Crib Notes

Mon., Oct. 26 Future of the Left, Hawks and Predator. $7. 9 p.m. 529, 529 Flat Shoals Ave. 404-228-6769.

Future of the Left consists of singer/guitarist Andy “Falco” Falkous and drummer Jack Egglestone, both previously of Cardiff band mclusky, alongside singer/bassist Kelson Mathias, formerly of the Ammanford-based group Jarcrew. … The band were signed to Too Pure who had also signed Mclusky, however the umbrella company Beggars Group disbanded Too Pure transferring the band to 4AD; most famous for signing the Pixies in the mid eighties.

Wed., Oct. 28 Lead by saxophone player Julian Julien, Fractale is a Parisian five-piece jazz/electro ensemble that melds traditional jazz and rock ideas with improvisation and a computer-generated bent to arrive at a simple, melodic sound. The music is cinematic in scope, and vastly experimental. $8. 9 p.m. Eyedrum. 404-522-0655.

Wed., Oct 28 Cocktoberfest featuring:  Stolen Hearts, Pillow Talk DJ’s (in bikinis) with Misty Waters and the return of the Star Bar Dating Game. $5. 9 p.m.  Star Bar, 437 Moreland Ave. 404-681-9018.

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Murph., J., Lou.

Before Dinosaur Jr. heads over to play at Variety Playhouse tomorrow night (Sat. Oct. 17), J., Lou and Murph will play a free, acoustic in-store set at Criminal Records at 6:30 p.m.

The neighborhood is already preparing for the madness of the annual L5P Halloween parade.  Beer and vendor tents are up and there’s a seasonal chill in the air. Could there be better atmosphere to take in an acoustic Dinosaur Jr. set of classics and Jams from their brilliant second post-reformation album, Farm?

NPR caught up with DINOSAUR JR. for their recent show at the 9:30 Club in Washington D.C. The result? A complete recording of the concert including an opening solo set from Lou Barlow. The set includes selections from the band’s latest release, Farm, and a few old favorites.

Criminal Records is located at 1154-A Euclid Ave. 404-215-9511.

(Photo courtesy Jagjaguwar)

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By Elliott Garstin

Wednesday night Phoenix rolled into Atlanta with the wind in their sails. This band’s had the luxury of a hard working promotions team inundating you with their music and presence since the release of their latest album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix back in May. It’s been hard to miss ‘em. Car commercials, radio, in-flight music, satellite, in-stores, magazines and every blog going bananas over some suave French dudes that play music that sounds of the moment. And while most media savvy music lovers have a sort of cognitive dissonance to this type of over-exposure, this time the band cut right through to win their hearts.

400 plus Phoenix fans packed Criminal Records earlier in the day to munch on some za and get a little taste of what they were probably missing later on that night. The show at the Variety had been sold out for months. There was an exciting feeling in the air and it carried over to the show later in the evening.

Phoenix hit the stage about 9:15, an incredibly early start time for a generally less than punctual Atlanta crowd, but no matter. From the opening notes of “Lisztomania,” Phoenix had the crowd eating out of their hand. The set was wisely new album heavy, playing every song, but one with a smattering of choice cuts off their first three albums. The last time Phoenix played Atlanta touring in support of It’s Never Been Like That there were maybe fifty people at the Roxy. The band remembered as well, making note of it at one point, but they didn’t seem to mind. They were on top of the world and are shooting for the stars. The show was arena ready and in a few months time don’t be surprised to see Phoenix headlining Madison Square Garden.

