2013 January 12, Saturday – Lincoln, NE – Dark Satellites at The Bourbon Theatre w/ Demos, Yuppies, Touch People, DJ Spence. $5 advance, $7 day of show. Dark Satellites plays at 10.
2013 February 8, Friday – Lawrence, KS – Dark Satellites at The Replay Lounge w/ Soft Reeds and Josh Berwanger (from The Anniversary)
2013 February 15, Friday – Omaha, NE – Dark Satellites at The Sweatshop w/ The Fucking Party, Baby Tears
Tim interviewed Cory recently about work, music, and getting things done.
I’m learning all the time how to use words with utility and to be as brief as possible. I think that carries over into storytelling when you’re writing lyrics.
-Cory
Also, Tim was the subject of a related video and interview. (I’m a little late in posting this, but it’s still good.) He’s leaving Dark Satellites for a great job in Portland, and we’re going to miss him.
This is Where I Rock from Forty Two on Vimeo.
In random order, here are the best records we listened to in the past twelve months. The usual caveats and quirks apply; no one, not even professional writers (never mind us music fans), hear everything in a given year, and most of these records were released in 2012, but a few weren’t (we just heard them for the first time this year).
Most of these albums are available to stream, in full, from grooveshark.com.
Honorable mention:
Esperanza Spalding, Radio Music Society
Beach House, Bloom
Frankie Rose, Interstellar
Dirty Projectors, Swing Low Magellan
Craig Finn, Clear Heart Full Eyes
Big K.R.I.T., 4Eva N A Day and Live From The Underground
Indian Handcrafts, Civil Disobedience For Losers
Still excited to check out:
Bat For Lashes, The Haunted Man
Jessie Ware, Devotion
Tame Impala, Lonerism
Pilgrim, Misery Wizard
The xx, Coexist
Looking forward to in 2013:
Jim James, Regions of Light and Sound of God
UUVVWWZ, The Trusted Language
Ladyfinger, Errant Forms
I’m a bit late clearing the vault of stuff to blog, here, but these are some photos of the Mars Lights tracking sessions from July and August. The drums were done on Drew’s kit at my old house, and the guitars are being done in the practice space at Drew’s.
“There are two categories of great rock’n’roll performers: visceral and mysterious. Visceral musicians let it all hang out—their performances are cathartic, unwieldy, and intensely personal. Bob Seger is a visceral guy; when Eddie Vedder climbs the balcony during ‘Even Flow’, he is displaying his visceral tendencies. Mysterious musicians refuse access to their inner lives. They shield their work from direct interpretation, shy away from on-stage histrionics, and swap out identities as quickly as some people change outfits. Bob Dylan is mysterious.”
– Aaron Leitko, from “No Tomorrow,” his recent Pitchfork piece on Ty Segall
When I think of great performers, they are mostly the visceral type in Aaron’s schema: Elvis, James Brown, Zach de la Rocha. I wish I could be, but I know I’m not. I’m mysterious (in this, limited, sense). Do you know which you are? Do you wish you were the other?
Visceral or mysterious maps pretty straightforwardly onto extroverted/introverted, I think. Do you find yourself with the crowd, or do you become vulnerable to the crowd?
Drew, while he can swing his guitar around and dance, is still mysterious. He’s always inward-facing, toward the band, when he rocks out. Tim, on the other hand, is completely visceral, of course! Scottie’s mysterious. Cory is visceral.
Being mysterious can work, though. It can draw people in. In Five Star Crush, I set my keyboard up far stage right, facing the rest of the band, turned ninety degrees away from the audience (i.e., my side was to the crowd). It helped me lose myself in the set, it helped me communicate with the rhythm section, and it focused attention on Joel. I’d play, stomp, jump, sometimes pound my chest, and sort of do this two-step rocking motion that felt pretty good. Regularly, after the show, someone would come up and say something like “You looked like you were really into the music, and it got me into it, too!”
Theatricality is as important to effective mystery as it is to being visceral effectively.
2012 December 2, Sunday – Lincoln, NE – Dark Satellites at The Bourbon Theatre (in the big room) as part of The Show Is The Rainbow’s farewell performance w/ The Show Is The Rainbow, Discoball, and Powerful Science. $5 adv, $8 day of, doors 8pm, 18+.
2012 December 22, Saturday – Lincoln, NE – Dark Satellites at The Bourbon Theatre (in the Rye Room) w/ Her Flyaway Manner, Dirty Talker, and a super-awesome top-secret band. $5 ($7 for 18-21 year-olds), doors 9 pm, bands at 10, we think Dark Satellites plays first.
2013 January 12, Saturday – Lincoln, NE – Dark Satellites at The Bourbon Theatre, details TBD.
What if this was a debut record?
I’d say the band has good arena pop chops, and maybe a touch too much love for some kind of indefinite ’70s FM sound, but at least a sense of humor and panache enough to pull it off.
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In 2012, though, this is a Killers record and unfortunately, it’s the Diet Coke of Sam’s Age. The individual tracks are pleasant reminders of what the Killers, and Big Rock Music, used to be, but the sum is less than its parts. Some good (!) lyrics (“Don’t break character … ,” “Hey, from here on out, friends are going to be hard to come by … “) notwithstanding, I can only admit – as a person who tends to give bands’ late-period albums the benefit of the doubt! (see U2 since Achtung Baby, Foo Fighters between The Colour and The Shape and Wasting Light, and Chicago after III) – that Battle Born is a disappointment.
What can the firm of Flowers, Keuning, Vannucci, Flowers, Stoermer, and Flowers do? Something fresh (“Daddy’s Eyes,” “Move Away,” and “Sweet Talk” from Sawdust hinted at possible directions), or at least go back to “Human,” their last forward-looking single, and pick up from there. Shake it up: write and record an album quick, on the road, head to Berlin, bring in a collaborator (Jacques Lu Cont, who remixed “Flesh and Bone,” might be a place to start), make up a rule (no sounds that could be described in reference to Springsteen, for example). Change. References get stale. I still believe in the old magic, and that the Killers can conjure it again, maybe in time for the 10th anniversary of Hot Fuss …
… or, maybe on Letterman, a few days after I drafted this review. Battle Born earned another spin that night. This record’s going to sound great on tour (“Deadlines and Commitments” has a huge, Gabriel-sounding vibe), but stick to “Runaways,” “Miss Atomic Bomb,” and “A Matter of Time” for your library. I’m skipping this one, but I’ll give it two stars instead of one because I know I’m probably crankier than the average Victim.
| MR|Review directs readers’ limited attention among works via ratings, and within works via prose, focusing on works where our opinion diverges from critical or popular consensus, or we have significant insight that compliments or challenges readers’ aesthetic experience. | MR|Review totals to date: | ||
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Must-hear! | 2 | |
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Recommended | 8 | |
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Good | 7 | |
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Fans only | 7 | |
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Skip this | 1 | |
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Owww! My ears! | 0 | |
Those are The Sleepover’s live set from the Zoo Bar earlier this year, and the new Strawberry Burns record.
Drew and I keep making progress on the Mars Lights LP, too.
Responses to our Saturday set at Hear Nebraska and Ground Zero, along with photos on Facebook (public). -h
2012 October 13, Saturday – Lincoln, NE – Dark Satellites at Yia Yia’s as part of Lincoln Calling w/ The Renfields. 11 PM show, Dark Satellites at midnight, no cover, all ages (I think).