News :: Record Store Day 2011

I think we can all agree Record Store Day has gotten a little out of hand. I'm a much bigger fan of record store day, the one where I roll out of bed every Tuesday, grab a coffee and a fresh Choco Pie, check my funds with the robotic teller, and determine how many records I can afford while still adhering to my phantom alcohol budget. You know that one. But, if the Upper-Case Annual Big Deal keeps the economy spinning during the holiday-starved month of April, so be it. Where's my Hallmark card for Record Store Day - one that spells out all the sweet nothings for me.

To make it all nice n' sleazy for you, the fine folk(s) over at Red Onion Records & Books have compiled their personal list of special releases for today, most of which will sit on the shelves for about 30 seconds before appearing on eBay for $500. But, some of these titles kick ass, so you won't want to sleep in. Grab your umbrella and your most fashionable pair of galoshes, and get in line by 11am. Doors open at noon.

The List:

• Glenn Jones/Black Twig Pickers: Even to Win is to Fail/Mont Syrup LP
• Mitchell and Manley: Norcal Values LP
• Oval/Liturgy: Split LP
• Big Star: Third LP (test pressing version)
• Superchunk/Coliseum: split 7"
• Vivian Girls: I Heard You Say 7"
• Red Hot Chili Peppers/Ramones 7"
• New Pornographers: Moves 7"
• Kings of Leon: Holy Roller Novacaine 10"
• Polvo: Celebrate the New Dark Age LP
• Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin: Broom LP
• Various Artists: Franz Ferdinand Covers 12"
• Yeasayer: End Blood 7"
• Pressed At Boddie (Numero Records compilation on LP)
• Flaming Lips: Heady Nuggs 5LP box set
• Phish: Two Soundchecks 7"
• Built to Spill: Ripple picture disc 7"
• Black Angels: Another Nice Pair LP
• Deerhunter: Memory Boy 7"
• Fleet Foxes: Helplessness Blues 12"
• Fucked Up: The Town LP
• Lower Dens: Deer Knives 7"
• Panda Bear: Tomboy LP & t-shirt
• Blitzen Trapper: Maybe Baby 7"
• Quicksand: self-titled 7"
• Burn: self-titled 7"
• Youth of Today: self-titled 7"
• Elliot: U.S. Songs LP
• Black Market Baby: Potential Suicide 7"
• Decemberists: Live at Bull Moose CD
• AC/DC: Shoot to Thrill 7"
• Adele: Rolling in the Deep 10"
• Sonic Youth: Whore's Moaning 12"
• Bruce Springsteen: Gotta Get the Feeling 7"
• Various Artists: Follow Me Down - Vanguard's Lost Psychedelic Era 2LP
• Television: Live at the Old Waldorf 2LP
• Beach Boys: Good Vibrations 78
• Deftones: Covers LP
• Jimmy Eat World: Bleed American 3LP
• Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: self-titled LP
• Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: You're Gonna Get It LP
• Caribou: Swim Remixes 12"
• Country Joe & The Fish: Electric Music for the Mind and Body LP
• Death Cab For Cutie: In Living Stereo 7"
• Deerhoof: Friend Opportunity LP
• Dom: Things Change 10"
• Foo Fighters: Medium Rare LP
• Grateful Dead: self-titled mono LP
• Grinderman: Evil 12"
• Grinderman: Palaces of Montezuma 12"
• Jimi Hendrix: Fire 7"
• Justin Townes Earle: Move Over Mama 7"
• Mississippi John Hurt: The Immortal LP
• Owen: O, Evelyn 7"
• Piebald: Volume I-III 3LP
• Skip James: Today LP
• Syd Barrett: An Introduction to... LP
• The Doors: Riders on the Storm 7"
• Various Artists: Portable Shrines Magic Sound Theater 2LP
• Antony & the Johnsons: Swanlights 10"
• Architecture in Helsinki: Places Like This LP
• Arthur Russell: World of Echo 2LP
• Joan Of Arc: Don't Mind Control LP
• Damien Jurado: Live at Landlocked LP
• Queen: Keep Yourself Aive 7"
• Wild Flag: Future Crimes 7"
• Jimmy Eat World: Bleed American 3LP
• Kill Rock Stars LP
• John Fahey: Requia LP

There's a shit-ton more titles available at nearby shops like Crooked Beat, Smash, and Som Records, but my eyes are actually dripping thick, viscous, hot red sap from staring at lists in Excel format. Read the full official list here, if you think pain makes you a stronger human being. I'm a simple man, and can appreciate minimal options.

