Lueders Haus Blog

Stayed up late last night to catch the sold out doubleheader of Built To Spill and Camper Van Beethoven at the Showbox. CVB seems to be doing an extremely extended reunion tour. Its been a few years since we first saw them play together at the Croc. They played some new stuff along with lots of their old hits. Built to Spill was great as always. Possibly on account of the half dozen video cameras recording the show, they were a bit less jammy then usual.

Next up is the Yo La Tengo show at the Town Hall on the 30th. They are doing an “almost-acoustic” tour that they describe it as:

A little bit “Storytellers”, a little bit “Unplugged”, with a soupcon of their famously varied Hanukkah shows, it will feature the band playing an almost-acoustic set of songs from their entire catalog, with stories about their life as a band, and an encouraged back-and-forth with the audience.

Sweet. If only I hadn’t lost my Nirvana Unplugged album. At least I still have the Johnny Cash Willie Nelson Storytellers album. Time to add that into the playlist.

Speaking of good music, Iron and Wine’s new album is great. We’ve got seats in the balcony to see him on December 3rd as well.

Headed out into the wilds of Pacific Place on Friday night to catch the movie “Into the Wild“. Based on the book by Jon Krakauer, which is based on the true story of Christopher McCandless. The movie is directed by Sean Penn with a soundtrack by Eddie Vedder. The result? A good movie, even if it was a bit long. It comes with a super-sized portion of beautiful western scenery. The movie doesn’t focus so much on his Alaska experience as his life on the road. The movie, fairly or unfairly, does quite a bit to glamorize his life as a tramp.

I’ve listened to the new Wilco album on the way home a few times last week. It a step back from YHF and reminds me more of their earlier stuff like Being There. But still a good listen. The live album the put out a few years ago is pretty sweet as well.

The “new” Elliot Smith album New Moon is on my play list as  well. Its a mix of early tracks from when he was on Kill Rock Stars. I was hoping for something a little more “raw” (say Nirvana – With the Lights Out) but this is good.

We went to the Dinosaur Jr. show last night. My ears are still ringing a bit, that can’t be good. They played a good mix of new, old, and even some post-Lou stuff. I would say they sounded better than their last tour. The kids in the front took it upon themselves to re-live Lollapalooza ‘93 by starting a moshpit on the Showbox floor. Of course, someone eventually got wrestled down by security and taken out back.

Sherry and I had a music fill weekend. After spending the day cleaning on Saturday we headed over to the Tractor to see Califone. Eric Johnson of the Fruit Bats was the second act. The Tractor’s crowd was pretty loud but Eric’s cover of Neil Youny’s “Tell Me Why” made it all worth it.

On Sunday, after a long afternoon of prying off rusty bolts we went to the early show of Peter Bjorn and John. They played their whistling song and fun as had by all.

After reading the Pitchfork review of the new Dinosaur Jr. album I was reminded that I don’t just have to listen to it on KEXP anymore. So headed over to Silver Platters and bought me a copy. Even after twenty years J and Lou can still “bring the noise”. This is definitely some of the best stuff either of them have put out in a long time. I can’t wait for the concert later this month, hopeful we won’t forget the earplugs this time.

I couldn’t leave without picking up another album as well. So dug back into the Mountain Goats archive for his 1995 release, Zopilote Machine. Great stuff, even more lo-fi then his recent releases.

Took myself out music shopping yesterday on the way to the PCC. I had to pickup the new Modest Mouse album. Its a good release from them. There is enough classic sounding songs to keep their fans happy but still different enough to keep it interesting.

I also picked up the new album from Neil Young. From what I have read, he has been saving up his live recording for years and has only started releasing them recently with his Fillmore album. This release is the second in hopefully a long line of live albums. The Fillmore album was much more jammy (six tracks, with one track clocking in at sixteen minutes!). This show is more subdued. Many of the tracks are on this Harvest album, which is on my “top 10″ list.

Lastly I picked up an older Mountain Goats album, Tallahassee. Great stuff, less rockin then “We Shall All Be Healed” but not has much of a downer as “The Sunset Tree”.

