To honor the 20th anniversary of Nirvana’s landmark album Nevermind, original bassist Krist Novoselic decided to put together a pretty amazing party in Seattle.
On Tuesday, September 20th, he will gather with a bunch of his musician friends to play the album in its entirety at Experience Music Project’s Sky Church in Seattle.
Sadly, Dave Grohl won’t be in attendance, as his Foo Fighters are playing in Cleveland that night.
If you’re anywhere near Seattle or plan to be on that day, and miss out on this amazing, once-in-a-lifetime grunge fan’s dream, do yourself a favor and snatch up a $20 ticket before they’re all gone.
More details, from the ticket link: Performers include The Fastbacks, Krist Novoselic, Vaporland, The Long Winters, Visqueen, Valis (former Screaming Trees), and more to be announced soon. This show will be a benefit for long time Seattle music industry maven Susie Tennant, who was recently diagnosed with cancer.
For as long as I had been a fan of the “grunge” movement, I was never really in love with Soundgarden as much as I was with Nirvana and Alice in Chains. Chris Cornell‘s voice was always too much for me to handle…the songs themselves were fine, but something about Cornell’s throaty delivery threw me off.
When I started delving into all things grunge, including every Nirvana/Kurt Cobain book I could consume and albums by Screaming Trees, Mudhoney, Melvins, and other flanneled Pacific Northwest bands, my appreciation for Soundgarden grew.
Before long, that appreciation turned to sadness, assuming I would never see Soundgarden live, since the band had long since broken up and Cornell was spinning his wheels in Audioslave (to say nothing of his ill-advised foray into dance-pop with Timbaland).
Well, since the band’s 2009 reformation, I (and millions of other grunge fans) had been hotly anticipating a full-on reunion tour, however unlikely it seemed. When they announced that tour a few months ago, that anticipation turned into feverish excitement, culminating in the band’s mammoth performance last Friday night at the Forum in Inglewood.
Simply put, this show was one of the best I have EVER seen. I’ve probably been to more than a hundred concerts in my life, but Soundgarden’s rousing, powerful, dynamic show at the Forum is easily within the 5 best I’ve ever seen.
The Mars Volta wouldn't stand still for a decent picture
Kicking off the night was The Mars Volta, a band decidedly different now than they have been for most of their career. Playing mostly new tunes, they were much more low-key than usual. The new songs have *gasp* structure to them, a striking departure from the spastic freakouts fans have come to expect from the group, led by the hyphenated Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala. A strobe-heavy light show spazzed out behind the band as they blazed through their 45-minute set with a combination of mesmerizing melodies, precise percussion and passionate delivery by Rodriguez-Lopez and Bixler-Zavala. If anything, the Mars Volta’s new music will help them further cement their place as one of rock’s most challenging and innovative bands around.
After a short break, it was time for a nostalgic trip back to the early 1990s. Taking the stage to the intro of Searching with My Good Eye Closed, Soundgarden demonstrated that they’re not just here for a cash-grab reunion tour. Jesus Christ Pose was particularly vicious:
There was an immense, powerful energy delivered by Cornell, Kim Thayil, Matt Cameron and Ben Shepherd that lasted throughout their sprawling, 25-song set.
Anybody ever remotely interested in any Soundgarden song had to be satisfied through the course of the night. They played EVERYTHING any fan could want. All the hits that helped define 1990s modern rock radio were present and accounted for, as well as Ultramega OK and Louder than Love songs like Flower, Gun, Ugly Truth, Beyond the Wheel, Loud Love, and Big Dumb Sex. The band pulled songs from all throughout their career, and they all sounded flawless.
Speaking of being flawless, Chris Cornell has some seriously powerful pipes. He’s 47 years old, but his soaring trademark voice never tired throughout the evening. On songs like Jesus Christ Pose and Black Rain, in particular, he had the same fury and thunder in his voice that he probably had as a twenty-something up in Seattle.
Between songs, Cornell was candid and funny; he thanked us all for showing up after all these years, and told us to say thanks to our parents or older siblings for turning us on to the band. He also remarked that they did have new songs they could have played, but “it’s been so long, we figured we might as well play all the older stuff” instead.
Since this show was in Los Angeles, I almost expected some kind of special guest treatment. And, much to the delight of the screaming grunge fanatics in the crowd, that happened on the song Superunknown, when Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready showed up. He shredded through a solo for the song, creating a mini-grunge supergroup onstage that was as badass as it was sonically pleasing. Check out my video of that memorable moment:
As if that moment wasn’t cool enough, apparently Dave Grohl was rocking out IN THE PIT with the fans for a majority of the set. Here’s a video of him losing his shit during Fell On Black Days. Sadly, I wasn’t on that side of the venue, as I was over on Thayil’s side, so I will have to live vicariously through the excitement of the fans in Dave’s area. The image of Grohl bouncing around in a mosh pit at a Soundgarden show sounds like the stuff of legend…which it is, considering it’s Dave Fuckin’ Grohl.
