New Tour-only Release Tool Box from Calexico

Toolbox from CalexicoOne of the things that I love about Calexico is the fact that they produce these limited-run tour-only (*well, you can get them from their website, too) releases. It’s not enough that they release great studio releases– they cater to the fans with compilations of studio experiments, live songs and outtakes.

Tool Box is the sixth of these releases since 1999 and the second of instrumental songs. I haven’t ordered my copy, yet, but I’m looking forward to hearing it.

According to this article in Chartattack, the album was recorded during some downtime recently during a break from the lengthy tour for Garden Ruin. The 14-track album is comprised of songs written and performed by only Convertino and Burns rather than the extended band used for the recent formal releases.

Visit this page to listen to a sample from Tool Box.

The Court & Spark Extinguished

Bye Bye!
Per their MySpace page announcements, San Francisco band The Court and Spark have announced they are at least for the time being breaking up. To quote their message:

“…seeing as how we’re all involved in different musical
projects, it seems best to retire the C&S name for a while. We’ve had a good
run and have had the good fortune to meet all kinds of wonderful souls as
we’ve stumbled down the road. Thank you one and all for everything you’ve
given us.”

The Court & Spark had a pretty good run releasing four critically praised alt-country/Americana albums and one EP since 1999. 2006’s Hearts album which was reviewed here was a slightly more experimental outing demonstrating the band’s desire to stretch its creative wings a bit. After a quick lap around the country in support of Hearts, the band returned to its Bay-area home and focused its time on more individual efforts with frontmen M.C. Taylor and Scott Hirsh working on their Hiss Golden Messenger project.

Currently Hiss Golden Messenger is playing local shows and focusing on releasing its first album. Be sure to check out their MySpace page to listen to tracks they have posted. It definately sounds like The Court and Spark, but with a more experimental bent. I’m really looking forward to hearing what comes out of this effort.

The Court & Spark will be playing their last show Friday, July 7th at Cafe Du Nord in San Francisco along with Hiss Golden Messenger and Kelley Stoltz. Doors are at 8:30PM for this 21 and over show. Admission is $12. A passing of the torch it seems.

Adam Franklin – Bolts of Melody (review)

Bolts of Melody Adam Franklin is the former frontman for shoegazer/psychedelic group Swervedriver that existed from 1991-1999. Swervedriver recorded five albums before breaking up. Their first album Raise was on Creation Records in the UK which was also the home of My Bloody Valentine. Their first single “Son of Mustang Ford” which was a tribute of sorts to T-Rex gained them enough recognition that they were signed to A&M in the US. I saw the video for “Son” on MTV’s 120 Minutes and was moved to buy that album and the companion EP Reel to Real.

The story goes that Creation Records nearly went broke due to the obsessively-recorded Loveless by My Bloody Valentine so the record label was not able to spend any money promoting Swervedriver or their following albums Mezcal Head and Ejector Seat Reservation. Swervedriver was subsequently dropped from A&M after Raise and fell off the U.S. radar until they were picked up by Zero Hour in 1998 and they released their last album 99th Dream.

Since Swervedriver’s breakup in 1999, frontman Adam Franklin has been busying himself recording six releases under the name Toshack Highway.

Adam’s seventh release– and first under his name– is Bolts of Melody and will come out on June 26th on Hi-Speed Soul.

I feel the album picks up nicely where Swervedriver left off. It incorporates the many-layered chorus of guitars swirling around the melodies sustained by Adam’s distinct laid-back vocal styles. There is a more 60’s guitar pop feel with Adam wearing influences from garage bands and psychedelia groups. I’ve been listening to this regularly since I received the promo and it has been a good soundtrack for the Spring that I’m sure will continue through the Summer weeks.

Bolts includes some previously-released tracks from Toshack Highway including the two versions of “Birdsong” and “Theme from LSD” from the Birdsong EP and “Syd’s Eyes” from the single of the same name. I think that the Birdsong tracks fit on the album pretty well, but “Syd’s Eyes” seems to stick out a bit more than I like from a production and song style.

Adam will be touring in support of Bolts of Melody with a barrage of West Coast dates through the middle of July. I hope he’ll extend this run though the Midwest! I think a stop at the Picador may be in order. He is also working on a collaboration with Sam Fogarino from Interpol they are calling The Setting Suns. The Setting Suns album is planned for release this Fall.

Be sure to visit Swervedriver.com as they have a bunch of rare mp3’s from Swervedriver and Toshack Highway worth downloading.

Listen to “Sieze the Day” from Bolts of Melody.

Purchase Bolts of Melody from Amazon.

