September 20, 2013

another uninnocent elegant fall :: The National at Red Rocks (9/17/13)

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There is a skittish, soft part of me that was actually scared to go see The National under a full moon at Red Rocks on Tuesday night.

One of my most charming relational characteristics (#sarcasm) is the way I sometimes slither-sidestep away like a silvery fish from things that are too emotionally intense. Sometimes I dive in; lots of times I dive right in. But when it really, truly disarms me and strikes at my heart in a way I can’t defend against, I will go away and need to be coaxed to come back. I love The National — love them probably more than any other band right now, and have for the last seven years. Their nuanced, elegant, intelligent songwriting has soundtracked my brutally bloody / tragically doomed / completely beautiful first relationship after my divorce, and has been insidiously inside my head like a brain tapeworm ever since, needling and gnawing at nerves and receptors, helping me make sense of the mess. It’s so bizarre, in a way, to feel like you know someone simply because of their artistic output. It’s ridiculously beautiful, actually.

So I was scared to see them Tuesday for these reasons. I wanted to be there, so much, and I knew it might temporarily decimate me. I spent much of the concert quite content in my own untouchable zone; the huge gusts of fresh Indian-summer wind kept lifting my hair up off my neck, and drying the relentless water that just kept streaming down from my eyes. I vacillated between floating mental-miles away and being completely enmeshed in the magnificent and powerful performance of the songs I love. The experience of the music was so enhanced by the massive LED light screen flashing these perfect, complicated images behind them. The visual component was new in this elaborate presentation for all the times I have seen them, and it felt like an extraction of my thoughts and the band’s thoughts and all the dark dreams that populate our subconscious flashing up there for all to see. It was exquisite and disarming. I also kept tilting my head up to look at that bold moon rising over the red rocks with a shining corona around it for the first hour of its ascent.

My friend (and talented photographer) Brittney Bollay saw them play last night in Seattle, and she expressed how I feel, exactly, when I connect with the words of these songs:

“It’s like [Matt] crawls inside my head and my chest and finds all my thoughts and feelings. When I see him perform it’s like I inhabit him and he inhabits me, just for a little while. It’s this feeling of partial displacement and symbiosis. I’ve never had that experience with any other band.”

Take that video above of “About Today”: something as simple as the juxtaposition of the song (drums like a heartbeat keeping you awake) along with the visuals of those stark tree branches in winter + the thickly-billowing black smoke that won’t relent, and then — the blue note saturated darkness when he whispers the lines, “Hey, are you awake…” and that ridiculous crescendo crash of the song careening away — that’s it. I’m done for. I wish you could have been there.

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I walked around backstage a bit tongue-tied and gobsmacked after the show, meeting The National deep in the veins of Red Rocks, and it was an out-of-body experience for the reasons that Brittney explains. As thoughtful and appreciative as I am of the complicated and sublime nature of their music, it can be next to impossible to sum that up in a way that means anything. I didn’t figure out what I really wanted to say until the next day driving home (which is regretful because, you know …none of the band members were there then), but in addition to the conversations we actually had, I wanted to say a version of this:

One time an author friend and I were talking, and he told me that the first time he picked up an Anne Tyler novel, he knew he wanted to be an author. Calling it “a straightforward chemical connection,” he explained to me that: “I think we have sockets in our backs, really complicated, like, thirty-five pin sockets, and sometimes something or somebody plugs right in and there’s no real explanation. Or rather, there is, but it would be memoir-length.”

I think about 35-pin sockets ALL the time because of this conversation, as it pertains to human relationships, my connections to art, music, foreign cities — everything around me (as some of my favorite friends can attest to). What I wanted to try to explain to Matt was that The National fits all 35 of my pins, and plugs right in.

They fit the pin that loves a carefully-crafted sentence which achingly frames words perfectly around that fleeting feeling that is gone before you even really notice that it’s fully there.

They fit the pin that loves a bit of dissonance in my pleasure, whether melodic or existential.

And the pin that wants to blissfully numb out my voraciously-moving brain with narcotic percussion.

Also the pin that (as I wrote about in my review of Trouble Will Find Me) likes to prod at that simultaneous engagement with the sentimental and the fatalistic, things that we traditionally think of as being at odds with each other.

It’s kind of terrifying to love any musicians as much as I find myself still loving this band. I am so grateful for that, for the fear and the 35 pins.


