On her debut, St. Vincent (aka Annie Clark) bends and melds genres, delivers her  lyrics in a beautiful mezzo-soprano, and injects quirk and wit with more than just the words coming out of her mouth.

Featuring no fewer than 24 individual instruments (perhaps a nod to her other project, the Polyphonic Spree?), St. Vincent’s music is a luxuriant canopy of sound that refrains from becoming cloying. “Jesus Saves, I Spend” incorporates what may be middle-eastern influences, while “Paris is Burning” descends into a manic waltz.

“Your Lips Are Red” is a weird tune whose urgency boils under the surface, and the children’s choir on the excellent “Now, Now” gives the track a quirky punch.

Not to be overlooked are the record’s lyrics. Novel and intelligent, Clark does everything from referencing Shakespeare (”Juliet, how you been? / you look like death…” as well as the lyrics that are the title of this post) to giving everyday feelings like love and doubt a cinematic tilt (”I’m crawling through landmines / just to feel where you’ve been / I’m crawling through landmines / I know ’cause I planted them”).

Truly a masterful debut, you can find out more about St. Vincent here.

–

Marry Me dropped on 07/10/2007.

Disclaimer: In order to defend our hipster cred / cool points, we’d like to note that we requested this album for review on June 4. After receiving an incomplete digital copy, we finally received the real thing. Yesterday. We’ll just call it a St. Vincent summer.

“I’m only two chapters into his book, but I think I may love John Sellers almost as much as I love Chuck Klosterman.”

This is what I got out of bed at two in the morning to change my away message to after starting Sellers’s book Perfect From Now On: How Indie Rock Saved My Life. I am pleased to report that the remainder of the book did not let me down. Not the sappy or nostalgic memoir the title forecasts, Perfect From Now On is a recounting of Sellers’s journey from semi-casual Top 40 listener to full-blown Guided By Voices worshiper.

Sellers admits to a musical history that he could have easily buried (and that most indie-lovers would deny), sharing that he created a dance routine to Kool and the Gang’s “Celebration”, choosing Sammy Hagar as his first album purchase, and scissor kicking to Duran Duran’s “The Reflex”. These early transgressions serve to temper the later admissions of obsessive fandom.

The presentation and tone of Perfect From Now On is unique and sassy - the 183-page body offers 178 footnotes (many which span for several pages), plus three appendices offering lists of Sellers’s takes on the good, bad, and ridiculous within music, ‘verdicts’ on several musical matters, and a formula to determine a band’s true awesomeness.

And lest we forget some of the priceless bon mots found throughout:

on singing in the car

“I know that whenever I look over and see some goon energetically mouthing the words to a song I can’t hear, I assume the worst: Creed.”

on frat boys playing New Order

“It might be the case that they played New Order because they knew girls would dance to it, because, hey, dancing is a nice prelude to nonconsensual sex.”

As I said: sassy.

Perhaps I enjoyed this book so much because I can relate to Sellers. To the average person his endeavors may seem crazy (or at the very least, ridiculous). To me, they seem perfectly normal and even enviable. My obsession is not as single-minded as his, but for my favorite bands I have spent more money than I can afford to, camped out in ridiculously long lines for tickets (sometimes in cities hours away from my place of residence), and have even driven halfway across the country to see a band that was not breaking up and tours regularly.

The book may be a bit foggy for those unacquainted with the indie music scene, but Sellers’s humor and exhaustive notes make it a fantastic read for anyone who has ever had a favorite band.

–

Perfect From Now On was published in 2007.

For more info on John Sellers, visit his website.

It’s refreshing to hear a band that’s having fun without trying to make a joke or parody of some kind. On their debut for Andrew McMahon’s Airport Tapes and Records label, Treaty of Paris does just that.

Hailing from Chicago, the boys mix sonic influences from the 60s and 80s with unabashed power pop to create the twelve-song blitz that is Sweet Dreams, Sucker.

“Here Goes Nothing” is full of energy and the perfect track to lead off with. Previously heard on their Behind Our Calm Demeanors EP, it’s been updated and polished. Several older songs got the same treatment, including the bouncy “Hello Nurse” and sunshine-y summer anthem “Rollerskates”.

“Elvis Lives” offers up a catchy chorus, and “I’ll Come Back” sounds like an updated 50s ballad. The best track on the album, however, goes to lead single “Waking Up the Dead“. A bit darker and more aggressive than earlier TOP releases, it’s the most dynamic of the group and shows growth in the band’s songwriting.

–

Sweet Dreams, Sucker drops September 25, 2007.

For tour dates and more, click here.

