Poetic Memory: Gun Runner (List)
After returning to San Diego from Berklee School of Music, Sean Davenport wanted to get a band together, so he got in touch with his old friend Diego Rojano. In late 2009, Davenport and Rojano recruited local songwriter Tommy Graf (guitar) and Carlos Ortiz (drums), and they formed Gun Runner.
Since then, they’ve drawn from a variety of influences — including Wilco, Pavement, and Sonic Youth — to create a unique sound. This year, they released the excellent EP Bad Neighbors, an interesting work that evokes the psychedelic blues of Bob Dylan’s 2007 masterpiece, Time out of Mind.
Davenport’s soulful voice isn’t much like Dylan’s though, and that’s a good thing. Tracks like “Zelda” find him repeating “I can make this all better for you,” as if he’s been telling it to a few beers. Meanwhile, the reverb-laden instrumentation frames his half-drunk delivery. On the nostalgic “2 out of 3,” where choral intro harmonies are juxtaposed against Rojano’s lilting bass and Davenport’s voice, Gun Runner creates a kind of zombie R&B. It’s well worth a few listens, and you can stream it on MySpace or purchase it on iTunes.
Gun Runner will open for Maren Parusel at the Belly Up Tavern on Tuesday, August 31. While you wait, check out their Poetic Memory (below).
Wilco Archive Update – June 25
Here’s the final installment of the summer updates. Click here to view the full list.
Wilco Archive Update – June 18
Here’s volume four of the summer updates. Check back next Friday for volume 5 (the last one)!
Click here to view the full list.
Wilco Archive Update – June 11
Here’s volume three of the summer updates. Check back next Friday for more! Click here to view the full list.
O&B’s Guide to Bonnaroo 2010, Part 1: Survival
Since its inception in June 2002, Bonnaroo has become the premiere North American music festival. This year’s outing will be my third excursion to the farmlands of Manchester, Tennessee — I was there for Wilco and Bob Dylan in 2004, and I returned for Beck and Radiohead in 2006.
Each year challenges attendees to survive three days of camping, sweating, and drinking with 80,000 of your strangest friends. So, in part one of Owl and Bear’s Bonnaroo preview, we’ll let you in on a few secrets to surviving a sweltering — but inevitably fun-filled — weekend at Bonnaroo. Continue reading…
Wilco Archive Update – June 4
Here’s volume two of the summer updates. Check back next Friday for more! Click here to view the full list.
Wilco Archive Update – May 28
It’s been so long since the last update to the Wilco Archive that I can’t even remember when it was. Well, things are gonna change (for at least the next few weeks, anyway. We have 60+ shows to add to the archive, and this marks the first Friday installment. Enjoy. Click here to view the list of new shows…
Review: Caribou with Toro y Moi; May 20, 2010; Casbah, San Diego
Photos by Eleanore Park
Though you might find the new Caribou album, Swim, tucked in the indie-electronic aisle, frontman Daniel Snaith samples a much wider buffet of genres in a live setting. As you’d expect, you’ll hear him match up against electronic contemporaries like Vitalic, Animal Collective, and even Paul Van Dyk, but a good portion of the show also has the wider influences featured on earlier albums. His previous album, Andorra, had vintage tributes to The Mamas and The Papas (if backed by the relentless drums of, say, Dave Grohl) as well as indie-style jams that evoke My Morning Jacket or Wilco on an experimental kick. Last Thursday at the Casbah, Snaith tied up this diverse palette with a fat beat and dropped it all over a late-night dance party. Continue reading…
Review: Wilco; April 11, 2010; Carnegie Music Hall, Pittsburgh, PA
Photo credit: J. Walkos
Roots rock, alternative country, folk, and indie are all terms to which Wilco’s sound has been likened. Most bands loathe being pigeonholed into a particular sound, and if you ask them what genre they fall into, you can actually see them cringe. Yet we all feel the need to relegate bands to made up genre names, and in recent years defining a band by a specific sub-genre (chillwave, anyone?) has become the norm. But, for me, Wilco are an American rock and roll band: plain and simple. Continue reading…
Record Store Day: Is It Already That Time of Year Again?
