CMJ: Friday [Marc Hogan]

Photos by Jason Bergman; Above: Company Flow

El-P and Company Flow [Music Hall of Williamsburg; 11 p.m.]
















It's been nearly 15 years since El-P, born Jaime Meline, dropped his first vinyl as part of influential alternative hip-hop group Company Flow. Between his label efforts and his rapping, El-P has had plenty of time to assemble one of the most fanatical and diverse cult followings at CMJ-- everyone from the typical Williamsburg denizens to thick-necked ex-jocks. "I live where you live, Brooklyn," El-Producto declared in his set closing the showcase for Def Jux, the label he runs and co-founded.

El-P's main set played up the craziness he repeatedly claimed in interviews for new album I'll Sleep When You're Dead. "I'm losing my goddamn mind, period," he said at another point. He came onstage to Gary Jules' abysmal Tears for Fears cover, "Mad World", so apparently, yeah. The performance itself was as animated as it was vaguely anachronistic. El-P screamed himself fucking hoarse, peppering injunctions to say "yeah" or "put your hands in the air" between lyrics darkened by political fury, arrangements combining old-school sampling and a bit of rock aggression. "Is that all you got for me?" he said at one point, when the applause from the back fell clearly short of the equally batshit devotion up front.

At one point El-P welcomed "the newest member of Def Jux": No, not Danny!, who ably emceed the event, but underground rap icon Del tha Funkee Homosapien. Del's agile flow was a highlight capping an evening of likeably enthusiastic rappers such as Junk Science and Hanger 18. "Please listen to my album, even if you're white as talcum," Del spit on classic "Catch a Bad One", from 1993's No Need for Alarm.

The biggest guest appearance, however, came in the encore. As hinted at in a previous report, El-P took the stage with Bigg Jus, reuniting two-thirds of Company Flow for the first time since early this century. The reason for the reunion? "We love hip-hop music," El-P said from the stage. The reformed duo played old joints like "Population Control", "Vital Nerve", and "Steps to Perfection". Years after the words were written, here was El-P, again: "I don't try to be different/ I am." During one interlude, he observed, "It probably will be about a decade before we do that song again."

BONUS PHOTOS, WOOT!

Yak Ballz [Music Hall of Williamsburg; 10:10 p.m.]





 
Hangar 18 [Music Hall of Williamsburg; 10:30 p.m.]





 
Del Tha Funkee Homosapien [Music Hall of Williamsburg]


 

CMJ: Friday [Amy Phillips]

Photos by William Kirk; Above: M.I.A.

M.I.A. [Terminal 5; 8 p.m.]

M.I.A. just keeps getting better and better. She owned Terminal 5, her megawatt personality ricocheting off of the brand new West Side venue's cavernous steel interior with as much force as her beats.

Accompanied by DJ Low Budget and sidekick Cherry-- and a hyperactive set of videos on a screen behind the stage-- M.I.A. played an hour-and-a-half set containing pretty much every good song she's ever recorded. And she somehow found time to mash-up New Order's "Blue Monday" with "Jimmy", "10 Dollar" with the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)", and most thrillingly, "Galang" with Lil Mama's "Lip Gloss". The latter served as a reminder of how much the mainstream pop/dance/rap landscape has shifted since M.I.A. first appeared in 2004, and how much certain megahits have come to resemble her sound. (Fortunately, Fergie's "London Bridge" didn't make an appearance.)

The giddy highlight of the set occurred with "Bird Flu", when M.I.A. encouraged fans to join her on stage. Soon, she was surrounded by a large crowd of cool kids of all races and ethnic backgrounds boogieing to the stuttering beat. As the singer herself melted into the crowd, her voice just one among many shouting the lyrics, the spectacle became a kind of word-into-flesh enactment of the multi-culti vision M.I.A. preaches.

Bonus rock star sightings: Nick Zinner and Brian Chase of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs in the V.I.P. section-- Chase taking notes throughout M.I.A.'s performance! (What could he be studying?) Pavement's Mark Ibold on the street after the show checking out a bureau that someone had thrown in the trash!

