Search Results - "Tilly "
Wednesday, July 19th, 2006
Having seen Los Angeles’ Monsters Are Waiting in March at SxSW, I figured I knew what to expect from their debut album Fascination, released yesterday. Slightly spastic new wave revivalist pop which I would find fun in smallish doses but perhaps tiring over the long haul. Well to my pleasant surprise, there’s more going on here than I expected.
The record opens with “Last Goodbye”, which is an unexpected dose of pure pop. Perfectly balancing melancholy and jubilation, Annalee Fery’s voice the epitome of sweetness, backed by chiming, overdriven guitars and lightly squelching synths. This is one of those songs you could put on repeat for hours on end. Well, maybe a couple hours. From there, the band steps out of the sunshine a bit. The guitars get stabbier and sharper and Fery becomes a little more unhinged and the further along you go, the more you realize that maybe someone’s not taking that “last goodbye” all that well. “Don’t Go” is more than a little delightfully demented with Fery’s panicky little girl squealing over the bridge, and a marked contrast to her dead-eyed monotone over “Firefly”. Second-to-last song “Monsters” brings some bounce back to the proceedings and closer “Time” is a lovely, glistening coda to what I’m sure was never meant to be a concept record, but there it is.
Boasting more than a little LA cool and a sexy, magnetic frontwoman, Monsters Are Waiting could have big things in store for them – New York Press attributes much of that potential to Fery’s hair. Spin also dubbed the Band Of The Day last month. You could easily use Metric as a point of comparison but Monsters have that “just a little crazy” edge that I find quite appealing. And I prefer brunettes…
MP3: Monsters Are Waiting – “Nobody”
MP3: Monsters Are Waiting – “Christine”
Video: Monsters Are Waiting – “Last Goodbye” (MySpace)
Video: Monsters Are Waiting – “Fascination” (MySpace)
MySpace: Monsters Are Waiting
Tilly & The Wall’s new video for “Bad Education” – just a little Almodovar-influenced? Yeah, just a bit.
Video: Tilly & The Wall – “Bad Education” (MOV)
The Hold Steady will release their new album Boys And Girls In America on October 3 (via Clicky Click). Pitchfork has some deets. Expect to hear them preview the new material when they play Lee’s Palace on August 31.
The first song and video from the new Pernice Brothers album is up for grabs. Go here and sign up for the mailing list to see/hear “Somerville” from Live A Little, which has no release date as of yet. I’d link them directly but I don’t want Catbirdseat to think I’m a dick. And anyway, the mailing list updates are generally informative and fun.
Pop (All Love) despairs for Richard Ashcroft.
Andy Partridge talks to Paste about the nervous breakdown that took XTC off the road for good. Since they’re not touring and not on strike from their label, are they ever going to release something that’s not a) archival or b) a milking of the Apple Venus sessions? That was seven years ago. C’mon.
As noted in the comments yesterday, The Cardigans have a show tenatively scheduled for September 20 at the Opera House. The operative word here is “tenative”, as Magnus Sveningsson notes nothing has been confirmed. So hold off on buying from Ticketmaster come Thursday, just in case.
And speaking of forthcoming Fall tours, the first dates for Mojave 3’s North American jaunt are up – expect the Toronto show somewhere between October 11 (Chicago) and October 19 (Boston).
Goldenfiddle directs us to this animated poster for Spider-Man 3. Sinister spider-logos are the new evil Spock goatees.
Not content to bury just alt.country (see yesterday), The New York Times writes an obituary for CD stores. Sadly, I can’t rebut this one as well – Flash’N’Crash gave up the ghost last week and the Annex is poorer for it.
np – The Mountain Goats / The Sunset Tree
Monday, June 19th, 2006
Eels and Smoosh. The enigmatic depressive pop orchestra conductor and the sunshiney, barely-tween sister keyboard/drums duo. Whoever put this bill together was either brilliant or insane – time would tell.
