Free Energy — “Bang Pop”

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I know I haven’t post­ed any­thing music-relat­ed here late­ly. I got myself wrapped around the axle there for a bit about the future of music and could­n’t find a way to unwind. Pret­ty sure I’ve put that behind me and will hap­pi­ly be post­ing more stuff that I like here.

So Free Ener­gy? I’m real­ly into their lead sin­gle, “Bang Pop.” I know it got a whop­ping 8.1 on Pitch­fork, yet it’s failed to real­ly catch fire online, at least from where I sit. Does it rein­vent rock music? Nope. Is it still a ton of fun? Yup! If I weren’t on baby duty tonight I might’ve snuck over to the First Uni­tar­i­an Church tonight to see them in per­son. If you were look­ing for a sum­mer jam that’s not by Ludacris or Katie Per­ry, you’ve prob­a­bly found it in this gem.

Mark Linkous R.I.P.

I was lucky enough to see Sparkle­horse dur­ing that fate­ful CMJ fes­ti­val that got past­ed togeth­er in the wake of Sep­tem­ber 11th. He per­formed in front of a gigan­tic Amer­i­can flag the own­ers of the Bow­ery Ball­room hung at the back of the stage. He seemed real­ly uncom­fort­able with that. I’m sure at least some por­tion of the audi­ence did, too. I know I did.

I’m sor­ry to say I don’t remem­ber much of the set. It was­n’t par­tic­u­lar­ly long. He opened with ‘Home­com­ing Queen,’ but for­got the words. The audi­ence jogged his mem­o­ry by chim­ing in. He played the hits pas­sion­ate­ly. I’m remind­ed that he cov­ered GBV’s ‘Smoth­ered in Hugs,’ which you can lis­ten to over at Chrome­waves. It was amazing.

I have to admit that I expect­ed some of the guests from ‘It’s a Won­der­ful Life’ to join him onstage. I don’t know what I was think­ing. I had only been in NYC for a year and I tru­ly believed that that sort of thing might hap­pen. He did­n’t tour much. He was in New York. What else was Nina Pers­son doing that night?

I did­n’t think much of ‘It’s a Won­der­ful Life’ at the time. I had fall­en in love with Vivadix­iesub­marine­trans­mis­sion­plot and Good Morn­ing, Spi­der over a few trou­bling sum­mers, work­ing jobs I hat­ed while sav­ing mon­ey for school in the fall. Those songs were anthems to my ears, the per­fect sound­track to any­one who’s shuf­fling along in the twi­light of job­less­ness and underemployment.

I’m not sure why I nev­er real­ly got his next album, It’s a Won­der­ful Life. The guy made a liv­ing off of wild­ly uneven albums, but some­thing about this one did­n’t quite con­nect. I loved songs like ‘Piano Fire’ and ‘King of Nails,’ but some of the cameos just did­n’t work for me. I shelved it.

I haven’t lis­tened to Sparkle­horse much since. I went back to those records after news broke of Link­ous’ death and found them to have the same amaz­ing qual­i­ties they did when I first lis­tened to them almost a decade ago. I can still pic­ture myself mak­ing a 120 mile roundtrip com­mute in my decrepit Dodge Shad­ow, blast­ing Good Morn­ing, Spi­der at top vol­ume and it still makes me shiver.

The New Spoon Album

I’ve been lis­ten­ing to Spoon’s Trans­fer­ence for the past cou­ple weeks. They’re on of my favorite bands. Britt Daniel has become a great lyri­cist and the songs have got­ten catch­i­er with every album. That is, until now.

I heard an inter­view with the band last night that made Trans­fer­ence more appeal­ing than it is. Daniel and Jim Eno made the album’s weak­ness­es sound like strengths. There’s no hid­ing the fact that their efforts to make an “ugli­er” record suc­ceed­ed, so why not embrace it?

They knew what sound they want­ed and pro­duced the record them­selves, but that’s not the issue. Trans­fer­ence is imme­di­ate­ly rec­og­nize­able as a Spoon record; the prob­lem is that it’s not a very good one. You’d have to go back to the dar­ing, equal­ly uneven Kill the Moon­light to hear some­thing as infu­ri­at­ing as this. Sequenc­ing, not pro­duc­tion, stops Trans­fer­ence in its tracks.

Spoon buried the best songs in the mid­dle third of the album, start­ing with “Writ­ten in Reverse” and end­ing with the plain­tive strains of “Good­night Lau­ra,” a song that veers dan­ger­ous­ly close to maudlin which would­n’t be so bad if this weren’t a Spoon album.

We’ve come to expect great things. Their sound might be best described as Bil­ly Joel songs as reimag­ined by Wire. Songs like “Sis­ter Jack” and “The Under­dog” bur­nished their rep­u­ta­tion as a band on the cusp of great­ness. There’s noth­ing of that cal­iber here. 

Trans­fer­ence should’ve been Spoon’s mag­num opus, the prod­uct of two decades worth of hard work from a band at the height of its pow­er. Instead it’s the album you can tell the unini­ti­at­ed they can safe­ly ignore.

A New Year in Music

2009 was a dis­as­trous year for me and music. I was real­ly turned off to the pos­si­bil­i­ty that I might like any­thing. I revert­ed to old habits, lis­ten­ing to a dis­pro­por­tion­ate amount of met­al, with­out real­ly explor­ing fur­ther. For some­one who in the past prid­ed him­self on catholic taste, it was some­thing of a dis­ap­point­ment. Worse, I’ve not felt a part of the music scene for a while now and that real­ly trou­bles me. I mean, my title is music edi­tor, right?

With­out get­ting bogged down in all the hows and whys, I’m real­ly excit­ed for 2010 already. Two of my favorite bands, Spoon and Liars, have albums out this Jan­u­ary and it’s the time of year where I obsess over these releas­es, often at the expense of ignor­ing wor­thy albums that come along lat­er in the year’s pro­mo­tion­al cycle.

I used to think it was stu­pid for bands to release albums this time of year. Boy, was I wrong! When LCD Soundsys­tem releas­es albums in the dead of win­ter, they cap­ture more atten­tion than they would if they tried to shoe­horn their stuff into the March and Octo­ber gluts. It’s the per­fect time of year to real­ly get famil­iar with a record. You’re trapped in the house or car any­way, so you might as well crank up the stereo.

I cel­e­brate the new year in music by delet­ing every­thing in iTunes and start­ing over fresh. Right now I’m lis­ten­ing to Spoon, but I’ll be check­ing out new music from Yeasay­er, Ted Leo, Liars, Blood Feath­ers, Vam­pire Week­end and Gil-Scott Heron (!) soon enough. What a great way to start 2010!