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05/16/08 Toad’s Place New Haven, CT
Discography
05/22/08 Slims San Francisco, CA 05/24/08 Les Schwab Amp Bend, OR 05/25/08 Sasquatch Festival Quincy, WA 05/28/08 Henry Fonda Theater LA, CA 06/06/08 Wakarusa Festival Lawrence, KS 06/07/08 Slowdown Omaha, NE 06/08/08 Bluebird St. Louis, MO 06/10/08 Bricktown Ballroom Oklahoma, Ok 06/11/08 Granada Theatre Dallas, TX 06/12/08 Warehouse Live Houston, TX 06/13/08 Emo’s Austin, TX 06/14/08 Rev Room Little Rock, AR 06/15/08 Hi-Tone Memphis, TN 06/17/08 Southgate House Newport, KY 06/18/08 Mr. Small’s Theatre Pittsburgh, PA 06/21/08 Popped! Festival Philadelphia, PA 06/25/08 Pemberton Festival Pemberton, BC 08/01/08 Lollapalooza-Grant Park Chicago,IL 08/08/08 All Points West Liberty State, NJ 09/26/08 Austin City Limits Festival TX
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Mates of State are back with Re-Arrange Us, coming out May 20th. Let me tell you that this girl-boy duo knows great pop music.
I first heard about them on a 2003 CMJ compilation with a little song called "Ha Ha", but I didn't think much of it. By 2006, after being signed to Barsuk Records, I remember I started seeing that distinctive "indie cover" artwork with Mates of State's husband and wife team, Jason Hammel and Kori Gardner, in a very strange half embrace.
There's some great pop tunes on Re-Arrange Us, but the song that the record label approved us to use is "My Only Offer", which I already liked so I have no problem with using this particular song. I thought the trumpet, played by Gary Olson, was a very nice addition to the song.
There's a few great songs, including, "Jigsaw", which basically has Jason repeating lyrics sung by Kori (actually, after reading the credits, it lists Ben Gibbard, from Death Cab For Cutie, as backup vocals). It's really easy to sing along, so I think this would be a great live concert pleaser. Also would play great is "Now", which has the simple, but catchy "Now now now now now now. Now now now now now now, who who who?"
I also really dug "The Re-Arranger", which is basically what the album was named after. This song sounds like it's escaped from the 60s and made a stop in the 80s, before resurfacing now.
The duo are currently doing some tour dates to promote Re-Arrange Us, so catch them if you're able. According to their official website, if you pre-order the album, it should arrive in your mailbox on the 20th, but you can usually find Barsuk records at most good record stores.
PS, apparently the band is a fan of the "Little Boxes" song (there is a live rendition on their myspace). I wonder if they got involved with the song because of Death Cab for Cutie's version or because they're also doing a theme song for Weeds?
Quand tout allait mal, et que je regardais les circonstances difficiles autour de moi, inextricables et déprimantes: je les croyais là pour toujours, emprisonnant ma vie, limitant ma vision, anéantissant mon espoir. Je me demandais comment les choses allaient bien pouvoir changer, comment la roue allait bien pouvoir tourner, je ne voyais pas le début d'un bout de solution.
Et pourtant, petit à petit, en prenant un problème après l'autre (trancher le noeud gordien est alléchant mais c'est une fausse bonne idée, il se reconstitue "magiquautomatiquement" ^^), donc, en prenant les circonstances une à une, et avec un peu de temps (tant qu'il y a du temps, y'a de l'espoir^^).... un jour, je regarde autour de moi, et je constate gaiement, que oui, tout, ou presque tout, a finalement évolué dans le sens que je cherchais....
Rien n'est figé pour toujours. Ni George Clooney, Ni l'Empire Romain, Ni Facebook, Ni La Bastille, Ni Apple, Ni le Titanic, Ni les Circonstances... :)
Le cours des choses peut toujours changer.
