Local Natives- Riverside Theater 3/22/13

A lot can be said (or not said) about a band's name.  In the case of Local Natives, the name makes great sense with the sound.  Local implying current and natives implying what's been there before. Hailing from the Los Angeles area, Local Natives put a modern twist on what one could describe as the "greatest hits" of the California rock sound.   Local Natives are a unique act, as their biggest asset is the harmonizing vocals from guitarist Taylor Rice, keyboardist Kelcey Ayer, and guitarist Ryan Hahm.  The vocals sounded good on the album, but blew me away live.  This, coupled with the driving drums of Matt Frazier, make Local Natives sound like Pet Sounds era Beach Boys if they were to cover the Talking Heads' Stop Making Sense.  All the musicians in Local Natives share collaboratively in the songwriting practice and this is quite evident in the live performance, as there is not really a clear "front man" in the band. 

Speaking of Talking Heads, the 80's band's influence on Local Natives was quite apparent, as they delivered a rousing cover of "Warning Sign" which also appeared on the band's debut record, Gorilla Manor.

The set consisted of much of Gorilla Manor and the band's latest, Hummingbird.  This was Local Natives first trip ever to Milwaukee, and the band declared this the best show of the tour so far.  The band, for the most part, nailed their tunes with great percission.  My favorite was the tribal anthem"Wide Eyes" which kicks off Gorilla Manor.
 

The crowd, consisting of high school and college students to folks like me in their 30's and 40's were very receptive of the act, and nearly filled the Riverside Theater, a venue known for hosting larger and often times more established indie acts that come to town.  This show was actually moved from Turner Hall to the Riverside due to overwhelming crowd demand. 

Local Natives are a young band, and will need to gain experience and a deeper and more diverse collection of tunes before elevating to the next level of indie rock acts.  However, the future is very bright for these California rockers, and I feel this band's best is yet to come.

Grade: B

The 1975- Turner Hall Ballroom 3/19/13

About half-way through their set, The 1975's front man, Matthew Healy, announced that he hopes the band's forthcoming LP sounds like the soundtrack to a John Hughes film.  Listening to their set, I think you could have easily looped a montage of clips from Molly Ringwald films from the '80s in the background and the music would fit perfectly, particularly on more uptempo tracks like "Chocolate" and "The City."



Part Joy Division, part James, and part Jesus Jones, the 1975's retrofitted Brit Pop won over a crowd of roughly 400 people who braved a winter wind advisory to come check out this upcoming band.  The reviews from their shows at the recent SXSW festival in Austin portrayed the band accurately-- the band was energetic and musically very tight.  While the Manchester quartet consisted of a standard rock outfit with a singer, drummer, guitarist and bass player, the musicians also often alternated between their core instruments and samplers, to help layer electronic loops and effects into their songs.

One of the things I was most impressed by was the band's sincere humility.  Healy emerged for the first two songs wearing a Green Bay Packers sweatshirt, trying to engage a crowd that was already engaged for the music.  He was struck by both the size of the crowd and general appreciation of the fans, literally thanking the crowd at the end of every track.  A fun, thoroughly entertaining band, I expect good things to come from The 1975 in the future. 

Grade: B+

What's on Will's iPod March 2013 Edition

Looking for something new to listen to?  The following four artists have been getting a lot of spins recently on my iPod, and I thought I'd share them with you.

1.  Phosphorescent:  
Their latest record "Muchacho" is the potential break out effort from singer-songwriter Matthew Houk and company.  Great vocals and layered instrumentals that catch the listeners' attention make this a fantastic record, and an early forerunner for one of my favorite records of the year.  Sonically somewhere between Counting Crows and Bon Iver, Phosphorescent's latest puts a unique and creative spin on the singer-songwriter style.  An evocative listen from start to finish with excellent musical diversity and instrumentation.  Below is a recording of Phosphorescent's "Song for Zula" from SXSW



 2.  Fort Frances:
Speaking of Counting Crows, this trio from Chicago is on the up and up.  First, their cover of DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince's "Summertime" came out last summer and created some Internet buzz.  Later, this past fall, they were featured on comedian Daniel Tosh's Comedy Central show,  Tosh.0 with the comedian highlighting the cover and even sporting a Fort Frances shirt.  However, don't let a catchy cover fool you.  This band is hot off of playing the "Outlaw Road Show" at SXSW, and have an upcoming sophomore release due out next month.


