Leaps And Bounds

11
Dec
2009

100 for 2000 – #5. Jon Brion – Meaningless

categories: music

To end another wonderful decade of great music, I’m going to write about ten albums from each of the last ten years, that are either great, or hold some sort of personal significance. A musical kiss off to 00s.

2000 – #5. Jon Brion – Meaningless
(no label)

Tim Byron turned me onto this record. I’m not sure where the conversation started. Maybe Elliott Smith. Tim was a bigger fan than me, being a Fiona Apple fan. But Jon Brion is a key piece of the puzzle. He was behind the dials for so many artists I love – Badly Drawn Boy, Aimee Mann, Beck, Elliott Smith and later Rhett Miller, Finn Brothers and more (like Kanye West!!). I guess at this time, Brion was trying to balance being a producer or a singer songwriter. As this is the the only album he’s ever done, I’m guessing producer won.

When I started raving about this record, all my pop friends were already there, it seems. People had gone to LA to see him perform (he performed every Saturday at the Largo for years, with lines around the block). People were into his old band, the Grays. I’ve had long conversations about this album with the CEO of a major record company. It was Brad Shepherd from the Hoodoo Gurus who told me the last track was a Cheap Trick song.

Knowing this record was like a special club. Which makes sense as it’s so fucking obscure (but also so great). Story goes that this was to be a major label debut. The label (Lava, owned by Atlantic Records) decided not to pick up the album, and Brion self released it on his website. I eventually paid through the nose for a CD copy, having decided the CDR I had wasn’t enough.

(The package, by the way, is shit. Just get a CDR, really).

So – it has a great release story. The guy is very interesting. But what about the songs?

Well, they are great. It’s adult contemporary pop – a sound and a style Brion kind of owns. It’s not retro, or as straightjacketed as power pop. It’s a timeless sort of good songwriting, with good lyrics, well performed and sounding great. It’s like Crowded House – they are pop songs but not for kids.

Highlights abound. Rhett Miller would cover I Believe She’s Lying, but the weird drum sample and urgency of the original still trumps it. Walking Through Walls is a thumper, Brion’s guitar playing comes to the forefront. Ballads, blissful pop, some hardrockers all lead to the finale, the Cheap Trick song. Re-imagined as a ballad, Voices is one the best things Jon Brion has ever done.

Brion went on to be Mr Soundtrack. His work for Punch Drunk Love produced my favourite Brion song ever – Here We Go. He also did I Heart Huckabees and Eternal Sunshine Of the Spotless Mind.

We’ve lost him to production, but if he ever does another record, I’m there. And this ‘adult pop’ thing – well that would be big news for the next decade for me.

11
Dec
2009

100 for 2000 – #4. Darren Hanlon – Early Days

categories: music

2000 – #4. Darren Hanlon – Early Days
(Candle)

It was at a Sounds Like Sunset gig at the Lansdowne Hotel, Sydney. It was an early one, and in between the bands, a friend of the band got up and did a song. Just two songs – one between each of the three bands. Just two songs and they were both brilliant. The young singer songwriter was Darren Hanlon. He year or two later he would release his first CD, a 7 track EP called Early Days.

I’ve followed Darren ever since. He will pop up a lot over the writing. But this musical relationship begins here.

After that show, I asked him if he had a tape or anything to sell (a tape! So 90s). But I remember what those songs were. Beta Losers – which appeared earlier on a compilation – and She Cuts Hair. Both tracks are on here.

Darren comes from Lismore, and later I would find out he was a member of the Simpletons, a great band that I missed out on completely. He’s mainly acoustic, but had that Jonathan Richman/Belle and Sebastian vibe. Witty, clever – maybe a bit too cutesy. But these ‘early days’ of Darren were legendary. He was a storyteller in song, and became a story teller on stage.

His crowds got bigger with every show. Soon he was the biggest act on Candle Records. I went to every gig hoping to hear some wonderful new song. I lived out these 7 tracks.

