Phoenix and Passion Pit Light Up SummerStage 9/26/09

Phoenix and Passion Pit played two nights at Central Park’s SummerStage this past weekend. I went to Friday’s showand was blown away.

Going into the concert, I thought I was completely sick of PassionPit. Back in February, after seeing a show at DC indie-haunt Black Cat, I had quickly labeled them a one-trick-pony. Even by summer, the falsetto and whipping electronic synth were getting pretty tired. However, they did a fine job opening for Phoenix; they are a pony who performs his one trick well. Michael Angelakos, that high-pitched squealer, kept the crowd energized by bouncing around the stage like a three-year-old for the majority of the set. I don’t mean to sound (entirely) insulting – I think Passion Pit was a smart booking choice: they pack enough poppy enjoyment for about half an hour, then the audience will thirst for something more substantial. And for that, they were perfect – did what a good opening band should do: whet the appetite for the main course.  Now, enter Phoenix.

(see: here for Passion Pit’s performance of “Sleepyhead” on Pitchfork’s Juan’s Basement)

The Frenchmen ran on stage to burst right into a strobe filled “Lisztomania” and never let the energy drop. And those strobes never really stopped either, yet not as an epileptic’s nightmare. They were perfectly employed during each song and made the entire crowd dance like lunatics (the frat-boy next to me ultimately took of his shirt and continually tried to stand on the shoulders of the strangers in front of him). The flow between each song (mostly off of Wolfgang, though a healthy mix of Alphabetical and United classics like “Run Run Run” – a personal fave – and “Too Young”) was perfect: blending from each in interesting and creative ways.

Banter was spare in between songs, with the occasional “merci beaucoup” from lead singer Thomas Mars, but he made up for the minimal speech with maximum engagement. He held attention whether he climbing the speakers as if to proclaim himself champion or jumping into the crowd as if to fully connect with the audience. But he was no hog of the spot light (literally). For one fully instrumental song, he lied down on stage out of view to nearly all, while another time Laurent Brancowitz and Christian Mazzalai, the two guitarists, had an intense one-on-one.

Even the encore was perfectly balanced, from the earnest Air-cover “Playground Love,” performed solely by brothers Thomas and Christian, to the  high energy closer “1901.”  The evening was a crowning success. I am sure it has been written in multiple reviews as “the perfect end to summer,” and maybe it’s the same thing, but to me, this concert was the perfect start to fall.

See “Lisztomania” from SummerStage below:

Christian Morrissey

Julian Casablancas Releases New Single

The frontman of The Strokes, Julian Casablancas, released a new single a few days ago. I have taken my time in reviewing the track for [cl] because I have been apprehensive to make up my mind too quickly about the track. As a huge fan of The Strokes, any side project (or main project… erhumm) released by any member of the group excites me. Power guitarist, Albert Hammond Jr., has been recording and performing solo under his own name for the last two years as bassist Nikolai Fraiture is operating under the pseudonym Nickel Eye and drummer Fabrizio Moretti has been touring with Little Joy.

However, up until this point, we have not heard much from Julian Casablancas except for the occasional appearance on one or two of Pharrell-produced cuts. With 11th Dimension, we hear Casablancas reiterating the eighties sound that the band experimented with on their most recent album, First Impressions of Earth, which was released in 2006. Hammering bass lines, a running and high-pitched guitar riff and steady, up-tempo percussion complement Casablancas’ vocals perfectly.

The LP, Phrases for the Young, will be out on October 19 in the UK and released October 20 in the US courtesy of RCA Records.

Julian Casablancas – 11th Dimension

7.4/10. A strong first single from Casablancas but there doesn’t seem to be much movement away from his style on the latest album from The Strokes, First Impressions of Earth, where he experimented heavily with eighties synth and percussion (hinting to how Phrases for the Young might end up sounding).

Lewis Corson

Pavement Announce Tour But Where Are They Now?

