Kasabian, Webster Hall 9/20/06

Echo "Little Sister Kasabian" Hopkins and I went out to dinner with Jay, who plays guitar for the mostly-British rock band Kasabian. He's great, that's great, but as we walked to Webster Hall, I wasn't so sure about things. Seeing as the whole band is a bit of a family friend of hers, I didn't want to bring up what I knew of lead singer Tom Meighan's reputation.

via Stereogum:

KASABIAN VS. ROLLING STONES
"All I remember is Mick coming up and saying, 'I heard you had a storm, you %$#@er.' And Keith said hello. But it was weird because they are granddads. They should be drinking cups of tea in their armchairs."

KASABIAN VS. JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE
"[Justin is] a midget with whiskers who is just trying to be black. He's a puppet in a million-dollar suit who's had his strings cut off. It's just money music. Absolute rubbish. You can smell the money coming off it. He's a knobhead." Anything to add bassist Chris Edwards? "Sexyback? More like hairy back. It's the worst title of any record I've ever heard!"

KASABIAN VS. KEANE
"Tom [Chaplin, Kean's singer currently in rehab] has got no backbone. The Priory is for wimps. Some people like talking about themselves too much. It's sad that Keane felt they had to shout from the rooftops that he's gone in there."

KASABIAN VS. RADIOHEAD
“Look at our single ‘Empire’. We’re possibly the only band apart from Radiohead that changes tempo with a new single we’ve put out and no band dares do it, you know. We’re like a futuristic Led Zeppelin man with strings on, and electronic on it. ... We gave Radiohead a good run [at the V Festival]. I mean, you’re talking about a band that’s been around for about ten or twelve years, they’re massive and we just put our next single out. That’s all we’ve done and it was incredible. The response was wonderful. It was almost as if we were headlining the whole festival."

Either way, the concert was fantastic. Yesterday, the band's sophomore album, Empire was released, so they were pretty psyched, despite the fact that they kept yelling 'UK!' into the microphones. All of the songs were tight, enjoyable, dancable, and that was that.

Kasabian - Empire (mp3)

There's more, though.

As we walked upstairs to the main hall during one of Kasabian's opener's sets, we stepped into a dark, silent room. The only light came from a gigantic screen behind the band that was playing some sort of strange animated film. And this song was playing, and it blew me away.

Mew - The Zookeeper's Boy (mp3)

I hadn't heard much of Mew before now, but their debut album, And The Glass Handed Kites, is a fantastically strange Smashing Pumpkins meets Enya sort of thing. Highly recommended.

And Then We'll Sail, Hooray.

Apparently, today is International Talk Like A Pirate Day, which, truth be told, I wish I knew ahead of time. To prepare, and all that.

There really isn't much to say about International Talk Like A Pirate Day, other than the cliché "arrgh"s and "yar"s and "booty"s, which I have decided not to go into with too much depth.

Alela Diane - The Pirate's Gospel (mp3)
LazyTown - You're A Pirate (mp3)

P.S. Sorry about the LazyTown song, I just had to do it. But check out Alela Diane.

ELSEWHERE: Yo, Paris Hilton! Can I get a hundred dollars?

Why yes, McDonalds man, you can.

Ta Wichita

Nostalgia 77 (feat. Alice Russel) - Seven Nation Army (mp3)

All Mike Patton

I don't know why, but these All My Children people seem to be talking about Mike Patton.

Anyway.

Peeping Tom - Mojo (feat. Rahzel & Dan the Automator) (mp3)

Cat Power & The Memphis Rhythm Band (Irving Plaza 9/10/06)

She was dancing around, talking nonsense, a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other. She was telling jokes that made no sense, even to her band, but they smiled anyway. She was a Louisiana matriarch, with a wall of Southern sound marching up behind her, but then the band left.

