Said the Gramophone http://www.saidthegramophone.com/ a music weblog en Copyright 2008 Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:49:52 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Subscribe with My Yahoo!Subscribe with NewsGatorSubscribe with My AOLSubscribe with BloglinesSubscribe with NetvibesSubscribe with GoogleThis is the RSS feed for Said the Gramophone. Perhaps you would like to read us every day? This is an easy way to do so. We'll be like your alarm clock, or your coffee, or your slice of cake before bed. We'll be the peck on the cheek or the punch in da mouf'. We're your friends, friends, and we'll always be here for you. NASHVILLE PROSE Silver Jews - "Strange Victory, Strange Defeat". Saw the Silver Jews with Dan last night. What an amazing, beautiful show. David Berman up there like a kid and a teenager and a wise-man, all at once. He and Cassie having conversations with their eyes, there for us all to see. The band playing their instruments with a fierceness I'd not heard before; the Silver Jews' live sound is more fearsome, sparking, wild than on record. And still Berman's lyrics cutting right through, mouth close to the mic, words slipped into our ears like hands into pockets. Sweat was pouring off his face like from the spout of a teapot. I saw the Silver Jews two years ago, in Edinburgh. It was their eighteenth-ever gig. Last night was their sixty-ninth. Though in 2006 there was a more innocent joy to the show - a clean country jubilance just in singing the songs, - last night's freer, louder stuff shook the heart even more. Now is when you should go see the Silver Jews. They're at a threshold - still new enough at this that every night's a discovery, a shambles, a treasure; but comfortable enough in their touring shows that the songs, well, they kick ass. The balance won't stay this way forever. But some of what I wrote for Plan B two years ago is still true. Not the earring -- the gist:
We’re not losing ourselves in the crowd – eyes rolling back in our heads as we cheer. No. I watch the earring on Berman’s ear, like a tattoo brought back from sea. I watch the way Cassie looks at David, sometimes, when he doesn’t look back. I watch the way he glares at his monitor or stumbles over a lyric. And I feel a mortal kind of joy – the stuff of human beings and human lives. The sterling wonder of a gift that’s made by fallible human hands, by creatures with hearts more silver than gold.
I still can't quite get into Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea, but there's a moment to "Strange Victory, Strange Defeat" that's like defibrillator paddles on rainy Thursday mornings, hot Wednesday nights. WE'RE COMING OUT OF THE BLACK PATCH. WE'RE COMING OUT OF THE POCKET. Yup.]]> http://www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/nashville_prose.php http://www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/nashville_prose.php Sean Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:49:52 -0500 All Style Annie - "What Do You Want (The Breakfast Song)" I took the city bus to and from high school for four years. Every day there was an autistic woman who would sit in the same seat, and every time we hit a certain corner in the route, she would begin repeating the question: "What are we having for dinner?" Over and over, practicing for when she walked in the door I imagine, over and over. It didn't take long for this ritual to become very comforting, and the rare days when she was absent, I didn't notice until we hit that corner and the phrase started repeating in my head on its own. Now I suppose the same kind of memory trigger will be true for this song. I have to assume the most appropriate set of circumstances to trigger this would be a roller-skate rink with multi-coloured disco lights and people in animal costumes. Or somehow getting around town by slide. Like a slide that works like public transit. [site shop] Orouni - "A Greased and Golden Palm" This chorus is like looking out a basement window, squinting in the light of a day that was never supposed to come. Like, there was no day scheduled today, but it showed up anyway, proof that it really does love you, that it missed you during the night. [album released tomorrow on MonsterK7]]]> http://www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/all_style.php http://www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/all_style.php Dan Tue, 02 Sep 2008 14:02:13 -0500 THERE'S SUMMER YET LEFT The Swingers - "Counting the Beat". It's Labour Day and here's a song for the labourers. Or rather for the labourers who aren't labouring. The ones lifting crates or typing memos who get distracted mid-crate, mid-memo, staring off into space. There's a girl or a boy in the glaze of their eyes, a skip in their heart, a tap in their toes. Can't get anything done, no, they're too much in love; fire the bosses, go on strike; call in sick, smash the timeclock; scamper dancing all through the warehouse, all over the office, til' the weekend. (Thanks Jessica!) [out of print]
