The Giant Panther

I haven't posted in a while. I'm feeling uninspired, and haven't really heard anything new lately to get me kicked into gear. Anybody out there have anything inspiring to share? Anytime I try to grab something from a blog, I end up with a weird recording of some guy saying "We're sorry, this website has been extremely busy." I take it EZ-Archive has now officially tanked.

Rather than write-up something just for the sake of it being new, I'm going to talk about 2005's excellent Superwolf, in my opinion the best thing Will Oldham has ever been a part of, and the only album that's been on constant rotation on my ipod. Sometimes I think I subconsciously categorize my music into seasons, and I can't think of a better soundtrack for the transition from warm to cold as the last of the autumn leaves lay stuck on the roof of my car than Superwolf.

For this effort, Oldham takes on the Bonnie 'Prince' Billy moniker, and is joined by Matt Sweeney on guitar and backing vocals. If you've never heard Will Oldham before, like I before this album came into my possession, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. It's amazing to me how something as rough and raw as Oldham's voice can come across so beautiful. With a voice you'd expect to hear bedside at 3 am in the half-light, there is simply no other way to present this material. That's not to say this album lacks dynamics, the excellent peaks on songs like "My Home is the Sea" and "Goat and Ram", balance this album with precision. Matt Sweeney's guitar work and backing vocals add a subtle touch that I've found lacking in some of Oldham's other work.

Oldham's writing is poetic to say the least, stringing together the story of the creature Superwolf, that touches on all the important points in life: love, sex, and death. I'm posting the lyrics to one of the most beautiful, devoted songs I've ever heard, "Beast For Thee". If you don't have Superwolf yet, it's an impressive album front to back, and strongly recommended. With every listen I grow fonder of this record.

Beast For Thee
Why aren't you kind to me?
You could so easily
Take me in your arms and see
A Donkey, a beast for thee.

If you had half a mind
Leave wordly things behind
Devote to being kind
You to me, a beast for thee.

Love in some way you choose
God's plan can easy bruise
One bone and blood mass we fuse
And I can be, a beast for thee.

I will toil for years and years
Give you muscle tone and tears
Overcome and flay all fears
Leaving me, a beast for thee.

And at home on Wednesday morn
Astride my horny horn
You'll be in glory born
And I will be, a beast for thee.

Happily, a beast for thee
Quietly, a beast for thee
endlessly, a beast for thee

MP3: Bonnie 'Prince' Billy and Matt Sweeney - Beast For Thee
Buy Superwolf
Bonnie 'Prince' Billy's Website

MP3: Bonnie 'Prince' Billy and Matt Sweeney - What Are You
Buy Superwolf
Bonnie 'Prince' Billy's Website

Head over to Kwaya Na Kisser and grab the M. Ward set from KRCW's Morning Becomes Eclectic. Looks like he's off to Europe for a few months, so if you missed the chance to see it live, at least you can hear it. By the way, what is a Kwaya Na Kisser? I saw M. Ward last month, review here.

What better way to kick off a fall tour then to start in front of 200 college students, at a University you can't even pronounce, in a location you believe to be somewhere near Boston. That University was Brandeis, and the location was Waltham, MA. Broken Social Scene, the best indie band in Canada (or probably anywhere else in my opinion), pronounced it "Brandees", "Braandeece", and finally settled on "Brown Dice". They took full advantage of this opportunity to work the kinks out of their act. It almost had the vibe of a dress rehearsal.

As I've said before, any opportunity to see Broken Social Scene live should be seized at all costs. Their appearances in Boston are few and far between. I was feeling a little bit better after a weekend of sickness, and decided to venture out into the cold October air, by myself I might add. This may seem like no biggie for some, but this was the first time I've ever attended a show by myself. Further adding to my alienation, I realized I may be slightly older than I thought. I wasn't alone in this feeling, I got the same vibe from the band. This was best demonstrated by the dead silence after Brendan Canning made a Bob James reference, the composer of the Taxi theme song. I'm pretty sure most of the audience has never even seen the show Taxi.