After BrooklynVegan announced it Tuesday night and Matador Records confirmed it two days ago, it’s official that (arguably) the greatest band of the 90′s is really going to reunite. I am unashamedly a gigantic fan of theirs, always citing them as my favorite band. Having been too young to have seen them live back in the 90′s, I am extremely excited to go to their shows. Of course, this also brings up the fact that they haven’t played a live show (as Pavement) in over 10 years. I have heard many bootlegs of their live shows, many of which came with pre-orders of their recently reissued albums; I think they sound fantastic live: spontaneous but cohesive, never take things too seriously but always giving their all for each song. Still, friends, teachers, and cohorts from the era tell me they weren’t as mind-blowing as they sound on those live tracks. So this begs the question, will they be good live? Respectable? Will they live up to my fantastic and absurd expectations when I see them live in 2010 (doubtful, unless Stephen Malkmus turns water into wine with the guitar solo from “Cut Your Hair”). So, what have they been doing in their absence? Will they be able to get back on the bicycle that is Pavement with ease, or will the past 10 years have been a total waste?

Well…

Stephen Malkmus: The lead singer has been busy with his solo project, working with band The Jicks. Four stellar albums later, you can see that he was truly the mastermind behind the band. Now he’s married and has two kids, but is still rocking live.

Mark Ibold: Bassist Mark jumped into Sonic Youth a few years ago and helped them record recent album The Eternal. He is still currently touring with them. And no, he hasn’t cut his (trademark?) long 90′s hair. Also, occasionally bartends at Great Jones Cafe in good ol’ New York. Time to get a drink with him.

Scott “Spiral Stairs” Kannberg: The other founding member with Malkmus, Scott played backing guitar. His first band after the split was critically acclaimed Preston School of Industry, who had marginal success in the same respect as The Jicks. S.S. is currently releasing a solo album under his moniker “Spiral Stairs,” and will be touring the west coast in mid-October.

Bob Nastanovich: My favorite member of the band. Performing ”percussion” (basically the extra noises and loops and occasional howling) for the band, he doesn’t necessarily have to keep his musical muscles in constant exercise. Therefore, it makes much more sense that since the Pavement split, he has been breeding and managing thoroughbred horses, doesn’t it? Also, he was the surprise guest in Matador’s “Win a Date to Ikea” promotion for the reissue of Brighten the Corners last year.

Steve West: The official drummer for the band has been drumming with new band Marble Valley after the 1999 split. After that, he is a mystery.

Everyone has been keeping their musical chops pretty toned. This reunion should be as good as any Pavement concert ever was. Tickets went on pre-sale a couple days ago (sorry) for their September 21st 2010 “Benefit” concert at Summer Stage. I assume tickets will be selling out faaaaast. Good luck grabbing some before they go up on stubhub.com or craigslist for triple original price.

Christian Morrissey

The Mysterious jj

Who ever thought that a mysterious Swedish indie group that was nominated for best new Swedish act last year would think to sample Lil Wayne’s “Lollipop” for a song that thaws the boundaries between ambient music, indie, hip-hop and electronica (listen: “Ecstasy”)?

jj released jj n° 2 during the early months of summer in 2009 to rave reviews from web critics including those at Pitchfork and PopMatters. “Who is jj?” you ask… nobody seems to be sure about the answer to that. They have no tour dates that anyone knows of, no merch other than the EP, jj n° 1, and the LP, jj n° 2, that is available to purchase and have no bio posted on the website of their label, The Tough Alliance (which only has the words “Be Still” plastered across the face of the page).

We do know that jj has crafted one of the most creative LPs of the year with jj n° 2 that we have seen all year. Creative ideas and influences travel faster than ever in the blogosphere age, an idea that shows as we hear the combination pop, ambience, electronica, rhythmic diversity (listen: “From Africa to Málaga”) and some drug-induced sampling practices. Gorgeous vocals and solid lyrical content accompany the chill-out vibe beautifully even as the ‘important’ ideas in life such as death and art are mentioned subtly in some particular tracks even as a blood-splattered pot leaf graces the cover of the LP (see above).

jj – Ecstasy

8.7/10. Must be the brainchild of someone with a severely drug-addled mind, more-so than Weezy himself.

jj – From Africa to Málaga

8.5/10. Rhythmic diversity ranging from African drums to Spanish acoustic guitar accompany deeper lyrics: “It’s too easy to cry/ when everything eventually dies/ if not today/ then maybe tomorrow/ don’t let the sun slip away/ let it come out and play/ it takes you down at the speed of sound/ when you’re underground/ you never think you’ll get out.”