Soundgarden saved its heaviest, most intense song, Slaves & Bulldozers, for the very end of the evening. Despite the fact that he’d been screaming for two hours at that point, Cornell drove the set home with such vocal energy that it was impressive he hadn’t totally shredded his vocal chords yet. The dude can sing.
It can’t be overstated just how impressive the band was at this show. For nearly two hours and fifteen minutes, Soundgarden sounded as vibrant and crisp as they must have been in the early 1990s. Thayil’s precise guitar work, always a highlight of Soundgarden’s music, was on full display all night long. Cameron pounded the skins like a man on a mission, and Shepherd was similarly pumped up. It was just remarkable.
Here’s hoping a new Soundgarden studio album, supposedly in the works, rocks just as hard as it should. If the Forum show was any indication, Soundgarden is indeed back, fresh and rested after a long time off. There’s no rust, no fatigue, no sober realization of the fact that they are dudes in their mid-forties playing aggressive “grunge” music.
Their return honestly couldn’t have come at a better time, and hopefully they make more noise sooner rather than later.
The golden ticket for the night
Soundgarden’s Set List at the Forum on 7/22/11:
Searching With My Good Eye Closed
Spoonman
Gun
Jesus Christ Pose
Room a Thousand Years Wide
Blow Up the Outside World
Loud Love
Big Dumb Sex
Ugly Truth
Fell on Black Days
Flower
Outshined
Black Rain
Rusty Cage
The Day I Tried to Live
My Wave
Burden in My Hand
Black Hole Sun
Head Down
Superunknown(with Mike McCready)
4th of July
Encore:
Beyond the Wheel
Hunted Down
Mailman
Slaves & Bulldozers
Below, enjoy some photos from the show, courtesy of my outdated and slightly broken Canon Powershot.
All photos by me.
The Mars Volta wouldn’t stand still for a decent picture
September 2011 marks the 20th (yes, TWENTIETH) anniversary of Nirvana‘s classic album Nevermind. As expected, Universal Records is gearing up for the milestone in an unsurprising fashion: a crazy deluxe re-release that is basically a boxed set of even more unreleased Nirvana tunes.
Nevermind’s 20th birthday celebration edition will consist of 4 CD’s and 1 DVD. As Spin reports, it will include “rarities, b-sides, and unreleased recordings”, as well as a DVD of a previously unreleased live set. If the prospect of 4 more discs of Nirvana tunes confuses you, you’re not alone. With the Lights Out basically covered EVERY unreleased Nirvana song that we’re ever going to hear, so it will be interesting to find out if the Nevermind re-issue has any repeat tracks, or if it’s just more unreleased BBC Radio performances.
Hopefully, the CD of Nevermind itself will come in re-mastered form, since the original version is so…compressed and not as “raw” as it should have been. It would be great to get a scuzzy dissonant recording of Drain You and Lounge Act.
A statement from Universal hinted at various “special events and releases” throughout the year to further celebrate the second decade of Nevermind‘s influence on modern rock music.
The re-issue is set to be released on September 19th.
Balance and Composure’s new full-length album Separation is, in a word, powerful.
Opening track Void, with its ominous, dissonant, grunge-like guitars and Jonathan Simmons’ gradually rising vocals is quite a ‘table of contents’ for the rest of the record, a densely-layered, guitar-rich collection of songs that are the perfect continuation of the band’s previous two EPs.
Separation, B&C’s first full-length album released on No Sleep Records, has a dark, emotional intensity to it that is aided by the triple blitz of guitars. Simmons and fellow guitarists Andrew Slaymaker and Erik Petersen create a gripping wall of sound that allows for a simultaneously thick and complex guitar sound, with someone playing a sludgy main riff while impressive background guitars fly around on each track.
The title track personifies Balance and Composure’s trademark sound: a quiet beginning that explodes into a fury of guitars and Simmons’ frequently yelled vocals. Throughout the album (and the EP’s) his voice alternates between more subdued singing (such as on Void) to full-on post-hardcore yelling.
Quake is one of the most memorable tracks from Separation, beginning with ethereal guitar chords and Bailey Van Ellis’s straightforward drum work. Shortly after beginning, the energy picks up and the rhythm takes over. The song is a headbanging, high-energy affair with Simmons yelling his vocals, sounding as if he is on the verge of straining his vocal chords to the max. Quake has a great driving melody, which Simmons plays to with his vocals, and set to the cacophonous guitars the song is one of the best songs the band has recorded thus far in their career.
Stonehands could have been recorded in 1994: it’s a melancholy, down-tuned song with a slow, deliberate pace that gives it its thunderous sound. Again, the lead guitar riffs are the stars, helping the song stand out from the rest. It’s the kind of song that can easily mesmerize an audience at a live gig due to its quiet, brooding intensity.
I Tore You Apart in My Head transitions into Galena seamlessly, the former alternating in tempos and rhythms effectively (aided by some nice bass work by Matthew Warner) and the latter returning to the high energy of Quake. Galena in particular is also one of the high points on Separation, with each of the band’s best qualities on full display.
Fade utilizes an up-tempo rhythm and some fuzzy Nirvana-esque guitar flourishes to great effect. The uneasy feeling is accentuated further by gang vocals that say things like I’m scared of ever finding out/All I’ve lived for was a lie/All the worries and the doubt/You don’t even think straight sometimes. The rising action of the song caps off in some great riffs and passion at the end, making it another standout track.
When the band turns down the guitar fury for songs like More to Me and Echo, the results are just as solid as the rest. The songs have the same passion and wistful expressions of doubt and self-reflection as the more scream-y songs, with Echo finding Simmons doing his best singing on the record. Rather than build up to a loud noise explosion like the other songs, Echo instead stays hushed and muted, and it works well.
The album concludes with the rage-filled Patience (using the soft-quiet dynamic from so many of the other songs) and Defeat the Low, a solid cap to the album that ends with some gentle piano work. The piano, when combined with the slow, ominous burn of the opening track Void, give the album a powerful bookend that will be with you well after the album comes to an end.
With Separation, Pennsylvania-based Balance and Composure have really made a statement. The talent that they hinted at in their previous two EP’s is fully expanded and fleshed out on this record. Their live show was already a sight to behold, a captivatingly intense and mesmerizing spectacle that can only be aided by adding some of these songs to the set.
Separation will undoubtedly end up on my Best of 2011 list come December, as it blew away my already high expectations.
Pick this up (or stream it on their website) if you like bands like Brand New and Thrice or up and comers like Tigers Jaw. You probably won’t be disappointed.
Below, watch a video of the band performing Burden (from the band’s split EP with Tigers Jaw) at the Roxy in Hollywood last week.
In today’s installment of “what is this I don’t even…”, here’s a clip of Miley Cyrus covering Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” in concert in Ecuador (?) the other day.
The huskily-voiced tween queen remarks before going into the song that it really inspired her as a budding musician or whatever…which is interesting. I wonder if Billy Ray was blasting In Utero around the Cyrus household in the mid 1990s…but then again, he probably wasn’t. Who knows.
Either way, this isn’t actually a TERRIBLE cover, it’s just…mildly off-putting, since the combination of Miley Cyrus and grunge is, well, weird. Her anonymous backing band does a decent job playing the song, at least.
The Foo Fighters must not have gotten the message that bands that have been around as long as they have don’t usually release quality records this late in their career.
The first minute of their new album, Wasting Light, makes that abundantly clear. Bridge Burning, the album’s blazing opening number, sets the tone for the rest of the record. The moment Dave Grohl howls These are my famous last words/ My number’s up, bridges booaauughh/BOOAUUGHHH, it’s apparent that the band might have finally captured the energy that Grohl brings to the live setting on record. In concert, Grohl routinely screams the last parts of lines rather than singing them, and that tactic is on display on Bridge Burning, a hell of a first track.
The Foo Fighters have three guitarists now, with Pat Smear having officially re-joined resident axemen Grohl and Chris Shiflett, and the triple blitz of guitars is evident on the opening cut and throughout the album.
A lot has already been said about Rope, the Rush/Led Zeppelin-ish lead single, with its echoed guitar and stop-start rhythmic flow. Drummer Taylor Hawkins smacks all of his drum equipment with precision, and his voice is a great match to Grohl’s familiar singing in the verses.
This album was recorded in Grohl’s garage, as everybody knows, on analog tape. No computers, no Auto-Tune, no Pro Tools, no nonsense. Just the Foos, producer Butch Vig, practice, and precision. Oh, and Bob Mould from Husker Du, who plays guitar on Dear Rosemary, one of the best moments on Wasting Light. Bringing the guitar count up to four, Mould also adds some husky background vocals. This song was one of the most impressive parts of the Foos’ recent LA club gigs, which even featured Mould onstage.
Yes, the verses of Dear Rosemary sound a lot like Joe Jackson’s Is She Really Going Out With Him? and, thus, The Raconteurs’ Steady As She Goes, but the similarity is only in the rhythm of the verse. Its grabbing melody and familiar rhythmic progression create a simply irresistible overall sound. Truth ain’t gonna change the way you lie/Youth ain’t gonna change the way you die yells Grohl, lyrics that sound meaningful, but in reality were created on the fly in the studio, as is revealed in Back & Forth, the Foos’ new feature length documentary.
White Limo throws a curveball into the smooth vibes and rhythm of the first three tracks, with its Motorhead-ish aggression and Dave screaming like he hasn’t since Weenie Beenie. The song, a snarling old-school blast of hard rock energy and fury, is a far cry from the more typical primed-for-radio-play Foo Fighters songs that casual radio listeners probably expected from this album, and it’s positioned perfectly as Wasting Light’s fourth track.
