Baby Heisman

Offseason report: The Decemberists w/ the L.A. Philharmonic @ The Hollywood Bowl, 07-07-07

2007-07-09T09:44:00.000-07:00

Saturday night's show was the Decemberists "Stop Making Sense" moment: A widely popular indie band using extra musicians (in this case, the L.A. Philharmonic) to make their big, sweeping songs even bigger. Frontman Colin Meloy even looked a bit like Talking Heads leader David Byrne in his cream suit with white sneakers — Onitsuka Tigers, to be exact.

Meloy even seemed to mimic Byrne's jog around the "Stop Making Sense" stage on "Life During Wartime" when he ran along the low semicircle wall that separates the first few rows from the rest of the audience during the "Wartime"-influenced "The Prefect Crime."

But the Decemberists didn't take full advantage of the moment. While the set always captivated, it was ultimately uneven. Some of the songs truly soared in their new form, while others came out too subtle considering the size of the L.A. Phil and the fact that the Decemberists got to the stage because of their sweeping style.

The restrained sound worked wonderfully on opener "The Crane Wife 1 and 2," "We Both Go Down Together" and the closer "I was Meant for the Stage." But the explosion that seemed destined to come on the intense "The Infanta" and "The Bagman's Gambit" never did.

The Philharmonic didn't really roar until "Odalisque," a song from the Decemberists first album, and it proved to be one of the best from the set along with the five-part, 18-minute-long "The Tain."

The unevenness certainly wasn't due to nerves. Meloy played with the confidence of a songwriter who was finally hearing his songs played the same way they sounded in his head. And maybe that's the best way to look at the show. If the Decemberists were given all the money, instruments and time in the world, this is how their songs would sound.

The Decemberists — Odalisque (MP3)

Offseason report: New Kite Flying Society MP3 on Baby Heisman

2007-07-01T17:44:00.000-07:00

Kite Flying Society was one of the first San Diego bands I got into when I moved here, and they have been really nice to this blog. Dustin, the frontman, did an interview for the blog's debut, and he responds to my e-mails asking how the recording of the second album is going.

The band is keeping up the kindness by releasing an MP3 from their upcoming album, "The Aviary," to Baby Heisman and You Ain't No Picasso, a blog out of Kentucky that got hooked on Kite Flying's first album, "Where Is the Glow."

"Oh Amy!" is a tight, catchy pop song with standout harmonies. It has the same lazy-summer-day feeling and nautical references that made "Where is the Glow" so much fun, but it's also a step forward, fuller and more layered than their debut.

Kite Flying Society -- "Oh Amy!" (MP3)

Dustin says the band has been taking its time recording the album, no quick, throwaway takes, which is why the release of "The Aviary" keeps getting pushed back (September is the newest target). Another reason is the band is getting ready to play the Athens Popfest in Athena, Ga. They're playing the Whistlestop here in S.D. in two weeks, on the 13th, where a number of "Aviary" tracks are sure to be road tested.

If you haven't checked out "Where Is the Glow," even casual indie pop fans (and who isn't these days?) should give it a listen. Kite Flying Society isn't just a great San Diego band; they're a great band period.

Here's two "Where Is the Glow" tracks:

Kite Flying Society — "6000 Shipwrecks" (MP3)
Kite Flying Society — "Submarine Music" (MP3)

Also...

Baby Heisman interview with Dustin of Kite Flying Society

Offseason

2007-06-12T10:40:00.000-07:00

I have some pretty big things coming up over the next month and a half, priorities that trump working on the blog, so I'm going to be taking the Baby Heisman into an "offseason" as a daily blog. I was hoping to keep things going for another week or so, but as you've probably noticed, posts have dwindled a bit in the past few days, and it's not for a lack of things TO post, just finding the time to do it.

I just don't want this blog to turn into some cutsey thing filled with quick-post things like silly YouTube clips, and that's what it'll become if I don't take the time to run it right.

I still plan to post, just not a regular, daily basis. There will still be show reviews, hopefully some MP3 playlists along the way. Think of them as voluntary offseason minicamps if, like me, you want to take the whole football analogy of this blog beyond your actual love of football.

I'll keep you guys posted on how the offseason goes.

-Jeremy
B.H.

A dream ... or a premonition?

2007-06-12T01:06:00.000-07:00

I had a dream ... I had an awesome dream...

On Saturday night I had a dream that I was at a Radiohead concert (at the Sports Arena, it seemed) and the band was playing a bunch of new songs. After their last song, they announced that they had a new album that they would be selling at the merch table.

Was it just a weird dream ... or a foretelling of the near future? It's been almost a year since Radiohead played a series of shows, including in San Diego, where they debuted new songs. They keep hinting that they're working on it, but it's been a LONG time coming. Am I musical soothsayer?

If the rest of the dream is any indication ... then no. While the band is selling the "new" album at the merch table, someone asked if a certain song was on it. Thom Yorke says, in his usual disinterested Thom Yorke way, "No, you're thinking of a song from my old band, The Pogues."

I don't have any idea where that came from. I don't even like The Pogues. Just how my mind works. But man, wouldn't it be nice if that album was going to drop soon.

Radiohead — Nice Dream (MP3)

The Pipettes @ the Casbah, 6-10-07

2007-06-11T10:06:00.000-07:00

While most of the people at the Casbah last night would hesitate to admit it, The Pipettes have something in common with Jessica and Ashlee Simpson: they all sing songs, many of them sexy and coy, that were written for them by somebody else. And indie fans tend to be pretty wary of artists who don't write their own music like that. Plus, they've been accused of being imitators. Nobody thinks the Pipettes wear their polka dot dresses around the house any more than Ashlee Simpson is actually a punk rocker.

So why was the Casbah sold out Sunday night when most of the people there would rather watch the stars of American Idol cover Modest Mouse than go to a concert by one of the sisters Simpson? For one, the Pipettes seem like they can carry a tune and a conversation, too. But the big difference is that the Pipettes are imitating a musical style (60s girl groups), where as your American pop stars are trying to imitate past stars' public personas.

But you have to be in the mood for the campy throwback to enjoy the show. The Pipettes and their four-piece backing band are all solid singers and musicians, but an hour and a half of songs about boys, love and dancing grows a little thin after a while. Their singles got a good portion of the crowd moving, but overall it wasn't an overwhelming show. Nonetheless a pleasant way to end the weekend.

No Heisman photos, though. It just wouldn't have been gentlemanly to ask someone in that short of a skirt to strike that kind of pose.

Smoosh opened, and the teen sister duo is getting impressively better and better. They've always been a good band, not just good for their age, but their live set is showing real progress. Their keyboard-and-drum setup might not be varied enough yet to carry a headlining set, but songs like "La Pump" and "Find a Way" make their show worth checking out.

Cover art for new Hot Chip album revealed

2007-06-06T17:27:00.003-07:00

The other album out this week

2007-06-06T12:49:00.000-07:00

"Someone to Drive You Home" by The Long Blondes has been out in the U.K. for a number of months and thus available for U.S. downloaders who know where to look. The other 98 percent of the population now has a chance to hear the album, as it got a stateside release Tuesday.

"Someone to Drive You Home" is an album of dense, Blondie-fueled rock. It's a little top-heavy, with the last few songs dragging a bit, but the best songs are good enough to warrant more than a handful of listens. The songs below are two of the best, but not necessarily examples of what the whole album sounds like.

The Long Blondes — Giddy Stratospheres (MP3)
The Long Blondes — Once and Never Again (MP3)

Cashing in: Wilco

2007-06-06T12:29:00.001-07:00

This story has been all over a number of blogs, but in case you missed it...

Wilco licensed a B-side and a track from its latest album, "Sky Blue Sky," for Volkswagen, and in five days (Friday to Tuesday) there was a little Wilcogate going on. Wilco has a lot of indie cred as an artistically pure (or just artistically good) band, so the idea of their music in a car commercial made some people flinch.

The band released a statement on their Web site, explaining the ads by saying, in part: "This is a subject we've discussed internally many times over the years regarding movies, TV shows and even the odd advertisement. With the commercial radio airplay route getting more difficult for many bands (including Wilco); we see this as another way to get the music out there. As with most of the above (with the debatable exception of radio) the band gets paid for this. And we feel okay about VWs. Several of us even drive them."

By the way, have you ever noticed that the "V-Dub in da house" guy in those other Volkswagen commercials is the same guy who played Steve Buscemi's quiet partner in "Fargo?"

From a tan Sierra to a sweet V-Dub

The Hold Steady @ Canes 6-1-07

2007-06-04T11:00:00.000-07:00

If you didn't go to Friday night's Hold Steady concert, you probably missed the last chance to see them before the frat boys get wise to them. Actually, it's surprising they haven't already.

Something certainly seemed to be changing Friday night. A Hold Steady crowd is always rowdy, but this one quickly turned into a full-on mosh pit, with people pushing each other as far and as hard as they could and even a couple of short-lived attempts at crowd surfing.

A mosh pit almost a decade after Limp Bizkit died for our sins. Absurd.

The band itself was far from absurd, performing a nearly flawless mix of songs from all three of their albums. They played the mainstays off their latest album, "Boys and Girls in America," bangers like "Hornets! Hornets!" and "Barfruit Blues," and ballads like "Citrus" and "Killer Parties."

They also piled on praise for the city, giving a shoutout to Swami Records and declaring that the cool people move to San Diego, not L.A. or San Fran. It wasn't just "it's great to be in [city name here]" lip service, as the band has randomly mentioned in interviews with papers in other cities how much they dig the San Diego crowd.

"You've played San Diego, like, three times..."

"Three? More like six!" keyboardist Franz Nicolay said, cutting me off before I could say "...on this record alone" while we were talking outside after the show. I told him that, considering how many bands skip San Diego or barely make it here, it meant a lot that they had come so often. His eyes lit up with genuine appreciation.

He also did one of the best Heisman poses yet, giving the stiff-arm to a member of opening band Illinois.

For more, better photos from the show than mine, check out Natalie's blog "It's Too Sunny Out Here." It's not strictly a music blog, but she writes about music a lot, and she takes great concert photos, like these here...

My City's a Sucker: Canes

2007-06-04T10:48:00.000-07:00

I tried to get back into Canes after the Hold Steady show to try to talk to the rest of the band — I stepped out barely and briefly to find my friends – but the security guard said no dice. I offered to show my ID, reminded him that the show was over and there was no danger of the club hitting even half-capacity. He responded by pointing to the "NO RE-ENTRY" sign above the door with a choice digit that wasn't his index finger.

I thought that was an unnecessary move, but the rules are the rules, the sign was clearly posted, so I was letting it slide. But then two of my friends who watched what happened decided they would try to get back in. One by one, they succeeded.

So if you're ever at Canes and there's a skinny, squirrely guy working the door who looks like DJ Qualls from "Hustle and Flow," just point at someone behind the merch table and say you're with that guy from the band. That gets you back in.

Also, if you confront him about it afterward, he'll move away from the door and then your friends can sneak in behind him.

And it's a rock club; it doesn't need a men's room attendant.

Knocked Up

2007-06-04T09:40:00.000-07:00

Besides being a great movie (more on that in a sec) "Knocked Up" uses music wonderfully, from pop to Loudon Wainwright III to maybe the best use of The Clash's "Police on My Back" ever in a movie.

Refreshingly, the movie doesn't call attention to the songs. There's no "I will now sell three copies of the new Beta Band album" or "The Shins will change your life" moments. The music just enhances the scene. Even when Paul Rudd's character wears a shirt with the cover of Tom Waits' "Rain Dogs," it fits his character and the situation perfectly.

The movie itself is a joy. If writer/director Judd Apatow ("The 40-Year-Old Virgin" and the sadly short-lived TV shows "Undeclared" and "Freaks and Geeks") isn't the next Albert Brooks, he's certainly Brooks' best student. The movie is constantly hilarious, never settling for the easy joke or slapstick stunt — a true feat considering that pot is nearly a character in the movie. But Apatow also hits that off-kilter, real-life feeling of relationships that Brooks did so well.

At one point, after the main characters get pregnant and fail to make a relationship work, Seth Rogen's character calls his dad, nearly in tears, nearly begging him just to tell him what to do. It's a simple line, and there's comedy in it. But anyone in their mid-to-late 20s knows just how deep the truth in that one scene goes.

"Knocked Up" is a different kind of adult comedy: one that teens and college students will find funny, but they'll find a lot more in it once they're older.

P.S. ... DON'T put "knocked up" into a Google images search with the filter off while you're at work or around kids. Just FYI.

Hold Steady concert preview 1: Why are these guys such a big deal?

2007-06-01T01:29:00.000-07:00

I was not an immediate convert to the church of The Hold Steady.

And it is a church. The texts are full of people we've never met and places we've never seen, but we know all about them nonetheless. Alcohol also plays an intricate, symbolic part.

The faithful, most of them evangelical, would try to convert me, suggesting psalms and trying to get me to come to a service. I tried but just didn't feel it. The actual music was good but, in part because I am a Springsteen fan, I bristled at the Boss comparisons. Sure, Bruce packed a lot of words into his lyrics, but they fit the beat. Craig Finn's lyrics were Bruce-worthy, but at times he spewed his words as though there was no beat at all.

Then came "Boys and Girls in America" last year. The music got even better, as did Finn's lyrics, which he even started fitting to the music. Not only did the album soar, it unlocked their two previous, messier records. All the parts came together, and, as the song goes, "then I got born again." I was a convert.

The Hold Steady — Stuck Between Stations (MP3)
The Hold Steady — Stevie Nix (MP3)

Now here I am, preaching to the unconverted, saying that I was once like you, but The Hold Steady really are that good.

Tonight's show at Canes got me thinking about what exactly makes The Hold Steady so exciting. Sure, there's big guitar riffs, and the songs are about drinking, girls and regret, but not in that Bon Jovi kind of way. That's a sure hit for my 20-something-guy set, plus plenty of others. But right now you're probably thinking of another of your favorite bands that fit the description.

The difference is that a Hold Steady concert makes us feel the way we did at our first concert.

And while many of us might be embarrassed to name that band, there's no embarrassment with these guys. Jump up and down, sing or yell along with the words, raise your tall boy can of beer in the air. It's all good. The band is having just as much fun on stage. That's what they mean when they talk about making their concerts a big party. It's all-inclusive and all-accepting, the kind of mantra so many other religions preach but rarely follow.

Amen.

Hold Steady concert preview 2: For the fans, a drinking game

2007-06-01T01:05:00.000-07:00

Fans of the Hold Steady know that it's pretty hard not to have a beer during their shows. So why not a drinking game? It looks like the Philly City Paper devised one, but it was back in 2005, before their most-recent album, and it was pretty basic. Drink each time the Mississippi River or an allusion to being resurrected is mentioned. Stuff like that.

I'm sure other people have done one, but here's the Baby Heisman Hold Steady Drinking Game. I tried to pick some less-obvious, more-concert-oriented options. I'm leaving this post photo-free so you can easily print it out and take it with you in case you forget a couple of rules after the first couple of beers.

Take a drink when:

* Craig Finn sticks his arms out to each side, like he's spreading his wings, to punctuate a line

* There's a keyboard solo

* A lyric mentions Ybor City or Massachusetts

* Craig steps away from the mic toward to the crowd and repeats the lyrics

* Craig takes a drink

Enjoy your tall boys, kids. And for god sake's, just take a cab. Here, click here and get the number of one NOW.

Notes for the weekend

2007-06-01T00:33:00.000-07:00

For me, this weekend is all about the Hold Steady tonight, but there's a couple of other things I wanted to mention.

The CD release show by L.A. indie pop band Great Northern tonight at the Beauty Bar is being hosted by two of San Diego's best bloggers: Rosey from S.D. Dialed in and Lyn from Chickrawker.

Info about the show and some MP3s

Great Northern on MySpace

If Hold Steady weren't playing, I'd absolutely be at this show because the band is really good, and it's doubly cool for S.D. music and S.D. music blogs that Rosey and Lyn are attached to the show. Both blogs are insightful, well-written and serve a niche. S.D. Dialed In has the most comprehensive gig listings in town and Chickrawker is a one-stop shop for the songs that are getting added, dropped and played from modern rock radio. Both tasks are time-consuming and done with passion, an that's ON TOP of the great general music blogging they do. Links to both sites are in the Hometown Heroes list on the right of the blog.

Ladies, my crew is at the next gig you sponsor. Promise.

