photo by laura musselman. the kid in the hoodie and glasses? that’s me.

this fall, my favorite band (led by my favorite lyricist ever) will be touring parts of the continental forty-eight with she-really-is-better-than-your-favorite-guitarist kaki king. seattle, they’ll be at the showbox on october 20th (that’s 18 days after my birthday), which (i believe) marks the first time they’ve played the venue. every time i go to a mountain goats show, i run the risk of getting my ass grabbed, but it’s a minor pitfall of being front-and-center and screaming in his face, or yelling out, “YOU’RE MY FUCKING HERO, JOHN” and getting dap. or meeting ben gibbard. for me, mountain goats shows are more than shows, they’re events.

for the rest of you americans, here are the tour dates:

October 2008
13 - Chicago, IL, Park West
14 - Milwaukee, WI, Pabst Theatre
15 - Omaha, NE, The Slowdown
17 - Denver, CO, Bluebird Theater
18 - Salt Lake City, UT, In the Venue
20 - Seattle, WA, Showbox
21 - Portland, OR, Wonder Ballroom
25 - Los Angeles CA , Troubadour
26 - Los Angeles CA, Troubadour
28 - San Diego, CA, the Belly Up Tavern
29 - Tucson, AZ, Club Congress
31 - Lubbock, TX, Tequila Jungle

November
1 - Austin, TX, Antones
2 - Dallas, TX, Granada Theatre
3 - New Orleans, LA Republic
5 - Chapel Hill, NC, Cat’s Cradle
6 - Washington, DC, 9:30 Club
7 - Philadelphia, PA, Theatre of the Living Arts
8 - Brooklyn, NY, Music Hall of Williamsburg
9 - New York, NY, Webster Hall

MP3: the mountain goats- see america right.

out of the bands that came out of new york’s much-touted music “scene” in the early 2000’s (think: the strokes, yeah yeah yeahs, liars, interpol), i get the feeling that the walkmen sort of got shafted. three of the aforementioned bands are on major labels, and the other one is widely considered one of america’s finest avant-punk bands. and although the walkmen aren’t struggling to fill venues or anything, you get the impression that they should be more of a household name.

case in point: everyone who pretended to like me is gone and, to a larger degree, bows + arrows, were stellar rock albums that bordered on even being classics. songs like “wake up” and “thinking of a dream i had” sound like the type of songs that would sound rousing within the four beautiful walls of a building with theater seating, and twinkling lullabies like “we’ve been had” and “hang on siobhan” floating through the air like an early-morning fog.

maybe that’s why the collective blogging world breathed a sigh of disappointment when the group took a wrong turn on their third album, a hundred miles off, an album that sadly lives up to its title. although there were highlights (the ominous “all hands and the cook” and “danny’s at the wedding,” their punch-drunk cover of mazarin’s “another one goes by”), most of the album just seemed like a bunch of cast-offs with one song that was strayed away from their sound, but still fell short of being a great song (”louisiana”).

i don’t know why, but i really wasn’t expecting to like you & me, the band’s fourth record. then, i listened to lead single“in the new year,” and my goosebumps would rise with the volume, adding yet another anthemic rave-up to their catalog. the thing about you & me is that it’s not as filled with these moments as past albums, but it somehow manages to be a pretty great album, anyway.

opening the album with a droning bassline that sounds like the microphone was placed at the very end of an empty hall, “donde esta la playa” (spanish for “where is the ocean,” those three years of being at the head of my spanish class weren’t a complete bust, i guess) boasts a chiming guitar line and crashing drums during the chorus, which finds the walkmen studying “pixies quiet-loud-quiet 101,” with lead singer hamilton leithauser predictably slurring his lyrics in the process.

for the woozy lullaby portion of the album, “red moon” serves as somewhat of a drunk uncle to okkervil river’s standout “a king and a queen” (from their 2005 opus black sheep boy), complete with guitars and horns moving at a glacial pace, centering around leithauser’s drunken croon. i can’t begin to stress the importance of alcohol in the walkmen’s music; being as though i’m not sure what they would even sound like without thinking about what they had to drink that day; the bleary-eyed vocals and guitars suffering from vertigo enforce my point pretty thoroughly.

“seven years of holidays (for stretch)” finds the rhythm section in wartime-marching-band-mode, with leithauser addressing a fellow named eugene, claiming a recurring theme in the walkmen’s music: he’s lost. “on the water” drives home the quiet-loud-quiet point, with an uptempo track that goes from introverted guitar line to pounding and twacking the drums and beating the shit out of those guitar strings, with what sounds like whistling low in the mix.

SUMMARY: you & me is slightly quieter in most places than the band’s earlier work, but with the quality of the songs in play here, you probably won’t even notice. it seems like the guys in the walkmen were hell-bent on not repeating the success of “the rat,” and they succeeded by creating a mature piece of work without sacrificing any of the underlying sense of danger and shitfacedness that made them great in the first place.

the term “hella DIY” is the trademark of douglas martin and the fan/friend who made this painting of him.

no age is hella DIY. they get props for turning down an offer from hot topic.

craig finn, one of america’s best lyricists, talks to drowned in sound about stay positive, husker du, and puppies. okay, i made the last one up.

johnny rotten denies being a complete bigot. whether the allegations are true or not, i’d still like to serve him a hot dish full of “black attitude.”

line out has an almost-review of the sorely underrated what the heck fest, also the greatest festival name in history.

the pitchfork music festival was this past weekend, and stereogum (along with nearly everyone else who was there) confirms that king khan fucking owned everything.

seattle’s capitol hill block party is this upcoming weekend, and my good buddies over at sound on the sound has posted the schedule. i work all weekend, and i’m pissed. i’ll let you write a review for the blog under the condition that you catch abe vigoda’s set.

cam’ron’s on the comeback trail, folks.

the last time we left the top-shelf hip-hop supervillain, he was engaged in a pretty unnecessary feud with 50 cent (much like his unnecessary feud with jay-z), and splitting off from the group he helped create, the diplomats. then, he sort of disappeared. and now, all of a sudden, years after his pretty abysmal killa season LP (and the actually-even-worse movie that accompanied it), cam comes back like he never even left.

“let the beat build,” the standout track from lil’ wayne’s platinum-plus the carter III, always sounded like it was a beat tailor-made for killa, with kanye west’s sunday morning gospel sample, and the outsourced 808 drums (i forget the name of the producer ‘ye enlisted, but you could easily find out via your google toolbar) giving the beat the sort of hybrid of east coast soul and southern bounce that the dips’ in-house production team, the heatmakerz, attempted to create with most of the beats they made. so, when cam hops on this beat, it truly sounds like the beat was made for him in the first place.

as a lyricist, cam is almost belligerently lazy, and always has been. “let the beat build” is no different, with cam copying a few of weezy’s own metaphors (i remember hearing the “tambourine, tangerine, trampoline” thing on his drought 3 mixtape), running amok on the beat almost as predictably as the genius who came up with this. most rappers would absolutely balk at calling themselves a “phenomenal phenomenon,” but cam revels in it. most hip-hop purists would scoff at that line, but to me, lines like that are what makes cam such an engaging rapper; he carved his own lane by not doing much of anything.

MP3: cam’ron- let the beat build (freestyle).

continuing in our “black people in indie news” theme today, here’s a story that’s not an outrage: pitchfork reports that one of my top-five all-time favorite bands, tv on the radio, will be releasing a new album, titled dear science, (comma theirs, not mine) on september 23 (and the day before, for people like my dear glaswegian friend, residing in europe). they have a shitload of shows forthcoming, including a stop at WTF THIS IS GOING TO BE GREAT– er, music fest NW (an event in which i will very likely be attending) in portland on september 5th, and the next day in seattle. you know what this means? we’ll be getting a sneak peek at some new songs (provided the album doesn’t leak as prematurely as the still-great return to cookie mountain did), northwest!

MP3: tv on the radio- bomb yourself.

i remember reading the “punk issue” of spin magazine with a 15-some-odd-page interview with john lydon, the infamous frontman of the sex pistols (a band in which i never really liked that much, anyway) slagging off pretty much everyone ever involved with punk music except himself. the feature left a really bad taste in my mouth, and i came out of it liking rotten even less than i did before i sat down and turned the pages of the magazine to his ranting.

(via prefix magazine) over the weekend, kele okereke of bloc party walked up to lydon during the summercase festival in barcelona and asked if public image ltd. was ever going to get back together. a pretty reasonably fan question, right? well, lydon called okereke out for having a “black attitude,” and his crew proceeded to hand kele a beatdown for his trouble. lydon did not engage in fisticuffs himself, but drowned in sound reported that over 50 people witnessed the attack, and the lead singers of foals and kaiser chiefs tried to break up the melee. DIS also got a quote from okereke:

“It’s not an issue of the physical assault, even though it was an unprovoked attack. It is the fact that race was brought into the matter so readily. Someone as respected and as intelligent as Lydon should know better than to bring race into the equation, or socialise with and encourage those who hold such narrow-minded attitudes. I am disappointed that someone I held with such high regard turns out to be such a bigot.”

given the fact that i already didn’t think very highly of lydon, this incident really makes me want to meet him, just so i can uncork some “black attitude” all over his face, courtesy of my size ten-and-a-half boots.

MP3: bloc party- where is home?

given last week’s theme, it’s only right that i do this. and yes, there will be a part two on this one eventually, as well:

THIS WEEK’S THEME: climb into my arms with blood on your clothes: twelve game-winning closers.

one: arcade fire- my body is a cage.
two: the mountain goats- alpha rats nest.
three: wolf parade- this heart’s on fire.
four: okkervil river- a glow.
five: radiohead- life in a glasshouse.
six: emily haines- winning.
seven: neutral milk hotel- two headed boy (part 2).
eight: raekwon- north star (jewels).
nine: interpol- a time to be so small.
ten: death cab for cutie- line of best fit.
eleven: nirvana- all apologies.
twelve: arcade fire- in the backseat.

andre 3000 wearing a hairnet > everything in the history of existence.

there’s a pretty (ahem) passionate argument that’s been going on at passion of the weiss for the last couple of days, regarding nas’ untitled (alternate title: wink, wink) album. jeff thought the record was terrible (he pretty much goes at nas harder than anyone since “the takeover,” hence the post title), and there’s a holy war going on in the comments section. it’s true that jeff doesn’t suffer fools, but i think this vitriol comes from the fact that he really respects nas, and really wanted him to do a better job, which is commendable.

i don’t think it’s nas’ worst album by any means (i am and especially nastradamus scraped the bottom of the barrel), but it’s considerably less great than the nigger tape, unquestionably his best work since the first ten tracks of stillmatic. although “queens get the money” is absolutely incredible (and like zilla with elzhi’s verse on “motown 25″ and weiss’ pick, “mike douglas” by el-p, “queens” is my pick for verse of the year), untitled marks the second official release that tried to make a statement and sort of fell short.

for the record, i felt as though with hip-hop is dead, nas threw our generation (those born between 1980-1989) under the bus, blaming all of us for soulja boy and D4L and whoever the fuck else, pretty much saying, “there’s no hope for the future.” with untitled, i think a bunch of what he’s saying is more thoughtful than most of his work written this decade, but the nigger tape drove the point home far better (maybe it really is because it had much better beats). i really had high hopes for this album, too.

MP3: nas- queens get the money.

(a valentine’s day present from my grandmother.)

so, at this point in the game, most of you know that buttons for north caroline, my debut album, is a full-length narrative. and although there are things like floods and car crashes and serial killers and amnesia that flows through the record, it’s essentially an album about two people (mr. sailor and north caroline) that fall in love. i always joke with people that i made buttons for north caroline a record full of love songs, just in case i wouldn’t be able to get away with doing so later on.

a lot of the time, i get e-mails from artists and fans from the artier end of the spectrum, the ones that love the fact that i blend folk-pop with ambient flourishes and woozy string quartets and digital noise and guitars that sound like buses, and they ask me why i take such an experimental stance on my music, and then mess it all up by writing about love songs. and my reply is, “i don’t think i got the worldwide memo when writing love songs became uncool.”

it’s argued that, with everything going on in the world, and with all the things that could be written about, why write ANOTHER song about that well-worn feeling, regardless of how unavoidable it is? where are our protest songs? why doesn’t someone write a concept album about super mario bros.? oh, wait, the whole point of that video game is to save a girl, right? oops.

my theory about protest songs is as follows: the only reason all of those songs written during the reagan era are relavent today is because the unthinkable happened and we were given a president that’s actually even worse. during the clinton era (and hopefully, if obama is elected), these songs abour reagan sounded cool, but the subject matter was extremely dated.

i mean, of course you’re always going to have the mainstream artists that make the genre of writing love songs played out, but even in the mainstream, you’ll sometimes come across a band or two that tweak the format a little and deliver endlessly playable albums to soundtrack your relationships’ ups and downs (see also: death cab for cutie, the shins).

and in the music underground, there are plenty of artists doing new things with the old “love song” format. take sleeping states, for instance. markland starkie created an album, there the open spaces, which was a record full of pretty straightforward, confessional love songs, only he turned the template on its head by arranging his guitars the way a classical composer arranges string quartets. the dodos take practically the same subject matter, only replacing a masterful guitar arranger with a delta blues guitarist and a heavy metal drummer (shoutout to ear farm). vivian girls, the album i just wrote about yesterday (and an “albums of the year list shoe-in”), was a record full of loud, raucous songs about love. in addition to having substance-filled songs about race (”the wrong way”) and war (”bomb yourself”), tv on the radio’s desperate youth, bloodthirsty babes had songs like “ambulance” and “poppy.” and this is only scratching the surface: debut albums from interpol, grizzly bear, and damn near every female singer/songwriter in existence are all about that same thing.

i suppose that i shouldn’t take it so personally and not write an extended rant on such a public forum, but i just feel as though love songs have a place in all forms of music, no matter how pedestrian or idiosyncratic it is. some music is just more fun when it’s soundtracking a crush or a make-out session, or that time that bastard broke your heart and you invited ben and jerry over every night for two straight weeks for pints and re-runs of friends. love is one of those things that will never go away, so why not embrace the songs that detail it?

MP3: fresh cherries from yakima- true love will find you in the end (daniel johnston cover).