 
3. Toro y Moi:
A post by 88.9 RadioMilwaukee DJ Tarik Moody, regarding their exceptional performance at SXSW made me YouTube this band, and ultimately pick up their latest album.  This is a real hard act to describe in words.  A mash up of electronic music, acid jazz, rock,  r&b, and mellow trance, Toro y Moi is an enjoyable and infectious listen from start to finish.  It's vesitile enough to provide a terrific workout soundtrack and dinner music soundtrack all at the same time.  This live track from one of their recent Austin shows definately puts this act on my list of "need to see" artists.



4.  Thao and the Get Down Stay Down:
Perhaps no single has gotten more iPod spins thus far in 2013 than Thao and the Get Down Stay Down's "We The Common (For Valerie Bolden)."  I embedded a video below where Thao goes into the origins of this great tune.  In my opinion it is next to impossible not to like this tune.  Best thing is that the rest of Thao's latest, "We The Common" is solid, musically diverse with unique instrumentation. and charming with Thao's unique vocal delivery.

Tame Impala @ Turner Hall Ballroom 3/3/13

Music is truly a universal art form that can and should be appreciated by people of all ages and walks of life.  Never was that more true than looking around at the capacity crowd at the Turner Hall Ballroom on a chilly Sunday evening to see Perth, Australia's dream pop indie darlings, Tame Impala, perform a headlining show.  From the first note of their opening jam, "Desire Be Desire Go," you could see a sea of head bobbing happiness from people of all ages.  In attendance were everyone from former students, now seniors in high school, to college students wearing college hats and sweatshirts, to a couple who looked just shy of my parents' age who were to my right and held hands and swayed during the whole set, to mid-thirties folks like myself (rocking Brewers gear, by the way :) ), to mustachioed hipsters, to long-haired folks who looked like Kevin Parker, the lead singer and songwriter from the band, to ladies on girls' nights out, to everything else in between... literally.

So, what makes Tame Impala's music so appealing to such a diverse crowd?  My thinking is that it's the right blend of a lot of styles that come together to form a unique and truly enjoyable sonic landscape. Imagine what would happen if you were able to attend a collaborative jam session with  Pink Floyd (Dark Side of the Moon era), the Flaming Lips (Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots era), the Stone Roses, and My Morning Jacket.  The result of that musical conglomeration would be about as close of a description as I can come up with in defining Tame Impala's overall sound.

The band's near 90 minute set drew mostly from songs from their two full-length albums, 2010's Innerspeaker, and last year's Lonerism, (which was one of my favorite albums of the year).  "Endors Toi," the first track off of Lonerism, was featured early in the set and elicited a classic spacey jam.  Moreover, a show highlight, "Elephant," the single off of Lonerism frequently played on 88.9 Radio Milwaukee, featured a tripped out blues guitar riff coupled with dynamic percussion, and even a homage to circus-sounding instrumentals during a pause in the tune.

Another truly engaging factor of this concert were the fantastic visuals which often corresponded, literally note-for-note, to what either the guitarist, bassist, drummer or keyboardist was playing.  The visuals were so good, that one could argue that the lighting engineer was just an integral part of the band as the musicians themselves (just like you'd see at a My Morning Jacket or Phish show).

Tame Impala certainly melded all of their influences throughout the concert.  The jam from "Mind Mischief" demonstrates their ability to incorporate aspects of shoe gaze, pop-rock, and no-psychadelica all at the same time.


My highlight overall of this concert was oddly a tune that I had only heard on YouTube called, "Half Full Glass of Wine" featured on the band's first EP released in 2008.  This tune begins a lot like My Morning Jacket's "One Big Holiday" and features a strong jam from each of the musicians, resulting at the end with a deafening crescendo featuring all five musicians (and the visual effects) at their finest.


