Friday, July 31, 2009

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Echo and the Bunnymen Announce New Album Details, North American Tour Dates

Posted: 31 Jul 2009 12:00 PM PDT

echo“Under blue moon I saw you / so soon you’ll take me / up in your arms / too late to beg you or cancel it / though I know it must be the killing time” – if this sounds familiar and “The Killing Moon” has ever graced your tape deck (that’s what came way before mp3 players, kiddos), then you have already heard the brilliance of Echo and the Bunnymen. And if you fancy getting your hands on their new material and seeing them live, it’s your lucky day. The Liverpudlian post-punk band, starring original members Ian McCulloch (vocals/guitar) and Will Sergeant (guitar), have announced on their official website that their new album, The Fountain, will be released here in the U.S. on October 13. You can preview some of the tracks on their MySpace. They have also announced plans for a North American tour. Three dates in late October have been announced so far, but more are on the way.

Tour dates
Oct 20 – Queen Elizabeth Theatre / Toronto
Oct 22 – Fox Theater / Oakland, CA
Oct 24 – Nokia Theater / Los Angeles

Echo and the Bunnymen: website | myspace

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Greg Laswell @ Martyrs, Chicago IL

Posted: 31 Jul 2009 10:30 AM PDT

DSC02967Maybe it was the way Chicago can lure just about anyone back with its upbeat Midwestern charm, but it took Greg Laswell only four months to re-visit the darkened cave of Martyrs Restaurant and Pub. So this guy is critically described as the sweet genre's "darling," and with songs that have found solace in shows such as “Grey's Anatomy” and the “Hills,” I expected an audience of well-dressed 18 to 34-year-olds with crushes. He gets such fanfare so easily because music is literally his industry. Producing, recording and performing aren't anything that's new to him, so I can only imagine how chuck-full his contact list is. Laswell knows the sincerity in networking.

I could only ask myself two things before getting my hand stamped and letting my eyes adjust to the near-blind visibility inside:

1. Will Greg's tender guitar serenade re-associate my thoughts of him as just a romantic soundtrack staple?
2. Will there be any dudes inside the room, not holding onto their girlfriend's bags?

The shows opener, a quirky girl named Elizabeth and her two partners dubbed "& The Catapult", presented the crowd with a more interesting Sara Bareilles (someone the Laswell fans would be familiar with) and with an instrumental backdrop of fun, like a pinch of . If has the caffeine equivalence of a Grande, Elizabeth and the Catapult would equal a Venti.

It was on Elizabeth & TC's stage that I was introduced to Laswell. He didn't say much of anything before plopping down at the piano for a heart-melting duet, but from what I've read and heard, he doesn't really seem to be the party starter.

Let's say you, the reader, are familiar with any of Laswell's records. In that case, this live performance only would have provided you with a better experience of a background band, the opportunity for singing along with/in front of a crowd (to separate the real fans from the I-only-know-the-single fans), and a close proximity. If you, the reader, are not familiar with handsome man's handiwork, then envision a musical version of an old coffee mug filled with black joe, put in a vintage teaspoon dose of pure sugar and sip, and sit on a creaky rocking chair in the Adirondacks to watch summer slip by as you dream of The One that got away. Or a more prepared .

The band that backed Laswell when the meat of the show really took off, composed of a lead guy, a drummer boy, and a bassist. Out of four people on stage, three were wearing fedoras. Just go ahead and picture that, along with a scene from any enchanted indie flick where cute boy plays soulful confession to waitress girl right before they get it on. Ahhh the joy of social paramour drama.

By the end of the first song, "The One I Love," it was clear that his deeper voice was winning me over. There were probably more guys in this room than girls and that he might be the only one to really pull off using "thee" in a verse.

Then I'll send it out and let things be
if not for you
for me and the time I've spent
foolishly loving thee

Laswell is an amazing lyricist, which makes up for not being so lively on stage. There weren't too many moments, I recall, of playful space-filling in-between songs: no jokes, no flirting with the girls who hid behind their fancy Canon and Olympus DSLRs, no explanations of titles or choruses. DSC02975

Except for the fight. Other than explaining how second song "Sing, Theresa Says" was an adorable ode to his grandmother, Laswell did at one point acknowledge a fan. Said fan was yelling to the stage, urging for the singer to do a duet with said fan's girlfriend. This led to a half-embarrassed Laswell to say no, no, he couldn't allow that, and then fan and girl start fighting. Good-mannered Greg then used his charm to intervene and say, using much more tender verbiage than mine, to knock it off and grow the hell up and stop messing up his set.

