06 September 2007

8+

"A Day (Remix)" by Clan of Xymox which clocks in at 9:12

Hey goth. Heyyyyyy.

Dressed all in black, with the whitest skin on Earth - an "atheist" who has surrounded herself with all manner of crosses and Christian imagery. You are a study in contrast. In public, you only smoke and never eat. Yet there you are: fat vampire. You look a little lumpy. Puffy, rounded edges, and frumpy. Pale with so many (too much) makeups and grumpy. The opposite of spunky. Dumpy. A look of sadness on your face that plainly reads: nobody wanna hump me. Aww. Don't frown! Turn it upside down!

Are you a fat goth, skinny goth, something in between? Is there an in between?? Yeah, there's not. Therefore, EAR FARM is offering all of you pasty whites in need of a bit of "tone in your zone" the perfect afternoon workout - Goth Aerobics!

**while EAR FARM can not take credit for inventing the notion of the Goth Workout, we are perfectly comfortable with claiming to have perfected it by suggesting the following program which we think you'll find to be much more in line with the goth lifestyle than whatever you might see on the previously mentioned site**

EAR FARM's Goth Aerobics
Step 1: be a goth. eat too much, drink too much - OR - eat far too little, don't drink at all, but smoke many clove cigarettes instead. also, dress in black and hide your face from the sun and other people. get shiny things pierced into your skin and highlight everything with black. don't worry, you already do these things - it's why you're here in our program.
Step 2: want to change. this is the most important step. not to want to de-goth your lair (or coffin or castle or whatever), but to want to finally harness your powers of darkness and use them for fitness. repeat after me, for this is our credo: "I will harness my powers of darkness and use them for fitness. I will harness my powers of darkness and use them for fitness. I will harness my powers of darkness and use them for fitness."
Step 3: find a suitably gothy song that's got enough pep in its step to make your body move, make your makeup run, and make your upside down crosses jingle jangle. EAR FARM has made this step extremely simple: see the above song by Clan of Xymox. it moves, it grooves, it's got its own built in cool-down, and it's plenty long enough for even the most "athletic" goth to reach peak heart rate before the song finishes.
Step 4: the workout. let's face it, moving and sweating are not activities that goths excel at; therefore, we'll keep it simple with a four day workout regimen. each day's exercises should be done using the above song, "A Day (Remix)" by Clan of Xymox, as a soundtrack/inspiration.

    DAY 1: walk outside, stand in the sun. DAY 2: no really, that's all for DAY 1. it should be more than enough to get your black heart's BPMs up to a satisfactory level. DAY 2: go to your local Hot Topic, but park as far away from the mall as possible. it's a long four hundred foot walk, I know, but the burn you feel (all deep down, where your soul would be if it wasn't so dark and... DARK) is totally going to be worth it. DAY 3: repeat DAY 1. DAY 4: look at yourself in the mirror. egads! the site of your own reflection (if you even have one) should be all you need to vamp up that heart rate and get the remainder of your exercise fix for the week. DAYS 5-7: rest all day, only come out at night.
Step 5: keep up with your EAR FARM Goth Aerobics plan and maybe someday you can move on to the brighter/sexy side of gothdom that is modeling for Halloween Costumes and nudie sites!

*image found HERE.

Buy Clan of Xymox HERE on Amazon or HERE on iTunes.

EAR FARM's 8+ is a weekly feature that showcases songs longer than 8 minutes. In the recent past these songs were featured on EF's 8+:
Built to Spill - "Broken Chairs"
Spacemen 3 - "Big City (Everybody I Know Can Be Found Here)"
Pulp - "Seductive Barry"
Pelican - "March to the Sea"
Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, and Tony Rice - "Guitar Space/Summertime"
Boris - "Flood"
Vieux Farka Touré - "Diabaté"
Morrissey - "Southpaw"

To see a full list of every song featured in EAR FARM's 8+ click HERE.

Click HERE to continue reading/view comments...

