Seafair is happening, right now. Boats are faster, foods are fattier, planes are upside downier.

Genesee Park: 3808 Lake Washington Blvd S.

There are bands, a big stage, good sound and field to lounge in. Get an elephant ear, chug beer, and watch boats and jets at high speeds. Recline and churn.

Mudhoney?

Music today, Saturday:

The Young Fresh Fellows played at noon

The Feelings Hijackers – 2:30

The Hands – 4:00

Kissing Potion – 5:15

The Blakes – 6:45

Mudhoney – 8:15

Tomorrow, Sunday:

Dabouge – 12:00

The Purrs – 2:30

The Dimes – 4:00

There’s a kickass triple bill coming up this Saturday night at the Crocodile that slipped through the cracks in this week’s paper. Damn cracks. We need some spackle up in here.

One of my favorite new discoveries of the last couple weeks is Bishop Allen. Someone recommended them last week, and then I found out they signed to Dead Oceans, the Austin label that Citay is on. Bishop Allen is a Brooklyn-based four-piece, and I could tell you that they play terrifically, tightly wound indie pop, but that’s not really saying much. They put a lot of minor touches on their songs—hand percussion, soft backing vocals, xylophone—but they never sound cluttered.

How bout instead of me blahblahblahing I give you a sample? Click here to hear the song “Rain.”

Also on the bill is Stranger faves Page France, who fit right in with Bishop Allen’s eclectic, upbeat pop. Hailing from Maryland, Page France is more acousticky, more jangly than BA, but dig the handclaps and twinkly percussion just as much. Check out “Hat Rabbit”—a slyly infectious, strummy number. This is relaxed, relaxing front porch music for people who’s front porches happen to be in Park Slope or Capitol Hill.

Finally there’s Throw Me the Statue, Seattle’s very own handclap-happy indie poppers on Seattle’s very own Baskerville Hill label. It’s the best band name around, pretty much, and Scott Reitherman, the main man behind TMTS is a helluva guy. Accordions? Check. Acoustic guitar? Check? Snappy production? Check check check. Check out “Lolita”—one listen and you’ll instantly like these instantly likable guys.

Show info:

SAT 4 $10 adv/dos ALL AGES 8PM DOORS

BISHOP ALLEN
PAGE FRANCE
THROW ME THE STATUE

BUY TICKETS ONLINE, AT ANY SONIC BOOM LOCATION, OR AT THE CROCODILE BOX OFFICE

All ages! At the Croc! See you there! (Or possibly at the Maldives at the Tractor. I can’t make up my mind.)

Remember that tonight I will be hosting the first edition of Club Cabana at The Solo Bar (200 Roy Street, Lower Queen Anne - right next to Mcmenamins). I will be playing obscure 70’s Disco, Italo Classics, and New Disco Re-edits all night long. There’s no cover and the party starts at 9pm.

You’ll hear music like…

Larry Levan Edits, Kano, Salsoul Classics, Tangoterje Edits, Loose Joints, Double Exposure, Walter Gibbon’s Mixes, Prins Thomas Edits, Cerrone, Gino Soccio, The Salsoul Orchestra, Rune Lindbæk Edits, First Choice, Bunny Sigler, Melba Moore, Phantom Slasher, Carl Bean, Don Ray, Loft Classics, etc.

Here’s an example of the music you’ll be hearing - Bamboo’s 1979 classic italo gem “Spaceship Crashing”. Hope to see you there!

Bamboo - Spaceship Crashing

UGLY BABY

The Mass Line message board has in the midst of an interesting competition:

Who’s the Northwest’s best MC? Getcha vote on—this poll will weigh a lot heavier if people actually ring in. Right now there’s only 30 votes.

Mine’s the only one for Libretto, the tragically slept-upon PDX MC whose debut The Last Element was one of the best hiphop albums of ‘03. Along with Lifesavas, Libretto is part of Missfit Massive; The Last Element features deep, swinging soul-funk production by Jumbo the Garbageman. Libretto’s got a wicked flow, gruff and assertive but laid back, and lyrically he navigates between hardened street realities and liberation from them.

Seriously, if you NW heads haven’t heard the album yet, you gotta check it out. It came out on Dim Mak—a very unhiphop indie/punk label in L.A.—and never got the push it deserved. I’ve tried reaching out to the label and contacting Libretto through his MySpace but haven’t heard anything back. There’s no word whether he’s got another album in the works, but he plays Portland’s Pop Now! festival this Sunday and Berbati’s Pan on August 24.

No YouTube, no MP3s. His MySpace is your best bet to hear some tunes. Once you do, you’ll wanna go vote for the dude in Mass Line’s poll.

My column in this week’s issue closes out with a news item about the demise of Oscillate, the Thursday weekly at the Baltic Room. Well, the addendum to that story is that one of the founders of the night, Patrick Hanaelt (Electrosect, Sensory Effect) is going to take over booking the night until October, at which point frequent laptop battler and producer Bryan Newman (KFO) will take over the reins. So I’m happy to say that my report on the night’s conclusion was premature. Oscillate provides something very unique for Seattle techno fans, and it’d be a shame to see it go.

Why isn’t this song heard more often? Like, every damn day? The Guess Who’s 1970 radio hit is actually two songs in one, and when they fuse together at the end they make for an ecstatic union (sorta blown here in this dopey video, though it was the best version I found, and it’s great that young kids are rocking out, albeit dopily, to this song).

The repeated organ lick (is that a Rhodes?) that kicks off “New Mother Nature” is a thing of groovy garage rock beauty.

Fact: The Guess Who, like Steppenwolf and the BTO—the band the Guess Who later became—was Canadian. They made some certifiably excellent music, much of it found on their worldwide breakthrough American Woman. “No Sugar/Mother Nature” is them in all their mutton chop-sideburned, jeans-vested best: “A bag of goodies and a bottle of wine, we’re gonna get it on right tonight.”