Snoopy dancing Langhorne Slim - "Spinning Compass". And then something a little more Monday. "Spinning Compass" sounds like an overture, an introduction, a first date. Like a first & a beginning. Then again, here's the thing - it ain't. Listen to the lyrics. So here's a song for turning not-beginnings into beginnings, turning dead ends into open roads. Turning cello and accordion into a crop for your horse. [buy] --- Elsewhere: Montrealers, take note! Silver Jews play Sala on Wednesday night! Owen Pallett pointed me to the weirdoness of this synthesiser blog. A beautifully presented mixtape of Tim Hardin covers. A bizarre, luminous, sci-fi music video for Jay Bharadia's marvelous "Snowy Day". The Record of the Week Club is a terrific project out of Winnipeg where all sorts of local musicians get together on a Wednesday night and then have to record a song before they can leave. Many fascinating things! Though of course I am most partial to "Keewatin Arctic", featuring the Weakerthans' John K Samson, Inuit throat-singer Nikki Komakslutiksak and electronico Blunderspublik. And at the Lifted Brow, Christopher Currie is writing stories inspired by titles or prompts from other folks. They've now published "The Flannerys", his response to my challenge: A story that talks about one hundred and twenty women, all individually named, and never more than 10 named at one time (ie, in reference to the same thing/in sequence). Or is that too complicated?]]> http://www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/theres_summer_yet_left.php http://www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/theres_summer_yet_left.php Sean Mon, 01 Sep 2008 12:16:34 -0500 WIZARD OF OZ Veda Hille - "Luckyluck". A devotional for destiny, faith and the way that truth is veiled. But done with glee, see? The flickering oh oh oh of a child lighting a candle or seeing it lit. The wide-smile awe of standing in a church or temple or forest, a gull circling above, something not-quite-clear through the canopy. And the thrill of realising that when you take a step, you are merely trusting it will land. (Carl Wilson weighs in on Veda Hille - one of the country's finest songwriters, I agree, - and encourages you to vote for her in the Echo Songwriting Prize competition. Sandro Perri and the Weakerthans are also excellent choices.) [buy This Riot Life] --- Elsewhere: Our friend Matt Forsythe launched his new graphic novel, Ojingogo on Wednesday and it's bee-yoo-ti-ful. Explore his website and pick up the real thing from Drawn & Quarterly some time soon. Oh yes - and we might just have something Forsythey in StG's own pipeline... My new column has debuted. I will be writing every six weeks or so for the McSweeney's website. The first piece is now online: REFLECTIONS ON SEEING LEONARD COHEN PERFORM IN MONTREAL ON JUNE 23, 2008. I hope you like it. (Oh and in the end I settled on a very boring column title.)]]> http://www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/wizard_of_oz.php http://www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/wizard_of_oz.php Sean Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:34:14 -0500 Understood By Men And Both Of Montreal - "Nonpareil of Favor" Skeletal Lamping is described by Kevin Barnes as his most confessional album. For an album dedicated to hunting out, killing and mounting, or cooking and sharing around, the skeletons in one's closet, I love that the introduction is a thank-you note. It's the kind of thank-you you say just before your lips dip under water. You know that kind of half-swallowing last word to the sky as you slide right under the water. Into the blaring pressure of those guitars, those transfixing and transformative guitars, all you hear is loud, and you know that you will hear always these sounds foreverever in your new shape, they will have to compliment everything else now, you hear and see and look a totally different way now. A last thank-you before starting the process of opening your skull at the seam and turning right inside-out. Kevin Barnes understands me. [via Rolling Stone] [pre-order starts next week for this incredible album] Chad VanGaalen - "Rabid Bits of Time" I moved into a house once where someone had left meat in the walls. I think the landlord had made them mad, so they put meat in the walls, and re-drywalled right over it. I moved in in the winter, slippery and messy as hell, so I didn't notice it until the first real heat wave in late May of that year. Something as hideous, as obvious, as death slept through the winter, ignored its duties until spring, until it exploded into a rush of decay. And that's exactly what this song makes me want to do. To just forget all the stuff I should be doing, all the little tiny bits of tasks and touch-ups that line the pathways of my day like knots in a winding bannister of dental floss, and just wait until it all falls out at once, until I do something different, easier, better, bigger. Chad VanGaalen understands me. [pre-order from Sub Pop]]]> http://www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/understood_by_men_and_bot.php http://www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/understood_by_men_and_bot.php Dan Thu, 28 Aug 2008 01:03:40 -0500 HACIENDA Lego repair job