Tomorrow marks what’s becoming, in some ways, more inevitable than death and taxes (the latter of which, in my case, are now officially delinquent). Yup, Record Store Day is again upon us. (more…)
Contest: Win ‘Wilco (The Album)’ on Vinyl
Your favorite Chicagoans are currently on a largely sold out tour, but that’s no reason to stop listening to them.
We’re proud to offer Wilco (The Album), the band’s acclaimed 2009 release, on sweet, sweet vinyl. Even if you don’t have a record player, you should still enter this contest; after all, I’m sure nobody’s record collection is overloaded with camel-themed cover art.
To enter this contest, just comment below and include your email address in the form (your email won’t be visible to the public). The lucky winner will be chosen at random on April 15, 2010.
This contest is courtesy of Warner Brothers’ brand-new vinyl-only webstore, Because Sound Matters.
Big Star Singer Alex Chilton Dies at 59
What can I say? Alex Chilton is dead. As part of Big Star, he wrote some of the best music of the 1970s, and his work has influenced so many — Jeff Tweedy, Califone, Elliott Smith, The Replacements. The list goes on.
I’m just sitting here playing the YouTube video for this old song over and over again. Those harmonies get me every time. Goodbye, Alex.
Wilco Annouce Spring Tour Dates
In support of their Grammy nominated Wilco (The Album), Wilco the band have announced a sixteen-date East Coast tour. Promising extended, varied sets in mid-sized theaters, the semi-intimate tour is being billed as “An Evening with Wilco”. Ticket pre-sales start January 6th through Wilcoworld.net. (more…)
Halloweening It Without Jeopardizing Your Indie Cred (An O&B How-To)
Call it Halloween, call it the day after Devil’s Night (if you’re a fan of The Crow), call it the day before All Saints Day (that’s for all you Catholics out there), or just call it a pain in the ass. Like it or not, it’s time to dress up. Whether fun or a chore, it’s more important than it seems, and wearing the wrong costume can be disastrous. The right costume, however, will not only get you through the night unscathed, but it could also do wonders for upping your rep. Most important, not wearing a costume is not really an option. You’ll be viewed as Halloween’s equivalent to Scrooge. Going to a Halloween party sans costume is like not dancing to a band that moves you. Don’t be a dick. Wear a costume. Dance. (more…)
Download: Blue Mountain – May 31, 2008 (FLACs)
Soundboard/Audience mic matrix/README/Download
I’m heading to Denver, Colorado in a couple hours, and I haven’t packed or prepared in any way, so we’ll have to skip this week’s Wilco Archive update. To help ease your pain, here’s a nice soundboard/audience mic matrix of Blue Mountain from May 31, 2008. If you’re unfamiliar with Blue Mountain and their relationship to Wilco, here’s the Wikipedia definition:
Blue Mountain is an American alt-country band formed in 1991 in Oxford, Mississippi by husband and wife duo Cary Hudson (guitar and vocals) and Laurie Stirratt (bass and harmony vocals), who is notably the twin sister of John Stirratt, the bass player for the like-minded Americana band Wilco.
There you go.
If you don’t like downloading the files individually, check out DownThemAll, a handy Firefox plugin that allows you to download files in bulk. If you like the downloads, let us know in the comments. Also, requests (for your favorite bands, not specific shows) are always welcome.
Review: The Avett Brothers – I and Love and You
The Avett Brothers are all about feeling. On Emotionalism, their last proper full length, the Avetts certainly didn’t shy away from feeling; they celebrated it. The songs from Emotionalism were mostly led by banjo, upright bass, occasional strings and the just-twangy-enough vocals of one or both brothers. Everything about that setup said these guys were playing bluegrass music, but what came out of the speakers felt different.
