Duck & Cover :: Indie rock music writing from Arcade Fire to the Zygotic Minci

I hate personally have a problem with Kings of Leon . For the most part, it's not their fault. It's just the hideously annoying vocalist, Caleb. Musically the band is talented. I don't deny it. But the uninspiring, unoriginal, choke-inducing sound of Caleb singing almost makes me physically violent. Kings of Leon will be on tour soon, so here is a realistic list of things I would rather do than go to their show: 1. eat an entire jar of pickles 2. let a tarantula walk up my arm all the way to the shoulder 3. donate blood and watch (i hate watching) 4. go to a dinner party with all the people who irritate me (regardless of what you might think, it would be a small dinner party, but a very annoying one) 5. wear the same pair of shoes every day for a month 6. type using only my left hand for an entire day 7. go to church 8. watch infomercials 9. do the dishes 10. read Family Circus comics You see? Totally realistic. Notice nothing extreme like "make out with your grandfat...

Parkcow, author and intellectual, puffs his cedar pipe on this calm mid-summer eve and musters his creative command of the English language to describe Psychedelic Electronica trio School of Seven Bells thusly: "they are pretty good." When Jamie asked me to guest review the band School of Seven Bells, I must admit that I had rather mixed feelings. On the one hand, he threw out the qualifier “bit of an expert in the arena” in reference to the band’s electronica nature. It’s not often that I can claim to be a bit of an expert on anything (except Blue’s Clues, Yo Gabba Gabba, and, most depressing of all, the Teletubbies since I spend far too great a portion of my day watching these shows with my toddler), so I was naturally flattered and instantly turned on to the idea of doing something involving music that didn’t have an endlessly repeating, positive reinforcement message like “we’re really smart” (this coming after the solving of Blue’s Clues, which anyone familiar with th...

Peachcake is sweet. Like sugary sweet. Like the kind of sweet that makes you feel guilty afterward, as if you should have spent your time building homes for poverty stricken families in Peru than indulge in this glucose bath. Yet the Arizona duo doesn't try to be anything other than bubble gum pop, and that's where they succeed. You'll enjoy Peachcake if you like Postal Service, or Lightning Seeds, or LCD Sound System, or techno of the happy hardcore bent. You see where I'm going? While their lyrics lack the poetic depth of Postal Service, Peachcake is arguably more fun. It will either make you want to dance, hang out with ravers, or punch bricks until they spit gold coins. Download a few tracks for a play list, but don't try to digest the whole thing in one sitting. I don't know many people who can handle an entire peach cake on their own. Okay, I know one person: my brother. But he once ate tacos until he couldn't see. Band :: Peachcake Song :: Stop Act...

The case of the overshadowing opener I'll admit it: I had to study for this show. Anyone who frequents live music knows exactly what I'm talking about. A band is playing nearby, so you buy an album and thrash it until the day of the gig. Hopefully, you'll know a few of the songs by then; you might even sing along. So it was with No Age. I picked up a copy of their Sub Pop release, Nouns (white vinyl!), from my local, and quickly got my free MP3s from the label (note to labels: you MUST provide free MP3s with vinyl. It's just the right thing to do). For two weeks leading up to the gig I listened to the record at least once a day. Come the day of the show, however, I was caught off guard by the opening band: Mika Miko. Mika Miko rock. It's like the girls from the library and the girls from the coffee shop got together and played a mix of Sleater Kinney and Chicks on Speed. Their set opening for No Age was as full of energy as it was full of off-color humor ("That...

Guest blogger Justin Z takes a break from hammering to reflect on something he may or may not have heard before. Hypothetical Auditory Amnesiamania is a mental condition where the subject secretly or publicly desires to experience amnesia for the sole purpose of listening to something they've already heard before and experiencing it again for the first time. Some people have this desire with movies or books as well, craving that initial thrill the mind undergoes when it first watches or reads them. In lieu of beating yourself in the head with a hammer (which only has a small percentage of causing amnesia, anyway) you can listen to Pickin' On Modest Mouse by Iron Horse. To truly appreciate this music, you have to meet two qualifications. First, you have to like bluegrass. Second, you have to have listened to enough Modest Mouse to consider yourself a Hypothetical Auditorial Amnesiamaniac. If you meet these two qualifiers, then you owe it to yourself to supplement your HAA ...

