Modern Minstrels

The Lights and Buzz

Jack's Mannequin have their awesome Christmas song, Lights and Buzz available in the iTunes Music Store. You've gotta love the church-bells in the beginning followed by the slightly trippy vocals. Lyrics for the song are below.

The Lights and Buzz by Jack's Mannequin

I'm coming home from my hardest year
I'm making plans not to make plans while I'm here
And this life has been no holiday,
A complicated situation
I'm fine with all my memories
Still I could use a vacation

It's Christmas in California
It's hard to ignore that it feels like summer all the time
But I'll take a west coast winter to remove my splinters

It's good to be alive
It's good to be alive

I'm coming home to the lights and buzz
Streets look the same
Still nothing's as it was
This place is paradise I'm sure,
Here's my reservation
I've gotten lost here once before
Inside a good vibration

And time, time it stops for no one
The seasons come and go and that's just time
Yeah time it stops for no one
The seasons keep on going
Whether or not we're blind

Death Cab for Cutie and Stars

On Monday I went to see Death Cab for Cutie and Stars at The Warfield. Stars is an indie band from Canada and I've been listening to them at work pretty frequently the last couple weeks. Their music is mostly soft and melodic and with great lyrics. I enjoyed their live set and they played a few of my favorite songs including Elevator Love Letter, Your Ex Lover is Dead, and What I'm Trying to Say. The only downside of their set was the incredibly annoying group of 15 year olds standing near us. They were clearly OC watching Death Cab "fans" and spent the entire Stars set carrying on loud conversations. And of course the girls screamed their ear piercing screams after each Stars song even though they were paying absolutely no attention. Someone behind me asked them once to be quiet, but that lasted all of half a song. I still don't know why they even bothered being down in the pit for Stars if they weren't going to bother listening to them. Sigh. Fortunately after the Stars set they thankfully pushed their way more towards the front and away from us.

Death Cab played an excellent set which consisted of lots of songs from Plans, a few from Transatlanticism, and topped off with a nice selection of older songs. My favorite part of the show was What Sarah Said directly followed by Brothers on a Hotel Bed. I honestly wasn't expecting them to play What Sarah Said, so that was exciting. Death Cab is one of my favorite bands, and it was really great to see them again.

The set list:

• Marching Bands of Manhatten
• We Laugh Indoors
• New Year
• Title and Registration
• Photobooth
• Soul Meets Body
• Summer Skin
• Movie Script Ending
• Crooked Teeth
• Different Names
• Amputations
• Company Calls
• Company Calls Epilogue
• What Sarah Said
• Brothers on a Hotel Bed
• Hindsight
• Sound of Settling

------- (encore)----------

• Into the Dark
• Title Track
• Prove My Hypothesis

Matt Nathanson

Friday night I went up to the Great American Music Hall with my co-worker Jake, his roomate Rus, and Nick to see the always entertaining Matt Nathanson. I last saw Matt a little over a year go when he opened for O.A.R in Berkeley and I really enjoyed his live show, so I was quite excited to be seeing him again. Before the show started, I picked up a T-shirt to add to my ever growing band shirt collection as well as two of Matt's CDs Still Waiting for Spring (which has penguins on the cover so it is inherently good) and Ernst. The songs on Still Waiting for Spring lean more towards the poppy side of the spectrum while Ernst is mostly just Matt and his acoustic guitar and contains arguably his best song ever, Maid. I really enjoy both albums a lot. I also picked up a free bookmark which is advertising his live acoustic solo album that is coming out in January. Can't wait for that.

Before I get to Matt's set I'll quickly cover the openers, Kate Earl and Matt Wertz. Kate only played 3 or 4 songs, I'm guessing because she was sick. The songs she played (mainly her and a piano, with an upright bass on one of them) were o.k., but I didn't really get into them. Matt Wertz played for 45 minutes, and seemed to really enjoy himself. His songs were of the standard love song variety, with a Michael Jackson medley (including Bad) thrown in there and his singing was quite over the top. It was hard not to smile since he was having a good time, but I felt like his set did drag on a bit longer than I would have liked.

