DeVotchKa - "100 Other Lovers" Video

The 3-1-11 on new records from Slim & DeVotchKa

Great news for us all that two stalwarts of the Denver scene will be releasing albums this spring, and on the same day, to boot.

First, Slim Cessna's Auto Club will release Unentitled on Alternative Tentacles March 1, 2011, just ahead of another appearance at SXSW. First indications of the album came from this interview with Reverb, and since then, presale pages have begun to crop up for the record. Please catch one of this band's shows if you haven't already.





















For Denverites who aspire to perform with Munly, be advised of this recent announcement on his Facebook page:

It is time to introduce the next chapter of Lupercalia. The Lupercalians are looking for new band members (primarily percusionists) to present this new group of characters. Please let us know if you are interested by writing us here.

Another of Denver's more notable bands, DeVotchKa will be releasing their fifth studio album on the same day. Anti- Records has recently announced the release of 100 Lovers, which promises more of the DeVotchKa + WaveLab studios magic of previous releases.





















Finally, for the Denver music fans amongst you, Westword recently published a fantastic interview with David Eugene Edwards of Wovenhand.

Dirk Fowler - Texas Country Reporter

Texas Tech professor Dirk Fowler has been making concert posters for close to a decade now, at least as well as I remember, and during that time, he has come to be quite popular, making posters for national acts like Wilco, No Doubt, DeVotchKa, and the Raconteurs. Perhaps more importantly, he continues to support local music in West Texas and has brought a good deal of attention to many area artists through his poster art. Check out his Web site, or his Gigposters.com profile to see his amazing work. I was especially excited to see this recent clip featuring Fowler and his letter press printing on Texas Country Reporter. (It is no secret how well-liked he is on account of the fact that 106 people have already shared the link to this video on facebook.)

Your favorite Maines brother and other thoughts

If you miss Arrested Development, there is no replacement:
but Modern Family on ABC is a great new show with a similar theme - family craziness and inappropriate comments. I'm a big fan of everything I've seen so far.

I know you've been pondering your selection for the past year:
but time is almost gone to vote for your favorite Maines Brothers band member of all time. If you read the blog in Google Reader, come on over to windfarm and find the poll in the top right corner. Lloyd has a pretty commanding lead, but like I've always said, you would be a fool to count out Kenny Maines.

Aquarium Drunkard is still the best at blogging:
Check out this awesome piece about JJW's 1969 Driftin' Way of Life album.

To make up for his November show that was canceled due to weather:
Langhorne Slim is coming back through Denver in less than a month. Wednesday, Feb. 10th at the Hi-Dive.

I know you cringe when I mention Rolling Stone magazine:
but they've got an aweomse piece on Devendra Banhart in the most recent issue (Cover title: "You Idiots"). In summation, it does really well to describe how no matter what he does with his appearance or his music, the media insists on calling his music "hippie folk."

In case you missed the shows:
the Denver Post's Reverb blog covered the DeVotchKa and Slim Cessna's Auto Club NYE performances.

It won't affect you, but it will affect the blog's content a bit:
Windfarm will be relocating (geographically, that is, not changing URL) this August. More details on that as the time approaches, and lots of shows to see between now and then. For similar reasons, I may not be able to post and cover as much music and junk as I did for much of 2009. Oh well, at least you've still got the rest of the internet.

DeVotchKa - Boulder Theater, 10/30/09

Halloween shows can be quite a funny event, considering that it can be hard to convince people to get dressed up in their costumes and then pay $35 to go see a band, when they could just as easily go to a friend's costume party for free. DeVotchKa, however, has quite a corner on the market when it comes to Halloween shows, and their regular Halloween night show in Boulder has grown to a two night affair, with the shows either being sold out or sufficiently full in the large Boulder Theater.

Seeing DeVotchKa's Halloween show on October 30th felt a little bit like going to church on Saturday morning or observing Veteran's Day on November 10th, if you know what I mean. Nonetheless, the band withheld no noticeable effort for the show, outfitting themselves in full Spanish matador costumes and playing an impeccable 90 minute set of both old and new material. Combine that with the top rate sound system of the Boulder Theater and the small army of sound crew accompanying the band, and it was quite easy to forget that it wasn't even Halloween night yet.