You want me, well, come on and break the door down
You want me, fucking come on and break the door down
I’m ready, I’m ready, I’m ready, I’m ready, I’m ready…

So yesterday Jonathan posted about his take on the differences between the amorphous terms alt-country, indie Americana, and indie roots. The discussion could go on forever (and should, fortified by cheap bourbon and Moon Pies), but if you want to experience indie roots for yourself, your best bet is to get down to Portland this weekend.

The 9th annual Pickathon starts today. The Avett Brothers are playing, as are Langhorne Slim, Dale Watson, the Gourds, the Hacienda Brothers, and other bearers of the indie roots standard. The lineup runs from the straight-up banjo-pickin’ country of Chatham County Line to the spare, hushed acoustic drama of Horse Feathers.

There’s a bit of everything, and it’s on a farm, which has hiking trails and lots of trees. There’s camping, food, drink, and, in all likelihood, not a small number of impromptu fiddle circles. Pickathon ends Sunday night with a hoedown in the barn, which seems appropriate.

So get out of town for Chrissakes. See the world. Tap some toes. Reclaim your Appalachian heritage. And hear what country/bluegrass/folk/Americana sounds like today.

Do you know the lists on the McSweeney’s website? They are grand. For example, Megan Robin’s “Things I Have Learned from Ex-Boyfriends,” which is, hilarious, a list of two things:

It is impossible to compel someone to speak to you.

Sid Vicious was a member of the Sex Pistols.

This morning I came across B. Davin Stengel’s “My Nonprofit R&B Group’s Set List.” The first three:

“On Bended Knee in Gratitude for Your Generous Donation”

“Let’s Submit the Grant Application of Love”

“Your At-Risk Youth Outreach Program Makes Me Sweat”

The rest of “My Nonprofit R&B Group’s Set List” is here. A whole index of McSweeney’s lists is here. Here—not music-related— is my favorite.

Just plug all of today’s Slog posts into this thing.

It’s too rare that I get a myspace friend request (ie, a demo tape) from a band that actually surprises or impresses me. It’s just the nature of such a democratized medium that most of what’s floating around will be crap. Which is what makes my “discovery” yesterday of British band Plugs so exciting. Music aside, their page is immediately promising with its primary colored, flash-animated spirals, its stylish band photos, and its choice list of friends (Numbers, Gravy Train, Clor). But then there’s the music. “That Number” shows traces of the Klaxons, but the stoned, loping blues guitar of the chorus is something else entirely, and the drum machine breakdown is total Hot Chip. The vocals, too, reference Klaxons and Hot Chip, alternating between anemic falsettos and laconic mumbling. “Let Me Go“‘s looped guitar and yearning vocal harmonies are sunny and sweet. “She is Unique“‘s dissonant guitars and fast-talking monotone over programmed blips and beats sounds a bit like a space-age Pavement song. “Transatlantic Air (something)” is classic, harmonic pop. I know these are all pretty big names to be throwing around for some basically unkown band (I could also add Simian and the Beta Band, but I won’t), but these songs are fantastic. Plugs display a prowess for not only song writing but also production. If they have five or six more like these in them, they’ll have a really stellar debut album on their hands.

Here’s their myspace page.

They’re of no relation, it should be noted, to this computer animated cover of “Some Velvet Morning” attributed to the Plugs (thank god):

Fuckin’ fuck yeah! The Hatchet!

Hailing from Jacksonville, FL—about four hours north of where I grew up—Molly Hatchet was HUGE on the county fair circuit when I was a kid. I never heard their music back then, but I was totally psyched on their album art. I ogled their posters at Spencer Gifts in the Palm Beach Mall:

Totally awesome, right? Artist Frank Fazetta did the first, two—Wolfmother used one of his pieces for their debut album.

Like a trashier, drunker, less Canadian Steppenwolf, the Hatchet slugged and chugged heavy-riffing, triple-guitar hard rawk with a Southern edge. “Flirting With Disaster,” from 1979, is their one hit, and they still probably play it a couple hundred times a year to county fair audiences all over the US. The singer’s voice bears an uncanny and probably studied resemblance to Skynyrd singer Ronnie Van Zant, down to the funky falsetto “woo” he tags on the end of certain lyrics. No surprise, Skynyrd was the best thing to ever come out of Jacksonville (later the birthplace of Yellowcard, Limp Bizkit, Shinedown, and Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. From a hotbed of southern rock to a hotbed of total crap. Civic decline, yikes!).

The song is—to quote the bearded, ponytailed fat guy riding fast on the Harley wearing no helmet and high on JD and barbituates and glue—“fugg yeah!”

Mostly, this song really makes me get really drunk and do something really stupid.

(Ignore the YouTube vid; it’s the most non-drunk series of happy family photos imaginable. But the audio’s really good. Just gaze on the pic below while you listen.)

Oink!

Here’s this week’s Setlist Podcast, as always, bringing the freshest sounds from local bandz straight to you on your computer (which we know you have, because you are reading this). This week’s bands include:
Hollywood Lightweights
Police Teeth
The Maldives
The Lonely Forest
and more!

Why don’t you listen already? SRSLY!

Flavor Flav has officially been roasted. I’m horrified to announce that Flav’s Comedy Central Celebrity Roast airs August 12th.

Here’s the promo:

Here’s a clip:

Ugh. Hopefully it won’t be as ugly and horrible as last year’s shitty-shit-shit Shatner roast.

I miss Dean Martin.

Lately I’ve been listening to a playlist of songs that remind me of my parents. Who are now divorced. They’re songs you haven’t heard in forever, but the second you hear them—the opening notes of “Leather and Lace,” the opening bass clef piano of “Easy”—they take you right back. Or at least they take me right back. I’m sitting in the back of a station wagon, and my mom is driving around the California highways, crying. The folds of my brain were formed around these songs. (People who know more about music than I do/grew up in Detroit/etc: Don’t beat me up!)

