Author Archive
Thievery Corporation @ 9:30 Club In January
Thievery Corporation will be playing three nights at the 9:30 Club. This is becoming a January tradition for the classy, dubby duo. They will be spinning their haunted downtempo tunes on Jan 21, 22, and 23. Tickets go on sale Thursday at 10 a.m.
New Arrivals @ Som Records
Som Records is worth the hunt for parking along 14th Street NW. Just got the store’s latest e-mail of new arrivals and it’s fairly packed. The store has got solid new releases from Real Estate, Broadcast, Cold Cave, Girls, Kings of Convenience, Circuit Rider (reissue), Jay Farrar, Odissee, Chain and the Gang, The Clientele, Felix, among others.
The store is also having a sale this Thursday. It’s 10 percent off all used vinyl!
Used vinyl list after the jump. We recommend picking up the Pretty Things’ SF Sorrow.
New Arrivals @ Red Onion
Red Onion Records and Books has scores of new records that are worth checking out. Among the best of the bunch: Real Estate’s debut LP, the Fred McDowell reissue on Mississippi, and some new Slumberland releases. Don’t forget to check out the new Best Coast single, Fuck Buttons latest LP, and the amazing Forge Your Own Chains psych compilation.
Used vinyl after the jump.
New Arrivals @ Red Onion
There are some killer new arrivals over at Red Onion Records and Books. First off, there’s the reissue on vinyl (!) of the Raincoats’ classic debut album. The store has also got in new pressings from Folkways, the new Atlas Sound LP (pictured) as well as Cedric Brooks, Albert Ayler, Arthur Russell, Sun Ra, Wilco, and a killer soul-funk comp.
Used vinyl list after the jump.
Record Fair @ Comet Ping Pong This Sunday!
Nerds rejoice. (Let’s hope the vinyl skews a little rarer than ’80s Kinks and Wes Montgomery LPs!) I’m sure the record fair is going to be well stocked. After all, the fair is being sponsored and promoted by some fine and discerning local tastemakers—Som Records, the Vinyl District, and DC Soul Recordings.
And amazingly, Mingering Mike has given his blessing.
Interview: Wayne Coyne Talks Embryonic
The Flaming Lips‘ Wayne Coyne has been interviewing for months now about his band’s upcoming album Embryonic. He’s talked to Billboard and the BBC and just about anyone else. It would be hard to not to weary of Coyne’s sales calls. The band is no longer just the pride of Oklahoma and stoner college kids. In recent years, even Madison Avenue has recognized Coyne’s abilities in convincing the world that his band’s abstract songs about life, death and the muddy middle are sell-able bits of sunshine. Mad Men see one of their own, using the Lips most notoriously to sell Kraft (”Introducing a fresh idea in salad dressing“). So you could be forgiven if you changed the channel when you hear Coyne and Co. coming on.
The suit. The confetti. The bubble ball. All have become ubiquitous and expected. Coyne’s burden is to convince us that what he’s selling isn’t just a fresh idea in salad dressing. The Lips don’t have albums, they have projects—from the parking lot experiments to the multidisc play-all-at-once Zaireeka to Soft Bulletin’s brilliant orch pop and Yoshimi’s semi concept arc. The band’s one true misstep is its last album, 2006’s At War With The Mystics, with its kinda tired, kinda shaggy songs about Britney Spears (who’s that?) and George W. Bush (”Every time you state your case/ The more I want to punch your face”).
Now, Coyne has to overcome our own cynism. Embryonic is being sold as a double LP that’s not just any double LP. It’s a sonic freakout experiment. It’s Miles Davis meets John Lennon meets Can, etc. I was willing to sit this one out until I heard three new songs that have recently leaked. The band is serious again. They’re no longer selling rainbows to goths or pop-psych to moms. Go ahead and find the leaks. For the first time in good while, the songs sell themselves.
Tonight, the Flaming Lips take their freakouts to Merriweather Post Pavilion. Black Plastic Bag interviewed Coyne via phone last Friday. Did he win me over?
You bet.
After the jump: Coyne talks about what it was like to make the new album, Miles Davis, his personal relationships with his bandmates, and my, gulp, upcoming wedding.
Travis Morrison Retires From Music?
Travis Morrison has announced his retirement. We think. Morrison fronted the beloved and defunct Dismemberment Plan. He went on to release solo stuff, sing in church, and form a new band and release a well-received album in 2007. On Morrison’s website, he or his web guru write: “Retired!”
If that wasn’t clear enough, Morrison writes: “No shows, no records, no band. Just relaxing in Brooklyn. Befriend me on facebook. I’m so nice!.”
If you hangout on the site long enough, “Retired!” morphs into a bunch of nonsense words. So this could all be just a joke.
On Michael Jackson: Kojo Is A Hater!
Today, soothing WAMU radio host Kojo Nnamdi prefaced a call-in hour by going off on all things Michael Jackson. He sorta boasted to listeners that his show had been a Michael Jackson Free Zone this past week. He then explained his confusion as to why African American leaders and African American Professor types would debase themselves on cable chat shows extolling the King of Pop’s Black Power credentials and deep ties to the African-American community. He said that anyone under 30 would have only known Jackson as Wacko—an alleged child molesting freak with a damaged nose. For a generation, Jackson’s talents were seen only in montage clips.
The man didn’t want to look like me, Nnamdi argued. And he went out of his way to not look like me. One of several callers took the bait and argued on MJ’s behalf citing psychological and biological trauma as the cause of the singer’s skin whitening and plastic surgery obsession. Nnamdi just argued back: “I can’t embrace him.”
When another caller chimed to bash WMATA on its failed safety proceedures and the metro crash, Nnamdi admitted to having no expertise on the subject. The metro crash was a mystery to him. Jackson was another matter.
*photo courtesy of WAMU.
