As has already been reported all over the internet, Bloc Party sucker-punched everyone with the announcement that they will be releasing their third album Intimacy on Thursday, August 21st.
I read the article on Stereogum about an hour after it was posted, and then read every little bit of news I could find on the release. I'd heard that the band was doing a live web chat, which is where they made the announcement.
So, one day a while ago Kele Okereke shows up at a British radio station and plays "Mercury" for the first time, and now the band pops up and says that their album which was rumored to be released in very late 2008 or early 2009 would be coming out in just a matter of days.
Am I the only one really nervous about this? Bloc Party is one of my favorite bands in the world right now, but from hearing "Mercury" and its b-side "Idea for a Story," then the leak of "Trojan Horse" today, I'm very skeptical about the direction the band is heading. Take a listen to the newest leaked track at Bloc Party's MySpace.
I remember the first bit of backlash to The Raconteurs guerilla release was that it masked a sub-par album, and right now that's exactly what Intimacy is shaping up to be in my mind. I've loved almost every song Bloc has put out, but these last three songs just aren't hitting the right notes for me. I can't quite put my finger on the problem, but when I can put it into words I'll give it a shot.
At least we've only got a day left to wait before hearing it, but I doubt there's an album worth of b-sides waiting to be discovered like the greatest easter egg hunt of all time following the release of A Weekend in the City last year.
In just a few short weeks college freshman will begin their first exodus to their respective campuses to begin their four years of "wonder" away from home, relying on on themselves. This year I'm helping to run the dorm I live in, and out President sent out a message about a "Going To College" mix. I made just such a playlist last summer as I was preparing to go to NU...but it was a couple hundred songs long, so I decided to make a new, whittled down version and describe it here for incoming freshman that happen to pass by this page. Enjoy, the playlist is attached at the bottom for listening.
The Hold Steady - "Positive Jam" We're gonna start it off with a positive jam ladies and gentlemen. If you don't know these Minnesota boys, "the best bar band in America," you better start looking them up.
Sufjan Stevens - "Chicago" There are three kinds of Sufjan Stevens people. First there are those that just don't like him because it's not their kind of music, and then there are others around the country who like him a lot. Then there are the residents of the state of Illinois who deify the man, thus ruining his musical talent a little bit for the rest of us with how annoying they are. Nevertheless, Chicago is a stone's throw away from Northwestern, so this little beautie is appropriate.
The Strokes - "Is This It" It is said that The Strokes titled their debut album Is This It in response to how they dealt with the veritable mountains of hype that surrounded their early recordings. You might find yourself at times wondering why you thought something about going to college would be so important or stressful. At those times, this song is for you.
Be Your Own Pet - "Adventure" Never, ever be afraid to go on a new adventure during college, be it a weekend road trip to a random place to a midnight (or much, much later...) excursion to the beach.
Ratatat - "Wildcat" I seriously consider this song to be my own personal fight song for the Northwestern Wildcats. It has a sample of an actual freaking wildcat in it!
Girl Talk - "Set It Off" People like dancing, people like mashup DJs. Girl Talk (aka DJ Greg Gillis) came to Northwestern last year and people have been riding that dance high since last winter. If you haven't heard of this guy, get ready to be intimately involved with his music at parties.
The White Stripes - "Fell In Love With A Girl" Who knows, this could happen to you. Plus the music video features Lego animation directed by Michel Gondry, and it's absolutely astounding.
Vampire Weekend - "Campus" Another semi-truthful love song, only this time it overtly refers to college. Some of you will undoubtedly feel the emotions described in this song, but don't worry, because you'll get over it after a few spins of songs like this.
Built To Spill - "Strange" Stuff in college is strange. You don't need me to tell you that in order to have some sort of idea of what I mean. Things just aren't the same on a college campus as they are in the real world.
The Decemberists - "Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)" For residents of my dorm who remember a performance last year of this song, it has remained the one single song I enjoy the most over and over again to come from any Performance Hour. Fall in love with it for the first time if you've never heard it, or fall in love with it again.
Polaris - "Hey Sandy" People love to talk about TV shows from their childhood, unless you just watched PBS and never saw anything good (Arthur and Wishbone don't count). This was the theme to a fantastic TV show on Nickelodeon that featured guest appearances from many indie icons, and starred the lead character from this music video. Know the show?
