Comfest!

All the complaining from bands and bruised egos leading up to Comfest is a little too much for me. The band submission process is an imperfect system, but if you didn't get picked, I say suck it up, try again next year, go see some other bands and have fun anyway.

That said, The Other Paper did a good job breaking down the selection process in its cover story this week. And that forum thread the story mentions? It's right here, but I wouldn't recommend wading through all 27 pages. Immaturity abounds.

None of that really matters now, though. Comfest is here, and I'm specifically looking forward to Two Cow Garage, Brainbow, Miranda Sound and Moon High. What about you?

Gentleman Auction House - High Five, 6/19

The original plan last Thursday night was to see Headlights at Cafe Bourbon St. But because of the ongoing renovations/ownership changes/legal stalemate/whatever at Bobo, the show was moved to the High Five to be combined with Gentleman Auction House, which sounded like a good idea. Then Headlights canceled completely, and I had to decide if it was worth covering only Gentleman Auction House, a band out of St. Louis on Emergency Umbrella Records (also home to local up-and-comer Sinkane).

I decided to go, and in one sense, it probably wasn’t the best call journalistically because the place was mostly empty (apparently word got around quickly that Headlights canceled). But in another sense, it was the exact right call because this band was absolutely terrific, putting on one of the best performances I’ve seen this year. Had I not gone, I never would have known about this fantastic band, and you, dear reader, wouldn’t either.

Gentleman Auction House’s seven members just barely squeezed onto the stage, and judging by their exuberance, you would have thought they were playing to a packed house. The two drummers pounded their simple, propulsive beats in unison as keyboard, guitar, trumpet, xylophone, synth and one more floor tom (for good measure) fell in line around the beat. It was as if the musicians couldn’t contain the energy in the songs and had to let it all out, if not with an instrument than by dancing or flailing. How refreshing to see a band that realizes it’s OK to love what you’re doing and show it.

GAH is best described generally as indie pop, but there’s an insatiable fire behind it. Think of the pop sensibilities of a less-precious Belle and Sebastian, the bombast of Arcade Fire and the eccentricities of Danielson all rolled into one. It could very well be the sound of your new favorite band.

Taking center stage was singer/songwriter/guitarist Eric Enger, whose voice is like a thicker, less tortured Conor Oberst. Others joined in on the vocals when a raucous chorus was needed, but ebullient keyboardist Kiley Lewis’s backing contributions were the most complementary and crucial--almost as crucial as her phrenetic, perma-grin dancing. It all got me excited and energized, which is quite a feat for 12:45 on a Thursday night when the headliner canceled.

“ABCDEFGraveyard” kicked off the set, a hand-clap anthem with an irresistible start-stop beat and some cowbell. “The Book of Matches,” also the title of the band’s recently released EP, found most of the band frantically shouting the damn-the-man chorus: “We’re shot like cannonballs off a mountaintop into oceans of our history, and we won’t stay down.” “New Moon” revealed Enger at his most desperate, pleading, “If you don’t think you can love me just be kind with the proof/ ‘Cuz I got a delicate heart and I’m under a new moon.” Uber-intellectual indie rockers take note: It’s OK to wear your heart on your sleeve every now and then.

It’s hard to pick a favorite among the infectious tunes; I just felt privileged to be one of the few in attendance for what felt like a private concert. Gentleman Auction House is supposedly coming back to town before too long, and the band’s full-length, Alphabet Graveyard, hits shelves July 22. I’ll be paying close attention to these guys in the coming months. You should too.

mp3: Gentleman Auction House - The Book of Matches

Sinkane strikes again

I saw Ahmed Gallab of Sinkane last night at the Gentleman Auction House show (which was terrific--review coming soon), and he said he'll be touring with Of Montreal in the fall. Apparently they saw him filling in for Caribou's drummer, loved what he did, and are bringing him on tour. Nobody even broke a wrist or anything. He's just that good. Ahmed = indie rock's new drummer-in-demand.

He also hinted that a Color Voice DVD might be in the works. Here's hoping it comes together.

Columbus albums

This week Columbus Alive (the competitor to the alt-weekly I write for) published a list of the "Top 100 Columbus Albums of the Past 30 Years." Pretty darn interesting. Being a Columbus resident for just four years now, I'm probably not the guy to lodge complaints about who should have ended up where.

Kudos to Deville for undertaking such a monumental task while knowing that everyone who has ever been to a show in Columbus will now vehemently disagree with choices and placement.

