We at AVERSE have been pretty busy getting our end of the year coverage together, but in the meantime Matt Siblo’s been a busy little bee in his own right. Here’s a review at the DCist of the Ted Leo/Title Tracks/Radio 4 show at DC’s Black Cat from this past weekend. The older Siblo and I saw Mr. Leo at the Matador CMJ not-a-showcase this year and can vouch for this new batch of tracks. If the live versions are any indication The Brutalist Bricksis going to be a must-listen next year. Here’s an MP3 of “Where Was My Brain?”
It’s kind of douchey to report something already linked by Pitchfork but anything Animal Collective related is always appreciated by the AVERSE boys, and here we have an interview with Panda Bear talking about his process and upcoming record:
Yeah, it’s going pretty good. It’s been a long process. I’ve thought about it for a long time while we were doing the Merriweather stuff, so I had a long gestation process in my mind but only really started cracking on it in September. It’s kind of scary doing something totally different, like I’ve been working in a sampler zone for five or six years now. It definitely feels like a new zone, its scary but also exciting as well.
You may not know this but while the rest of us are making dumb jokes and giving mediocre reviews our very own Matt Siblo is a real life writer, which is to say his writing can be found on websites that don’t have “WordPress” in the URL. Over at the DCist, Matt waxes critical on Devo’s performance of their album Freedom of Choice.
The introduction raises an interesting question: is one band playing an entire album live boring? Or is there some kind of excitement to seeing a band play their “seminal” albums from start to finish? Check out the link, and weigh in here with your opinion.
Hey Mattkateers! Welcome back, and you couldn’t have visited at a better time cuz it’s LAYDEEZ NITE! This post is devoted to videos made by lady singers. I know it’s strange, but we’ve had lady voters and bus drivers for a decade or two now so I think it’s the natural order of things. I’d like to be the first to point out how progressive I am. More than a comparison of videos by female artists, however, this is more a critique on how to spend on a budget. Today I bring you 4 videos, 3 of which don’t have the major label money the other one does. Keep reading →
A couple of years ago I had the extreme displeasure of watching Kill Your Idols, a half-hearted documentary on the influential and avant-garde No Wave music scene of the 1970s. All the film really amounted to was a lot of pathetic posturing about how much better it was “back when the music really meant something, man” (if I never again have to hear Glenn Branca complaining about the apathy and uncreativity of today’s musicians I will consider myself to have led a rewarding and fulfilling life.) The most embarrassing parts, though, featured the shoe-horned, modern “art bands” the director chose to juxtapose the early pioneers with; do Theoretical Girls, Suicide, and James Chance really remind you of Gogol Bordello, A.R.E. Weapons, or (shutter) the Yeah Yeah Yeahs in either sound or ideology? I’d suspect not.
And so I was immediately interested when I started reading about Talk Normal, a duo hailing from Brooklyn, NY that has played with Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, and whose lead vocalist has garnered comparisons both ‘good’ (she sounds like Lydia Lunch!) as well as ’sketchy’ (she sounds like Karen O!). At best I expected nothing more than an all-female Suicide ripoff, and at worst I thought it would sound like two girls who listened to “Maps” way too often in college. What I got was something a lot more interesting than either of those prospects: a solid noise record that both embraces and transcends its avant-garde sound.
Apologies for the late reporting but I hope to be all caught up with my AVERSE assignments by day’s end. Paul is not afraid to ride me, hard. Let’s flash back one last time to the CMJ Festival and talk about the Matador Records/True Panther showcase. For the unaware, True Panther Sounds is an imprint of Matador Records that focuses on bands that don’t fit into the Matador Records stable. Which frankly, doesn’t make any sense, since Matador has been home to Liz Phair, Large Professor, Fucked Up, Pavement, the New Pornographers and Dead Meadow. Their roster never made for a coherent label sound, which is part of what makes Matador such a great label. I’m not clear on why, in a time when labels matter the least they ever have, anyone would start a NEW imprint, but Sub Pop has done it too (Hardly Art), so I guess it’s all the rage to start pointless imprints. Coming soon: AVERSE’s sister blog imprint, AVCRSE (“A Veritable Consumption of Records, Succinctly Examined”) where we will do exactly what we do here, except different?
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(photo credit: Kyle Gustafson)
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