DeVotchKa is a band that has become so good at what they do, I think one can almost come to take for granted how refined and perfected their sound is. They were fortunate to find the right lineup early on in their progression as a band, and the ensemble of four incredibly dynamic musicians has produced some of the most important music that has come out of the Denver scene in the last decade. To add to that, they haven't removed themselves from the scene now that they are big time rock stars, as evidenced by drummer Shawn King's recent appearances at Everything Absent or Distorted's final show, as well as an appearance with the flash mob band known as Boba Fett and the Americans.

Bands take a certain gamble when they step outside of the basic rock formula, and in the case of DeVotchKa, the continued refinement of their Eastern European/Mariachi indie rock has paced them well ahead of many of their peers. It seems quite cliche to say so, but when you take the time to do things the right way, rather than following the quick and easy approach to success, the payoff in the end is that much better. I hope both the band and the fans can enjoy all DeVotchKa still has to offer us for many years to come.

(I welcome corrections to this set list. It may be a bit shaky on the instrumental songs, but this is fairly close to what they played.)

Set List
DeVotchKa!
The Enemy Guns
Queen of the Surface Streets
Basso Profundo
Along the Way
Venus in Furs
Whiskey Breath
Clockwise Witness
We're Leaving
How it Ends
Gasoline Serpent
Viens Avec Moi
Transliterator
Comrade Z
Such a Lovely Thing

Encore:
Twenty-six Temptations
You Love Me

ramble on

Do you think:
that the Where the Wild Things Are soundtrack, composed mostly by Karen O, will sell a lot of copies because simply people will be looking for the song they hear on the trailer? A situation that will be unfortunate, because the song is actually "Wake Up" by Arcade Fire, and is not on the soundtrack? I do. This is like when the Everything Is Illuminated trailer used "How It Ends" by DeVotchKa, but neither the movie nor the soundtrack featured the song. Don't get me wrong, the WTWTA trailer is really good, but funny they didn't use some of Karen O's material for it.

Of course you're thinking:
"he just had to mention that movie, because every blogger in the world has mentioned that movie." What can I say, at least I tried to do my own take on it.

In case you cared:
your cool friends over at Pitchfork mentioned some time back that Chris Taylor of Grizzly Bear was releasing a 7" on his new label Terrible Records under the moniker CANT. Well, that record is finally up for pre-order.

Denver:
don't miss Slim Cessna's Auto Club and Drag the River at the Oriental Theater this Friday, Oct. 9th.

It's probably enjoyable because it's not PC:
and in fact there is a new What's So Funny? out today, and it's just as non-PC as ever.

I don't know why I am obsessed with the remote parts of West Texas:
but there is a pretty cool blogger from Alpine who does a blog called Gaping Void. He's actually an author, artist, marketer, and um, CEO of the US branch of a South African wine. Apparently he became famous for his "Ignore Everybody" blog/book, which is generally directed at helping people in the working world (maybe more specifically the corporate world?) to keep from hating their lives so much, or something like that.

Keeping with the West Texas theme:
I found this pretty sweet article about a guy near Abilene who lives in a cold war era missile silo. Lots of cool pictures.

As I've noted:
I'm increasingly impressed with Langhorne Slim's new material, and need to pick up his new album Be Set Free. You can check out a video interview and perfomance of "I Love You But Goodbye" from him here at LA Music Blog.

I don't know about you:
but I'm pretty excited about the new J. Tillman record Year in the Kingdom. It's out now on Western Vinyl, and apparently a vinyl version and a 7" are on the way.

In Avett Brothers news...let me revise that, in my own personal news:
my pre-ordered vinyl copy of I and Love and You, an album for which the vinyl version has been available in record stores for over 3 weeks, has still not arrived. I ordered it directly from the band's Web site, which apparently was the lowest priority to the label, and they didn't get their copies of the vinyl to mail out until last week. Throw in the inconsistent service by the USPS and you've got quite an awesome situation. If you know me, I like to prove points, so I'll probably have to return that record (when it finally arrives), even though it will cost me shipping, and then buy it from my local record store for the same price. If anyone has run into the same problem, hopefully you've found the one positive outlet that I have, which is that you can stream the entire album for free on the Avett's Web site.

