1) Three or Four – Twin Cinema – New Pornographers

I love the falsetto, I love the dueling vocals from Neko Case and Kathryn Calder and I love the New Pornography. I hated that they didn’t play this when I saw them!

2) Outdoor Miner – Chairs Missing – Wire

One of the rare instances of Wire making a pretty song, but this song is right pretty.

3) Under The Paving Stones – Are You Thinking What I’m Thinking? – The Like

I think I hear some woodblocks underneath the cymbals, which I am a total sucker for.

4) You Are Full of Shit (Check Out My Sweet Riffs) – Hearts and Unicorns – Giant Drag

Giant Drag has the biggest, dumbest titles, but seriously, check out her sweet riffs.

5) Woman – EP – Wolfmother

Wolfmother sounds like something out of Spinal Tap. I can’t tell if they’re kidding or serious but it’s massively paranoid sabbath rock.

6) Set You Free – Thickfreakness – Black Keys

Patrick Carney’s drumfills on this really make the song, erratic and manic pulses inbetween Dan Auerbach’s stuttering downstrokes. The bitchin’ melody on the pre-chorus is great too.

7) What’s Mine is Yours – The Woods – Sleater-Kinney

There is a wretched, wrong guitar solo in this that only works in a narrative sense, but Carrie Brownstein’s spastic flurries are so expressive that you can feel the confused agony in the screaming notes before Corin Tucker’s throbbing bassline comes in to calm things down and rescue the song.

8) Blanket – Future Perfect – Autolux

This sounds like something off Sonic Youth’s “Dirty” but I can’t place exactly what it is.

9) Monster Hospital – Live It Out – Metric

Metric’s newest record is considerably rougher and straightforwardly political. I’m not the lyrics are strong enough to be quite so blunt with their agenda, but the main hook in this song will stick in your head no matter what.

10) Medicine – Repulsion Box – Sons and Daughters

OK, the best part of the song isn’t the hyperactive Scottish antics, but the part where they spell the song title. M-E-D-I-C-I-N-E ! A cheer that will rock teaching hospitals all across this land, I tell you.

11) Dony – In Space – Big Star

Did they ever find Alex Chilton in the wake of Hurricane Katrina? I remember there were sightings but I lost track.

12) I Just Threw Out The Love of My Dreams – B-Sides – Weezer

This is the best Weezer b-side ever, mostly because Rivers Cuomo doesn’t sing on it.

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Sons and Daughters, Petra Haden and the Sellouts and then the Decemberists. That’s a pretty good lineup, no? One right after the other at the Henry Fonda Theater, two nights in a row.

I really love “Repulsion Box,” but the live Sons and Daughters set was a bit of a mixed bag. I liked the manic energy, the way the singer stomped around on stage and danced like a live wire and the way the bassist seemed to drink a beer every song. It was a bit ragged though, and the vocals were a bit over the top at times, mixed too loud into the screechy range.

I’ve seen Petra Haden and the Sellouts before, and I thought they were better at the John Anson Ford Amphitheater a few months ago. The singing was spot on as usual, but the choir of voices seemed to overpower the PA at times. The crowd seemed a bit confused by the presentation, many of them not knowing about Petra Haden’s side project, some not even knowing she was a full member of the Decemberists.

The Decemberists seemed to start off slow for this show, playing both “Shanty for Arethusa” and “Bagman’s Gambit” in the first half. “Kingdom of Spain” featured some wonderful slidework by Chris Funk, while “Eli the Barrow Boy” had Funk on banjo along with some nice violin work by Petra Haden. The setlist seemed very ballad heavy until the end, but the band seemed to be saving its heaviest hitters until the end. They brought out James Fearnley from the Pogues on accordion, and blasted through “Sickbed of Chuchulain,” “Chimbley Sweep,” “Mariner’s Revenge Song” and then a one song encore of “The Tain,” one epic song after another. I haven’t seen people dancing this happily like this since Jack and Rose went below deck on the Titanic.

The last time I wrote about the Decemberists, I remarked that they were well onto their way to becoming a full on Rocky Horror Picture Show. They took another step with this show, keeping some bits and refining others. The audience is still throwing undies during “Los Angeles, I’m Yours,” paper bits during “16 Military Wives.” Colin Meloy still throws a tambourine at the end of the break in “Sporting Life,” but it’s at other band members instead of the audience. For the huge musical interlude for “Chimbley Sweep,” Jenny Conlee butted heads with Fearnley in an accordion duel for the ages, including bits of “Inagaddadavida” and “Smoke on the Water.” Before the interlude finished, Meloy convinced the entire audience, and I mean the ENTIRE audience, to kneel down before him as the music subsided. The throngs then pogoed up in unison as the music swelled up again. In the other big participation moment, the band once again asked the audience to scream as if being eaten by a whale during “Mariner’s Revenge Song.” Chris Funk has upgraded his whale call though, complete with foam core jaws that he runs around chomping on audience and Decemberists alike.

