Monday Music Miscellany
Posted on November 5, 2007 at 7:07 am | No Comments
A little Monday morning miscellaneousness…
Ida‘s long-awaited follow-up to 2005’s “Heart Like A River” has a release date and a title: “Lovers Prayers” will be out on Polyvinyl on January 29th, 2008. Cannot wait.
Update: Ladies and gents, we have a track list…
Ida’s “Lovers Prayers” will give us…
1. Lovers Prayers
2. The Weight Of The Straw
3. The Love Below
4. Willow Tree
5. Worried Mind Blues
6. Gravity
7. For Shame Of Doing Wrong
8. First Light
9. Kora
10. Surely Gone
11. The Killers 1964
12. See The Stars
13. First Take
14. Blue Clouds
The vinyl version will also include a bonus track titled “Lolo Sang”.
Sid over at Too Much Rock caught Ida (performing as a trio with Dan, Liz, and violinist Jean Cook) when they played Schuba’s in Chicago back in late August, and you can check out some photos here, as well as a live clip of the band covering a Neil Young song…
Mp4 Video: Ida – “Albuquerque” (Neil Young)
The venerable Middle East is celebrating 20 years in the live-music business by hosting one hell of a show this coming Saturday night. Check out the bands playing: Hallelujah The Hills, The Thalia Zedek Band with Chris Brokaw (yes, this is as close as we’ve gotten to a Come reunion), M.G. Lederman (ex-Victory at Sea), Empty House Cooperative, Reid Paley Trio, Helms, IV Diffusion, and Drug Rug. Now that is a party, and also a benefit for Stephen Fredette (heplayed lead guitar for Scruffy the Cat, is currently in Pony, and was recently diagnosed with lymphoma), as well as a means to mark the 50th birthday of the one and only Mr. Billy Ruane. Word is he’s responsible for that lineup, and if so, well done, sir. Tickets here.
Speaking of Chris Brokaw, did you catch him on Jimmy Kimmel’s talk show the other night, playing guitar alongside Thurston Moore in his backing band? Very cool to see him get a little bit of teevee-time.
National Public Radio has kicked off a brand new series of video podcasts called “Project Song”, in which they document an artist composing and recording a new song from start to finish within 48 hours, with someone fairly f’in fantastic: The Magnetic Fields‘ Stephin Merritt. It’s a true treat to see Merritt sit down at a piano and start to pull together a new song called “The Man of a Million Faces“. Here’s a direct link to the 10-minute video, the first half of which shows how the song came together, with the second half being the entire song set to footage of Stephin recording it. I thought about extracting the song’s audio as an Mp3 (and I have no doubt that more traffic-hungry music blogs will take care of that), but it’s more rewarding to watch it come together on its own. Brilliant stuff, and I can only hope NPR is able to keeps the caliber of future “Project Song” contributors as high.
The Magnetic Fields next album, “Distortion”, arrives on January 15, 2008 thanks to Nonesuch Records. Merritt & Co. have also scheduled their first batch of shows in support of the disc, pre-sale tickets have already gone on-sale, and quickly disappeared for the two general admission Somerville Theatre shows. I was able to snag one for the February 15th date (missed out on the Valentine’s Day one), but Boston-area fans still have a chance: the rest of the tickets should be on sale through Ticket$%#^er within the week. Just keep an eye out here.
NPR also keeps the fine concert simulcasts coming with recent (and now archived) broadcasts of live sets from Stars (download full concert Mp3) and the New Pornographers (download full concert Mp3). Both shows are from late October at DC’s 9:30 Club.
If you haven’t picked up Bottomless Pit‘s new debut, “Hammer Of The Gods”, what exactly are you waiting for? Order the cd from the newly-christened Comedy Minus One record label here, or the gorgeously thick vinyl (which includes a cd with all the songs) right here. The Village Voice’s Sound of the City music blog has a great Bottomless Pit write up if you need more convincin’.
This first official pre-release Mp3 from Nada Surf‘s upcoming “Lucky” album (due out in early February on Barsuk) reveals that it may be their slickest sounding recording to date. It’s pretty, polished, and another damn good slow-pop song…
Allston’s own Broken River Prophet played a 35-minute live set on WMBR’s Pipeline program the day before Halloween, and you can download the entire thing as a 32MB Mp3 right here. Something to tide you over until they get an album out.
Speaking of tiding us over, Seattle’s The Sea Navy has let a couple lo-fi demos out of the vaults to bide time until their next album, which will be out in 2008. Those demos are…
Mp3: The Sea Navy – “Is That It“
Mp3: The Sea Navy – “Branches, Leaves, Fruit, Seeds“
Over on the Twilight Singers MySpace page, there’s a new recording of Greg Dulli performing a live cover of Jose Gonzalez’ “Down The Line” at a Seattle benefit show early last month.
Going to see Bob Mould acoustic at the Paradise Lounge here in Boston tonight? See ya there. I’ve actually got a spare ticket if anyone out there’s up for a Monday night out…
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