Contrary to what the name may evoke, Dr. Dog is not the unholy love child of Dr. Dre and his protege Snoop Dogg. Nor is it the latest fad in children’s television programming. So what is it? It’s a band built on the idea that they are the only band that ever was, and therefore gets to make up their own rules as they go along.
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Before listening to the latest album from The Burning Hell here’s what I knew about the band: they sometimes feature an electric ukulele. That was really all the motivation I needed to give them a shot.
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If I tell you that a band out of Seattle gets signed to Sub Pop Records, you’ve probably got a pretty good idea of the type of music the band plays, right? They probably wear flannel, turn their guitars up to eleven, and sing heavy songs of angst and pain. Well Fleet Foxes is from Seattle, and they’re signed to Sub Pop, but they couldn’t be further from the cliche. They’re less Nirvana than Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. Less Pearl Jam than Buffalo Springfield. And less Soundgarden than The Byrds. In other words, they’re less grunge, more hippie. And all about the music.
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Apparently I’m way behind the rest of the world when it comes to discovering Ray LaMontagne. I only heard of him last week, while the rest of the world has known about him since his single “Trouble” hit the charts in 2006. Regardless, now that I know about him he’s gained a huge fan.
Raycharles LaMontagne avoided music throughout his childhood. His father was a traveling musician, a fact that led to his mother leaving his father. Consequently Ray pursued activities other than music. It wasn’t until after high school, while he was working in a shoe factory, that he heard Stephen Stills’ “Treetop Flyer” on the radio and something clicked in his brain. He decided to quit his job and pursue a career in music.
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Often times our Sunday Music Spotlight band is some kind of exotic, foreign band who plays some kind of strange or challenging music. This week’s band couldn’t be further from that. The Hold Steady is from Minnesota, currently based in Brooklyn, and plays good old-fashioned American rock n’ roll.
Ironically, this all-American rock band got its inspirations from a bunch of Canadians. Frontman Craig Finn and guitarist Tad Kubler were in a band called Lifter Puller which played 80s-inspired synth-rock. One day they were watching the classic concert movie The Last Waltz, which chronicles the final concert of classic rock legends The Band, when they decided that was the type of band they wanted to be in. They enlisted drummer Judd Counsell and bassist Galen Polivka, and got to work.
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The saying goes that you don’t know where you’re going until you know where you came from. Musically speaking The Black Hollies know exactly where their sound comes from. It’s deeply rooted in the 60’s, in bands like The Animals, The Yardbirds, and The Who. It’s rooted there, but like a much like those bands were rooted in Delta Blues and managed to put their own mark on it, The Black Hollies start with their influences and build, creating something that is at once familiar and new.
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Scotland is known for many things: haggis, kilts, thick accents, and whiskey being the chief among them. Musically the Scots run the gamut from The Bay City Rollers to The Vaselines. Somewhere lodged comfortably in the middle is Selkirk’s Frightened Rabbit.
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Who doesn’t love complicated women? I know I do. Which is why I was instantly drawn to singer/songwriter Lourdes Hernández. She’s from Madrid, Spain, yet goes by the name Russian Red. She natively speaks Spanish, yet sins in English. And at only 22 she’s already developed a sophisticated sense of melody and lyric. Not bad.
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Do you like The Decemberists? Then you’ll probably dig The Builders and the Butchers. Like their fellow Portlandites The Builders and the Butchers write songs about eclectic topics, using lush and unusual instrumentation. The tunes range from epic to intimate. And their live show is famous for its energy.
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Alan Cohen is something of a one-man-band. Actually he’s exactly a one-man-band. The Alan Cohen Experience’s debut album, Revolution, features Cohen on vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards, and kazoo. He’s the only person that appears on the album, and he produced it himself. So, if many great albums are built from collaboration, the synergistic swapping of ideas, the give and take of creative ideas, how does Revolution sound? Can one man’s vision truly provide the musical variety and the depth of lyrics required to provide a satisfying album?
