Two New Songs from Monsters of Folk

The supergroup composed of the artist formerly known as Jim James, M. Ward, Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis has added two new songs for your listening pleasure, and they are really quite good. How this will all come together on the album as a whole is anyone’s guess but “Dear God (Sincerely M.O.F.)” and “The Sandman, The Brakeman, and Me” both highlight the songwriting talents of Jim James and M. Ward, respectively, as it’s clear that they are all pushing the envelope just a bit and not staying completely within their respective comfort zones.

You can hear both songs below and if you like them, you can buy them on iTunes.

Monsters of Folk “Dear God (Sincerely M.O.F.)”

Monsters of Folk “The Sandman, The Brakeman, and Me”

Also, lest you forget, here are the tour dates scheduled for the Monsters of Folk:

10/13 – Vancouver, BC @ Orpheum
10/14 – Portland, OR Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
10/15 – Seattle, WA @ Paramount Theatre
10/17 – Oakland, CA @ Fox Theater
10/18 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Greek Theatre
10/20 – San Diego, CA @ Spreckels Theatre
10/21 – Phoenix, AZ @ Orpheum Theater
10/22 – Santa Barbara, CA @ Santa Barbara Bowl
10/28 – Omaha, NE @ Holland Center
10/29 – Minneapolis, MN @ Orpheum Theatre
10/30 – Chicago, IL @ Auditorium Theatre
10/31 – Louisville, KY @ Louisville Palace Theatre
11/02 – Toronto, ON @ Massey Hall
11/03 – Boston, MA @ The Orpheum
11/06 – New York, NY @ United Palace
11/08 – New York, NY @ Beacon Theater
11/09 – Philadelphia, PA @ Academy of Music
11/12 – Stockholm, SE @ Philadelphia Church
11/14 – Berlin, DE @ Huxleys
11/15 – Copenhagen, DK @ Vega
11/17 – London, UK @ Troxy
11/18 – Paris, FR @ Elysee Montmartre
11/19 – Koln, DE @ E-Werk
11/21 – The Hague, NL @ Crossing Border
11/22 – Antwerp, BE @ Crossing Border

Pitchfork Festival Recap

What turned out to be one of the better Chicago festivals attended, Pitchfork 2009 puts a lot of pressure on the upcoming Lollapalooza festival, as the little festival that could has slowly crept up on its counterpart in terms of not only attracting quality bands, but also in the overall atmosphere. With nearly 55,000 fans entering Union Park during the course of the three-day festival, this little brother packs quite the punch.

Of course, there were things to nitpick over, whether it be the bleeding audio (which Lollapalooza still hasn’t even figured out in the much larger Grant Park setting), bathroom/beer lines, etc., but for all intents and purposes, Pitchfork was perfectly imperfect– a fantastic weekend of music.

Highlights

The Flaming Lips put on an expectedly exquisite show.

Of course the highlights begin with the heavy hitters of The Flaming Lips, Built to Spill and The National, all of which lived up to the hype and then some. The Lips played some new material and also a rare b-side just for fans, but otherwise most bands stuck to the Write the Night list based on what the fans voted.

Pharoahe Monch was incredibly solid, bringin the soulful flair that's sorely missing from most hip-hop.

Other highlights include Pharoahe Monch, who really energized the crowd, as well as Yo La Tengo and Blitzen Trapper.  Also, the music and art vendors deserve a lot of props as well, as there was a ton of worthwhile shopping options (particularly for vinyl lovers).

Lowlights
There weren’t many, but one of the notable ones was of course DOOM (aka MF Doom, aka Viktor Vaughn, aka King Geedorah, and more), who looked to be more interested in hitting up the food vendors afterwards than actually performing. He’s never been known as a terrific live act to be sure, but at points it would have been equally interesting to simply have his music piped into the festival speakers. Tortoise was equally uninspiring as they looked to be going through the motions, seemingly forgetting that they are in fact playing in front of an audience.