Opening for Tame Impala was The Growl, fellow band mates form Perth, AU.  The Growl featured two drummers (one of whom literally used a tin garbage can for part of his rig), a guitarist, a keyboardist, an upright bass player, and a singer who channeled what Jim Morrison would have looked like as a western Australian.  This act was very solid as well, and did best when they stuck to tunes with more traditional blues structure, which lent themselves to the added electronic loops and effects the band put on their set.

Grade: A+



photo by Stephen Bloch

Zen and The Lost Art of the Mix Tape

Unlike a mix CD, a playlist, or even a compilation that you can upload onto a piece of  music sharing software or a blog, there was nothing quite like the texture, effort and artistic creation of the mix tape. Not to mention that unique plastic aroma of "new tape smell," fresh out of the wrapping.  This blog post is my homage to this now antiquated art form for music fans (read geeks): the mix tape.

After recently viewing The Perks of Being a Wallflower (which I highly recommend for readers that are interested in a more modern-day Breakfast Club sort of flick), I began rethinking the role the mix tape played in my formative tween and teen years.  For one thing, the tape gave you a unique format.  Most blank tapes (I personally preferred the Maxell XLIIs) were 90 minutes in length, divided into two 45 minute sides.  Using the blank tape, you could record from the radio, record from CDs, and record from other tapes or other mixes.  The artful mixologist would need to essentially piece together music the length equivalent of a double-LP to merely fill up the space of the tape.  This required more than dragging and dropping tunes on your computer from one folder to another to create a playlist, that ultimately could be re-altered by the listener.  Making a great mix tape, in its most humble form,  required timing out your songs, considering placement of tracks, juxtaposing shorter and longer tunes and making the piece flow in an order that makes sense to the listener and is ultimately enjoyable.  Many mix tapes were constructed to send a message of friendship, introduce a pal to new tunes, or ultimately, in middle and high school land, tell that special someone that you "liked" them without having to mutter those horribly awkward tween and teen words yourself.  So, with all of this in mind, what were the elements that made for a great mix tape?

The Old and Recognizable Tune:
The quality mix has to contain some recognizable songs.  There are always a handful of feel good tunes, often positioned at the start of the tape or kicking off the B side that are lively and will automatically make the listener sing along.  Classic up-tempo rock staples from well-known bands, like the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Tom Petty, Van  Morrison, or Simon and Garfunkel would often do the trick in this department.  Who can go wrong opening your tape with the Beatles, after all?


The Campy, Inside Joke or Overall Humorous Tune:
What's a mix tape without that humorous or campy tune that would be used to invoke a sense of  nostalgia or levity?   Anything from They Might Be Giants, to a cover of the Muppets' infamous "Mahna Mahna," to Ruppert Holmes' one-hit-wonder "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)", no perfect mix tape would be without one of these gems.

 

The Singer-Songwriter Tune:I don't think I can recall one mix tape (or CD or playlist that I've made for that matter) that has not had some element of singer-songwriter artists on it.  After all, who doesn't love acoustic guitars and thoughtful lyrics?


The R.E.M Tune:
The era of the mix tape coincided almost perfectly with the height of REM.  One of my favorite bands of the 80's and early 90's, REM delivered a diverse sound, catchy melodies, and exceptional lyrics.


The Props to the Local Guys Tune:
Everyone's gotta love that local band that you think, at one time or another, is going to be the next big thing.  Growing up in Milwaukee in the early 90's, the local bands were Citizen King (my personal favorite), Willy Porter and The Gufs.  Just about any given weekend you could see one of these acts at a local festival, an all-ages show, or a benefit show at a local high school.  They all made for perfect mix fodder.


THE ballad: If you were ever making a mix for a potential future significant other, you would need to include "THE ballad."  Placement of this tune in the mix was paramount above all others.  You wanted your listener to know that this may be the song that makes you think of them.  Likewise, you want to be subtle enough not to just lead off the tape with it.  "THE" ballad on mixes I made often included slow dance songs from 7th and 8th grade dances.  The Black Crowes' "She Talks to Angels," Pearl Jam's "Black," and "Yellow Ledbetter," and, embarrassingly so, Poison's "Something to Believe In," all filled the role of THE ballad at some point or another on a mix.



