make the best of downtown

Guided by Voices – Planet Score

So, I generally consider cutting and pasting content from a press release to be cheating/lazy journalism, but I so thoroughly enjoyed the quotes about making this Guided by Voices video that I’m going to make an exception. The following content courtesy of Kip Kouri at Tell All Your Friends:

“When Bob told me I could direct a music video for the next GBV album, he had just one stipulation; it can’t suck.” says director Mike Postalakis.  After seeing the out-come GBV leader Robert Pollard approvingly noted “Now that’s a well put together video with skills.  Basketball, acting and rock! And you don’t have to suffer through 4 minutes of lip syncing.”

Nate Corddry, who plays “Sports Fan”, remarks: “To put it simply, GBV changed my life. When I first saw them at a small club in Vermont when I was 19, my musical tastes were still very confused. I was spending way too much time hanging onto my hippy jam-band roots, and needed a stiff smack to the face from the fist of rock. Robert Pollard provided that fist. If I remember correctly, he drank a beer per song that night. My life would never be the same. He’s everything that’s great about being an American. My brother Rob, who compellingly stars as “Basketball Coach” in the video, was the one to turn me on to GBV, so to appear in a GBV video with him was a bit of a surreal dream come true. Hopefully this gets me one step closer to doing shots with Bob. The Club is Open.”

Brother Rob Corddry adds: “It was my life’s dream to see GBV play live more than I’ve ever seen anything or anyone play live, and I accomplished that. All I had left were two pipe dreams: to be in a GBV video and to drink beers with Bob Pollard. One to go.”

i’m bound to your bedside, your eulogy singer

Last July I was lucky enough to catch the last two minutes or so of The Antlers‘ Madfork 2.0 set. I was also unlucky in only catching the last two minutes of their set. Shortly thereafter, I listened to everything they had posted on their site, and just wasn’t as impressed as I had been a few days before. Yesterday, October 30th, 2009, Daytrotter posted their session with The Antlers, so I gave it a listen. Hooray for Daytrotter, because they managed to capture much of the magic I was witness to last summer. Being reassured that The Antlers were as amazing as I remembered, I looked up tour dates and discovered the band was in town that very night. The good people at Tell All Your Friends PR responded to my last-minute request, and I had the pleasure of attending The Antlers’ opening set at the Independent in San Francisco, CA.

Though the Daytrotter set is superb, nothing compares to seeing The Antlers play live. Peter Silberman (vocals/guitar), Darby Cicci (keys), and Michael Lerner (percussion) play off each other to create ever-expanding landscapes, filling every available space with sound. Silberman stands to the side, his vocals mixed down in the wash of sound, giving the impression of drowning or speaking from beyond. Lerner’s precision tows Silberman along, and Cicci attacks his instruments as though they need to be powered by his touch.

The songs in The Antlers’ set range from catchy and misleadingly upbeat (“Two”) to hopelessly beautiful (“Atrophy”), commonly employing the struggle of triumph and hope against a nagging sense of despair and defeat. What The Antlers syphon out of the room emotionally in the course of a set may never be replaced, but we must do our best to stanch the flow with tourniquets and transfusions.

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(PARTIAL?) SET LIST: Bear, Sylvia, Atrophy, Two, Wake