Who knew Choco Pies were made from natural Chinese pig poo?

Features :: Pitifully Short-range Teleportation :: SVIIB

Rock and Roll Hotel, 1353 H St NW, Washington, DC
Thursday, October 21, 2010

It's been a year and a half since I first caught School of Seven Bells at 9:30 Club, opening for Fujiya/Miyagi. This night they were headlining and Active Child opened.

In concert, Active Child is really two children playing parallel in a sandbox. There's a harp (fuck me, right?) and a couple of Macbook Pros. So that's what it takes these days. It's hard to imagine what a band rehearsal must look/sound like, two twenty-somethings heatedly bouncing in front of their laptop screens, feeling rad and beautiful at the same time. I got more Top Gun-theme off of them than I'd expected, and since I was already wearing my flight suit, I figured fuckin-A, right? My main problem was with the drum and bass side of the equation. There didn't seem to be enough of either. To quote my friend Dave, and I'm not sure he expected to see his name here, " we're watching the definition of a talent differential," referring to the harpist, Pat Grossi, and his mate. But for my dollar, dance music has to be more sympathetically sexualized and less androgynous. Put another way: bump and grind, not bob and mope.

I like Active Child's recorded work, but live on stage at the Rock and Roll Hotel, the act felt a bit thin. Pat Grossi can sure as hell carry a note in both his native baritone and his falsetto, but I never found a sense of the emotional reverberations of similar bedroom-laptop artists making their way around the interweb this year, melancholy or otherwise. Where Washed Out infuses his work with a perfect sense of post-college dread--future, what future?--left behind by friends and peers, working out the meaning of things back in his childhood bedroom; Active Child sounds like he's pleading with his step-father to buy him another new Range Rover after he wrecked the first one. It's probably that Active Child just isn't what I'm looking for in my eighties throw-back bands. I need my pretty music to have a rusty edge to it. I need to know that Phil Spector's got one round in the chamber, and he's willing to wait all night.

School of Seven Bells, on the other hand, is reminding me a whole lot more of Ride from the Today Forever EP, a personal favorite. It seems like with the absence of the twin (Claudia Deheza), Ben Curtis is driving harder on the guitar, straining the already spindly notes further; and although I wouldn't brand SVIIB's new sound as shoegaze, it does send my thoughts across the pond. Ben's more confident, out front, moving around the stage, and not hiding behind attractive twin sisters and lighting effects. And I like it.

"Windstorm" has more in common with any of the tracks from Alpinisms, relying on samples, loops, and the sisters' vocals as much as any from their first album.  It's also more stripped down. On stage and on record, the band doesn't seem to be  dealing with the same vocal harmonics that were the trademark of tracks like "Wired for Light" and "My Cabal." Alpinisms feels at times like an experiment in resonance manipulation, while Disconnect from Desire seems to be veering generic for a larger audience (and not in that bad way I might usually mean).

Alejandra kept dropping her guitar (was she done with it, or was she just not playing it to begin with?) in favor of strange hand gestures that seemed to be trying to draw attention away from the music and towards her face, which I suppose is not a bad move to pull.  She doesn't quite have the range that her sister provided in the past, and somehow she seemed less compelling on this go around than the last. I already know I'm a freak for conjoined babies in a jar, so maybe this is that thing. Also, there was a drummer this time. And, god, did he sound like Phil Collins (the other Phil) hitting play on a drum machine, completely spot-on with the rhythm and totally ready to win your heart.

I can feel it coming in the air tonight
Oh Lord
And I've been waiting for this moment all my life
Oh Lord

Active Child :: Wilderness
SVIIB :: Windstorm