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“She” is a successful actress. While working on a song for the soundtrack of one of her movies “she” met “him”, a talented musician and producer. They hit it off, and during the course of conversation “she” revealed that she had written some songs. “She” sent them to “him”, and they so impressed “him” that he decided they had to record them. So over the next few months Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward recorded what would become She & Him’s first album, Volume One
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They’re loud. They’re crude. They’re Danish. They’re The Floor is Made of Lava.
They’re also relative newcomers, only forming in March 2006. It hasn’t taken long for them to make a name for themselves however. As a matter of fact it only took them four months to secure a record deal and crack the top 5 of the Danish charts? Why? Are they musical wunderkinds? Doesn’t seem like it, thought they’re certainly competent. No, it’s not their overwhelming musical ability that’s propelled them to such quick success. It’s their ability to create upbeat songs that make you move like the floor is in fact made of lava.
For this week’s Spotlight we head north, up to the wide open land where bacon is ham, healthcare is free, and the metric system is king. Our tale starts in Nova Scotia, where two high school friends decide to form a band. They head off to college in Montreal, where they hook up with a French-speaking native. And the eclectic trio that would become Plants and Animals was complete.
Let me tell you a story. It’s a typical boy meets girl story. Well, it’s a typical boy meets girl, joins a band with girl, marries girl, girl forms side band with other boy, boy and girl get divorced, girl and other boy get married story. Got that?
The full story goes something like this: In 1991 Robert Schneider was introduced to Hillarie Sidney through mutual friend Jim McIntyre. Sidniy and McIntyre were in a band, and soon asked Schneider to join. That band became The Apples in Stereo. As the band grew closer together so did Schneider and Sidney. Eventually they got married and had a kid. Apparently things didn’t go so well however, as by 2004 the couple divorced. Read the rest of this entry »
New Jersey is known for many things: The Sopranos, a lack of left turns, acid-washed jeans, guys with fake tans, medical waste on beaches. Musically it’s most famous sons are Frank Sinatra, Jon Bon Jovi, and Bruce Springsteen. The Ergs! are about as far away from those all of these things as you can possibly get.
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Piano, cello, upright bass, and ethereal, childlike vocals are the hallmarks of The Tiny, Stockholm’s orchestral pop meisters. Two solid albums have earned them worldwide acclaim, but if not for an icy fall they would have never formed.
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High School. Depending on your experience the words either bring waves of nostalgia or cringes of fear. Most people remember high school as either Ferris Bueller’s Day Off or The Breakfast Club, with little in between. Either way high school is a touchstone. That’s probably why NY punk band Lost Locker Combo poses as a group of private school kids who formed a band, and why they sings songs about the mundane details of high school life.
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Synthesizers, strong beats, and a whiff of nostalgia are key components in How I Became the Bomb’s distinctive flavor of indie pop. The band came together when a group of friends at Middle Tennessee State University asked a classically trained pianist who didn’t listen to pop music to play with them. Initially they did it for the thrill of playing and making music, but soon they realized that they were good enough to get paid.
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The Felice Brothers sound like they just got here from the past. So much so that if you close your eyes you might think it’s 1965 and you’re listening to Bob Dylan with his new backing band, The Hawks. It’s not 1965 however, and it’s not Dylan and The Hawks, or The Band that came from it. It’s the Felice Brothers, a group of real brothers (plus a friend) from just outside Woodstock, NY, the town that served as a home-away-from-home for Dylan and The Band. Their music is rooted in the same sense of Americana as The Band. As a matter of fact, The Felice Brothers could be the world’s best Band cover band, if only their original songs weren’t so damn good.
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Is there something in the air in Canada that makes people see the world a little differently? That’s the only explanation for Nova Scotia’s Tom Fun Orchestra. They portray themselves as a band of bluegrass-gypsies fulfilling the musical aspirations of the mythical Tom Fun, a hard-scrabble orphan whose brothel upbringing instilled an appreciation of musical excess. Got all that?
