From the Past Few Months

Hey all,

I have been busy and not able to write anything non-fiction, let alone a review, interview, ethought, etc. on this brilliant but under-utilized blog space. I haven't been in a cultural vacuum, though, and with this entry, I plan to lay out what I've been spinning, watching, and hearing about recently. Some of the things are old, and some of them new, but dig it.

The song "Marathon" by the band Tennis. A fuzzy, doo-wop vibe, with the sweetest little lyrics about travelling around on a sail-boat, make this an essential summer song. On the subject, two songs from the days of yore that have been getting mad play this summer: "Summer in the City" by the Lovin' Spoonful and "Time of the Season" by the Zombies (a funny picture proceeds if ye click that link: you've been warned). "Time of..." was a crucial part to a movie I saw recently (on Netflix instant queue) and found interesting called "Dear Wendy". It's written by Lars Von Trier and was directed by the guy who did "The Celebration" (which I also saw recently and liked).

The Arcade Fire, I think, have been killing it recently. Though I haven't yet gotten "The Suburbs", I've listened to it a few times and it definitely is unique from AF's previous records. I like it a lot, though, and like this grown, mature direction their music has gone in. I also like the live performance they did on youtube a few days ago, directed by Terry Gilliam (who used to be the only American member of Monty Python before he became a famous director). You can see them performing "Wake Up" here, or a new cut "Rococo" here. I think the Arcade Fire are a lot like Radiohead, in that they are immensely successful and use that as credibility to experiment. Good for them!

There's a documentary out directed by Banksy called "Exit Through the Gift Shop", and its being touted as the first street art disaster movie. You have to see it to understand, and I highly recommend the experience. Banksy is perhaps the most forward thinking artist around. Another movie I saw recently and liked was "Cyrus", the new movie by the Duplass brothers, who after a long string of successful independent pictures featuring unknown actors, are finally moving into the mainstream and working with professionals. The movie has a strong, strange performances from Jonah Hill, and John C. Reilly is very subtly funny as the guy caught up in this unfortunate situation. Particular kudos to Marissa Tomei, who steals every scene she's in as Cyrus's mother. Catherine Keener is also in the movie, and I think I could be fascinated watching her talk about cereal. I just googled to see if she's married; she was, but divorced. Apparently she also lives in North Carolina, where I live... Fate?

The new Kanye single, "Power", is the dopest thing he's done in a long time. I think his next album is going to win back over everyone he alienated with his Katrina comments, the Taylor Swift debockle, the misstep that was 808s and Heartbreaks, etc. I've also been bumping the new discs by Curren$y (Pilot Talk) and Big Boi (Sir Luscious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty). Click this link and scroll down to see all the mixtapes Curren$y has put out and has available for free download. He played second fiddle to Wayne before switching over to a new label for Pilot Talk.

What have you guys been doing with your summer? Post it on up, respond, keep being culturally active. Sometime next week I'll put up a list of things to look forward to.

Peassss,

Adam

Osheaga 2010

The Osheaga Music Festival took place in Montreal last weekend over two beautiful weekend days. I was lucky enough to attend the first (and better) day and was busy from morning til night running around from stage to stage, show to show. Here's a quick breakdown of the day.

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros: Full stage of bearded men and one adorable Jade as usual. Their eclectic live show thrives on the crowd buying into their happy-hippy aura which was hard, and semi-unsuccessful on the massive stage they were put on. Their music was spot on great as usual but as a fan I would have rather seen them on the smaller stage.



Jimmy Cliff: Old Jamaican reggae legend struggled to get a young crowd energized but eventually his dancers got people's hands in the air. He seemed to be having a blast which was cool to see from a veteran performer, but he didn't play "The Harder They Come" which would have made the show for me.

K'Naan: Only saw him from a far but the crowd that was close seemed to be loving him. He had a live backing band which is always cool for a hip hop show. His live performance of "Waving Flag" was pretty impressive given its post World Cup hype.

Stars: They are old, way older than I expected, which threw me off for the first portion of the show. Right off the bat they had some serious technical issues that they never recovered from. Frontman Torquill Campbell was furious at the sound crew and when he wasn't singing, he was freaking out on stage throwing water bottles and mic stands at the tech guys. This was very distracting from the professional and solid performance being put on by the rest of the band, particularly guitarist Amy Millan.

