New Modest Mouse Video - "Little Motel"

Videotape

Okay, YouTube. But check this: live version of the last song on In Rainbows.



The way he shakes his head as he plays the opening chords, weirdly off pulse, makes me wonder what the recording will be like. (The audible toe-tapping toward the end, also on a slightly different pulse, might be another clue.) Skittering polyrhythms? Here's hoping.

Enough now. I will not write about this band or album for at least an hour.

I Am Testing a New Feature

Which means you can watch this commercial for a tv show that no longer exists except in the hearts of its fans. Of which I am one. Aw.

Tell me, did this take a long time to load? If not, I am going to have fun with this feature.

Bad Brains, Revisited.

Okay, has anyone else heard the name Bad Brains come up several times in the past year and brushed it aside each time thinking, "yeah, they say it's Bad Brains, but they probably mean some crappy reunion thing with some random guy on vocals doing a bunch of reggae?" Does anyone else feel really stupid for ignoring the fact that one of the best bands on earth released an album over a month ago, or has played a spate of live shows recently with all four original members?

The two of us that make up Gathering Evidence have never claimed to be on top of anything or particularly up to date when we talk about music. We don't scour the web for the hottest new thing or even let you know when bands we like are playing in your town before they actually play (Mae Shi, Brooklyn, last night.) But still. I am getting all worked up, not because I have been neglecting Bad Brains for the last month (or year,) but for the past ten years.

You might relate when I say sometimes there are moments when I am listening to a piece of music and think this band/musician/song/album/etc. is perfect in every way. I'll remember something like that for a period of time and then file it away while I start looking for other things that make me feel like that. For a short period of time in high school I was totally in love with Bad Brains. It seemed hard to imagine anything better than 4 black guys into jazz and reggae and prog rock playing hardcore punk with random dub intervals. Even cooler to think they started in the late seventies, before the Clash released Sandinista! (the only other album I'd heard of that attempted to mix genres like that), and before Minor Threat (often cited as the originators of hardcore) even existed.

Turns out it is still hard to imagine it. That and the fact that they are all incredibly skilled musicians -- something that's not actually all that common in a lot of punk rock -- makes them all the more impressive. Most obvious, I guess, are H.R.'s vocals. He sings so fast it can be hard to differentiate lyrics from total gibberish, but he's got some serious range. In the video up there for "Pay to Cum" he sings the verse "I came to know with now dismay/ That in this world we all must pay/ Pay to write, pay to play/ Pay to cum, pay to fight" in under three seconds and then gets almost soul-y with the chorus "And all in time/ With just our minds/ We soon will find/ What's left behind." Mad props. But his brother, Earl Hudson, is probably just as proficient on drums. Same goes for Dr. Know's guitar-playing and Darryl Jenifer's bass. They're a really tight band.

So I am excited to get the chance to hear the new album, Build a Nation, which, incidentally, was produced by Adam Yauch (MCA) of the Beastie Boys. I probably won't blog about that, though.

Note to Jake: Go here. Wait to load. Fast forward to about 2:50. Repeat as necessary.

Shame On You

Yeah, all of you, but mostly you, Jacob Wunsch. I know you read music blogs. I know you check out Pitchfork on a regular basis. You are supposed to do these things not just for your own interest, but so I don't have to. Why no mention of Dan Deacon? Is it because he's unattractive (Jake prefers attractive people, hence his frequent interaction with me?) He got on the Pitchfork best new music list back in May. I haven't bothered to read the review, but I hear Spiderman of the Rings got an 8.7 or something. Did you keep this information from me because he is annoying after more than one listen?

I've decided that maybe more reviews should be done upon the very first impression of particular piece of music. None of this "I think I'll play it a few more times to see if it holds up" business. Because isn't that first experience valid too, even if the music doesn't turn out to be destined for heavy ipod rotation? I have a good time listening to a new album, it can be really fun, especially if it sounds something like Spiderman of the Rings.

I want to be more impressionable. I will change my profile pic to that of Frank Ramos to show my solidarity with Dan Deacon fans.

So, I could be wrong, but I think Dan Deacon is a genius. "The Crystal Cat," "Okie Dokie," and "Snake Mistakes" make me feel lucky to be living in the 21st century. Though I can appreciate ye olde timey things like record players, typewriters and monocles, you will rarely hear me badmouthing anything that pulls us a little further out of the dark ages. So when someone gets his masters in electro-acoustic and computer music composition he gets points in my book.
Dan Deacon's music's not all haphazard college like you might expect, either. He just likes to use technology to his advantage. Here's a nice interactive video of how Dan Deacon works. Though the vocoder might be one of the more annoying instruments out there (think that stupid Cher song that goes "do you believe...",) it looks pretty fun to use. So does the other stuff, actually. Jake? Want to go to some flea markets?

Please view this unpopular but extremely enjoyable (in my opinion) youtube video of the song "The Crystal Cat." Warning: this may trigger seizures.