Caught the Mountain Goats show at the Doug Fir in Portland last night. I expected the show to be great — and to be floored by John Darnielle’s literary rock — but frankly, I didn’t really expect the Mountain Goats to literally rock. And yet they did. I don’t even remember if they played with a drummer the last time we caught the Mountain Goats, a couple years back at the Tractor, but this time they rocked out with Superchunk drummer Jon Wurster. (Which brought me back to the two months in 1997 when I thought Superchunk was the best band ever.) I don’t know that it was necessarily the drummer that pulled everything together to make last night’s show stand out — maybe it was the venue, the crowd, or the lunar eclipse — all I know is it was a fantastic show and John Darinelle writes freakin’ brilliant songs. (He has a blog, too.)

Opening act Pony Up started things off with some entertaining Canadian girl rock. The idea of “girl rock” as a genre actually bothers me, but I couldn’t think of another accurate descriptor for the band. More Cub than Sleater Kinney. Entertaining, but lacking brilliance and prone to meticulous but downright boring guitar playing. They were fun; they were sexy; but they weren’t really as good as I wish they were musically. Or does third-wave feminism mean its all right for girls to be mediocre?

Maybe it was the after-effect of watching Lou Barlow perform with Sebadoh on Friday night, but I started wondering why female guitar players don’t assert themselves in rock with the same level of virtuosity as their male counterparts. While women in indie rock aren’t exactly an anomoly, they’re usually bassists (Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth – who does sometimes play guitar it is true), or vocalists (Karen O; Patti Smith; Cat Power; etc.), and sometimes drummers (Georgia Hubley of Yo La Tengo). But at least last night, J and I could not come up with a truly rocking female lead guitarist without going back to, oh, maybe Blondie. Somebody prove us wrong or explain the phenomena please! Why aren’t more women stepping front and center in the indie rock world and rocking out with talented guitar-driven (and not lyrics driven) music? At the risk of appearing dated with my musical references, why don’t guitar-driven “post-rock” (a term I picked up from the Wikipedia entry on Kinski embarrassingly) bands meditate on a melody for ten minutes with a woman on lead guitar rather than bass or drums?

Checked out the Sebadoh reunion tour last night in Portland. Its their first tour with the original lineup in many years. They mostly played their older stuff, written when Gaffney was still in the band. I think the Mercury had the best write up:

Underneath my graduation gown of San Dieguito High School’s Class of ‘96 (Go Mustangs!), I was wearing a Sebadoh T-shirt. To say I was a teenage Sebadoh fan would be a severe understatement. I wrote Lou Barlow letters (to which he never responded) and penned lengthy fanzine articles about how Bakesale was not such a grand departure from Bubble and Scrape. Granted, obsessively following Sebadoh was like kryptonite to the opposite sex, but I was content in my fanboy lifestyle, knowing that I’d most likely lose my virginity by the time the band reunited with original drummer Eric Gaffney in the year 2007. While I was right about the whole reunion thing, sadly I am still looking for the special girl who will take my tender flower. Sigh. EZRA ACE CARAEFF

I might well have been wearing my Dinosaur Jr. t-shirt under my gown in ‘96. They played a great set but it didn’t top the Dinosaur Jr. reunion of last year. That reunion resulted in a new album. For some reason I doubt that will live up to the genius of the 1985 original. But I do enjoy the reunion tours even if it feels like its just the members cashing out their IRA. Cross our fingers that Pavement is next. 

Are the Shins the next Nirvana? I find that hard to believe but the WSJ doesn’t.

And while the Shins’ debut album, “Oh, Inverted World,” only shipped 2,700 copies in its first week, “Wincing the Night Away” shipped an impressive 250,000 copies. The album also debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard charts, selling 118,000 copies in its first week — a huge commercial breakthrough for a previously low-profile act. (Before that, the highest the Shins had been on the album charts was No. 86.)

Third album is good but I would say their second album was better. Time will tell if they become a classic alternative radio staple like Nirvana’s Nevermind.