Ever since I missed the majority of an epic Penguins–Flyers playoff OT tilt (the 5/4/2000 5OT classic) because of a National Skyline show and, more brutally, the Illinois comeback against Arizona in the 2005 Elite Eight because of a Slint reunion show, I’ve been wary of sporting events coinciding with major shows. Fortunately this show only caused me to miss out on a predicted Duke loss to VCU in the first round of the NCAA tournament, not the greatest game in the history of sports, so things worked out fairly well.

I managed to catch the last three songs of Caspian’s set, which piqued my interest in their upcoming full-length. They managed to shed most of the Explosions in the Sky comparisons when they stuck to more violent, riff-oriented post-rock on penultimate song of their set, but the set closer was more of a slow burn crescendo into a drum circle. Drum circles, eh? The only one of those I remember enjoying was XBXRX, since it comprised half of their eight-minute-long set and did not involve their guitarist climbing on my shoulders and riding me around the Fireside Bowl. Despite this tangent, I’ll gladly see Caspian headline in the future and hope that The Four Trees gets a vinyl pressing. (I e-mailed the band and learned that they also hope the album gets a vinyl pressing, but nothing is guaranteed at this point.)

Harris played next, enjoying a hometown show with their parents in the audience. Aww. Their MySpace lists Braid and the Dismemberment Plan as logical comparisons, but I thought more of their emo peers circa 1998 or so; a bit of the Get-Up Kids keyboard-laden enthusiasm on a few tracks goes a long way. They succeeded when their enthusiasm didn’t overwhelm, but the keyboard player ruined his otherwise excellent contribution to their set with some rap-shouting in the middle of the song about parking spaces and dumping urine on the roof of a car. Nothing against the lyrical concept, mind you, but “rap-shouting” is perhaps even sub–drum circle.

I went to the show to see the Life and Times and, much like the previous five times I’d seen them, they didn’t disappoint. No “The Sound of the Ground,” but “Mea Culpa” and “Muscle Cars” both have great new intros and blow away their solid recordings. The sound was considerably more balanced than the last show at T. T. the Bear’s, meaning that I could hear both guitar and bass at the same time. The only bummer of the night was when Allen played a few bars of the Jesus Lizard’s “Mouthbreather,” not the whole thing. I don’t know how well that song would have fit into the muscular shoegaze of the rest of the set, but risking potential audience alienation is a decent price to pay for goddamn “Mouthbreather.”

I saw the Appleseed Cast in Champaign at the Cowboy Monkey in 2003 and largely enjoyed their set and this performance didn’t stray too much from that memory. Unlike the Life and Times, who got to the shoegaze aesthetic through a math-rock emphasis on rhythm and riffs, the Appleseed Cast came from a more strict second-wave emo approach (defined by the first two Sunny Day Real Estate records in my view) and their set vacillated between instrumental jams with post-rock dynamics and relatively catchy emo songs with shoegaze overtones. Amazingly enough, the kids seemed to be more into the yearning songs with vocals.

I was pretty stunned to learn that the next show of the tour (Friday night) was in Poughkeepsie, New York—i.e. roughly where I grew up—since shows of this particular standing rarely came through town when I was in high school, but hopefully that one went well despite a poorly timed Nor’easter. If you can catch any of the remaining shows of the tour (and there are plenty), I recommend doing so.

Since All That to the Wall, the upcoming full-length album from the Narrator, leaked last week, I’ve found it difficult to listen to any of the other big name albums that also found their way into advance digital formats (namely Pelican, Modest Mouse, Caspian, Bill Callahan, Shannon Wright, and The Sea and Cake). Whereas its predecessor, 2005’s Such Triumph, forced its songs to emerge out of a messy, snotty aesthetic, All That to the Wall unsurprisingly cuts most of this fat. Sorry “Crapdragon” and “Roughhousing” devotees; this album steadfastly avoids feedback fests in favor of chiming guitar hooks and sturdier song structures. Such Triumph benefited from its riotous energy and vaguely threatening cacophonies, but All That to the Wall makes far more sense veering toward maturity (a mid-tempo break in the middle covers both “Panic at Puppy Beach” and a cover of Bob Dylan’s nearly forgotten “All the Tired Horses) than holding on to raging youth too long.