Edie Brickell & New Bohemians: "What I Am"


Finally, last but not least, appearing on perhaps more mixes that I created than just about any other tune, how can you not have an homage to the lost art of the mix tape without including this classic from the late 80's early 90's era?

Hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane.  Let me know what were your mix tape favorites.

Yo La Tengo 2/2/13

 "The consummate do it yourself band," "The essential indie rock band,"  "The modern day Velvet Underground," "The quintessential critics' band..." these are common monikers for the Hoboken, NJ trio, Yo La Tengo.  This band, whose career has spanned nearly three decades, stopped at the Turner Hall Ballroom on Saturday February 2nd for "An Evening with Yo La Tengo."  The band performed two sets  without an  opener.  Two set shows from non jam bands are a rare commodity in the concert world, and I was excited to take in a robust amount of music from a band who I've always been interested in, but had never truly peaked my interest (until recently).  What I discovered was an act whose humility and musical poise set them apart as masters of their craft.

The first set featured nine songs, all acoustic, performed with stripped-down instruments and the band seated on stools.  The near-capacity crowd, comprised mostly men in their forties dressed in plaid shirts or leather jackets, and wearing plastic-rimmed glasses (granted, I, too have plastic rimmed specs and was wearing a plaid shirt) was so quiet and respectful during the acoustic set, that you could only hear the faint popping of tall boy cans from the bar at the opposite end of the ballroom.  The band opened with "Ohm," the first track off of their latest release Fade (and, incidentally, the track that got me to really take notice of this band).  From there, other high points of the acoustic set were another number from Fade, "Corneia and Jane," as well as an intimate version of "Big Day Coming" off of their Painful LP released in 1993.  I was surprised how much the band traded off with vocal duties.  In addition, the trio harmonized extremely well together putting an intimate coffee house feel on many tunes that are used to being played with longer jams and distortion.

After a short intermission, where the acoustic gear was taken off the stage and replaced by electric guitars, synthesizers and a smorgasbord of distortion peddles, the band returned for what fans would likely describe as a more "traditional" Yo La Tengo experience.  Opening up, the band grooved through "Stupid Things" (another strand-out track on Fade).  A mid-set version of their pseudo-hit "Mr. Tough" energized the crowd, and propelled the music into a great three song sequence which included "Before We Run," and an electric version of "Ohm," which jammed out past the eight minute mark.   Perhaps the show highlight for me, however, was the set closer, "Blue Line Swinger," a 10 minute plus opus which featured some crazy guitar feedback jams layered upon Georgia Hubley's pounding drums. 

For an encore, the band took requests from the crowd.  My request of their cover of "Golden Road to Unlimited Devotion" by the Grateful Dead, was greeted with laughter from the band.  (They covered this tune at a record store gig in San Francisco as more or less, a one time thing, or so I was told by frontman Ira Kaplan whom I had the pleasure of chatting with after the show).  They didn't do "Golden Road," but did do an earlier tune (requested by a group of fans) as well as a track that featured Georgia Hubley coming to the front of the stage to do the vocals.

I am embarrassed to some degree that it's taken me this long to really get into Yo La Tengo. This band had  reputation of being stalwart performers live, and they exceeded expectations.  I am now regretting all the times I passed on seeing them play at the Regent Street Annex while I was at UW-Madison from 1996-2001, as I'm discovering that this was a really cool era for the band.  Expect to see me at the Yo La Tengo show again the next time they come through town.

This is a band whose humble nature, sincere song writing, and true joy for what they do comes across in their performance.

Show grade: A
Setlist: 

 

Steve Bloom, Ira Kaplan, me

This t-shirt cracked me up.  It is kind of hard to see, but featured the singer from 1980's hip-hop group Kid 'N Play with the writing: Yo La Tengo: Fade underneath.  While the merch guy was trying to get me to buy it, as I found it quite humorous, a text to my wife put the kibosh on that.  I think Jeni's sense probably played out well on that decision. 

