Nada Surf – "Lucky" Analysis

Few bands can survive being dropped by a major label. Usually they just flail around for a few years, trying to live the life of excessive waste and superficial spending that they were living and end up disbanding, never to be heard from again. Few Indie Rock bands can right songs with big hooks and power chords that reek of the nineties and get away with it. Nada Surf realizes that, so they give you just a few of those pop masterpieces and a whole lot of extremely succesful interpretation on their new record Lucky (Barsuk – February 5th).

The album opens with See These Bones, a dark affair that relies on sparsely picked minor chord guitars, backup vocals from Harvey Danger’s Sean Nelson and Death Cab’s Ben Gibbard, some sweeping strings, and a cautionary tale. Not wasting much time cheering you up, the trio then treats you to the pop gem that is Whose Authority with all of it’s sing along, shimmery goodness. A few tracks later the New Yorkers get all Crosby, Stills, & Nash on your un-expecting self with the wonderful Here Goes Something; full of descending three part harmonies, reverb treated tambourines, and an all too short running time. Similarly, The Film Did Not Go Round, is probably the prettiest song Matthew Caws has written to date with an arpeggio’d acoustic guitar, perfect female backing vocals, and a ridiculously sad narrative.
After a few more trademark guitar anthems, Are You Lighting? enters with it’s unexpected slide guitars, and general twanginess to sadden things back up and leave you wondering how you ignored them so long.

You could say that Lucky is the album for the Nada Surf fan that did’t know they were a Nada Surf fan, but that’s not entirely fair. The band didn’t as much re-invent themselves as they did improve upon an already successful formula. I don’t “Grade” albums around here because, frankly, who am I to do so, but if I did this one would clock in somewhere between “pre-order it right this second” and “seriously, I’m not kidding, right now.”

[mp3] Nada Surf – Are You Lightning?

Buy it (when it’s available) at Barsuk
Catch a Nada Surf show

Eels Autographed Vinyl +2CD Giveaway!

I told you yesterday about the new albums from Eels and now I’m giving you a chance to win them. So all in all you’ll be getting a 24 track/12 video CD, a 50 track B-side collection, a live DVD and an autographed 7”! Seriously, this is a ridiculously awesome giveaway, and I’d like to thank the nice people at Filter for setting it up.

Email me @ calebpalma (at) gmail (dot) com, by Midnight on Monday with the subject line “EELS GIVEAWAY” and include your favorite Eels Song in the body. Winner will be chosen Monday afternoon.

The Loot

Limited Edition Autographed 7”
–Featuring two tracks – both previously unreleased.
“Climbing To The Moon” (Jon Brion remix)
“I Want To Protect You”

Meet The Eels : Essential Eels 1996-2006 (CD)

Useless Trinkets : Eels B-sides (CD/DVD

[mp3] Eels – Packing Blankets

Eels release New album details

Eels, or Mr. E, or E, or Mark Oliver Everett as you may know him is the kind of songwriting force which cannot be explained. The kind that can make you believe anything or take you anywhere and they’ve been doing it for a long time. Which is why next Tuesday Dreamworks will release Meet The Eels : Essential Eels vol.1 (1996-2006), a collection of 24 songs and 12 videos, and Useless Trinkets : a collection of no less than 50 b-sides as well as a dvd of a Lollapalooza performance (what a deal). Both will be available on CD and vinyl next week, and you owe it to yourself to pick one if not both up (start at the essential if you’re a newcomer).

You lucky Europeans can see E on a myriad of dates overseas in the next two months.

[mp3] Eels – Grace Kelly Blues

Eels Tour Dates
Buy Eels music at insound.

You were the kid on my shoulders

I first heard White Rabbits debut LP Fort Nightly while driving through the city on a freezing night. This was the perfect setting to hear he record; dark, frigid, grey, and focused much like the songs themselves. The story goes like this: six kids from Missouri get bored of living in Missouri, move to Brooklyn, rent a mini-warehouse sized loft and live, practice, eat, & sleep there….all six of them. Intense, eh?

Perhaps proximity is to credit for the bands air-tight rhythms, perfect tones, and liquid bass lines, or maybe they just all happen to be six naturally awesome musicians, but whatever the case I’m thankful for them getting together.

Fort Nightly starts out with an intensely strummed wall of minor chord electric guitars, followed by a pounding drum line, a latin-flavored piano-bass line, and a thick fog of shakers, for the next forty minutes your ears are treated to intense and intensely danceable dark Indie Rock which hearkens The Walkmen, Cursive, & Wolf Parade simultaneously. You’d be a fool to miss out.

