During the Civil War, Missouri was a border state, supplying formal regiments and informal militias to both sides of the conflict. Therefore, I’m not sure if Clay would consider The Foundry Field Recordings — hailing from Colombia, MO — a Southern band. Regardless, they tend to be a shimmery pop delight, with long, serious compositions, a little precious but a lot of fun. I especially like “Buy/Sell/Trade” (which appears on both of the EPs below) and “Dancing Lights/Slow Machines.” Sure hope y’all do too, now.
Parade
Two weeks ago when posting the Childballads, I quoted from Jonathan Fire*Eater’s “Give Me Daughters” in relating that I have three daughters, just like the song. In my quote, I left out the lines immediately preceding the words I quoted: “I will raise them/I will raise them/I will raise/I will raise/I will raise them oh/In the city surrounded by water.” Now that me and the family are moving San Francisco, which I understand to be mostly surrounded by water, I’ve started to wonder about Stewart Lupton’s impact on my life. Of course, this also means that for the near future I will be focusing purely on Southern bands, like Atlanta’s (via Athens) Parade, in celebration of the 81% of my life spent living in the South. I’ve loved Atlanta bands since I first heard the 1986 compilation of Atlanta bands Make the City Grovel In Its Dust, and I can still remember almost every word and guitar lick of Train Black Manifesto’s “Bristol” and Rockin’ Bones’ “Be At Ease.”
So back to Parade and their smart rock-tinged pop. On “That’s Hott” from their recent EP, one cannot almost imagine the B52’s raised in this millennium on Parade’s stated influences of Radiohead, Gang of Four, Nick Cave, and PJ Harvey, while others like the acoustic guitar-based “Hunting” embrace the Southern singer-songwriter tradition of other Athens and Atlanta bands. But whatever the style, Parade is simple and melodic, kinda like the South.
Space Needle
For a brief moment in the ’90s (I’m talking like, three years), Jud Ehrbar, Jeff Gatland, Anders Parker were responsible for some of the most underrated music of that decade. Reservoir (Ehrbar’s ambient-ish side project) and Varnaline (Parker’s Americana/altcountry-ish side project) were impressive enough, but Space Needle’s two albums, Voyager and Moray Eels Eat the Space Needle set the standard for melancholic, noisy (and often very lengthy) art rock that modern acts like Animal Collective and Black Dice are still trying to catch up with. Why were they so overlooked? Some blame Zero Hour, the record label shared by all three bands at the time, and their distribution deal with folk-friendly Rounder which landed their records in patchouli-soaked bookstores instead of the appreciative hands of adventurous nutters like you and me. (The silver lining is that you can pick up the entire Zero Hour catalog at CD exchanges for the price of a BK value meal.) For those who’d rather have history packaged for them nice and neat like (and can afford a king-sized value meal), Eenie Meenie Records last year reissued select tracks from those two Space Needle albums on one CD called Recordings 1994-1997). Enjoy the trip…down memory lane.
Saturna
I’ll cop to being a wee bit of a sucker for the newish, more combustible brand of shoegazer fuzz. It just feels closer to what I’ve always thought of as the ideal of rock and roll: nihilism in three chords or less. Portland’s Saturna don’t shy away from such interpretations, giving us both the more traditionally atmospheric naval gaze of “Roll Down†and the slightly embittered and fully catchy kiss-off of “Pop Rocks.†There’s even a cowbell in there.
The Winston Jazz Routine
The Winston Jazz Routine doesn’t come off as the kind of music you’d typically hear coming out of Nashville. Then again, I’ve spent a grand total of 20 minutes in Nashville and it was all in a car on the freeway—and yes, I’m a bit ashamed of that fact. Nathan Phillips is the man behind an ever-rotating cast of characters in The Winston Jazz Routine, yet despite who comes in and out, this is Phillips’ child, and that child ain’t no troubled-troubadour or honky tonk hoedown. It’s more like torch music for the youthfully somber. Phillips is at heart a piano crooner whose songs are more likely to stir in you the desire to embrace your regrets like a warm blanket than to tap your feet or snap your fingers. Yet these compositions are far from hopeless. On the contrary, they ease into your mind and plant the seed of melancholy we all need every now and then to wash ourselves clean. It’s tailor-made for rainy days, and Nashville has its share of those, right?
Canada
Leave it to Sean in sunny California to raise awareness of a record label that’s operating practically in my backyard, even though he’s three time zones away. Canada, like the previously-posted Chris Bathgate, records for Quite Scientific, right here in Michigan. That is, Canada the seven-piece band out of Ann Arbor. If you’re looking for a bit of a late night summer folk-rock sing-along anthem, check out “Hexenhaus,” fom their 2006 LP This Cursed House.
The Childballads
Whilst sitting in church last week with my three daughters, I thought of a Jonathan Fire*Eater song that I first heard before I had any children. I could just hear Stewart Lupton singing in my ears “Give me daughters/And make ’em 1-2-3/I will raise them/they’ll go to church with me.” Now I know he wasn’t prophesying about me, but Stewart’s imaginative lyrics were one of my favorites things about one of my favorite bands. Three of the Fire*Eaters went on to The Walkmen after the big breakup, but Stewart’s new band the Child Ballads hit the scene around two years ago. Style-wise, Stewart’s 60s-influenced acoustic guitar rock is a long way from the Fire*Eater days, but when it comes to the lyrcis, he’s still got his muse.
Simple Kid
Simple Kid is an Irish-born and London-based acoustifreaktronic troubadour who can be as dry and witty with a melody as The Beta Band, whose genius-boy way with both a harmonica and a sampler would do Beck Hanson proud, and whose prodigious (and prodigiously unkempt) follicles bring to mind Badly Drawn Boy and Moses after that whole 40-years-in-the-desert thing. He can carry a tune, too. “The Twentysomething†may well be “Loser†for a new generation, while “Lil’ King Kong†sounds like a mashup of Led Zeppelin and REO Speedwagon songs that were never written, let alone merged. Then there’s “Serotonin,†which as epics go is quite unassuming but that gets under your skin nonetheless by giving you a reason to both rise up and drop out. Isn’t that what the best rock ‘n’ roll songs always do?
(The file below is a zipped EP featuring all three of the songs above. Download, unzip, and enjoy.)
Pernice Brothers
Pernice Brothers is one of those bands I assumed we’d already posted, but no, we haven’t, so behold “Somerville.” Fronted by ex-Scud Mountain Boy Joe Pernice, this collection of “breathy Massachusetts sad sacks” took first place in Spinner.com’s “25 Most Exquisitely Sad Songs in the Whole World†contest. And while “Somerville” wasn’t the winning tune, you can hear in it the qualities that would lead to such success with despondency. If you’re looking for another good (but not free) Pernice Brothers download, and one that’s not necessarily sad, grab “Water Ban,” the second song from Yours, Mine and Ours (2003). In my mind, that would be a contender in the “Totally Shimmery and Transcendentally Beautiful” contest. Maybe we should host that one here at 3hive?
The Comas
It’s my birthday, and I was looking for something trashy and indulgent to enjoy — high fat, high sugar, high gloss, whatever. The Comas seem to fit the bill. As Sean suggested in his original post, the Comas are all about the 90s, which was, if I remember right, a decade of decadence — personal computing, stock market insanity, Monica Lewinsky, etc. So enjoy “Red Microphones” and a whole bag of sea salt and black pepper potato chips, or whatever strikes your fancy.
Red Microphones [MP3, 3.8MB, 160kbps]
Sean’s original post: 02/28/06
With their recent signing to Vagrant Records, an interesting addition to their roster in my opinion, and raving press in Rolling Stone, Magnet, and Spin I’d be a little surprised if you hadn’t heard of The Comas. I say a little surprised because even though I own their last record, Conductor, I must confess it never made the transfer to my iPod and has been regretfully neglected until a recent half-hearted attempt at organizing my music collection. The Comas are so ’90s. I mean that in a good, remember-when-indie-rock-was-still-indie, kind of way. They could have been the band who claimed the throne rightfully belonging to The Pixies if The Pixies wouldn’t have made their comeback. These days though, with so many “indie” bands making inroads into the mainstream, there’s ample room for The Comas to do the same.