The New Frightened Rabbit record is hasty, it’s aggressive, pulsing and feverish. A response to sexual repression, the rhythmic strides, the coarse vocals. It’s a stretch from the sweetly sad ballads of The Midnight Organ Fight, with only a few tracks that could’ve passed with a little less aggression, like ‘Swim Until You Can’t See Land’. Songs like ‘The Loneliness and the Scream’ encapsulate the aesthetic of this album, noisy and angry, working up an energy into a climax with a chorus of voices. Nothing Like You charges something like their ‘Backwards Walk’ as he says, “there is nothing like someone new, this girl she was nothing like you”. Admittedly I would’ve enjoyed a few more mellow tracks like Good Arms vs. Bad Arms- but this record shows their emotive musical progression, layered, more angst, and ‘more cant live with-cant live without [girls]‘.

Frightened Rabbit- Nothing Like You

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Frightened Rabbit- Man (Bag of Sand)

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(austin, tx ’08)

My heart is aching. So this morning I finally brought myself to check out the lineup for this years’ SXSW. Okay, now I want to die. And this isn’t even it- if there was one suggestion I could make, it’d be to have one comprehensive list of bands. Why do they never do that? I know there are something like 2000+ bands, but it’s so painfully unorganized every year. Maybe that’s their thing. I remember having the BEST time last year and feeling really good about doing it better this year. ’09 were like my training wheels, but now my bike has been confiscated. Anyone out there want to buy me a flight out there? NO? Just checking. 

For anyone who is going, I am eternally envious, don’t tell me about it. I don’t want to hear a word. The letters SXSW are going to temporarily be disabled on my keyboard (at least in that consecutive order)

Reasons to love Austin: 

Frightened Rabbit, Born Ruffians, SoKo, Dawes, Spoon, Those Darlins, La Strada, Shy Child, The Morning Benders, Juliana Barwick, Warpaint, Fanfarlo, Broken Social Scene, Greg Laswell, Freelance Whales, The Antlers, Real Estate, Justin Townes Earle, Lucero, No Age, Best Coast, Broken Bells.

Generator First Floor- Freelance Whales

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Little Garson- Born Ruffians

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Fionn Regan’s new album ‘ The Shadow of an Empire’ was just recently released, and it’s reaffirming the theme of Neil Young invading my immediate consciousness on a daily basis. With sounds sweetly borrowed by Young, Dylan, Cohen etc- it sounds bold and classic. Lord Help My Poor Soul is one of my favorites, along with Violent Demeanor. I’d also like to add that he reminds me of Ryan Adams.. I mean, isn’t that an accurate and deserving comparison? I’m kidding. But if I weren’t, I’d say Genocide Matinee could almost pass for Rock & Roll.. or Heartbreaker. Okay I’m done.

Fionn Regan- Violent Demeanor

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Fionn Regan- Lines Written in Winter

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TRACK LISTING:

Protection Racket
Catacombs
Coat Hook
Genocide Matinee
Violent Demeanor
Lines written in Winter
House Detective
Little Nancy
Lord Help My Poor Soul
The Shadow of an Empire

I love the way this song starts, it’s simple and stripped before you hear him let out a muffled ‘fucker’. The band is called 1,2,3 from Pittsburgh. I’ve been hearing this song ‘Confetti’ all over the place, but I’m really into their track called, ‘Going Away Party’ because the chorus goes, “Eff LA” or maybe it’s F-L-A. I’m considering getting that tattooed on my face, okay, fine- I don’t hate LA that much, but I kind of sort of do.

1,2,3- Confetti

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Sweden has the best music. This is First Aid Kit. Start watching 3 minutes in.. the rest is just warmup. Promise- it gets good. 

First Aid Kit – A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

I’ve been running on no sleep this week, so I’m using this Memoryhouse video to help me.. 

Although I’ve heard every cover of The Book of Love out there, The Magnetic Fields do it best. Peter Gabriel- close second. My best Valentines Day memories were when I was a kid and we would trade valentines cards in class, everyone would have paper bags and we would walk around and slip cards inside the bags and some of them would have candies that say ‘swt hrt’ attached, others would have personalized envelopes, most all of them would be some kind of superhero or cartoon and notes inside that would say ‘bff’ or ‘bff4l’ or some variation of the two. And I would be really happy.

And I would take them home and lay them out and count them, like love was something quantifiable- before you had facebook friends, you had valentines and those meant something. And the best part about it was that we were all just kids, and no one was trying to get into someone’s pants or see their boobs (unless it was with a healthy curiosity or a dare). We all just wanted a cool card with our names on it.  

“its full of flowers and heart-shaped boxes and things we’re all too young to know”  I think we’re still too young to know.

The Magnetic Fields- The Book of Love

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Peter Gabriel- The Book of Love 

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Robin Pecknold (Fleet Foxes)- The Book of Love

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New Broken Social Scene LP will be out on Arts & Crafts May 4th. Yes, I kinda sorta like this band, but it has been all too implied that I would be a patriotic fan because they are the only indie band anyone outside of Toronto can name from Toronto. Other than hybrids of the band itself, pieces of their ever changing lineup including Stars, Metric, I don’ t know.. Neil Young?

Anyway, I think my trouble with committing to Kevin Drew and Co. is simply because they are so fragmented, it’s not thematic, I couldn’t tell you what record I liked. I like anything Emily Haines is on. There. I do admire their ingenuity, the whole communal thing they have and that they’ve extended themselves to the credibility of the Toronto music scene. 

About the band, Drew says, “It’s different entirely. We really don’t have anything to prove. So many bands have come out in the last five years and sometimes you question your relevancy. But when it locks into place you just keep going. Right now, everyone’s in place– I can’t stress that enough. Between Chicago and Toronto we recorded about 42 tunes. Obviously some of them might be a kazoo and an 808 but we got a lot of ideas down.” I really hope there are kazoos.

Dates with Pavement and Band of Horses:

05-01 San Francisco, CA – The Fillmore 
05-03 Los Angeles, CA – Henry Fonda Theatre 
05-07 New York, NY – Webster Hall 
05-13 London, England – Brixton Academy *
05-14 Minehead, England – All Tomorrow’s Parties 
05-17 London, England – Heaven 
05-18 Amsterdam, Netherlands – Melkweg 
05-19 Cologne, Germany – Burgerhaus Stollwerck 
05-21 Paris, France – La Maroquinerie 
06-19 Toronto, Ontario – Toronto Island *#

Broken Social Scene- Anthem for a Seventeen Year Old Girl

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I was just sent this- Icelandic singer ‘Lay Low’. I think her full name is something like nee Lovisa Elisabet Sigrunardottir. That rules. But seriously, where are these kids coming from?

Prepare to watch this video on repeat. As I was watching it, my friend mentioned something about Fleetwood Mac and I said, did you just say Fleetwood Mac? And then I asked if he knew I was watching this video.. Of course he didn’t. It was such a trip. I love when those things happen, kinda like when you think about someone and then they call you.

This was recorded by friends of my friend Brandon- featuring the beautiful vocals of Eisley’s Stacey Dupree, Jeremy Larson and Darren King.