http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Tue, 25 Mar 2003 15:01:26 EST http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding. Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/03/25/150126.php Adam PenlyGodspeed You! Black Emperor w/ Black Dice, 03.22.2003, The Abbey Pub, Chicago The evening started with plantain enchiladas and a cold Tecate with a close friend, and serious conversation about the whereabouts, what-abouts, and will-be-abouts of our respective lives. A somber setting for the pre-Godspeed hour, but a good way to relax before we hit the Abbey. Upon arrival, the scene was much the same as any other rock show...plenty of space left, merch table set with precious LPs and CDs, and a general aire of excitement to hear some great music performed. Black Dice took the stage at about 10pm, opening up with a a single guitar fed into a processor controled by another member of the band. Having never heard Black Dice before, I had no idea what to expect, and listened intently, trying to absorb as much in real time as I could. The first song, one of three, bounced around about as much experimentation as I could handle at the time (and don't get me wrong....I love experimental rock), but lost me in its presentation. No particularly interesting loops, mediocre guitar work masked in the hearty confines of a DD5 pedal, taut but un-interesting drum work. The second song of the set, The Dream is Going Down, from Beaches and Canyons, offered some more interesting guitar work ala Standards era Tortoise, but only caught me for a brief period in the middle of the song. The rest of the set turned into an unhip disco set that was lost on most of the waiting crowd. By the time Godspeed hit the stage, the Abbey was packed wall to wall, making it tough to even move a few inches in any direction. However, nobody seemed to mind too much, considering what was coming up next. We were greeted by a film projection of the word HOPE, dancing quickly through a hundred incarnations of white pen on a black background. The black background was replaced at times with an image of (what I assumed to be) an old man gently wiping frost from a clouded window, and the band started in with Lift Yr. Skinny Fists, Like Antennas to Heaven... Setting a beautiful mood with one of their most optimistic pieces, they continued the way of the album with The Gathering Storm. Folk-electric guitar melodies wrapped in blankets of cello stiched with harmonics from the violin confirmed the feeling of warmth fueled by Lift Yr. Skinny Fists as drums built up slowly, signifying the imagery of the coming storm. The band continued to play in order the sub-tracks from the side A of Lift Yr. Skinny Fists, stopping for applause only at Welcome to Barco AM/PM.It would be nearly impossible for me to remember the entire length of their 2 hour and 15 minute set in order, but Godspeed expounded and lamented on every album in the discography. Of particular note was the first track from Yanqui U.X.O. and an encore featuring the entire length of East Hastings. We went home tired but inspired, weary but dreamy, and listening to a freshly-purchased copy of Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada. Part 2: The Sea and Cake/Califone coming soon... Music4072@blogcritics.org Tue, 25 Mar 2003 15:01:26 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/02/06/233921.php Adam PenlyI was first introduced to Will Oldham in 1998, when working at a small independent record store in Iowa City. As it goes with all college towns, there are two points in the year when the students find themselves flailing for money. Having spent all of mom and dad's allocated funding for the semester, they seek local record shops to indulge with a wide variety of used CDs and LPs. While we always saw plenty of crap get tossed over the counter (at the time, it was yet another copy of Dave Matthews Under the Table and Dreaming, or that highly-accliamed first album by J-Lo....oops I'm sorry, back then it was Jennifer Lopez....she had yet to adopt her street title), but in the midst of all the unwanted plastics, there were gems. And oh! were there gems. I found some of my favorite artists among the discarded. There was Swervedriver. There was that June of 44 album. And last but certainly not least, there was the paradoxically uplifting Will Oldham.Although I was some 4 years late catching on, Palace Brothers' Days in the Wake grew quickly on me. It was raw. It was true. It was every imperfection placed in the perfect place. The cracks of Oldham's voice, the out-of-tune guitar, the simple production; everything that was wrong with the record was instantly right to my ears. This was the pure music of a genuine songwriter, from the stark shades of You Will Miss Me When I Burn to the drunken singalong of Come a Little Dog. Genius in its most complete form. Oldham says in the last track, "I am a cinematographer". That statement could not be more true. He captured every bit of Days in the Wake as if it were an uncut film; scratches, fingerprints, and all.Since that time, I've had the opportunity to pick up a few of Oldham's recent albums as they came out. A collaboration with Rian Muphy, entitled All Most Heaven; another with Dirty Three guitarist Mick Turner (going my the moniker The Marquis de Tren and Bonny Billy); 2001's Ease Down the Road, going by Bonnie 'Prince' Billy this time. As many times as Oldham changes names, his music remains true to its aim, and Master and Everyone is no exception. Not nearly as shimmeringly produced as Ease Down the Road, Master and Everyone is almost a return to Oldham's Palace days. Its raw again, most of the tracks are stripped down to Voice and acoustic guitar.The opening track, The Way is a plea of love, like many of Oldham's more recent tunes. "Winter comes and snow / I can't marry you, you know / Without children to grow / I can't marry you, you know / Love me the way I love you / Love me the way I love you" The sparsely plucked acoustic would even suggest a Nick Drake influence if not coupled with a double-bass and the lush cello of Gary Lee Tussing. Oldham almost whispers the lyrics, as if his plea is something that was never meant to leave his lips. A fine introduction that sets the pace of the album. Ain't You Wealthy, Ain't You Wise introduces the female vocal of Marty Slayton. The second vocal begins to give the album the sense of conversation that Oldham's lyrics often conjure. Even without a dueling pattern, the conversation flows. It's that of agreement, a feeling of oneness with the ideas presented but opposition from the second party. In essense, they agree to disagree. The lyrics are hopeful but bleak, and one wonders whether Oldham is singing on behalf of a character he's created, or on his own behalf. The title track, Master and Everyone, opens with the lyrics, "You tell me you don't love me / Well, I don't love you / You say that you don't want me / Well, I don't want you / You tell me there are other fish in the sea / And another gathers roses for me / On this we will agree," while Joy and Jubilee offers the opposite. "There's no reason to be seen / No one knows where I have been / I mean love is what I mean / Joy, joy and jubilee", Oldham proclaims. Its as if the album is the story of the hills and valleys of a relationship that is, when at its best, the sweetest thing imaginable, but when at its worst, enough to tear a man apart.There is a slight break from the earthly love presented on this album. In the aforementioned title track, and the following, Joy and Jubilee it seems there is an underlying question of faith to be answered. Later in the album, we find in Three Questions what seems to be a query to a partner, but feels a while lot like a prayer. Oldham looks for salvation here, with the support of his lover. The standout track on Master and Everyone is the final track, Hard Life, and it is here where we get down to the root of things. "Its a hard life / For a man with no wife / Its a hard life God makes you live / But without it / Don't doubt it / You don't even have your tears to give" He goes on to sing about facing personal demons and coming to grips with the fact that he might be a hard man to live with. In the end, Oldham just wants to be left alone with his song. "I wake up and I'm fine / With my dreaming still on my mind / But it don't take long you see / For the demons to come and visit me / And I've got my problems / Sometimes love don't solve them / And I end each day in a song". I have to say, if i ended each day with a song this true, I'd be a happy man. But as it has been said, "Show me a happy man, and I'll show you an accident waiting to happen." Maybe Will Oldham is onto something. Music3053@blogcritics.org Thu, 6 Feb 2003 23:39:21 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/01/31/135023.php Adam PenlyMusic fans everywhere may be thinking that since the demise of windy-city standby, Sweep the Leg Johnny, Chicago rock has gone by the wayside, that its had its heyday. I'm here to say that its still going stong. With new writing in the works by Tekulvi, South by Southwest appearances by Haymarket Riot and Lustre King, and a stunning new album by rock mogul Alex Dunham's Abilene, I think its safe to say that Chicago will be holding its own against the Brooklyn scene in the East.Two Guns, Twin Arrows begins with the crashing of Dunham's reverb-drenched tube-distorted guitar, chiming in slow and steady, dark and dissonant. The guitar is soon joined by the clean contrast of Fred Erskine's trumpet, a lone high-hat struck in straight double-time by Scott Adamson, and the grueling, hoarse, screams of Dunahm, "Our father / son of bad ways / why take them back to play / and watch over them / steal their decency". Dunham sounds tortured, driven, and inspired. After the initial lash, bass enters, trumpet returns, and things quiet down a bit. Here, Erskine hearkens back to his June of 44 days, producing a sound very similar to that of his noodling in 1999's Anahata. Much of the album proceeds like this, with the trumpet as one of the main focal points. Craig Ackerman (since replaced by Doug McCombs) has also taken some pointers from the 44's Sean Meadows on the bass. Droning, sneaky, murder-mystery type lines that aren't easily put aside. The standout track on Two Guns, Twin Arrows is Blanc Fixe, a driving, melodic drone complete with guitar-trumpet solis and air-tight drumming by Adamson. The track has that dusty-road at 3 AM feeling, rocking a dorian mode on a full moon, coyotes howling. Again, Dunham pipes up with his reflective but abstract lyrics, "Summertime has come / We sold the light as a giveaway / Autumn light had sung / But she was kept at bay". As explanatory lyrics as they could be for an album filled with dark, brooding, moody reflection and a pessimistic outlook on life in general. While it could be a bit depressing, Two Guns, Twin Arrows captures the essence of this darkness through ambient soundscapes that cannot be denied their own simple beauty. Plenty of space, impeccible production (by Adamson himself), and an atmospheric quality not found anywhere else right now make this a must-have album, and proves that Chicago rock lives on.(Abilene Two Guns, Twin Arrows, 54° 40' or Fight Records)For the best in rock news and reviews, visit No Matter What You Heard Music2959@blogcritics.org Fri, 31 Jan 2003 13:50:23 EST