Tag: Kurt Vile

The Mommyheads would like to know if you are OK, like really OK and not just saying that.

I was not properly prepared to discuss Cat Power’s tribute to Bob Dylan’s 1966 Royal Albert Hall concert, and specifically where it was recorded, but now I can reveal the facts: the Cat Power recording was made at RAH. However, Dylan’s original recording was NOT made at RAH, despite the famous bootleg’s common name, instead having taken place in Manchester, a good ways away.

The world that deliberately-lowercased beabadoobee presents in her new album Beatopia is pastel neon colors, soothing howls, bright shadows, and all manner of psychedelic oxymorons. Tonight’s show features its introduction of sorts, and closes with the unexpected krautrock drone of my current favorite discovery, Japan’s deliberately-uppercased MASS OF THE FERMENTING DREGS, whose all-over-the-placeness manages to live up to its intriguing name.

Coming straight outta Dublin, Fontaines DC have an insistent and incisive sound that carves anthems out of marble using only guitar strings and a chiseling voice. No particular theme seems to emerge tonight, although we will be closing with Angel Olsen’s “Go Home.” Go home, it’s midnight.

I always thought Kurt Vile was a play on the name of the German composer that gave us “Mack The Knife,” but that seems to be his given name (bonus: middle name is Samuel). Sonically, he’s more in line with Lou Reed than Weill, topping his awkward nouveau folk with a voice that may not be the most musical but is actually the perfect medium to express this particular malarkey.

There’s good reason the Velvet Underground is one of the most popular topics for tribute recordings, their songs being very open to interpretation. This selection does not shy away from the more uncomfortable VU topics, which makes it a standout.

There’s no detail too small or scar too deep for Eels to pick up and examine in a wry musical light.

The Shilin Night Market had seemed to grow even more chaotic in the intervening years, yet the vendors and customers still retained their preternatural calm, as if the events happening all around them were due to forces completely out of their control. As the skeptic checked the status lights on the Stinky Tofu Containment Device for the seventh time that mission, the inspector pinged the jetpacks they had secured under a table of bejeweled phone cases to make sure they were primed for a quick getaway. Their progress came to a sudden halt as they considered the sign before them: “Small Sausage In Large Sausage - $120”

Kurt Vile’s surgical lyrics and out-there guitar playing overshadow the fact that he is a bona-fide troubadour, a distinctive voice and presence that hangs out in your head and strums out their weird tunes from an armchair in the corner.

It’s been a while, but Elvis Perkins’ songwriting chops remain as lush as ever, an unexpected oasis of skewed harmonies and surprising arrangements in a dry sandy desert of plinky singer-songwriters.