Et maintenant que tout va bien (allez, presque, mais on ne va pas chipoter), et que toutes les circonstances autour de moi, de ma vie, vont plutôt bien et dans le bon sens, je pense encore qu'elles sont solides et immuables, des circonstances en béton armé: la vie est belle..... Je refais la même erreur, mais avec des circonstances positives^^,
Mais c'est toujours plus agréable d'être sûre que les circonstances positives vont durer, plutôt que celles négatives... ;) ça me va très bien comme ça :)
Malheureusement, on a beaucoup d'occasions dans la vie de perdre l'espoir que la roue tourne, mais elle tourne, avec de l'huile de coude, un zeste de hasard bien placé, et du temps.... c'est ce que j'ai appris, et je tacherai de retenir ma leçon si d'aventure la roue semblait à nouveau bloquée à un sale endroit..... ce post sera là pour ça :)
Je me met un mot clé au cas où: Un à UN, tout est possible.
Bonne fin de journée à tous :)
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I love bacon, and I love sneakers.... so by transference, I would also love Bacon Shoe. These two MCs (Lethal D and Mr. Ruggles) and one DJ (DJ SKU), are a comedy hip-hop crew from rap hotbed of Kansas City.
I couldn't find any information on their debut album, Ass, originally released in 1997, but obviously that's a decade (!!) prior to Back from Stinktion (that's extinction for you non-hipsters).
Although there's no pending pressure that they're on tour or are in need of promotion, I was inspired enough after watching their misadventures in SXSW 2006 (their album came with a bonus DVD) to write about it.
It seems to me that they only had a few booked/confirmed shows in Austin, because the time that they weren't booked, they drove to various bars and started playing music and rapping. What's really interesting is that in one of the videos, you can see the slow buildup of passerby people actually stopping and watching them perform.
They're incredibly mobile and, watching their behind-the-scene stuff, they're quite funny.
The music portion of the album doesn't quite capture their live energy, it makes it up with various comedy bits. Like on "Toine in the Studio" doing some intentionally horrible unrhyming freestyle or on "A New Discovery Shed" where Lethal accidentally dropped "sometime you gotta bend over and take it up the a** a little bit. Erm, no you don't. I'm sorry, That's not true. I never done that before, so don't think I'm like..."
My favorite song is "Cheesedick", mostly because I think of Aqua Teen Hunger Force whenever I hear it.
Bacon Shoe's Back from Stinktion is a great album to have right next to your MC Frontalot collection. The bonus DVD added a nice value to the album, so get the physical copy from CD Baby.
Links:
www.baconshoe.com
myspace.com/baconshoe
last.fm/music/Bacon+Shoe
Préparez vous un coin zen et calme,
Un gros pouf, un matelas, une chaise bien droite, ce qui vous tente...
Lancez la chanson, et allez vous asseoir,
Fermez les yeux, et lachez prise sur tout, sauf le moment présent:
Vous, assis, la musique,
Concentrez vous sur un point virtuel entre vos sourcils,
Vous êtes là, ici et maintenant, dans ce point virtuel,
Essayez de rester concentré sur ce point le plus longtemps possible,
Analysez vos sens: chaque partie du pouf en contact avec votre corps,
Anaylez les sons, qu'entendez vous au loin, au delà de la musique,
Dans la musique, concentrez vous un moment sur chacun des instruments séparément,
Puis, comptez vos respirations,
Tout doucement, rallongez les un peu,
Juste le temps de la chanson,
Personne ne vous attend, vous êtes libre,
Ce moment de relaxation est le vôtre, rien que le vôtre.
Tout doucement, réveillez chaque partie de votre corps,
C'est fini, vous venez de vivre 7 minutes de pure relaxation,
D'inspiration yogique,
Sponsorisé par moi ^^ cool :)
Par contre si vous n'aimez ni les Pink Floyd, ni le Reggae,
Laissez grave tomber, cette reprise n'est pas pour vous....
