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Taking in Rough Francis

Until this week I didn’t know that one of the best music stories of the past year was happening just over the mountains. The music documentary A Band Called Death chronicled the brief career of an amazingly talented rock band that just couldn’t catch a break in the 1970s. Death was a Detroit band playing proto-punk and metal in the early 70s. They had chops and writing ability, but the music industry didn’t know what to do with black guys playing challenging, forward-looking hard rock in an increasingly subdivided radio scene.

Cut to Burlington, Vermont. The brothers from Death had moved to New England decades ago and Bobby Hackney’s sons are taking up the family mantle. Rough Francis started out covering Death’s material, but quickly started to write their own sons. It’s a great blend of American hardcore and grunge with that insistent, Stooges-like rock from Motor City. I think Rough Francis is going places, and I’ll be seeing them in Montpelier in a few weeks. You can hear their EP on Bandcamp.

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New(ish) artists

So in the process of cleaning up some stuff here in WordPress, I found a draft post that I was sure I had published, but somehow never actually released. It’s dated now–wrote this a year and a half ago–but I hope some of you find it interesting.

Much of what I write about is new music. Like most people, the music that I love most, the stuff that gets deep inside me, is the music I was fond of in my late teens and twenties. That just seems to be how people are wired and I’m no exception. But my experience as a college DJ marked me forever. I’m always looking for something new and exciting, something that makes me feel awake. Takes more effort than it used to, but that search is still rewarding when it turns up artists like those below. These are my favorite new artists of the past three years (2009 through 2011).

Janelle Monae: Monae is confident, ambitious, and in control, especially for such a young performer. She draws on classic R&B and funk without ever being a slavish imitator. She also shows a love for big concept albums that’s largely been missing from soul music since the 1970s. And it doesn’t hurt that she’s one hell of a dancer.

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Broken Bells: Let me not to the marriage of electronica and indie rock admit impediments. Danger Mouse and James Mercer sound together here, organic, collaborators who have a lot to say as a duo. You’d never guess this was a side project just to listen to this beautifully crafted album.

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Ana Tijoux: Flow is one of the most important concepts in hip hop. Coming as it did out of black culture in New York City, part of rapping is playing with the structure of English–when to use the obvious, on-the-rhythm word choices and when to break it up unexpectedly. Rapping in other languages necessitates different rhythms and I’ve always been jazzed by MCs who rap fluently and quickly in French or Spanish or German. Ana Tijoux, a French-Chilean artist who’s finally getting deserved success, is one of the best.

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Mumford & Sons: This is English folk rock at its most energetic and vital. Reminiscent of the best of Fairport Convention and the Waterboys, I think too many people give this band a hard time. They’re called overly earnest, yet somehow they’ve been tagged as hipsters. Some people just feel uncomfortable when a genuinely talented group has runaway hits. Something must be wrong with them, right? No.

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the Joy Formidable: This is music that demands jumping up and down, preferably at a big concert. The Joy Formidable are a genuine power trio making loud, declamatory rock that’s still connected to the best Britpop traditions. These guys do NOT let up–I’m talking Pixies levels of pounding, in your face, melodic noise. And with Ritzy Bryan, their cute-as-a-button frontwoman, singer, and guitarist, the band has huge star potential.

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Florence + the Machine: Welch often performs barefoot in a long gown; she looks like the cover of a thriller novel, the heroine looking frantically back over her shoulder as she escapes the dark house. Her music is at that same level of drama, belted out with power and conviction as the band pushes itself to greater heights in every track. This is Britpop as Gothic drama, and the best kind of Brontë Gothic drama at that.

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Anna Calvi: Dark, smoky, and mysterious. Calvi is a protegé of no less than Brian Eno. Her debut album is rock and roll for a David Lynch movie, all film noir guitar solos and femme fatale crooning.

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Childish Gambino: Donald Glover is scary talented. A skilled standup comedian, TV writer, comic actor, and director–and oh yes, one of the best rappers of the new century. The best hip hop artists walk around with ears open, picking up new sounds to adapt; Gambino takes indie pop hooks from Grizzly Bear and Crystal Castles and raps over them with a fierce, literate style.

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Veronica Falls: Veronica Falls doesn’t re-invent the wheel. They’re not trying to do something original here: this is a faithful interpretation of the Sarah Records/C-86 sound. But with this level of songcraft and sincerity, I’m good with that.

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Fun at Spielpalast

Had a great time this past weekend at the Spielpalast Cabaret performance in Burlington. I’ve written about modern cabaret music pretty recently, so it was great to see a proper scandalous burlesque performance troupe right in Burlington. The performances weren’t all top-notch but they were amusing, energetic, and fun. And a few really stood out! One of the characters was Nym Fauxmenya, a wild child from the Siberian woods.

NymFauxmenyak

© 2013 Jody Fenton Photography
So yeah, she was kinda insatiable. And she sung all about it! Fun, provocative, and well-choreographed, she was inserting household objects, fingers and tongues of other dancers, everything. The whole time she sang a rollicking operatic piece by Offenbach, “Les oiseaux dans la charmille” from The Tales of Hoffman. Not as good as the performance below, but a very respectable rendition.

