Screwing forever

Wolf Like Me (Chopped and Screwed by the Saturday Club

I know you guys love it when I actually do what I'm meant to do with this blog, that, of course, being chop and screw rock 'n' roll songs. If you click on my horrible MSPaint artwork up there (it's almost as bad as the actual Cookie Mountain artwork), you'll get my remix of TV on the Radio's "Wolf Like Me."

I'm quite pleased with the way this one turned out. Some songs can only be slowed down so much before they lose any semblance of being music, but "Wolf Like Me" is intricate enough that you can smear it out seemingly forever.

I would write something about the actual song, but I am very well aware that anyone who tries to write about TV on the Radio ends up sounding extraordinarily stupid, so instead I'll just link to the most recent time I wrote about TV on the Radio (sounding extraordinarily stupid doing so), when I named "Wolf Like Me" the second best song of 2006.

Get on that ship and sail back to me

You remember my buddy Bonnie "Prince" Tyler? The guy who looks a lot like me except he has a gigantic Rick Ross-esque beard? He's written a story about Dick Cheney and Radiohead's OK Computer, and it's published at The Passion of the Weiss. The Prince would appreciate it if you took a look.

Little Birdy ft. Paul Kelly - Brother

It's Australia Day, so today's post shall not be very detailed. In lieu of cogent musical analysis, I shall offer you an MP3. See, if you have any kind of music blog at all, it is a guarantee that publicists will hunt you down and try to make you listen to all kinds of bands you don't give a shit about. And they'll attach truly terrible copy. And the one time I do find something interesting, and push my luck by asking for a promo, though find out I live in Australia and then act like I don't exist.

So I got kind of excited when a publicist based in Australia sent me an MP3 of an Australian band that I actually kind of like. Little Birdy are fronted by West Australian Katy Steele. You might have heard of her brother, Luke Steele, the one in the Sleepy Jackson and Empire of the Sun.

Little Birdy are a quite nice pop rock band who are good except for the times they appear to believe that singing and writing your own pop rock songs excuses you from the obligation to sing and write enjoyable pop rock songs. Fortunately, "Brother" is an enjoyable song.

It veers more to the country-folk side of things than my previous favorite Little Birdy songs, like the 2003 single "Baby Blue." The sparse acoustic guitar and Steele's stark vocal are a little reminiscent of fellow sandgropers The Waifs. Things start getting exciting when half way through Steele lets out a brief whoop, introducing a bracing, clattering percussion track, scoring the tune in half. A soothing harmonica, played by Paul Kelly eases away that painful rupture, and Kelly, whom I've blogged about before, adds his distinctive voice to Steele's final chorus. It's quite an impressive tune, and I've broken my rule about ignoring publicists to post it, so you should check it out. Apparently it's off a forthcoming album, but I don't know what it will be called or when it will be out. Sorry.

And hey, since it's Australia Day, why don't we look again at that flag I put up for last year's celebrations? Isn't it rather satisfying? Hope y'all had a good holiday.

They 'hind 'em, they 'hind 'em, they 'hind 'em.

I'll be honest, guys. For those of you who don't know, Screw Rock 'n' Roll isn't exactly a big time music blog. I don't have a huge number of readers, and I'm not fantastic at updating frequently (perhaps these two things are connected). So, I'm kind of perturbed that within days of me posting a review critical of the NSW government and the Sydney Festival on my minor league blog, I find this appearing on my stats:

I believe the CCSU is the Central Corporate Services Department, an agency part of ServiceFirst. It isn't very clear what ServiceFirst does, but it cryptically says it "offer[s] a full range of services, increased capacity for maximising economies of scale and a commitment to harnessing new technologies for service improvement." And according to my traffic counter, it's got something to do with the NSW Premier's department.

So I write something critical about a NSW government event, and I get the Premier's staff stopping round for a look at my little-ass blog? I've got a message for them and their boss: Hey, Nathan Rees, Mr Premier. Thanks for stopping by. Glad to see you're interested in my thoughts on popular music. But how about you catch up with Screw Rock 'n' Roll on your own time, rather than wasting my taxes checking out the latest news on the blog sites when you should be working? You need something to do? Get this city a decent public transport system. And if you do want to keep tabs on what I'm saying about you, how about you leave a comment so I know you're stopping by next time? Then we can have a chat about what I have to say rather than you nosing around in the dark.

And, I'll tell you what. You don't have to worry about missing out on the latest Screw Rock 'n' Roll posts. I promise I'll still be updating in 2011 when you're ass is out of a job and you have all day to spend surfing the Internets.

I'll be goddamned if my rims ain't too

We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.

Congratulations, America

Sydney Festival: We think you're a joke

If you take a look over to the side of this page, you'll notice I've got a Twitter feed going. Screw Rock 'n' Roll has now officially joined the microblogging age. I believe the inventor of such a thing won a Nobel Peace Prize or something. You can follow my minute-by-minute musings here. And while you're waiting me to update that feed, how about you read my long overdue Sydney Festival whinge?

Santogold
Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings
Sydney Festival 2009 First Night
College St/Hyde Park
Sydney
January 10, 2009

Just another first night at a Sydney extravaganza

If you live in New South Wales, you tend to expect anything associated with the state government to fail dismally. Actually, to be more precise, if you live outside of Sydney, you expect the state government not to know you're alive, while if you're in Sydney, you expect the state government to know you're alive, and, whether through negligence, stupidity or a carefully calibrated combination of the two, to make life as difficult as possible.

The currently running Sydney Festival isn't wholly operated by the NSW government, but if its First Night event was any indication, Premier Nathan Rees and co are sufficiently involved to have infected the proceedings with their unending capacity for incompetence.

I finished work on the night of January Saturday 10, and headed into the city to catch the First Night festivities, which featured the always irritating Melbourne group Cat Empire, A-Trak, Santogold, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, and Grace Jones. Also, there were a bunch of DJs you don't care about.

I got to the Hyde Park/Domain strip on the east side of the city at nine o'clock, immediately as Santogold was starting, so I didn't expect things to run one hundred percent smoothly, but I arrived to find a mess. The festival organizers had just closed off The Domain, where Grace Jones was to perform, meaning thousands of people were milling about looking for something else to do, apparently unaware that when the biggest city in the country promises a free show in a pretty damn big park with a lot of empty space, they didn't actually intend to let everyone in.

But that's OK. There were other acts to see. Acts like the Shaun Parker Projects, which sounds like the public housing block a New York rapper might claim to have hustled at, but in actuality was some kind of contemporary dance performance. All due respect to Sydneysiders with a passion for contemporary dance, but I feel pretty safe in saying the majority of folks weren't in the city to experience the marvels of Mr. Parker's choreography.

So, with five of the remaing six stages showing hippy drum circles or whatever, everyone who couldn't get into the Domain descended on Santogold. That's if they could find it. None of the stages were signposted, and in lieu of maps of the festival area, the organizers had apparently decided it would be more useful to put up advertisements for ANZ, the bank sponsoring proceedings. My advice: if ANZ's involvement with the Sydney Festival is any indication, giving them your money is not a good idea.

I said, "Lady what's your number"; she said "0-0-0"

In the end, though, I found Santogold, which would have been great, if only the police hadn't found her first. They were throwing up wide cordons around the College street stage where she was performing, and letting no one in (though plenty of folks were streaming out). I'm sure there are plenty of reasons why they considered this necessary; the number of people already at the stage, the number of people wanting to get to the stage, the stirring in the loins experienced by NSW politicians every time they see the boys in blue marching around. Whatever: the facts are that they had two gigantic inner-city parks and half a dozen city streets to put on a day's worth of shows, of which there were only about five a large number of people would want to see. And yes, if I wanted to see Santogold that badly, I could have shown up earlier or gone to one of her paying shows. But I can't help but feel if you need to call out 50 on horseback to constrain the crowd at a Santi White show — you know, a woman who writes songs for Ashlee Simpson — if you need the po-pos to lock that shit down, You're Doing It Wrong.

Pictured: Horses. Not Pictured: Santogold

So I watched about half the Santogold set on a video screen I could see peering over the shoulder of a lady cop (no Mrs Officer). It sounded a lot like what listening to a Santogold CD sounds like.