Two great San Diego bands, Kite Flying Society and Emery Byrd, are playing the El Cajon Concerts on the Green series tonight, too. It's from 6-8 p.m., the perfect time for an outdoor show and worth the drive. Plus, it's early, so you can catch Hold Steady or Great Northern afterward.

El Cajon Concerts on the Green Web site

Past Baby Heisman interview with Dustin of Kite Flying Society

Emery Byrd on MySpace

If you ARE going to see Hold Steady, both opening bands are worth a listen. The first one, Blitzen Trapper, is a kind of indie/folk/country mashup of styles from Portland with a new album out in a couple of months. They recently caused some blog buzz with a cover of Heart's "Crazy On You" for a compilation CD. A good friend thinks they'll be the indie breakout band of the summer. I'm not so sure, but here's a chance to find out.

Blitzen Trapper on MySpace

The second band is Illinois, which played the Casbah a couple months back and is almost universally being called a good band on record and an effing great band live. Don't miss out.

Illinois on MySpace

And, as Rosey says, people complain there isn't anything to do in San Diego. Night like this, that's impossible to argue.

"Girls Rock"

2007-05-31T10:59:00.000-07:00

While in Seattle over the weekend, I saw a really good documentary about the Rock 'n' Roll Camp for Girls called "Girls Rock." I knew the camp existed because of my fanaticism for Sleater-Kinney — Carrie Brownstein has been involved with it from the beginning — but I knew little else.

At the week-long camp, girls form bands, get instruction from musician volunteers and special guests like Brownstein and Beth Ditto of the Gossip and write an original song, which they perform at a showcase in Portland at the end of the week.

The documentary follows girls ranging in age from 7 to 17 as they go through the universal bonding and strife of being in a band.

The documentary, made by two first-time filmmakers, superbly shows how being in a band frequently mimics the drama of being an adolescent, let alone being a girl, and how being in a band also helps deal with those issues. The movie also reminds music fans that, for all the cool that a band exudes, it starts with someone standing up and suggesting a lyric or a riff, and that takes more courage than most people have. Seeing these girls, many of whom had little musical background, learn an instrument or suggest lyrics for the first time in a group of strangers was powerful.

The movie doesn't beat you over the head with these points. Like a good documentary, it follows a handful of the girls through the week and lets the themes rise up as a result. There are some montages in between showing statistics about girls and growing up that don't really work. While we may not know the specific number of girls who are pressured to diet or how much sex is on MTV, we know the numbers are big and where that influence fits into the importance of something like the rock camp.

The movie, which played at the Seattle International Film Festival, just got a distributor and will be shown in wider release this fall. No dates or cities have been named yet, but the movie is a joy for casual music fans and a must-see for music junkies.

The camp itself is a nonprofit group that doesn't turn away any camper if she can't pay the registration fee. It raises money from ticket sales at the showcase, and there's even a Rock 'n' Roll Camp for Women, a fundraiser that gives grown-ups the same experience.

For more info:

Rock 'n' Roll Camp for Girls homepage

"Girls Rock" documentary homepage

"Girls Rock" on Myspace, with songs from some of the bands

New Pornographers update

2007-05-30T11:43:00.000-07:00

The New Pornographers show on Sept. 18 will be at the House of Blues. Looks like the whole gang will be there, including Neko Case and even Dan Bejar, who actually toured with them for the first time after the release of their last, fantastic, album, "Twin Cinema." Tix on sale June 16.

Most indie fans know that Neko is also an alt-country soloist and that Bejar has his own solo career as Destroyer. Many even know about frontman Carl Newman's first power-pop group, Zupano. The music site Culture Bully traces the Pornographers' roots even deeper.

Also, the band posted the first song from its upcoming album, "Challengers."

The New Pornographers — My Rights Versus Yours (MP3)

The album is out in August and this appears to be the album artwork. You can't really see it in the photo, but "NEKO" is tattooed on the guy's knuckles, which is a cool touch, but otherwise this cover is a mess. I'm a fan of their past DIY-style, understated album covers, so maybe it's just not my thing, but we DEFINITELY don't need to add another silly 70s mustache to the indie-rock lexicon.

A Sasquatch showdown, just for fun

2007-05-30T11:14:00.000-07:00

A festival named Sasquatch was a fitting place to see a mythological musical rarity: the double-neck guitar.

Both The Hold Steady's Tad Kubler and Viva Voce's Anita Robinson rocked a "guitar that's, like, two guitars," as Otto from the Simpsons so aptly put it, and it sparked a debate in our group over who rocked the double-neck the hardest.

Like the recent Oscar de la Hoya vs. Floyd Mayweather fight, this bout would go the distance and be decided on the cards. The Hold Steady was on the mainstage and Viva Voce was on one of the sidestages, so Anita was fighting in a higher weight class. But this is a woman who proudly, melodically declares "we do not fuck around." So that's a draw.

Tad had on a Mastodon band T-shirt, which is a solid musical reference, but it looked no better or worse than the hundreds of band T-shirts worn over the weekend. Anita rocked a cowboy hat with style, something many concert-goers tried and failed to do. Point for Viva Voce.

But the double-neck guitar is all about rock 'n' roll excess, and Tad took that to new heights by having one neck be a 12-string, while both of Antia's were standard 6-strings.

Advantage Hold Steady, by a 4-3 judges' decision.

Notes from Sasquatch

2007-05-29T10:41:00.000-07:00

I spent a long weekend in Seattle and spent Saturday at the first day of the Sasquatch music festival. The trip was a last hurrah with one of my best friends before she moves to the Midwest for grad school, so I wasn't really in blogger mode. Besides, if people are interested enough in the "experience" of a certain festival to want to read about it, they're probably interested enough to go to it.

But I did come back with some general music notes:

If you're going to Lollapalooza or the Austin City Limits fest later this summer, do not miss Ghostland Observatory. The Austin duo absolutely tore up one of the Sasquatch side stages. Their set was part LCD Soundsystem and part Iggy Pop, which — you're exactly right — is not a comparison to be taken lightly. But as Thomas Turner and his sky-blue cape worked the keys and synth, frontman Aaron Behrens and his two chest-long braids commanded the stage with an energy worthy of the punk icon.

I've kind of slept on the band. I listened to part of their "Paparazzi Lightning" album last year and liked it, didn't love it, and never really got back to it. On Saturday, the live versions of those songs destroyed the recorded ones. Ghostland came through San Diego back in February, and right now they just have a few festival dates planned. So if you make a festival pilgrimage, seek them out.

Ghostland Observatory — Sad Sad City (MP3)
Ghostland Observatory on MySpace

It might not seem noteworthy to say that all five of us in my group agreed that the Arcade Fire put on the day's best set. But considering that it was a truncated repeat of the San Diego show just a month ago — same opening movie with the female evangelist, same video screens on stage, same band interaction — and considering we were packed into a festival crowd a hundred feet away from the stage, I expected a little bit of a drop-off. No way. From the first haunting, washed-out notes of "Black Mirror" to the finale of "Power Out," "Rebellion (Lies)" and "Wake Up," the band captivated as usual.

Every time The Arcade Fire kicked into the "Ohhh, ohhh, ohhh" chorus of "Wake Up," the congregation overpowered the sound of the choir, just another religious moment from a band that is a must-see regardless of the situation.

The Arcade Fire — Wake Up (MP3)

On record, Portland band The Blow is singer Khaela Maricich and beat maker Jona Bechtolt; on stage, it's usually just Maricich and the recorded beats, as Bechtolt works on his solo project, YACHT.

But Maricich has a solo project of her own: performance artist, and she incorporates that into her set. She tells the stories behind the songs before them, during their musical interludes and after them. It's not a concert in the traditional sense, but it was almost better, especially these days when some artists barely utter a thank-you during a show.

The Blow — Parentheses (MP3)

Finally, seeing a show at The Gorge amphitheater should be on any music fan's to-do list. I had heard how beautiful the venue was and had seen photos, but photos only give a sense of it. (Click on the photos to see them full-size)

The wide views from the hill are breathtaking, but so is the "view" from down by the mainstage. Because you're so far down into the Columbia River Gorge, you can barely see any land from behind the stage. It makes you feel like you're up in the sky among the clouds.

Back after the weekend

2007-05-25T02:01:00.001-07:00

see ya

Post-hype album reviews

2007-05-25T00:32:00.000-07:00

The pop culture writer Chuck Klosterman once suggested waiting something like a year to listen to an album, supposedly to avoid any hype and hear it in its "purest" form possible. That's just another shock-value statement from a writer who has to keep shocking to keep a job. (He once suggested that Muhammad Ali invented rap, getting him a piece of ESPN's coverage of an Ali anniversary.) Waiting kills half the point of music: the fun and anticipation of a new album. If my long-distance girlfriend is coming back to town, I'm not going to wait a week after she gets back to see her; I'm going to meet her at the airport.

But I'm also not going to have her set up a Webcam so I can follow every moment of her journey home. It's true that many blogs hype music so hard that bandwagons turn into backlashes before most people even hear the music. And try as we might, hype influences what we think of new music. Or the best songs from a leaked album get posted, leading to letdown when the rest of the album doesn't match up.

With that in mind, here are some post-hype reviews of some of the most buzzed-about albums of the spring season so far, with a playlist of tracks from the albums. I tried to pick tracks to give a sense of the album, not just the best songs on it:

Feist — The Reminder: Reviews ranged from "watching a pitcher throw a no-hitter" to "could make even Dick Cheney weep." It's hard to blame them. For fans of Feist's breakout "Let It Die," just hearing her fragile voice sing new songs is enough to swoon, like seeing a crush who's screwed you over more than once wearing a new dress; you can't help it. But, unlike the New York Times says, this isn't the album that will make her a mainstream star. It starts extremely strong but falters 3 minutes and 55 seconds into track four, "The Park," when Feist pushes her voice one notch too far. It ends strongly, though, with "1234" sounding much more important without its cutsey, Gap-commercial-style dance video. Lines like "1,2,3,4 / tell me that you love me more / sleepless, long nights / that was what my youth was for" are chilling close to Joni Mitchell-worthy.

Scouting report: A solid effort from a talented singer, but not necessarily a step forward, other than that most of the songs are hers and not covers. If you've only HEARD OF her, best to start with "Let It Die" and fall in love with her there.

Lil' Wayne — Da Drought 3: Best rapper alive or only rapper alive? Lil' Wayne is probably both. Everything that's compelling and confounding about this two-disc, free-to-download mixtape only grows with multiple listens. You keep finding nuggets of witty wordplay, like "Am I crazy for being Wayne? / Or is Wayne just crazy? / I've been around, I'm still around / like the Geico cavemen (he makes crazy rhyme with cavemen). But it also frustrating that the rapper who professes to having "money on my mind" won't get into a studio with a top producer and turn these lines into a platinum, career-changing (and maybe rap-game-changing) album.

Scouting report: Worth downloading, and not just because it's free. There's plenty of free music that still isn't worth downloading. It's 5-8 tracks too long, but you can cut out the ones you don't like and make your own mix.

Wilco - Sky Blue Sky: Anyone who wants to see Pitchfork's sway over Indie Nation only has to look at the review of "Sky Blue Sky," which called the album "dad-rock." Suddenly, every blog review and comment on a review was framed by that. Once all of that dissolves away, "Sky Blue Sky" is one of the best albums of the season. It's a win-win situation. If you want to look at it through the lens of their past work, the alt-country "Summerteeth," seminal "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" and jam-band freak out "A ghost is Born," then this is a natural progression from a band that refuses to be stagnant. If you want to look at it on its own, "Sky Blue Sky" mixes a number of styles to be a welcoming, compelling modern rock album.

Scouting report: Songs! Unlike their last album of 12-minute guitar-picking solos, there are actual songs on this album!

Panda Bear - Person Pitch: This has been the most-hyped album of the year, and it absolutely shouldn't be hyped. "Person Pitch" is seven sprawling songs, two cracking 12 minutes, that one Baby Heisman reader aptly described as "The Beach Boys underwater." It's not the masterpiece that some blogs have made it out to be, not the best album of the year as some are already calling it. It's a beautiful record that takes time to feel. Some of the songs don't kick in for a couple of minutes. When they do, the hooks are brilliant and the lyrics are worth dissecting.

Scouting report: Worth buying and worth getting to know.

The National — Boxer: The term "slow burner," meaning an album that takes time to love and reveals more with each listen, entered the hipster lexicon thanks to The National's last album, "Alligator." By the time most people realized its brooding brilliance, the band had already passed through their town, building up even more anticipation for the follow-up. "Boxer" burns even slower, without any of the loud, instantly catching tracks like "Alligator's" "Abel" or "Mr. November." But it really does reveal more with each listen, which is amazing considering how simple and straightforward the songs are on first blush. It's not a like a noise-pop album or something like "Person Pitch," where you know something's there and you just have to find it. These songs seem pretty obvious, and when those underlying layers hit you, it's powerful.

Scouting report: If you're just getting into them, better to start with "Alligator." But if you even remotely like it or their earlier albums, this is a winner.

Elliott Smith — New Moon: Who cares if it counts! The collection of Elliott's unreleased music from his best period is the best album of the season so far. At first this two-disc set merely reinforced the beauty of the songs that made it onto "Elliott Smith" and "Either/Or." But after a few listens, the songs come into their own.

Scouting report: Definitely not an album just for the deep fans. It's strong enough to even make an un-initiated listener fall in love with him, and that's something I didn't think on the first couple of listens.

Return of the New Pornographers? (Plus the Pipettes and Smoosh)

2007-05-24T17:29:00.000-07:00

The Casbah's Web site, under the "shows outside the Casbah" section, says The New Pornographers will return to San Diego on Sept. 18. It lists all the members, including Neko Case and recluse sometimes-member/cult hero Dan Bejar and says tix go on sale June 16.

But it doesn't say where the thing will be held. It feels like it will be at the Belly Up in Solana Beach based on the price and the fact that the Pornos played there on their last two tours.

The band's last album, "Twin Cinema," remains my favorite record of 2005 (suck it, Sufjan Stevens). It's highly recommended if you're into power pop at all. Their new album is set to come out later this summer.

The New Pornographers -- The Bleeding Heart Show (MP3)

Also ... the show by girl-group throwback The Pipettes on June 10 is now officially the 94.9 Indie Jam afterparty, and Smoosh -- two tween sisters from the Northwest who aren't just good for tweens but just plain good -- has been added to the bill.

Smoosh — Find a Way (MP3)

The Pipettes -- We Are the Pipettes (MP3)

The Pipettes -- Your Kisses Are Wasted on Me (MP3)

Past Baby Heisman post on The Pipettes

Past Baby Heisman Post on the 94.9 Indie Jam

Warren Zevon appreciation day

2007-05-24T10:55:00.000-07:00

Perhaps no other musician has seen his songs made famous by other people more than Warren Zevon. Maybe Dylan, but he doesn't quite count because he has plenty of quintessential songs on his own.

Zevon came into his own in the 70s, writing his own music and songs for Jackson Browne and Linda Rondstat, who championed Zevon's work and recorded versions of a number of his songs.

Not as famous as Springsteen, cool as Tom Waits or purely vocally talented as Nick Drake, Zevon has always been a bit of an also-ran in the indie world among the idolized 1970s troubadours, which is a shame. Zevon's songs have an edge and bone-dry wit that's much deeper than the "Aw-ooooooh" of "Werewolves of London" and hard to find today. Plus the music itself doesn't sound dated at all.

Music fans of all ages can catch up with Zevon, as three of his albums have been remastered this month and his widow has written an (authorized) biography ("Put in the bad stuff," he told her). The albums include "Excitable Boy," which almost feels like a greatest hits album with tracks like "Werewolves," "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner," and "Accidentally Like a Martyr."

Zevon was never as popular as his contemporaries, but he partied like a rock star, once saying he got to live Jim Morrison's life, just for longer. When he contracted terminal cancer, he decided to go out like a rock star. He recorded a farewell album, "My Ride Is Here," but started beating back the cancer, so he took the time, brought in big guests like Browne and Springsteen and recording "The Wind," which stands as one of his finest.

In between, he spoke with chilling frankness to David Letterman, another of his champions who dedicated the entire show to Zevon. They talked about facing death with no regets, and Zevon performed three songs, including "Roland."

(On the episode of Conan afterward, Sleater-Kinney made their network TV debut; suffice to say I didn't sleep much that night.)

Zevon probably won't ever have the status he deserves, but it's under-appreciated artists who create new generations of music junkies ... and musicians, and Zevon's influence can be heard all over music today.

