I wish I had the patience for Facebook. I really do.

But, instead, it's like. . .


And I'm all. . .


Fucking FALSE presentations, man.

~Austin

Show Review: Appleseed Cast 27 March 2011 (with a short general commentary on "the scene")

Yes, the Appleseed Cast finally made their way back to Reno last night and before I get into the specifics of the evening, I have to just say a GIGANTIC thank you to the band for even humoring the idea of playing in Reno after the debacle four years ago that ended with them playing a despite-the-cards-stacked-against-them-still-great barely fourty minute set (and this, of course, was no fault of theirs in the first place; but all of this is another story entirely — we'll get to it partially below).

There was a delayed start —10pm, as opposed to the posted time of 8pm— and with three openers, I knew we were in for a long night (indeed, I asked Dave what time it was when we walked out of the place at the end of the night and he said two-twenty-something — sheesh).

First up was local band Fa Fa Fa. Kind of fun and jangly, in a two clean-toned guitars (a la Television) sort of way. Tight, jerky rhythms and fun pseudo-harmony vocals. Competent, sure. My thing overall? No, not really. But they were good just as a listening in the background sort of thing.

Next was Seas and Centuries who I knew of because of Dave's championing of lead singer Alex's previous projects (none of which I was really that into, honestly). After hearing a song or two at Dave's insistence, I was actually excited to see them opening for Appleseed Cast. And they did not disappoint. Very tight, very enjoyably concise set. The highlight of their brief set was definitely 'Until December' — which is like War-era U2 meets 'Ceremony' by New Order. The band was giving away business cards at the show which had the URL for a free download of their initial three song EP. Upon getting home and properly digesting the material (all three songs they played last night), I have to say that it's definitely worth everyone's time. They were professional and respectful of the circumstances and, despite Alex's humility, I thought they sounded completely ace. I don't think I've ever been more excited about a homegrown act.

The national touring act that was along for the ride with Appleseed Cast was Muscle Worship. And I didn't get it, just flat out. I appreciated their obvious passion during the performance, but maybe it was the sound mix and the lead guitar being obtrusively loud. Things just didn't gel and all of their songs starting sounding the same after a while. Still, I definitely appreciate bands coming through town like that and I made sure I told all the guys in the band as much afterwords.

Appleseed Cast came on sometime after midnight and it seemed like they were obviously a little miffed at the late start time. In fact, (drummer) John (Momberg) set up his kit so that he was playing with his back to the (unfortunately dwindling) audience. (bassist) Nate (Whitman) joined him for the majority of the set and (second guitarist) Aaron (Pillar), because of the size of the stage, had to set up his gear so that it was impossible for him to play his parts and face the audience.

It was not a good sign. It was going to be the repeat of the barely fourty-minute set from four years ago, I feared.

But they launched into 'Ceremony' from Peregrine with a cool ease and I noticed right away that they were a lot more animated than the circumstances would have expected them to be — arguably, they were even fidgety.

I was excited to hear Sagarmatha material, plain and simple, because I missed that tour. They did not disappoint, as they played three songs from that album ('As the Little Things Go', 'South Col' and 'Raise the Sails'). 'As the Little Things Go' was especially great as the proper set ender and it was just amazing to hear the band translate that six minute buildup so well in a live context. Where it sounded laboured-over and nearly aloof (in a good way) on the record, it came across as a piece of urgent, pure wall of sound in concert. It was the one I hoped they would play from Sagarmatha and it did not disappoint.