The Strokes - "You Only Live Once" Take the title to heart, and enjoy every single last minute of the first week, first quarter, and first year.
They Might Be Giants - "The Beer Song" Yeah, drinking happens. Surprised? This is one of my favorite TMBG songs, up there with "Particle Man" and "Instanbul."
Arctic Monkeys (feat. Dizzee Rascal) - "Temptation Greets You Like Your Naughty Friend" Some things can be tempting, like all the usual things (drinking, illegal substances, hookups), but often times the third one comes back to bite you in the ass. Just be careful, and listen to the sweet rap interlude from Dizzee on this track.
Foo Fighters - "Everlong" This song always meant savoring moments for me and remembering what I wanted to keep in my mind forever.
New Order - "Age of Consent" A very sweet song to dance to, but the title and some of the lyrics carry an important message about age difference...
Pixies - "Where Is My Mind?" This song plays over the end of Fight Club, and is pretty much the sweetest song off of the debut record from the Pixies. Sometimes during college you may be asking yourself the title question.
Radiohead - "Talk Show Host" A very calming song for me, originally from the Baz Luhrmann film Romeo+Juliet. It was a great sound for that film, and it's a great kickback track.
Spoon - "The Way We Get By" No matter what happens, there will be people in the dorm to help out with stuff. You really do get by because of the people living with you.
Elliott Smith - "Needle In The Hay This song was famously used by Wes Anderson in his film The Royal Tenenbaums. It still gives me chills sometimes to remember how perfectly it captured a terribly sad moment, but it's still a heartbreakingly beautiful song.
Weezer - "Pink Triangle" Mistakes happen sometimes, and you need to get used to that. This song just makes a mistake funny and a little pitiful at the same time, which pretty much sums up Rivers Cuomo.
Radiohead - "Exit Music (For a Film)" Another one originally composed for the R+J soundtrack that found its way onto Ok Computer, a beautiful ending song that I can just drift away while listening to on my headphones.
In the past couple weeks, two bands that I really like have broken up. Be Your Own Pet announced they were parting ways a few weeks ago after the end of their UK tour. I was upset because I really like their two albums, but they're young kids and I'm sure they'll do something worth listening to in the coming years. I just regret never getting to see them play a live show, that would've been rad considering how wild they sound on their albums.
The more unsettling breakup was last week's announcement that Wolfmother had split, and that the lead singer planned on recruiting new members for the band while the bassist/organist and drummer formed their own band. They'd only released one stellar throwback of an album, and it'd been long enough where me and my friends were wondering what was keeping them from releasing a second album. I didn't think that in-fighting was the reason keeping them from recording.
Coupled with the breakup of The Format a while ago, I'm getting more depressed about bands I like breaking up. I wasn't really old enough to understand Rage Against the Machine breaking up, but I always thought of this stuff as what happened to all those 60s bands my dad liked. I hadn't yet made the connection that all the bands I like wouldn't age like the Stones or U2 and just keep making music forever and ever until I was willing to let them stop. I guess this is what keeps the good bands timeless, the ones that were good while they lasted and didn't stick around long enough to tarnish what made them great in the first place. I've got my own thoughts on the idea of band reunions, but that's for another post.
Early this morning the US Men's Olympic Soccer team lost to Nigeria 2-1, eliminating them from medal contention. This is the latest in a series of really bad disappointments from the Men's National Team since their quarterfinal run in the 2002 World Cup (which should have been a semifinal run or more, the Germany game is still a mockery of officiating).
I hate to say it, but we still have not learned to properly compete on the international level. We've got players with talent, a slowly but surely emerging league (the MLS is adding Seattle, Philadelphia, and most likely another Canadian city in the next 3 years), and some of our best players are in the best leagues in the world. Jozy Altidore now plays with Villareal, Adu with Benfica and now on loan at AS Monaco. Even Damarcus Beasley and Landon Donovan, the two young promising stars from the 2002 Cup are still very good players.