Finally Matt was up and he opened with a new song, saying "this is a little bit like we're in a new sexual relation ship and I'm sticking a finger up your ass, this is either going to quickly end the relationship or it's going to be amazing". The song was definitely a lot more rock than his other stuff, but I really liked it. He played another new song later in the set that was more similar to this first song than his other stuff.

After playing 10 or so songs with the full band, he played a couple solo acoustic songs. Then the band came back out for another 5 or so songs. After the "last" song, Matt came back out and did a truly acoustic (didn't even sing into the mic) version of Suspended, which I absolutely loved. It sounded great with the crowd singing "Sunshine" and then Matt harmonizing in the background.

The other big sing along moment in his set is the ending of Answering Machine; "I can fall alone, if all, if I can fall away". Another highlight of the show was the impromptu full cover of Journey's Any Way You Want It. He was totally ready to play another song and people were calling out random songs and he says "oh no, did someone just say Journey?!" He pauses then goes and grabs his electric guitar and talks to each of his bandmates to see if they know the chords, then they jump right into Any Way You Want It. It was fantastic. Later in the show people were calling out other band names/songs and Matt laughingly says "I feel so good when everyone is yelling out songs that aren't mine. How about you just kick me in the balls with some steel toed boots?"

Another entertaining moment was when he was getting ready for the acoustic portion of the show, this girl in the front pulled out a bull horn. Matt then explained how this same girl had come up to him after the previous night's show and been all upset that he didn't play the song she wanted. And he was like, "yeah whatever, just call it out next time maybe I'll play it". So Matt took the bullhorn from her and had some fun talking into it. It was great fun.

Matt puts on the most entertaining and fun live show I have ever been to and interacts with the crowd better than anyone I've ever seen. And it's great because you can just tell how much fun he is having, and seeing that is just infectous. I don't see how you could have a bad time at a Matt show, so I highly recommend you go see him the next time he's out on tour near you

I also think it's so awesome that he's on a very small independent label and able to do full cross country tours and sell places out mainly through self promotion. From everything I've heard he's an extremely hard working musician, so I'm really happy to see him being so successful. Matt's also a long time volunteer for the Bread and Roses charity, a group that gets groups to perform for institutionalized people, which I think is a great idea. He invited them to the show to have a table set up to raise awareness of what they do and how to get involved.

So yes Matt Nathanson rocks all around. If you want to hear some of his stuff, let me know and I can hook you up. Also you can read about his amusing closet obsession with the new Coldplay album in his journal.

Nintendo Fusion Tour

Last night I went to the Nintendo Fusion Tour at the Warfield and saw an excellent lineup of bands: Panic! At the Disco, Boys Night Out, Motion City Soundtrack, The Starting Line, and Fall Out Boy.

The show started at 7 and I left Cupertino around 5:30, unfortunately due to really bad rush hour traffic I didn't end up getting to the show until about 7:15. Suck. I was really looking forward to Panic!'s set so I was quite disappointed that I only got to hear the last song of their set. On the bright side that song was Time to Dance, which is my favorite of their songs and of course the "I say shotgun, you say wedding. Shotgun! Wedding!" part was full of crowd participation.

Next up was Boys Night Out, who I was only vaguely familiar with. They are a pretty scream heavy band, so not being familiar with any of their songs it was hard to pick up many of the lyrics. I did enjoy Medicating which is the one song of theirs I had heard before.

Then came the band I was most looking forward to seeing, Motion City Soundtrack. They played a really energetic, fun set and it was much longer than Panic's or Boy's Night Out's set. The best part of a live MCS show is definitely the keyboardist. That guy knows how to rock out (for instance doing hand stands on his keyboard). They of course played the singles The Future Freaks Me Out and My Favorite Accident from their first album. I was also really excited when they played Capital H. The one song I would have liked to hear and didn't was Autographs and Apologies, though that is a much slower song and really wouldn't have fit with their set. Fortunately early next year they are going on a headlining tour with OK Go and The Spill Canvas in support, so there's a good chance I'll get to hear it then. A quick listing of the songs I can remember they played (in no particular order):

• Better Open the Door
• The Future Freaks Me Out
• Attractive Today
• Everything is Alright
• When You're Around
• Hangman
• Boombox Generation
• Capital H
• My Favorite Accident

