Washed Out

 

Sometimes you just want pastels.

Energie top, vintage rosary, Express shorts, Payless wedges

I excavated these from the depths of my dresser. I know embellished denim from Express doesn’t scream “cool,” but these are just what I want in a pair of shorts this season: light wash, ripped, studded, but not too much of any of the above. Plus, I like the flip indecency of an exposed pocket or two.

I call this my secular rosary since the cross fell off. Maybe it was a sign that I shouldn’t be appropriating a sacred relic for fashion.

South By Southwest

I didn’t hit SXSW too hard this year, and I think that’s what made it so pleasant. I spent more time at friends’ houses than at venues this week. I had one hour-plus driving experience within a three mile radius, with suicidal pedestrians outnumbering parking spots 5,000 to one. I stuck to out-of-the-way venues with free shows that I knew I wanted to see. As a result, I made it through with more money than I started with, minimal hangovers, and some semblance of rejuvenation to start this week.

I got photographed for the Urban Outfitters blog. I wasted this little moment of style exposure on nearly the same outfit as my other, uh, press. At least I can say I follow my own advice.

This was taken right before I fell in love with Eleanor Friedberger again. I’d seen her play with the Fiery Furnaces before, all scowls and miss-matched clothes, flying through the awkward lyrics as if auctioning off absurdity. Seeing her alone with her accoustic guitar doing some songs off Last Summer cemented my opinion that she can tell touching, authentic stories that are just as interesting without the bells and whistles of Fiery Furnace songs.

Some other bands:

Best Coast

My friend used a little deception and a few connections to sneak us past a huge line of grouchy teenagers to see this show. We caught the last few songs. It was exactly what I expected, except I expected the free beer to not have run out.

The Strange Boys

So good. Everyone seemed happy to be crammed together under the disco ball for this experience.

Light Asylum

I was resistant to this harsh Brooklyn duo. It seemed designed for eardrum assault, and it was not a good match for a sunny afternoon under a tent. Between songs, Shannon Funchess quit singing like an opera understudy of doom to plug their new album too much and make vague quasi-political statements. But if I said I didn’t do a bit of dancing it would be a lie.

Grimes

Okay, fine, Pitchfork. I’m becoming the stereotypical girl who’s entranced by Grimes. Visions is a refreshing album, and she performs that music like a damn MAGICIAN. She was sick during the show I saw, but hit her signature high notes as best as she could. She’s like a riot grrl for 2012, although she has a totally different sound, audience, etc. It’s in the way that she shrieks instead of crooning, performs like Lykke Li but runs her own show (instead of just banging the occasional drum), and dresses like a 10-year-old without parents. She’s that geeky girl you really should have sat next to in the middle school cafeteria.

Psychic Ills/ Crocodiles

Man, I don’t know. The beer was free.

For Those About to Rock

Photo by Thomas Allison

Albertus Swanepoel for Target hat – Urban Outfitters top - Forever 21 bustier - vintage necklace - Target belt - vintage shorts

Jessica Lee (of Sparkle and Stripes)  kindly featured me in an article about South by Southwest style for The Daily Texan, our university’s newspaper.

I’ll be working a lot during SXSW, but at least I’ll be just a block away from the free, back lot shows at UO. Can’t wait to see the lovely Eleanor Friedberger and Grimes on Saturday. So many choices, so little time. 

One Fine Evening: Bill Callahan Starts Apocolypse Tour

A Bill Callahan audience is respectful. A few strums of his guitar and the Mohawk crowd of his fellow Austinites silenced itself to gaze onward, rapt. He opened with “Riding for the Feeling” and flowed through nearly as many songs from 2009′s “Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle” as the new album he was kicking off the tour for, “Apocalypse.” The band seated behind him on the outdoor stage carefully kept up with his songs’ copious tempo changes as Callahan sang them, clad in an all-black suit like Johnny Cash (with the bass vocals and chugging train rhythms to match).

The set was interrupted only by a few “HO!!!!”s and loud beats carrying down the street from Emo’s, where hip-hop group Atmophere was playing the same night. Slug was not rapt; he just rapped.

Callahan’s audience did some whooping and hollering of its own during “America!,” his ode to our “grand and golden” country. Maybe they were digging the way the pace speeds and the guitars rev up, but it probably had more to do with TV news playing mute above the bar, still plastered with headlines: US Kills Bin Laden. He subtly inserted Pakistan into the lyrics’ list of targeted countries.

Photo by Chris Taylor

Tunes from “Woke on a Whale Heart” were ignored entirely, but luckily he closed and encored with Smog favorites off “A River Ain’t Too Much to Love.”

At first, it’s hard to see the benefits of hearing the songwriter live. The music, too substantial and genuine to call for any stage theatrics, is performed so true to the recordings. And his albums are so warm, and recorded so perfectly that you get as familiar with his voice as with a good friend’s. But his careful control over the songs is impressive in itself, and his perpetually  twisted facial expressions show how enveloped he is within them.

In an interview with The Rumpus, Callahan said that each show is like building a new city with the audience in the space of an hour. Last night’s “city” was a peaceful one on the outskirts of a metropolis with a big hip-hop scene. Its structures were built in spite of the threat of wildfires, budget cuts, and tornado season. The climate was colder and darker than surrounding regions, and the good people held fast to a set of common values. There was only one village idiot pumping his fist in the air. And, of course, it was in America.

Christmas Playlist Superior to What You Have to Hear at Work

I enjoy Christmas music for about three minutes each holiday season. This year it happened as I drove home on Thanksgiving night and a classic version of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” came on the radio. I thought, My, this is actually a very lovely song. Then Alvin & the Chipmunks or Mariah Carey doing “Santa Baby” probably came on, and I promptly switched the dial back to gangsta rap.

I’ve hypothesized that Christmas music has the potential to get so unbearable ( in only a couple of months time!) because a new song gets written maybe every 5 years. The genre is one big cover band, and every pop superstar is invited.

So, I’ve compiled a playlist for myself and those who have never thought, Damn, the only way “Frosty the Snowman”  could get better is if Taylor Swift sang it.

I chose these songs for their vague relation to Christmas or winter, or for their exemplary use of jingle bells.

“Everything is One Big Christmas Tree”- The Magnetic Fields  An obvious choice.

“Winter on Victoria Street”- The Clientele  All Clientele songs sound wintery to me, but this one has a title that validates that. Perfect for when you’re walking down sidewalks wearing a warm coat and the sun is actually shining. These concurrent vocal lines are going on in your headphones and you’re thinking, “WTF is Seasonal Affective Disorder?”

“A Little Story”- Daniel Johnston  Johnston explains Christianity in 3 minutes and 21 seconds. Reminds us all that “Jesus came to set us free/cuz his dad had a great idea about the way things ought to be.”

“A Higher Power”- Jenz Lekman  A song with exultant strings that’s mainly about making out and other romantic things (“At the Christmas party I’d hold your hair when you vomit.”)

“Knee Deep at the National Pop League”- Camera Obscura  It’s like if a tragic romance was a sleigh ride, but that sleigh ride is actually just a song on a playlist.

“I’m Not in Love”- Crystal Castles feat. Robert Smith  Can this band just go back and redo the 80s better? This cover was an odd idea, but after a couple listens, it’s so right. No one grates you with coolness like Crystal Castles, and no one can sound as sad as Smith singing “It’s cold outside…when you coming  home?/’Cause it’s hot inside…isn’t that enough?”

 Give it a listen: http://snd.sc/eoWFjY

“Joy! Joy! Joy!”- Sufjan Stevens  He has released a great deal of Christmas songs, but this wierd declaration of peace and joy works just as well. It’s fun and electro-bumping, with cacophonous bells and a distorted speaking interlude. It’s funny how similar this 7-year-old song is to the supposedly new and shocking direction he took with ”The Age of Adz” (which I’m totally on board with, for the record).  

