Monday, June 25th, 2012
Mogwai and Odonis Odonis at The Phoenix in Toronto
Frank YangIt seems a bit perverse to use the phrase, “comfort food” with respect to veteran Scottish post-rock giants Mogwai, but there’s real truth in it. There’s no question that they’ve grown as musicians and songwriters over their seven studio albums, but its been a gradual, evolutionary pace that’s not done much to shock or shake loose (m)any of their fans along the way. Their touring regimen has also been similarly predictable, with typically two North American tours per album and each of those shows being rather understated from a visual point of view but offering a sonic experience akin to a really loud, usually abrasive and occasionally beautiful hug by a sledgehammer.
It’s always a satisfying show, make no mistake, but it can get to the point that you don’t necessarily fret about missing one because a) they’d be back soon enough and b) it’s probably not too different from the last one you saw. Those days of taking the band for granted, however, may be coming to an end. When announcing this latest leg of touring for 2011’s Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will, the band mused that this would be “the last extensive touring we do for some time”; perhaps there was a bit of salesmanship in that but one could also believe that the band were indeed wearying of life on the road and weren’t planning to spend as much of theirs on it. So even though I had been perfectly fine missing their last visit in Spring of 2011, I would definitely find the time to make it out to this one at The Phoenix last Monday.
I’m sure that scheduled opener Balam Acab had every intention of making it as well, but he was kept out of the country for the second time in a month – he missed out opening for Active Child in May – and locals Odonis Odonis were tapped to fill in. I’d seen them back in February opening up for The Twilight Sad and while I decided I didn’t dislike them, I wasn’t especially chuffed to see them again so soon; this probably explained why I was so surprised by how much I enjoyed them this time out. Certainly the addition of a second guitarist was a big change for the band, but it didn’t explain how much tighter and more melodic they sounded this time out. No one will confiscating their aggressive, post-punk credentials anytime soon, mind, but they were inarguably much more listenable. I’d read a capsule review of their NXNE showcase a few days earlier mentioning that they were much improved since this same time last year; I’ll go one better and say they’re much improved from four months ago.
Mogwai took the stage casually and opened with, “Yes! I Am A Long Way From Home” off their debut Young Team – no big deal, done it a thousand times – but to a far more enthusiastic respons than I’d have expected. And it’s about now that I realized how young the crowd looked. Typically for a band that’s been around a decade and a half, the audience will look as though they’ve aged along with them but at least from my vantage point, it was a really student-looking demographic who may very well have been at their first Mogwai show. I calculated that this was my sixth and spontaneously aged about a million years. With their enthusiasm, unfortunately, came some obnoxiousness and the one mook calling out for “X-Mas Steps” throughout the show went from amusing to annoying in about the amount of time it took for him to call out, “Christmas Steps!” the second time. He was clearly getting on Stuart Braithwaite’s tit as well – always dangerous – as the de facto frontman stepped to the edge of the stage at one point to try and stare him down and then later called him out saying that they could should whatever they wanted between songs, but not during. And they weren’t going to play “X-Mas Steps” so just quit it already.
Audience observations and interactions aside, it was certainly one of the more monolithic Mogwai sets I’ve seen, getting fists pumping and pants flapping through much of the set. “Rano Pano” and “Mexican Grand Prix” offered some nimbleness and acceleration to the proceedings, but most of the set list favoured the band’s more lumbering and apocalyptic selections. And while I may seem like I’m all “oh Mogwai again”, that doesn’t mean it’s not still exciting – the main set-closing pair of “Like Herod” and “Glasgow Megasnake” were still as powerful as if i was seeing them for the first time. It’s important to note that even though their albums have have transitioned from visceral to cinematic over time, their live shows still manage to capture both facets magnificently. If Mogwai are indeed dialing down their touring commitments, understand that it’s not because they’ve lost a step on stage. No way.
The National Post also has a review of the show and Clash reports that the band will release a new remix album based on Hardcore entitled A Wretched Virile Lore; this will be their first remix collection since 1998’s Kicking a Dead Pig.
Photos: Mogwai, Odonis Odonis @ The Phoenix – June 18, 2012
MP3: Mogwai – “San Pedro”
MP3: Mogwai – “Rano Pano”
MP3: Mogwai – “The Sun Smells Too Loud”
MP3: Mogwai – “Yes! I Am A Long Way From Home”
MP3: Mogwai – “Tracy”
MP3: Mogwai – “Dial: Revenge”
MP3: Mogwai – “Hunted By A Freak”
MP3: Mogwai – “7:25”
MP3: Odonis Odonis – “Ledged Up”
Video: Mogwai – “San Pedro”
Video: Mogwai – “Mexican Grand Prix”
Video: Mogwai – “How To Be A Werewolf”
Video: Mogwai – “I’m Jim Morrison, I’m Dead”
Video: Mogwai – “Batcat”
Video: Mogwai – “Travel Is Dangerous”
Video: Mogwai – “Friend Of The Night”
Video: Mogwai – “Hunted By A Freak”
Video: Mogwai – “Dial: Revenge”
Video: Odonis Odonis – “Ledged Up”
Video: Odonis Odonis – “Blood Feast”
Video: Odonis Odonis – “Mr. Smith”
Spin, The Japan Times, Paste, and eMusic have features on Hot Chip, in town at The Sound Academy on July 15.