(Photo by Perry Julien)

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Chad Radford:  How did the Perez Hilton Presents tour come about?
Perez Hilton:  The tour is like my baby who has been in gestation for several years now. I’ve wanted to do this for quite some time, and it’s finally happening all at once: the tour, my record label Perezcious Music through Warner Bros., my first signing, Sliimy, who’s releasing his debut on Sept. 15. It’s a very exciting time for me and it all feels very natural and organic. The tour is a natural progression of what I’ve already been doing — I’ve put on events all over the world, from SXSW to CMJ to events in Toronto and Liverpool, and I’ve had varied people perform: Kanye West, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, N.E.R.D., Eric Hutchinson … a lot of the acts on this tour as well. Those events have mainly been invite only or where people could win tickets. Now I’ve taken the concept of a a cool mini-festival, taken it on the road, made it all ages and made it affordable, which were very important to me.

Is there a cross-over with your audience between your blog and what you’re doing with the label and tour?
The audience for the label is a lot more varied from my traditional reader, which is a young female in her twenties. But for the music I couldn’t pinpoint the demographic that specifically. Out of the events I’ve thrown everybody goes and everybody has a good time.

Perez Hilton presents Ladyhawke, Ida Maria and Semi Precious Weapons. $22-$24. Variety Playhouse, 1099 Euclid Ave. 404-524-7354.

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By Julia Reidy

“They’ve been saying the album is dead for a long time,” says the Fiery Furnaces’ Matt Friedberger. “I don’t know why they want to kill the album.”

To the New York brother/sister duo, it seems alive and well. Famous for spectacular, keyboard-heavy, live performances and eccentric, virtuosic recordings, Fiery Furnaces released their eighth record I’m Going Away July 21 via Thrill Jockey Records. But they didn’t stop there. In reaction to the supposed demise, Matt and his sister Eleanor are putting together a “silent album” — a songbook that will be made up of sheet music, instructions and other visual representations of songs that fans (or non-fans, Friedberger makes sure to point out) can use to recreate musical on their own.

“Obviously we’re going to continue to make the conventional and supposedly obsolete ‘with-audio’ records,” Friedberger says. “But in the meantime, we wanted to ‘record’ a ‘record’ that responds in an appropriate way to this situation.”

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Sonic Youth played the Variety Playhouse on Mon., July 13, in support of their latest album, The Eternal. The Entrance Band opened.

Within the first few seconds of pressing play on The Eternal, Sonic Youth’s 16th studio album in nearly 30 years, the band sounds like it has been recharged. “Sacred Trickster” tears the album wide open with a visceral intensity that surges into “Anti-Orgasm,” bringing the album to a frenzied climax of noise and chiming, art-punk dirge.

Sonic Youth hasn’t rocked this hard in years, and the fire was sparked in 2007 when the group went on tour playing the 1988 masterpiece Daydream Nation. “After reacquainting ourselves with Daydream Nation, we were really surprised by the energy of some of the songs,” says guitarist and vocalist Lee Ranaldo. “At first we didn’t think it was such a hot idea, but revisiting those songs really inspired a lot of what’s going on with this record.” Continue reading.

See a gallery of images of both Sonic Youth and the Entrance Band performing at Variety Playhouse on Monday night.

Sonic Youth’s “Sacred Trickster” mp3

(Photos by Perry Julien)

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Within the first few seconds of pressing play on The Eternal, Sonic Youth’s 16th studio album in nearly 30 years, the band sounds like it has been recharged. “Sacred Trickster” tears the album wide open with a visceral intensity that surges into “Anti-Orgasm,” bringing the album to a frenzied climax of noise, and chiming, art-punk dirge.

Sonic Youth hasn’t rocked this hard in years, and the fire was sparked in 2007 when the group went on tour playing the 1988 masterpiece Daydream Nation. “After reacquainting ourselves with Daydream Nation, we were really surprised by the energy of some of the songs,” says guitarist and vocalist Lee Ranaldo. “At first we didn’t think it was such a hot idea, but revisiting those songs really inspired a lot of what’s going on with this record.”

Continue reading “Sonic Youth remains Eternal ever after”

(Photo by Michael Schmelling)

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The fliers are posted all over town and the buzz is out. The late-’70s punk rock L.A.-based scene setters X are coming back to Atlanta with the original lineup of John Doe (guitar/vocals), Exene Cervenka (vocals), Billy Zoom (guitar), and D.J. Bonebrake (drums) to tear up the stage together again. Continue reading.