3 albums I should have reviewed last year

As I note from time to time, the usual music listener doesn't exactly get to listen to new albums right away, and sometimes it takes a while to get around to everything you want to listen to. Not everyone gets advance copies of the album and then has the time and ability to write a snide review about it after two listens (you know to whom I refer).















Hayes Carll - Trouble in Mind

Hayes Carll's new material came back onto my radar about a year and a half ago when I had the opportunity to see him at a free show in Austin. I had seen him perform solo before, and loved his stage presence, but had lost interest as some of his more recent material I had heard sounded very "roadhouse," I guess you could say. But to be honest, I didn't exactly give it much of a chance. However, that all changed at this live show when I heard him play "Beaumont" off of his new album. This track is an amazing standout among great songs, and on its strength alone I was drawn back to giving Carll another listen. Suffice to say, I'm glad I did. Trouble is a fantastic collection of 15 songs, with a number of gems that include "Drunken Poet's Dream" and "Bad Liver and a Broken Heart." Another great moment on the album is the cover of Tom Waits' "I Don't Wanna Grow Up," and true to form, Hayes shows his comedic writing abilities on "She Left Me for Jesus." This album may be one of the best Americana albums released in the last 5 years or so.















DeVotchKa - A Mad and Faithful Telling

As is standard practice, DeVotchKa never ceases to show me how much more they know about music than I do. My first few listens of AMAFT left me wondering exactly what it was they were doing rather than wanting to hear more. As with most any album that I am not immediately drawn to, I put it aside for a time. I think some of my initial distaste was from my dislike of the first single "Transliterator," which I'm still not a huge fan of. However, I've come to recognize that the album has many strengths. It took listening to the songs toward the end to hook me on the album, as I consider "New World" and "Undone" to be the strongest tracks by far. Additionally, "Head Honcho," a remake from Super Melodrama, "Along the Way," and "A Clockwise Witness" are standout tracks that make this a work that shows DeVotchKa's strengths as a band and firmly hold AMAFT in place along with their best work to date.














Rodney Parker & 50 Peso Reward - The Lonesome Dirge

If you have found the common theme among these albums yet, then you get the award. Yes, they are mostly albums that just didn't take for me right away, and the latest from Rodney Parker is no different. The more I listened to this album, however, the more irresistible it became. One can hardly have any difficulty rocking along with the band's cover of Springsteen's "Atlantic City," or playing train beat air drums along with "Firefight," but the rest of the album takes a bit longer to sink in. At times, I found myself trying to figure out exactly what was up with the guitar shredding on "Brother," but now I generally accept that it just rocks a little country and a little bit of 1983 at the same time. No one ever said there was anything wrong with that. The Lonesome Dirge is extremely well produced, but not overly so, and the rhythms on the album make it a strong listen that sets it apart from other Americana records. This album is a great record to drive to, so what more do you need to know?

stuff

Do you remember when you could afford DeVotchKa concert tickets?:

Well, in a year you'll be talking about how you remember when you could afford to go see the Avetts.

By the way:
can I be the first one to recommend that DeVotchKa reissue Una Volta on vinyl?

Overheard:

"Dude, you going to Pretty Lights [Fort Collins electronic artist] in two weeks? It's just $40. $20 for tickets and $20 for festivities" [this means drugs apparently].

Since the Colorado tour stop didn't work out:

for Buddy Wakefield, I can at least let you know that his new CD, Live at the Typer Cannon Grand, just came out on Righteous Babe Records. It's a compilation of the best recordings of his best material - definitely worth it for my money.

I hope to see:
Denver folks out at the Thrift Store Cowboys/Amanda Shires show at the Hi-Dive on Thursday. Rosewood Thieves are the headliners.

Isn't it funny:
that Joe Ely was so quick into the internet game? He got in early enough to buy "www.ely.com." Apparently his site started in '83. I didn't even know about the internet until probably 1995.