I’ve never been big on E/Eels/Mark Everett. I recall him getting some songs as A Man Called E on a CFNY/HMV sampler thing way back in the early 90s that, while surely gave evidence of Everett’s pop saavy, also came off to me as horribly cliche and melodramatic in its angstiness. Keep in mind that I was what, 17 at the time? I had plenty of angst of my own, thank you very much. When he reconstituted himself as Eels and had his “Novocaine For The Soul” mini-hit, it just reinforced my preconceptions of the guy and I carried on ignoring him for the past decade, even though his albums would often get glowing reviews from the press. But that said, I think I came into the show with an open mind even if I probably wouldn’t have gone had Smoosh not been on the bill.
Though the show was sold out, there was hardly anyone in the audience when Smoosh took the stage. Maybe it was the early 7PM start time or the street festival outside but it took a little while before the crowd began to fill out. Either way, the Smoosh set was short and compact and intense. Not intense like Henry Rollins in your face, but both Asya and Chloe were super-focused on the task at hand and with concentration (and maybe a little nervousness) etched on their faces the like of which you wouldn’t normally see on a 12- and 14-year old. Musically, Smoosh are almost critic-proof. Both sisters are perfectly solid on their instruments and the songwriting on Free To Stay, just released, is a hell of a lot more sophisticated than you’d expect. Yeah, their lyrics can be a little vague but how articulate or open were you at that age? And this will probably be the only time I say this about anyone, but I’d like to hear how their vocals sound when they have the lung capacity of an adult.
And back to Eels. I’d been told their live show was something to behold and you know what? I really was. Ostensibly touring in support of the Eels With Strings – Live At Town Hall album, this tour was dubbed “No Strings Attached” and good to their word, Eels performed as a three-and-a-half piece outfit. The half being a big Altamont-looking dude in a black “Security” t-shirt who acted as MC, dancer and spot guitarist and keyboardist. I don’t know where they found such a Renaissance man, but he was some piece of work, be it with his karate dance moves or his non-sequiter between-song one-liners. He, combined with the rest of Eels performing in matching jumpsuits, goggles and beards made for a suitably surreal visual experience. That it was obviously all tightly coreographed and planned didn’t take too much away from the Jared Hess-ian vibe (unless you really hate contrived absurdism, which I normally do but was willing to let it slide).
Though totally unfamiliar with pretty much every song, I could at least appreciate the energy and arrangements of Eels’ rough and rootsy sound. I suspect that Everett’s compositions are infinitely malleable and these were just one of many incarnations the songs have gone through – after all, there was no way they could have suited a string section the way they performed. On the whole, I enjoyed the show, particularly with the showmanship, though I am not possessed by any strong urge to go out and buy Shootenanny!. I should note the two-song encore was especially fun as the Smoosh girls ran out onstage and danced up a storm with Security Joe – apparently this is what they had been saving up all the energy from their own set for.
I was disappointed that there was a big “no photography” sign at the entrance to the club, so there’s no Smoosh photos. After all – I didn’t want to be the one who got tossed for taking pictures of pre-teen girls… but I did snap a few of Eels – sorry, but you can’t make your show that visual without expecting folks to want to capture some of that. And anyway, I wasn’t the first one to start clicking. Check them out here. I Am Fuel, You Are Friends has an Eels Black Session from 2000 up for grabs and Vagrant has an ecard for Live From Town Hall.
MP3: Eels – “Sweet L’il Thing”
MP3: Smoosh – “Find A Way”
MySpace: Eels
MySpace: Smoosh
Magnet asks Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore about new album Rather Ripped.
And on the cover of the new Magnet is Belle & Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch. The occasion is the 10th anniversary of the release of the band’s debut, Tigermilk. Incendiary has an expansive re-think of their whole catalog and there’s a couple new videos out there for watching – “The Blues Are Still Blue” has been around for a while, but “White Collar Boy” is brand spanking new.
