I finished reading Never Let Me Go this week.

Jack & Jeffrey Lewis - City & Eastern Songs

On City & Eastern Songs, Anti-folker and comic book artist Jeffrey Lewis teams up with his brother Jack for a record that is more loud and aggressive. This album seems to be about conjunctions. The ampersand that joins Jack and Jeffrey is not only parallel to the ampersand joining city and eastern song, but the one that combines styles on this record. The acoustic stream of consciousness tunes that Lewis is known for are interrupted by shorter, faster, louder garage rock nuggets. From Mountain Goats style acoustic folk (2, 5, 8), to Sonic Youth influenced rockers (9) this album is more dynamic than previous records and by far, better.

Cold War Kids, Dr. Dog, and Elvis Perkins @ The Troubadour

How does the California group Cold War Kids sell out the Troubadour without having an album for sale? I have no idea.

Seeing Cold War Kids live reminded me of Blueshammer, the fictional band from the movie Ghost World. Their brand of indie rock resembles an immature version of The Walkmen. At the Troubadour, the band lacked the darkness and density of their Up in Rags EP. As the members of the band, flailed around the stage, singer Nathan Willett sang in a voice that would make Jeff Buckley jealous, “All us boys on death row, we're just waiting for a pardon.” There was something too lively about their performance, which presented a disconnection with the inherent melancholy of their music. Their set included songs about alcoholic fathers, injured war veterans, and death row inmates. Just like the clueless band Blueshammer that introduced their music as, “authentic, way down in the delta blues,” Cold War Kids lack a subtlety and respect for the American Blues tradition.

Elvis Perkins started off the night. The son of actor Anthony Perkins reminded me of another Elvis, Costello not Presley. The short set Elvis Perkins played was similar in style to the early work of Colin Meloy and The Decemberists. While recently the Decemberists have evolved in both scope and sound, their early albums are quite tender and somber. The songs from the album Ash Wednesday engage in Meloyisms, but on a much more personal level.

Dr. Dog followed Elvis Perkins. They started their set with a tighter, faster version of “The World May Never Know.” The song that begins their Easy Beat album can’t help but elicit a Beatles comparison in its “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” bass line, but here, the song sounded more like an inverted “Two of Us” off of Let It Be. Played tighter and faster, you hear how well written it is. Like the bridge in “Two of Us,” that meanders off course and finds its way back, the lost sensibility that is expressed in the verses of “The World May Never Know” find their way back to during the bridge.

The band closed their set with “Wake Up,” the song that ends their Easy Beat album. This was a particularly rousing version that featured the participation of the responsive Los Angeles crowd. As the song ends, it dissolves into an unaccompanied maudlin sing-a-long. The repeated refrain of “Wake up, wake up, we are only part of a dream” took on a particularly heightened significance in the tight space of the Troubadour, Reminiscent of a scene somewhere between The ending of Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life where George Bailey & company sing Auld Lang Syne and the scene described in Henry Rollins Get in the Van when the power goes out during a show at a European club and the audience starts to sing the Black Flag songs themselves. Dr. Dog were able to initiate a sense of community in West Hollywood, without the unexpectedness of power outages or the triteness of telling the audience to all clap their hands or shout designated phrases.

In addition to songs from their first two albums, Dr. Dog played songs from their new EP Takers & Leavers. The new tracks demonstrate their ability to combine The Beatles with Basement Tapes era Bob Dylan and layer in the sunny California sound of The Byrds and The Beach Boys. While obvious in their influences, Dr. Dog came across sounding more original then the band they were supporting.

Pop Levi - Blue Honey

Pop Levi, member of the Liverpool rock/jazz collective Super Numeri and sometimes bass player of Ladytron, rocks out Marc Bolan style on this EP. This record is pretty consistent; there are neither highs nor lows, sticking to the T-Rex formula of a stomping strut of a rock song. Pop Levi adds a little bit of sexy psychedelicness on songs like “Baby Again” and “Skip Ghetto” but could still stand to add a little bit more James Brown/Prince funk and a little less Devendra Banhart weirdness.

MySpace

Voxtrot - Mothers, Sisters, Daughters & Wives

If you’ve been swayed by the Smiths-like cover art or the clever name, hopefully Voxtrot won’t disappoint. This Austin band is sometimes-jangley by way of Glasgow, sounding much like city’s two main musical exports: Belle and Sebastian and Orange Juice. Other times they flirt with a flourishing density that reminds me of Broken Social Scene or Bloc Party. The songwriting on this, their second EP is impressive. It wanders far away from the verse-chorus-verse structure. This EP remains a very consistent listen, even after many times through. All songs are worthy of radio airplay.

