Robin Pecknold continues opening shows for Joanna Newsom. The Fleet Foxes head performed some new songs during his 8/4 set at Seattle’s Moore Theater. He’s very likely done the tracks elsewhere on tour, but someone made pristine recordings this time. We have three:
thesoundstrike.net
Even though Rage Against the Machine really only makes news in my world because Phish just covered “Killing in the Name Of” on the Fourth of July, it is pretty rad that Zach and crew are still out to make new old music together to help support a cause they believe strongly in. Zach De La Rocha came out recently in major opposition to Arizona’s controversial SB 1070 and called on other musicians to join the call to boycott Arizona as a performer until the law gets thrown out. He’s staging what is likely the first of many boycott / protest concerts with the first set for Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl on July 23rd with fellow supporter Conor Oberst. Tickets will be going on sale this Monday at 10am.
Related posts:
Pearl Jam just filled in the “TBD” on their late spring tour with a show set for May 18th at the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ. Tickets go on sale this Saturday, 4/24 at 10am EDT.
Related posts:
For first concert in 13 years, set list includes ‘Spoonman,’ ‘Outshined,’ other fan faves.
By Tom Biro
Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell performs in Seattle on Friday
Photo: Tom Biro
SEATTLE — On Friday night, 13 years after last taking the stage together, the members of grunge-era band Soundgarden reunited in front of about 1,000 fans at Seattle’s Showbox at the Market for a rousing performance that kicked off with fan favorite “Spoonman” and closed with a cover of the Doors’ “Waiting for the Sun.”
The surprise performance comes just four months after singer Chris Cornell proclaimed that Soundgarden would return to action. Since that January announcement, the band’s inclusion in August’s Lollapalooza festival in Chicago had been made public, but no additional concert dates had been set.
On Thursday afternoon, Seattle radio station 107.7 “The End” began tweeting about the possibility of a “secret” show, and news soon spread that fans on the band’s e-mail list would receive information on when and where it would take place. When word got out that a band going by the name “Nudedragons” (an anagram of Soundgarden) would be playing on Friday night, fans began stalking Twitter and Ticketmaster, awaiting the moment that tickets would go on sale. According to local news reports in Seattle, the available tickets sold out in less than 15 minutes.
“That’s Kim. That’s Ben. That’s Matt.,” Cornell informed fans, pointing to his stagemates, halfway through the band’s almost two-hour set, which included a run of more than an hour of nonstop rock before a short break. “And that’s Chris,” responded drummer Matt Cameron, bringing a cheer from the hometown crowd, who appreciated the introductions, though they were hardly needed.
“It’s a rehearsal, so if we f— something up, we’re probably going to go through it again,” explained Cornell, just before tearing into “Outshined,” off 1991’s Badmotorfinger. From the fans’ perspective, however, the show appeared to be a rehearsal in name only, with the crowd holding tight to every note, drumbeat and guitar riff sent their way.
If the throwing of a guitar symbolizes all things rock and roll, then clearly bassist Ben Shepherd is ready to make a go of it. After tossing his bass in what many hard-core fans recognize as the “end” of the band back in February 1997, it probably won’t go unnoticed that Shepherd did the same thing to close Friday night’s show, in what could be seen as an effort to go back to the way things were — with Soundgarden as the heavy, loud powerhouse that exemplified the early-to-mid ’90s.
Friday night’s set list:
“Spoonman”
“Gun”
“Searching With My Good Eye Closed”
“Rusty Cage”
“Beyond the Wheel”
“Flower”
“Ugly Truth”
“Fell on Black Days”
“Hunted Down”
“Nothing to Say”
“Loud Love”
“Blow Up the Outside World”
“Pretty Noose”
“Outshined”
“Slaves and Bulldozers”
Encore:
“Get on the Snake”
“Big Dumb Sex”
“Waiting for the Sun”
Related Photos
Related Artists
He’s gone from slagging L.A. to moving there, but on Monday Ben Gibbard was rooting for his home team, performing “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” and covering John Fogerty’s “Centerfield” with the rest of his Death Cab cuties at the Seattle Mariners’ opening day game at Safeco Field. Dude’s on a covers kick. And looking pretty good in Mariners blue.
Damien Jurado’s simple, effective covers of Microphones’ “Where Lies My Tarp?” and Low’s “Murderer” made for good listening, while also offering interesting personal insights into the Seattle songwriter’s listening habits/aesthetic inspirations. As he told us then:
With a band like Low, I have always compared listening to their music to that of a self reveling and […]
The Golden Archipelago, which has already birthed two downloadable previews in the soaring “Castaways” and its wind-blown counterpart “Black Eyes,” sees its first official video treatment today at the hands of director Alma Har’el. Jonathan Meiburg is in full costumer for “Hidden Lakes”‘ 3/4 piano reverie by way of Talk Talk, dirty and destitute, crawling across a barren land before running into an evil looking Thor Harris (guessing it’s Thor by that earring, tough to say for sure without seeing his bare chest and hammer dulcimer). At which point they make a meaningful exchange of soulful looking puppies. Totally normal.
Continue reading Shearwater - “Hidden Lakes” Video…
The anatomy of a bona fide buzz cycle: stoking anticipation by securing a solid label and co-producer, releasing one of your album’s more promising tracks, demonstrating you’re a threat in concert at a killer coming-out party, and then (literally) orchestrating a live video with a song, cameo list, and conceit so strong it had no choice but to go viral. You could tell other campaigns to take note, but first they’d need an album worth the fuss, which you can’t calculate, which Big Echo is. I was in from first spin, but also sensed this one had the legs to connect. The “Excuses” live vid did its work to reel in the concert-of-blog-love requisite to make this a morning benders moment, which the band’s stoking here with the song that’s turned everyone to mush in its studio form.
Can’t say just how much of the initial interest in the live “Excuses” had to do with its recognizable cameos, or with the visual of mainbender Chris Chu conducting his small-scale Wall Of Sound, but the success of it is a song is independent of those tics, rests solely on its smart and earnest aurals: “Excuses” opens the record with the dusty crackle and pop of a needle dropping on vinyl, scene-setting for the throwback, ’50s-copping California pop vibes, the doo-wop break, the Etta James string section that color this song’s loping, waltz-time strum, paean of love, and sticky sweet, technicolor melodies. Dig it:
Continue reading the morning benders - “Excuses”…
Not sure if musicians and comedians preternaturally get along together. But they definitely both hate cancer. So maybe this benefit for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society was more of a my-enemy’s-enemy-is-my-friend thing? Cancer-hating comedian Todd Barry hosted the Seattle event, which included past and present Sub Pop label mates Eugene Mirman, Isaac Brock, and James Mercer, alongside Neil Hamburger, Tig Notaro, Natasha Legerro, and Tim & Eric’s Tim Heidecker. Seattle photographer Laura Musselman caught the event for us. Both Mercer and Brock performed sans bands; Modest Mouse recently announced a Friday spot at this year’s Pitchfork Festival, and Mercer’s prepping a Broken Bells debut album with Dangermouse.
You could compare Warpaint to Au Revoir Simone for other reasons than being a female trio with fragile melodies, but the Los Angeles crew do something darker. It’s sorta there in the differences between their names. For instance, David Lynch had nothing to do with the dreamy Adam Harding and Burke Roberts-directed video for “Stars,” but its more eerily atmospheric (and shadowy) than “Shadows” even if the title sounds brighter.
Continue reading New Warpaint Video - “Stars”…
