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Tuesday, January 19, 2010Tuesday's Earful: Vampire Weekend
By: David Schultz
 The deadest period for new music comes in the six weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. In that regard, the whole industry just shuts down, leaving the entertainment world to focus on Oscar contending movies. While the cinema world treats January as their dumping ground for movies with dim prospects, major and independent labels offer up a glut of new releases. Unquestionably, the biggest to hit stores in the first couple weeks of 2010 has been Vampire Weekend’s sophomore release, Contra. In this accelerated age where band hype and backlash takes place within weeks, it seems like eons ago the Ivy Leaguers debut caused such a stir, gleefully appropriating African rhythms into their appealing mélange of frisky, highbrow three chord pop.Vampire Weekend hasn’t deviated significantly from the formula that simultaneously delighted and irked so many back in 2008. Ezra Koenig’s still showing off his multisyllabic and now multicultural vocabulary, most pronouncedly on the lilting opening track “Horchata,” and “Holiday” and “Cousins” have the same brash Afropop punk feel as anything from their debut. They aren’t remaining complacent either: “White Sky” makes it sound like they’ve added Animal Collective to their steady Paul Simon rotation and “Run” and “Giving Up The Gun” find Chris Thomson and Chris Baio adding a booming electronica backbeat. “Diplomat’s Son,” cloaks itself in the pomposity of progressive rock; it’s mainly six minutes of bad reggae but its easily the Vampire Weekend’s most daring effort to date. The album’s closing track, “I Think Ur A Contra,” abandons everything you’ve come to expect from a Vampire Weekend song. Setting aside bouncy rhythms, Koenig’s high-pitched voice trembles and warbles over ethereal ambience as he eruditely chastises a lover he no longer trusts. The hurt and indignation infused into the lyrics meshes incongruously with the pleasant atmospheric vibe with the result being one of the finer uses of the band’s subtle ingenuity. All the Ivy League jokes and cultural colonialism discussions can’t obscure the fact that Contra stakes out Vampire Weekend’s claim to be treated as more than a fleeting reference to the dialogue they’ve started. Labels: Vampire Weekend Monday, December 28, 2009Earvolution's Ten For 2010
By: David Schultz
 April may have been the cruelest month for T.S. Eliot but for the music business, December can be quite a bear. Practically every new release of value that could come out between Thanksgiving and the New Year gets shelved until the dropping of the ball in Times Square and rock stars like to spend the holidays with their families just like the rest of us. The dearth of excitement results in the Christmas season proliferation of Year In Review compilations and Best Of lists. With the New Year right around the corner, here are some things to get excited about in 2010.Grace Potter & The Nocturnals: Not The T-Bone Burnett Album -791486.jpg) Throughout the majority of 2009, all the news from Potterville pointed to the new Grace Potter & The Nocturnals album being a collaboration with legendary producer T-Bone Burnett that was rumored to be heavy on the Grace but light on The Nocturnals. That’s now last year’s story. Yet to be titled, GP&TN’s 2010 release will be the fruits of their labors with songwriter/producer Mark Batson and will feature the entire band, including new members Catherine Popper and Benny Yurco. A few of the new songs, namely “Oasis,” “Tiny Light” and “Medicine,” have anchored the band’s set list on their recent tour with Brett Dennen, giving credence to guitarist Scott Tournet’s claim that their latest “sounds more like GPN than ANY other album.”U-Melt: Perfect World  On February 23, U-Melt’s third studio effort, Perfect World, will be released on Harmonized Records, offering up studio versions of live favorites like “Pura Vida,” “Elysian Fields” and the exquisite title track. In conjunction with the release, the band will embark on a tour of the East Coast, introducing their new guitarist Kevin Griffin, who will be replacing Rob Salzer, one of U-Melt’s founding members. Unquestionably, the departure of Salzer will be a game-changer but there’s no call for pessimistic prophecies; there’s too much talent in this band. Rather, it will be intriguing to watch and listen to how they evolve with Griffin. On February 20, U-Melt will celebrate Perfect World’s release with their debut at New York City’s Bowery Ballroom. Pavement Reunion  If Pavement had released Slanted and Enchanted or Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain nowadays instead of the early 90s, they would be among the most hyped bands in the history of the blogosphere. As Pavement’s heyday came in the era when indie-rock described a business model, not a genre, they didn’t garner an extraordinary amount of attention. Notwithstanding the fact that “Cut You Hair” had a steady run on MTV’s 120 Minutes or that they sold out four shows at Central Park’s Summerstage