MGMT [Crash Mansion; 12 a.m.]






Some might say MGMT are in the right place at the right time. Their debut album Oracular Spectacular (produced by Dave Fridmann) is out now on Columbia Records, they're on tour with Of Montreal, and their CMJ showcase was packed. They're officially a "buzz band."

But as I watched these guys play, I realized something: MGMT represent a whole lot about what is wrong with the music industry right now.

Let me back up a bit. In July, Pitchfork ran a news story about Of Montreal's fall tour. MGMT's publicist gave us an mp3 of the song "Time to Pretend" to include with the story. I fell for "Time to Pretend"-- it's got a nice loping beat, a sugary melody, and tongue-in-cheek lyrics that somehow don't come across as asinine. So far so good.

In September, I received a strange package via FedEx. It was the MGMT promo…on cassette. And a cassette player/recorder. Well, that's one way to avoid a leak. But is it really worth the amount of money it costs to FedEx a bulky tape recorder to who knows how many journalists?

A week later, the Pitchfork office received several copies of Oracular Spectacular, with no watermarks or security protection or anything. Guess they don't care about MGMT leaks so much after all.

"Time to Pretend" is by far the best song on Oracular Spectacular, though "Kids" isn't bad. And, um, that's about it. I'd tell you more about the other songs on it if I could remember any of them. There's a bit of typically hazy Fridmann psychedelics, some kinda trippy outer space stuff. Yet every time I put the damn thing on, the next thing I know the album's over and I didn't even realize I was listening to it.

But because "Time to Pretend" is so good, I decided to give MGMT a chance at CMJ. Maybe the live setting is where the magic really is, where I'd experience whatever it is that first captivated that key Columbia Records A&R person.

Well, you know what MGMT sound like live? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Their music and stage presence are so bland, we all might as well have been staring at a brick wall. This show happened a few hours ago, and I couldn't tell you what any of the band members look like, or hum anything they played. The crowd seemed just as bored as I was, bobbing up and down mildly, mostly text-messaging and checking their CMJ guides to see who else was playing nearby.

Admittedly, I left after four songs. I didn't even stick around for "Time to Pretend". Maybe the fifth song brought dancing girls, confetti, and a cover of "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" with a guest appearance by Meat Loaf himself.

I wish MGMT were actually bad. Like, super cheesy or technically inept or offensive or emotional trainwrecks. Or something. ANYTHING. Instead, they were just nothing.

I'm sorry to pick on MGMT; obviously I'm setting them up as a straw man. As my friends and co-workers know, I'm a pretty harsh music fan. (I mean, I don't even like In Rainbows that much.) And hey, at least MGMT have one good song, which is much more than I can say for most artists!

I'm also pretty bad at predicting the future. The last person I begged people to ignore was Amy Winehouse. Maybe MGMT will one day become the greatest band ever in the history of the universe, and they will magically convince the entire world that paying for music is awesome.

But for now, when the major label system is in its death throes, and yet labels are still throwing money away on inane promotional schemes for bands with no character, no following, and little potential, it's hard to have much sympathy.

CMJ: Friday [Zach Baron]

Photos by Kathryn Yu; Above: HEALTH

Sightings [Knitting Factory Main Space; 9 p.m.]






Brooklyn three-piece Sightings, with their sheet-metal guitar and scooped-out bass, their awkward, square- shaped riffs and dissonant drones, helped with the industrial impression-- there’s always a lot of "new no wave" talk in New York City, but less about the old no wave to which Sightings are heirs, a lineage that goes back to DNA and Pussy Galore, the Birthday Party, and even Big Black. In an unabashed three-level noise-rock showcase, Sightings were by far the night’s toughest listening-- all right angles, slithering unbalanced bass, and singer Mark Morgan's ear-slitting screech-- and they'd be proud of that distinction.

Japanther [Knitting Factory Main Space; 10 p.m.]






