First - Mittenfest IV is coming (New Year's Eve at the Elbow Room in Ypsi) - there's a massive interview coming to this site soon, but, also, there's lots of info here - plus this quaint and heartening illustration (above).
Weekend?
Well, Friday night at the Majestic Cafe you can see DC's favorite psychedelic surf-rockers, DevilFish (pictured above) - joined by Croff Family Band
Saturday?
Well, even if stacked with lots of longtime local players, the-still-up and coming soul-pop collective, The Hounds Below, (pictured aare days away from properly releasing their debut 7" -recorded with Jim Diamond - Saturday the 12th.
The Hard Lessons The Satin Peaches Silverghost Friendly Foes The Go Hounds Below Mick Bassett and the Marthas A Kroha Family Smithmas Outrageous Cherry Allan James and Cold Wave The Mydols The Oblesons The Barrettes Fawn Duende! Amy Gore The Octopus Those Transatlantics Old Empire The Pop Project American Mars
So then...if you're looking for some up and coming acts to see on Wednesday the 16th -
If you're Detroit-bound, try the psyche-pop trio The Wednesdees (myspace) who blend brit-pop charm with American hard-punched soul and a wee bit o' that good hazy psychedelia
Then, if you're Ann-Arbor-bound, you can, instead, visit the Blind Pig, to see Theo Katzman (whose played with Vox Maui, Seth Bernard and Yo!Soul) step out from behind the drum-kit (where he usually plays, with orchestral electro-pop collective My Dear Disco) to present his guitar-strapped singer-songwriter solo material - more info
Via TMT - I spoke with Scott Kannenberg (founding member of Pavement and writer of such invigorating indie ballads as "Date with Ikea" and founder of the band, Preston School of Industry). Here, we discuss the Pavement reunion, and his rechristening of his solo-songwriting project, as his first nom de plume, Spiral Stairs.
Nearly a calendar year ago, ethereal tribal/electro-folk quartet Animal Collective released their 7th proper full length (and, then, juggernaut of blog buzz) Merriweather Post Pavilion – an album of synth-twisted roots reggae and ambient dub dressed upon their sanctimoniously howled harmonies, fuzzy flares and synthetic bass booms, it was granted almost instant messianic-status leading into their most lucrative/well-attended U.S. tour to date.
For the band once known for finding good loving outside, with press pictures disguising its players in animal masks, their earthy elemental-leanings remain incorrigible – particularly when, as lyricists, they reflect on the rigors of tours or try easing their vertigo, however denied/ignored of the bated-breath attention given them in the upside-down world of internet-hipster fame – as tackled on this record’s most invigorating entry, “What Would I Want, Sky,” where they sing of “feelin stormy, feelin foamy,” refraining “I start to worry / lost in the flurries,” where the river acts as metaphor for big tours/buzz-factor’s uncontrollable fame-force and the “Sky” as the last place to escape to, the most wide-open and freeing refuge to “float up” to…before it, like their schedules, “fills up.”
In a recent interview, AC’s Avey Tare admitted that “the transitional seasons” were his favorite and that Fall Be Kind was definitely not reheated Merriweather leftovers. “Will I get to move on soon?” he chants in characteristic AC wavering melody on the final track, to which the answer is the song’s title, “I think I can…”
Indeed, this is a documentary of transition for a band that many are watching; an experiment to see if this and future recordings will receive salivated cushioning of unquestioned golden eggs or will be torn down by inevitable knee-jerk haters sick of hearing every third person incant of the rapturous sway of hits like “My Girls” or “Summertime Clothes.” Whereas the two formers from Merriweather were warm and blushing affairs of closed-eye-ecstasy to dance barefooted in the cool summer eve’s breeze, tracks 3 through 5, two-thirds of this record, effectively kill the amber-hued lamps, douse the incense, and open the windows to let the chill of winter in – things get dark and sparse; the ambient fuzzy furls of synthesizers are still integral and their ghostly cooed vocals still massage the soundscape but tones are cold and clangy (“I Think I Can”), whispered vocals, fragile and bleary and distant feeling, like the foreboding gale echoing over the dead grass of moonless hillsides (“On a Highway”), or the monster’s breath-loop of the low buzzy bass in the background of “Bleed.”
