291

I had thought of something

the other day

that I was going to share with you

but

I forgot what that was

Oh well

290-Over the Rhine at the Grand Emporium

Finally!
Over the Rhine found their way back to Kansas City. It has been a while.

They played at the Grand Emporium again and the Grand Emporium has gotten quite a facelift since the last time I was at that venue. It is no longer a grimy blues bar, but now it a swank lounge-like club. They played the Grand Emporium on their Films for Radio tour in 2001. They were suppose to play the Grand Emporium on their Ohio tour, but that night was the night they cancelled their tour to rearrange some personal priorities, and thank goodness because that lead to the beautiful Drunkard's Prayer.

We got a babysitter, called some friends, and headed down to see the music. The club was standing room and seemed to be pretty full. I am always amazed to see who else listens to this band; this band that I first heard when I was 18 back in ’92 at Cornerstone Festival. I have grown through my 20’s (and into my 30’s) with this band and they have grown too! We are both not so young anymore, but I was surprised to see young fans along with older fans. Being that this band has put out amazing music and has a rabid fan base and has always been on the cusp of success, they have never become a household name and I think their fans like it that way.

The show started with the horns/woodwinds opening track of I Don’t Want to Waste Your Time as the band worked their way through the crowd and up onto the stage. You could tell from the very beginning that this was going to be a good show. The fans were into it – hootin’ and hollerin’ at Karin’s words and voice and you know that the band wants to return the favor.

They played quite a few songs from the new album with some older songs sprinkled in. The music was great and I was once again reminded why this is one of my favorite live bands. We were also treated to one of Linfords stories as he introduces The Trumpet Child. The story was something about being a young child, sister Grace’s pony tails, revival tent, the beautiful language of hymns like Softly and Tendlerly, When the Roll is Called on Yonder, the trumpet, rebirth, horn players, music on God’s ipod.

Very good time!

288 - What is alternative music?

Dust,
What is alternative music, you ask?
Yeah, I'm not good with labels and I am sure this is debatable, but my take on it is this:

Let's just generalize a decade, the 80's brought about a lot of bands that were post-punk from the late '70s punk movement. These band were not popular by mainstream radio standards.

Mainstream top 40 radio in the '80s and early '90s was all about pop and hair metal/glam rock. These post-punk band were many different styles of music ranging from witty smart to electronic dance rock to goth to dreampop to folk to grunge to jangle pop to americana. Many of the labels at the time that I heard for this kind of music were new wave, modern rock, college rock (because the college stations would play this music), progressive.

Where could one here these new sounds that were different from mainstream radio? Really cool friends with older siblings (in college) or MTV 120 minutes on Sunday nights from 10-midnight, or college rock stations, or public radio stations between the raggae hour and the latin music show, etc.

Sometime in the year of 1990 one of our pop stations (Q104) started a half hour show at 10:30 every night called Liquid Radio that was devoted to this music. Also, somewhere around this time Kennedy and MTV VJ had a nightly show called Alternative Nation. Soon the word "Alternative" was used to describe all these different styles of music that didn't fit into the pop music or hair metal category.

Then Nirvana released smells like teen spirit on video to MTV and the rest is history. Alternative became mainstream. Every Major record label wanted to sign the next Nirvana. Radio stations became Alternative Rock stations. The alternative rock sound is now the mainstream sound. The popularity of Alternative rock basically killed it. The quality of music went down due to the need to feed it quickly to its demanding listening audience.

What do people call it these days? I don't know and I don't think bands know either. Not that they ever wanted to label thier music. It is interesting to look at a bands myspace page. At the top their is an area for them to categorize their music. Their you will find words like "other/indie/electronic/minimal/etc."

287 - September Music

Amiina - Kurr
Listen here.

Another band from Iceland...These four ladies are properly a string quartet who opened for and are part of Sigur Ros's backing band, but they are not tied down to any instruments. They'll play the strings along with the saw, goblets, music boxes, electronics, guitars, the glocks, anything and everything from what I can gather. What they produce is a real sweet and delicate sound. The album is mostly instrumentals with a few vocal "awe's and oh's" scattered about. This is the perfect album to wake me up. I prefer coming to on my own verses the harshness of the alarm clock.


Joy Electric - Their Variables e.p.
Listen here.

This album is basically a remix album of The Otherly Opus with 2 new Joy Electric tracks. A different artist remixed each of the tracks for TOO. It's fun and interesting, but The Otherly Opus is such an amazing album that the remixes don't quite measure up to the original.

(not actual cover)

The Foxglove Hunt - Demo E.P.

Listen here.

This 2 song demo came free with my Joy Electric order. The Foxglove Hunt is comprised of Rob Withem (Fine China) and Ronnie Martin (Joy Electric.) Rob sings and writes the songs and Ronnie does all the programming. If these 2 songs are any indication, their full length album is gonna be great.

St. Vincent - Marry Me

Listen here.

Annie Clark writes all the songs and plays all the music. She opened for and played with Sufjan Steven's band. The music is innovative, weird, familiar yet original sounding. This album reminds me of Alternative music before '92 when Alternative became a label and mainstream at the same time.