Tag Archives: Andrew Bird

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Andrew Bird Live in Portland

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Andrew BirdAndrew Bird with Loney Dear at Roseland Ballroom

Portland, February 21, 2009

With the economic crisis this country is facing right now we can’t afford Andrew Bird. There are too many jobless folks out there for us to allow Bird to fill so many roles by himself. In the span of an hour and a half and with the aid of multiple digital delay pedals and the sheer force of his talent, Bird displaced as many as an entire chamber orchestra by dint of sonic cloning. Imagine a world in which each one of us could simply conjure the idea of a car and then build it piece-by-piece before your neighbor’s incredulous eyes. That’s exactly what I saw in Portland this weekend and it is unsettling.

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Andrew Bird Outsells Animal Collective

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The big news out of this week’s album sales is not in the Top Ten (nine of which were already there last week), but just beyond that into the 11-20 range. Specifically:

12. Andrew Bird – Noble Beast (Fat Possum) – 26,000

13. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion (Domino) – 25,000

16. Bon Iver – Blood Bank EP (Jagjaguwar) – 23,000

Noteworthy is the fact that Merriweather Post Pavilion “debuted at No. 38 two weeks ago on the Top Independent Albums chart purely on vinyl sales.” Clearly, they found their “room of bros to buy t-shirts and vinyl albums for bros who don’t have record players.”

If you give a crap, you can see the Top Ten after the jump…

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Andrew Bird recording new album

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Andrew Bird is recording his new album at the Wilco Loft in Chicago. He writes about it for the New York Times:

Often times the choice becomes: Do you give the song what it wants? Or do you go against its demands? “Oh No” seemed to be asking for a 1970s Jackson Brown or Fleetwood Mac type of dead snare drum sound. That “everything’s gonna be just fine” sort of beat. The pitfall of approaching it like this is that your song can get hijacked by someone else’s record collection. I personally feel that the world has had its fill of 70s light rock. So we’re forced to be more creative. Not a bad alternative, though sometimes, you just say, “Why fight it? This just feels too good.”

Can’t wait to hear what he comes up with!

MP3s

Fun with Forkast, Round VI

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Another round of mp3s featured on Forkast recently…

• Happy Mondays – “Jelly Bean” [fr0k]

• Arthur & Yu – “Come to View (A Song for Neil Young)” from In Camera; due June 19 on Hardly Art [fr0k]

• The New Pornographers – “My Rights Versus Yours” from Challengers, due August 21 on Matador [fr0k]

• Kanye West – “Young Folks” from Can’t Tell Me Nothing mixtape. Yes, it is exactly what you fear it is… [fr0k]

• Okkervil River – “Our Life Is Not a Movie or Maybe”from Stage Names due August 7 on Jagjaguwar [fr0k]

A couple more after the jump…

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Andrew Bird – Armchair Apocrypha

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Andrew Bird - Armchair ApocryphaAndrew Bird – Armchair Apocrypha (Fat Possum)

Armchair Apocrypha is Andrew Bird’s most accessible record to date, which makes me skeptical. What makes it so easy to like? Is it going to sound boring in two months? Time will tell, but the songs are solid, and the things that make Andrew Bird interesting are all still here. This is a lush, gorgeous record and the twisted nursery rhyme lyrics are still smiling morbidly beneath the pleasant exterior.

The songs are louder and a little faster this time around. Electric guitars and pianos are more prominent. But what sets Armchair Apocrypha apart from Weather Systems or The Mysterious Production of Eggs is the refinement in the mixing and arrangements. Previously, songs were built with careful, deliberate layers in which the instruments all seemed to take turns as the center of attention. Now, everything comes together faster and is mixed more gently.

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MP3s, Shorties

Pitchfork’s MP3 Blog: Forkcast

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Pitchfork first created an MP3 page back in the autumn of 2001. But until a couple weeks ago when they rebranded it as Forkast, the mp3 page was strictly an ad revenue channel, just like the free CD that comes with Magnet magazine. Bands and labels paid Pitchfork to post their mp3s. The small print at the bottom of the page disclaimed: “Paid promotion. No critical endorsement of these songs by Pitchfork should be assumed.”

Who knows how bands and labels get their mp3s posted on the new Forkast, but so far they’ve given out some pretty interesting tracks. We’ll try to give a regular round-up of the best stuff that isn’t available elsewhere, or at least the stuff we think you ought to hear.

• Bright Eyes: “Tourist Trap” from the Four Winds EP, due March 6 on Saddle Creek.

• Charlie Louvin [ft. Jeff Tweedy]: “The Great Atomic Power” from Charlie Louvin, due Feb 20 on Tompkins Square.

• Andrew Bird: “Heretics” from Armchair Apocrypha, due March 20 on Fat Possum.

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Lollapalooza 2006: Day Three

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Take the whole day off...Three days of being outside in the heat is a long time. When I woke up Sunday morning, I was still tired and vaguely hungover, and the weatherman was telling me it was going to rain. Fun! Thoughts drifted back to Lollapalooza 2005 and how everything was squashed together in half the real estate over two days. Less walking, fewer skippable timeslots. But hey, America thrives on Growth at all costs, so stop your whining, you little commie!

Expect Lollapalooza 2012 to stretch from Soldier Field to Foster Beach and last from Memorial Day to Labor Day. The Redwalls, Ben Kweller, and Death Cab will be the only three bands to have played all eight years!

So anyway, all week I’d been getting these spammish invitations to the “ck one music lounge” at the Hard Rock Hotel. There were promises of free booze, air conditioning, and a “gift suite.” I saw the episode of the Sopranos where Chrissy hangs out with Ben Kingsley, so I wanted to at least try to score a free PSP. Right?

As you might have guessed, no such luck. After waiting behind some blatantly Hot Topic-styled “Rock Stars” we got to the front of the line where the hostess took one look at me and asked, “Media?” Obviously not “Artist.” I got my pass and went to the lounge and got hassled by the bartender for my I.D. He was such a dick I initially thought he was just joking around with me. After conferring with another bartender (no shit!), he finally relented and gave me a bottle of Italian beer. Thanks a lot, jackass.

There were some hot dogs and pinball machines and video games and beanbag chairs, and an absolute lack of any schwag worth carrying. I chugged my beer, grabbed a tiny sample bottle of CK Be and a pack of Ask the Kabala oracle cards (I’m not kidding) to prove to my non-VIP pals what they were missing, and we got the hell out of there before the “Kill Hannah DJ Set” started. Oy.

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Andrew Bird: The Stuff of Dreams Sung by Dreamy People

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Andrew Bird in MilwaukeeAndrew Bird at Gil’s Café

Milwaukee, March 11, 2005

There is music that is the stuff of dreams and then there is music that is the stuff of dreams sung by dreamy people. I had never heard the name Andrew Bird until about a month ago even though he’s been playing in one form or another for at least ten years. I picked up The Mysterious Production Of Eggs completely on a whim and ended up adoring it beyond all human comprehension, and then it seemed everywhere I turned—music nerds the world over couldn’t shut up about him.

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