Jamie Lidell: I only caught the end of the brit-psych-rocker's weird set but I was impressed and wish I saw more, he seemed to have total control of the crowd and his sound.

Beach House: After taking significantly too long to soundcheck, they showed why with their perfectly mellowed out performance full of reverb, pedals, and angst. Singer/keyboardist Victoria LeGrand is a great performer, using her crazy mane of hair to her advantage to play up both the stoicism and the intensity of certain tracks.


The National: Everyone said I had to see them live to understand them. I get it. Vocalist Matt Berninger is one of the best live performers I've ever seen, it's amazing to imagine him getting that into it every night.

Arcade Fire: The headliners lived up to their hype, trotting out a full stage of their multi-instrumentalist line up for a hour and a half long set of songs new and old. Wyn Butler and Regine Chassagne have great stage presence and chemistry and the entire band was incredibly humble and greatful. Every song they played rocked, all the way through their finale, "Wake Up" which got a packed house of tired festival goers to dance and chant all the way to the subway home.

Great job all around by the people behind Osheaga from the artists to the little details of the venue. Festivals like this have the possibility of being uncomfortable events and organizational nightmares and Montreal really came through big in every way here.

It's just a jump to the left!

And then please look to your right.

Down a bit.

Yes, there. That shiny new calendar gizmo - it's an embedded version of our Community Calendar. It will provide information about concerts, benefits, WRMC parties - we mean, meetings, et cetera.

Yes, many of the concert listings may appear to have been lifted whole-sale from the Middlebury Arts calendar. We tried to convince them to input the data on their own, in the hopes that they would select the most relevant, pithy, and comprehensible bits, but failing that we used some copy and paste action. The UVM information we had no hope of translating.

If you are a community group/member/NGO/friend, or an artist or group that will be playing in our listening area or Burlington, please feel free to shoot us an email with your event data at wrmc911@gmail.com and we will add items to our calendar at the management's discretion.

Any and all comments and suggestions welcome as to how we can improve this service.

Love,

WRMC

PRIMUS TONIGHT!

Your favorite childhood wierdos are playing in B-town tonight! The guys that brought you Pork Soda are playing at Higher Ground! Doors are at 5:30 and its worth getting there early because Gogol Bordello is opening. Fuck work on a Friday, get up to Burlington for what promises to be an evening of the bizarre, the brilliant, and plenty of bass.

Podcast de la Radio L'Ecole Francais

Radio de l'Ecole Francais Emission 1

Radio de l'Ecole Francais Emission 2

Radio de l'Ecole Francais Emission 3

Radio de l'Ecole Francais Emission 4

Radio de l'Ecole Francais Emission 5

Best of 2010 (So Far) Podcast

In a special broadcast on Tuesday July 6th, a panel of WRMC DJs featuring Toren Hardee, Tamara Hilmes, David Foote, Jordan Valens, Brad Becker-Parton, and Ben Wessel discussed their favorite albums of the year so far. Check out the full list and listen to the podcast below.

Best of 2010 So Far Podcast

Toren:

LCD Soundsystem (Home)

Titus Andronicus (A More Perfect Union)

The National (Afraid of Everyone)

Bonobo (El Toro)

Fang Island (Careful Crossers)

Delta Spirit (Bushwick Blues)

Zeus (Kindergarten)

Brad:

The Roots (Walk Alone)

Big Boi (Shutterbugg)

The Dead Weather (Blue Blood Blues)

Black Keys (She’s Long Gone)

Janelle Monae (Cold War)

J. Cole (Higher)

Tamara:

Mumford & Sons (Little Lion Man)

Tame Impala (Solitude Is Bliss)

Phosphorescent (Mermaid Parade)

First Aid Kit (Sailor Song)

Peter Wolf Crier (Untitled 101)

Oberhofer (I Could Go)

Peter:

The Tallest Man On Earth (The Drying of the Lawns)

Joanna Newsom (‘81)

Beach House (Norway?)

The Radio Dept (Heaven’s On Fire)

Local Natives (World News? Sun Hands?)