“Son of the Son of the Kiss of Death” opens the record with a canned drumbeat and a newfound precision, leaving the messy lines for the throat-searing vocals. Along with the clear single “SurfJew” and the surging “Breaking the Turtle” (“And this is a song for / All the Nascar generation / The more they sit there / They’re just gaining momentum”), “Son of the…” seems noticeably better than many of its neighbors on the first listen (much like how “This Party’s Over” and “Ergot Blues” initially stood above Such Triumph), but after further inspection, the gap between these songs and the “album tracks,” if that term is still viable, decreases noticeably. “Chocolate Windchimes” wears its closing introspection far better than the down-tempo moments on the last album. “All the Tired Horses” makes perfect sense for a melancholic end to the first side of the album, provided that it’s pressed to vinyl. “Papal Airways” dusts off the enthusiastic background vocals and handclaps of “This Party’s Over.” Considering how All That to the Wall is the product of two fill-in drummers (from Russian Circles and the Oxford Collapse), it’s astonishingly coherent.

Pencil this one in for my top ten of 2007.

In related news, I saw Chin Up Chin Up at Great Scott on Sunday night. (Flameshovel Records guy and the Narrator singer/guitarist Jesse Woghin moonlights as CUCU’s bassist.) The crowd looked like a Charlie Brown Indie Rock Special, bouncing around like popcorn kernels to the more energetic moments of the band’s two full-lengths. It struck me how much clearer the chorus hooks came out live, particularly on the title track to We Should Have Never Lived… and “Virginia Don’t Drown.” After their set I talked to Jesse for a while, finding out that the Narrator should tour later in the spring (April or May), may press All That to the Wall on vinyl (I “pre-ordered” a hypothetical copy), and have a new drummer. You, too, should go see CUCU on their tour and put your name down for a vinyl copy of All That to the Wall.

At the behest of a message board cohort, I saw three completely unfamiliar bands at Great Scott in Allston on Saturday night, a rare occurrence for nowadays. The Swimmers, an indie pop/rock band from Philadelphia, played first. I should have known by the press quote heralding their “strident cheerfulness” that the law of diminishing returns would be in full effect, but I watched most of their set before turning my body and my attention toward the third period of the Bruins–Hurricanes game. All I could think about with regard to their music was the slew of promotional CDs I received six, seven years ago containing a similarly nondescript blend of enthusiasm and instantly forgotten songs. It almost frustrated me that I couldn’t remember a specific band name for comparison’s sake, but that ultimately seemed more appropriate.

The Young Republic, an eight-piece from Boston, occupied the middle slot. With two violinists, a keyboardist, a bassist, a drummer, a flautist, a pedal steel player, and a singer/guitarist, there was certainly enough going on, but the lead vocals and guitar tended to dominate the mix to the detriment of the whole. Most of the songs hit the intersection of Glossary’s alt-country and Belle and Sebastian’s layered indie pop, but occasionally they’d veer into ill-advised guitar freak-outs which boiled down to hyper-strumming high on the fret board with little regard for tone or texture.

When I went to get specifics on the band, I was pleasantly surprised by their MySpace page. No, not by the music, but by the presumably self-penned press blurb. I almost missed reading completely ostentatious one-sheets, but given the number of participants onstage, I’m not particularly surprised that they chose this route. I’ve highlighted my favorite parts.

Outside of Boston, they have enjoyed success courtesy of college and public radio, internet blogs and their parents. From Dylan veined folk songs to Gram Parsons country to Beatles inspired rock n’ roll, The YR takes each tune and deliberately and delicately adds instrument upon instrument, with keen ears for harmony, color and counterpoint to create music that aims more towards the 60’s pop music giants (Wilson, Lennon, McCartney) and the luminaries who overshadow even them (Mozart, Beethoven, Debussy, Stravinsky) than their indie rock contemporaries. They are at heart, a rock band, but it is perhaps a willingness to stretch into new musical territory that sets them apart from the rest of the pack. “She’s Not Waiting Here This Time,” the centerpiece of their latest effort YR 7 calls for a full string orchestra, twenty voice mixed choir, a trumpet soloist and a classical percussion section along with the full time players. A sprawling eight-verse folk song at its core, it may be the most ambitious and complex DIY recording project to date and a sign of things to come for the band.

This section of their press kit beautifully documents this inflated self-worth:

They study music with passion and are unafraid to write, arrange and perform with a skill that has been greatly devalued by most current rock acts. Their original sound is based off traditional folk and rock styles infused with classical sophistication and sensibilities - they can handle most genres. As popular indiedom passes through their periphery in flaming whirlwinds of dust and smoke, the young men and women of The Young Republic pay little mind to this fleeting fanfare as they concentrate on their own extraordinary work.

This tangent obviously goes beyond the show report, but I don’t understand why bands feel the need to write about themselves in this way. Bands can and should be inspired by music beyond the boundaries of contemporary indie, but being so adamant against the acknowledgment of the influence of your peers is ridiculously off-putting. I remember seeing a flyer for a Mercury Program show in Champaign which had a long paragraph not only listing their influences, but heralding their importance in contrast to the band’s own genre, something like “Though lumped in with the burgeoning post-rock crowd, the Mercury Program draws their influence from the avant-jazz of the 1960s and ’70s, particularly the works of….” Sure. You’re too good for post-rock. We get it. Go play another post-rock song, dudes. I could tell that the Young Republic liked bands outside of the contemporary scene, much like the Mercury Program wears a lot of its direct jazz lineage on its sleeve, but neither band transcends its timeframe enough to merit such open contempt for the reality of their condition. It’s a fine line to walk—no one wants to list only the latest, “greatest” acts—but being so self-conscious only serves to underscore your own limitations.

Back to the actual show. Mako closed to a thinned-out crowd. Picture Morrissey fronting a heavy-ish ’90s alt-rock band (they say Hum, but I wasn’t feeling that comparison) and that’ll cover it. There seemed to be a fundamental disconnect between those two elements that wasn’t reconciled before I left halfway through their set to venture back to Somerville (a thoroughly frigid hour-long walk), but I kept thinking about how easily Shudder to Think’s Pony Express Record could have been a complete disaster. I can imagine Mako putting out a solid record in a few years (unlike the other bands, they haven't released anything to date, so it's still very early), but the material I heard just seemed too disjointed. I wonder if the need for immediate coherence is an effect of the MySpace era of instant consumption.

This particular line-up did little to persuade me to drop eight bucks on unknowns more regularly, but if I do it’ll probably be at the more experimentally oriented (and perhaps more important, much closer) P.A.’s Lounge. I may very well have reached the point in my concert-attending career when I give up on seeing unknown acts entirely, but I’m still hoping to be proven wrong one of these days.

I had a brief internal debate between seeing Mission of Burma at the Paradise and Pinebender at Great Scott, but the higher-ranking band on my best of 2006 list won out. Having seen Pinebender in three cities in Illinois (at the Fireside Bowl in Chicago with Engine Down and Taking Pictures, at the Prairie House in Bloomington with the Botanists, and at that hookah bar in Champaign with Denali), I know quite well that they come off better live than on record, earning their “drudge” sub-genre with a loping pace and stomach-churning baritone guitar.

Blanketeer opened up, but since I had a chance to talk indie-rock shop with notorious baby killer Scott Peterson, I didn’t pay too much attention to their keyboard-centric blend of indie lite. I remember talking about how rare it is for me to sit through the entirety of an unknown opening band’s set nowadays, but Blanketeer’s MySpace page made them seem innocuous enough.

I moved to the front of the stage for Pinebender’s set, which started with “Simp Twister” from Things Are About to Get Weird. Hearing this slow-burner gradually rise above the din of the crowd until it finally kicked in and grabbed people’s attention was quite amusing, since Pinebender’s affection for high volume levels noticeably ended a few conversations. “Begin Here” and “Mask Tree” were the pre-“Parade of Horribles” highlights. I can’t underscore how well that song comes off live. Both guitarists get lengthy solos, but drummer Dennis Stacer’s vicious beat is the band’s secret weapon. As much as the fourteen-minute-long song should be always the set-closer, I wanted them to play another one so I could request the twelve-minute-long“There’s a Bag of Weights in the Back of My Car.” They didn’t. I talked to Stephen for a while afterward and insisted that they should play four song sets from now on, and he said that they consider doing so from time to time. I also asked if there were any plans to press the other albums on vinyl (Things Are About to Get Weird just got a super limited pressing on double vinyl—grab it soon), but it seems unlikely.

The Big Sleep headlined with their metropolitan brand of post-rock, primarily recalling a looser version of Trans Am’s Futureworld. I specified metropolitan with either Brooklyn (their actual home) or Los Angeles in mind, since there was a certain trumping of style (aesthetic) over substance (songs) that I couldn’t fathom coming out of the Midwest. Vocals occasionally stumbled out over the Krautrock grooves and wiry guitar riffs, but it was effectively an instrumental set. Unless they pull Scott McCloud from Girls Against Boys on board, they should drop the vocals. Enjoyable enough, but not something I need to listen to at home.

Ahem. I have an announcement to make.

Juno will reunite to headline the annual KEXP Yule Benefit show at Neumos in Seattle on December 9 and 10 of 2006.

Tickets are now on sale. Go to TicketsWest and search "Juno." The Saturday show with the Junior Boys, the Annuals, and unnamed opening act starts at 8pm and appears to be 21+, while the Sunday show with Ted Leo, the Junior Boys, and the Cold War Kids starts at 7pm and is all ages. Tickets are $20, plus surcharges.

For those familiar with Juno, this news came directly from Arlie Carstens. “It’s gonna be deeply weird, but likely a very nice time. And loud.” Rehearsals are approaching, so if you’re already in Seattle, you might soon be able to hear the thunderous, life-affirming roar of “Covered with Hair” seeping out from a long dormant practice space. Jason Lajeunesse will assume bass duties for this event, much like he did for their 2001 tour.

If you’re unfamiliar with Juno, their two astounding full-length releases, 1999’s This Is the Way It Goes and Goes and Goes and 2001’s A Future Lived in Past Tense await your undivided attention for the next two months. If you need a sample, “When I Was in _____” happens to be my favorite song ever. If you’d prefer a more thought-out summation of their brilliance, I direct you to the top spot on New Artillery’s Top 40 of the 2000s.

Yes, I will be there. With goddamn bells on.

I caught This Flood Covers the Earth on Tuesday at the Lily Pad in Inman Square (an art space that doubles as an independently operated venue). I’d been in contact with their singer, Charlie, for quite a few years now (he was once in a band with Western Homes/Mark T. R. Donohue, famed baseball blogger). Aside from a few telling exceptions, I am neither a huge fan of or well versed in contemporary hardcore music, but This Flood quickly became one of those very exceptions. After a brutal opening salvo, moody instrumental passages and dynamic shifts evocative of Drive Like Jehu and June of ’44 defined the edges of their genre overlaps and helped sharpen the teeth of those sweaty, guitar-swinging bursts of aggression. Their split LP with tour mates Lanterns actually captures a good amount of the energy and expertise displayed live. I wish I could comment more on Lanterns (or headliners Motionless), but I spent most of their sets outside of the Lily Pad, talking to Charlie and the men behind History Major Records (one of whom is, appropriately enough, entering the graduate History department at BC). I highly recommend catching these bands on the last month of their tour and/or picking up the split release.

When I got home from that show, I found out TV on the Radio and Yeah Yeah Yeahs were playing a free show courtesy of WFNX in downtown Boston on Thursday. I’d seen both bands on separate occasions at the Empty Bottle in Chicago, a considerably more intimate environment for rock concerts, but free is free, particularly in Boston. TV on the Radio’s Return to Cookie Mountain (released domestically in the fall of 2022) is on the short list of 2006 records I recommend sans qualifiers, but a muddy mix didn’t help their live set. I’d say that they’re more of a studio band if I didn’t recall how stunning the rocked-out version of “Blind” from the club show was, but “Wolf Like Me,” “Staring at the Sun,” and “Dirty Whirlwind” were highlights. For their next record, I hope the guitar players learn another trick beyond “fast indie strumming,” but that’s at least thirty years away.

I didn’t particularly care for Show Your Bones, the most recent Yeah Yeah Yeahs album, but it’s tough to deny their charisma or execution in the live setting, even if some of the songs are duds. Nick Zinner’s guitar tone puts most bands’ to shame, while Karen O. does justice to her current “space prostitute from Blade Runner” attire. Not that I brought my camera, but she has thankfully toned down her destructive impulses toward electronic equipment since I saw them as the first band in a four-band set (with Girls Against Boys headlining). I could have done without the slow-jams near the end of their set, but the encore of “Y-Control” rewarded my patience.

If WFNX decides to continue this trend of having former Touch and Go bands play free shows at Government Center, perhaps the aforementioned GVSB, the Jesus Lizard, Slint, Polvo, Seam, and Big Black would make an excellent line-up. Hell, it might even continue past 8:30pm.

I feel like mentioning this excellent video stream of a recent GVSB concert. The band is playing the Touch and Go anniversary party, but a warm-up/cool-down/anything show in the Boston area would be amazing: one more time with feeling/style.

I missed out on quite a few presumably excellent concerts this semester—Isis, the Terrastock Festival in Providence, Mogwai, Part Chimp, Arab Strap, Silver Jews, Minus the Bear, to name a few—but I did manage to catch a few shows here and there. I’ll recap them here, but hopefully when I get my photos in order, I’ll have pictures from a few of these sets.

My friend Ryan Chavez is now the drummer for the Smoking Popes, who I’d heard briefly during their mid-’90s heyday, but who were an alt-rock radio staple for my wife’s high school days in the Chicago suburbs. We caught a date from their reunion tour at the Middle East, and while I can’t say I rushed out to buy any of their records, they put on a good, tight set. It was fun seeing Ryan play a different instrument than his guitar/singing duties in Panic in Detroit, and I hope to catch his former bandmate Melissa Lonchambon’s new band Sharks and Sailors if they ever make it up to New England.

During spring break, two of my grad school compatriots and I drove to New York City to wander around Manhattan for the day and catch the Life and Times at the Mercury Lounge. (For those wondering, I have now seen Shiner or TLAT fifteen times in seven cities—Champaign, Chicago, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and New York—and eight once TLAT finally comes to Boston.) Adam and I got to the club just in time to suffer through the entirety of Langhorne Slim’s lengthy set. Langhorne already seemed to be a bit of an over-eager showman, but bolstered by his local, adoring audience, he used every opportunity to tell inane, rambling lead-ins to his hodge-podge of alt-country, blues, and honky tonk. Naturally, the majority of these fans left after his set.

The Life and Times played another solid set, playing some of the new material destined for their split ten-inch with Nueva Vulcano (the new-ish band from Artur from Aina; he sings in Spanish) and their EP on the Japanese label Stiff Slack, both slated to arrive later this summer. Nothing completely revelatory (I reserve this for the first time I saw “The Egg” and “The Simple Truth,” long in advance of the record), but “Mea Culpa” in particular sounded great. I cannot emphasize enough how much this band needs to come to Boston after their tour of Spain.

I missed out on attending the convergence of notable drone-/psych-/post-rock acts at Terrastock, but I caught Paik, the band I most wanted to see, and a few other acts from the festival playing a warm-up gig at PA’s Lounge. The Kitchen Cynics were actually a one-man band from Scotland, an older, charismatic gentleman who told humorous anecdotes disguised as songs. His guitar work was presumably got him into the Terrastock set, featuring some looped backing parts and intricate arpeggios. Thought Forms, a three-piece “post-rock” band from England, followed this surprise up with a far more typical set, sounding like they’d done their homework on early Paik and more recent Explosions in the Sky records but hadn’t figured out how to make those structures their own. Landing played next, building up small waves of gurgling electronics and shimmering guitar into controlled swells. I would have enjoyed their set a lot more if nagging thoughts about a presentation the next day weren’t pulling me away from the Darla-endorsed Bliss Out.

Paik headlined, focusing on material from their new album Monster of the Absolute. I had only learned of its impending existence when checking out their site before the show, and from a low quality clip of “Phantoms,” I knew I was in for a treat. I had never seen Paik before, but I scored a VHS of a performance circa Corridors during a Parasol clean-up, which showed the band’s affinity for dizzying light shows, but didn’t stray too much from the source material. This time, however, they built up the basic structure of the songs with guitar loops, and then added woozy slabs of feedback over top. The volume was pummeling in a way I haven’t felt since seeing Mogwai a few years back, and I was glad to be sitting in front of the band taking pictures instead of standing with the rest of the crowd. Monster of the Absolute displays some of this layering, but not to the gut-punching depths of the live performance.

Last night I saw Murder by Death, Langhorne Slim, and Metal Hearts at the Middle East. I hadn’t heard too much about Metal Hearts (Pitchfork said they sound like Arab Strap, but that comparison did not come to mind) and perhaps that’s because they’re not exactly memorable. The first few songs had more of a laid-back Modest Mouse meets American Football vibe, but keyboards and saxophone rotated into the set and confirmed that, yes, I was watching background music. Adam and I had already suffered through Langhorne on his home court in NYC, but we watched a few songs to prove to our ladies that our complaints were valid. Lo and behold, they were. He told far fewer stories, but played the same songs, so we left until Murder by Death’s posted start time.

This show marks the first time I’ve seen Murder by Death without a keyboard player (if memory serves, the ninth time overall), and while most of the material didn’t seem lacking, playing “Those Who Stayed” without “Those Who Left” to close the set ended the night on a strange note. I’ll admit that Adam Turla’s voice fits their new western-themed songs far better than their early “pretty” songs like “Intergalactic Menopause” or “Canyon Inn, Room 16,” but it’s rare to see a band take such a drastic shift away from their previous material. Tipped by “Sometimes the Line Walks You,” Johnny Cash and Tom Waits have replaced the Cure and Mogwai as latent reference points on In Bocca Al Lupo. I long for more post-rock inflection to creep into the new material, but the tighter structures are preventing that for the time being.