The fedora-ed band plus the bassist got into the music personally, like when the more upbeat "That It Moves" showed up. There was a lot of looking at each other and bouncing to the sound of each beat they all made, and despite a smoother set, they band got sweaty.

Some songs were solo, a sprinkle of the songs were played in conjunction with a very normal looking "Greg's friend from LA" (who must not have gotten the fedora memo), and the majority of the set never swayed to sleepy thanks to such an up-tempered band backing.

Laswell's laid back-with-a-smile demeanor wasn't a shocker, but his Lauper cover, "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" all but had me laughing out loud. It's literally a 5 mph version that you could put on to usher guests out of a closing club, and it's good.

It was somewhere in the middle of the set that my neck snapped my head up in confused recognition. A soft, bouncing piano that carried two teasing notes down the scale. I knew that song…at least until the chorus, which is where he lost me. It was "Off I Go," the season-ending “Grey's” anthem. I'm not a “Grey's” fan, but I could absolutely add Three Flights From Alto Nido to my LP collection, or any of his EPs—his sound would totally work for my Sunday night dinner parties.

Set List:
The One I Love
Sing, Theresa Says
That It Moves
What a Day
Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
Days Go On
Amazed
Off I Go
Comes and Goes
Do What I Can
Salvation Dear
High and Low
Embrace Me
I’m Not Out
How the Day Sounds

Greg Laswell: website | myspace

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Photo Essay: Pete Yorn @ Webster Hall, NYC

Posted: 31 Jul 2009 09:56 AM PDT

Pete Yorn’s on the road touring for his aptly named fourth album, Back and Fourth. We caught the second of his two-night stint at Webster Hall with opener Zee Avi, and it was pretty fantastic. Here’s some photographic evidence:

Pete Yorn: website | myspace
Zee Avi: website | myspace

Back and Fourth
Price: USD 11.49
40 used & new available from USD 7.99
Zee Avi
Price: USD 7.99
24 used & new available from USD 7.25

Photos by Dese’Rae L. Stage.

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The Paper Raincoat @ Club Passim, Cambridge MA

Posted: 31 Jul 2009 09:00 AM PDT

It’s been only a few short weeks since I’ve discovered the charming and whimsical music of The Paper Raincoat, an inventive duo consisting of Brooklyn artists and Alex Wong. Moments after their myspace page loaded in my browser, the catchy song “Sympathetic Vibrations” started filling my room with a unique sense of hope and curiosity. I found myself intrigued in a way that I haven’t experience in a long time. It’s really quite wonderful to discover a promising new act only to find that they’re to play soon in your neighborhood. raincoat

The Paper Raincoat performed at Club Passim, a small vegetarian restaurant off an alley in the heart of Harvard Square. Its the smallest and most intimate venue that I’ve had the pleasure of seeing a performance at in the Boston area. Located slightly below street level, its windows were lined up to the feet of scurrying passerbys who would sometimes circle around, gathering the courage to finally bend over and peer in on the music.

opened the night, performing an entertaining set of thoughtful and quirky music. The addition of the Oboe/English Horn added depth and personality to the already rich music. Brill has a talent for giving each song a unique sound and mood, which made for a versatile set of music. An accomplished songwriter and composer, he currently has an Emmy nomination for his film score to “The Devil Came On Horseback,” a documentary on the genocide in Darfur.

When The Paper Raincoat took the stage they revealed that they were minus their drummer and would have to rely on spontaneous inventions to compensate. This resulted in audience participation for many of the songs, Alex with a xylophone on his lap, keyboard to his left, and drum set to his right, and a lot of shuffling around on a tiny stage. Alex’s show of MacGyverisms were impressive, at one point he conjured a beat by stomping on a tambourine: crude, but effective. Another instance had him requesting a specific beat from one side of the audience and another from the other side, however, we collectively decided that splitting the beat between the audience wasn’t such a good idea.

The band did a good job making light of the uncertainty, soldiering through their set in fun and playful way. They performed all the songs on their Safe In The Sound EP and ended with a few new songs from their upcoming release in October. Their music is conceptual in the sense that it’s written from the perspective of a fictional 50-year-old character named Grace. Digging deeper into her fictional world we find that the band name, The Paper Raincoat, comes from a failed invention of her recently deceased father.