Adam Franklin Live Dates

07/02 New York, NY Mercury Lounge (Album release show)
07/13 Seattle, WA KEXP (In-studio)
07/14 Seattle, WA The Crocodile Cafe
07/14 Seattle, WA Sonic Boom Records (In-store)
07/15 Portland, OR The Doug Fir
07/15 Portland, OR Jackpot Records (In-store)
07/16 San Francisco, CA Cafe du Nord
07/17 Los Angeles, CA The Echo
07/18 San Diego, CA The Casbah
07/18 M-Theory Music (In-store)

Free Buck 65 EP

Following a Hype Machine Link of blogs referring to the band Tortoise from Largeheartedboy I found a post from a music blog called Nialler9 about the free Buck 65 EP that he has at his website. (How is that for citing my sources??). The EP was posted to his site October of last year and is called Dirty Work.

I heard about Buck 65 in 2005 due to the fact that members of Tortoise played on his brilliant Secret House Against the World album. Unfortunately, this album was never released in the US, so I had to get it through Amazon.

I guess technically Buck 65 is a hip hop MC of sorts, but he really sounds more like a bluesy folk guy reminding me a lot of 16 Horsepower with the banjos and acoustic guitars. At times he reminds me of Johnny Cash.

Buck 65 will have a new album out in September called Situation.

Listen to “Indestructable Sam” from Dirty Work.

TV On The Radio iTunes Exclusive Live EP

TV on the Radio iTunes EPTV on the Radio has released an exclusive Live EP with iTunes. This five-track release has versions of three songs from Return to Cookie Mountain— “Playhouses,” “Province,” and “Tonight” and “Satellite” from an earlier EP, and a new track “Dry Drunk Emperor.”  I guess that they are done plugging my wife’s favorite song “Wolf Like Me.”

In my opinion a nice underproduced set of songs from one of the more interesting groups out of the indie scene.

 

 

 

TV On the Radio - Live Session (iTunes Exclusive) - EP Click Here to purchase the Live EP.

Recording Sound Levels Typically Artificially Enhanced for Loudness

From Slashdot— an article from the UK Times Online about how recordings are typically compressed with Peak Limiting in the interest of making the songs have more impact in comparison to other “competing” songs.

I had heard about this before, but it wasn’t until I was listening to Rob Galgano’s radio show All Over The Place that I had paid attention to it. He was playing a track off of Pleased to Meet Me by the Replacements– their 1987 album. He said that he needed to adjust the signal level of the broadcast because it was so much quieter than the other songs he was playing off of newer releases.

They state in the article that Peak Limiting was used in the past to prevent needle jump on vinyl records due to loud sound. Does this mean that the LP releases might not have this effect? I know that when I was talking to Tim Green from the Fucking Champs at the Picador show, he said that the mastering on the vinyl version of their new album was better than the CD version.

B-Sides in the Bins #12 – Cedar Rapids 5/24/07

I had a couple of trips to Half Price Books in Cedar Rapids that yielded a couple of interesting things.

Laughing Stock – Talk Talk (CD Polydor 847 717-2, 1991)($3.00) This is a CD that has been on my “if I ever see one” list. Laughing Stock was the last formal release from Talk Talk and commercially their biggest flop. Talk Talk started their career in the synth-pop arena with bands like Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, Communards, and Japan. The soulful vocals of Mark Hollis catapulted singles like “It’s My Life” (later covered by No Doubt) and “Talk Talk” into the top of the world’s singles charts. Following the success of their 1986 album Colour of Spring Hollis changed the direction and sound of the band into a more Jazzy, improvized sound that sparked the end of the band. Laughing Stock and its predecessor Spirit of Eden are in retrospect considered “Post Rock” and the earliest examples of this sound. After the split-up of Talk Talk Hollis would record a solo album that is a continuation of the sound established by the last two records. I really enjoy this album and am happy to have it in my collection. I’m not sure that I think this album fits in the “post rock” genre, but it has the same melancholy acoustic feel as David Sylvian‘s Secrets of the Beehive which is my favorite of his catalog.

Can’t Stop Won’t Stop – A History of the Hip-Hop Generation – Jeff Chang (Hardback Book St. Martin’s Press ISBN 0-312-30143-X, 2005)($7.98)(MSRP $27.95) This is a heck of a deal! I love finding stuff like this at HalfPrice. This is probably the best book on the history of Hip-Hop. I’ve just started reading this, but already it has been an eye-opener. I can see that this will be a reference for me later. If you get a chance to pick one of these up at HalfPrice I recommend it.

New Arcade Fire 7″ to Include Calexico Cover of “Ocean of Noise”

From the Casadecalexico newsgroup on Yahoo, the new single from Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible “Intervention” includes a studio version of Calexico covering Arcade Fire’s “Ocean of Noise” that I posted about earlier. I’ve been collecting the City Slang import singles from Calexico and this is one of those, but apparently Merge will have a US release of this single as well which is slated to be released July 10th.

Click here to hear a sample of the studio version (from boomcat).

Click here to hear the live version.