We brough a mysterious U23 team to the Olympics, just like everyone else, with a few exceptions like keeper Guzan and Brian McBride. We played terribly in the first match, but still snuck through on a goal from Holden to beat Japan 1-0. We thought maybe this team of youngsters could pull something off. They fought back from a goal down against Holland to lead the game 2-1 in the final ten minutes, looking as though to go through to the quarters where they were expected to fail. Then...the usual team USA showed up. Freddy Adu got his second yellow in as many games, suspended for the final group game, and then was removed by coach Piotr Nowak, leaving nobody in the midfield to hold the ball away from the Dutch. Michael Bradley got it into his head to waste a ton of time around the 90th minute, and got himself a second yellow card in two games, suspending him for the thrid group game as well. And finally, the very same Holden that saved us against Japan made a costly foul in stoppage time to lead to the Dutch tying goal, screwing the US out of the win they deserved, and making the last group game against Nigeria a "can't lose" situation.
I'm not sure how the US would do in "must win" situations, but I know one thing: when all we have to do is tie, we always find a way to lose. It's incredible the kind of crap we get ourselves into when all we have to do is hold out for once.
All we had to do was hold for ninety minutes against Nigeria, one of the fastest teams at the games. We just had to settle in, not concede an early goal, and maybe carve out some possession to keep the Nigerians from cutting us up on the wings. Four minutes in, another typically American bonehead move cost us composure. Michael Orozco elbowed a man in the chest right in plain sight of the center referee, getting himself a red card. Playing a man down and without Adu or Bradley, the US allowed two goals to Nigeria before staging a desperate attempt at a comeback, leading to a Sascha Kljestan penalty kick and a Benny Feilhaber header off the crossbar.
Seeing the comeback fall just sort of the tie we so desperately needed just amplified how much we set ourselves back with the loss of Adu, Bradley, and Orozco even before the game really got started. The team shot themself in the foot once again, forced to play from behind in an insurmountable fashion.
Over the past six years we've failed spectacularly when everyone is watching. The 2006 World Cup was horrific in the opening loss to the Czech Republic, the two red cards against Italy, and Claudio Reyna's bum knee and Oguchi Onyewu's non-penalty against Ghana. Now with the collapse against Holland and playing from behind against Nigeria, I doubt the composure of any American team to compete on the highest level.
It's as though the run in 2002 didn't give us confidence so much as heap pressure on our team to the point where they are crushed under the stress. I don't really understand it, but with hope the senior national team can learn to relax, and perhaps play out the rest of World Cup qualifying with some ease, hopefully going to South Africa in 2010 with a new frame of mind.
I've been watching a lot of the 2008 Olympics, definitely more than I expected to. I stayed up to watch both US Men's Soccer matches, watched a ton of swimming, and have even watched a little of diving and gymnastics among other lesser events. Here are just a few reactions I've had:
NBC needs to stop putting "LIVE" on its broadcasts to anywhere but the East coast...because they're pre-recorded telecasts that are parading as live. Last night's 200m Freestyle was a perfect example. It was a live telecast at around 10pm Eastern Time, but was not broadcast on the West coast until three hours later, depriving a large viewing audience of the thrill of the live race. I'm just a little upset that NBC thinks they'll get higher ratings by rebroadcasting later when people are more likely to watch when they haven't found out the results on the internet.
This story is one in a long line to me that the Chinese Olympic officials just don't understand that you cannot be perfect. That level of tampering in order to acheive a perfect image is scary. We're talking V for Vendetta and Brave New World scary. It's adjusting and fine tuning an image to such a degree that we don't notice what's beautiful, only the huge amount of flaws. Shoving aside protesters and dissenters, not allowing full media and journalist coverage in the way that was promised, these are things that show they are too self conscious. The Opening Ceremony looked very nice, but they spent $300 million on it. A lot of things will look nice when Zhang Yimou is given a $300 million dollar budget to direct a performance, but what country has enough money to waste on PR like this?
I don't know, maybe I'm just at a cultural divide, but I'm just concerned that we're losing sight of the societal stories that were big before the Olympics. Pollution is still there, the treatment of Tibet is still afwul, and we're focusing on Phelps chasing Spitz and the Chinese Gymnastics team instead. The medal count is irrelevant to me, the US doesn't finish first every time (only in the past 10 years have they been dominant in the Summer games), especially when you consider the Winter Olympics. Why then is it a big deal if China tops the medal count? It's not a political statement to have more medals at the Olympics, there are still things wrong that can't be hidden by staging an elaborate Opening Ceremony.
On more sport related notes, I couldn't care less if Phelps matches or beats Spitz's record of 7 golds in swimming, he's a fantastic athlete and he represents the country well.