Early Days opens with the title track, a short quick ditty about the stomach butterflies you get at the start of a relationship. Its a pretty good indicator of what Darren does – sweet songs, with wit and randomness. Beta Losers is about a guy who gets dumped, and feels like the superceded format of the Beta tape.

The big song was the only one I hadn’t heard before the EP was released – Falling Aeroplanes. By then his stock was so high that Triple J even played a song that was essentially a guy and a banjo. It was the only Hottest 100 song in that radio station’s poll not to have a film clip – some live footage was hastily cut together for the show.

It’s such a rush when you love an artist early – and every new song seems to be better than the last. Falling Aeroplanes was just that – the best song he had written up to that point. Based on a fairytale Darren had written, it tells of a boy who wants to give up writing songs because they are of no use. And a girl telling the boy how songs can be just as useful as a “box or a bad or cupboards or shelves”.

It’s very cutesy, but I have thought about that song a lot. I think of my Dad. He’s never written a song – but he can change a car tyre. What good are the songs I’ve written if we are stuck with a flat? I think of this song, even now, when I think of why any song should ever be written again.

I’m not sure how easy it is to find this EP. Maybe in Australia it’s easier. But Darren surpassed it all with his next record. But I still remember asking a stranger if he had a tape, and how I followed him for months, just because I was hoping to hear his two songs.

11
Dec
2009

100 for 2000 – #3. Phoenix – United

categories: music

2000 – #3. Pheonix – United
(Astralwerks)

So we thought Beachwood Sparks were cool because they were a band we could be in. But all my friends and I loved Phoenix because they came from outer space. Who the fuck were these guys? In 2000, it was a sweet mystery. It started with their debut album United.

This was a huge album for me, and my circle of friends. The album is fantastic through and through. No two songs sound the same. And that can be said for a lot of albums. But how many go from pastiche-ing the sweet California pop of Bread, then goes into a ten minute space rock jam with crowd noise and vocoders?

It might be odd to say now, but this album reminded me of KISS. The fun-as-hell riffs. It was a rock and roll dance party. There was nothing deep going on lyrically. But from the opening guitar sounds on the instrumental School Rules, it sounds like it was built for stadium rock.

In Australia at least, the album came with a fantastic sticker with a quote from FACE magazine: “Undoubtedly the best post-French house, seventies Californian, country-rock concept album of modern love songs you’ll ever likely to hear.” (I applaud the marketing manager behind that bit of genius).

Too Young and If You Ever Feel Better were indie club smash hits. You would tell people about this great record, and play someone Too Young. And most likely they will say “I know this song!!” followed by ” I fucking love this song!!”

The great thing, the thing that pushed them over the edge for us, was the mystery. They were from France? No photos in the booklet, no website to speak off. No Youtube or MySpace either. Someone told me that they don’t even speak English, that a friend had written the lyrics. I’m not sure that’s true, but I believed it at the time.

It’s such a studio album, you can’t even tell how many members were in the band at all! Of course, now in 2009, with Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix such a big hit, we know a lot about them. I sometimes wish we didn’t.

I didn’t care much for the next two albums. If they had stopped with this one perfect album, they would have gone down as the Modern Lovers or something. That band who made one perfect record then never did anything like that again. It’s a romantic notion that only record nerds have.

I still love this record, even though I’ve now read and heard interviews about how it was made. But it’s still a perfect record. 10 tracks under 40 minutes. I wish I had it on vinyl. And it still doesn’t sound like it’s from 2000. Funny how the left field has, by the end of the decade, become the norm.

I am glad that this band is now huge. And they still play songs from this record, and hopefully people are going back.

10
Dec
2009

100 for 2000 – #2. Beachwood Sparks – self titled

categories: music

2000 – #2. Beachwood Sparks – self titled
(Sub Pop)

This was just the coolest record in the world when it came out. Sometimes it feels like they’ve totally been forgotten.It was space cowboy indie country. Nowadays it sounds like MGMT done with slide guitars. That blissful holiday feel and colourful vibe – for a second there, everyone was ripping Beachwood Sparks off.

