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How is it that two bands that sound so very different can completely suck in equal amounts? One band is from the shiny happy suburbs of Chicago, the other is from decidedly less shiny Kansas City. One band’s name conjures images of filth while the other’s name makes one think of a Tide commercial. One band uses heavy distortion to make their power-chord driven songs sound interesting, and the other uses heavily auto-tuned vocal harmonies to make their power chord-driven songs sound interesting. Either way, I’m very glad I live nowhere near the Canopy Club the next couple days.
In case you didn’t know, this weekend the venue will be hosting two of the biggest buzzkills to an otherwise spectacular semester of live music in Champaign-Urbana. First, Plain White T’s, famous for their Grammy-nominated stalker ballad “Hey There, Delilah” will be performing tonight. On Saturday, the band so good they needed to spell their name with two backwards D’s, Puddle of Mudd, will do their pop-metal thing on the Canopy stage. Dropkick Murphy’s, playing a sold-out show on Friday, must feel like an expertly prepared steak stuck between two slices of Wonder bread.
Sure they’re both tremendously terrible, but who would win in a fight?
A couple years ago I had the opportunity to see one of my favorite bands, Saturday Looks Good to Me, at the Canopy. Their modern take on 1950s pop served a lot of great purposes as a high schooler and I was really excited to see them as a freshman in college. Unfortunately, their set was disappointing.
The beauty of SLGTM was their boy-girl harmonies, their use of horns and bells, the aesthetic created by drowning all their songs in amazing amounts of reverb. Their live show was five dudes rocking on their respective instruments with the gain turned up. They turned their poppiest tunes into garage rock numbers. It wasn’t bad, but having been an avid fan for such a long time, I felt cheated.
Will Sheff, songwriter and frontman for Austin’s Okkervil River, can see two sides of the coin. Before he took on Okkervil duties as a full time endeavor, he was also a music critic. Still, he often writes songs from a journalistically objective view and the music is clearly examined and perfected before it's put on a record. But how does that affect his view of his own music? Does that affect the songs he writes? Does he think he tried too hard fitting so many syllables into the group’s most recent album?
I’m not really interested in answering those questions. What I’ve been thinking about is the song off of The Stand Ins (Okkervil’s latest) called “Pop Lie.”
“Pop Lie” is the story of a pop star. He wears “bright green,” and knows exactly what to do to make people sing. Well calculated and specifically made to get people to sing along, the unnamed man succeeded; he kind of sounds like Timbaland or the guy from One Republic. The only problem is that he lied. “He’s the liar that lied in his pop song,” Sheff sings. “And you’re lying when you sing along.”
I was walking back to my apartment after class today and I realized it was suddenly fall. In my mind, that is. It may have been fall for weeks now; I just haven’t really been looking around lately. It struck me when a large acorn-like projectile actually struck me in the head. I instinctively looked up, saw a scurrying squirrel and noticed that the few leaves still hanging above me were bright orange. I then realized I was really cold only wearing a t-shirt and that my neighbors weren’t the weirdos I thought they were for putting out carved pumpkins on their porch.
My favorite part about the changing of the seasons is the iPod song rotation that follows. Today I made my mp3 player seasonally appropriate. I stocked it with songs from Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes, Neil Young and some Being There tracks; nothing too surprising. I’d like to share, though, some of the more questionable, but still fantastic, songs that made it on this year’s fall playlist.
Blue’s Clues was one of those children’s shows that was watched by a lot of people who did not fit into its targeted demographic. Though specifically designed around child development research to be the ideal television show for preschoolers, Blue’s Clues reached other, older audiences too.
Having a younger sister who fit perfectly in the intended age group, I used her as an excuse to watch the brightly colored, pseudo-animated daytime program. I didn't realize that a lot of teenagers without preschool aged siblings, and even a lot of adults too, also watched the show until much later. Maybe it was ridiculously catchy theme song or the hilarious French-accented salt shaker – whatever it was, that show was tremendously successful for young and old.
It’s not a controversial statement to say that the end of the CD is near. It may be only a couple years until they completely disappear – one could even argue it's already happening. Our lives are run on hard drives and music is heard blasting out of white ear buds connected to cellular phones; with everything becoming purely digital there seems to be no real reason to have CDs anymore.