Mettez autre chose en fond sonore :)
En attendant, bonne journéeeeeeeeeeeeee :)
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05/24/08 Emo’s Austin, TX
Discography
05/31/08 Antone’s Texas, TX 06/08/08 Emo’s Austin, Texas 06/12/08 Beauty Bar Austin, Texas 06/21/08 First Day of Summer Festival @ Guero’s Oak Garden Austin, TX 06/23/08 Viper Room Los Angeles, CA 06/27/08 Blackwater Cafe Stockton, CA 06/29/08 Make Out Room SF, CA 06/30/08 Spaceland Silverlake, CA 07/01/08 Beatles Revolution Lounge Las Vegas, NV 07/24/08 Double-Wide Dallas, Texas 07/25/08 D-FEST: JULY 25-26 Tulsa, Oklahoma 07/28/08 Emo’s Austin, Texas
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"Legal troubles and a court order" (scandal!) prevented Austin, Texas's The Boxing Lesson from going out on tour in early May - which is great for me because I was supposed to have mentioned their tour information in April, but obviously that never happened.
So, yes, they are doing a few dates in June, mostly in their home state and eventually to the West coast.
Anyway, originally, this was a full five-piece band from Los Angeles. Singer and guitarist, Paul Waclawsky, took the name and moved to Austin, where the current incarnation of the band exists as a trio, with Jaylinn Davidson (synth) and Jake Mitchell (drums and samples).
I haven't actually heard their first few releases, but from what I've read, they used to be shoegazing. Some of that influence is on the latest release, Wild Streaks & Windy Days, but it definitely feels more experimental, not just layers of guitars and sweet vocals.
The most poppiest rockiest song on the album is easily "Brighter", which is my favorite song. You can hear it on their myspace.
However, I felt like you should hear one of their ethereal/shoegazey song with the Pink Floyd-inspired title of "Dark Side of the Moog". The guitar hooks on this song is pretty awesome, like it's talking to you and it's telling you to sway!
By the way, in case you were wondering, a Moog is a certain make of synthesizer.
Their latest
video is for "Dance with Meow", which I thought was pretty funny with
the animal masks (especially the Hello Kitty worn by Jaylinn).
Speaking of which, I wish she would do more backup singing, like on the song "Timing", it was a nice treat to hear her sing, "can you feel it?/go nowhere/will it go away?" (I think).
Wild Streaks & Windy Days is out now, go see them on tour if you happen to be located in those area.
Links:
myspace.com/theboxinglesson
youtube.com/theboxinglesson08
myspace.com/loyaltyfirm
Tonight, starting at 6:00 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time (that's 1:00 A.M. UTC/GMT), we'll be taking Vox offline for a bit in order to move the service to a brand new home in some bright, shiny new server racks. We don't expect to be offline for more than an hour or two, but we apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause.
Thank you for your patience as we continue to invest in Vox's infrastructure!
Update: we've postponed tonight's maintenance, and will let you know when we reschedule. Thanks for your patience!
The Boy got sent home from school yesterday. Well, he would have been sent home, except that I accidentally left my phone off, and, for some odd reason, they didn't call my husband at work.
Anyway, he's at home today with his daddy, and he has a doctor's appointment at 2:45. After all, Dr W told me to call and/or bring him in if he still had a fever on Thursday, and, well, it's Thursday and he still has a fever. And a bad cough. And if he has the same cold I have, a sore throat, too. But I think my sore throat partially came from the constant vomiting, so there's really no telling. His appetite has also decreased considerably (he didn't even finish his banana this morning for breakfast, and he only had a little more than half a cup of his favorite macaroni and cheese for dinner last night), he has a bad cough, and he's not sleeping well. Oh, but his breathing isn't labored and he's still in (mostly) good spirits, so that's the bright side of things.
My poor little baby.
He woke up around 3AM and didn't want to go back to bed right away. I nursed him, let him drink some milk from his sippy cup (because, sadly, I'm only making so much milk now - but with both of us fighting the same cold, a little bit is better than nothing), gave him some Tylenol, nursed him some more, changed his diaper, and held him as I tried to coax him back to sleep. I thought I had him, but as soon as I crawled back into my own bed, he announced he wasn't ready for bed. So I brought him into the family room, reclined onto the couch, and tried to get him to sleep again. He was restless, so I let him walk around a bit before bringing him back into his room to go to sleep. It's impossible to be upset with a little boy who is just so excited to be alive, even at 4 in the morning. Finally, around 4:30, he fell asleep and (mostly) stayed asleep. He was still out when I left just after 7 this morning.