For this go around, the group has been taking requests for songs from their fans via its website.

The group’s enigmatic female vocalist Cervenka was recently diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, but according to the band’s publicist Melissa Dragich-Cordero she is “doing well so far and hopes that continues. For now, all is status quo including her forthcoming solo album this fall.”

But if ever there was a time to see X play live it would be now.

X Plays the Variety Playhouse this Sat., June 13. $25. 8:30 p.m.

(Photo courtesy Mad Ink)

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View more photos of Femi Kuti’s 2007 Atlanta performance.

Tonight one of my all-time favorite performers, Nigeria’s Femi Kuti, plays the Variety Playhouse. This photo comes from his ’07 performance at the Variety. It captures the spiritual nature of Femi’s show. His energy and passion comes across on stage as if he’s connecting with a force beyond himself — channeling his dead father Fela Kuti, perhaps. (more…)

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Sonic Youth’s umpteenth studio album The Eternal hit the streets yesterday via Matador Records, and it is a monster. The gorgeous John Fahey painting on the album’s cover sums it up in one circular and rhythmic motion.

The Eternal is a swirling mass of stark, guitar textures where persistent, avant-garde movements lure the senses into a familiar place before opening up to reveal the truly bombastic nature of the album.

Over the last decade albums such as NYC Ghosts and Flowers, Sonic Nurse and Rather Ripped have upheld the group’s legacy, but The Eternal is easily Sonic Youth’s strongest record in years. “Sacred Trickster,” “Anti-Orgasm,” “Antenna” and “No Way” evoke the energy, the darkness and the noise wrought with such early staples as “EVOL,” “Sister” and “Daydream Nation.” But what sets The Eternal apart is a uniformly brilliant batch of songs that find the band thrashing through chiming melodies, chops, feedback and drones, butted against the vocal back-and-forth of Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore who come across sharper and more energetic than they have sounded in quite some time. “Sacred Trickster” sets the machine in motion with urgency and an affinity for the noir side of bleak art for the sake of rock and roll, which is what Sonic Youth has always done best. More on this in the weeks to come.

“Sacred Trickster” mp3

Sonic Youth plays the Variety Playhouse with the Entrance Band on Mon., July 13. $25. 8p.m.

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Bonnie “Prince” Billy played an incredible show at the Variety Playhouse Friday night. It was a long, stark show that encompassed songs such as “You Can’t Hurt Me Now” and “I Am Goodbye” from Will Oldham’s latest album Beware, as well as older Palace songs like “Gulf Shores.” Mr. Oldham has come a long way on the journey that has led him from the warbling and primitive days of singing his hazy and somewhat deranged Palace songs, to the more complicated numbers on Beware. This transformation has been apparent for a long time now, but the band he has assembled for this latest offering is one of his strongest lineups yet. There’s good chemistry on stage, and even when it seemed like Oldham’s voice was about to go astray and lead him down some twisted path into the yodeling ether, the band reined him right back in.

The music ebbed and flowed between intense bouts of loud and quiet, drawing out sparse rounds of baroque discomfort and peaks of chiming and spectral mountain music. Violin player Cheyenne Mize was the angelic focal point of the stage as she stood as a sweet and restrained counterpart to Oldham’s presence.

With Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Oldham is a musical stylist to be sure. At times the band would drop undeniably compelling songs. In the moment, “I Am Goodbye” takes on a timeless and much more robust quality, like a graceful revision of Willie Nelson’s trucker lament, “On the Road Again.” At other times Oldham milks the long and bucolic textures, riffing simply and steadily on just a few chords. And with two drummers, two guitars, a stand-up bass and violin, those few simple chords grind with heavenly and hypnotic intonations in a set of songs that leaves you wondering if you should feel happy or sad, but ecstatic nonetheless.

