www.shoutoutlouds.com
www.mergerecords.com
Rogue Wave
Asleep at Heaven's Gate (Brushfire)
hear: Harmonium, Like I Needed, Chicago X 12, Lake Michigan, Ghost, Cheaper Than Therapy
www.roguewavemusic.com
www.brushfirerecords.com
Say what you will about fergy. Go ahead - say it! Anyway say what you will, but I'd say if he can get indie greats like The National to play his show, well then there's something to be said. So say what you will.
The National chose their quite unlikely new single, "Apartment Story" to play for Fergy, the Southern Californian crowd, and whoever happened to be stuck on CBS at the time.
Animal Collective is a pro at creating loops and then building a song around it. Even from the first track, "Peacebone", this can be heard. But "Peacebone" is anything but a simple-structured song as it is filled with all sorts of sounds that make it, um, delicious and worth its first single rank. Other examples of strong loops that real you in are "For Reverend Green" and "Cuckoo Cuckoo." The former is excellent as it builds a strong layering over its foundation, including infectious vocals. "Cuckoo, Cuckoo" doesn't quite get over its initial build-up to take you anywhere substantial.
With an Animal Collective album, you also know you're going to hear all types of sounds from instruments you many have never heard of. One of their strengths is being able to tame the instruments to construct experimental -and maybe bizarre- yet legitimate music, that doesn't rely on the pretension of simply "experimentation." Good examples are the impressive tracks, "Winter Wonder Land", "Chores" and "Fireworks". The latter could be arguably the strongest song of the album. The vocals can be lost in all the noise but "Winter Wonder Land" and "Chores" remind us that the vocals are not any less important with their intriguing, effortless melodies. This is definitely for fans of progressive, push-the-boundaries music. And oh, by the way, they named the album Strawberry Jam because they were served a small. pristine cup of it on a plane and its properties were intriguing to them -properties that they wanted in their music, most importantly, how delicious it looked and tasted. Well it is a tasty treat, so good thinking boys.
It seems like yesterday that Interpol released their second single from Our Love to Admire, "Mammoth". Yet now we have a new video, and thus, I'm assuming a new single. Third time around it's the solid, cheeky "No I in Threesome". How the content of the video relates to the title of the song is unknown to me. And maybe that's a good thing.
Chalk it up as one of the 5 best concerts I've seen so far this year; Interpol gave fans a night that will go down as "I was there." This is partly in due to the fact that it's the first time Interpol has played Madison Square Garden, it's first tour for a major label, and the band is musically synonymous with New York -it's home. The first two songs, "Pioneer to the Falls" and "Obsatcle 1" were played behind a curtain, which amplified the shadows of the members of the bands. This provided one hiccup for the night as the curtain malfunctioned and they had to take a short break to take it down. From the feeling of things, it would seem the curtain was supossed to automatcially drop right before the beginning of "Obstacle 1". There weren't many hiccups after that. Thankfully, they played many songs from the first two records -in fact, they played more songs off Lights than Admire. It was great fun to hear the new songs played live though, especially "Pioneer to the Falls", "Mammoth" and "Rest My Chemistry". One of the biggest crowd-favorites of the night was, obviously, "The Heinrich Maneuver". This is really the only song that fell short -it didn't live up to it's original urgency and catchiness...but the crowd seemed to love it so I guess that's what matters.
It's probably impossible for Modest Mouse to play a bad live show. The energy was in high gear Saturday night and that seems to be the key ingredient in a their live performances. 
Fans showed up by the hundreds to McCarren Pool in Brooklyn. It's a rather large area -and since it was actually a pool, the ground is shaped to a gradual upward slide, which provides for great viewing as a movie theatre does for films. Of course, for the hordes packed together toward the front, I can't say whether or not it was as pleasant as not only was it much more crowded and on a more level ground, but they stategically placed themselves at the greatest disadvantage to speaker access; the speakers are on the very outside of the stage. In any case, everyone seemed to be enjoying the show. The setlist was killer and the crowd favorite proved to be -you guessed it- "Float On", though in my opinion it didn't live up to it's original greatness. Most entertaining for me were MM's renditions of "Invisible", "Tiny Cities Made of Ashes", and "Spitting Venom."
