Port City Music Hall lowers age restriction

April 15th, 2011 • News • No comments

AS OF TODAY PORT CITY MUSIC HALL (in Portland) IS 18+ INSTEAD OF 21+

That’s awesome. Good choice, guys.

Check out their calendar for upcoming shows (including Portugal. the man in June!).

5 Albums for Studying

April 13th, 2011 • Uncategorized • 2 comments

Apparently people have a lot of work this week. Listening to music can help!

1. Stars of the Lid Tired Songs of Stars of the Lid

This album is awesome to study to. It actually lets you take breaks! Tired Songs is just over 2 hours and has a general “ambient drone” (thanks, last.fm) that serves as a nice background noise for some good concentration. There are moments of reprise, however, when you can’t help but take a two minute break and just listen to the subtelties that make SotL so awesome.

2. Chopin Nocturnes

Apparently “classical” music is great to study to and these piano nocturnes are so beautiful I can barely take it, but when I can take it they make incredible music to study to because no matter how busy and stuff you think you are, you just listen to a second to these and everything is nice again.

3. American Music Club San Francisco

Relaxing, but not so relaxing it will put you to sleep. Basically, that sounds pretty good to me. Also, AMC is great.

4. Bombay Bicycle Club I Had the Blues But I Shook Them Loose

So this is if you’re into energizing study music. BBC (cool, right?) makes you feel good about everything, even when it’s rainy and your rough draft is so rough it could scrape you up real bad.

5. MC Solaar Chapitre 7

My friend today was saying how listening to rap is so energizing to study and write to, but she gets distracted by trying to learn the words. CAN’T DO IT IF YOU DON’T SPEAK THE LANGUAGE (okay, so maybe this isn’t a great one for french-speakers).

New TV On The Radio Album

April 13th, 2011 • Release Calendar • No comments

Yesterday was such a big day for kind of synthy stuff. TV on the Radio released their fourth studio album, Nine Types of Light, on Interscope Records. Accompanying the album is a kind of cool movie. Also, is it just me or does the vocals on first track, “Second Song” sound oddly like The National’s Matter Berninger for a bit?

Check it out:

New Panda Bear Out Today

April 12th, 2011 • Electronic, Release Calendar • No comments

It’s weird to think that Panda Bear, the moniker of Animal Collective’s Noah Lennox, has been around since 1999. The project was so overshadowed by Lennox’s involvement in the Animal Collective collaboration (including himself as Panda Bear and David Portner, Josh Dibb and Brian Weitz under monikers, respectively, Avey Tare, Deakin and Geologist). In 2004 Lennox focused more on solo Panda Bear with Young Prayer. In 2007 he released Person Pitch which was pretty huge.

TODAY (April 12, 2011) after a lot of postponing, he released Tomboy. You can check it out for a limited time on NPR First Listen.

If you’re into ambient-electro-pop…enjoy!

Goldilocks solutions to free vs. full price album acquisition

April 11th, 2011 • Did You Know • No comments

I am of the persuasion that downloading music for free is a great thing. I get the damage it’s doing to the “music industry” but I’m a punk at heart and think that the cathartic advantage of music is more powerful than the practical advantage of money. But I frequently disagree with myself here. Really. If you’re going to dedicate yourself completely to your musical “career” you need a way to eat and sleep and actually produce the music. I do want them to make some money! Some people have used the internet to introduce a lot of awesome solutions to rectify the damaging boom to musicians’ livelihood that it initially created.

A lot of websites, most notably Rhapsody, let you pay a monthly subscription fee to listen to their entire catalog (which is a pretty big catalog). Problems with Rhapsody and other sites like it are that a monthly fee can kind of add up and it’s kind of just access to a library rather than a super cheap book store.

Another solution is the Bandcamp route. It allows artists to upload any music that they want and choose the price at which it can be downloaded. This includes setting a $0 price and, going the Radiohead route, allowing the audience to set its own price. I love this. A lot. Bandcamp is slightly limited to smaller bands, though. This can be fun for finding hidden wonders, but you really have to either know what you’re going in for or be ready to spend a few hours having fun and digging, which usually yields some cool results.

A newly created site, Groopease, has a new approach. It’s pretty small scale but that’s a start! The site introduces a new band maybe twice a week and has an album discounted ridiculously (usually around 50%, but I did just get The Salvadors $10 album for $3!). 5% of the sales are donated to various causes (this week’s is Empower Nepali Girls Foundation). Also, it’s send you a physical copy of the album. A real live copy. You can touch it. You can put it in a CD player, if you still even have access to one. It’s also been working with Obscure Sound blog to really diversify the artist choices. This is a totally different approach from the search-based internet sources that have been dominating (and which will continue to dominate) and it’s kind of interesting. It’s always exciting to get an emailing update about a new band the site has chosen to promote. It’s cutting out the hours of fun searching on Bandcamp-like sites, which can be nicely easy sometimes (like at the height of finals week).