Arlandria starts out with a bang before quieting down and allowing Grohl to sing over the gentle guitar. The lyrics aren’t among the best Grohl’s ever penned, but again the rhythm and melody, aided by the siren wails of Shiflett’s and Smear’s guitars, take over. The chorus of You used to say I couldn’t save you enough/ So I’ve been saving it up/ I started saving it up was one of the more memorable moments of hearing the album premiered live for the first time, and it translates just as well in the studio.
Foo haters usually dismiss their music as “bland radio rock” and “unremarkable”, probably due to tunes like Learn to Fly and Times Like These, but These Days avoids such comparisons thanks to its quiet intro guitar and soft-loud-soft-loud dynamic. The steady rising action of the verses ends with Grohl’s passionate scream of Easy for you to say!! before a radio-friendly chorus kicks in. Its combination of the Foos’ past radio success and the new formula give it a freshness that helps it avoid falling into the traps of past “traditional Foo Fighters” material.
Just hangin' out, no big deal
Back & Forth is probably the weakest track on the album, but it isn’t terrible. The straightforward riffs and typically bouncy rhythm just aren’t as creative as the other tunes on the album, but the pre-chorus riffs are pretty sweet.
A Matter of Time’s off-beat tempo, staccato riffs and time changes give the song its best qualities. It’s definitely more of an “experimental” type of song for the Foos, and it works well.
The song segues into the crushing Miss the Misery, which is a cacophony of thunderous guitar riffs. Classic rock vocal hooks lead into the verse, giving the song its overall throwback feel. Nate Mendel’s steady bass line drives the song, and the guitar work accompanying the main riff is layered exquisitely. The bridge has fuzzy, distorted guitars and a key change, and it rocks.
While there are no acoustic guitars, pianos, or other softer stuff on the album, I Should Have Known is the album’s moment of somber reflection. No, the song isn’t about Kurt Cobain, but the general theme could be applied to his suicide, as many similar Foo songs can. Grohl likes being intentionally vague, with lyrics that may or may not refer to someone specific, when in reality they probably don’t. I should have known/ I was inside of you/ I should have known/ There was that side of you/ Came without a warning/ Caught me unaware sings Grohl, his voice distorted and fuzzy, as sad-sounding guitars and a violin give the whole thing its downbeat tone.
The song could have been part of the acoustic portion of In Your Honor, until Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic chimes in with his deliciously grunge-y bass solo in the bridge. It’s sludgy, dark, and dirty, just as a contribution from Novoselic should be. I Should Have Known is another of the album’s brightest moments, allowing the Foos to branch out a bit and get personal.
The album closes out with Walk, the second single from the album. Its opening guitar sounds like Tal Bachman’s She’s So High, but thankfully the song elevates itself from that unfortunate similarity into a fantastic album-capper. It’s basically the sequel to New Way Home, the epic closer to The Colour and the Shape. It’s also a great way to close out Wasting Light: hopeful guitar chords and confident declarations of self-discovery and a positive outlook for the future, fitting for an album like this.
The flaws with past Foo albums such as In Your Honor and parts of Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace implied that the band was perhaps running out of ideas, but it’s evident with this new record that things are back on track.
With Wasting Light, the band has managed to create its best full album in at least 10 years, if not longer. It’s great to see the Foos recapture some of the inventiveness and exuberance of their early career, and do it so impressively.
It’s 2011, but the Foo Fighters sound as strong and powerful as they did in 1996.
Nirvana, the Pixies, Mudhoney, and buzzy anti-corporate indie-punk.
Did you think those words would be mentioned in a review of Cage the Elephant’s new album Thank You, Happy Birthday?
Yeah, didn’t think so.
When Kentucky lads Cage the Elephant lit a fire under the indie rock scene’s ass with 2009’s self-titled debut album, they quickly rose in notoriety. Songs like Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked and Back Against the Wall, hit singles from the disc, are still being played on FM rock radio stations. The band’s alluring blend of soulful bluesy rock and understated punk aggression turned many heads and allowed the band to support that album for the next year, playing tons of festival gigs.
After some downtime, they have returned with their follow-up to their smash debut record, and it sounds like something Kurt Cobain would dig.
The album starts off strongly, Always Something slinking along creepily with an Arctic Monkeys-ish feel to it. The song leads into Aberdeen, presumably named after the tiny rainy town in Washington that spawned the “grunge” movement, Kurt Cobain, Mudhoney, and many other prominent bands and individuals of that movement. Aberdeen is one of the “catchiest” songs on the album, and the most suited for radio play, with lead singer Matthew Schultz alternating between his usual lazy drawl and a bit more energetic vocals for the chorus. The guitars in the bridge are very grungy and dissonant, too.