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THE NATIONAL – RED ROCKS SETLIST
09.17.2013

I Should Live in Salt
Don’t Swallow the Cap
Bloodbuzz Ohio
Demons
Sea of Love
Heavenfaced
Afraid of Everyone
Conversation 16
Squalor Victoria
I Need My Girl
This Is the Last Time
Apartment Story
Abel (!!!)
Lucky You
(gahhhh, seriously?)
Slow Show
Pink Rabbits
Graceless
England
About Today
Fake Empire

Encore:
Humiliation
Mr. November
Terrible Love
Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks
*

(*that final encore was still as affecting as when I saw them do it in 2010; the mark of an incredible song)

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ALL MY PICS FROM TUESDAY ARE OVER AT THE FUEL/FRIENDS FACEBOOK, including those ones with openers Frightened Rabbit and The Local Natives. Photo credit for the last picture above goes to Instagrammer @renae9502.

July 15, 2009

Let’s just say you love me :: The National cover Mark Mulcahy

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Today we got our first listen into the solid forthcoming album of covers of Mark Mulcahy’s songs, Ciao My Shining Star, a benefit album for this wonderfully rich songwriter in his hour of financial need (his wife died, leaving him with small twins to raise).

The lead off track is an icy reworking of “All For The Best” by Radiohead‘s Thom Yorke, and we’ll get to that in a sec, but the one that caught my eye even more quickly is the new cover from The National. I’ve loved this song below for a few years now, and I am flabbergasted at how much the original just sounds like a National song now that I listen to it through that filter. I think this will be the “Sleep All Summer” of my fall – both versions are equally addictive. The closing strings on The National’s version actually caused my chest to hurt.

Ashamed Of The Story I Told (Polaris cover) – The National
Ashamed Of The Story I Told – Polaris

With the backbone of Mark Mulcahy‘s solid songwriting, this covers album looks to be one of the best ones out in 2009 (tied with Dark Was The Night). The roster of artists featured is incredible: Thom Yorke, The National, Michael Stipe, Ben Kweller, Frank Black, Liz Phair, Vic Chesnutt, Elvis Perkins, and more.

So who is Mark Mulcahy and how did he inspire so many of my favorite artists? I first heard of him through Nick Hornby’s Songbook, when he wrote, “I would have missed out on people like Mark Mulcahy, whose first album, Fathering, I bought [on the recommendation of a music shop proprietor], and played repeatedly for months. ‘Hey, Self Defeater,’ the first track … made it onto just about every compilation tape I made that year.”

Mulcahy was also the artist behind the 90s band Polaris, from the TV show The Adventures of Pete & Pete. It was some of the best music ever to hit Nickelodeon — sugar-pop at its finest. I’ve re-upped the previous post with Mulcahy’s songs from the cassette tape you could get from saving Frosted Mini-Wheats barcodes. They are deceptively good for something from a kids show.

Since being introduced, I have come to respect Mulcahy as a literate first-class songwriter, and this song from his band Miracle Legion first appears simple, yet is laden with ache and meaning in the smallest of moments, like watching a sibling cut grass and the overwhelming monotony of life that can imply. The jangly effect of the original reminds me quite a bit of some of my favorite things about late-80s R.E.M or The Smiths. Thom Yorke’s version is distant electronica, layered all crisp and sad and perfect.

All For The Best – Miracle Legion

All For The Best (Miracle Legion cover) – Thom (and Andy) Yorke



Waking up, and the bed was made
no one looked me in the eye
the more I try, the more I cry
and it’s all for the best

Watched my brother cutting grass outside
sitting on the porch he told me
it’s a long way to go before we can rest
but it’s all for the best

You’re so beautiful it sings
on a lonely lazy morning
and when I see you rocking back and forth
whispering that it’s all for the best

One day the stone will roll away
soon you’ll see
you’re far away from home but never far away from me
and that’s all for the best

…and say you love me

Promise me, son, not to do the things I’ve done
walk away from trouble at the end of the day

Say you love me
say you love me

Let’s just say you love me



Devastating and beautiful. That song, and especially Thom’s alienated version of it, slays me.

You need to go snag a few more free songs from throughout Mulcahy’s career, and watch for Ciao My Shining Star: The Songs of Mark Mulcahy, out Sept 29th on Shout Factory. I really cannot wait.