*edit: OK, I can't help myself, just a couple quick gripes: The decision to not allow a band to have more than one album represented on the list really throws off the whole "Top 100" aspect. And O.A.R. is horrible. That's all.

Miranda Sound

Miranda Sound’s new album is self-titled, which is always a statement of sorts for a band, a way to say, “This album is exactly who we are.” It was a good move for Miranda Sound, because this is the Columbus indie pop band at its best. But it’s also a bit tragic, because this is the last we’ll hear from this band. Miranda Sound is calling it quits after this album and a brief spate of shows, kicking off with a record release show at the Ravari Room on Friday.

There’s always been something vaguely familiar about Miranda’s sound, but not because it mimics any one band in particular. The band incorporates all its various influences in a way that’s entirely original and addictive. This new album calls to mind bands such as R.E.M., Pinback and Death Cab for Cutie, but with edges more jagged and punky than those bands--that’s why you may have heard Fugazi or Jawbox references before. And then there’s those confessional lyrics, which conjure early emo torchbearers Sunny Day Real Estate much more than the cringe-inducing current brand of pop-punk emo.

Miranda Sound was recorded with Jon Chinn at Central City Recording in Clintonville, the band’s second full-length on Robert Duffy’s (donewaiting.com) Sunken Treasure label after migrating from Standard Recording Company. The production is nice and crisp (other than a couple audible computer hiccups on the final track) with an overall softer, smoother and more mature feel than the 2006 release, Western Reserve.

The songs often veer into unexpected directions, still remaining pop songs at the core but not necessarily following the verse-chorus-verse mandate. Guitars go from straightforward power chords and peel off into inventive riffs that are sometimes in weird time signatures, like the 5/4 time of “Kaleidoscope.” Billy Peake and Dan Gerken’s double vocal attack works just as well as the double guitars, complementing each other and adding layers of interest and intensity to the tunes.

It’s an album about growing up and the inevitable pains that come along with that. “Leave Everyone Behind” is a companion to Reserve’s “The Lull of Youngstown,” as Peake looks back at a sixth-grade picture from a soccer field in Youngstown: “The kid inside that picture filled my head with expectations/ I’m fighting for the kid’s approval, but approval never comes.” But aging also has apparently brought some perspective as Peake sings of the “certainty in older years with the clarity of truth.”

“Sleepfighting” finds the Ohio boys reminiscing back to the time when they were fresh on the Columbus scene: “Can’t wait … for Sunken Treasure to come along/ Can’t wait … for Little Brother’s to come along.” “Ugly Elevator” delves into the political realm, but only briefly--the song’s only a minute long. “Quilt Therapy” is probably the best track on the record, though I anticipate it’s one of those albums where the favorite changes each week. The song equates a relationship breakdown with a physical collapse (“When you’re done, you know it all at once/ Your muscles tearing out, you’re so limp”), a painfully accurate analogy.

There’s really no dross or dregs on Miranda Sound, just 10 songs that go by in 30 minutes. Yet the album as a whole feels complete and concise rather than abridged. For a band that’s been one of the gems of the scene for the past few years, it’s not a bad way to go out.

mp3: Miranda Sound - Falling Man
mp3: Miranda Sound - Leave Everyone Behind

These New Puritans w/ El Jesus de Magico, Wexner Center

There have been quite a few good shows around town recently, so maybe that explains why the Wexner Center was so empty for These New Puritans on Friday. Whatever the reason, those who were absent missed a brief but exhilarating performance.

These New Puritans are all the buzz in the UK, taking post-punk cues from likely sources such as the Fall and Gang of Four. With bands like Bloc Party cropping up all over the place the past few years, it seems like the whole post-punk revival thing has been done to death. But these youngsters draw on their influences while managing to sound fresh as ever.

Musically, TNP (or TNPS, as they’re sometimes called) were all about the beat. Singer Jack Barnett’s twin brother George kept the pounding rhythm with a huge bass and floor tom sound, spanking those skins as hard as he could while keeping perfect time. Jack’s vocal delivery was equally rhythmic, delivered in quick, emphatic cadences. In “Swords of Truth” he sang, “This music is weightless,” but it felt as bottom-heavy as ever.

The vocalist also performed in some sort of chain-mail outfit, which made him look pretty silly--like a cross between a small bird and an underfed, teenage Julius Caesar. To complicate matters, Barnett assumed something akin to a hip-hop persona, gesturing wildly with his hands and constantly reminding the audience of his band’s name and the current year.

