Crib Notes

Today, MTV.com columnist James Montgomery posted a long essay arguing that Deerhunter is the best band of the year. Noting how Bradford Cox recently announced on Deerhunter’s blog that the band is going on hiatus, Montgomery writes:

Yes, I am aware that their first album, the demurely titled Turn It Up F—-t, came out in 2005. But from January to November of 2007, no band mattered more to people like me than Deerhunter. They were divisive (primarily because they learned very early on just how to work the hype machine), they were difficult and they were much-discussed. And they knew all this, which is why it was so brilliant (and incredibly fitting) when they announced their hiatus the way they did. It was a supremely meta moment — blog band announces hiatus via blog — one that encapsulated 2007 (and to a larger extent, the entire decade) in a way that In Rainbows didn’t.

Montgomery overstates his case somewhat. When I ran into Deerhunter guitarist Lockett Pundt at MJQ several weeks ago, he informally told me that the band would go on vacation at the end of the year, get back together several months later, and have a new album ready for release in the fall of 2008. Who knows what the future will hold?

At any rate, Deerhunter is scheduled to join the Black Lips, Snowden and the Selmanaires for Stomp and Stammer’s 11th anniversary party at the Variety Playhouse on Fri., Nov. 30. More on that later.

Meanwhile, Cox is moving forward with his Atlas Sound project. He was recently featured on the cover of the Fader (see above photo), and is preparing to release his solo debut next year. Atlas Sound’s Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel drops Feb. 19 on Kranky Records.

In a press release, Cox dedicated the album to his friend Lockett Pundt: “It has a lot to do with childhood. I wanted to make an album that was uplifting but honest, which is why it seems sad a lot of the time. I want to make music that could be ‘healing’ or therapeutic to people who relate to it.”

The track listing for Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel is below.

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This year, CL spent a lot of print space and bandwidth on a select few Atlanta bands, namely Deerhunter and the Black Lips. I consciously stopped writing about these groups a few months ago not only because of complaints from readers, but also because I agreed that it was turning into overkill. After all, it’s not like I listen to these bands 24/7. Hell, I haven’t seen Deerhunter live since last year (when I saw them a good six or seven times), and the last time I saw the Black Lips was at their Whirlyball gig in February for their underrated live disc, Los Valientes del Mundo.

But now that critics have begun the annual tradition of handing out best-of-the-year honors, I’m taking myself off probation. As I and other CL writers catalog the 2007 highlights, you will undoubtedly see a lot of posts on the usual suspects. You’ve been warned.

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Check out the photos CL contributing music writer Chad Radford brought back from his visit to Chi-Town a couple of weeks ago, where he took in a few shows featuring Atlanta’s finest — the Selmanaires, the Black Lips and Deerhunter. Apparently, he had to brave empty beer bottles, puke and football-sized rats to get these shots, so you better enjoy them.

Read all about it in his feature story, “48 hours in Chicago.”

THE BLACK LIPS AT LOGAN SQUARE AUDITORIUM

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Band blogs are a dime a dozen. I’m sick of reading about your top five favorite twee pop songs at the moment or what you had for breakfast while touring Oregon. Bands should be thinking about new, creative ways to approach their blogs. That’s why I’d like to take a minute to praise Atlanta’s Deerhunter for going out on a limb and taking a chance with its online journal.

Deerhunter’s blog has barely been up a week, and yet it’s stirred up more controversy in the indie world than Animal Collective’s recent album leak. It all started when the band announced the creation of a “poop journal” in which they would offer photos and descriptions of their daily BMs. Online indie tastemaker PitchforkMedia.com jumped on the story, poking fun at the band’s antics.

On Wednesday, Deerhunter singer Bradford Cox pushed the blog’s boundaries a bit further by making a borderline-pornographic post about his top five fantasy boyfriends. The post was complete with lurid details and nude pictures of the young men he described. Although it was obviously in jest — Huckleberry Finn was No. 3 on the list — dozens of readers were outraged. Consequently, the blog was bombarded with scathing comments from “fans.”

As usual, Pitchfork hopped on the bandwagon, calling the band’s blog one of the “seediest corners” of the Internet and accusing Cox of posting child pornography — an accusation Cox vehemently denies. The controversial entry was promptly taken down from Deerhunter’s blog and replaced with a “fuck you” letter from Cox.

Sure, the poop journal and the fantasy top five list are cringe-worthy features to most of us, but at least they’re not boring. In any case, the band isn’t going to let the naysayers ruin its fun. In his response letter, Cox tells all of his detractors that they “can eat the shit [they’ll] be seeing photos and journal entries about.” I guess that means the poop journal’s still on. Sweet.