As Aberdeen closes out, Schultz repeating “way back!” as the music drops out to some eerie backup vocals, the best part of the album starts up. Indy Kidz, a violently spastic song beginning with Schultz sarcastically saying “I wanna be just like you” before erupting into a frenetic, In Utero-esque freakout, is astounding. The song viciously lampoons the “cool kids” of the indie music scene, peppering in some off-key buzzy yelling (again coming off like Kurt Cobain’s ghost). The music is all over the place, riffing and chugging and slowing down and picking the pace back up and stopping and letting Schultz yell and scream some more, with or without a beat behind him. It honestly sounds like Nirvana, in the best possible way for a song released in 2011.
Perhaps ironically, the next track, Shake Me Down, is the album’s first single. Following up the fiercely aggressive punch of Indy Kidz with a more ear-friendly tune like this creates a pretty jarring transition, but it works since Shake Me Down is solid. Crunchy rhythm and drums, melodic vocals, an accessible overall quality, it’s all there.
Cage the Elephant holed up in the backwoods of Kentucky and listened to the Pixies, Mudhoney, and 1950s surf rock for inspiration for this record, and you can hear it in tracks like 2024 and Sabertooth Tiger.
A prevalent theme on this disc is the band’s refusal to adhere to a “catchy” sound. This is one of those instances when a band has a smash debut record, gets a lot of attention and exposure, and then grows bitter with the whole situation. Sell Yourself is an example of that, disjointed, off-kilter riffs churning while Schultz yells “sell yourself, don’t be a fool”, itself a criticism of the band’s rise in success. The song is abrasive, just as the band wants it to be.
Photo shoot? What photo shoot? We're just standing here
Whereas similar tactics have been attempted by other bands like MGMT (whose sophomore album Congratulations seems to have made everybody mad, fans and critics alike), Cage the Elephant instead did it right, creating something very unique and challenging.
Just look at the transition from Sell Yourself to Rubber Ball – the first track a clustercuss of noise and pissed-off energy, leading into a slow interlude that sounds like a lullaby. They’re exploring all types of sounds and energies on this album, and it works.
Right Before My Eyes has more old-school vibes, a straightforward song that boasts one of the album’s best choruses, right before my eyes the whole world lost control. It would also work on the radio, perhaps maybe appealing to fans of the band’s radio songs.
Around My Head sounds like Brit Pop and the Pixies combined, and if it wasn’t for the weird ooh ooh ooh ooh ah ah ah ah monkey chirps before the chorus it’d be one of the album’s strongest songs.
Japanese Buffalo is another WTF? moment on the album, starting out like the Beach Boys before going down the “frantic sped-up garage rock” route, which a friend of mine referred to as “Iggy Pop doing Pinkerton”. All Schultz really says in the song is “alright? Okay. Uh huh.” over and over, and then some more yelling, before it slows down for some melody and, of course, more screaming. And buzzy guitars.
Album closer Flow starts out a bit in Kings of Leon territory, with jangly acoustic guitars and some mostly reserved vocals by Schultz. Surprisingly, it doesn’t explode into more screaming and aggression, instead keeping its hushed tone throughout. It’s a nice calm down after all the musical rollercoasting that goes on for the first eleven tracks. After some silence, a slowed-down acoustic reprise of Right Before My Eyes finishes the album off.
With Thank You, Happy Birthday, Cage the Elephant has really done something I hadn’t thought possible. They’ve created music that is both an homage to their heroes and something confrontationally original. They could have gone down the “indie buzz band” route and released crowd-pleasing recreations of their debut, but they didn’t.
Instead, they crafted songs bursting with the same kind of aggression and anti-corporate energy that Nirvana did with In Utero. These guys have made it pretty far, but now that they’re there they aren’t afraid to do what they want, all the time criticizing the scene and themselves.
It’s just a great (and somewhat unexpected) record, and while it may be one of the first releases of 2011, it may find itself on many “Best Of 2011″ lists come next December.
Last week, while driving in circles around the Valley on my usual daily grind, I flipped on KROQ to see which song out of their 15-song library was playing. Instead of the expected Offspring or Linkin Park tune, what I heard was something new and yet strangely familiar: Plucky, hushed guitar riffs in a quiet-loud progression, discontented vocals delivered with a snarl in the verses and angst exploding all over the place in the bridge…yes, this sounded like something from 1995. It even had a buzzworthy phrase in the chorus: Jesus stole my girlfriend, repeated a few times for effect. I quickly looked up the song and alas, it is NOT a 1990’s band, instead being an Australian band named Violent Soho. I diligently tracked down the band’s self-titled album which just came out a few weeks ago, and is mostly a re-release of 2008’s We Don’t Belong Here, but re-mastered and with some tracks changed around. It was released on Ecstatic Peace! Records, which is actually headed by Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore (a hero of the band, apparently).