May 6, 2009

Two new songs from The National this weekend

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I am pleased as punch at the audio which has surfaced from this Sunday’s Dark Was The Night benefit show at Radio City Music Hall. How this event did not sell out is beyond me — a superb lineup of The National, Bon Iver, David Byrne, Dirty Projectors, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Feist, Dave Sitek (of TV On The Radio), My Brightest Diamond and Annie Clark of St. Vincent.

You can see Amrit’s excellent pictures from the evening here, and a million thank yous to the awesome NYCTaper site who captured this National audio. Even from the opening notes of Slow Show, this set is warm and full with additional orchestration.

You know I dreamed about you for twenty-nine years before I saw you….

THE NATIONAL
LIVE AT RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL / DARK WAS THE NIGHT
May 3, 2009
Slow Show
England (new song)
So Far Around The Bend
Vanderlylle Cry Baby (new song)
Big Red Machine – Bon Iver & Matt Berninger from The National
(bonus from later in the night)

ZIP: THE NATIONAL AT RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL
(FLAC files available through NYC Taper)



The two new songs sound lugubrious and richly elegant, as can be expected from The National — just gorgeous. “Leave your heart, change your name, live alone, eat your cake….” urges the cryptic Vanderlylle Cry Baby, “the waters are rising, still no surprise.” I love the power of several strong voices all swelling together as the song is sliced through at the end by that loud and ferocious squalling electric guitar. If this is the direction of the next album, I am even more in love with them.



[image via Amrit at Stereogum, the man with the lens. Also, visit NYC Taper for more amazing live recordings — one of my favorite sites.]

January 23, 2009

icy friday nights in january, a glowing Moon, and The National

Kinda like a warm liqueur seeping through the messes of this week, tonight I came across these two National videos and they help ameliorate things. As I wrote after I saw them at Coachella: “The National carved something out of me and put something back in, is the best way I can put it.”

These videos are both shot by Vincent Moon, the amazingly artistic and evocative videographer behind many of the Blogotheque videos (who I got to meet once and totally dorked out over). I love how both of these never quite relent, never quite let you see all the way through the darkness, into something clear.

First, “Abel,” and the chaos of a mind not right:

Side note: I just saw Everything Absent Or Distorted end their set with this last week [read my Denver Post review], and it’s been etched on my brain since then. I’m no Vincent Moon but I wish I’d brought my little digital video camera because it was a phenomenal rendition of a cathartic song.

And then “Baby, We’ll Be Fine,” a song whose lyrics always scrape at me. There’s so much uncertainty in the words, but then these perfect reassurances are offered — even while I sense that the protagonist here needs the reassurance the most.

The good news is I survived this kicker of a week. Baby, we’ll be fine.

August 16, 2008

New from The National :: “A Thousand Black Cities” (live in Copenhagen)

I’m pretty sure that this is the first new National song unveiled since Boxer, in its debut performance earlier this week at The Vega in Copenhagen, Denmark. This mp3 is just a rip from the video above (more pics from the taper here), but for us addicts I suppose it will do temporarily. The title could also be “Believe Me.” Swirling atmosphere and sonorous horns . . . I can’t wait to hear a clean copy of this.

A Thousand Black Cities (new, live 8/12/08) – The National

Also check out the amazing podcast of The National at Lollapalooza, or from the same site, Explosions in the Sky.

[thanks Erica!]

May 20, 2008

The National :: “Without Permission” (from The Virginia EP, out today)

The new Vincent Moon-directed film that follows the making of The National‘s 2007 album Boxer is out today. A Skin, A Night offers the gorgeous treatment that this music deserves, making it feel even more special, all wrapped up in moonlight and grainy black and white. The film is being screened at select U.S. locations (and hmmm, should we do a Denver one?) and if you buy it, the DVD comes paired with an excellent collection of 12 rare/demo/unreleased tracks called The Virginia EP.

In addition to collaborations with like a song with Sufjan Stevens recorded at Benny’s Wash ‘N Dry in Brooklyn, some great UK b-sides including one called Santa Clara (which I like to pretend is about my alma mater), and that sublime Springsteen cover I posted in April, there are several home-recording demos and live tracks.

This cover is one of my immediate favorites on the EP — a mournful, quietly sad song written originally by a Bristol-born singer-songwriter named Caroline Martin. It starts with a fill of organ pipes like you just stopped into that little cathedral, and now are not quite sure what for. Maybe to say a prayer for someone, light a candle. Maybe just to sit in the silence.