“Everything Will Be Alright”- The Killers  This song is actually quite nice. Jingle bells are slow and plentiful, plus it’s forever tied to a memory of me and my friend Alecia hot tubbing on a snowy Colorado night with, like, 4 cute boys from Nebraska. Anyway, um… make this part of your family’s tradition!

“This Will Be Our Year”- The Zombies  End with a sweet New Year’s song, of course.

Girl Crush

For a couple of dudes, Girls (songwriter Christopher Owens and producer Chet “JR” White) know how to get into a feminine mindset. “I wonder if he is impressed? Should I have worn the other dress?” Christopher Owens muses in the opening track of the band’s latest EP, the dramatically titled Broken Dreams Club.

Fans of Girls’ debut album,called Album (confusion ends here, I promise), won’t be disappointed. It even has similar cover art: four photos featuring roses and the guys sitting on beds.

The new EP delivers their usual knack for feel-good downers, this time with the welcome addition of…lots of brass? It works because it’s not grandiose (that would destroy the charm in a heartbeat). Instead, the instrumentation comes together to achieve a real 50s doo-wop feeling, especially on the A side. It takes you out to the hop, but that hop is in San Fransisco and you’re wearing Wayfarers indoors with that poodle skirt.

Pedal steel and swaggering trombone on the title track make it golden, but not an oldie. “Heartbreaker,” however, is so predictable that you’ll swear you’ve heard it on multiple family road trips. But hey, I can’t say it’s bad.

Girls record songs for slow dancing in you apartment kitchen, for closing time, and for Urban Outfitters promotional videos (true story).

These songs are sure of themselves, but do nothing if not celebrate being young and aimless.

Owens’ stoner-surfer voice was made for “Substance,” an ode to those illicit materials that “help you rock’n'roll.” But it’s actually a complacent tune about giving up on reality. Dee Dee from Dum Dum Girls lends backup vocals.

Sharp breathing and relentless snare give “Alright” the most potential for jostling around at a live show, but it, too, breaks down into an easy sway.

“Carolina,” the last song, takes a while to emerge from it’s foggy beginning, but once Owens sweetly suggests he “carry you home to Carolina and never let you go,” that’s it. You’re smitten.

Visions of Joanna

After gingerly hiking up the Paramount theater’s carpeted stairs, one has a good view of  a harp-playing angel painted on the concave ceiling. Last night Joanna Newsom was perched at her own harp on the stage, directly beneath it.

“I see they got my rider,” she joked upon noticing the coincidence. It was the perfect setting for a night of gorgeous musicianship and, you know, an awkwardly long discussion about breakfast tacos among her band members. Percussion, banjo, violins, trombone, and some good ol’ hand clapping rounded out Newsom’s songs. The band played a satisfying mix of selections from all three of her major albums, even including three songs from Ys nearing 10 minutes each.

But it was the performance of her newest material from Have One on Me that was the most fun (“Good Intentions Paving Company”) and heartbreaking (“Go Long”). It is her more personal songs of late that get an eager audience closer to the songwriter who possess what has been called “celestial pluck.” The stories Newsom now weaves so gracefully with her improved (but still unmistakable) voice, half childish chirp and half folksy rasp, take place in homes, in California,  and in averagely poignant relationships we can all relate to.

She closed the set with a well received rendition of “Peach, Plum, Pear,” in which she changed a prominent lyric to past tense. “I was blue,” she sang, and soon skipped offstage to the roar of a standing ovation in her blue and white checkered dress and a big smile.

*photo originally published in Bust magazine

Good Grief: A Review of Destroyer’s Latest EP

“Grief Point,” like any good conceptual work, was something I knew I’d be a sucker for upon hearing the description alone. The second of two songs on the Archer on the Beach 12” (created with the help of Tim Hecker and Loscil) finds Dan Bejar reading over ambient recordings from his own journal about making the recording itself. Tones pulse beneath found sounds of drinking, walking, flicking a lighter, and the distinct ring of an office telephone. Gentle and relaxed as his speech is, it’s a feat that nothing overpowers it. The song is highly personal, despite the way his informal reflections never stray far from the trademarks of his lyrics.
Above all, “Grief Point” is, for lack of a better word, a treat for his fans, who tend towards strong loyalty. His monologue is that of an intelligent voice filed down with humility, admitting to his own struggles with the creative process.

“Archer on the Beach” continues down the road Bay of Pigs paved with electricity, although no proverbial disco ball lowers from the ceiling halfway through to help it dance along its less cumbersome duration. It seems to confirm Bejar’s transition from wordiness to repetition. In last year’s Enemy Mine, his contributions to Swan Lake included lyrics such as “Spider, spider, spider!” and “Ahm ba da doo da da dum…” But we hear the same indicators of his writing style with his use of conversational phrases and a sort of verbal enjambment, the meanings twisting in different directions from one bar to the next.
Archer contains a sadness that sparkles just enough to keep the unsympathetic rapt.

Both bode well for January’s full-length, Kaputt.

“The problem with Destroyer is…” Bejar sings, trailing off with the tune of a heavy exhale. Twelve records in, I still don’t know how to finish that sentence.

Bikini Killer Style

She came in with her guns out

screaming about the ocean:

‘anybody wanna go with me?’

Never knew punk rock could be so pretty.

-Atmosphere, “Body Pillow”

Sorry for the blog hiatus. I’ve been vacationing in Washington and Oregon. It’s a gorgeous region (in the summer, at least…), if not a little culturally isolated. Just when I thought the Northwest hadn’t contributed much other than grunge and Starbucks, I happened to read up on the riot grrl movement. I was about a decade too late and several states too far south to take part in the young female takeover of punk music, but it’s certainly not too late to get inspired by the fashion. It looks as though some tough stuff will be in for fall, but still, skip the spikes and chains. 90s riot grrl style is like  punk’s cute little sister who can still kick your ass.

Short babydoll dresses were essential. Something about referencing the beauty of girlhood before self-consciousness and body image issues kicked in. Also good for non-political purposes like keeping your legs cool.

Painted Roses dress by Motel, $62.99 at Modcloth.

Also, do you have a sec to check out the back of this thing?

Good. Because it’s awesome.

Now, may I be obvious for a moment?

You’ll need a pair of Docs.

Dr. Martens black 8-eye boots, $99.99 at Journeys, $80 perhaps if you get a salesman who writes his unsolicited phone number on your receipt despite seeing you in your awkward dinosaur socks. Thanks Danny!

Diane Von Furstenberg cat eye sunglasses, $145 at Saks Fifth Avenue. I like how the large lenses make these a more modern, wearable cat eye.
Top off the look by writing on yourself with a permanent marker.

Kathleen Hanna (pic copied from thescreensiren.blogspot.com)

Have Sharpie, will reclaim terms.

Resist psychic death!

Vertical Striped Tights

If you like the fuzzy-gritty pop band Dum Dum Girls (or have browsed a fair amount of music journalism this year), you know that singer/guitarist Dee Dee never takes off her sheer, black, vertical striped tights. Seriously: they’ve been donned in every press photo, live photo, and when I saw her band play at South by Southwest a few months ago. My thoughts during that hot afternoon by the tented stage:

1)Here, girl with sensitive hearing, you can have my earplugs.

2) I LOVE THOSE TIGHTS.

These are more mature, less Halloween than black and white horizontal stripes. Plus, they make your legs look a mile long.

Complete the look with black short shorts and red lipstick. Turn up the reverb on your amp and you’re all set.