Then it was time for The Starting Line. I was really looking forward to hearing the new stuff from Based on a True Story. Sadly the 15 year old girl crowd could not possibly appreciate that album, so things were pretty calm during their set, except of course for Leaving and Best of Me. Kenny even said something at one point like "We hope you buy our album. And we hope one day you'll love our album. But right now we just hope you know the words so you can sing along." I did enjoy their set but I'd love to see them again with a bit of an older crowd that's into their new album and I really want to hear them play Photography live. And with that the approximate set list:

• Surprise, Surprise
• Best of Me
• Bedroom Talk
• Given the Chance
• Ready
• Autography
• Leaving
• (There were several more, but I can't remember what)

And last but not least was Fall Out Boy. Let me just say they put on an awesome live show. Its only a matter of seconds from the time they take the stage until you are completely drawn into their music. The biggest problem with a Fall Out Boy set is they don't have any slow songs, so you've got to have good stamina to make it through a whole set without collapsing (especially when you've already been rocking out to 4 other bands). They opened with Our Lawyers Made Us Change The Name Of This Song So We Wouldn't Get Sued and as they did tons of confetti was released from the ceiling. Fun stuff. They played a fine mix of new and old songs, including the song Moving Pictures which is pre Take This To Your Grave. The one song I was surprised they didn't play was Dead On Arrival, since that was a staple from the Take This To Your Grave days.

I know their are a lot of FOB haters now that they have gotten big and hit the MTV scene, but I for one am happy for them. Sure I miss the small shows I saw them at in Cleveland, but they've worked incredibly hard to get where they are so they deserved every bit of success.

And lastly the songs I remember they played:

• Our Lawyers Made Us Change The Name Of This Song So We Wouldn't Get Sued
• Sugar We're Going Down
• Dance, Dance
• Nobody Puts Baby In The Corner
• Of All The Gin Joints In The World
• Sophomore Slump or Comeback of the Year
• A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More "Touch Me"
• XO
• Tell That Mick He Just Made My List Of Things To Do Today
• Grand Theft Autumn
• Saturday
• Homesick At Space Camp
• Chicago is So Two Years Ago
• Moving Pictures

Amusing Covers

I recently discovered a few amusing cover songs that I've been meaning to share. The first is a folksy cover of the ever entertaining Baby Got Back by Sir Mix A Lot. The cover is very well done, so I recommend you download it and shake that healthy butt!

Next up is an entire CD of covers done by singer/songwriter Paul Anka. It's called Rock Swings and features swing/lounge versions of a variety of songs from the 80's and 90's. I'm personally a fan of Smells Like Teen Spirit, Wonderwall, and Eye of the Tiger.

Amoeba Records

On Saturday while I was up in the city with Nick, I made my first trip to the amazing Amoeba Records. They have pretty much any CD you could ever want. Unfortunately, I didn't have a list a CD list on me but I did browse for a while and picked up a few CDs I've been meaning to buy for a while.

First I grabbed Funeral by The Arcade Fire. I've seen them live twice and I've been listening to mp3s of their CD for quite some time so I decided it was finally time to actually buy the thing. The CD insert is pretty cool as it's made to look like a bulletin for funeral. This is definitely an album I recommend everyone pick up.

The second album I picked up was the phenomenal Forget What You Know by Midtown. After spending some time with it, it became one of my favorite albums of last year. I wrote a bit more about the album in my Music of 2004 post where I named it the most underrated album of the year. My purchase of this album was definitely long overdue.

Finally I bought Orange Rhyming Dictionary by Jets to Brazil. I had a tough time deciding between this album and their most recent release Perfecting Lonlieness. But I decided for all the times I've listened to Sweet Avenue, I should go with Orange Rhyming Dictionary.

On my next trip to Amoeba, I need to remember to look for the Home EP featuring Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie and Andrew Kenny of American Analog set which I just read about in this interview.

Sonic Living Invites

I've got 7 invites to sonicliving.com, if you'd like one let me know. It's a pretty sweet site for finding and keeping track of concerts and other events. I previously blogged about some of its features here.