Saturday, July 31st, 2004
Shake It Out
I discovered Omahans Tilly & The Wall through Allmusic.com’s Artist Spotlight feature on their homepage (which you may have noticed if you weren’t too busy raging at their redesign), which just goes to show that having cute girls in your band really can help your career. Who knew. Signed to Conor Orbest’s Saddle Creek-spinoff label Team Love and featuring some Bright Eyes alumnus (though really, is there any musician in Nebraksa who’s not?), the five-piece outfit plays big, buoyant Spector-ish pop songs made distinctive by their wonderful co-ed wall of vocals and their decision to eschew a drummer in favour of a tap-dancer (!). Yeah, it sounds gimmicky, but it really works and you’ll be too busy grooving to the songs and vocal harmonies to give it too much notice – and I’m betting it makes for a terrific live show (Jasper at jenyk calls them “the cutest band in the world” and is willing to testify about the live experience). I’m liking this quite a lot, it’s just so happy. Go here to download their whole debut album Wild Like Children (it’s cool, it’s from their label) which came out last month and watch the video for “Reckless”.
Jay Farrar talks to The Orlando Sentinel about the state of radio, politics and his new live record Stone, Steel & Bright Lights. He also mentions that he and Jeff Tweedy haven’t been in touch “this century”, so stick that in your Uncle Tupelo reunion pipe and smoke it. Link from LHB.
First, there was no news. Now there’s just conflicting news. Billboard has an interview with Matthew Sweet about his two upcoming records, as does Rolling Stone. Whereas my initial information had Living Things coming out on September 7 and Kimi Ga Suki on October 5, the Billboard piece hsa Kimi Ga Suki released on September 7 and Living Things on October 19. To muddle things up even more, Rolling Stone says they’re both out on October 19. Whichever it turns out to be, they’re at least in consensus on the material itself. Sweet gets his electric ya-yas out on Kimi Ga Suki and goes for a much lusher, more orchestrated and acoustic feel on Living Things, though it features many of the same players. Touring should commence in October.
The French Kicks are at the Guvernment on September 21. I don’t know if this is a headlining show – are they big enough to have their own show at the Guvernment? That surprises me.
Thrashers Wheat has taken the trouble to compile every press clipping comparing Jeff Tweedy’s guitar playing on A Ghost Is Born with Neil Young. In case you wanted all those quotes in one convenient location, of course.
np – Old 97’s / Drag It Up
7/31/04 12:41 pm
solace says:Tilly & The Wall are pretty fun, especially live. Their sound/schtick kind of grows thin after a bit for me, but i dig em. And yeah, they’re not hard on the eyes either :)
Kimi Ga Suki has been out for over a year in Japan, it’s pretty awesome stuff, hoping that Living Things is good as well.
7/31/04 11:48 pm
*alan says:Just letting people know about a newish blog – *HIP/STER/EO – you can find it at http://www.hipstereo.blogspot.com
focusing on record labels and the free+legal mp3s that they offer.
8/3/04 1:56 pm
Vroom says:Thanks for the Tilly And The Wall link. They remind me a lot of Bishop Allen. Really Fun
http://…/