DB

Spotted on the 101 driving south from Ventura toward LA: big black Hummer with a personalized plate reading, "I ♥ BALLIN'."

He may as well have just personalized it to say, "I'M A DOUCHEBAG."

Oh wait, that doesn't fit on the plate. Maybe that's why he wrote what he did.

The Morning Benders @ The Troubadour 3/25/10

I saw The Morning Benders last week and thought about writing a long concert review about it. You see, I have this goal of reviewing music and concerts on the blog since I no longer have a radio show to talk about my music loves. Plus I figured that maybe I could get really good at it and get into shows that I may not otherwise be able to get into - like I used to with the radio show...

But then I remembered - I can ramble about music easily on radio, but typing/writing is different. Somehow the same things I would say out loud on air read as overly simplified and somewhat boring. Anyway, I'll attempt. I'll just ramble and see what happens.

So back to the concert review. Here's the deal. It was good. Lead singer, Chris Chu, is adorable - looks like a baby - and has a great voice. He started the evening talking about how they had opened for other bands at The Troubadour in the past, but this was their first headlining show there. "You're really here to see us?! " Of course, I won't tell him about the guy in front of me who had just asked "Who are these guys?" He was there to see Miniature Tigers, one of the openers. [Speaking of the openers, they were ok, but noteworthy was how much We Barbarians sound like The Walkmen. So if you like the latter, perhaps you should check out the former.]

Their entire set sounded flawless. They had someone playing extra percussion and keyboards with them, but I didn't catch who it was. The clear stand-out of the show to me was their closing song and most recent single, "Excuses." The album version of this song is great, but the performance was amazing. Chris Chu's voice was vibrant and crisp (and more focal since he ditched the guitar for the beginning) and the use of live-looping can be really entertaining when done right. The a capella portion of the song (where the vocal loops start) lasted the perfect amount of time to build anticipation without leaving you too bored. And the culmination of instruments and voices and loops truly filled the crowd and left everyone energized. So energized that people stuck around after the show, despite the lights and house music suggesting that the concert was really over.

Approximately 5 minutes or so after leaving the stage, the band came back. "We aren't really into encores, but you guys are just sticking around..." So they played their first encore - a cover of Neil Young's "Bad Fog of Loneliness." A totally appropriate encore given the fact that they had "already played all [their] songs" during the show.

Note: I found video of another performance of "Excuses" that is great. There is video of their Troubadour performance online, but the sound quality is so poor, it doesn't do it justice - so poor that I won't even give you the link. :)

Death at a Funeral (2010) - A Travesty

This is going to be horrible. What will be funny about this movie will be the parts that they did not change from the original.

James Marsden (as judged from the trailer) does a shitty job at the role that Alan Tudyk performed so perfectly. Tudyk was hilarious. I laughed so hard I cried. Take a peek at the trailer for the 2007 version here. Oh yeah, did I mention that? This new movie is a remake of a movie not yet 3 years old.

Part of the hilarity of the original is that it's this uptight, proper family - and then all this crazy shit goes down...at a funeral. So you have solemn event + uptight family + accidental drug use + blackmailing by a little person. The new one takes a funeral in a family that doesn't appear to make anything very solemn, nor appears very uptight at all, add drugs and blackmail...well, doesn't sound like that big of a deal to me, honestly.

So if you've never heard of the original 2007 version of this movie and thought that the trailer for the new version seemed mildly funny, I highly recommend renting the original. Then you can decide for yourself if it's worth your time to watch what appears to me to be a mediocre remake.

(And I'm sorry, I have to say it again - James Marsden does not even hold a candle to Alan Tudyk in this role...)

A couple more albums

I recently acquired a lot of new music, but I want to give it all a chance before I start writing too much and then have to back-track and change my opinions upon further listening.

But I have a couple I can start with.