Supersystem - A Million Microphones

Formerly on Dischord and formerly called El Guapo, Supersystem used to be a more adventurous band. On this and their previous album, they seem to stick mainly to dance punk basics. Inane sing-a-long choruses accompany electronic drumbeats and bass-heavy rhythms. This record has its moments though not redeeming. “White light/white light” which is similar in vain to Justin Destroyer’s solo and much more innovative project Edie Sedgwick as well as “Eagles Fleeing Eyries” and its harp accompaniment are the records best moments. Ultimately, if you give a million monkeys a million microphones they could come up with something better than this

The Cold War Kids - Up In Rags

The warm natural sound of The Cold War Kids EP Up in rags manages to be light on the production but heavy on the paying close attention. For me this record raises questions of authenticity how can 4 California kids singing about alcoholic fathers, death row inmates and wounded Vietnam soldiers sound so real? This whole EP is really good. The singer sounds similar to Jeff Buckley while the rest of the band invokes the sound of Brooklyn bands The Walkmen and French Kicks.

Defiance, Ohio - The Great Depression

The Bloomington, IN folk-punk band Defiance, Ohio make you realize that with Against Me! going on to bigger and not necessarily better things, their shoes maybe aren’t that big to fill. Defiance, Ohio’s second album out on No Idea is honest, urgent folk-inspired punk. It’s a political record similar to how folk music is political and far away from the political punk bands Propagandhi and Anti-Flag. Defiance, Ohio is political in the way the policies of our current administration affect individuals. It’s political in that it’s personal. The first track, Petty Problems makes the band seem wise beyond their years, while track four, is a tongue in cheek southern hymn rewriting the word of God to include George W. Bush.

All These Messages Make Me Laugh

A List of Saved Voicemail Messages on my Cellphone:

1. My sister sounding like an 80 year old male truckdriver upon waking up and realizing she overslept and almost missed our lunchdate.

2. Christopher arguing with Christina about how to get to the airport on the day they picked me up.

3. Veronica calling me after she got off of work early for a change.

4. Jennifer looking for Brandon or Gretchen after her dog was attacked.

5. Andrew informing me that he is a weak man.

Satisfaction - Nothing Oh Nothing

Deep down I know the OC is just a television show, but driving around Newport Beach, I still keep my eye out for Seth Cohen on his skateboard. Just east of Newport Beach is the Orange County city of Costa Mesa. Costa Mesa is home to the band Satisfaction. Satisfaction are a band that could easily show up on the famed, fake OC venue The Bait Shop. They’re infectious and unintentionally creating a style that could begin to be associated with Orange County as well as The OC. Taking cue from OC alums, Phantom Planet and Rooney, Satisfaction play aggressively poppy piano punk that incorporates elements of the Beach Boys. The Beach Boys, who never surfed, were from one county North in the town of Hawthorne, but their style survived on the beaches of Huntington. OC punk bands like The Crowd and Agent Orange added aspects of surf rock into their hardcore punk sound. Those sun-kissed harmonies and heavily percussive instrumentation is now distilled into the music of the Satisfaction. The air of Brian Wilson washes over the music of Satisfaction like the waves covering Laguna Beach.

The Rolling Stones wrote a song called Satisfaction and it’s anything but satisfying. It’s hot, bothered and frustrating. “Nothing Oh Nothing” is Satisfaction’s stab at their own version. With lyrics like “Nothing, I’m done feeling nothing. So count me in for pain and for suffering,” Satisfaction attempt the impossible. Like the Mick Jagger looking for empathy over insatiability, Satisfaction’s pleading is damn near masochistic. But, poor Mick, surrounded by tons of beautiful women and he still can’t get no satisfaction. How many times did he try? He’s not so broken up he can’t still brag about it. For Satisfaction feeling bad is better than not feeling anything at all. And whether that numbness is narcotic or apathetic, its end still rings true even if it doesn’t necessarily sound very appealing. “Nothing Oh Nothing” may be Satisfaction’s “Satisfaction”, their signature riff however, is played on a keyboard.

Website: Satisfaction
Music: Nothing Oh Nothing
Myspace: Satisfaction

The Wideworld of Blog Posts

From the Worldwide Faith News archives...

I read a lot of news articles at work and am amazed at the names of some of these sites trying to pass themselves off as reputable. Or maybe in this political climate reputablity isn't a concern.

The Worldwide Faith News site strikes me as neither news nor reaching worldwide.

It's just like ABC's The Wideworld of Sports. You know they weren't going to show a baseball game or a football game, it was going to be Bowling or Badminton, or downhill skiing. Nothing worth watching.