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(01/19/12 3:41am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>A hit YouTube video posted on Dec. 20, 2011, depicts Adolf Hitler intently studying a map of Germany in his bunker, surrounded by many loyalists. One of his generals points to a spot on it near Berlin before nervously informing him of heavy news, which is incorrectly translated into English subtitles: His covers of Katy Perry and Justin Bieber songs, which he posted online, are in jeopardy of being removed under a pending law called SOPA.The notorious dictator then calmly asks everyone except his six closest confidants to leave the room before exploding in a rage and panic-filled rant about — as the subtitles indicate — his First Amendment rights. Just outside the door, within earshot of the outburst, a woman consoles a crying friend: “Don’t cry, Disney owns the rights to that emotion.”The clip is one of the more successful entries in a popular 5-year-old trend of viral videos that each use similarly farcical subtitles to parody the climactic four-minute scene of the 2004 German WWII drama “Der Untergang” (“Downfall”), in which Hitler learns of his army’s imminent defeat.While Hitler’s pop covers are imaginary, the possibility of an imminent legislation that could take down YouTube covers is real, and — as the creator of “Hitler reacts to SOPA” surely knew when posting it — threatens these parody videos as well.It’s also a prime example of the recent immense online backlash to SOPA, the “Stop Online Piracy Act,” which began with the legislation’s introduction to the House of Representatives in October and culminated in an internationally resonant protest early Wednesday morning with the 24-hour blackout of the English Wikipedia.SOPA would combat online intellectual property infringement by granting copyright holders more power to block online content they believe is infringing. Its sister bill in the Senate, the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), essentially proposes the same. Together, they have sparked what is perhaps the most controversial legal movement involving the online entertainment industry — and quite possibly the Internet — ever.Mark Janis, director of IU’s Center for Intellectual Property Research and Robert A. Lucas Chair in Law, said he believes this widespread dispute, if nothing else, is a healthy one.“I do think it’s interesting that there is that level of attention being paid to this legislation,” Janis said. “There needs to be a broad debate around these issues.“Intellectual property legislation, which used to be this exercise off in the peripheries of the law, is more and more mainstream — even something like this that is technically complex. So I would say that I’m really glad that people are paying attention and expressing their views.”A big part of the online community’s fear of the pending legislations revolves around ambiguities within SOPA and PIPA and the uncertainty of how far they could allow copyright holders to go. Varying interpretations on the Internet have led to liberal use of the term “censorship.”SPEA Associate Professor Beth Cate, who has worked in copyright and intellectual property law and spoke in China last October about copyright law with regards to digital libraries, said she isn’t so alarmed. Ambiguity is often inherent in proposed regulations that surround delicate legal issues such as piracy, she said.“Digital piracy is a problem,” Cate said. “But inherently, you’re going to get into concerns about that gray area — where if there’s legitimate speech on a site with other material that might be considered infringing, how wide a net will be cast to take that down?”Still, the opposition to SOPA and PIPA has not been limited solely to YouTube commenters and BitTorrent users. Last Friday, six senators wrote House Majority Leader Harry Reid, calling for PIPA to be reconsidered.On Monday morning, the White House issued an official opinion on SOPA and PIPA, calling for them to be “shelved” until they can garner a bigger consensus.“We will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet,” the statement said.So what does this mean for SOPA’s, PIPA’s or any possible derivative legislation’s chances of passing? For Cate and Janis, it’s too early to make that call, but they said they expect the administration’s comment should certainly quell the buzz for the time being.“When you get a strong statement like that out of the White House on a highly technical piece of legislation like this, that’s highly significant and likely to mean a lot more than the blackout of Wikipedia,” Janis said.“When the administration says, ‘We gotta really step back and take a look at this,’ that’s going to have an impact,” Cate said. “So stay tuned.”
(01/12/12 2:02am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Four-piece indie-pop group Daniel Ellsworth & the Great Lakes had the type of year every young band from Nashville, Tenn., works toward. The band’s new album, “Civilized Man,” garnered spots on a couple major year-end lists for its standout track “Shoe Fits.” Additionally, frontman Ellsworth stole some bonus exposure by appearing on NBC’s a cappella competition show “The Sing-Off.” Ellsworth and his band, which will perform at 9 p.m. today at The Bishop with local band Busman’s Holiday, spoke with Live Buzz earlier this week about their 2011 achievements and aims for 2012.LIVE BUZZ Your band had a big year in 2011. You released “Civilized Man,” which landed you in Amazon’s Top 10 songs of the year and its Top 100 albums of the year. Do you consider 2011 your band’s breakout year and could you talk about those highlights?ELLSWORTH 2011 was an interesting year because we had some good things happen as far as accomplishments, especially being a band that’s doing things completely independent. So it’s been cool to have the recognition of things like that. It’s been an interesting year because the album came out in May 2011, but this is really the first that we’ve been able to do any major touring on it. Actually, in the better part of the end of 2011, I was in L.A. shooting a television show for NBC (“The Sing-Off”). So it was a good year, but I hope 2012 will be more of a breakout year for us in terms of being out there and playing.LIVE BUZZ What other current artists or albums have the Great Lakes been interested in lately?JOEL WREN (DRUMS) I think we’ve all been a fan of the new Wilco album. Another record that came out this year that I personally am falling in love with was the St. Vincent record “Strange Mercy.” Great follow-up to the one before it, “Actor.”TIMON LANCE (GUITARIST) Ryan Adams’ “Ashes & Fire” and Tom Waits’ “Bad as Me.”LIVE BUZZ Do