// Category Archive for: Current Faves

Top Gear: It’s Biblically Good

By Melissa Bratcher

With the American version of Top Gear on the horizon, there is no better time to discuss what makes the British version such a brilliant show. The American version is destined to be dreadful—partially because America makes crap cars. European cars are just better.

Top Gear is a car show for people who don’t particularly care about cars (though after watching for a while, one begins to notice cars in ways not noticed before). The cinematography on Top Gear is as gorgeous as anything one would see in a nature documentary. The people on the show drive supercars and do ridiculous challenges and feats of derring-do, but that’s not the best part. The best part is the strange alchemy of the hosts.

Top Gear in Botswana

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HTRK, Marry Me Tonight: In Memory Of Sean Stewart

By Julie Finley

At the end of 2009, I stumbled upon an Australian band known as HTRK (pronounced “Hate Rock”). Their name was linked to the late great Rowland S. Howard, and I had to figure out what the connection was (this was before Rowland had passed. . . R.I.P. RSH!)

HTRK were linked to a few musical icons other than Rowland, all part of a corps of musicians hailing from Melbourne, Australia. The most direct link is to The Devastations. HTRK Singer Jonnine Standish is married to The Devastations’ Conrad Standish, and the matrimony doesn’t end there; the other members of HTRK (Nigel Yang and Sean Stewart) were involved with the Devastations musically as well.
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Download The New Single From UK Band Peggy Sue: “Watchman”

By J Howell

Here’s something that might appeal to fans of artists like Eleni Mandell or even Tom Waits. Smart, stinging lyrics delivered in harrowing harmonies backed by clanging percussion, Peggy Sue‘s “Watchman” has left me eager to hear more.

This Brighton, UK band—comprised of Katy Young, Rosa Slade, and Olly Joyce—is now on the fine Yep Roc label stateside, and on tour in the US through June. The video for “Watchman” is interesting too, featuring animation by Betsy Dadd. Easily one of the most impressive tracks to cross my path recently, “Watchman” has put Peggy Sue on my short list of bands to keep an eye on. Brilliant.

Watch the video for “Watchmen” here.

Peggy Sue’s album, Fossils And Other Phantoms, comes out June 1 on Yep Roc. Be sure to catch the band on tour.

June 9: Johnny Brenda’s in Philadelphia, PA
June 10: Piano’s in NYC
June 11: Paradise in Boston, MA
June 12: Le Divan Orange in Montreal
June 13: Sneaky Dees in Toronto
June 14: Schuba’s in Chicago IL
June 20: Mississippi Studios in Portland, OR
June 21: Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco CA
June 22: Spaceland in Los Angeles CA

New Music + Video From Thomas Dolby: “Love Is A Loaded Pistol”

By Jemiah Jefferson

“Love Is a Loaded Pistol,” the first new track from Thomas Dolby since approximately 2007, might come as a surprise to listeners who never knew anything more than “She Blinded Me With Science,” but the steampunk maestro has left his electronic roots well behind, interested now in a quieter, more personal, but no less intense approach to writing and performance.

“Loaded Pistol” soars on a combination of thoughtful strings and supper-club piano, with Dolby’s voice traversing from a husky near-whisper to a passionate, braying bell and a dozen emotional points between. Between the noir-styled story-song lyrics and the piano, you’d think he’d been possessed by the Blue Valentine-era Tom Waits, but the reality is a lot more clear and delicate.
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Stephan Crump with Rosetta Trio, Reclamation

By J Howell

It’s not often these days you hear a record or band led by a bassist, but with Reclamation, Stephan Crump shines.

Astute jazz fans may be familiar with Crump’s lengthy association with Vijay Iyer, or for holding down the low end in Jim Campilongo’s Electric Trio—in fact, Crump is responsible for the jarring screech that kicks off Campilongo’s most recent, barn-burning Orange.
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IAMX, Dogmatic Infidel Comedown OK

By Hanna

In general, remixes seem redundant to me because they never live up to what they purport to be: a completely new or different piece of music. Mostly I tell people that remixes sound like someone in the band can’t keep the time and is missing the beat over and over and over. But of course, like all generalizations, this is both too simple and too stupid a description of remixes to be completely true.

Remixes of the hilarious parody type can be surprisingly good, if they manage to combine two ideas. And then there are remixes that really do become a whole new piece of music. Dogmatic Infidel Comedown OK features remixes of IAMX’s Kingdom Of Welcome Addiction album and is remarkable in that it manages to do just that.
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The Fall, Your Future, Our Clutter

By J Howell

The late John Peel once famously said of The Fall that the reason he loved them was because “they are always different; they are always the same.” That pretty much sums up Your Future, Our Clutter as well as any one sentence could.

Though only Mark E. Smith has been constant throughout the band’s thirty-four year career, that same thread of similar traits is present on this, the band’s twenty-eighth album. Part of that may be that Your Future, Our Clutter was made by the same Fall that made the last album, Imperial Wax Solvent, but listening to a cross-section of Fall music made over the band’s career one can’t help but notice that there are similarities: hypnotic repetition in the music, distinctly British social commentary, Mark E. Smith’s iconoclastic vocals, and an amazing knack for being simultaneously incredibly abrasive and hooky.
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Apples in stereo, Travellers In Space And Time

By Chelsea Spear

It’s a typical Sunday morning in New England. The skies are overcast, precipitation is spitting, and a slight breeze has started to pick up and become a full-blown wind. To my Eustachian tubes, however, the weather is 85 degrees and sunny without a cloud in the sky. The music of the Apples in stereo can have that effect on listeners.

While Robert Schneider and his band of merry musicians lack the cathartic heft of their Elephant 6 buddies Neutral Milk Hotel, and were never as experimental as the Olivia Tremor Control, he’s always been adept at serving up a kind of musical comfort food to fans of 1960s bubblegum and power pop. He sets his stick-in-the-head melodies in lush, layered production, creating a satisfying sound for fans of a bygone era.
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Arranged Marriage, Dearly Beloved

By Christian Lipski

As a rule, kids never like the music their parents listen to. Likewise, there’s an unwritten law that parents must hate their children’s music. It’s important for young people to develop their own identities as people, and for parents to get a taste of what they put their own parents through. That’s what makes the band Arranged Marriage such a unique treat: father Brad Allen has teamed up with his son Scott to write, perform and produce the album Dearly Beloved.
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We Are Going To Eat You, Too

By Less Lee Moore

Click the image for
a larger version.

If you live in the Atlanta, GA area, do not miss “We Are Going To Eat You, Too,” a sequel to the 2009 show at MINT Gallery, which opens on Saturday, April 17. (Hell, even if you don’t live in the Atlanta area, it will be worth the trip.) And unlike many horror movie sequels, this one promises to be just as amazing (if not more so) than the original.

Eric Weber is once again curating this artistic tribute to underground and cult movies. Eric writes for Popshifter, and is also an artist, photographer, and sometimes-draftsman of floor plans for the layout of the Golden Girls house. (For serious.)

Check out the MINT Gallery site for details and read more about Eric’s motivation for putting these shows together in the preview feature about the exhibit on Creative Loafing.

You can also read a great interview with Eric about his art from Popshifter‘s September/October 2009 issue. Don’t forget to check out his other Popshifter articles while you’re at it!

“We Are Going To Eat You, Too” runs from April 17 through April 25 at the MINT Gallery, a non-profit community oriented art gallery located at 684 B John Wesley Dobbs Avenue in Atlanta, GA.