Jolie Holland - "Mexico City". The "free" song from Jolie Holland's The Living & the Dead and it's splendid, golden, with enough swells of feeling to swell your heart even on a sullen, sodden, storm-soaked day. M Ward is on guitar but I'm not complaining - anything that gives Jolie Holland the chance to sing, to sing, not to sing along but just to sing. Her voice still full of briar. [info] Frenemy - "I Know, Fuck Damnit". You gotta cut down trees to build a house. Wait - no. You could mine stone and make bricks. Or um make walls out of plastic using the process-for-making-plastic. And let's not even start on coral. But to make a house you need to build. You need to work & do. You don't build a house by dreaming. You don't dwell in your imagination. Lift that rock, heave that brick, hear the song of the hammerhead against the nail. [MySpace] [photo source]]]> http://www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/hacienda.php http://www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/hacienda.php Sean Tue, 26 Aug 2008 11:10:11 -0500 Grown Backwards [source] David Byrne & Brian Eno - "Life is Long" Sincerity is a chore that we perform every day. Honesty is a conscious constant effort, like hiking up your pants when you don't have a belt. Love is the nearest street corner to your house, you see it every day and you pass it by, always reminded, always there for the taking. Truth is brushing your teeth, you can force it, fake it, or mean it, but if you get it done eventually you'll come to like it. I can't understand this song, like I can't understand "Perfect Day" by Lou Reed, but I can react, and I react by lying down in the back seat of a car, putting the middle seat belt over my chest, and watching the telephone wires making that eternal rising dipping line in the sky. [order directly from David Byrne]]]> http://www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/grown_backwards.php http://www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/grown_backwards.php Dan Mon, 25 Aug 2008 14:24:46 -0500 Upright and Heaving Parenthetical Girls - "Four Words" This is the opening track on the Parenthetical Girls' new foray into a cloud of earnest brilliance, their hollywood-broadway-avant-garde musical Entanglements. I never thought of it before, but it's a perfect fit for Zac Pennington's already well-instantiated style; lead role in a musical. From the moment he starts his cooing warble, and his imagery that pushes on that part between your thumb and finger (the part that schoolyard rumour had it was connected straight to your brain) the album gallops away and never looks back (but of course always looking kind of back). The album is really wondrous, just to listen to it, you can't really do anything else, it's like being covered in three feet of velvet and jewels and creams. But specifically, "Four Words", like much of Entanglements, is made of very heavy orchestration, at times almost too heavy for Zac to hold cupped in his hand, but it's perfect for his character who is being overcome by music, by words, near possessed. What I love most about Parenthetical Girls, and it's true here, and all through Entanglements, is how unbearably sexy they are. Like, sexy to the point where I can't bear it, it becomes dangerous, dark, harrowing. "Four Words" is the extremely tempting beginning to a story full of moments lush, carnal*, and true. [Pre-order for the Sept 9th release] *yes, sexual, but also just "relating to the body", Pennington is a genius of evoking horror and pure ecstasy about the human body. [Zac also wrote for us some time ago] -- Quintron - "Model Ex-Citizen" Here comes Quintron, carrying a roller-coaster organ and a drum machine. He's here for you. He knows it's Friday. [site]]]> http://www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/upright_and_heaving.php http://www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/upright_and_heaving.php Dan Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:43:27 -0500 CORONAS 'Time for roses, time for kisses, time for lovers', by Mario Simnch
photograph by Mario Simnch Für Amel - "Pink Eyes". It's stargazing when you stare right at the sun. You don't need a telescope or a clear night sky. You can lie on your couch and look out the window and even with a headache pounding you can come up with names for this constellation. The Blot. The Wheel. The Full Stop. There are other ways to stargaze as well. Fall on your head. Get up too fast. Bring your face up close to a glass of champagne. I think maybe Für Amel did all these things in one day: champagne, falling down, getting up, sun-staring. "Pink Eyes" has a halo - the way everything looks when you've drunk too much, fallen on your head, stared at the sun. A fuzz that seems to mean something. I think Für Amel have almost figured something out. They've collected all the blurs that look good together, flares and sunspots and the skirted edges of an eclipse. Don't stop rubbing your eyes - you're on the right track. [Für Amel are from Montreal. This music is a love-song.] --- Other things:
  • We rearranged our sidebar a week or two ago. I encourage you to explore some of those great sites, especially the ones that are new to you. Foremost among these is Five Whys, the newish project of friend (and StG graphic designer) Neale McDavitt-van Fleet. Neale's fascinated with design, ergonomics, the environment and urban issues, just like you (probably), and his posts are a joy to read - succinct, insightful and teeming with Neale's amazing curiosity. Also, he can teach you how to make your own cleaning products.
