Middle Brother - Shoulda Coulda, Woulda...

I was going to go to the Middle Brother show last Wednesday at the 9:30 Club, but was feeling pretty run down after work and didn't rally in time to go. Now that I've read this Review by Erin McCann from the blog We Love DC that is AWESOME, I'm really kind bummed I didn't make it out.

Shame on me.

However, this week, starting Wednesday night, I will be seeing a show a night for 5 nights. Most of which are Merge bands, which you dear readers should all be well aware of my borderline stalking love affair with.

Wednesday - Say Hi @ Black Cat - First time seeing these guys. I have a feeling a certain someone I don't really care to see will be there, but meh, I plan to have fun, even if I have to forgo a guaranteed orgasm for it.
Thursday - Wild Flag @ Black Cat - Carrie Brownstein!! Portlandia! Sleater Kinney! Pathetic girl crush!
Friday - Wye Oak @ Black Cat - Sporting a new album, "Civilian" that RULES. This will be time # 2 seeing this youthful and talented duo at The Cat in fact.
Saturday - The Love Language/Telekinesis @ The Red Palace - I really like the Red Palace, and I adore The Love Language, so round 3 should be excellent. Telekinesis was a bit disappointing last time, so I am lowering my expectations and just hoping for a good time. Which should be had considering these guys have been touring together for most of the Winter.
Sunday - The Rural Alberta Advantage @ Rock n' Roll Hotel with my ladies... which is gonna be really fun I think, if I don't pass out from sheer show exhaustion. I vow to write a review of each of these show, if you promise to read them.

Screw you winter... I'm taking you out in STYLE. God life is good sometimes!

Take Me Home Country Roads

It's things like this that make me want to move back to North Carolina.

Sarah, if you're out there reading, you heard it straight from me... I do miss North Carolina, baby.

Total Repost

This article appeared in MAGNET Magazine, and I think it pretty much sums it all up. Love me some Paul Westerberg. 

Rewind 16 years. I’m nearing the end of my 20s, newly married to Emily Hawk, still passionate about music, movies and books. There are bills to pay and responsibilities to own up to. As this is the ‘80s, it doesn’t take a genius to move up the ladder. If you can fill up a suit, you can get promoted. That is, if you conform and buy into the whole mousse-and-Vuarnet trip. I like to work, but I can’t conform. So there I am, the general manager of a chain of major appliance stores, working 60-some hours a week. What I want, more than anything, is to be someone else. Remember the cover of Pleased To Meet Me, with the Rolex-and-diamond-horseshoe-ring hand shaking the hand with the frayed sleeve? Mine is the arm on the right and the left.

In that job, I have to be in my office by 7 a.m. I park my Ford pickup outside the building at 6:45, my Windsor knot strangling my throbbing neck, and turn up the v of my tape deck. “Bastards Of Young” comes forward at full volume, the bass vibrating the windows of the truck. That raging, volcanic music somehow gives me the courage to face another day. At work, “Unsatisfied” is constantly running through my head; Westerberg’s howl is my own. In the evenings, Emily and I talk, party and listen to music. Nights with Green On Red, the Dream Syndicate, X, Minor Threat and the Pogues, but always it comes back to the Mats. “Little Mascara” is Emily’s favorite song. I’m into “Left Of The Dial” and “Sixteen Blue.” There are tunes like “Favorite Thing,” “Hold My Life” and “Alex Chilton” for driving, “Here Comes A Regular” for drinking, “Kiss Me On The Bus” for love. The music of the Mats sounds like chaos, but to me it sounds like peace.

OK, here’s another middle-aged guy, getting stupid. Maybe. With rock ‘n’ roll you never know if it was really that transcendent or if it just seems that way in the golden glow of the rearview. Nostalgia clouds your judgment and often makes you unwilling to enjoy the new. “The Strokes are OK, but I’ve got the New York Dolls on Mercury vinyl, and anyway, when I want to hear the Ramones I put on Rocket To Russia.” Etc. But trust me, the Replacements really were that great.

Fast-forward 16 years. I’m in Paris, ending a two-month book tour. Friday night, my final commitment done, I return to my hotel room to relax. I open the balcony doors to get a view of the street, pour a double Four Roses neat, slip Westerberg’s Stereo into my Walkman, put my feet up on the coffee table and touch fire to a Marlboro Red. It’s the most memorable moment of my trip. Listening to “We May Be The Ones,” I’m moved like it’s 1986. And then, a few days later, I’m back in the States, hugging my daughter Rosa, rubbing her back, as “No Place For You” fills the room. Thinking that this music is just as powerful, and yeah, important, as it ever was.

