I don’t wanna stop I wanna go, go, go

In 2007, one of my top twenty favorite songs of the whole year was a tune called “Electricity + Drums” from a Kentucky band named The Apparitions. I think a random reader recommendation pointed me over to their website, and within the first second of that song, I was snagged, and couldn’t wait to gushingly tell you all about it. My iTunes player currently advises that I have listened to it 186 times since then, partly because it is on both my favorite running mix, as well as my favorite party mix. Here’s why:

Electricity + Drums – The Apparitions

Right?! It really is a whiz-bang, whirling dervish of fun and handclaps that I’m still enjoying regularly.

The second part of the story (it all connects in wondrous fashion, just watch): On Tuesday night, my effervescent friend Kathleen and I trekked through snow and fog to get up into the ski country of Colorado and see These United States. They were the last show I saw in the waning minutes of 2009, and I decided to bookend this year nicely with them being the first of 2010.

I was talking to These United States drummer Robby Cosenza about how joyously he drums, and he mentioned another musical project of his, Fanged Robot. When I googled up some Fanged Robot music yesterday, I was absolutely floored (nearly fell off my couch) to hear Robby doing an acoustic version of “Electricity + Drums” halfway through an old Band in Boston podcast. Turns out, Robby is also the drummer for The Apparitions, and he wrote that very song that I’ve been loving all these 186 unrestrained times. Full circle, pass go, collect $200! These United States guitarist Justin Craig is also in The Apparitions. Oh how I love it when good music all connects so randomly and seamlessly.

This acoustic version doesn’t have the handclaps (except the ones I add), but it makes my ears incredibly happy, as do the rest of the songs on that podcast. The way Robby does it here reminds me of Deer Tick meeting Ryan Adams, and his yowl also does the favor of letting me finally understand more of these superb lyrics that I’ve always just mumbled through, like “this town’s boasting some kind of warning, there’s no glow from the bulbs for the moths to get drawn in, you’re far away but I still hear you callin’…”:

Electricity + Drums – Fanged Robot

Fanged Robot has a show coming up in Lexington, Kentucky on the 22nd of this month.

These United States just finished a string of tour dates, and they are currently holed up in Boulder for a few weeks, working pre-production on their fourth studio album.

It will be the follow-up to their scorching, intelligent Everything Touches Everything, from which this barn-burner comes:

I Want You To Keep Everything – These United States

MY PICS FROM THESE UNITED STATES IN AVON HERE

These United States cover this Bob Dylan :: “To Ramona”

The marvelously raw and literate These United States recently recorded a cover for a French compilation called Dylan Mania (which also features Magnet’s version of “Lay Lady Lay,” and Antony and the Johnsons knocking on heaven’s door alongside many French bands).

Where Dylan’s original of “To Ramona” waltzed and lilted in courteous measured style, These United States keel off into the hayloft as we hasten the jamboree. The thrumming and playfully creative drumbeat (courtesy of mohawked Robby) builds and drives the song along, while Jesse’s voice earnestly cracks exactly where you hope it will. There’s also some pedal steel bringin’ the lonesome, and a particularly nice clattery-taptastic breakdown towards the end.

Ramona come closer, shut softly your watery eyes
The pangs of your sadness will pass as your senses will rise
For the flowers of the city though breathlike get deathlike sometime
And there’s no use in trying to deal with the dying
Though I cannot explain that in lines.

To Ramona (Dylan cover) – These United States

One reviewer said that TUS plays their folk “the way it was meant to be played: hard, fast, big, slow, long, loud, loose, and at last unburdened. They play it like they mean it.” Personally they describe their music as cumulonimbus wordpop for the jangly railyard dreamer — I really like that.

Their 3rd full-length release in 18 months Everything Touches Everything (oooh!) is out September 1st; I think last year’s excellent Crimes was underrated and overlooked.

They have more live shows than anyone you’ve ever met, so go see ‘em. They put on one of the best live shows I’ve seen in a long time; we adored them at SXSW and our Hillbilly Prom they played.

For completists, here’s the original and a cover that David Gray did on his 2007 cover album A Thousand Miles Behind. And as David says at the beginning of the recording, “I absolutely loved this one from the first time I heard it…”

Oh, me too.

To Ramona – Bob Dylan
To Ramona (Dylan cover) – David Gray

I’d forever talk to you but soon my words
would turn into a meaningless ring
for deep in my heart I know there’s no help I can bring
Everything passes, everything changes
just do what you think you should do
And someday maybe, who knows baby
I’ll come and be crying to you

[photo taken in a sweaty bar at SXSW by one Todd Roeth]

Hillbilly Prom this Friday with These United States!

I saw These United States twice in Austin and their live set absolutely crackled with rough and rowdy energy. They are the perfect headliners for our First Annual Denver Hillbilly Prom this Friday night at the Hi-Dive. I am wearing a peach and white striped Gunne Sax/Jessica McClintock dress from the early ’80s and –of course– my cowboy boots.