you guys prefer small, packed-in, bar-venue-type places like The Bishop, or are larger or outdoor stages more your thing?ELLSWORTH Last night, we played in Nashville at a club called the Basement, and that’s a place that we like to play because it’s a small club and the place is just packed, you know? At this point, for us, we like that because it just gives such a great energy to the room. We like playing anywhere, but I think that sort of intimate rock club where people are just kind of standing there is a lot of fun.LIVE BUZZ My next question you alluded to earlier, but I wanted to ask you about “The Sing-Off.” You appeared on it with a group of Nashville independents called “The Collective.” Could you talk about that whole process, from getting on the show to singing competitively on prime-time television?ELLSWORTH It was an interesting turn of events. A friend of ours was on season two of “The Sing-Off” in a group called “Street Corner Symphony,” and they were a group that placed second on the show. They were coming around with the producers of season three, who wanted to put together a group of Nashville artists, people they thought would maybe make an interesting a cappella group. So nine of us got together. Some of us knew each other, but we all knew of each other. And we just sort of tried our hand. Some people had sang a cappella stuff in the past, like in high school, like forever ago, but really, it was a brand-new thing for pretty much all of us. But we got together and made a little audition not knowing what we were doing, and a few weeks later, we were on a plane with no idea what we were in for. But it was a lot of fun. It was a totally unique experience for us musicians used to playing in rock bands or as solo artists to enter that world of a cappella. It was so out of the box. It was just a brand-new experience. And we ended up going a lot further than we ever thought we would.LIVE BUZZ What do the Great Lakes’ future touring and recording plans look like as of now?ELLSWORTH As of right now, 2012 for us just looks like a lot of touring and doing everything completely on our own — from booking to promoting to recording and stuff like that. So it’s a slow process for us, but we’re hoping that we can take everything that happened to us last year and really use it to sort of fuel our touring this year and make it to the next level. We definitely want to get back into the studio a little bit here in 2012 but our main focus is definitely going to be playing.Catch the show tonightWHO Daniel Ellsworth & The Great Lakes w/ Busman’s HolidayWHEN 9 p.m. tonightWHERE The BishopMORE INFO Admission is $5 and is limited to guests 18 or over
(01/12/12 1:38am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Guided by Voices announced the release of “Let’s Go Eat the Factory” toward the end of its recent “classic ’93-’96 lineup” reunion tour, which marked the first activity from Robert Pollard’s iconic, member-rotating indie band since 2004. This announcement, as the blogosphere assured, was a big deal — a big deal to fans of the band, to fans of the 1990s, to everyone, seemingly, except Pollard himself.Pollard downplayed the buzz behind “Factory” in a number of ways — first, in October, by abruptly releasing stale lead single “The Unsinkable Fats Domino,” the first original GBV song from that lineup in 15 years. Then came the announcement of a second, post-reunion album already scheduled for release in May, hardly giving “Factory” time to resonate. But the biggest impact softener is the actual tracks on “Factory,” which send a clear message that despite the album’s noteworthy circumstances, it remains, essentially, just another Robert Pollard album (his 34th in 24 years between Guided by Voices and solo efforts).“Factory” possesses all the standard Pollard-ness that his devotees should expect; most of the 21 tracks lie between 30 seconds and two minutes and abound with classic rock melodies, unabashedly drunken nonsense (“Laundry and Lasers,” “Doughnut for a Snowman”) and guitar on guitar on fuzzy, distorted guitar.What is missing here, though, is a single hook that can stand up to the best of almost any album from Guided by Voices’ catalogue — either from way back, like its 1994 lo-fi landmark “Bee Thousand,” or toward the end of its first run, like the outstanding, more refined “Earthquake Glue” in 2003. “Waves” nails the tonal melancholy that partially defined its sound throughout that time, but most of the remaining songs would simply be B sides for any of GBV’s contemporaries.It sounds very possible that Pollard withheld his band’s best ideas since reuniting for its second “sophomore” effort, the upcoming “Class Clown Spots a UFO,” in which case we won’t have to wait long.
(01/11/12 8:47pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Four-piece indie-pop group Daniel Ellsworth & the Great Lakes had the type of year that every young band from Nashville, Tenn., works toward. The band’s new album, “Civilized Man,” garnered spots on a couple major year-end lists for its standout track “Shoe Fits.” On top of that, frontman Ellsworth stole some bonus exposure by appearing on NBC’s a cappella competition show “The Sing-Off,” placing eighth out of 16 competing groups. Ellsworth and his band, which will perform at 9 p.m. Thursday at The Bishop with local band Busman’s Holiday, spoke with Live Buzz earlier this week about their 2011 achievements and aims for 2012.LIVE BUZZ Your band had a big year in 2011. You released “Civilized Man,” which landed you in Amazon’s Top 10 songs of the year and their Top 100 albums of the year. Do you consider 2011 your band’s breakout year and could you talk about those highlights?DANIEL ELLSWORTH 2011 was an interesting year because we had some good things happen as far as accomplishments, especially being a band that’s doing things completely independent. So it’s been cool to have the recognition of things like that. It’s been an interesting year because the album came out in May 2011, but this is really the first that we’ve been able to do any major touring on it. Actually, in the better part of the end of 2011, I was in L.A. shooting a television show for NBC (“The Sing-Off”). So it was a good year, but I hope 2012 will be more of a breakout year for us in terms of being out there and playing.LIVE BUZZ What other current artists or albums have the Great Lakes been interested in lately?JOEL WREN I think we’ve all been a fan of the new Wilco album. Another record that came out this year that I personally am falling in love with was the St. Vincent record “Strange Mercy.” Great follow-up to the one before it, “Actor.”For the full interview, pick up tomorrow's edition of the IDS.
