Review/Running Diary – The National – Trouble Will Find Me

Well, here we are, album number 6.  It’s hard to believe they’re this far into their career now.  But, of course, I’m one of those people who hope they’ll be around for at least 60 more.  Especially if they’re of the same quality as the last three.  Does Trouble Will Find Me stack up?  Let’s find out!

Movie Review – Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me

We now interrupt your regularly scheduled music reviews in order to bring you something…a little different…A movie review.

Over the next few days, I will be reviewing three of the films I saw at the Chicago International Movies and Music Festival.  As mentioned in this blog post, I had the opportunity to attended the CIMM Fest this year, in lieu of Record Store Day.  It was the first film festival I have ever attended and it was an absolutely wonderful experience.  I can’t wait until this October, because I will definitely be going to the Chicago International Film Festival.

The first of the three reviews will be for the Big Star documentary: Nothing Can Hurt Me.  The other two will cover Last Shop Standing and My Father and the Man in Black.

Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me is an incredibly misguided work of love, an ode to a band that has had more than their fair share of hard knocks.  If you are not familiar with the story of Big Star, in short, they were the band that never was.  Ask anyone who was there at the time, or who love them now and they’ll tell you: Big Star should have been in the pantheon of rock history’s greatest.  The legend, as it is, with The Velvet Underground was that only 1,000 people bought The Velvet Underground & Nico, but all 1,000 of them joined a band.  If that’s the case, than of the 10 copies of #1 Record that actually made distribution, all ten of those listeners not only started bands, but then the bands that heard them started bands and a net of great influence was born.  

So, let’s just get right down to it: The problem with Nothing Can Hurt Me is that it tried way too hard to cover ever single detail of the band and its members various careers, and instead of encompassing it all, major details fell by the wayside.  For starters, Big Star never hit it big because of distribution issues with their debut, #1 Record, but why did that happen?  The director never even offers an opinion.  At least with Radio City, Big Star’s second album, they explain in detail why the distribution of the album completely fell apart a second time.  As for third and final album, Third…did it even come out?  Who knows! The film talks about its production and then never finishes the story.

In the meanwhile, they were so busy chronicling what happened to band-founder Chris Bell after his departure in 1973, that they completely forget to ever mention Andy Hummell again in the documentary until briefly mentioning that he passed away 5 minutes before the film’s end.  It’s not that I don’t care what happened to Chris Bell, as it turned out, showing his story was a major narration plot, but the director took too long to weave everything together that by the time you finally see how the two stories connect (in brief: The departure of Chris Bell took with it the initial Big Star sound.  It lasted into the second album because he wrote many of those songs, but by the time the third album rolled around and it was all Alex Chilton, they sounded nothing like Big Star anymore.  Meanwhile, when Chris Bell’s solo material finally saw the light of day, everyone who heard it finally realized what exactly happened to Big Star) you’ve almost forgotten that Chris Bell was ever in Big Star to begin with.

Speaking of Alex Chilton, the most egregious part of the entire film may have been the villainous light they cast him in.  Alex Chilton was not like most people, and to suggest that he ever had the human capacity to hate having been in Big Star is probably not even close to the true feelings he contained.  Yes, his general fame was part of the reason Chris Bell left the band, but that’s not Chilton’s fault, Bell had issues.

With all of those negatives, however, I can’t not love this movie: So many moments of laughter, near tears and fond memories of a band I don’t even like very much.  The story is brilliant and one that needed to be told.  I hope desperately that this film finds a wider audience.  More people need to know about Big Star and the music they made.  Not a Bangles cover and not a TV show theme song.  It was a shame the filmmakers didn’t spend more time with bands like The Replacements and R.E.M. who basically owe their entire careers to this band.

Generally, as someone not super familiar with their career, I was a very confused viewer, however, the narration wasn’t disjointed enough that you couldn’t keep the basic plot, and seeing the movie in a packed crowd of obvious fan was a magical movie (and music) experience.

A very surprising 8/10

Wild Nothing – New Single and EP – Empty Estate!

My favorite band of the 2010′s is back! And with another EP to boot.  This is fantastic news, because Golden Haze was a pretty amazing little release.