Sharon Jones, Sydney

Fortunately, Sharon Jones was in less demand and was considerably more exciting. I found Ms Jones and band after a long and fruitless search for the stage at which they were to perform. (Eventually two volunteers appeared to tell me they did not have a map, but could direct me to the show that I was looking for.) Jones was introduced by the leader of the Dap Kings, and listening to their lively funk on a warm night beneath a glowing Sydney skyline, I began to feel maybe the night would turn out OK.

And it did, I guess. I don't think I've ever been part of a more bourgie audience than the one at that Jones show; it was all smart casual shirts and glasses of white wine, except for one aging boomer who, on Jones' entrance, tried to adopt an African-American accent, bellowed "Sing it, Sistah!" and spent the remainder of the set flailing his arms around with whatever it is that is the exact polar opposite of rhythm. I removed myself from his presence very rapidly.

Even if the Dap Kings at times seemed to absorb the gentility of their surroundings, their tight, energetic rhythms cooling off into something more appropriate as background music for a picnic in the park, Sharon Jones made sure to never let up. She flirted, teased, lectured the men and conspired with the women she plucked from the audience, and finally, seeming to have exhausted every other possibility, took off her high heels and wilded out in a dance that she claimed was half-African, and half Native-American.

But I can't help but feel that even as good a singer as Jones is, and as tight a unit as her band is, she would seem nearly quite so spectacular if she were not the only one doing this sort of thing. When you're one of the only acts in the game doing that kind of late '60s funk/soul properly, and your competitors are disgracefully tepid interlopers like Amy Winehouse, how could you not seem brilliant by comparison? Is it unfair to critique the Dap Kings for not being as good as, say, the Memphis Groove, even if they do sound genuinely exciting during their shows?

But even with those doubts playing in the back of my mind, I cannot describe the show as anything less than thoroughly enjoyable. Whether upbeat or soulful or both at once, Jones wrought excellence from even her less memorable songs. And when she finished with one of her best, the title track for her most recent album, 2007's 100 Days, 100 Nights, her set achieved something seemingly impossible for a festival run by the NSW government: it was tight, proficient, and completed without a police officer in sight.

John Darnielle Resplendent

Happy 2009, y'all. I probably should have spent December updating you on all the exciting things I've been doing, but I didn't, partly because I was doing exciting things and partly because... well, you know how it is with this blog. I think you'd all get nervous if I updated too often.

But if you're looking some new years reading with a 2008 flavor, why not check out Metal Lungies' Beat Drop feature, which has a bunch of excellent writers picking their favorite Pimp C beats? If you really need to be sold on it, not only does it include a few hurriedly thrown together (but still undeniably brilliant, of course) contributions from myself. Even more enticingly, Bun-B, Pimp C's partner in Underground Kingery, shows up to pick and comment on his favorite Pimp C productions. And, if after that you still can't get enough of Pimp C's beatmaking (and if you are satiated, smoke something bitch and get ready for round two, huh?), go over to Cocaine Blunts, where Noz, who also contributed to the Metal Lungies write-up, has compiled a big zip file of Pimp C production.

I've also been writing about some of the best music of 2008 for The Passion of the Weiss. There's a good chance I'll be writing other things there over this coming year, see keep an eye on it. For The Passion's Top 50 Albums of '08 list, I discussed The Black Keys' Strange Times (#35), The Hold Steady's Stay Positive (#23), Cut Copy's In Ghost Colours (#14) and The Kills' Midnight Boom (#13). Go there for MP3s and great writing from even people who are not me.

Also at the Passion, I wrote about The Veronicas' "Untouched," as part of The Best 25 Non-Hip Hop Songs of 2008 (M-Z edition). The A-L list is good too, even though I'm not writing about anything in it. (Fuck the first half of the alphabet.) And because I write about hip-hop too, if you go take a look at The Passion's Best 25 Hip Hop Songs of 2008 list, you'll find my thoughts on The Game's "My Life" (#24) and B.O.B.'s "Fuck You" (#21, though it's my favorite song of the year) Each of those lists is also up on the L.A. Weekly's Play Blog, so I guess I'm part of the Los Angeles media industry now? I can't wait for my first Hollywood party. I'm holding auditions for my Entourage as we speak. There is a good chance I'm actually the Turtle of my own entourage.

And finally, at the now deceased What Was It Anyway, I argue that No Age's Nouns is quite enjoyable and Portishead's Third really isn't. Anyone who disagrees with me, including the other writers in that article, is wrong.

And now, in case you still haven't got enough of reading about what I did and thought in December, let's talk about this:

I saw The Mountain Goats play the Manning Bar quite a while back now; it was actually the night before I saw Kanye West and Nas. But I held my review off, trying to get it published somewhere that would pay me, something which never happened. And then I got caught up in writing all that stuff I've linked to above. But if we all pretend that I've dug out a highly sought-after rarity from my archives, it's not going to matter that I'm putting up a review of a show that happened more than a month ago. Besides, if you behave yourselves and read this without complaint, I may consider writing up the Santogold/Sharon Jones/Grace Jones shows I'm going to tomorrow night.

The Mountain Goats
Manning Bar
Sydney
December 5, 2008

Not quite ready for his close-up

On Friday night at the University of Sydney’s Manning Bar, one of John Darnielle’s fans was unhappy. Darnielle, the singer, song-writer, and at times, sole member of indie rock group the Mountain Goats had just announced he would play a love song.

“Hush,” Darnielle defended himself. Love songs are lovely. Besides, he explained, the lovers in this song are doomed. “If it’s any consolation.”

The audience cheered, satisfied at this, and the Mountain Goats began “Dinu Lipatti’s Bones,” a song with such romantic sentiments as “[we] treated the days as though they’d kill us if they could.”

Doom is a common state for Darnielle’s characters. Drug addicted, outcast or mentally ill, they teeter on the brink of ruin. But Mountain Goats’ songs are characterised by vitality, not misery; for Darnielle, disaster and liberation are not only closely tied, they are inseparable.

On “Dance Music,” a rousing tune refashioned tonight with a slight calypso lilt, he sings of retreating from fear and violence into his record collection. “You’re the last best thing I got going,” he begs a lover, and the audience finished his plea with charged morbidity: “And I don’t want to die alone!”

“Let me down gently,” the singer continued, anything but downtrodden.

Darnielle began the Mountain Goats as a solo project, recording his music live to cassette tape, and although today he makes his albums in studios and tours with a full band, his tunes still retain their ramshackle origins. As usual, he had arranged the set list for that night only hours before, which at one point caused him to express surprise at his own choice. He usually played “You or Your Memory” with a full band, he explained. What had he been thinking? Despite his doubts, he performed the contemplative tune adeptly.

The Mountain Goats split their set between a solo portion for Darnielle and acoustic full-band and electric sections, but each consisted of the same spare elements: Darnielle’s clear, ringing vocal and driving guitar chords. His voice has two styles: a hushed recitation and an exhilarated holler. When he launches into the latter, he sounds caught halfway between pain and overpowering joy.

Darnielle details his songs with complete narratives and multi-faceted characters. That attentiveness came through in his performance. His take on the old “Hello Sydney” rock ‘n’ roll trick was to re-write one song, “Pigs that Ran Straightaway Into the Water, Triumph Of” to include a local suburb: “I come from Newtown, so all your threats are empty,” he sang at that tune’s close, to an appreciative roar from his audience.

In glasses and with conservatively-cut dark hair, Darnielle is slightly reminiscent of the American parody talk show host Stephen Colbert, and like Colbert, on stage, the Mountain Goat has a humour and ease not suggested by his bookish looks. Clad in suit jacket and an open collar, he joked about his Catholicism, bantered with the audience about his ostensibly severe, though, by all measures unapparent, jet lag, and gave tips for betting on boxing. (Manny Pacquiao will defeat Oscar De La Hoya, he said, but cautions that he is not putting money on such an outcome.) His patter, like his lyrics, was conversational, and his shaggy dog stories could have almost been actual songs had they been accompanied by instrumentation.

The show ended with a quintessential Mountain Goats tune, and thanks to frequent Triple J play, something close to a local hit. In “This Year,” about growing up with an abusive parent, Darnielle sings of driving home drunk, “picturing the look on my step father’s face, waiting for the bad things to come.” The audience joined him for the chorus. “I am gonna make it through this year,” they shouted ecstatically, then added the characteristic Mountain Goats clause: “If it kills me.”