previewing interpol

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Much has changed for Interpol. The shoulder-holster-wearing gay old west vampire, Carlos D, has left the band. They've jumped from Capitol back to Matador. They've enlisted the esteemed David Pajo to pick up bass duties, and brought aboard Secret Machines frontman Brandon Curtis to play keys.

All this roster shuffling in the midst of a career retrenching. After the breakthrough Turn On The Bright Lights and the nearly as good but not nearly as well received Antics, Interpol has stumbled with the water-treading Our Love To Admire and the extended hiatus that followed.

Self-titled album number four comes out a week from today and is being pushed with what seems to be the urgency of a band on the brink of unraveling.





The album opens with the optimistically titled "Success":

Success - Interpol by oldwaver


The meat of the record are the two singles already released. The newest, "Barricade", features a video of taut bellies setting the backdrop for Paul Banks' crooning mug:





The video for the previous single, "Lights", presents a sexy reenactment of a pheromone ritual within a Rhinoceros Beetle. Personally, I think it works better without the laborious set-up:




If anything, the new album shows signs of fatigue from a band treading water too long. Perhaps a nice, long tour with new bandmates and material will infuse some life into what has become a relic of a long dead New York scene.

reading & leeds 2010

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This was August Bank Holiday Weekend in the UK, and with it came the end of the summer festival season — Reading and Leeds. The two are mirror images of one another, the only discernable difference noted by the Guardian UK; "Leeds is almost exactly the same as Reading, just with better weather, worse clothes and more chips."

Both had a bit of an odd, states-heavy lineup this year with the likes of Blink 182, Limp Bizkit, Paramore, Weezer and G'nR (more about them later). Of interest to many was the reunion of the Libertines, with Pete Doherty managing to pull himself out of the gutter and hold it together for an hour.

Johnny Marr and The Cribs evidently still don't merit a prime time slot, but by most accounts they were a festival highlight:




Arcade Fire headlined the very same stage, with "Rococo" from The Suburbs a standout:





On the side stage, Phoenix nailed their omnipresent Cadillac jam, 1901:





The Friday/Sunday headliner on the side stage was LCD Soundsystem, with James Murphy and company getting the biggest rise from the crowd with Sound of Silver favorites "Daft Punk Is Playing At My House" and "Tribulations":





But the story of the weekend was Axl Rose and what passes for Guns 'n Roses these days. Axl delighted the crowd with two, TWO piano solos... and last night's Leeds closing show started more than an hour late. He has since "declared war" on festival organizers, whatever that means. See for yourself if that bloated mess has still "got it":




Thanks to the BBC for the video — until they take it down, then eff em.

twin cocteau twins

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Now I've never experienced this for myself, but I once overheard a friend tell a young protege if he played the Cocteau Twins when he got a girl home, that her clothes would simply fall off.

Weeks later, the young protege reported back. It worked.

There's something about the soothing waves of sound from Robin Guthrie's guitar and the otherworldly choruses of Elizabeth Fraser's layered voice that can either lull one to sleep or weaken one's defenses.

For your Friday listening pleasure, let's look back at a couple of classics that bookend the Twin's most vital period.

First, from 1984's Treasure, a rare live performance of "Lorelei":

And from 1990's Heaven Or Las Vegas, the video for the sublime "Iceblink Luck":



Please check to ensure your clothes are still on.

hearty congratulations

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Just a few short years ago, MGMT was just another NYC buzz band. Perhaps conspicuous in that they unabashedly placed style ahead of substance. I vividly remember a text from a fellow SXSW-attending friend, who upon taking in the first few tunes of a sponsor-laden free MGMT showcase wrote "what the hell is this crap?"

Shortly thereafter, Oracular Spectacular was released and the precocious duo blew up, recruiting a full band and hitting the festival circuit. I was slow to warm to them, based on my friend's 5-second review, but that debut album grew on me — at least the half of it that was good — and "Kids" turned out to be my jam of the summer.

Now, two years later, MGMT has returned with a polarizing follow-up, Congratulations. Loved or hated, it either marks the band's creative evolution or their descent into misguided self gratification.

Regardless of your position, it's inarguable that MGMT are raising the bar when it comes to shocking, memorable and even haunting videos. Take the just released clip for the album's title track, which features what appears to be the death march of a hairless Dark Crystal muppet across the desert of Tatooine:




It's a perfectly logical step from the singing stoma eel from the "Flash Delirium" video:




I want what they're having.

arcade fire vs slim shady

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Arcade Fire's run at the top of the charts was short lived. The Suburbs was a surprise chart topper in its first week of release, but sales inevitably fell off once every emo kid had it synced on their ipod. This week, the planets have realigned and Eminem has claimed his rightful place atop the Billboard pop chart.