Lewis Corson

Blakroc

The Black Keys, one of the most creative groups in the current entertainment environment, have breached the walls of their rhythm and blues and alternative cocoon in the most unexpected fashion. The group has entered the hip-hop universe under the pseudonym Blakroc and has crafted a self-titled LP and have also created a label under the same name for their explorative ventures. According to the band’s website and trailer for the LP (make sure to check out the long trailer as you will see The Keys sitting down with CEO Damon Dash as he hooks up the boys Mos Def and Jim Jones), the album will feature an impressive guest list that includes RZA, Raekwon, Q-Tip, Ludacris, Pharoahe Monch, M.O.P.’s Billy Danze, the late Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Mos Def and Jim Jones (the latter two artists feature on the single “Ain’t Nothing Like You (Hoochie Coo)”; it is downloadable below).

In June, Jim Jones twittered “Aight back to our reg schedule I did some dope music with black keys and mos def last night def a good rock n roll experience.” Unfortunately, we don’t have minute-to-minute updates from other featured artists on how their respective recording sessions went, but it is clear that all parties involved are excited about this new project, and so is [cardboard living]. Hopefully, there will be much more to come in the upcoming weeks…

Blakroc – Ain’t Nothing Like You (Hoochie Coo) feat. Mos Def & Jim Jones

8.7/10. In typical Keys fashion, guitars twang, brass instruments wail and percussion thumps as the boys from Ohio provide bluesy backing vocals, Mos Def sings the hook and Jim Jones spits some decent verses.

Lewis Corson

Feature: Our Rising Debt

I came across this article a couple days ago in the Wall Street Journal and thought it might be relevant to all of us in the college world out there…

Students across the country are having to borrow a great deal more money to pay to attend schools, 25% more year over year in 2009-2010 than in 2008-2009. Obama has targeted educational institutions, both private and public, as the instigators of this positive feedback loop between lenders (banks) and those in debt (students). Anne Marie Chaker, the article’s author, is telling us something many of us have not heart before. Contradictory to the stance that the current administration takes, Chaker asserts that the party at fault is the government itself because

“Its involvement causes tuition to rise, people to attend college when they would be better off in vocational training and wasted use of taxpayer funds.”

Current levels of borrowing (from the federal government) are at an extremely high rate and have created a system of false assumptions that colleges use when the administration gets together to decide how much to charge us this year. The model that we have used for decades on college prices has been crippled as students and families began to borrow more from the government to pay for the rising cost of attending colleges and universities. The feedback loop thus continues as students and families are committed to borrowing more, colleges continue to raise prices and the government increases the maximum loan that one may apply for.

The Stafford loan, the most popular federal student loan, has risen to an unprecedented. It currently allows a student to borrow up to $31,000, up from $23,000 last year, a symptom of “The Great Recession” and a government investment that plays on the safer side. A loan of this magnitude has students, a portion of the American public that takes in little to no income, shaking in their boots as they begin to consider the sack of money that they will owe the government upon graduation day.

While the politics surrounding education assert the importance of human capital, i.e. investing in oneself, the question remains as to whether a generation of twenty year-olds need to be so deeply entrenched in debt that borrowing these types of sums of money for college merits self-investment.

Check out the piece below:

Students Borrow More Than Ever for College

Lewis Corson

Fires Over Los Angeles Time Lapse

For all of you that are currently breathing in all of the particulate matter in beautiful Los Angeles county, this video is for you.

Lewis Corson

The White Drake

Benzi teams up with Mike Posner again in the remix of “Mirror’s Edge”, which is actually an XV track also featuring Bun B. Seeing that the remix features a slow piano line and even slower drum and bass, the raspy hook that Posner delivers (he’s now being referred to as “The White Drake) is a perfect complement to on-point lyricism from the two rappers on the track. Check it out:

XV – Mirror’s Edge (Benzi Remix) feat. Bun B & Mike Posner

7.8/10. Strong lyricism is evident on the track but Posner and Benzi steal the show.

Lewis Corson

Interview: Dawgy Baggz of Paper Route Gangstaz

Dawgy Baggz

If you haven’t heard of Paper Route Gangstaz yet, you obviously have been ignoring the independent music press as well as the content on [cardboard living] over the last eight months. As a collection of four guys from the streets of Huntsville, Alabama, Paper Route Gangstaz are emphatic about the deep-south lifestyle that they lead, which is one reliant (if not dependent) on money, drugs, alcohol, women and whips. Seeing that Atlanta, Georgia is currently the hip-hop capital of the country, it’s easy to understand how PRGz have flown under the radar for over eight years now.

