Mars Volta Puzzle

The Mars Volta have put added a puzzle to their website. If you unscramble the album artwork you get a code that can be used to dl a new song. It's not from the upcoming album, but rather it's a Circle Jerks cover. Have fun.

The Bedlam In Goliath comes out on 1.29.08

Some Shows this week

Here's some good shows that are happening this week.

Wednesday 11.28.07 @ Red Eyed Fly

• The Calm Blue Sea @ 9pm ($5)

Thursday 11.29.07

• Jose Gonzalez, Cass Mccombs @ The Parish ($20)
• Vampire Weekend, Brazos @ The Mohawk ($6)

Friday 11.30.07

• Alela Diane, Kristi Rae, Unfortunate Heads @ Emo's Lounge
  

Saturday 12.1.07

• Soundcheck Magazine Party with Moth!Fight!, Micah P. Hinson, The Solider Thread @ Emos Lounge (9:30pm)
• Face Aids Benefit with Zykos, Freshmillions, Sweet lee Morrow @ Club Deville
  

I'm out

Heading to NYC for the Thanksgiving break, so there won;t be any updates until next week. Hope everyone has a nice extended weekend. Here's a couple of links to go into the long weekend with.

Deerhunter recorded a Daytrotter Session.

A Hawk and A Hacksaw recorded a Take Away Show for Blogoteque.

"Selling Out Isn't Possible" by Kevin Barnes.

Maritime at Mohawk on Sunday night

The musical journey that has been my life has not been a route through flat grounds, it's been hilly and windy and you would have great difficulty in predicting where I've gone based on where I've been. One of the great winding paths I've taken can be traced via my interaction (through speakers and headphones) with Davey von Bohlen. Davey was the singer of seminal "emo" band (god I still hate that term so much, it's starting to get that way with indie too) The Promise Ring, and is currently singing with his new group Maritime. I started listening to The Promise Ring when I was 18 and had just started college. Moving into the dorms and having a dedicated high speed Internet connection for the first time was a pretty huge moment in my life, because it's when I really started getting deep, deep, deep into music. Being able to fire up Audiogalaxy and just download everything I wanted or had any interest in introduced me to hundreds and hundreds of bands that I would grow to love. One of these bands was The promise Ring. Something about these quirky, poppy, guitar filled songs really appealed to me and I had a Promise Ring button on my backpack for several years. The Promise Ring were also one of the first bands from that most hated of all genres that I witnessed slowly morph into something else other than emo. Their final album Wood/Water remains a personal favorite of mine, and was a big departure for the band. Instead of upbeat and playful, the album was contemplative and a bit morose. Like most bands whose sound matures, most of their fans saw this maturation as change, and not for the better, and so, unsurprisingly, the album sort of flopped and I imagine it led in some ways to the bands eventual demise. I still think of it as one of the better albums I have in my collection from that period, and consider it a forgotten treasure. Obviously, now Davey von Bohlen has moved on and is in a new band, Maritime. Maritime recently released their third album, the splendidly titled Heresy and the Hotel Choir on Flameshovel, and they are coming through town this Sunday to play at The Mohawk. I'll be there and so should you. Tickets are 6 bucks and the show starts at 9pm.

The Promise Ring - Stop Playing Guitar

Buy Wood/Water here

Maritime - For Science Fiction

Buy Heresy and the Hotel Choir here

The Antiques

I love a song with a good groove. You simply cannot deny a good groove. It gets in your blood and is impossible to shake. The Antiques know a thing or two about a good groove. I simply cannot stop listening to "Down To No. County" from their Nicknames and Natives CD. The album came out back in 2006 on Banter Records, so I guess you could say I'm a bit behind the times on this one, but it is truly one of the best songs I've heard all year. My attention was drawn to the band initially because they recently recorded a Daytrotter session. I am introduced to more great music by Daytrotter and Blogoteque every day than almost anywhere else. Looks like only a handful of California dates are on the Los Angeles band's schedule at the moment but hopefully they'll cruise by at some point in the new year.

The Antiques - Down To No. County

buy Nicknames and Natives here

Mogwai - Gouge Away (Pixies cover)

Stereogum has some new Mogwai for us all, well a new take on an old song by Mogwai anyway. The song, "Gouge Away", appears on the new Pixies covers album Dig For Fire: A Tribute To Pixies which comes out at the end of the month. I always find it weird listening to Mogwai tracks that involve singing and there is a similar effect here. I'm pretty generally not the biggest fan of cover songs unless they are phenomenal, and this one doesn't really fall into the phenomenal category, but it's Mogwai covering the Pixies for chrissakes so it deserves a listen at least. The track can be found here. If you sign up at PixiesMusic you can stream most of it for free.