I have to admit that I was supremely excited for this show, partly because I haven’t been this excited for a new act in some time and partly because, while I’ve never seen a show there, I’ve eaten lunch at the venue and the tininess of it has the potential to be everything that you’d hope for when you see a live show: intimate. The band didn’t upset and ended up exceeding my expectations. ’s vocals are sly and full of life, and Alex’s command over multiple instruments is formidable and confident. There were so many great moments: from the connection formed between the band and the audience through well-timed hand claps, the quirky song written specifically because “there aren’t enough two person collaboration on a single piano,” to the a cappela verion of “Creases” as the encore.
The encore was especially entertaining as they invited back on stage to accompany them and had him hold out his hand as they rotated giving each other high-fives as an improvised percussion technique.

The songs tackle serious subject matter while confidently possessing a consistent feeling of hopefulness. Whether singing about feeling lost and lonely in a crowd, or being a quiet face staring out windows, the music carries the meaning with a gust of whimsy and beauty. There’s a unique way of seeing the world that translates wonderfully in their music. I think the best testimony to the spirit of their music can be seen in the grins on our faces as we walked out of the venue and in the night.

Set List:
Brooklyn Blur
Rough Cut
Sympathetic Vibrations
Motion Sickness
Safe in the Sound
Don’t Be Afraid
Same Old Things
Right Angles
It All Depends
Rewind
//
Creases

The Paper Raincoat: myspace

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Interview with: Adam Schlesinger of Tinted Windows

Posted: 31 Jul 2009 07:30 AM PDT

So, if you've been paying attention, and my guess is you haven't, you've most likely heard about Tinted Windows—A power-pop Supergroup consisting of ' James Iha, Fountains of Wayne's , 's Taylor , and Cheap Trick's Bun. E Carlos. And I'll be the first one to say it….they're good. Really good. Popwreckoning's Los Angeles writer, Sara Swiecki, got the chance to talk to Schlesinger for a bit, and here's what came of it!

PopWreckoning, Sara Swiecki: So, how did the whole group come to be? Everything I've read says that James is the one who put it together. Is that true?t14
, Tinted Windows: Uh, well no. Not exactly. I think it was actually my idea, but James and I were partners in a recording studio in New York and working together on a lot of stuff. So, I kind of mentioned it to him to see if he'd be interested. “Y'know,” I said. "We could do something with Taylor," and he said, "Yeah, definitely." And I had known Taylor for many years, so I just called him and said, "What do you think of this idea of doing a band? You'd be the singer. We'd get James to play guitar. We'll look for a drummer," and he said, “Yeah.” And that was about three years ago. And then we started working on it in little bits and pieces, and eventually, when we started talking about drummers, we came up with the idea of trying to contact Bun E. and, uh, and he said, “Yes.”

PW: Well you do realize that this is kind of an eyebrow-raising group of musicians you guys got goin' together? Kind of an unlikely quartet…
AS: Um, I mean, I think it seems weirder than it actually is, just because there's a big range of ages within the band, and each of the bands we come from maybe have different reputations. But, um, musically, I think we all kind of come from the same place. I mean, I think we're all kind of fans of guitar-based pop music. And y'know, melodic music. And it seemed like a pretty natural fit on a musical level right away.

PW: Very cool. Um, do you think that with Taylor, there's a certain stigma that he's bringing over because got so much crap back in the day for being, like, y'know, the early Jonas Brothers?
AS: (laughs) Well, I think people understand. I mean, first of all he was a teenager at that time and he's 26-years-old now.
PW: Yeah.
AS: The other thing is that, I mean, I don't really know why you would give him crap. I mean, how many kids his age when he was 15 or whatever wrote a number 1 single in 28 countries or whatever it was (laughs)? It gives you a pretty good sense of accomplishment.
PW: Oh no, I totally agree, I'm a fan! I defend them all the time. I'm just saying what other people are thinking.
AS: Well, I think, I mean, certainly there's a curiosity factor for people who maybe haven't thought about Taylor for a long time because they haven't seen him in any other context. But as you know, if you're a fan, he's been making music all along, and he's a fantastic singer and a fantastic songwriter. So, I don't think it's that unusual for him to be playing with us.

PW: Ok, cool! Um, Do you think that this…y'know you were previously with Fountains of Wayne, James was previously with Pumpkins and everything…
AS: Oh, I'm still with Fountains of Wayne. Nobody's quit their day jobs! Although James hasn't been with the Pumpkins for close to ten years (laughs). But I'm still with Fountains of Wayne, Taylor's still with , and Bun E.'s still with Cheap Trick. This is just something that we're doing in addition to that.
PW: Well, yeah. But, where I was going with it, though is do you think that this is–doing a group like this is easier because you're already established musicians? Or does it make things harder because it's hard to disassociate?
AS: Well, I don't really know how to answer that question. It's not particularly hard. I mean, the only hard thing has been, sometimes just the scheduling of it, because everybody's really busy. But I think our motivation in doing this, really, is just to have fun. It was intended to be something to do just for the fun of it, and that's really how we've approached it. With your first band, there's so much intensity and so much pressure and this is the opposite of that. This is something nobody was really expecting, and nobody really had any particular expectations about. So it's really just something we did to have a change of pace, and get a chance to work with some friends, and just to have a good time.

