Smile Politely. Speak Directly. A Champaign-Urbana Culture Blog

Danny, the one and only member of Coco Coca, should have named his new album “Space Country”, the eighth track off of Black, Black, Black. I can’t think of any other music I would prefer over Coco Coca for a spirited romp through the galaxy – except maybe the Metroid Prime score.

Samus Aran only shakes it to one kind of tune; the kind that involves high pitched electronic tones repeated over and over until killing space pirates is second nature. As if written especially for each level of the game, these high frequency tones show up in every song on Black, Black, Black. At times it’s annoying, as at the beginning of “Gusto” and “There’s A Snitch in My House.” They sound like someone’s attempt to recreate a Super Mario Bros. level. It only becomes interesting when the music becomes more complicated, drawing influences from Industrial Rock and Metal. I was often reminded of NIN and Death From Above 1979.

Fast-forward to fall 2008. Browsing through Luna Records in Indianapolis, William and I discovered that Ben Folds’s new album is called Way to Normal. As I scanned the track list, my eyes stopped at "Effington" and practically bugged out of their sockets. “Hey! I think Ben Folds’s CD refers to Normal, Illinois!” I exclaimed to William.

The crowd throbs and vibrates with Kevin Barnes’ tightly packaged package. One shining beam of glitter on my right is dry humping my leg, and the person to my left’s nylon wing is obscuring my view from the hypersexual spectacle on stage. I’m wearing the person behind me like a furry, sweaty coat as the crowd methodically sways and grinds to the prog-pop fury of Of Montreal.

Of Montreal has become synonymous with a musical parade of sparkle, ecstasy and a traveling clan of alien-esque androids. Their newest album Skeletal Lamping , coming out on October 7, doesn’t drop the ball far from their shiny pedestal.

With the possibility that someone who believes dinosaurs and people lived together on Pangaea could vice-lead our nation as well as the questionable use of time travel on the new season of "Heroes," the perception and manipulation of time has become an important issue in our society. Where we currently stand is another interesting one. In one sense, we are on the brink of the next step; be it economic disaster or ruthless robot dictatorship, it seems something is on the way.

But on the other hand, it’s as if we are living in a place where everything has already been done. Our post-modern world merely references or repeats the past. We’ve long moved past supposed apocalyptic dates and the prophesied Ape Rebellion of 1991. So where do we go from here? You can categorize humanity into two major eras – history and prehistory. What will lead to the next inevitability?

I have been to a few Sunset Stallion shows in the past few months since they formed, and although the first and second may have had a few little kinks in the set, they quickly formed into a band that promises a straightforward performance without blips that another band as young as Sunset Stallion may have. Granted, all have either past or current connections to other local performers, I still congratulate this indie-rock band on their rapid ascendance into the Champaign-Urbana music scene.

A pair of Smile Politely music critics were in attendance for the Dan Deacon, Dark Meat, Monotonix (pictured above) billing at the Canopy Club this past Thursday night. Here they share their thoughts on a concert that had plenty of people talking.

When I got to Exile on Main Street for the Pygmalion Music Festival showcase this past Saturday, there was pizza, pop and a few local music celebrities scattered across the store (wearing the same shirt in some cases) while Lucky Mulholland prepared to perform.

The Pygmalion Music Festival has ended and we are all faced with the sad reality that it'll be a whole year until it returns. For those of you who went, surely the memories will last you until next year. For those of you who couldn't make it, we went for you. Over the course of the four day festival Brian McGovern, Caitlin Cremer and Joel Gillespie spent their evenings enjoying amazing live music so you didn't have to. Here, the three writers talk about some of their favorite sets and show off some great, yet totally unprofessional pictures and video. Enjoy!

Cristy: Openers Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter shyly take the stage. Her glossy chestnut mane--like a Pantene ad in the fall issue of Cosmo—swings over her angular face as the band sails through most of their latest effort, Like, Love, Lust & the Open Halls of the Soul. Sykes’ shaky, deliberate voice channels Marianne Faithfull (well, up two octaves). While the upbeat “You Might Walk Away” shows off her dusty voice, “The Air Is Thin” boasts a stellar country slide guitar. The band introduces “Spectral Beings,” with haunting, spacy harmonies and rocks through the highlight of the show, “Station Grey.” Although Sykes and her band come across as nervous and self-deprecating, they don’t need to be. They put on a solid performance.

For anyone that pulled up to or walked past the Canopy Club this past Saturday, the mild summer weather was most likely broken by the abnormally long line that stretched from the Canopy to the front door of the University of Illinois' music building.

A mumbling swarm of rabid hip-hop fans descended from towns around Champaign-Urbana, and even as far as St. Louis, to watch the Canopy Club play host to a hip-hop bill that had landed on the cornfields, and left just as big of an impact.

When I was first introduced to Lykke Li's EP, Little Bit, I was entranced in the sheer uniqueness of her voice and music. Lately, it seems as though too many artists follow a certain guideline to their genre. I'm not saying that these guidelines detract from those bands' talents, but it's just refreshing to hear something new. Sure people will compare Li's pretty pop vocals to Hanne Hukkelburg or El Perro Del Mar, but comparing will never quite do her music justice.

Welcome back to work.

Look for Justine Bursoni's photo review in Aww Snap! tomorrow on Smile Politely.

"Happy anniversary," Brian Henneman shouted as the Bottle Rockets took the stage, launching into the heavy, bitter lament about a romantic relationship gone wrong. But his announcement had a double meaning: This year marks the St. Louis band's 15th anniversary, and vocalist Henneman, guitarist John Horton, bassist Keith Voegele, and drummer Mark Ortmann are celebrating by playing just 15 shows this year. At the end of the limited tour, they're giving away a custom-designed electric guitar and 'Bottle Rockets for Life' — all the merchandise and concert tickets a fan could hope for.

When the line for Lifehouse wrapped around the Canopy Club to the School of Music building on Nevada entered the venue, they fully packed the main floor and filled every seat in the balcony. Every fan dripping with anticipation for the ensuing performance.

And they got exactly what they were looking for when the band took the stage Thursday night.

The evening was an incredibly pure splash into the world of rock music. There was no frill to the concert; with simple lighting and minimum effects, the result was a refreshing taste of real, good noise.

Way Out West Entrance

Generally speaking, Smile Politely tries to cover events in and around Champaign-Urbana. It's part of our mission statement actually; we believe in the notion that our cities have their own culture. But seeing as how almost half of us have been overseas for the past week and a half, we thought a few photos from a great music festival abroad, Way Out West, would be fun to share. Enjoy.

Last night, I intended to see Terminus Victor at Mike n' Molly's. I discovered Lollipop Factory. They are my new favorite band.

As of June 19, another musician joined the pay-what-you-will, or rather free-for-all, reputation Radiohead glamorized with their latest album, In Rainbows. Gregg Gillis, also known as Girl Talk, claimed in an interview with MetroWize (based out of San Francisco) that he released the album, Feed the Animals, to give people a better chance at reaching out to music. Gillis also said that he is simply acknowledging the fact that it will leak, and people will somehow get it for free anyway.

It's so rare that I fall in love with new music anymore.

My job demands an ear that is more or less discriminating to the point of alienation; most artists are just a blob of sound that ends up forgotten before I can even give it a chance to be appreciated. It's a horrible side-effect to being employed in the "industry."

So, it was with great delight that I gave the (relatively) new single by M83 a listen for more than 20 seconds last week. The song "Kim & Jessie" has been playing in my office and car on a virtual repeat since last Thursday, and for good reason: it hits on all the best parts of my favorite bands from the 80's — Tears For Fears, INXS, XTC and the like.

And while Smile Politely's Zack Adcock isn't the biggest fan of M83's recent "pop music song structures," he was still able to see it for what it is: some of the best "pop" music being made today.

Listen to the radio edit of "Kim & Jessie" here: www.myspace.com/m83

Last week, when I heard that Error House had been shut down, my heart sank. Such a wonderful and safe all ages venue, run by selfless musicians, helping fill the void that the Red Herring, Channing Murray, and many other venues and houses once filled — gone in a flash.

Scrambling to relocate their shows, they managed to put together some last minute arrangements with the boys of So Long Forgotten to move their tour-kickoff show to The Green Wolf, a farm house on the western outskirts of Champaign.

More videos after the jump.

As proven by Fleet Foxes’ self-titled debut, the intersection between the ever-changing music that we’ve dubbed “folk” and “indie” continues to be interesting. The problem with this intersection, and defining it, is that these two brands of music are shifty and inherently lack definition. In this case, Fleet Foxes could be best described as a band that bridges the musical traditions of America’s coasts. Here, the psychedelic sprawl of the west mingles with the tightness of eastern roots traditions such as bluegrass and country-blues. But that doesn’t really cut them any slack as a pop act, which — strange as it might be to some — they are.

Late Tuesday night, local band Bellcaster reunited for one last show after falling off the radar for roughly two years. What could bring a band back from the dead? A good friend of theirs, Bobby Northcutt, was in need of some help, so they decided to host a benefit concert complete with tattoo and piercing raffles to raise money for him. How cool is that? Solo acoustic artist Jonathon Childers, one-man band Andy V, and percussionist Jane Boxall assisted in the farewell show, as well. The audience was receptive, and one man in particular was very pleased with the show — he won not only a $75 piercing, but also a $75 tattoo.

Bellcaster:

More video after the jump...

A concept album is an ambitious venture for any band; thinking of a worthy idea is difficult enough, and then there’s the matter of producing an entire album’s worth of quality material that is thematically cohesive. It seems like there’s an endless supply of artists lined up to be the next Pink Floyd or The Who, but the albums that are produced in this arena tend to range from "bad" to "laughably bad."

In case you hadn't realized already, the Mike N' Molly's beer garden is truly the place to be for live local music in downtown Champaign these days. It's spacious and inviting, the PA won't destroy your eardrums, and it's got a good beer selection to boot. This is all fine and dandy on most days, but when the weatherman cries "precipitation," everyone starts to get a little worried about playing outside.

This didn't stop Ryan Groff and Mike Ingram from performing their duet rendition of Radiohead's The Bends in support of Nashville's Parachute Musical and Heypenny last Tuesday, however. Amid reports of a storm, the two local rockers pushed all doubt aside and told the crowd just what they wanted to hear: "It doesn't matter if it rains — we're playing anyway!"

Upon first hearing “Highly Suspiscious,” from My Morning Jacket's newest LP Evil Urges, one of the — what do you call them? Singles? Whatever a band releases to the internet to preview its forthcoming record — I felt a sort of dismay. Having grown to adore My Morning Jacket for the searing, epic guitars (especially as exemplified on the band’s double-disc live opus Okonokos), the folksy charm, and Jim James’ falsetto-reverb vocals, the fact that “Highly Suspiscious” sounded like a band trying to cover Prince disturbed me greatly. Was this the band I had claimed to love? Praised endlessly? Pushed on so many people?

Psych lovers, beware: If this article is introducing you to The Black Angels, there is reason to heed a real fear that, in the very near future, you won’t be removing this record from the player for months. Yes, we writers operate almost exclusively by use of hyperbole, but in all frankness, Directions to See a Ghost is the most illuminating psych record to have any popular appeal in my recent memory.

Fiery Furnaces and Raconteurs at The Pageant, St. Louis, June 12

Note: Not for the first time, I was one of the only audience members caught obeying the club's strict "no cameras" policy, and so I can offer only these sketches I made of the bands as they performed — WG

William: The Fiery Furnaces are an astonishingly original one-man and one-woman band who create enough music to fill setlists from a dozen power-trios. Songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Matthew Friedberger from Oak Park did time in the local Champaign-Urbana music scene as a member of Corndolly and Liquorette, before moving back to Chicago to start a band with his sister Eleanor.

In the pleasantly muddled world of indie music, there are a handful of not-so-descriptive terms that are often branded onto select acts. “Piano rock” is one that gets thrown around a lot, as well as “jangly guitar pop.” Of course there’s also “dance indie,” a la the Happy Mondays. These labels, however, do not come across as a positive portrayal, but rather as an indication of the one-dimensionality that pervades pop music.

Enter Tall Tale, a young Champaign-based band whose debut full-length album Pirate Ship was released last month. With female vocals and piano based verses, listeners will make obvious connections to already established acts such as The Hush Sound and Eisley, but Tall Tale offers a little more innovation and versatility than their more radio friendly contemporaries. Pirate Ship, consequently, is a very impressive first album that is often surreal and surprising.

Richard Swift is a shapeshifter, a musical sorceror of mythical proportion. Each of his releases shows a mastery of a different affect of pop music, and each one is unique in its own way. Pending the release (some as Richard Swift and some as Instruments of Science and Technology, his electronic moniker), you’re likely to find a completely different sound, but what’s been clear all along is that Richard Swift’s forte is using the elements of popular music to turn popular music on its ass. In that sense, As Onasis is perfectly in form.

Gazelle is the new super group project between Jeff Dimpsey, a veteran of such legendary Champaign bands as Hum, Honcho Overload and Poster Children (just to name a few) and Adam Fein of Absinthe Blind, the dreamy neo-psychedelic precursor to Headlights. These 10 tracks find the duo ditching the volume of their electric guitars and experimenting with more electro-pop influences. I even dare to call this music post-electro-pop or tranquilized club because of the focus on beautifully textured atmospheres, scattered electronics, light acoustic guitar, keyboard, and vocals from both musicians like a gentle wind.

There seems to be a tradition in early baroque and classical music of taking another composer’s piece and rewriting it to demonstrate your superior writing, deriving masterful variations from the other composer’s weaker theme. The gesture can be flattering or insulting, a respectful tribute or machismo in a powdered wig. We see it in its polite form in Bach’s Musical Offering, where Bach composes a clever, showy masterpiece based on a challenge and melody issued to him by Frederick II.

This, of course, is where metaphor becomes one of our greatest friends.

The Felice Brothers play a brand of what can only be described as folk music, and as such inherently is bred in a sort of tradition. The band strongly recalls Dylan’s foray with The Band (notably the infamous Basement Tapes) and, at times, the carnival-esque atmosphere of choice Tom Waits compositions and the wry humor (and dry drawl) of John Prine’s early records. But as with most old sounding records, this self-titled gem boasts an airiness whose climate could only be modern.