Free White Denim show tonight

The hippest of the hip in local music is on display tonight at The Mohawk as White Denim takes the stage to play a free show. I heard somewhere that Tuesday is the new Thursday so I'll be there. White Denim are technically opening the show for Seattle touring band The Blakes. Also playing the show are The Golden Boys and The Hugs. The whole thing kicks off at 9pm.

White Denim - World As A Waiting Room

Shipwreck

I went to Club Deville on Sunday night to see The Calm Blue Sea open for Shipwreck. First off, The Calm Blue Sea fucking killed. It was a great set and the crowd really seemed to love it. I think maybe 5 people asked me at some point "who that opening band was?" So, yeah good job guys. The other highlight of the night was definitely headliner Shipwreck's set. These guys from Champaign, IL put on a great show and the small (Sunday night after midnight) crowd seemed to love it. A tight, tight, tight rhythm section, walls of guitar soaked in delay, and some great songs to boot. Really nice guys too, make sure you check them out if they roll through your town. Shipwreck is signed to None records (a Polyvinyl subsidiary) and are putting out a new LP entitled Rabbit In The Kitchen With A New Dress On on December 4th. Here's the quasi title track from this upcoming release, "Rabbit In The Kitchen".

Shipwreck - Rabbit In The Kitchen

pre-order Rabbit In The Kitchen With A New Dress On here

Just cool. Fucking cool as hell.

Radiohead is the best. They are one of the most popular bands in the world, and its so deserved. They've been doing this radohead.tv thing lately, and some of the stuff that they are putting up is ridiculously cool. I love that this band does stuff like this, it amazes me how more bands don't. Here's a small sampling of what they've been putting up, it's Radiohead covering New Order's "Ceremony" in a recording studio. I'm going to die if this band ever breaks up.



Stereogum has a bunch more Youtube goodies.

Also, here are two of my favorite Radiohead live tracks, both from the mammoth Towering Above The Rest compilation.

Radiohead - Idioteque (live)

Radiohead - True Love Waits (live)

FunFunFun Fest video wrap up

From the folks over at Austinist and Super! Alright! Almost as good as the real thing. Eh, not really but it's something i suppose.


Fun Fun Fun Fest 2007 Recap from Super!Alright! on Vimeo.

Odds and Ends

Here's a whole pile of good stuff to sort through.

1) There is a new, self titled, This Will Destroy You album coming out in early 08 and lets just say I have a "feeling" that it's going to be really really good. Here's a song from it called "Threads".

This Will Destroy You - Threads

buy it here (eventually)

2) That Sea Wolf album has been digging its teeth deeper into my brain with every listen, especially the album's penultimate track "The Cold, The Dark & The Silence". It's breezy.

Sea Wolf - The Cold, The Dark & The Silence

buy Leaves In The River here

3) St. Vincent recently covered "These Days" at a show in Forth Worth. Here it is (via You Ain't No Picasso via Lullabyes)

St. Vincent - These Days (Jackson Browne cover)

4) My mother's name is Nancy, and my sister's name is Elizabeth, then there is this other person named Nancy Elizabeth who I've never met, but she makes music and it's on the internet. It's good too.

Nancy Elizabeth - Hey Son

buy her new album Battle, and Victory here

5) If you read music blogs often then you've probably already heard the name Bon Iver (Justin Vernon) a million times over the past few weeks, but some of you probably don't read music blogs all that much, so here's my favorite song (Skinny Love) from one of my favorite albums (and album titles) of the year For Emma, Forever Ago.

Bon Iver - Skinny Love

buy For Emma, Forever Ago here (eventually, maybe its out of print?)

The Calm Blue Sea EP

(photo by Liz Fraser)

