One concession to the Halloweekend: Wild Beasts hoot and howl

Other than that stupendous Dead Man’s Bones track I posted at the dawning of this month, I’ve mostly avoided soundtracking the spooky season. But after a day watching students attired in sheets and sparkles and feathers, and as I now prepare to assemble my own costume for tonight (#1 of 2 for the weekend), I am suddenly in a Halloweeny mood. This Wild Beasts remix is the most perfect thing I’ve heard for all your festivities, to get your Halloween party hopping –and possibly hooting and howling– this weekend:

Hooting and Howling (Leo Zero Remix) – Wild Beasts

In related news, Skip Matheny of the band Roman Candle (quickly becoming one of my favorite new-to-me bands of this year) recently interviewed Wild Beasts for American Songwriter Magazine, in a debut feature called “Drinks With.” Skip used to be a bartender in a retirement home (rad), and sits down to drink and discuss music with this British 4-piece in the basement of the Mercury Lounge, before they played a show together.

I thought it was a shining example of what can happen when musicians get to talk music, instead of us commoners who know not what we speak of. Skip had great questions, like:

When you are writing, do you all think in terms of pop songs or craft? For example the repeated line from your song “All the King’s Men,” “Let me show my darling what that means” works in a similar way to an old ballad, or to the repeated line in a song like “The Gallery” by Joni Mitchell. By the last time you hear the repeated phrase, it’s incredibly different and twisted from the first time you heard it.

HT: I think the beauty of pop is that it’s forgiving of everything. You can throw anything into it, and it’s still pop. You can throw in some sort of Japanese folk music with ghetto hip-hop, and it is pop. Also, it is a really underestimated skill: taking big ideas and condensing them down into simple lines. Some people have just got it. I think we’ve gotten better at it.

All The Kings Men (live on Daytrotter) – Wild Beasts

Also, in that Daytrotter session write-up, Sean Moeller muses how “Hayden Thorpe sounds like David Bowie, out there making mini operas, the kinds of which no one has ever attempted before. He does this with sweeping textures and resplendent coloring, making us feel as if we’ve never seen this hue they call red before and this yellow is something dream-like and without a properly programmed definition.”

Yes.

Brandi Carlile covers Gary Jules covering Tears for Fears

In the same way that when she covers Hallelujah, she is clearly covering Jeff Buckley’s version of Leonard Cohen’s song, when Washington singer/songwriter Brandi Carlile took on “Mad World” at Portland’s Schnitzer Hall last Thursday night, she was wailing her way through Gary Jules’ unsettlingly sad version (from Donnie Darko) of the Tears for Fears song.

This gives me chills; sometimes I wander away from listening as much to her as I used to a few years ago when her stunning first album came out, but then I am reminded all over again of that voice and how much brutal raw emotion she can squeeze into three minutes. She has a marvelous new album Give Up The Ghost that she is touring in support of, and still manages to always pick out some of my favorite songs in the world to cover. We’re, like, music soulmates.

Mad World (Gary Jules/Tears for Fears) – Brandi Carlile
(live in Portland, 10-22-09)

Whatchu talkin’ bout Willis?

Today on my lunch hour I sat in my office and watched the snow twirl outside in hard white specks, while the last of the reddish leaves fell off that huge gorgeous tree by my window. A new reader from England sent me an mp3 link to an interview author Nick Hornby gave last week on Robert Elms’ BBC London radio show to talk about his new movie, his new book, and the role of pop music in the world today. I queued it up, and as we neared the 28-minute mark and I heard one of my favorite authors say the name of my blog, my face turned all shades of flushed and my heart pounded with a hearty measure of disbelief.

Nick’s been extremely kind and encouraging to write about the places he finds joy in my site (like this wow!), and I love that we hear music in the same ways — but for an audiophile like me who runs an mp3 blog, hearing him talk about it with his own charming voice was really, well… the capper of my music-geek year.

I stifled a whoop lest my co-workers become suspicious, and felt humbled and very happy. I guess after Songbook and High Fidelity and the new Juliet, Naked, we can call this one even, Nick. Thanks.

