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Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Jim Connelly's
Favorite Recordings Of 2006
Monday, January 15, 2007
Jesse Steichen's Favorite Recordings Of 2006
Friday, January 12, 2007
Bill Bentley's Favorite Recordings Of 2006
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Tom Ridge's Favorite Recordings Of 2006
Thursday, January 4, 2007
Lee Templeton's Favorite Recordings Of 2006
Tuesday, January 2, 2007
Anthony Carew's 13 Fave Albums Of 2006
Monday, March 27, 2006
SXSW 2006: Finding Some Hope In Austin
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Letter From New Orleans
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Jennifer Przybylski's Fave Albums of 2005
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Music For Dwindling Days: Max Schaefer's Fave Recordings Of 2005
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Sean Fennessey's 'Best-Of' 2005
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Lori Miller Barrett's Fave Albums Of 2005
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Lee Templeton's Favorite Recordings of 2005
Thursday, January 5, 2006
Michael Lach - Old Soul Songs For A New World Order
Wednesday, January 4, 2006
Found In Translation — Emme Stone's Year In Music 2005
Tuesday, January 3, 2006
Dave Allen's 'Best-Of' 2005
Monday, January 2, 2006
Steve Gozdecki's Favorite Albums Of 2005
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Johnny Walker Black's Top 10 Of 2005
Monday, December 19, 2005
Neal Block's Favorite Recordings Of 2005
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Jenny Tatone's Year In Review
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Dave Renard's Fave Recordings Of 2005
Monday, December 12, 2005
Jennifer Kelly's Fave Recordings Of 2005
Thursday, December 8, 2005
Tom Ridge's Favorite Recordings Of 2005
Tuesday, December 6, 2005
Ben Gook's Beloved Albums Of 2005
Monday, December 5, 2005
Anthony Carew's Fave Albums Of 2005
Thursday, November 10, 2005
Prince, Spoon And The Magic Of The Dead Stop
Monday, September 12, 2005
The Truth About America
Monday, September 5, 2005
Tryin' To Wash Us Away
Monday, August 1, 2005
A Psyche-Folk Heat Wave In Western Massachusetts
Monday, July 18, 2005
Soggy But Happy At Glastonbury 2005
Monday, April 4, 2005
The SXSW Experience, Part 3: All Together Now
Friday, April 1, 2005
The SXSW Experience, Part 2: Dr. Dog's Happy Chords
Thursday, March 31, 2005
The SXSW Experience, Part 1: Waiting, Waiting And More Waiting
Friday, March 25, 2005
Final Day At SXSW's Charnel House
Monday, March 21, 2005
Day Three At SXSW
Saturday, March 19, 2005
Day Two In SXSW's Hall Of Mirrors
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Report #1: SXSW 2005 And Its Hall Of Mirrors
Monday, February 14, 2005
Matt Landry's Fave Recordings Of 2004
Wednesday, February 2, 2005
David Howie's 'Moments' From The Year 2004
Thursday, January 27, 2005
Lori Miller Barrett's Fave Recordings Of 2004
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Noah Bonaparte's Fave Recordings Of 2004
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
Kevin John's Fave Albums Of 2004
Friday, January 14, 2005
Music For Those Nights: Max Schaefer's Fave Recordings Of 2004
Thursday, January 13, 2005
Dave Renard's Fave Recordings Of 2004
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Neal Block's Top Ten Of 2004
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Jenny Tatone's Fave Albums Of 2004
Monday, January 10, 2005
Wayne Robins' Top Ten Of 2004
Friday, January 7, 2005
Brian Orloff's Fave Albums Of 2004
Thursday, January 6, 2005
Johnny Walker (Black)'s Top 10 Of 2004
Wednesday, January 5, 2005
Jennifer Przybylski's Fave Albums (And Book) Of 2004
Tuesday, January 4, 2005
Mark Mordue's Fave Albums Of 2004
Monday, January 3, 2005
Lee Templeton's Fave Recordings Of 2004
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Thursday, November 10, 2005
Prince, Spoon And The Magic Of The Dead Stop
Neumu's Jennifer Kelly writes: During the long interval between the end of Mary Timony's abrasive,
post-hardcore set and the beginning of Spoon's show, the loudspeakers at
cavernous Pearl Street in Northampton, Massachusetts thudded with the bass-heavy,
drum-booming strains of Prince. Extended mixes of body-pummeling tracks
like "Let Me Do My Magic" and "Dance Music Sex Romance" showcased the
Purple One's sublime mix of minimalism and over-the-top excess, florid
orchestration and dead-blank, funk-sudden stops, and led inexorably to
some stray thoughts about the latest Spoon album, the one that the band
would be highlighting tonight.
It's no secret that Spoon frontman Britt Daniel listened to Prince
obsessively during the making of his falsetto-crooned, bare-rhythmed
Gimme Fiction, one of this year's best records, and here, if you
hadn't made the connection before, it was written in big block letters in
tracks like "I Turn My Camera On" and "They Never Got You." The hint's
dropped early and often in Spoon's muscular yet restrained rhythm section
of Jim Eno and Joshua Zarbo, and in Daniel's smooth soul delivery, yet it's
more what you don't hear than what you do that drives the comparison.
Of Prince's "Kiss," Daniel noted two years ago in an interview that "It's
very, very minimal, and I think that's part of why it works so
well. Almost all of what you're hearing is very simple drum machines that
have a kind of delay on them, and then in the background, you hear this
really wispy funk guitar, and then just vocal... less will make it better a
lot of times." And less, here tonight, was definitely quite effective.
Tonight, Daniel and band mates Jim Eno, Joshua Zarbo and Eric Harvey took
the stage in darkness, as a restless crowd stomped and hooted. There were
more girls than most bands draw here, some with boyfriends, some in packs
near the stage, confirming my hunch that Spoon is sort of a chick
band. Maybe it's that romantic falsetto. In any case, the band started
with a sluggish, flood-lit version of "The Beast and Dragon Adored," the
first track off their latest album, then followed with a much better, much
more lively version of "The Two Sides of Monsieur Valentine." It was here,
mid-song, that Spoon executed one of the first of many perfect dead stops
— a lurch into syncopated silence, a recovery in absolute unison — that
define both this band's funk-leaning minimalism and Prince's sex-tinged
danceability.
OK, we're doing the new album in order, I mused — what is this, the CD
release party? No, actually not. The next song up was keyboard-driven and
new wave melodic "Someone Something" with Eric Harvey pounding out the
skinny-tie chords. There were a couple of tunes from the even more pop
Girls Can Tell, like old school photos, to show how these boys have
grown. "Lines in the Suit" and "Fitted Shirt" with their driving,
straight-up rhythms and delicate harmonies, sounded like a relic from a
different band, but sound good, very good, after all those years.
Then back to the now, or at least the last spring, of Gimme
Fiction, with a shimmering, psyche-heavy rendition of "A Delicate Place"
(Harvey had switched back to guitar) and the stark, white-space studded
lightness of "I Turn My Camera On". Here Daniel and Eno were in absolute
sync, the frontman hitting staccato downbeats on guitar while his drummer
answered with thwacked-out snare on the ups. What followed was the easiest,
the power-poppiest song on Spoon's latest, "Sister Jack." This song is all
about discomfort ("I can't relax/ With my knees on the ground/ And a stick in
my back") and yet sees the band as joyful, sure and comfortable as ever.
It struck me that metal bands are the fuzziest, happiest memories for
indie rock heroes — with Daniel reminiscing about his drop-d days almost as nostalgically as Tweedy for his lost Kiss-covering era.
Spoon are a very good live band, but they are not the sort of band — Sonic
Youth, Gang of Four, Constantines, Mahjongg, to pick some random recent
examples — that you absolutely cannot understand unless you see them in
concert. Their live show is smooth and professional, a good recap of a
diverse and interesting career, an enjoyable evening, but it does not take
their recorded output into another dimension. However, they do manage to
extend and expand some of their more restrained album cuts, upping the ante
for the live setting. "Paper Tiger" is one such cut. Live, it starts as it
does on Kill the Moonlight, with heavily amplified drumstick clicks,
augmented under purple spotlights by Eno's heavy-malleted drumming. The
song picks up power and volume, transcending its understated album
version, Daniel's vocals glowing as he sings, "I will be there with you
when you turn out the lights." In the same way, "Small Stakes" grows
dramatically on the stage, starting with Eno churning out a rapid and
rimshot-laced rhythm, Harvey's keyboards amping up the rock and Daniel
pushing the pace faster than the album's. "Small Stakes" always seemed
baroquely pop, yet here it became unmistakably rock.
The band dipped back into its catalog for "Everything Hits at Once," the
soul-pop highlight from Girls Can Tell, then brought latecomers back
into the game with "The Living End," from the OC soundtrack. The
cut caused a visible stir on the floor, and when technical problems snarled a
first attempt at "They Never Got You," Daniel cracked, "No, we're just going
to play 'The Living End' again, you OC motherfuckers." It wasn't as
mean as it sounded — he actually seemed to be in an expansive mood. "We've
never played here before," he said at one point, "And to play to this kind
of crowd in a new place, that's pretty cool."
At this point, the band played my other favorite song from Gimme
Fiction, which is "I Summon You." The song is virtually unchanged from
the album version, which itself was almost identical to an earlier demo,
but no matter, it's a wonderful song, full of lust and longing and
distance, and if you can't identify with the lines, "Oh, no, where are you
tonight?" sung with sweet regret, you need to fall in love a couple more times.
Spoon went on from here — with spiky tunes like "The Way We Get By" and
smoothly difficult ones like "My Mathematical Mind" — finding the sexual
bravado in the high falsetto and the hip-shifting groove in the missing
beat. Like Prince, they can be appreciated on different levels, as a
superlative pop band or as something altogether more difficult and
unique. They both let the white space around the beats define what they do
as much as the notes themselves, and they both can stop on a dime, tease
your expectations and, when you're more than ready, jump right back in again.
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