5 Albums You Can't Live Without

Pretend, just for a second, that modern technology forced you to downsize your music collection into 5 albums that you would be able to listen to for, let's say, the foreseeable future (just for argument's sake, let's say for the next year).  What five albums would you choose as your "5 Albums You Can't Live Without?"

As with any list or conversation like this, let's lay down a few rules: 
1.  You have to choose albums, not entire catalogs by bands.  You may have the same band listed multiple times with different albums.
2.  As long as the music is marketed as an "album"it counts.  Therefore, for instance, you could choose a greatest hits compilation, a live record, or even an anthology, just as long as it is marketed as an album and not a box-set or "complete works" collection. 
3.  Throw convention aside... don't think about albums that are dubbed by critics as necessarily the 'most influential' in terms of modern music, but rather the ones that really resonated with you as a listener.  (Ex. Like most music fans and critics, you cannot help but tip your hat to the Beatles and the Stones, however, I cannot tell you the last time I spun Sgt. Pepper, or any other Beatles work for that matter).
4.  Have fun!

I'd love to hear your "Five Albums You Can't Live Without"  Here are mine:


5. The Flaming LipsThe Soft Bulletin 1999.
A concept album about the whole concept of being human... leave it to the Flaming Lips to construct this gem.  Before their elaborate live shows with front man Wayne Coyne running about the stage in a hamster wheel and the side-stage dancers, there was this record, The Soft Bulletin, which the Lips toured in support of by hosting a series of "headphones shows" (I was fortunate to catch them in Madison at the Barrymore during this run).  During these shows, the audience was given headphones and a closed-circuit station to tune in to so that you could (supposedly) hear the nuanced, layered tracks in the live renditions.  To this day, I don't think I can listen to this disc and not notice something new or interesting.  The tracks here all coincide with one another and provide the listener a beautiful sonic disposition between poppy melodies and electronic dissonance.
4.  Radiohead The Bends 1995.
A rock album for people who like rock 'n roll, Radiohead delivers a classic in their sophomore effort that I find personally their most enjoyable work.  In its truest sense, The Bends captures the raw power of Radiohead's sound in their earlier years. Clever guitar hooks, Thom Yorke's almost ethereal vocals, and steady percussion makes this a solid album from front to back.  Like The Soft Bulletin, The Bends is timeless and it feels like it could have been released last year (or 18 years ago).


3.  The Beastie Boys Paul's Boutique  1989
Is there a more fun album to listen to than Paul's Boutique?  I seriously challenge anyone to listen to it all the way through and say that they did not smile.  From the opening drum sample of "Shake Your Rump" to the sonically contagious bass loop of "Egg Man," to the funky guitar sample of "Hey Ladies," this album is packed full of well-sampled goodies.  While not much of a hip-hop fan, I can't think of a time when I haven't had this record on my iPad.

2.  Paul Simon Graceland 1986.
Arguably the greatest narrative record, told by one of rock's greatest storytellers, Graceland is one of those rare albums that never gets old.  Arguably dated sounding at times (note the synthesizer in "Call Me Al" for instance), Graceland doesn't necessarily come off as timeless, but rather an album that marks a time and place that you want to revisit over and over again.  Like the other albums on this list, Graceland is one of those rare pieces of music that you can listen to endlessly and constantly find new things that are intriguing.  The world music influences on this record make it even the more enjoyable.  Seeing Paul Simon perform at the height of the "Graceland tour" might be worth a trip in a time machine (but we can save that idea for another post).

1.  Wilco Yankee Hotel Foxtrot 2001
I was hooked the moment I heard the opening drum riff of "I'm Trying To Break Your Heart," and I haven't been able to let go since.  Beautiful narrative, albeit often cryptic, lyrics, poured over a smorgasbord of nuanced, intricate sounds, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is both beautiful and challenging.  Each song stands alone well, and also fits into the piece as a whole perfectly.   This is the "granddaddy of them all" for me.  If I had just one album to listen to, this would be it, and I doubt I'd get bored.