Daytrotter has posted up a session with The Cribs and The San Francisco Examiner a (very) quick chat.
Blur have finally fessed up as to what the cryptic clues pointing to something happening on July 2 are all about. Via a video message viewable at DIY, Alex James explains that the band will perform two new songs – “Under The Westway” and “The Puritan” – live on Twitter from a rooftop in London. I don’t know what “live on Twitter” means – maybe Damon will sing 140 characters at a time – but a world premiere like this sounds like a great way to summon the fail whale.
Exclaim has details on the new Two Door Cinema Club record, entitled Beacon and due out on September 4. And yes, there’s an album trailer.
Trailer: Two Door Cinema Club / Beacon
DIY has a feature piece on Wild Beasts.
Simian Mobile Disco have long had a DJ date scheduled for The Hoxton on July 12, but they’ve just announced they’ll be back at that same room on December 14 with instruments in tow for a proper live show in support of their new album Unpatterns.
MP3: Simian Mobile Disco – “Seraphim”
Beth Jeans Houghton stops in at Daytrotter for a session.
To build up some anticipation for their new album No Hope For The Vaccines due out September 3, The Vaccines are giving a download of a new live EP recorded in Brighton entitled Live In Brighton.
MTV talks to Mika Levi of Micachu & The Shapes; their new album Never is due out July 24.
Prefix gets to know some of Laura Marling’s influences. The San Francisco Examiner also has an interview and Seattle Weekly gets a tour of her iPod.
Spin explains why music is better off if Lily Allen does indeed make a third album, as she’s gone back to the studio to begin.
Only just behind last week’s Afghan Whigs announcement as far as concert announcements I’m excited as hell about is confirmation of I Break Horses’ headlining Fall tour, and that’s only because I saw them last month supporting M83. They’ll be at The Drake Underground on September 19, tickets $13 in advance.
MP3: I Break Horses – “Winter Beats”
It’s hard not to feel a little bad for a label whose highest-profile act keeps giving away all their music as free downloads and refuses to/is incapable of touring. But Sincerely Yours seem perfectly happy to keep enabling jj, who’ve just made their High Summer EP available for free.
ZIP: jj / High Summer
The Line Of Best Fit has a video session with Anna Ternheim.
The National Post, Toronto Star, and FasterLouder interview The Hives, hitting up the Sound Academy tomorrow night.
Clash interviews Sigur Rós, in town at Echo Beach on August 1.
Pitchfork has some details on the new Mono album, to be called For My Parents and out September 4.
Trailer: Mono / For My Parents
Sunday, June 24th, 2012
Crooked Fingers cover Guided By Voices
No More Fake LabelsOkay, this one would have been a lot more fitting last week, what with Eric Bachmann leading the reunited Archers Of Loaf into town last Saturday and the release of Guided By Voices’ second album of the reunion/year in Class Clown Spots A UFO last Tuesday, but that’s schedules for you, and I kind of think this one’s worth waiting for. It comes from Sing For Your Meat, a tribute to Dayton, Ohio’s finest released in Spring of last year and featuring a pretty solid lineup of GBV contemporaries (Elf Power, Kim Deal, The Flaming Lips) in addition to their followers (La Sera, Blitzen Trapper).
Having been fighting the good fight since 1991, Eric Bachmann should be counted firmly in the former group, even though the Crooked Fingers guise that he uses for his take on the Bee Thousand classic only came into use in 2000, when the classic/current GBV lineup was already a thing of the past. And while he’s not someone I’d ever thought, “man it’d be great to hear him do some Guided By Voices”, I think it sounds pretty great.
Crooked Fingers is largely taking a back seat to Archers right now, but an acoustic demos version of last year’s Breaks In The Armor was just released. Guided By Voices have a third album entitled Bears For Lunch ready to go for late Fall, probably seeing the light of day in November.
MP3: Crooked Fingers – “Tractor Rape Chain”
Video: Guided By Voices – “Tractor Rape Chain” (live 2001)
Saturday, June 23rd, 2012
IpecacWho: The Melvins Lite
What: The kinder, gentler side of sludgy grunge forbears The Melvins. Yes, they have a kinder, gentler side. And it sounds pretty much like the regular Melvins but with a double bass.
