On Tuesday night, Sunset Rubdown concluded their North American tour at the Troubadour in West Hollywood. 'This is the last one for a while', said front man Spencer Krug who added, 'all good things must end'.
Suffering from a cold, Krug started the set with just a guitar before being joined by the rest of his band which included the brilliant multi-instrumentalist (though the band has a few) Camilla Wynne Ingr who was just fascinating to watch perform albeit, spurned on by the intrigue of watching her play a xylophone with a vibrator.
The band's set list spanned all of their releases and even offered up a new song. Overall, their live sound was polished and top notch. And, even on songs that featured tandem drummers, nothing was over done and there was plenty of breathing room for all the brilliant fills that fans have become accustomed to while swooning with their headphones on, to ring through.
While nobody hopes that we've seen the last of Sunset Rubdown, at least we have plenty of side projects to keep us entertained :)
_Major thanks to Sean at Speed, Glue and Music for introducing me to this band a few years back. Well done sir.
How about a music site to satisfy the most elitist of the elite where basic e-snobbery is done with? The new 'site' can be called nothing.com. It will be no-fi, no-wave and where it's cool to listen to nothing but, even nothing is something so they'll have to be an anti-website which doesn't exist and only thought to be in existence somewhere at sometime but, if you know about it, you are already too mainstream.
In June, we were all pleasantly surprised by Matador's announcement (on their Matablog) of Scott 'Spiral Stairs' Kannberg's first-official solo-outing 'The Real Feel'. The news was accompanied by a memorable album cover and presumably the lead single, 'Maltese T' with it's Pavement-esque jangle-pop which instantly rooted itself in my mind and my play list with a stellar follow-up single, 'True Love' hitting the net a couple weeks ago.
Last week, I spun the full album for the first time and it is as good as the two singles would lead one to believe. Kannberg has put together a grown-up pop album with a decent amount of alt-country influence including lush slide-fills and banjo riffs too. But, undoubtedly, plenty of his sound contribution in Pavement is present in the LP as well.
On 'Call the Ceasefire', Kannberg sings 'did you realize, that was betrayal'. Perhaps the album may have been during the Pavement era but, the hiatus/break allowed him to polish up and offer a release as good as anything else that you've heard this year and comparable to most of the Pavement albums.
The album bobs and weaves through genres without losing it's focus or the listener's attention but, always comes back to that slight country twang that separates this album from the pack - it's cohesion is in it's diversity. 'Wharf Hand Blues' reminds me of an early-90's, contemporary jazz, Sade type vibe. While 'Subiaco Shuffle' is a foot-stomping, blues jam that could have easily been a Black Crowes b-side.
The album hits stores 10/20/09. If you are in LA, catch him at The Troubadour on 10/19 – he is supporting Bob Mould.
LCD Soundsystem claim their forthcoming album would have been the album of this decade - if it was released in time.
James Murphy is currently working on the follow-up to 2007's 'Sound Of Silver', and joked that if he had got his act together he could have stolen all the plaudits for the last 10 years.
"I'm opening a book on how long it will take after this record's release for people to be saying 'If this was released five months ago, it would have been the album of the decade...'," he told Mojo.
Currently the album - which is being recorded at "a mansion. It sleeps ten and there's an amazing pool and it felt pretty amazing" - is all instrumental, but Murphy intends for it carry a some real messages by the time he's finished.
"I'm working on a song called 'Why Do You Hate Music?'. Everyone seems to hate music right now, even people who make music," he explained. "There's a song called 'Love In LA', which has an Eddy Grant, Sly & Robbie feel.”
He added: "I'm doing what I set out to do on 'Sound Of Silver', which is take more chances."
AAANNNDDDDD....
Jesse Hughes a.k.a. The Devil a.k.a. Boots Electric readies solo debut Eagles Of Death Metal's Jesse Hughes to release solo album
The impressively moustachioed frontman told BBC 6music that the album, his first as a solo artist, would be named 'Boots Electric Fabulous Weapon'.
He has been recently going under the nickname 'Boots Electric' after formerly being referred to as 'The Devil'.
Hughes said he had some rather ambitious production wishes for the album. "I'm trying to work with Dr. Dre and my dream job of all time would be to work with [Outkast's] Andre 3000," he said. "But I'll probably end up working with someone at K Mart."
LCD Soundsystem
LCD Soundsystem - 45:33