Even so, it's an impressive step forward for Win Butler and his band of Canadian misfits. If you haven't yet given The Suburbs a listen, you're missing out on a clear favorite to end up on most everyone's year-end list.

After the minimalist turn on Neon Bible, Arcade Fire's third album takes the grandeur and conceptual structure of Funeral and stretches it out with the maturity and confidence of a fully realized band. The added texture and expanded instrumentation is evident throughout, particularly on tracks like "Half Light II":

Half Light II (No Celebration) by oldwaver

However, all this sobering reflection on lost youth and fear of growing old hasn't turned Arcade Fire into an introspective bunch on stage.  As their recent "Unstaged" series attests, their reputation for a dynamic and even interactive live show remains intact:



So despite making a dime-sized-hail dent in the pop culture consciousness, Arcade Fire is poised to make a slow build to an arena near you. I mean, if Kings of Leon can do it...

ongoing failure

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Back when grunge ruled the earth, there were some stylistic holdouts who attempted to bridge the gap between 80's alternative and 90's college rock. One of my personal favorites was Failure, a prophetically named band that fizzled out in 1997 after their third album, Fantastic Planet.

That final album did score a minor radio hit, "Stuck On You", a lovely ballad to heroin with a typically overproduced mid-90's video:



Singer/guitarist Ken Andrews went on to release a couple middling solo projects, On and Year Of The Rabbit, but he's become more notable as a producer for the likes of Pete Yorn, Tenacious D and BRMC.

On the flip side, bassist Greg Edwards has begun to eclipse Failure with his current project, Autolux. After touring with Nine Inch Nails in support of their debut album, Future Perfect, they've returned with a critically regarded follow up, Transit Transit.

Echoing Pavement, My Bloody Valentine and even L.A. contemporaries Silversun Pickups, Autolux leans toward shoegaze more than anything else:



Extra points for the cute drummer in the Easter dress.

Oh, and one last bonus for you... Failure's 1997 cover of Depeche Mode's "Enjoy The Silence", reported to be a favorite of Andrew Fletcher himself.

moz monday: work is a four letter word

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Seems of late every festival season opens with rumblings of a reunion of The Smiths. But if Coachella can't coax them out of retirement for a reported $60+ million dollars, then probably nothing will.

The split happened back in 1987, months before the release of Strangeways, Here We Come, and interestingly enough it had more than a little bit to do with the song "Work Is A Four Letter Word".

It was a b-side, along with "I Keep Mine Hidden", on the "Girlfriend In A Coma" single.

Turns out, the song was added to the single at Morrissey's insistence, which amounted to one of the certainly many final straws for Johnny Marr.

For US fans of The Smiths, like myself, it might be news to learn that the song is a cover of a Cilla Black original:





And who is Cilla Black? A contemporary of Dusty Springfield and early client of Brian Epstien, she happened to star in and record the theme song for a subversive 1968 comedy entitled Work Is A Four-Letter Word about a lazy fiance who would rather grow shrooms in his apartment than get a job and get married.





Seems like Johnny could have brewed a cup of magic tea, had a laugh and kept the band together. But then we'd have never heard from Johnny Marr and the Healers.

keeping up with the klaxons

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The Klaxons Myths of the Near Future may have won Britain's prestigious Mercury Prize, but they seemed a laughing stock waiting to happen. I bought in, however, and spent the summer of 2007 oohhhing along with "Golden Skans."

Battles with their record label on the direction of the follow-up album, Surfing the Void, delayed its release until now — more than three years later.

The album cover certainly indicates that wrangling over artistic control hasn't persuaded them to take themselves too seriously.

Unfortunately, the album itself isn't nearly as brilliant. Alternating between earnest electro-pop and psychedelic noise romps, the Klaxons have lost their charm and really seem to be trying too hard. Take the lead single, "Echoes":



Running through the desert and jamming on unplugged guitars....  they can't be serious. Still, I kinda like it. Rather than buy in this time, I think I'll just laugh along with them.

here goes nothing

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As if there weren't enough blogs already, here's another one. I don't have any idea how anyone might come to read these words once I hit "publish," crack my knuckles and prop my feet on my desk.

Really, that's beside the point. This is a time kill. A creative exercise. A means to catalogue my narrow view of music that's listenable in this world.

Maybe I'll find that there are other aging wavers out there who enjoy reminiscing about the good old days while clinging to youth and relevancy at the same time. Perhaps I'll enjoy digging up classic tracks and measuring modern-day copycats against my heroes. Or I suppose this space could eventually lay dormant; another tumbleweed on the information superhighway.

At any rate, here goes nothing...