Triple Threat

Editors, Hot Hot Heat & Louis XIV, Ogden Theater. As my friend Luc said last night, there's a reason you go to see bands live. I own both Editors albums, and had seen about half of their set at the Monolith Festival last summer, but none of those things in any way prepared me for their thunderous live sound. In a way, Editors are Coldplay’s evil twin. Both bands play moody Brit rock, and have lineups consisting of guitar/bass/drums and a hyperactive lead singer who alternates between guitar and piano. But while Coldplay set themselves firmly on the path to the mainstream by following in the footsteps of mid-80’s U2, Editors were burying themselves in darker 80's music—The Smiths, Joy Division, The Cure and Echo & the Bunnymen. Much like all of those bands, Tom Smith’s lyrics find the tragic beauty in the grand Romantic themes of love and death, while live, the band leans heavily on their rhythm section (something The Cure has always done to great effect). On Editors’ studio stuff and even when I saw them outdoors last summer, it was hard appreciate the power of their drums and bass, but in the Ogden last night, that solid underlying groove was impossible to miss. Plus, I love what this allows the lead guitarist, Chris Urbanowicz, to do with his instrument. He very rarely plays any chords, instead either playing chiming melody lines or ripping off squealing fills behind the melody, which creates a really interesting texture (and also increases the similarities to 80’s Goth). I said in my Monolith review that I was intrigued enough to want to see Editors in a different setting, and I'm glad I did. They put on a great show (although at 1 hour and 10 min including encore, it could have been longer). But with the two openers, it was a pretty solid night of music top to bottom.

I could say many of the same things about the sound of both Hot Hot Heat and Louis XIV. I had heard some of their studio stuff, but they sounded a lot heavier live. Louis XIV sounds like the bastard child of AC/DC, Kiss and David Bowie, while Hot Hot Heat made me consider the result if Rush had been into punk instead of prog rock. I don't know if either band made me a fan, but I'd certainly like to hear more of their stuff. The nice thing was, both of these groups have enough of a following that the theater was full and rocking for all three sets, instead of the small and half-interested or nearly silent crowds that usually show up for the openers. It always surprises me a bit to see what a difference an active crowd makes to my enjoyment of a band, but I guess that, too, is part of the appeal of seeing live music, and definitely a part of why I keep going to shows.

Speaking of which, this was show #92 all-time for me (yes, I’m anal enough that I have a list), and looking back, I’m happy to say that almost all of them have been enjoyable. I guess that makes sense, since I’m not likely to go see too many bands I don’t like, but you’d think there might be a few more bad nights or bands that just suck live. Happily, I’ve been pretty lucky. Anyway, stay tuned for some kind of special thing when I get to #100. Maybe I’ll give myself a special award or something... ;-)

Good to Be Kings

One of the first things I did after I bought my new TV and added the HD channels to my cable package was to set my DVR to record Austin City Limits. ACL has always had this legendary reputation, but it’s always been sort of a mystery to me. Despite the fact that some of my favorite artists have done incredible shows, I never remembered to watch it unless I happened to pass an episode while flipping channels. But thanks to my DVR, now I can see every new episode, and this season has definitely been worth it. For many years, ACL focused mainly on country and blues, giving the nod to local Austin acts whenever possible. But recently, they’ve begun to change their focus, booking younger and hipper indie bands. So far this year, I’ve seen sets from Wilco, Arcade Fire, Bloc Party, Explosions in the Sky, Paolo Nutini, and Ghostland Observatory. But the best so far was the band pictured above, Kings of Leon, who in just a few songs reminded me what an amazing live band they are.

I’ve seen the Kings live twice—a couple of years ago in Indianapolis at a small club, and last summer here at Red Rocks as part of the Monolith Festival—and both times, they’ve been fantastic. The Kings are pretty unassuming onstage. They don’t go for a lot a lot of banter or big fancy light shows; they just get up and play their songs (and play them well). Their music is a perfect blend of indie and Southern rock (think the Strokes meet Skynyrd), and it lends itself very well to a live show. When I saw them in Indy, they were there because they had a night off from a 3-night stint opening for U2 in Chicago and wanted to play somewhere that wasn’t a cavernous arena. They had the crowd of 500 rocking, and they sounded great, but I’m willing to bet their music sounded just as good in the United Center. It certainly sounded good at Red Rocks, where in my opinion, they were the highlight of the festival. If you’ve never heard their stuff, their ACL performance is a great place to start. PBS tends to rerun episodes fairly frequently, so check your local listings... or just set your DVR.

Other stuff I’ve been into lately:
There Will Be Blood. I had some issues with the story itself (I thought it was a little choppy and unfocused), but the combo of Daniel Day-Lewis and the score by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood made this movie an incredibly intense experience.