I found out BSS was playing last night after reading Bradley's Almanac around 5 pm, and couldn't track down anybody to go with me. It wasn't listed on their website, and I'm not sure how he found out about it. But he did, and I thank him for that. I wanted to thank him in person at the show, but I never tracked him down. It turns out I was standing right behind him for the entire show, and got many wonderful pictures of his camera taking pictures, exhibit A:

On to the show itself. The lineup was at about half-capacity, at around 7 members. Amy Millan was there, fresh off either touring with her other band Stars, or tour support for her own album, Honey From the Tombs. Her voice is amazing, soft and breezy.

The show was ridden with technical difficulty. Feedback, mics not working, the occasional possessed synth, and the mix started off completely unbalanced. Probably due to the small room and poor acoustics, and an amp or two turned up a little too loud. There might have even been a forgotten chord or two, and a few verses omitted, but who's counting?





All technical blunders aside, it was still a BSS show, and still kicked ass as always. Brendan Canning's bass and Justin Peroff's kick drum never missed a beat together, and I continue to believe this is the driving force behind their music. Throw in 4 or 5 electric guitars, synth, the occasional horn, voice harmonizer tweaker box thingy, and it becomes quite an amazing spectacle. With all the instruments they throw in, you'd think it would be one big muddy mess, like mixing too many hues of paint together. They somehow manage to find space for everything, which is their greatest asset. Look at all my name dropping, I'm finally starting to piece together names to faces in this ensemble. Can anybody tell me who's the dude with the mustache?

The highlight of the night for me, besides Kevin Drew and company's hilarious banter was probably "Ibi Dreams of Pavement", or "Major Label Debut". Or when Kevin asked everybody how much they paid to get in, and then said "Five Dollars? Ok we're done." I have to tell you, he's a very well tempered guy, after the third or fourth mic being completely off, or monster feedback, I probably would have been pissed off. Broken Social Scene remains my favorite live act, and although last night's show couldn't possibly trump last years show with Leslie Feist at Avalon, it was still pretty damn good.

I wanted to start a conversation about everyone's favorite BSS side project as there are so many: Stars, Metric, Apostle of Hustle, Feist, Jason Collett, Amy Millan etc, I'm sure I'm missing many. Mine is Apostle of Hustle. But nobody comments on here anyway, so f it.

Keep a close eye on Bradley's Almanac over the next few days.

Here's their latest video, taken from clips on the road.

I was supposed to do a write-up for Filter's tourzine on the Silversun Pickups/Viva Voce show at the Middle East last Sunday. I ended up getting really sick this weekend, and couldn't get my ass out of bed to get to the show.

Luckily, Ashley was there, and wrote about it here. Head on over to Noise For Toaster for the Friday show at BU. I'm bummed I didn't make this show...

Just learned about this thanks to Brad. If you are at all able to get out tonight, definately a great band to see live.

MP3: Broken Social Scene - Superconnected (Live)

I'm back, and only a little worse for wear. My journey was a soul-seeking adventure into the world of way too much work. The first thing on my plate, as I contemplated my return, was to talk about The Crane Wife. I think this is the greatest leap for The Decemberists to date. Their first non-indie release leads them, as you might have guessed, to a more polished effort. Genre-hopping from track to track, at times, even psychedelic/prog rock, this is an epic album. With two tracks clocking in at over 12 minutes, how can it not be? When I first heard the second cut, "The Island", I could swear my itunes had been possessed and had flipped itself over to some lost Yes album. I'm almost tempted to go track by track here and list the artistic influences that lie behind each of these songs. That's hardly just to de-construct what I consider to be The Decemberists' finest work. I have to do just one more, can you hear "No Quarter" in "When The War Came?

While previous works were primarily acoustic driven, The Crane Wife finds The Decemberists plugging in a bit more, and pulling a few new instruments off the wall. It's a delicate balance to up the ante on instrumentation without killing the songsmanship The Decemberists are famous for. Does Colin Meloy spend his days and nights buried in turn of the century novels? I've always admired song-writers that can hearken back to a time they didn't live through, and tie that in to their own modern day joys and troubles.

MP3: The Decemberists - Summersong
The Decemberists Website
Buy The Crane Wife