Here’s the playlist:

1. “California Dreamin’,” Mamas and the Papas
2. “A Horse with No Name,” America
3. “Carolina in My Mind,” James Taylor
4. “I Can’t Go for That [No Can Do],” Hall & Oates
5. “Rosanna,” Toto
6. “The Joker,” Steve Miller Band
7. “Easy,” Lionel Richie
8. “Leather and Lace,” Stevie Nicks
9. “Every Breath You Take,” The Police
10. “Don’t Worry Be Happy,” Bobby McFerrin
11. “Time After Time,” Cyndi Lauper
12. “Baby I’m-A Want You,” Bread
13. “Say You Love Me,” Fleetwood Mac
14. “Here Comes the Sun,” The Beatles
15. “Light My Fire,” The Doors
16. “In My Room,” Beach Boys
17. “True,” Spandau Ballet
18. “Wrapped Around Your Finger,” The Police
19. “Colour My World,” Chicago

I bold number 17 on this here playlist because two days ago I was in Hot Mama’s on Pine Street and just as I was taking off my iPod, I heard the opening burps and beeps of “True,” a song that I don’t much ear outside the confines of my earbuds.

The girl behind the counter—surprised, recognizing the song immediately—said, “I love this song. I haven’t heard it in forever.”

Enjoy.

For some reason, the Jennifer Gentle review in the online version of this week’s CD Reviews appeared with one less star than intended (it’s fixed now). It is, in my estimation, worthy of two stars, rather than just one. Here’s the review:

JENNIFER GENTLE

The Midnight Room

(Sub Pop)

**

Don’t let the name fool you. Jennifer Gentle isn’t some fey female singer-songwriter, but rather five men from Padova, Italy. And they’re not particularly gentle. The name comes from a Syd Barrett lyric, and this band is every bit as strange and psychedelic yet poppy as their sort-of namesake.

For The Midnight Room, the band’s founder and sole songwriter, Marco Fasolo, holed up in his home studio—a house known for its former occupant’s suicide—and wrote, played, and recorded the album in total isolation. The result isn’t so much intimate as it is stir-crazy.

“Twin Ghosts” is a soft, wispy introduction, but it’s a feint. The album really hits its lurch with the strychnine-laced haunt of “Telephone Ringing.” The track’s demented bounce, tiptoeing guitars, and evil, elfin vocals recur throughout The Midnight Room, suggesting not just isolation, but also insomnia and fever dreams. That instrumental bounce is nowhere more apparent than on “Take My Hand,” whose romantic plea, “Take my hand early in the morning,” sounds like it comes not after a night of love so much as a night of fraying hallucinations. Elsewhere, that sickly carnival swagger gives way to moments of serenity, as on “The Ferryman” and the stargazing coda “Come Closer.” But for the most part, The Midnight Room is an unsettling place. ERIC GRANDY

But what happened to that second star? From Wikipedia:

Collapse

An evolved, average-size star will now shed its outer layers as a planetary nebula. If what remains after the outer atmosphere has been shed is less than 1.4 solar masses, it shrinks to a relatively tiny object (about the size of Earth) that is not massive enough for further compression to take place, known as a white dwarf.[37] The electron-degenerate matter inside a white dwarf is no longer a plasma, even though stars are generally referred to as being spheres of plasma. White dwarfs will eventually fade into black dwarfs over a very long stretch of time.

In larger stars, fusion continues until the iron core has grown so large (more than 1.4 solar masses) that it can no longer support its own mass. This core will suddenly collapse as its electrons are driven into its protons, forming neutrons and neutrinos in a burst of inverse beta decay, or electron capture. The shockwave formed by this sudden collapse causes the rest of the star to explode in a supernova.

Most of the matter in the star is blown away by the supernovae explosion (forming nebulae such as the Crab Nebula[38]) and what remains will be a neutron star (which sometimes manifests itself as a pulsar or X-ray burster) or, in the case of the largest stars (large enough to leave a stellar remnant greater than roughly 4 solar masses), a black hole.[39] In a neutron star the matter is in a state known as neutron-degenerate matter, with a more exotic form of degenerate matter, QCD matter, possibly present in the core. Within a black hole the matter is in a state that is not currently understood.

In the dead-horse-beating realm, the newest kids on the block have allied with the master.

Gaming sensation Guitar Hero splinters into two separate entities this Christmas season. While the copyright owners of the original have gotten a new developer to pump out Guitar Hero 3, the original creators are turning toy instruments up to 11 with Rock Band, an elaborate morph that combines fake guitars, fake drums and a microphone. Assuming you’ve saved enough cash for all of the accessories, you and three other friends can pretend to be a full band come November 20. Flush your eyes with water after watching this:

Lest we even begin to wonder whether American game players are over the rhythm game fad, the team behind Rock Star has unveiled its “full album” approach, meaning you can pretend to play an entire LP in the game, rather than GH’s singles play. And guess which weight-loss crazy, legacy-killing psychopath is in on this one?

Yes, Nirvana’s Nevermind will be mimicked in full this holiday season, only half a year after the band’s “Breed” was co-opted to sell a baseball video game. I could say the obvious about Courtney Love’s countless and questionable Cobain-related licensing deals, but I’ll just repost it instead:

Love’s manager, Peter Asher, told Variety that none of Nirvana’s songs would be used for anything that Cobain would have opposed. It is not known whether Cobain played or liked video games.

Are you sure he didn’t mention a thumbs-up or thumbs-down about Pac-Man in the diaries? Wait, I think found something from the DGC Rarities Vol. 1 CD:

“Fuck your ass, for the fun — I don’t know why I, I don’t know why I pay, pay to play”

Meditation on ’80s arcade culture? Way to reach, Courtney.