Quickly the song blossoms within its traditional structure that caused me to wonder at first if this was a reinvention of an old doo-wop tune from a girl group. But there within the simplicity, The National wrenches out new layers of genuine loss and missing someone so much that all you can construct are lines that are three or four words long.

Without Permission (Caroline Martin cover) – The National

Oh
well I just don’t know
how you could go
without permission

‘Cause well,
if you’re not there
well i just don’t care
for this omission

Every moment brings me down
when you’re not around
but all i’m asking for
is come back for just one day

So
where did you go?
and do you now know
how to be happy?

‘Cause here
well it’s pretty clear
when you’re not near me
i am unhappy

Every moment brings me down
when you’re not around
but all i’m asking for
is come back for just one day


I’ll make it worth the while
just to see your smile
that’s all i’m asking for

Oh
I’ve come to know
you had to go
without permission

‘Cause it was how
how i wore you down
and how i dragged you ’round
my sore ambition

Every moment brings me down
when you’re not around
but all i’m asking for
is come back for just one day


I’ll make it worth the while
just to see your smile
that’s all i’m asking for

my dear

Originally featured on Caroline Martin‘s debut album I Had A Hundred More Reasons To Stay By The Fire (2005, Small Dog Records)

Order the A Skin, A Night DVD / Virginia EP here

A SKIN, A NIGHT TRAILER

[other Vincent Moon/National work]

May 4, 2008

Hey, nice t-shirt / The National at Coachella

Yellow Bird Project tasks your favorite musicians to design a shirt for a good cause of their choosing.

The latest classy, minimalist, circle-tastic design comes courtesy of Fuel favorites The National (shown below, $25) and previous contributions have been made by folks like Stars, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Rilo Kiley, The Shins, Wolfmother, and Broken Social Scene.

Check out Yellow Bird Project and be cool for a good cause.

And speaking of The National, this gorgeous video from Coachella made me physically ache; no, I can’t really explain why but just watching it should make you understand too.

THE NATIONAL
FAKE EMPIRE, LIVE AT COACHELLA 2008

And Slow Show at sunset. Sigh.

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April 5, 2008

The National cover Springsteen

This seems exceptionally fitting to post today, as I have a date with Bruce Springsteen this very evening. The National does a gorgeously arresting cover here. The rich, round tones of the plucking of strings sound for all the world like rain on the roof of a wooden cabin I stayed in once, deep in a redwood forest.

Mansion On The Hill (Springsteen cover) – The National

I think my heart stops at a few points during that song — the way the strings stretch and hover, pause and swell.

Pitchfork wrote yesterday that The National is including this cover on a new CD called The Virginia EP (a 12-track “EP”) which will also contain unreleased demos, b-sides, live recordings, and a song from last year’s Daytrotter session.

It’s part of a package that will also include the excellent Vincent Moon documentary A Skin, A Night: watch clips here.

[song via, photo credit Valerio]

November 1, 2007

The National in black and white

Just like the baklava that we ate at the Starlite Diner in NYC, long after midnight last Thursday . . . there is enough dense, layered, substantial goodness in this post to stick in your ribs for a while. The National is a band of friends from Ohio who now call Brooklyn home, with four albums to their name since 2001.

As I recently wrote to a friend, there is something so bottomless and untouchably good about their music. They release albums to critical acclaim and rapturous blog praise that is (actually) merited; their music has been called “Gothic,” a descriptor that I completely get — all at once you can see the dark cold-granite shadows, the elegantly arched architecture, and the soaring stained glass in one song.

So much of this is 4am music. It’s the end of a beautiful night, where all your pretenses are stripped. The girls are starting to get that smudge of mascara under their eyes, and the shirts that the guys put on so crisply at 8pm are now wrinkled with a button undone. You’re bleary-tired, but your heart is full. It’s that kind of music, the late-night special, flawed but transcendent.

The lyrics read like stark, eviscerating poems:

Bottle eyes, glassy blue
I watch the rain come out of you
Sky is white with the flu
I’m terrified of losing you

(from Cold Girl Fever)

And I really couldn’t tell you why, but I somewhat tragically missed their recent swing through Denver about a month ago. They have been blowing minds all over the States with their live show, and right now they are in the midst of a massive European tour, followed by Australia.

Here’s what they might do to you.