Why: The Melvins just released a new album in Freak Puke, which it should be obvious from the title was actually recorded in their stripped-down, Lite configuration. And since we don’t fit in their “50 States in 50 Days” record-breaking US tour this Fall, they may as well play it up here now.
When: Thursday, July 5, 2012
Where: The Opera House in Toronto (19+)
Who else: SoCal’s Retox opens up.
How: Tickets for the show are $26 in advance but courtesy of Union Events, I’ve got two pairs of passes to give away for the show. To enter, email me at contests AT chromewaves.net with “I want to see The Melvins” in the subject line with your full name in the body, and have that in to me before midnight, July 2.
What else: King Buzzo talks to Paste about the aforementioned attempt to conduct the fastest ever tour of the USA.
Stream: The Melvins – “Tommy Goes Berserk”
Friday, June 22nd, 2012
Frank YangI’m not really one for the mid-year list, but when the good folks at Hype Machine and BBC 6Music ask you nicely to round up your top artists of 2012 for just such a status report, you can’t really say no. And they specified “artist” and not “album”, otherwise this would be mostly wrong. Anyways.
1. The Afghan Whigs – Yeah, they’ve only released one piece of music this year – and a cover, no less – but they’re the big American alt.rock reunion band of 2012. And despite having gone through high school/college when they were in their prime, I never gave them a passing listen until this year and so, making up for lost time, each of Gentlemen, Black Love, and 1965 have been in heavier rotation in 2012 than pretty much anything else. I guess you need to be of a certain age to properly appreciate where they’re coming from.
MP3: The Afghan Whigs – “See And Don’t See”
2. Allo Darlin’ – The Aussie-fronted Brits released their second album Europe this Spring and a finer collection of indie-pop you’re not likely to find this year. Its got heart, hooks, and Go-Betweens references; anyone who assumes from surface appearances that it’s twee or slight or doesn’t contain a depth of emotion just isn’t listening.
Video: Allo Darlin’ – “Capricornia”
3. Yamantaka//Sonic Titan – Even though I didn’t write about this Montreal art collective/project until I explained why they found their way onto my Polaris Prize ballot with their debut YT//ST, they’ve been spending a lot of this year convincing me to overcome my skepticism at their high-concept blend of metal/prog/jazz/opera and accept that it is, in fact, as original, interesting, and out and out rocking as they intend it to be. And don’t get me started on the live show.
Video: Yamantaka // Sonic Titan – “Hoshi Neko”
Friday, June 22nd, 2012
Archers Of Loaf at The Phoenix in Toronto
Frank YangWhen we left off yesterday, I was biking furiously across town to get from The Rivoli to The Phoenix for Archers Of Loaf. So why not roll this show into the festival coverage? Well, although some wristbands were granted admission and the premiere of the What Did You Expect? live Archers doc was one of the big gets of the NXNE film festival, this show wasn’t technically part of the festival and I am, if nothing else, a stickler for these sorts of things. And having waited this long for the show, delaying it just that much longer seemed appropriate.
Since the Archers reunited in early 2011 and were willing to make it a long-term thing, I’ve been waiting for a local date – a wait exacerbated by the fact that real life commitments for most of the band kept touring restricted to weekends. Hell, Eric Bachmann brought Crooked Fingers through town twice in 2012 without an Archers sighting; certainly not a complaint as I love me some Crooked Fingers, but one couldn’t help wondering if we were being slighted. And of course we weren’t, it just took this long to get the proverbial ducks in a row, and on this night – the busiest night of music in the city in recent memory – it was happening.
And happening early, as it turned out. If they’d stuck to the posted set times there’d have been no problem but as I got into the venue, I could already hear the rumble of “Audiowhore” through the doors. Early? Who goes on early on a Saturday night? Well Archers did, clearly, though only just. The Vs The Greatest Of All Time selection was an unlikely opener, but it segued straight into arguably one of the best songs of the ’90s – “Harnessed In Slums” and we were off. A benefit of still being a sort of cult band was that most everyone in attendance was surely some degree of die hard fan and singles and deep cuts alike would be greeted with roaring enthusiasm, though obviously the likes of college rock classics as “Slums” and “Web In Front” got the mostly middle-aged crowd most rowdy.