The flight path changed once Diplo and Benzi, two producers that the music industry have become acquainted with through their work on M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes”, decided to remix original PRGz tracks in 2008 for a mixtape called Fear and Loathing in Huntsvegas. The mixtape received critical attention from Pitchfork in addition to other music publications, both physical and digital. So, when I sat down at home to call Dawgy Baggz, the de facto leader of the Paper Route clan, I could hardly stop the questions concerning the formation and direction of the group from rolling off my tongue.

Amp Dawkins has gone by Dawgy Baggz ever since he can remember. As is what usually occurs, Dawkins can’t remember where the nickname came from but what he can remember is that it is a street name. Huntsville is a city most notable for a notoriously high crime rate, strings of fast food establishments and a horizon that features rocket launches on almost a bi-weekly basis. Those who live in Huntsville are aware that the city has a culture unto itself, one not notable for its musical identity. Thus, one must wonder how Baggz ended up generating enough buzz for his label and his group to be featured onPitchfork, a site that caters to the ears of thousands of ‘indie kids’. Dawgy’s explanation of the group’s name made the answer clear:

Its something that I earned the right to do. Paper Route is just like that paper route that the paper boy take every morning, throwing out them newspapers to come back and collect his money. I took that exact same route throwing out my inventory to collect my money. Gangsta is just a lifestyle…its fighting for what you believe in and never…Never…backing down. Its willing to take those life altering chances in order to support you and yours and always making your own way in any…Any…situation. I earned my right to be called a Paper Route Gangsta.

As for the Diplo and Benzi collaboration, Dawgy insists that luck had more to do with that collaboration than anything. However, talent knows no boundaries and the Major Lazer team certainly holds that concept close to heart. Baggz insists that Diplo is a “genius in the studio” and that opinion shines through as truthful in the Huntsvegas mixtape as Diplo samples George Michael on “Bama Gettin Money”, Underworld on “Stuntastic” and Weezer for “Grind Baby”. Dawgy just wishes “they weren’t so damn expensive”. However, the Diplo ‘collabos’ caught the ears of both rap fanatics and hipsters across the country as they saw the genius behind mixing ‘country boy’ hip-hop with highly intelligent production.

 

Clockwise from top left: Mata, Gunt, Dawgy Baggz, Jhi-Ali

The mixtape features all four members of the group: Mata, Jhi-Ali, Gunt and Dawgy Baggz himself as well as associates of the group X.O., Mali Boi (the main producer for PRGz), Amp G, Wale, Blaqstarr and Jackie Chain (an Asian dude who has served time for drug trafficking and a fantastic lyricist). Most of those featured on Fear and Loathing in Huntsvegas are from Huntsvegas and have known either Dawgy or one of the other PRGz members for quite some time, a factor that gives the mixtape Southern legitimacy that will attract fans drawn to Southern hip-hop.

PRGz have untainted street credibility that should help them attract a loyal Southern fan base that will include fans of harder hip-hop from the region. Dawgy mentioned to me that at the start of Paper Route Recordz a couple of the members caught murder and drug cases and were sentenced to fifteen years to life sentences, amounting to a series of setbacks in the development of the brand.

The upcoming EP Rocket Fuel will be released on iTunes soon, a deal helped along by the addition of PRGz to the Elite Taste roster, a small agency that also reps Mike Posner and Wale. “Keyshia Cole“, the lead-off single, is a song about ganja, called “‘Keyshia Cole’ because you don’t wanna be talkin’ reckless on the phone”, according to Dawgy. We’re sure to hear much, much more about PRGz in the coming months, make sure to check [cl] if that interests you.

Notables:

Bama Gettin Money (Dipo Remix)

9.2/10. This Diplo remix is the best on the mixtape as we find PRGz at their best.

Soul Glo (The Knocks Remix)

7.5/10. Another indie-oriented remix that features a sample from a hair-care product and a looping violin riff. One of the more genius samples that we’ve heard in a while.

Alabama

7.4/10. A PRGz original track (one of the few on the mixtape) that features the incredible point that “Alabama” backwards sounds like “I’m-A-Balla”.

Rollin’ (Diplo Remix)

8.8/10. A very druggy remix of a song that is even more hallucinogenic.

Grind Baby

7.2/10. “Grind Baby” features a sample of Weezer’s “Say It Ain’t So.” More Diplo genius.

Stuntastic

9.0/10. The truest Southern anthem on the PRGz’s CV.

Lewis Corson