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April 3, 2008
Shorties
Yesterday's addition to the list of 2008 SXSW streaming and downloadable music performances:
MP3 performances by Dead Confederate and Frightened Rabbit.
Alina Simone talks to the New York Press about her Yanka Dyagileva covers album.
“Yanka never had the opportunity to go into a fancy studio,” says Simone. “She was recording this music during the Soviet era, usually in very makeshift surroundings—sometimes literally on a boom box. So part of me wanted to take these songs and sort of lavish studio treatment on them. It was partly my own curiosity, and partly that I could just hear other things in them. And there are themes in the songs that I really wanted to explore and push to their limit, make them more orchestral.”
InsideVandy interviews Spoon drummer Jim Eno.
The Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star interviews John David of Georgie James.
it!: What major bands does Georgie James pull their influences from?
JD: It's more "rock canon" type of stuff, like The Kinks, The Beatles, Beach Boys, Zombies, Simon and Garfunkel Buts it's just as equally influenced by The Gems [and the] Flaming Groovies. But also country music--I'm a big fan of George Jones Jim Reeves. I like a lot of soft-rock type of junk like Bread and America. A lot of the easy-listening stuff of the late '60s, like the cool jazz of the late '50s, some Memphis soul, all types of stuff.
The Chicago Reader examines the rise in fan remixes (both audio and video).
JamBase profiles British Sea Power.
The songs on Do You Like Rock Music? are melodically accessible, though the lyrics reveal a dense strata of historical and literary footnotes. Aquatic birds, Megiddo, Czech football clubs, the Canvey Island flood of 1953 and bird flu are just a few of the references to be found within the album's 13 tracks. That isn't to say they require a Cliff's Notes companion to be enjoyed. Within the details there are universal themes, be they the battle between good and evil or finding camaraderie through dark ale. According to Wilkinson, the specific context to each song was tied, in part, to the album's creation.
The Guardian lists the 10 top live music venues in London.
Vagabonding lists five reasons to leave your iPod at home while traveling.
Nellie McKay participated in NPR's Project Song (write and record a song in two days).
And this is it, a song about a London hotel called the Cavendish. A song about some of its guests, like D.H. Lawrence and the Beatles, and of better simpler times. A wonderful theatrical journey from Nellie McKay — someone who seems connected with the past and unsure of her presence. She knocked me out with her creation.
Southern Shelter is sharing mp3s of a 2005 solo performance by Mike Cooley of the Drive-By Truckers.
The Log Cabin Democrat examines the University of Central Arkansas's proposal to keep the Oxford American afloat.
The Atlantic interviews Jhumpa Lahiri about her new short fiction collection, Unaccustomed Earth.
Is the process of writing a short story different from the process of writing a novel? Do you approach the two differently?
I don't make a huge distinction in terms of what they require because I think an idea is either working or it isn't. And it can work—or not—at long or short or medium length. It depends on what the story I want to tell needs. I always think first about the nature of the story. When I had the idea for The Namesake, I felt that it had to be a novel—it couldn't work as a story. With this new book, as opposed to the first collection, I worked on many of the stories for years while they kept evolving and evolving and evolving. One difference is that in The Namesake each piece was contributing to a larger whole.
Former Jayhawk Gary Louris talks to Atlanta's Creative Loafing about his solo album, Vagabonds.
"I seem to be a more 'half-empty' than 'half-full' person," says Louris via phone, his voice lower and more brooding than his sweet, warbling vocals. "I always seemed to look a bit on the dark side, and I think if I was singing happy themes it would be too much saccharine, because the melodies [on the album] are pretty, the voice is pretty, and the music is pretty. I think what tempers it is the darker lyrics, and I find darker things to be much more compelling."
Drowned in Sound interviews Geoff Barrow of Portishead.
NPR's Talk of the Nation features an in-studio performance by Jens Lekman.
also at Largehearted Boy:
2007 online music lists
Daily Downloads
Try It Before You Buy It (mp3s and full album streams from this week's CD releases)
this week's CD releases
tags: music books popculture indie news
