Miles Kurosky, thank God, remains incapable of writing a bad song and staggeringly capable of writing great ones. The former Beulah frontman spent the seven (!) years following Beulah’s 2003 swansong, Yoko, in and out of the hospital and slowly piecing together his solo debut, The Desert of Shallow Effects — a long wait, and one that couldn’t help but come with expectations. But Desert is a stellar record, as good and weird and unaffectedly catchy an indie-pop effort as the genre’s seen in recent years. Read the rest of this entry »
The Miles Kurosky Comeback Tour continues with this puppet-packed clip for The Desert of Shallow Effects jam “Dog in the Burning Building.” Beulahphiles can catch the singer at Amoeba Hollywood on March 11 and at the Echo on April 7, as well as at SXSW, where I will attempt to see him play 12 times or until I pass out.
With former Beulah frontman Miles Kurosky’s extremely rad solo debut and an accompanying tour imminent, now’s the time to catch up on his old gig. A Good Band Is Easy To Kill is a good, if not quite I Am Trying To Break Your Heart-level look at Beulah’s final tour and eventual split. The performances, including one at L.A.’s Troubadour, are excellent, but #kidstoday may be surprised to see what life was like for a touring band 10 years into a career on the eve of the Great Indie Rock Paradigm Shift Of 2004. (Buy it on Amazon)
Welcome to the first installment of Learn To Love — a new column where we introduce you to a band, year, genre, whatever. Up first: Beulah, a horn-assisted power-pop band with shades of Pavement, the Beach Boys and Big Star. While associated with Elephant Six, Beulah’s songs were more straightforward animals; the band peaked on 2001’s The Coast is Never Clear and broke up shortly after the darker, noisier Yoko. (Trivia: Michael Cera is a big fan, having used a tune in his Web series, Clark and Michael.) The film A Good Band Is Easy To Kill documents their final tour in 2003, and in the wake of BitTorrent, MySpace, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! and the surge of hipster culture, it also captures perhaps the last year when being an indie band meant doing things the old-fashioned way.
Beulah – “I Love John, She Loves Paul” (from Handsome Western States, 1997): mp3 Beulah – “If We Can Land A Man On The Moon, Surely I Can Win Your Heart” (from When Your Heartstrings Break, 1999): mp3 Beulah – “What Will You Do When Your Suntan Fades?” (from The Coast Is Never Clear, 2001): mp3 Beulah – “My Side Of The City” (from Yoko, 2003): mp3 Beulah – “A Man Like Me” (from Yoko Demos, 2003): mp3
Radio sessions are the best. You get a quality recording and the band tends to do things acoustic and quieter. This particular session is not acoustic and quieter — in fact, it’s noisier than some of the album versions of some these tracks. This is great TheCoast is Never Clear-era material with Beulah in fine form. For the uninitiated: The Coast is Never Clear is one of the best pop records of this millennium, up there with Oh, Inverted World.
Beulah @ KCRW, 9.25.01
1. Program Intro:mp3
2. Battle Cry of the West:mp3
3. Emma Blowgun’s Last Stand:mp3
4. Night Is the Day Turned Inside Out:mp3
5. Interview:mp3
6. If We Can Land a Man on the Moon, Surely I Can Win Your Heart:mp3
7. Popular Mechanics for Lovers:mp3
Miles Kurosky, thank God, remains incapable of writing a bad song and staggeringly capable of writing great ones. The former Beulah frontman spent the seven (!) years following Beulah’s 2003 swansong, Yoko, in and out of the hospital and slowly piecing together his solo debut, The Desert of Shallow Effects — a long wait, and one that couldn’t help but come with expectations. But Desert is a stellar record, as good and weird and unaffectedly catchy an indie-pop effort as the genre’s seen in recent years. Read the rest of this entry »
