RIP Alex Chilton (1950-2010)

Frank YangI don’t know exactly when I became a Joanna Newsom fan. Though I’d certainly heard people talk about her, my first exposure to her music wasn’t through either of her first two records but by seeing her live on her first visit to Toronto in October 2006 – a breathtaking performance that had me picking up The Milk-Eyed Mender almost immediately thereafter and the follow-up Ys when it came out later that year, but even then I didn’t listen to them all that much. They were my go-to records for when I was in the mood for ornate and expansive, harp-led folk music, sure, but for some reason that wasn’t that often.

Even so, I was still amongst those who picked up her new triple-album Have One On Me on the day of release, and while you’d think that two hours of Joanna Newsom for anyone less than a fanatic would be overwhelming, I instead found it surprisingly immersive and immediate. If I wasn’t a huge Joanna Newsom fan before hearing Have One On Me, I certainly was by the time side 6 hit the runout groove.

As such, I fit right in with the rest of sold-out crowd packed into the Phoenix on Saturday night, breathlessly awaiting her first appearance in Toronto in three and a half years...

Read more at Chromewaves→

Photos: Joanna Newsom @ The Phoenix – March 13, 2010
Video: Joanna Newsom – “The Sprout & The Bean”

Gibson Guitars talks to Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers about his guitars (natch) and just-released new album The Big To-Do, currently streaming at Spinner – who also have an interview.

Stream: Drive-By Truckers / The Big To-Do

Pitchfork has a feature interview with Matt Ward and Zooey Deschanel of She & Him, whose new album Volume Two is streaming in its entirety over at NPR, a week before its March 23 release.

Stream: She & Him / Volume Two

Wye Oak will be releasing a new EP entitled My Neighbor / My Creator on June 8, and are sharing a first MP3 from said release. They’re hitting the road with Shearwater this Spring.

MP3: Wye Oak – “I Hope You Die”

Billboard talks to Spoon drummer Jim Eno.

4AD has details of what’s sure to be one of the coolest Record Store Day specials this year – a live concert DVD from The Mountain Goats wherein John Darnielle performs The Life Of The World To Come in its entirety.

NPR has a World Cafe session with Ted Leo.

Magnet kicks off a week of handing the editorial reins to Miles Kurosky, whose solo debut The Desert Of Shallow Effects is out now.

New Hot Chip video!

Video: Hot Chip – “I Feel Better”

rondo.de

Paulson Kalu Afrikhanah & His Stars 25 - “Ochea Special”

An excerpt from The Careful Bartender:

The careful bartender takes his time. He prepares with respect to the drink and not to the lineup. Take for instance, the preparation of a Bachelor's Last Stand. It is 1 finger coconut milk, a mouthful of finest brown rum, a third phase of a lime (match the moon for the night of serving), a flicking of water, and a cactus blossom. It should take three minutes to prepare, to allow all parts to sit and reach the proper temperature. The glass should sweat like a woman in love when served. Never stir this drink, place the parts together like laying down children to sleep. The careful bartender will reap his rewards, for the night will sing his praises in the water on the beach, in the feet in the sand, in the fire in the torches.

[New! Buy from Soundway]

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti - “Round and Round” I’m constantly writing about songs about anxiety. I’m not actually a very nervous person! I know people who deal with some serious problems, full-on anxiety attacks. Luckily, I’m not one of them. I’m mostly just responding to the good music that comes my way, and a lot of it deals with these emotions for reasons that are fairly obvious and perhaps a little mysterious too. “Round and Round,” a fairly polished song from the typically lo-fi Ariel Pink, cycles through a series of grooves and is essentially a meditation on living with anxiety. It never sounds especially tortured, though. If anything, it seems medicated — mellow, spaced-out, dimly aware of its own dread but trying to “hold on” and keep it together. There’s more beauty in this song than ugliness, and more pleasure than pain. Nevertheless, there’s a resignation to it, this feeling of “Oh, this is how my life is, so I have to just learn how to deal with it.” It’s a mixed-up mess of barely-defined emotions, but it’s very potent and evocative.

Buy it from Amazon.

Twin Sister – “All Around and Away We Go” From Color Your Life, soon forthcoming from Infinite Best.

The Dead Weather
Jason Early, 2010