natalie portman’s shaved head: first glimmer of a sxsw plan
if you really want to see where I plan to be for SXSW, the easiest way to do so, without wading deep into my solipsism, would be to check out sched*2009. i like a physical, tangible schedule, that i can mark up with a pen, but i have to admit even i got my geek on for this website. for those who enjoy the interesting word usements i structure, carry on:
flying nocturnal rodents and okkervil river: sxsw
Gearing up here for South By Southwest, the music festival that may have done more to put Austin on the map than Willie Nelson, UT football, the tower shooter, and flying nocturnal rodents combined.* SXSW, as it is known in shorthand, is a big deal. It is also, to my mind, and to many, many minds, consistently the single greatest music festival of the year. They do this right. How? I’m glad you asked.
Number one, it’s all about new bands. There’s always a handful of bigger names, but SXSW is primarily a showcase for up and comers, and they’re thrilled to be here. As anyone who’s seen Bob Dylan recently can tell you, enthusiasm matters. And new bands - and many many of them - means smaller venues, and smaller venues means better shows.
flash in the bottle: dead heart bloom
Just in case you found the original “Folsom Prison Blues” too peppy, Dead Heart Bloom took it down about seventeen notches for their cover, performed live in Iota Cafe, which is about three blocks from where I grew up. Bryan Street, stand up! Bryan Street, roll over! Good Bryan Street!
Dead Heart Bloom, aka Brian Skalsky (he’s known as that because that’s his name) is a hometown hero, one-time member of a band named Phaser who I know nothing about (but who, in promotional materials, it is implied that I should: this is a classic trick, playing on one of the darkest fears of all music writers, namely, that we might be out of touch).
His “Folsom Prison” is a little lugubrious even for me, but I have to include it for two reasons: one, it’s at Iota, and two, this gives me a chance to link to a YouTube video, and how can I reasonably call myself a member of the fine, hardworking community of music bloggers if I’m not linking to YouTube videos? I just can’t. So you get that link. Coming soon: annoying acronyms, and emoticons. JKOC LOL IITYWYBMAD AAYF ;)
BUT what got me all fired up about Dead Heart Bloom in the first place, and sent me googling off into the interweb, is his new EP, In Chains
The blue trenchcoat has a new gig writing for Under the Radar (yeeha!); in that capacity I listened to plenty of B- music last week, including the new Vines (remember them?), but also heard Dead Heart Bloom. And so things are good.
the short list grows long: townes van zandt
Townes Van Zandt! We get older - you, in particular, look old today - and it seems less and less likely that we’ll “discover” a major talent. The basic assumption is that if they were any good, and they already recorded some albums, you’d already know about them. You’re all done, it’s over for you: why bother? There are no letters in the mailbox, there are no grapes upon the vine, there are no chocolates in the boxes anymore, and there are no diamonds in the mine.* We’ll pack you away in styrofoam and haul you out for the holidays.
Nick Hornby touches on the phenomenon of a later-life discovery (actually in relation to another artist on my short list, Jackson Browne) in Songbook
All of which is to say, if you haven’t heard Townes Van Zandt - I hadn’t four or five years ago - and you have any tolerance for sad bastard music, you’ve got something to hear. Here’s the list I put him in: Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen, Lucinda Williams, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen. Here’s one of his more famous songs -
- but as with most major artists, it’s the whole Townes VZ deal that’s impressive, not just a song here and there.
My point? My point is I really should have pitched The Late Great Townes Van Zandt
Anyway: He released The Late Great Townes Van Zandt in 1972, when he was still very much alive. It was the tail end of a six-album burst that started in 1968; thereafter he focussed on his drinking and, uh, paced himself with album releases. I believe album number seven came out in 1978. Late Great has one of his other big songs, Pancho and Lefty, made into a hit by Willie Nelson.
If you do get into him, you should also check out Margaret Brown’s film Be Here to Love Me
Next installment: Jackson Browne! And look out for the letter ‘Q’!
*speaking of late-life discoveries, I was out at the South Congress Cafe and I ran into friends - that’s right, I can work up something resembling a life at times - and my wife mentioned that Leonard Cohen was playing Austin soon. “Leonard Cohen?” replied ALL THREE nameless friends, “who’s Leonard Cohen?” Sweet jumping jesus, what were these people doing in college? Studying?
quick reviews of everything stacked up on my desk, pt.1, with apologies to john darnielle of LPTJ
Huge piles of CDs on my desk, so here goes:
Catfish Haven - Devastator: I find it hard to believe that there are no Allman brothers in this band. Maybe Ernie Allman? Imagine Greg Allman fronting…actually, imagine him fronting the Allman brothers. That’s a little cheap; they have more going on, and this isn’t at all bad. They’re almost there - but I’d hold out for the next Catfish Haven release.
The Maine - Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: I’ll tell you how they sound before I hear them: they sound like the Von Bondies, or Louis XIV; they sound slick, catchy, and forgettable. They’ll swear, but they’ll be basically wholesome. I’m getting this all from the photo on the back of the CD. All five band members in identical white sneakers and black jeans.