I love the Midwestern rock sound. Maybe it’s because I was raised there, maybe there’s something in Lake Michigan’s water, or maybe it’s just a good bit of luck that great bands end up forming in America’s heartland. In any case, I can add Milwaukee’s From the Headline to the list of Midwest love.

Opening track “Monologue” gets right to business on the band’s self-titled EP, mixing tight instrumentals with downy melodic vocals. “Fourteen” is effects-laden and a bit discordant, while “So Long” takes a different approach as a lush ballad centering around dark piano.

The gamboling drumbeat and danceable bass and guitar make “Loose Fit” stand out, and closer “In Exchange for Payment” has an that extra something that puts the driving and energetic tune on top.

One of From the Headline’s most impressive qualities is their ability to walk the line between softer acts like Copeland and Mae and rougher peers Hey Mercedes and The Response without losing their own sound and fitting comfortably within both camps.

–

Find out more about From the Headline here, and listen to “In Exchange for Payment” below.

I recently watched the ten-part documentary The History of Rock ‘N’ Roll. It should more accurately be titled ‘The History of Pop Music’, but is an entertaining watch nonetheless.

The first few episodes start off strong and focus on the roots of rock, including blues, gospel, and ‘race music’. Profiled are obvious choices such as Chuck Berry and lesser-knowns such as jump-blues legend Louis Jordan. The series also does a good job of chronicling bands who made an impact at the time but have fallen to the wayside over time (most notably during The Beatles’ rise to fame).

Organized semi-chronologically, the episodes later become more topical based - for example, focusing on “guitar heroes” as opposed to a specific decade.

The series features both new and old interviews with artists and those related to the industry as well as archival footage,  much of which I haven’t seen (and I’ve seen a lot). Some of the interview commentary is poorly picked; at points I had no idea what the person speaking was referring to, and sometimes literally couldn’t understand the words coming out of their mouths (this mostly happened with Keith Richards). For the most part, though, it was quite interesting hearing artists give their observations about the scene they were instrumental in building as opposed to hearing the history from someone who didn’t live it.

The History of Rock ‘N’ Roll debuted in 1995, so things leave off at a somewhat turbulent point in music - rap was still on the edge of being considered a fad, Green Day was riding high on the release of Dookie, and Kurt Cobain & Nirvana were given the briefest of acknowledgments in a passing montage. As things wrap up and people give their vague wrap-ups on the history and future of rock, the series goes out with The Goats’ “Rumblefish” - a rap/rock hybrid that gained critical acclaim in the early nineties but failed to hold up in the grand scheme of things.

For a list of songs and artists featured in the documentary, check out the customer reviews.

Fall Out Boy have released the video for their latest single “I’m Like A Lawyer With the Way I’m Always Trying To Get You Off (Me & You)”. Though the video has the same incongruous effect the album originally held for me, the lyrics do work in an obtuse way to fit the action.

Also, you can’t fault a band for raising awareness for a cause.

Taking a lighter approach is Motion City Soundtrack with their video for “This Is For Real” from their album that comes out next Tuesday. The boys suit up for a day of bowling with one of the guys saving the day - check it out here.

We’re in one of those in-between stages again - we’ve got a lot on deck (including five celebrity mixtapes) and we’re just waiting on album releases etc.

In the meantime, here are some things to check out. Not everything is recent, but it’s what we’ve been watching/listening to lately.

The Comas - Come My Sunshine
TV on the Radio - Wolf Like Me
Kings of Leon - King of the Rodeo
UNKLE - Burn My Shadow
Young Love - Find A New Way
Head Automatica - Beating Heart Baby
Emiliana Torrini - Heartstopper
Ghosthustler - Parking Lot Nights
The Go! Team - Huddle Formation
and just for fun, a classic:
The Get Up Kids - Action and Action

If you haven’t noticed, I’m pretty big on the history of popular music. I realize it doesn’t really fit with the rest of this site, but I also realize a lot of you are just as nerdy as I am when it comes to music. So read on, fellow nerds, read on.

The Songmakers Collection: The True Stories of Legendary Pop Performers is a five-part collection of A&E Biographies focusing on artists and songwriters that came out of the famed Brill Building hit factory.

Volume 1: The Hitmakers
This double-length volume introduces the history of the Brill Building, situated at 1619 Broadway in New York City. Home to AlDon Music, a mind-numbing list of hits was created there by numerous songwriting teams such as Leiber & Stoller, Goffer & King, Bacharach & David, Barry & Greenwich, Greenfield & Sedaka, and Mann & Weil. These teams wrote for everyone from Elvis to The Monkees, with the goal of creating music that teenagers would buy [many of the writers were teenagers themselves].