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Sorry for the slight delay posting this. I’m in San Fran for business and got invited to party with Joe Montana, Steve Young, contortionists and Oompa Loompas so I had to take the opportunity. For full details kick me an email…
Have you ever heard of a band that lists Kurt Vonnegut and Twin Peaks as some of their major influences? Well you have now, as Sunday Music Spotlight presents The Motion Sick, not just another band out of Boston. With lyrics ranging from old Nintendo cheats to musings on the murder of 18th century French revolutionaries the band certainly knows how to blend high and low art. But as you’ll see in songs like “30 Days” they’re also able to pump out a catchy tune. This package makes them a band truly on the rise.
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Vampire Weekend is not “Rock ‘n Roll”. The guys are clean cut, well dressed, Ivy League educated, and come from affluent backgrounds. Not exactly the portrait of a rock stars. Their music isn’t exactly rock ‘n roll either. It’s kind of a poppy punky afro ska. Got that?
The guys that make up Vampire Weekend met while they were attending Columbia University. Once they got together they started making music that sounds like The Clash and The Kinks went to the Hamptons and listened to Paul Simon’s Graceland.
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Sometimes an indie film rises to the forefront of the movie world. It garners attention for its director, its writer, and its stars. And sometimes, if the timing is right, it brings a lot of attention to the artists on its soundtrack. It happened to Iron & Wine on the Garden State soundtrack. It happened to a lesser extent with DeVotchKa and Little Miss Sunshine. And now all the buzz Juno is getting has given Kimya Dawson the mainstream exposure she deserves.
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It’s not often you see a band where each of the members lives in a different country, but that’s the case for Marseille Figs. The band is based in London, but its three members live in London, Barcelona, and Berlin. This understandably limits their live performances, but it hasn’t kept them from making their own special blend of eclectic music I like to call country-honky-poppy-anti-folk, but whatever you call it, it’s as unique as the people who make it.
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Before you read this, click play on the song above and close your eyes. Pay close attention to the way the music recorded: the mic placement, reverb, mixing, and acoustic spacing. Listen carefully to the horn section and hear how they meld into one cohesive instrument. Then shift your attention to the vocals, to the way they seem to crackle with electricity one minute, then slink smoothly along the next. Keep an ear out for the sprinklings of organ that give texture to the arrangement. Now tell me what year was this recorded?
Is it a contemporary of Aretha’s Atlantic recordings? No. Nor is it from the same era as the Motown masterpieces or the Booker T & The MG’s recordings on Stax. No folks, this is one of 2007’s overlooked gems, “100 Days, 100 Nights” by Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings.
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Take one part Liz Phair, two parts Erin McKeown, one part Regina Spektor, two parts Cat Power, and serve it in a Lindsey Lohan suit and you’ve got a pretty good approximation of Montclair, NJ’s Jenny Owen Youngs.
Jenny, better known as JOY to her fans, started playing music at a young age. She played flute and tuba in school before taking up guitar at age 14. After high school she attended art school at SUNY Purchase with Spektor, and the two have become friends. Spektor even had JOY open for her on tour.
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The end of the year is upon us, and here at PCWEI we’re busy Christmas shopping, working, and generally getting things wrapped up before the new year. So Sunday Music Spotlight is going to take the rest of the year off. To tide you over until the first Sunday of next year, here’s a playlist of songs that have appeared in the Sunday Music Spotlight this year.
Enjoy, and happy holidays.
Not many bands can take you on a journey from camfire singalongs to experimental noise rock in the space of one album. But that’s just what Portland’s Blitzen Trapper does on their latest release, Wild Mountain Nation.
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Will Oldham is something of a Renaissance man. Not only is he a multi-faceted musician, but he’s also an accomplished actor and photographer. In his musical career he’s performed and recorded under a number of different monikers, including Palace Brothers, Palace Brothers, Palace Music, and his most recent and most famous, Bonnie “Prince” Billy.