Happy Warren Zevon Appreciation Day.

My City's NOT a Sucker: Peter, Bjorn & John

2007-05-24T10:07:00.000-07:00

Indie sensation turned alt-radio sensation Peter, Bjorn & John hadn't stopped in San Diego in the six months since their latest album started getting all its buzz. The band was not touring extensively, but they had played L.A. and Coachella without popping in to say hi.

No more, as the Young Folks'ers will play the House of Blues on Aug. 1 (they may not tour a ton, but, when they do, they plan ahead), a day after playing in L.A.

Peter, Bjorn & John — Young Folks (MP3)
Peter, Bjorn & John — Amsterdam (MP3)

Jesus walks with M.I.A.

2007-05-23T14:26:00.000-07:00

It was only a matter of time before this happened...

"Bird Flu," suspected to be on M.I.A.'s sophomore album, "Kala," is a certified banger. It's on the Brit/Sri Lanka rapper's Myspace page and, of course, ripped onto a number of blogs, including this one. But it's not been officially released in any way.

That hasn't stopped a remix of the unreleased song — truly an "only in the music blog world" phenomenon. That said, the track uses the chain-gang chant of Kanye West's "Jesus Walks" to do exactly what a remix should: Make the song just as good, just in a different way.

Highly recommended:

Bonus track: a silky smooth mash-up using T.I.'s 2006 instant classic "What You Know." Takes the song from something you play while cruising in your Land Rover to something you play while lounging on the porch on a hot day.

Rip City!

2007-05-23T14:10:00.000-07:00

A lot's changed since E-40 rhymed "fat wallets" with "Rasheed Wallace." E-40 graduated up from only being known in hip-hop circles and dorm rooms, and 'Sheed got traded from the Blazers to the Pistons, won rings, didn't have to be the go-to guy anymore and mellowed out into the NBA's cranky-but-loveable uncle instead of its drunk, abusive dad.

But absolutely everything changed last night when the Blazers won the first pick in the lottery. As the only pro sports team in Oregon, the Blazers are literally an emotionally the Padres and Chargers combined, and for the die-hards who stuck with the team, this is as exciting as watching LT break free for an 80-yard touchdown or Jake Peavy throw 20 strikeouts. A Tony Gwynn? We got that, too.

Oden or Durant? Is this good for the league? Will the Blazers make the playoffs next year? I'm leaving the opining to the skilled Oregonian writers, basketball blogs and ESPN (the Fox News Channel of sports). But I will just say this...

Let's play the feud

2007-05-22T10:04:00.000-07:00

About five years ago, 50 Cent pretty much ended rapper Ja Rule's career with a couple of blistering dis tracks in one of the better rap feuds since Biggie and 2Pac got shot and things got heavy. 50 really played up the idea that Ja wasn't a hardcore rapper, and some of it was exaggerated, but a dude can only make so many "Grease"-inspired music videos before he brings it on himself. Next thing you know, everyone from Busta Rhymes to Fat Joe were piling it on and — poof — Ja Rule disappeared.

But as 50 continuously slides into Ja territory with tracks using increasingly absurd metaphors for his prowess with the ladies, it was only a matter of time before somebody decided to take on 50 with his own weapons.

Over the past few weeks, Cam'ron (of "60 Minutes" no-snitching fame) and 50 have been going at each other, and it's been a cheesy soap opera at best. In the latest installment, Cam responded to 50's insinuation that he was in hiding by hanging out in socks, boxer shorts and a wife beater by his pool and saying he's on vacation.

50's response: “My whirlpool is bigger than Cam’s swimming pool.
And he shouldn’t be in front of no camera with daisy dukes on.”

The video came out last week, but it was 50's response Friday that realy sparked this post. Those are probably the two best lines 50 has written since "Get Rich or Die Tryin'"

There might not be two rappers out there now who need more motivation than Cam and, certainly, 50. The question is, do they even want the motivation? Cam'ron seems happy painting himself as the crazy street underdog, and 50 seems fine cashing in on quasi-rap pop songs about his magic stick, candy shop and roller coaster. Those are their angles, the money-making niches they've carved out for each other.

But here's to hoping this will push them both to write more of the blistering hip-hop that made them stars in the first place.

At long last, new National

2007-05-22T09:55:00.000-07:00

May Gray continues its grip on San Diego, and the timing couldn't be more perfect with the new album from The National out today. Some albums just sound better on a cloudy or rainy day, and in San Diego, you have to take advantage of those days when they come.

The National play the Casbah on Monday, June 25.

Not about music, but...

2007-05-22T09:34:00.000-07:00

... But I'm still geeking out over the hilarious clips from the Human Giant marathon.

There was the magic of Fabrice Fabrice, the show's craft services guy, who "provides all the snacks and tiny waters," a catchphrase I will have everyone in my office saying by week's end...

And the craziness of John Krasinski from the Office holding just about every hip comic hostage...

And the awesome disgust of when Paul's "uncles" make turkey cocktails at 12:30 a.m.

Plus the National playing at 2 a.m., the best time in the world to hear the National.

Coconut Records CD for presale

2007-05-21T18:51:00.000-07:00

The debut disc from actor/ex-Phantom Planeteer Jason Schwartzman's new project, Coconut Records, is available for presale on the Coconut Records Web site. The album has been available for download only on all the usual sites, but he is also doing a limited run of CDs.

Schwartzman says pre-orders should ship around the 6th, that the album will only be sold through the site and that each one comes with a "one of a kind item from Jason," which sounds kinda creepy.

The album, "Nighttiming," includes the melodic, melancholy song "West Coast." Both the single and its video -- actually an old video of a skateboarder taking over a museum -- are highly recommended.

Coconut Records site

Stream "West Coast"

Previous Baby Heisman post on Coconut Records

No M.I.A. in the U.S.A.

2007-05-21T18:21:00.000-07:00

M.I.A. was set to play this weekend's Sasquatch festival in Washington, but the fest has announced that "unexpected delays" in the processing of the Sri Lanka/London MC's artist visa has forced her to cancel.

M.I.A.'s set on the first day of the two-day festival was likely to be one of the more compelling, with her new album allegedly coming out this summer. She has no other shows planned until Lollapalooza in August.

M.I.A. -- Bird Flu (MP3)

Obviously, Arcade Fire, Bjork, Neko Case, Hold Steady, Grizzly Bear, The Blow and Viva Voce will pick up the slack Saturday, but M.I.A. was going to add variety to the mostly straight-up indie rock bill

My City's NOT a Sucker: The Airlines

2007-05-21T10:34:00.000-07:00

The Airlines are one of San Diego's most promising and most elusive bands. CityBeat gave them a big bump when they played the magazine's Local Music Issue party, but they haven't exactly been playing every weekend since then. Their next gig isn't until the end of NEXT month. Considering the strength of their Cars/Britpop-influenced songs, which easily get stuck in your head in that good kind of way, the lack of shows must be by choice.

The band's EP is now for sale on their Myspace page, and it's a highly recommended pickup.

The Airlines MySpace page

Internet Radio

2007-05-21T10:22:00.000-07:00

The planned increase in royalties for Web radio broadcasts has been a surprisingly under-reported story, especially considering how ubiquitous Web radio stations from Pandora and Last.fm to the Web stream of a local radio station have become in the American office. Mentions of the change have been folded into other stories, but there have been few major articles on it outside of the Wall Street Journal and the blog Idolator, which has been linking to the WSJ stories and writing its own posts — just one part of its strong coverage of how the music industry affects indie fans.

In short, the royalty fee for playing a song over the Internet is about to skyrocket, and the change will bankrupt most Web broadcasters. The repercussions of this are obvious and the motivations for it confounding. Another avenue for new music being squashed.

A bill to counteract the fees has been introduced in the Senate. For more info, go to...

SaveNetRadio.org

Cool again

2007-05-21T09:56:00.000-07:00

One of the coolest things this weekend actually happened on MTV.

The three comedians of the MTV show "Human Giant" spent 24 hours straight on MTV and MTV2, the idea being that if the "Human Giant" MTV site got 1 million hits, the show would be renewed for a second season.

The "telethon" to save the show turned into a 24-hour party of hip comics and hip bands that was more enjoyable than the show itself.

Before MTV became a cash cow, people tuned in because they weren't sure what they'd see. For one day, the network was that way again. Flip over in the afternoon and see "Daily Show" correspondent Rob Riggle playing an MTV security guard trying to get air time, or see John Krasinski from "The Office stop buy. Tune in at 2 a.m. to see The National play songs off their new album (WHICH IS OUT TOMORROW).

The idea that MTV was ever a no-rules network of rock 'n' roll anarchy is just nostalgia, but there was a time when there were fewer rules and more room for unpredictability. It was nice to see that again, if only for 24 hours.

Th site easily surpassed 1 million hits, so the show goes on. Here's the site, with a number of great video clips.

Human Giant site

Catching up

2007-05-17T14:02:00.000-07:00

Baby Heisman HQ is getting pretty cluttered, and the to-do list for the week just kicked onto a second page, so no new posts until Monday, unless something buck silly happens.

Besides, there's been a lot of longer posts over the past week, so while the Baby Heisman gets caught up, catch up on the Baby Heisman:

An interview with the mastermind of the Hollywood Bowl's concerts that have paired the likes of Air, Belle & Sebastian and The Decemberists with the L.A. Philharmonic

Portland act YACHT screwing with a hometown interviewer in an article that is still hilarious on the third read.

Recaps of great shows last weekend from S.D. bands Vinyl Radio and The Modlins

An interview with S.D. band The Prayers about their current tour in the U.K., risking the cash to go, and their "deathly serious" plans for the band

The latest edition of "My City Is a Sucker," calling out Girl Talk to come play here for once.

Plus news about The National, The Arcade Fire, Pink Martini, and Elliott Smith

That also doesn't mean there's a lack of stuff going in during the next few days. In fact, there's a sure-fire pick most nights:
Thursday: (Bad-ass) music trivia night at the Ken Club. More info here.
Friday: Patrick Wolf at the Beauty Bar. ... Patrick Wolf — The Magic Position (MP3) (Highly Recommended)
Saturday: House party with Grand Ole Party and The Muslims (and costumes). More info here.

See you Monday.
-B.H.

My City's a Sucker: Girl Talk

2007-05-17T13:34:00.000-07:00

It's been almost a year since mash-up king Girl Talk (Real name: Greg Gillis, which somehow makes him even cooler) absolutely blew up, and he still hasn't brought his reportedly phenomenal freak out dance party of a live show to San Diego. And no, of course Coachella doesn't count.

The guy gets cut a little slack because he was still working a day job, getting shows in on vacations and weekends. But he's announced he's quitting to focus on Girl Talk, so that's no longer and excuse.

But his S.D. streak could be safe well into fall, with Girl Talk announcing overseas and U.S. dates through the end of September. But there's big gaps in the schedule that provide some hope: Almost 10 days between the Capitol Hill Block Party in Seattle (a city he's already played) and the Virgin Festival in Baltimore, then 20 days between a show with Clipse (!) in Portland (another city he's already played) in early September and a show with Dan Deacon in L.A. on Sept. 28.

If Street Scene actually happens Sept. 22-23, which still appears to be anyone's guess, the timing wouldn't be perfect, but certainly doable. Although, how amazing would it be to get him into the Casbah (or the Beauty Bar, because beggars can't be choosers)?

Elliot Smith photo book

2007-05-15T11:06:00.000-07:00

Photo of concert poster in my bedroom not included.

It's completely overcast here in San Diego. San Diegans call it May Gray, not to be confused with the more severe June Gloom. Only in San Diego would less-than-perfect weather get an alliterate insult of a nickname.

But it is perfect weather for this news:

Billboard reports that a book of photos of Elliott Smith, taken by rock photog Autumn De Wilde, is tentatively set for a November release. De Wilde shot the cover of Elliott's last "living" album, "Figure 8." The book will also have handwritten lyrics and interviews with Smith's sister Ashley Welch and friends such as Ben Gibbard and Sam Coomes of Quasi and Smith's old band, Heatmiser.

The book will also include a five-song CD featuring live acoustic tracks recorded by Elliott at the Largo club in L.A., including "Angeles," "Between the Bars," and "Clementine."

Meanwhile, the fantastic collection of unreleased Elliott songs , "New Moon," came outlast week. While off par with a proper Elliott album, the double-disc is far from a cash-in or an offering to he die-hards only. It reinforces how brilliant he and the songs that made it onto "Either/Or" and "Elliott Smith" were.

Elliott Smith — Fear City (From "New Moon") (MP3)

And, as always, Elliott, Jesus Christ we miss you.

UPDATE: Spin.com has a brief interview with De Wilde about how the book project came together. Go to it here.

Modlins T-shirt contest

2007-05-15T10:36:00.000-07:00

Get your design for the Street Scene 2007 logo done yet? Only two days to go. If so, San Diego indie poppers The Modlins are holding a contest to design their T-shirts, with a possible first prize being a date with a Modlin. Or you might just get a handshake, they say. But, obviously, that's on top of the gratification of seeing your design on the shirts.

Here's the deal, from the band:

You get to design the most excellent T-shirt you have ever designed (preferably one that says The Modlins somewhere on it). Then you get to send the design to al@themodlins.com, or just write an e-mail describing how awesome your idea is, if you don't want to do some sort of actual drawing type of design.

For more info, the Modlins Myspace page
Baby Heisman review of Saturday's Modlins show

The other album out today

2007-05-15T09:51:00.000-07:00

To bastardize an Ol Dirty Bastard line: Got burned once, but it was only Pink Martini.

Portland quasi-orchestral band Pink Martini was a favorite in high school and early college. Their jazzy, lounge-ey music was great for that age where you throw cocktail parties so you have a reason to wear sharp suits and cute dresses.

But months without a sophomore album turned into years (seven of them, eventually), and at every show the band promised the follow-up was coming. "Just a little more time," they would repeat from the stage like a cheating lover begging for just ONE MORE chance. Then they'd play a new, exciting song to make it up to us, but eventually I got wise and broke up with them.

About two years after that, the second album came, which was kind of like hearing that the cheating ex had gotten married. There was a little curiosity to see what they were like now, a little worry that they were going to hurt someone else; mostly, though, I had moved on.

But can cheaters change their ways? Only two-and-a-half years after their second album, a break that isn't totally unheard of these days, their third one is out today. It's called "Hey Eugene," but its title track was a crowd favorite at concerts back when George W. Bush was a candidate for president.

So if you want to have some fun, fool around, check out the album or go to their shows at Humphrey's Sept. 17-18, I'm not going to stop you. What I've heard of the album is good and they always put on an amazing show perfectly fit for the bayside venue.

Just remember that it's only a fling, a one-night stand. If you commit, you'll get burned.

Judgment Day redux

2007-05-15T09:28:00.000-07:00

Six months later, and that photo is still creepy.

Since Judgment Day came and went with the release of "Neon Bible," Arcade Fire posts have tapered off. But frontman Win Butler did an interview with Pitchfork, and I wanted to give a heads-up for the benefit of the healthy people who don't read Pfork twice, three times a day.

Nothing TOO earth-shattering in the Q&A, mostly just breaking down all the symbolism on "Neon Bible," which you own, right?

Pitchfork interview with The Arcade Fire
The Arcade Fire — Intervention (MP3)
The Arcade Fire — Antichrist Television Blues (MP3)

New National album streaming NOW

2007-05-14T16:52:00.000-07:00

Ba-ba-da-bum!

With a week and a day until the release of the most anticipated album of the spring season, The National is streaming its new album, The Boxer, on it's Myspace page. This is another one that I've avoided so I can hear it all at once when it comes out, just to bottle up the magic, but if you just can't wait, go to...

Stream "The Boxer" on The National's Myspace

San Diegans got a taste of the songs during the band's last stop, and they're certainly going to get more when they play The Casbah June 25, which is going to be an absolute don't-miss show.

Abel, come on? Oh, he's comin'.

Crossing the pond with The Prayers

2007-05-14T11:59:00.000-07:00

When many San Diego bands are, at the most, planning tours that poke out of Southern California, The Prayers are leaving tomorrow for a week-long British tour with London band Metro Riots. They'll play shows all nine days, including at a festival of about 60 bands called The Great Escape.

The Prayers have luck — a booking agent for a series of bars in England liked their demo and offered them the tour — have friends in the U.K. and have and a sound that would seem a solid fit for British audiences. But that only gets a band so far.