(12/08/11 12:59am)
WEEKEND's absolute best albums of the year
(12/01/11 2:02am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Sometime in the past 12 months, the Main Squeeze went from being a local band known for covering an eclectic range of classics by Stevie Wonder, the Allman Brothers Band and Jay-Z to being a Bloomington household name, the new unofficial face of the Bluebird Nightclub and a band earning national attention with its dazzling technical chops and live energy.But its meteoric rise didn’t happen without its fair share of obstacles. Early in its career, the Main Squeeze had to overcome being pigeonholed as a cover band and endured multiple lineup changes.“We had humble beginnings, but we had big hopes and big dreams,” guitarist Max Newman said, having just returned home from a successful Thanksgiving show at Sullivan Hall in New York City. “And we still have even way bigger dreams to be the top act in the nation.”They came a few steps closer to that goal this year and can now call themselves the top act in Bloomington. For the Best Local Band award, they impressively beat out a sizeable field of other local groups with more original material that included last year’s winner, Hotfox.Newman attributes the blowup to his band’s perseverance and gradually increasing ratio of originals to covers.“I think it’s 60/40 these days in favor of originals, and that ratio’s gonna keep getting bigger,” Newman said. “But I think that there’s something to be said when you’re playing in a college town. You want a good balance. You want to give people what they want to hear. And so I think we’ll continue to do covers, and we’re just gonna try to get more creative with what covers we bring out.”The band’s 2011 accomplishments have included opening for alternative group State Radio, drawing massive crowds during the Little 500 and Halloween/Homecoming weekends and playing at Illinois’ Summer Camp Music Festival. This time next year, they hope the list will include sets at South by Southwest, Bonnaroo, Electric Forest, All Good or any other major festival that will have them — as well as their first full-length album.Despite his band’s relentless pursuit of bigger stages, Newman still insists the Main Squeeze could not have launched itself on its own.“We would definitely like to thank our fans in Bloomington,” he said. “It really blew me away how many people over the past couple years have really gotten into the Squeeze and know the songs and still come out and support us, and we really love them, and we really, really thank them.”
(11/10/11 1:14pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Lou Reed is one of the greatest songwriters of all time and once made
perhaps the most indulgent album ever in 1975s “Metal Machine Music.”
“No one is supposed to be able to do a thing like that and survive,” he said, years after making it.If
that’s true, we should all say a prayer for Reed. “Lulu,” his new,
downright atrocious collaboration with Metallica, is the kind of album
that only a 50-year veteran of the music business can make without it
being his last.
From its first lyrics, which find Reed sweetly crooning, “I would cut my
legs and tits off when I think of Boris Karloff and Kinski,” “Lulu”
confirms itself as exactly what everyone desperately hoped that it
wouldn’t be: two egomaniacal artists mocking listeners for attention by
feigning mutual respect.
But most of all, it fails because there is absolutely no real
coexistence here, only two incompatible artists fighting each other for
the spotlight for almost 90 minutes (and then telling every music
journalist in the world they brought out the best in each other).
It’s no coincidence, then, that “Lulu”’s one redeeming moment, the first
10 minutes of the 19-minute finale, “Junior Dad,” is also the one where
Metallica stays completely out of the way. The result is an
unobjectionable Lou Reed song.
It’s the other 67 minutes that should have never been recorded.
(11/03/11 1:23am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The War on Drugs have released four records since being on Bloomington’s Secretly Canadian label for the past four years. But it was the one it released in August that has turned the most heads. “Slave Ambient,” their second full-length LP, exhibits frontman Adam Granduciel’s knack for sprawling folksongs through newer doses of lulling sonic reverb.Tonight, the Philadelphia foursome will take the stage at The Bishop with fellow East Coasters Purling Hiss and Carter Tanton. Granduciel recently spoke with the IDS about the positive reception of “Slave Ambient,” and the evolution of their sound and “Law and Order.”IDS You guys have been on Secretly Canadian for a few years now. How did you originally sign with them?GRANDUCIEL A friend of ours was in that band Windsor for the Derby. And they were on Secretly, and he sent them the mix that our band recorded. That was one of the first records, and then they kind of contacted me, and then we sent them a bunch of stuff. But then we just decided to make the first record post-signing, you know?IDS Let’s talk a little bit about your new album, “Slave Ambient.” I thought it had a curious name, because it’s kind of non sequitur but also kind of self-referential in that it’s more ambient sounding than anything you’ve ever done. How did it end up with the name “Slave Ambient?”GRANDUCIEL It was actually just like a working title for the (fourth track) “The Animator.” I had all of these songs, working on them all, and I was labeling all of them “slaves” for a number of reasons. But honestly, there’s no real meaning behind the title other than at the end of the day, I liked the way those two words sounded together. Because I don’t really even consider the stuff to be ambient music at all.IDS So “Slave Ambient” is shaping up to be your breakout effort, at least critically. Did you see this coming? And did you ever have the thought with previous War on Drugs’ efforts that one of those albums might be the one?GRANDUCIEL Not really. I mean, it’s definitely better than the other records, but I didn’t see it coming. I didn’t really think about it too much. It took a long time to make it, and it took a long time to decide if it was something that was unique or that we were proud of it or what. So I mean, when I handed it in to the label, I knew I was proud of the record.