Other selections included (not in order):
'Here We Are' from Peregrine (unsurprisingly rendered in a very noisy fashion)
'Hanging Marionette' from Two Conversations (actually, this was one of the highlights of the set)
'Fishing the Sky' from Mare Vitalis (a genuine shock to hear them play it and even more of a shocker how well it fit in with the newer material — I would love to hear them play more material off this album, especially if they're going to do it such justice)
'On Reflection' and 'Rooms and Gardens' from Low Level Owl (have heard them play 'On Reflection' every time I've seen them and it still remains my favorite song of theirs; they could play it at every single gig they ever do and it will never get old. 'Rooms and Gardens' was the only encore song and the show closer and it was all awesome, noisy chaos — just like how they played it on the LLO anniversary tour last year)

But, most importantly, I knew they were almost certainly going to air out some new material at this show. And they played the title track from their upcoming EP 'Middle States' and one other new one whose title I can't recall right now (help me out DaveLIFE SAVER, you setlist thief). 'Middle States' (the song) was everything I hoped for. I will spare you the obtuse pseudo-recollections of hearing a brand new song, once, as it was being played live, but I just remember thinking while they were playing it that it sounded like the perfect synthesis of the shoegazey-ness of Sagarmatha mixed with the riffy-ness of Peregrine. And noisy. God, I had goosebumps. I can't wait to hear it again.

The other song struck me as a bit more of a tough turkey. I don't remember much about it, except that its riffs were less showering and more angular (going back on old tricks minus the screaming, perhaps?). It was very mazelike, and puzzle-ish from what I recall. I liked it, it just wasn't as immediately grabbing as 'Middle States.'

And then, there they were, packing up their gear, just another stop on the road for them. There was nothing even close to a packed (or even semi-full) house. They did abridge the set, as DaveLIFE SAVER and I later found out ([lead singer and guitarist] Chris [Crisci] was kind enough to donate his only setlist to us dorksTHE SOUNDS OF SUNDAY) — they omitted about four songs (one of which was another new one we consequently missed out on), probably because of time issues and (as we also found out) Aaron was up there the whole time under the weather, playing with very flu-like symptoms.

And yet, Chris bowed when I thanked him for coming back to Reno. Aaron was downright chatty (amongst a flurry of deep coughing) and he even remembered DaveLIFE SAVER and I from last year's show in San Francisco. I thanked Nate and John as well and they seemed grateful that there was at least a few people in the small crowd that were there to watch and listen and appreciate.

Which brings us to the next issue —and I must apologize in advance for being kind of a sourpuss— but Reno kind of sucks.

How is it even possible for a band like Appleseed Cast to come through town and have barely fifty kids even notice that one of the best bands in the world is playing for them, just feet away from where they're smoking their cigarettes, drinking their PBR and trying to talk to each other over the band?

Was I actually approached by someone representing the vile Holland ProjectMORAL SLUMLORDS? (google it for yourself; fuck links — this is the same "organization" that screwed Appleseed Cast into an abridged set four years ago)

Did this personPAWN actually hand out flyers, advertising for another show and tell me it was going to be 'the best show of the year' in which a band that sounds like 'Bright Eyes if he screamed meets Bruce Springsteen' would be playing said best show? (sidebar: you just ignored Reno's best show of the year when you disrespected Appleseed Cast last night, kiddo)

Why were there more girls taking pictures of each other on their phones down front than there were, you know, people who actually cared?

What exactly is going on?

Well, my friend, Reno kind of sucks sometimes.

I apologized to Aaron for the lack of respect in the audience —and the general lack of audience at all— and all he could do was thank me in return for my previous kind words.

At that point, I realized, as much as I love having one of the best bands in the world playing at my doorstep, we don't really deserve it. The guys in the band are too humble for their own good. They deserve stadiums full of attentive, respectful listeners.

Instead, they get their set start times pushed back to unrealistic hours and dwindling audiences who are more interested in the PBR drink specials and holding their cigarettes in a fashionable pose.

Judging from the band's only Tweet mentioning anything to do with the stop in Reno (and, alternately: their numerous Tweets from SF, capped by this one), they were grateful for the lucky odds at the slots and tables, not for the mostly unappreciated (yet still incredibly good) set they had just played.

Here's to hoping they come back.

Not that I blame them if they won't.

~Austin

PS — Totally scored Peregrine on vinyl at the merch stand. Right on.

Yet another change. Great.

Yeah, I just don't know what I want to do, honestly.

I love and listen to a lot of new things constantly. But, I find that I really don't have much else to say about it besides 'I like this' or 'I don't like this.'

Not that the music is shallow and lacking in substance — on the contrary.

For example, I can go on at great lengths about that new Appleseed Cast album, Sagarmatha. I think it's absolutely incredible and have listened to it pretty much daily since it came out (on my birthday — what a present!) and the music has opened up to me in several different ways and revealed many perspectives and layers. It's a deep, thought-provoking album that is also just great music. There are so many things that can be assessed and dissected about it and talked about indefinitely.

But, when it comes down to it, it's just a fantastic new album by one of my favorite bands. I feel like anything more posted on a blog like this is just asking any potential readers to just leave right now. So, why babble?

So, basically, I've decided all I really want to go on at great lengths about on a regular basis is the music of the man whose music has spoken to and touched like no one else's has for the better part of my existence on this planet.

I'm talking about David Axelrod.

I've been listening to his records and records with his name on them for most of my life and have never grown tired of any of it. I still like to talk about all of it. A lot.

So, I have decided I am going to be making this blog mostly about Axelrod and his body of work. I will start the revamp off with an in-depth look at his solo material. Then I will move on to affiliations and thoughts about specific things that relate to him.

Expect an in-depth Song Of Innocence write-up in the next few days.

In the meantime, check out my recently revamped Axelrod post I put up earlier this year from January's archive.

The archives will stay here. And if something unrelated to Axe moves me enough to share some thoughts, I certainly will.

Stay tuned. It's about to get interesting. I promise.

~Austin

It's usually good to announce a hiatus BEFORE the hiatus happens.

But life isn't always gracious and allowing for such opportunities.

Things will pick up again in a while.

Buffalo Springfield, mid-period Byrds, Fleet Foxes, Common People, Crosby Stills + Nash and Neil Young have kept me company. Post-hippie SoCal mopery and the occasional Moz or Abdullah Ibrahim basically.

Strong music for trying times something regarding mental spousal abuse.

Ok?

Ok.

~Austin

The big change and Why I love to Hate allmusic.com

Hello there-

As you may have noticed, the promise of a return of top five lists in the new year has so far been an empty one. Well, besides losing interest in the idea, I have the glaring fact of my old website to deal with. Angelfire was a fine free service in the days that I started my original reviews and ramblings website, but the increasingly tasteless banner ads and imposing pop-ups have become too much of a botch on even me to edit or update my own site. So, new updates to Redundant Chicanery will continue, however sporadically. I will now be posting new updates here that will consist of transferring over all of the content from my Angelfire page. If this means re-reading all my old reviews that you've read before, so be it. Enjoy them sans pop-ups. I will be trying to add album cover artwork and little extras to all of the artist write-ups as I convert everything over. Stay tuned.

As a starter, here is my diatribe against AllMusic.com, originally posted 17 July, 2007:

Why I love to hate allmusic.com

When there's a service —because, let's face it, AllMusic.com offers a lot of useful music nerd information for free— as expansive and about as close to complete as you can get for major label (and a good chunk of independent label) recorded music, there's bound to be some descrepancies when editorial comments are added. Admittedly, most of my gripes with them are subjective. However, there are some extreme cases of inconsistency and, sometimes, just outright inaccuracies being passed off as legit editorial opinions. Some of my descrepancies are petty —I openly admit that I don't appreciate when they don't like the same things as I do— but others (I think) are quite valid. Don't get me wrong, this is all in good fun and I'm not really that upset about this stuff, but it's fun to point out. And for the record, the allmusic.com blog has been surprisingly good (so far).