As far as the festival itself was concerned, bathroom lines were a problem to the point that Pitchfork organizers had to call in an emergency shipment of portable johns. Another point of contention for many was the food selection at the festival– apparently the higher ups overestimated the number of people interested in vegetarian/vegan options, because there were definitely a large number of people bemoaning the lack of “normal” food options.

A Great Event

Yes, that is indeed the line for the Green Line post-Pitchfork.

Of course those are minor quibbles, and in the grand scheme of things, they really don’t amount to much. The fact is that Pitchfork put together one hell of a festival this year and are poised to overtake Lollapalooza in quality in the next year– if you don’t think they have already.

Pitchfork may attract a smaller crowd, but it's enough to shut down Ashland Ave.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs are the New Lollapalooza Headliner

They’re replacing the vacated time slot left by the Beastie Boys due to their unfortunate recent news. While it would’ve been nice to get a band that hasn’t played Lolla before (ahem, Justice), or perhaps even another hip-hop act, YYYs should go over relatively well.

Two New Flaming Lips tracks

They rocked at absurd levels on Sunday at Pitchfork, and now there’s some more news on The Flaming Lips front, as Covert Curiosity has uncovered two tracks from their upcoming Embryonic double album, both of which the Lips played on Sunday night. Both “Silver Trembling Hands” and “Convinced of the Hex” contain definite Krautrock influences (especially the latter), and is also darker and more urgent than what we’ve seen from the band as of late.

Listen below and expect to see Embryonic September 29 via Warner Brothers.

“Silver Trembling Hands”

“Convinced of the Hex”

Adam Yauch aka MCA of Beastie Boys Diagnosed with Cancer

To deliver the good news first, based on the announcement made by Yauch himself and bandmate Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz, it appears that this is a highly treatable form and shouldn’t pose too serious of a threat as it was caught relatively early. The cancer is located in his left partoid (salivary gland) as well as a nearby lymph node. While the long term outlook for Yauch is good, the recent announcement means that Beastie Boys will be canceling their upcoming summer shows and also push back the release date of their upcoming album. What this means for festivals such as All Points West and Lollapalooza has yet to be determined.

The full announcement is below in all of its Youtube glory.

New Monsters of Folk, “Say Please”

Taking a bit of a break from the Pitchfork Twitter updates, we now have proof that this M. Ward/Conor Oberst/Jim James (aka Yim Yames) collaboration is actually happening. Collectively known as Monsters of Folk, this should be one hell of an album if the single is any indication. Look for the album to drop on September 22 via Shangri-La, but you can download this song for free– all you have to do is say please (literally).

Monsters of Folks “Say Please”

2009 Monolith Festival Line-Up Announced

With Pitchfork just a day away, the other major “bang for your buck” festival out in Colorado announced their stellar lineup. With headliners like Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Phoenix, Girl Talk, and Of Montreal, to name a few, its sure to be quite the event. Single day passes run $52, with two day passes going for a mere $95.

View the full lineup below:

SATURDAY 9/12
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Girl Talk
Of Montreal
M. Ward
DOOM
The Walkmen
OK Go
Ida Maria
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
Frightened Rabbit
Thao with the Get Down Stay Down
Hollywood Holt + Million $ Mano
Starfucker
Thunderheist
Woodhands
These United States
Cymbals Eat Guitars
The Antlers
Cotton Jones
Gregory Alan Isakov
Lydia
Generationals
Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros
The Answering Machine
Roadside Graves
Danielle Ate the Sandwich
Speakeasy Tiger
Autovaughn
Avi Buffalo
Wendy Darling
Boulder Acoustic Society
Caitlin Rose

SUNDAY 9/13
The Mars Volta
MSTRKRFT
Method Man & Redman
Phoenix
The Dandy Warhols
Chromeo
The Glitch Mob
Passion Pit
WALE
The Thermals
Harlem Shakes
Monotonix
The Grates
HEALTH
Deer Tick
The Twilight Sad
The Features
Spindrift
Savoy
Bad Veins
We Were Promised Jetpacks
Beats Antique
Tigercity
French Horn Rebellion
The Pirate Signal
Neon Indian
The Knew
A Shoreline Dream
The Royal Bangs
Red Wire Black Wire
Jim McTurnan & the Kids That Killed the Man
Rachel Goodrich

Live Twittering from Pitchfork!