  • In Montreal, Thursday through Sunday, St-Laurent is again closed for a street fair. And once again, Pop Montreal is programming whole days of free outdoor concerts at Parc des Ameriques (St-Laurent and Rachel). The only difference is that this time I helped with the programming. I particularly recommend some of StreetPop's Saturday shows (Max Henry, Mussaver, My People Sleeping, Shapes and Sizes), and basically everything on Sunday, since that was the day I was in charge. Some of the city's greatest emerging music - and some feisty kids from out of town. Here's the Facebook event. Sunday line-up: 14h00 Deleplage [Mtl] 15h00 Georgia's Teeth (aka Carl Spidla) [Mtl] 16h00 The Bitter End (improv ft. Dan Beirne) [Mtl] 16h15 Little Scream [Mtl] 17h00 very short modern dance works by Laurel Koop and Andrew Tay [Mtl] 17h15 Postcards [Mtl] 18h00 Construction and Destruction [Nova Scotia!] 19h00 Videotape [Ottawa] 20h00 Snailhouse [Mtl] 21h00 Orillia Opry (acoustic) [Mtl] Many thanks to Pop Montreal for the invitation.
]]> http://www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/coronas.php http://www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/coronas.php Sean Thu, 21 Aug 2008 00:06:00 -0500 What Do You Say To A Bunch Of Cheaters? Envelopes - "Boat" The Envelopes have made a very nice album, Here Comes the Wind. The album, I would describe it as nice, it doesn't offend, it's confident in itself, and it doesn't presume that you will enjoy it, it earnestly tries to convince you that it's pretty cute. But "Boat" is the album's dark center, it's bloody filling. It feels like a child's confession, in the kind of way children can talk when they don't really understand how much their words can cut deep. It bandies its own horrible despair around like it were the shoes in the front hall. Everything is right about it: the strummy guitar standing on its tippy-toes and the little sliding notes as steady as summer rain. And her voice like cupped hands, not interested in yelling or getting carried away, just here to tell it like it is. Oh, and it's got 45 seconds of some kind of naval computer war sounds at the end. The first part feels tied to the song, like as if the child character goes back to playing video games after singing, silent and staring with blue light flickering on her. But the second part feels like part of the album (it gets a bit bloopy after this point) [Buy] -- Elsewhere: Ed David e-mailed us yesterday with a link to a lovely little documentary that he photographed on Paul Mawhinney, the man with the largest record collection in the world.]]> http://www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/what_do_you_say_to_a_bunc.php http://www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/what_do_you_say_to_a_bunc.php Dan Tue, 19 Aug 2008 01:54:08 -0500 YOU'LL NEVER PROSPER Freak Paeans - "Civet Cat Civet Cat". Freak Paeans - "What Have I Always Held Forth?". Freak Paeans is a secret person. His identity is not disclosed. He recorded a cassette in 2005 and now Caff/Flick have reissued Now When I Wear An Anchor on CD. You can buy it for £1, or for more if you like. I think it is fitting that a secret person sounds like a cross between Elliott Smith and early Devendra Banhart. Both of those people feel half-secret, half made-of-secret. So here's the whole-secret version, glimmering hard. I wonder what it feels like to be a secret person, living in a shabby hut on a hill, wind blowing through. I wonder what it's like to cultivate a secret garden that no one knows, tulips and poseys. I wonder whether the sun feels different, when you're secret; or the moon. And whether falling in love feels like a kind of joke. ]]> http://www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/youll_never_prosper.php http://www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/youll_never_prosper.php Sean Mon, 18 Aug 2008 10:18:16 -0500 Orange Coloured Lift Devo - "The Day My Baby Gave Me A Surprize" I knew a guy who could only make love while listening to Devo. He honestly could not become aroused if Devo was not playing. Since I have never made love with this man, I can only tell you everything else I know about him, or I should say knew about him (he could have changed by now) during the period of 2002-2003. His desk at work was extremely neat, the only things left on the top would be a bottle of hand sanitizer and compressed air. The walls of his cubicle, however, were more cluttered than the family fridge. Pictures of the ugly little children of his friends and family, bad comics torn out and tacked up on a whim countless months ago, a small Matrix Revolutions teaser poster. I couldn't say with certainly, but I strongly believe that he wore the same undershirt every day. He was not bad looking, but did not know how to accentuate his strong features. He had occasional blemishes, and often red and enflamed cuticles. He was always an hour early for work because he claimed