After years of seeing Eric Bachmann fronting Crooked Fingers and only offering Archers material via stripped down, Finger-y arrangements, it was astonishing to see him cut loose in full rock fury; he’s a big guy who plays at a sort of gentle giant figure with Crooked Fingers but here, he came out swinging. Despite wanting to distance himself from his old band in the years that it was in mothballs and concentrate on what he was actively working on, it was obvious he was having a blast playing these songs the way they were meant to be played and with the guys he’d written them with. It was great to see, and his bandmates were still having a great time of it as well, even almost a year and a half into their second act. Matt Gentling in particular – who’d incidentally come through town in the Dignity & Shame incarnation of Crooked Fingers in 2005 – was a maniac onstage, striking poses while attacking his bass, contributing vocals, or just bantering with the crowd. Though I’m not sure what his “Sixteen Sixty Four” Maple Leafs-esque shirt was about…
The Archers were loud, tight, and relentless, inciting the audience to behaviour most probably hadn’t engaged in in oh, fifteen years or so, like moshing, stage diving, and crowd surfing though I have to question if it’s really crowd surfing if it’s just the same group of people carrying the guy around? Bachmann applauded the effort, anyways. And after the band closed out their encore with “Plumbline”, the audience did their best to coax them back out for a second encore – I’ve not seen a crowd so insistent that a show not end in forever – but alas, that would be it this time and possibly for all time.
The band have not made any commitment to carrying on after the final two albums in their reissue series – All The Nation’s Airports and White Trash Heroes – come out on August 7. It’s interesting that though their stature in the annals of ’90s indie rock is enormous, their influence is not so easily traced. Not many bands have managed to or even tried to replicate their particular balance of heavy and abstract yet visceral rock, so if they were to put out something new, it’d probably still sound singular and distinct. But that’s getting ahead of things – for now, I was just thankful that Archers were here, that they were great, and that Bachmann had deigned to play “Chumming The Ocean” in the encore of the last Crooked Fingers show since it wasn’t being heard on this night.
BlogTO, Radio Free Canuckistan, and NOW also have reviews of the show, while CBC Music, Beatroute, and Torontoist welcome the band back to Canada for the first time this century.
Photos: Archers Of Loaf @ The Phoenix – June 16, 2012
MP3: Archers Of Loaf – “Dead Red Eyes”
MP3: Archers Of Loaf – “What Did You Expect”
MP3: Archers Of Loaf – “Wrong”
MP3: Archers Of Loaf – “Harnessed In Slums”
Video: Archers Of Loaf – “Harnessed In Slums”
Video: Archers Of Loaf – “Underachievers March & Fight Song”
Video: Archers Of Loaf – “Wrong”
Video: Archers Of Loaf – “What Did You Expect”
Video: Archers Of Loaf – “Lowest Part Is Free!”
Video: Archers Of Loaf – “Might”
Video: Archers Of Loaf – “Web In Front”
Paste has video of a Crooked Fingers set from SXSW back in March.
Mission Of Burma have made a second MP3 from their forthcoming album Unsound, out July 10.
MP3: Mission Of Burma – “Second Television”
Spin talks to Greg Dulli about the Afghan Whigs which makes its only Canadian stop on October 3 at The Phoenix. Stereogum has also taken it on themselves to enumerate the bands 13 “most vicious” songs.
DIY talks to Tobin Sprout about the already so-prolific Guided By Voices reunion, which yields its third album Bears For Lunch around November.
Consequence Of Sound, Philly Burbs, and Metro talk to Doug Martsch of Built To Spill.
Sun Kil Moon has released a new video from Among The Leaves; Mark Kozelek plays these songs and more at The Great Hall on October 3. Boxing Scene also has an interview with the man about the pugilist themes of his songwriting.
Video: Sun Kil Moon – “Black Kite”
Wayne Coyne talks about the new Flaming Lips record to Paste and Rolling Stone. It’s due out later this year.
Paste checks in with Ira Elliot of Nada Surf.
Pitchfork talks to author Jesse Jarnow about his book Big Day Coming: Yo La Tengo and The Rise of Indie Rock, the new book about Yo La TengoYo La Tengo and the rise of indie rock.
Stereogum gets into a turntable.fm session with Ted Leo and talks tunes.
JAM and Beatroute get a moment of Craig Finn of The Hold Steady’s time for some questions.
Stereogum and The Los Angeles Times check in to see what Liz Phair is up to.
Paste has premiered a new video from Mates Of State; it’s a Guided By Voices cover taken from the Science Fair charity compilation coming out July 3.
Video: Mates Of State – “I Am A Scientist”
Interview has premiered the new video from Savoir Adore, whose new album Our Nature will be out this Fall.
Video: Savoir Adore – “Dreamers”
Bowerbirds have released another new video from The Clearing.
Video: Bowerbirds – “Sweet Moment”
Spin have premiered a new video from and Interview has a chat with Best Coast. They’re at The Phoenix on July 21.
Video: Best Coast – “The Only Place”
Consequence Of Sound talks to Munaf Rayani and Nashville Scene and Red And Black to Michael James of Explosions In The Sky.
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