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Wilco. What does the name conjure up? The nephew of Uncle Tupelo?While I’ve never had more than a passing familiarity with their back catalogue, I’ve maintained somewhat of a distant curiosity…or at least I thought I had. How and ever, having always wanted to attend a concert in the famous La Bataclan, this opportunity seemed like a good way to begin a gig-heavy sojourn in Paris. Continue Reading »

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABeqFzHKzoE]

If there’s one indisputable characteristic of instrumental rock bands, it’s that they always seem to have a certain shared sense of intuition between them. Not only do Battles have this in spades, but they carry enough collective energy for a crowd to tap into and feed off limitlessly. Continue Reading »

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Although the half dozen members of The Besnard Lakes found room to squeeze onto Whelan’s tiny little stage, it was the soundman that became the centre of attention, quickly establishing himself as the focal point for the evening. For all his efforts (throughout the night he would position himself in various spots amongst the crowd in one long, continuous attempt to get the levels right), his frequent tweakings made little impact and often co-lead-singer Olga Goreas could not be heard at all. So between the frantic gesturing from band members and the constant turning of baffled heads in the audience, eyes seemed to be rarely off the engineer’s mixing desk. Continue Reading »

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Having been forced to cancel what was to be their debut Irish performance late last year, I don’t think many would dispute the claim that there were fewer gigs as highly anticipated as this one. Thankfully, not only was the enthusiasm flowing in both directions (before a single note had been played, Ed Droste jubilantly announced that Dublin was already the best destination on their tour), but for once I can honestly say that the sound was absolutely spot on, the venue’s acoustics perfectly up to the task of transmitting a live performance of one of the most stellar albums of 2006, “Yellow House.”[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuYZbYtAl9A]

With four vocalists and a variety of instruments (an auto-harp, a recorder, and a flute managing to feature seamlessly amongst the standard tools of an indie-rock band), the note for note renditions that followed were enough to squeeze (at least temporarily) the memory of any other gig I might have described as “mesmerising” out of mind. Shimmering versions of “The Knife” and “Colorado” were interspersed with a cover of the Crystals’ “He Hit Me” and Dan’s Rossen’s spine-tingling take of the traditional number, “Deep Blue Sea” – for which I whooped in advance, causing him to remark: “Cool. Two people have heard of it.”[audio ]

Download “Deep Blue Sea” – http://gvsbchris.com/15%20Deep%20Blue%20Sea.mp3

Quite simply, it was just one of those nights, a reaffirming celebration of word-of-mouth music that deserved every bit of the warm reception the band enjoyed [prompting Droste to declare: "we should just do a tour of Ireland for two months, playing pubs every night!"]. That Grizzly Bear are accessible enough to personally accommodate you while making your mind up between buying a vinyl copy of their album or one of their fantastic t-shirts, only draws a line under the experience of seeing them live. A wonderful album, a phenomenal band, and one surely destined only for further greatness.

Popularity: 3% [?]

So far this year, I’ve been getting back into the concept of mixtaping. This is partly due to my reading of the Thurston Moore-edited Mix Tape: The Art of Cassette Culture and also due to various little articles that were popping up around the same time.
It was then that I found websites such as Art of the Mix, International Mixtape Project, and Tiny Mix Tape’s Mixtape Generator.
Art of the Mix itself is a long-running, established website home to daily submissions (some of which are available download), mix-of-the-week award, and encouraging user feedback.

A Cleansing Presence…A Shining Path
1. Darondo – Didn’t I
2. Grizzly Bear – Easier
3. Emiliana Torrini – Nothing Brings Me Down
4. Alela Diane – The Rifle
5. Hidden Cameras – Learning The Lie
6. Juana Molina – La Verdad (live @ kcrw)
7. Fruit Bats – Death of the Clayton Peacock
8. Cymande – The Message
9. Beirut – Postcards from Italy
10. Elliot Smith – Roman Candle
11. Moondog – Lament 1, ‘Bird’s Lament’
12. M. Ward – Rollercoster
13. Richard Hawley – Just Like The Rain
14. The Dandy Warhols – Not Your Bottle
15. Bibio – It was Willow
16. White White Quilt – Evenin’ Low
17. Andrew Bird & Nora O’Connor – Oh Sister
18. Patrick Watson – The Great Escape
19. Stina Nordenstam – People Are Strange
20. Skuli Sverrisson – Seria
21. John Lurie – Horse Guitar
22. Loudon Wainwright III – Lullaby
23. Ryan Adams – Sweet Lil Gal (23rd/1st)
24. David Thomas Broughton – Ever Rotating Sky (edit)
Download

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