to celebrate cmj, which i am mostly not attending since i didn't care to blow x-hundred dollars on a pass (more on this here), we here at mr. mammoth are bringing you a collection of great live recordings all this week. it's as simple as that. now, since i am either a) practical or b) a heathen, i've crossed the line that live show purists live by, and converted all the files to mp3, to make it easier to download. all week, we're gonna be running the gamut from live show to radio sessions (i suppose that's less of a gamut and more of just two options), so buckle your seatbelts and keep your ears peeled.
kicking things off in fine style are built to spill, a band that i can pretty much definitively say i've liked longer than any other band i still listen to (got it?). a friend gave me live way back in 2001, and they've never failed me. their live show is stupendous, an easy mix of serious guitar work and heartwarming vocals, and this show, recorded november 6, 1998, is no exception. touring between the release of perfect from now on and keep it like a secret, the show is just another built to spill show - played easily, without a hint of ego, dragging up old songs and making them sound like new. the sound quality is really good, even as mp3s, and the setlist is really impeccable, especially the cover of vince guaraldi trio's "linus and lucy" from a charlie brown christmas, "joyride," and "twin falls -> some." enjoy!
note: if you are a frustrated live music purist who wants this show in .flac or .wav, get in touch with me, and we can work something out.
i've had a hell of a time trying to blog this week, after last weekend's frenetic five-posts-in-three-days, even though you're owed a full detailing of the excellent tortoise show i went to, so hopefully these tidbits will tide you over. all three have been making the rounds, so you probably have seen them already, but it gives me something to do as i try to form the tortoise experience into words.
so, news item #1 - there's a free panda bear dvd coming out.
mike over at eattapes is generously putting together a dvd of live panda bear performances from his recent person pitch tour. including footage from new york, philadelphia, and baltimore shows. the dvd, entitled people party, has no present release date, but mike is obviously hard at work on it. personally, as a non-fan of animal collective, i would normally be totally uninterested in this, but person pitch is such a good album that i can't wait to get my hands on this dvd. while the dvd is free, and can be mailed anywhere, a $250 filming fee at bowery ballroom has caused mike to create a deluxe package, on a donation sliding scale (between $5 and 10). the deluxe edition contains a bonus disc with all three performances and bonus art, an interview with noah lennox (a.k.a. panda bear), and other fun stuff. rock on, mike!
2. new built to spill tracks (broken by stereogum)
like anyone with half a brain, i like built to spill (read my live review directly below this post). and i liked you in reverse, especially "mess with time." but i think the first new song goes a little too far. "they got away" is a straight-up dub song, albeit with some serious distortion, that doesn't really show promise for what bts does next. "rearrange," on the other hand, is just plain. it is always hard to hear one of your favorite bands move in a direction you don't appreciate, and i hope that if this is what built to spill chooses to sound like for the future, i can appreciate it. but listening to these two singles (especially with you in reverse as a reference point) just makes me yearn for the absurdity of a younger built to spill, that sang about brontosauruses and that would randomly insert a seriously rocking section in a song, for no other reason than it pleased them. "they got away" gets tired before the 3 minute mark, yet stretches past that for nearly another 4. and while "rearrange" does end on a distorted note (along with marimbas), it has that slow, sweeping sound of "else" that has never been as good as their heavier (relatively speaking) songs.
i just checked back at stereogum...apparently, warner music group (that bestial hegemon and built to spill's label) made a boo-boo by allowing stereogum to put the songs up for download. so, fuck warner, here are the songs:
built to spill - "they got away" built to spill - "rearrange"
friend and foe continues to be one of my favorite albums of the year, and i'm thrilled at getting a chance to see them. a review of that album is on my perennial to-do list, and i'll crank it out sometime soon, i promise. but trust me - it's fucking awesome. opening is beat the devil, whom i've never heard of. citysol (in part sponsored by brooklyn vegan) continues all weekend, with a bitching show tomorrow that includes o'death, land of talk, and les savy fav. in addition, if you bring your con ed bill and switch to green energy, you get free brooklyn beer. and life does not get better than that.
prepare for an epic story of unanticipated heartbreak and unforeseen kindness.
the evening began with a bike trip down to and across the brooklyn bridge to catch a glimpse of the boredoms BOADRUM performance with 77 drummers. i was seriously unimpressed. i only stuck around until 7.30, but it seemed to me to be pretty lame. here's a picture of the boredoms proper through a gap in the steel of the bridge.