Marfa never ceases to amaze me:
In the span of two weeks, Randy Quaid was arrested there, and Bon Iver is playing a show there. Bon Iver has only played Denver once, ever, as far as I know, and now he will have played Marfa too, a town of 2100 in the middle of the desert.

Weekly stuff

More evidence that Zach Galifianakis is about to be a huge movie star whether we like it or not:
in this New York Times feature.

Awesome cover art by Julie Cope:
On the new Mt. Inadale Records split 7” featuring Lubbock’s own Thrift Store Cowboys & One Wolf. Click the artwork for more details.







If you liked the Court & Spark:
you should check out their new project Hiss Golden Messenger. It's a good bit different than C&S, but the solid songwriting is still there. Kind of more…um…earthy? I would say if you listened to Hearts, this material sounds like a natural progression from that.

Monahans continues to get recognition from major media outlets:
this time in Texas Monthly.

If you didn’t know:
J.D. Salinger is still alive, but has refused to talk to the press for close to 50 years. He recently made headlines regarding the fact that he was filing suit against a publishing company who put out a book that is an unauthorized sequel to Catcher in the Rye. When the story broke, you could get this book internationally for $15 or so. Now it's up to $160 reserve price. I briefly considered buying it while it was so cheap, but then I remembered, "oh yeah, J.D. Salinger didn't actually write this book" FYI, even today, people who seek him out in the small town of Cornish, NH get turned away by a near-deaf Salinger or his wife. Road trip anyone?

If you’ve seen Weeds Season 4:
Then you probably heard “A New World” and “Head Honcho” by DeVotchKa playing along with one of the episodes.

When my friend told me she grew up in Hawai’i:
I said, “can you be more pacific?”

In case you missed it:
Vic Chesnutt stopped into Daytrotter for a session that was posted here not so long ago.  FYI, the scream he does in "Independence Day" is not for sale at Guitar Center.

Minilith - DeVotchKa "secret" show at the Fox Theatre

The first thing I heard this morning was from a friend who said that she just overheard that DeVotchKa was playing a secret show at the Fox in Boulder. My first reaction was skepticism. Followed by, well, I should look into it. Of course the internet says nothing, because even if they are playing, they can't advertise it because they're under contract with the Monolith festival.

The only band listed is the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, a band out of New Orleans who are great in their own right, but very different from DeVotchKa. I head up to the box office to try and find something out, and sure enough, the "Back in 5 minutes" is up at the desk. So I mill around for 20 minutes and nothing...

BUT, there is hope, the record store guy says that yes, they are playing tonight as a warm-up for their show at Monolith tomorrow. I'm going to keep mentioning Monolith, so if you don't know what it is you should just look it up. I'm not going, but it's lots of great music.

I digress...So anyway, while I'm waiting at the box office, I see Tom, Nick, and Shawn from DeVotchKa unloading their stuff and heading into the theater. We have confirmation.

Long story even longer, I bought tickets and wait for the night. Turns out we actually ate in a restaurant by the Fox and sat right across from Tom and Shawn. While I am clearly revealing my uncoolness now by talking about it, I restrained myself from bothering them and just let it go.

So the Fox probably holds 3-400 people, tops, FAR less than any DeVotchKa show would ever bring in these days. They are big nationwide, but they are huge in Colorado, such that they play 2 nights typically when they do shows here now, and mostly at bigger venues like Boulder Theater and the Fillmore. So essentially they're just too big to ever see them in an intimate venue again. Unless...

Yes, back to my story. Sure enough DeVotchKa goes on at 9 p.m., plays an amazing hour long set, mostly new stuff, but also including Queen of the Surface Streets, How it Ends, You Love Me, and Enemy Guns. Probably missed one or two there. But nonetheless, there were at most 150 people there, I would say. It was like seeing them in Denver 6 years ago, which was the last time I saw them with such a small crowd. It is such a rare thing to luck into seeing something like this. You have an arena level band and you're seeing them in a small theater. It was just amazing. I had honestly tired of seeing them recently, because I just don't like the big crowds. Not their fault, but still, this was just what I needed. Tomorrow they'll be playing to thousands of weary festival goers, but tonight we got to see them with their friends and family and whomever else found out through word of mouth.