Video: Belle & Sebastian – “The Blues Are Still Blue” (YouTube)
Video: Belle & Sebastian – “White Collar Boy” (YouTube)
Nick White tells Flagpole that he had no problem with making Tilly & The Wall’s Bottom Of Barrels available to download for free. Which they did.
np – Mojave 3 / Puzzles Like You
Wednesday, June 14th, 2006
Sunday night, my fourth show in four nights. Surely something low-key and relaxing to wind out the weekend? Not so much. No, instead it was Tilly & The Wall and a Mod Club full of hepped-up under-agers. Woot!
Opener and fellow Team Love-r David Dondero’s country-folk sounds midwestern to a fault, which is strange since he actually hails from San Francisco via Austin. He also sounds like what I suspect is an ever-growing generation of songwriters who really do hold Conor Oberst in higher regard than, oh, anyone, often apeing his pinched, emo-wounded vocal delivery and verbose lyrical style. I arrived a little late so I didn’t see the full set, but I saw enough to figure what he was about and wasn’t especially impressed or offended.
I’d said before that I feared what a full Tilly set would do to my blood sugar levels, but to my pleasant surprise I lasted the whole hour and change without slipping into a diabetic coma. While the slower numbers didn’t necesarily play to the band’s strengths (all comments about David Dondero’s voice apply triply to Derek Pressnall), they did offer a much-needed dynamic shift in the set and more importantly, gave Jamie Williams a chance to rest up between tap dances. She must surely be the fittest person in indie rock and comes off tour in better shape than when she starts. Kianna Alarid and Neely Jenkins have also got strong and distinctive voices that sound great either in harmonies or solo. They’re like a PG-13 Disney afterschool special (they cuss!) but there’s no denying their ability to write hooky pop songs and put on a fun show. It’s easy to write them off as a novelty/gimmick band but that’s lazy and inaccurate. They’re actually very good at what they do and are incredibly, overwhelmingly and frighteningly happy and positive.
As I mentioned, I arrived a little late so I must have missed when they handed out the Kool-Aid to the kids (all-ages, remember) but whatever they put in it, it worked as the audience was enthralled and screamed like they were seeing the Beatles at Shea. I’d wondered before why they had been booked into the large-ish Mod Club when I knew their audience wasn’t large enough to fill it, but Mod is one of the few all-ages venues in the city and without the kids, I wager it would have been a much smaller and quieter show. But as it was, the chemistry between the band and audience was perfect and the band definitely saw and appreciated the love. Of course, it also seemed like their fans would have gone out and killed if Tilly had commanded it. Our nation’s youth, in the thrall of sunshiney tap-dancing cultists. They may well be the most subversive band in America. Think about it.
And apparently Natalie Portman was in attendance. For reals.
Photos are here. Daytrotter has a profile of Tilly and co and Dose talks to Kianna while Pitchfork gives Bottom Of Barrels a rather positive review. Tilly has a MySpace and so does Dondero. You can listen to the whole of Bottom Of Barrels here or just grab an MP3.
MP3: Tilly & The Wall – “Bad Education”
MP3: Tilly & The Wall – “Lost Girls”
MP3: David Dondero – “South Of The South”
M Ward will be at the Mod Club on September 11 to promote his new album Post-War, which is out August 22. You can hear the first track from the record – a Daniel Johnston cover with Neko Case on backing vox – courtesy of Tripwire, who also have the other tour dates. I don’t know if this is a solo tour or full band, but having caught him as the former last February, I will attest that he’s as arresting a solo performer as I’ve ever seen. NPR also has a new track to preview.
MP3: M Ward – “To Go Home”
A couple more shows – Cracker are at the Mod Club July 20 and Muse is at the Docks on July 30.
Some great stuff from La Blogotheque who have an ongoing series called Concert A Emporter where videographer Vincent Moon records artists performing songs in the streets, in the woods, wherever. A couple of recent ones include Neil Halstead of Mojave 3 in an apartment complex (link) and Will Sheff of Okkervil River in the woods (link). Great stuff.
Pitchfork interviews Dan Bejar of Destroyer.
