Jay Farrar and Ben Gibbard took a break from their working bands awhile back and put this album together in an attempt to soundtrack Jack Kerouac’s book Big Sur.  It’s probably not possible to get this right or wrong (it’s a weird book), but a noble experiment even if you’re not a Kerouac fan.  Gibbard and Farrar’s country-highway take is joyful with some understated desperation mixed in.  I think Jack would've approved.

Don't be scared of Farrar's show at the Belly Up on 11/13.  

Happy Sunday all – full album below.  Stay tuned for next week’s session… 
 
   

mp3: One Fast Move or I’m Gone (Album)

Scorses’s documentary “Living in the Material World” on George Harrison has me feeling wistful about the quiet Beatle.  This one’s from George’s best solo album and sums up the meditative bent Harrison was on for most of the latter part of his life.  Always one of my favorite tunes of his and Jim James did it justice with his slow-burning cover on his Harrison tribute EP.  Both below.

Also, don't forget to tune in for the return of Sunday Morning Sessions after you've plowed through your weekend. 


mp3: Behind That Locked Door (George Harrison)

mp3: Behind That Locked Door (Yim Yames)

Release Date: Oct. 18, 2011
Label: Domino

First off, tip of the cap to Wino-Strut for the initial intro this band.  A long time ago in a galaxy far away he contracted LC for a review of Real Estate’s first album.  I think it received something like 3 million hits, but I can’t confirm that figure at this time.

In any event, Real Estate’s second album Days is another relaxed and solid record by a band with a new record contract from Domino (Four Tet; Animal Collective).  Interesting in spots, but more like a Volume 2 than anything else.  Not that that is a bad thing necessarily.  Nor is that to say that they sound like they have dialed back on the painkillers.  

“It’s Real” is definitely a highlight – a newer type of song that wouldn’t be completely out of place on a Vampire Weekend album.  “All the Same” also jumps out as a tune that’s moving a bit of a different direction – sparkling Beatlesish guitars swirling downward into the sleepy jam that ultimately closes the record.  An overall good album with glimpses of a possible great one on the horizon.  Real Estate is a band to put on the watch list, even if they keep churning out these types of records.  

Worth checking out at The Sunset Temple on 11/13.  

I’m mostly curious to see what will happen to their sound if they change their drug of choice.  To speed, for example.  Stay tuned. 


mp3: It's Real

It's been well-documented that the Black Keys will make even the most sedentary person get up and shake that money maker.  Below is the 'official' vid, and this dude obviously gets it.  I don't know about you, but I for one would like to buy him a drink.  

"Lonely Boy" is the first single off Auerbach and Carney's new album El Camino - and if its swamp-blues charge is any indicator...man its going to be good.  

If you're caught without a costume and listless tonight, go see Deer Tick at the Casbah.  Not sure if the band will dress up, but I'd bet dollars to donuts that McCauley will have a drink or two with the crowd.  Word on the street is that DT likes to get after it, so Halloween night should be rockin'.  

Below is a hot little dose of Deer Tick's brand of country rock for you.  Try to steer clear of Elvira and the Monster Mash today.  Not good for the soul.  LC review of Deer Tick's (excellent) new record also to follow in a bit. 
 

Lightweight Contender is back and settled in SD.  We've picked ourselves up off the canvas after a 9 count and are ready to put down roots and see this thing through.  

Check out the new list of LC-approved San Diego shows to the right.  We'll try to keep you up to date on new and old.  Please keep checking in and stay tuned for posts a little more regularly than once every year and a half....  

Tweedy and the boys have a new album (The Whole Love), have circled back towards a colder and experimental outlook (welcome back, we missed having you in this neighborhood) and are descending on SD.  January 22 at Copley Hall - get tickets while they're hot.  The new album ranges from country to krautrock...just get it, listen to it, and repeat.  Not to mention that Wilco is one of those bands that tends to rewire older songs for new tours.  These guys are pros.  And Nels Cline is a motherfucker on guitar.

Here's "Handshake Drugs" from the NOLA Jazzfest earlier this year...
  

First off, this experiment is alive and kicking.  Sometimes, though, you have to take a hiatus.  To reflect.  To reload.  This shit doesn't pay the bills, after all.  As the LC transitions from a LOS ANGELES column to a SAN DIEGO column (yeah, that’s right), we’re leaning on our friends to help out a little bit. 

Enter the noble art of Lo-Fu, and its founder by way of Las Vegas, His Majesty Grand Master Sensei of the Samurai Order Stephen Ceerun Lo.  Lo’s insights know no bounds and have been well-documented throughout the course of his illustrious career.  Further introductions really aren’t necessary, except maybe to mention that one of the tenets of Lo-Fu is that Shawn Mullins is to be regarded as a poet, evidently.

More Lightweight Contender to follow shortly - don't abandon this as part of your read.  We're in it to win it.  In the meantime, enjoy a glimpse into the mind of one of today's foremost thinkers.  As far as Lo-Fu is concerned, anyway...

I was originally contracted to do a special interest piece for LC about the hip-hopera, "Trapped in the Closet" by R. Kelly.  But the magnitude of the task was too great... a hip-hopera is meant to be heard, seen, and felt, but not necessarily read about.  It just didn't fit the demographics.

So I gave up.  I just lacked the...soul...that LC uses on a bi-monthly / monthly / every six-weeks basis to convey the true dimensions of the music he comments on beyond just words on a screen.  Phrases like "woozy pop shimmer chugged along" and "Retrospect can be a filthy bitch" may as well be Chinese to me, but I can feel the meaning through the context.  LC is also very knowledgable about music or else he wouldn't have been commissioned with the task of categorizing all musical acts into one mutually exclusive division.  You want to talk to LC about music genres?  Well be prepared to discuss "alt-metal space rock hybrid". 

But me?  I'm a passive music fan these days, favoring sports radio over tunes on the daily commute, with just enough memorized facts to hold a conversation about how sweet Timbaland's new beats are or how bad Chris Brown beat on Rhianna.  I guess somewhere along the way, I forgot what a bitch retrospect could be and became kind of shallow in the sense that I stopped caring about the deeper levels of art that can only be conveyed through a select few media, one of which is music.

So, here is the shallow man's version of a music column and now I can consider my contract to LC fulfilled...he is in tight with some lawyers after all.

One of the reasons that I read LC is that I enjoy being able to reminisce of the good old days, and I've created some of my own categories that allow me to look into the past without competing with LC's divisions system currently in place.  One final note...all reviews were based on memory from the times I've listened to these songs in the past...however many years ago (although some additional research was conducted on one of the most trusted and verified sources on the internet).  We'll start out with the least controversial category...

This was easy, because no one likes this song; so you can safely say you hate this song without people ferociously coming out of the woodwork in its defense, creating an hour long debate, which you end up resigning from in defeat because the argument just won't end. 

I don't even know if you can call it a song, but it's called, "Rock-a-Bye" by Shawn Mullins.  Many of you are nodding and already thinking, "Yeah, I remember that song 'Rock-a-Bye', it WAS absolutely terrible."  Actually, the song is called "Lullaby", but you wouldn't think it from the lyrics because all Mullins does is talk in a droning voice for a while, breaking the monotony by belting out "rock-a-bye" sporadically. 

Lastly, the whole premise of the song seemed flawed because I think it was supposed to be about how depressed this girl was with her life.  However, she was pretty hot, had pool parties at her house with "Sonny and Cher" (the only other recognizable lyrics in the song/poem), and had her music video shown every 15 minutes on MTV in 1998.  That's how good we had it during the Clinton years...songwriters/poets had nothing more depressing as subject matter than hot teenage girls living in Malibu.

mp3: Lullaby