POPFEST! day two: cats on fire, liechtenstein, the radio dept., and the tartans

Cats on Fire with Liechtenstein, The Radio Dept., and The Tartans @ Don Hill's, New York (May 15, 2009)

Late again, I walked as fast as I could across town to get to Don Hill’s (the lol home of all those infamous Misshapes parties), hoping I wouldn’t miss The Tartans. Luckily, they were just setting up when I arrived.

Hailing from LA, The Tartans have released some of my favorite songs of the past year. Outside of their hits, though, their other songs seem to fall a bit flat, but I hope that will change as they write more. “My Baby Doesn’t Care for You,” “Cats of Camerford,” and “1939” are all great songs, and all of which were played during their short set. I was glad not to have missed them, and look forward to more of their classic pop-tinged lo-fi twee, somewhere along the lines of California friends like The Aislers Set.

The Tartans


The Radio Dept. was definitely the most highly anticipated band for Popfest as far as I could tell. They sold out the Saturday show and were billed as a “secret band” for Friday’s show. Now, I’m not a HUGE Radio Dept. fan, but I was excited to see them. Sadly, I was sorely disappointed. The usually lush instrumentation seemed muddled, and they seemed to avoid any of their real sensational songs: a total letdown.

My low spirits were made lower with the over-priced spirits at the bar ($7 for a watered-down gin and tonic? a $4 PBR? I just can’t get used to those NYC prices…). Luckily, Liechtenstein was phenomenal and made me forget all my other troubles (like really sore feet). A little less fuzzed out than they sound on their recordings, they made up for it with perfect harmonies and a great preview of the new album (which I scored a copy of already!).

Liechtenstein


And then, perhaps the reason I most wanted to come to Popfest: Cats on Fire. The Province Complains was one of my favorite albums of 2006, and three years later, Our Temperance Movement did not disappoint. Unsurprisingly, Cats on Fire’s live performance was just as flawless as their recordings. Mattias seems like the perfect frontman: reserved but fascinating, delivering the most masterful set of Popfest. I am pretty sure I could be happy listening to these Fins forever, so I just hope they keep making music forever.

Left in a near euphoria, I crawled back up 8th Avenue, looking forward to yet another day of pop.

Download:
The Tartans - "The Cats of Camerford"
The Tartans - "My Baby Doesn't Care for You"

The Radio Dept. - "Freddie and the Trojan Horse"

Liechtenstein - "Postcard"

Cats on Fire - "Horoscope"

POPFEST! day one: the ballet, my teenage stride, the metric mile, dream bitches, the soft city, and knight school

NYC POPFEST 2009! The Ballet @ the Cake Shop, New York (May 14, 2009)

(This is the first in a series of week-late Popfest reviews. I will try to keep them short, but it is so hard when I had such a great weekend!)

Somewhere between Chicago and New York, it was raining, delaying our flight before take-off for more than an hour. Luckily, I made it to the Cake Shop in plenty of time to catch Knight School kick-off NYC Popfest 2009! Filled with NYC bands, the first night proved to be a great start to a wonderful weekend of music.

I have long been charmed by the cover (featuring many cats) of Knight School’s CDR The Poor and Needy Need to Party released on LostMusic, but I finally ordered it a few months ago and have kept it on frequent rotation since. Buzzy and loud but full of hooks, Knight School certainly fits in with the rest of the NYC pop scene, but there is something uniquely appealing about them. They played a loud and fast set that left my ears ringing for the rest of the night.

The Soft City played a nice set, too, even if it was their first show! They just have one tiny single out on Cloudberry, so I am interested in hearing more. Some videos of their set from Popfest are up now on their Myspace, and I am really enjoying “Capital Soul,” even a week later.

The crowd was definitely into the four heavily tattooed and bobbed girls in Dream Bitches, but something about their style of pop music is a little too much for me. Snotty 90s girl pop is all well and good, but sometimes it just seems so contrived. They sounded and played great, though, so I have no complaints. And it may just have been their last show, which is too bad!

Appropriately, someone called out “The Field Mice!” during The Metric Mile’s set. Certainly, the band sounds very much like The Field Mice, but only in the best ways possible. Soft synth with lush orchestration, they may have been the band I was most pleasantly surprised by for the evening.

That would be, of course, until My Teenage Stride played. I’ve had their album forever, but I don’t listen to it that frequently. What a mistake that is!! They played an energetic set with fantastic pop songs. I guess they’ve been releasing a song a month lately, so that is something I need to check out.