PW: Ok. So you're the primary songwriter, yes? Did it just happen that way, or…?
AS: We didn't really plan it that way. I mean, James wrote some and Taylor wrote some. But I wrote more. But it's still very collaborative and making the record was very collaborative.

PW: Ok. Why did we decide on the name Tinted Windows? Did it just sound cool? Does it mean something?
AS: It was just kind of a goofy name. It was almost a joke at the beginning and it kinda stuck. I mean, I think we thought it sounded slightly hokey, and I think we liked that about it. It sounded like a cover band or something (laughs). t7

PW: (laughs) It kinda does, yeah! You were recently nominated for an Emmy, yes?
AS: Yes.
PW: Do you want to tell us a little bit about that?
AS: Sure! Well, I worked on a show called "A Colbert Christmas," which was a Stephen Colbert Christmas special.
PW: Yeah, I saw it!
AS: And I wrote a bunch of song with a guy named , who is a friend of mine and who also works at “The Daily Show.” That's his day job. And it was a really fun project. We got to work with a lot of cool people like and Feist and John Legend…Toby Keith, Willie Nelson….uh, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, obviously. So it was just a fun…a fun one-time project.

PW: That's cool. That's very cool. Um, for Tinted Windows, for the band or for your songwriting…What would you say, like, what other bands or what other style is your primary influence? Y'know, for people who haven't heard it yet.
AS: I think we were thinking about a lot of power-pop bands from the late 70's and early 80's. I mean, The Knack was one of my favorite bands. Obviously Cheap Trick was a big influence, and the fact that we got their drummer was kind of a miracle (laughs). We love Cheap Trick. We were also thinking of some of the pop-punk bands from that period, too. The Buzzcocks, mainly, and stuff like that. But I think there's also….Y'know it's got a retro vibe to it, but I think there's also some modern rock guitar sounds on it that aren't completely retro.
PW: Right.
AS: As an album, I think we mostly just wanted to have a high-energy record and have the songs be very direct. And I mean, hopefully they're catchy.

PW: They are! What are your favorites, I mean if you had to pick two or three favorites from the album, what would they be?
AS: Oh, it's hard for me to be objective…
PW: It's like picking one of your favorite kids!
AS: Well, I really like "Messing With My Head." That was one of the first ones we did.
PW: That's my favorite.
AS: And I think it came out really well. I think that one of the songs James wrote, which is called "Back With You," which is kind of a ballad, is really strong. And the song which is last on the record which is "Take Me Back," which is one that Taylor and I wrote together. That was also an early one that we wrote, and I like that one a lot. We kind of kicked that one out in an afternoon at his house in Tulsa. So I have good memories of putting that one together.

PW: Alright. Do we have plans to tour anytime soon?
AS: Well, we've got some shows coming up in August. We're doing shows primarily on the East Coast. We've got like a Boston, a D.C., a Philly show. There's one in Connecticut. And then we have a San Francisco show a few weeks later. And we're going to try to do some more after that. We're talking about going to Japan. That hasn't been officially booked yet, but we're working on it. But all the are up on our website, which is tintedwindowsmusic.com.

PW: Ok. You guys actually made your debut at South By Southwest this year. Correct?
AS: Yep.
PW: Alright, what do you think? What what the popular reaction?
AS: I thought it was really positive. I mean, y'know, the record wasn't out at that point, and it was such a curiosity once people heard that the band existed. So, I think a lot of people turned up just to see what it was about. But I feel like it went really well. Y'know we went down there and played like three shows, and we got really positive feedback from people.

PW: Great! I think that wraps everything up. Is there anything else you want to say or wanted to be known about Tinted Windows?
AS: No, I think you covered it!
PW: Ok great! Thank you so much, Adam!
AS: Yeah, I appreciate you doing the site!
PW: Yeah, no problem! Have a good one!
AS: You, too.
PW: Bye!
AS: Bye!

Tinted Windows: website | myspace | @ Pangaea, SXSW

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at 5:12 PM