You’re (almost) always going to be able to find an album for free online somewhere. You’re always going to be able to find an album for full price somewhere. Now you’re getting more opportunities to kind of pay, kind of get things for free, kind of let the bands choose how they wish to share their music! I’m really warming up to this whole internet thing.

Album Review: The Dodos “No Color”

April 4th, 2011 • Album Review • No comments

Frenchkiss Records
15 Mar 2011
9 Tracks (41:47)

The dodo was a flightless bird. That, combined with its fearlessness of humans (dumb), made it easy for people to kill so hello, extinction. This was a valid fear for the fate of The Dodos after the 2009 release, Time To Die (with a name like that, maybe even they were aware of the risk of extinction). With Time, they flapped their wings and jumped, taking the risk of trading their energy for a third recording member with an electric guitar.

Apparently the trade was refundable. No Color relies again on the hard-strumming acoustic of Meric Long and the  drumming of Logan Kroeber (with only an occasional electric visitor). It always really surprises me how much I like the Dodos. They don’t have a bassist or a bass drum and I’m a total sucker for low tones. But I’m also a sucker for bands that play their instruments to death, which is a characteristic of the Dodos revisited on No Color that was neglected in Time (a concept even explored in “Good” lyrics, “is it better to be on or be good?”).

When bands do this, it’s easy for me to get fixated on an individual instrument’s contribution to the total sound. This, however, would be very difficult thing to do for No Color. It’s not about a sudden burst of guitar madness or a subtly intricate bass change (well, obviously with no bassist). This isn’t to say that the individual parts are necessarily simple or uninteresting. They rather, force you to focus on the whole above the parts.

This can, likewise, be said about the structure of the album itself. It simply goes together. The flow between tracks is seamless. They wholly rely neither on pause nor linked transitions. It’s nicely organized, but this makes it almost boring at times. The band took risks in the last album and it didn’t go so well. Maybe, then, they were afraid to do it again. There is no obvious stand-out song (like “Fools” on Visiter or every song on Beware of the Maniacs). Although it was a step in the right direction to step back, each track could easily have fit into Visiter. The album’s final track, “Don’t Stop” is pretty- very pretty in fact. The opening track “Black Night” is catchy- very catchy in fact. Maybe it’s not enough, though. It’s like a hand drawn perfectly straight line. It’s impressive because it’s so straight and the color used to draw it is awesome, but it is after all just a line.

(By the way, Neko Case is used frequently as backup vocals on this album. It’s subtle and it’s nice.)

Music to get stuck in a snow bank to

April 1st, 2011 • Maine, Uncategorized • No comments

If you’re ever stuck in a snowbank for 2 hours with access to all of your music (like I was this snowy April morning) this is a pretty fitting score. Think lo-fi, hollow, winter folk with a touch of passive anticipation…

Flatsound: They’ll like me when I’m sick

Radical Face: Homesick

Woods: Ring Me To Sleep

Bon Iver: Re:Stacks

Laura Marling: Goodbye England (Covered in Snow)

Low Anthem: This God Damn House

Ramona Cordova: Chesser

Bedhead: Losing Memories

Red House Painters: Katy Song

Iron and Wine: Trapeze Swinger

Shearwater: My Good Deed

Idaho: Shame

Palace Brothers: Meaulnes

Coconut Records: This Old Machine

Songs: Ohia : Just Be Simple

Peter and the Wolf: Red Sun

Gregory and the Hawk: Boats and Birds

Adem: Long Drive Home

Pedro the Lion: The Longest Winter

And at the moment of celebration when AAA arrives…

Neutral Milk Hotel: Holland, 1945

Albums I’m getting excited for

March 31st, 2011 • Uncategorized • 1 comment

Having spent last semester abroad with really limited internet access, I’ve been having to play catch up all this semester on albums released while I was away.  In (almost) April, I think I’ve finally exhausted the “new” releases that I cared about exhausting and am ready to get pumped for 2011′s upcoming albums. Getting pumped didn’t take too long because there are some seriously awesome things coming up.  Here are some previews.

MAY 10: Okkervil River I Am Very Far

Okkervil River — Wake and Be Fine

SPRING: Vivian Girls Share the Joy

You can actually listen to the whole album right now for free with NPR First Listen

WHO KNOWS WHEN: Andrew Jackson Jihad They’re still in the studio and haven’t released a title but it’s rumored to be something involving “Great American Band”

Andrew Jackson Jihad — Sad Songs

I’m also excited for warmth, but I think all of these albums will be released before that comes. Get excited with me.