Geoff Ott, from London Bridge Studio, is here today to talk compression.

A compressor is a studio tool that gives your recording wallop, backbone, beef, and bang. It makes softer sounds louder and louder sounds seem softer in comparison. Audio level compression evens out the dynamic range or the difference between loud and quiet. It can also make your recording kick that ass that needs kicking.

On drums, for instance, compression fattens and boosts your sound. Or not. Played with, compression can make sounds unique with zoned or distortion like punch.

Geoff says:

Don’t smash my music! Just kidding, compress me more. I love compression and anyone that says compression sucks should not read on. The Beatles and Led Zeppelin utilized much compression. Think about those huge John Bonham kick sounds on “Kashmir” and “When the Levee Breaks”. Granted, they recorded in hundred year-old churches, but compression helped bring those fat sounds out.

Tom Vek is someone doing cool things with compression these days.

People should be very careful with compression, and in most cases, I would say don’t use it. The only things I compress to tape on a regular basis are vocals, bass, and clean guitar. Most of the time when you put a compressor on something, you automatically think it sounds better - probably because it’s louder.

Here’s one way I use compression:

Continue reading "Compression - Attacky in Your Face" »

Just because Grey’s Anatomy “takes place” in Seattle, and just because Denver’s overwrought The Fray had one of its songs used liberally by the show, doesn’t mean I care about either. Ally McBeal in white coats meets Coldplay in vintage outfits. Great.

But as it turns out, The Fray’s incredibly loose ties to the city aren’t enough to win the Northwest over, according to a pretty amusing concert review out of Vancouver:

“Y’all are crazy!” said [lead singer Isaac] Slade to the distracted throngs, explaining that at a recent two-night stand in Seattle he could hear women in the audience talking about shopping.

Sorry for the lack of rapt attention, Isaac, but it could be worse. You could’ve heard them whining about Addison.

Venerable British movie star Michael Caine is set to release three compilations of chill-out music. From the man’s own website:

“My record “Cained” comes out in September. This is a compilation of Chill music from my vast collection. I have to confess that I am a secret disc jockey and have been making tapes and CDs for myself and my friends for over 40 years.”

Holy crap! How did such a project come to be?

“It was weird the way this record came about, I was having dinner with Elton John at his house in Nice and he had on background music and as we were going through the dinner several of my favourite Chill records were played and I kept naming the tune or the artist much to Elton surprise and he asked me how I knew about this kind of music and I told him and he got me a three record deals. As they say in show business it is not what you know it is who you know. Have a listen I hope you like it.”

Will do, Sir Caine. (And thank you, MetaFilter.)

Question raised by a commenter to yesterday’s Maldives post:

Are the Maldives really alt-country? What about indie Americana? What about indie roots—the term foisted by the organizers of Pickathon and dissected by Chris McCann in this week’s paper?

There’s crossover between the three, for sure, but some distinction, too. Bear with me—it’s all pretty loose and subjective.

Alt-country was the original term, referring to any non-mainstream country act (read: non-Nashville). It was first bestowed on the Byrds and Gram Parsons in the late ’60s, though Parsons preferred his own epithet “Cosmic American Music,” or cosmic Americana. It’s the genre embraced by No Depression magazine (hi, Kurt!), though even that respected publiciation admits to its vaguaries. Steve Earle was an early proponent, as well as John Hiatt, and Dave Alvin and the Blasters. Recently, Wilco has been alt-country’s most visible flag-bearer, with Ryan Adams staggering along close behind. I’d leave the Maldives here—or more accurately, call ‘em “alt-country-rock,” though that’s a mouthful.

Indie Americana is a more modern term, on a rise proportionate to the popularization/generalization of the term “indie.” Seems like Wilco and Adams could fall in here, too, were they not already pegged as alt-country, and were they not now on major labels. So in this grouping falls My Morning Jacket, the Drive-by Truckers, and the North Mississippi Allstars, all of whom actually are on indie labels. I’d throw in my man Langhorne Slim, too, and Two Gallants, because of their indie orientation, mostly electric instrumentation, and tendency to rock the fuck out. Locally we could throw in Jesse Sykes and the Moondoggies, though the latter’s space-cake country flights hew closer to cosmic Americana.

“Indie roots” is the most newfangled term here, but I like it, and I like the sound it describes. The “roots” half hints at traditionalism, which boils down to acoustic instrumentation. So here we have the Avett Brothers (*swoon*), Old Crow Medicine Show, the Pine Box Boys, Dale Watson, the Handsome Family, and pretty much the rest of the lineup at Pickathon. Plus Seattle’s own back porch death blues trio the Cave Singers.

Now does that answer the question? Not really. But it’s a fun exercise. And every single one of the bands mentioned above is doing something exciting and fresh with their music.

From a commentary attributed to Sir Elton John in today’s The Sun:

Hopefully the next movement in music will tear down the internet. Let’s get out in the streets and march and protest instead of sitting at home and blogging. I do think it would be an incredible experiment to shut down the whole internet for five years and see what sort of art is produced over that span.

and

In the early Seventies there were at least ten albums released every week that were fantastic. Now you’re lucky to find ten albums a year of that quality.

Check out the full article online here.

_{Hat tip to Mr. Poe}

The thing about the Osmonds was that they were neither a little bit country nor a little bit rock ‘n’ roll.

The Maldives probably never bargained for being mentioned in the same hemisphere at the Osmonds, but here we are. Screw the Osmonds! The Maldives are A LOT country, A LOT rock ‘n’ roll.

It’s clear that Seattle is a hotbed for kickass alt-country music. Why this is the case I don’t know; the dank and mountainous Northwest is a far cry from the dusty, desolate flats of the Midwest or the humid hills of the South. I’d wager it’s a blue collar thing. Seattle is historically a working class town, and the Maldives—and the Moondoggies, and the Cave Singers—play a form of working class music. Plus there’s the Tractor Tavern, which is reknown across the West Coast for hosting this kind of music, so there’s built-in support for it.

I saw the Maldives (pronounced MALL-deeves, it’s an island chain in the Indian Ocean) at the Tractor a couple months back as they twanged their way through a mesmerizing set. Well balanced between hard-rocking Drive-by Truckers grit and waltzing Band-ish traditionalism, they rolled along with a nuanced sound provided by fiddle, weepy steel and gentle acoustic and scruffy electric guitars, rich organ, and some accordion, plus a smart, subtle rhythm section. Singer Jason Dodson—looking much like the mustachioed Jason Lee from My Name is Earl—has a helluva voice, striking, clear, and bright like the full moon on a hot August night. He belted and crooned, singing of undying affection, misplaced dreams, family ties, and sailboats. The crowd swayed along.

There’s something about country that, like blues and reggae, resonates with a potent and undeniable truth. It’s folk music. In the right hands, it tells the story of a people. And even here in Seattle, thousands of miles away from the plains and the Opry, the Maldives do it right.

They play the Tractor on Saturday, August 4 before heading off on a two-week West Coast tour.

Hear some music at the Maldives’ Stranger Bands page.

Hot August Metal Fest

A deathphonic black metal crusade.
Friday – Saturday, August 24-25 at
Studio Seven (All ages – Bar w/ID)

Bands performing are:

Wolven Ancestry, Ceremonial Castings, Inquinok, Verbal Deception, Nefastus Dies, Panzerfaust, Death Pussy, Satus, Beltfed Weapon, Scatha, Ara’kus, and Forest of Grey.

Death Pussy, from Bremerton, is an Orc rock dervish of double kick and guttural electric chair screams.

Their logo of ox skulls hanging from dark silhouetted trees especially scares the shit out me. The cover of their demo has a serpent skeleton baby. Anything with ‘death’ in the name that has ox skulls and skeleton babies is going to scare the ever living shit out of me.

I’ve always wondered if bands like these are half as evil in the light of day, away from the double kick drums. But something tells me they are. Even if we were to go do something nice, like get strawberry milkshakes and do dot to dots, I’d hear whispering voices of the devil in my head. Before long, it would be night, the dot to dot would be over, and I’d be running for my life.

Also posted over at my other blog today. They were just too good to not post twice:

Norwegian native Rune Lindbæk has been releasing some of the most unique disco re-edits for the past few years. His recent Noid Records released LP, Klubb Kebabb, in my opinion, really showcased some of his most interesting and best re-edits to date. If you enjoyed that record as much as I did, then you’ll really enjoy these two unreleased Rune Lindbæk edits. First, is Voyage’s 1980 disco classic “I Love You Dancer”, which originally appeared on the Voyage 3 LP. Second is Raydio’s 1979 soul classic “More Than One Way to Love a Woman” from the album, Rock On. These two songs could have definitely made there way onto the Klubb Kebabb record, staying with that “smooth-disco” sound that we’ve become accustomed to from Lindbæk’s works. Two more solid additions to the growing collection of Lindbæk edits’.

Voyage - I Love You Dancer (Rune Lindbæk edit)
Raydio - More Than One Way to Love a Woman (Rune Lindbæk edit)

Maybe it’s because I’m 100 pages from the end of William L. Shirer’s epic Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, but I’ve had this song in my head all week. Written by Guthrie in 1945, it’s about the Lindberghs’ cozy relationship with Hitler and support for Nazi Germany—a theme that’s also explored in Philip Roth’s excellent dystopian novel The Plot Against America.

Above: Lindbergh receiving the Iron Cross from Hermann Goering

I couldn’t find an MP3; instead, here are the lyrics, along with links to supplementary information.

Mr. Charlie Lindbergh, he flew to old Berlin,
Got him a big Iron Cross, and he flew right back again
To Washington, Washington.

Mrs. Charlie Lindbergh, she come dressed in red,
Said, “I’d like to sleep in that pretty White House bed
In Washington, Washington.”

Lindy said to Annie: “We’ll get there by and by,
But we’ll have to split the bed up with Wheeler, Clark, and Nye
In Washington, Washington.”

Hitler wrote to Lindy, said “Do your very worst,”
Lindy started an outfit that he called America First
In Washington, Washington.

All around the country, Lindbergh he did fly,
Gasoline was paid for by Hoover, Clark, and Nye
In Washington, Washington.

Lindy said to Hoover: “We’ll do the same as France:
Make a deal with Hitler, and then we’ll get our chance
In Washington, Washington

Then they had a meetin’, and all the Firsters come,
Come on the walk and they come on the run
In Washington, Washington

Yonder comes Father Coughlin, wearin’ the silver chain,
Cash on his stomach and Hitler on the brain.
In Washington, Washington

Mister John L. Lewis would sit and straddle the fence,
His daughter signed with Lindbergh, and we ain’t seen her since
In Washington, Washington

Hitler said to Lindy: “Stall ‘em all you can,
Gonna bomb Pearl Harbor with the help of old Japan.”
In Washington, Washington

Then on a December mornin’, the bombs come from Japan,
Wake Island and Pearl Harbor, kill fifteen hundred men.
Washington, Washington

Now Lindy tried to join the army, but they wouldn’t let ‘im in,
‘Fraid he’d sell to Hitler a few more million men.
In Washington, Washington

So I’m gonna tell you people, if Hitler’s gonna be beat,
The common working people have got to take the seat
In Washington, Washington.

And I’m gonna tell you workers, ‘fore you cash in your checks:
They say America First, but they mean America Next
In Washington, Washington.

The Seattle Times reports today on a crack down by ASCAP (the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) on local clubs and restaurants that play copyrighted music without paying licensing fees. Singled out in the article is

On Monday, ASCAP said it had filed 26 separate infringement actions against nightclubs, bars and restaurants in 17 states. Among them is a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Seattle against the Ibiza Dinner Club downtown.

ASCAP alleged that a DJ at Ibiza played three copyrighted pop songs without paying a licensing fee, which Candilora calculated would have cost Ibiza $979 a year, considering the size of the venue and the type of performance.

ASCAP is seeking up to $30,000 in damages per infringement from Ibiza.

While it’s initially tempting to knee jerk agains ASCAP for getting litigious (and $30,000 seems steep, but no doubt that will come down in court or in a settlement), it’s important to remember that this they aren’t the RIAA, and nightclubs aren’t individual file sharers. Nightclubs and restaurants, unlike most individuals who share music, employ that music as part of a for-profit business, and ASCAP works much more directly for artists than the RIAA, which primarily serves to protect the interest of major record labels. Yes, running a restaurant or a club is an already financially perilous business, but a $979 a year license shouldn’t put anyone out of business—establishments could absorb that cost through drink sales—and it may help some artists get paid.

On the other hand, if memory serves—and I can’t seem to find the link to confirm this (help, anyone?)—ASCAP determines licensing rates for clubs based on capacity, rather than actual attendance (ie, the Showbox would have to pay a rate based on 1,250 people per night no matter how many people are there), and, if I’m not totally mistaken about this, that seems unfair.

Levi in the comments has changed my mind about this. Of course, it would be ridiculously complicated to determine actual capacity and number of copyrighted songs every night, so maybe estimates are necessary.

In 1977, my 15-year-old, older brother was at the Foghat concert.
The phone rang and my dad answered. It was—as it always was in those days—a call for my brother.

My dad, annoyed at everything: the fact that my brother was at a rock concert on a school night; the fact that the call was for my brother; the fact that the 70s were happening, had this to say to the caller—”No. No. No, he’s not here. He’s at the Fog Head concert!”

Don’t you want to see what the boys from Against Me! and the gentle giant (eight foot tall!) Aesop Rock had to say, mere minutes before they hit stage? YES YOU DO! Don’t lie.

(with Against Me!, Aesop Rock, Pwrfl Power, Sunday Night Blackout, Sean Na Na, The Cribs, and Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground)

Matthew Dear and his backing band, Big Hands, will be coming to Seattle in support of his latest, awesome electro pop album, Asa Breed. Fellow Ghostlies Mobius Band support. Tour dates:

10-01 New York, NY - Mercury Lounge
10-02 Philadelphia, PA - Johnny Brenda’s
10-03 Charlottesville, VA - Satellite
10-04 Washington, DC - Rock and Roll Hotel
10-05 Chapel Hill, NC - Local 506
10-06 Atlanta, GA - Drunken Unicorn
10-08 Austin, TX - Emo’s
10-09 Dallas, TX - Granada
10-12 Denver, CO - Hi Dive
10-16 Los Angeles, CA - Echo
10-18 San Francisco, CA - Mezzanine
10-19 Portland, OR - Holocene
10-20 Seattle, WA - Crocodile Cafe
10-21 Vancouver, British Columbia - Media Club
10-24 Minneapolis, MN - Triple Rock
10-25 Madison, WI - Cafe Montmartre
10-27 Cleveland Heights, OH - Grog Shop

One commenter wrote in regard to yesterday’s Bell Bottom Bliss, “Baker Street” by Gerry Rafferty, that I’ve been employing the term “cheesy” too liberally in my song descriptions. I’d like to address that comment—specifically, the touchy and subjective word “cheesy” itself. My initial response was “Cheese is like porn: I’m not sure what its defining characteristic is, but I know it when I hear it. And a lot of times I like it.”

I’ve given it further thought, and here’s what I came up with.

One man’s cheesey pop song is another man’s showtune is another man’s heartfelt soul ballad. The common threads here are twofold: 1. sheen, polish, a studio-buffed smoothness that removes any rough edges from a song and adds a sense of grandeur and melodrama, and 2. earnest effort, some attempt at passion or soul. Unless provided in an overwhelming dose, neither of these threads on its own is enough to cheese out a song (or movie, or painting, or suit of clothes). However, as soon as both threads are present, even in trace amounts, the risk of cheesitude increases exponentially. Cheese is almost always the result of excess.

Cheese carries a negative connotation; cheese gets a bum rap. But listen: Cheese is not necessarily a bad thing. Cheese can be, in many cases, quite endearing. I point to examples like disco, “Baker Street,” and “Kiss You All Over” from the ’70s; anything by Journey or Dio or The Little Mermaid soundtrack from the ’80s; the entire New Jack Swing movement of the ’90s; and My Chemical Romance and Kelly Clarkson today. There are too many to mention here.

Which brings us to today’s edition of Bell Bottom Bliss.

The 1975 #1 hit “I’m Not in Love,” by British quartet 10CC, is responsible for the entire existence of the French band Air.

Seriously, listen to this song—which is presented here in a version edited down from its original six-minute length—and tell me you don’t hear everything Air wants to be. It’s ethereal but organic, wounded but bold, moody but evocative. It’s got an acoustic guitar and piano and synthesizers, as well as a barely-there beat that you can’t deny. It breaks into a downtempo interlude with a vocal oversample that sounds so very European. There’s a whole lot going on here: The song was a marvel of innovative recording techniques at the time and is, quite simply, beautiful. And cheesy in a wonderful, wonderful way.

Don’t worry. Tomorrow’s edition will be dairy-free.

Former Dismemberment Plan frontman has a new band (Travis Morrison Hellfighters) and a new record (All Ya’ll) coming out August 21st on Barsuk. You can stream the whole thing at his website, www.travismorrison.com. A few of the tracks are available for download too, including this one, “As We Proceed” (click for the MP3).