OPP

An Aquarium Drunkard: Off The Record - J. Tillman (Seattle, WA)

Crackers United: September Mixtape

Subinev: Mistakes are calling it quits

YANP: mix for Clint Eastwood

Stereogum breaks down the new iPods and the Microsoft Zune 2

Music Slut: Morrissey Musical In The Works

Deerhunter's Bradford Cox does up an 8+ on his blog about Stereolab's song "Blue Milk"

My Old Kentucky Blog does up an NFL preview: AFC / NFC

Click HERE to continue reading/view comments...

05 September 2007

Sebadoh @ Club Europa - 2 September 2007

Sebadoh is my personal equivalent of that well known Brian Eno quote about The Velvet Underground; that is, not many people I know bought their records or listened to them, but pretty much everyone who did started a band. Speaking for myself, I was already playing in bands by the time their songs found my ears but once they did, I was inspired to think about creating music in all kinds of different ways. From acoustic rock to semi-hardcore to lo-fi four track stuff to noise/tape experimentation - the band nearly singlehandedly changed my perception of what I could do, of what interested me, with music. All of this is to say that Sebadoh has played quite an important part in my musical evolution and they're, without question, one of my favorite bands. Last Sunday night I got a chance to see them (for, I think, the fifth time) at Europa Night Club in Brooklyn.

Being honest about shows past compared to this show - this was the best Sebadoh show I've seen. No doubt. First of all, the presence of Eric Gaffney (above) meant that this was my very first time seeing the original lineup of Sebadoh (I missed the first reunion show here at Webster Hall because I was on tour, much better to have seen them at Europa anyway). Original lineup! Bonus excitement. As expected, each member took front and center when it was time in the set for the songs they penned, and Eric rocked the shit out of "Elixir is Zog".

Jason Lowenstein (above) shredded through his songs (including some favorites from Harmacy) just as I hoped he would. The sound at Europa was surprisingly nice and the intimacy of the venue helped make the show feel like a special one-off fanclub show. Which, I guess it kind of was.

The most noticeable difference between this show and other Sebadoh shows I've seen (mostly at Cat's Cradle) was the fact that both the audience and the band seemed to be in wonderful moods. Everyone was there to hear their favorite Sebadoh songs and the guys were happy to indulge. It might sound funny, but seriously - the show was a blast. Even Lou Barlow (above), who has been a bit surly at other shows I've seen, was in a good mood and cracking jokes and having fun. A wonderful night overall, and because of my love for the band and their music, one of my top shows so far this year.

Check out some live audio and video from this show below.

Listen:
"Soul And Fire"
"Beauty Of The Ride"
"Just Gimme Indie Rock"

Watch:
"Soul And Fire" live on YouTube | download QT
"Beauty Of The Ride" live on YouTube | download QT
"Just Gimme Indie Rock" live on YouTube | download QT

See more pictures of Sebadoh (from this show) HERE.

Visit Sebadoh on MySpace.

Previous EAR FARM posts relating to Sebadoh:

Click HERE to continue reading/view comments...

04 September 2007

30 August 2007

8+

"Broken Chairs" by Built to Spill which clocks in at 8:40

This song doesn't belong here. It's an impostor. A charlatan - a pretender. A fraudster. The Ferdinand Waldo Demara of long songs. A faker, like... like Faker. Like one of those false coral snakes that gets by in life by fooling the world into thinking it's dangerous. "Ohh look at me, I'm making people frightened! I'm the killer snake, from deadly land, in a red, yellow, and black house on poisonous laaaaaane!" But this song doesn't mean to appear deadly; rather, it wants you to believe that it's an actual 8+ instead of what it is. Wants you to take it at its word when it says it's eight minutes and forty seconds of indie-rock guitar love. HA. Hardly. The guitar love is there, but as for the song's 8+ity? Pssh.

"Broken Chairs", you don't even deserve to be an 8+ song. What with your decade long fade-out that begins someplace around the 6:50 mark, really starts hitting quiet stride at about 7:15, and has the song all but over by 7:35... one minute of jamming in a fade-out?? What kind of shit is that? I can think of no less than three classic songs, off the top of my head, that are more deserving of having an extra thirty seconds of fade-out tacked on just to push them over the eight minute mark. Don't believe me? How about "Us and Them" by Pink Floyd? Heard of that one? Sure would be nice to see that included here in good old 8+ land. Shame the Floydsters didn't just add on ten seconds of silence to the end, innit? Shoot, it's Pink Floyd. Could've been anything at the end of that song. Cows mooing, babies cooing, birds chirping, the sound of Syd Barrett's drool dropping to the floor...

What else? Does "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" by The Beatles ring a bell? Abbey Road? Huh? Think I wouldn't want to include that sonbitch in this catalog of long songs? Deserves to be here more than "Broken Chairs" does, this I know. JohnPaulGeorgeRingo (George Martin) took that sucker right up to the limit of its track length. Two minute fade-out like "Hey Jude"? Hell naw. It just ends. Boom. Over. Takes balls to do that.

Now let's think about the one song that annoys me most when I think of the two minute fade employed to bring "Broken Chairs" drifting to an end: "No Quarter" by Led Zeppelin. Good God man. How I wish that song had a two minute fade added on so that it was pushed past the eight minute mark and thus eligble for inclusion in EAR FARM's 8+ column. "No Quarter"! "No Quarter"! "No Quarter"! I love the song so much I've even considered finding sneaky ways to talk about it within a post about another song. I'd do it, if I could.

Perhaps the most criminal aspect of the "Broken Chairs" fade is that the song is a total animal up to, and even during, the committal of fadeas corpus. Listen to it. This ain't no "Hey Jude" - "na, na na na na na na" - over and over for eternity. Doug Martsch is flat out "going off" (as they say), and some engineer decides to take that as his cue to fall asleep on the sliding volume control fader thing?! I know it's called a fader but get a grip man!

*image of the Chair Palais des Nations Geneva found HERE.

Buy Keep It Like A Secret HERE on Amazon or HERE on iTunes (the iTunes version does not include "Broken Chairs").

EAR FARM's 8+ is a weekly feature that showcases songs longer than 8 minutes. In the recent past these songs were featured on EF's 8+:
Spacemen 3 - "Big City (Everybody I Know Can Be Found Here)"
Pulp - "Seductive Barry"
Pelican - "March to the Sea"
Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, and Tony Rice - "Guitar Space/Summertime"
Boris - "Flood"
Vieux Farka Touré - "Diabaté"
Morrissey - "Southpaw"
Mastodon - "Hearts Alive"

To see a full list of every song featured in EAR FARM's 8+ click HERE.

Click HERE to continue reading/view comments...

OPP

T-Sides - Quick Impressions: Rilo Kiley, “Under The Blacklight”

BrooklynVegan - HILLY 4EVER (pics from outside CBGB)

The Passion of the Weiss vs. Bradford Cox (beef squashed)

Obsession Collection has an excellent new feature - Music Site Scavenger Series: The Big Purple Van Club

Stereogum has the new O'Death video

Subinev - Pretty Girls Make Graves Divide and Conquer

Chromewaves unveils Hot Freaks 2: Electric Blog-aloo

Click HERE to continue reading/view comments...

29 August 2007

British Sea Power announce US mini-tour

British Sea Power is far and away one of my very most favorite current bands. I should, perhaps, make a list for you to keep track of the bands that EAR FARM has a large crush on, but I won't. Just know that this band is on said list, that doesn't actually exist. Anyway, check out the following news that I found on The Tripwire:

"This October [British Sea Power] will be playing five East Coast dates, one of which includes a special CMJ Music Marathon performance.

When you break open up that penny bank for tickets, be sure to save some of the leftover change to pick up an upcoming EP from the band. Released in October via Rough Trade/World's Fair, it will host five songs and two live videos and will be followed up by a brand spankin' new LP."
Fantastic. Let's celebrate this news with those dates in writing and an MP3. Yeah? The song below is British Sea Power's cover of the Galaxie 500 song "Tugboat".

British Sea Power - 2007 US mini-tour dates:
15 October - Hoboken, NJ (Maxwell's)
16 October - Philadelphia, PA (Johnny Brenda's)
18 October - New York, NY (CMJ)
19 October - Washington, DC (Black Cat)
21 October - Cambridge, MA (Middle East Downstairs)

Listen:
"Tugboat"

Visit British Sea Power on MySpace.

Click HERE to continue reading/view comments...

Super Volcano

Super Volcano is new on the scene in New York. An unknown, garage synth-pop three piece that's ready to climb into the hearts and minds of NYC indie music fans with songs that are equally interesting and head-bop inducing. Based solely upon their four song demo EP, this is a band full of heaping amounts of potential. Hear me out - this music will prove my words to be less than hyperbolic, I promise. There are two sample songs posted below, and another couple worth your time on their MySpace (especially "Firestorm"), so check out each of their songs, and see these guys live, for a complete picture of this band you're bound to love if you ever found The Unicorns appealing. Or, looking even closer to home - consider Super Volcano as a friendly foil to Mancino. Goodness knows how much we all love them... and I don't actually see the two bands fighting for turf here in the crowded landscape of New York up and comers, but rather as two sides of the same coin that is the ever-changing landscape of poppy indie-rock.

(friendly note to reader: you'll see The Unicorns and the word "urgency" mentioned more than once in the sentences below)

"Instant Attraction" is a perfectly messy and raw two minute pop song. It begins harmlessly enough with a toy-organ sounding ditty playing out and evolving into swells of harmony and urgency. It's the kind of song that sounds as if these guys had it building up inside of them and simply had to get it out and on record. A song I'd imagine really cooks live, and a nice lead single to get kids' heads ringing. "Jupiter" is a bit more of an adventure into everything that makes Super Volcano tick. Here they mix in elements of Beatles-esque harmony/arrangements (think of a garage-pop version of XTC) with the urgency, fire, and desperation found in certain songs by The Unicorns or They Might Be Giants. Urgency/Unicorns, urgency/Unicorns - repeat/refrain ad infinitum. I can't help it, that's what comes to mind with Super Volcano.

There's less of an inside joke nature with this band, though, than with the two previously mentioned bands, and thank goodness for that. Super Volcano clearly believes in these songs they've made. Like I said, they had to make this music. And who can argue with them based upon the results? They're scratching so many of my own personal musical itches by blending together their dramatic pop sensibilities with synthesizers and production that's rough around the edges; I'm completely ready to declare them fit for mass consumption. Okay, fit for the quirky, bookworm-smart, indie-pop loving, "I hate my boyfriend's taste in music", set. My kind of people. Super Volcano is my kind of band.

Listen:
"Instant Attraction"
"Jupiter"

See Super Volcano live:

29 August (TONIGHT) @ Crash Mansion - New York, New York
2 September @ Trash Bar - Williamsburg, New York
9 September @ Knitting Factory (Old Office) - New York, New York
Visit Super Volcano on MySpace.

Click HERE to continue reading/view comments...

28 August 2007

Three for Free - Minus the Bear, Page France, The Unicorns

EAR FARM's Three for Free: three EF approved, free and legal MP3s posted each week. This week, three tracks from artists on Suicide Squeeze Records. Click on the artist name to go to their site, click on the song name to listen to the song.

Listen:
Minus the Bear - "Throwin' Shapes"

Page France - “Hat and Rabbit"

The Unicorns - "2014"

Click HERE to continue reading/view comments...

PJ Harvey - "When Under Ether"

PJ Harvey plays piano? She does now. As Wire stated in their recent cover story on her: "Not only has PJ Harvey taken up the piano and adopted exploratory tactics for reconnecting with the primal roots of her earliest music, she's also ended a decade of wandering by coming back to the white chalk Dorset countryside of her youth..."

It should come as no surprise that the name of her upcoming album (to be released on the 25th of September) is White Chalk and that the sounds contained in the first song released, "When Under Ether", find Polly Jean looking back to the fragile sparseness of her earlier records. There is a large amount of power in PJ's hushed songs, power that has impacted me in the past in ways not many other, if any, musicians have been able to. Frankly, To Bring You My Love changed my life, and on White Chalk she's again working with Flood and John Parish. Excited? I can't wait.

