blog is moved – to the speakertree page!

this blog is being moved and continued HERE

(that way I will be able to update with music clips and more….)

thanks

Review >> Bowerbirds – Upper Air (Dead Oceans)

 

4 out of 5

The Bowerbirds’ first record, 2007’sHymns For a Dark Horse, was the perfect modern take on back-porch Americana with its nature-focused guitar stomping consciousness.  Phil Moore and Beth Tacular were living together in an Airstream in the middle of North Carolina’s forest concocting simple guitar and accordion backdrops for Moore’s blatantly environmentalist musings.  Some might call it post-hippy folk; I called it my favorite record of 2007.

 Now after a year and a half of relentless touring the Bowerbirds return with Upper Air, a collection of similarly sensitive, gentle tunes looking more at love and personal emotions while keeping the natural world in heavy reference.  Moore’s allusions to the trees, clouds and sky are wrapped more solidly around a personal voice connecting a natural world to human love and relationships.  On “Beneath Your Tree” Moore sings “And the moon will rise / in the evening I’ll fall asleep / beneath your tree / and the wind will howl through your leaves and serenade me / you don’t own me / but I’ll take your lead.”

 Upper Air incorporates more instrumental build within each song, often utilizing piano, violin, drum kit and layered vocals over the acoustic guitar backbone.  Moore and Tacular’s voices complement each other wonderfully although Moore’s is definitely the more confident of the two. 

 The first single, “Northern Lights” incorporates an intentionally lazily drum groove, piano and Moore’s precisely sparse guitar strums.  Most of Upper Air oscillates between the simplicity of tracks driven by guitar and vocal strength (“Chimes”, “House of Diamonds”) and darker more complex sounds of accordion and string arrangements like the moody “Teeth.”

Upper Air’s greatest moment is “Silver Clouds,” a stripped tune focusing on Moore’s lyrics which open with “Put my dreams in my hands so I’ll know I’m sure / give me all that I want from this giant world.”  Moore’s voice quivers at the necessary moments before opening up to the album’s most soaring instrumental crest.

It is quite a task to follow up an album so stunningly refreshing as Hymns, but the Bowerbirds’ have managed to provide another great record that will stand up in the forefront of this years acoustic releases.

  by Blair Amberly

Spinning Records – Friday @ Rivermont Pizza

I will be spinning a wide variety of tunes this Friday @ Rivermont Pizza from 10pm til closing time.  Everything from rare funk and soul to garage rock to 90s hip hop and a highly probably 20 minute mash up of danceable Michael Jackson tunes.  There is no cover.  See you there, bring friends!

Please Read (what are your top 3?)

Although it is something I have been thinking about (and trying to act upon) for awhile now, it was not until today that I discovered the 3/50 project which is perhaps the most concise and effective way to remind us how drastically important it is to spend money at local businesses.  Downtown Lynchburg has been working towards this mindset and NOW is time to act.  I will pick 3 (maybe more) and make sure my money makes its way to those places every month.  (thank you for reading)

Stock Updates (July 3rd) Secretly Canadian, Edge

 

new releases and restock  (and yes we just got an LP copy of thriller back in)

CD  Animal Collective – Feels  (fat cat)  

CD  Black Moth Super Rainbow – Eating Us  (graveface)

CD  Bowerbirds – Upper Air  (dead oceans)  (out Tuesday!)

CD  Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca (domino)

CD  Frightened Rabbit – Midnight Organ Fight (fat cat)  (my favorite of 09)

CD  Passion Pit – Manners (frenchkiss)

CD  Regina Spektor – Far  

CD  We Were Promised Jetpacks – These Four Walls (fat cat)  (out Tues!)

CD  Wilco  (the Album) (nonesuch)  (confident, composed, great!)

LP  Bowerbirds – Upper Air (dead oceans)  (out Tues!)

LP  Neko Case – Middle Cyclone (anti)  (finally on vinyl – 2LP 180 gram!)

