Live Music: The Apples in Stereo

Got a chance to go see The Apples in Stereo at DC’s 9:30 Club last night. As usual they put on a great show, mixing in old favorites with the exceptional songs from their latest album New Magnetic Wonder. Frontman Robert Schneider proved once again you don’t have to be “cool” to lead a rock band (it’s hard to be cool when you’re trying to do a guitar power stance in flip flops…). At one point he used a beer bottle to fret his guitar, which would have been cool had the bottle not been full. Oops.

Seriously though, the nerd-rock vibe is part of the band’s charm. They speak to the everygeek in all of us.

NPR did a live webcast of the show, and you can hear it on their site.

Videos after the jump

“Go”

“Ruby”

On a slightly different note, the band is running a Super Hi-Fi Remix Contest. They’re letting fans download the individual tracks that made up “Can You Feel It?”, remix them, and upload them for a chance to win fabulous prizes. I downloaded the tracks and loaded them up in my favorite audio program. I quickly realized just how complicated the sound of New Magnetic Wonder is. There are 25 tracks available to download, and that’s not even all of them. Yet they’re all important. Turning off tracks that seem unimportant makes a drastic change to the overall sound. It speaks to the artistry and skill that went into conceiving, recording, and mixing the album.