Listen:
"When Under Ether"

Visit PJ Harvey on MySpace.

Click HERE to continue reading/view comments...

Today's NEW releases

This week's releases I find interesting:

Click HERE to continue reading/view comments...

27 August 2007

Squirrel Nut Zippers @ Highline Ballroom - 24 August 2007

A brief version of my story goes a little something like this: I met Tom Maxwell while working on an independent horror film in Chapel Hill/Durham in 1994 and he told me about his band called Squirrel Nut Zippers. From that point on, I went and saw the band live a billion times (the high point being the New Year's show at Cat's Cradle on December 31st 1995) and listened to their records nonstop. Then they got all MTV huge with their hit song "Hell" and I realized how lucky us Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill folks were to have them around so often. Then the band broke up, time marched forward, and I hadn't seen Squirrel Nut Zippers live in about ten years.

Last Friday night, a lucky New York audience (including myself, and the requisite posse of accompanying friends) got to see Squirrel Nut Zippers play Highline Ballroom and it was almost as if they haven't missed a beat in those ten years since I last saw them. I say almost, merely because there were a few members missing whose presence I feel might have injected into the performance the extra small amount of 'je ne sais quoi' that seemed missing. Then again, what am I talking about? Memories of amazing shows from the past are very hard to live up to, and I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of the SNZ show this past Friday.

Jimbo was on point and as equally charming/rocking as he ever was, and Katherine's voice (not to mention her legs, oh la la) was pure magic, as always. Highlights from the set, for me, were "La Grippe" (really, everything they played off of The Inevitable) and "Ghost of Stephen Foster".

Sometimes I miss those days of the mid-'90s when music like this stood out so boldly in stark contrast to Hootie and Collective Soul, most times it's better to have the right now and whatever the future holds. Either way, I'll always miss having a band like Squirrel Nut Zippers around as my local hometown favorites. The friendly members of the band, their music and the dancing and parties it always seems to inspire, remind me of home. Last Friday night at Highline Ballroom, home was here in New York City with 700 or so happy strangers and it was fantastic.

Listen:
"La Grippe"
"I've Found A New Baby"

Watch:
"Ghost of Stephen Foster"

See more pictures of Squirrel Nut Zippers (from this show) HERE.

Visit Squirrel Nut Zippers on MySpace.

Click HERE to continue reading/view comments...

Goes Cube @ Bowery Ballroom - 24 August 2007

Goes Cube played killed Bowery Ballroom last Friday night before doing the same some nine hours later at After the Jump. Is there any doubt (now) about the validity of my statements from Friday's post about them? Because it has been made even more perfectly accurate after this weekend's shows, here's what I said: "Goes Cube's new material delivers thunderous, shredding, annihilating musical conquest. If you're looking for the best 'loud motherfucking live rock band' in New York City, look no further." Honestly, it's becoming difficult for me to continue to find more words to describe this band to the uninitiated; so get with it, or else I'll press rewind and quote myself again.

Listen:
Goes Cube - "Song 46"

See more pictures of Goes Cube (from this show and many others) HERE.

Visit Goes Cube on MySpace.

Click HERE to continue reading/view comments...

snip·pets

NY Press: Local Music Bloggers Unite To Help Save Music Education

Report: My Bloody Valentine Mulling Coachella Reunion

The Cure Postpones Fall North American Tour

Billy Corgan: "American girls are sluts"

Amy Winehouse bloody, bruised after alleged fight

Fall Out Boy Guitarist Has Only Kind Words For Liars After Accidentally 'Sharing' Demos

Live Nation: Spreading Its Wings

Pit bulls seized in raid on rapper DMX's home

Click HERE to continue reading/view comments...

24 August 2007

Goes Cube Song 46 - see Goes Cube at Bowery Ballroom tonight, After the Jump Fest tomorrow

Goes Cube very recently had one of their brand new songs premiere on Stereogum (listen to it below), they're set to rock the shit out of Bowery Ballroom tonight (playing with Stereo Total and The Octopus Project), and then they'll be destroying the After the Jump Fest tomorrow.