But the rhythmic nature of the vocals actually wasn’t too far removed from rap. Barnett would often put his guitar aside to slam the words down your throat without distraction. And how odd those words were, waxing philosophical on the meaning of numbers in “Numbers,” and doing the same for colors in “Colours.” On “Elvis” he revealed his paranoia: “We’re being watched by experts, and what will happen next, we hold the clues.” Honestly, the stuff is cryptic to the point that I can’t tell if it holds weight or if it’s a bunch of faux-intelligent college-freshman observations, but it worked well with the music nonetheless.

Just a couple complaints: The bassist needs to stick to bass and stay away from vocals; Barnett does it best. But at least he was obviously into the music, whereas the woman at the Macbook, while easy on the eyes, barely moved and had a permanent look of boredom and gloom on her face. If you can’t muster up the energy to move to those beats, it’s time to man your computer from the sound table.

Opener El Jesus de Magico has become a big name in Columbus in the last year or two, second only to Times New Viking and the rest of the shitgaze trifecta (Psychedelic Horseshit, Pink Reason). El Jesus’s sound is really just a stone’s throw away from that crew, but I must have been absent when they passed the El Jesus Kool-Aid around. To my ears, everything El Jesus does the aforementioned Columbus bands do better. TNV has better pop hooks, Horseshit’s experiments with noise are more interesting, and Pink Reason’s use of heavy reverb and delay come off as a stylistic preference instead of a crutch. On Friday, singer Jon Witzky’s ultra-spaced-out vocals were delayed past the point of art-rock and into the comic realm. Trying to discern a single word, even when Witzky spoke in between songs with no other instruments playing, was utterly pointless.

To be fair, I didn’t mind the band’s Funeral Home Session seven-inch, and drummer Michael O’Shaughnessy (of the funeral home family) is entertaining to watch live. The band also had a few things going against it on Friday. The somewhat intimate performance space felt cavernous with only 30 or so people in the room--the smallest crowd I’ve ever seen in that space--but the same crowd in a smaller dive bar probably would have created more energy. Plus, the volume was up so loud that all the instruments combined to make a giant ear-bleeding noise. I know, it sounds like a whiny rock critic thing to say. Rock shows are supposed to be loud. But this was in the painfully loud category where it takes away from the enjoyment rather than adding to it.

I can respect a band for creating a distinct, consistent sound and aesthetic--one the band obviously believes in. It just didn’t make a believer out of me.

mp3: These New Puritans - Numerology AKA Numbers

Digital Spin

Spin has a pretty cool digital version of its magazine. It just debuted with the May issue, and I have to say I'm impressed. You can look through an exact replica of the print magazine, with different bands, etc. highlighted with links. Pretty impressive. Having that magazine-style layout is something I miss on other publications' websites.

And yes, if you haven't picked up the June issue, you can read that sh*tgaze article I wrote here.

The Raconteurs w/ the Black Lips, LC Pavilion, 6-9

When the Raconteurs recorded their debut album Broken Boy Soldiers, Jack White, Brendan Benson and Greenhornes rhythm vets Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler hadn’t even played a show together yet. So it makes sense that after playing dozens of shows, the band has now started to jell. The Raconteurs have created a new album worthy of its talented members, and on Monday night at the open-air version of the LC Pavilion, they put on a thrilling concert.

White has clearly learned how to fill a stage playing as a duo with Meg in the White Stripes. He possesses a charisma that reached to the back wall of the lawn, but not because of over-the-top antics of any sort (though he does wield a mean guitar). He’s one of the rare performers whose mere presence can inspire the musicians around him and demand the eyes and ears of concertgoers.

But this wasn’t just the Jack White Show. It was truly all about chemistry, as co-leader Benson held his own with a voice more complementary than comparable to White’s, and Keeler’s outstanding drumming served as a touchstone for the rest of the Nashville-based band to play off each other in surprising and unforced ways.

The Raconteurs’ blues-rock sound is classic rock-inspired, for sure. The band even covers late-’60s Brit-rocker Terry Reid’s “Rich Kid Blues” on Consolers of the Lonely, and on Monday night Benson sang it with gusto before the song merged into a trippy breakdown that briefly became the Doors’ “The End” before ramping back up. That tactic was a common one in the performance--“You Don’t Understand Me” went from a ballad with White on piano to a rocker and then back again.

But the best use of the loud-quiet-loud device was on the first-set closer, “Blue Veins.” The extended guitar-jam intro would have disguised the song if it weren’t for Lawrence’s distinctive bass line providing the bluesy backbone to what was probably the best song of the night. The band built the anticipation to its peak right before stopping as White delivered the first line, “When I was surrounded you were the only one who came,” followed by sharp guitar blasts punctuating the backbeat. Later in the song White’s lead-guitar skills took center stage as the band went silent to highlight his Jimmy Page-style attack. It was the type of jamming that served the song instead of detracting from it.