Upcoming shows in Portland

March 30th, 2011 • Concert Calendar • 1 comment

A few updates about a few upcoming shows (we’re kinda in a bit of a lull, now, though…BUMMER)

Thu 3/31: Tiger Saw / Golden Ghost / Nat Baldwin Apohadian

Sat 4/2: Jesse Pilgrim & The Bonfire / Butcher Boy / Panda Bandits/ Grant Street Orchestra (CD RELEASE SHOW FOR JESSE PILGRIM) SPACE Gallery

Wed 4/6: STRFKR / Champagne, Champagne / Foam Castles / Vistas SPACE Gallery

Mon 4/18: Iron & Wine State Theater

Tue 4/26: The Bad Plus One Longfellow Square

Tue 5/24: Brett Dennen / Dawes State Theater

Thu 6/2: Avett Brothers/ John Oats State Theater

Thu 7/28: Elvis Costello State Theater

Fri 7/29: Beirut State Theater

Concert Review: Titus Andronicus at SPACE Gallery

March 30th, 2011 • Concert Review • No comments

In the early 1590s, William Shakespeare wrote what was thought to be his first tragedy, Titus Andronicus- who knew? Well, probably a lot of people. On March 29th, when New Jersey (although recently relocated to Brooklyn- shocking) based band Titus Andronicus took Space Gallery’s intimate stage in Portland, no one was thinking about 16th century theater.

The five-piece band opened with “No Future Part Three: Escape from No Future,” introducing the band with a steady build that gets you pumped because they started playing and then gets you pumped because they started rocking. The show really seemed to start with the unified yell of “or ever again” from all fans in the audience marking the transition from the “aforementioned” playing to rocking.

Marking the one year anniversary of Titus’ sophomore album, The Monitor (vaguely Civil War themed…belated riling is so cool), and their second tour since its debut the set list had more flexibility than their 2010 post-release tour (“The Monitour”…I love it). They equally sampled songs from both The Airing of Grievances and The Monitor, allowing for enthusiasm with every introducing riff whether it be inspired by thoughts of “this was the first Titus song I heard in 2005!” or “they didn’t get worse on their second album!”

Guitarist Patrick Stickles admits that “Titus Andronicus has gotten old  because when [they] first started playing [they] wouldn’t play any slow songs live and then [they] would maybe play one but now [they're] on to two.” While understated because slow for Titus still makes you dance, this was so necessary. The seven minute epic “To Old Friends and New” allowed the audience to breathe and get water and introduce themselves to the people they had just been smashing up against for the past few songs before heading right back into it. This break was only the prelude to, as Stickles introduced it, “13 minutes of straight rocking.”

Those 13 minutes told you what Titus is all about. You didn’t know if they had started a new song. You didn’t know if they were just jamming. You didn’t know anything, except for the few brief gasps of recognition from included songs “My Time Outside the Womb,”  “Upon Viewing Brueghel’s ‘Landscape With The Fall of Icarus” and even a classic Clash “White Riot” cover.  It barely mattered if they were playing in tune (which they were); it barely mattered if they were playing in time (which they were);  it barely matter if they knew the lyrics (which they did). What mattered was the energy they generated from sharing with the audience the best night of their lives, just like every other night of their lives.

After a short breather, the band knocked out a few classics, including a short Ramones cover (are Ramones covers ever anything but short?). They concluded with The Monitor‘s opening track, “A More Perfect Union” and there was never a more perfect union than the yell of “give me a cruel New England winter” from Mainers sick of the cold and jacket-less Jerseyans unprepared for winter in March. At Space, however, no one was cold the entire night.

Titus was preceded by Portland’s own Brenda and Brooklyn based Dinowalrus, both of whom were thoroughly impressive.  Brenda is a three piece band who rocks even without a bass (that space filled, rather, by a keyboard). Formed in 2008, the band is pretty young and this became evident in the first few moments of each song, where they searched for a common ground. They locked into it quickly, however, and from there on out it was nothing but forward momentum interwoven with slight, single changes in a beat or a riff or an anything that wasn’t repeated immediately, leaving the audience with gripping attention to when the next surprise would come. Seriously, that was awesome. Similarly awesome was the drummer whose arms must be made of rubber with magnetite implants. It was as if they were free form from his body and just naturally attracted the kit at the right time and in the right place. Definitely a highlight.

Dinowalrus, another three piece band, was similarly skeptical about always having a bass (what’s up with this?) which proved itself somewhat disappointing, not because the synth wasn’t cool (which maybe it wasn’t always), but because when the synth/bassist Liam Andrew chose to play bass instead of synth he was mesmerizing. Seriously, this guy can move his fingers. He made climbing fifths actually interesting to listen to, if only because they were the “simple” part of the bass line, used to underscore a fleeting guitar (from former Titus guitarist Pete Feignebaum) or drum hype.

Both of the opening bands were able to leave an impressive mark and were still remembered even after the almighty Titus Andronicus. Well played by all. Well danced by all. Well done by all.