The song on the radio, Jesus Stole My Girlfriend, pretty much blew my mind when I first heard it. While the song is arguably the strongest on the album, the whole thing is still a great collection of 1990’s-inspired pissed-off angsty goodness. Vocalist/guitarist Luke Boerdam does a bang-up job channeling, at times, Kurt Cobain, Daniel Johns of Silverchair, even Craig Nicholls of the Vines and Wes Scantlin of Puddle of Mudd (and I mean that strictly due to the voice, not the music: this is not a slanderous comment).
Album opener Here Be Dragons kicks things off with an energetic burst of aggression, again using the quiet/loud dynamic that typified most 1990’s rock with precision.
Jesus Stole My Girlfriend is next, and it’s really a great song. It could easily have come from one of those nameless alternative rock bands that jumped on the “post-grunge” bandwagon in the wake of Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains and all that Seattle stuff.
The fact that Violent Soho is instead a newer band (having formed in 2004) actually impresses me. While some could write the band off as “1990s clones” or whatever, I admire their willingness to attempt to bring back a genre I miss dearly.
Son of Sam continues the great start to the album, with a burst of guitar riffs and more snarly vocals by Boerdam. It has a good, strong chorus too, with Boerdam yelling “Beautiful girl, you got a hole in your heart, sitting pretty ‘til the world tore apart”. The drums are on display on this track, and Michael Richards smashes the shit out of them accordingly.
Even the DOG looks filled with angst.
My Generation, while not a Who cover, moves along to a bouncy riff and drum beat and another memorable chorus. The band really knows how to do that right.
Muscle Junkie brings the “post-grunge” feeling to the absolute brink of eruption, beginning with subdued vocals matched with a slow bass lead before, of course, exploding into an angry “fuck you, fuck you, I can’t trust you!” chorus, where the guitar returns to offset the lyrics, which alter themselves to “fuck you, fuck you, I hate your face!” before returning to the quiet sound for the bridge. Yes, yes, YES!!
Slippery Tongue is another standout on the record. The song starts out softly, and sounds like it could have been on Silverchair’s debut Frogstomp, especially when the “She’s got a slippery tongue, she won’t take it away, yeah yeah yeah” line creeps in for the chorus. It’s a great exercise in the soft/loud thing that Violent Soho embraces so heavily.
Love is a Heavy Word and Bombs over Broadway are more of the same, as the band sticks to this same formula on most of the tracks. Pissed-off lyrics, energy, aggression, melodic guitar lead-ins, it’s all there. The final track, Narrow Ways, ends the album on a high note, with one of the album’s most memorable verse structures and an overall feel that makes it one of the strongest tracks. The acoustic-sounding guitar passages give it that feeling. The track, along with Jesus, Muscle Junkie and Slippery Tongue are in my opinion the strongest on the album.
Violent Soho may not have the most “original” sound out there, but that’s precisely why I like them. So much of today’s “rock” music is made by boring, trendy bands who stick to the same formula. Violent Soho sound A LOT like their predecessors from the mid 1990’s, with that familiar, intriguing sound that grabbed me when I was 13 and hasn’t let go matched with a sense of homage to the bands of that era.
I have longed for a 1990’s alternative rock revival for years, and I hope this album is a sign of things to come. We’ve already latched back on to cheesy 1980’s synth-pop and 80’s culture, so it’s about damn time we got the “let’s bring back some forgotten era for no conceivable reason” thing right.
I hope more bands follow Violent Soho’s influence and bring it all back. We need it.
Last night I finally attended my first KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas show. I’m not sure why they call it that, because no one plays acoustic. I guess it’s a clever joke in the minds of the KROQ people, but whatever. Despite the fact that the station didn’t give me any tickets for free, even though I called in a few times, I secured tickets in the Loge section and had a pretty decent view for the show. The pictures below were taken from my seat, so excuse the lack of up-close-ness.
Overall opinion: the show was a lot of fun, with some great performances. I really liked the Gibson Ampitheater, as the sound was incredible (with one exception I’ll cover later). The crowd, though, was super lame. They seemed like they were only there to see Muse, yet when Muse played, the people in the pit just stood around or danced lightly, without any sense of excitement other than cheering after the songs. Maybe I’m just old-fashioned, but I generally go nuts when a band I am really excited for is playing. I don’t just stand there and Tweet or sip my 13 dollar beer. Meh.
White Rabbits – They opened the show and were really impressive. The band has a cool, percussion-heavy sound, with frequently more than one band member playing some form of drums. The main singer guy plays piano and sings, but he trades off that duty with one of the guitarists as well. They played songs from both of their records Fort Nightly and It’s Frightening, and sounded great. It’s a shame the place was pretty empty when they played, because they were a highlight. Such is the fate of opening bands, I guess.