a year in advance, Pavement’s modest success in the 1990s will not equate with the inordinate number of people that will boast about how much they loved Stephen Malkmus and company back in the day. Pavement’s reunion will be a pretty significant and cool event; the unrealistic number of exaggerated accounts of their former greatness from those who claim to have been all over Pavement back in the 90s will not.Peter Gabriel: Scratch My Back  With his last studio effort coming in 2002, Peter Gabriel’s most significant accomplishment over the past few years has been getting reverently namechecked by Vampire Weekend in “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa.” Not typically known as an interpreter of other’s material, Gabriel will release Scratch My Back, an album exclusively of covers, on February 15. Gabriel’s latest will include his take on David Bowie’s “Heroes,” Paul Simon’s “The Boy In The Bubble,” Bon Iver’s “Flume,” Arcade Fire’s “My Body Is A Cage” as well as versions of songs from Elbow, Lou Reed, The Magnetic Fields, Randy Newman, Regina Spektor, Neil Young, Radiohead and The Talking Heads.Blues & Lasers New Album  At the beginning of 2009, when Grace Potter & The Nocturnals had some down time, Scott Tournet revved his Delta blues project up to fifth gear, working many shows as a headliner, including one of the first gigs at the newly opened Brooklyn Bowl. As their debut album had only five songs, there was a lot of room to break out some new tunes and Blues & Lasers has a store of good ones on tap. With GPN business taking precedence, scheduling may be the bigger issue in getting to hear what B&L is up to. In the meantime, Tournet, Benny Yurco and Matt Burr are bringing a small taste of the B&L fireworks to the Nocturnals stage.Pete Townshend At The Super Bowl  Ever year since the NFL has gone into overcompensation mode for the Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction, they trot out their classic rock superstar du jour at half time and unleash a slew of hired morons to rush out and act like they’re more excited than Michael Jackson left unsupervised in a pre-school. As it’s for TV, pros like Springsteen, Jagger and McCartney can ignore the nonsense and enjoy being the focal point of the spectacle. This ridiculous Hollywood crap seems like the exact sort of phoniness that drives Pete Townshend nuts and the ornery guitarist has never been too good at hiding his scorn. When The Who appear at the Super Bowl in February - no doubt, to play “Baba O’Riley,” “Behind Blue Eyes” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again” - it’s a matter of time before Townshend explodes the myth of how happy those fans on the field truly are. Maybe he bonks one on the head like they’re Abbie Hoffman and they call it a senior citizen malfunction.Backyard Tire Fire: Good To Be  Produced by Los Lobos’ Steve Berlin, Backyard Tire Fire’s latest studio album, Good To Be, will be released on February 16. Not only are the Midwestern rockers one of the greatest bar bands with whom you could ever want to throw back a few beers, they are one of the more thought-provoking, Ed Anderson’s songs coming from the part of the soul that country and blues singers have mined for decades. Over the summer, BTF previewed a few of the album’s new songs when they came through New York City. No huge direction changes seem forthcoming but it’s clear that working with Berlin has had marvelous benefits. This may be the year that the Backyard Tire Fire catches on and Anderson finally gets his much deserved recognition.The Kinks Reunion  Nearly every group from the Sixties that had the manpower to get the band back together in the modern day has found it impossible to resist the financial allure of the reunion tour. Long before the Gallaghers and Robinsons started borrowing their act, Ray & Dave Davies were pushing sibling rivalry and brotherly love to its limits, much to the detriment of The Kink’s perpetual longevity. Just recently, Ray Davies gave the first indication in many years that he and his brother had the inclination to play together once more as The Kinks, a proposition that had been greatly hindered by the lingering effect of Dave Davies’ 2004 stroke. Rather than experiment in front of arenas full of people, The Kinks’ guitarist will play some “low-key” shows as the first baby step towards a full-blown Kinks reunion.Vampire Weekend: Contra  Vampire Weekend’s self-titled first album compiled all of the songs that had made them one of the most buzzed about bands in New York City onto a full-length release. Already vetted, its success was nearly a foregone conclusion. If the new songs starting to trickle out ahead of Contra’s January 12 release date are any indication, it looks like not only will we get more of the band’s warm and fuzzy mix of punk rock simplicity and Afro-pop rhythms, we’ll also get to recycle all those Ivy League jokes we’ve had to shelve for the last year or so.A Genesis Reunion With Peter Gabriel  In 2010, Genesis will join The Stooges, Jimmy Cliff, The Hollies and ABBA as the latest inductees