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Music brings people together. In the case of Ido and Estelle from Elephant Parade, music brought them together, but not in the way you might expect. The two happened to be at an 80’s party in New York. The bad music being played led them to strike up a conversation about what they would play if they controlled the stereo. After realizing they had similar tastes they decided to get together to record some songs.
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Justin Vernon didn’t move to northern Wisconsin to record an album. After his longtime band broke up he moved into a cabin in the woods to find solace and solitude, not musical inspiration. He chopped firewood, watched sunsets, and relished the peace and quiet. Then a funny thing happened.
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With 29 members and impeccable pop sensibilities I’m From Barcelona is like The Polyphonic Spree without the creepy cultish overtones. Unlike the Spree they don’t dress in robes or black military outfits. But like the Spree, I’m from Barcelona leverages their large membership and unusual instrumentation into uniquely catchy songs.
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It’s not often you come across a musical act named for a bug that someone found on their head. Deer Tick’s songs mix Delta Blues, straight-ahead country, and old school rock n’ roll into an emotionally-charged melange of musical flavors. All of the songs are infused with a distinctive voice, which at times recalls a young Tom Waits. The man behind the voice is John McCauley, the singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist behind the name Deer Tick.
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Most bands from The Motor City tend to be greasy rock bands (Iggy Pop, The White Stripes) or slick soul outfits (Motown). But imagine if the Rolling Stones had made Exile On Main Street
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Sparse arrangements, haunting melodies, and lyrics full of symbolism are the calling card of José González, a Swedish troubadour whose sparkling original and inventive covers are taking Europe and the whole world by storm. His sound is a result of growing up in Sweden with an Argentinian father, soaking up the influences of Brazilian, Cuban, American, and Scandinavian artists.
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From quiet reminiscences of bus rides to raucous tales of corporate America, Brooklyn’s Bishop Allen brings an air of authenticity to everything they create. With an astounding 14 releases in the last four years they’ve proven to be one of the most prolific acts in music today.
Bishop Allen is primarily two dudes, Justin Rice and Christian Rudder, who are joined in the studio and on stage by a rotating cast of characters to fill out the band. They formed the band in the early 2000’s, taking the name from the street they lived on after college (Bishop Allen Drive in Cambridge, MA). They recorded their first album Charm School
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Matt Sharp was the bass player for Weezer, the band that defined Geek Rock in the 90’s. As a side project he founded The Rentals, a place for him to work out the indie side of his musical soul. He assembled a crack team of musicians, including Weezer bandmate and drummer Patrick Wilson, and Petra and Rachel Haden (two-thirds of a set of triplets). The band released their first album, the ironically titled Return of the Rentals in 1995.
Almost immediately “Friends of P”, the first single from the album, rocketed up the Modern Rock charts, eventually peaking at #7. The band put out their second album Seven More Minutes in 1999, then broke up, seemingly forever.
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You know what would be a great idea for a concept album? A collection of songs about six-legged robot horses who think they’re real horses. No, seriously. Stop laughing. Come on, give it a chance.
Ok, so on its surface it seems that robot horses won’t make for a strong album. Luckily for Canadian indie rockers Rock Plaza Central and their enigmatic frontman Chris Eaton it’s really difficult to tell that’s what the songs on their latest album Are We Not Horses
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In 2004 Ben Gibbard, lead singer of Death Cab for Cutie, discovered lo-fi indie rockers Aqueduct in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Since then the band has singed with Death Cab’s label, Barsuk Records, released two full albums and an EP, and toured with The Flaming Lips, The Shins, and The Apples in Stereo. Not a bad couple of years.
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How can you not like a guy that calls him self Matty Pop Chart? Especially when his music is as whimsical as his name. I don’t know a whole lot about him, but so far the music is eclectic and delightful, with a definite Brian Wilson/Daniel Johnston vibe. Only less crazy. Maybe.