White Rabbits
Metric – Lead singer/guitarist Emily Haines boppedaround the stage with undying energy in her shiny black pants. From their newest album Fantasies, Metric played Stadium Love, Gimme Sympathy (one of my favorites) and the single Help, I’m Alive. I’m not really familiar with their other three records as much, so I didn’t know the rest of the tunes that they played, but they were also impressive. They should receive more credit than they do, as Haines is a much more engaging and enjoyable female vocalist/focal point of her band than Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (ugh) is with her cat screeches and annoyingness. Unlike the No No No’s, Metric actually has some great songs.
Metric
Next up was Cage the Elephant. I saw them at Coachella last year and was blown away. Their set last night, while not received very excitedly from the lame crowd, was just as great. Besides playing Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked and Back Against the Wall, they played what I assume were new songs. The last song sounded like In Utero- era Nirvana, with fuzzy guitars and singer Mathew Shultz doing Kurt-esque screams and spazzing around onstage with relentless fury. If it is a sign of where their next album will go, I’m already looking forward to it. The crowd, though, mostly stood around. At the end of the set Shultz stage dove and crowd surfed around for a bit, which got the pit people a bit excited.
Cage the Elephant
Phoenix – These French dudes really impressed me too. I still can’t get into their album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, the one that everyone rants and raves about, but their live show made up for it. They were also the first band that the crowd seemed really enthused about, standing up and cheering the whole time. Phoenix came off like a more full-sounding the Strokes, with a lead singer in Thomas Mars who actually moves around and is engaging. By the time they played the big radio hit 1901, the crowd was very lively. Mars ended the song by going into the crowd and singing the refrain from the pit, which always gets people excited. Mars knew what he was doing. Now if only their album kept my attention as much…
Phoenix
Vampire Weekend – Meh. Their songs are quirky, yes, but to me they are basically the indie version of Panic! At the Disco (If this statement offends your indie hipster point of view, readjust your scarf and calm down). They sounded fine, but I just can’t get all excited and worked up about them. Judging by the crowd their set was a big bathroom/snack/smoke break, too. I just don’t subscribe to the hipster hype machine that lauds them with so much acclaim.
Vampire Weekend
Slightly Stoopid –I knew back when the lineup was first announced that Stoopid wouldn’t really fit the bill very well. I’ve seen them quite a few times, and they have a ton of albums, but all KROQ plays of theirs is 2AM from Chronchitis. Because of that, the crowd seemed bored and stood around listlessly until that song.
Stoopid did play a good selection of tunes for the radio show, such as Officer and Running with a Gun from the album Everything You Need, but for the most part they seemed just as out of place as I had expected them to. Sandwiching them around a bunch of hip indie bands probably didn’t help.
Slightly Stoopid
The Bravery – Breaking up the reggae/rock mix of 311 and Slightly Stoopid were the Bravery, NYC’s synth/new-wave pop band led by Sam Endicott and his silly hat and Robert Smith-ian croon. They’re not a bad band by any stretch, but some of their songs are a bit draggy and anti-climactic. They did play a new song called Hatefuck that wasn’t as Trent Reznor-ian as its name would imply; it was instead rather dance-y, as expected, but it did come with this weird video on the jumbo screen that looked like some old version of 1950s soft-core porn that was a bit distracting and funny. Ending with An Honest Mistake, the Bravery’s performance was basically just as I had expected it would be. It was just odd how highly they were listed in the bill, and playing between Slightly Stoopid and 311 added to the confusion.
The Bravery and Sam Endicott's hat
311 – I’ve seen 311 more than 20 times, as they are my favorite band. They NEVER have any technical issues at their shows. Despite that, they were the ONLY band at this show that had problems, which was a weird buzzing feedback-y sound that marred some of the songs. They opened with Beautiful Disaster and played a set that I almost predicted with total accuracy (superfan? 311 nerd? Yup), throwing in the hits All Mixed Up, Down, Flowing, and recent single Hey You, a song I wish they never wrote with some other tunes from their new record Uplifter; they also played concert staple Applied Science, complete with its full-band drum solo. All told, it was another great show by the band, but the mysterious technical issues were a bit frustrating and out of character.
in 311, everybody's a drummer!
Muse – OMG YES THE BAND WE WERE ALL HERE TO SEE! Or at least it sounded like that when they emerged amid thunderous applause and screaming to slam into Uprising, the single from their new album The Resistance. They played for roughly an hour, touching on the big hits Supermassive Black Hole, Hysteria, Time is Running Out, and Knights of Cydonia, which ended the set, but they skipped over New Born (one of my favs) and Feeling Good in favor of a handful of Resistance tracks like United States of Eurasia, Guiding Light, Resistance, and Unnatural Selection.
Muse and Matt Bellamy's ever-present passion face
I wasn’t surprised by this, as it was a radio show and they have a new album to push, but it was still a bit of a let down. Matt Bellamy’s guitar was all glittery and red, though, and he wore shiny pink pants, so that made up for it. They also sounded incredible, as Bellamy is able to replicate the soaring operatic vocals from the studio recordings to the live setting impeccably. Their performance was masterful, if a bit heavy on Resistance songs. I hope their Coachella set has more old stuff thrown in too.
