Blogs

In this week's paper, Jaime Lees talks to the Breeders' Kelley Deal, in advance of the band's Saturday, May 10 show at Pop's. (The Colour Revolt opens.) In the following outtakes, Deal talks about festival shows, the Midwest and how she and sister Kim care for their mom, who has Alzheimer's disease.

(courtesy of thisisfakediy.co.uk)

(Breeders MP3s are streaming, Colour Revolt are downloadable; thanks to the band's management for permission!)

MP3: The Breeders, "We're Gonna Rise"

MP3: The Breeders, "I Just Wanna Get Along"

MP3: The Breeders, "Happiness Is a Warm Gun"

MP3: The Colour Revolt, "Moses of the South"

MP3: The Colour Revolt, "Naked and Red"

Jaime Lees: So, about St. Louis? What do you know? Cause we sort of feel like we have Midwest love with you. We sort of claim you as ours. You know, Ohio, Missouri, whatever.

Kelley Deal: I think it's great. Totally. Oh yeah. Totally. I think that's correct. I think that's absolutely right. I think you guys feel like that, cause i fell like that, too, with bands, if they're from the Midwest. Anyway, I completely agree with you.

Cause we're like "Oh yeah, these are our people."
Exactly! Yeah, I'm glad.

Dude, tell me about Coachella. How did that go? Do you get time to really see anyone else while you're there?
You know, I like the idea of it. The one really good experience with festivals that I've had was with Lollapalooza, 'cause it was like band camp. That was different. You traveled, everybody got to know each other. You all got to see other bands, you started to get used to the idea that you're playing at five o'clock. And it's bright out, and it's hot, and it doesn't feel very rock, and you just get a different mindset on. When you're doing a bunch of club shows that we're doing at night and you can smell the beer and it's dark and you can't really see anybody, when you get used to that and then you go play a festival and you're kind of like "Oh hi, everybody. How are ya?" It feels inappropriate somehow. Like, you're rocking in daylight, it just doesn't feel very rock. But you know, I do like it. and I got to see a couple of bands there and that was fun.

RFT/Keegan Hamilton

Just got an e-mail update from the man known as V-Majorz bringing me up to speed on a whole slew of new projects. Since it included free music, I thought I'd hit A to Z with some hips and hops while Annie is on vacation.

Here's what Van had to say:

In this week's Homespun, Christian Schaeffer reviews Gotta Be Karim's Bean Pie EP. He has this to say:

Karim Hameed used to perform with Soul Tyde, and his love for old-school samples and smooth soul textures is made plain on “When You See Me.” The track, which kicks off Gotta Be Karim’s five-song Bean Pie EP, operates off of a stuttering, minor-key electric piano loop and sharp snare hits, and lets the emcee plant his feet and say his peace. And, like all great crate-diggers, Karim waits until the song’s end to pull back the curtain on the sample’s source: bossa nova take on the Bacharach/David classic “Walk On By.”

He'll be having a CD release show at Vintage Vinyl on Friday and also appearing with Black Spade -- the local boy turned good, who I hear is hitting Europe in a few months for some performances -- at the Gramophone later that night.

MP3: Gotta Be Karim, "Back on the Grind"

MP3: Gotta Be Karim, "Swagger Back"

Gentleman Auction House's new EP, The Book of Matches, is in stores today, Tuesday, May 6! The Emergency Umbrella-released mini-album is a precursor to the band's full-length Alphabet Graveyard, whose release is being heralded by a show at the Bluebird on July 5.

The septet recently had a Davenport, Iowa, show filmed for the influential Web site Daytrotter. That link is here -- or you can just view the video after the jump (and a download of a new song!).

MP3: Gentleman Auction House, "Our Angry Town Stamps Them Out"

Download the new Museum Mutters full-length CD here at this link. Liner notes after the jump, written by frequent blog commenter James Weber, Jr. (so I suggest you read them).

RIYL: The Replacements, Old 97s, early R.E.M., '80s jangle-rock, Wilco's straightforward moments

This is the sort of music fit for ever-creeping warm nights, those times when all the lost souls of St. Louis congregate on bar patios, hoping to find meaning at the bottom of a glass of whiskey -- before taking lonely highways home while searching for a breeze to kill the humidity. (Annie Zaleski)

MP3: The Museum Mutters, "Gabriel with Gabriel"

MP3: The Museum Mutters, "Born to Live on Sound"

Thanks to my pal Aaron Berkowitz (he of F5 Records, among other places), we scored some exclusive Ghostface Killah remixes of "Charlie Brown."

MP3: Ghostface Killah, "Charlie Brown" (DJ Mehdi remix)"

MP3: Ghostface Killah, "Charlie Brown" (Orgasmic remix)"

MP3: Ghostface Killah, "Charlie Brown" (Yuksek remix)"

MP3: Ghostface Killah, "Charlie Brown" (Guns N' Bombs remix)"

-- Annie Zaleski

In this week's Homespun, Christian Schaeffer reviews Femme Fatality's new CD, One's Not Enough, which is coming out on Stickfigure Recordings. He had this to say:

Like the Strokes' Is This It?, the album title One's Not Enough seems to be Femme Fatality's way of preemptively baiting a backlash — but really, boys, one album was enough. 2004's Never Had a Daddy was a fun dose of synths, drum machines and dumb-dumb club-kid lyrics that came at the tail end of electroclash's brief moment of ubiquity. The darkwave electro-pop duo's Eurotrash stage names and the intentionally ridiculous songs (like the prescription drug-referencing "Dr. K") allowed everyone to be in on the joke. Since that record's release, the band has broken up and reformed several times, only to reemerge with a new album on a respectable little indie label. The question remains: Are these guys for real?

Decide for yourself by reading the rest of Schaeffer's review, heading to Femme Fatality's CD release show on Saturday night, May 3, at the Creepy Crawl or by listening to/downloading two songs below:

MP3: Femme Fatality, "Lucky Lover"

MP3: Femme Fatality, "Connections"

-- Annie Zaleski

In this week's paper, Ryan Wasoba interviewed Tegan Quin of Tegan and Sara, the Canadian duo who's playing the Pageant this Sunday night, May 4, with An Horse. I'd advise anyone who's on the fence about going to buy your tickets now. Just trust me.

Anyway, Ryan's feature is here; outtakes are below. While reading, please listen to the RAC mix of T & S's "Back In Your Head."

MP3: Tegan and Sara, "Back in Your Head (RAC Mix)"

Ryan Wasoba: It's been a while since you've played St. Louis, right?
Tegan Quin: Oh God yeah, years and years. I think the last place we
played was the Galaxy.

Wow. I think that closed down in 2003, so i guess it has been a while.
Yeah, I remember we rolled in and we were driving downtown. It wasn't actually me, but our drummer was driving and he woke us up and he said, "Oh my God, it's like a war happened here and nobody told anyone," cause it was right around when we were touring and there was a
lot of war talk around then. There were so many buildings that were boarded up and falling down and decrepit and streets were abandoned and it was like, "Where are we?"

Has touring been different since The Con came out?
I think that's the big difference with this record, is that we're consistently playing the same-sized venue, which sounds like the most boring thing ever, but it's a lot better. With every record, every tour is different. One night you're opening for someone the next night you're headlining and every night is different and maybe in certain cities you have a fanbase and another you don't. Sometimes you're playing for 500 people and you feel like the happiest person alive and the next night it's 12 people and you're questioning why you didn't go to the university.

I was mighty impressed with promising young local band the Sham the only time I saw them. Apparently I'm not the only one: The band is opening for White Rabbits at the Record Bar in Kansas City on June 1.

Anyway, in concert the quartet treads similar strummy-rock ground the Strokes did a few years back, but with much more verve and a decided lack of snotty boredom. "Roller Skates," a new studio creation, finds the Sham channeling the crinkly, wiry atmospheres of Modest Mouse, while Chris Phillips' vocals echo (but don't ape) Built to Spill's Doug Martsch and all sorts of indie dudes who can actually carry a tune.

Hear for yourself right here!

MP3: The Sham, "Roller Skates"

-- Annie Zaleski

Here are some choice outtakes from the Livers feature running this week. The band plays at the Bluebird tonight, with Yea Big & Kid Static, Robb Steele and Jason and the Beast.

MP3: The Livers, "2 Legs to Dance" (download)

MP3: The Livers, "Autistic Girlfriend" (download)

MP3: The Livers, "She Wolf" (download)

MP3: The Livers, "Humble Plight" (download)

Do you always sing lead on the ones you write? Scot Freeman: Yeah, we do, but there's a lot of universal themes going on. It's kind of a weepy bastard theme, which is really played out but it never really gets tired. Yeah, we've definitely got some hang-ups. Like, everybody has one or two breakup-y things that they'll never get over. And we've written some songs about that shit. But, I don't know. We're trying to, like, ease out of that into a little less obvious territory. Luke Roulston: [teasing] Scot, are you going into Elliot Smith land?

On why they go humorous:
Roulston: Have you ever watched a band where they spend way too much time talking in between their fucking songs? Part of a show is, like, making sure your guitar is in tune and that everything is okay and all that kind of stuff. It's like, "Why not at least make people fucking laugh while you're doing that stupid shit?" It seemed like a necessary element for our stuff to just make funny movies.
Freeman: We have a tendency to go to funny, cause that's what we like to do: to make each other laugh all the time. It's always about poop and pee and whatever, but, uh, we also try to make things that are cool and not just cats and stupid jokes.
Roulston: (joking) Yeah, let's do drama!

These days, it seems like St. Louis underground hip-hop is popping up on the national radar everywhere you turn. Even controversial hip-hop bible The Source is listening. In its most recent issue, the magazine devoted some column inches to most recent 9 Wonders mixtape by NYOIL -- a release hosted by DJ Trackstar. (Check out the article, including a scan of the album artwork, after the jump.)

A fan since hearing NYOIL’s song “Y’all Should All Get Lynched” in 2006 – “It’s an amazing song, very thought-provoking,” Trackstar says – the local hip-hop advocate contacted the Staten Island musician via MySpace and asked him to host one of his frequent mixtapes.

Oil eventually hosted Trackstar’s Boogie Bang 12 (which we reviewed here; download at the link here) -- and then, to Trackstar’s surprise and excitement, decided to return the favor.

“He asked me to help him with hs project,” Trackstar says, which turned out to be the mixtape DJ gig. “I wasn’t going into it looking for a partnership, [and] I don’t know what the future holds, but I’m definitely looking forward to working with him for awhile.”

Head on over to nyoil1.ning.com to download the free mix, which according to Trackstar’s weekly newsletter “features all nine tracks from the 9 Wonders EP: NYOil vs. 9th Wonder, plus highlights from the Hood Treason album as well as some unreleased treats."

(photo courtesy Jason Harper)

KC hip-hop phenom Mac Lethal is performing sorta-last minute at Atomic Cowboy tonight, April 17. The Rhymesayers artist is stopping by in support of his recent album, 11:11. Show starts at 10 p.m. it's 21-plus, tickets are $5 and DJ Sku and Spark1Duh? are also on the bill. Here's an excerpt of what our sista paper down I-70, the Pitch (and specifically, Dan LeRoy) says about him. Also, there are tunez. After the jump.

Thanks to F5 Records for permission to post this MP3 for stream and download. It's a remix of the Obama version of Chicago/Jersey hip-hop duo Kidz In the Hall's "Work to Do" (hear it at their MySpace). This version of the tune features Bun B, Talib Kweli and St. Louis' own Nato Caliph. I have an email into the latter for more info on the recording -- apparently Kidz In the Hall producer Naledge and Caliph recorded it together in the Lou -- and will append this post when I hear back.

In the meantime, download and stream the song right here.

MP3: Kidz in the Hall featuring Nato Caliph, Talib Kweli, Bun B, "Work To Do" (remix)

[Update, 4:22 p.m.: Caliph interview after the jump! Also, Kidz In the Hall's album In Crowd comes out May 13.]

I'm still sick. People, please go to this on my behalf and enjoy the sweet sounds of Athens, Georgia's Modern Skirts, especially since I am so sad to miss them. MP3s below to download (right-click) and play, posted with permission from the band. My critpick follows.

MP3: The Modern Skirts, "Pasadena"

MP3: The Modern Skirts, "N.Y. Song"

Athens, Georgia's pop legacy is well-preserved by the Modern Skirts, a quartet that has gracefully grown into its skin since purchasing a piano for $75 three years ago. Ben Folds' bittersweetness, the Beach Boys' spot-on harmonies and plenty of wholesome Big Star guitars mark the band's 2005 debut, Catalogue of Generous Men. "Seventeen Dirty Magazines" twinkles like a mobile above a baby's crib, "Pasadena" unfolds on a cushioned bed of dreamy riffs, and "My Lost Soprano" possesses a rollicking twang-pop edge. Naturally, Athens' most famous sons are listening: The Modern Skirts are opening for R.E.M. at an Amsterdam festival, and their upcoming sophomore release is co-produced by that band's bassist, Mike Mills, and Cracker frontman David Lowery.

St. Louis punk band The Humanoids recently finished recording their second EP, Year of the Snake, the follow-up to their debut release, Are Born. We have the artwork that's starting conversations and an MP3 you won't find anywhere else.

The EP – which will be released only as a vinyl seven-inch – has a target release date of July, says Greg Stinson, one of two guitar players in the band, which practices in the quaint North St. Louis County suburb of St. John. The RFT first wrote about the band in this May 2007 feature story.

The A-Side contains two songs, “Year of the Snake,” and “Drawing Board,” while the B-Side is a cover of the Wipers' “Youth of America” – one of the several songs you might have heard The Humanoids cover live (Other bands who have gotten the cover treatment include the Bad Brains, Dag Nasty and the Descendents).

Courtesy of the band, here’s the MP3 of the Wipers cover. Click the button for a pop-up MP3 player, or right click on the text link and select "Save Target As" to download the song.

The Humanoids - "Youth of America" (Wipers)

From initial listens, Snake follows the style of Are Born – i.e., melodic and driving SoCal punk that seems to attract local hardcore punks and the sugary pop-punkers of the Warped Tour set. But the new EP’s artwork doesn't quite jive with that of the first release, which resembles a comic-book style layout.