My ego is in a blender set on 'puree' I love a good game of trivia. Who doesn't? So when I stumbled upon Jams Match , I felt the Internet has just politely slapped my face with a gentleman's white challenge glove. However, after a few rounds of matching album art with the album's name, I realized that the Internet had, unbeknown to me, filled the glove with sand and was repeatedly taking swipes at my jaw with all it's might. Jams Match is hard. Really hard. But in a good way. The game isn't frustrating-hard (like the first Hitman or trying to play Duels without forking over any cash). Rather, it's challenging like trying to score a date with Beth from high school chemistry class: every rejection (and they were all rejections) were acknowledgments on her part that you existed. I've set the difficulty level to "novice" and have been working through the indie/alternative set of covers for the past two hours now. I still can't get over 80 p...

Montreal do-gooders Wolf Parade surprised me with their first album, Apologies to the Queen Mary . The Isaac Brock-produced record was laced with creepy off-key melodies, and singles like "Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts" could carry me through a day as though I had my headphones firmly clamped around my noggin. At Mount Zoomer , however, goes off in a direction all its own. This time, the Wolf boys themselves turned the dials in the studio and the product is all the better for it. The story goes that when the band sent the finished album to Sub Pop, they included with it a small note: "No singles." This little white lie was propagated by the label itself as a tongue-in-cheek response to the direction Wolf Parade took with their sophomore effort. There are, of course, singles. Nothing like "Sons and Daughters" or "I'll Believe in Anything", mind you. "Grey Estates", "Language City", and "An Animal in Your Care...

"music is the unknowing exercise of our mathematical faculties." --Gottfried Leibniz Seed Magazine has a wonderful--albeit long--article written by music theorist Dmitri Tymoczko. In it, he reduces the complex beauty of Western music to "simple" mathematical models. Please note the quotes surrounding the word simple. To Tymoczko, this stuff is no doubt like writing a grocery list on a napkin. To the rest of us, however, the idea alone is enough to make the brow furl. The thesis attempts to create a visual shape for music. By first reducing notes to numbers, Tymoczko pieces together an architecture for harmony. The essay is thought-provoking and insightful so long as you can push through passages like this: In this way each of the 88 piano keys is assigned a number less than 12: the "C" keys 48, 60, and 72 are represented by 0, while the "C-sharp" (or "D-flat"), keys 49, 61, and 73 are all represented by 1, and so on. Musicians say that...

Contributor and friend of D&C, Nick recounts the worries and glories of searching for beer in a new country. When Nick is not recovering from bouts of drunken debauchery, he whiles away the hours as a kick-ass User Experience Designer in London. I've now been to plenty of bars that serve a great selection of beers, like The Phoenix on Cavandish Square. Yet getting out of the bars and into the festivals and supermarkets can be very rewarding. Most of the English ales you will find in pubs will be mass-produced and the quality varies depending how they are stored. Getting yourself along to a Real Ale Festival will introduced you to some drops that will vary greatly in taste and will open your eyes to just how good these ales can be. Supermarkets, oddly, are also a great place to find a large variety of interesting ales, and you'll often be able to get them on special. I've just now made my way through a Black Sheep Ale and an Olde Trip. Yet after a few months I felt like ...

Contributor and friend of D&C, Nick recounts the worries and glories of searching for beer in a new country. When Nick is not recovering from bouts of drunken debauchery, he whiles away the hours as a kick-ass User Experience Designer in London. I departed the green shores of young New Zealand early last year, eagerly anticipating the welcome tastes of European beers. My grand idea was to write about every different beer that I consumed in an attempt to be like Michael Jackson--the beer writer, not the man(?) who grabs his crotch and squeals. My mouth could barely contain the drool as I thought of all the delicious and varied brews that were going to pass my lips. Some of my favourite drops while living in NZ were Continental beers such as Duvel and Leffe, plus I'd tasted several yummy ales and stouts from the Motherland (read: England). To say the least, I was excited. I've been in the UK for over a year now and have written nothing. They drink lagers over here. You should...