Muse
In all, KROQ Acoustic Christmas Day 2 was great. The band selection was a bit strange in there was absolutely no cohesion to the lineup; it started out all indie pop then threw in some surf reggae, and the result was a bit scattered and all over the place. Still, I enjoyed most of the performances, and it was evident that the crowd did as well (or at least they did once Muse hit the stage). KROQ knows how to put on good shows, and pick a great venue for their annual holiday fest. I just wish they would have fixed the technical issues that messed up 311’s set, but that’s just me talking as a fanboy.
The vultures have landed. After the past few months of really weird and frustrating promotion (“here’s a few seconds of a song, but THAT’S IT! Bwahaha”), Them Crooked Vultures’ debut album is here.
TCV, if you weren’t aware somehow, is Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age on vocals and guitar, Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters/Nirvana/general badassery smashing the shit out of the drums, and John Paul Jones from an up and coming band called Led Zeppelin slapping the bass and adding Doors-esque keyboard flair where appropriate. Rock pedigree? Check.
After first hearing about TCV, my expectations were ridiculously lofty. Then, with the short teaser clips that made their way onto the Internet instead of full songs, my anticipation turned to a bit of frustration…but then I heard the singles New Fang and Mind Eraser, No Chaser and I realized just how badass this album could be. This album does NOT disappoint.
And oh, is it ever badass. Mind Eraser in particular was a great choice for a single. Dave even sings background vocals on this one. I was hoping to hear Dave on background vox on other songs, but this is apparently the only one. The other songs instead are carried out by Homme, who sings about sex, drugs, the government, the devil, and other such sunny subjects.
yeah, they're more awesome than you
Overall, TCV’s debut is a startling and long overdue kick in the balls to the current ‘rock’ scene. While Homme, Grohl and Jones are collectively rich enough to use all the best studio trickery and create a glossy, well-produced product (much like any Foos record), the songs sound like they were written in a garage out of an impromptu jam session. The riffs are dirty, the vocals snarling, the lyrics dark, just as they should be.
No One Loves Me and Neither Do I sets the tone for the rest of the record with these lyrics: If sex is a weapon then SMASH! BOOM! POW! How you like me now? You can’t always do right, but you can always do what’s left. When I told her I was trash she winked and laughed and said “I already know. I gotta a beautiful place to put your face.”
And she was right. Filthy.
On Mind Eraser, Homme discusses drugs, and asks the question Give me the reason why the mind’s a terrible thing to waste?
Given the subject matter of these songs, it seems to me that Homme penned all if not most of the lyrics, while the band probably jammed out all the songs musically. They’re similar in content to Queens of the Stone Age, so it makes sense for Homme to have come up with this stuff.
Thankfully, none of the songs really sound like Foos, Zeppelin or Queens, for the most part. Dead End Friends has a bit of a Queens sound (circa Songs for the Deaf), but that doesn’t mean it’s any less distinct. The dudes were able to create their own unique sound with TCV, and that’s commendable.
I REALLLY wish this was a real promo picture
Another good aspect to this record is how they didn’t get too over-indulgent. It’s not like every song is 7 minutes long, with tacked on bluesy instrumental jams all over the place. The songs that are over the six minute mark, Elephants, Warsaw or the First Breath You Take After You Give Up, and Spinning in Daffodils don’t wear out their welcome; if anything they’re among the most solid cuts on the album. Elephants has a slower, brooding rhythm and Homme discusses the devil, lepers, and, well, elephants.
The best stretch of the album begins with Interlude with Ludes, (which sounds like David Bowie on drugs having a party in the desert), and ends with the conclusion of Spinning in Daffodils.
Warsaw… is a personal favorite, starting off slow and atmospheric and turning into a fast, bluesy stomp about midway through.
Caligulove has another stop-and-go beat and more keyboard flourishes that help set it apart, as well as a memorable chorus where Homme asks, “come on, Caligulove me”.
On Gunman, TCV masters a hard-driving rhythm that Muse wishes they could have come up with, and adds in some demented-sounding vocals by Homme and cymbal crashes from Grohl, creating another of the album’s highlights. Badass.
Spinning in Daffodils is psychedelic, sludgy, and dark, a fitting way to end the album.
Them Crooked Vultures’ debut record is the best thing to come from any ‘supergroup’ in a long time, if ever. Rock music could really stand to pay attention to this. It is music made for music’s sake, from three supremely talented guys. It’s just dirty, sexy, groovy music made by three people who combine to DEFINE rock music past, present, and (hopefully) future. If you had any inclination to check out this band, DO IT. It’s one of the most refreshing things I’ve heard in quite a while, and anyone who considers him or herself a fan of ‘rock’ music would be ripping themselves off if they didn’t check it out.
I debated putting this picture as the entirety of this review, as it sums up the album perfectly:
