Speaking of British anthem power, if you don’t know the Manchester band Elbow, we say it’s high time.  We will confess to not knowing their discography completely, but their last record, “The Seldom Seen Kid,” was a revelation to our ears.  Why this band is comparatively unknown, while the likes of Coldplay and Muse garner the adoration of the masses, we will never know.  We were reminded of this when we recently stumbled upon a DVD of their live set at a festival in Benicassim, Spain.  Lead singer, Guy Garvey, may not be the prototypical, visually-alluring lead singer, but he and his phenomenal band (replete with strings and backup singers) nonetheless have seriously commanding stage presence.  Garvey had the audience and us in the palm of his hand, which repeatedly directed the crowd like a baton, and the festival crowd had no choice but to comply.   It doesn’t hurt at all that Garvey and crew write miraculous melodies set in oft-complicated song structures, with strings and brass aplenty.   They employ soaring melodies and Garvey delivers the vocal goods in a package wrapped in Peter Gabriel-esque vocals.  Highly recommended.

We hope that you know and appreciate this band, but if not, we give you below a few songs from The Seldom Seen Kid and the title song from their debut record, “Asleep in the Back.”

First up is the glorious One Day Like This, with its fine melody, uplifting chorus (“So throw those curtains wide! One day like this a year’d see me right!”), and lyrical adoration.   You can’t help but smile at lines like these:  “Yeah, kiss me when my lips are thin.”

Elbow–One Day Like This

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/10-One-Day-Like-This.mp3|titles=10 One Day Like This]

If One Day Like This is the perfect first-dance at a wedding, Grounds for Divorce is the cold, hard reality of life and loss hitting home, including allusions to alcoholism.  We love the tortured chorus especially, with the repeated verses, “There’s a hole in my neighbourhood down which of late I cannot help but fall.”  It’s a serious rocker with seriously unique elements.

Elbow–Grounds for Divorce

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/04-Grounds-For-Divorce.mp3|titles=04 Grounds For Divorce]

Next up is Weather to Fly, with its perfect piano intro and musings about escaping one’s hometown and circumstances.  The yearning is palpable in these lines and chorus:  “And why wouldn’t you try?  Perfect weather to fly.”  In addition to all that, this song is the perfect high jumper’s soundtrack.  We’ll miss you deeply, but go ahead, escape this town.

Elbow–Weather to Fly

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/06-Weather-To-Fly.mp3|titles=06 Weather To Fly]

And last, but not least, is the band’s 2001 song, Asleep in the Back, in which Garvey tauntingly tests his love with disclosure of his prior sins.

Elbow–Asleep in the Back

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/06-Asleep-In-The-Back.mp3|titles=06 Asleep In The Back]

And below are alternate electric and acoustic live takes of Grounds for Divorce, followed by a live performance of One Day Like This.

We have lived with and loved the music of The Band for a lifetime (almost literally). We (like some of you oldsters) met them early when they backed Bob Dylan, then heard Joan Baez introduce them to a broader audience in 1971 with her flawed, but magisterial cover of  their masterful The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, made the initial dive into their deep source in ’72 with the release of their live masterpiece, Rock of Ages, caught their legendary show at the Santa Barbara County Bowl in 1976, and then were saddened to learn of and later witness their subsequent demise via the best concert video of all time, The Last Waltz. Still, their music has stood our test of time, and we return repeatedly to that well for musical renewal and resolve.

We’ll save for another day our full take on The Band. For now we write prompted both by our perception of a renewed interest in The Band (restoring our faith in the younger generation) and by the Santa Barbara County Bowl’s announcement that they will host Van Morrison once again (despite his self-indulgent and wrecked 1970s concert there) on October 9th. We long to attend, but the ticket prices are stratospheric (unheard of actually–double the price of the recent concert there by genius hitmaker-for-50-years and legendary live-deliverer, Stevie Wonder). Don’t get us wrong though, Van the Man has delivered monstrous artistic portions over the years on his records, and we hold this Irish artist in high regard.

Along those lines, and combining the two, we give you a song some of you may not have heard. Van Morrison (“The Belfast  Cowboy”) showed up, impromptu, at The Band’s abode so long ago, and sat down and wrote a song with them in the wee small hours, which was recorded on the spot. It’s called 4% Pantomime. Due respect to Van, but zero percent of the alleged pantomime is allocable to The Band. Despite their Canadian roots (Levon Helm being the notorious exception to that rule), The Band defined and foundationalized the Americana (“North Americana”?) genre. So Van, we give you 4% of the pantomime and hope that you can work it off sometime soon. Listen in at second :52 when Van enters to set the song ablaze, and again at 1:40 to propel further. We also love Richard Manuel’s piano and Garth Hudson’s otherworldly organ, and the hum-along-chorus beginning at 3:17. Magic. Altogether? Timeless.

The Band–4% Pantomime

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/Four-Percent-Pantomime.mp3|titles=Four Percent Pantomime]

And just for good measure, we give you our favorite post-The Weight song by The Band,  It Makes No Difference, one of the most stunning songs of unrequited love our ears have ever heard. Oh how the world misses Rick Danko.

The Band–It Makes No Difference

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2-09-It-Makes-No-Difference.mp3|titles=2-09 It Makes No Difference]

Imagine our delight when Club Mercy fulfilled its hail-Mary prophecy of bringing Conor Oberst to a small venue in Santa Barbara.   Sure enough, coming to SoHo on September 30th is Conor Oberst, backed by openers, The Felice Brothers.

Some of you may have lost track of Conor since Bright Eyes released “Cassadaga” and toured in 2007.  To quote Oberst, “you know a lot can happen after everybody falls asleep.”

Following Cassadaga, ever-prolific Oberst released new albums and toured in 2008 and 2009 as Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band, and then followed that up with a record and tour as a part of supergroup Monsters of Folk (in case you missed the latter show at the Granada Theater, you missed arguably the show of the year in 2009).

We also caught both of his shows in 2008 and 2009 with the Mystic Valley Band that came within striking distance of Santa Barbara (at the Henry Fonda and the Echo).  As per the usual with this artist, each show was alternately poignant and incendiary.  He leaves it all on the stage, and every song is delivered with last-day-on-earth passion.  To sum up:  cancel all other plans on September 30th.

As for the post-Bright Eyes records, both the eponymously-titled first solo record and the second, “Outer South,” with MVB continued where Bright Eyes left off.  Both records are filled with stunning songwriting and deliveries.  Sure, there were the occasional clinkers on those records, but pound-for-pound Oberst has continued to show why he is amongst America’s best living songwriters and live performers.    Set forth below is a sampler of some of our favored songs from his two “solo” records.

First up from his first solo record is the great Get-Well-Cards, with its Dylan-esque allure and well-wrought lyrics.  Live, Oberst seethes and spits this song forth.  We like the following stanzas in particular:

“I want to be your bootlegger
Want to mix you up something strange
Braid your hair like a sister
Name you like a hurricane”

“Now they drive the cars up and down the beach
It’s ridiculous and everybody knows
Hear the Mustangs rev at the four way stop
You get ghosted when the light says go”

“I want to be your happiness
I want to be your common sense pain
Wrap your head in a picket fence
Rebuild after the hurricane.”

Conor Oberst–Get-Well-Cards

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/03-Get-Well-Cards.mp3|titles=03 Get – Well – Cards]

Another gem off that same record is Lenders in the Temple, with its poignant mix of love lost and greater love corrupted.  We like the following lyrics in particular:

“There’s money lenders inside the temple
That circus tiger’s going to break your heart
Something so wild turned into paper
If I loved you, well that’s my fault”

“I’d give a fortune to your infomercial
If somebody would just take my call
Take my call”

Conor Oberst–Lenders in the Temple

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/04-Lenders-In-The-Temple.mp3|titles=04 Lenders In The Temple]

We also tout Cape Canaveral, with its motions and metaphors of life and the joy to be lost and found amongst the ephemeral.  And more stellar stanzas:

“And watch the migrants smoke in the old orange grove
And the red rocket blaze over Cape Canaveral
You’ve been a father to me, your 1960’s speak
Give me comatose joy like re-run TV
While the mountainside was shining
Wild colors of my destiny

I saw your face age backwards
Changing shape in my memory
You taught me victory’s sweet
Even deep in the cheap seats”

….

“Like the citrus glow off the old orange grove
Or the red rocket blaze over Cape Canaveral
It’s been a nightmare for me
Some 1980’s greed
Gives me parachute dreams
Like old war movies
While the universe was drawn
Perfect circles form infinity

I watched the stars get smaller
Tiny diamonds in my memory
I know that victory is sweet
Even deep in the cheap seats”

Conor Oberst–Cape Canaveral

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/01-Cape-Canaveral.mp3|titles=01 Cape Canaveral]

And finally, off last year’s record, “Outer South,” we highly recommend I Gotta Reason, No. 2, wherein Oberst again grapples with the temporal and the forever, while incorporating some stunning Band-esque flourishes.  A new key to the kingdom?  This we gotta see.

“You know a lot can happen after everybody falls asleep
Ask the forest fire, ask the cop walking on the beat
And do right by them, work a little in your dreams
Don’t let time rob you, hold onto your memories
In the glass houses, in the pages of the Rolling Stone
I get a sick feeling, like I’m rocking in a little boat
Hear the big church bell, it’s ringing like a mobile phone
Such a long Sunday drive, and I’m taking it all alone

I want to belong to a reason
And cut a new key to the kingdom
And if anybody asks me, say I want to belong
If anybody asks me, say that it won’t take long
If anybody asks me, say I’m going to get this done
If anybody asks me, say I got a reason

In the last hard drive in the satellites that kick and spin
You’ll find that old footage so everything can live again
Pretty pink roses, the ostrich and the elephant
It’s the last Noah’s ark, everything’s got to fit
In the creased pages of a letter I’ve been trying to send
To a young widow who is desperate for some kind of friend
You’ll find a long list of eligible, handsome men
Who want to lay with her, upon the table of the elements

They’re going to hold strong to a reason
And cut a new key to the kingdom
And if anybody asks them, say they’re going to belong
And if anybody asks them, say that it won’t take long now
And if anybody asks them, say they’re going to get this done
And if anybody asks them, say they’ve got a reason.”

Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band–I Gotta Reason, No. 2

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/15-Conor-and-Mystic-2nd-Track-15.mp3|titles=15 Conor and Mystic 2nd–Track 15]

OK, we lied.  Finally, below is a great duet with Gillian Welch (David Rawlings accompanying) of Oberst’s fine Lua, one of the best songs written in this millennium, if not ever.

Bright Eyes–Lua

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/16-Lua.mp3|titles=16 Lua]

Damien Jurado was yet another musician to release a new record in May when Jurado delivered the phenomenal “St. Barlett” on the “Secretly Canadian” label.  With hot producer, Richard Swift (Mynabirds, Gardens and Villa, etc.), at the helm on Swift’s ranch in Oregon, Jurado delivers a record that wanders beautifully between the sounds of the Flaming Lips and Neil Young (circa “On the Beach” or “Tonight’s the Night”).  St. Bartlett is a return to form for Jurado and amongst his best.

Check out the first song from St. Bartlett, Cloudy Shoes (sounding very much like the Flaming Lips’ and their singer, Wayne Coyne), and another gem from that same record, Rachel & Cali (the latter espousing honesty in life and acceptance of weakness) .

Gracias, Miguel.

Damien Jurado–Cloudy Shoes

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/01-Track-01-5.mp3|titles=01 Track 01 5]

Damien Jurado–Rachel & Cali

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/03-Track-03-6.mp3|titles=03 Track 03 6]

Regrets, we’ve had a few.  This week we’re experiencing a few more.  Because of a prior commitment we will be unable to attend the only North America concert by one of our faves, K’Naan, at the House of Blues in LA.  And just as painful, if not more so, is our inability to jet down to the Detroit Bar in Costa Mesa on Saturday for Club Mercy’s hosting of Ariel Pink’s Haunted Grafitti and the last show of their tour.  Reminding us at times of the powerful and poignant Girls band and their nostalgic musical vantage, Ariel Pink mixes well the old and the new, and especially on their latest record, “Before Today,” which is receiving much-deserved universal praise.

In case you too can’t make their show this Saturday, check out their video of Bright Lit Blue Skies from “Before Today,” and then listen in to the complex and wondrous Envelopes Another Day from their 2004 record, “Doldrums.”

Highly recommended.

Ariel Pink’s Haunted House–Envelopes Another Day

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/11-Envelopes-Another-Day-1.mp3|titles=11 Envelopes Another Day 1]

We have liked the band, Field Music, for a harvest or five.  The Brothers Brewis have given us some of the best, most varied pop music of this decade.

And their recording released six months ago, “Measure,” was no exception, reaffirming their powerful and varied pop palette.  We immediately were drawn to the title track, which is a great song sounding like a masterful mix of The Beatles (circa Eleanor Rigby), Talking Heads (circa Psycho Killer done acoustic), and the band’s usual XTC homages.

Check out Measure below and let us know.

Field Music–Measure

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/04-Measure-1.mp3|titles=04 Measure 1]

There is no middle-ground when it comes to Joanna Newsom.  You either love the music of this 28-year old singer from Nevada City, CA or you hate it.  And even if you love it, you wonder how her unique, challenging music will make it in this modern world of three-minute truffles and trifles.  Nonetheless you love and respect her teeming talents, and wish her well.  Seeing Newsom live not only confirmed her many talents, but made her recordings much more approachable.   So see her live if you can, and give her multiple listens and chances to win you over.  You will be handsomely rewarded.

Ms. Newsom came to the Lobero Theater in Santa Barbara on Friday night, and played to a rapt crowd, including her family and ours from Nevada City.  From the moment Joanna and band took the stage, we were mesmerized by her well-versed vocals, heavenly harp and plucky piano playing.   And we also enjoyed the supporting ensemble, though with some reservations voiced below.

We have always heard strong Kate Bush and Rickie Lee Jones influences in Newsom’s vocals, but at the Lobero we heard more of the latter in her slurred effects and jazz-inflected timbres.  At other times, however, we heard Joni Mitchell and a bit of kabuki geisha (homage to Mrs. Lefort) to go with her semi-operatic intonations.  Regardless, the combination is unique and enthralling to these ears (though we acknowledge that, subjectivity and music tending to pal around, her voice in particular is not for everyone).  Mixed with her complex melodies and her literate lyrical tales, the net effect on us at the Lobero was absolute hypnosis.

The evening was primarily devoted to supporting her recent three-disc recording, “Have One on Me,” with a few older “hits” thrown in for good measure.  Newsom opened the set with her strongest suit by playing solo on harp her song ’81 (perhaps related to her year of gestation given her ’82 birth, but with multiple lyrical levels per her norm).  The combination of her hands-flying, intricate, rhapsodic harp playing and vocal gymnastics never fails to amaze, and left the audience big-eyed and mouth-agape.  In a word: stunning.  For some stellar lyrical stanzas from ’81 that we frequently sift, see way below at *.

The following rendering of ’81 on the Jools Holland Show gives a good flavor for her Lobero version:

Following ’81, the band joined Newsom in earnest, with Neal Morgan on drums, Andrew Strain on trombone, a pair of violinist/vocalist females, and guitar-banjo-tambura playing arranger, Ryan Francesconi.  With every part and nuance of every song seemingly scripted, it is clear that between Newsom and these musicians (with at least half of them reading from sheet music), the commitment to arrangement and structure is formidable.  If there has ever been true chamber folk, this is it.   The ensemble playing sounded at times like a small orchestra and at others, albeit briefly (when the reins and guard were let down), like a jazz ensemble.  And throw in some startling group handclapping that smacked of Brechtian theatre and some kabuki soundings, and you’ve got yourself a tautly-delivered theatrical performance of serious reckoning.

While we were hypnotized by Newsom and the group, we could have done without Francesconi’s joyless, bored guise (and his chiding of the crowd to be amazed by Newsom’s harp-tuning methods–really, Ryan?? Wow!!).  And we would have omitted some of Morgan’s effect-riddled and tightly-scored drumming (come on Neal, let fly occasionally–we know you’ve got the chops!).  Still Neal’s drumming, while mannered, was mostly the perfect fit with the chamber-folk-pop motif.  Throw in some violin shadings and some perfect and evocative muted-trombone flourishes from the amiable Strain, and you have a great, affecting ensemble sound.  There were even some humorous moments which, given her serious material, surprised us–especially when Joanna tossed off a humorous line about refusing to perform a song requested by  a Portugal audience member who kept yelling out a song request and even seemed to tear up in one of his requests:  “We won’t negotiate with Tear-orists!!”

Built into her generous, nearly two-hour set were some of our favorites, including Go Long, Good Intentions Paving Company, Peach, Plum, Pear and the encore, Baby Birch.

In Go Long, Newsom seems to draw parallels between the Bluebeard fable and her failed relationship with Bill Callahan and also relating to William “Bonnie Prince Billy” Oldham, though as usual, all are left to divine their own interpretation of her oft-oblique lyrics.   Check out a few lyric stanzas from Go Long below at #.

Joanna Newsom–Go Long

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2-05-Go-Long.mp3|titles=2-05 Go Long]

Another of our faves performed at the Lobero was her Good Intentions Paving Company, which is seemingly about life and loves on the road and the effect on relationships, and Joanna returning to California as a changed person.   Regardless, we commend some stanzas from Good Intentions Paving Company below at ^.

Joanna Newsom–Good Intentions Paving Company

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/1-04-Good-Intentions-Paving-Company.mp3|titles=1-04 Good Intentions Paving Company]

And after an audience-captivating, set-ending performance of Peach, Plum, Pear and receiving a well-deserved standing ovation, Newsom and band came back for an encore (thankfully, the audience was worthy—see the parenthetical in the setlist at the end below) of the beautiful Baby Birch, which seems to be a tale of motherhood and missing/lost children. We love one of this song’s stanzas in particular:

“When it was dark,
I called and you came.
When it was dark, I saw shapes.
When I see stars, I feel, in your hand,
and I see stars,
and I reel, again.”

Joanna Newsom–Baby Birch

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/1-06-Baby-Birch-1.mp3|titles=1-06 Baby Birch 1]

And here is her beguiling chestnut, Peach, Plum, Pear, as performed on this tour:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW0pV9FioFA

Did we mention that Robin Pecknold of the Fleet Foxes opened the show?  While we heard some vocal talent in Mr. Pecknold, we continue to believe that neither Pecknold nor the Fleet ones can write a worthwhile melody (save their B-track Mykonos). So we give him a big meh.   Maybe next time with the Foxes.

*Stanzas from ’81:

“I found a little plot of land,
in the garden of Eden.
It was dirt, and dirt is all the same.
I tilled it with my two hands,
and I called it my very own;
there was no-one to dispute my claim.”

“The wandering eye that I have caught
is as hot as a wandering sun.
But I will want for nothing more,
in my garden:
start again,
in my hardening to every heart but one.”

“The unending amends you’ve made
are enough for one life.
Be done.
I believe in innocence, little darlin’.
Start again.
I believe in everyone.
I believe, regardless.
I believe in everyone.”

#Stanzas from Go Long:

“Last night, again,
you were in my dream.
Several expendable limbs were at stake
you were a prince, spinning rims,
all sentiments indian-given
and half-baked.”

“We both want the very same thing.
We are praying
I am the one to save you
But you don’t even own
your own violence
Run away from home-
your beard is still blue
with the loneliness of you mighty men,
with your jaws, and fists, and guitars
and pens, and your sugarlip,
but I’ve never been to the firepits with you mighty men

Who made you this way?
Who made you this way?
Who is going to bear your beautiful children?
Do you think you can just stop,
when you’re ready for a change?
Who will take care of you
when you’re old and dying?”

“I will give you a call, for one last hurrah.
If this tale is tall, forgive my scrambling.
But you keep palming along the wall,
moving at a blind crawl,
but always rambling.

Wolf-spider, crouch in your funnel nest.
If I knew you, once,
now I know you less.
In the sinking sand,
where we’ve come to rest,
have I had a hand in your loneliness?

When you leave me alone
in this old palace of yours,
it starts to get to me. I take to walking.
What a woman does is open doors.
And it is not a question of locking
or unlocking.”

And finally,

“With the loneliness
of you mighty men,
with your mighty kiss
that might never end,
while, so far away,
in the seat of the West,
burns the fount
of the heat
of that loneliness.

There’s a man
who only will speak in code,
backing slowly, slowly down the road.
May he master everything
that such men may know
about loving, and then letting go. ”

^Stanzas from Good Intentions Paving Company:

“And it’s my heart, not me, who cannot drive,
at which conclusion you arrived,
watching me sit here, bolt upright and cry
for no good reason at the Eastering sky.”

“And the tilt of this strange nation,
and the will to remain for the duration
(Waving the flag,
feeling it drag).”

“It had a nice a ring to it
When the ole opry house rang,

so, with a solemn auld lang
syne, sealed, delivered, I sang.”

“And I do hate to fold,
right here at the top of my game,
when I’ve been trying with my whole heart and soul
To stay right here, in the right lane.

But it can make you feel over and old
(Lord, you know it’s a shame),
when I only want for you to pull over and hold me
‘Til I can’t remember my own name.”

And finally, below is the setlist from the Lobero Theater show June 30, 2010:

Not to digress, but we mentioned previously that we love the band Broken Social Scene.  Both as a band and in their constituent parts, they have never hidden their musical hearts behind some paltry polemic or afterthought, though the lyrics would at times have you believe otherwise.  With bold melodies and inventive instrumentation, these scene-sters have always laid it out for all to see, broken and unvarnished.

We first heard from the Broken gang en masse at the millennium’s break, followed by the first to venture from the Scene, Feist and Metric (featuring Emily Haines, who recently appeared on, of all things, the Leno show–“Boredom’s Black Hole”–and unfortunately Haines chameleoned to match the insipid, smarmy host).  And then the key Scene-makers, Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning, broke out anti-socially with stellar individual efforts.  And yet all of these efforts continued to be collaborative, with constituents contributing to the others’ collectives.

We assume you know and appreciate each and all of the above, but just in case, check out a few songs from Drew, Canning and BSS that we return to over and over.

First up is Kevin Drew and his great, great song, Gang Bang Suicide. Perhaps our favorite song of Drew’s (or anyone’s), it’s hard not to get lost in the beauty, building vocal rounds, and insinuating lyrics.  We especially like the mantras:

” they say size doesn’t count
but my heart is a house”

“well your mouth is a gun yeah your mouth is a gun…
you hate it all in you, you hate it all in you”

Kevin Drew–Gang Bang Suicide

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/07-Gang-Bang-Suicide.mp3|titles=07 Gang Bang Suicide]

Next up is Drew’s beauteous Bodhi Sappy Weekend. We can’t completely capture the lyrics, but hold on to luminous lines.

