Rawkblog

Video: Midlake – “Roscoe” @ Buffalo Billiards, SXSW 2010

David Greenwald — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:56:03 +0000

From Midlake’s 1 a.m. headlining set. Apologies for the terrible sound. Field test of my new Droid. More: all Rawkblog SXSW coverage.

Live: SXSW 2010, Day 2

David Greenwald — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:35:32 +0000

The Happy Hollows / photo by David Greenwald

My photos and recap of Day 2 of SXSW 2010 will be over on Cokemachineglow later today, featuring Happy Hollows (pictured), Blair, Warpaint, Centro-matic, Dum Dum Girls, Local Natives, Miles Kurosky and Midlake.

Live: SXSW 2010, Day 1

David Greenwald — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:00:06 +0000

Photo by David Greenwald

Photos/ramblings re: yesterday’s madness (featuring Spoon, Rose Elinor Dougall [pictured], Real Estate, Toro Y Moi, Yukon Blonde, International Waters and more) will be up on Cokemachineglow this afternoon. Hugs!

Rawkblog + SXSW 2010: A Love Story

David Greenwald — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 15:00:00 +0000

Photo by David Greenwald

Friends, as you read this, I’m probably hungover in some godforsaken Austin hotel, girding my loins and liver for the 2010 SXSW Festival. (I wrote this post last week. Magic!) It’ll be my first rodeo here at the million-band fest and I’ll be doing my damndest to see at least one act for every beer consumed (I make no promises on the former). I’ll be covering all week for Cokemachineglow, with my review and photos of today’s madness up there tomorrow (more here, of course) and live music updates on Twitter at @cmgzine (and live beer updates, as usual, on Twitter at @daverawkblog). One promise: no bullshit “[Hyped band] is [killing] it! They’re playing [cool song] at [venue you're not at]!” Tweets. Pals, if you’re not here, hope you enjoy the pix/thoughts and if you are, holler, will ya?

Previously: SXSW 2010: 50 Bands to Watch

First Look: Laura Veirs – “July Flame”

David Greenwald — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 15:00:32 +0000

As Laura Veirs’ July Flame, the follow-up to 2007’s Nonesuch-released Saltbreakers, sat in label limbo last summer, the Decemberists’ Colin Meloy Tweeted that it was his favorite record of the year and added, “Please pester @nonesuchrecords and tell ‘em to PUT IT OUT!” Why they didn’t is beyond me. July Flame is a terrific record, heartfelt and magnetic folk that recalls Michigan-era Sufjan Stevens and humble enough to include an ode to legendary session bassist Carole Kaye. It’s clever without being quirky, as best shown on “Life is Good Blues,” a mournful melody matched to cup-half-full lyrics. My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, Karl Blau and others contribute here and there, but the focus is always on Veirs, who steps into the spotlight without either affectations or shyness. It’s an album to believe in — even if one former label did not.

Laura Veirs – “July Flame”: mp3

(July Flame is out now on Veirs’ own Raven Marching Band Records)

More: New Music | 2010 Album Release Calendar

SXSW 2010: 50 Bands To Watch

David Greenwald — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 22:21:14 +0000

Boat Beam

SXSW is supposed to be a new music festival, but frankly, if you’ve savvy enough to be reading this blog post, you’ve been listening to the best “new” acts playing the Austin festival for the last year. I can say this definitively because I’ve just listened to every single one of the 1038 songs available on the free, legal SXSW 2010 torrent, a fascinating experience I recommend to everybody. It also proved that, despite the indie roar echoing through the blogosphere right now, SXSW isn’t an indie fest at all — not by half! At least not as genres are concerned. Judging by the torrent, the most prominent sounds in Austin this week, in declining order, will be hip-hop (yes, really!), Spanish-language world music, terrible ’90s-style pop-punk, terrible The Fray-style modern rock, would-be Neko Case alt-country, terrible heavy metal and then, finally, indie rock. That tiny chunk is then further splintered into terrible dance-y Hype Machine-ready remixes, terrible post-rock, terrible anthem-rock in the vein of the Arcade Fire, Bloc Party or both at the same time, and then — then! — a handful of interesting bands. Luckily for you, dear reader, I’ve picked out 50 songs/bands that struck me the most from the thousand available for your listening enjoyment — both at home on your iPod and this week in Austin, should you be in town. (Say hi!) Grab the .zip after the jump.

An important caveat: For the sake of brevity, I deleted all the good tracks by bands I (and presumably you) am already familiar with. So I’m hoping at this point you don’t need me to tell you about Toro Y Moi, Cymbals Eat Guitars, Sally Seltmann, Midlake, The Happy Hollows, Blair, Real Estate, Miles Kurosky, Devon Williams, ARMS, Pepper Rabbit or the other dozen or so really great, spotlight-ready bands that I’m most anticipating (and have already been blogged from here to eternity).

Another caveat: Most of this is singer-songwriter-y or indie-pop because that’s what I like. There is some variety, so keep clicking if you don’t like cute-sounding girls playing guitars, but then again, you can always make one of these yourself. Happy listening!

SXSW 2010: Rawkblog 50 Bands To Watch: ZIP

Old Music: The Middle East – “The Recordings of the Middle East” (2008)

David Greenwald — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:00:36 +0000

I wonder if it ever dawned on Andy Warhol that someday, everyone would have their 15 minute of fame… simultaneously. Indie rock’s greatest problem at the moment, whether one’s in a band trying to signal through the noise or a listener trying to sort through the muck, is the sheer glut of material: in any given day, Pitchfork (just for instance) reviews five albums, three tracks and drops another half-dozen MP3s on Forkcast. And they’re supposed to be the filter! No wonder Best New Music bands become such lightning rods for sales and attention: it’s too much fucking work to listen to the rest.

As buzz band vehicle SXSW revs up this week, Australian act The Middle East are the latest act to land enough Internet praise to catch the scent of whatever “hype” means in 2010. But how? Their debut record, 2008’s The Recordings of the Middle East, is an intermittently solid record that wavers between wonderfully insistent harmonized folk (”The Darkest Side,” “Fool’s Gold”) and the milquetoast vocal post-rock available on any noise-oriented CD-R blog. However, that debut record was never released in the U.S. — and a trimmer EP, with some of the sub-Sigur Ros meanderings sliced off, made it here last October. A star is born! Rumor has it the band’s next record is done; if they bring the new songs and a sharper direction to SXSW, it may be clear if The Middle East are a project with a future (and as ethereal acts go at the moment, I’d rather recommend The Rest’s 2009 debut), but until then, The Recordings Of shows enough promise to justify these first few minutes in the spotlight.

The Middle East – “The Darkest Side”: mp3

More: New Music | 2010 Album Release Calendar

David Greenwald — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 22:46:46 +0000

Guys, the Wall Street Journal did an article about chillwave. And reported that Hipster Runoff invented it! Feeling proud/embarrassed/fearing the apocalypse.