I exaggerate, of course. I think very few people actually heard this record, and those who did only knew it from alt-country circles. Oh my god, someone was using slide guitar? I’m buying it. It was also the first Sub Pop album I bought in many years.

What can be said about this record? The band name, with it’s reference to the 60s band the Zombies, rocks. The cover is great.

But I don’t know if there’s much I can say that isn’t better summed up by listening to Sister Rose, or Desert Skies. Those high harmonies, and pedal steel everywhere. It took all that stuff from the 60s east coast – Byrds, Buffalo Springfield and all. But I just keep coming back to it – they just seemed so much cooler. You wanted to jump in the combie vans and hang out with these guys.

Pity the guys in the band didn’t feel that way. After such an assured debut record, they failed to take it to the next step with the next, second and final album, Once We Were Trees. One little EP later and the band called it a day, splintering off into several respected side projects (making them the alt-country At the Drive In).

Nice thing is at the Sub Pop 20th anniversary gig, the band got back together. Hopefully more people will go back and hear this band. And did I mention how cool they were? In 2000, if I could join any band, it would have been this one.

Thanks, after all these years, to Danny Allen who told me to listen to this album in the first place. Great call.

10
Dec
2009

100 for 2000 – #1. Clem Snide – Your Favorite Music

categories: music

2000 – 1. Clem Snide – Your Favorite Music
(Elektra)

Now, I’m pretty sure this record came out in 2000. Wikipedia disagrees with me, but it’s likely it was only in the US that the record came out in 1999. A typical story at the time, where a major label signed a hot indie act, and then didn’t do very much with their record. The band is Clem Snide. The record was their second album proper – Your Favorite Music.

In 2000, I had many albums I didn’t know I had. Between getting the odd freebie from my first steps into the music industry, and a passion for bargain bins and record fairs, I would regularly come home with dozens of CDs a day. I can’t remember where I bought this album, but I remember why I bought it. I thought the cover was funny.

The reason this record sticks out as the first one I want to write about is because it’s not very funny, or fun at all. Many, many nights I laid on the couch in the dark of my studio apartment, smoking my eyeballs out alone with this album (and one other, which I will write about when I get to 2002). Yet, it wasn’t wallowing in that early 20s depression. It was actually helping.

The sound of Clem Snide is unique for an indie band. At least they were on this record. Violins and cellos mix in with a gently plucked guitar. Only the slightest hint of brushes on drums on a few tracks. It was soothing stuff. And lyrically, frontman Eef Barzelay mixed beautiful abstract stuff and moments of thoughtful sadness together in a witty way – if you didn’t laugh you’d cry.

So what I’m saying is – this was my emo.

The title track is a good place to start. Sure, the song is called Your Favorite Music. But the full lyric is;

Your favourite music
It just makes you sad
But you like it
Because you feel like no one else.

There is something very suburban about the record. From album cover in the prom outfits, it seems like its just a hopeless but beautiful struggle. The lovely opener The Dairy Queen glides through a series of such images – sporting good stores, underpasses, young girls drinking ginger ale. And the hopeless protagonist of I Love The Unknown, who’s only escape is to to alight buses at stops he doesn’t know.

The album stays moody and polite throughout, before ending with a heartbreaking version of Ritchie Valens’ Donna (tying up the prom theme quite nicely). As someone who had just finished school and had joined the work force, and had pretty much signed up to work until I died…its an important record.

Your Favorite Music was very much a time and a place. It’s also one of those special records that give me a feeling that no other record does. A bittersweetness. A coping with growing old too young. Of simple, small town things.

I don’t really listen to Clem Snide much anymore. They ended up having a big break with their next album, the single Moment In the Sun used as the theme song to the show Ed. It’s only now, writing about them, that I have bothered to buy their new album online, their first in 4 years.

Unlike other bands I will write about, they lasted one album for me in the decade. I moved on quickly after this from the sad sack stuff.