The EP will be called Empty Estate and the tracklisting is as follows:

1.  The Body in Rainfall
2. Ocean Repeating (Big-eyed Girl)
3. On Guyot
4. Ride
5. Data World
6. A Dancing Shell
7. Hachiko

Does “Just One Yesterday” by Fall Out Boy contain the worst lyrics of 2013?

I think this is a pretty fair question.

My evidence:

Exhibit A:

I thought of angels
Choking on their halos
Get them drunk on rose water
See how dirty I can get them
Pulling out their fragile teeth
And clip their tiny wings

Exhibit B:

The Britney Spears inspired lyric: Anything you say can and will be held against you/So only say my name/It will be held against you

Except Ms. Spears had the decency to not punch us in the face with what the lyric meant.

Exhibit C:

The Big Chorus! “If heaven’s grief brings hell’s rain/Then I’d trade all my tomorrows for just one yesterday”

I…don’t understand the logic behind this one.  Someone please make this association make sense for me.

Exhibit D:

Should you sense the disconnect between the opening of murdering Angels and the lovesick notions of the remaining lyrics, the chorus gets all creepy again: “I want to teach you a lesson in the worst kind of way/Still I’d trade all my tomorrows for just one yesterday”

I love you, but sometimes I just want to beat the shit out of you.

Exhibit E:

Letting people down is my thing baby
Find yourself a new gig

This town ain’t big enough for two of us

BUUURRNNNNNN!

Exhibit F:

If I spilled my guts
The world would never look at you the same way
I’m here to give you all of my love
So I can watch your face as I take it all away

Ok, so let’s get this all straight:  He let her down, but so did she, and apparently she was real horrible to him so his revenge will be to make her love him again before taking it away from her.  Fine, except for the part where it seems like you hope to do this in a horribly violent way, because let’s not forget:

I thought of angels
Choking on their halos
Get them drunk on rose water
See how dirty I can get them
Pulling out their fragile teeth
And clip their tiny wings

The Prosecution Rests

Please note: This is a brief excerpt from a larger case study delving into whether or not Save Rock And Roll is the worst album of 2013.

Record Store Day 2013 and the Chicago International Movies & Music Festival

I have quite a few posts I hope to make throughout the course of this coming week. Three dealing with the CIMM Festival and one nice little write-up about my Record Store Day 2013 purchases.

It’s been quite a weekend of fun in Chicago, and I can’t wait to share those experiences with you all.

CIMM Fest was a gamble that paid off. I had never heard of it before, but it was a rewarding experience, from Documentaries chronicling the History of Big Star, to fiction about the world’s most devoted Elvis impersonator. I had never attended a film festival before, but what an amazing start to what I hope is a long life of these experiences.

As for Record Store Day, unfortunately, I scheduled an event at work for the same time that the sales were to begin, but I thought it would work itself out, with midnight sales. That was when I discovered the Record Store Day pledge and the end to midnight releases. I can’t say I was angry about it, I’m so glad they’re trying to get rid of the inherent commercialism of what is meant to be rejuvenating day.  So, in the end, I attended when I was able, which was not until 12:00 PM.  Still, thanks to friends on the Internet and a little luck, we scored 3 RSD releases, and picked up two worthwhile additions to the collection as well.

So that this post isn’t a complete tease and nothing more, a run-down of everything that happened this past week:

Review – Charli XCX – True Romance

I can’t believe I’m finally writing this review.

Let me back up.  Maybe I haven’t shared with you all my intense love for Charli XCX.  Maybe I’ve been too busy trying to spread the gospel of David Bowie, My Bloody Valentine and Wampire.

If that’s the case, I apologize, because it means that I spent less time sharing with the world the magic that is Charli XCX.

I suppose the reason that I have sort of hung back in making much mention of Charli XCX is that it’s just taken so long for her debut album to come out.  I’ve literally been waiting well over a year for this bad boy, after running into her music early into 2012 (may have even been late 2011).  I ran across “Nuclear Seasons” on, what I believe was, an NME list of bands to watch in 2012.  And watch I did.  I jumped on every single, followed on Twitter/Facebook/etc.  I had never gone this hard for an artist I’d only heard one song of in all my life.