In an interview with Baby Heisman, frontman Brandon Welchez discusses The Prayers' decision to spend the money to fly over there and play the shows, the touring-on-the-cheap lessons he learned when his previous band, The Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower, played the U.K., and how "deathly serious" the Prayers are.

Baby Heisman: How did your demo get noticed? Did you send it to the booker?

Brandon Welchez: No, I’m not sure how he noticed it. He has connections with a woman who does – she’s not our manager but she does managerial-type stuff for us – and he knows her somehow. ... I don't really know much more than that. He heard our demo, liked it and offered us the tour. After that he saw us at South By Southwest and I guess he liked us live, too, because he didn't pull the tour.

BH: Was it a booker who is in the U.K.?

B: Yeah. He books for this string of venues called The Barfly. And they sponsor that festival (The Great Escape), and that’s how we got the whole thing hooked up.

BH: The festival looks a bit like a British South By Southwest. Had you heard of it before, and what have you found out about it?

B: It’s the second year. It would be a bit like South By Southwest; it’s smaller, though. It’s only 15 venues, where South By Southwest is 60 or so. And that’s really all I know. I was kind of impressed by some of the people who played it last year.

BH: When you were in The Plot to Blow Up The Eiffel Tower, you had played in the U.K., right? (Three former members of The Plot are in The Prayers) What were some of the tips and tricks that you picked up then for planning this tour?

B: I guess I was probably naive before about how expensive stuff like this can be and how much money you can lose if you don’t do everything as cheap as possible. So I kind of learned that lesson. We’re going to do everything as cheap as we can. We’re going to try to share a van with the band that we’re touring with, so we don’t have to hire one. We were talking about just taking the train around England and just bringing our guitars to save money.

BH: Were there any things that you muffed up completely the first time that you learned your lesson for this time around?

B: Not necessarily. Everything went fine when The Plot went over to Europe, but we just broke even, and that band was a lot bigger than this band is so far. We (The Plot) went in our fourth year and we (The Prayers) have only been around for a year now. And we had a bunch of records out. ...

So we don’t expect to have any fan base over there, so I just knew that if (The Plot) broke even barely, then this band will surely go pretty far into debt if we do some of the same things The Plot did. Like, we had a driver the whole time, we rented full equipment. That stuff adds up pretty fast. And I’m not expecting the same crowds or to sell the same amount of merch or anything like that.

BH: Do you know people over there? Are you working on trying to find people to stay with?

B: Yeah, we have friends in a lot of those cities. And just like in touring the States, you can just say something from the stage and usually somebody will volunteer to house you for the night. I mean, usually you end up meeting people at these venues anyway that you want to go hang out with afterwards, and half the time, they’ll just invite bands to stay.

BH: Overall, what are your goals for the tour?

B: Really, just to impress people with our music. ... If we can play every night to decent-sized crowds, I'll consider the tour a success. ... I don’t expect to go and get some hot shot record deal or anything like that. ...

It seems like in England music fans appreciate songs more so than they do here. Americans get so caught up in "riffs" and "chops" and "pipes" and stuff like that. We're not one of those bands, we focus on songs, marrying a good melody with intelligent words to a good chord progression. Hopefully someone will see us and want to put out our record. We're ready to record an album. ...

Breaking even would be a goal, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. I know we’re not getting paid that well for the shows. It’s more like the opportunity to play to people there. The band that’s headlining already has a pretty good draw, so I’m sure they’re getting the majority of the money. And we’re just linking the chance to play to big crowds of people – I hope.

BH: When the band was offered the chance to go, was there any hesitation because of the money involved? You said before that you're down a bass player and that it's tough to ask someone to put up the money to go over?

B: Yeah, we couldn't find anyone here that both wanted to come over with us and could also afford the flight. So we found a British kid who is going to do it and he's learning the songs via tab and mp3's. Our first time playing together is probably going to be on stage. ...

The money issue is, of course, a source of stress, but what can you do? If you're really trying to do something and really want to escape the local-band ghetto you have to be willing to sacrifice and to suffer. Personally, I dropped out of college and organized my life years ago to make music my priority. I'm used to living pretty meagerly. This isn't the first time I've bankrupted myself for music and it won't be the last.

BH: The fact that you're putting in the time and putting up the dough to make this happen, is this a sign of how serious you guys are about the band? Or, to be blunt, is the band in a place financially that it could do this pretty easily?

B: No, we're not sitting pretty financially. But the three of us are using personal money to make it happen. We're getting paid OK over there but definitely not enough to cover our expenses. And yes, we're deathly serious about this band. You can't do anything half-assed if you want to escape, you know?

BH: What are you most excited about for the tour and what are you most nervous about? Or is there one thing that's both?

B: I'm most excited to get to see some cities I haven't seen before and to play to people who haven't seen us before. I have a lot of friends over there that I'm excited about seeing. I guess I'm most nervous about the financial aspects and also about the bass player situation, but I think it'll be OK.

The Prayers on Myspace (Leave them a comment wishing them safe travels)

The Modlins @ Scolari's, 5-12-07

2007-05-14T10:05:00.000-07:00

The Modlins literally wear their 1950s-60s pop influences on their sleeves, but they definitely don't have the stodgy, statuesque live show that comes to mind when you think of Buddy Holly or the Beatles on Ed Sullivan.

On Saturday night, the Modlins played a fantastic mix of tracks of their album, older songs, and even a new song called "You Said" that they've been playing at their past few shows (which sounded especially good).

The band adds a bit of a rock to give their songs an extra edge live — guitarist and vocalist Eric Killian even did a full power-chord jump at one point — which makes for an extremely entertaining show that got the crowd up and dancing.

In a music scene full of secrets, the Modlins are one of S.D.'s best-kept. Don't ... sleep ... on ... this ... band ... even if you don't live in S.D. And if the suits scare you off, if you feel like it's too much of a gimmick, give it a chance. It completely fits their music and shows. Besides, your band has a gimmick, too.

The Modlins — Dragging My Feet (MP3)
The Modlins — I Wouldn't Know What To Do (MP3)
Baby Heisman interview with the Modlins
The Modlins on Myspace

Vinyl Radio @ Tower Bar, 5-12-07

2007-05-14T09:12:00.000-07:00

After the Modlins show we sped over to the Tower Bar, where the Oly is $2 a can and your change comes back damp, to catch Vinyl Radio.

One reason I started this blog was to motivate myself to get out and see more local bands. In San Diego people have to hunt for bands more than people have do in PDX. Once you start looking, you find them easy enough, especially with Myspace, but there's still no substitution for seeing a local band live. Unless they have a lot of money or exceptional studio skills to turn out a polished album right away, the live shows are where bands show what they're really made of, what they've got for guts.

Vinyl Radio put on a clinic on that point Saturday night. I had been reading about them, seen them in the Myspace friends of a lot of other S.D. bands, but I wasn't blown away by the songs on their Myspace page. Not bad, but nothing that made me say "hot damn."

But from the first notes of their set, they grabbed my and my friends' attention. They were loose without being sloppy, loud without creating one undefinable ball of noise, and generally rocked the stage (well, the floor; no stage). They got the whole crowd into it early and kept them there, bobbing and dancing to the entire set.

While they're pretty different musically, and there were 20 blocks or so separating them, the Modlins and Vinyl Radio show made for one of the most fun double-bills in a while.

Vinyl Radio on Myspace

I still don't get why more S.D. bands don't get more notice. We've got a good alt-weekly and good blogs, and Saturday night the Modlins and Vinyl Radio reaffirmed that we've got good bands. I just don't get it, although I'm sure there's more than one reason.

Apologies to the Airlines, who opened for Vinyl Radio. We got there from the Modlins show just after they finished. They're now at the top of my must-see S.D. band list.

What kind of mic...

2007-05-10T12:47:00.000-07:00

... would be put in the witness box at the Phil Spector trial? Why, one of those 1950s-crooner mics, of course!

For the record, I was flipping channels and CAME to Court TV, where I saw the mic, and Yahoo photos did the rest.

Maybe all L.A. trials use those mics. I'm not really up on my courtroom procedure.

My City's a Sucker (to NaS)

2007-05-10T12:06:00.000-07:00

The San Diego Reader, with its 16-page, rambling-prose stories and bevy of botox ads, is a pretty easy target (See! I did it right there!) but I read it when I'm stuck somewhere waiting, as I was the other day, and read something I didn't know about, although that's mostly because I don't listen to Jamin' Z90 as much as I did before the iPod became a car-ride staple. Anyway, the Reader's blurt section reports what NaS told Z90 abut why he canceled his show last week:

Nas Treated Nastily? "We were treated like terrorists," rapper Nas says of why he canceled his May 2 date at downtown's House of Blues.

"We came to the club, all excited," he told Z90.3 FM last week. "Couldn't wait to get here. ... Every time I come to San Diego, the energy's crazy. [We] go to the venue, and they ain't let me in. I was outside with my wife, and they treated us like terrorists. It was a little racist and we just don't tolerate that. ... We had a whole bunch of security guys rush outside to me and my wife like we were terrorists. It's not like I came with 50 guys or nothing; it was just me, my wife, my DJ, and my staff. ... They came at us like we was Osama Bin Laden or somebody.

"It was just a real nasty racist situation. ... We deal with racists in a way that they are supposed to get dealt with. We dealt with it in a manner of respect, when they should have been disrespected. We just left it alone, you know?"

Nas left the venue without performing. "It must be new management or something. I said 'Do you treat Bon Jovi like this?' They said, 'No.' ... Anybody that tolerates [racism] is a sucker in my book."
...................

AllHipHop ran a story, too, and added a fuller NaS quote: "That's a good club. I've played that club twice. I love that club. It must be new management or something," he said. "I said, 'Do you treat Bon Jovi like this?' They said, 'No.'"

AllHipHop reports that NaS also said he'd come back and make up the show at a bigger venue.

....................

No response yet from HoB, and there's certainly no reason that NaS would lie, but I'm personally reserving judgment until I see if/how HoB can explain itself. I just know how quickly things can escalate.

NaS — Life's a Bitch (MP3)

FM 94.9 Indie Jam Local Stage acts announced

2007-05-10T11:25:00.000-07:00

While I caught up on sleep after some 8 a.m. jackhammering of the sidewalk (If you ever need concrete work done, DON'T go with C.H. Westgate Inc. Concrete), FM 94.9 sent an e-mail to its "insiders" announcing the lineup for the Indie Jam's local stage. The line-up is filled with local mainstays, but that's the thing about San Diego: they'll still be completely unknown to most of the people at the show. The acts are:

Grand Ole Party
Mr. Tube & the Flying Objects
Transfer
The Softlightes
Scarlet Symphony

And in case you forgot, the mainstage acts are:
Interpol
Kings of Leon
Spoon
Living Things
Aggrolites
Test Your Reflex

Fee-less tickets go on sale Saturday, but "insiders" can buy them now through a presale (If you're not, the password is in an Oasis song title; happy hunting!)

If you're going to the show (I'm not) swing by between mainstage sets and check out a local band (links below). No guarantee that you'll be blown away, but, seriously, you're there for music, not to stand in line for 15 minutes to buy an $8 cup of lite beer.

Grand Ole Party on Myspace (Recommended)
Mr. Tube on Myspace
Transfer on Myspace
The Softlightes on Myspace
Scarlet Symphony on Myspace

The mastermind of the Hollywood Bowl

2007-05-09T10:04:00.000-07:00

When people say they like all kinds of music, they usually aren’t into music much at all, as opposed to genuinely liking everything from, say, indie to orchestral.

Not Johanna Rees. A former booker for a Los Angeles rock club, Rees is the mastermind behind the concerts at the Hollywood Bowl that have paired the L.A. Philharmonic with indie heroes like Air, Belle & Sebastian and the Decemberists, who will play July 7.

The series is Rees’ baby, and the kid’s growing up quick. Since 2004, she’s put on a show a year and they’ve all sold out. This year’s Decemberists show has evolved into a small tour, with orchestral dates set for Atlanta, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Chicago.

Not too shabby, considering Rees, 37, was hired seven years ago just for the summer to book flights and hotels for bands playing the Hollywood Bowl. When the gig turned into a permanent job as a program manager, it also sparked the idea to combine her rock and punk background with her new surroundings.

“I worked for the L.A. Philharmonic and it was a completely foreign entity to me,” Rees said in an interview with Baby Heisman. “I wanted to do a concert with a rock band and an orchestra to bridge the gap.”

Her first orchestral show featured Stereolab and Air, two ambient, electronic pop bands with a dedicated fan base.

“We sold 17,000 tickets when Air had never come into the market and done more than four or five thousand tickets,” she said. “Clearly there was an interest from an indie rock audience that maybe was growing up a little bit and wanted to have another texture included with their music, as well as maybe orchestral fans who were interested in a more contemporary rock or pop sensibility.”

Rees looks for bands with a sweeping sound that fits an orchestra, which has become easier to find as more groups add strings and other instruments to their albums. But she said tight musicianship counts most. “I really can’t mess around and put a band in front of them (the philharmonic) that doesn’t know what they’re doing musically.”

She said the Decemberists showed that musicianship at their CMJ showcase in New York last year. She started going after the band, which has been the case for each of her shows, and got final approval from her bosses, whom she said have approved all of her picks.

“I ran into more resistance from artist managers than anyone else,” she said.

The actual writing and arranging of the orchestral music is being handled by freelance composer Sean O’Loughlin, and it’s all being done on the computer; the band and the orchestra won’t actually meet until the day before the show.

O’Loughlin has spent about six weeks turning the Decemberists’ songs into music fit for a symphony. He uses a synthesizer computer program to make rough MP3 tracks that can be e-mailed to the band for feedback.

O’Loughlin said that, with the band’s songs frequently pushing past five minutes, it’s been a challenge composing music that complements the songs without overpowering them.

“I was a bit surprised with the length of the songs, but as I am working through them, they are revealing even more layers,” said O’Loughlin, who will also conduct the shows outside L.A.

He said the set will rely heavily on the band's latest, "The Crane Wife," but he stayed silent on actual song titles.

The Decemberists — Sons and Daughters (MP3)

O’Loughlin also composed Rees’ Belle & Sebastian show last year. It was after that concert that orchestral promoters started noticing the creative and financial success and asking how they could get involved, which led to expanding the Decemberists show out of the Hollywood Bowl. Rees realized that the cost of the shows, which she said can easily reach $50,000, could be split among the orchestras, making the promoters less squeamish about the investment.

“To be successful in anything, you have to take chances along the way; Johanna takes those chances she knows she can make happen,” O’Loughlin said.

The concerts have pushed just about everyone — the bands, the orchestras, the promoters, Rees herself — into new musical territory, and Rees plans to keep going. She’d like to get Kanye West or another rap/hip-hop act. Beck, Bjork and the Arcade Fire are also on her wish list.

“For a lot of the bands it’s a daunting, daunting prospect,” Rees said. “But once the bands start thinking about it, and certainly after a certain point in their career, they love the idea of adding this whole new dimension to their music.

“For me personally, it’s watching this all come together and the band finding this new place to go.”

Young band, that's not how you do an interview...

2007-05-08T16:18:00.000-07:00

... THIS is how you do an interview (I realize the risk I'm running in saying that, considering that I occastionally do interviews on this blog)...

Indie fans will recognize Jona Bechtolt as half of The Blow, which indeed blew up big on the blogs last year. Realllly indie fans will recognize him as YACHT, who just celebrated the release of his album with a party on an actual Yacht.

He plays the Che Cafe at UCSD on May 25.

YACHT is kind of a big deal in hometown Portland right now, and when the weekly paper's music blog, "Local Cut," interviewed Bechtolt for its Travel Light feature, he decided to have a little fun. Man, if you want to screw with an interviewer hilariously, this is how you do it (Q&A and YACHT on a yacht photo below, with a link to the page at the end)

..............

If there was a word beyond “exclusive,” this would pretty much be it: YACHT, a.k.a. Jona Bechtolt, fucking with me for nearly a dozen interview questions. What can I say? It’s at least entertaining. And, given his considerable time spent being probed at the Canadian border yesterday traveling to Vancouver for last night’s show with LCD Soundsystem, maybe he was just disoriented. I dunno. In any case: enjoy…

TL: How fast did this tour really come up? Was it just something like ‘ we need you in San Francisco the day after tomorrow. You in?’

JB: Oh brother, you don’t know the half of it. So Terry from LDC leaves me a text message – of all things – at, I don’t know, four in the afternoon – day of show – which simply reads: “BAY AREA. 6:30 PM. $3800. YOU KNOW THE DRILL.” I tell you what, I’m lucky my buddy Sel has this Apache F-14 helicopter he’s been illegally working on in international waters. Baby barely stays up there, but baby makes it. Don’t even get me started on Oakland flight restrictions vis a vis dual rotors, or what a d-bag Terry was when we finally arrived. Sheesh.

Rock and roll, right?

How did it come up?

Original opener canceled. The thing is, I didn’t even know PM Dawn was still together. Go figure. Good for me though, in terms of money.

I’m assuming LCD’s touring full-band, fully live style…does it feel discongruous at all to be opening up shows as this solo skinny guy with everything pretracked on a laptop? I’m assuming you’re touring without backup…correct me if I’m wrong.

First of all, I’m relieved to learn that 165 pounds is still considered slim and trim. Thank you for that. Backup-wise, I’ve been accompanied most nights by one of the top sixteen bassists in Portland (Maine), Eric Prutt. He was gracious enough to trek out here for the tour. He’s amazing.

How are the LCD crowds reacting to YACHT?

The crowds have not been receptive.

Best moment of the past three days?

I want to say “I’m still waiting for it,” I really do, but to be honest the money has felt really, really good. I had some pretty substantial debts left over from March Madness, and now that Orlando tanked in the NBA play-offs, well, let’s just say I’ve certainly been in better financial standing.

If you could do something different regarding the YACHT on a yacht party what would that be? If anything… If this is the party of the year, what could make it the party of the decade?

I would honestly love to do something on the Earth’s sun. I’m not sure the logistics, or if it’s even possible without straight-up death, but, man, wouldn’t that be amazing? “Can you feel the heat Seattle?” Oh man, I would love to see the looks on their faces.

I know this sounds like a neg question, but I can’t help asking: does it feel presumptuous to get so massively extravagant for your own release?

Oh big time, big time. I’ll be honest Chad, (interviewer's name is Michael -B.H.) it feels downright gluttonous. Just gluttonous. It’s one of my—let’s be fair, many—vices. I love to spend, and I love to spend on myself. Shoes, belts, whatever. I just dropped $280 on this Fax machine. Get the picture?

Local Cut interview with Jona Bechtolt

YACHT - See a Penny (Pick It Up) (MP3)

As I said in the beginning, The Blow really caught on with bloggers around October, which helped them make a number of best-of lists. If you haven't heard them before or steered clear when everyone wouldn't shut up about them, give these tracks from their lo-fi "Paper Television" a try. With summer coming up, "Parentheses" is a great track if you're looking for indie wedding reception songs.

The Blow - Parentheses (MP3)
The Blow - The Long List of Girls (MP3)

Street Scene logo contest

2007-05-08T16:04:00.000-07:00

Street Scene sent out this Myspace bulletin, which I am now merely cutting and pasting because it's hot out and I'm fleeing the mini-oven that is Baby Heisman H.Q. (aka the sun-scorched spare bedroom of my apartment). It's a pretty boss prize for the winner.

We want to make sure everyone knows about the Logo Contest we've got going on. Street Scene needs a new logo for the 2007 fest, and we are looking to YOU for the design.

The winning logo designer will receive a lifetime pass for 2 to Street Scene, so let us see what you've got with the slick graphic skills.

HOW TO SUBMIT:

send an email with the subject: LOGO CONTEST ENTRY

IN THE TEXT of the email include:
- your name
- myspace URL
- email address
- LINK to your logo design image
(you can link to it on any image sharing site--examples: photobucket, flickr, and even your myspace photos)
DO NOT SEND ATTACHMENTS!

** bonus points for letting us know how many years you've been to Street Scene **

send logo contest entries to: contest@street-scene.com

DEADLINE is May 17, 2007 @ 11:59 pm.

...

For a place to start, here's the current "logo" on the Web page of LiveNation, which is co-producing the show. Probably could use a little touch-up:

For those outside of San Diego, Street Scene is San Diego's big annual weekend alt-rock fest (This year it's Sept. 22 and 23). The stages used to be set up in the streets of downtown, with the streets cut off to traffic. It got pushed out, though, and had spent the past couple of years in the Qualcomm Stadium parking lot (If you're planning to enter, best NOT to make any "Parking Lot Scene" references). This year, it will move to the Del Mar Fairgrounds, which still has no streets but it better than the asphalt jungle of the Q.

Not the best choice of lyrics

2007-05-07T11:39:00.000-07:00

A few years back, the Dandy Warhols song "Bohemian Like You" was used in a Pontiac car commercial. With it's rather Rolling Stones-ey guitar riff and "Whoo! Ooh, ooh, ooh!" chorus, it was a surefire fit for a group of youngsters cruising around and singing along on a sunny day. It even had the perfect opening line: "You've got a great car." Only problem was the second line: "Well, what's wrong with it today." It's kind of a sarcastic song.

So when that second line hits, the kids in the car just mumble the words and laugh, like they don't know the lyrics to that part. Slick move.

Yesterday during hoops, on came another of the Chevy commercials with all the stars singing along. I think the first one, with them singing the "Buy you a Chevrolet," was a Super Bowl ad. This new spot also starts with Mary J. Blige, but this time she sings the opening line to "American Pie." I'm instantly thinking, "hmmm, this will be interesting in about three lines."

There's a levee. It's dry. There's whiskey. Then there's rye. And then, instead of it being "the day that I die," they just skip over it, "singing Bye bye, this American Pie."

Probably the best choice.

Just when I hoped MIMS-Watch was over...

2007-05-04T18:18:00.000-07:00

... AllHipHop reports that a popular German rapper has sued the NYC MC over the silhouette that makes the "I" in the MIMS logo, saying it's exactly like his. Certainly seems he has a case, and German retailers seemed to agree, halting sales of "Music Is My Savior" in the country until the legal junk can get sorted out. (Insert "This is Why I'm Hot" joke here). But he's also tweaked the "I." The new, the old and the German versions below.

And here I thought there was no snitching in hip-hop.

The German rapper is named Bushido, and the album is called "Deutschland Gib Mir Ein Mic," which sounds pretty street even in German. But does anyone see some similarities between its cover and another rap album cover?

Spider-Man 3 is an anti-emo propaganda film

2007-05-04T16:24:00.000-07:00

In "Spider-Man 3," Spidey puts on the black venom suit to fight one of the villains, a battle that ends with a few thousands gallons of water spilled in an underground subway tunnel.

It's when he fully becomes the revenge-fueled bad-ass that is shown in all the clips. As he emerges from the underground in a back alley, snarling as he buttons up his regular-guy shirt, he catches an image of his wet, disheveled hair ...

... and parts it into an asymmetrical bob straight out of Emo Hairstyling 101. Or straight out of "Star Trek," where you know it's the evil Spock because he has a soul patch.

He goes from this:

To this:

Black Spidey acts like a pompous jerk, only fully redeeming himself and saving the day when he ditches the venom and the hairstyle.

For shame, "Spider-Man 3," for propagating such emo stereotypes.

(It is a really fun movie, especially considering how superhero sequels with multiple villains usually do. It still doesn't live up to its emotional potential, but it's a comic book movie, not an Amy Tan novel. ...

Also, at one point Pompous Jerk Peter Parker gets into a scuffle at the jazz club where Mary Jane is singing. He turns and accidentally knocks her to the ground. A kid in the theater goes "Is he going to jail now?" The audience did that thing where we laughed, came down from it for a second, then started laughed again. It was hands-down the cutest thing I've seen/heard in weeks.)

Cashing In: (San Diego's own) The Stereotypes

2007-05-04T01:40:00.000-07:00

Local alt-country standouts The Stereotypes are the musical inspiration for a new TV ad campaign for Coleman — and it's a full-on blitz.

The track "Outside" from their Heisman-recommended 2004 EP "2" is featured in TV commercials that are starting to run on ESPN, MTV HGTV and other channels, with the song's second line, "let's go outside," as the tagline for the ads. The song even plays automatically on the Coleman Webpage, where there are links to download the track as an MP3 or a cell phone ringtone.

Stereotypes guitarist Mike Kamoo told Baby Heisman that ending up in the ads was pure luck.

"From what I understand, the music supervisor from Coleman's ad agency heard the song on a friends iPod. We were contacted nearly two years ago," he said, adding that he didn't think there was a specific San Diego connection.

Kamoo said the licensing money will go completely to the band. "We will also be payed royalties from performing-rights agencies once the commercials air, but again, not sure what to expect there. I've never received a royalty check for a TV commercial before."

He said the band also isn't sure how they'll use the money. The Stereotypes just put out a new album, "4," and they aren't planning any tours. But Kamoo said the band is finishing a video for the song and if the ad campaign goes well they could renew the deal.

"This is a great opportunity for the band, but I really can't say we're 'cashing in' just yet," he said.

The Stereotypes on Myspace

Coleman page with the ads and the song

My City's NOT a Sucker: The FM 94.9 Indie Jam

2007-05-04T00:33:00.000-07:00

I'm a little behind in writing about this — the Indie Jam lineup was announced earlier this week — but I've only found a few minutes here and there to post over the past couple of days.

The main lineup itself isn't overwhelming. Two of the main bands, Interpol and Spoon, toured like hell last year, stopping in San Diego multiple times (and kudos to them for doing so), but both bands will likely play stuff from their upcoming albums, so that's a draw. The other bands are Kings of Leon, Living Things, the Aggrolites and Test Your Reflex. The gold standard is still the fest's first year, with Secret Machines, a just-about-to-break Death Cab, the first S.D. Franz Ferdinand set, Muse and a Yeah Yeah Yeahs show so bonkers that half the crowd left (we stayed).

The good news is this year there will be a sidestage for local bands (bands TBA). It's co-sponsored by the Casbah, which is also selling the tickets, so no Ticketmaster fees.
At past indie jams, everyone just stands around between sets. At this one, fans of the big bands are absolutely going to wander over and check out the S.D. stage BECAUSE IT'S THERE. San Diego's music scene is great for the City Beat/blog/music junkie set who are actively seeking out local bands. But there are so many other people who don't have the time, energy or interest to go looking for new bands, even though they would like to. This is a perfect way to bridge that gap. We need more tie-ins like these.

So big ups to everyone involved in putting this show together.

Not about music, but...

2007-05-03T23:49:00.000-07:00

... but if the Spurs beat the Suns, and America's new favorite (er, bandwagon) team, the Warriors, beat the winner of the Jazz/Rockets series, we will have a West Finals matchup of Spurs superfan/superhottie Eva Longoria and Warriors superfan/superhottie Jessica Alba.

And I don't think America is ready for that.

The editors at Maxim must be out of their minds that a cover idea like this could just fall into their laps.

Get to the Ken Club early on Friday

2007-05-03T15:00:00.000-07:00

Friday night's show at the Ken Club starts off with a really solid Seattle band called The Hands (Full disclosure: the frontman is a friend of a friend ... and that friend designed the poster for the band that's been hanging up by the jukebox in the Ken Club. I didn't have to disclose the last part; I just wanted to plug her gig-poster-designing abilities).

One of their general posters is below.

The band has been playing a bunch around Seattle and became a favorite of the DJs at KEXP, the indie radio station up there and generally one of the best radio stations in the country. They booked themselves a little tour that comes to our hamlet. Like I said, solid, straightforward rock. Check them out.

The Hands on Myspace

Baby Heisman new MP3 Roundup Part II

2007-05-03T13:25:00.000-07:00

Continuing the roundup, in all its low-tech glory...

Elliott Smith — New Moon
Most of the songs on this two-disc album from the Self-titled/Either-Or period (probably his best) are known to Elliott die-hards, and a number of them showed up on last year's unofficial "Basement II Demos." The big upside of this album is hearing the songs professionally mixed. The album shows how good of a songwriter Elliott was and how good the songs on "Elliott Smith" and "Either/Or" truly are. it comes out next week.

Elliott Smith — Fear City (MP3)
Elliott Smith — Miss Misery (Early Version) (MP3)

Jarvis Cocker — Jarvis
The former Pulp frontman's solo album was finally released in the U.S. a couple of weeks ago, and he is coming off a lot of buzz from his Coachella set. Songs like "Black Magic," with its rip of "Crimson and Clover," are pretty catchy.

Jarvis Cocker — Black Magic (MP3)

Lil' Wayne — Da Drought 3 mixtape
Lil' Wayne is becoming the Ryan Adams of hip-hop. Somewhere in the dozens of tracks from Weezy's Dedication and Drought mixtapes is a proper album as brilliant as his last, "Tha Carter II." On "Da Dedication 3," Weezy shows he's still one of the most creative, infectious rappers going right now, making brags out of everything from Mortal Kombat characters to hockey teams.

But the self-declared best rapper alive and sports fanatic needs to realize something: streetball players — with their crossovers, ally-oops and that thing where they bounce the ball off the defender's forehead — those guys don't make the NBA. Time's come for Lil' Wayne to put together a full game and live up to his Kobe comparisons.

That said, those street ballers are a lot of fun to watch, and "Da Drought 3" is no different. He takes Jay-Z's lame comeback song "Show Me What Ya Got," and absolutely KILLS it, something we wouldn't get on an official release to be sure. But somewhere into disc 2 (yeah, it's two discs) you can't help but think, "this is fun, but what if this was on an A+ beat with the pressure on him? That would be crazy."

Lil' Wayne — Dough is What I Got (MP3)
Lil' Wayne — Live from the 504 (recommended) (MP3)

If you REALLY love Tenacious D...

2007-05-02T18:46:00.000-07:00

... you can see them at the House of Blues on June 16 ...

... for $60 a pop ...

... before Ticketmaster fees ...

Damn.

It is a benefit show, though

Baby Heisman New MP3 Roundup

2007-05-02T00:41:00.000-07:00

Today: M.I.A., Interpol, Bjork, and The White Stripes.
Tomorrow: Elliott Smith, Jarvis Cocker and Lil' Wayne

M.I.A. — "Kala"
Who knows when this damn thing is coming out. Rolling Stone says one thing, then Billboard says another. Looks like either early summer or late summer. Or 2008. Last week a radio rip of a new M.I.A. track, supposedly off the new album, started making the rounds. It sounds an awful lot like the other big track to leak off of "Kala," "Bird Flu." Even though "Bird Flu" is on her Myspace page and the video is on her Web page, I'm posting both tracks as a public service to epileptics. Her Web pages are crazy freaky with the flashing lights.

M.I.A. — Boyz (Radio Rip) (MP3)
M.I.A. — Bird Flu (MP3)

Interpol — Our Love to Admire
This is a radio rip of the first single, "Heinrich Maneuver." The official version is out next week, which must be terrible news for the Detroit Pistons. Knowing that Interpol is a fan of his, Kirk Heinrich of the Chicago Bulls is totally going to go off in their series. I don't think E-40 rhyming "fat wallets" with "Rasheed Wallace" will be enough to counteract the effect.

Interpol — Heinrich Maneuver (Radio Rip) (MP3)

Bjork — Volta
Always been a Bjork fan, but never a devotee. Listening to the upcoming album, I feel about the same. Good stuff, but I'm not blown away. However, the silencer gunshot in the beat of this track is a really hot touch. Also, the Webcast of her Coachella set has me extremely excited to see her over Memorial Day.

Bjork — Innocence (MP3)

The White Stripes — Icky Thump
A great radio rip of the title track, with a British DJ going "Heavy, heavy" like he's Mike Skinner of The Streets, went everywhere last week and disappeared just as thoroughly. But with the single officially out on iTunes, it took about 24 hours for it to reappear everywhere again.

I've been listening to this thing for two weeks and still don't quite know what to think. I've liked each White Stripes album a little less after De Stijl as they've gotten progressively cutsier (that isn't code for more popular, by the way). By the time we got to "My Doorbell," I figured I was pretty much done with them. Then came the blazing opening riffs of this song and some good 'ol, fast-spitting Jack White lyrics; he even gets creatively political. Then that faux-bagpipe thing kicks in and, like I said, I don't know what to think. But I'm still listening to it, so that says something.

The White Strips — Icky Thump (MP3)

What, no Britney?

2007-05-01T15:01:00.000-07:00

In case you were wondering why I'm the only blog within 30 miles of SoCal that hasn't written about tonight's maybe-yes-maybe-no-probably-yes-as-of-now Britney Spears comeback show at the House of Blues...

When I started this site, I described it as a music blog with a news filter. So, guess what? Britney gets filtered out. I'm being a TOTAL snob about it, yup. I get why everything surrounding this show is fun and everything, but I've never really been into the whole celeb thing to begin with.

I wouldn't go berserk, let alone pay $35 before fees (or more from scalpers), for a showing of "Plan Nine From Outer Space" in 3D, either.

Besides, it's ... been ... covered ... thoroughly.

The weekend where I wanted to be everywhere but couldn't, Part II

2007-04-30T13:12:00.000-07:00

Responsibility kept me from going to last night's Regina Spektor show, which was even more of a bummer after watching a bit of the Webcast of her Coachella show before heading to the Ken Club on Saturday night.

Thankfully, bloggers-in-arms Lyn from Chick Rawker and Rosey from S.D. Dialed In went. Click to hear what Lyn and Rosey had to say.

Regina Spektor — Fidelity (MP3) (One of my fav songs of 2006)
Regina Spektor — On the Radio (MP3)

Secret Apollo, Kite Flying Society and Swim Party @ The Ken Club, 4-28-07

2007-04-30T12:29:00.000-07:00

Secret Apollo, Kite Flying Society and Swim Party (all S.D. bands) certainly don't sound alike, but they complemented each other perfectly Saturday night to make for a great overall concert.

Secret Apollo kicked out a fun set of their keep-it-under-two-minutes pop songs and enticed the crowd with a tub of Red Vines, free for the taking. (Note to other bands: Candy and booze go surprisingly well together.)

I hadn't seen Swim Party in a while and had forgot how tight and heavy they are (much more than my photo suggests).

Claps and cheers cajoled them into an encore, where they played Yo La Tengo's "Sugarcube," a great cover choice.

The video for Sugarcube, in which the band's label sends them to rock school, is one of the funniest videos out there. David Cross wears a hot pink wig.

But the highlight of the night was Kite Flying Society, which played six songs from their upcoming second album, which frontman Dustin Illingworth said will be called "The Aviary." Just a couple of months ago, their new material still sounded raw; Saturday night, even though the songs were live and unknown, the nuances came through on tracks like "The Balloon Peddler" and "Hollow Bones." An exciting follow-up to their debut album is obviously taking shape.

People in and out of San Diego: Don't sleep on Kite Flying Society. If you're into indie pop at all, check out their first album, "Where Is the Glow?" If you're nearby, check them out a week from today, May 7, when they play the Casbah. With a combination of talent and downright fun, they deserve a wider audience.

If I see one more...

2007-04-30T12:21:00.000-07:00

...blog post a photo of a quasi-celebrity who was hanging out at Coachella over the weekend... You're at a festival with a lineup THAT deep and you're keeping your eye out for Paris Hilton, Kelly Osbourne and Danny DeVito? You spent all that money to get there and you're doing the job that Star magazine gives to the stringer?

OK, rant over.

Rufus Wainwright @ The Belly Up 4-28-07

2007-04-30T11:54:00.000-07:00

I wanted to check out Rufus Wainwright's show Saturday, but the ticket price and the lure of the all-local bill just three blocks away at the Ken Club made me pass him up. But he's been selling out venues and playing songs off his upcoming album, so I deputized Rufus superfan Rachel as a correspondent and had her report back...

(Photo from Rufus' Coachella set)

I think Rufus Wainwright is in love. I don't have any inside information on this, but after seeing him perform at the Belly Up on Saturday night I believe that something good is going on in his life. It was the first time in seven years and seven concerts that I'd seen him so confident and put together (no fumbled lyrics!). And the songs from his upcoming album, "Release the Stars," which made up the bulk of the show, had a decidedly optimistic feel to them. His life seems to be settling down. Or maybe he's just hoping a different approach might help him capture the pop stardom that's been eluding him.

With the concert so heavy on new songs (including the first track, "Do I Disappoint You," which Wainwright insisted was a rhetorical question), my concert buddy felt left out because she was most familiar with the album "Poses." The only time she could sing along was during "One Man Guy," a duet with opener Teddy Thompson during the encore. Speaking of Thompson, my favorite of Wainwright's new offerings was "Nobody's Off the Hook, " which he wrote for Thompson. He mused on his friend's "baby blues" so sweetly, sounding more like a comforting older brother than an angst-ridden artiste.

Though I felt intrigued by his new stuff, the highlight was "Beautiful Child" (from "Want One"), which rocked and was the most emotionally satisfying moment of the night. After the song, Wainwright said: "Hey, that was fun, it was kind of like a mariachi tune!" He was referring to the horn section onstage, part of the seven-person band he'd brought with him. It was the first time I'd seen live horns on tour with Wainwright, as well as no female backup singers (his all-male crew wore striped, kind-of matching shirts and plenty of sparkly brooches). The main horn section was made up of a tenor sax, trumpet and French horn, which was miked too heavily for the first half of the show. This was thankfully remedied because, really, too much French horn is never a good thing. Two and half hours of Rufus Wainwright (plus one intermission), however, was a very good thing.

"Release the Stars" comes out May 15.

The best news of last week

2007-04-30T11:12:00.000-07:00

Sleater-Kinney isn't the greatest band ever, but they are my favorite band ever. "Dig Me Out" took me from a music fan to a music junkie, and their two farewell shows over the summer were the most powerful performances I've ever seen (and worth every penny of airfare).

So in a week that included an Arcade Fire show, the best thing I saw was photos of Carrie Brownstein again holding a guitar. Carrie played a four-song solo set at a reception for a new book of writing about Portland. She played:

The Go Betweens - "Love Goes On!"
The Ramones - "Danny Says"
Sleater-Kinney - "Funeral Song"
Bruce Springsteen - "Dancing in the Dark"

Behold:

For a million reasons, this reminds me of the morning I turned on the TV and Michael Jordan was back, but wearing No. 45.

There's more details about the show over at Tiny Suns Infused With Sour, a really solid S-K news blog, especially for post-hiatus updates.

Sleater-Kinney — Funeral Song (MP3)

A couple of random S-K tidbits: After Thursday night's Arcade Fire show, I told a friend that, with Carrie Brownstein seemingly in retirement, Regine was my new indie crush. Twenty-four hours later, Carrie re-emerges. I was silly to stray.

Also, after the first night of the farewell weekend, some of us were in a bar talking about what we thought each member would do after S-K, and one guy said he thought Carrie would write for a while, find a group of musicians nobody has ever heard of but were immensely talented and put together the ... greatest ... rock ... band ... ever. After a 24-song set and a few beers, that sounded like heaven. Still does, actually.

How to buy Hold Steady tickets online

2007-04-30T10:48:00.000-07:00

While you can't buy tickets for the Hold Steady show June 1 at Canes on the venue's Web page, and it's not listed on Ticketmaster or on the Hold Steady's site, there is a way to get them without going down to Mission Beach to get them.

Go to the band Web page and click on "shows." Scroll down to the Phoenix show and click "buy tickets." It will take you to the Hold Steady's own ticket service, which has the San Diego show. it looks like the same software the Casbah uses for buying tix online.

If you're not into treasure hunts, you can just click this link to go right to the page.

The Hold Steady — The Cattle and the Creeping Things (Live and acoustic) (MP3)

A weekend in the city

2007-04-27T17:00:00.000-07:00

For those not heading to Coachella, there's a don't-miss local show happening Saturday night. Swim Party, Kite Flying Society -- one of the best indie pop bands (period) -- and Secret Apollo are playing at the Ken Club. Starts 9-ish.

Rufus Wainwright is also playing Saturday at the Belly Up. Show's sold out, though.

Not much time to write or post MP3s, so just Myspace links for all

Swim Party
Kite Flying Society
Secret Apollo

Coachella Web cam

2007-04-27T12:35:00.000-07:00

A live look at Coachella right now:

Har har. Seriously, though, why isn't the Coachella festival held in winter? I know bands are more geared up for touring in the summer, but it would be the only gig. Besides, it's not 75 EVERY day in the winter in San Diego. It would make a nice reprieve even for the sunny Southern Californians.

If you want a real look at Coachella, the AT&T Blue Room site is Webcasting some of the sets throughout the weekend. Not every band gets a Webcast, about 10 per day. It starts at 3 this afternoon.

Here's a link to the site, including set times for the Webcasts.

Arcade Fire @ Spreckels 4-26-07

2007-04-27T00:28:00.000-07:00

When the first four songs of the set are powerful enough to close the set, you know you're in for something special.

Just a few months ago, the Arcade Fire seemed pensive and unsure on stage as they tried to get comfortable with their new songs. Last night, the band played with complete confidence, which allowed them to play with the energy and emotion that has made them so beloved to begin with.

Starting with "Black Mirror," "No Cars Go." "Haiti" and "Wake Up," the band (10 members strong) raced from instrument to instrument, quickly breaking sweats and tambourines in the process.

But as they continued to click off their most powerful songs, "Power Out," "Intervention," "Rebellion (Lies)," "Tunnels," it became clear that the climax of the show would be something completely different.

Instead of a blowout, they showcased some of the best bottled-up songs off "Neon Bible," ... "Keep the Car Running," then "The Well and the Lighthouse," and finally the title track.

One of the biggest surprises of the show was how well frontman Win Butler's multi-instrumentalist wife, Regine, commanded the stage. She was a solo artist before the band formed, but last night, as she moved from the side of the stage to the front to the drum kit and back again, she proved to be a true rock star.

There were so many moments in the set that produced the kind of raw, reflexive emotion that made us music fans in the first place. The music, instead of tradition, brought people out of their seats.

Most of the things people yell at concerts are annoying at best, but last night someone summed up the whole crowd's feeling about halfway through the show: "play forever."

The set list:
Black Mirror, No Cars Go, Haiti, Wake Up, My Body is a Cage, Neighborhood #2 (Laika), Intervention, Ocean of Noise, Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels), Neighborhood #3 (Power Out), Rebellion (Lies), Antichrist Television Blues, Keep the Car Running

Encore: The Well and the Lighthouse
Encore 2: Neon Bible

A couple of side notes from the show: Win announced that a dollar from each ticket was going to a clinic in Haiti that provided free medical care. He also shed some light on the nearly unknown opener, Cass McCombs. He said Arcade Fire used to open for McCombs in Montreal, so this was a way to show some love for him. An extremely cool way, indeed.

Feist cancels ... again

2007-04-26T14:11:00.000-07:00

She's two for two now ...

Word just came from the Belly Up that Feist's show June 30 has been canceled. She canceled last time she was set to play the Belly Up. UPDATE: Scheduling conflict is the reason being given.

Jeez. So disappointing that I'm not even going to use this opportunity to gratuitously post another photo of her.

My city's a sucker: San Diego thinks San Diego is DA BOMB for that indie rock all the kids are into

2007-04-26T01:36:00.000-07:00

I'm going to try to write this whole thing without using the term "the man."

The San Diego Visitors' Bureau has launched a campaign called "San Diego Soundscape" to promote the city as an "indie rock" destination on par with Austin, NYC, PDX or Seattle. Or Memphis. Or Detroit. Or Chicago. Or Milwaukee.

San Diego Soundscape promotional page

They've put together a two-disc promo CD of "up and coming San Diego bands" (Rookie Card is the big name on it, to give you an idea of what we're dealing with) and are offering a sweepstakes for the San Diego rock and roll experience!

That's plane tickets, a stay at the Manchester Hyatt, a show, dinner, and the Gospel Brunch at the House of Blues, one of the most generic musical experiences the city has to offer. Oh, also a Hula Hut Honeymoon Holiday at Spa Tiki.

This all seems right up the alley of the businessman who saw a great house band at a Gaslamp bar last night. All that's missing from this ad campaign is a reference to "The O.C."

There's even a San Diego music history section on the Web page, with the requisite Tom Waits and Blink 182 references.

There are some great local bands here, and there's definitely some kind of disconnect that is keeping them from getting bigger exposure inside and out of the city that other cities' music scenes don't have. But this is like when you were a teenager and your mom declared that she was cool. Part of becoming an indie destination, by definition, is that it can't be forced or promoted.

Read today's Union-Tribune business section story for more details about the absurdity. "Gen-X" shows up a few times.

I'm not slamming the bands for being a part of this; it's a great way to get more people to hear your music. But if you're going to do a promotional gig, go all out:

Lifesavas tracks

2007-04-26T00:58:00.000-07:00

Sprinted out the post yesterday on Lifesavas coming to the Casbah on June 13, a Wednesday, but I wanted to give them a proper post and include some tracks.

The PDX group's sophomore record, "Gutterfly," came out Tuesday and it's recommended for fans of 70s-funk-fueled hip-hop. "Shine Language" has been getting a lot of play around here this week.

Here's a couple of tracks. You gotta love it, Beyonce:

Arcade Fire backup plan

2007-04-26T00:42:00.000-07:00

If you got shut out of tickets for tonight's Arcade Fire show, the next best thing might be to go to the Museum of Contemporary Art in La Jolla for a screening of the Talking Heads concert movie, "Stop Making Sense" (an especially fitting choice considering how many times Arcade Fire gets compared to the Talking Heads).

If you don't count "This Is Spinal Tap," then "Stop Making Sense" is the best music movie of all time. You always hear about bands being better live. The Talking Heads practically created new songs on stage. David Byrne's seemingly boneless body movements turn the whole thing into pop art.

If you go, when Byrne starts running around the stage at the end of "Life During Wartime," get up and do a lap in the theater down, up and back around the aisle. Get everyone to do it.

Museum of Contemporary Art link

You could also go to the Mute Math show at the House of Blues and make fun of indie-pop opener Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin. Please, don't name your band/album/song after a real living person. You'll get pestered for weeks after that person dies. If you're thinking about starting a band called Chin Up Ariel Sharon, just don't.

Arcade Fire opening act announced

2007-04-25T16:49:00.000-07:00

As usual, Rosey over at SD Dialed In keeps tabs like nobody else, living up to her info junkie nickname by figuring out that the opener for tomorrow night's Arcade Fire show will be singer-songwriter Cass McCombs.

Here's a myspace photo of ....?

I hadn't heard of him either.

S.D. Dialed In

Cass McCombs on Myspace

Back-to-back PDX in San Diego

2007-04-25T16:41:00.000-07:00

Casbah says Portland hip-hop heroes Lifesavas are playing June 13, and Menomena rides its blogger buzz into town the next night, the 14th.

June is filling up nicely.

Tracks from new Lifesavas album "Gutterfly" (Stream)
Menomena's "Friend or Foe" (Stream)

My City's a Sucker: Third Eye Blind

2007-04-25T13:26:00.000-07:00

Making fun of the House of Blues is like kicking a one-eyed puppy ... easy to do (I once called its lineup a never-ending state fair) but you shouldn't feel good about it afterward.

This was too good to pass up, though: Yesterday I was getting caught up on the last of my post-sickness e-mail. The House of Blues concert alert titled "Coming to HOB: Third Eye Blind!" had moved to the bottom of the list.

I opened it just to see if there was any other band info (there wasn't) and was greeted with this awesome intro:

Get through this "Semi-charmed kind of life" when Third Eye Blind comes to the House of Blues!

I love it. They're not even trying. It's like saying, "Hey, remember Third Eye Blind? No, well, try this..."

Meanwhile, Hootie and the Blowfish "only wanna be with you" at Humphrey's this summer. Cheapest tickets, I'm not making this up, are $70 before fees.

The other album out today

2007-04-25T01:54:00.000-07:00

OK, it's past midnight, so the other album out yesterday...

Add the Arctic Monkeys to the list of new-music wonderkids whose second album barely makes a peep. Come on, be honest, did you even know it came out Tuesday? Did you even care? Seriously, we have to start taking a deep breath before we go berserk on these bands. But I digress...

The album that's been getting a lot of play around here has been "Woke on a Whaleheart" by Bill Callahan (aka Smog). A student of Kris Kristofferson and John Prine, and sounding a bit like a less-gravely Silver Jews, Callahan shows that, many times, the ticket to getting out of the coffeehouse is solid lyrics.

Bill Callahan — Sycamore (Highly Rec.) (MP3)

Coke-bottle glasses and polka dots to invade San Diego

2007-04-25T01:19:00.000-07:00

Girl-group throwback The Pipettes are coming to San Diego. The Ronettes-by-way-of-Britpop threesome and their backing band play the Casbah on June 10.

The most original thing about The Pipettes is that nobody thought to take girl-group retro this far before. They've got it down to a science, with each of the women taking a specific persona. (Blond, brunette, blond with glasses; pick which one you want to swoon over!) The band even has a Phil Spektor/Ike Turner mastermind who put the band together and writes the songs.