Yes, you read that correctly. As you may recall, Fuzzy Thoughts joined Twitter just a short while ago, and here’s one of the main reasons why. The live updates will begin at around 4:30 CST and will continue throughout the evening.

Here are the acts that will be playing at Union Park in Chicago tomorrow:

Tortoise 5:00 (C)
Yo La Tengo 6:10 (A)
The Jesus Lizard 7:20 (C)
Built to Spill 8:40 (A)

Discovery LP

When you think of a pairing between members of Ra Ra Riot and Vampire Weekend, this is hardly the end result one would expect. For the most part, that turns out to be a good thing, as this is a truly ambitious album.

Release Date: July 6, 2009 
Record Label:XL
Rating: 83

In case you aren’t familiar with Discovery yet, let me introduce you to Rostam Batmanglij and Wes Miles, of Vampire Weekend and Ra Ra Riot fame, respectively. Together, they have produced what is, in a lot of ways, a pseudo-successor to The Postal Service’s Give Up released back in 2003.

That’s not to say that the sound between the two side projects are the same, as they are, for the most part, different. However, in this day and age of excessive auto-tuner, Daft Punk-isms, and a general return (for better or worse) to 80’s style production, Discovery has something that takes these traits and pushes it into the foray of indie-pop in a way that hasn’t wholly been done just yet. Likewise, in 2003, The Postal Service’s sound was something of an amalgam of atmospheric electronic sounds that had made its way to even mainstream music, and the pop sensibility that Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard brought to the table.

If you listen closely (or strain for that matter), you can hear elements of both Ra Ra Riot and Vampire Weekend underneath all the fuzz and digitized vocals, and it does feature both a Ra Ra Riot song (“Can You Discover?”) and a guest spot from Vampire Weekend lead vocalist Ezra Koenig (“Carby”) in case you forget what you’re listening to.

The net result of the album is for the most part, very good. In fact, the first half of the album is just about brilliant, especially “Osaka Loop Line” and “Orange Shirt.” The one real unfortunate song on here is a simply god-awful cover of the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back,” a song that only benefits from surreal timing that may stroke enough nostalgia that people forget about a waste of a cover.

That being said, even when the album falters, you admire the band for trying– there’s a genuine sense of honesty and effort that is represented on every track. This isn’t the efforts of a half-baked idea with equally lazy execution, but rather something that could very well be pointed to years from now as a highly influential album.

Discovery - “Osaka Loop Line”

Alan Wilkis Pink and Purple

Barring a surprise release from the likes of Jamie Lidell, you can rest assure that you won’t find a funkier album than Pink and Purple.

Release Date: June 16, 2009 
Record Label:Wilcassettes
Rating: 87

For better or worse, EPs don’t often get the full review treatment around here. However, there’s a definite reason why Wilkis’ Pink and Purple is a notable exception– it is, through and through, a funky throwback that ultimately leaves a lasting impression despite being a mere 26 minutes.

The opening “Snuggle Up to Nail Down” is such a wonderfully executed pastiche of funk and soul artists of the 70’s and 80’s, that you’ll find yourself in an immediate groove that never lets up.

The centerpiece of the album is “Gotta Get You Back,” which is pure saccharine but never broaches the level of being trite. Instead it highlights Wilkis’ strength as a songwriter to not only compose a highly likable pop song, but to also underscore it with enough light-funk sensibility that it doesn’t diffuse the overall feel of the album. The title track, which immediately follows, serves as a nice contrast with its darker production but is just as enjoyable and danceable as anything else on the album.

Wilkis accomplishes so much on Pink and Purple that it’s hard to believe it is an EP. While his strengths lie in the more concise songs on the album, there’s no filler whatsoever. It’ll be interesting to see how Wilkis builds on this release, but if the next full length release is anything like this, expect there to be a lot of surrounding fanfare.

Alan Wilkis - “Gotta Get You Back”