So, let’s open it up: how’d I do? They’re even more poppy than I expected - they’re more Jonas Bros. than Von Bondies. Otherwise no surprises. I will not remember the Maine. (They just ask for that one.) They will probably go platinum.
Eye Alaska - Yellow & Elephant: Sounds like armed Sade producers took over a Verve session.
Hearts of Palm UK - For Life
The Besties - Home Free
Ryan Bingham - Mescalito
Two more I’ll be keeping: Like A Fox - Where’s My Golden Arm?
There are no home run absolute must-have albums in this set…but Ryan Bingham’s “Sunshine” is worth your four minutes:
heart on the line: m. ward’s hold time
m. ward’s new album hold time is suddenly everywhere (”everywhere” in my world means it’s in the new york times and the onion. and i imagine sasha-frere jones has recently emerged from his hyberbaric chamber of concentrated hip intellectualism and is thawing out to write some words for the new yorker.)
a classier blogger would sit back and wait for people to point out that the blue trenchcoat saw this coming. he/she would show restraint. this person would also floss regularly. he or she would just be generally on top of things, and so it naturally would come as quite a shock when this hypothetical person loses all depth perception, and spends the rest of his life trying to eat clouds. and so I have to say it myself: I saw it coming! been a long time coming for m. ward, in fact, but here it is, indie love becoming more mainstream, for whatever that’s worth. Post-War is the album that’s considered his breakout by many. I’ve personally never gotten over Transistor Radio. and the larger powers that be have waited until Hold Time. but why nitpick? suffice it to say m. should be able to soon afford a vowel, and maybe become mi. ward, or even om. ward.
this post is in no way about zooey deschanel, or her well-received collaborative project with m. ward, she & him. but another motto here is ‘when in doubt, add zooey’. this motto serves me less well when I am trying to make a peach cobbler. (there is a restraining order.) and here is one of the many reasons I fell for Transistor Radio:
put lerche and costello in the fishtank
The blue trenchcoat is, in many ways, like a professional basketball franchise: we take an extended hiatus for the All-Star weekend, we emphasize height above many other qualities, and we’d be willing to trade most of our staff for Amare Stoudemire and two first-round draft picks.
But trade talks fell apart, and so, in lieu of a young center/forward who needs to work on his defense, you get this:
I’d always been somewhat lukewarm on Sondre Lerche - it’s hard to like a guy who’s that pretty, for one thing - until I heard The Duper Sessions. This one caught me by surprise for a number of reasons: foremost among them, he downshifts from guitar-wielding young Norwegian indie popster into jazz quartet leader. Somehow he makes it seem like this is what he was always meant to do. I feel for the poor record company; there must have been some quiet sobbing going on when their budding star told them he was going jazz/vocal for his breakout moment. But they have national health care, they don’t need profits. And they couldn’t argue with the quality.
The Duper Sessions finds Lerche in the company of the Faces Down Quartet, (Erik, Morten, Ole, and Kato, the last three superb names for your next pets) all of them having some swinging fun in the studio. It’s straight-up, elegant jazz/vocal, Chet Baker style. 
short list: inspiration information and friends
Those of you who haven’t been following the blue trenchcoat with the proper obsessive zeal may need catching up on the whole idea of the short list. What, in a deeper sense, is the short list? What, in a totally shallow sense, is the short list? Who is Spain? Why is Hitler?
Well - I can’t answer those last two, but basically, I’ve been blathering recently about some of the albums I almost pitched to 33 & 1/3, the publishing series that focuses on classic albums. Why? Why? Good question: let’s answer that in three parts, but let’s number those parts nonsensically. Eleven: because these are all fantastic albums which are worth your time, and worth finding if you don’t already know them. Seventeen: because it’s just too frustrating that I ultimately had to pick only one, and finally, Panda bear: because I’m pretty sure this is a step on the way to oneness.
Today I want to crank through a handful of them, because the whole project is starting to make me itch. So overall this post should have the soothing feel of calomine lotion.
Josh Rouse’s album 1972 didn’t even come that close to making the cut, because it’s too obscure, but I do love it: Rouse is easily dismissed as a sensitive singer-songwriter, except that he’s a phenomenal sensitive singer-songwriter, and 1972 is a little retro-genre experiment with a proper, smooth-groovin’, early seventies feel, and the best thing I can say about it is that it doesn’t sound exactly like anything else, and it works from start to finish. Sounds effortless.
A Jane’s Addiction album needs to be a part of this series, and I think either Nothing’s Shocking or Ritual de lo Habitual would do nicely, which almost covers their whole output. I’m stunned they hadn’t been pitched until this round - has musical history somehow not been kind to Jane’s? have we forgotten how weird and excellent they were? are they too indie or not indie enough? I don’t know why I didn’t pitch this one myself, exactly. Maybe I was afraid Perry Farrell would pierce my neck.
