The City Veins

Today is our day of rest, our brief respite from our hard work on the EP.  Every night this week I’ve gone over to Charles house at 8 and worked until 11.  This is no problem for me, but Charles is working this week, so his day has few real breaks.  Maybe it is to celebrate the beginning of the tournament, or maybe it’s so that Charles won’t die, but we decided not to do any recording today.

(By the way–are any of you watching the Duke/Belmont game?  What a ridiculous contest.  Actually I can’t focus because it’s the last minute.  Okay, commercial)

So, today I’d like to write about some stuff I’ve been listening to on-line.  I’ve spent alot of time in the last few weeks reading blogs such as pasta primavera (pastaprima.blogspot.com) and Instrumental Analysis (instrumentalanalysis.blogspot.com), and they’ve got some real good stuff on there.  At this point they are just feeding me new material.  I especially like the guys at DC Rock Club (www.dcrockclub.com), but not so much for their review expertise as their witty banter and portrayal of ridiculous situations.  They are funny as hell.  Anyway, here are some of my favorites:

1)  Yeasayer, Final Path

I know a lot of people are on these guys “jocks” these days, but those people are right:  they are good.  There are few bands that can mesh that dark, almost Joy Division type of sound together with modern indie rock without sounding like they are  completely ripping them off.  And they aren’t whiny.  And there is a bit of groove and soul to their music.  The tone of the track is all their own, yet I’ve heard it before.  Just excellent stuff.

2)  Le Loup, Planes Like Vultures

Again, who hasn’t written about how great these guys are?  It seems to be the unanimous opinion of everyone everywhere that they are the best thing ever.  Forever ever.  So my initial reaction is to hate them as the new children of destiny.  But this song builds so well, has such a wonderfully church-like melody, that I can’t help but love it.  These are the melodies lost from my childhood, going to church on sundays and singing Irish Folk-inspired hymns at voice lessons (I was a snotty kid).  All of it is wonderfully repackaged as a palatable dose of indie.  Good shit.

3)  Middle Distance Runner, That’s A Lie

Though I’ve heard alot about this band, I’ve actually only listened to a few of their tracks.  Most of their other stuff hasn’t moved me, but everyday as I assemble my playlist this goes straight to the top.  I love the strong, abrasive synth in the beginning, the simple and understated vocals, and the manner in which the vocal line resolves itself.  Also, the vocals follow a pattern that is a bit untraditional for a song in 4/4.  Give it a listen.  Somewhere else, though.  You can’t stay here.

4)  Cadence Weapon, Oliver Square

If you listen to one hip-hop track this year (you’ll probably listen to more than that) it should be by Wale.  But after our DC brother, you need to check out the Canuck.  This is a fantastic track:  great rhyme, great backing track, solid beat.  You will find yourself saying over and over “I solemnly swear I’ll make it back to Oliver Square”.  I can’t believe this guy played at DC 9 a couple weeks ago and I missed it.

So that’s my synopsis.  I’m not going to go over all of the stuff that I hate, but suffice it to say there is also a bunch of much-heralded stuff I do not like.  However, I’m becoming a hard-nosed supporter of everything DC in terms of music.  I think it would do me some good to immerse myself in all of the great local bands as we work through this album, not for the sake of copying local convention (which we couldn’t do if we wanted to) but just to feel a part of it.  This is by no means a complete list, so I’ll have to add some in a later post (some New Rock Church of Fire and other “hot” sounds). 

Or maybe I’ll decide that this form of writing is boring as shit.