Various, Sundry

I saw my friend Matt Hohmann’s band Bully Pulpit play over the weekend at a crazy, ancient Czech restaurant in Cicero on Saturday at a show my friend Mark put together. Man, they were incredible. Once again, complete left turn for them. Three guitars + bass + soft & somewhat jazzy drums. Intricate fingerpicking on one lefthanded guitar upside down and Hohmann arpeggiating oddness and playing weird, sometimes atonal yet fitting chords, little distortion involved, so you could really hear the intervals. Kinda Californian sounding to me (someone, I’m not saying who, likes Slovenly). Mostly instrumental at first, then some softly sung vocals, then some shouted ones. Lots of personality, lots of originality. Me likes.

Poster Children also played. Rick and Rose are such interesting people. I saw Rick’s art since then, as I check up on everyone I meet on the Internet, to prove they have not suddenly become criminals. See this.

The new Lucinda Williams release, West, is incredible in my book. Her immediately previous effort didn’t ring so true to me. Lyrics and vocals and arrangements on West are all clearly superior. Come On and Wrap My Head Around That are my favorite tracks so far.

She also did an outstanding cover of Nothing on a Townes tribute record. Man. Crushing. Go find it. It’ll break your heart & spirit in two, and singularly pull together your attention and not let it go for a few minutes.

Slint plays Spiderland and Sonic Youth Daydream Nation and that’s a neat idea and all, but too bad you can’t buy the final final performance’s guitar on eBay, (I say sarcastically). Great piece on it in the SF Weekly by Michael Goldberg. They would’ve been better off without 2005 happening, what with the $55 hoodies and the eBay auctions and all. Reuniting to play Spiderland all the way through, once, and that’s it would’ve been a smarter move, but then, what do I know. I haven’t ripped them off in a couple of years, so I’m clearly out of the loop.

I’ve not watched TV much for the last few years, but coming back from Chicago two weeks ago I saw the drummer from Trenchmouth Fred on the TV at the rest stop on the gas pump TV monitor. That’s crazy and kinda cool. Trill has a DVD of Christopher Walken that has him on it, too. For the record, I never listened to Trenchmouth because I thought the name was stupid. That’s just how it works sometimes. I saw him later on in a salsa band, though, and he was a great drummer.

I wish I could find Fred’s SxSW video on the web. Poo. I can’t.

Ray LaMontagne has a CD at the Milwaukee Public Library called Till the Sun Turns Black and between the cover art and CD and song titles I decoded to give it a shot. Man, great stuff. Country meets Tim Buckley. Good lyrics and orchestration. But it all may be a matter of expectations. I was expecting crap, but it was a free listen and I was in a good mood. Funny how that works, eh?

~Arum
Currently listening to Joy Division, Transmission