The Presets

Never heard of Aussie's electro duo, The Presets, but they kicked ass. Walter Meego opened, a Chicago trio who were awesome but didn't get much love from the audience. The Presets were amazing and somehow got an audience of LA fuckers bouncing for their whole show. It was great, I really felt I was in 1985.

www.myspace.com/thepresets
www.myspace.com/waltermeego

Mason Jennings

I am fucking late. Apologies. Yes, it was quite random, and it felt like I was at the best high school talent show ever, but Santa Monica High is a legitimate venue. Mason Jennings, Brett Dennen, and Missy Higgins sounded great playing at Barnum Hall, which happens to be the theater for Santa Monica High. We missed Miss Missy, but Brett Dennen is amazing! He seriously got the whole place bumping. Everyone was a chilled out for Mason, but his new songs sound awesome. "I Love Jesus and Buddha Too" is probably going to be one of my favorites--can't wait for the new album.

www.masonjennings.com
www.brettdennen.net
www.missyhiggins.com

Flood in a Drought

Recently more and more music has become unsatisfying. I am not bagging on new bands but music I have been listening to regardless of conception date. Whether it be due to the amount I have listened to it or the fact that creating my own music has devalued other artists one unexpected fact remains: this is a good thing. It has caused those few really standout perfect albums to remain while the dregs are burned in the pyre of replay that is radio and friends' cars. I am beginning to see a few indisputably awesome albums that shine through the superfluous and vacuous muck that I once loved, but now trudge through disappointingly. So now I will call to those albums that really stand the test of time. First, Wolf Parade's Apologies to the Queen Mary. If there was an album that encapsulated the sheer pain of life and the ecstasy of its freedom in one blaring, yodeling middle finger solute - this would be it. This is a true album that can only be fully appreciated in its entirety, and to listen to individual songs is at least negligence and at most a gross insult to this great piece of art. Second, Animal Collective's Feels. Despite the genius of the bands recent endeavors including Strawberry Jam and Water Curses this album still remains one of their most prolific and piercing albums. While I am a ridiculously huge fan of Water Curses it is too much in its infancy for me to be blaring my opinions (even if it may be the peak of AC as we know it). On a side note this album includes one of the most romantic lines in all of lyricdom short of The New Pornographers Sing me Spanish Techno. This is of course Flesh Canoe's universal "singing to you what to do if id ask you to make funny faces with me in the mirror of the bathroom". If you ever wanted to float into yourself backwards and come out upside down take an afternoon with this album in a small room with no windows. I guarantee you will rip your clothes off in a vain attempt to express the euphoria within this album before you get halfway. Third, Otis Redding's The Dock of the Bay. When people reference the great blows dealt to music as we know it from the unfortunate deaths of promising artists who would've surely changed the face of music, a few names come to mind. Buddy Holly, John Bonham, but no one loss is possibly as tragic to the fate of music as the loss of Otis Redding. One of the most soulful and heartfelt artists ever (as I hear the cries of Ray Charles fans everywhere) was taken before many people were able to appreciate his genius and that of this album. Blues cannot describe how blue this album is, the spectrum fails to find a color solemn, melancholic, and bitter enough to describe the bite and feel of this album. Finally, The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds. Brian Wilson manages to capture adolescence in all of its innocence and perfection before the leap into experience. This album seems to define the cliff between adolescence and adulthood more than many people are able to, giving solace and fond reminiscence to an otherwise chaotic and desperate time. This album gives a window with which to recapture what was thought impossible to experience past its prime: youth. The irony of permanence this album gives to time itself would otherwise seem a luciferin attempt to decry the order of what is, if it were not for the calm harmonies and soothing falsetto of Brian Wilson. Pet Sounds is perhaps one of the greatest rebel albums ever made because it would seem ridiculous to call it as such.

Limbeck

Yesterday was National Record Store Day, so indie record stores all over the states got together and had sales, in-stores, giveaways, and such things. I had the option of catching Silversun Pickups or Limbeck, which I have never heard of. Out of Orange County, half the band showed up for an acoustic set, and it was alright. Very down to earth pop songs with a little country bite. Imagine Rocky Votolato meets optimism meets Calexico hollow body solos.

http://www.limbeck.net/

Mike Seeger is wrapping up a residency at UCLA this weekend with the famous Ashgrove Festival. This week he gave talks on the journey of the guitar through America, as well as history on other instruments found in old timey America. Including the Jew's harp, which he is holding above, the banjo, and more obscure instruments such as the banjo ukulele and the quills (a southern pan pipe). Some highlights were Seeger and his wife playing a Carter Family song and the Elizabeth Cotton song, "Freight Train."

http://www.mikeseeger.com

Mia Doi Todd

A late report of Mia Doi Todd at the Echo! About a decade ago folk music was in a place that could be characterized as making country folk cool. Whether it was a slide guitar or a tex-mex backbeat. Now folk music seems to be in a romantic period, with themes shifting from drugs, drinking, and relationships to nature and transcendental thought. Yes, yes, all these themes and instrumentalization are a constant somewhere in folk, but right now folk music is quite romantic, bringing to mind Nick Drake, John Fahey, or any folk musician of the psycho-60's. Mia Doi Todd is a contemporary of Jose Gonzalez and Devendra Banhart, who both focus on themes found in the art songs of traditional romanticism. With a droning harmonium at her feet, the keys being held in place by coins, she played her guitar and sang simple poems about love and nature. Now Mia Doi Todd is an example of this type of transcendental music being awesome. Her opening act, The Dead Flowers, can suck dick, because that is all they were doing last Thursday.

http://www.miadoitodd.com

4/10/08 - Karin Tatoyan at the Echo

karin tatoyan_0096
Originally uploaded by arbouler jameson, i love you!

Easily this was the most incredible display of musical intensity I've ever seen during my career as a show-goer. Karin Tatoyan and her band were great!A drum+drummachiner, cellist, and a french horner, all did backup to Karin's keyboard, theremin and vocal shenanigans. I showed up a little into their set but my attention was immediately grasped. All of the songs were excellent. There was a little bit of hip-hop beats with the drum machine and a lot of tastefull vocal and instrumental looping. The highlight of the show was about half way through the set. To paraphrase:

"This is so important to me right now. I feel like.... a nebula... out there...."

And she goes into this glorious song all wild eyed and crazy. She starts screaming and playing her theremin, eventually slamming it into the stage where it shatters and pieces of it fly off into the audience. The audience loved it, but it was sort of strange having such a small crowd applauding with such approval.