The Trucks have gained one very skeptical fan in this writer. I can’t stand it when music is directed at a specific audience. I hated every single, critically acclaimed Sleater-Kinney album because I felt so completely alienated by their lyrics, their fan base, and often their message. I would go as far as to say that I felt unwelcome to enjoy many all-female bands.
Rating: 6.75
The cover art gets a perfect ten. As for the music, it’s cheeky and clever, whimsical, and sports a consistent combination of electronic beats and habit-forming pop melodies. Swedish duo Peter Gunnarson and Johan Hedberg have created feel-good music in this album chock full of happy-go-lucky ditties transparently influenced by the likes of the Magnetic Fields. Their mission? To “turn all the dance floors into a burning inferno of ba-ba- ba”, says Labrador. If I must put this band in a category, I’ll go with what they claim on MySpace: “Hyphy/Tropical/Regional Mexican”. Also lifted off their MySpace page: “sounds like a long line of rocks or sand near the surface of the sea”.
Hoof Closeup
Neumo’s
Seattle WA
February 1, 2007
w/ Black and Black
and Leti Angel
What’s up with opening bands? I mean seriously: where do they find these people? Here I am, Thursday night, minding my own business, hanging out and waiting for Deerhoof to play. I had already endured the opener’s thirty minutes when these two girls who might be in high school and this guy who might be (and is) in the band Phantom Planet come out onto the stage. And the way they’re angular and attractive and solemn, well it’s evident that something strange is brewin’. I knew it – the crowd knew – we all knew it like animals know it when a forest is gonna burn down; we knew it but we really didn’t know what it meant. There was a VIP space on the balcony at Neumo’s this night, and there were people eating sushi, and you couldn’t go into this area unless you knew something. Something was up, oh yeah. And then I heard the people behind me mention it and the pieces fell together and it all made perfect sense: Black Black was from LA!
Rating: 6.0
Mark Kozelek has had an intriguing career. In 1992, his band Red House Painters had their first collection of songs, which were essentially demos, released on the illustrious 4AD Records. The record, entitled Down Colorful Hill, only contained six songs, but each one is either a masterpiece or damn near sonically perfect. One can tell even now that the amount of care and precision that went into those demos was rare and the results are what make the record timeless and immortal.
Rating 0.0, 10.0
I really wanted to review the new Shins album. Because of recently adopted “high-horse” stance on music piracy, I waited patiently for the kind folks at SubPop to mail me the CD. “Cool!” I thought when I finally got it, two weeks before its release date.
Rating: 8.2
So now, for the question of the day: (All of you indie rock stalwarts will already have heard this story. Bear with me.) What do old record players and the infamous Karate Kid have in common? You guessed it, (or didn’t): the fab new kraut-electro-straight-outta-1971 (hello Can and Neu!) threesome of David Best, Steve Lewis and Matt Hainsby – Fujiya & Miyagi. Best and company melded Fujiya, the name of a record player, and Miyagi, the all-knowing sage of Karate Kid fame, into a name for themselves and separated the two with an ampersand. Matt Hainsby got the luck of the draw and is cleverly known as “&”. Their new album, Transparent Things, is anything but transparent. And they aren’t Japanese. They’re British.
Rating: 7.5
In listening to Yours To Keep, the solo debut of Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond Jr., one can’t escape comparing the album to the Strokes. I’ve always been a fan of Hammond Jr.’s razor-edged guitar playing and the Strokes’ impeccably tight presentation; Hammond is, in his way, a very good guitarist, and it follows that any project he embarks on is worth an honest listen. Yours To Keep is worth more than just one—Hammond has amassed a diverse collection of catchy, clean pop songs marked by maturity and romanticism.