Over the course of six albums now, Stephen Coates (aka The Real Tuesday Weld) has been exploring his musical alter-ego as The Clerkenwell Kid through a collage of old and new sounds, creating music that feels at once decades old and thoroughly modern-- a signature style that has been coined "antique beat." On The End of the World, his conceptual follow-up and companion piece to last year's The London Book of the Dead, he blurs the lines of artist and character more than ever, the whole of the recording framed as an imaginary concert performed on the eve of Valentine's Day in London at the fictional End of the World Club. It's a sort of somber sayonara, a surreal adieu to life as we know it through a dream-like flow of guest stars who filter in and out, resigned to an end that, on the bright side at least, appears to be unknown. The Real Tuesday Weld plays the Someday Lounge on Monday night, with local openers A Cautionary Tale and Buoy LaRue. **UPDATE**- Apparently you can hear and see the entire bill via the "virtual stage" at the Someday Lounge website here. If it's for real, this is pretty cool-- I can't believe I wasn't aware of it earlier. **
MP3: The Real Tuesday Weld, from The End of the World- "Over the Hillsides"
Elsewhere this week, Menomena's Danny Seim will undoubtedly be unveiling new music as Lackthereof Thursday night at Holocene. The upcoming ninth(!) release from his solo project, entitled Your Anchor, drops July 22nd on Barsuk. It's just the latest side-Menomena activity from the trio, which has lately also included Brent Knopf's solo project and Seim's involvement in Faux-Hoax, among other things. Thursday's bill doubles as the CD release show for Dykeritz and their new rearrangerologyistics and also includes Alan Singley & Pants Machine.
MP3: Lackthereof, from Your Anchor-
"Last November"
The highlight of the live music week is perhaps Friday night's solo acoustic performance from Kinks frontman Ray Davies at the Crystal Ballroom. Known first and foremost as the frontman and chief songwriter behind The Kinks, including soldiering them to relevancy in no less than three different decades, Davies released his first official solo album in 2006, not long after a shooting in New Orleans left him near death. Other People's Lives was heralded as the return of the songwriting social observer who was behind the kind of songs found on Something Else, The Village Green Preservation Society, and Muswell Hillbillies. He followed that up with the U.S. release earlier this year of the solid Working Man's Cafe on New West.
Several promising bills this week also include Ed Harcourt at the Doug Fir Lounge (Monday); Wolf Parade at the Crystal Ballroom (Tuesday); Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet at the Aladdin Theater (Tuesday); The Jesus & Mary Chain at the Wonder Ballroom (Thursday); Panther and The Joggers at East End (Thursday); Los Lobos at the Oregon Zoo (Friday); and Aimee Mann with Blind Pilot (Saturday).
The thread is open...
July 13, 2008 at 2:23pm by inmemoryofjohnpeel
Regarding local acts, I'm down to interview/review Blind Pilot next sat in their opener for my namesake Aimee Mann (who I am less interested in, btw) and I've become intrigued by Parenthetical Girls new 'Orchestral' pop, so anticipate an interesting meeting with their leader Zac...
As for passing through town, well Ray Davies was my inspiration, for me it was The Kinks rather than The Stones, or The Beatles. Once a musician I played a Ray Davies conversational album too, said "damn, do you realise that this bloke can do anything he wants (musically), he's got everything".
PS: Can you post the whole hour's playlist ahead of time like you did last night, that way we can time our intervals from the show not to miss things?
July 13, 2008 at 2:39pm by jpetersen
Blind Pilot's getting a lot of great attention, and for good reason. I'm with you on The Kinks, too. Love all of their phases, although maybe a little less with the "Come Dancing" phase of my youth. That's bound to be a hot ticket Friday night (and not a cheap one, either).
As far as the playlist goes, last night was a special case given the tech difficulties we've been having. Wouldn't that take all of the mystery out of it? Part of listening to music on the radio is waiting through the crap (not that I play any) until something you love comes on unexpectedly. Right? I'm being a bit facetious here, but isn't there an element of surprise that's nice?
July 13, 2008 at 3:02pm by inmemoryofjohnpeel
Actually, yes. I agree with you, keep it as a surprise. You have it in balance - a few 'coming up in the next hour' type teasers...
Have a word with your web folks though about allowing the user to set automatic refresh frequencies (none, 5 mins, 15 mins etc).
For a style I'm not mad about Solomon Burke was pretty good (***) but I struggle with Springsteen, 'NEbraska' though was special.
July 13, 2008 at 3:44pm by adam
hey jeremy,
want to let you know we have been enjoying the show from the weinland household tonight!
-a
July 13, 2008 at 4:10pm by jpetersen
Weinlanders! Great to have you on board, nice to see you playing some of my old stomping grounds in Idaho this summer. If it goes well, you're welcome; if it doesn't I had nothing to do with it.....
July 14, 2008 at 8:02am by anmy
Jeremy,
I wanted to let you know about this band...the Souldiers from Amsterdam. They will be in town for another week touring Oregon and then back to Europe. They are amazing! A soul/funk/blues group with no one over the age of 30! We found them playing in this little bar in Lake Oswego, but their music was too good for the scene.
I sympathize with their needs for a little more publicity...My cousin took his band to Europe and experienced the same thing these kids are over here, no visibility in the music community. They are playing the Salem Art Festival next Saturday, just thought you and the OPBmusic folk would be interested. www.thesouldiers.com
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