That element, that unique style of bluegrass that sounded more like an alt-country-influenced indie band, clearly set the Avetts apart from anything I’d ever heard before. But there was more to them than that. There were also those straightforward and heartfelt lyrics, melodies that felt nostalgic and comforting, and an overall sense that these guys grew up loving American music and wanted to make it their own, to take it somewhere new while keeping everything that was great about it intact. (more…)
Poetic Memory: Local Natives (List)
Silver Lake-based Local Natives just completed a U.S. tour with Ben Kweller, then went to London, then stormed barns across the midwest. They even blog. Needless to say, these guys (and occasionally girl) are both creative and busy. They’re also great musicians who put on a rewarding and fun show. They have a new album called Gorilla Manor coming out soon.
Recently, the band recorded an acoustic version of their song “Camera Talk” (MP3) for the website Aurgasm, who pretty aptly summed up our feelings for the band:
The quintet’s unique brand of indie folk highlights their tight vocal harmonies without sacrificing on rolling guitars, keys and percussion or sharp lyrics. Their laid-back and layered folk is a perfect way to wind down the rest of summer.
Local Natives are also currently touring extensively in the west through late September, with a stop Thursday (9/3) at San Diego’s Casbah, and then they’re moving on to Europe for six weeks. Complete list of tourdates is below.
Meanwhile, we caught up Ryan Hahn, Taylor Rice, and Kelcey Ayer to talk Poetic Memory. Check it out. (more…)
Poetic Memory: Boy Without God (List)
Fact: there are more albums in existence today than ever before, and, as more albums are released in the future, that number will most likely increase. We, the intrepid writers for Owl&Bear, stand at the frothy frontline of this constant deluge of new music, bravely filling buckets with the good stuff and presenting it as sweet sustenance to our parched readers. We perpetually receive music from PR people, begging us to check out undiscovered artists, and a lot of it is, quite frankly, underwhelming. But once in a while we come across a diamond in the rough, something that grabs us by the ears and doesn’t let go. And so it happened that, mere seconds into hearing “If You” (MP3), I became a fan of Boy Without God.
Hailing from Massachusetts, famed home of the sassy Congressman, Boy Without God is the solo project of multi-instrumentalist Gabriel Birnbaum. His new album, Your Body Is Your Soul, which sounds like Neutral Milk Hotel if they’d been fronted by Johnny Cash, has been on constant rotation in the Owl&Bear offices lately and is shaping up to be one of the best albums of the year. Birnbaum was kind enough to share his influences with us for our newest installment of Poetic Memory.
Poetic Memory is a regular Owl and Bear feature in which musicians disclose their influences—whether it’s albums, songs, artists, or something random. If you’re interested in being featured here, send us an email. (more…)
Jim O’Rourke to Release ‘The Visitor’ Sept. 9 (Stream)
As a producer, Jim O’Rourke is responsible for fundamentally re-shaping Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (and the band itself); as a composer, his songs could accompany both sweet dreams and nightmares; as a lyricist, his turns of phrase are pretty much enviable.
Yet perhaps because of his boundary-testing nature, the Chicago experimentalist doesn’t like to outstay his welcome. Even his album art, though always amazing, is tough to digest sometimes.
The better part of a decade has passed since O’Rourke released anything solo. Granted, he did record those two Loose Fur albums with Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy and Glenn Kotche, and he recorded and toured with Sonic Youth, but that’s a whole different thing. This year, Drag City also re-issued some of O’Rourke’s early work—including a three-hour two-disc epic described by the label as a “double-disc drone-gasm”—but it’s just not the same. (more…)
Poetic Memory: Kissing Cousins (List)
L.A.-based Kissing Cousins, an “all female sepulchral counter-pop” band led by Heather Bray Heywood, began with a few modest EPs. Since then, they’ve had a song featured on Nip/Tuck and recorded a full-length album, Pillar of Salt. Kissing Cousins recorded Pillar live to tape—a rarity in today’s mostly digital landscape—with the help of Richard Swift. The band used Wilco’s old TASCAM 8-track to record the album, bestowing a second life upon the piece of equipment that has produced some of Wilco’s greatest songs. Kissing Cousins definitely do the machine justice.