[mp3] White Rabbits – The Plot

White Rabbits Tour Dates
Buy White Rabbits music at Insound

Radiohead Announce North American Tour Stops

I’m without my macbook due to my own stupidity of leaving my charger at home by accident so it’s mp3-less blogging until later tonight. Until then I figured I would make sure you all knew that Radiohead announced which cities they would be playing in North America. No venues, dates, or even a season in which the tour will take place has been announced but the cities are below. Looks like I’ll be taking a trip to ATL or STL. Anyone have a place to stay?

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Radiohead 2008 North American Tour Stops

Atlanta

Boston

Charlotte

Chicago

Cleveland

Dallas

Houston

Indianapolis

Los Angeles

Miami

Montreal

New York

Philadelphia

San Diego

San Francisco

Santa Barbara

Seattle

St Louis

Tampa

Toronto

Vancouver

Washington DC

Stephen Malkmus + John Vanderslice tour dates!

And they’re coming to Nashville! Finally my chance to see Malk! While the Jicks aren’t quite as special to me as Pavement they’re certainly close, and JV as an opener to boot! Don’t miss this one.

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks 2008 Tour dates
All dates w/ John Vanderslice supporting

03-19 Minneapolis, MN – First Avenue
03-20 Milwaukee, WI – Pabst Theater
03-21 Chicago, IL – Vic Theatre
03-22 Indianapolis, IN – Vogue Theater
03-23 Newport, KY – Southgate House
03-25 Nashville, TN – Mercy Lounge
03-26 Atlanta, GA – Variety Playhouse
03-28 Washington D.C. – TBA
03-29 Philadelphia, PA – TBA
03-31 New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom
04-02 Brooklyn, NY – Music Hall of Williamsburg
04-03 Boston, MA – Paradise Rock Club
04-04 North Adams, MA – MASS MoCA

[mp3] Stephen Malkmus – Maggie’s Farm (Bob Dylan)

To the lake

David Broderick lives in Denton, TX. He doesn’t have a record deal, he doesn’t have any other notable blog press to link to, and he isn’t on tour right now. He is part of a significantly small camp of musicians whom I have posted about from either a self promoted email or purely on my own discovery who have none of the above. I like it better this way, there are no pre-formed expectations, no annoying hype to turn you off, just blind faith that what I’m posting for you is, in fact, worth 4 megabytes of your hard drive.

To The Lake is right up my alley in a lot of ways. The melody is memorable, the narrative is intriguing, the rhythm is infectious, and the production is just right: slick enough to appeal to the casual listener and lo-fi enough to feel personal and lived in, like you’re getting in on the ground floor of something special…and you are.

[mp3] David Broderick – To The Lake

Participate remotely in Democracy tonite

The extremely important New Hampshire Primary is tonight, and regardless of who your candidate of choice is, it’s an important one. You can watch the results come in at 8:00 PM Eastern time, (that’s seven central, kiddos) on just about any network or cable news network.
My personal candidate of choice as you might know is Mr. Barack Obama, and has been since April.

Who is everyone pulling for?

[mp3] Cold War Kids – Electioneering (Radiohead)
[mp3] Guns n’ Roses – November Rain (I couldn’t resist)

I was a Boy from School

In seven days time gone will be the days of sleeping until noon, staying out until 3, and spending the day reading, playing guitar, meeting friends, and generally wasting time. My classes will resume for the spring 08 semester at Middle Tenn. State University.

This crushes my heart and spirit more than you could know but it is, for now at least, a part of life. The only thing that numbs the pain: dancing the night away to Hot Chip.

[mp3] Hot Chip – Boy From School

Buy Hot Chip’s music at insound

Music from Juno

When I first learned that Kimya Dawson was doing the music to what at the time was a very promising but very far from released film called Juno, I was happy. Michael Cera has fast become one of my favorite actors since his work on Arrested Development, and the trailers certainly seemed to be right up my alley. I saw the film last night and left pretty happy. It’s a pretty wonderful portrayal of young love and what have you, and Kimya’s songs couldn’t have been outdone by any other.

In the world of lo-fi home recorders Kimya is a bit of a legend, her songs are more infectious and memorable than just about anything I can think of. They stay in the same sector of your brain that nursery rhymes do, and my love was only renewed by seeing them cast along side such a wonderful film.

Bravo.

[mp3] The Moldy Peaches (Kimya/Adam Green) – Anyone Else But You
[mp3] Kimya Dawson – Tire Swing

Buy Kimya Dawson’s music at insound
-or-
Buy The Moldy Peaches music at insound