Needless to say, I'm feeling a bit tired.
I've taken myself off of Weight Watchers this week. After all, how do you count points when you aren't keeping most of what you've eaten in your stomach? When I'm better, I'll go back on it. It's not terrible, after all; it just requires keeping a list. And I love to keep lists.
There's a brushfire somewhere near my house (though not close enough for any danger), and probably a few more on the way to work. The air quality outside is terrible. As soon as I reached the Disney area on the freeway, the smoke was unbearable. And now all I can smell is smoke. It's awful. For this reason, I'm so thankful The Boy is staying home today. I really don't want him outside exposed to this if it can be helped at all.
The Boy enjoys watching Chris play Mario Kart on the Wii. I think he likes the pretty colors and the graphics. It works well, I think; Chris can play and The Boy will (mostly) watch. Last night they were watching something on G4 together, which was pretty cute. Chris was sitting on the floor, and The Boy was in front of him, drinking from his sippy cup, both of them engrossed in whatever was on the screen. If I thought I had time to take a picture of them together, I would have. It was completely priceless.
I'm a little annoyed today at work. See, a big part of what I do is provide reporting on a weekly basis on product performance. Twice a year, there's a group in my department that asks for information on specific items, which normally isn't a big deal - except that (1) they wait until the very last moment to ask for the information with every expectation of having it immediately, (2) they're asking for a lot of information that's already in the reports (with commentary) that I send out each week, and (3) 30% of the items on which they want information either don't exist, have not been delivered, or have less than a month's sales data. And, sadly, my crystal ball isn't working right now, so I can't tell you how these items will perform this year. If I could do that, I'd let my friends know the winning lottery numbers, too, and, well, as none of my friends have won the lottery, clearly I can't do it.
[sigh]
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Okay, so these were all going to be different articles was actually meant to go live on May 6th to today, but you know how it is when things don't go exactly according to plan.
I'm actually feeling a little under the weather (coughing/horrible throat issues and too much mucus build up). I just feel incredibly miserable right now.
Item #1: Christopher's Rollo Armstrong article is featured on vox.com/music - but the real conspiracy is that doesn't feature any The Crimea.
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Item #2: One of the PR company that sends us music to review did some promo for us and among the 20 tracks, these are my favorite: Phil Anastasia and David Yazbek, only because they really deviate from the standard "you're listening to We Heart Music" script that they were probably given. Phil Anastasia especially cracked me up and I had to play that back a few times when I first heard it.
I do have a note I wanted to mention about Yazbek, I was shopping at Cheapo Records in Uptown. Yes, I still buy CDs, although I have to admit, often used. Anyway, I was in the very end of the Jazz area when I happened to see that distinctive Evil Monkey Man cover! I had to smile to myself as if there was some kind of inside joke with the punchline of "I saw you on W♥M, dude".
Item #3: By the way, speaking of Jazz, one of my favorite shows that I listen to is NPR's Jazz Profiles, which I get as a podcast.
This is such a great program. It's often very detailed, and in fact, the last episode I listened to on Charles Mingus was so long and rich with interviews and history that it was split up in two parts.
Even if you don't love Jazz, I think you'll enjoy listening to host Nancy Wilson as she takes you on a journey of some of American's famous (and not-so-famous) Jazz musicians.