Perennial opening band and New York art world fixture Japanther nevertheless remain one of the city’s most underrated acts, probably because nobody realizes that live-- Whitney Biennial plaudits and telephone microphones aside-- they're not at all threatening; more like indie-dorks Matt & Kim than their bros in Sightings. After paying lip-service to a bill that contained many of their friends and peers ("I feel proud just to be a part of it," said their drummer Ian Vanek) they also snuck in a jab at the city-disfiguring, heavily-sponsored marathon of which they were a part: "AT&T, I want my money back, that's what I have to say to CMJ."

HEALTH [Knitting Factory Tap Bar; 10:15 p.m.]






Is it possible for a band to outgrow a stage before they've even set foot on it? Somewhere deep in the Knitting Factory HEALTH were playing their third or fourth or 15th show in three days, but who could tell exactly where? An enormous crowd spilled into the Knitting Factory's low-ceilinged, unventilated Tap Bar to see one of the Marathon's ongoing success stories, HEALTH, who come from the same Los Angeles, California Smell-based scene as No Age, and seem poised to come away from CMJ a lot taller than they were when they arrived.

Like their L.A. peers-- No Age, Mika Miko, Abe Vigoda-- HEALTH cop elements from punk and hardcore and then tweak them, decontextualize them; but where most of their scene goes in for a kind of charming amateurism, HEALTH strain further, incorporating complex percussion and deadpan Liars chanting into their blast beats and feedback freak-outs. Best was when they seemed unhinged; worst was waiting through all the portentous parts in between.

Old Time Relijun [Knitting Factory Main Space; 11 p.m.]






Olympia, Washington and K Records stalwarts Old Time Relijun presumably landed on the bill for their Beefheart antics and short-shorts weirdness, rather than any real sonic affiliation. Having just finished their three-album suite, the Lost Light Trilogy, frontman Arrington de Dionyso led his newest outfit-- an indie-rock Cherry Poppin' Daddies, with a hep upright bassist, a sax player, and a seriously up-tempo drummer-- through material off their newest, Catharsis in Crisis. This set up one of many conflicts: stay for Dionyso's shaman-like stage presence and unending yowling momentum, or see new-jack new-wavers Pre, in from England to follow HEALTH down at the Tap Bar?

Pre [Knitting Factory Tap Bar; 11:30 p.m.]

Well, it was CMJ-- novelty is everything, right? In an emerald green bikini top and gold lamé bottom, their aliased singer Exceedingly Good Keex scaled the bar's low and perspiring rafters, channeling fellow countrywoman and name-fabricator Poly Styrene. If Pre's new and debut record, Epic Fits, has bits of Skull Kontrol guitar skittishness, all paranoid tremors and caffeinated fear, Pre's live set is more ecstatic-- Melt- Banana without the musicianship, quick shrieking blasts of guitars and cymbals. Not bad for what was-- I think, anyway-- the band's first New York show.

Ruins [Knitting Factory Main Space; 12 a.m.]

If anything united the bands spread out over the Knitting Factory's three floors of chaos, it was their shared debt to Japan's Tatsuya Yoshida, who has performed with various bassists and vocalists as Ruins since 1985. The band, usually at least a duo, consisted only of Yoshida at the Knitting Factory, though you wouldn't have known this if you were in the next room over: in a near-satire of advanced musicianship, Yoshida sang, played drums, triggered bass and synth and drum-machine licks, and collaged noise all at the same time, all by himself. Like early Boredoms, Ruins' songs are short, extreme, and convulsive, proggy but muscular; Yoshida sings in a made-up falsetto language, looping flawlessly executed vocal lines while flailing away at his kit. Fittingly, I guess, the Main Space was emptier than it had been all night-- maybe Black Kids were playing somewhere?

Les Savy Fav, Hot Chip, No Age Join ATP vs. Pitchfork
Explosions in the Sky pick BSS, Iron & Wine, Dinosaur Jr., Trail of Dead for 2nd ATP Weekend

Hey folks! LOTS to share today, so pull up a chair!

From 24, down to 18: that's how many names you'd have to pry out of us to learn the full lineup for the previously reported ATP vs. Pitchfork festival, going down the weekend of May 9-11, 2008 at the original All Tomorrow's Parties venue, Camber Sands Holiday Park, near Rye in Sussex, England. Behold, six all new reasons (in bold) to contact a travel agent, pronto:

Chosen by Pitchfork:

Hot Chip
Les Savy Fav
No Age
Of Montreal
Man Man
Los Campesinos!
Caribou
Glass Candy
Dirty Projectors

Chosen by ATP:

Meat Puppets
The Black Angels
Shit and Shine
Sebadoh
Ween
Pissed Jeans
Fuck Buttons
Apse

My oh my! And, with a dozen and a half bands left to be revealed, the likelihood of you seeing a better show anywhere else in the world on this particular weekend is fast approaching nil.

As mentioned previously, the ticket price of £140 includes accommodations at Camber Sands' chalets, which feature private bathroom suites, bars, a swimming pool, restaurants, a supermarket, go-karting, and mini-golf! Tickets for the weekend can be purchased through ATP's website in blocks of four, five, six, seven, or eight.

If you're tied up during our little throwdown-- or if you come by and plan on sticking around a while-- you could always try to make it the following weekend, when the second All Tomorrow's Parties-hosted Weekend of 2008 sets off May 16-18 at Butlins Holiday Resort in Minehead, England.

This one's curated by Explosions in the Sky, and along with a set from the epic Texas instrumental troupe, Dinosaur Jr., ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, Iron and Wine, Broken Social Scene, and Adem will take the stage at Explosions' behest.

Around 50 acts will perform at the second weekend, so expect updates to follow. Tickets for the event-- £140 for "Room Only" accommodation and £150 for "Self Catering", and available in groups of 2-7 depending on your lodging selection-- are on sale presently.

Swervedriver to Reunite for World Tour Next Year
They're been gone so long, color photography was invented in the interim

It's been nigh on ten years since Swervedriver's 99th Dream, which even the least casual observer might've pegged their swan song. And perhaps it was: on record, anyway. We'll just have to wait and see.

But for now, these boys-- Adam Franklin, Jimmy Hartridge, Steve George, and Jez Hindmarsh-- have announced an end to their extended hiatus, as the fondly remembered Swervedriver plans to tour the world early next year, breaking almost a decade of silence. The dates have yet to be confirmed; we'll have 'em for you when they are.

Swervedriver's not-so-former-anymore frontman Adam Franklin is currently out shooting Bolts of Melody all over North America. Those dates available after the jump. [MORE...]

Times New Viking Issue Matador Debut in January

With an utter disregard for fidelity and a more than compensatory deftness with all things melodic, Times New Viking have one of 2007's better efforts-- the unduly snoozed-on Present the Paisley Reich LP on Siltbreeze-- under their belts.

To follow, the cacophonic Columbus-based crew have blasted out Rip It Off, their debut for the Matador label, due January 22 (the same day Cat Power's Jukebox arrives via the same label). Stretching sixteen songs tightly over a half hour or so, the disc will-- according to the band's MySpace blog-- birth a single sometime next month.

Looks like they took their labelmates' Ass-beating challenge seriously, too: Rip It Off contains a track titled "Times New Viking vs. Yo La Tengo". Ooh, it's on!

An East Coast tour, too, is in the works, though those details are pending. The band will play Cafe Bourbon Street in their native Columbus tomorrow evening (October 20). [MORE...]

RZA Wins Chess Competition!
Checkmate, Bill Murray

Photo by Daaim Shabazz

Wu-Tang Clan's love affair with chess is well documented, but for as much as they talk about the game of strategy, I personally always assumed it was more of a hobby than anything particularly serious. Silly me, because now Wu leader RZA is a certified Chess King, and he's got the 20-pound, gold-plated leather belt to prove it, according to a HHNLive.com report.

The report names RZA as the winner of the previously reported 1st Annual Chess Kings Invitational, which went down this past weekend in San Francisco. The Abbott's victim in the final round? One of his own: Wu affiliate Monk.

We obviously can't beat him, but we can still join RZA and the rest of the Clan for the release of their new album, 8 Diagrams, on December 4.

Nas Reveals Greatest Hits, Talks Controversial LP Title
No, it's not just Illmatic with "Ether" stuck at the end

Until he finally made nice with Jay-Z and found himself in the Def Jam fold for Hip Hop Is Dead, Nas was a Columbia man. The ace MC's former label has compiled a dozen of Nas' pre-Dead "greatest hits," tacked on two bonus cuts, named it Greatest Hits, and pressed the collection for release on November 6. Not surprisingly, the set leans heavily on Illmatic, with a few highlights from the rest of Nas' Columbia catalogue thrown in for good measure.

There's a pair of new tracks, too, sort of: the Cee-Lo laced "Less Than an Hour", which first appeared on this summer's Rush Hour 3 soundtrack, and opener "Surviving the Times", which appears here for the first time anywhere.

And, as any frequent peruser of the world wide interweb is no doubt aware by now, Nas has stirred up quite some controversy with the title he's chosen for his next LP of new material: Nigger. Nas stood by his choice in a recent interview with MTV.com, however, concluding "We're taking power from that word." It's well worth reading the whole interview; at the very least, check out the portion excerpted here:

"I'm a street disciple. I'm talking to the streets. Stay out of our business. You ain't got no business worrying about what the word 'nigger' is or acting like you know what my album is about without talking to me. Whether you in the NAACP or you Jesse Jackson. I respect all of them...I just want them to know: Never fall victim to Fox. Never fall victim to the shit they do. What they do is try to hurry up and get you on the phone and try to get you to talk about something you might not know about yet.

"If Cornell West was making an album called Nigger, they would know he's got something intellectual to say. To think I'm gonna say something that's not intellectual is calling me a nigger, and to be called a nigger by Jesse Jackson and the NAACP is counterproductive, counter-revolutionary.

"I wanna make the word easy on muthafuckas' ears. You see how white boys ain't mad at 'cracker' 'cause it don't have the same [sting] as 'nigger'? I want 'nigger' to have less meaning [than] 'cracker.' With all the bullshit that's going on in the world, racism is at its peak. I wanna do the shit that's not being done. I wanna be the artist who ain't out. I wanna make the music I wanna hear.

"We're taking power from the word. No disrespect to none of them who were part of the civil-rights movement, but some of my niggas in the streets don't know who [civil-rights activist] Medgar Evers was. I love Medgar Evers, but some of the niggas in the streets don't know Medgar Evers, they know who Nas is. And to my older people who don't know who Nas is and who don't know what a street disciple is, stay outta this muthafuckin' conversation. We'll talk to you when we're ready. Right now, we're on a whole new movement. We're taking power from that word."

The LP is due December 11 via Def Jam and is expected to feature production work from Diddy, Jermaine Dupri, DJ Toomp, and long-time Nas associate Salaam Remi, according to MTV.

Though Nas' tour itinerary-- like that of most rappers-- is a little tough to pin down, he's got a few Australian shows lined up in the weeks to come. Hip-hop may be dead, but those frequent flyer miles don't expire until the new year. [MORE...]

Devendra Banhart Plots European Trek for November
"Mom, dad, I'm taking a month off to go to Europe to find myself. And play some shows."

Photo by Alissa Anderson

Looks like our furry friend Devendra Banhart's about to pull out from his excursion in the mind's eye and embark on a journey of the more literal sort.

Having recently wrapped a good trip through the North Americas on tour, Mr. Banhart will take it Europe-ward next month for a baker's dozen gatherings of the flock, taking a piece of Thunder Canyon to village greens and town squares and so forth.

Actor/studmuffin Gael García Bernal must be entranced by Mr. Banhart's eccentricities (or perhaps just the entangled trail of black, curly hairs he leaves in his wake). Not only does Bernal whoop it up with Smokey, but according to reader Valerie Enriquez, he was at a recent L.A. show, along with a couple Strokes. How nice that those boys can take some time to visit their bud Devendra. [MORE...]

CSS, Ulrich Schnauss Remix Asobi Seksu on New Single
Asobi Seksu tour Europe

Asobi Seksu, dream poppers and warriors in the unending battle against scurvy alike, have found another single in the grove of Citrus.

The buoyant "Strawberries" will see release in the UK November 12 from One Little Indian on two different red 7" records, a CD, and a digital download. "Strawberries" appears in its album form, followed by remixes of the track from CSS, Ulrich Schnauss, and the Whip. Gosh, Ulrich, how many more layers of fuzz does this track really need?

Europe's getting their fair share of Asobi this winter: apart from the single, the band is also touring the continent from late October through early December. [MORE...]

Mick Jones' Carbon/Silicon Prepare Debut LP

Once upon a time, Mick Jones was in the only band that used to matter, the Clash. Tony James did time in in Generation X, the semi-obscure Billy Idol-fronted punk act.

Now, along with ex-Big Audio Dynamite bassist (so, therefore, old pal of Mick's) Leo "E-zee-Kill" Williams, and Reef's Dominic Greensmith on drums, they're Carbon/Silicon. And they've put all those pedigrees to good use for The Last Post, Carbon/Silicon's debut LP, available October 23 from Caroline.

Of course, you may be wondering just how you got all those Carbon/Silicon MP3s long before you could buy their album. Well, Jones and James and have been using the band website to get material to fans for years now, dropping mini-albums and digital-only EPs whenever they saw fit. These old cats are schooling you, Yorke!

The group looks to be firming up a series of Stateside dates at the moment, with November gigs planned (but unconfirmed!) in L.A. and New York. [MORE...]

Deerhunter Add Dates, Atlas Sound Tracklist Revealed
Plus: Bradford does correspondent work for MTV at CMJ

Photo by Jason Bergman

Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel, Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox's Kranky debut under the Atlas Sound name, has a tracklist.

Cox, recently in Chicago to mix the record and play with some friends old and new, posted said tracklist on his MySpace (we've also taken the liberty of reprinting it below). He hopes to have the disc available in the early spring, though a concrete date has yet to be set.

Someone must've given Cox carte blanche with MTV's AV cabinet at Wednesday night's Windish Agency showcase at CMJ (more than ably reported on by Pitchfork's own Zach Baron and Marc Hogan in these pages yesterday), as a series of videos of Cox seeking out "all the bands at CMJ that matter" has popped up on MTV's website.

See Bradford and Dan Deacon exclaim things at each other and discuss Dan's misprinted t-shirts! Watch Bradford try to charge a No Age shirt to MTV! See No Age and Bradford discuss their scatological habits! Watch a bunch of girls pamper Bradford just before he goes onstage! Oh, and don't miss a bunch of frustratingly short clips of what already seemed on paper like the festival's showcase to beat.

Hands down, though, the best bit finds Bradford crafting a love note to No Age and taking a couple swings at MTV in so doing. Read along after the jump.

A bit of clicking around reveals Chicago's favorite daughter Kid Sister doing a similar thing at the Fools Gold showcase our Amy Phillips told you about yesterday, and John Norris going wild for "new queen of indie rock," Celebration's Katrina Ford.

Don't miss Pitchfork's own dispatches from CMJ, which continued today and will run through the weekend.

As for Deerhunter, they just revealed their finalized schedule for 2007, which finds them more often than not in Europe. [MORE...]

Do you have a news tip for us? Anything crazy happen at a show you attended recently? Do you have inside info on the bands we cover? Is one of your favorite artists (that's not somebody you know personally) releasing a new record you'd like to see covered? You will remain completely anonymous, unless we are given your express permission to reveal your identity. (Please note that publicists, managers, booking agents, and other artist representatives are generally exempt from this rule, but will also be granted anonymity if requested.)