LP  Dinosaur Jr. – Farm (jagjaguwar)  (fierce rocker, fantastic)

LP  Pains of Being Pure at Heart – s/t  (slumberland)   

LP  Sunset Rubdown – Dragonslayer (jagjaguar)   

LP  Wilco (the Album)  (nonesuch)  (180 gram & comes with CD inside!)

7″  Modest Mouse – Life of Arctic Sounds  (everyone needs a copy)

New Art – Joanna McGlothlin – in speakertree

Speakertree is incredibly excited to present the newest in mixed media collage from local artist Joanna McGlothlin.  Her work continues to reveal subtle nuances of found materials bound together with particular attention to texture, continuity and nostalgia.  The opening reception is tonight, July 3rd, and the show will stay up through August.

Digital vs. Analog : mp3s against vinyl

This week the lovely people at fat possum records (love em) sent me the new Andrew Bird LP on accident (I had ordered the previous LP) and in their error they said “just keep the new one.” (no charge)…I was thrilled and ripped it open knowing that it would sound so much better than the previous way I have heard that album – as mp3s on my computer.

I was pretty overwhelmed with how beautiful the album sounded on vinyl (thick 180 gram pressing) and I decided to do some direct comparisons between specific albums: cueing up certain parts of songs on my computer and on the turntables and switching the knob back and forth on the stereo to compare sound quality (yes, i used the same stereo – and I even tried it with headphones too)  I am not sure why I didn’t try this sooner, but I soon became flooded with curiosities about my experimentation that reminded me of science lab classes. :: 

Are there certain parts of songs (solos/extremely loud parts/bass heavy parts) that sound drastically different between LP and mp3?

What is the difference between albums recorded recently (and therefore digitally) as opposed to albums recorded in the 60s/70s – analog – way before the idea of mp3s and digital sound compression even existed?

Are the sound discrepancies more heightened with thicker/higher quality vinyl? or “high quality” mp3s?

 

I know that vinyl is considered the best possible sound quality and mp3s are considered the worst because they are digitally compressing much of the sound range to make the files small, convenient.  (and I am NOT going to debate the convenient factor between these 2 formats, or the art factor, or the nostalgia factor, or people downloading music for free and not interacting with physical indie shops).  I have always “known” vinyl is better but it wasn’t until really undertaking this project did I realize how MAJOR the difference is and how listening to mp3s is really not hearing the music (or the way it was intended).

Vinyl sounds SO much fuller and friendlier.  The bass sounds are much more bold, complete and emphasized.  The highs are higher, crisper, much more subtly textured.  This is apparent on all instances, modern albums, older records.  When switching the knob from LP to the cued up mp3 the songs instantly became thiner, fuzzier, metalic.  It was a whole different room.  

I tried this with various albums to test for a diversity of sound – Andrew Bird’s Noble Beast (orchestral, hi-fi, very well recorded), The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (dreamy distortion, good bass) , Wavves (blown out fuzzy sound), The Replacements – Tim (classic punk/rock), Stooges (loud, frenzied rock), Beatles – Sgt. Peppers (the classic) – and the results were similar on every instance – the mp3 tunes were lacking the larger vibrancy – they sounded thin, like they were being played on a radio in a metal room – where as the vinyl versions of the same songs were, thick, emotional, captivating.

Some of the biggest surprises were on “Here comes a Regular” by the Replacements.  This is a beautiful ballad with Paul Westerberg singing with an intimate, yearning presence.  I had previously ONLY heard this song on vinyl and when switching to mp3 version i was shocked at how lifeless and less emotional it sounded in comparison…The Ron Asheton guitar solo on the Stooges “1969″ is absolutely chilling with its loudly textured nuances.  The feedback and guitar squeals are so powerful and one of the reasons why Stooges are a cult-status type band.  When hearing the same song in mp3 form (again the first time I have heard it that way) it just became a “regular guitar solo.”  I started to wonder if I would have even LIKED this band if I had only heard their songs on mp3 format. 