Here’s what he says about the record:

The record was written mostly in early 2005, and then after some unsatisfactory attempts to record them, me and the Hellfighters stopped working on it. I started singing in church choirs, working for volunteer organizations here in DC, and did some travelling. We reconvened in Chicago in the fall of 2006 and recorded the songs with Jason Caddell, who was a bandmate of mine in the Dismemberment Plan, at the Chicago Recording Company. It was mixed by Jason and Joel Hamilton.

The art is done by an Israeli fellow who calls himself Jewboy (http://www.jewboy.co.il.) His mother calls him Yaron though. Well, I mean, what do I know, maybe his mother calls him Jewboy. That would be different.

I haven’t listened to it yet, my internet connection is as slow as shit (and shit’s really slow), but I’m sure I’ll have plenty to say in a couple hours after hearing it.

I was on the rooftop at the corner of 10th and Pike during Against Me!’s set. The mosh pit looked like a whirlpool of flailing arms and bodies. It was pretty rad.

Yes, I’ve harshed on the saxophone before. That’s because nobody does it like this anymore. If you’re gonna put a saxophone into your rock song, go all the way, Gerry Rafferty-style. Velveeta, baby—enough cheese can make anything tasty.

This is simply one of the most memorable sax melodies in pop. And holy cowbell, there’s a ripping guitar solo in the middle! Where’d that come from? Baker Street? Yes!

Prior to going solo, Scottish-born Raffety was in Stealers Wheels and wrote and performed the song “Stuck in the Middle With You.” K-Billy’s super songs of the ’70s continue!

Where is Baker Street? Why is it so down and out? Detroit? The East End of London? Wherever—things aren’t looking so bright there, though they sound pretty swinging.

Mark, my last roommate in San Franciso, was British. His old roommate in London was Martha Rafferty, Gerry’s daughter. Mark says she lives in Sacramento now.

Also, the one and only Jason Forrest—who does hyperactive mega-pop mashups far more tunefully than Girl Talk—slices this sax part into his big-blasting “Skyrocket Saturday” from the album Shamelessly Exciting. No YouTube, unfortch, but if you can, find the song. It’s fucking awesome.

In all the gushing about Sunday night’s epic, otherworldly Daft Punk show, no one ever got around to talking about the after party at Chop Suey. It’s understandable—after two robots take you on a transcendent humanist voyage from the ancient pyramids to the near automated future, even the best of club nights can seem like a let down. But while it was nothing like the overwhelming spectacle of the show, the Daft Punk afterparty was still a great time. The celebratory, HUMAN/TOGETHER vibe of the night’s concert carried on at Chop Suey, especially once Sebastian and Kavinksy took the decks. A friend and I were standing outside when their big black bus pulled around the corner, and we caught Sebastian, Kavinsky, and some umasked robots descend from the bus—just like the LCD Soundsystem song! It was rad.

Sebastian and Kavinsky fucking slayed, which was a relief since their official sets at the show were marred by blown bass and bright house lights. (Also, standing near their setup by the WaMu theater sound booth, I was amazed at the audible distance between the house sound and the studio monitors—it was several beats off; that place is huge!) The crowd took the stage (here’s me partially obscured by Sebastian’s head and looking pretty graceless) and for a few blissful songs, security didn’t give a fuck, though eventually people were politely cleared off and ushered back to the floor, the bar, or the backstage. They closed with that disgusting (in a good way) Mr. Oizo mix of Rage Against the Machine, which had all the local club owners dancing like goofs in the main bar area. It was a great way to end the night.

Now the Seattle Times is getting in on the act, as well!

On Friday, the Times cleverly printed the home address and Myspace profile link of Camp Nowhere without permission (we don’t print the address of Camp Nowhere or list their shows at the request of the residents).

Of course, the house got a visit from the cops this morning, and now the residents are forced to delete their Myspace and do less to promote their shows, which feature a lot of touring bands who play houses. Here’s a quote from a resident of the house:

Because of an article written on Friday in the Seattle Times, that stated “There’s also a thriving underground, do-it-yourself movement, including popular house venues like Camp Nowhere in the U District,” the police came to our house this morning to figure out what was going on. The article later went on to list our home address and myspace.

Here’s a link to the story (which is not the page containing the home address and Myspace. Because of our previous agreement with Camp Nowhere, I won’t link to that). It is by a 19 year-old journalism student. It has other innacuracies about the city’s all ages venues (Vera doesn’t have shows every night of the week, Studio Seven isn’t a nice atmosphere).

I’m not going to channel Mudede, I’m not going to repeat what’s already been very well stated, I just want to share this picture, my favorite of the ones I took this weekend (click above for the rest). I understand all of the criticisms of this show, but I’m not backing down on my stance that this is the best show I’ve ever experienced. It was about more than just the music and the visuals, it was about sharing this amazing moment with a bunch of friends (and like-minded strangers). I don’t think I’ve ever “Woo!!!!!”ed so much in my life. Thanks to all involved in putting that show together. Great close to a great weekend. Now it’s back to the grind.

The Crayolas spread their spectrum of love over the Block Party. There were questions and candies. They imbibed and crowd surfed. Against Me! was in favor of the toil and mix:

This may be old news for some of you, but I didn’t get the pleasure until yesterday, and boy was I pleased. Someone has masterfully mixed my favorite Broken Social Scene track, “7/4 (Shoreline),” with R. Kelly’s “I’m a Flirt,” and the product may just be better than the ingredients. Part of the great energy in “Shoreline” is the 7/4 time signature, which makes the song always feel like it’s tumbling over itself. Whoever mashed up the two did a great job of splicing the sample so it matches the 4/4 beat in “Flirt” without losing the momentum the original track had. If someone made a whole album that sounded like this combination I think I’d have a new favorite genre of music. That’s why this is the Best Song Ever (this week).

