Note to America: This is what a crowd singalong looks like. Thom and Jonny played a surprise set at the Glastonbury Festival today, with no new songs from Radiohead’s almost-done LP8 but — considering the response — still obviously a treat. This is the first video; we’ll update if we see more. (Today’s Twitter rumor is that Thom has magically made it across the Atlantic to New York’s Vice-sponsored Creators Project with M.I.A., Sleigh Bells, etc., but I’ll wait for the YouTubes.)
Good to be back, good to be back, good to be back. Tokyo Police Club’s Champ is fast becoming my most-listened to album of the year. I saw and enjoyed them at Coachella, but my memory of that afternoon is a bit, ahem, hazy; at any rate, it’s the Rob Schnapf-produced album itself that’s grabbed hold of my ears and held tight with bro hugs. Recommended if you like the Strokes, Harlem Shakes, feeling great about life.
Of Montreal’s last full-length was a confused, ADD mess that splattered genius moments across its 58 minutes like Jackson Pollack on a bender. Those days appear to be over. On False Priest first single “Coquet Coquette,” the influence of Jon Brion – who produced/helped out with the album after Of Monter Kevin Barnes had it pretty much tracked – is immediately obvious: actual drums, a Macca bass line, huge guitar chords.
The shift in tone, though, is all Kevin. “Coquet, coquette,” he opines, Shakespeare-like, “You are the death / you are the pinnacle” – a return to the maudlin but relatively heteronormative love/hate songs of Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? Assuming Barnes can get through the record without singing about being a black she-male – not that there’s anything wrong with that! – False Priest may find him reining back his id just enough to let his ego (and Brion) craft another set listenable for longer than 45 second bursts. (Via P4k)
As they did at SXSW, Austin, Texas, act International Waters were on-point at the Echoplex last month. The angular indie-pop band sounded as sharp on a bigger stage as they did at Plush in March, tearing through a sweet ‘n’ sour set with a bunch of new songs and should-be-hits such as “Olympia.” More photos after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »
Wavves at the El Rey, 2009 / photo by David Greenwald
OK, so: I broke down and listened to this. Let’s start from the beginning. Wavves has a new album called King of the Beach. It has broader, psych-tinged arrangements, which surprisingly fit Wavves main dudde Nathan Williams a lot better than the caveman-punk shit he was wiping on walls before, though the same toilet bowl production style has improved only slightly since Wavvves. King of the Beach feels a lot like 1994: Weezer, Britpop, Bee Thousand. Just dumber, and filled with 1999 lyrics. (“My old friends hate me, but I don’t give a shit,” he sings, Fred Durst-like, in the otherwise Butch Vig-lite “Green Eyes.” ) If the early ’00s were about reclaiming the cool kid genres of the late ’70s and early ’80s — post-punk, New Wave — the early ’10s kinda seems to be about reclaiming the geekier radio rock of the ’90s in some misguided need to defend going through high school before the iPod era. (See also: Pains of Being Pure at Heart and Surfer Blood’s recent [ironic?] Lit cover.)
Williams probably grew up smoking pot, flunking math class and listening to Green Day and Eve 6 and a borrowed, scratched-up Built to Spill CD on a Walkman with dying batteries. At times, this leads briefly to inspiration: “Green Eyes” is catchy enough and “Take on the World” is an Actual Jam, but it segues into useless psych carousel “Baseball Cards” and the self-aware, critic-baiting “Convertiible Balloon” (I think he might actually be singing “Blogging me down with your unbearable tune” in a song with an unbearable tune), not to mention the embarrassing Animal Collective-biting “Mickey Mouse” and — Christ. Sorry, guys — this is a lot more words than I wanted to write about Wavves this year (or ever) and I haven’t even made a poor taste Best Coast/”When Will You Come” joke yet.
Let’s start over: Wavves has a new album. So does Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti. That one’s better.
(King of the Beach is out in August, probably, but you should go get ice cream instead, you’ll enjoy it longer)
Sally Seltmann’s June 30 show at the Troubadour has been cancelled, the venue’s newsblast just announced, but the good news is the Heart That’s Pounding singer’s publicist tells Rawkblog that the show will be rescheduled for August. No word yet if it’ll stay at the Troubadour or be moved elsewhere. (If it has to be the latter, I vote for Largo, but either way, you’ll want to be there.) You can read my profile of Seltmann on the Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog.
Tonight, Rawkblog contributor Phil Merkow — as his alter-ego, PHILM — will bring his mind-bending beat-matching skills to bear at West Hollywood’s best beer bar, the Surly Goat along with DJ Dravidian. (Full disclosure: I go there a lot.) Be there or be the guy not listening to the immaculately curated DJ set and drinking sweet foreign brews.
Of Montreal’s last full-length was a confused, ADD mess that splattered genius moments across its 58 minutes like Jackson Pollack on a bender. Those days appear to be over. On False Priest first single “Coquet Coquette,” the influence of Jon Brion – who produced/helped out with the album after Of Monter Kevin Barnes had it pretty much tracked – is immediately obvious: actual drums, a Macca bass line, huge guitar chords.
Sally Seltmann’s June 30 show at the Troubadour has been cancelled, the venue’s newsblast just announced, but the good news is the Heart That’s Pounding singer’s publicist tells Rawkblog that the show will be rescheduled for August. No word yet if it’ll stay at the Troubadour or be moved elsewhere. (If it has to be the latter, I vote for Largo, but either way, you’ll want to be there.) You can read my profile of Seltmann on the Wall Street Journal’s 