Parts of the piece were redone as a duet for coloratura sopranos; the arrangement and performance of the cabaret band was impeccable. If you want to see a fun and very adult show, looks like tickets are still available.

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Interview with the Smittens!

Got to interview an excellent local band recently–Burlington, Vermont’s indie pop darlings the Smittens.  They’re sweet and optimistic, but have never lost the proud political edge and “roll up your sleeves” DIY ethic that brought them together. Their most recent CD release was Believe Me, released last year by FIKA Recordings. You can listen to them on Spotify, check out the video for “Burning Streets of Rome” on YouTube, or find out more about them at smittens.com. I did this interview for a regular podcast, but logistical difficulties have delayed that release. I’m making it available below, at least until the podcast ducks are rowed.

Listen to the interview

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Happy 43rd

My friend George turned 43 this week. He and his fianceé threw a great small party–friends, drink, food, stimulating conversation. I decided to make a YouTube playlist of some of the bands and artists we listened to and discussed.

George’s Birthday Playlist

Black Flag, “Rise Above”: An inspiring, make-you-mosh anthem from the smartest act in American hardcore music. This is a very youthful Henry Rollins already pumping up your mind.

the Meatmen, “Crippled Children Suck”: A decidedly NON-inspiring hardcore band from the 80s. Vulgar, throwaway fun.

the Butthole Surfers, “U.S.S.A.”: There’s not much to the song, but I want to talk about the evilness that was this vinyl. It was deliberately labeled oddly, with all the track listings on only one side of the album. Some of the tracks were recorded at 33 1/3, others at 45 rpm. Song breaks were deliberately hard to find. A weird “fuck you” to the nation’s DJs.

Dash Rip Rock, “DMZ”: Early work from one of America’s best unsung bands. Rev. Horton Heat, Social Distortion, Southern Culture On the Skids–none of them would have sounded the same without the early influence of this New Orleans band that’s still going strong.

Mojo Nixon, “Debbie Gibson Is Pregnant With My Two-Headed Love Child”: If you don’t know Mojo Nixon, then your brain could use some fixin’. He’s wild, alcohol-fueled rock and roll fun. And check out a young Winona Ryder in the video!

the Dead Milkmen, “Instant Club Hit”: Being one of the people this song makes fun of doesn’t make it any less funny. “You’ll dance to anything by Depeche Commode . . .”

Cypress Hill, “Insane In the Membrane”: Still my all-time favorite stoner rap song, with a bounce that can’t be beat. “I got to get my props, Cops, come and try to snatch my crops”

Foetus, “Sick Man”: A driving force in industrial music for thirty years now. Jim Thirlwell, more than any other individual, is responsible for the rise in piercings as a signifier of alternative culture.

Primus, “Tragedy’s A-Comin’ “: What else is there to say? Fantastically proficient and wildly imaginative, Primus has been on the cutting edge of music for decades without ever losing the groove.

Pearl Jam, “Even Flow”: OK, as much as I like Kurt Cobain the guy gets too much credit. He was one important figure of an entire musical scene, and his early suicide gave too much caché to Nirvana over equally great bands like Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, and the Melvins. OK, stepping down from the soapbox now.

the Joy Formidable, “This Ladder Is Ours”: Finally, some music from this century! (Give me a break, most of us at the party were middle-aged.) The Joy Formidable are an attractive, exciting, loud, and innovative new power trio out of Wales. One of my absolute favorite new acts in years, and I’m jealous that George gets to go see them soon. :)

Neko Case, “Thrice All-American”: I know she’s Canadian, but Vermont gets to claim her now too. Case is probably the best songwriter in alt-country, but she’s also known for her rich honey voice and her work with pop supergroup the New Pornographers.

Nine Inch Nails/Carly Rae Jepsen, “Call Me A Hole”: This one’s a stretch, but we did mention Nine Inch Nails last night. Really, I’ll just use any excuse to share this brilliant mashup by pomDeter.

Jello Biafra and Mojo Nixon, “Love Me I’m a Liberal”: Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra teamed up with Mojo for a wonderfully irreverent album a few years back called Prairie Home Invasion. It includes this brilliant update of Phil Ochs’s classic skewering of establishment liberals as they look to radicals–”ten degrees to the left of center at the best of times, ten degrees to the right if it affects them personally.”

Metric, “Sick Muse”: Another great single from the seemingly inexhaustible supply of Toronto’s Metric. One of the most savvy and accomplished 80s revival acts, Metric isn’t in the game to faithfully recreate New Wave. They’re using the ideas of 80s college rock to do their own thing, and it’s beautiful.

 

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Modern cabaret music

When I first heard of the Dresden Dolls I figured they were alone in their niche. How many people could be working with Weimar cabaret tropes in modern pop and postpunk? Turns out, quite a few. I’ve been listening to a lot of this over the past few months; thanks to my young friend Vaughn in particular for introducing me to Steam Powered Giraffe. As it’s such a visual medium I’m including a YouTube playlist below.