of nasally vocals are nearly the same at times, and songs use heaps of keyboards and organs on top of less dense guitars. Where Islands has a flare for the silly and overly dramatic, Hospital Ships manages to stay a bit more low key and straightforward, making them slightly less difficult to relate to at times. That’s not to say that songs like Bitter Radio Single and I Want It to Get Out are anti-climatic though, as most of the album works by building up to giant choruses of overlapping parts and colorfully laid vocals.

Hospital Ships - Bitter Radio Single

Geiger hits it perfectly on Bitter Radio Single. “Screw this fucking city,” in the bridge explodes into the song’s ending.

Posted 15 August 2008 † Andy § Album Review ‡ Comments (1)

Deleted Scenes - Birdseed Shirt

Pictured: The band was doing just fine until Steve Nash showed up on keys(far right), wearing his favorite collared shirt and that damned howling wolf tank top again.

Let’s be honest, I’m a sucker for songs with lots of bells, and Deleted Scenes carves itself around them on the song Ithaca. I know what you’re thinking, but really, this is a good rock band and there’s no cutesy toy xylophone ridiculousness involved. Instead, a constant tonal ringing is a frame for the band’s somewhat afro-cussion, bright, accommodating guitar melodies and Menomena-esque double-vocal lines(ehh, two posts in a row with mentions of Manenema?). They get themselves worked up every once in a while, but for the most part my beloved bells keep Deleted Scenes in a sleepy, laid-back and lovable sort of mindset. Plus, one look at their Myspace page, equipped with small tour dates, cheap EPs and mega-appreciation for slowly growing press, and it’s hard not to root for guys like these.

Deleted Scenes - Ithaca

Click, click, click.

Posted 07 August 2008 † Andy § Album Review ‡ Comments (0)

Lackthereof - Last November

Pictured:  Lackthereof asks not indie-rock-weirdies can do for you, but what you can do for indie-rock-weirdies.
Lackthereof is an awesome project from Danny Seim (Menomena).  It sounds sort of like what Primitive Radio Gods would sound like if they were still around, and not just a one hit wonders from the mid-nineties.  There’s bass heavy, drum heavy, mid-tempo jams with bittersweet melodies all wrapped around some sing-song melodies that make you shake your sarcasm-hardened groove thang.  Yes, thang.

There’s a close enough tie between Lackthereof and Menomena to occasionally get a “Oh yeah, he was in THAT band” moment, but enough of a distance to give Lackthereof an identity all its own.  Anyway, Lackthereof is on Barsuk now, which will hopefully get Seim the attention he so desperately deserves.  At last count there were something like 1100 friends on his myspace.  I routinely get adds from fat kids playing sevendust covers with more friends than that.  C’mon America let’s get with the program.

Last November is the best track on Lackthereof’s new album, Your Anchor.  It bounces along with minimal bass and organ until the end of the song, when we get some relative explosiveness (and even a key change).  Anyway, find this album if you get the chance.  It goes great with a pog collection and a half liter of Surge.

Lackthereof - Last November

Posted 06 August 2008 † Ian § Track Review ‡ Comments (1)

Everest - Rebels in the Roses

Pictured:  Everest.  Stealing the souls of hitchhikers since 2005.
Everest is an alt-country band from California.  They sound like what would happen if Michael Stipe took over The Cardinals and got a severe case of catchy-awesome-hook syndrome.  It’s all there, the build ups, the sweet melodies, the twangy guitar, and the organ.  I have a feeling this album is only going to get better as we approach the melancholy months of Fall, but even as it stands now, I can’t get enough.  There’s something to be said for a band that doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but does something that’s been done before in such a novel concept that it seems fresh and new.  I don’t know how deft of a sentence that is, but it’s heartfelt.

Rebels in the Roses is the heartbeat of Everest’s record.  It is all crashing guitars, melodrama, and heart fluttering tremolo.  Everest never loses sight of the goal of music, to make you feel things more deeply than previously thought possible.  You might crinkle your nose at the idea, but Everest takes your crinkle and busts right through it.  Seriously, just listen to the bridge and I won’t have to explain.  Good job California, you finally gave me an emotion besides “happy” and “excited about surfing.”

Everest - Rebels In The Roses

Posted 04 August 2008 † Ian § Track Review ‡ Comments (0)

Justin Vernon - Hazelton

Pictured: Sing, scream, repeat.
Justin Vernon is one bad-ass dude. He grows beards, he pushes people around in the post, and he writes records that everyone loves and wants to buy. That’s a big three for three. This is from an album he did before the glory (but when he was still pushing people around in the post.) Vernon recorded and released this in Eau Claire back before Deyarmond moved to Raleigh.

It’s funny how much this bridges the gap between Deyarmond, both musically and ideologically. There is still the same loneliness, the same isolation that so many people have come to relate with Justin’s current work, but there’s still something folky and earthy about the Hazeltons recording as well. This is Justin stripping down, calling us out, and getting out before anything hits the fan. Oh, and the music is unstoppable too. That helps.

It’s pretty hard to find this recording, but if by magic you find it, immediately pick it up. It’s not only a portrait of the artist as a young man, but a portrait of the rest of us too. Sheesh, who knows what I’m saying anymore. Just listen.
Justin Vernon - Hazelton

Posted 01 August 2008 † Ian § Album Review ‡ Comments (14)