More bands are selling their live shows. Is this going to kill the trading community? Nobody actually buys bootlegs anymore, do they?
Sufjan Stevens – Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lakes State
Sufjan Stevens – Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lakes State (Asthmatic Kitty)
Our introduction to Sufjan Steven’s Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lakes State comes in the form of a progression of minor chords played on a piano. Almost cinematically, “Flint (For the Unemployed and Underpaid)” evokes images of nature crippled by frosty decay. Michigan is entirely devoted to its namesake and while I’ve never been to Michigan, I have an idea of what it must be like—desolate and lonely, epic and vast, serene [I think you’re thinking of Montana – ed.]. These are the exact characteristics that blanket the album.
Stevens’ displays a gentle touch, delicately navigating through babbling rivers, grand forests and snowy hills with a sense of melancholy. His arrangements are understated, his voice rarely rising above a whisper. Acoustic guitars, bells, horns, and assorted vibraphones share space in the mix, creating a soft palate of tones for Stevens to indulge his brush in. It’s this decidedly fragile quiet that speaks the loudest, and when the end of “Oh God, Where Are You Now?” brings about an enveloping blizzard, it demands your attention. The album’s more upbeat moments, such as “All Good Naysayers, Speak Up! Or Forever Hold Your Peace,” roll along like the run-off of melting snow into a stream. Stevens evokes the hushed beauty of nature in his music in a way only Phil Elvrum has been able to do recently.
Michigan‘s songs tell of a place where our “Celebrities Uncensored” cameras wouldn’t be caught dead—none of the decadence of metropolitan life is found in the defeated story of “The Upper Peninsula,” only a fledgling economy that is terminating blue-collar workers by the masses. “I live in America, with a pair of Payless shoes.” America has neglected its own—the factory worker that lost his job and cannot support his family, the less-fortunate who are given next to nothing and have to work harder and longer just to break even. Sufjan Stevens gives voice to these people.
Michigan is refreshing—it speaks of a true cause like any good album does. Sufjan Stevens takes you through Michigan and shows you it all, both the good and the bad—the rolling forests, the babbling rivers, the frost-bitten roads, the desolate mill-towns, the dejected workers. For capturing a forgotten piece of America and trying to solve its woes through spreading awareness, Sufjan Stevens is already successful. That Michigan does it earnestly and effectively and manages to make its themes palpable only ensures its place as one of the most touching albums in recent indie history.
For you Michigan natives who might like to know, Stevens went to Hope College and was in the band, Marzuki. You can download “Holland” via Insound.
The Real History of The Source
The Real History of The Source – Part One. “The Source is lying to readers about its own history in every single issue, by listing Raymond ‘Benzino’ Scott as a co-founder of the magazine alongside David Mays.”
Garfunkel Charged With Pot Possession
Art Garfunkel busted for marijuana possession. While we’re at it, please free Tommy Chong, who was put in prison for selling pipes.
Cutler, Mark – Wrecking Ball
Mark Cutler – Wrecking Ball via projo.com. By way of Fingertips.
Great day for customer service
RIAA sues 532 more music fans. CD-Wow forced by the British music industry to raise their prices. What a great day for customer service!
My Morning Jacket loses two members
Two members of My Morning Jacket jacket quit the band.
Rocky Votolato – Suicide Medicine and The Light and Sound
Rocky Votolato – Suicide Medicine and The Light and Sound EP (Second Nature Records)
Rocky Votolato is a man cloaked in the kind of duality found only in nature and lore. His voice is unpolished but resistant, his music can be soft as wax, while also tough and sturdy like a cedar rooted to a mountainside. His voice too, like fresh timber, occasionally oozes sap, but not too much. Inside Rocky, as in a cedar’s needled branches, are flitting birds with insulating feathers and powerful wings: enough to withstand a cold season, and strong enough to return every New Year.
Votolato is known for his duality: he performs with the rock group Waxwing (not to be confused with Detroit’s the Waxwings -ed.), and also solo acoustic. Seth Warren (Red Stars Theory), Casey Fobert (Pedro the Lion) and mixer/engineer Chris Walla provide assistance on his latest solo efforts, but in all his endeavors, Rocky is unmistakably the fearless leader—even amidst his solo work’s nakedness and Waxwing’s electrification.
Suicide Medicine and The Light and Sound EP reflect the rippling aspects of humanity in songs about love, murder, and warm blood, and his voice’s liquidity provides a tranquil feeling, but also evokes a hidden central current.
On these two cds (The EP was released on May 20, 2003, and the LP was released September 16) the songs alternate and blend like seasons. Votolato makes it truly possible to get the uncommon—and best—of both worlds without seeming overdone: he evokes the pain of cold as well as spring’s rejuvenation, and he experiments on all levels: within the album, within the song, within the verse. Truly, he and his band have found a way to successfully move from knuckle-scraping guitar chords to delicate fingerpicking while maintaining a smooth and intuitive, yet complicated sound.
Votolato is a self-proclaimed “hardworkin’ guitar pickin’ man” who belts ’em out above his drummer’s brushes and in perfect harmony with the backup vocals. On Suicide Medicine‘s “Death – Right,” he sings, “Inaction acts as a blade across the throat.” And as he plucks his way though cavernous orchestration, it becomes evident that Votolato needs no guide: he chooses his pains and pleasures, and balances them like nature’s blind justice.
The Light and Sound EP complements Suicide Medicine in many ways, and both discs are connected like tree and earth. In A Discourse on Killing, Votolato sings, “So I want to hit somebody / With a baseball bat / Break his fucking knees / And take pleasure in it / And I know it is not right.” Lyrics like these help prove that Votolato is a modern songwriter set in old ways, and his words echo the dark traditions found in “Delia’s Gone” and “Little Sadie.” Votolato, just like the old folk singers, breathes love, murder, and sometimes politics.
These are Votolato’s strongest releases to date. They should not be considered perfect or necessarily accommodating, but his relationship with unsettling traditional music both exhibits and foreshadows a positive natural growth. This is to his benefit, as he must realize, because he leaves room for future challenges.
When You Rock, Rock. When You Vote, Vote.
As the election season is now on us like a barrel of famished leaches, we thought that we’d take a look at the outfit that is ostensibly meant to get the youth of America off the streets and into the voting booths: Rock the Vote. While this is certainly a laudable endeavor—after all, if you don’t vote, then some fat, rich, stupid bastards/bitches are the ones who are going to be deciding on who runs what (and given the facility of the Florida voters in the 2000 presidential election to use a little tool to punch holes in paper, we should all be very afraid of the consequences)—the Rock the Vote website (www.rockthevote.com) seems to be set up by those who are more interested in commerce than in politics.
Morpheus 4
Morpheus 4 is here and legal. “The only American file-sharing software ruled legal by a U.S. federal court.”