(The real Jane, by the way, Jane Bainter, did finally kick, and lives in California now. That’s a fact. No word on Sergio.)
Shuggie Otis’ album Inspiration Information is worthy of a book: that one didn’t leave my stereo for several months. It also matches up nicely with 1972; Shuggie’s album actually was an early seventies release, so it comes by that feel more honestly. David Byrne’s label Luaka Bop reissued this in 2001. (Speaking of whom, the new-ish David Byrne/Brian Eno collaboration, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, if you’re at all a Talking Heads or Byrne fan, is definitely worth getting.)
Otis was a guitar prodigy, and, in the words of James Sullivan, “predated the stylistic synthesist Prince by half a decade.” He was offered Mick Taylor’s spot in the Rolling Stones, and turned it down. Trails of data seem to go pretty cold on Otis after the mid-seventies, he toured and hired out as a session player, he had ‘health issues’, and he’s still around here somewhere…all mysterious enough for a book, I would say.
No one has tackled Warren Zevon at all; I’ve been reading his biography I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead, he sounds like…a drunk. A talented one, but the story gets repetitive and depressing fairly quickly. To his credit, he would most likely agree with me there. Anyway, once upon a time (the early seventies, yet again - they say we’re all nostalgic for the time before we arrived) he was a bright, shining promise of L.A. singer-songwriter genius, who enlisted a troop of Laurel Canyon A-listers (Jackson Browne, Don Henley, Stevie Nicks, Glenn Frey, Phil Everly (!), Lindsay Buckingham, Bonnie Raitt) for his self-titled 1976 release, about which I am almost sure someone will land a 33 & 1/3 contract. It just won’t be me, because shockingly enough, I’ve never heard the album. Something to look forward to.
zero boys don’t cry
I know what you’re thinking: great blog, but needs more poetry! Specifically, needs a poem composed entirely of dark, aggressive band names. More specifically, needs a poem composed of all the band names I saw on t-shirts while covering the Fun Fun Fun Festival for Alarm. You’re so specific! But fine - What? You also need to see the coverage of that festival? And you need a subscription to Alarm? Wow, you readers are demanding today. But ok: I serve at the pleasure of the procrastinating. Festival coverage is here, subscription to Alarm can be had here, and my stylings are here:
God Forbid, Government Warning, Gorilla Biscuits,
Melvins, Masonna, Minor Threat, and the Misfits,
Street Dogs, UK Subs, Side by Side, and the Spits,
Destructive Tendencies, The Casualties, Dead Kennedys,
Dropkick Murphys, D.R.I., and Suicidal Tendencies,
Chain of Strength, Terrorizer, Zombie, and Dwarves
Ezekiel, Circle Jerks, Witch Hunt, and Horsecore,
Zero Boys, Black Flag, Asshole Parade,
NOFX, Crossed Out, Born to Lose, Eyes of Hate,
Los Abandoned, Leftover Crack, Skinny Puppy,
Scratch Acid, Choking Victims, Martyr A.D.
G.G. Allin, Sick of it All, Fuckemos, and the Cramps.
What say? C+? It falters quickly, yeah. I ran out of both time and alliterative possibilities. Hey, Robert Frost never had to fit “Fuckemos” into a poem. He wanted to: originally he had “Whose woods these are I think I know/they belong to the Fuckemos” but he scribbled something about a village instead. That’s Robert for you.
You may also point out that those heroes of the sideshow-style splinter genre of pyschobilly, the Cramps, are left out there on their own, rhyme-less, a little naked lunch, and you may say that’s because I couldn’t rhyme anything with Cramps. But no: that’s my way of honoring their lead singer, Lux Interior, who died this past Saturday. I think he’d appreciate this poem. Rest in total chaos, Lux, I think that’s how you’d want it.
the short list 3: shotgun willie
Another album I almost pitched to 33 & 1/3: Willie Nelson - Red Headed Stranger. This one made good sense for a number of reasons - one, Willie’s an icon, and one of the few artists of his stature who has yet to receive the 33 & 1/3 treatment, two, the publishers seem to be warming up to country a bit (there’s a Lucinda Williams book in the works), and three, I live in Austin, and Willie is like this entire town’s freaky, stoned, very well loved grandpa.
Red Headed Stranger was the album that turned glitz country on its ear in 1975, and somehow sold and sold and sold, despite feeling throughout like an engine that can’t…quite…turn over. And that’s why, ultimately, I didn’t pitch this one: I don’t love Red Headed Stranger - I’d rather hear Stardust, or Shotgun Willie. I get impatient listening to Red Headed Stranger, and that’s coming from a Tom Waits fan. Still: it does have “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain”, plus this was the album that made Willie Nelson into - ladies and gentlemen…WILLIE NELSON. I did consider pitching Shotgun Willie - it’s good - but it didn’t feel like a story, it just feels like one of many good albums from a legend.
Somehow we now have two posts devoted largely to Willie Nelson; I wouldn’t have predicted this, but I could do worse for a patron saint. Here’s something of his you may not have heard: