In and Out: YACHT @Studio B with Parts & Labor

YACHT is sailing back into town this Wednesday April 16th for a show at Studio B. To get on the $7 reduced Finger on the Pulse guest list:

1) Send an email to fotpstudiob@gmail.com
2) Put Yacht in the subject line
3) List the names you want on the list
4) Show up on Wednesday and come blow it out

In and Out: A Year in Loose Photos - 2007

Lori Baily:

Clipd Beaks

Kristeen Young

These Are Powers

Abbey Braden:

New Young Pony Club @ Studio B

Morrissey @ Hammerstein Ballroom

Simian Mobile Disco @ Gramercy Theater

The White Stripes @ MSG

Edwina Hay:

Kathy Foster of the Thermals @ McCarren Park Pool (August 2007)

M.I.A. @ Siren Festival (July 2007)

Leia Jospe:

Jemina Pearl of Be Your Own PET @ Maxwell's on Nov. 1st

Jenny Lewis of Rilo Kiley @ Roseland Ballroom (MTVu Awards) on Nov. 8th

Lovefoxxx of CSS @ Irving Plaza on June 1st

Mina K:

Kazu & Amadeo of Blonde Redhead - Webster Hall - 05.08.07

OOIOO - Knitting Factory - 03.20.07

Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth (Daydream Nation Tour) - McCarren Pool - 07.28.07

Sean O'Kane:

As Tall As Lions @ Highline Ballroom

The Rocket Summer @ The Crazy Donkey

Lupe Fiasco @ Irving Plaza

Chris Owyoung:

The Puppini Sisters @ BB Kings - 08/26/2007

VHS or Beta @ The Blender Theater - 11/16/2007

Modern Day Zero @ The Pageant (St. Louis) - 11/21/2007

Diana Wong:

Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeah's

Justice

Stellastarr*

In and Out: Justify my love, Stephen Malkmus.

March 4th spawns Stephen Malkmus' next release with the Jicks, entitled Emotional Trash. Janet Weiss of Sleater-Kinney and Quasi fame will be (wo)manning the drums in this incarnation of not-Pavement. The lady's all over the place (recall that she is fresh off a Bright Eyes tour), but this is nothing new as I flash back to when she used to guest Elliott Smith's shows.

I'm pretty sure the new Malkmus musical product will disappoint me in some way, though I've set my expectations as low as I possibly can without shedding a few tears of embarrassment. Malkmus, I still adore you unconditionally, but would you please produce at least one new song that surpasses "AT&T?"

Emotional Trash tracklisting:

Dragonfly Pie
Hopscotch Willie
Cold Son
Real Emotional Trash
Out of Reaches
Baltimore
Gardenia
Elmo Delmo
We Can't Help You
Wicked Wanda

[Photo by Mina K a long, long time ago]

In and Out: Graphic Representations of Rap

No, not graphic like the scene in Get Rich or Die Tryin' when 50 Cent tries to act or when 50 Cent gets shot in the face. Graphic like graph. Like X axis and Y axis. I don't know who is responsible for this but it's worth a look.

Hip Hop Graphs

In and Out: Apes & Androids are baaaack. [mp3]

If you're in NYC, you may have lucked out and stumbled upon an Apes & Androids show at some point. If not, you most definitely need to see them once before you die or they return to their home planet. The droid boys have just released a track from their upcoming album, Blood Moon, which was recorded in their fancy home studio:

Apes & Androids - Golden Prize [mp3]

Check out an old Loose Record live review of Apes & Androids here.

[Photos by Steph Goralnick]

In and Out: How I survived the WFMU record fair

I did make it to the WFMU record fair - bright, early, and decisively unshowered on Saturday morning. Jason met up with me and proved to be a great browsing companion for this collector-nerd activity. The room was as predicted filled with 99.5% dudes, yet I did not get the distinct pleasure of overhearing a discussion about Cream and Clapton.

We were in there for 3-4 hours straight, leaning over tables stocked full of vinyl and cd's. After a while my eyes started bugging out of my head, but I declared success when Jason helped me find a cryptic flexi 7" which I had a feeling might be Pavement. I snatched it up for a dollar, and it turned out to be a rare Pavement split single from 1991...coincidentally, the next chronological piece of Pavement vinyl I'm slated to hunt down. I realize this means nothing to most people.

Here was my loot, for a grand total of $50:

Pavement: My First Mine flexi 7"
The Blow: Parentheses 7"
Panda Bear: Take Pills 7"
Dead Kennedys: Milking the Sacred Cow
Jonathan Richman: I'm So Confused
Jonathan Richman: Surrender to Jonathan
The Double: Loose In the Air
Minus the Bear: Planet of Ice
These Arms Are Snakes: Easter
Karl Blau: Beneath the Waves
Owen: At Home with Owen (bought so I can learn about, thus better ridicule them)
Thomas Lunch: Diagrams Without Instructions

And Jason's loot:

Daniel Johnston & Yo La Tengo: Speeding Motorcycle (split 7")
White Stripes: Hello Operator 7"
Pylon: Chomp 12"
Orange Juice: You Can't Hide Your Love Forever 12"
The Cure: Let's Go To Bed 12"
White Stripes: Icky Thump double LP

[Photo features Jason + Doug + a gaggle of dudes]

In and Out: It's the Weekend! WFMU Record Fair

This weekend is the WFMU Record Fair. So if you have more than an inkling of who Cream is or have a vinyl fetish, you'd best move your butt over to the Metropolitan Pavilion between today and Sunday.

p.s. - For those born between 1978-87, there are always a few tables of recent promo cd's being sold at $2-10.

p.p.s. - You may want to bring a bottle of Febreze. Trust me, I've been going to record shows since I was 12. You'll thank me later.

[Photo taken by me last year, as I held my breath and Xtina + Maggie silently mocked me]

In and Out: 2 Shout Out Louds Shows, 2 Afterparties

TankFarm Future Sounds is throwing two official afterparties for the two Shout Out Louds shows in NYC. If you are a master translator of Sw-english, you should try to talk to the band...from what I could tell when I met them last, they were quite friendly. Unless Swedes are supposed to smile as they lay hexes on you...then I'm in trouble.

Tonight's afterparty (after the Bowery Ballroom show):

Tomorrow's afterparty (after the Music Hall of Williamsburg show):

In and Out: Let's Be [AOL] Friends

Tim Harrington of Les Savy Fav "interviews" at AOL:



A very staged interview, but worth a chuckle nonetheless. Mr. Harrington is notorious for being spotted around NYC wearing a business suit...the guy's doing corporate consulting work after all.

In and Out: CMJ Panels

While most CMJ-ers in the 21-30 demographic are still in the process of nursing their hangovers, the collegiate and has-been (>38) demographics are at the Kimmel center, attending CMJ panels. I admittedly missed a handful of panels this week due to the aforementioned "slow mornings," but I was able to catch a few. Of them was "Stagediving 101," with guest speaker Peter Criss (kitty-cat drummer) of KISS and Eric Davidson of New Bomb Turks.



Here is a listed summary of what I learned at this and all other panels throughout the week:

Never take to heart the things people in bands and the music industry advise you to do.

No Q&A questions at the panels were ever in the form of a proper question.

People asking "questions" have an urge to lecture to the rest of the audience.

All but one of the questions were asked by men.

Even with auspicious panelists such as Wilson Rothman of Gizmodo and Mark McClusky of Wired magazine, a panel can veer off-topic and flop.

Techie nerds should not publicly discuss label politics.

There is really no need for anyone over 21 to attend panels.

The MuseBox panelist was a stone fox. Call me?

I would absolutely love to host a panel next year, and rather than talk, shoot pennies from my sleeves a la Gob in Arrested Development.

In and Out: Thank You For Smoking

Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox, everybody. Sucking on a cigarette during encore onstage at the Bowery Ballroom last night, as he mysteriously became more and more unhinged. My question is, did anyone see him pop a pill during the performance? Because I call bullshit on the drugged madman act, as much as it made me chuckle.

Regardless, thank you Brendan for breaking the law in the name of rock and roll.

In and Out: A Death of The Hit or "Closing Time" in a Modern Historical Context

We all come here for the same thing. We are all here in some form of the same pursuit of pop music. You can dress it up any way you like but the facts remain: Whether you like The Flaming Lips, The French Kicks or (and this should be obvious) The (fucking) Fray, you're all fans of pop music. Even the most hard-core, un-signed "indie" bands use a form, albeit at times a confused form, of pop song-writing. It is our one unifying characteristic. These are all pop bands writing, or trying to write, pop songs and we are pop fans listening or trying to listen.

So why are they so bad at it? Why are so many indie bands so bad at writing little pop songs? Where are the hits? And just what are they hiding?

Last week I was listening to my iPod Shuffle and in the midst of the 265 random songs, a shotgun blast-sample of my larger music collection, came through Semisonic's 1998 smash-hit "Closing Time." As far as I can tell there are two kinds of people in the world: people that like "Closing Time" and respect it's infectious 4-note piano riff, and then there are people who hate "Closing Time" and generally don't like balloons and puppies and sit in their basements listening to Pavement, bitching about that one time their college girlfriend asked to listen to Coldplay while they "did it." Fair enough? Good.

"Closing Time" is close or pretty close to being a perfect pop-song. You've got a catchy opening-riff, meaningless yet tautological lyrics ("every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end"), a memorable hook in the verse ("Closing time ...") and an anthemic chorus ("I know who I want to take me home"). It's an almost perfect storm of the last 50 years of pop song-writing and in the summer of 1998, we were all swamped in the middle of it. Semisonic's album was certified as Platinum and the band went on to never recapture their one most brilliant moment.

The problem is not that all bands should be able to write a song like "Closing Time" for it surely takes a lot of talent and little bit of luck. The problem is that talented bands seem to be intentionally avoiding trying to write a song like "Closing Time." What is the fear of the hit single? Even though we all can agree most bands are using pop song-writing techniques, there appears to be a desire to not write a catchy, radio-ready single. Does this preserve underground credibility? Sure. But ask Dan Wilson of Semisonic. Would he rather be a cool "underground" band from Minnesota that never made it? Or would he rather pick up his Feeling Strangely Fine royalty check every month and pay his mortgage and then blow a couple thousand dollars at Crate and Barrel? Exactly.

So why the fear of the hit single? Would it really kill your credibility? How much is that credibility worth in the first place, especially if it doesn't translate into album sales and band revenue. Does being credible necessarily mean being poor and unknown? Didn't you start your band in the first place to be heard? Didn't you want to play music for The People, not just for a few people?

All this means we have to ask some hard questions. Are these bands, talented as they may be, afraid of writing the hit single or completely unable to? Like a chicken shit sky-diver, some indie bands claim they don't want to write "radio music" when in reality they might just be scared to get out of the plane. What if the chute doesn't work? What if they can't fly with the bands who get their (so-called shitty) music on the radio? What if they actually can't write the hits they call "formulaic" and "three-chord monstrosities?" Are they too sophisticated to be so simple? Are they too elitist to be so popular?

We might never know. But when you listen to a song like "Closing Time" you wonder, where has the song-writing gone? And what the hell are you so afraid of?

In and Out: Another edition of "If You Miss These Shows, You Don't Like Music"

What up, fockers? Yeah, we're back again after what seems like forever. And admittedly, the show schedule in this city has been more than a little thin (and no, Dan Deacon playing his shit 30 times in two weeks doesn't count). But, it seems like we're back on track with some good bands, some small bands and some big shows supporting big records. Here's the shot sheet. And again, if you miss these, I feel bad for you and think you should probably spend the week making an application tape for The Pick-Up Artist: Season 2.

Tuesday, Sept. 25:

Bat For Lashes @ The Bowery. This is big and still not sold out, so sneak your tickets now. If you haven't heard of this band, I honestly don't know what to do with you. Move back in with your parents. It's over.

Bear Hands and a bunch of other tiny, weeny, little bands @ Pianos: Bear Hands has one great song, "Long Lean Queen" and some of the worst lyrics of all-time. "Long and lean/God save the Queen/Peace in the world/Is peace in my brain." Can't argue with the world peace sentiment but tell me what incarnation of the universe accepts "brain" and "queen" as rhyming words? Where is that true? Russia? Iran?

Wednesday, Sept 26:

LooseRecord.com favorites and un-favorites Liam and Me make their triumphant return to the Knitting Factory where they seem to sell out .... all. the. time. Now, this band does cause a rift between the writing/blogging staff (people in the know, foot soldiers, on the grind) and the editorial staff (queens, "let them eat cake," detached-totalitarian-style ruling party) but, make up your own mind. It's synth-rock people - not rocket science. And fuck you if you don't like it. jk. lol.

Now, if you want the exact opposite experience, you can head over to the Annex where the Secret Machines (or the impostors passing as the Secret Machines) play the final show of a 4 week residency. Yes, it's new material. And yes, if you saw them at their "triumphant" return to New York, also at the Annex back in May, you know that the new material is rough in places, bad in others. Expect a set of songs you don't know (one or two of which will blow your doors off) and then a closer of "Lightning Blue Eyes" and something else to remind you this band used to write serious music and used to destroy audiences for pure recreation.

Thursday, Sept. 27

Yeasayer and The Forms @ Cake Shop. This is the ultimate, "miss this and feel sorry for yourself" show. Cake Shop is tiny. Yeasayer is big and has one of the most interesting, creative records of the year. Go listen to "2080" and tell me you don't hear Broken Social Scene playing Paul Simon's Rhythm of the Saints in outer space. Tell me you don't hear that. Exactly. Go to the show.

Jose Gonzalez @ The Gramercy Theater. It's expensive but the Gonzalez has a quietly electric persona for his live show. It might not change your life but he'll probably play "Heartbeats" and you can hold your girlfriend's hand and remember the mixtape you gave her two years ago.

Friday, Sept. 28

We close the week in massive fashion with Okkervil (rhymes with Knockerville) River at Webster Hall. Their latest release is an absolute monster of a record and pretty much solidifies them as Indie-Rock Supa-Stars along with Spoon, Bright Eyes, and The National. These kids will churn out another brilliant record every two years until 2020.

If you want to get your sunny-guitar-pop-on, head back to the Knitting Factory for The Lucksmiths. You like the Shins? Oh shit! This band gave birth to bands like The Shins but not in an annoying, "this band is actually un-listenable now but used to be good" way. They still crush people with sunny, little songs and lyrics about "t-shirt weather." Take that Fall. You can wait your turn.

In and Out: "You Should Be Honored By My Lateness" or Kanye Becomes A More Arrogant, Less Socially-Inclined Verision of Bono

In rock music, whether or not you like his persona or politics or even his music, people have been waiting for a second-coming of Bono. A true rock-personality. Absurd. Over-sized. Talented. And a flair for the dramatic and transcendent moment. In a vaguely similar way, basketball fans wait for the second-coming of Michael Jordan. A talent and a personality that stink of super-star - someone to be larger than life and totally comfortable walking around at tree-level.

Well, unfortunately, rock-rhetoric has gotten larger (see: Kaiser Chiefs 2003-2007, Bloc Party 2006, music blogs 2002-present) but rock personalities and frontmen have gotten smaller. Tell me there was one moment in all the indie rock shows you've seen where you honestly believed the leadsinger could carry the same shtick to an arena. Yeah, Interpol seem electric at Webster Hall (some people disagree) but how are they going to roll at MSG tonight? A show they couldn't sell out despite sharing the bill with a brilliant recovering addict (Cat Power) and a band that very well might blow them off the stage (Liars). The point is, these are small bands. Their singers command the Mercury Lounge with ease but where are they at Madison Square? Fuck, where are they at Giants' Stadium? This was never a problem with Bono. He had enough attitude and persona to rock a small club or kill a stadium. In 1991, Bono could probably have played Outer Space and still filled it up with passion and something vaguely electric. And even now, Bono can still get up to get down. But the man is pushing retirement-age. So, we wait. Who is the next rock-musician who shows up to burn down every venue he or she plays, no matter how big or small it may be?

It won't be a rock musician at all. It just might be Kanye West. Check out this video from (of all places) Jimmy Kimmel's late show. Kanye has more posture and command of the stage and the crowd than any rock-star we've seen in a while. And check out the production flourishes. (Kanye: I want strings. Oh yeah, and fuckin' horns. Get me a fuckin' orchestra to go with this french-techno sample. And do it now.)

So rock music, tighten your pants because you're getting absolutely dogged by a music-geek from Chicago who wears pink polo shirts and Louie V accessories. Sound like a challenge? It is. Step up or step out.

In and Out: Sushi Etiquette

Thanks to cousin Phillip for the link to this sushi instructional video. It might change your life.