Right before the closing song of the encore, the Raconteurs blasted through the first single off the new record, “Salute Your Solution.” It’s a near-perfect classic rock/pop song: rocking, grooving, bluesy, gritty, catchy and frenzied enough to avoid the stylistic cliches that come along with the genre.

Atlanta band the Black Lips proved to be a worthy opener for the most part. The band’s garage rock comes with lots of punk flavor and slightly southern-fried. They were messy and scruffy; one of the singer/guitarists had a stain-covered shirt and liked to spit, which isn’t that weird for a rock band, but even when he accidentally (I think) spit all over his face, he didn’t bother to clean it up until a couple songs later. Still, judging from what I’ve heard about how their shows used to be (puking on each other, playing guitar with their junk), I guess the Black Lips are fairly tame now.

“Bad Kids” and “Katrina” were pretty good, and “Dirty Hands” is a particularly great song, merging hillbilly rock and ’60s pop on the hilariously appropriate chorus: “Do you really wanna hold my dirty hand?”

None of the four members can really sing, but that’s OK. It would sound weird if their voices were too pretty. The digital vocal effects were forced and didn’t really fit the vibe the band’s going for, but the main thing the band suffered from was the venue. It’s not the LC’s fault, it’s just that the Black Lips belong in a small, dingy rock club. But it’s a rare group of musicians who can convey their stuff all the way to that back wall.

Weezer - The Red Album

By this point, Weezer leader Rivers Cuomo should know that self-titling a record and slapping a solid color behind a photo of his band won’t bring black the Blue Album’s 1994 glory days, when songs like “Buddy Holly” and “Undone--The Sweater Song” pushed the band to the top of modern-rock radio as all the neo-grunge peddlers watched in envy.

He tried it with the Green Album in 2001, a valiant effort with some stand-out tracks (“Photograph,” “Hash Pipe”), but still not a classic on the level of ‘ole Blue. And now we’ve got the Red Album, the cover of which reveals a mustachioed Cuomo in a cowboy hat and big belt buckle alongside his bandmates. Despite the earnest expression on his face, it’s gotta be a joke, because the whole album is downright goofy. Cuomo’s obviously trying to have as much fun as possible with his music, a laudable goal. But the result is a lot like that cover image of Cuomo--both awesome and awful. And you can almost divide the awesome from the awful right down the middle of the 10-track record. Weezer showcases its knack for writing breezy, hooky songs on only the first four tracks, making the album as top heavy as a toddler.

The first single, “Pork and Beans,” is Weezer at its best, playful and consciously catchy, musically mixing the quirkiness “El Scorcho” with the big, power-pop guitars of “No One Else.” There’s a reason Cuomo sings, “Everyone likes to dance to a happy song/ with a catchy chorus and beat so they can sing along.” And the chorus--“I’ma do the things that I wanna do/ I ain’t got a thing to prove to you”--brazenly shakes off all the critics who lambasted the band’s last album, Make Believe. “Troublemaker” cops a riff from Pinkerton’s “The Good Life” and transforms it into another classic, and “The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn)” reveals how promiscuous Cuomo has become with genres. It incorporates rap, old-school metal, emo, a monk-like chorus and more. Excessive? Certainly, but I dare you not to like it.

“Heart Songs” is a laundry list of artists and songs that have inspired Cuomo over the years. The fact that he calls them “heart songs” is the biggest drawback to the track, conjuring up the title of a mix tape a coifed teen would nervously give to his doe-eyed sweetheart on One Tree Hill. But again, it’s impossible to dislike, and kudos to Cuomo for admitting that artists like Gordon Lightfoot and Quiet Riot are part of his musical history. (Take note, songwriters who claim they were listening to Captain Beefheart and Philip Glass in second grade.)

Then the hammer drops. The album goes from songs that are kinda fun to have stuck in your head to songs that will hopefully slip away immediately, because if they do stick it will make commercial jingles seem like a nice alternative. “Everybody Get Dangerous” centers around an overly familiar guitar riff and a chorus of “Everybody get dangerous, boo yah.” It reminds me of horribly trite songs I used to hear every weekend from so many Philadelphia bar bands--repetitive and unimaginative. “Dreamin’” features some of the cheesiest lyrics I’ve heard in quite a while. Over the sound of birds chirping, we hear about bluebirds in the meadows, bees in the air, goslings in the river and angels in the heavens. It wouldn’t be out of place on a Celine Dion song.