I’ve yet to really absorb the whole album, but “$20” is an early standout for me. Not quite a sequel to “$10,” though the track does repeat its predecessor’s trick of flipping a well-known pop lyric. “$10” exploded 2 Live Crew’s less than trenchant commentary on prostitution, while “$20” borrows the chorus from the Pixies’ epic “Where is my Mind?” and throws it over a stoned vocal echo, zombie beat, and rusty buzz saw synths. The track’s grappling with pop music/culture doesn’t begin there, though. It begins with a verse about African mine workers and their place in relation to Jibbs’ “Chain Hang Low,” how “little boys are acting up, and baby mommas are going crazy, and the leaders all around cracking up….but we still like TI, but we still look fly.” It turns Black Francis’ existential head-tripping into a hazy meditation on the insanity of global capitalism, and it sounds awesome.

Also, “Paper Planes” pulls a similar trick with Wreckx-n-Effect’s “Rumpshaker,” substituting gun cocks and shots for the original’s zooming and booming, and “take your money” for its “shake your rump,” getting down to the barest socio-economic essentials of rumpshaking.

Another early favorite is “Mango Pickle Down River (with the Wilcannia Mob).” The Wilcannia Mob is a trio of Aboriginal Australian tweens who rap on this track about playing in a river and putting fish in the fridge over a blown out bass beat, turntable twitch, and didgeridoo. What’s more subtly charming than the rapping 12 year old outbackers are the audible artifacts of field recording—mic checking, background static cutting in and out with the Wilcannia Mob’s verses, and muffled hoots and hollers from the sidelines.

A couple weeks ago, a friend and I spotted this grafitti on a U-District bus stop.

I liked it because because (as one mind-reading commenter pointed out when I posted the photo on Slog later) “No Escape From Planet Motherfucker” sounds like something I’d name my autobiography should I ever decide to write an autobiography (you never know, maybe I’ll get caught up in some juicy scandal and all of the sudden become interesting enought to pen a book).

What I didn’t know at the time of discovering the “art” was that the words were probably a reference to a White Zombie song. And how would I know that? I don’t listen to White Zombie. The song is called “Welcome to Planet Motherfucker,” and according to lyricsfreak.com, it goes like this:

Planet pretty kill, motherfucker hang me on the thrills yeah!
No small heaven [haven] I got the left hand of the keeper
Meet me in St. Louis, ‘God’, a one way ticket’s cheaper yeah!
Time-travel I’m walk’n [walk’n]
I got a white line zombie fever [fever] yeah!
Time bomb the hero [hero] yeah get down!!!

I found the song on YouTube. I’m so not into it.

“There has to be better songs out there that make good use of the word motherfucker,” I thought to myself. And as I tend to do, I became obsessed and couldn’t stop thinking about it.

The first song that came to mind is one of my favorites, “Dragon Ships” by the Fruit Bats.

I’m gonna go, this time I know
This city’s got me feeling like a motherfucker.
This one is it, after I quit,
I can’t write a love song worth shit!

I have no idea what it means, but I love the way Eric Johnson says motherfucker with the perfect amount of stress on the uck, and the er becoming more of an ah sound.

And there’s of course the infamous line, “Let the motherfucker burn!” that has been used in a number of songs in a number of ways… The Bloodhound Gang, 50 Cent, Nelly, it’s been around.

After some searching and some asking, I learned that both the Queers and the Eels have songs called “Motherfucker.” The Queers take it literally and sing about having sex with someone’s mom, while the Eels expound on the frustration of being alone (“It’s a motherfucker/Being here without you/Thinking ‘bout the good times/Thinking ‘bout the bad”).

A lot of rap and metal songs use the word, but I’m looking for more than just a one-liner or a quick mention. I want the word to be prominent, I want it to be the star of the song.

Nashville Pussy does “Go, Motherfucker, Go!” which always makes me think of Speed Racer more than anything, and I’m not sure how it slipped my mind at first, but Superchunk has that great song “Slack Motherfucker.”

See?

What else is there? I only want the good shit. I’m ignoring Kid Rock on purpose.

These war-torn beats are my divine right. Not that I really feel all that guilty when I snatch advance MP3s, but M.I.A.’s Sasquatch ’07 no-show is currently working in my guilt-free favor. Since you abandoned me, M.I.A., I’m entitled to download an illicit copy of Kala.

You say it’s not the rapping Sri Lankan’s fault that her visa was denied before the fest? Well, uh…then my copy of Kala is a protest against the man! Yeah! Screw your FBI warnings. See if you ever block a foreigner from performing at a concert again, fascists.

Besides, half the record is already making the blog hype rounds before it sees official release on August 21. Some of the stuff that has already seen leakage is Arular Part II—throbbing synths and bare beats beneath M.I.A.’s monotonal shout-chants. But while “Boyz” brings expected, MIA-style jam…z, unveiled track “Paper Planes” is all kinds of early ‘90s prom; you can practically see the girl snap her fingers in mid-air as she grooves to the soft, looping guitar tones and coyly sings (whoa now, sings!) “Hit me on my pre-paid wire-luhss / we pack and deliv-ah like UPS trucks.”

The rest of the disc seems intent to both reaffirm the political bump-and-stomp of Arular and expand with a larger sonic palette. “Hussel” is an as-yet-unreleased example of both, combining crunked-out buzzsaw-synths with more singing, an organic, subdued drumbeat and a Grime-laced guest spot by UK MC Afrikan Boy. Seems silly to call M.I.A.’s followup more worldly sounding—it’s not like she was the KFC of Sri Lankan beats—but every track on Kala has a different country’s club stamp of approval on it. Get ready to get down. And not just when the FBI storms in as a response to that whole “fascist” thing I said, either.

_The