The theatricality is getting a bit out of hand, but the band has done a good job of keeping it with certain songs that might get tedious otherwise. “Revenge Song” is an 8-minute stomp with rare choruses, so the audience scream makes for a great release. The “Chimbley Sweep” antics put another layer to the show while the long solos drone on and on. I love the foam core whale because it looks like Max Fischer producing a KISS show. I can’t wait for the stage explosions on “Soldiering Life” for the next tour. As long as they’re not distracting from more moving numbers like “Red Right Ankle” or “Angels and Angles,” I think the band will be alright.

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Photo by David Thornton

After the continued success of Coachella and Bonnaroo, it seems like everyone’s putting together a festival this year. You know it’s getting a bit out of control when a publication like Arthur puts together its own weekend of music, Arthurfest. Arthurfest is the brainchild of Arthur impresario Jay Babcock, and seems to focus on various facets of freak folk, blues, psychedelia and noise. That’s not really my scene, personally, but there were a handful of acts that piqued my interest.

The festival was held at the Barnsdall Art Park, which is a beautiful site on the top of a hill. The locale was gorgeous, but I’m not sure it was really the best place to hold a festival. There were three stages shoehorned into the location, with one small indoor theater hosting the contemplative acts like Cat Power and Merzbow, a large lawn stage where Sleater-Kinney, Sonic Youth and Spoon established residence, and a smaller stage squished inbetween for inbetween acts like Dos and T-Model Ford. The indoor theater always had a huge line queueing on the outside, so that was not the place to go if you wanted to stage hop. The smaller outdoor stage had some sound bleed issues, at one point forcing Josephine Foster to cut out early because Sleater-Kinney was aurally invading her set. The big stage had its own issues too, with all sound provided by two gigantic stacks, which made for a messy sound mix at times. If you were standing near the stacks you were blown out and if you were out in the field it was a bit muddy.

In terms of other festival logistics, there wasn’t a whole lot of signage or security. When I got into the park there were three lines and no directions on what was what. Turns out one was will-call, one was wristbands and one was 21+ wristbands, but I had to go to the beginning of each line to find out. Of course, by the time I got to the top of the hill there wasn’t even anyone checking for bands, so really I could have walked in without a ticket. Go figure. There were tons of outhouses, but not enough variety in the food stands. I’m not usually one to complain about concessions, but it’s a major factor at all day festivals, and three slow moving vendors meant that there were pretty long lines at peak hours. Prices were a touch high, but within reason. They may want to consider separating out the water sales from the food stands, as the long waits made me hit the Insound booth where they were graciously providing lemonade for a quarter. Considering the homespun nature of the show, I thought all these problems weren’t really dealbreakers, since the low festival population (an estimated 1500-2000 folks) meant no Woodstock level issues.

Photo by Jeremiah Garcia

As for the actual music, the few actual sets I stayed around for were fantastic. Wolfmother were hugely loud, seemingly playing one Black Sabbath song for 40 minutes (that’s just their sound), but were funny and entertaining nonetheless. The Black Keys were blistering, drawing a huge ovation from a crowd that was only clapping politely at the beginning. At one point, Dan Auerbach even said “hey, this is easy.” Yeah, maybe for him. Sleater-Kinney was Sleater-Kinney, despite a sore throat for Corin Tucker that forced her to rein in her sonic scream, bring a huge ruckus that included a monstrous trip from “Let’s Call it Love” to “Entertain” that spanned twenty minutes and 2,000 bleeding eardrums.

For a first fest, I’d say it was a success, despite niggling complaints. For me, I think my return would be based mostly on the lineup. I can see Arthurfest II going even more underground, and honestly bands like Pole and Sunn-O and Sunburned Hand of the Man aren’t my bag. The lineup this year was so hugely varied that there was a little bit of something for everyone, and it seemed organized enough that nobody was forced to listen to a lot of stuff they wouldn’t like.

All photos (and even more available) from Ice Cream Man

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Turning Twenty Nine. Probably only interesting if you were actually there, but I’ll take it.

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I switched to a Feedburner for all my RSS needs today, but I’m almost positive I messed up the installation. Hopefully it will all work and it will all be transparent to you.