The song you'll find below is one of four new Goes Cube songs that have been ripping apart my eardrums of late. These four tracks were recorded at Wild Arctic Studio in Long Island City by Dean Baltulonis (Foreign Islands) and they show off an evolving, maturing, Goes Cube that's not afraid to get a bit more intricate, dark, and HEAVY. The best Goes Cube songs to date? Yes.

"Song 46" takes only a few brief moments in the beginning before launching into full on attack mode. And yet, this is only a small hint at what will follow - musical foreplay. Goes Cube wants you to wait for it. Wait for the payoff, because when things really kick in - the scream at 1:55, the explosion at 2:28 - you're going to need to change your shorts. Here they've seemingly out-Gish'd Smashing Pumpkins, on other songs from these brand new tracks they've taken the direction Slint was always hinting at and gone four or five steps heavier and darker. They've redefined themselves ever so slightly by mixing into their made-for-Dischord sound heaping amounts of full-on metal. Listen to the vocals, the guitars - my god, the drumming. Goes Cube's new material delivers thunderous, shredding, annihilating musical conquest. If you're looking for the best "loud motherfucking live rock band" in New York City, look no further.

Some day a smart record label is going to snatch up this new material, put this band out on the road with a well-paired headlining band, and sit back and watch music nuts all over the world fall head over heels in love with Goes Cube. Until then, you can be very thankful that you get to see them twice in one weekend.

Listen:
Goes Cube - "Song 46"

Visit Goes Cube on MySpace.

Click HERE to continue reading/view comments...

Juiced Elfers, Bang Lime @ Mercury Lounge - 23 August 2007

Juiced Elfers (above) is a four piece partyfuntime '60s dance music inspired band that includes Nicolas Thorburn and Jamie Thompson of Unicorns/Islands fame. Last night they played a total of four songs including at least two cover songs ("Surfin' Bird" by The Trashmen and "With A Girl Like You" by The Troggs). Watching their set felt as if we were at a party and these guys got up on stage to kick out the jams. Clearly the band exists as an outlet for Nick and Jaime and friends to get together and have a good time, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Below you will find audio and video from two Juiced Elfers songs played last night, as well as the original version of "With A Girl Like You". If anyone knows anything about the unknown song below, speak up in the comments.

Listen:
Juiced Elfers - Unknown Song
Juiced Elfers - "With A Girl Like You"
The Troggs - "With A Girl Like You"

Watch:
Juiced Elfers - Unknown Song live on YouTube | download QT
Juiced Elfers - "With A Girl Like You" live on YouTube | download QT

See more pictures of Juiced Elfers (from this show) HERE.


Bang Lime (above) is made up of Joules Scott-Key (drums) and Joshua Winstead (guitar/vocals) from the band Metric. They play a raw, blues infused, '60s garage stomp that'll remind some of The White Stripes but had me thinking of how well they'd have fit in at CBGB in the '70s. On record their songs come across as more polished than they did in a live setting and I think they suffer for that. Now, after seeing the band live and listening to their album Best Friends in Love, I can definitely say I'd rather experience these guys in person. Pure energy. Looks like your next chance will be tonight... if you live in Canada.

Listen:
Bang Lime - "Blood Orange"

See more pictures of Bang Lime (from this show) HERE.

Visit Bang Lime on MySpace.

Click HERE to continue reading/view comments...

23 August 2007

8+

"Big City (Everybody I Know Can Be Found Here)" by Spacemen 3 which clocks in at 10:50

On June 29th, when I was standing at South Street Seaport waiting for Sam Champion to begin their set (prior to Ra Ra Riot), the MC of the event took an excited moment to announce that legendary NYC duo Suicide would be gracing the Seaport stage in the near future. The news landed with a thud as very few, if any, of the people around me (or in my group) had ever even heard of Suicide. Fucking blasphemy, I thought to myself. Here was a band "as influential as the Clash" that not one single person in attendance at this music nerd/blogger/hipster event had enough admiration, or love for, to even acknowledge when the announcement was made. Okay, sure, this particular June 29th lineup wasn't exactly going to attract the kind of people who'd listen to Suicide, but that's beside the point. My point is, some of you guys out there calling yourselves big fans of music need to spend a bit of time learning about the most important bands of the past 40 years that you've never heard of. Self-education, really digging into the past, is as important to one's musical growth as keeping up with Pitchfork and Elbo.ws is. No, it's more important.