And, finally, The Ballet. I think I am a relatively latecomer to this NYC band, but god knows why—a gay pop band (and there are so few!) with perfectly crafted songs should have found me immediately. They did a really great job of translating their songs live, and it’s always nice to not hear the album replayed for you. They did a great cover of “Take Ecstasy with Me,” appropriate for the NYC-themed evening, and played all of the songs I have come to love over the past few months, “Personal,” “In My Head,” and “Cheating on Your Boyfriend.” They said they are working on a new album now, which is very exciting. They didn’t have the live cello player as has surfaced during previous performances, but that was perfectly fine. They were an absolutely perfect finish to a wonderful first night of pop music.

Download:
Knight School - "Pregnant Again"
Knight School - "Crybaby"

The Soft City - The Soft City
The Soft City - "Wallflower"

The Metric Mile - "Amateurs"
The Metric Mile - "In Praise of Ski Jumpers"

My Teenage Stride - "Ears Like Golden Bats"

The Ballet - "Personal"
The Ballet - "Cheating on Your Boyfriend"

LAST WEEK: one happy island with very truly yours

One Happy Island with Very Truly Yours and dancing by The Revelettes at the Darkoom (March 15, 2009)


Sorry this is such a belated post—part of having a college radio show happens to mean that I am in college and as such, I have been battling theses projects and finals. But now I am having a little break in sunny Puerto Morelos, Mexico, where I can sit by the ocean sipping white wine and finally start thinking about pop music again. (That happens to mean listening to the new Cats on Fire and Camera Obscura albums on repeat!)

First on the list, last week Sunday I had the delightful privilege to see One Happy Island with Very Truly Yours in the very last show hosted in Chicago by my friends Colour Me Pop! I will be sad to see them go, but I do think they had a lovely send-off for their voyage to London.

One Happy Island is a four-piece from Boston who has released two EPs on WeePOP! Records. They play in a classically DIY way that reminds me of a Bunnygrunt who I actually enjoy listening to. Their songs have wit and charm, great instrumentation (theremin included!) and best of all, a ton of ukulele (in which I, too, have been know to dabble). I spent a few weeks listening to “Earth’s Circumference” on repeat in my car, and probably even longer with “Anita” and “Temporary Tattoo,” which the band calls “their hit.” It’s easy to see how this band has been making the pop circuits all throughout the country for the last couple of years. They put on a show that was full of energy and incredibly engaging. I am excited to see where they go now that they seem to have picked up steam! (And Rebecca told me that they’re getting ready to put out a full-length!)

Since the past two entries have championed the wonderful Chicago locals Very Truly Yours, I will just say that they put on an even better performance than last time. I am so glad to have such a fantastic local pop band and everyone should go and catch them next time around. They’re even making their way to Boston to open for One Happy Island and The Tartans. And, although this will be the subject of the next post, NEW YORK CITY POPFEST!

Oh, and did I mention there was go-go dancing?? Chicago go-go troupe The Revelettes showed us their moves (admittedly to some strange choices, i.e. “These Boots are Made for Walking”). Although they were slotted for right after Very Truly Yours, that didn’t stop them from dancing into One Happy Island’s set, with hula-hoops and all!

I promise to be a bit better with my entries from now on, too!

LAST NIGHT: the pains of being pure at heart with very truly yours

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart with the Depreciation Guild and Very Truly Yours at Schuba's, Chicago, IL (February 11, 2009)
(sorry for the iPhone photos)

It’s always sad when you look forward to seeing a band for months—keeping their album on repeat, watching their videos, blogging compulsively—but then, it’s over, just like that.

Of course I’m referring to last night’s magnificent show, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart. Surely anyone reading this blog has heard of the Pains by now from somewhere or another, and it was no question that they were the favorites of 2008. (Both in AND out of this tiny pop circle!) But a year and a half (really!) of hype later, I was finally able to confirm first hand that this band really is great.

Sure, I love fuzzed-out pop music, and this was certainly the year of its return, but something about the way the Pains do it is so inviting, warm, and fun. Opening with “Doing All the Things That Wouldn’t Make Your Parents Proud,” (dedicated to Kip’s family in the audience), I was reminded of first hearing this song back in July of 2007, and of being so impressed by the beautiful melodies, subtle wit, and that fantastic sound! I had so much fun swaying and singing along that I hardly could believe that “two songs left” really meant the Pains were down to their final few songs (in all their repertoire, that is). There wasn't a dull moment to their set, but that just speaks to the fact that they really haven’t released a bad song after a full-length, two (kinda) EPs and three wonderful 7-inches, but I was especially glad to hear “Everything With You” and “Kurt Cobain’s Cardigan.” Closing with the aptly titled “The Pains of Being Pure at Heart,” it was nice to hear “we will never die,” chanted during their final moments on stage. The band was confident, smiling, and enthusiastic, and I couldn’t have asked for a better performance. Twenty-eight minutes and no encore later, two months of waiting came to a beautiful end in a sold-out Schuba's show, just like that.