Volume 2: Dionne Warwick
Serving as Burt Bacharach & Hal David’s muse, she had numerous hits that I know from other artists. Well done, but her story and music aren’t particularly moving for me.

Volume 3: Bobby Darin
Developing a heart condition at a young age, Darin wasn’t supposed to live past his teens. His death sentence caused him to live life to the fullest and made him strive for early stardom - he didn’t have the luxury of taking his time to get there. He broke onto the scene with teeny-bopper hits such as “Splish Splash” and “Dream Lover” but managed to straddle the gap into the adult world by recording suave Rat Pack-worthy tunes like “Mack the Knife” and “Beyond the Sea”. Claiming “I want to be a legend by 25,” he married Sandra Dee and gave acting a try, gaining an Oscar nod. He became interested in politics and civil rights, and moved to recording folk music, eventually touring with RFK. Eventually he came back to his “Beyond the Sea”-era persona before dying from an infection in 1973.

Volume 4: Words and Music by Leiber & Stoller
The Jewish teen kings of rock n roll, Leiber & Stoller are perhaps the most famed songwriting duo in pop music history. Some of their hits include “Hound Dog”, “Yakety Yak”, and “Stand By Me”. They also loaned their skills to production on such classics as “There Goes My Baby”. Most every songwriting team gives a nod to Leiber & Stoller, including Lennon & McCartney. In addition to their undeniable talent, the two are incredibly warm and funny and a pleasure to watch in interviews.

Volume 5: Burt Bacharach
Extremely soft-spoken and unassuming, Burt Bacharach’s career spans from B-movie music (he wrote the theme for The Blob) to Tom Jones’ “What’s New Pussycat?” to a collaboration with Elvis Costello. Much like the Dionne Warwick special, it’s a good program but his style doesn’t particularly appeal to me.

To watch part (if not all - I didn’t check the length) of Volume 1: The Hitmakers, click here - it’s the first video in the “About Me” section.
For a taste of the Brill Building’s sound, watch Neil Sedaka’s amazing dancing below:

Hey Mercedes recently posted the following as a MySpace bulletin - it has details on how to get tickets to their Chicago show if you don’t live in/near Chicago:

Hey Mercedes - Chicago Metro 9/14/2007

Hi everyone!! We’ve worked out a deal to help accommodate fans who might be planning to travel a fair distance to the 9/14 show in Chicago. Due to the nature of this being a FREE show held in conjunction with THREADLESS, fans will have to first visit the new Threadless retail store in Chicago to pick up their free ticket. We realize that this can be a hassle to anyone who isn’t from Chicago or surrounding areas, so we’ve set up a system where out of town fans can avoid going to the store. Here is the deal:

THE RULES:

You MUST LIVE AT LEAST 200 MILES AWAY FROM CHICAGO to qualify. That’s about a 3 hour, easy drive. No, Gary Indiana does not count. Come on! Chicago rush hour traffic doesn’t count either.

Max is 4 tickets per e-mail request.

Please request ONLY the amount of tickets that you will actually use!! If you are really bringing more than 3 friends, then we have to have another e-mail from one of them, but don’t request all 4 if your really only going to bring 1.

Please don’t make ticket requests just for fun, or as a joke. Because that would be dumb.

**IMPORTANT**: Your ticket DOES NOT guarantee admission - the show could still sell out before you get there if you’re late!!! YOU STILL HAVE TO GET TO THE SHOW BEFORE IT SELLS OUT!!!!!! The ticket simply alleviates you from having to visit the Threadless store before the show. We realize this isn’t ideal, but it’s the best we can do in this particular situation. We feel that as long as you arrive a little bit before doors open you should be fine. The Metro is a pretty big venue and we are not that big of a band….seriously.

HERE’S HOW:

You must send an e-mail to:

heymercedestickets@gmail.com.

Make sure to include your full name, address, e-mail address and number of tickets. We will most likely be mailing these to you so if you don’t give us a current address then you will not get your tickets. You will get a reply e-mail within a few days. Please don’t e-mail us again if you don’t receive a reply an hour later. We are doing this ourselves so it may take some time. We’ll do our best to get you a reply as soon as possible.

Show Details:

Friday, September 14th @ The Metro, Chicago, IL

Hey Mercedes
Anathallo
Freer

Doors @ 6pm

See you there!!!!

PS: …and don’t forget about our show in Milwaukee @ The Cactus Club on the 13th!!

Click below to check out the video for “Waking Up the Dead” by our good friends Treaty of Paris.

The video is silly.
The song is excellent.

Find out more about Treaty of Paris here.