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05/08/08 New York, @ Bowery Ballroom
05/09/08 Boston, MA @ Middle East 05/10/08 Montreal, QUE @ Lambi 05/11/08 Toronto, ON @ Mod Club 05/12/08 Chicago, IL @ Shuba’s 05/14/08 Vancouver, BC @ Red Room 05/15/08 Seattle, WA @ Triple Door 05/16/08 Portland, OR @ Doug Fir 05/18/08 San Francisco, CA @ Bimbo’s 05/19/08 Los Ang, CA @ El Rey Theatre 05/31/08 Siesta Hässleholm 06/01/08 Blue Flowers London 06/02/08 Night & Day Manchester 06/03/08 Hi-Fi Club Leeds 06/04/08 Cargo London 06/06/08 Albert Brighton 06/07/08 Stealth Nottingham 06/08/08 King Tuts Glasgow 06/10/08 Jericho Tavern Oxford 06/11/08 ICA w/ El Perro del Mar London 06/12/08 Sugar Club Dublin 06/14/08 Hultsfred Festival Hultsfred 07/03/08 Quart Festival Norway 07/04/08 Arvika Festivalen Arvika 07/05/08 Roskilde Festival Roskilde 07/06/08 Eurockeennes Festival Belfort 07/31/08 Storsjöyran Ostersund 08/07/08 Öya Festival Oslo 08/08/08 Haldern Festival Lower Rhine 08/09/08 Way Out West Göteborg 09/05/08 Bestival Isle Of Wight |
Item #4: Lykke Li releases Little Bit EP on said Tuesday, and Buster called her album, Youth Novels:
Pretty much flawless. With a perfect balance of catchy sweet pop tunes, and depressing slow jams, it's going to be one of the best albums of 2008... if not the best.
Those are some pretty bold words.
Now, I actually listened to just one of her b-side, "Dance Dance Dance", and I'll have to say that it's actually pretty good. She has a very sweet voice, a little bit creepy, and I'm even going to refrain myself from saying "me lykke".
She's currently on tour with fellow Swedes, Anna Ternheim (read more) and headliner, El Perro Del Mar, who we've previously mentioned, many, many, times, throughout the US.
Item #5: Okay, I'm not even sure why this fascinate me, but apparently hot girl Scarlett Johansson has an album coming out called Anywhere I Lay My Head on May 20th. What probably saves her is that they're all Tom Waits cover songs!
There's not really too much I can add to this, except that I remember the first time I saw Johansson on Dan Clowes's "Ghost World", I thought she was going to go places. By the time "Lost in Translation" came out, she was already a star.
I don't know, maybe I see her differently now, but now I just group Johansson with other popstars and I can't really take her seriously.
That's all I can muster up, I'm heading back to bed now. Goodnight and thank you.
Links:
www.lykkeli.com
oh my God, help me please.... Alison Krauss & Robert Plant, of course they're shagging, dirty ol' git, after all, what other reason would there be for this intolerable pub Rock (although there isn't a Pub in site on their current tour - so there isn't even that redeeming feature)... the only redeeming feature is that you can get to see the ex-Zep rocker... how they've got away with it I can't imagine... I'm not sure what they're doing, its not musical, not avant garde, no tunes, not rock 'n' roll, not country, not bluegrass, just dreadful pub rock stuff that you'll see in any Pub in East Sussex on a Sunday afternoon, probably played much better, and authentically... horrid.. (I like Zep though - who doesn't ??!)... and on to Santagold... she is the next Missy Elliot isn't she, better change her name and musical direction now before she gets in too deep.. coz' from where I'm standing, weak warbling along to a backing track with 2 mildly 80's automaton style dancers/b.singers, does not an interesting or attractive prospect make... in fact , its more 'tribute' time down the local Pub (Pub theme today!!), someone warbling to 80's backing tracks... this is what they're feeding us... ??!
on to BURMA... what can I say about George Bush , what a ****, I loved it, he said (yes I saw it on teli)... we won't send in Aid to Burma unless they let in our 'Disaster Assessors' , well is that the same 'Disaster Assessors' that did such a good job in New Orleans,.. what an offer , nice guy, can't just give Aid because its the Christian thing to do, he has to give some ultimatums, what a nasty horrible person, .. well we know all know what you're up to Bushey, its called snooping, yes, plain ol' nosey snooping, twitching of the nets, see what Burma are up to while your there.. all you've got to do is have a look at the news and you'll see the devastation, it doesn't take some sneaky little Bush Assessors to work that out.. Oh , I forgot, they don't have any International News on teli in the USA, just some stuff about a dog gone missing in Wyoming... that's why, oh yes, I got it all wrong...
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