More photos from the show after the jump.

(Photos by Mark Andrews)

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CL’s Chanté LaGon an Chad Radford chat about Bonnie “Prince” Billy and his newest album Beware. Billy plays at the Variety Playhouse tonight, May 29.

Air Loaf is broadcast weekdays on 1690 WMLB-AM at approximately 8:10 a.m., 12:20 p.m. and 6:20 p.m.

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The good folks over at Drive A Faster Car are giving away a pair of tickets to see Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy play at Variety Playhouse this Friday night. To win tickets just enter via e-mail with your full name and an explanation as to why these tickets should be yours.

One winner will be chosen at random and will be notified via e-mail by noon on the day of the show. After being notified the tickets can be picked up at will call.

Bonnie “Prince” Billy plays at the Variety Playhouse with Lichens on Fri., May 29. $16-$18. 8:30 p.m. Variety Playhouse, 1099 Euclid Ave. 404-524-7354.

(Photo by Adm. Wiley Balls)

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SMILES AND CRIES: Bonnie "Prince" Billy

Despite the foreboding title and bleak black and white cover art — a curious nod to the first Danzig album and Neil Young’s Tonight’s the Night — Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s Beware is an inviting entry into Will Oldham’s haunting repertoire.

But a closer look reveals the layers of dark imagery hiding inside some of Oldham’s most gorgeous, complex songs about the nature of love, happiness and existential rumination. Each song serves a cautionary tale, arriving as a Trojan horse that charms with a comfortable glow before opening up to expose its damaged character. The bucolic, acoustic strum and declaration — “I want to be your only friend” — that opens the album on “Beware Your Only Friend” suggests something more destructive than the naïve affections evoked by Oldham’s words and sweet voice.

Continue reading “Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy sounds hauntingly happy on Beware“

(Photo by Adm. Wiley Balls)

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Brad Syna – concert promoter for Variety Playhouse’s Windstorm Productions

My mixtape

1. “Riot Act” – Elvis Costello
2. “Pot Kettle Black” – Wilco
3. “Sleep Together” – Porcupine Tree
4. “The Wraith” – E.S.T.
5. “Lie To Me” – Tom Waits
6. “We Laugh Indoors” – Death Cab for Cutie
7. “Going Underground” – The Jam
8. “Idiot Wind” – Bob Dylan
9. “Sexy Sadie” – The Beatles
10. “Station to Station” – David Bowie

My favorite local band?
Anna Kramer and the Lost Cause. A great band that is hard to define.

Check out Mixtape Love: CL Music Issue ‘09

(Photo by Lisa Miller)

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Brian Jonestown Massacre played a compellingly mellow show on Friday night at Variety Playhouse. The tambourine guy is still in the band and he is still very hard to look at, yet his placement at the front and center of the stage feels like a distractionary tactic.

As the band stood bathed in washes of intense blue and green lights it was difficult to tell which one of the five guitarists on stage was the group’s semi-mythic frontman Anton Newcombe. Silhoueted against the lights, a couple of the players could have easily passed for him. Again, this didn’t seem to be an accident.

One can imagine that being a group’s mastermind who has been so often maligned/hyped for having various meltdowns and temper tantrums both on and off stage over the years, would probably make one want to hide in the shadows.

At the show there was much talk in the audience about some sort of liver condition that has forced Newcombe to stop drinking. Whatever the case may be, the show was fantastic, hypnotic and without incident. There really wasn’t even much verbal interaction between the audience and the performers. Drama was non-existent  as the group wafted through a career spanning set, and that’s a good thing. BJM often suffers from the same reputational set backs that someone like Cat Power used to suffer as well. The selling point for many people is that they want to see the meltdown go down on stage, made famous by the film Dig!, and that’s a damn shame. BJM has mastered their own, very gorgeous musical voice amidst a wash of paisley rock and shoe gazer jams. For this show, the music was the star, with highlights including massive runs through “Whoever You Are, “B.S.A.” and a back-to-back performance of “Not Even if You Were the Last Dandy on Earth” and “A New Low in Getting High.”

