BONJOUR WISCONSIN!

By now you've probably heard of Bon Iver. If you haven't, it's the title a guy named Justin Vernon has given to his first solo endeavor following the breakup of his previous band called DeYarmond Edison, whoever they were. The new project's name is apparently an intentional misspelling of "bon hiver," which means 'good winter' in French. I guess Vernon decided that a correct spelling would have lead to many a mispronunciation among the uncultured masses of les Etats Unis.

It seems to me, however, that now that the phrase isn't immediately recognizable as French, even those familiar with Français who would have pronounced "bon hiver" correctly might not notice the resemblance to the French phrase and will call him "bahn eye-ver" like everyone else outside the know probably will. For the record, it should be pronounced "bohn ee-vare," but after the precedent we set with Duh Moine, Iowa, it would appear that Americans don't really care how the French pronounce their words. I suppose we should've seen this current trend of xenophobia coming.

But that's all beside the point: Vernon recently released his debut album under the new moniker, entitled For Emma, Forever Ago, and it is worth a listen or three. The songs are steeped in myriad layers of Vernon's brand of Jackson-Brownish guitar and falsetto vocals that fall somewhere between Bonnie "Prince" Billie and Tunde Adebimpe from TV On The Radio. But this isn't your usual indie-folk album -- no, no, no, as Ira Glass might say. All nine songs were recorded over a period of three months which Vernon spent alone in a shack, deep in the woods of Wisconsin. The story is reminiscent of the book/movie Into The Wild, only instead of kicking the bucket Vernon survived and has a really pretty "neo-soul" album (as his myspace advertises) to show for it. The aura that the setting contributes to the record's aesthetic is unmistakable. The utter solitude in which they were produced makes standout tracks like "Skinny Love" and "Re: Stacks" have an even greater effect on the listener. One can only imagine the sort of internal dialog that must be constantly occupying the thoughts of an especially sensitive and eloquent human being alone in nature with a lot on his mind. Three months of this dialog are packed tight into the 37-minute Emma, giving each song a sense of weight and the album an impressively cohesive feel. So I'd recommend checking out Bon Iver, or at least remember how it's pronounced. Or don't, cause these days it might you get deported.

Bon Iver - "Skinny Love"
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the place is called jerky's, we should've known better

If you're ever thinking about going to see Diplo spin at Jerky's bar in downtown Providence FORGET ABOUT IT HE'S NOT COMING.

Ten of us trekked through the snow, sleet, and slush at least an entire mile tonight just to be told that Diplo had canceled his gig at the retardedly/aptly titled Jerky's in the PVD. The cancellation was announced on the radio, we were told. Because that's what you do before you leave to go to a show. You check on the radio. For future reference, musicians/recording artists/djs of the world: if almost a dozen Brown students can get it together to make it down that effing hill on foot, you should be able to get it together to drive your automobile to Rhode Island from wherever you're coming from (like Philly if you're from there like Diplo is hollaaaaa).

I have a headache from all the MGMT I've had to listen to tonight so goodnight. Continue reading...

i love ugly little goats

On Friday night I went with my friend Lizzie and her friend Sam to see the second of two sold out Magnetic Fields shows at the Somerville Theater, on the outskirts of Boston. I’d seen them once before, at Penn University in Philadelphia just before their last album, I, came out, back in 2004. In the context of the younger generation of Magnetic Fields fans I was a relatively late bloomer, becoming only somewhat interested in them when my mom’s boyfriend Dan would occasionally play 69 Love Songs around the house just after the turn of the most recent century.

It was not until I came out of the closet to elope with Stephin Merritt that I realized their total fucking awesomeness. Being the professional music journalist that he is, Dan had received the 14-song alliteratively-themed, alphabetically-ordered godsend a few months before its official release, giving me enough time to memorize every last word of it before the show. It came as no surprise to me, then, that the audience at this early-2004 show found the punch line lyrics of the humorous I tracks, like “I Don’t Believe You” and “I Wish I Had an Evil Twin,” to be LOL funny. Lines like “I had a dream and you were in it/The blue of your eyes was infinite/You seemed to be/In love with me/Which isn’t very realistic” and “My evil twin would lie and steal/And he would stink of sex appeal/All men would writhe/Beneath his scythe/He’d send the pretty ones to me” brought down the HOUSE, and I didn’t bat an eye.

Friday night, however, it’s fair to say that one or two of my eyes got the shit batted out of them. Not only did the amusing cuts off of their new Distortion, like “The Nun’s Litany” and “Too Drunk To Dream,” totally kill, but the same damn lines from I and previous albums were greeted as if their comedic value was as fresh and unexpected as the combination of a sassy child and a well-executed surprise party. I don’t want to come across as some grumpy die-hard Magnetic Fields fan who looks down his nose at those who can’t recite both parts of “Yeah, Oh Yeah” whenever prompted. However the only explanations for this phenomenon I could come up with were a) that Magnetic Fields fans are just always ready to laugh and have a good time, b) many of them suffer from lyric memory loss, or c) they paid $30+ to go to a show by a band they’ve hardly listened to (insert joke about Magnetic Fields fans being so old they are senile here).

Aside from the occasionally confusing crowd behavior, the show was, oh, you know, fucking wonderful. Merritt, clad in his monkish spectrum of brown and affecting his usual endearingly feigned reluctance, led his quintet through two-dozen songs, old and new, released and un-, and all sounding clean as a whistle despite the reverb-dominated aesthetic of Distortion. A highlight of the night was a little ditty about a “very ugly, tiny goat” sung by Merritt’s right hand woman, Claudia Gonson, but unmistakably written by and about Merritt himself, chronicling the trials and tribulations of a little unlovable goat.

But as unappealing as Merritt may look, his appearance is all but forgotten when you watch him sing a song like “Papa Was A Rodeo” as beautifully as he does, and then immediately cringe and press his ear against his shoulder to prevent the adoring applause from reaching his hyper-sensitive eardrums. The tour, which is completely sold out, travels to NYC next for four nights at the Town Hall Theatre, followed by two in San Fran and LA, three in Seattle, and finishing with four in Chicago. Check out the set list below. From what I overheard at the show they have been changing it up quite a bit from night to night but I’m guessing the mix of album sources will be pretty consistent.

California Girls
I Don’t Believe You
All My Little Words
Come Back From San Francisco
Old Fools
Xavier Says
Gothic Archies - Walking My Gargoyle
Too Drunk To Dream
Till The Bitter End
The Night You Can’t Remember
Water Torture – singing training song
Lovers From The Moon
I Wish I Had An Evil Twin
The 6ths cover – Give Me Back My Dreams
Grand Canyon
Papa Was A Rodeo
Drive On, Driver
The Nun’s Litany (sung by Stephin)
The Tiny Goat?
Smoke And Mirrors
Zombie Boy

Encore:
Three-Way
Take Ecstasy With Me
The Book Of Love Continue reading...