THE BLACK SESSION
French radio performance 11/17/03
Almost all early material, with a pre-release version of “Lit Up”

Son
Thirsty
Slipping Husband
All the Wine
Cold Girl Fever
Murder Me Rachael
90-Mile Water Wall
Lit Up
Pretty Forever
Cherry Tree
Available
About Today

ZIP: BLACK SESSION

THE WHITE SESSION
Same radio station “France Inter” in May 2007, this time sans audience. Almost exclusively material from Boxer.
Start a War
Brainy
Slow Show
Squalor Victoria
Apartment Story
Racing Like a Pro
Ada
You’ve Done It Again, Virginia
Mistaken for Strangers
Fake Empire
About Today

ZIP: WHITE SESSION

[thx Russ and cwb]


ADDITIONAL READING:
* A recent concert review from Daytrotter, and their June 2007 live session/interview

*Article in the Village Voice from May –
“The National’s Anthems:
If Springsteen is right, the glory days for Brooklyn’s best rock band may lie just ahead”

*More National mp3s here

[photo credit Abbey Drucker, effect-y white sessions version from Sixeyes, who loves The National]

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February 5, 2009

Dark Was The Night / New National

Curated by brothers Bryce and Aaron Dessner of The National, the Dark Was The Night compilation (Feb 17th, 4AD) is so stuffed full with amazing covers and duets and original songs from so many of my favorite artists, it’s almost ridiculous. The double-disc album benefits the Red Hot Organization, an international charity dedicated to raising money and awareness for HIV and AIDS.

The one track on here that I’ve been most itchin to hear is the new one from The National (although the Dessner brothers’ musical contributions reach further throughout the album, with collaborations with Bon Iver/Justin Vernon above, and Antony heartbreakingly covering Bob Dylan). “So Far Around The Bend” sounds like a time warp to me, like it foxtrotted in from some other era. It is almost jaunty, but with that rich gray undercurrent swirls, and drums thump like a pounding heartbeat.

The Gillian Welch/Conor Oberst duet on “Lua” is absolutely murdering me right now (listen in about a week on the MySpace player, it will rotate through to its day in the sun), and Jose Gonzalez and The Books covering Nick Drake? Really? Sigh. It really is an exceptionally high-quality and eminently listenable collection; the full tracklisting is here.

Aaron Dessner writes more about the process of how this album came to be, and the end results:

As we invited friends and peers to contribute, our collective social awareness became apparent: anyone that had the time was willing to donate their time and their music to the Red Hot cause. But there were many different stories behind each song: some we had heard live and knew had to be on the record (The Books “Cello Song”, My Brightest Diamond’s “Feelin Good”); close friends whose arms we knew we could twist enough to give us special tracks (Arcade Fire, and Sufjan Stevens); bands we asked who were too busy but had solo projects or side projects they could include (Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio and Jonsi Birgisson of Sigur Ros); songs we had always imagined certain artists singing (Cat Power’s “Amazing Grace” and Antony’s “I Was Young When I Left Home”); and dream collaborations (David Byrne and The Dirty Projectors, Feist with Grizzly Bear and Ben Gibbard, and my own song with Justin Vernon of Bon Iver).

In the end, there was enough great music to produce two discs–one dark and homegrown with almost classical arrangements of folk themes; the other more bright and evocative of the best of independent rock music at the beginning of the 21st century. “Dark Was The Night” and the Dore illustrations for Milton’s Paradise Lost, which make up the art imagery in this booklet, evoke a “fallen” world of struggle, but also the capacity of art to inspire us to rise above the obstacles put in our path. Our nights may be dark, but music gives us inspiration and hope of brighter days to come.

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Bio Pic Name: Heather Browne
Location: Colorado, originally by way of California
Giving context to the torrent since 2005.

"I love the relationship that anyone has with music: because there's something in us that is beyond the reach of words, something that eludes and defies our best attempts to spit it out. It's the best part of us, probably, the richest and strangest part..."
—Nick Hornby, Songbook
"Music has always been a matter of energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel."
—Hunter S. Thompson

Mp3s are for sampling purposes, kinda like when they give you the cheese cube at Costco, knowing that you'll often go home with having bought the whole 7 lb. spiced Brie log. They are left up for a limited time. If you LIKE the music, go and support these artists, buy their schwag, go to their concerts, purchase their CDs/records and tell all your friends. Rock on.

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