The men's soccer team put themselves in a terrible position to qualify for the quarterfinals with a 2-2 tie with Holland. Losing Freddy Adu and Michael Bradley to yellow card suspensions for their final group game against a very quick Nigeria team won't help either. Bradley got his yellow for time wasting after the 90th minute, an absolutely boneheaded move.
Team handball is kind of cool, but man is that Brazilian women's goalie annoying when she thinks she's winning. Good thing Hungary scored a last-second goal to tie it.
Week 1 belongs to swimming and gymnastics, Week 2 belongs to track. I'm just not sure how long China can keep up medal dominance when I've never heard of a Chinese track athlete doing well.
If softball, baseball, soccer, and other obviously athletic sports and competitions are in danger of no longer being Olympic events, then there's no way that a ton of the shooting events should be in play. A ton of these less athletic and less exciting events have a ton of medal categories whereas soccer, softball, baseball, water polo, and other team sports only award one set of medals to men and women. It seems a little bit weird to me that we've added these crappy events and don't change them as much as the big sports. I understand that the Olympics are the big competition for those "sports" and soccer, baseball, basketball, and the like have more important professional or international trophies, but the Olympics are still where these big world sports belong.
I'll probably have more reactions as the results come in, so I'll write more on the Olympics as they continue.
I am a little ways away from returning to Chicago for my sophomore year of college. I watched the application process happen up close two years ago when I was a junior in high school, went through it myself a year later, have watched friends go through it in the past year, and now my younger brother is just entering the cycle of doom for himself.
I didn't think it was that stressful when I went through it, but looking back on applying to college and that whole process, I hate it with a passion. I'm mostly upset that two years of my academic life in high school was not centered around learning material, but trying to look good to colleges on applications. I think it robs you of some freedom, a lot of fun, and the ability to relax and enjoy some potentially really good years.
Before the tornado really got going at the beginning of my senior year of high school, Accepted came out at the end of August 2006. It was light, funny, but not a great film. What was great about it was the message and the feeling of the film. It wasn't a pressure-cooker of college fright stories, it was exactly the attitude towards applying to college and going to college that those with too much pressure in the college process needed to see and hear. If I had it my way I'd show it to every rising high school senior in the country as a relaxation tool.
Justin Long is great as a lead in Accepted. He works better on the fringes of films like Dodgeball and Live Free or Die Hard, but here the same character works as the center of the story. His character Bartleby doesn't get into college anywhere, and decides to create his own to fool his parents. Trust me, no matter how sure someone is that they will get into college somewhere, they all have a fear of not getting in anywhere. I always just plain enjoyed the premise, because it was a passing thought I never gave much creedence to, but Accepted fleshed out the fantasy with reasonable success.
Jonah Hill has perhaps his best performance outside of Superbad in this film as well. I'd put this over Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Knocked Up, and even his hilarious bit part in The 40-Year-Old Virgin just for his likeability. Along the lines of bit parts, a before Gossip Girl-fame Blake Lively plays Bartleby's love interest, and she isn't half bad. It even has Lewis Black as the dean of the made up college, the South Harmon Institute of Technology, making their college regalia emblazoned with SHIT.
The plot doesn't really make sense when parents, a Harvard-esque college looking to expand its campus, and a few too many students get involved, but for light-hearted fun that has a good message about college acceptace it's pretty good. The film resonated with me at the perfect time in my life, and too far on either side of that window I think the film wouldn't work if you saw it for the first time. I definitely reccommend it to anyone about to start applying to college, or someone who's just gone through it.
This week New York magazine is taking an in-depth look at movies released in August. I've always referred to this month (along with September, January, and February) as giant graveyards for studios to dump low-quality films or movies they just don't know how to market. That being said, there are always one or two quality flicks to come out of these couple months, and I'm glad the magazine has recognized that as well.
(Random side note: why greenlight or pay for a film you don't know how to market? If a studio ponies up the money to produce a script, they should be aware of what audience they're going for, or have some kind of contingency plan in place to target some section of the market. They don't skip out on marketing costs, these studios put up tons of money a year in advertising, so why do some legitimately great movies get lost in marketing. This issue never frustrates me enough to consider going into marketing, I just bemoan the hiding of great films due to a bad job done by studio advertisers.)
Most people are quick to point out that not every other month has a large supply of great films, and that's true. It's just that August, September, January, and February have the lion's share of craptacular movies. August gets the most terrible movies because schools are still out for the summer and some folks are still taking vacations, so they can attempt to squeeze "Well, it's the only thing playing that we haven't seen.." dollars out of some wallets.
And sometimes those diamonds in the rough shine incredibly bright. A few of my favorite films like Collateral, Hero, and Superbad were released in August, but they were one of the very few movies in that particular August to actually be good films. The desparity between films in these months is incredible: you've either got one or two films that would be great regardless of its release date, and then a ton of crap dumped by every studio so nobody associates their studio name with a crappy film.
I've only got one issue with the New York feature. In listing crappy August movies, it's a little unforgiving to some light, entertaining films that I probably apologize for (Accepted, Stardust, Airheads, okay I'll admit it, Air Bud), and claims that some terrible pieces of crap were good August films (Bring it On? Blue Crush for crying out loud???) I think 3 categories are necessary: Diamonds in the Rough, Light Entertainment, and Unforgiveable Crap. Sure there's still going to be debate, and the terrible movie months will have more than their fair share of bad movies, but people like a light piece of fluff that isn't terrible but isn't heavy intellectual lifting from time to time, no matter what the month.
Bright Eyes is one of those bands that I feel most of its fans don't understand. If you looked at the fanbase for the Conor Oberst moniker, it's mostly teen girls, but if was to describe Oberst's song writing, the one phrase that always comes to mind is "beyond his years." The music never really fit the age that followed it; I always figured that the girls were locked onto his appearance and hadn't really understood his music. Critics maligned Oberst for his youth following, and for never following through on his "next Bob Dylan" tag they stuck on him when he emerged from Saddle Creek at 13.
In 2005 Obherst released two albums of material on the same day, offering two directions his career could go. Down one road was Digital Ash in a Digital Urn, featuring collaborations with Yeah Yeah Yeahs guitarist Nick Zinner, electronic meddling, and a more youthful record. Essentially it was the album-length equivalent of the experimenting Oberst did on "Lover I Don't Have to Love" from his previous record, which had earned him legions of young, lovelorn fans just beginning to grip the "emo" label. Down the other road was the Emmylou Harris backed I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning, a folksy, mature record that just felt right for Oberst. Not to say Digital Ash didn't have it moments, but it was clear that Oberst had finally found the clear direction he needed on IWAIM. Tracks like "Train Under Water," "We Are Nowhere and It's Now," and my personal favorite "Road To Joy" sounded like a contemporary of Harris, not a twenty-something.
On his follow-up Cassadaga Oberst attempted the growing up he needed, and fell just a bit short. He had shifted to more folk-rock, but the youth-courting hit "Four Winds" hung on the album like "First Day of My Life" did on Wide Awake, both good songs, but both carrying the lingering tag of young singer/songwriter.
Now Oberst is on the verge of the release of his first "solo" album in years (technically Bright Eyes is a solo band, but the shift from moniker to his actual name carries some weight). He's gone soft, gone quiet, retained the midwestern sensibilities, and hopefully has completed the shift to being seen as an adult songwriter. He may be embracing the Dylan comparisons a little bit, but it was an unfair connection to draw from the start - Oberst does the electric rock and acoustic folk in about equal numbers, but he has a more personal and less universal aura about him. That's just my opinion though.
For the album Oberst went down to Mexico, recording with the Mystic Valley Band, and that's exactly who showed up with him when he played an in-store gig at Ameoba Records in downtown San Francisco this past weekend. They tore through an 8-song set of exclusively solo material (with one Dylan cover, but come on, its Conor Oberst), and it was satisfying to see so many multi-ear-piercing-and-dye-job kids looking disappointed with the adult direction he's taken as a musician and a songwriter. I really hope this is the record to give him recognition as the almost 30-year-old man he is, and not stuck permanently stick him as a teenager who refused to grow up in his songs.
Take a look at the last song of his set, and check out the setlist below.
I go to college in the Chicago area, but I'm home for the summer working, so I can't go to Lollapalooza this year. Oh well, I'll just go to Outside Lands here in the Bay Area and get my Radiohead live fix then.
However, my girlfriend will be working the lounge at the Hard Rock Hotel for Lollapalooza this weekend, apparently getting to schmooze with some big time bands. Consider me jealous. In honor of that, I figure I'd write a little bit about the festival.
With most of these big multi-day, multi-stage, gaggle-of-bands festivals, there are some conflicts between two or more awesome bands playing at the same time. Lolla08 is no exception, and here are the worst offenders for most difficult decisions.
FRIDAY - Bloc Party OR The Raconteurs OR Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Between 6:15 and 8:00pm
Bloc Party is perhaps my favorite live band, and one of my all-time favorites to listen to. Jack White is a great stage presence, and the last time the Raconteurs played Lollapalooza they had a fantastic set. Stephen Malkmus is coming off another great album and is an indie-rock legend.
So who should you see? My hand tips toward Bloc Party, because they're concert is the most fun I've ever had watching rock music, and one of the few times people have actually danced for a rock band's entire set. Plus, they're probably debuting some new material, which is always sick to watch live. Also, going by the schedules, you could watch both Bloc Party and Stephen Malkmus instead of just seeing The Raconteurs and being all the way on the other side of the festival, risking missing some of Radiohead's set which is on the same stage Bloc Party plays on. Play it safe and stick with Bloc & Malkmus.
SATURDAY - Broken Social Scene OR Battles OR Lupe Fiasco - 6:30 to 7:30pm
Do you see a supergroup from the Great White North? A math-rock powerhouse quartet? Or one of Chicago's Big Three rappers?
Broken Social Scene are always a pretty cool show, but some of their members are currently touring as Stars, so it's a little unclear whether its the whole brood or just whoever isn't off doing something else. That's the one problem about seeing the band live, they're unpredictable about members.
Lupe is known to give great hometown shows, and has been at the top of his game. He's one of the few rappers I can listen to, because I just don't really like the genre. I definitely enjoy his rapping a lot more than I do a huge amount of rap, though.
Battles is one of the best math-rock bands out there, and don't let the genre name turn you off to them. They're a tight, rhythmic, electric quartet full of high-energy tracks.
Who gets the nod this time? Well, BSS is missing members, so they get knocked down just a tad and are out. Between Lupe and Battles, I'm going to have to go with Lupe. Battles may be a better experience, but even with fellow Big Three Kanye West headlining Sunday night, Lupe is still performing to a hometown crowd that will make his performance so much more amped up.
SUNDAY - The National OR Girl Talk OR Flosstradamus OR Gnarls Barkley - Between 6:15 and 8:15pm
The National have been riding a buzz high after Boxer made a ton of top 10 lists for 2007, and with good reason. Gnarls Barkley had a legendary summer two years ago after the release of their debut, which culminated in a Lollapalooza performance. Girl Talk is the best ADD DJ around, and he's just put out what I think is his best record in Feed The Animals. Flosstradamus is spinning for two hours, and was such a surprise playing at Northwestern's Dillo Day that he made it up into this battle.
Gnarls has had their time at the top, so I think they're not the top of the list here. The National have had enough buzz, but they're still really, really solid. Flosstradamus put on a great show at Northwestern, but they're playing for 2 hours, so you could just see them in passing the other groups.
My suggestion is to start at Gnarls for the opening tracks, then run over to Girl Talk's set, then head over to see the end of The National, hearing some Flosstradamus along the way. Sound like a plan?
So there you have it, my guide to conflicting sets at Lollapalooza 2008. I could've covered Wilco v. RATM or Kanye v. NIN, but it's pretty obvious you should see Rage and Kanye because one isn't touring and the other is in his hometown closing the festival; those aren't hard choices to make.
As a final gift, here's my playlist for the festival featuring many of the performers. Enjoy.
Imagine taking the guitar sounds of The Hives and dropping in an American lead singer with a Brooklyn, NY mindset and you'll have a little bit of an idea what Locksley sound like.
They've got a very retro sound going, with the pop sensibilities of old pop rock bands, and their simplistic straight-ahead rock reminds of of The Libertines, just without the burglary, fighting, drugs, or the horrendous PR disaster that is Pete Doherty.
Locksley aren't signed to any label, but they're re-releasing their 2007 debut Don't Make Me Wait on Fontana Records on September 9th with 2 bonus tracks. Check out their MySpace for more details. I've been enjoying the tracks on their player for the past 45 minutes or so, it's actually quite refreshing.
They've toured with the likes of OkGo, the Dandy Warhols, The Hives, Rooney, and even Hanson, leading to the interesting live cover video posted below of AC/DC's "It's a Long Way to the Top." Give them a listen, they're an interesting little trip.
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