This is fine.
Ahhh. Home, sweet home. Back on the pit to bring you nine kinds of performance shots.
Saturday’s shots include Residual Kid, The Young, Gold Fields, Brendan Benson, Daughn Gibson, The Helio Sequence, Braid, The Spits, Surfer Blood, Tanlines, Paul Banks, Real Estate, Wavves and PiL. More from around the fest, of course. Fun was had by all, just bummed that I missed shooting Refused from the pit. It was “too busy”.
Click through to feed your eyes…
Back for the attack ya’ll! This time we’re featuring the lesser known, Telekinesis, one of our favorite little bands. Read on for reasons you need to fall in love. Read more
| Date | 2/24/10 |
|---|---|
| Location | The Independent |
| Doors | 9pm |
| Tickets | $13 from Frontgate |
Have you made plans for Wednesday yet? It’s a tough choice you’ve got to make… Brendan Benson playing at The Independent should definitely be a part of your decision making process. He’ll be joined on the stage by Leatherbag and Michael Kingcaid.
[audio: https://austintownhall.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/01-a-whole-lot-better.mp3]Download: Brendan Benson – A Whole Lot Better [MP3]
Rating: 
Lately, we’ve seen more of Brendan Benson trading licks with that one guy from the White Stripes, but when he first came onto the scene, he was a pop crooner. His album Lapalco remains overlooked, despite all the gems it offers listeners. Now he returns with a new record, My Old, Familiar Friend. It’s a return to form, for the most part, though you can see the shift in his writing if you’re familiar with his work.
Opening the album, you see a glimmer of the Brendan of the past on “A Whole Lot Better.” His vocals start low, as they always go, and change to the higher tones mid-syllable. Even the lyrics seem to recall some of the old territory, but it’s the choruses that remind you of the old songwriter of yesterday. But, noticeably, the structure of the songs themselves have begun to change a bit, which is good, considering we all admire growth with our favorite artists.
“Eyes on the Horizon” is yet another example of his growth. It just seems that so much more is going on within the song, and while it may not be as clean as his previous output, you can glimpse the familiar, especially in the chorus. Perhaps the inclusion of guitar solos, of the classic rock sort, give away his most recent act The Raconteurs. It’s a more mature songwriter we find here, which explains a lot of the lyrical content, as the story line in the album seems to revolve around reflection of a lost love.
Just as you thought you had a collection of b-sides from The Raconteurs sessions, at least the ones Brendan wrote, he kicks it up a notch near the end of the album, starting with “Poised and Ready.” While he once sounded similar to the early Ben Kweller, he appears more like a rocking version of A.C. Newman. This second half of the record though is chock full of straight ahead pop rock songs of the most sublime sort. It’s the sort of stuff you know you’ll be singing along to during your days at work. The catchiness of “Don’t Wanna Talk” will surely have you and your friends singing along in your cars. From there you can slide right into “Misery,” which is probably one of the best songs that you’ll find here on the album. As far as song construction goes, it’s probably one of the more open songs, and the extra space allows for Brendan to work his magic for his audience.
Nothing on this album will blow you away with creativity, but if you’re the kind of person that cherishes solid pop rock to go along with a nice long drive, then you will definitely find something for yourself here. Brendan Benson has a quality voice that will keep you coming back for more, as he churns out pop gems with his crafty songwriting and vocal inflection.
[audio:https://austintownhall.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/09-misery.mp3]Download: Brendan Benson – Misery [MP3]
Before you fell in love with him as one of those pesky Raconteurs, Brendan Benson was writing great pop tunes all over the place; his album Lapalco is one of the must haves in my opinion. Finally he is making new tunes, and is set to release his new album My Old, Familiar Friend via ATO Records on August 18th. This new track is interesting; it is more keyboard driven than things he’s come up with in the past, but we’ll wait on pins and needles to see where the whole album goes. Take a listen.
Download: Brendan Benson – Feel Like Taking You Home [MP3]
Rating:
“Willow Tree” opens up the newest effort from Chad Van Gaalen, Soft Airplanes. From the start you experience what Chad is all about, but only one aspect. The quite folk song is underlined by his soft vocals, which appear to have some sort of vocal affect that provides an emotional echo. Regardless, this is the song you want to hear while sitting on your back porch.
Then you swing at the folk moniker and you miss. “Bones of Man” completely throws you off track, walking the line of rhythm based bands such as Pinback. Even his vocals aren’t exactly the same, which is a bit refreshing. It’s a good song, though I must admit that it doesn’t have the draw of the opening track.
And back he goes again with the off-kilter folk tunes, though this one has stronger percussion work than the first song, though by no means is it over-powering–just more noticeable. By this point, his voice is back, and you can really immerse yourself in it. For some reason, it sounds like a folkier version of Brendan Benson.
From here he cruises off to sunnier times, or at least the feeling in “Inside the Molecules” is all things California. His guitar sounds a little more bluesy, but the atmospherics clinging to his vocals kind of carry that breezy aura you’d expect to find in a California bar band. He doesn’t jump so far with his next song, “Bare Feet on Wet Griptape,” but this song just didn’t work for this listener. It seems sort of casual, and even the lyrical commentary isn’t too insightful.
Suddenly, you’re transferred to future land where folk meets samples, and I know its been done before, but it’s sort of like James Figurine meets Grizzly Bear. I still can’t decide if that is a good thing or not. You should probably decide for yourself.
At this point I feel like I’ve run the course of this album. I don’t mean to say that in adding that point that you can turn off the record at this point, because there are definitely some key points to be visited throughout the rest of the album, but he jumps and jives across genres. Van Gaalen does it so effortlessly that a listener agreeably goes with him, no matter where he travels. His vocals have a haunting sense of freedom attached to them, and when he steers away from the folk as he does on “TMNT Mask,” its believable. Sure, one could ask for more focus here on this album, but at the same time I think the differences in sound add a texture to the album that you won’t really find elsewhere. Besides he paid homage to the long forgotten Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I’d down with that.
This is good stuff.
