March 2009

Over 18 years and eight studio albums, Pearl Jam has proven itself to be far and away the most durable band to come from the original grunge movement. (Also the best, I would argue.) Nirvana trumps them on mystique and cultural impact, mostly because Kurt Cobain blew his brains out, but Pearl Jam had the courage to experiment, to risk failure, to grow up and shed the voice-of-a-generation pressure, to persevere.

On Friday, March 27 Feeding Fingers made an appearance on National Public Radio (NPR), reeling through a 40 minute+ set of interviews and eight live acoustic numbers from their album Wound in Wall and from their most recent release, Baby Teeth.

The Deal: Primus bassist Les Claypool releases his latest solo album, spawned from video game and motion picture work.

The Good: Instead of Claypool solely focusing on the video game song "Mushroom Men" and songs from the motion picture Pig Hunt, he decided to keep writing and release an album. The bassist extraordinaire has forged on down the path of weird noises as he continues to experiment with unusual tones and instruments. "Red State Girl" is an easy dig at Republicans and those who like them. "Bite Out Of Life" comes from a jam session that he did with Gogol Bordello's Eugene Hutz - probably before last year's Bonnaroo Super Jam with the two. There's a definite heavy influence of Hutz on the track and may be the album's best track. One can only assume that "What Would Sir George Martin Do" is a reference to the "fifth Beatle." Funky drumming and vocal effects give "Primed by 29" a hint of the Primus Claypool of old.

It's pretty easy to argue that Bloc Party's 2005 debut, Silent Alarm, was the high point of the dance-punk craze that peaked a few years ago. It met the quota for Gang of Four-style pointiness but combined it with an emotional heft rare in the genre--the melancholy wail of front man Kele Okereke clicked with the group's deceptively catchy thump to give the music a cathartic, dance-your-bad-feelings-away groove not dissimilar to what you get from Donna Summer's better jams.

Raw power, groove and dirge guide Zoroaster into the farthest reaches of the cosmos with its third offering, Voice of Saturn. The album traverses a vast terrain of noise, rhythms and distortion that peers into the dark matter of the universe for inspiration rather than the depths of hell.

Sign o' the times: Band records album, band plots April 13 release date, album leaks, band quickly unleashes album digitally, band moves physical release date up to March 31. Such is life for a hot young rock group these days, and even the artists can't get too worked up about it.

Black Lips play Orpheum in Ybor City next Thursday, March 26. Here's my feature/interview with the band:

"I want other bands like us to become as successful as we are so they can stay as shitty as we are," says Jared Swilley, bass player for Black Lips, talking on a cell phone as the band rolls out of Omaha in a van.
So why is Swilley standing up for shitty music? You have to understand his definition of such: music that comes from a raw, unfiltered place, that's not recorded using the latest computer technology, that doesn't concern itself with whether the vocals and guitars are exactly in tune or the rhythms are perfectly in time.

"I like the human side of music," he says. "I love imperfections and mistakes. Otherwise the cyborgs win. Look at 'Louie Louie.' It was No. 1 hit [actually a No. 2 in 1963] and it was sloppy and had the biggest vocal flub."

Drummer Bill Salas is the new guy in These Are Powers, but the fascist cadences of his hallucinogenic beats give direction to the ghost-punk traipse at the center of All Aboard Future. "Easy Answers" establishes a rigid, slow-motion dub/industrial framework at the album's onset. Vocalist Anna Barie's elated banshee cry in "Life of Birds" is at once horrifying and alluring, as it jams the senses with a mashup of too many mixed signals.

Swede pop trio Peter Bjorn and John is currently streaming their forthcoming release, Living Things, on MySpace. I'm only two songs deep and I'm already digging on it, though it's not really at all what I expected nor does it remind me of 2006's blissfully sublime Writer's Block or 2008's quirky Seaside Rock.

With nearly two decades of do-it-yourself ethics behind her, it's no wonder Ani DiFranco's name has become synonymous with the word "indie" in the music world. She started the hard way -- get in a van and drive from gig to gig until you have enough money to put out an album. Eventually, she started a label, Righteous Babe, and it's been that way ever since -- tour, record, release a new album; repeat.