into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The induction ceremonies tend to reunite band mates who haven’t been able to find the time to play together, or - in the case of Van Halen and Blondie - speak to each other, over the past few years. Let’s hope that the occasion gives Peter Gabriel time to catch up with Mike Rutherford and Phil Collins and discuss a Genesis reunion, an event that none of them seems to have much of an aversion to doing. We can only hope that the next Genesis tour will have less “I Can’t Dance” and more lead singers dressed as buttercups.The Daily Earfuls will return in 2010. Happy New Year!! Labels: Backyard Tire Fire, Genesis, Grace Potter and The Nocturnals, Pavement, Peter Gabriel, The Kinks, The Who, U-Melt, Vampire Weekend Wednesday, February 06, 2008Much Ado About Something: Vampire Weekend Haunt The Bowery Ballroom
By: David Schultz
 Hailing from the hallowed halls of Columbia University, Vampire Weekend are tailor made to bear the brunt of the slings and arrows that outrageous fortune brings upon any buzzed-about band. On their self-titled debut, released last week, the Ivy Leaguers precociously dive into all sorts of African rhythms and sing about the thrills of fleeing Cape Cod and rail against punctuation. It’s as if someone took the Arctic Monkeys, housetrained them and had them brainwashed by Emily Post. If they weren’t so damn good, you would probably stand in line to punch them in the face.Last week, Vampire Weekend hosted a two night sold-out stint at New York City’s Bowery Ballroom that served as a record release party for the first effort on XL Recordings. Much like the Cold War Kids first album, Vampire Weekend doesn’t target the fans that have helped grow their reputation; rather, it packages the best of the white-hot indie band’s tunes and makes them easily accessible to a wider audience. Practically the entire album has been available for quite some down on various EPs as well as strewn throughout the Internet in various bits and pieces. If you’ve lived in the New York City area or regularly peruse the mp3 blogs, you’re likely very familiar with Ezra Koenig (guitar), Rostam Batmanglij (keys), Chris Tomson (drums) and Chris Baio (bass). It’s going to be interesting to see if the same swirl of goodwill that happened on a small scale can happen on The National level. (pun very much intended). Regardless of what happens outside of their control, Vampire Weekend are an intriguing band with a refreshingly bright sound. For their Wednesday night show, they opened with “Mansard Roof” and then hit many of the album’s highlights, including “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” and the brilliantly bubbly “Bryn.” Not long after they started, they closed the set proper with “Oxford Comma” and, after a short break, returned to close the night with “Walcott,” giving everyone a glimpse as to how “Born To Run” would have turned out if Bruce Springsteen was a trust fund baby. Quite possibly, the rich boy and literary references are supposed to be ironic; on the other hand, maybe this is how the college kids are rebelling these days. Whatever the reason, VW are the only band that will give you the opportunity to publicly display your disdain for a subtle piece of punctuation you’ve likely never heard of before. (For those who are curious, an oxford comma is one that precedes “and” or “or” when listing a series of things). Despite a name more apropos of a goth metal group, Vampire Weekend’s songs are especially bright and bouncy. They mix together a wonderful blend of afro-pop, ska and other African rhythms with an undercurrent of punk rock that was more pronounced in a live setting. If you dug deep into what they were doing on stage you could hear The Clash lurking in the midst. There’s probably a socio-political component inherent to four white college students embracing African music and adopting it in the same manner as Peter Gabriel – namechecked on “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” - and Paul Simon during his Graceland/Rhythm Of The Saints period. When the resulting music is this playful and enjoyable, we can leave the pontificating at home. With one album, as buzzworthy as it may be, Vampire Weekend had a limited amount of material with which to work; their one album clocks in at just over thirty minutes. Even with the addition of a couple new songs, one of which Koenig offered to let the audience name, the night flew by quite quickly. Factoring in the encore break, VW strained to make it to the 45 minute mark. It was a shame because the audience was eager for more. Vampire Weekend have a number of very catchy tunes that refuse to grow tiresome with repetition. It’s a trait of many songs and artists that find wild success on the pop charts. They will surely face the stereotypical backlash that accompanies any growing band but in the end, Vampire Weekend are more fun to listen to then they are to analyze . . . even if the Arctic Monkeys would kick their collared-shirt wearing asses in a bar fight. Labels: Vampire Weekend
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