Music videos for Pillar are in the works, and the vinyl will be released in July (see tour dates below). For samples, check out “In Too Deep” from Pillar, as well as “Deathhouse“, Heywood’s personal favorite song from the album.
After the jump: 10 bands that influenced Heywood’s songwriting “in some shape or form.” (more…)
Poetic Memory: The Rest (List)
The last time Ontario, Canada’s The Rest played at the Casbah, we missed it. But we won’t make that mistake again. After all, according to their MySpace page, The Rest like all the things that we like: doing push-ups, shooting each other with water guns, howling at the moon, and delicious Thai food. (More details below.) We have other reasons, too. For one, their new album, Everything All At Once, is amazing. For another, they graciously agreed to write the latest installment of Poetic Memory. Also, they use the word “rascal” in their lyrics.
We’ve featured The Rest on our podcast a few times, but in case you missed it, here are a couple of MP3s. The wondrously haunting “Drinking Again” is definitely one of our favorite songs of 2009. Also, be sure to check out “Everything All At Once“, the epic titular track from their new album.
Poetic Memory is a regular Owl and Bear feature in which musicians disclose their influences—whether it’s albums, songs, artists, or something random. If you’re interested in being featured here, send us an email. (more…)
Poetic Memory: Alan Wilkis (List)
Brooklyn’s Alan Wilkis calls himself “a sponge type of listener” who is “influenced by many different artists, genres, and time periods” and it’s easy to tell from his music. His new EP is called Pink and Purple, and it’s a blast. To describe his taste, Wilkis says, “One day I might be listening to some death metal, next day it’s 80s hip-hop, then Bach fugues, and then it’s Elvis Costello all weekend.” His style will take you by surprise, but it’s a good thing—and it’s plain that he writes for sheer enjoyment.
We described his last album, Babies Dream Big, as “reminiscent of anything from funk to deep soul to something like the soundtrack to Ghostbusters,” and Pink and Purple operates in a similar dimension. Given last week’s passing of Michael Jackson, it seems only appropriate to publish Wilkis’ list of influences, which he readily admits is “a little 80s funk-heavy.” Below are Alan Wilkis’ top 10 influences.
Poetic Memory is a regular Owl and Bear feature in which musicians disclose their influences—whether it’s albums, songs, artists, or something random. If you’re interested in being featured here, send us an email. (more…)
Download: Jay Bennett’s Best Shows
As news of his passing spread across the Internet, many people made sincere and moving tributes to Jay Bennett, the polarizing but astoundingly influential former member of Wilco who died unexpectedly on May 24, 2009.
In the search for our own fitting tribute to Jay Bennett, we decided to round up some of his best live performances from the Wilco Archive and let his talent speak for itself. We polled members of Wilco’s ViaChicago fan community, and they obliged with eloquence. (more…)
Breaking: Pitchfork to Give Wilco’s New Album a 5.8
Yesterday, we received a disturbing email from a Pitchfork Media staffer, detailing how senior management re-shaped his review of Wilco (The Album), which is set to be released on June 30, 2009.
The distressed staffer writes, ”With high profile releases like this one, management will tell writers what an album’s rating will be. You have to write your review around the predetermined rating, which is partly why our reviews often contain weird metaphors and seem so hackneyed.”
He goes on to write that Pitchfork goons threatened to remove him from their staff—and office—if he didn’t comply with their wishes; he quotes one manager as saying “As you know, Pitchfork is so over Wilco, and the rest of the world should be too, whether it’s right or not. Actual merit is irrelevant. Look how much attention we got from our review of the Black Kids album. If you care about quality, you can go write somewhere else.”
According to the writer, here’s a breakdown of what should’ve been vs. what is. (more…)