that was the only bus he could catch, and yet he still complained about it almost every day. He once begged me, literally begged me, to help him finish a tube of pringles. But I was eating yogurt, you know? [Buy] Central Broadcasting Traditional Instruments Orchestra - "Dancing in the Moonlight" Who understands the world better than me? Who believes in me more than the whole world? If I let go of a hang glider, another one will be waiting a few feet below. If I walk into the ocean, the great underwater waves will push stones into a ridge so I may walk straight out. If I make a fire and it blows out, it will blow into my chest and set me running for another whole cycle of the moon. I am made only of rain, and grass, and blood, and wood. I am complete and only my smile is gangrenous. [Buy]]]> http://www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/orange_coloured_lift.php http://www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/orange_coloured_lift.php Dan Fri, 15 Aug 2008 03:48:19 -0500 Open Small Tags Absentee - "Shared" Modest Mouse - "Make Everyone Happy / Mechanical Birds" The Absentee track I got in the mail today, and the Modest Mouse is the last track on their first album. These are the only two songs I have listened to today, and I had a very distinct feeling listening to both. I think there are some among you who would relate with me when I say that I would like to survive my own suicide. Which is distinct, mind, from surviving a suicide attempt. It's a fictional, adolescent kind of fantasy, that allows one to both muster the courage involved and to be free of the consequences. Or rather, consequence in the singular. You can see inklings of this idea in many things: video games, movies, drinking, drugs, and you can easily squirrel it into the simpler notion of re-inventing yourself, but I prefer the grandeur, self-pity, and histrionics of my idea. Every time I hear those mechanical birds, I just want to throw myself on them, their vast metal jaws hungry and screaming. [Absentee's Victory Shorts available only in the UK in Sept.] [buy Long Drive from Up Records]]]> http://www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/open_small_tags.php http://www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/open_small_tags.php Dan Thu, 14 Aug 2008 15:19:44 -0500 Wrigley Percy Sledge - "Out of Left Field" Despite all appearances, "Out of Left Field" is a happy song. The unpredictable occurrence of the title is the appearance of love in Sledge's life, and so unexpected was it that the singer seems to have been unable to adjust his miserable disposition before writing a song about it. Sledge sounds broken down and desperate, wailing (about how happy he is) over his band's mournful music. Near the end of the song, he sings, "She was a lover and a friend," giving the first and only clue that the love story is now over. It would almost justify the song's tone, but then comes the final lyric: "Everything is alright." Ultimately, "Out of Left Field" is less about a particular woman than it is about the serendipitous timing of her arrival on the scene -- or, especially, the possibility of serendipitous arrivals on scenes in general. Sledge is sustained, it seems, by the notion that, no matter how miserable the situation, something might always be lurking in the shadows beyond third base. [Buy]]]> http://www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/wrigley.php http://www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/wrigley.php Jordan Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:08:07 -0500 YOUNG COYOTES and ULTIMATE BLACKSMITHS Graeme Patterson's hockey organ Last of the Blacksmiths - "Autumn Vacation". Takes a lot of guts to start an album this way. Takes a lot of guts to sing this slow, this way. Takes a lot of guts to make music that recalls the New Year, of all people (they have a new song too). Takes a lot of guts to stay outside while it's raining. Takes a lot of guts to ice-skate while it thunderstorms. Takes a lot of guts to pretend summer's autumn. Takes a lot of guts to take an anvil to bed. Takes a lot of guts to roadtrip past the coast. Takes a lot of guts to fall in love. Takes a lot of guts to get down, a little, when no one expects you to. [MySpace/website/buy] Young Coyotes - "Hell Is...". A new volley from these precocious scamps, and once again their da-na-na-na-na-na-na gusto has me setting campfires in my living-room. Wouldn't mind a little more menace in this glockenspiel-along, more Wolf Parade and less Shins, but under the gloss of dings there's a tumbling, river-rapid thrill - the whirl and yay of a good team, a good squad, a good gang. A band that might do anything. [MySpace] [Photo is of Graeme Patterson's Hockey Organ]]]> http://www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/young_coyotes_and_ultimat.php http://www.saidthegramophone.com/archives/young_coyotes_and_ultimat.php Sean Tue, 12 Aug 2008 11:29:00 -0500