The prospect, however, of not having an easily produced and transported hard copy version of music is frightening. Sure Ipods are great but mix CDs are better. Rhapsody is convenient but it can’t compare to the feeling of ripping off the shrink wrap of a new CD and blasting it out of your car stereo. Music cannot exist purely in the metaphysical plane of cyberspace. There has to be something to come along, other than vinyl, to represent the hard-copy aspect of music. CDs create a sense of ownership, of loyalty and of respect. As a culture that loves music, we can’t lose that. How then, will the industry find a way to continue to get us to go to stores instead of our computers to purchase music? Cassette tapes killed the eight-track and CD’s killed the cassette. What will, when the time comes, replace the CD?
Top five concerts (in no particular order):
Modest Mouse w/ The Walkmen at The Rave in Milwaukee during summer 2004: I was burned multiple times by cigarettes and did not notice.
Wilco w/ Deer Hoof at the Chicago Auditorium Theatre in October 2004: Tickets were free and they played for 90 straight hours.
Broken Social Scene somewhere in London, England in May 2008: I hadn't slept in 40 hours and I cried/ almost passed out during the encore.
Akron/Family at The Canopy Club sometime during the 2005-2006 school year: I went by myself and they blew my mind.
Kelly Clarkson at the First Midwest Bank Amphitheater in the summer of 2006: PERFECT.
How excited are you all for tonight’s debate? So much will be discussed and I, for one, am sitting on the edge of my seat. Debates are excellent because they allow us to see the candidates and hear what they are told by advisors they believe in so that we can decide on our own who we personally believe is best fitted to lead us. Personally though, I prefer someone else to tell me who to vote for. Political figures and newspaper editorial boards are alright sources for finding out who to vote for, but I prefer to be persuaded by people that have no true knowledge or expertise in the political arena – rock stars!
This year, there seems to be one clear presidential candidate choice if you’re into popular music. Barack Obama has support from every genre and every direction on the musical spectrum. Jay-Z is playing a couple shows in support of the Illinois Senator. Bruce Springsteen is doing the same. The Decemberists got tied up in Right-Wing punditry because of their support and this guy’s (pointing at self while typing) favorite New York band, The National, designed a t-shirt for the candidate of “change.” Don’t get the wrong idea, I’m not saying that Obama has it in the bag. I’m not saying that at all.
Adbusters, a cultural watchdog magazine, has described hipsters as being the " dead end of Western Civilization. " Hipsters describe themselves as "everyone exactly like me, excluding me." Basically, this self-loathing group is not new to serious social criticism.
But I find that the newest criticism is coming from an unusual place; McDonald's. Yes, McDonald's has taken on the hipster-menace by airing some recent advertisements promoting their new gourmet coffee brand, Mc Cafe. A radio ad entitled "Confessions of an Ex-Hipster" is narrated by a man who admitted that he once wore "black turtlenecks," didn't shower, liked "French films" and listened to "indie-rock," but because of McDonald's Mc Cafe he no longer has to sulk in a dark, independently-owned coffee house and keep up with his sham of an identity . Now, as he tells the radio audience, he can watch football, high five and conform to society's view of the 18-34 year old male. Hurray for corporate America!
I would like to first admit that I didn’t hate the tracks I heard from Scarlett Johansson’s all-Tom Waits cover album, Anywhere I Lay My Head. Maybe it was the pure novelty of it, or maybe the pretty decent arrangements done by TV on the Radio’s David Andrew Sitek or maybe even the fact that Scarlett doesn’t have very good of a voice. Whatever it was, I found it pretty enjoyable.
That being said, I have an interest in movie stars wanting to totally embarrass themselves by attempting to be serious musicians. From the classic "Extravaganza" by Jamie Foxx (jump to 0: 52 to hear one of the best choruses ever penned) to the even more classic "Weight of a Man" by Russell Crowe to the quintessentially classic "Party All the Time"by Eddie Murphy, I love them all.
This past Sunday I went to see The Avett Brothers perform at the Canopy Club. Walking up to the stage I felt a little out of my element. I had heard a smattering of songs by the group here and there; on car trips, during parties and in trebly tidbits bleeding out of my girlfriend’s head phones — but by no means was a diehard fan. I was more of an outside observer. I had heard of their amazing live show and figured I’d check them out.
As the crowd grew bigger, I could feel the anticipation in the air. The three sweaty and intoxicated guys next to me were beyond excited. I knew because they told me about eight times.
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