I don’t have nearly as many favorable words to say about the Depreciation Guild. I found their set to be a little tedious. Their A/V component looked like an Intro to Flash version of an Ad Reinhardt painting supplemented by some strobe lights. Their music falls somewhere along the lines of a Nintendo-spiked My Bloody Valentine, without the subtlety or sonic swells. Their album is decent (and free on their site), but it’s not the kind of thing that really gets me going.

Very Truly Yours (who I blogged about yesterday), were absolutely charming and were a perfect opener to the evening. They reminded me that pop doesn’t always have to be perfect to be fun. Certain songs seemed better live—“1 2 3 4” and their closer, “Popsong ‘91” (both off of their Cloudberry EP) seemed more refined and a bit more sophisticated than their other material. But I enjoy that one-off charm, so whatever. I am excited for this band to take Chicago by the pop-reins so they can play more shows. (They’ll be opening for One Happy Island in March!)

All in all, a most wonderful evening of pop music.

THE OTHER NIGHT: lykke li

Lykke Li at the Metro, Chicago, IL (February 7, 2009)

It's a little hard for me to believe how quickly Lykke Li blew up, but maybe I just like to think that I can keep all the music I like to myself. I know that even with her roots singing on the streets in Södermalm with her toy piano, Lykke Li was always going to be a pop star. It’s just that now I just start to wonder if what I once saw as precious, well-produced, intelligent pop is meant to go the way of iPod commercials.

Lykke Li once felt intimate to me—the slight dirtiness of “Little Bit,” the heart wrenching power of “Tonight”—but I guess that is always how pop music is supposed to feel. I just can’t shake the feeling that I've been duped somehow. Maybe I am responding to the absolute pleasure seeing her open for El Perro Del Mar at Schuba’s last spring brought me, a show that no sold-out Metro show could ever live up to. Or maybe I am just being selfish. But maybe I've let my love of all things Swedish cloud my judgment…

That’s not to say there was anything disappointing about the show: she delivered in all ways expected of her. She danced, looked cute, and got us to dance sometimes by playing her hits like “Little Bit” and “I’m Good, I’m Gone” and even an extra klub version of “Complaint Department.” Then there were some incongruous moments: a cover of the Kings of Leon? I didn’t even know they were still making music. Her attempts at straddling a line closer to American R&B were hinted at throughout the night, but it became almost transparent in (an admittedly well-done) cover of A Tribe Called Quest's "Can I Kick It?” And it was all well and good until Lykke Li started getting a little pissed off with the photographers in the front row, interjecting, "Why you gotta photo all the time?" into the song. At this point, Lykke Li threw the microphone across the stage and walked out.

I can’t say there’s anything precious about that.

I think maybe she just needs to start wearing that cute bun again.

Watch:

Lykke Li - "Tonight" (live acoustic take)
via This Difficulty

LAST NIGHT: love is all & the crystal stilts

Love is All with the Crystal Stilts and Bird Names at the Empty Bottle, Chicago, IL (December 14, 2008)


I'll admit that it had been a while since I had last listened to Love Is All. But their new album A Hundred Things Keep Me Up at Night, released last month on What's Your Rupture, is the same spastic pop music that made them early favorites of the Swedish pop scene. The funny thing was, until they reminded me last night that they hailed from Gothenburg, I had almost forgotten they were Swedish. So sharply different from the pop that has come out of Gothenburg in the last few years, Love is All seems less polished and less sincere than the rest of the Swedish pop I love and more a part of the What's Your Rupture scene.

Nonetheless, Love Is All played one of the best shows I had seen in a while, certainly reminding me why the world fell in love with them in the first place. Full of energy and completely enjoyable, the band played songs from both albums, a new song and an enjoyable cover of "I Ran" by Flock of Seagulls. I had forgotten what a great touch the saxophone is in the band, and how delightfully spastic pop music could be when it wants.

Download:
Love is All - Wishing Well

A favorite of mine for the past few months, Crystal Stilts, provided support. Having seen them open for the Vivian Girls early in the summer, tonight they sounded even better than last time–a little less fuzzed out, rooted more in the dark dream pop of yesteryear, I couldn't shake some Joy Division comparisons tonight. I still can't understand the singer at all, but for me that's part of the charm of such moody pop music. Their new album, Alight of Night, out now on Slumberland, is pretty great, too.

Download:
Crystal Stilts - Prismatic Room

Local favorites Bird Names opened the show. I know people who follow this band all over the city, so I was glad to see their slightly off-kilter pop with loud guitars and lots of percussion.