And gone are the days when Cuomo would fine his bandmates for various infractions. The band dynamics seem to be a lot better these days, with Cuomo even letting the other dudes write and sing. I’m glad they’re all getting along now, but guitarist Brian Bell’s “Thought I Knew” and drummer Pat Wilson’s “Automatic” are dreadfully out of place, and the choice to let bassist Scott Shriner sing “Cold Dark World” destroyed an already below-average song.

Yes, it’s unreasonable and unfair to expect Blue Album songs from every Weezer release, but those little splices of greatness at the beginning make the bad tunes all the more disappointing. Maybe it’s that bushy mustache that’s throwing Cuomo off. I vote for a neck beard on the next album.

mp3: Weezer - The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn)

Radiohead, NIN... Journey?

The New York Times has a story about Wal-Mart's recent deals with artists that cut out record companies, who are increasingly becoming unneeded middlemen. A quote:

"In some ways, the arrangements that Wal-Mart has made with Journey and the Eagles represent the mainstream equivalent of the path that artists like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails have taken by releasing albums on the Internet without a traditional label."

In other news, Journey's new album features the band's third singer in three years (above, posing dramatically in front).

Leviathan Bound

Matador is offering up another track for free from Shearwater's Rook. Download "Leviathan Bound" here.

Shearwater - Rook

With the release of Shearwater’s Rook, the band Jonathan Meiburg and Will Sheff started as an Okkervil River side project has officially (and amicably) become its own unhinged force to be reckoned with. Meiburg has been providing most of Shearwater’s creative juice for a while now, and he recently said he’ll no longer be a part of the Sheff-led Okkervil River. And that’s as it should be.

After Shearwater showed what it was capable of on 2006’s impressive Palo Santo, it became apparent that relegating this band to side-project status would be a big mistake. Rook just confirms that further. It’s a continuation of Palo Santo stylistically, but with better songwriting, more thoughtful arrangements and a cohesiveness Shearwater had yet to capture previously. Driving it all is Meiburg’s magnificent tenor. The vocal histrionics would normally be a turn-off for me, but he succeeds by incorporating subtleties into Shearwater’s sound. There’s bombast, but there’s also plenty of open space with dynamic swells.

One thing we should clear up: The album’s title doesn’t refer to those chess pieces that look like castles. Nor does it refer to the Eurasian cow of the same name. This rook is a black bird in the crow family, a reference that makes sense given that Meiburg is a bird fanatic, studying little-known species in far-flung locales like Tierra del Fuego. In fact, Shearwater is named after a seabird, one of its previous albums is titled Winged Life and on the cover of Rook is a man covered with birds. So yeah, he really likes birds.

On the sorta title track “Rooks,” the birds are “laid in piles by the sides of the road” and “burned in a feathering pyre.” This destruction of the natural world is a theme that wends like a river through the album as Meiburg despairs over all the vanishing beauty. “Century Eyes” ominously warns humanity that “You were not the first to arrive and will not be the last to survive.” It’s a decidedly (post)modern concept, but Shearwater’s songs have an ancient feel, filled with natural imagery: the sea, forests, clouds, the moon, stars and lots of animals (ox, leopard, swallows, tiger, etc.). It comes off as haunting and beautiful, as opposed to dorky in an early Genesis kind of way.

“Rooks” is the obvious single, by far the catchiest song on the album despite the incinerating-birds subject matter. “Leviathan Bound” and “Home Life” have some of the best, lush string arrangements, while “Lost Boys” employs a marching band beat. “I Was a Cloud” is appropriately airy and ethereal, Meiburg’s whispy falsetto combining with light piano plinks and softly picked guitar to create a vibe not unlike Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago. “South Col” is the only slightly weak spot, an instrumental track filled with eerie screeching you probably won’t need to hear more than once or twice.

I’d bet the album is particularly nice on vinyl, but even on compressed mp3s the range of volume is wide, going from a whisper to a clamor and back again. It makes for a mildly frustrating car album (unless your vehicle is super quiet) but a great headphone album. Either way, if you play Rook loud--fully capturing those quiet subtleties and permitting the stentorian sections to blast as they should--it’ll take flight.

Rook is out today on Matador Records.

mp3: Shearwater - Rooks (highly recommended)

More TNV

Drowned in Sound has an interview with Times New Viking here. The band just wrapped up its UK tour.

(Above: TNV at Andrew's Lane Theatre in Dublin, 5/26; photo courtesy Redheadwalking.)