(11/02/11 11:33pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Surfer Blood’s “Tarot Classics” EP harbors no surprises. There are four songs, each between three and four-and-a-half minutes and conceived at different points in Surfer Blood’s young career. They sound like Surfer Blood. In that way, it succeeds for every one of its 15 minutes. The band has taken first track, “I’m Not Ready,” to the stage for years now, and it dates all the way back to when the band went by TV Club. Still, this version is hardly revised from the original — if at all — ultimately offering little more than old news in an mp3 format. “Voyager Reprise,” with its series of composed solos and a great, thrashing coda to boot, will probably be the new live essential off this EP. Closer “Drinking Problem” uses wonderfully produced guitar distortion over a melancholy, repetitious bass line to match its quality in a far quieter manner. “Tarot” is Surfer Blood’s second official release, but expect its next LP to be the one that fans and critics remember as its true sophomore effort.
(11/02/11 12:48am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Southern California alt-rockers Cold War Kids released their first full-length album by permeating FM radio stations across the country with their hit single “Hang Me Up to Dry.” The release was in 2006, and it sparked a career that now includes three commercially successful albums and five EPs. Cold War Kids will perform at 8 p.m. today at The Bluebird Nightclub. Tickets are $16.“’Robbers and Cowards’ is one of my favorite albums of the past 10 years,” said Dan Coleman, the show promoter of Spirit of ’68 Promotions. “It’s just going to be a great show. Since 2006, they’ve been killing it.”Last January, the band released its third full-length LP, “Mine is Yours,” which was a notable turn in the band’s sound towards stadium rock. The Bluebird is no stadium, but attendees can still expect a big audience.“I would be very surprised if it didn’t sell out,” Coleman said.Cold War Kids’ brand of alternative rock is not particularly fast or hard, but Coleman said its live performance still produces more than its share of stage energy. “Surprisingly, for what their sound is, they are very animated,” he said. “Cold Ward Kids go for it on stage.”Opening for Cold War Kids will be Young Man, the moniker for Colin Caulfield, a Chicago singer-songwriter with an story about breaking into the music scene.In 2009, he began posting to the Internet a series of videos featuring him performing cover songs by his favorite indie artists such as Deerhunter and The Velvet Underground. His publicity grew and landed him a spot performing at Chicago’s Lollapalooza festival last August. Today’s concert is the first of three consecutive Spirit of ’68 shows this week, preceding “The War on Drugs” at The Bishop on Thursday and Dr. Dog at The Bluebird on Friday.Tickets are still available at The Bluebird, at Landlocked Music or through ticketmaster.com.- Steven Arroyo
(10/20/11 4:49am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>By the time Nashville, Tenn., native Leonard Davidson reached the Bluebird Nightclub at 8:40 p.m., he was at the end of a line that extended four blocks from the venue on North Walnut Avenue.This was the line that hopeful fans waited in, checking their Facebook and Twitter feeds for the latest news on a botched GLOWfest concert.Three hours earlier, the GLOWfest Twitter page announced that the show headlining deadmau5 had been cancelled due to “inclement weather.”Davidson’s attitude, though, remained positive.“We’re waiting it out until the end,” he said. “We didn’t drive seven hours for nothing.” After GLOWfest broke the news of its cancellation, ticket holders took to Twitter and Facebook with criticisms of the music festival and deadmau5.“I think this was deadmau5’s fault,” sophomore Carlos Hernandez said. “He shouldn’t have refused to perform.”deadmau5 fired back with tweets about an alternate venue in the works.By 7:30 p.m., deadmau5 announced that the show had moved to the Bluebird, doors opening at 9 p.m. and he would perform at about midnight. He also made the mistake of saying the venue would be for all ages.As fans started to line up in front of the venue, deadmau5 sent out another tweet that said he had been misinformed about the concert — the Bluebird couldn’t accommodate the younger-than-21 crowd.“I feel like they screwed up a little bit when they said it was all ages,” a bartender at the Bluebird said.By 9 p.m., the crowd started to chant, “Let us in! Let us in!”However, the Bluebird, which holds roughly 800, could not fit everyone.“I feel like it probably wasn’t the smartest decision (to use the Bluebird),” GLOWfest co-founder Deuce Thevenow said. “They could’ve picked a bigger venue and made it fair for the 3,000 to 5,000 who had tickets.”GLOWfest has yet to officially announce if there will be compensation for ticket holders that were unable to enter the Bluebird.
(10/05/11 9:42pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>“Maybe you’ve noticed I’m not afraid of everything that I’ve done,” Jeff Tweedy says on “Standing O,” the ninth track of Wilco’s eighth studio album, “The Whole Love.” Around the turn of the century, Tweedy cemented Wilco among, if not atop, the most forward-thinking American bands by fully committing to a new identity with each new album, twisting traditional American genres into countless new, psychedelic and delightfully ambiguous sounds. Whether a welcome surprise or an unforeseen disappointment, nearly every one evaded predictions fearlessly.