Lost: Season 3. This season seemed a lot better when taken in a just couple of chunks, rather than spread out over seven months. I’m definitely looking forward to the new episodes, even if we’re only getting 8 of them.

GarageBand. I’m not a DJ, but I play one at home.

Salem’s Lot, Stephen King. The first time I read this book, I was 13 years old and it scared me so bad, I wouldn’t go down in the basement by myself for a month afterwards. It wasn’t quite as scary this time, but then again, I don’t live in a big house in the woods anymore with the wind blowing tree branches against my window all night. Even so, it’s still a terrific read, and it made me remember why I got so into King in the first place.

In Rainbows, Radiohead. Still amazing every time I listen to it. I’m just as excited by it as I was when I wrote this.

What A Year For A New Year

As a whole, I can’t say I’m sorry to see 2007 go. But at least it ended well. I had no problems traveling around the holidays, got to spend some quality time with the fam, slept a lot, ate a lot, and got some great Christmas presents. In fact, I’m using the biggest one to create this post. (Thanks, Mom and Dad and Christmas bonus check!)

As for the media/entertainment-type stuff, I’d say I did all right:

Raising Sand, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss
El Corazón and Washington Square Serenade, Steve Earle
3D, Casey Driessen
The Song Remains The Same [Remastered and Expanded], Led Zeppelin
The Terror, Dan Simmons
The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, Alex Ross
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier, Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill
Lost: Season 3

Not too shabby. I also saw The Golden Compass while I was home, which was OK, but not amazing. I think I suffered from having read the book, because I sent the whole time comparing and not just watching the movie. As is usually the case, the book is better.

The Eagles Are Coming, The Eagles Are Coming!

I was gonna try not to get too excited about this news, but then I figured, what’s the point? Might as well start saving my spot in line now.

Wrapping Up

As I’ve been sitting at my computer finishing up my Christmas shopping, I set up a playlist in iTunes for all the albums I own from this past year, and what I’ve discovered in retrospect is this: As musical years go, this one didn’t blow me away. I saw a lot of great live shows*, but as for album releases, meh. I’ve been looking over other folks’ year-end lists, which range from the tragically hip to the simply tragic, but barring one album, there’s nothing that screams “classic”. That said, I didn’t have much trouble coming up with a top ten for ’07. Here’s 2 through 10 in no particular order:

Wilco, Sky Blue Sky

Modest Mouse, We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank

The Shins, Wincing The Night Away

Bloc Party, A Weekend in the City

Aesop Rock, None Shall Pass

Andrew Bird, Armchair Apocrypha

Galactic, From the Corner To The Block

The National, Boxer

Kings of Leon, Because of the Times

And the easiest decision? The hands-down, no-contest, numero uno? I’m probably one of the few people who paid for it, and it’s been worth every penny.

Radiohead, In Rainbows

A few more Honorable Mentions:

Cabin, I Was Here EP
Ted Leo & Pharmacists, Living With The Living
Neil Young, Chrome Dreams II
Band of Horses, Cease to Begin
Dinosaur Jr., Beyond
Elliott Smith, New Moon

*Of all the shows I saw this year, Neil Young was my favorite, simply because I had waited so long to see him and it was still an amazing show. Bloc Party and Wilco were also highlights. What follows is an in-order list of every artist I saw live in 2007: Elvis Perkins > My Morning Jacket > Béla Fleck & the Flecktones > Adem > Badly Drawn Boy > The Noisettes > Bloc Party > Hot Hot Heat > Snow Patrol > Rush > Wilco > Everything Absent Or Distorted > The Broken West > Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band > Clap Your Hands Say Yeah > Das EFX > Kings of Leon > Editors > The Decemberists, > Black Rebel Motorcycle Club > Cake > Nina Storey > Little Ones > Meese > Margot & The Nuclear So and So’s > Ian Ball > Lords of the Underground > Art Brut > Spoon > The Flaming Lips > The Awkward Stage > Lavender Diamond > The New Pornographers > Crown City Rockers > Blackalicious, > Pegi Young > Neil Young > Jason Collett > Feist. Whew.