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Saturday night, the potent Atlanta heat penetrated whatever claimed to be air-conditioning at the Earl. Fiery Furnaces singer Elizabeth Friedberger patted her head and commented on the heat. From their early performances, their music has taken a decidedly jazz free form with Matt’s soulful B-3 blues licks. If the Georgia humidity had more of an opportunity to soak in would that have brought more jack to those funky grooves? She and her brother originally hail from the Chicago suburb of Oak Park Illinois. Trust me, those Chicago summers can get brutal. Regional influence may be more than a question of temperature.

My thesis advisor professed it was the mother tongue, the language actually passed down from the mother, that most affected our psychological makeup. Pam Howe of the Atlanta band Ph Balance was a devotee of Paul Weller and I got to know her on the Weekends dance floor while we all rocked out to Brit dance music. But I swore that her Southern drawl got thicker as she performed under the lights of the Echo Lounge.

Deerhunter brought its experimental sound to open the Saturday night show at the Earl. Jesus and Mary Chain is oft-cited as one of their influences, although there is certainly none of that Glasgow swagger that always accompanied the Reid brothers. Deerhunter closed the set with Fluorescent Grey described by Bradford Cox as a song about necrophilia. One only needs to hearken back to the scandal at the Walker County crematorium for local inspiration. The heat and close summer quarters might make us feel that the dead are not that far away.

In the post-electronic age, regional character may give way to other influences. Many Northern transplants would have never ventured south without vigorous doses of air-conditioning. And as the air-conditioning blasted the café dance floor at MJQ and the DJ played New Order, we might as well have been as far from an indigenous Atlanta culture as possible.

Both Deerhunter and The Black Lips extend that DIY sound that has become associated with Rob’s House and the Stickfigure label. There is a frustration borne of Atlanta suburban living, uniform and lifeless. The facelessness has encouraged hordes of kids to move to East Atlanta and Cabbagetown to soak up the ghosts that still haunt the city. There seems an almost staccato drone that emanates from the cicada and the mocking bird. It only reminds us of the summer swelter.

RECOMMENDED: As most Atlanta music fans give praises to that loveable hot dog dipped in corn batter, I will be heading to Chicago for the Pitchfork Festival. Chicago locals The Pony’s and Ken Vandemark are exciting additions to the lineup. The Atlanta-Athens area is well -represented with Of Montreal, Mastodon, Deerhunter, and Cat Power.

Not to be outdone, Corndogorama will be graced by a set by Mastodon on Sunday

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By the time I reached the Earl, signs reading “TONIGHT’S SHOW IS SOLD OUT” were plastered all over the front door. This was bad news for my dumb-ass friends who refused to buy tickets before the show. While they stood outside, devising convoluted plots to infiltrate the venue, I slipped inside, ticket in hand.

The crowd seemed pretty atypical for a Fiery Furnaces show. It was all cargo shorts and sandals. I couldn’t figure out whether the place was packed because of the Fiery Furnaces or the hometown heroes, Deerhunter. Deerhunter took the stage looking like a ragtag gang of world-weary high schoolers (the singer later joked about the guitarist being 12). Under blue lights, the band built up a fog of ambient noise before launching into “Cryptograms,” the title track of its last LP.

The sheer volume of the music sent hoards of cargo shorts retreating back to the bar. The scene reminded me of My Bloody Valentine’s practice of weeding out dilettantes by maxing out the PA. Once the dilettantes were weeded out, the Atlanta natives tore through all of the Fluorescent Grey EP and most of their LP, Cryptograms. The band was able to move from ambient tranquility to freak-out attack mode and vice versa with startling fluidity. The bassist laid down thick, bouncy grooves, while the singer looped and layered his vocals, causing them to swell and dissipate in waves.

By the time my friends had snuck in, vocalist Bradford Cox was dedicating a song to an audience member who claimed it was his birthday. He then proceeded to sing “Flourescent Gray” to the birthday boy, while mimicking Marilyn Monroe’s “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” dance. The Fiery Furnaces may have been headlining, but the show belonged to Deerhunter.

The brother/sister duo of the Fiery Furnaces was accompanied by a guitarist, a drummer, and a percussionist. The extra percussion gave their tunes a funky, jungle-boogie vibe. The set started with a polyrhythmic version of “In My Little Thatched Hut” and continued in the same energetic vein for about an hour. The highlight was a psych-doo-wop version of their sunny pop song, “Here Comes the Summer.” My only complaint was that the band never gave the audience a chance to catch its breath. By the time the band returned for its encore, most of the crowd was gone. Maybe they were there for Deerhunter.

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