Austin Sound

Yesterday word came that Sky Saxon, who had moved to Austin only a couple weeks ago, had been admitted to St. David’s Hospital on Monday and was in critical condition. The cause was suspected to be an infection of the internal organs. This morning, the Statesman sends word that Saxon has passed away. Read

The Riverboat Gamblers have been out on tour for the past the past month or so (actually, it seems their always on tour!), so the video for “Victory Lap” feels especially appropriate, capturing the local punks on stage and on the road.

It’s strange that no one heard about this, especially given the extreme devotion of Spoon fans. The band is still clearly on a campaign to seek grammatical revenge against middle school English teachers (they seem to be winning!). Read

For the past several years, Chris Rose has packed the dancefloors here in Austin with Car Stereo (Wars) phenomenal mashups, but tonight he bids adieu to the scene for bright lights of New York City. We posed a few questions to Rose to find out what’s next for him, and what’s in store for tonight. Read

Ever since the release of last year’s stunning Rivers Arms, we’ve heralded Balmorhea as one of the best bands in Austin, a reputation even further enhanced with this spring’s third album, All is Wild, All is Silent. The band, now expanded from the original collaboration between Michael Muller and Rob Lowe to a sextet with [...]

Feel good albums are a tricky thing. Every time I put one on, I dig all over it for a couple of listens, and then I feel kind of dirty for listening to something so obviously happy. No matter what’s getting your goat-gears a-grindin’, I can assure you that This is Ivy League will cheer you up, that’s a given. From the introductory cymbal roll of “The Richest Kids” to the fleeting organ vibrato that closes “Don’t Waste Your Love On Me,” the soul of this record is sunny and cheery, like watching a parade go by outside your mid-town hotel room window. But dare you sacrifice your dignity to listen to acoustic pop? Dare you?

We’ll get to that question, but let’s talk about the album first. The band draws from a good number of obvious influences (Belle and Sebastian, Peter Bjorn & John, even Simon & Garfunkle), but still manages to set themselves apart with elegant and tasteful deviations of their own. But Instead of lacing the record with extravagance hoping to find at least one killer synth-line to call “their sound,” This is Ivy League start with acoustic-based pop numbers in their purest form and carefully and effectively add a conservative synthesizer part, a doubled-up guitar solo or a trumpet section. Even when the band break out the guitar hooks, organs and time changes for “Celebration,” nothing stands in the way of the song’s lyrical core – the song ends with a soft acoustic guitar and a line that almost sums up the entire album: “Let’s have a celebration in the middle of the week / if these four walls could speak they’d tell us never to go.”

It’s been a big couple of days for music news, what with the Sigur Ros mp3 and album announcement, the great shows coming up in Austin this weekend (Shearwater and Centro-matic/South San Gabriel) which I’ll talk about a little later this week, and then this: new music from the Silver Jews’ upcoming LP Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea.

The first thing you’ll note are the lyrical similarities to David Berman’s entire back catalog. The lines “Squirrels imported from Connecticut, just in time for fall / How much fun is a lot more fun? Not much fun at all” lead the song, but more highlights come immediately after: “What’s with all these handsome grandsomes in these rock band magazines? / What have they done with the fat ones, the bald and the goateed?”. I previously mentioned how Rivers Cuomo deals with qualms about rock n’ roll stardom in his own nerd-rock overdrive sort of way; David Berman generally deals with the same themes in a poetic sort of way.

So far as the music is concerned, “Strange Victory”, and the whole album for that matter, is more akin to the straight-forwardness of their last album, Tanglewood Numbers, especially songs like “Animal Shapes”. Berman’s voice continues in its long trajectory towards Johnny Cash, both in baritone lows, and the general “Fuck You” timbre that drives it. The song is short, and leaves you wanting more, like the shot of Bulleit you should have poured before you hit play.

The album leaked a while ago, but you’re still going to want to pick this one up. Nothing beats the feeling of walking home with the new Silver Jews clutched under your arm.

It’s no secret that Fleet Foxes have been jockeying for position against Vampire Weekend for “most blogged about in 2008.” While I’m starting to tire of reading about Vampire Weekend, I can’t really get enough of Fleet Foxes. They somehow feel more deserving of the constant praise. For those of you who don’t know much about The Fleet, I’ll give you the summary: Internet loved their debut EP Sun Giant that came out earlier this year. They sound good live and people have noticed. Their self-titled LP is out next week on Sub Pop. They’re good.

“White Winter Hymnal” hit the interweb a few months ago, and I don’t think I’ve stopped singing it since. The lyrics are more or less meaningless, placing emphasis on the melody that will, if you’re not careful, consume you. The song is drenched in reverb, making the already intoxicating harmonies sound bigger and everywhere at once.

A single voice begins the song, soon joined by the voices of the remaining members and supplemented with tambourine and acoustic guitar. As the first verse comes to an end, its last lyrical phrase is drowned by the boom of a floor tom that drives what is left of the painfully brief track. A bright lead guitar line joins as well and is followed closely by more vocals as the song continues much like the first verse but bigger.

I was skimming the internet for news today, and look at what I found: a new Band of Horses music video. Hey-o! Then I was reading Stereogum, and in their post about the video, I came across this sentence: “No, we didn’t think Cease To Begin was the greatest album of all time, but it definitely has plenty of beauty tucked in that underwhelming shell[...].” Really Stereogum? Really? Something you may have not picked up on when Cease To Begin first came out last year: it’s the best album of all time. Revolver be damned. Highway 61 can kiss my ass. This is it, man.

Actually, that’s not true, Cease To Begin is probably not the best album of all time, but it was easily one of my favorite albums of 2007. It had Southern Rock tendencies placed in large spacey soundscapes, extremely catchy melodies sung in the band’s doubled-up vocals, and has generally provided the soundtrack to most of the roadtrips I’ve made since.

Somewhere down the line, indie bands forgot how to use amplifiers. Bands like The Replacements and Sonic Youth made it fucking cool to be loud, fast, and messy, but lately, our musical world is dominated by glossy keyboard-pop and idyllic twee. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy these bands immensely, but sometimes I just want to get loose and cold-rock it.

Ladyhawk is playing at Emo’s Inside tonight. They’re not loud, fast, and messy to the extent that the great indie bands of the 80’s were, but they are surely a rock n’ roll band in a twee-pop world. Their second album Shots came out this year on Jagjaguwar, and it’s somewhere between Wolf Parade and Guided By Voices.