Hello Moto

1. Hot for Teacher… Van Halen
2. Have A Drink On Me… AC/DC
3. Have Mercy… Loretta Lynn
4. Hard to Handle… The Black Crowes
5. Hotel Yorba… The White Stripes
6. He Lays In The Reins… Calexico / Iron & Wine
7. Hunger Strike… Temple Of The Dog
8. Hail Hail… Pearl Jam
9. Holland, 1945… Neutral Milk Hotel
10. Hurry Tomorrow… Los Lobos
11. House Of Cards… Radiohead
12. Half A World Away… R.E.M.
13. Headfog… Jeep
14. Half Light… Athlete
15. Hallelujah… Ryan Adams
16. Hey Jealousy… Gin Blossoms
17. Hurt… Johnny Cash
18. Hurricane… Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories
19. Harriet's Got A Song… Ben Kweller
20. Handle With Care… Jenny Lewis with The Watson Twins
21. Hello.........Goodbye… Sean Watkins

Warmup Act

One of the few reasons I still enjoy seeing a movie in the theater is the previews. As I’ve talked about in the past, I’m always fascinated to see how the editing houses try to condense two-hour fims into two or three minutes. A well-executed preview can really amp up my anticipation for a movie (I still think Garden State was the most successful example I’ve ever seen in this regard), and conversely, a bad one can make me lose all interest. One of the best parts of this time of year is that the studios have started up the marketing campaigns for the movies they hope will be next summer’s blockbusters, and I’ve got examples of the good and the bad. I’ve already mentioned my love for the Iron Man preview, but beyond that, what I’ve seen so far this season either has me counting down the days with childish glee...

....or making me think the filmmakers might as well have flushed their $150 million+ budget down the toilet. Yikes. Good luck recouping your money on this one. I haven’t seen anything that looked this bad since I suffered through the first 10 minutes of Buckaroo Banzai.

Misc.

It’s been a while since I last posted, and to be honest, I’ve been debating whether to give up on the blog entirely. I haven’t made up my mind yet, but I think for now, I’ll just continue to post when the mood strikes, and not worry about how long it takes me to come back to it. After all, it’s not like the internet is going anywhere.

For now, here’s a few things I’ve been enjoying lately:

• Gentlemen of the Road, Michael Chabon — An instant classic of an adventure novel, written in the vein of Sir Walter Scott or Robert E. Howard. I started and finished it on the plane ride home for Thanksgiving. Thoroughly enjoyable read.
• Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson — Eerily prescient cyberpunk novel that influenced everything from The Matrix to Heroes. Also a great read.
• The World Without Us, Alan Weisman — A well-researched and interesting look at what would happen to the Earth if humanity suddenly disappeared. Unfortunately, our legacy would mostly consist of all the plastic garbage we’d leave behind.
• the audio/video page on Andrew Bird’s bowloffire.com — All kinds of cool live stuff and remixes.
• Jerusalem, Steve Earle — The more Steve Earle I listen to, the more he becomes one of my favorite artists. I just recently downloaded this anti-war album he released in 2002, and sadly, the themes are still way too current.
• classic Christmas music — From Charlie Brown to the Chairman of the Board, they just don’t make ’em like they used to.
• Automatic For the People, R.E.M. — 15 years later, this is still an incredible album. “Sweetness Follows” has popped up in my playlists several times lately, and it especially crushed me with its greatness.
• The Jungle Book 40th Anniversary Platinum Edition — This was one of my favorite movies as a kid, so I Netflixed it this weekend. Disney did an incredible job with the remastering. The movie looks gorgeous, and I was happy to discover that I still knew the words to all the songs. My neighbors, on the other hand... probably not as happy.
• the performances of Scarlett Johannson — I never thought I was much of a fan, until I realized recently that she starred in six of the top ten movies in my Netflix queue. In the past few weeks, I’ve watched Scoop, Girl With A Pearl Earring, Match Point, and Lost in Translation, and I have to say, there’s something indefinably sexy about her that I find kind of mesmerizing. I’m having trouble deciding whether it’s her voice, her lips, or most likely, some combination of the two. Plus, she does voices on Robot Chicken, so she’s got serious nerd points. And hey, Woody Allen seems to love her. (Then again, he also loved his adopted daughter who was half his age, so maybe old Woody’s not exactly the best measuring stick.)
• the Iron Man preview — Robert Downey Jr. was the perfect choice for Tony Stark, and I love that Jon Favreau refuses to overuse CGI. If the movie is half as good as the preview, I’ll be happy.

Adaptation

I’ve said it before. No Country For Old Men is a great book. Now, thanks to the Coen Brothers, it’s an equally excellent movie. Both are bloody, violent, and not for the squeamish, but as I said in my review of the novel, the violence never feels out of character to the story. The film stays pretty faithful to the book, but the Coen Brothers manage to inject their particular brand of dark humor into the story. The cinematography is gorgeous, especially the shots of the landscape, which is such an important part of all of McCarthy’s books. It’s no different in this film, as the movie immediately establishes place, opening with shot after shot of the Texas plains in all their stark beauty. Throughout the movie, the quality of light made me feel as if I was standing in El Paso or along the Rio Grande, and that I could almost smell the grass and dust. I was definitely sucked in, and I wasn’t the only one. It was pretty incredible to sit in a packed theater that was completely silent for minutes at a time, only to hear the whole audience gasp as each character met their ultimate fate. Keeping an audience watching with bated breath is an impressive feat (especially these days). Javier Bardem is deservedly getting all the press for his turn as cold-blooded killer Anton Chigurh, but Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin give excellently understated performances as well. I won’t be at all surprised to hear a lot more about the film come Oscar time.