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Iron & Wine is the stage name of singer/songwriter Sam Beam. I first heard of Beam when his great cover of The Postal Service’s “Such Great Heights” was featured in the 2004 indie film Garden State. The song really grabbed my attention, and I quickly tracked down Iron & Wine’s debut album, The Creek Drank the Cradle. What I heard blew me away.
The album was recorded very simply, with stripped down instrumentation and lo-fi equipment. But what really stands out is Beam’s voice. His hushed style makes it seem like he’s whispering the songs into your ear, lending all of the songs an incredibly intimate quality. The album sounded fresh, yet also like it could have been recorded 30 years earlier.
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The members of Canadian indie pop/rock band Stars have done pretty well for themselves considering that they all have other gigs. Some are also members of influential indie band Broken Social Scene and one is a relatively successful actor. But despite the other activities in their lives they’ve managed to put out four albums, with material ranging from electronically based pop to more straight ahead rock n’ roll.
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Normally the Sunday Music Spotlight is all about the little guy - bands that are underexposed or new on the scene. This week we’re going in a different direction, highlighting a former little band that has exploded in the last couple of years, Spoon.
Spoon started in 1994 in the indie music incubator that is Austin, Texas. The story goes that guitarist and lead singer Britt Daniel met drummer Jim Eno at a party and they decided to form a band. They took the name Spoon from a song by 70s German band Can, which was featured in a movie they both liked. In 1996 Matador Records put out the band’s first CD, Telephono
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Man, you’ve just gotta love the intersection of math geek and musician. We’ve already covered Robert Schneider of The Apples in Stereo speaking at this year’s MathFest. Now we present for your mathematical and musical enjoyment Dan Snaith, better known to the music world as Caribou.
Dan’s not your average math geek. His dad is a college math professor. His sister is a college math professor. And he has a Ph.D. in mathematics from Imperial College London. It’s safe to say this guy knows his fractions.
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The New Pornographers are something of an oddity in the indie music world. Made up partly of members from other successful indie acts you could be tempted to call them an Indie super-group. But they don’t like that somewhat oxymoronic moniker. They don’t see themselves as a supergroup at all, mainly because they’re not well known outside their native Canada. Whatever you want to call them The New Pornographers consistently churn out well-crafted pop.
Band founder and de facto leader Carl Newman started assembling the pieces that would become The New Pornographers in 1996. Setting aside his own band Zumpana, he picked John Collins of The Evaporators, Dan Bejar of Destroyer, drummer Fisher Rose, cartoonist Blaine Thurier, and uber-songstress Neko Case. But the shifting nature of the members meant it wasn’t until 1997 that they finally had their first rehearsal. And it wasn’t until 2000 that they released their first album, Mass Romantic.
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Annie Clark has already had an accomplished musical career. She has been a part of the pseudo-cult lifestyle of The Polyphonic Spree. She has toured with Television, The Arcade Fire, and Sufjan Stevens. And in June she released her first solo album, under the pseudonym St. Vincent.
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Like fellow Sunday Music Spotlighter Dan Bern, Josh Ritter gets saddled with comparisons to Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. Author Stephen King went so far as to say that Ritter’s song “Thin Blue Flame” was “the most exuberant outburst of imagery since Bob Dylan’s ‘A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall’ ” while claiming that his album The Animal Years
Coming off the tremendous critical success of The Animal Years
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Put Yonder Mountain String Band and Squirrel Nut Zippers in a blender and you end up with something very much like M Shanghai String Band. Taking their name from the Chinese restaurant that served as their birthplace, the band has provided Brooklyn with a taste of Appalachian flair since their establishment in 2002. They started by playing monthly shows in the restaurant’s basement and even recorded their first album, Up From the Ground Below in the restaurant’s dining room.