08
Jul
2009

Wednesday Web: Elbo.ws

categories: Digital, Wednesday Web

It’s hard to keep up with vast, random wasteland that is the ‘blogosphere’. With thousands and thousands of voices all going at it, how can you both tell what’s going on and find what you’re looking for? In the music world, we have an imperfect solution in Elbo.ws.

It’s essentially a blog aggregator. It pips competitors like hype machine for us with some very important features. One is the list of most talked about artists that lives on the right of the front page. There’s also the latest articles feed, which makes all these music blogs feel like one big blog. Most importantly of all, the tracks feature means you can drill down to a specific track, even if it was posted many years ago.

In the last few years, Elbo.ws has taken off in a big way. You can tell this by the fact the ads have gotten bigger. It’s also skewered towards American indie. But at least now, when someone says ‘the blogosphere is going wild for …. ” you can actually check for yourself.

Oh and the name of the site sux.

Check out Elbo.ws here – http://elbo.ws

07
Jul
2009

Tuesday Tunes: Youth Group -Two Sides

categories: music, Tuesday Tunes

Youth Group - The Night Is Ours - out now

We are so happy that we can tell you about this song, this band and this album. Youth Group are from Sydney, Australia but are now mainly based in New York City. Their last album, The Night Is Ours, only came out in Australia and it was our album of 2008. In 2009 they have secured a US release on the world’s Fair label.

If anyone outside of Australia has heard of the band, it maybe due to their music being used in US indie shows like the OC (their cover of Alphaville‘s Forever Young was used in a key scene), and touring with the same sort of bands like Death Cab For Cutie.

They have also just announced a run of shows with a reunited Get-Up Kids. To celebrate, they are giving away the first single from the album, a track called Two Sides.

The Night Is Ours, their 4th full length, is a thoughtful, moody dark album. It was recorded on a ship in S6ydney harbour, and touches on the isolation and loneliness that was so expressed by other Australian bands like the Triffids, the Go-Betweens and Nick Cave.

That mood is not immediate on Two Sides, one of the more uptempo and rocking songs on the album (although it’s hardly rock). The 2009 version of the record also has a much better album cover. The Night Is Ours is out now.

Get the track at their site – Youth Group – http://www.youthgroup.com.au

Link is also on the World’s Fair Website – http://worlds-fair.net/news/2009/06/24/youth-group-to-join-the-get-up-kids-on-their-fall-2009-reunion-tour/

03
Jul
2009

The Great Leap Forwards Top Ten Of 2009 (so far)

categories: music

Lily Album - Its definitely her — Lily Album - It's definitely her

We are a blog after all. So lets make some lists.

Top 10 albums of the year so far

1. Lily Allen – It’s Not Me, It’s You
2. God Help the Girl – s/t
3. Jarvis Cocker – Further Complications
4. Bell X1 – Blue Lights On the Runway
5. Rhett Miller – s/t
6. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz
7. Wilco – Wilco (the Album)
8. The Mummers – Tale To Tell
9. Neko Case – Middle Cyclone
10. Bob Evans – Goodnight, Bull Creek!

We’ll leave the full babble for the end of the year. But Lily Allen‘s new, confident, mature, nasty, fun record has topped our list so far, with Stuart Murdoch’s new project God Help the Girl coming in a very close second. Jarvis Cocker starts all over as a British Nick Cave figure. So far a wonderful year for music and so much more to come.

So many albums only just missed out. Here’s our top 10 songs not on our top 10 albums list.

1. Phoenix – Lisztomania
2. Yves Klein Blue – Getting Wise
3. Regina Spektor – Dance Anthem Of the 80s
4. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart – A Teenager In Love
5. Casiotone For the Painfully Alone – Natural Light
6. Franz Ferdinand – Katherine Kiss Me
7. Doves – 10:03
8. Camera Obscura – You Told A Lie
9. Gomez – Airstream Driver
10. Jason Lytle – Yours Truly, The Commuter

01
Jul
2009

Wednesday Web: Entertainment Legends Revealed

categories: Digital, Wednesday Web

Harry Nilsson‘s coffin was lost? ‘Dirty Diana‘ was about Diana Ross? Superman was a spy? All this and more is answered at Entertainment Legends Revealed. It’s poorly named, badly designed and cumbersome to navigate – but the STORIES are great.