Nick Hornby on Robert Elms – BBC London (Oct 23)

Lou Barlow covers La Roux for youx

Whereas the original song (by British electropop duo La Roux) is all sheen and hard candy shellac, Lou Barlow‘s interpretation of it is almost haunting. For me when I hear the original, it feels like sparkly nights out dancing, and the lines that stand out are the ones about “been there, done that, messed around, I’m having fun, don’t put me down.” She’s bulletproof the way a cartoon superhero is; she doesn’t bleed real blood.

But here Lou takes it and turns it inside out, makes it echo with all the empty space. When he vows, “this time baby, this time I’ll be…bulletproof,” I find that I don’t believe him, any more than I ever believe we can completely seal off our hearts as hermetically as we’d sometimes like.

Bulletproof (La Roux cover) – Lou Barlow

Watch the three-song video set from SPIN; Barlow has a new album out this month on Merge called Goodnight Unknown.

And speaking of all things Barlow: you Denverites can win tix for Dinosaur Jr‘s upcoming stop Thursday night via the classy people at Donnybrook Writing Academy (they who can be eternally thanked also for this piece on Stupid Band Names).

mom, dad, i want guitar lessons

Fascinating to look at your favorite magic all broken apart and splayed out simple.

Remember, the Dessner brothers’ art & music interpretation about the beginning of time is at the Brooklyn Academy of Music this weekend.

[via]

I wanna kiss you while the band’s playing rock ‘n’ roll :: Lucero in Denver last night

Lucero was thrilling and raspy and redemptive last night at Denver’s Ogden Theatre. While heavy snows fell outside on Colfax Avenue, we all stayed warm and somewhat dry via a combination of combustible energy, communal body heat, and a generous lubrication of whiskey. Their punk-edged alt-country was authentic and earnest, swinging from wistful to rocking to full-blooded Memphis soul.

Frontman Ben Nichols impressed me in a number of ways, as his taut magnetic energy centers the stage through the sheer gravitation pull of his stage presence. First off, dude’s wiry and wily-looking, sinewed skinny arms covered in tattoos, hair standing up like he’s constantly disheveling it with his hands, white t-shirt and jeans with a red bandanna sticking out the back pocket. As my friend Josh and I decided, if he was in prison, despite his charms, he looks like he could definitely fuck your shit up. We also discussed what the difference was between a shank and a shiv. We did not settle the matter before Lucero began to rock, with this song from their new album, a fine example of what we were in for:

Sound Of The City – Lucero

All the elements I love about Lucero’s recorded music simply explode in concert. Even though the lyrics are often aching ones of loss or bad decisions, there is often a hearty streak of wild romanticism in the music, or sly turns of a phrase that made me smile (“I was kissing the bottle when I shoulda been kissing you”). This tour features the addition of two Memphis horn players (a sax and a trumpet) and, man — did that cut through the air superbly, those frissons of shiny brass sound classing up the joint last night. Along with six other band members (pedal steel, guitar, kickass drums, bass, keys, and Ben’s fronting) the stage was as crowded as the sticky floor.

I also had A Moment at that show last night, one that I won’t soon forget, one of those moments where you feel your insides get so hot and full of some sort of unexpected joy that you think something might burst. As I’ve mentioned before, “I Can Get Us Out Of Here” (from 2006′s Rebels, Rogues and Sworn Brothers) is one of my very best-loved songs of the last five years or more. I’ve listened to that melody hundreds of times, and it is good for fist-pumping, fast driving, but also feeling the most plaintive kinds of yearning known by folks like Springsteen.

Trying to beat the storm last night, I was edging (very slowly) towards the door for every song after about halfway through the set. I just could not pull myself away, slick ice and fiery autocrashes be damned. After Ben worked through a gorgeous mini-set of solo material from the Cormac-McCarthy-inspired Last Pale Light of the West, I had given up hope of hearing my favorite song before prudence made me leave.