Review – David Bowie – The Next Day

Alright, everyone!  I’m sure you’re tired of me writing about David Bowie.  That’s fine, because the day has finally come in which I might review his newest album (I still can’t believe I can say that!).  That’s right, you too can stream David Bowie’s The Next Day on iTunes (though they’ve been having a lot of technical difficulties) by clicking here.  

The album went up last night, but I was incredibly unwell yesterday and slept most of the day, rather than listening.  I’m glad I saved this for the first moments of my Spring Break, because I know the album is going to be a constant companion over the next two weeks as I vacation from my scholarly duties.

Wampire!

I am going to be posting a lot about Wampire this year, guys.

Meanwhile, my 7″ single of The Hearse arrived today.  It’s gorgeous.

And here it is taking a spin:

Oh and of course, super “sexy” album art:

 

Who’s Wampire, you ask?  Why only the “worst band in Portland”.  You should listen:

 

Look at those guys!  100% winners.

 

I’m seeing Wampire, Foxygen and Unknown Mortal Orchestra next week.   I can’t believe I’m driving 2 hours to a show where I don’t even like the headliner, but that’s life.  Wampire and Foxygen are more than worth it.

 

I’ll be back with more WAMPIRE! in the comping months.  Trust me.

David Bowie’s Latest: “The Stars (Are Out Tonight)”

Hey Gang,

Back again with another quick update: The newest David Bowie single will be available on iTunes in just an hour or so.

Meanwhile, you can check out the video here: http://vevo.ly/159TCYB

Stupidly adorable and awesome. This album is so meta.

Bonus: There will be a Record Store Day 7″ single release with this track as the A-Side and “Where Are We Now” will be the B-Side. Hot stuff.

He’s doing a little better with the album covers, that’s a relief:

Still, not quite his face.

And here’s a sheet of lyrics for those who needed more of this rocker (seriously, the lyrics are astoundingly beautiful).

Not all the lyrics, you can see more over on Pitchfork:

http://pitchfork.com/news/49608-watch-david-bowie-shares-video-for-new-song-the-stars-are-out-tonight/

David Bowie’s first album in almost 10 years will be released in just over a week (in some countries) and March 12th here in the states.  I’m getting ridiculously pumped.

 

 

Site News:  Spring Break is next week, I need to practice HTML/Coding etc., so it’s as good a time as any to get a launch ready.  I have two weeks.  We’ll see what happens!

Thoughts on Beyonce’s Super Bowl Halftime Show

Well, it’s that time of year again.  The time where I immediately share my thoughts on the halftime show without anytime to digest them, or second-guess.

This year, it was Beyonce, and what we were promised was to be the reunion of Destiny’s Child.  For the most part that’s what we got.  Let’s look closer:

The Good:

Everything looked nice.  The pyrotechnics were amazing, the two-faced Beyonce light stage was fun to look at, the visuals gave us the view of 25 Beyonce’s at once, what more could you ask for?

For once, the sound quality was great, for the most part.  There was a wonderful backing band of rocking women, one of which had a guitar that shot out streams of sparks (I’m not sure why Prince hasn’t swallowed her up into his posse yet, really).

The Bad:

The set list didn’t blow my mind.  No “Irreplaceable”, one song I didn’t even know and then of course, there was the piped in vocals for “Crazy in Love” and “Baby Boy” (for Jay-Z and Sean Paul, respectively) which were NOT mic’d very well.

The Ugly:

Destiny’s Child.

When Kelly and Michelle came rising out of the stage, I was ready for what was surely going to be one of the greatest experiences of my life.

This was not it.

First was “Bootylicious”, really the best song they could have picked for their first song together in quite some time. Then, “Independent Women”, complete with cheesy Charlie’s Angels quotes and poses.

And…that was it.  After that, Destiny’s Child turned into glorified backing vocalists for “Single Ladies” and then left.

The set closed with an empty (for me) version of “Halo” and then Beyonce was gone as well.

I’m still not sure how to feel.  I’m raging with anger, first and foremost.  I was promised a medley of Destiny’s Child’s greatest hits and received two.  Not even “Say My Name”.  I don’t know what to think.  What started as a favorite halftime show turned into a most hated, so I’m left a bit numb really.

I suppose it could have been worse.  There will always be….The Black Eyed Peas…