I don't throw around the term "legend" much at all, but the band Spacemen 3 is legendary. Read a bit about them on All Music or Wikipedia, you'll see. They're one of the seminal post-punk bands who laid the foundation for so much of everything that happened in the genres of post-rock and shoegaze - so much of indie, underground, alternative, whathaveyou - since the mid-80s. They took everything that had been started by bands such as The Stooges, The Velvet Underground, 13th Floor Elevators, Suicide, etc. and blended it into their own mind-melting style of noisy minimalist psychedelic darkness. Spacemen 3 brought to the rock music world a touch of avant-garde, often challenging, music. They're the band known for "taking drugs to make music to take drugs to", and they spawned more than one successful off-shoot band (see Spiritualized, Experimental Audio Research, and our After the Jump Fest day show headliners Spectrum). Needless to say, it more than baffles me when people say they "have no clue who these people are."

The song posted here is from Spacemen 3's final album Recurring. Prior to the recording and production of this record, the band saw a ton of tension and strife between key members Jason Pierce and Peter Kember. In fact, things had gotten so bad that the two songwriters decided to split the album in two, with Kember's (also known as Sonic Boom) songs to make up the first half of the record and Pierce's (aka J. Spaceman) to comprise the second half. These two halves ended up being recorded in two different studios with a cover of Mudhoney’s “When Tomorrow Hits" separating the songwriters on the actual album. Things were very bad - the band had ceased to exist. Yet somehow this made for an excellent record, as each songwriter was able to truly delve into his own style and explore precisely what interested him most.

"Big City (Everybody I Know Can Be Found Here)" is the lead track on Recurring and was written by Sonic Boom (Kember). It shows off his obvious adoration of Kraftwerk and Suicide and hints at the kind of experimental approach and sounds that would later be showing up in Sonic's future efforts under the Experimental Audio Research/Spectrum names. While not extremely indicative of Spacemen 3's overall sound (or of what you'll be hearing from Spectrum this weekend), it's one of my favorite songs of his/theirs and well worth checking out for anyone out there wondering who the heck this Spectrum is who is playing the After the Jump Fest.

*cover image of Recurring found HERE.

Buy Recurring HERE on Amazon or HERE on iTunes.

EAR FARM's 8+ is a weekly feature that showcases songs longer than 8 minutes. In the recent past these songs were featured on EF's 8+:
Pulp - "Seductive Barry"
Pelican - "March to the Sea"
Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, and Tony Rice - "Guitar Space/Summertime"
Boris - "Flood"
Vieux Farka Touré - "Diabaté"
Morrissey - "Southpaw"
Mastodon - "Hearts Alive"
Frog Eyes - "Bushels"

To see a full list of every song featured in EAR FARM's 8+ click HERE.

Click HERE to continue reading/view comments...

OPP

A special After the Jump Fest related OPP. Below are interviews with many of the bands playing the show on Saturday, and a spotlight on the Donor's Choose charity.

The Music Slut: 8 Questions With Spectrum

Music Snobbery: Jukebox the Ghost Interview

The Music Slut: 8 Questions With Soulico

Product Shop NYC: An Interview w/ Riot In Belgium

Disconap: Bling Kong Interview

Subinev: Goes Cube Interview

Pop Tarts Suck Toasted: The Virgins Interview

The Modern Age: Teenage Prayers Interview

Yeti Don't Dance: Ra Ra Riot Interview

Punk Photo: Free Blood Interview

Slap You In Public: Apache Beat Interview

Merry Swankster: Spotlight on Donor's Choose

Bumpershine: The David Bruno Interview

I Rock I Roll: an interview with Golem

Click HERE to continue reading/view comments...