Brendan Benson: "Cold Hands, Warm Heart" Video
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Brendan Benson is a band. Sure, it?s also the man?s name. But as he wrote the songs that would become his dazzling new CD THE ALTERNATIVE TO LOVE, he never stopped imagining the two guitarists trading licks, the back-up singer adding harmonies, the bass drum booming through his spine -- never mind that he does all that stuff himself. Brendan Benson is a one-man band, but, he says, "band is the operative word." He's neither a singer-songwriter (though of course his music is impeccably constructed and observed) nor a simple pop musician (though every note he's ever played is catchy as all get-out), and even "cult artist" doesn't cut it anymore, given the way fans, critics and DJs in both the U.S. and U.K. embraced 2002's Lapalco. Three years later, you could even say THE ALTERNATIVE TO LOVE is long-awaited. And from the revved-up guitar chug of ?Spit It Out? to the Wall of Sound swoon of ?The Pledge? to the haunted piano tones of ?Biggest Fan,? it doesn't disappoint, offering up a dozen shimmering examples of dynamic rock'n'roll that's both joyous and bittersweet ?as you might expect from someone whose publishing company is called Glad Sad Music. Benson flies solo in the studio so he can work whenever inspiration hits, with "collaborators" who are always on the same creative wavelength. "It's childish," he admits. "It's hard for me to hand the sticks over, or sit there and listen to someone else and not just say, 'do it like this.'" But that's the way the Michigan/Louisiana native has always recorded, going back to his teenage years overdubbing one track at a time on a regular home stereo. Those bedroom sessions, and some recording in L.A. with producer Ethan Johns and Jellyfish's Jason Falkner, eventually evolved into Benson's mythological debut One Mississippi. But when that 1996 Virgin release (reissued by StarTime in 2003) left him as another critical success story on the verge of getting dropped, he retreated to Detroit's Belle Isle neighborhood, using what was left of his second-album advance to fill a big old house with vintage recording equipment and well-used instruments. It was there he made Lapalco, which the Times of London dubbed "an album of such radiant beauty and wrist-slashing introspection that it puts all other pretenders to the Beatles/Beach Boys mantle firmly in their place." Entertainment Weekly, NME, Details and Mojo ("some records are so perfect they make you worry") also fell in love with it. THE ALTERNATIVE TO LOVE feels like the precisely calibrated offspring of its predecessors ? brighter than Lapalco, not quite as big a sugar-rush as Mississippi. "It's a nice kind of blend of the two," Benson says. Despite his professed allergy to singer-songwriter syndrome, Benson has been doing more acoustic gigs the past few years, which played into the songwriting process. And while the songs are mostly about love, heartbreak, and connection, the context isn't always romance ? Bensons also draws on harder life experience, like being abandoned by his father, and the death of his grandfather who raised him. "A lot of times it might sound like I'm singing about a girl, but it just might be about someone or something entirely different," he says. If Lapalco brought to mind certain dark-night-of-the-soul records from the late '60s and early '70s, Benson has found himself listening to things like Calexico, the Cars and the Pretenders lately. But if you were to hit him with that old standby of a question, "what are your influences?" he could give a unique answer. "A lot of times I'll record or write a song because I've got a new amp, or someone?s left a guitar at my house, or I?ve acquired a new microphone. I just have a real fascination with the sound of things." He even traded in some of the stuff that figured on Lapalco -- THE ALTERNATIVE TO LOVE was recorded on relatively newer stuff, digital as well as analog. "I don?t have a lot of conceits when it comes to recording music like, 'no computers were used in the making of this record,'" he says. ?Computers make things easier. But drums and acoustic guitars, I believe, sound notably better on tape." The record's intricate sonic imprint also stems from Tchad Blake's mixes. The producer/engineer, best known for his work with Mitchell Froom (Los Lobos, Latin Playboys, Elvis Costello, Crowded House) is a longtime fave of Benson's. "Oh my god, my hero," he says. "We just talked a few times on the phone. I said, do whatever you do, make it sound good! And he did. Some tracks, he kind of produced retroactively. When I heard them with headphones on I was laughing uncontrollably. I was so pleased." THE ALTERNATIVE TO LOVE is a headphone record among other things, from the Spectoresque bombast of "The Pledge" to the mind-bending harmony and call/responses of the title track. Other highlights include the amiably wobbly "Cold Hands Warm Heart," which is already a live favorite, and the album-ender "Between Us," which lays the raw emotion of a woman's post break-up answering machine message over an almost-psychedelic anthem. Then there's the deceptively sing-song "What I'm Looking For," which offers up a worldview ? about art, life and love -- in just 18 words: Well I don't know what I'm looking for but I know that I just wanna look some more. "That's pretty much it," Benson says. "That's me." Which is not to say he lacks focus. If anything, he's too focused -- exclusively on rock'n'roll. When he's not doing his own stuff he's producing other bands (including V2 labelmates Blanche and the next record by Cincinnati garage-rockers the Greenhornes) and he and Motown compadre Jack White are working on a duo record." I could happily spend the rest of my days doing something with music," Benson says. "If I'm not working on music, anxiety sets in. Maybe it's not so healthy-to stay locked away in a studio?you've gotta live a life to write a song. But in Letters to a Young Poet, Rilke said if you were in jail, cut off from the world, with nothing but a view of the sky from a small window, you'd still have your memories to write about. I love that."
The Raconteurs: "Steady, As She Goes"
The Raconteurs are a new band made up of old friends, consisting of Jack Lawrence (bass), Patrick Keeler (drums), Brendan Benson (guitars, vocals, keys) and Jack White (guitars, vocals, keys). The seed was sewn in an attic in the middle of a hot summer when friends Jack White and Brendan Benson got together and wrote a song that truly inspired them. This song was "Steady, As She Goes" and the inspiration led to the creation of a full band with the addition of Lawrence and Keeler. While each of these four individuals have had successful careers with their own bands, the culmination of all of their talents is what truly makes The Raconteurs a force to be reckoned with.
The quartet convened at Benson's East Grand Studio to lay down the basic tracks for Broken Boy Soldiers. Work would continue whenever the boys could get together over the next year. Finally, the album has found a window for its release in May of 2006. The band is now, for its members, all consuming and they now present themselves to be....consumed, or at best simply heard.
From the ready-made, radio-friendly quality built into songs like "Steady, As She Goes", to the explosive tenacity of "Store Bought Bones", all the way down to the 'hits the cockles of your heart' lullabies that encompass the full length recording, The Raconteurs are more than capable of conquering any genre challenge or tale that they encounter. After all, a raconteur is, by definition, a deft storyteller. And now a new story is unfolding.
We learn that Donald is a one-man polka band, Twitter people are never satisfied, and it may be getting slightly easier out there for pimps. It's all tech related though, we swear.
Pensive faces and dozens of old TVs surround Nada Surf as the band plays the endearingly catchy "Always Love" in the woods.
Wolfmother provides a revved-up Black Sabbath update with this single.
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Here's a great video from London pop icon, Jack Penate. Though his profile in the states is low, the music speaks for itself. Full of energy and catchy as ever, "Spit at Stars" is as visually appealing as it is sonically charming.
Ep. 1101: LHC-gull kills science with bread
Apparently the Large Hadron Collider is doomed. It can't even survive a bread bombing by birds. The Droid arrived on the scene though, and people actually lined up. However tethering is gonna cost you on the thing. Are you still in love? And Gwen Stefani doesn't like you making her sing Honky Tonk Women.
Mates of State: "Fraud in the '80s"
Mates of State is the husband/wife duo of Kori Gardner (organ, vox) and Jason Hammel (drums, vox). They quit their day jobs (teacher and cancer researcher) in 2001, got married, and hit the road bringing their love to the rest of the world. The Mates have released three full lengths, "My Solo Project," "Our Constant Concern," and "Team Boo," as well as numerous singles and EPs, most recently last year's "All Day" EP. Mates of State has been described by critics as "unabashed joy," "honesty at its best," a "two piece with balls," and "a band that you must see live." Their first record was listed in the "New York Times" as one of the best records you probably didn't hear in 2000. Their live show has amassed a reputation worldwide as a uniquely joyous experience--capacity crowds smiling, dancing, and singing along with every word. Mates of State's unique, often complex and always catchy pop gems defy genre boundaries. Though a duo, they never fail to generate an abundance of melody and harmony via monster, bass-heavy organ, creative drumming, and alternately lushly layered and playfully dueling vocals.
Fresh from the U.K cult success of their debut single 'Gravity's Rainbow' earlier this year, Klaxons (that's Jamie, Simon and James to their local Vicar) are now venturing Stateside with their offerings of post punk sensibilities with their deep love of Rave music described by Jaime as the most short lived genre of all time. It never even existed and classic Pop culture that sticks like knives out of their every chord change. Resulting in an instant mind bending, shoe stomping hit hailed as The most worthy indie dancefloor filler of the year NME Touching down in 2006 from a place undetermined to wrestle the hearts and minds of the nations music lovers from last year's seemingly all-pervading po-faced, post-punk moroseness. The band describes their sound as Josef K-meets-Baby D, with a twinkle in their eye, surely the first to mention those names in the same sentence. American audiences will immediately see the nod towards influential 90's bands such as Happy Mondays and Altern8. Definitions aside, what you hear is post punk psychedelic pop that meets pill popping dance music and it sure works. A trio with heads jam packed with ideas, ideas that layer influences and an imagination with genuine talent. Dazed & Confused Xan Valleys E.P lurches out demonically from a world of distortion and drummatic? madness, stuffing the peaks and breakdowns into moments of a sheer pop meltdown. If ever a band were all about the moment, all about Myspace as a progression of rave cultures underground communication, and all about creating a live experience every bit as exhilarating as their singles, this is the Klaxons signature sound. The opening track Gravity's Rainbow doesn't mess around as it welcomes and steers the listener into an eerie world of pumping psychedelia combined with melodic and romantic vocals blissfully taking you on a pleasantly trippy ride through their wondrous world and another dimension that is Xan Valleys. One listen to Atlantis To Interzone and the several miles of dots between those influences are quickly joined, where screaming sirens and samples straight out of a field in '89 give way to the punked out half-falsetto, half melodic breakneck vocals and drums. Klaxon, a French verb meaning to too certainly alludes to the raving mania of their audiences who frantically get down to the sounds with horns and whistles intact. But also the word's origin is actually a form of tribal drumming, Simon says used to communicate over long distances, pre amplification and telephones. Therefore, these London lads really are practicing the art of channelling a much loved yet equally forgotten musical era now reinvented and given back to us in the form of Klaxons.
