CMJ Report - Day 1
Reporting from NYC, this is Sneak Easy with a short but sweet overview of his trip to The Annex where he caught a few tunes of Sam Champion and the Tiny Masters of Today.
“we decided to skip out on the Sox for a few innings and wander down to the Annex to get the first taste of CMJ. We tried to time it so we could catch a few songs at the tail end of Sam Champion’s set and the first few songs of Tiny Masters of Today, then bolt back to catch the last few frames of Game 4. We actually timed it fairly well. We arrived just after SC had hit the stage. Admission, Bass and Budlight were free courtesy of NME. Finally, after screwing me for years with lousy recommendations for 3rd rate bands (The Thrills are sweeeeeeeet) they pay me back with two free beers. I’d rather have the $25 back they made me spend on an import by the Coral.
Anyway so Sam Champion - I had been hearing a lot of Pavement comparisons, but the only track I ever heard sounded more like the Libertines. I was wrong and the comparisons were right. They sound just like Pavement, or the singer is at least trying to sound like Malkmus, somewhat shamelessly I might add. We sat towards the back and Ivan and Ada from TMOT were sitting right next to us. 9-year-old Ada looked bored and read a copy of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Me lady, who is not a Tiny Masters fan (“it’s a novelty act!”), commented that she looked just as she did before a soccer game at that age (ie. I don’t want to be here). I agreed, but at the same time, isn’t acting like you don’t want to be there an integral part of seeing rock n’ roll in New York? Ivan seemed more into it nodding his head along to SC. SC’s last song was the one I knew. It was their best of the evening
Then Tiny Masters played. The place was surprisingly only about half-way full. I was slightly impressed with their record and was certainly curious to see what the kids could do. Well, I’ll say this; despite endorsements from Fred Schneider, Karen O and David Bowie I realized that the kids can’t play. I don’t mean “can’t play” in the ramone-sense like they can’t solo and they don’t know an F-chord – they just really can’t play. They were still mildly entertaining and they certainly looked cool up there. It was just difficult to tell one song from the next. I’m sure they’ll get it together (and I hope they do), but the whole thing smells of a hipster-daddy and not an eleven year old with a stack of Cramps records. We left after the fourth song and went home to see another Red Sox loss. Oh well.”
Check out Tiny Masters of Today on Myspace - Purchase TMOT music
Check out Tiny Sam Champion on Myspace - Purchase Sam Champion music
Moving On - New artists
No problems. I’m used to it. This feeling of just about getting there and then letting it all go is familiar to all Philadelphia sports fan. I am an optimist and I look at this playoff run as just the beginning for a team that has a great future ahead.
In more positive Philly news, the Flyers beat one of the premier teams in the NHL, Calgary Flames, in their opener. They lost last night to the Oilers but they’re another tough team so I’m currently intrigued by this new line up and look forward to catching a game or two.
Now on to music.
Like most bloggers, I usually open up my email after the weekend to find a plethora of messages from random artists pushing their latest masterpiece. And every now and then something does catch your ear. I got lucky and two caught my ear today. Ezra Furman & The Harpoons, a band from Chicago / Boston and the other artist is a producer / mixer from Sweden, Mojib.
Ezra and The Harpoons hail from Chicago but some, if not all of the members, went to Tufts University here in Somerville, MA. If you’re a fan of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah or Violent Femmes, you’ll most likely enjoy this outfit. I need more time with their album before a full critique goes up but their label, Minty Fresh, offered up an MP3 for your listening pleasure so grab it below:
MP3: “My Soul Has Escaped My Body”
Ezra and The Harpoons play October 12th at Tommy Doyle’s in Cambridge at 8pm. They’re celebrating their album, Banging Down The Doors, which is being released this Fall on Minty Fresh.
Staffan Ulmert, a.k.a Mojib, is a producer and mixer from Sweden who has an album coming out soon off of the Canadian label, NXR (Non-Existent Recordings). He sent me a track from the album, Whimsical Lifetstyle, called “Answering Machine at Night”. It starts off with what sounds like an message on an answering machine and then Staffan mixes a Kings of Convenience guitar part with the vocals of a Jayhawks tune (anyone want to stab at the names of both those songs?). He also sent me a remix of some Avalanche stuff. I enjoy all three of those artists so Staffan definitely deserves more a listen.
MP3: “Answer Machine at Night”
MP3: “Mojib vs. The Avalanches”
Vote for Nathan Moore
For those that don’t know Nathan, he is a singer, song writer, a poet and a talker. He’s mostly known as the lead singer of the group Surprise Me Mr. Davis which is really just the three piece indie/jazz band The Slip plus Nathan singing and belting away at the mic.
Nathan’s lyrical style is very much like that of Leonard Cohen and perhaps a bit of Dylan. He has a jovial approach to singing and helps to really bring the stage alive. His vocal style reminds me of a young Tom Waits. Those are all artists that are not used lightly and are used wisely in my opinion to describe Nathan.
I recently saw Nathan and The Slip (I’m sorry, Surprise Me Mr. Davis) play at the Brooklyn bar Union Hall. If you’re unfamiliar with this location, they have two bocce ball courts setup on the first level and in the lower level there is a tiny stage and small section for dancing with a bar in the back. It’s an intimate setting and was perfect for this impromptu show.
Nathan to me is an artist that has gone wildly unrecognized. While he may argue that it’s not about how well you’re known but how well respected you are that matters, it’s also still true that the more exposure artists like Nathan get the better off the music world will be, especially in this country.
You can help expose his talent by voting for him over at the Rolling Stone / Hennessey contest - VOTE NOW. Although the last I checked he had roughly 80% of the votes already!!! Keep them coming.
The song picked for the contest was taken off of his most recent release, In His Own Words, off of Frogville records.
- Links of Interest
- Download the song being voted on - “For the Paper Boy”
- Nathan Moore on Myspace
- Purchase In His Own Words - (emusic) (Amazon)
The Budos Band - Tonight in Boston
- Myspace
- Daptones Site
- Buy Albums
- MP3 - “Chicago Falcon”
Links of Interest:
If you’re a hip hop fan, the only gift given to us from Staten Island has been the kung fu loving group - Wu Tang Clan. If you’re a teeny bopper who loves girl power, then Christina Aguilera is the only gift this special Island has dished out. If you’re a bar crawling girl from Queens looking for a good time, the only gift from Staten are guys like this. But now another demographic has been given a gift from the half landfill half lost NYC borough - Afro-Funk fans.
The Budos Band started out playing together in a community center band and eventually were asked to leave for what reason we can’t even begin to imagine. But thankfully they did leave as the band reached out to their neighboring city and added a few more members (there are 11 total in the band) and joined the likes of Sugarman Three on the Daptones label and things just started to climb from there.
Now two albums later and one recently released album (just yesterday), The Budos Band are coming to Boston. And they’re coming at you tonight.
No better place to put this eleven piece Afro-soul funk outfit then the Calderwood Courtyard at the Museum of Fine Arts. If you’re looking to, in the words of Little Joe Cook, “Shake your booty cutey“, then you need to waste no more time and buy tickets online or head to the MFA box office ( 465 HUNTINGTON AVE - Wed-Fri, 10 am-8:30 pm). The show is $25 and starts at 7:30 pm.