Suddenly the band took the stage again, and the familiar kickdrums thumped out as the band peeled into a simply blistering rendition of the song. The final guitar solo sounded more like epic transcendence than anything of recent memory, and as Brian Venable played the last note he threw his arms out to the side, cutting the hot air with electric finality. The sweet, sad piano refrain picked up, and Ben half-smiled when he sang, “Come on babe, don’t look so sad, you know it ain’t half that bad…” and in my creative imagination, he glanced in my direction. I felt like, yeah, you know… it really ain’t that bad.

I believed him.

[The setlist (and torrent) of last night’s show is here, already.
Lucero has some crazy dedicated fans. After last night, I kinda count myself as on my way.]

if you’ve got something to say, say it to me now

Irish songwriter Glen Hansard took the crowd outside Fingerprints by surprise last week, as they waited in line for his appearance inside with Marketa Irglova (of The Swell Season, and the movie Once):

Doesn’t that just give you the best kind of visceral reaction in your gut-parts? Sometimes I wish we could always live inside wonderful moments just like that, where people sing out what they mean, and mean the things they sing. Glen is an artist of the first-class.

That night their set included tracks from the new album Strict Joy (out tomorrow on Anti- Records), the Once soundtrack, Leave (The Frames), Tim Buckley’s Buzzin’ Fly (Jeff Buckley was once Glen’s roadie, ‘member?), and “New Partner” by Will Oldham. Those who were there say it was truly magical.

Say It To Me Now – The Frames
(from Hansard’s 1996 album Fitzcarraldo; a version was later on the Once Soundtrack)

In conjunction with the fine folks at Fingerprints, I have one autographed poster from that event to give away. It’s only signed by Glen (“Marketa wasn’t feeling great, so after the performance and almost two hours of meeting fans we set her free for the nap that was calling so loudly”).

Leave me a comment if you’d like to be entered for the poster — and go see Swell Season on tour this fall, eh?

SWELL SEASON FALL TOUR DATES
11/01 Milwaukee, WI – The Pabst
11/02 Indianapolis, IN – Clownes Theatre
11/03 Toronto, ON – Massey Hall
11/04 Montreal, QC – Olympia
11/06 Boston, MA – Berklee Performing Arts Centre
11/07 Providence, RI – Lupo’s
11/08 Philadelphia, PA – Merriam
11/09 Washington, DC – 9:30 Club
11/12 New Orleans, LA – House of Blues
11/13 Houston, TX – Warehouse Live
11/14 Dallas, TX – Palladium
11/15 Austin, TX – The Paramount
11/17 Mesa, AZ – Mesa Arts
11/18 Los Angeles, CA – The Wiltern
11/19 Los Angeles, CA – The Wiltern (WITH JOSH RITTER)
11/20 Oakland, CA – The Paramount
11/22 Seattle,WA – The Paramount
11/24 Portland, OR – Crystal Ballroom
11/25 Vancouver, BC – Centre For the Performing Arts
11/27 Boise, ID – Egyptian
11/28 Salt Lake City, UT – Jeanne Wagner Theatre
11/29 Denver, CO – The Ogden
11/30 Kansas City, MO – Uptown
12/03 Chicago, IL – Auditorium Theater
12/04 St. Louis, MO – The Pageant
12/05 Minneapolis, MN – The State Theatre
01/19 NYC, NY – Radio City Music Hall (WITH JOSH RITTER)

rivers run but soon run dry

[via stolenlyric.com, words from U2]

Win a Lucero poster (hey darling … do you gamble?)

Gravelly-voiced, unrelentingly rocking Memphis band Lucero engenders the most rabid of fans, and for good reason. Their songs pulse hot and true with the heart of rock and roll (yes, Huey, it is still beating).

Lucero comes through Denver on Tuesday night on their “Ramblin Roadshow & Memphis Revue” tour, in support of their sixth studio album 1372 Overton Park. The album is their major-label debut, and was produced by Ted Hutt (The Gaslight Anthem). After a series of near misses, I think this time I will finally make it to be baptized into the cult. The show is rumored to be daunting in its intensity, but I hope mostly it won’t hurt.