First of all, the remodel...
»A few years back, they had this big revamp of the entire site where they really screwed up their otherwise flawless layout. The tabs that they relied more heavily upon really did ruin things. When you went to artist's page, the discography was on the front page, along with the bio. Granted, it took longer to load, but it did away with a lot of the unnecessary navigating that is now an essential part of scouring the site. It sometimes feels like you have to navigate through a dozen pages to get to the one you were initially looking for. And then there was the small things: the discography used to be listed newest albums to oldest, which just seems to make more sense to me.

The 'Similar Artists' and 'Roots and Influences' comparisons are not very realistic...
»Just look at the U2 page. They list the Virgin Prunes as a similar artist to U2. I know the two bands are affiliated because The Edge's brother was in the Virgin Prunes and they were all mates from when they were kids, but really, they are pretty much as opposite as new wave bands can get. The Sound is listed as a similar band, which I'll take, but the Chameleons aren't mentioned anywhere on the page, neither as being similar, nor as an influence. Right.
»Were you aware that the Trembling Blue Stars are influenced by New Order but the Field Mice weren't? Oh, and for some reason, TBS are also influenced by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. What's next Dave Matthews being influenced by Devo?
»More New Order fodder: they're influenced by Ian Curtis (??!?!?!???!!!??) and are similar to the Durutti Column (they were on the same label, DUH AUSTIN, you fucking moron!!!).
»The Cure is influenced by a German band called Klee, which was formed in the late 90's. And that's possible because, you know, the Cure hadn't been around for twenty years at that point. Also, the Cure and Sinead O'Connor are very similar.
»And, for the icing on the cake, Miles Davis was apparently a big influence on Bill Evans.

The Cure's entry is full of shit...
»In the review for Wild Mood Swings Stephen Thomas Erlewine states that 'several key players from Wish' had gone 'missing.' This implies that there was a whole new lineup or something. Actually, just Porl Thompson and Boris Williams were the only ones absent. And they weren't 'missing' — they left the band.
»Why isn't Boys Don't Cry on the compilations page?
»You'll just have to take my word for it, but they have changed star ratings on several of the band's albums. Seventeen Seconds, Faith and Pornography all had ratings of two and a half stars at one point, now they're all different. Disintegration used to be at five stars, as well. In the print version of the All Music Guide to rock music, three of the band's proper albums receive five stars.
»Our good friend Mr. Erlewine, in his review of Galore calls them 'a singles band.' I mean that's just stupid.
»In his review of Pornography, Stewart Mason says that "The Figurehead" is a 'sound-over-substance piece of filler, which sounds suitably bleak but doesn't have the musical or emotional heft this sort of music requires.' Besides being a grammatical nightmare, the statement makes you wonder if he even listened to the song.

The criticisms of Maxwell are bottomless...
»Stephen Thomas Erlewine points out that Maxwell's Embrya is full of 'ideas that lead nowhere', but never expounds. With a pretty aggressive criticism like that, it would be nice to know what specifically you're talking about, Mr. Erlewine.
»Erlewine again makes a pretty dumb assessment in his review of Max's next album (Now) as well: 'He's trying to live up to the tradition of Marvin and Prince, and while his productions often live up to that legacy, he has yet to write songs memorable enough to truly justify those comparisons.' Who decided that Maxwell was trying to live up to Marvin and Prince? Couldn't it be that he's influenced by them and that's the end of it? That's just silly. You might as well say, 'You know, Love and Rockets will never record anything as good as "Bang a Gong (Get it On)", even though they really want to.' It's just an absolutely irrelevant thing to point out and, not only does it make Max out to be totally incompetant (which he's obviously not), it really makes the reviewer sound like he's got a personal vendetta.

The John Klemmer discography is a god damn disaster.
»All of the albums have ratings, but very few have actual reviews written. "This is a piece of shit two star-worthy album. Don't ask why." What the hell?
»Why is Touch on the compilations page?
»Why are so many of the albums listed out of order? And furthermore, with a completely wrong year of release listed?
»Why does the entry just suck so fucking much?!?!?

Ok, sorry. I'm calm now. Let's continue...