If you are subscribing and you see this, feel free to manually switch the feed from whatever you were on to http://feeds.feedburner.com/hanqduong.

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Well, whole new webpage anyway. I upgraded to Movable Type 3.2 last week and man, I think it’s the first time I’ve upgraded it without feeling like I’m adding more bloat to the page. Everything worked, I was able to get a bunch of nifty plugins (check the sidebars for the pudding-proof) and actually get those to work, which wasn’t always the case before. I’m back to an out of the box design though, because I am way past the point where I’m egotistical enough to think I can design a page that looks any good at all.

Anyway, random list of stuff that’s been occupying my time:

• Arthurfest - This was probably the least organized, most homegrown feeling rock festival I’ve gone to. There wasn’t enough food/water stands and the sound was pretty crappy, but the Black Keys and Sleater-Kinney were crazy awesome, as usual.
• Extras – hohoho. I finished off the rest of the series and it’s the funniest comedy I’ve seen this year. Not saying much, obviously. Kate Winslet’s phone sex escapades are worth subscribing to HBO for.
• Rockstar INXS – I keep watching this every week even though I don’t like INXS much and I think the whole thing is sort of a horrible joke setup by Gary Cherone so that he’s not the worst replacement frontman in the history of rock.
• Urban Dead – This is one of those text games that probably shouldn’t be as good as you would think. I like playing it because the idea of being a survivor in a zombie apocalypse is enticing. The end of the world being scheduled for later this month, the way things are going these days.
• My Horrible T-Shirt Addiction – this one and this one and this one and this one. Oddly I keep seeing people wearing all the other t-shirts from the internet, but never the ones I buy. I must have terrible taste in these things.
  

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OK I lied. There was one more August concert that I went to. Coinciding with the release of Twin Cinema, the New Pornographers were in town for a few promotional instores and a live performance on KCRW’s “Morning Becomes Eclectic.” Already in town, the Pornographers squeezed in a real show at the Galaxy Theater in suburban Santa Ana.

The New Pornographers were in good form all night. Kurt Dahle stood out on drums, a clown prince behind the kit with a littany of stick tricks and playing many fills one handed so that he could glug a beer with the other. Carl Newman was regularly off key, but everything else sounded good, if a tad ragged. The newest material popped a little more in the live setting, with “Sing Me Spanish Techno” and “Bleeding Heart Show” having immediate singalong potential.

This was the softcore New Porn lineup, without alt-country chanteuse Neko Case. Touring without Case was a controversial decision amongst fans, but Carl Newman has a nice touch for picking female vocalists, grabbing Coco Culbertson for a Neko-lite role in his solo project and now using his own niece Kathryn Calder for parts on Twin Cinema. Taking Calder on tour was a gamble, and most waited with bated breath to see if that would pay off. On backup vocals she was fine, but she excelled when given the spotlight, knocking “All For Swinging You Around,” “Mass-Romantic” and “Letter to an Occupant” out of the park.

The eventual full tour will be a three ring circus of New Pornography, with the current lineup augmented by both Neko Case and Dan Bejar, bringing the count to a hard eight. Calder will remain on keyboards and backup vox, and “Three or Four” with Calder and Case dueting should be phenomenal. Opening for the band will be Dan Bejar as Destroyer, and Calder’s other band Immaculate Machine, rounding out a lineup that is as incestuous as it is pornographic.

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August was a pretty dry month for me, as I spent most of it trying not to die of the California heat. The one and only show I went to was the absolute 2nd to last Hot Snakes show EVER, at the Troubadour.

It wasn’t remarkably different from the other time I’ve seen them. It was the same hammering rhythm section and the throbbing sludge from Froberg and Reis on guitars. Like last time, the band was very tight and extremely loud. I wasn’t situated in front of Reis stack this time, so I had better mix and I could actually hear Froberg’s screaming.

The setlist was a good assortment, opening with string bending “I Hate the Kids” and pounding away all the way to “Let It Come.” Inbetween were sense shattering versions of “Automatic Midnight and No Hands.” The encore was non-stop brilliance though, with “This Mystic Decade” and “LAX” exploding through every speaker before Rob Crow from Pinback hopped on stage for the Drive By Jehu classic “Luau.”

It was an intense show, but it was really fun too, with pretty much every song I wanted to hear and a tip of the cap to the band’s legendary roots. I have a hard time believing this was really the last Los Angeles Hot Snakes show ever, but if it was, it was a 21 gun blowout of a sendoff.

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