"Fraggle rock your four-figure watch/ I clock ninety-nine cent wristbands/ And still know the time when your record flops"
Way back in August 2008, just when Raleigh’s The Rosebuds were about to released their fourth album, Life Like, Chicago mash-up duo The Hood Internet pitted “Get Up, Get Out,” the hit from The Rosebuds’ prior album, against “None Shall Pass,” the title track from the fifth album by mechanical-mouthed rap slayer Aesop Rock. (That album also featured Durham dude John Darnielle, of The Mountain Goats.)
The Internet seems to have mostly missed that mash-up, though, and paid more attention to the subsequent Hood Internet take on The Rosebuds, which put the duo up against, uhh, T-Pain. But “None Shall Get Up Get Out” is, in the end, the winning take of the two, washing Aesop’s strings of syllables—”To my people who keep an impressive wingspan/ Even when the cubicle shrink/ You gotta pull up the intruder by the root of the weed”–against Kelly Crisp’s waves of synthesizers. And when Aesop crawls into his diorama of a chorus, Ivan Howard is right there with him, singing his song’s title just as the rapper repeats his.
On Monday, the blog Earmilk posted the old mix with about a dozen others, and, surprisingly, “None Shall Get Up Get Out” has taken a new life: This morning, the song climbed to No. 4 on the Hype Machine’s weekly charts, alongside a bunch of remixes and well ahead of “Odessa,” the new tune from Merge labelmates Caribou. It’s odd but appropriate, given that, you know, it’s a pretty good look for both songs.
As for new material from either The Rosebuds or Aesop Rock, that’s all up in the air: The Rosebuds are, indeed, working on new songs, and we’ve heard talk of a release later this year. Kelly Crisp mentioned it via Twitter earlier this week: “My horoscope= Feb 27 biggest day in 10 years for career. Ivan’s= Feb 27 “crowning jewel” for his career. Make a record right now?!?!?” Meanwhile, Aesop Rock seems to be an ace without a label. Def Jux closed its shop doors earlier this month, and he’s yet to announce future plans. Again, to your source for news, Twitter: “HUGE thanks to everyone inquiring about future Aesop Rock releases. The ifs, whens, whats, and wheres, are difficult to answer at this time.”
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 »
News & Observer ex-pat Jason Arthurs (responsible for much of The Great 8’s multi-media component) and Flying Tiger Sound producer B.J. Burton (responsible for most of the sound on Hear Here) joined The Rosebuds at Ivan Howard’s Raleigh home in Oakwood to make a new video for the tune “Life Like.” Replacing the original’s flinty electric guitar with an acoustic ease and its deep, distorted bass throb with an accordion’s wheeze, this take emphasizes the shifts from chorus to verse and the song’s antiphonal structure. Beautifully lit with candles and Christmas lights and framed over shoulders and at a carpet-level view, the video serves as another reminder that the year-old Life Likestill offers some of The Rosebuds’ best tunes yet.
Annuals' Adam Baker, recording Hear Here: The Triangle at Flying Tiger Sound.
On Saturday, Aug. 29, Annuals, The Never, Hammer No More the Fingers and Birds of Avalon will play Cat’s Cradle to celebrate the release of Hear Here: The Triangle, a 17-track compilation featuring loads of new songs (and a few old cuts) from several of the Triangle’s best bands: The Rosebuds, Lonnie Walker, The Love Language, Birds of Avalon, The Kingsbury Manx and many more. A copy of the compilation—a joint production between Flying Tiger Sound, Terpsikhore Records and 88.1 WKNC FM—is included for $10 admission at the 8:30 p.m. Cradle show.
And it’s totally worth it, if for nothing more than the best Lonnie Walker song yet (”Feels Like Right,” which opens the disc) and the funniest The Rosebuds song yet (”Brad Cook Is Not Your Man,” which closes the disc). A promotional video for Hear Here has been making the rounds, and it includes “Flesh and Blood,” a Johnny Cash cover by Annuals that didn’t make the final cut due to licensing rights. The video approved tracklisting will be waiting after the jump. Continue reading »
Last-minute announcement as the day’s bell prepares to ring: The Rosebuds will play a few songs at the Jackpot at 1303 Hillsborough St. tonight at 9:30 p.m. The band will play acoustically, and the songs will be videotaped by Merge Records in advance of XX Merge this week. There’s no cover, of course, but The Rosebuds aren’t going to pick up that dry-cleaning tab.