—George Pelecanos

Braid Your Hair, Take a Bath

Yeah, or just go see Braids open for Baths and you'll probably have a better time because that's what I did on Friday night at the Rock and Roll Hotel and it was awesome. Well... mostly. The crowd was decidedly young - which apparently I should have expected because Baths is a youngster too... don't be fooled by his tall, dark-haired, doe-eyed self (complete with Hipster-chic black glasses, oh yes), the kid is a 21 year-old LA native with nothing but creative time to kill. Which is a good thing, because his music is excellent.

A sexy blend of experimental, piano-infused, slide guitar-sounding mixes that make you want to simultaneously close your eyes and sway, dance a little, have another whiskey drink, and/or make out to.

No wonder the X-marked kids were doing almost all of the above for most of the show. I can't say I didn't enjoy a little making out later, but pu-lease.... in the middle of the floor of sold out show? I can be a real bitch if I want to, and red pants make me sassy... I may have thrown a few verbal punches mid-set.

Anyhoo... that being said, Baths made the madness worth it, and the opening band Braids totally met my expectations and then some. Despite the fact that the lead singer lost her voice just after the first song ("Lemonade") the four-top continued to trek through like real winners. She got my seal of approval for managing to still sound good (despite stopping several times for an apology to the crowd). This little Montreal set were a nice opening act, really calm and heart-warming. More on the range of "close your eyes and sway" then "fuck your boyfriend in public", though that didn't seem to stop the couple in front of me. Le sigh.  

Despite all that nonsense - you should check them out. Even The Washington Post enjoyed the show... and duly noted the flagrant group of DC's fledglings. As I prepare to turn 30 this year, I can only assume my annoyance of these show-goers will grow exponentially. Oh well, I'll keep trying to enjoy the music and forgo the hatred.

How un-Hipster of me.

Tunes for Washington DC

Ahhh DC, what's not to sing about? This one by The Nightmare Adventure Society also happens to include some friends.


"WASHINGTON DC" -The Nighttime Adventure Society from Victor Suarez on Vimeo.

Looks like they had fun, eh? Other songs you might enjoy about DC? The Magnetic Fields.

The Band That Changed My Life

I would never be the person I am today without you. I don't just mean that musically, I mean that in total. The Shelby Lynn Thompson you know and love today, could have only been possible by the discovery of the Archers of Loaf. This is the ultimate in truth. I know, I know... others may claim they had a place in line first, and I still love you Fats Domino, and I always will - but I owe my life to the Archers.


The memories are always fond -

• Like driving around Chattanooga in Molly's gold Volvo turning up the volume when another one of Trey's mix tapes looped around to "Web in Front".
• Waking up every morning for high school and cranking up Icky Mettle, much to my mother's dismay.
• Sitting in Tim's living room, chain smoking cigarettes to a background serenade of Vee Vee.
• Making a mix called "Shelby Vs. The Greatest of All Time" in which I dared try to go up against the EP Vs. The Greatest of All Time. Needless to say, I lost. I might try again now that I know even more bands that would never make the noise they do without the Loaf.
• Seeing Crooked Fingers repeatedly at The Grey Eagle so I might get to meet Eric Bachmann - then actually meeting him, and having a beer at the Bier Garden of all terrible places to do so, and being too nervous to say anything intelligent. Le Sigh.
• Learning that Matt Gentling lived in Asheville and played in lots of awesome local bands and knew the same people I do. 
• Of getting my blue Vee Vee t-shirt in the mail and discovering that wearing it made me feel less homesick for NC while in my first year of living in DC.

I know - I'm starting to sound like a fan freak, and am trying not to truly earn the name "Audiowhore", because I hear the girl this song was written for was a real cunt.

Not unlike Neutral Milk Hotel, the Pixies or other mystical bands of the 90's that I came to know and love... I wouldn't have become the musical fan I am without the help of All the Nations Airports, or any of the other Loaf albums that still blow my mind from start to finish. And people say no one listens to records anymore. Psssh. 


I digress. The point is, when I read this afternoon that the Archers of Loaf had a secret reunion show at Cat's Cradle LAST NIGHT opening for The Love Language, I about fell over and died. I wish, more than anything in the world, that somehow I could have known that was going to happen, and managed to get my car-less and license-less self to North Carolina to catch the 40 minutes of glory that the lucky few managed to see. 


Here's hoping there's a next time, or that the island on Lost is real, and time travel is possible.  

Best of 2010

Yep. It's that time again... time to list the best of the year. Since this is the music blog, then let's start with my best musical moments of the year.

Bear Hands - "What a Drag"
The El Ten Eleven show - A-mazing.
Local Natives - Gorilla Manor - Completely beautiful album.
The Love Language - Libraries
Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
Best Coast - "Boyfriend"
Freelance Whales at Black Cat
The Dead Weather with Brooke at 930 Club
First Aid Kit - "Tiger Mountain Pleasant Song" video
Guided By Voices!!
Netherfriends - "Friends With Lofts"
Jeff Mangnum re-emerges for a show in NYC that exploded online.
Sleigh Bells - Treats
Warpaint - "Elephants"
Spoon - Transference