And here's where your imagination comes in: download these two songs, and listen to them back to back. Close your eyes. Imagine that Chan Marshall stands alone on a dark stage. The house is silent (pin drop and all that), and she sits down at the piano. Her smokey voice takes over, and she sings you "Wild Is The Wind" (you're thinking, "who the fuck is Nina Simone, anyway?") and then she turns on her chair and sings you "House of the Rising Sun." Now, mind you, no sound has been heard from the audience this entire time. As the last notes of "House of the Rising Sun" fade into silence, some guy goes, "Wow.", and you agree wholeheartedly.

Cat Power - Wild Is The Wind (mp3)
Cat Power - House of the Rising Sun (mp3)

Then Chan Marshall grunts and sort of wanders offstage for a few minutes.

Heaven & Hell Came Crashing Down / Yeah, It Was Crazy

My Brightest Diamond is Shara Worden, opera singer turned Team Sufjan member, who channels Björk, Beth Gibbons, and Nina Simone all at once on her debut solo album, Bring Me The Workhorse. It's devastatingly slow, macabre pop music, with a hint of gothic electronica. Rainy day music.

Something of an End (mp3)
Golden Star
Gone Away (mp3)
Dragonfly
Freak Out
We Were Sparkling
Disappear (mp3)
The Robin's Jar
Magic Rabbit
The Good & The Bad Guy
Workhorse

[buy Bring Me The Workhorse at Amazon]

Paper Television

I sat next to Khaela Maricich on the plane to Paris.

This is a fact I like to throw around whenever given the chance. She was really hungry, and I wasn't going to eat my plane food, and so she ate both of my plane meals. And we talked. About how she was a musician who I had never heard of before (but I had heard of her label, K Records). About how I was on my way to film school. About how she was on her way to play a show or two in France. About alot of things. I didn't sleep much at all during the nine-hour flight, and when we got to Paris the next morning, we groggily shuffled through the long, slow customs line, and she took out her digital camera and took pictures of the airport, and I took some pictures of her, and as our passports were validated by the surly early-morning CDG airport staff and we walked out into the terminal, I went to join my waiting friend, and she went to find the bus. And that was the last time I saw Khaela Maricich.


Khaela Maricich is The Blow. Since then, she's teamed up with Jona Bechtold (aka Y.A.C.H.T.), and since then, The Blow has become one of my favorite artists of all time. The music used to be Khaela's conversational yelping over minimalist weirdo-acoustica / low-fi electronic pulses. Her lyrics dealt with everyday problems, but from not quite so everyday points of view. (Take, for example, the song in which she asks her own molecules to quickly take a vote and decide whether an acquaintance is worth pursuing romantically).

These themes continue, but with electro glitch-hop whizkid Y.A.C.H.T. at the boards, throwing basically complicated pop music at the mostly happy singer in Khaela Maricich. The new album , Paper Television, is out October 24, and comes highly reccomended. And you can trust my judgement; I'm a close friend, obviously.

The Blow - Parentheses (mp3)
The Blow - Pile of Gold (mp3)
The Blow - Babay (Eat A Critter, Feel Its Wrath) (mp3)

The Information

This man is a baller.

On October 3rd, Beck unveils his twelfth album, The Information, produced by Radiohead guru (and Mutations/Sea Change collaborator) Nigel Godrich. The album will come with a blank cover and sleeve, and a package of stickers with which fans will be able to create their own cover. There will be a DVD with a video for every song (which you can bet will be better than Death Cab's). And it's a hip-hop record.

Elevator Music
Think I'm In Love (mp3)
Cell Phone's Dead (mp3)
Nausea (mp3)
Soldier Jane
Strange Apparition
Dark Star
Movie Theme
We Dance Alone (mp3)
No Complaints
1000 BPM (mp3 [live at Bonnaroo '06])
Motorcade
The Information
New Round
Horrible Fanfare / Landslide / Exoskeleton

Short clips from the DVD below - This Girl, 1000 BPM, No Complaints, Movie Theme, New Round:



Sounds like Mellow Gold II.