This site started as a column at Comic Book Resources called Comic Book Legends Revealed. It’s been running for years now, and is currently up to column 212, and a book version called ‘Was Superman A Spy?’ is out now. Recently, it’s expanded to include movies, music, TV and even paintings, opera and board games.

We thought we knew our share of trivia, but the writers behind this site have dug out some fantastic stories. And they explain the stories from scratch, introducing the players and images galore to help illustrate the situation. They go for great/weird stories over people who are famous. How else would you explain a whole week of music legends dedicated to the Lovin’ Spoonful? It’s still a great read even if you don’t know who they are.

We are surprised what we’ve learnt. Deep Blue Something‘s one hit ‘Breakfast At Tiffanys’ was actually inspired by ‘Roman Holiday’! KISS‘s logo is different in Germany for a very touchy reason. Graham Nash wrote one of his biggest hits on a dare. The comic book stuff has fascinated us for years. We are learning new stories about films and TV now, on a weekly basis.

Again, we love a site that is well written and constantly updated. It looks a bit ugly but hopefully that will be fixed. Even if you are the biggest know-it-all there is, there will be something here for you.

Entertainment Legends Revealed – http://legendsrevealed.com/entertainment/

Or hop straight to Music – http://legendsrevealed.com/entertainment/2009/04/19/music-legends-history

30
Jun
2009

Ideas Graveyard #1: The Walkman

categories: technology

A new, irregular column where we remember ideas in music and technology whose time has come…and passed.

We’ve been wanting to do this column for quite some time. Some brilliant journalist at the BBC just gave us the excuse we needed – they asked a 13 year old to compare a Walkman with an iPod. The article is great (“It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape”) and well worth checking out. We wont repeat it here.

But how about the Walkman then? It does share one very important similarity with the iPod – it became so ubiquitous that the brand name became the product name. Just as people call most mp3 players ‘iPods‘, most portable cassette players are “Walkmans“, despite it being the name of Sony’s version of the ‘Personal Stereo’. The one from our youth was an Aiwa.

That BBC article uses a very old version of the Walkman. By the time it was in it’s last years, the Walkman looked pretty cool – and still does today. Check out the WM-EX170 as an example. And there were plenty of pretty colours as well, and lots of great designs.

The most groundbreaking thing about the Walkman was not the Walkman itself. Sony also pioneered the headphone buds, getting rid of the big ear enclosures. We have a pair of those things in our ears right now. These new lightweight, portable headphones were sold with the Walkmans (seems so obvious now), making them instantly accessible. So in 1979, Sony Japan released it’s masterpiece. Although it wasn’t an immediate hit, it caught on and 50 million were sold by Sony alone in ten years.

(The iPod has sold almost 200 million. Crazy.)

Suitcase record players and boom boxes aside, the Walkman was a truly portable music player. Later versions easily fit in a pocket, or at least a school bag. It opened up new possibilities for this format called the cassette. It was also sturdy – people could and did jog with Walkmans. Sure, it doesn’t fit the same number of songs, and other silly points. But how we used the Walkman is pretty similar to how we use the iPod today. Casual portable listening. And hey, our (Aiwa) Walkman could record. That durability didn’t last into the iteration – the Discman. That spinning CD just couldn’t handle bumps.

The Walkman continues as a brand. It’s Sony’s line of mp3 players. It’s one of the most popular mp3 players in the world after the iPod, iPhones, Zunes, Creative ZEN, Sandisk and about 10 others. It’s a good idea to reuse the name, but a Walkman will always be about cassettes for us.

A great history and museum of Walkmans can be found at Pocket Calculator – http://www.pocketcalculatorshow.com/walkman/history.html. Well worth a read, if only to see how tough it was to sell the name ‘Walkman’ outside of Japan.

Walkmans at Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkman