PLAYLIST :::: Releases 2009

So as its almost half way through the year, i thought I'd have a look back at some of the releases that caught my attention the most.

First, 'It's Blitz'. The YYY's seem to have matutured fantastically, and this was an early candidate for record of the year for me.

Animal Collective were perhaps hyped too much as this years MGMT. I dont think theyve got a riff catchy enough to recreate the 'anthem' status 'time to pretend' achieved. That is no bad thing at all, although being far more accessable than so its no surprise that so many new fans have been aqcuired.

Metrics new album took some time for me to get used too. I'd be surprised if it grew on me more than 'Live It Out' but still seems a good effort.

I've heard the 'Hazards of Love' being described as the Decemberists going prog, and to be fair I think thats a valid point. The album hasn't taken me as much as their past albums to be honest. Maybe it needs more time, it's certainly is hard to pull one track out on its own because it most of them would feel out of context.

There are a couple of tracks from EPs ion the list. Bon Iver's 'Blood Bank' is not amazing in my eyes, but its not half bad either, same with Deerhunter's effort. I guess its hard to make an EP on the same par as an album, but then again it is possible! For example ATDI's 'Vaya' or Oceaniseze's 'Music for Nurses'.

Dark was the Night, is a simply fantastic compilation. The collaborators for this record is a whos who in indie music right now, (albeit with a skewed demographic towards North America). Its all done for a good cause too so everyone wins.

My album of the year so far is not on spotify so you'll have to make do with youtube. It only came out this week although (surprise surprise) has been leaked for aaaaaages. 'Veckatimest' by Grizzly Bear has grown on me like a rash in the best possible way.

LIVE :::: Metric [at] Electric Ballroom, Camden 19/05/09

Metric are a changed band. Tonight’s set predominantly draws from their latest effort ‘Fantasies’ which on the whole, is an album far less raw, gritty, and raunchy than previous records. This new sound, of which the imagery is quite intriguing [see interview], accentuates certain elements of the band to great effect. Emily Haines has a beautifully delicate voice, and seems perfectly tuned to this refined lush pop.

It does come as a compromise however; polishing over the rawness does seem to dilute the bands energy slightly, although Emily in particular was still animated between guitars, synths and tambourines. Metric showed no signs of being drained by the preceding tour dates in this, the climax. As beautiful as Haines’ vocals are now, they are also fantastic when strained, and we get a glimpse of that at the breakdown in ‘Handshakes’ to see that. So it’s good to see old songs aren’t totally excluded from the set, although fans would be forgiven for wishing for multiple songs from 2003s ‘Old World Underground’. I don’t think though that this is a band trying to run away from their past, but seasoned fans my need a transition period to assess the new direction of this band fully.

Emily Declaring to the crowd, that she intends to try and dedicate the rest of her life to becoming a hybrid of all time’s greatest bands, almost seems too grand just yet. It does fit as a nice way to introduce ‘Gimme Sympathy’ however which poses the question ‘who would you rather be; The Beatles or The Rolling Stones?’ later, we are told about how they have ‘enough love to fill a stadium’ just before ‘Fantasies’ final track is played. Again, I don’t think this should be taken as arrogance, but it still feels a bit much to be talking about stadiums right now.

Metric have quite a cult following, so it should be no surprise really that an encore ensues. It should also be no surprise that this comprises in part of the emphatic ‘Monster Hospital’, contrasted brilliantly with a stripped down version of ‘Live it Out’ to close.

LIVE :::: Deerhunter [at] Scala, King's Cross 18/05/09

PHOTO: Namestage

If any band would come on, and stop the god awful support band ‘Extra Life’ then I’d have probably declared there and then that they were my favourite band of all time. Luckily Deerhunter are tonight’s main event, and when the gaunt Bradford Cox et al come to the stage, I’m pretty fucking relieved.

Plunging straight into Cryptograms, after a short introduction concerning a tirade of noise, the driving syncopation of the song takes no prisoners in seducing you into the groove. The size of the Scala seemed well suited to contain the many ambient shoegazey landscapes sculpted in the set.

If you were as indie as these guys, you’d probably release your next EP on limited edition cassette too. Mercilessly you command die hard fans to reach again for the practically obsolete technology of audio tapes. It’s cruel. Just why do these guys have to be so cool? Thankfully though, no tape player is required to appreciate these songs right now such as the aptly named EP title track ‘Rainwater Cassette Exchange’ with its Johnny Cash-esqe guitar riffs and strong pop melodies is performed. It perhaps doesn’t sound as good as the finer moments on 2008s ‘Microcastle’ also played tonight, ‘Nothing Ever Happened’ and ‘Agoraphobia’, but that’s not to say it paled in comparison. The two aforementioned were brilliant and tracks off 2007s ‘Florescent Grey EP’ also got a showing.

So it turned out to be a couple of their mates birthdays, their sound guy and the guitar tech from the black lips, who was comfortable in the audience, and Bradford insisted on a very long and drawn out ‘Happy Birthday’ to be sung. Naturally it was performed with as many sweeping flangers and delays as could be stamped upon. I couldn’t decide if it was endearing, or awkward, or if I didn’t care as long as I caught the last tube home.

INTERVIEW :::: Jimmy Shaw, Guitarist for Metric

I managed to catch up with Metric's Guitarist Jimmy Shaw before tonight sold out show at London's Camden Electric Ballroom. He shares some of his thoughts on his band's latest album 'Fantasies', file sharing, and the state of the record industry.



CW: So its been four years since your last record ‘Live It Out’ does the way your new album ‘Fantasies’ was written greatly differ?

JS: It was different in the sense that we sort of started more from scratch than we’ve ever started before. You know, when we made 'Live it Out' we had been touring for like three years straight on 'Old World Underground', and we were sort of like writing as we were going. Every time we had a new song wed just throw it into the set and keep going and then when we stopped to make 'Live it Out' it was just kind of a representation of what we had been doing on tour for so long. We then started touring 'Live it Out' and by the end of it, we kind of stopped all together, went our separate ways for a little bit, did our separate stuff, Emily made a record, josh and joules made a record, I built a studio and we released 'Grow Up and Blow Away' and a DVD. So when we got back together to start the process of writing and recording the new record, there was like a giant empty chalkboard in the studio and it was more like us designing what we wanted to sound like for the future than representing what we already started to sound like. It came more from a clean slate than we’d ever had before.

CW: From reading some other interviews, it sounded like you were all feeling a bit burnt out by the end of touring for live it out and you needed to take a break?

JS: Definitely burnt out.

CW: I’ve heard about this campfire test for songs on the new album, where they had to sound good stripped down to their bare acoustic form?

JS: It was sort of something we really incorporated on this record because we sort of listened back to our old stuff and there were moments that if it wasn’t quite working in the song, we would cover it with like a weird guitar riff, delay, filter sweep or drum fill. Something not entirely solidated you know. I'm not saying that it’s the only way to write songs, but its kind of the way we adopted for the process, so that if there was something wrong we would try taking everything away as opposed to adding stuff to it. And if it wasn’t working we’d pick up a guitar and make sure that the song itself was working. If you can play a song with an acoustic guitar and someone singing, if you get the emotion, and there isn’t a moment that makes you feel awkward and that’s not working then the song is fine. Maybe there’s something in the performance or the production or something else that’s going wrong.

CW: When I last saw you perform a few years back, you told the crowd a story about a really shitty venue you had to play that even had a grotty toilet onstage. Have you managed to get away from all that with this tour?

JS: Yeah, more or less. You know there’s a part of the industry that we’re trying to sort of change, and that’s the idea where everyone’s trying to do everything the same way. You know like every band is supposed to start at the hundred seat club, then you play the two hundred seat club, then the three, then the five, and its just that I don’t plan on going to, say Germany, that many times to be honest with you. So we’re trying to do this thing where its kind of working or its not and we focus on the place where its working. We haven’t really focussed a lot on Europe in our career, we’ve focussed a lot more on North America and even South America. We’ve been to South America a few times and there’s a very strong fan base in strange places, like Brazil, Venezuela and Peru.

CW: So do you think that’s down to the greater access people have to music through the internet then?

JS: It must be, because we’ve never released records down there! But there’s a good live following. So there’s a part of it that’s like, this tour we did a little bit of the slog but I think it’s a little bit in the nature of we put out a record, we’re going to show up, deliver and hit the city full on.

CW: I imagine you were pretty frustrated when your record leaked on the internet, but do things like what you said about a south American fan base without releasing a record down there does show part of the good side of the internet for finding out new bands?

JS: You know what, the day that it leaked I was at home in Toronto and Nigel Godrich, the producer, was working on this film we’re a part of in my studio just behind my house. He came in, I made him a coffee and he was like ‘I just found out the record leaked’. But he was like, ‘well, the only time a record leak sucks is if the record isn’t all that good.’ So I was like, ‘yeah you know what, good point. I feel like our record doesn’t suck, so I guess it’s not too bad’. Then we respond by streaming the album in its entirety the same day, and you know what, it feels like it’s only helped. I know that statistically illegal file sharing, people getting your music for free, only hurts the people in the middle not the guys at the top, and I recognise we’re probably not there, we’re probably in the middle somewhere, but I don’t feel like it hurts us. I mean I don’t feel its right. I feel like if I were going down the street and see a front door open, I'm not going to go in and nick their toaster. You know what I mean? If I was, then I guess I would be ok with stealing music too. Its just people hide behind their computers in a lot of ways, its morally skewed. I figure if people have their morals straight and their ideal in line, I don’t know. If you’re a thief, go on and steal your music. But if you’re a great person and you don’t steal anything else ever, I’m not totally sure why you would steal music.

CW: So what do you have to do to try and keep an album under wraps and not leak before its release?

JW: We finished our record and sat on it for six months. It only started leaking only when we sent it out to the industry, which is really ironic because it’s the industry who are always complaining that they don’t have any jobs anymore, and they’re all going to have to go into refrigerator sales; they’re the ones moaning and groaning about there’s no music industry. But where do the leaks come from? They don’t come from fans, because fans don’t have the record! It only comes from someone with the record label because they’re the only ones with the record, which is a little bit ironic and I find it a little bit of a shame. I mean for me musically, the only real downside is that I've spent a couple of years of my life trying to make that record as good as it can possibly be and every single sonic little quality has a lot to do with that. When someone comes to me, whether it be through HMV or Itunes, whatever, I can control what our music sounds like. If someone gets an [illegally] downloaded copy, I don’t know what that sounds like. I don’t even know if they’re getting the right tune. They could be getting weird demo versions, and I can’t control what that is, so that’s the only part of it that kind of bugs me. It kind of makes me feel like all the energy that I may have put into these songs and their production has all kind of been futile, because there could be someone blog reviewing the wrong version of the song. It’s a bit cheap, and they’re doing that so they can boost traffic on their site, so they can make more money through advertising so it’s a little lame. If you’re doing it for the right reasons, and everyone benefits from it, then great, go ahead. Everyone now just dreams about making a million dollars off their blog, but try not to use my music to make that happen.

CW: Your first work ‘Grow up and blow away’ was recently released sandwiched in between what is really your third and fourth albums. Was that a little bit weird for you?

JS: It is a little bit weird The thing is we never really had any intention of doing that, its just the fans demand was really high. They kept writing and writing to us saying ‘we want a physical copy’ and its not like they’d never heard it before. We made it freely available on the internet, but they wanted something to keep hold onto so we really just did it for them.

CW: I’ve heard broken social scene are working on a new album, can we expect any metric involvement?

JS: I hope so, it just all depends on the timings of it all.

CW: I saw you jet over to play with Kevin Drew last year as an emergency fill in for his guitarist who’d broken his arm

JS: Yeah. [Laughs] I actually learnt his record on the plane on the way over here. Id never heard it before! I’d just finished this five date metric tour and I'd jut got home. There’s this tequila bar next to my house, I'd been out, got really pissed and then I came home at 3 o clock in the morning, then they called me up. I could hear huge amounts of tension over the phone and they were like ‘do you want to be a hero?’ I think I dropped the phone and fell over laughing because I knew exactly what they were going to ask me and like twelve hours later I was on a plane. When I got to the airport I realised I didn’t have a copy of his record so I had to buy a copy to put it on my ipod to learn it on the plane.

CW: Do you think the break, with everyone’s solo stuff has enriched the band, for example Emily’s stuff in particular was very sombre, a very different feel to metric’s sound, but do you feel its all come together and made you a better band?

JS: Yeah I think so; a band is like some sort of weird medium between marriage, and family. You have to stay really committed to both the idea and the people, what really helps that commitment lasts is that you constantly make the decision to be part of it, and when the band gives you freedom it makes it a lot easier. Its when a band starts being like ‘you have to be here every moment of every day of your life’ that’s when you find yourself running down the street to try and get away from it. So I think the fact that we exercised some freedom really helped everyone come back with fresh ears and a fresh mind, and we don’t have the idea that we’re stuck together.

CW: The production of fantasies sounds a lot bigger, and perhaps more polished, contrasting with the raw feel of 'Live it Out'. Was that a conscious decision dictated by the new direction in sound?

JS: When we started, we started with a lot of different things, and we wrote a lot of songs that didn’t make it. We tried a lot of different sounds and production ideas until what felt comfortable made itself apparent. I think the first one was the second revision of ‘Help, I’m Alive’. All of a sudden we got this big giant drum sound, and its like yeah, that’s the sound. Me and the producer would joke around that the sound of the record is supposed to be like the sound of some big primordial egg cracking open in the middle of the desert, and some pterodactyl about to fly its first flight off some sort of prehistoric canyon. So we’d always be flying around the studio! But we wanted to have this idea that the record wasn’t based on music, but on an image, an idea. The album is probably more influenced by the last chapter of 2001 than any band or record, we watched that a lot. 'Jupiter and beyond the infinite' I think its called. There’s obvious images like that one, and we used to have this big dark guitar sound that we used to call, the ‘the silver creature at the space church’ or something. Its more imagery like that than like preferential sound.

CW: You put this record out yourself. Is that because you don’t feel satisfied with working with major labels?

JS: In my experience major labels have one way of working, and if you happens to be one of the 300 bands that it works for, great. If you aren’t, then your going to get fucked. Its probably going to be the end of your career, because they lock you into 7 record deals, and they give you what looks like a large amount of money, but by the time its paid out over like five different chunks taking away fees and commissions or whatever, blah blah blah, its like not even enough to do anything with. Frankly, all the industry does it whine. I was sitting in a café in Paris, about two weeks ago before this tour started. Two English guys sat down beside me talking about the music industry, and one guy says to the other ‘it just blows my mind; major labels have their heads stuck so far up their asses. They couldn’t break and band even if it was Michael Jackson as a five year old. Its like there’s no control and all they do is moan and groan about record sales and blah blah blah’ so I turn round and say ‘I totally agree with you, you must be in the music business?’ turns out they were A and R guys for Warner brothers. They all know that they’re fucked, but I don’t feel that way about music. I feel more optimistic about my own position in it than I think I ever had. A band can record a song, put it on the internet and have two thousand fans overnight. Why do we need these guys that try and milk every dollar from every single thing you lay your hands on, so they can become multi millionaires, and all they can do is complain about musicians not doing enough for them. Its completely preposterous you know, these guys need to get out of the way. There’s two important people in interaction of music, the player and the listener and all these guys have done is worked their way into the middle, so that either one of them feels superfluous to the interaction. I mean its completely insane! I have never met a musician in my life met a musician who has a hundred and thirty thousand dollar salary,an expenses account and four weeks paid vacation a year. Why the fuck some A and R guy should get that is beyond me. So as far as I am concerned, the death of the record industry is the best thing that’s ever happened to music. Get those fuckers out of the way, and bands can make music and bands can concentrate on that.

CW: You’ve supported lots of bands, who would you ay was a favourite?

JS: Its not going to get better than The Stones. Well, I guess if you could go back in time and open for the Beatles, but I think Rolling Stones, Madison Square Gardens, is kind of like one of those gigs that nothing is ever going to come close to. It was pretty awesome.