This all relates to an article a friend sent me saying that in younger generations who have grown up almost exclusively listening to digital music (mostly mp3s, some CDs) they actually prefer the compressed sound when given sample tests that exposed them to the fuller spectrum of recorded sound.  In other words they would feel more at home hearing the Beatles in mp3 format than on vinyl.  This worries me in a lot of ways – the future of recorded music, live shows, music engineers, producers, and music fans.  If each generation is becoming continually diluted in their sonic receptors how can REALLY GOOD music keep coming out and challenging us? 

I am not going to over analyze my thoughts (as I have already gone on way too much), but I was really excited to do this study and it is definitely influencing the choices I make when playing music in the store.  I am trying to play more vinyl and CDs and less mp3s from my computer.  After all isn’t one of the best things about coming into an indie record shop the loud, wondrous tunes coming from the speakers?  And now I definitively know the best way to achieve that!  Good thing vinyl is making a comeback…

big news for lynchburg’s indie/dance scene

this might shock you like an electric eel…but…

lynchburg’s crown jewel, bisquitville is apparently doing a little ante-upping

ive heard of mcdonalds hiring that dude ronald for birthday parties

but this appears to be much more MASSIVE for our town

getting MGMT (at the peak of their popularity) (before their second album flop which will erroneously NOT be produced by dave fridmann)

to be the house band for BISCUITVILLE!

the blood of our town is already pumping at twice the thickness (on par with biscuit gravy)

wanna join me every night for a dance party?

Adam Smith & the Invisible Hand – Tonight! Rivermont Pizza

Apologies for the late notice…the past few weeks have felt more scattered and slapped together than normal recession weeks…

A quick update because this is one of the main purposes of this blog – to inform about great things coming to Lynchburg.  Playing tonight at Rivermont Pizza (around 10ish) is Adam Smith & the Invisible Hand from Charlottesville, VA.  They are easily one of my favorite bands playing our region right now and it is a treat to catch them playing a long set in Lynchburg (last time through town they played a quick in-store in speakertree records – sept 08)…Their sound is somewhat hard to classify – its basically good ol-loud rock music with some guitar heaviness/progressive/indie/punk sound mixed in.  A modern version of how the Replacements and Dinosaur Jr. were able to rock in that unique and lovable way – by being passionate and slightly unclassifiable.  Their live show is incredibly energetic and wonderful.  Highly recommended…(They are also playing a shorter set tonight at 8pm at the firehouse in Rivermont) (I may well be at both!)

knowledge drop (adbusters)

Hooray to adbusters magazine for busting the nail straight on the head on the last page of their newest issue.  As a magazine adbusters can come across as sometimes hypocritical, sometimes pretentious, sometimes overly cynical, sometimes a day late (i guess we all can come across that way sometimes) but they also have the correct horizon in their vision and they have the balls to print and say what often goes overlooked or danced around…

The text below is taken straight from the back cover of Adbusters 81 “The Big Ideas of 2009.”  Read it. Twice. Let it sit. Think about your role in this all. We live in a capitalistic society, that is unchangeable.  BUT, the way we choose to live within that society can greatly improve (or deplete) the cultural goodness found all around us…This article is especially important for the future of Lynchburg.  It is forcing me to readjust some of the places my hungry stomach visits.

Here it is:

THIS IS HOW IT ALL BEGINS

We stop buying our music from corporate-owned stores, our food from supermarkets and our clothing from malls.  We become bottom-feeders, always foraging at the lowest levels of consumption.  In every purchase we make, we obsessively search for the wisest, most enlightened deals.  And when we find them, we share that knowledge with our friends.  We punish the big, the super and the mega.  We reward the small, the slow, the local, the personal.

Size is our enemy.

And once we have shrunk our world, narrowed our focus and imposed some much needed discipline of self, we start networking with other activists to launch coordinated global attacks.  A million people a day drinking indie coffee instead of Starbucks.  Another million boycotting Exxon Mobil.  And thousands more every day choosing indie sneakers over Nike.

In this way we become true cultural creatives…playful resistors…catalysts for change.  We become dispensers of bottom-up cool.  A growing mass of people driving the evolution of capitalism, transforming it into a healthier, more just, more grassroots affair.

In this Year of the Ox, let’s turn megacorporate capitalism on its head.