an open letter to our beloved bands

Dear Music Artists,

As you may/may not know, the recession has hit those of us who do not have "touring" in our job description rather heavily.
The plus side is that all of your lovely VK ladies have since returned to graduate school and/or gotten recession-resistant jobs.
The bad news is that grad school + these jobs suck up almost all our time, and we're still broke.

It's a delight when you tour through town, but the exquisite dearth of disposable income has made it difficult to invest in new music or go to shows. (Spoon, with your $30+ tickets for crappy seats at the Moore Theatre in Seattle, I'm talking to you.)

Suggestion: instead of trying to impress the hipsters with vinyl 7" releases or putting on elaborate shows that are out of the average working woman's price range, do what everyone else is doing and scale back a bit.

The Dimes (@The Tractor Tavern) and The Morning Benders (@The Crocodile) both put on great shows for <$12 in the past fortnight. Maybe the rest of you should look into that sort of thing.

Sincerely,
the struggling music fans who are your bread & butter.

Britt! Britt! Hooray!

So last Saturday my friend Thom and I double-dosed on Britt Daniel. We caught the Spoon frontman twice in one night - once at an in-store at Sound Fix and then later that night at the Brooklyn Vegan Haiti benefit show at the Music Hall of Williamsburg. And best of all Thom recorded BOTH. Enjoy!

Download the Sound Fix show here:
01. The Mystery Zone
02. [tuning]
03. Written in Reverse
04. The Beast and Dragon, Adored
05. I Summon You

Download the Music Hall of Williamsburg set here:
01. Isolation (John Lennon cover)
02. Who Makes Your Money
03. I Summon You

Brooklyn Vegan's Haiti Benefit Concert @ Music Hall of Williamsburg 1/23/10

Brooklyn Vegan's Haiti Benefit concert basically doubled as a cover lover's paradise. Here's the rundown:

-We got swoonworthy Spoon man Britt Daniel covering John Lennon's "Isolation". (How I'd love to run my hand's through his perfect bedhead.

-My Brightest Diamond took on Prince's "How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore" (Dear God that voice, it's so sexy that as a 100% hetero-woman, I want to sleep with her vocal chords)

- St. Vincent literally made me shed tears with her cover of Nico's "These Days". AND then she followed it up with The National's "Mistaken for Strangers" EPIC DOUBLE WHAMMY OF MELANCHOLY.

- Bon Iver sang the crap out of the oft-covered "Satisfied Mind". (Also can we talk about his unabomber hair? Maybe someone's been locked in the cabin too long?)

Oh as in typical infomercial form, BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

St. Vincent joined Bon Iver's Justin Vernon and Megafaun's Brad Cook to form an indie cover supergroup awesomely know as Songer-Singwriter and played Neil Young's "Harvest Moon", Tom Petty's "A Face in the Crowd", a 10 minute version of Dolly Parton's "Jolene" complete with a noisy, psychedelic freakout outro and finished it up with a sing-along of Annie Lennox's "Why".


All and all it was pretty much the best 35 buck donation I've ever made. In fact I'd probably donate my left arm, a kidney and a few buckets of blood to see it all over again. Thank god for YouTube.

Oh and I won't even taunt you with the line-up of Comedian's who also contributed to the night's festivities. The Daily Show's Wyatt Cenac AND Jeaneane Garafalo. Oh this other guy. Some dude who looks like fat Jesus. I think his name is Zach Galifianakis. He was in some little movie called The Hangover. Maybe you've heard of it.
It's ok. Your jealousy is allowed. I'd hate me too if I didn't get to witness such a one of a kind event.

These Days - St. Vincent (Nico cover)

Spoon covers The Smiths - Swooooon

Thanks to You Ain't No Picasso for unearthing this cover. The thought of Spoon covering The Smiths makes me wet myself. But then I actually listened to it. Yep, my suspicions were confirmed - it's sexy! But then again so is every word Britt Daniels utters.

Panic - Spoon (The Smiths cover)

I swear the album's title makes more sense than its lyrics.

I, like a lot of people, like Spoon. However, I, like even more people, generally have no idea what Britt Daniels is singing about. Here are four choice lyrics to illustrate why Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is the most cryptically catchy and dare I say, sexiest album of the year.

1. Nuclear dicks with their dialect drawls. ("Don't Make Me A Target")
2. I humanized the vaccuum. ("Black Like Me")
3. I'm a slut for the New York Times. ("Eddie's Ragga")
4. Tract houses, square couches, short legs and square fingers, Pot holders, egg and soldiers. Y'tank rollers. ("Rhthm and Soul")

Going Ga Ga

No, the title of Spoon's sixth full length album isn't a joke. Nor was the album named by a toddler. Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is about as fun to listen to as it is to pronounce. Although, I'm a little baffled as to why "The Underdog" wasn't picked as the lead single instead of the plodding "The Ghost of You Still Lingers". "The Underdog" is probably the poppiest song they've ever recorded. Yes, poppier than "Monsieur Valentine". Yes, poppier than "The Way We Get By". And yes, Britt Daniels still sounds as sexy as ever. And get this, there are handclaps - lots and lots of handclaps. Ga!

The tracklisting is as follows:
1. Don't Make Me A Target
2. The Ghost of You Lingers
3. You Got Yr Cherry Bomb
4. Don't You Evah
5. Rhthm and Soul
6. Eddie's Ragga
7. The Underdog
8. My Little Japanese Cigarette Case
9. Finer Feelings
10. Black Like Me

The Underdog - Spoon

Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is set for release July 10th