Now 44, Tweedy is nowhere near as fazed by criticisms — most recently for his "dad rock" sensibilities — as he once was. For his audience, this growing indifference became the main source of intrigue leading into “The Whole Love.” And what he delivers here is an album that, unlike earlier Wilco albums, doesn’t strictly adhere to any obvious common thread, but like every Tweedy effort, still brings more than its fair share of tremendous high points.It opens with a song that can best be identified as the “anti-dad rock.” Seven-minute “Art of Almost” is the album’s conversation changer, conceived as if to deliberately quash talk of Wilco going soft. Evolving from a tense, electronic-heavy beat into a turbulent release carried by a blistering solo from lead guitarist Nels Cline, "Almost” succeeds as the band's most engagingly noisy work since 2004.The rest of the tracks are nowhere near as instantly curious as “Almost” but include some exceptional highlights. Second track “I Might” switches gears into an up-tempo thumper of a four-minute pop song, centered on a muddied bass riff from John Stirratt. “Born Alone” finds the band at their most anthemic. Letting loose another all-out wailing guitar hook from Cline, it matches the fervent hammering of The Flaming Lips’ “Do You Realize??” and pulls statement-of-purpose themes from Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” inside four minutes. “Capitol City,” however, brings the heartfelt momentum to an abrupt halt, flirting dangerously close with The Beatles’ “When I’m Sixty-Four” and ultimately seeming like little more than “Almost’s” obligatory counterpoint: “... but so what if we are ‘dad rock?’” Still, “The Whole Love” manages to go out on its highest note. On the 12-minute lyrical adventure “One Sunday Morning,” Tweedy channels his younger folksong writer for an eloquent narrative involving a character coming to terms with his deceased father and the religious differences that separated them. Well beneath his voice is a slow, subtle swelling of gentle and ornate guitar and piano parts that blend in headphones like foliage colors, exhibiting a masterful balance between restraint and attention to detail.The power behind Tweedy’s unassuming singing voice has always been his bread and butter. Regardless of whatever identity he decides to take on, he consistently succeeds when he allows the songs at their most naked to speak for themselves.All speculation on definitions aside, he still certainly has that.
(09/21/11 9:49pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>With multiple #1 hits in the United States, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, a marriage proposal from Bob Dylan, concerts opening for Martin Luther King Jr’s speeches and rallies (and occasionally, vice versa), Rolling Stone’s designation as the 56th greatest singer of all time and more than 60 years as a successful performer under her belt, Mavis Staples needs no additional résumé boosts. Then again, she was never in it for the bragging rights. Staples’ performance at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater to open the Lotus World Music & Arts Festival today comes in the midst of a recent recording and touring surge that began in the middle of last year with the release of her latest solo album, “You Are Not Alone.” Now 72, Staples is experiencing a career rebirth at an age when most great American artists see their new work celebrated and critiqued far less than they once did. For most of her life, people have known Mavis Staples as the lead singer of the iconic gospel and soul group The Staple Singers, comprised of Mavis; her sisters, Yvonne, Cleotha and Pervis; and their father, Roebuck “Pops” Staples. Hailing from the south side of Chicago, the Singers started out performing in local churches in 1948 and received their first professional contract in 1952, before Mavis was a teenager. Between roughly 30 albums and legendary hits such as “I’ll Take You There,” “Respect Yourself” and “Let’s Do it Again,” they became world famous and repeatedly conquered charts, especially in the 1970s. With her self-titled solo debut in 1969, Staples embarked on a separate, independent musical journey she has kept alive to this day. Combining her work as a solo artist and with her band, Staples has spanned countless genres in her life, including gospel, soul, R&B, pop, folk, rock, blues and funk. In 2005, The Staple Singers were recognized for their prolific career with the prestigious Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award — yet no one in the Staples family had ever won a Grammy. That changed last year with “You Are Not Alone,” the reigning Best Americana Album produced by Jeff Tweedy, who happened to be nominated in the same category the year before with his band, Wilco. “It’s been a long time coming,” Staples said tearfully while accepting the award as she acknowledged her father, who passed away in 2000. “It’s because of you, Pops, that I’m standing here today. And I tell you — you laid the foundation, and I am still working on the building.” The album came about when Tweedy and his management approached Staples about producing her next effort. While she had never heard of him, she was shocked and flattered with his knowledge of her career and welcomed his assistance. “You Are Not Alone” includes a stirring and deeply empathetic title track written just for her by Tweedy, three reinventions of Staple Singers originals and an energized cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Wrote a Song for Everyone.” In the wake of the album’s release, Staples performed cuts from it all over late-night television, including “The Late Show with David Letterman,” “Later ... with Jools Holland,” “Conan” and, perhaps most fortunately, “The Colbert Report.” On the latter, she and Tweedy appeared for an interview with Stephen Colbert and to perform the album’s title track. Immediately after the interview, in a rare candid moment for the show, Colbert dropped character and told viewers, “I heard this earlier today. It’s incredible. It’s one of the more beautiful songs I’ve ever heard.” Now that Tweedy’s and Colbert’s vast, predominantly 1980s and 1990s-born fanbases are fully aware of who Mavis Staples is, audiences at her concerts have become young and plentiful once again. On Oct. 1, 2010, Staples performed at Colbert’s and Jon Stewart’s “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” in Washington, D.C., in the company of many other distinguished performers, including The Roots, John Legend, Yusef Islam and Ozzy Osbourne.Staples and Tweedy performed a stripped-down take of “You Are Not Alone” to an estimated combined audience of nearly three million people: 250,000 in attendance, two million Comedy Central viewers and 500,000 live streams online. Then, for the rally’s finale, with all of her fellow performers on stage backing her up vocally, she led the politically agitated crowd in a spirited sing-along rendition of “I’ll Take You There.” The new queen of Americana will find herself representing her own country at Bloomington’s annual world music festival today. Attendees should prepare for the intimately engaging and communal concert experience that it certainly has the potential to be. After all, the last time Staples was performing to so many twenty-somethings, it was around the time she helped King teach the people of the world to accept one another. Tonight, in front of what will likely be a widely diverse (both ethnically and in age) audience, she can witness firsthand the colorful tree that became of a seed she and her family helped plant during the civil rights movement. And she’s not even done. “I’m gonna be around a while,” she announced while wrapping up her Grammy acceptance speech. “Y’all haven’t seen the last of me.”If history is any indication, you can take her word for it.
(09/01/11 12:48am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>With his first album of this decade, Stephen Malkmus enters his fourth decade of making aloof and jangly indie rock. “Mirror Traffic,” on its surface, contains the shortest tracks ever on a Jicks album and the most on a Malkmus album since Pavement’s “Wowee Zowee” in 1995. This is a notable departure from his last album, the Jicks’ jam-laden “Real Emotional Trash,” but it’s not the only one longtime Malkmus fans might notice.On “Mirror Traffic,” Malkmus seems to prioritize consistency for perhaps the first time in his career. Even his most well-received albums, especially those from the ’90s, had their spots of deliberate sloppiness, but no song goes unpolished here. Give some credit to his producer, fellow SoCal apathy-rocker Beck, for his restrained oversight. It allows Malkmus’ melodies to speak for themselves while nurturing the band’s excellent instrumental codas and breakdowns (especially on “Forever 28” and “Gorgeous Georgie”), which build beautifully without spiraling into jams.Another well-established aspect of Malkmus’ songwriting brand he ditches on this album is his signature non-sequiturs. In fact, he probably makes more sense here than ever before. (See the chorus of timely lead single “Senator,” released earlier this year amidst the public shamings of multiple prominent political figures involved in sex scandals: “I know what the senator wants/What the senator wants is a blow job.”)Malkmus is far removed from the starry-eyed, attention-deficit-disorder boy identity of his prime, but “Mirror Traffic” proves, if nothing else, that he still can’t sit still on ideas.
(05/26/11 9:33pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Though formerly recognized as Chicago’s “other” music festival, Pitchfork’s annual attendance has spiked since its inception in 2006.Now it has been established as “Christmas” as Lollapalooza is to New Year’s Eve - popular, yet incomparable events superior in their own respects.The Pitchfork Festival is located in Union Park which is about one-third the size of Lolla’s Grant Park. The festival thrives on drafting rising acts that the more bustling Lolla tends to scoop up a year or two later. Together, they have helped launch countless acts in the back half of the aughts including Girl Talk, The National and Vampire Weekend. Here are this year’s must-sees: Because they’re at the top of their game: Fleet Foxes, TV on the Radio, and Deerhunter Each coming off a fantastic new album in the past year, these three critics’ darlings should draw in the biggest crowds of the weekend. Consider solid colored clothing or you might drown in a sea of plaid.Because you may never see them again: Guided by Voices, Dismemberment Plan, and Animal Collective The former two originally broke up around the turn of the millennium but have since embarked on very successful reunion tours that ended up being more successful than their pre-breakup tours. Animal Collective, though still probably a few years from an official separation, is now more selective than ever with concerts as its members approach their mid-30s and devote more time to their families.Because they’re about to blow up: Yuck, James Blake, and OFWGKTAIn the year that Guided by Voices and Dismemberment Plan say goodbye, Yuck appropriately steps in to fill the void with a sound influenced in no small part by those two bands as well as other ‘90s guitar shredding melody kings like Dinosaur Jr., Weezer and Sonic Youth. For anyone interested in what the Bon Iver of dubstep could possibly sound like, see Mr. Blake. And if you’re unaware of the buzz behind the shock-rap crew OFWGKTA, see any music blog — unless you have a weak stomach.
(05/13/11 6:56pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Many bands buckle under the pressure of delivering an anticipated successor to a debut album that received massive, unexpected levels of critical acclaim. Robin Pecknold, leader of the Seattle-based nature loving folk-rockers Fleet Foxes, took the opportunity to create his most personal — and best — effort yet.Pecknold brings back to the table every element that helped their second EP “Sun Giant” and first full-length “Fleet Foxes” succeed, and then some — look no further than the noise-laden curiosity “The Shrine/An Argument”. Their signature thick, multi-part harmonies are brought back frequently on exuberant tracks like “Battery Kinzie.” The delicate, acoustic picking of past successes like “Quiet Houses” are matched and often one-upped, especially on “Lorelai,” a softer track reminiscent of the Beatles’ “Norweigian Wood.”Immediately, it becomes clear why it took Pecknold and his fox pack three years to follow up their last release. Unlike their first two, “Helplessness Blues” bleeds with inner conflict and heavy self-reflection, beginning with the very first lyric of the opener “Montezuma”: “So now I am older/than my mother and father/when they had their daughter/now what does that say about me?”Pecknold returns to narrating his coming of age on the album’s title track and standout centerpiece where he debates his role in society, happily surrendering all comforting illusions he once had. “I was raised up believing I was somehow unique...and now after some thinking, I’d say I’d rather be/a functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond me,” he concludes. “But I don’t know what that will be/I’ll get back to you someday soon, you will see.”And then again on sprightly closer “Grown Ocean”, Pecknold returns to singing about the endless pursuit of this mystery: “All my life I will wait to attain it.” It’s a perfect finale for the album, encompassing its recurring concepts of declaring enthusiasm for life and embracing life’s uncertainties, and once again echoing the sentiment of the album’s most profound lyric off the title track: “What good is it to sing helplessness blues?”