Let me start this story by telling you about a house I used to live in. It was an old beat to shit rental house in South Austin (pictured above), but it was cheap and it had a big living room and my neighbors never once complained about my roommates and I playing loud as hell rock and roll in that living room whenever we pleased. So, in summary, the house was great. We lived there for a few years and over that time just about every one of my friend's bands practiced or recorded in that living room. One of the bands to practice and record in that space was The Calm Blue Sea. The Calm Blue Sea are a fairly new band to the crowded Austin scene but they have that old fashioned work hard and practice often mentality down. They practiced two or three times a week at my house for months and months before they ever set foot on a stage and all of that practice really shines through in the songs. That brings me to the point of this post. Amidst all of these living room practice sessions, the 5 men in The Calm Blue Sea brought in some mics and some laptops and did some recording. The results of these recordings (all done live with the exception of the vocals, of which there are few) eventually became The Calm Blue Sea EP. I got my hands on one of the first copies of this EP a few months back and immediately asked what their plans were for it. When I heard that they were planning on just giving it away to people for free I suggested that they let me put it up on my website. They agreed and here we are. As a point of reference think This Will Destroy You, Mogwai, Mono, basically Post Rock with the occasional barely audible vocal track thrown in the mix. So, without futher ado I present a Sound Of Marching Feet exclusive, The Calm Blue Sea EP, in its entirety, completely DRM free and yours for the taking. Download it, put it on your blog, do whatever, just don't sell it.


1. - The Calm Blue Sea - We Happy Few

2. - The Calm Blue Sea - Literal

3. - The Calm Blue Sea - Clear Like After A Rain

4. - The Calm Blue Sea - A Man Of Dangerous Dreams

The Calm Blue Sea is:

Steve Bidwell - Drums
Jeff Crews - Guitar
Chris Patin - Guitar and Vocals
Noah Poole - Bass
Max Werkenthin - Keys and Vocals

(a few notes: Mick Southerland played bass on these recordings but he and the band have since parted ways, Noah is now their bass player. The record was recorded by Omar Lopez and mastered by Scott Oliphant)

The Calm Blue Sea play Club Deville with Shipwreck and She Sir this Sunday (Nov. 11th).

also.....

I am bagging the magical musical experiment. Sadly, my computer is getting old and having a 15000 song playlist running 24/7 has begun to hinder my computing experience a bit too much. I made it 1/3 of the way through, just about 5000 songs of 14900 or so. The experiment went pretty much as I would have expected, I rediscovered sone old gems, and I left the room scowling a few times because of the shitball stuff that would come up from time to time. Meh, what can you do. If anyone wants to buy me a new computer or something I'll gladly start all over. So it goes.

A Revisitation of Wall of Sound 2007

If you read my original writeup of the Wall of Sound Festival in Fort Worth this year (you can read it here) then you know that I was less than impressed with how the show was marketed and run, but with that being said, there were a lot of great bands playing who gave some great performances. Silence Magazine was there filming some of the bands and a few of their videos made their way up on youtube within the last month or so. The guys from Silence used to shoot at a lot of shows here in Austin a few years back and then they kind of dropped off the map for a while. It's good to get reacquainted.

The Books - Classy Penguin (live at Wall of Sound)


Explosions In The Sky - Catastrophe and the Cure (live at Wall of Sound)



Midlake - Roscoe (live at Wall of Sound)



Ghostland Observatory - Sad Sad City (live at Wall of Sound)

Do Make Say Think in a field

Here's a beautifully shot video of Do Make Say Think performing the song "A Tender History In Rust" from their wonderful new album You, You're A History In Rust in a field somewhere here in Austin. The video was shot for KUT's Retread Sessions with the help of the creative wizards over at Super! Alright! If any of the people in the band look familiar it's probably because several of them are also in Broken Social Scene.

(via P4k)




Buy You, You're A History In Rust here.

Killed By 9V Batteries

Admittedly, not the best band name I've ever heard, but definitely one of the most promising sounding young bands I have heard in some time. Killed By 9V Batteries come to us from Austria via the Siluh imprint. I must admit, I don't know much about the band other than what I could ascertain from their myspace page and website. They have 2 albums out, the most recent being their self titled debut for Siluh which was released in 2006. I haven't heard the first album yet, but this self titled album is definitely a winner. Killed By 9V Batteries' 13 tracks crash into each other leaving jagged edges and open wounds everywhere. This is music with ADD. No single song is uniform and highs, lows, starts, and screeching halts abound. The standout track amongst a strong field is the chaotic 7th track, "Come Down To Boredom". This one is a busy 3 and a half minutes of ups and downs and by the end I had lost count of how many times it "kicked in". Beyond the 2:20 mark all hope is lost and it's best just to hang on. The band is currently in the studio working on a new album and if it's got 1/2 of the energy that this one has everyone should watch out. No US dates as of yet, I'm hoping maybe they'll be by for SXSW. The images on their myspace page show exactly what I would expect from their sound, broken guitars and effects pedals that are beat to shit from lots of violent stomping. Check out the song, buy the album, tell all your hipster friends, these guys are good.

Killed By 9V Batteries - Come Down To Boredom

Buy their s/t album here.