BJM is bigger and better and calmer than the band they were a decade ago, or at least they were Friday night.

(Photos by Perry Julien)

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For today’s Roll Call we call out Robyn Hitchcock.

Who are you?
I am me.

Describe yourself in three words.
I am him.

Who — dead or alive —would you most like to meet?
Janis Joplin.

Who would you most like to slap in the face?
Daytime television.

What song do you wish you had written?
“The Main Thing” by Bryan Ferry.

Elvis Costello or Elvis Presley?
Presley as a singer, Costello as a songwriter.

LP, CD or MP3?
They are all different stages of the same thing. But only an LP will survive the digital age. And sheet music, of course.

If you could start one trend, what would it be?
Turning off the lights when you aren’t in the room.

If you could end one trend, what would it be?
Male violence.

With whom would you most like to playa game of spin the bottle?
Jim Morrison.

Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3 play the Variety Playhouse on Tues. April 7. $17.50 (adv). $20 (door). 8 p.m. Variety Playhouse, 1099 Euclid Ave. 404-524-7354.

(Photo courtesy Yep Roc.)

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Stax legend, Booker T. Jones (of Booker T and the MGs fame) will be at Criminal Records for a meet and greet/signing from 6:45pm-7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 1 prior to his show at the Variety Playhouse, where he will be appearing with the Drive-by Truckers.

Booker T fans will be able to pre-order his new CD, Potato Hole, which features the Drive-by Truckers as his back-up band (as well as Neil Young on several tracks). Those who pre-order on Wednesday will receive a signed copy of the CD which is slated for release on May 19.

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Sadly Morrissey has canceled his Atlanta performance at the Variety Playhouse tonight (Sat., March 7).  According to Variety Playhouse’s website ticket refunds are available at the point of purchase.

(Photo by Travis Shinn)

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Over the weekend there was a significant amount of clamor in the record stores and in Little 5 Points leading up to Antony and the Johnsons‘ show at the Variety Playhouse on Sun. Feb. 8. The $30 price tag seemed to be scaring a few people away, but the new record and this first time visit to Atlanta had definitely piqued local interests. Antony is nothing short of an icon who’s songs and presence illicit a strong response. People either love him or hate what he does, and there seems to be no middle ground.

I asked a few people to give us their thoughts on the show.

Tom Cheshire who write for Dry Ink Magazine and fronts local punk elder statesmen the All Night Drug Prowling Wolves writes,

I first heard Antony on a Mojo compilation CD a few years back. I remember loving it instantly. Then I got a mix tape from friend of mine in New York with the song “Fistful of Love” on it and I just lost it. It sounded like Nina Simone hangin’ with King Tubby and Ethel Merman, and at some point they had all hit the pipe.

Antony & crew brought it down on Sunday evening. He/she hid behind a piano on the darkened stage with his band behind him. The band consisted of Antony on piano, a cello player, a violinist, a gentleman who switched off from violin to guitar, another person who switched from tenor saxophone to guitar and a bass player standing in the background. They were tight, quiet, tasteful, at some points loud, gorgeous and off the hook.

At one point he said that he always had a crush on and wanted to marry Otis Redding, to which one one guy in the crowd screamed “I’ll marry you!” There were times during songs when you could hear a pin drop in the audience. There were other times when the music and the applause were uproarious.

The highlights of the set for me were the classic “Cripple and the Starfish,” a cover of Beyonce’s “Crazy in Love,” “You are My Sister,” “Epilepsy is Dancing” and a beautiful, beautiful version of “Fistful of Love.” It was a wonderful evening. Sweet, sexy, no joke. Thank you Antony.

More thoughts on the show are coming soon.

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