(04/28/11 12:21am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Last week, TV on the Radio bassist Gerard Smith died of lung cancer at age 36. In his time with the band, Smith was a designated role player, and it was a position he embraced. “Bassist” was his common title, but he also put in time on guitar, piano, organ and synth. As bassists tend to be, Smith seemed reserved, especially when compared to his distinguished bandmates. Tunde Adebimpe is the hyper-ambitious frontman, not only the primary singer and songwriter for the band he co-founded, but also an accomplished film director and actor who starred in “Rachel Getting Married” opposite Anne Hathaway. David Sitek is the decorated producer whose touch has been applied to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Jane’s Addiction. Smith, on the other hand, focused strictly on his job. Band interviews including him were rare. Music videos starring the band featured him on screen the least. During late night television performances you could find him in the shadows if you tried, with his back to the audience, locked in with drummer Jaleel Bunton while Adebimpe, Sitek and Malone seized the spotlight. “I usually try to stay off to the side because I don’t write the lyrics for the songs, and I try to stay mostly peripheral because I don’t want to become this nuisance,” Smith told L.A. Record in 2008. Yet from the start of its heyday in the mid-aughts until Wednesday of last week, TV on the Radio had five members, no more, no less. Rock ’n’ roll lore is majestic, filled with stories of rebirth, tragedy and improbable fallouts of time and circumstance. Smith’s is one you might not have heard. “I never imagined I was going to be in a band,” Smith said in the interview. “I’d never really studied music seriously.” He claimed he studied art history in high school and practiced visual art but became frustrated with both quickly and gave them up. In the early 2000s, Smith played music on a subway platform in Manhattan, N.Y., during downtime from his day job. There was one man who would regularly stop to listen and donate money. Smith recognized him but couldn’t remember where from. Fatefully, the man came back around enough times for Smith to realize it was Adebimpe, who played the lead role in one of his favorite independent films, “Jump Tomorrow.” Adebimpe would remember Smith’s style of playing as “so far above what was normally down there that I can’t even describe it.” At the time, Smith didn’t even know Adebimpe was a musician too. But one thing led to another after the two exchanged compliments on each other’s art. Adebimpe invited Smith to his apartment to record music on his roommate Sitek’s equipment. Soon after, Smith agreed to join TV on the Radio for one tour. One tour turned into eight years, and Smith would play a central role in the studio for three successful albums despite the modest one he played outside of it. His first one with the band, 2006’s “Return to Cookie Mountain,” turned the band into a giant of the industry and ended up a top-five album on numerous year-end lists. 2008’s “Dear Science” one-upped that — at least according to Rolling Stone, Spin, The Guardian and MTV, which all gave it Album of the Year honors. “Nine Types of Light,” the band’s brand new album that was released just nine days before Smith’s untimely passing, was his last work. The band did music videos for each song that Adebimpe strung together into an hour-long film. Some contained acting and speaking roles by all five members, including Smith. Appropriately, Smith’s final project finally featured him in the spotlight. Rest in peace, Mr. Smith. Thank you for the music, and thank you for choosing that specific subway platform.
(04/21/11 1:48am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>For its fifth album, “Nine Types of Light,” TV On The Radio decided to go for something brighter, and it makes that goal perfectly clear.If the album’s title and artwork alone weren’t suggestive enough, look no further than the bafflingly numerous mentions of the word “light” in lyrics from the opening track “Second Song” (“Every diamond elemental, you are instrumental due to the light”) to closer “Caffeinated Consciousness” (“Improve our days now, ’cause we might not sleep tonight / Suffused are we to the cause of light”) and at many points in between. Furious electric guitar lines, like those that anchored thunderous fan favorites “Wolf Like Me” and “Halfway Home,” are out; soft sonic ambience and pretty banjo lines are in. Gone are Tunde Adebimpe’s darker, soul-pouring hooks from songs like “DLZ.” In their place are more playful and laid-back choruses like those from “Second Song” and its successor, “Keep Your Heart.” Overall, there is a newfound sense of contentment rather than the sense of urgency we are used to hearing from them. However, this new direction feels more like a sacrifice for the band than a challenge in the end. The unique traits that elevated TV On The Radio into the indie rock elite (heavy beats, spurts of horns, detailed supplementary electronics) just don’t seem to deliver here like they have in the past, and for that reason, “Nine Types of Light” simply is not on the level of the band’s previous two efforts.