But when the music starts to get its cheesiest, out comes a wink-and-a-nudge line like "I just wanna move // I don't care what the song's about" that lets you know it's OK to play along. They're doing it with smarts but not taking themselves too seriously.

Their debut album, "We are the Pipettes," is one of those pesky albums that's been out in the U.K. for months and passed around among the Net-savvy in the U.S., but it gets a proper American release this summer. There's a video for just about every song on the album on YouTube ... and some MP3s below.

The Pipettes — We are the Pipettes (MP3)
The Pipettes — Your Kisses are Wasted on Me (MP3)

Also, the other night I made a "(Remember) Walkin' in the Sand" reference and nobody got it. So this seems like a good time to post some Shangri-Las. It's original girl-group music, and I'm a sucker for it.

The Shangri-Las — (Remember) Walkin' in the Sand (MP3)
The Shangri-Las — Out in the Streets (MP3)

Sly and the Family Stone Appreciation Day

2007-04-24T12:11:00.000-07:00

When I was in sixth grade, Tag Team's "Whoomp, There It Is" came out. My dad, who never really made a fuss about my music (MC Hammer, C&C Music Factory, etc.), heard me listening to the tape single and got ticked off because the song ripped off Sly and the Family Stone, a group I'd never heard of.

He put Sly's "I Want To Take You Higher" on the record player, and I heard how its "boom-lak-a-lak-a" sounded just like the "whoomp-lak-a-lak-a," but I was 12 and I was feeling defensive, so I really didn't like it and I totally didn't get it.

As I grew up and became more of a music fan, I realized the band's brilliance and importance, but when Sly came out of hiding to appear on last year's Grammys, I wondered if most people had the same reaction I did when I was 12: I don't get it.

After a ton of build-up, out came a legend sporting a Mohawk and a Homer Simpson gut. He played some keyboard with a band of "all-stars" that only the Grammys could put together, and left he before the song even ended. It was an awkward letdown.

Today, anyone who "didn't get it" gets a chance to discover one of music's true pioneers. The Sly and the Family Stone albums are being released today with the remastering/extra tracks treatment.

Albums like "Stand" and "Dance to the Music" didn't just advance funk and pop, the multi-cultural band's music advanced race, politics and culture. A million better words have already been written about the band, so I will just suggest checking out the MP3s below and one of the remastered albums. The Greatest Hits album is also a great bet.

Happy Sly and the Family Stone Appreciation Day.

Sly and the Family Stone — I Wanna Take You Higher (MP3)
Sly and the Family Stone — Dance to the Music (MP3)
Sly and the Family Stone — M'lady (MP3)

"We just had a tragedy ... so I thought it would be selfish not to speak on it"

2007-04-23T22:59:00.000-07:00

Two main rules of this blog are:
1. Keep the focus on music.
2. Don't cover bad music. There's so much good music out there struggling to get heard that writing about bad music just defeats the purpose of running a blog.

This post will break both rules.

When a tragedy like the Virginia Tech shooting happens, people naturally try to connect to it. It helps us validate the grief we feel toward people we didn't know.

So don't fault Lil' Flip for his idea to make a tribute song to Virginia Tech. Fault him for the song itself.

The overly schmaltzy beat samples Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time" and lyrically gets off on the wrong foot. The (Houston) rapper starts by saying "I thought it would be selfish not to speak on it" then raps about how he got shot and how he has lost relatives. He even lauds himself for making the track and works in a subtle suggestion to take a copy of the track to your local radio station.

Normally, I wouldn't say "this song is really silly; listen to it." As we saw from post-9/11 songs like Toby Keith's "boot in your ass" U.S.A. anthem and Paul McCartney's "Freedom," in which he repeated "Talkin' 'bout freeeeeedom" even more than he repeated "Heeeeyyyyy Jude," tragedy doesn't make the best muse. But this serves as a good case study. People have left comments on his myspace page that the song helps. But when there's so much attention already focused on a tragedy, does this come off a consoling, or just self-serving?

Lil' Flip -- "Virginia Tech Song (STREAM)

The mainstream media does a story involving hip-hop that doesn't blame everything ON hip-hop

2007-04-23T22:17:00.000-07:00

The last time Anderson Cooper did a music story for "60 Minutes," he ended up crammed into a box with country super-duper-star Kenny Chesney. It became a "newsmakers making news" moment, as both men are rumored to be gay (notthatthere'sanythingwrongwiththat).

Last night, Cooper did a piece on the "stop snitching" movement among blacks. CBS sent out a promo for it last week that made a minor splash. The news site Drudge Report, never one to undersensationalize a situation, blasted word that, in the piece, Harlem rap god Cam'ron said he wouldn't call the cops even if a serial killer was living next door. Cam was shot in 2005 and has not cooperated with the police, and earlier this year he made a video that protrays 50 Cent as a cooperating witness.

From the promo, the story seemed like another case of rap music being blamed for society's ills. Instead, the it rightly covered the issue as a larger problem. It showed hip-hop's influence on the unwritten rule in black America not to cooperate with police, but it kept the focus ON black America as a whole.

It's about 12 minutes long and worth watching. "60 Minutes" remains one of the few places on TV to find journalism that is topical, insightful, well-rounded and not sensationalistic.

"Stop Snitching" story, Part 1

"Stop Snitching" story, Part 2

Have a hunch I'm kind of on a Feist kick?

2007-04-23T22:01:00.000-07:00

"The Reminder" doesn't come out for another week, but Ms. Leslie Feist has posted the album for streaming on her Myspace page. So head over there if you can't wait to hear it ... or avoid the page at all costs if you, like me, are waiting until it comes out to get that full release-date excitement out of it.

Feist's Myspace page streaming "The Reminder"

Feist announces San Diego date

2007-04-23T11:46:00.000-07:00

This was announced Friday, which, I know, makes it ancient news in the blog-o-land-o-sphere, but there should be no diminished excitement that Feist will play the Belly Up on June 30, a Saturday.

Tickets go on sale this Friday at noon. Opening for her will be Grizzly Bear, a band that got a lot of indie love last year and just kind of made me sleepy.

Like Sherman marching to the sea, Feist's momentum toward mainstream success continues to build.

Her last San Diego show was canceled (blame it on the bossa nova), so fingers crossed that this one goes off.

Feist — One Evening (MP3)

Arcade Fire Mystery Date

2007-04-23T11:27:00.000-07:00

With the Arcade Fire's San Diego show only a few days away, one question remains:

Who will open the show?

People I've talked to at the label and the venue think that SOMEBODY will be opening, but the band hasn't said whom yet.

The show is kind of a one-off, as it's the first gig since they got back from Europe and is the only show before they head to Coachella for the weekend. After that, it's into a full-on U.S. tour with regular opening acts.

So I'm posing this conspiracy theory: It's going to be Of Montreal. They are playing Coachella on Friday, they aren't playing beforehand, they're not too big as to overshadow Arcade Fire in the opening slot, and they're avant garde enough to make a good pairing.

Or, at least, it should be Of Montreal. Either way, let's just be glad that Win's voice got better so that the show actually can go on.

Arcade Fire — Antichrist Television Blues (MP3)
Of Montreal — Suffer for Fashion (MP3)

A glimpse into the future, hosted by Scarlett Johansson

2007-04-22T12:54:00.000-07:00

If the rumors are true, and they never are in the end, Scarlett Johansson is going to be singing backup for the Jesus and Mary Chain AND has been recording an album of Tom Waits covers.

While both of these facts teeter perilously on the brink of being newsworthy, last night's Saturday Night Live did show us what that would sound like (and showed us what cleavage looks like when it runs all the way up to the sternum).

P.S. Here's the box score from the rest of the show ... Bjork: enchantingly cool. The skits: Painfully awkward. Weekend Update: Still funny. And way too much singing overall.

Cashing In: Junior Boys

2007-04-18T09:07:00.000-07:00

With all the TV I watched over the past week while sacked out sick, I was surprised that I've only got one "Cashing In" post to report.

A commercial for Marriott hotels promoting the MP3 player hookups in their rooms uses one of the best of tracks of 2006: "In the Morning" by Junior Boys. The track is fitting for the commercial if only because it's talking about using your iPod as your alarm clock in the room.

With its frantic, minimalist dance blips, the song is a standout, but it took a long time for me to get into the album, "So This Is Goodbye." I still think the A side is much, much stronger than the B side, but the A side is strong enough to warrant a listen.

Junior Boys — In the Morning (MP3)

Smart comment

2007-04-18T08:50:00.000-07:00

There was something about the Feist video, mentioned on here yesterday, that I couldn't put my finger on. Then a commenter to the posting completely nailed it. "The architect" pointed out that it looks like a Gap ad, and he's totally right. Looks like a couple other commenters on Prefix and Stereogum had the same idea, too.

Fall into the Feist...

Feist - 1 2 3 4
Music Video Codes at Roxwel.com

Not about music, but...

2007-04-17T22:49:00.000-07:00

...but if you haven't noticed, I kind of have a football video game fetish.

In some of the best news to hit San Diego in weeks, Chargers superstar runningback LaDainian Tomlinson will NOT be on the cover of Madden 2007. That "honor" will instead go to Tennessee Titans phenom quarterback Vince Young.

Sports fans fear curses just as much as they cherish the games' rituals and unspoken rules, even if they won't admit it. The Chicago Cubs don't lose because of a billy goat, but there's no bogeyman either ... right???

Madden has its own curse. The video games, which actually date all the way to the Apple II days, used to just have the Hall of Fame coach on the game box, but since 2000 a different player who had a huge year makes the cover.

And something bad always happens to them.

Barry Sanders was on the 2000 edition and he abruptly retires from football. Atlanta quarterback Michael Vick, the 2004 cover man, broke his leg in the preseason and the team tanked. The coach lost his job. When runningback Marshall Faulk appeared on the 2003 box, he missed five games with an ankle injury and never cracked the 1,000 yard benchmark in a season again. Daunte Culpepper (2002), Ray Lewis (2005), Donovan McNabb (2006) and Shaun Alexander (2007) all were injured in the season when they were on the cover.

How serious to fans take this? Enough that San Diego fans started a Web site and online petition to keep EA Sports, which makes the game, from picking L.T.

Now, all curses aside, a million things have to go right to have a breakout year in the physically punishing NFL (Ben Roethlisberger didn't need a video game cover to get in a motorcycle wreck and have an appendectomy), and one of the rules of football is a runningback is always one play away from a career-ending injury.

It's totally set up to happen for Vince Young. After one of sports' rarities, a great rookie quarterback season, he feels like he sees the field. Plus he loves to run. One good blindside from a linebacker and, POW, Michael Vick II. Or maybe he'll get hit by a bus, but not for a month or so, enough time for him to forget and let his guard down.

But with all the nearly-Shakespearean drama of the Chargers' season -- L.T.'s records, the team's success, playoff bust, coaching change -- having L.T. be picked would be the kiss of death.

So breathe easy, San Diego. Now all the team needs to worry about is gelling under a new coach and sophomore QB, staying healthy and navigating one of the toughest schedules in the league.

OK, back to music...

Back from the DL

2007-04-17T11:27:00.000-07:00

After spending a week laid out with a smorgasboard of sickness, I'm finally starting to feel like myself again.

Of course, the only thing that mattered last week was the word "ho," but there were a number of other music stories. Here's a recap of what I missed, in case you missed it, too:

You can almost feel that Feist is going to break out this year. Last week, she was profiled in the New York Times, and her one-take, Jazzercise dance video spread across the blogs with the kind of speed usually reserved for a Wilco leak. I've never been a big fan of the one-take dance videos. All the OK Go videos, Fatboy Slim's "Praise You," where they're dancing outside the movie theater, all just seems so cheesy. With that in mind, I say the Feist video isn't half bad. She's just that hard to dislike.

Her fantastic past albums have made her an indie hero, but there's just this feeling in everything I read that her new album is going to break her out. "The Reminder" is out on the 1st, and, along with The National's "The Boxer," is the most anticipated new album here at BH HQ. I instantly fell in love with the first song that leaked from it a couple of months back and decided I wouldn't listen to it anymore until the album comes out. With so many albums leaking, I like holding off on the ones that really get me excited until they're released. I think it's important not to lose that experience of going to the record store to buy the album. Builds the anticipation and gets you out of the house, if nothing else.

Feist story in the New York Times
Link to Feist video
Past Baby Heisman post on Feist, with MP3

Meanwhile, the Hold Steady are coming back to San Diego on June 1. The band has always been really good about playing the city, and this stop, at Canes, will continue their tour of S.D. venues after shows earlier this year at Brick By Brick and the 4th and B.

One of the biggest "My City is a Sucker" moments I've seen so far: At the 4th and B the Hold Steady were the first band for the 94.9 birthday concert. A few songs in, someone from the balcony yelled "Get off the stage! We want Sparta!" The crowd on the floor, which was extremely into the show, was dumbfounded more than angry and just cheered louder as the band tore into "Your Little Hoodrat Friend."
The Hold Steady always been a love-or-hate kind of band, with frontman Craig Finn's "yell 'em real quick" vocals. But if you're on the fence at all, see ... them ... live ... it changes everything. That's how I went from hating them to loving them.

The Hold Steady — Stuck Between Stations (MP3)
The Hold Steady — Stevie Nix (MP3)

For the record, Don Rickles is just a touring member of the band.

Finally, a bunch of album release dates have been set, including:
June 5: The U.S. release of The Long Blondes' "Someone to Drive You Home"
June 19: The White Stripes "Icky Thump."
June 26: M.I.A. "Kala" (Although that's a Pfork report of a Rolling Stone article on a release date that's been pretty elusive, so it could change)

So, what else did I miss?

Still on the DL

2007-04-13T12:11:00.000-07:00

Still?!?!?! Trust me, I'm more frustrated about it than you are.

Still snowed under sick (Modlins interview was done last week, so all I had to do was click the "post" button Thursday), but I don't foresee any season-ending surgery. I'll chew a salt tablet, rub some dirt on my throat and stomach — or maybe just take it reeeeeeal easy all weekend — and hope to be back next week.

In the meantime ... Mudhoney — Touch Me, I'm Sick (MP3)

Modlins concert preview/Q&A

2007-04-12T08:42:00.000-07:00

You might think a band that dresses in suits and sounds more suited for a malt shop than the Ken Club would be nothing more than a gimmick.

Think again. The Modlins are a San Diego band with a tight, 60-influenced pop sound to back up the look. The band's debut album, "Here's to Being Happy," has been a Baby Heisman favorite since it came out earlier this year.

Before playing a Friday the 13th show at the Whistlestop tomorrow, songwriters Eric Killian and Matt Sheridan discussed being mistaken for a Beatles cover band, selling hats, and what's missing in the San Diego music scene (Hint: It's big and red).

Baby Heisman: Which came first, the sound of your band or the look of your band?

Matt: The sound has evolved more than the look has. The look was pretty much two phases: it was ties and then suits. So we kind of always had that in mind but obviously we didn’t really have any opportunity to do that until we played a show. For a long, long time, he (Eric) and I were playing just acoustically ... and then it was like, let’s add a drummer and electric guitars, and then, let’s get a bassist. So there were more steps in the evolution of the sound in fine-tuning and arrangements. I don’t know which came first, but I would say the sound was more gradual.

Eric: I would say that due to the fact that we got the suits after we had played shows ...

M: But we had ties in our acoustic shows, which is not our current sound. So the look came first.

BH: There are so many facets to your sound. How would you describe the sound of your band?

M: There’s always a four-word description with two hyphens in it: Oldies-influenced indie-pop. (Laughs) Whatever that means.

E: It’s indie because nobody knows who we are. And pop would definitely apply. We always liked, obviously, the harmonies and stuff; especially Matt’s big focus was doing the harmonies.

M: Yeah, I’m definitely a Beatle-maniac, so I kind of gauge an embarrassing amount of what we do off that. So that’s part of the oldies. And then, just generally anything from that era, the early 60s ... up to, like, ‘65. I like stuff after, too, but I’m really into almost anything before that. The kitschy factor, you know. So that’s where the oldies thing comes from.

E: And I just like ripping people off, so anything that sounds like other bands works for me.

BH: Between the suits and the photos on your Myspace page and your show fliers, there’s definitely a creative, fun element to the band. How much of that is intentional, and how much of it is just your guys’ personality?

E: To play the music and to play that part of entertaining and setting a little scene, that’s definitely something we like to do. I mean, we don’t sit at home in our suits or anything like that. But Matt does wear ties all the time.

M: Yeah, I probably do that more than anybody.