CW: Are they anything like normal guys?

JS: No. They’re not normal guys. There’s probably only five people like that that have ever walked the face of the earth, and that’s them. They have been superstars since they were nineteen, and when you say the words rock ‘n roll, at least 3 letters are attributed to them.

CW: Ok, last question, are you playing any UK festivals this summer?

JS: Yeah, I think we’re doing Glastonbury, one of the wireless shows in Hyde Park, and then Reading and Leeds.

CW: What’s your favourite festival?

JS: I really like Coachella, I've never played Glastonbury, readings like a massive Carling-fest. It great if you like swimming in a giant vat of Carling.

CW: I think its changed, the Carling branding has been removed so you might have a different beer to swim in this year

JS: Wow, imagine if it were all orange juice…

[This interview is unedited, I've tried to keep it as close a transcript as possible]

NEWS :::: 21 May 09

One of my photos has been used on the website popjunkietv.com for their review of metrics gig the other evening [Link]. Ill try and get my own review, and interview with guitarist Jimmy posted up here soon.

Other reviews that will be posted soon are for Deerhunter at the Scala last Monday, and Akron/Family last night [photos].

PHOTOS :::: Akron/Family [at] ICA, The Mall 20/05/09

PHOTOS :::: Metric [at] Electric Ballroom, Camden 19/05/09

PLAYLIST :::: Visual

Here are five of my favorite music videos.

APHEX TWIN
windowlicker

At about 7:51 it all gets hot. Directed by Chris Cunningham

WHITE STRIPES
fell in love with a girl

Always been a massive lego fan, it used to absolutely drain my pocket money.

SONIC YOUTH
mildred pearce

This video is a little weird, in the best possible way.

INTERPOL
pda

Pretty dreary, pretty cool.

YMSS
ores

Some frantic animation, think it really suits the song.

PLAYLIST :::: #3 Special Edition

This playlist has got a track from most of my top 50 or so most highly listened artists. Its pretty epic, and has not been ordered particularly so you might want to listen on random. Again there are some artists that aren't yet on spotify (here most notably the beatles).

Spotify Playlist Link
Last.fm Chart Top Artists

LIVE :::: Sonic Youth [at] Scala, Kings Cross 27/04/09

A thousand lucky people managed to beg, borrow and steal tickets to tonights sold out show at the Scala in Kings Cross. It was a rare intimate occasion to see a band of such monumental proportions.

I think it was fair to say, the start of tonights set caught most people completely off guard. The drone of 'She is not Alone,' a song from the bands infancy, was a curious choice to begin with, on account of its slow rythmic pace and monotonic melody. It was appreciated nonetheless, but the room really started to ignite when the pounding drums erupt underneath the opening harmonics to 'bull in the heather'.

The irony of the band's name has been well pointed out before, with Kim Gordon for one being 56 years 'young' but any petty ridicule was soon rendered obselete. This is a group of people who are still effortlessly cool, and unrelenting in their passion to perform. It's fantastic to see, Lee Ranaldo's silver barnet aside, the band looking like I would have imagined them in 1989. 'The Sprawl' and 'Cross the Breeze' from the epic 'Daydream Nation,' are delivered with such ferocity that unlike so many bands who resist hiatus, you don't wish you could buy that time machine to go back twenty years.
2009 sees the release of yet another album 'The Eternal' and the new songs played tonight fitted in well, it certainly doesnt feel like they've got any intention of resting on their laurels soon. The new seemed a logical progression from the much acclaimed 'Rather Ripped' of three years previous, maintaining a feel of strong melodic importance overlaid with the trademark SY frantic mess of noise, although never felt to be simply covering old ground.

Two encores followed. Ending with the defiant 'Kool Thing' was sublime, although my personal favorite of the set was 'Schizophrenia'.

Set List
She Is Not Alone
Bull In The Heather
No Way
Calming The Snake
Hey Joni
Tom Violence
Sacred Trickster
Antenna
Making The Nature Scene
Schizophrenia
What We Know
The Sprawl
Cross The Breeze
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The World Looks Red
Brother James
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Kool Thing