Glide has some more info on Bob Dylan’s Modern Times, out August 29.
np – Dirty On Purpose / Hallelujah Sirens
Friday, June 9th, 2006
Due to the sheer number of shows I’ve got on the docket for the next few days, I’m going to have to run on a one-day delay just to keep my sanity. So thoughts and images from last night’s show at the Boat with Land Of Talk et al will be forthcoming in the next day or so. In the meantime, enjoy this hastily-assembled fill-in post!
Behold – the first burro-powered video from Amy Millan’s Honey From The Tombs. In addition to the video, there’s four Honey tracks streaming on Amy’s MySpace. The Toronto Star talks to her about the new record and previews her shows at the Reverb tonight and the Mod Club tomorrow and eye gets the scoop on some of her collaborators on Honey. Based on the sheer amount of press she’s been getting, it’s probably safe to say that Amy is this year’s “it” act at NxNE. Don’t forget that only the solo Reverb show is a formal NxNE show – the full band Mod Club thing is limited to the first 50 wristbands/badges/whatever. After that, you need a ticket and there aren’t many left, if any. Ticketmaster and Rotate are both sold out.
Video: Amy Millan – “Baby I” (MOV)
MP3: Amy Millan – “Skinny Boy” (ZIP)
Just Keep Bloggin’ has high school yearbook photos of Broken Social Scene’s Kevin Drew and Metric’s Emily Haines. Oh, like yours are any less embarressing.
Billy Bragg isn’t down with MySpace. Aversion reports that Billy read the fine print in the user agreement and didn’t like the bit about how MySpace gets a royalty-free license for all posted materials – MySpace’s PR and lawyers are in damage control mode, insisting that they in no way own the music posted on the site. More info here. So while Rupert Murdoch may not own the artists music, all the pictures of the kids pouting into their webcams are his to do what he wants with. And it’s best if you don’t ask any more questions about that.
Paste discusses the deeper meanings behind Built To Spill’s You In Reverse. The Seattle Times also talks to Doug Martsch.
Chart talks to the far-too neglected half of Television’s legendary guitarists, Richard Lloyd. The Age still prefers to talk to Tom Verlaine. Call it heresy, but I’ve always preferred Lloyd’s earthier melodic leads to Verlaine’s more abstract melodies. How to tell whose is whose? The album liner notes say who plays what solo – didn’t you ever notice? Very handy for picking sides. And it’s not really possible to articulate in words how excited I am about tonight’s show at the Phoenix.
NOW is similarly excited about this Sunday’s Tilly & The Wall show at the Mod Club.
Stylus wonders if The Flaming Lips were due for a backlash regardless of whether or not At War With The Mystics was any good or not. I only got a copy last week and have listened to it maybe twice so I’m not really in a position to say one way or the other, save to say that in that limited amount of time my overall impression has been a resounding “meh”. But I admit I’ve not been in the mood for Lips-ian wackiness for some time.
Apparently Ambulance LTD has fractured into little itty bitty pieces, with singer Marcus Congleton carrying forward with the band name and the rest of the crew now plugging along as The Red Romance, who sound incredibly unremarkable. It’s too bad, their New English EP was really pretty good and boded well for their future. Considering that the second Ambulance full-length was due out at the end of the Summer, mayhap the departed still played on it? Via Torr.
And that Gnarls Barkley fellow that the kids are all about these days has a tour date schedule for Toronto on September 9 at what Pitchfork calls “Toronto Islands Park”. Either this means Olympic Island or they’re going to run roughshod over Centreville. I kind of like the latter scenario.
Fluxblog interviews Scott Pilgrim creator Bryan Lee-O’Malley.
np – Land Of Talk / Applause Cheer Boo Hiss
Wednesday, June 7th, 2006
Double-digit-member Toronto-based musical collective/supergroups are old hat, but double-digit-member Toronto-based musical collective/supergroups fronted by vibraphonists? Hold the phone! Fronted by transplanted Haligonian Paul Aucoin The Hylozoists lineups, past and present read like a who’s who of Canadian indie rock (the family tree would include Broken Social Scene, The Sadies, The Weakerthans, Fembots, Cuff The Duke and Final Fantasy amongst many others) but anyone trying to use any of those acts as reference points for The Hylozoists will be left scratching their heads.