Kevin Drew–Bodhi Sappy Weekend

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/13-Bodhi-Sappy-Weekend.mp3|titles=13 Bodhi Sappy Weekend]

Following is Drew’s flying, Feist-esque Safety Bricks. We love this song’s locomotion and coming-of-age lament, but especially the ending encouragement:

“You can never really start from the start
The ending begins inside of your heart
Well the people, they love to remember your name
It’s a hospital bed but it’s all just the same

Why did you leave when you were returned
Your past is your future, your future will learn
The crows that fly, we’ll try not to find
You do things once, you know you’ll do it twice

Still I want kids with safety bricks
And a car that’s quick
So we can split….

The middle should live inside of your brain
I’ll stop for a moment and try to refrain
I’m hoping you love just like when you were a kid
Let’s hop a fence and do what we always did”

Kevin Drew–Safety Bricks

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/04-Safety-Bricks.mp3|titles=04 Safety Bricks]

Next on the band-member hit parade is Brendan Canning, and his lucent Churches Under the Stairs.

We love the “ghost notes” vocals that begin at 1:24 and the subsequent wall-of-voices approach.   The song’s exact meaning is your best guess, but it moves us nonetheless.

“Give us some of the ghost notes
Give us some of the chosen, oh!
Give us some of the closing slots
Give us some of the falsest hope”

Brendan Canning–Churches Under the Stairs

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/05-Churches-Under-The-Stairs.mp3|titles=05 Churches Under The Stairs]

We love the next song, Something for All of Us, and the vocals, which seem like how T-Rex’s Mark Bolan might have sounded had he survived his 70s traumas or been born twenty-five years later.

Brendan Canning–Something for All of Us

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/01-Something-For-All-Of-Us….mp3|titles=01 Something For All Of Us…]

And then Canning’s cunning Chameleon, which begins wordless and beautifully-horned and finishes with Feist and Canning’s great vocalisms.

Brendan Canning–Chameleon

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/02-Chameleon.mp3|titles=02 Chameleon]

And now we come back to the band in the aggregate.

First from Broken Social Scene is Fire-Eyed Boy, which features the band’s signature bass/guitar-twinned melody line (borrowed from New Order), intricate guitar work and the lyrical encouragement/warning:

“Fire eyed boy, give em all the slip”

BSS–Fire-Eyed Boy

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/06-Fire-Eyed-Boy.mp3|titles=06 Fire Eye’d Boy]

The next song, Stars and Sons, features another bass-anchored melody line, but also with killing clapping (especially live)!

BSS–Stars and Sons

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/03-Stars-And-Sons.mp3|titles=03 Stars And Sons]

And last but not least is the band’s great homage to Pavement, Ibi Dreams of Pavement, with its emphatic delivery and stellar stanzas:

“I got shot right in the back
and you were there
I said I was never coming back
and you were there, you were there”

Broken Social Scene–Ibi Dreams of Pavement

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/02-Ibi-Dreams-Of-Pavement-A-Better.mp3|titles=02 Ibi Dreams Of Pavement (A Better]

Finally, check out Feist and the boys on their video for the all-time, 7/24 Shoreline:

Saturdays are for the spirit and the spirited, and on Saturday the Delta Spirit boys came a ghostin’ at Velvet Jones.   Sold out and packed with a rabid young crowd, the Velvet and Club Mercy played perfect hosts to this crowd-pleasing band originally from San Diego and now residing in Long Beach.   The last show of a 40-night tour before heading off to Europe in September, the band threw in some new, some old, some covers and some rarities, and delivered on all fronts.  If you haven’t seen or heard them, they are a fervent, soulful group, and particularly live.  Leader Matt Vazquez (no not the professional baseball pitcher from Santa Barbara) is a talented vocalist who can impressively hit all the notes live.  He is backed by a great four to eight piece band that swells to at least eight (we lost count actually) onstage at times for added pounding, percussive drive.   Delta Spirit aren’t breaking any new musical barriers, but they cover the waterfront stylistically with flourish on their instruments and with stylish vocalistics.  On the crowd-pleasing anthems they sound like an indie-Springsteen (note: Club Mercy brings the similarly-veined-in-that-regard band, Hold Steady, to Velvet Jones on Aug. 27th).  At other times they play the blues belters (on a Louie Armstrong cover for example), and at others the plaintive Americana soulsters.  The band knows and represents well their influences, and frequently whips up the crowd into a clapping, singalong fervor.  And for good measure, they threw in a spirited cover of Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here (with the young crowd bizarrely bellowing along to every word–is there a Pink Floyd resurgence we don’t know about?). They left it on the stage and the crowd left satiated.  Check ’em out next time.

In case you missed them, get ready for their next visit by checking out the band below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE1LalEvgE4&feature=related

Vivian is a particularly touching song by Vazquez about his grandparents, and his grandmother in particular.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIzMi_1Mfrs

Oh, and in case you were wondering, when interviewed recently in the Harrisburg American, Matt Vazquez had this to say about his oft-spiritual lyrics:

“Well, yeah. Spiritual is a good word for it. We all come from different places and we all have different views. I’ve been through the gambit of many different things and I’m comfortably loving my agnosticism. It doesn’t all have to go into nihilism. Writing about humanity is so behind what humanity actually is. Getting to sing about and write about humanity – I’m so happy to be part of that.”

We heard the news last night, and it weighed us down.  Our hearts go out to those who lost their lives at the Love Parade techno music festival in Duisburg, Germany yesterday, along with their families and friends.

Words fail.  But music doesn’t.  Almost immediately we thought of the great Clem Snide, and Eef Barzelay’s stunningly and eerily relevant song.  Different contexts and messages, perhaps, but the devastation is nonetheless  similar.  Once again Eef has provided the perfect soundtrack to our lives.

Clem Snide–The Sound of German Hip Hop

“I woke up to the sound of German hip hop in my head
A great unholy clatter quickly filling me with dread
I wondered then if silence had forever disappeared
What, with everybody yelling the end was finally here

I scrambled for the television, desperate for its light
Hoping that my favorite stars could stop this endless night
I waited for instructions, I waited for a sign
I listened very carefully when told just what to buy

Lovers became bitter, mathematicians counting crumbs
Some were filled with angry lust, the rest felt mostly numb
The sun became the enemy, they’d hunger after dark
And kill time swapping partners at a club called Noah’s Arc

Those who spoke of doom impending, suffering and such
Had found the place in people’s heart that beauty had once touched
They filled the auditorium, the tickets far from cheap
Those that couldn’t get in started fighting in the street

The day came so we gathered in a field behind the mall
A noted scientist predicted there we’d see it all
The city council members came, they told us not to fear
The king and queen of homecoming both shed a poignant tear

Just like that it happened, the starling blinked its eye
The molecules collided and became part of the sky
All my life I’ve never known a moment quite so still
Like space that’s being emptied at the same time that it’s filled

I woke up to the sound of German hip hop in the air
It sounded like a hum of insects nesting in my hair
I wasn’t so much tired but I felt that I should sleep
So I closed my eyed and mumbled something about a soul to keep”

Clem Snide–The Sound of German Hip Hop

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/04-The-Sound-Of-German-Hip-Hop.mp3|titles=04 The Sound Of German Hip-Hop]

And then of course we thought of Flying Lotus’s mournful dirge, German Haircut, which seems so fitting this morning.  Peace to you.

Flying Lotus–German Haircut

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/12-German-Haircut.mp3|titles=12 German Haircut]