Warped Speed
BE YOUR OWN PET JOIN WARPED TOUR
According to this Pitchfork article, the mighty munchkins of Be Your Own Pet will be joining the Warped Tour for dates in July and August. The skater-punks will surely enjoy a little of Jemima Pearl’s madcap live antics and you know WE’LL be loving her at her upcoming Stubb’s show this Thursday. Prepare for pictures on Friday of that show.
********************************************************************
JOHANSSON’S TOM WAITS ALBUM STREAMING
Imeem is streaming Scarlett Johansson’s Tom Waits covers album. Check it out here and prepare to float on a wave of shoegazey-goodness with Marilyn Monroe providing vocals.
********************************************************************
CARRIE BROWNSTEIN POSTS NEW MONITOR MIX
Carrie Brownstein, writer for NPR and guitarist of the greatest American punk band to have ever existed Sleater-Kinney, has uploaded a new Monitor Mix. Check that shit out, it’s even got the Libertines on it!
********************************************************************
FULL-LENGTH EVIL URGES REVIEW
Here’s a new feature – full-length reviews! Check out this new one for My Morning Jacket’s Evil Urges and comment if you like it! Warning, long text ahead!
“The title track off of My Morning Jacket’s newest LP Evil Urges begins innocently enough, strutting in with a snare-drum downbeat, soft, funky guitar-plucking, and a twangy, country guitar riff, complete with syrupy slides, a seeming reassurance that the alt-country giants are back in fine form. However, as lead singer Jim James slinks in with a surprising, layered alto, a soulful falsetto croon more reminiscent of Curtis Mayfield than Neil Young, it becomes apparent that the Kentucky quintet is not in Louisville anymore. “Evil Urges”, a bricolage of extremely divergent genres including funk, Southern-rock, blues, and country, serves as a warmup to the album as a whole which, through its swerving between the Jacket’s noted strengths and their continuing flights with experimentalist tendencies, makes for a fantastic voyage and the band’s most original and exciting work to date.
For any longtime fans of My Morning Jacket it should be clear by now, after 2006’s acclaimed Z, that the band’s penchant for reverb-soaked vocals and hushed instrumental strains have long since taken a back seat to piercing Prince-style vocals and fiery guitar heroics. The flecks of artistry and inspiration that peppered their debut effort The Tennessee Fire and separated it from contemporaries have been given room to breathe and fleshed out in all their glory. The band’s slow rise to fame recalls a roller-coaster ride, clicking up the tall first ascent with their debut and sophomore LP, the excellent At Dawn. The band’s Southern-rock dominance stood high atop the peak with the magnificent It Still Moves. And if the wildly innovative Z is the excitement of the first drop, Evil Urges is the first loop and the listeners are not strapped in but trusted to be stuck to their seats by the music’s sheer chaotic force.
Urges, unlike previous Jacket LPs, contains not one extraneous song, not one skippable track, and flows elegantly from classic late-60s outlaw country like “Smokin’ From Shootin” and “Sec Walkin’” to barn-burning rockers like “Aluminum Park” and “Remnants” to radical mutations like the disco-rock “Highly Suspicious” or the bizarre instrumentation of both parts of “Touch Me I’m Going to Scream”. To describe the album as incomparable would not be wholly inaccurate, as its style varies so wildly and its influence seems cherry-picked from the best rock has had to offer since its inception. However, the album might be most accurately described as a rough combination of R&B-style singing and Flaming Lips’ madcap experimentalism, all painted on a canvas of Lynyrd Skynyrd country-fried rock and roll. Overall the piece gels fantastically and weirdly, stunning longtime fans with how different a band with a seemingly simple foundation, that of classic Southern-rock, can sound when they let loose their artistic urges, and flooring first time listeners with its disparity and creativity.
During this year’s South By Southwest Music Festival My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James performed a solo set at St. David’s Episcopal Church to a hushed crowd of 240, all of whom witnessed acoustic performances of old classics such as “Gideon” and new tracks like “Librarian”. Much like during this performance, the listeners of Urges are all witness to the church of Jim James, only instead of reverent sermons he is preaching hellfire, brimstone, and yes, evil from the pulpit, raining down a musical storm on we the parishioners. Bow down before the mighty My Morning Jacket because they’ve just crafted one of the best records of the year. “
Categories: be your own pet, carrie brownstein, evil urges, monitor mix, my morning jacket, npr, scarlett johansson, sleater-kinney, tom waits, warped tour
Tags:
Comments: 1 Comment.
Or, The Whale is an alternative country band I have really been getting into lately. Check them out