Their new album, La Fin Du Monde, is a primarily instrumental affair that’s pretty, joyous sweeping and rolicking and completely un-indie rock. It sounds like the orchestral score to a circus movie, laden with strings, horns, keys and yes – vibraphones, and is in stores June 20. The Hylozoists were tapped to play the official launch of the Polaris Music Prize yesterday afternoon at the Drake, and goodness knows I’ve never turned down an opportunity to cut work early to catch some hot vibraphone action. Playing as a six-piece, they were quite hypnotic and great fun to watch – It’s such lively music and an unusual (compared to what I’m used to) combination of sounds. The vibraphone itself was fascinating to watch with it’s rotating valves and fun mechanical mute and whatnot. Okay, maybe that’s the engineer geek in me talking. And the beer. Some photos here.
While their official website is under construction, hit up their MySpace or their page at Boompa Records for more info. For the instrumentally curious, Exclaim! talked to Aucoin about the tools of his trade back in November. The ‘Zoists will be touring all over southern Ontario this Summer – check out their MySpace for dates – but locally, they play the Horseshoe June 17, have an instore at Soundscapes on the 20th and will be at Harbourfront on August 13 soundtracking the Hot & Spicy Food Festival. Really.
Here’s some audio – one from the new album, one from their old one. And you can watch some video footage of their performance at CMW earlier this year courtesy of ZED-TV.
MP3: The Hylozoists – “Strait Is The Gate”
MP3: The Hylozoists – “DetailsAt5”
Final Fantasy’s Owen Pallet graces the cover of this month’s Exclaim!.
From Are You Familiar – the new Broken Social Scene video. Funnier and less seizure-inducing than their past clips, guest starring Geddy Lee and that guy from Rotate This who gave you that look when you asked about Snow Patrol tickets. But he’d probably happily sell you tickets to BSS’ Olympic Island show on the 24th or the Broken Mascis Scene show on the 23rd. And note that Arts & Crafts has a new, far more usable website.
Video: Broken Social Scene – “Fire Eye’d Boy” (MOV)
And more new videos – the first one from Centro-Matic’s Fort Recovery and another from Spoon’s Gimme Fiction:
Video: Centro-Matic – “Triggers & Trash Heaps” (YouTube)
Video: Spoon – “The Two Side Of Monsieur Valentine” (MOV)
Rhino is streaming the whole of the new Replacements best-of Don’t You Know Who I Think I Was?, out June 13. And yes, you can skip right to the end to check out the new songs “Message To The Boys” and “Pool & Dive” if you really want. Harp has a profile of ‘Mats bassist Tommy Stinson’s new gig in Soul Asylum with more of a focus on the early Minneapolis days. I overheard a record store clerk saying the other day that he doesn’t get why people like The Replacements. I had a word with the manager and he was fired immediately. Update: Newsday profiles The Mats. Via LHB.
After releasing Another Fine Day on July 18, Golden Smog will follow it up lickety-split with another EP in November. There’s some new preview clips on their MySpace and Billboard has a little more info.
Pitchfork interviews Glenn Kotche of Wilco and Glenn Kotche.
Ben Birdwell of Band Of Horses talks to Pulse Of The Twin Cities and Metromix. Their show at Lee’s Palace next Tuesday is damn near sold out, if not already. Just so you know.
Head Concrete Victoria Bergsman talks to The Chicago Tribune about selling out to Target and getting drunk in Omaha.
JAM! syndicates an AP piece about Neko Case learning how to sing.
Paste goes jogging through time with Josh Ritter. The Mercury News, San Francisco Chronicle and Boise Weekly opt to just, you know, talk and stuff.
Village Indian learns the mystical story of Tilly & The Wall. Congrats to who won my contest and will be in attendance at their show at the Mod Club on Sunday night. Link via Genki Zenki.
np – Trespassers William / Having
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