As an interesting aside, I couldn’t place the actress who played Brolin’s wife, even though she looked incredibly familiar. Thank goodness for IMDB. Turns out it was Kelly MacDonald, the Scottish actress who played the schoolgirl Ewan MacGregor hooks up with in Trainspotting. Lass does a pretty convincing Texas/white trash accent.

Old Man

Neil Young at The Wells Fargo Theater. I’ve missed a lot of Neil Young shows in my day, and for a lot of reasons. I missed a couple because I was out of town. I missed at least one because I was too poor to afford tickets. I skipped one because I was going through a stupid and short-lived “I’m so tired of Neil Young” period. And there were at least two where the scalpers got all the tickets before I could. In between, tinnitus and an aneurysm (and let’s face it, the slow march of time) threatened to end his career. But tonight, 18 years after falling in love with his music, I finally got to see Neil Young live, and it was completely worth the wait.

In six days, Young will turn 62, but you never would have known it tonight. Splitting his show into two sets (solo acoustic songs followed by electric stuff with a full band), he managed to bookend his career, mixing some new songs from Chrome Dreams II with some of his earliest work. The acoustic stuff sounded fantastic: Just Neil, switching back and forth between one of the multiple guitars he had onstage, his harmonica, and his piano. At one point, he even broke out a banjo. There were a couple songs I didn’t recognize, but the majority came from the early days. He kicked off with “From Hank to Hendrix,” from Harvest Moon, and headed backwards from there through an eleven song set, incorporating three tracks from his classic album Harvest (including the highlight to close out the acoustic set, an amazing version of “Old Man”).

After a short break, Young came back to the stage and ignored his near-senior citizen status by bringing out his band and cranking the electric, tearing through several new songs plus some old gems like “The Loner,” “Cinnamon Girl” and “Tonight’s the Night”. I was well pleased to hear some personal favorites, “Everybody Knows This is Nowhere” and “Winterlong”, and of the new stuff “Spirit Road” held up pretty well against the classics. The band, comprised of players from various stages of Young’s career, sounded really tight, and Young doesn’t appear to have lost a step either, still stomping his way around the stage during his solos.

“Old Man” and “Cinnamon Girl” alone were pretty much worth the price of admission, but for an artist who’s released so many live albums throughout his career (I can think of seven off the top of my head), I wasn’t sure Young could possibly bring anything new to some of his old favorites. Thankfully, I was wrong. I was impressed with how clear his voice was, even over all the distortion in the electric set. For a guy in his 60’s whose nickname is “Shakey,” he sounded incredible. And hearing the songs live with my own ears (as opposed to a recording) brought a whole new level of depth to each one. I picked up on some lyrics that I had never been able to make out on his recorded stuff, which is a testament both to his sound guys and to the acoustics in the Wells Fargo Theater. And I gained some new respect for a few songs like “Oh, Lonesome Me,” from After the Gold Rush, a track I usually skip over when it comes up on my iPod. After hearing it live, I’ll have to revisit it.

I’m sorry I had to wait 18 years to see Neil Young live, but I’m glad I caught him on a good night, and at a great point in his career. I would have been really bummed if I had waited that long only to find him a shadow of his former self. He may be heading into the twilight of his career, but he still puts on an incredible show. He’s become comfortable with his status as elder statesman, but not so comfortable that he’s willing to just rest on his laurels. How many other artists can say they’ve stuck to their guns and remained relevant and prolific for 40 years? At this point, when most of his still-active peers are simply cashing their checks on greatest hits tours, Young is cementing his legacy by continuing to put out albums worthy of his name that have some fire behind them. He’s not just making music to extend the brand (cough*Rolling Stones*cough), he’s doing it because he still has music to make, and that comes through in his live shows. It was clear to me last night that he still cares a lot about these songs, and I got the impression that if he ever stopped caring, he wouldn't be touring anymore. Ultimately, that passion is why people will still be listening to his music long after he’s gone. Almost 30 years ago, Young first sang, “It’s better to burn out than to fade away.” Happily, he no longer has to worry about either one. Which means I might actually get to see him again someday, and make up a little more for all those shows I missed.

UPDATE: Set list here.