Oh, if only every birthday were as badass as Merge Records’ 20th: On Saturday, July 18, music from eight Merge artists—including The Arcade Fire, Spoon, Superchunk and The Magnetic Fields—will serve as scores for a set of new dance works presented by Triangle Youth Ballet in Carolina Theater’s Fletcher Hall. Raleigh’s The Rosebuds will perform a new piece of music for the event, which will includes works by North Carolina Youth Tap Ensemble, Pamela Pietro (American Dance Festival faculty/Tisch-NYU) and several others. The show comes, of course, the weekend before Merge throws its five-day birthday party in Chapel Hill (July 22-26 at Cat’s Cradle and Memorial Hall with Polvo, Conor Oberst, Richard Buckner, She & Him and at least two dozen others) and just days before the end of the 2009 American Dance Festival. The premiere will comprise part of the 2009 Triangle Youth Ballet & Friends series.
Speaking of The Rosebuds, follow the jump for some video of the band playing on Cabarrus St. in front of Lincoln Theatre during a Band Together benefit for the Lucy Daniels Center for Early Childhood on Saturday. And it looks like the ’Buds spent its Sunday in a new Raleigh studio tracking a fresh tune. More on that soon… Continue reading »
If you’re hoping to see a band tonight in these parts, your choices are pretty, well, choice: Aside from traveling acts playing the usual suspects (Mogwai and The Twilight Sad @ Cat’s Cradle; Napalm Death @ Volume 11; Starfucker and DJs @ Local 506), five strong local bills put the tunes in unusual places: 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 »
Not long after moving to town, I remember seeing a particularly great set from The Countdown Quartet at Humble Pie, the longtime Harrington St. restaurant in Raleigh. In fact, my roommate and I have talked about Ray Duffey’s drumming that night—in particular, the flawless swing he pulled from his pockets that night—ever since. Lots of Raleigh favorites—Kenny Roby, The Rosebuds, Countdown—played a lot of gigs at Humble Pie early this decade, but music’s been mostly absent at the place for several years.
Peter Lamb, who went on to play saxophone with The Countdown before the band played its farewell show in August of 2007, is looking to change that: Continue reading »
If you were hoping to snag one of the five-day passes for Merge’s epic 20th anniversary celebration July 22-26 in Carrboro/Chapel Hill, N.C., you’re out of luck: The passes went on sale to the general public at 10 a.m. this morning, and they were gone in 30 minutes. Wednesday’s public sale follows a Monday offer to “Friends of Merge” and a Tuesday sale to those who subscribed to Merge’s 20th anniversary Score! package. No word as to how many five-day passes were sold, but remember that the Cat’s Cradle’s capacity hovers around 600 and that a whole slew of band members and Merge staffers will need to fit inside.
Despair not, though: Merge promises that some one-day tickets will go on sale “soon” through the Cat’s Cradle and the label’s Web site. The announced lineup so far includes Superchunk, Spoon, Conor Oberst, Spent, M. Ward, The Rosebuds, Destroyer, Guv’ner, Polvo, Pipe and The Broken West, with plenty more on the way. Best add those sites to your RSS readers, kids.
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.
If you were hoping to snag one of the five-day passes for Merge’s epic 20th anniversary celebration July 22-26 in Carrboro/Chapel Hill, N.C., you’re out of luck: The passes went on sale to the general public at 10 a.m. this morning, and they were gone in 30 minutes. Wednesday’s public sale follows a Monday offer to “Friends of Merge” and a Tuesday sale to those who subscribed to Merge’s 20th anniversary Score! package. No word as to how many five-day passes were sold, but remember that the Cat’s Cradle’s capacity hovers around 600 and that a whole slew of band members and Merge staffers will need to fit inside.