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Falling into the category of bands whose name sounds like it would be one person, LA’s Rilo Kiley is actually a five-piece rock band. Lead singer and resident cutie Jenny Lewis shares the writing responsibilities with guitarist and singer Blake Sennett. Rounding out the group are bassist Pierre de Reeder, drummer Jason Boesel, and multi-instrumentalist Mike Bloom.
Like many bands, there’s a story behind Rilo Kiley’s name. Unfortunately nobody can agree on what it is. Some of the band members claim it has no real meaning. Others claim it was the name of a pair of Siamese twins and was chosen because of the band’s closeness. There’s even stories of it being based on a Scottish athlete or an Australian Rules Football player. Wherever it came from, it’s distinctive.
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Looking for great summer music? Something catchy? With hooky melodies and tight harmonies? Then look no further than The Format.
Hailing from Arizona, The Format is primarily composed of Nate Ruess and Sam Means. Though they are the driving force behind the band they are joined in the studio and on tour by Mike Schey, Mark Buzard, and Don Raymond. Together the craft pop songs that would sound perfectly at home in any decade since the 60’s. Though the band’s name is a snide reference to the music industry’s standard formula for what a pop hit should be, the band excels at producing songs that fit within the basic parameters of it but remain creative and original.
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Canadian songstress Leslie Feist’s career has run the musical gamut from old-school jazz singer to killer bitch rapper. It started in a high school punk band called the Placebos, which did well enough to open for The Ramones. She toured with them for five years, until her voice gave out and she had to quit. Her voice troubles gave her a reason to learn guitar, and she returned to music as the guitar player for By Divine Right. When that had run it’s course she lived and recorded with vulgar female rapper Peaches (under the pseudonym Bitch Lap-Lap, given to her by Peaches). After that she moved on to recording and touring with Broken Social Scene. Finally she’s turned her full attention to a solo career, where her music reflects the journey she took to get there.
I have no idea what he’s like in the rest of his life, but musically Andrew Bird is a strange dude. This former auxiliary member of Squirrel Nut Zippers is a classically trained violinist and world-class whistler. He’s also a looper, using delay effects to overdub multiple layers of music in a live performance. But what sets him apart from other musicians is the elegant eccentricity he uses to put all of his talents together.
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Walking a line between indie rock and alt-country, Orange County’s Limbeck follows in the footsteps of bands like Wilco, Whiskeytown, and The Old 97’s. They’ve built a solid following by relentlessly touring in a van paid for by licensing their song “Stop Internet Romance” to Apple for an iMac commercial.
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Erin McKeown is an impossible woman to nail down. She’s a multi-talented instrumentalist, able to rock on guitar, mandolin, banjo, and piano. Her voice can go from silky smooth to a howl in the blink of an eye. These traits give her the ability to effortlessly move between folk, rock, blues, and jazz.
Though a Virginia native, she got her start in college at Brown University, playing all over New England and releasing her debut album Monday Morning Cold. After touring with the likes of Ani DiFranco, Dan Bern, and Dar Williams she released her second album Distillation.
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The first thing you notice about The National is the voice: it’s deep. Real deep. And a little rough around the edges. But somehow lead singer Matt Berninger makes it work. He uses his voice to pull the listener into the emotional surroundings the band sets up in their songs.
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It’s been a long time since I’ve gone to see and band and had the pleasure of discovering something entirely new. That’s just what happened to me this week though. Aaron and I went to see Sunday Music Spotlight graduates The Rosebuds down in DC. Opening for them was a band I’d never heard of called The Bowerbirds.
I was worried when they were setting up for their set and all I saw was a guy with an acoustic guitar and a hight-hat (with a tambourine attached to it), a chica with an accordion, and a guy with a violin and bass drum. Not a combination of instruments you see very often. The accordion instantly made me think they were a polka band. Or that the woman was an orphaned gypsy fulfilling her father’s dream of enlightening America with his family’s unique accordion style. My skepticism grew when they had all sorts of problems setting up their mics. I was prepared for a debacle of epic proportions. Then they started playing…