E: As far as the fun-loving and the creative, we are writing songs all the time. ... All of our artwork, our friend Patrick did. He’s the one who did all of our posters and stuff like that.

M: I feel like it’s equal parts intentional and equal parts natural because I think the intention comes in in being aware of it, being aware that we love bands that have that quality. But I think the reason we love bands that have that quality is because we’re kind of like that. So it’s sort of both at the same time.

BH: Do you worry about it becoming too kitschy?

M: I guess I’m aware that can be an interpretation, but I don’t really worry about it because I don’t feel it is gimmicky. I just feel like it’s just the style that I like. But I’m definitely aware that people could dismiss it as that.

E: Even now, I think some of it gets perceived as pretty gimmicky. I know that a lot of people are, like, “Oh, because you guys are poppy and you wear suits, therefore you must be the Beatles or a Beatles cover band.”

M: Yeah, we get asked that a lot, if we’re a Beatles cover band.

E: But a lot of bands of that era wore suits, too.

M: Yeah, it’s more an era to represent then just them (the Beatles).

BH: How do you guys stay motivated to keep writing songs? You guys are roommates now, right? Has that helped you write?

E: Actually, oddly enough, we’ve written less songs since we’ve lived together (for the past two years). ... When we first met it was right at the end of college and so, during that time, before he (Matt) moved up to L.A. we were starting to write a bunch of songs; he moved for a year, and then I was coming up and he was coming down all the time and we were just writing, writing, writing.

M: It’s very much like a relationship in the sense that when it’s long distance you’re going to make the time that you spend together really count. So when we would get together on weekends we would just crank out. Every weekend we’d write three songs. Usually what we’d do is he’d bring something he started, I’d bring something I’d started and then we’d finish those and then, on the last day, we’d start something from scratch. So we were doing that every time we got together. And then, it’s almost like, once we lived together and we can do it more often, I don’t know if it seems like we did it less because less percentage of our time has been taken up with that, or also the fact that, that was before there was a band and we were getting together on weekends and now it has to be filtered through ... a four-piece arrangement.

E: I think definitely living together has helped in that, like, now that we interact so much together we know each other’s situations and stuff. When we start to embark on writing another song, it’s like “Oh, I’m going to go at it from this perspective,” and it’s like, I’ve seen you go through that perspective, so it really helps for like, “OK, what metaphor do we want to use for this horrible situation?”

BH: How far back does the music on the album date?

M: A couple of those (songs) date back to before we were writing together. But I never really was one to finish songs, which is part of why it was important to meet him (Eric). I had basic elements of “It’s All Your Fault” probably like...

E: That was probably the first or second weekend we were writing together.

M: It seems like every time we do a release, we do about half of it with stuff we just wrote and half stuff that’s been sitting around that we feel like we should be getting out.

E: I’m usually one to quickly go, “Oh, we just wrote a new song; bump this old guy.” And then he’s like, actually, let’s get all the old ones first. ...

M: I’m like “let’s save them all. Let’s get them all out.”

E: We have this ridiculous backlog of songs that half of them probably won’t get released ever. A new song will pop up and I’ll be, like, “Oh this better than anything I’ve written before, let’s do this — three albums from now.”

M: It’s funny. We’ve had more than one conversation about “album three” already and we haven’t even started recording “album two” yet. ... It’s strange, though, because it feels like a lot of modern bands, they’ll release an album every couple of years maybe, and it’s like, if you do one every 18 months, that’s so quick. But, and that’s another thing I personally take from the oldies era: they had albums out every six months. So we’re kind of the middle ground between the two.

BH: Are you guys working on a second album at all yet?

E: We definitely plan to start doing a second one. We have a big group of songs. We were thinking about doing an EP just after this because we have this group of seven or so songs we wanted to get out, and then we were just, like, why put only seven on the recording when we can put a lot more on?

BH: Is the band a full-time job for anybody in the band, or does everybody have a day job?

M: We all work full-time now. I was the only guy working part-time before just because I was lazy and irresponsible, and now I started working full-time about two months ago.

BH: What kind of jobs do you guys do?

E: Computer programmer.

M: I work at the Village Hat Shop. And then Stoph (the drummer) does finance and Al (the bassist) does computer stuff, too.

E: Web design

M: So I’m the only schmuck with a nonprofessional job; I only make, like $8 an hour. ... It’s kind of a surreal day for me, actually, because we started off this morning — for some reason, there must be no actual news going on in San Diego — because some of the employees had to do a TV spot at KUSI for the hat shop today. And we did one on Monday for Fox news where we had to model hats and they had someone talk about the hats while we stood there. So I started the day at a TV studio, which I’ve never been to in my life, at 7 in the morning, and then I worked a full day and then came right here. So it’s like, TV, work, interview, like, what is it?

BH: What do you think is the strongest part of the music scene in San Diego, and where do you think it can improve?

E: It could love us.

M: With me, I don’t really see a scene in the classic sense. I don’t see any one clear genre. But you (Eric) were kind of saying the other night that some of the bands that were playing the show (Last Friday at the Ken Club)...

E: Yeah, before it would seem like, at least going through college and seeing a lot of punk bands ...

M: Beach-ey kind of stuff.

E: Yeah, Beach-ey kind of stuff. And at least as far as what I’ve been tuned to now it seems like the direction has gone a lot more to songwriting, and not necessarily as much pop as we are harmony-wise, but, like, bands ... the Muslims and the Sundels, and seeing them, and, like, The Prayers, I really like them. And I was like, oh, there’s a lot of these bands that are doing this kind of throwback to the 60s and the Kinks and stuff like that. ... Not that I’m saying the music before was trying to be abrasive, but it was just naturally a more abrasive style.

M: A little less light, maybe. ... Shorter songwriting.

E: Yeah, shorter songwriting, more danceable songs, stuff like that.

M: I guess maybe a pop scene is emerging to some extent. For me, I know a lot of the bands I have liked up to now, they don’t have a lot in common. It’s like Swim Party, Secret Apollo, Donkeys, I don’t know what you’d call that. It’s like not a genre, but maybe one’s emerging, I hope.

E: And what can improve? I guess, and it’s just in the nature of a big city that’s more spread out — it’s like, a city like New York, everything so packed in and so easy to get to — where as here, apathy sets in and no one wants to get up from “Must See TV” to go check out a show. And even like last night I almost didn’t go to the Ken Club show because I was just sitting on my couch watching “Invader Zim,” and it was kind of like, “oh, man, the Ken Club, that’s like a 10 minute drive away.”

M: It is weird. If it were a matter of getting on a subway, it would seem like nothing. It’s that thing about opening the car door and sitting down. I hate that feeling.

E: And it’s not even any fault of the music scene; it’s just the fault of the city’s construction. So really I’d say the way to improve the city’s music scene is to improve the Trolley system.

BH: Because you guys do have a retro vibe, if you could bring back one thing, what would it be?

E: I think I know what yours would be.

M: Oh yeah?

E: I think you’d want people to dress nicer.

M: Yeah, I think that’s a good one; like the formality of everybody wearing ties. I mean, I try to do it and, like, today, this is my casual day with jeans and a tie, but usually I have the slacks-ey tie look but, like, I don’t like just doing it myself; I kind of wish it was everywhere, because any time you see a period piece film, it just looks so great. I don’t know if things really look that great or if it’s just the cinematography and filmmaking, but I don’t know. I would feel better about the world if that were the case. And it would sell hats.

E: Well, I think if I could bring back the nonexistence of computers, that would be nice because then I wouldn’t have to be working my job anymore. So oddly enough, between us two, I would work less and you would work more.

M: That’s true, actually. Well, I wear ties and have a typewriter, so I’m living the dream right now.

The Modlins — Dragging My Feet (MP3)
The Modlins — I Wouldn't Know What To Do (MP3)
The Modlins band page
The Modlins on Myspace

On the DL

2007-04-10T11:09:00.000-07:00

Got myself pretty sick. Hope to be up and posting again later in the week.

-B.H.

Have an icky weekend

2007-04-06T18:20:00.000-07:00

Or a thumper of a weekend. Whatever gets in a reference to the upcoming White Stripes album, "Icky Thump," is cool. Here's the first promo photo for the album, in case you're trying to decide what to wear out for the weekend. Looks like SOMEONE bought a BeDazzler!

Big stuff coming up next week in Baby Heismanland: a news sports/music-oriented section and a Q&A with a San Diego band that has wooed its way into the Baby Heismanheart.

Have a good weekend,

B.H.

The Thermals @ The Casbah, 4-5-07

2007-04-06T11:39:00.000-07:00

Seeing the Thermals live, what stands out is how they get so much out of so little. One guitar. One vocalist. One bass. A drum kit with one kick, one snare and a few cymbals. Frontman Hutch Harris only uses four distortion pedals, and his fingers don't exactly fly up and down the neck of his guitar. It's a pretty lean, simple operation.

It's also a pretty smart operation. Their sound is so minimalistic that the slightest flourish creates a compelling climax. Certainly, there is no lack of three-piece, thrash-it-out punk bands out there. What sets the Thermals apart is they've found that punk rock promised land of having fun without being goofy.

The band opened with a string of songs off their latest album, last year's religious-themed "The Body the Blood the Machine." Tracks like "Here's Your Future" and "An Ear for Baby," made for great scream-alongs, with lines like "God reached his hands out from the sky/God asked Noah if he wanted to die/ he said no sir, oh no sir" and "God said here's your future ... it's gonna rain."

The band played almost the whole album last night (including a standout version of "Saint Rosa), sprinkling it in between a solid amount of songs from their older albums. Toward the end, the songs started to bleed together slightly, an unavoidable drawback of such a simple sound. But, smartly, they had held back two of "The Body he Blood the Machine's" best tracks, "Pillar of Salt" and "Returning to the Fold," which revved the crowd back up for the encore.

Despite playing and sweating her guts out, bassist Kathy Foster perched outside the Casbah after the show. With the same energy and sly smile that makes her so compelling on stage, she signed vinyl, talked to fans, and gave a thumbs-down to the House of Blues, (right on!) where they played last time they came through San Diego. she also agreed to strike the Heisman pose, for which we at Baby Heisman thank her.

Keytar sighting

2007-04-06T11:23:00.000-07:00

As recently as two decades ago, the keytar flourished in the wild. But excessive poaching pushed the instrument to near-extinction. Nowadays, the most likely place to see a keytar is at a nature reserve or preservation society.

Due to their extremely migratory nature, it's hard to determine how many keytars are left in the wild. And when they are seen, they usually hide in the back; so there was excitement in the crowd last night at the Casbah when a keytar appeared front and center.

The keytar used to have no fear of man and would stay in plain view for hours. Now, they usually scurry away after a couple of minutes, like this one did.

The keytar came out for a song during Wet Confetti's opening set last night. Their bottled-up energy made for a good warm-up before the Thermals' complete unleashing of energy.

My City's a sucker: These two guys

2007-04-06T11:11:00.000-07:00

These guys were spotted during the opening act at the Thermals show Thursday night, although spotted is not the right word. They were impossible to miss. I know the genus of annoying concertgoer exists across the world. Here are two of the San Diego species.

Guy in the ant T-shirt: Stop doing the robot. Stop doing your herky-jerky little shadowboxing dance routine. If you want to be the center of attention so bad, form your own band and get on stage.

And to his friend standing to the right of him there: Be a friend; shut him down.

Cashing In: Peter, Bjorn & John

2007-04-04T13:53:00.000-07:00

In some of the least-surprising news of 2007...

The Peter, Bjorn & John whistle-fest "Young Folks" has shown up in an add for AT&T wireless (what you used to know as Cingular). The PB&J/AT&T mash-up leaves me wondering: did it really take this long for someone to pick up the super-catchy, seemingly made-for-licensing song, or had the band turned down/resisted previous offers?

Once more, with feeling: Peter, Bjorn and John — Young Folks (MP3)

Cashing in: The New Pornographers II

2007-04-04T13:42:00.000-07:00

A while back I did a Cashing In post on the New Pornographers' "The Bleeding Heart Show" being used in a commercial for the University of Phoenix. In an interview today with Pitchfork, frontman Carl Newman talks about how the deal went down:

Pitchfork: I saw an ad for one of those quasi-legit universities, the University of Phoenix, and it happened to have a song of yours in the background.

Carl Newman: Yeah, I know. It's weird, isn't it?

Pitchfork: What's the deal with that?

Carl Newman: It's one of those things that just, you get a call, and somebody said "hey, the University of Phoenix wants to use the end of "Bleeding Heart Show" in a commercial." And I thought, "eh, fair enough." And I really honestly didn't know that University of Phoenix was a huge online university. I actually thought it was, like, the University of Phoenix; like, every city has its big university, you know? And I thought, "oh, it'll show in the Southwest." It seemed kind of odd to me, like, I've never heard of a university having a TV commercial, but I thought, oh well. All of a sudden, people started saying "I saw your commercial during 'Saturday Night Live'" or "I saw your commercial during 'American Idol'," and I thought, "what the hell is up with that?" Then I began to realize that, well, I guess we inadvertently signed up to be in a big commercial. How about that?

Pitchfork: Does it seem odd to be connected with a sketchy university?

Carl Newman: You know, if University of Phoenix is some kind of scam, then I suppose I'd feel kind of stupid for being a part of it, but you know, I can't really say that I have much of an opinion, you know? It's a university, or a school, and it might be a crappy school, but it seems like letting a crappy school use your song is probably better than letting the best business use your song. I'm not overly political, but if Wal-Mart wanted to use the song, I would just go, "fuck off, no chance in hell." But for a lot of other things, I'm not so precious about our music. A lot of work went into it-- you record your song and you mix it and you put it out and it's there in the world, and as for the rest of it, I can't really stop people from doing with it what they want. Songs always mean the same thing to me regardless of whether they're in a commercial or playing in the background on "The Office" or whatever. I don't really have any... I'm kind of shocked that I have to talk about it.

One thing that made me feel better was, right around the time that commercial started showing up, there was also the Outback Steakhouse commercial with Of Montreal in it. And I thought, "thank God, that's really going to deflect some attention away from us." At least we didn't give our song to Outback. Now I'm afraid if I accidentally say something about the University of Phoenix that a hammer is going to come down on my head, or I'll find myself in a lawsuit. My official stance is, "I fully support the University of Phoenix," but to back that, I honestly didn't know what it was. But then again, if I did know what it was, I'm not sure that I would have said no. We're just trying to get by in this world. When you play music for so long and don't make any money, and people start offering you money for things that involve no effort on your part, you start going, "I'll do that."

Pitchfork interview with Carl Newman
Cashing In: The New Pornographers

Thermals concert preview

2007-04-04T10:52:00.000-07:00

So here's your future...

After playing an opening slot at a House of Blues show a few months back, The Thermals return to the much more fitting confines of the Casbah tomorrow night. No knock against the band — they fired up a large, focused crowd as the surprise opener for Sleater-Kinney's farewell shows in PDX — but their power pop/punk hybrid sound is just built for bouncing off the walls of a small club.

The Thermals — Returning to the Fold (MP3)
The Thermals — Test Pattern (MP3)

The opener is another Portland band called Wet Confetti. Their debut, "This Is So Illegal, Do It Fast," was lo-fi to a fault, but their latest album, "Laughing Gasping" is a leap forward. A great band for those who are bummed about Pretty Girls Make Graves breaking up or for people who could never get into them in the first place.

Wet Confetti — Sorry Dinosaur (MP3)

Not about music, but...

2007-04-03T20:56:00.000-07:00

...but this is so weird that I'm compelled to point it out.

The New York Times has a story about the mass worldwide popularity of Wrestlemania (I'm tired of hearing people treat the whole Donald Trump hair thing like a real news story, too, but 80,000 people went to it ... it is Wrestlemainia, hear it roar/in numbers too big to ignore.)

Late in the story, as the reporter wrote about the people he talked to in the stands, came these paragraphs:

...The big night is finally here. An hour before doors open, thousands crowd the stadium loading dock, hoping for a glimpse of the stars. Inside, the physical production puts even the biggest rock concerts to shame. A stage and proscenium the height of a small office tower loom over the west end of the stadium, feeding a runway to the ring in the center of the floor.

Randall Godfrey, 33, middle linebacker for the San Diego Chargers, is sitting just a few rows from the ring. “Wrestling is definitely more punishing than playing football,” he says. “I mean, we wear pads. They don’t. Football is hard, but it can’t compare to the physical punishment these guys take in the ring.”...

Weird for so very many reasons. I guess we know how he's spending HIS offseason.