David F:

Flying Lotus (Nose Art)

Drive-By Truckers (I Told You So Horse)

Tobacco (Heavy Make-Up)

Deer Tick (Blood Moan)

Feathers (Belly of June)

Jordan:

Gorillaz (Empire Ants)

Delorean (Stay Close)

Ratatat (Mandy)

Morning Benders (Excuses)

Dom (Living in America)

Sheepdogs (I Don’t Get By)

The Perfect Feature

The new roots album, "How I Got Over," is a really successful album overall. Its definitely a return to their classic hip-hop band form, merging many genres and styles. the standout track, in my opinion, is the ninth track on the album, "Right On," which features indie-fairy songstress Joanna Newsome. Newsome's signature child-voice style of folk singing is perfect for the hook of a hip-hop song. so many radio hip-hop songs feature a squeaky, processed, overproduced female or child's voice in their hook, but the roots, always musically innovative, take advantage of Newsome's natural singing style to get the same effect in a truer and far more aurally pleasing way.

check it: http://www.mediafire.com/?rfjrakzdvfm

Deer Tick Come Back With New Album The Black Dirt Sessions

Sophomore albums always pose a Catch-22 for artists. Fans inevitably hate it because it sounds nothing like the first album, or they bitch about how it sounds just like the first release. Unfortunately I was one of those same fans when it comes to the disappointment that was Born on A Flag Day. War Elephant set the bar high, but still, except for a few songs I rarely go back Deer Tick’s sophomore slump effort. I won’t be saying the same for their third release, The Black Dirt Sessions. Instead of sacrificing songs for distortion that happened over and over on Flag Day, the band shifts the focus back to the song craft. The result is a softer, sadder songs dealing with faith and salvation that you wanna hear in a smalltown Southern bar after too many lonely beers.

For most bands this would be dangerous cliché territory especially for some young boys outta Rhode Island, but it never comes off as affected. John McCauley III is a gifted enough songwriter to go back to old tropes of loneliness and losing friends and still sound like he was one of the first to go there. Even when he occasionally does stray into a cliché, the pure raw grit of his voice carries him over it. Pulled out of the bottom of countless ashtrays and bottles of bourbon, McCauley’s voice is at times just gravelly notes that save him from the weak lines or off rhymes that he stumbles over at times. Screaming “everyone is alone” on a song would sound like the worst kind of angst out of anyone else’s mouth, but he somehow pulls it off.

It’s this voice and the songwriting that doesn’t make this your typical sad bastard fare. “Piece by Piece and Frame by Frame”, “Good-bye, Dear Friend”, and “Blood Moon” are some of the best of sad bastard tunes these boys have made. “Mange” is a dense, rollicking, reminder that Deer Tick can still rock, while “I Will Not Be Myself” is proof is a nice reminder of War Elephant. Some of the songs are weak or incomplete, with “Sad Sun” being the obvious sore thumb on what is all in all going to be an album I am going back to again and again.

...and we're back.

summer programming is underway, click on the schedule below for old favorites at new times, exciting new shows, and the best time for fans of russian post-grunge-shoegaze-electro-pop to tune in.


wrmc.middlebury.edu/schedule

World Cup Tiiime!

I think any good music blog (except maybe a Country one) would be remiss about now if it didn't have at least one post on the music of the World Cup. With a much improved American team this year and many big-name teams playing worse than my grandma, there is definitely a growing interest in the Copa Mundial here in the States. So, here's some music of the Cup:

1. Starting out with the best, listen to Wavin Flag by K'naan. The orginal is truly the anthem of this year's cup, but below is a really cool collaboration version by a bunch of young Canadian (oh well) artists. And it's for Haiti, cool.



2. According to the Official Fifa 2010 World Cup Album, this is the "Official Anthem of the 2010 World Cup." I think Wavin Flag is the real one, but this ain't half bad either. It's called Sign of a Victory by R. Kelly featuring the Sowetto Spiritual Singer. Good Stuff.



3. Here's an acapella favorite of mine, it's called Weltmeister. I really have no idea what it means, but I'm pretty sure it's about the World Cup (fyi - it's in German). I did learn that Weltmeister means Champions, a title that looks unlikely to go to the Germans after their pathetic loss to Serbia (who?).




4. Finally, check out songs from each of the World Cup countries put together by KCRW. The collection really shows the musical diversity of these countries. It features Phoenix representing France, the Pinker Tones representing Spain and the very official sounding Mexican Institute of Sound. Listen to the MUSIC OF THE WORLD CUP! Here's the American entry - World Cup Fever by Air Miami



Further Exploration:
Feel the Spirit by the Roumbar Girls - Free Download Here
Three Lions (Football's Coming Home) by Baddiel, Skinner & The Lightning Seeds