To celebrate with us, talented Denver poster artist Alan Peters (Jupiter Visual) has offered a pair of posters to Fuel/Friends readers. The posters are three-color screenprints, 13″x20″ on kraft brown enviro-cardstock. They’re pretty damn cool.

TO WIN: The new album is named after the Memphis loft where the band used to live and make music, but also enviable: in the ’70s, 1372 Overton Park was a karate dojo where local resident Elvis Presley, among others, took lessons. Tell me a story in the comments about a place you used to live. I’ll pick two winners on Monday night before I go to bed.

Nichols is one of the finest writers we have of music to accompany bitter disillusionment and heartbreak, but Lucero’s best songs also burst forth with a sort of irrepressible hope — here, in the shiny Memphis horns.

1372 Overton Park is out now; see you Tuesday at the show.

“So what if all my heroes are the losing kind?
We ended up with nothing, but we put up a fight.

Well come on little darlin’, can’t you cut us all some slack?
‘Cause the winners they all took off babe, and they’re never coming back…”

What Are You Willing To Lose? – Lucero
(from the new album)

Hey Darling, Do You Gamble? – Ben Nichols of Lucero, solo
(great song with a Townes Van Zandt backstory, from this earlier post)

PS: This Lucero song is still one of my favorites from them — or from anyone for that matter. It’s made it onto near every mix CD I’ve made for the past 3 years.

LUCERO FALL 2009 TOUR DATES
Oct 23 – Varsity Theater – Minneapolis, MN *
Oct 26 – Aggie Theatre – Ft. Collins, CO †
Oct 27 – Ogden Theatre – Denver, CO †
Oct 29 – The Crocodile – Seattle, WA †
Oct 30 – Hawthorne Theatre – Portland, OR †
Nov 1 – Mezzanine – San Francisco, CA †
Nov 4 – The Casbah – San Diego, CA †
Nov 5 – The Clubhouse – Tempe, AZ †
Nov 7 – Longhorn Saloon – Ft. Worth, TX #
Nov 8 – Fun Fun Fun Fest – Austin, TX #
Nov 9 – Meridian – Houston, TX #
Nov 10 – Alabama Music Box – Mobile, AL #
Nov 12 – Club Downunder @ FL State Univ. – Tallahassee, FL #
Nov 13 – Czar – Tampa, FL #
Nov 14 – Lizzie McCormick Stage – Orlando, FL #
Nov 15 – Café Eleven – St. Augustine, FL #
Nov 17 – Visulite Theatre – Charlotte, NC #
Nov 18 – 40 Watt Club – Athens, GA #
Nov 19 – Valarium – Knoxville, TN #
Nov 20 – Orange Peel – Asheville, NC #
Nov 21 – Headliners – Louisville, KY #

* with Amy LaVere and Cedric Burnside & Lightnin’ Malcolm
† with Jack Oblivian and John Paul Keith & the One Four Fives
# with Cedric Burnside & Lightnin’ Malcolm and The City Champs

Nathaniel Rateliff & The Wheel wow at CMJ, sign to Rounder Records

I just heard from the fine Rounder Records label (Delta Spirit, Sondre Lerche, Son Volt) that they have signed Denver’s Nathaniel Rateliff and The Wheel, one of my other favorite Colorado bands! Today is a good day for Colorado music; they absolutely deserve it.

Early Spring Till – Nathaniel Rateliff & The Wheel

The Wheel just played a stunning set at Brooklyn Vegan’s CMJ showcase last night, and are opening for Mason Jennings in a few weeks.

When I saw Rateliff and The Wheel open for Bon Iver this summer, they captured the attention of the crowd and held us all riveted in place for the entire set, enchanted. I wrote that “their intricate, melancholy songs are steeped in goodness and ready for a larger stage.” Looks like they’re on their way to getting it.

[my pic above from the Bon Iver show set]