Jonsi - Go: This album is fabulous. Beautiful and smooth. If you like Sigur Ros, you're probably going to like this, which makes sense since he's their guitarist/vocalist. Sometimes when people sing in falsetto too much, it becomes grating, but Jonsi's falsetto never does. I would say that this album is more "accessible" than older Sigur Ros stuff. Some people will take that to mean that it's a sell-out pop album. I disagree. This is rich and layered - but he does so in a way that will appeal to more people. That's not selling out - it's just making good music. Airy vocals, strings, percussion... There are flavors of The Postal Service at times (like on Around Us), as well as some of the recent orchestral pop albums that seem to be coming out from all different places lately (Lady & Bird and Noah and the Whale recently released orchestra-heavy albums). But this album is more emotional than any of those. And I say that in a good way. As I said, I have a lot of new music to listen to lately, and despite having albums just sitting here waiting to be heard, I find myself wanting to go back to Jonsi again before I can move on. This album currently suits my needs quite well for putting me in a good mood to do work and also as a pre-bedtime soundtrack. (Update: You can stream the album here)

MGMT - Congratulations: It took me 3 listens to like this. First listen, I was disappointed that there were no big standouts like Kids or Electric Feels or Time to Pretend. Second time, I was too busy trying to figure out who each song sounded like because I wasn't so sure. It didn't sound like the MGMT that I knew from Oracular Spectacular. The opener on the album, It's Working, starts out with the same chord progression that comes up throughout The Decemberists' Hazards of Love, which I hated. So maybe I was set up with a negative bias? And at times the songs had too much of a 1960s beach party feel to them. It just didn't fit. It didn't fit with the strong electronic, dancey vibe I loved about the last album. It didn't fit with the hip and progressive category I had previously placed this band. And that categorization was part of why I loved them. So then listen #3. Maybe it was simple familiarity that made it more appealing this time? Or maybe I just had to give up on my expectations - because by the time listen #3 happened, I had certainly given up hope for an album that would arouse my excitement as Oracular Spectacular had. This is a pop album. Peppy, sometimes cheesy. Almost always happy. It is full of vocal harmonies, but not in a smooth, full, rich sort of way - instead it feels like a 1950s or 1960s high school musical. Andrew VanWyndarden's falsetto (I must be into falsetto's lately...) doesn't show up as often as I would have liked, and when it does, it feels almost BeeGees-ish. Siberian Breaks could fit in with the soundtrack to Hair. Lady Dada's Nightmare is an instrumental that I couldn't even get through on listen #2. Ha, it might even have lyrics and I just have no idea because I tried to tune it out so much. And then it ends with Congratulations. Which is a song I actually really like. I sort of want it to keep going instead of having the album end. That said, it reminds me of Dionne Warwick's I Say A Little Prayer. It's slower and not so cheesy, but for some reason that song keeps popping into my head when I listen to Congratulations. So at this point, you may be wondering, "Didn't she say it took 3 listens to like it? But it doesn't seem like she likes it." And that's sort of true. I don't like the fact that this is MGMT, but feels like music from 40-50 years ago. MGMT is progressive and new, not some copycat band. But the thing is, I actually like music from the 50s, 60s, and 70s. I like the musical Hair. I like Dionne Warwick's I Say A Little Prayer, no matter how cheesy it is. And so I guess you could see this as an album that updates a genre. Brings the good parts of the past into the present. Is it what I expected? No. Is it what I hoped for? No. And for that, I'm still disappointed. I wanted a new Kids to fall in love with again. But will I listen to this? Sure. At least when I'm not going back to listen to Jonsi again. (Note: You can listen to the album from their website: http://www.whoismgmt.com/)

Update: And in an interesting connection between my two album choices for this post...Jonsi covers MGMT's Time to Pretend and streams it online here.

Titus Andronicus

The Titus Andronicus album The Monitor is excellent. Lead singer Patrick Stickles' voice sounds like Conor Oberst, but I like the music so much better than Bright Eyes. I've always thought Oberst's voice sounded a little whiney on Bright Eyes tracks. So maybe think Bright Eyes without the whine.

And The Morning Benders

Although they don't come with the hype that Broken Bells does, this album, available via stream now on Stereogum, is pretty great, too. Official release is also next week - the 9th.

Broken Bells

Broken Bells is the joint project of James Mercer (lead singer from The Shins) and Danger Mouse (who has worked on lots of stuff incl Gnarls Barkley, Dangerdoom, some Gorillaz albums, etc.). Their first album comes out next week, but KCRW is streaming it now. This is great, and I can't wait to have the album for real...