then i biked as fast as i could up to mccarren pool to catch bob mould, cat power, and built to spill. i was feeling confident, because the mccarren website said that they show began at 7.30, and i figured i would only have missed a bit of bob mould's set. however, when i arrived, cat power was basically finishing up her set, at 8.05. the people around me said that mould had gone on at 6 and doors had opened at 5, and i was absolutely perplexed, disappointed, and upset. fortunately, cat power's last song was "willie," my favorite off last year's excellent the greatest, so that was some small consolation. however, i still felt robbed of at least 20 bucks, and, after cat power finished, i went to make a nuisance of myself with the live nation people. after roaming all over the pool, inside and out, i found a promoter, who said that, while he couldn't help me personally, he would try to find someone who could, and, in the meantime, i could have a free beer. so i drank my free beer (delicious brooklyn lager) and waited for built to spill, with instructions to come back in 20 minutes. in those 20 minutes, built to spill started their set, so i got a medium-good spot (i didn't want to wade in and then have to wade out) and enjoyed the first few songs before returning to the side of the stage (where the promoter hung out). there i met a lovely woman from live nation, who practically personally apologized for the confusing door times, and promised me two tickets to any live nation show at irving, warsaw, or luna lounge. i can't really express how significant this was without feeling like i'm being overly dramatic. i've always had the same perspective on live nation as i do on clear channel - that they're bloodsucking money grubbing corporate pig bastards - and this promoter's kind offer really threw me for a loop. i'm not going to retract my bloodsucking, etc. position, but, like everything else, i've learned that live nation is nuanced, and good people might actually be working for a "bad" company. it was a valuable lesson.
as for built to spill; seeing them always begs the question: why doesn't anyone use distortion anymore? built to spill, yo la tengo, dinosaur jr. - these are the bands we still have that write rock songs with great fucking distortion. sleater-kinney's last work, the amazing the woods, was blissfully heavy and grungy, and then they quit. is there no more audience for 90s esque rock? well, even if the only people who still make it are leftovers from the 80s and 90s, plenty of people still want to listen to it, as the large crowd last night indicated. built to spill played a lot of songs from you in reverse, unexpectedly. to be fair, this is the first time i've seen them since they had a recent CD out (i saw them in 2004 and 2006), so maybe they were more excited about playing new stuff than older songs. not that that prevented them from playing some golden oldies like "made up dreams, "nowhere nothing fuckup," a gorgeous, virtually doug martsch solo version of "car," and the two hits from keep it like a secret, "time trap" and "carry the zero," which ended the show.
built to spill has never really been one to do much interacting with their audience, and doug's comments were limited to saying "thanks" after every other song, and introducing an eno cover (i'm not sure of which song though...watch the video below, and if you know, leave it in the comments section). their songs, as always, were never quite the same live as they are on albums; though they played "in the morning," they left off the last verse, and "the source" was similarly squelched. however, they did a nice jam on "carry the zero" - there were 10 minutes left before the pool had to shut down, so they filled the time that way (which meant there was no encore, jackasses) - and on several other songs. however, the whole show had a rather stifled or expected feel to it - by which i mean, built to spill seemed to be going through the motions and the crowd just stood there and took it. their technical skill was high, as always, and (also as always), built to spill's ranks were bolstered by some unnamed guests on guitars, whose work on the fretboards merged perfectly with doug's own melodies to the point that you couldn't tell who was playing what. i'm not sure what i had been expecting - built to spill is one of my favorite bands, and i wouldn't pass up a chance to see them, but i think the big outdoor arena space isn't really the right one to see them in. i've seen them in two small venues (the paradise in boston and irving plaza), and it was perfect. in their quiet way, they fed on the crowd's energy and played two great sets. in mccarren, somehow lost onstage, some of the magic was missing.
i took several videos, which i'll be posting to youtube tonight and tomorrow, but check out the brian eno cover and "time trap" below the photo.
mr. mammoth is an extinct mammal from the pliocene epoch known primarily for his large tusks and love of independent music. mr. mammoth originally crossed the bering strait land bridge around 12,000 years ago and has been hiding in north america ever since. in 2007 he started his own blog, which you're reading right now.
mr. mammoth fully advocates for the purchasing of any and all CDs whose mp3s are featured on this blog, even if they're released by a major label. that being said, mr. mammoth will never provide links to purchasing albums unless they are directly to the artist or independent label (find your amazon/itunes links elsewhere). mr. mammoth is fully responsible for the content on mr. mammoth, and will stomp your life into a pancake if there's a problem. all concert footage is sourced.