Seeing him play is supposed to be like hanging out at a giant dance party with him in the middle of everything. It's unfortunate that the next time he plays in New York will be at the infamous Webster Hall, opening for Girl Talk. Maybe he'll set up somewhere other than the stage?

September 6th - Seattle, WA @ The Vera Project
September 7th - Portland, OR @ Holocene
September 8th - Chicago, IL @ The Hideout Block Party (5 pm)
September 8th - Chicago, IL @ AV-Aerie (2000 W. Fulton) (8pm)
September 12th - Toronto, ON @ The Phoenix*
September 15th - New York, NY @ Webster Hall*
September 17th - Philadelphia, PA @ Starlite Ballroom*
September 20th - Charlottesville, VA @ Satellite Ballroom*
September 21st - Asheville, NC @ The Orange Peel*
September 22nd - Atlanta, GA @ MJQ Concourse*
September 23rd - Hattiesburg, MS @ Thirsty Hippo
September 24th - Houston, TX @ Walters on Washington
September 25th - Austin, TX @ The Mohawk
September 27th - San Diego, CA @ Epicentre*
September 28th - Los Angeles, CA @ Echoplex*
September 29th - San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore*
October 4th - Oberlin, OH @ Dionysus Disco
October 5th - Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue*
October 6th - Iowa City, IA @ The Picador*
October 11th - St. Louis, MO @ The Billiken Club
October 12th - Grinnell, IA @ Grinnell University Gardner Lounge
October 19th - Bennington, VT @ Bennington University
October 20th - Alfred, NY @ Alfred University
*=opening for Girl Talk

Här kommer Pippi Långstrump

I wish I could say my recent absence has been for some valid reason, like bathing in the glory of our democratic independent state, but actually it's just because I rediscovered Worms Armageddon and am playing it like a total geek. I allow myself this simple pleasure, however, because it's one of only two games I like to play (the other being the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series, because Tony Hawk is a serious genius. Obviously).

Anyway, in between napalm strikes I looked up Pippi Longstocking (as you do) and noticed something sort of interesting. Here is a video of the theme song to the original Swedish series (later turned into 4 poorly dubbed English language movies):



It's sort of good, right? I mean, once you get over the semi-annoying child actor singing (which is actually really catchy and I kind of like, though it keeps me from falling asleep), it's kind of hip. Turns out the music was done by a famous (at least in Sweden) jazz musician called Jan Johansson. I'm not exactly sure how this works out, because he died (prematurely) in 1968 and the show started in 1969, but I'm not going to go through the whole rigmarole of researching that aspect. Instead I just downloaded two of his albums, Jazz på Svenska and Jazz på Ryska , which are his versions of Swedish and Russian folk songs, and I think they're pretty nice.

I don't listen to jazz; mostly because I don't know how or where to start, but also because when I think of jazz I think of those weird moments in David Lynch films where someone is playing the saxophone under blue lights and I don't know what's going on, nor do I like the sounds of the saxophone. From what I can tell, Jan Johansson's jazz is non-saxophone related and I can see why people like it. Jazz på Svenska (which means Jazz in Sweden as you probably could have guessed) is fairly minimalist -- just piano and bass. It's smart, and sounds complex and simple at the same time. You can picture what the old folk songs would have sounded like with other instruments because he takes care of all that with only the piano. Anyway, lucky you, I just found a video on youtube. Listen for yourself:



P.S. Pippi Longstocking was really cool because she had a horse that lived in the house and her dad was a pirate who left her home alone and she didn't go to school. Not to mention she had super-human power, a besides-the-point character strength. Basically my total hero. Also she apparently really loved coffee, an awesome attribute for a kid.

Manitoba - Handsome Dick = Dan Snaith

I have been taking Jake's last post to heart today, and decided to mostly listen to the same album instead of being so spastic about things. I chose something I know I like, but haven't had much of a chance to sit down and listen to a lot because something went wrong with my computer when I ripped the CD, causing extremely loud bursts of white noise to interject themselves at random points during songs. Extremely unpleasant when you have the volume turned up loud on your ipod to fight off subway noises. So first, I had to download a new copy.

So today is all about The Milk of Human Kindness by Caribou. Caribou is mostly a one-man band in recordings, but he has people help him out on tour. That way there can be two drummers, because things tend to be better when there are more and louder drums (unless you are called Modest Mouse and you have two drummers at your live show for seemingly no reason and you sort of waste all that coolness because maybe you've gone in over your head because you already have the coolness of Johnny Marr. Not to bash Modest Mouse, because I think they're great).

It would be nice if I could tell you why to like this band, but I'm not particularly good at that. Plus, you can trust your own judgment so if you have a few minutes please check out their videos (below). In order to describe them I might have to resort to lazy tactics, like comparing them (um, I mean, "him") to other musicians. No one likes that. People also don't like math. This is how I'm going to describe them though, because Dan Snaith aka Caribou probably does like math, as he has a PhD in it. Neutral Milk Hotel + Olivia Tremor Control + Boards of Canada - Apples in Stereo + more drums - Georgia + Ontario = Caribou.



Here is another one that has words and things: