Show me a better band photo this year, and I won't kill your parents.
This afternoon, big-time Indiana indie label Jagjaguwar finally dropped the official word on Gayngs, the psychedelic soul collaboration between all of Megafaun, Ivan Howard of The Rosebuds, Justin Vernon and Mike Noyce of Bon Iver and a slew of Minnesota and Wisconsin musicians culled from bands like P.O.S., Solid Gold and Andrew Bird’s touring unit. And that was a long sentence. We mentioned the project last summer, and Megafaun and Howard even unveiled the album’s sublime, surreal closer, “The Last Prom on Earth,” at last year’s TRKFest. But the band’s debut LP, Relayted, now has a release date of May 11 and a cover of, uhh, an intertwined pot leaf and vagina.
Helmed by Twin Cities beat man Ryan Olson, Relayted’s 11 tracks—all set at 69 beats per minute—cum flooded with stacked keyboards, thick bass and at least one shocking sax solo. There’s soul-singing, spectral harmonies and a Bone Thugs rap from Vernon. Meanwhile, the interludes that link the tracks lift all of it to a sort of rarefied Miles Davis Get Up With It space. It’s a project without a lot of precedents, especially given the music on which most of those involved have built their reputations. And as silly and preposterous as it might sound, it somehow works, thanks in large part to the excellent playing and surprising singing and its consistent, slowly unfurling aesthetic.
At any rate, it should be interesting to see the public’s response to Gayngs: Can what began mostly as a joke become one of the weird successes of music this year? Maybe.
If you watch the video above, the most general and logical conclusion might be, “Oh, hey, check it: Dudes with beards playing folk music.” And while that’s right to a point, there’s more to these frames than the (great) song and the singing. Continue reading »
Troika Music Festival unveiled the first draft of its schedule for its three November days of music in Durham this morning, and it looks like organizers have landed on the most closely curated pool of bands and bills since the festival’s inception in 2002: All told, 71 acts will spread over eight venues (two of which remain unannounced) Nov. 5-7, and no more than four bands will play any venue on any night. In other words, lots of great bands will get ample set times.
Troika 2009 will begin with a centralized outdoor show on Thursday, Nov. 5, featuring the equally but divergent eclectic The Beast and Megafaun. Four sets of four bands then head indoors to four venues—one unannounced, The Pinhook, Duke Coffeehouse and Broad Street Cafe. For a measure of this year’s quality, note that Bowerbirds, Max Indian, Future Islands and The Moaners headline their respective venues. Now there’s a Versus to get excited about. Continue reading »
Bowerbirds and Megafaun, two of the finest musical acts this state has to offer, are on the road together for a six-week jaunt that began Monday in Washington, D.C. and ends Aug. 17 in Atlanta. (A full list of tour dates is below the jump). It will bring the bands north to Canada and west to Washington, and will bring their music to a nation, that, by all appearances, is ready to hear what we’ve treasured in our backyards for a few years now. The latest on both, after the jump, and our usual disclosures apply…
A quick mention of a few local bands with some interesting online features today:
—In another early bit of promotion for I and Love and You (now due in September, NPR says), Concord quartet The Avett Brothers recorded a three-song installment of Tiny Desk Concert in the office of All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen. The unrecorded “Down with the Shine” and the new staple “Bella Donna” make an appearance, but the real reason to watch is the opener, “Laundry Room.” A gorgeous song with a dozen slogans for the taking, “Laundry Room” finds the harmonies of the Avetts hitting new strides. And it’s good to see that Scott’s banjo refuses to stay in tune, even for NPR. Continue reading »
Pull out your planners or your iPhones or however it is you keep track of what you’ll be doing in a few weeks, and jot down the dates of Duke Performance’s Music in the Gardens series. Mixing stand-alone bills featuring area favorites like Eric Bachmann and Dex Romweber with new local lights like The Love Language and Megafaun, the series represents another coup for Duke’s ground-level, plugged-in booking under the leadership of Aaron Greenwald. All shows begin at 7 p.m. in or around the Duke Gardens, and each shows cost $10 for the public and $5 for Duke employees. Duke students and children under 12 get in for free. A rad series for the right price. Continue reading »
After circling the blocks of 6th and 7th streets east of Interstate 35 for about 10 minutes, I finally found a parking space so big that I could squeeze my brother’s pick-up truck—a ’94 GMC, a real Texas ride with straight pipes that emit a gnarly roar even while parallel parking—inside. Jumping from its cab, my heels hit the asphalt hard, and I was reminded that today would likely be my fourth and final 15-hour day of music. The thought hurts.
It’s not that I don’t want to see live music. Actually, I have a whole list of bands I want to hear today. Rather, it’s that I don’t want to walk everywhere to see them. SXSW felt more scattered this year: The FADER Fort moved east of the interstate, a half-mile or so from the center of the action. Places like The Scoot Inn, Victory Grill, Homeslice Pizza and the Shotlz Beer Garden gathered bigger acts, too, moves that meant more walking for me. By bedtime every night, rest only felt like an excuse to get off of my feet. But, hey, it was totally worth it. Continue reading »
Double Barrel Benefit Night One: Bowerbirds, Lost in the Trees
The Pour House, Raleigh
Friday, Feb. 6, 2009
A couple songs into his band’s headlining set at The Pour House Friday, Bowerbirds’ Phil Moore said, “This is what we call a party.” A few cheers followed. “Just continue to party,” he said. “Maybe in a more subdued way,” Moore’s bandmate, Beth Tacular, pleaded from across the stage.
The vibe was happy for the first night of WKNC’s sixth-annual Double Barrel Benefit, but people seemed more interested in hanging out than hearing Bowerbirds. Constant conversation filled the air, delicate vocal harmonies and guitar picking struggling versus the storm. It made for quite the contrast with the set the band played through an actual rainstorm in Duke Gardens this past summer. Continue reading »
mr. popIToffForUs on "SXSW10 Day 2: Grandmothers and Cooties [Eric Tullis]": yo....mr. tullis makes me wonder how come i have not attended SXSW. sounds like jean grae really sucked! i don't think that asking artists about their grannies is a bad idea, especially since they never rap or sing about them; and we all know they love their grannies. oh, and it sounds like
Pull out your planners or your iPhones or however it is you keep track of what you’ll be doing in a few weeks, and jot down the dates of Duke Performance’s Music in the Gardens series. Mixing stand-alone bills featuring area favorites like Eric Bachmann and Dex Romweber with new local lights like The Love Language and Megafaun, the series represents another coup for Duke’s ground-level, plugged-in booking under the leadership of Aaron Greenwald. All shows begin at 7 p.m. in or around the Duke Gardens, and each shows cost $10 for the public and $5 for Duke employees. Duke students and children under 12 get in for free. A rad series for the right price.