Get Yourself Home (In Search of The Mistress Whose Kisses Are Famous) – These United States

Y’all come out, and for those of you who can’t, check out this fabulous (deafening) performance from the Hype Machine/Music Slut SXSW Party last week:

Catch These United States on the road if you can, because their sets were packed full at SXSW:

Mar 25 @ The Sub (College of Santa Fe) Santa Fe, NM
Mar 26 @ Sundown Saloon Boulder, CO
Mar 27 @ Hi-Dive, w/ Lurleens Denver, CO
Mar 28 @ Pioneer Inn Nederland, CO
Mar 29 @ The Dusty Bookshelf Manhattan, KS
Mar 30 @ Slowdown Omaha, NE
Mar 31 @ The Nomad Minneapolis, MN
Apr 2 @ KRUI Live In-Studio Iowa City, IA
Apr 2 @ The Mill Iowa City, IA
Apr 3 @ The Hideout Chicago, IL
Apr 4 @ Founders Grand Rapids, MI
Apr 5 @ P.J.’s Lager House Detroit, MI
Apr 5 @ House Ann Arbor, MI
Apr 6 @ Village Idiot Maumee, OH
Apr 7 @ Scene Metrospace East Lansing, MI
Apr 8 @ Canal Street Tavern Dayton, OH
Apr 9 @ My Old Kentucky Blog live session Indianapolis, IN
Apr 9 @ Locals Only Indianapolis, IN
Apr 10 @ The Comet Cincinnati, OH
Apr 11 @ Transylvania University Lexington, KY
Apr 11 @ Al’s Bar Lexington, KY
Oct 20-24 @ CMJ Music Marathon New York, NY

[our fine poster designed by the fearsome Todd Roeth, in the back of our car somewhere between Texas and New Mexico last night. True story.]

Monday Music Roundup

So I finally, finally saw No Country For Old Men this weekend (I know, right?!) and thought it was a near flawless film. As I’ve mentioned before, Cormac McCarthy has been one of my favorite authors from the first time I read All The Pretty Horses in high school. I’ve been mesmerized by his austere, profound, unadorned writing ever since.

The Coen Brothers did something extremely rare by accurately capturing the mood and tone of the book in addition to just re-telling the story. If you’re even more behind than I am in this one, I won’t ruin the ending — but will say that it was one of the most perfect, piercing closing seconds to a film that I’ve seen in years.

This week is a busy one for me, holding 5 shows by my count. And I’ll be moving into a new place downtown in a few weeks. Wish me luck — heck, just wish that I survive. Here’s what I’ll be listening to amidst the madness:

The ‘59 Sound
The Gaslight Anthem
This song is about death come too soon, but Gaslight Anthem’s sound wraps up these themes of youth and death with a defiance that burns through in their music with resistant lines like “ain’t supposed to die on a Saturday night.” Some say that these New Jersey fellows evoke a contemporary America in a Born to Run way, loose and raw [via]. Their song “High Lonesome” pays subtle tribute to a fantastic line from Counting Crows’ first album, and I hear the urgency I love about Roger Clyne in the vocals as well. So yeah, they’ve got my attention. Gaslight Anthem is out on tour with Against Me, which I don’t know much about but now see that they have an exclamation mark in their name – Against Me! So that might be too much excitement for me and I’ll wait to check these guys out when they circle back through on the club circuit. What a show that would be — I’d predict catharsis and the purity of rock n roll.

Oppressions Each
Brightblack Morning Light
New Mexico freakfolk collective Brightblack Morning Light is fun to read interviews with. Why? How about this gem: Singer Naybob Shineywater used to sing shows with an arrowhead in his mouth. Why? “To let his own sung words & breathe touch this stone before European ears could hear them.” Naybob says, “I was not singing for war, but to engage the spirit of the maker of the arrowhead itself, to offer up Peace, that his warrior effort find a new respect, and to help my own warrior spirit sing in Peace.” See? That’s crazy fun right there. But no seriously — if you’re not all hippy dippy you still absolutely can and should enjoy this extraordinary song off their new album Motion to Rejoin (out tomorrow on Matador Records). It’s incredible — all thickly woven with retro sounds that sound like they are coming through a steamy bathroom, down the hall, and through a layer of feathers to your head under the pillow on a Saturday morning.

Get Yourself Home (In Search Of The Mistress Whose Kisses Are Famous)
These United States
The most recent Colorado show that Washington D.C.’s These United States played was a few weeks ago at a farm party for Labor Day out near Nimbus Road and Diagonal Highway in Niwot. I hear the two things that existed in some abundance were farmland and alcohol. This sounds like the kind of band that you could have a lot of fun with in those doses. After getting positive reviews all over the place from folks like NPR, KEXP and Morning Becomes Eclectic, These United States are releasing their sophomore album Crimes tomorrow on United Interests. There’s a rustic folk charm here with a feisty and jittery thread weaving through this that would make M Ward proud.

Nice Train
The Donkeys
There’s a simple aura of palatable psychedelica that vibrates through this song from San Diego’s The Donkeys, along with a very basic rhyming scheme that reminds me in an odd way of “Girls” by the Beastie Boys. Don’t believe me? Listen to the “how/wow/cow” sequence and tell me it doesn’t echo “way/MCA/play/you may” bit. Or maybe it’s just me. It’s a unique blending of ’60s rock with modern day heroes, and I think they also might reveal a possible love of folks like Pavement. Living On The Other Side was out a few weeks ago on Dead Oceans (Bishop Allen, Bowerbirds).

Hold It In
Jukebox The Ghost
Despite the heartfelt personal invitation from these endearing fellows who were passing out hand-drawn flyers on Saturday at Monolith to encourage people to get there early Sunday to hear their set, I failed. I wanted to, especially after listening to the ebullient pop of their album Live And Let Ghosts, and especially because they stand out from the indie crowd with that fun dash of Freddie Mercury vocal drama. Aquarium Drunkard rubs salt in the wound of my tardiness by writing that Jukebox The Ghost “set a high bar for the rest of the festival, cruising as they did through an infectious set of grandiose piano-driven pop — for a 1:00 crowd, it was a packed and energetic room.” They are on tour now across the country, ending in SF on October 18th.