(04/13/11 10:08pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>As I write this column, I’m eagerly preparing to see Lil Wayne for the first time. His show also marks my first time dropping $50 on a ticket to something that didn’t feature at least 40 acts in a large open field and only my third or fourth time witnessing a pop icon of Wayne’s magnitude perform — albeit from barely underneath the roof of Assembly Hall.Well, this column is running two days after Wayne, and you might have even read the arts section’s coverage at this point. I can only hope it was positive. I paid five columns’ earnings for this ticket, after all. But anyway, here I am, trying to write 600 words assessing the live music of this year’s Little 500, unable to give further mention to the four most distinguished names who came to Bloomington this week to celebrate our bike race: the great Wayne, recent Billboard conqueror Nicki Minaj, daily hustler Rick Ross and the technical wonder drummer behind Blink-182’s adolescence-soundtracking pop punk, Travis Barker. Fortunately, it’s not like I’m left with nothing to write about because it’s not like Little 500 is just a bike race. Most colleges have some annual occasion to book one Girl Talk-caliber college staple performer. Every year around mid-April, IU books a dozen — and this time, it’s the most famous lineup in years. That’s saying something for an event that, in just my first two years here, has attracted the likes of Snoop Dogg, The Flaming Lips, Wilco, Ludacris, Soulja Boy, Young Jeezy, Mike Posner, LMFAO and Flight of the Conchords. This week, however, Bloomington is the host to enough generation-shaping superstars to make New York City jealous, if only for a few days. The word “stacked” hardly does this list justice. “Diverse” would be a step closer. Hip-hop fans hit the jackpot, but the artist-to-style ratio among this week’s performers is solid from the biggest names to the smallest ones. Perhaps the best way to appropriately outline the range of Little 500 2011’s concert lineup is to glance at all the other acts that will perform during the next two nights that did not require massive Facebook campaigns (who knew those work?) to show up and play. Tonight, the increasingly popular rave act Pretty Lights will headline GLOWfest at Bell Tower Fields with its funk-tinged electronic set. (Gucci Mane, Gorilla Zoe, Project Pat and Lloyd Banks were to perform to the stadium parking lot just across Fee Lane at the same time, but the concert was canceled in the wake of Gucci’s most recent arrest.) The more guitar-inclined music fan can head to The Bishop for The Native Young and The Fresh & Onlys and Young Prisms, two San Francisco bands who are acclaimed products of the surf-rock revival that recently took off from their hometown. The Fresh & Onlys will be the deserved headliners, owning a lo-fi sound that is at times similar to Sonic Youth and at others to Girls. The big name of Saturday night is permanently stoned Pittsburgh rapper Wiz Khalifa, whose new album, “Rolling Papers,” just debuted at No. 2 on Billboard and whose face just graced the cover of Rolling Stone. It’s also his second Little 500 concert in three years. Meanwhile, for those still wide awake from Pretty Lights, Rhino’s will be host to the annual Speed of Sound electronic showcase that night, headlined by John Flannely, Adrian Fish and Ersatz Modem. Lil Wayne and company was the most highly anticipated Little 500 concert as of now, but only time will tell whether it will be the most talked about. This year, that could be anyone.
(03/30/11 11:15pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>As they say, April showers bring lots of time spent indoors. So while you’re just sitting around for the next month, here’s some new music to listen and look forward to from artists in their prime.April 12“Tomboy” by Panda Bear Animal Collective helmsman Noah “Panda Bear” Lennox returns from a four-year solo hiatus with “Tomboy,” which he says will be his most guitar-based effort. The title track and lead single is his most urgent-sounding work yet, featuring a pulsing electric guitar riff with a bass-heavy beat. Still, Lennox’s voice, a deep-toned and constantly sustained shout that focuses more on its role as a musical instrument than lyrical delivery, remains his strongest asset. May 3 “Helplessness Blues” by Fleet Foxes Only one month remains until the long-awaited sophomore effort from Seattle-based tree huggers Fleet Foxes reaches the world’s ears. “Battery Kinzie” plugs their signature roots-folk sound into a blur of time signature shifts, an intriguing new challenge for a group known to excel within strict parameters.May 15 “Tha Carter IV” by Lil Wayne Two mediocre albums and a prison sentence after “Tha Carter III,” Lil Wayne returns in May with something we can believe in again. “TC4” will include Wayne’s latest hit, the “A Milli”-esque “6 Foot 7 Foot,” which features his strongest verses since “TC3” and jaw-dropping similes like the now ubiquitously quoted, “real Gs move in silence like lasagna.”May 31 “Codes and Keys” by Death Cab for Cutie Death Cab’s last album, “Narrow Stairs,” brushed the surface of arena rock without over-compromising the arresting simplicity of Ben Gibbard’s melodies or surrendering its subtleties, and it seems it liked the way things were going. “You Are A Tourist,” the lead single off “Codes and Keys,” is a prime example of this method done right: Think the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s “Maps” on a slightly grander level. June TBA by Bon Iver After his cult-legendary 2007 debut “For Emma, Forever Ago” and similar follow-up EP “Blood Bank” in 2009, no one could have predicted that acoustically inclined softie Justin Vernon’s next two moves would be playing a central role in Kanye West’s most acclaimed album to date and making a sophomore LP featuring “a Civil War-sounding heavy metal song.” But according to a recent Rolling Stone article, the aforementioned song is very real and the album is due in early June. Other Notable ReleasesApril 5 - “Blood Pressures” by The Kills April 12 - “The Family Sign” by Atmosphere April 12 - “Nine Types of Light” by TV on the Radio April 12 - “Wasting Light” by Foo Fighters April 26 - “King Kong” by Gorilla Zoe May 10 - “Simple Math” by Manchester Orchestra May 17 - “Give Till It’s Gone” by Ben Harper May 23 - “Born This Way” by Lady Gaga Late May - “Circuital” by My Morning Jacket June - “Relax” by Das Racist