Why do most rock bands and artists also have a classical entry?
»Hey, I think it's great that there's a string quartet tribute album for just about any flavor of the month frontrunner of a band these days, but why does that merit a classical music entry? Here, let's bog up the entire site with double listings for everything, why don't we?

Scott Yanow is a pretentious butt who is maddeningly redundant in his criticisms.
»Just look at the Joe Henderson page for a small example. The first sentence of the bio reads that Joe is 'proof that jazz can sell' — a reference to Joe's later success at Verve in the mid-90's. In the first sentence of the review for Joe's first Verve album in the 90's, Yanow again states that 'with the release of this CD, the executives at Verve and their marketing staff proved that yes, indeed, jazz can sell.' Thanks, Scott. That was profound. And it really lets me know about the music. Later on, in his review of the Miles Davis tribute album on Verve from the same period, he likes the fact that Henderson picked mostly lesser-known material from Davis' cannon: 'He is to be congratulated for not taking the easy way out and sticking to the simpler material of Davis's earlier years.' Because, really, it's not about how well the material is performed, it's about 'not taking the easy way out.'
»According to Mr. Yanow, Ron Carter's albums as a leader are "for lovers and/or fans of bass solos" (in two different reviews) and that his albums are mainly a showcase for Carter's bass (two separate reviews). Thanks, Scott. Here I was, expecting Ron Carter to be playing extensive banjo solos.
»Also, according to Mr. Yanow, in his review of Bill Evans' 1977 album Affinty, Bill plays "electric piano on this album for the final time in the recording studio." That's just fine, except that he played it again on We Will Meet Again, which was recorded two years later. I guess in Yanow's world, 1979 came before 1977.
»The guy is the reason that there is a stereotype of jazz fans being snobs. With his authoritative stance and broad generalizations passed off as valid criticisms, Scott Yanow is an embarassment to any jazz loving listener.

I hate Mackenzie Wilson and her stupid Beulah reviews.
»In the review for The Coast in Never Clear: 'After the dazzling reception of 1999's When Your Heartstrings Break, Beulah wasn't concerned with following things up with something fashionable.' Ok, thanks for telling me that. Whatever it happens to mean. Also, to finish off the review: 'Beulah's indie cred cannot be tarnished with The Coast Is Never Clear. It's not strict rock music — it's basic. And it's good.' Great associative transition there.
»In the review for Yoko there is a striking similarity to something I pointed out in my initial review of the album: 'It's not entirely wrong to wonder if the title itself represents the obvious — that famous lady who's associated with things breaking up. Or it could very well be an acronym taken from the string-laced gem "You're Only King Once."' It's an easy thing to notice, I suppose.

Merge the fucking Dollar Brand and Abdullah Ibrahim entries already!
»It's the same guy, dummies!

Discography gaps, inconsistencies and inaccuracies...
»Although Björk's early bands (Tappi Tikarrass and K.U.K.L.) are mentioned in her bio, they are not listed under the 'Member of' listings, despite the fact that both bands released records.
»On Stephen Duffy's overview page, in the 'See also' listings, there is a link to the page for Tin Tin. However, it directs you to the early 70's Australian band of the same name. For Duffy's own Tin Tin, you have to look under the discography, where both his solo albums and Tin Tin albums are listed. Furthermore, some of the later Lilac Time records are also listed under Duffy's name, while the early Lilac Time albums have their own entry under the band's proper name.
»In his review of The The's Soul Mining, Stephen Thomas Erlewine calls the album 'The The's first album.' Soul Mining was released in 1984. Strange that, in the discography section, the band is credited as having a release called Burning Blue Soul in 1981. Maybe because Burning Blue Soul was their first album. Also, Soul Mining is listed as being released in 1983, but anybody with an original vinyl copy (*pops collar*) can clearly see the '© 1984' on the back of the cover.

That's all for now. But you better believe there's more on the way.

And there will be.

~Austin