Diary-esque indulgences like the nocturnal “Highway,” the back-to-their-roots atmospheric/woodsy dream-states like “Bleed” and the cathartic give-and-take between stressed/hopeful on the hand-clap bounce of “I think I Can” were not only necessary, but therapeutic for the band, artistically, and will likely strengthen (I’m sorry to say, haters) their next full length. But it’s not all band-therapy – “Graze’s” textured, soothing sunrise piano-pulled intro struts and stomps its way into a playful flute whirled jig, burning with bass surges; while the aforementioned treasure, “Sky” while ostentatiously slow to start becomes a grinning, easy-goin dancer minimalist piano ballad.
“What is the right way? / Stop daydreaming, dude.”
In case you missed it - Carjack put up the 4th (of 4) free downloadable EPs (for his November series of free music kicking off his new site) - and after collecting together old b-sides, never-heard instrumentals and a lot of the stuff from his usual sets, he's bringing out the new stuff on the "Test Patterns" EP -
As my brother reads this post over my shoulder, "...that looks like Carjack's version of the cockpit of the Millenium Falcon...which one's the hyperdrive?"
from the attempt to bring some good ol' noisy no-wave into Pontiac a few weeks back - with Jesus Chainsaw Massacrew - Carjack - Marco Polio and the New Vaccines - and goLab
You can download the video from Mikel O.D. - who runs the Most People Are DJs podcast - here
To close out the year, Detroit's treasured bizarro-vaudeville-rock-n-roll-theatre-rolled-into-one-man: Satori Circus, will provide a sort-of best-of series of his past shows - a wide arc of heres and theres and those and these and why-not-that-other-stuff-too kind of a deal - including his songs/performances from "Moses 39 (06)," "Funny As Hell (07)," "Child Proof (08)" and other pieces you may have seen from The Dirty Show, Damned Shows or Theatre Bizarre appearances. You could get something completely brand new - or even something resurrected from Satori Circus' first days, back in 1988.
Come witness a study in the power of the human body to convey a range of emotions - as presented through a staggering, beautiful and freaky ballet, contained in the arms, legs and painted-bald-head of Russell Taylor - aka SatoriCircus
The performance will be at 1515 Broadway, through late December
Pure Detroit, radical retailers and adamant supporters of local culture and innovation, is turning 11 years old – and they run with that theme: celebrating with a line up of 11 bands and 11 artists, on December 11th, at the Magic Stick, all for $11.
Writer/art critic/RD contributor Robert del Valle curates the art displays (info at puredetroit.com) The eclectic line up is refreshing: the Phat Kat Big Band (above) bridges soul/funk to hip/hop along with the jug-band blues and dusty country of Catfish Mafia; The Sisters Lucas and the Juliets bring a refined folk-ish baroque pop, that will play between the stylish country-rock of Scarlet Oaks and the infectious all-synth dance-pop of Charlie Slick. Epic-scoped atmospheric indie-pop flourishes with The Great Fiction and the Silent Years (below) while a more tribal space-folk rolls in with Prussia and (Sam from) Ohtis. Then there’s the dark mystic post-punk of Black Lodge (above,) to top it off. Hit up Pure Detroit’s site, for artists info, or to grab yourself a “Detroit Soul” t-shirt. The ever-ominous Ticketmaster has pre-sale tickets, btw. Doors at 8pm.
Like lighting the tree in Rockefeller Center, re-watching It's A Wonderful Life, or maybe ice-skating at Campus Martius - thus we, here, in the SE-MI music scene have our own uplifting year-end traditions: the stately souls and unabashed-lovers-of-good-natured-literate-indie-pop over at Suburban Sprawl return with their annual tradition of offering a 2-CD free-download of wintery-tinged material from a very wide circle of artists throughout Michigan - bringing warmth and cheer, and sometimes heartache and spacey atmospherics to the holiday season.
This year does not disappoint, not only in it's eclectic line-up, ranging from American Mars to the Office's Scott Masson to Lightning Love to Jaguar Medicine (Alan Scheurman) to Those Transatlantics to label leader Zach Curd - but also in material.......
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