I won't say it changed my life. I won't say it was once in a lifetime. But I will say it was worth every penny of the $20 tickets and every minute of the 60 minute show they put on. As a music fan, these are the times that really stand out, and I have to say that this one will be up there with the others that I'll want to tell people about.

As a side note, great feature on the band in this week's Westword. They were on the cover of Westword and Colorado Daily this week. I won't just regurgitate the story here, but pretty great seeing what they have achieved after basically just doing their thing for so long.

In Case You Were Wondering

Yes, that is DeVotchKa you hear playing in the background of this split-screen commercial with Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett. It is from the song "A New World" on their new album A Mad and Faithful Telling.



Apparently the directors for this video are Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton, the same folks who brought you Little Miss Sunshine. See for yourself here.

To all you kids out there, this is a good lesson regarding the fact that once you are "in" the biz, you are definitely "in" the biz, and the way things go these days, you are going to make more money licensing songs here and there than you will on album sales (see also Avett Brothers' music on Friday Night Lights TV series).

We have found Providence

With all the gushing over the Old 97s I've really neglected my "Denver sound" folks, namely the new releases by DeVotchKa and Slim Cessna's Auto Club.  

Slim's new album Cipher was released last month, and while they played a few SXSW shows and one hometowner, they've been relatively quiet since.  I guess that is the reality of having a band where a number of folks live in different cities. 

Nonetheless, the new album has a great progression, although their slower songs seem to have grown darker on this album.  Overall, however, this album definitely delivers with some great new songs.  Given that this is the band that brought us "He, Roger Williams," they could get away with just about anything in my book, but they don't rely on any formulas on this record.

For any of you who have seen recent live shows, you'll already know "Children of the Lord," quite the quintessential tent revival rocker with a redux of a familiar Vacation Bible School song.  "Scac 101" brings some great contrast, with what one might deem a bit reminiscent of older Slim.  The thematic tune of "An Introduction to the Power of Braces" appears throughout the album, the significance of which must be interpreted by the listener I suppose.

On top of the well arranged songs, the album artwork, especially the photos by Gary Isaacs, really give the album a great visual presentation.  Isaacs has become somewhat of an icon in the photography of a number of Denver musicians, and the inside photo is a great example.

Next up we have the new album by DeVotchKa, A Mad and Faithful Telling, released on the Anti- label, their first LP released on a label.  Honestly I hate to try and describe the sound because I know I've been heavily biased by reading various reviews of DeVotchKa over the recent years, and thus, I don't know that I have much different to say.  Needless to say they still have a pretty good corner on the market of gypsy indie mariachi cabaret music.  However, speaking of Gary Isaacs, here's a great new press photo he did for DeVotchKa:

An important recommendation I would make is to purchase the ITUNES bonus track of "Undone," featuring the Tom Hagerman Quartet.  While the regular cut of "Undone" is a great listen, I prefer this extra track.  We had the opportunity to see Tom play an instrumental show in Boulder a few months back, and while a completely different experience from DeVotchKa, it was an amazing night of instrumentation with his extremely talented colleagues.  If that's your thing, don't forget to pick up a copy of Tom's The Breakfast Playground.   Other good listens off the new record are "Along the Way" and "A New World."  Still haven't really warmed up to "Transliterator," but maybe with time.

While I'm on the subject of Denver music, a couple of other items of note.  Around this time last year, Smooch Records announced that there was a documentary in the works about the Denver sound.  I've not heard any updates on this, but hope to see something out soon.  One can argue there is no specific "sound," but there is an interesting element to the fact that the city has produced such distinct and notable acts as 16 Horsepower, Slim Cessna's Auto Club, Munly Munly, DeVotchKa, Woven Hand, and the Denver Gentlemen to name a few (in no particular order).  

Speaking of Munly, the only news I've been able to find on him is that he is working on a double album on the fictional town of Lupercalia, although the most that has been heard of him lately has been his appearance on New Years Eve with his new band Munly & the Lupercalians.  However, word is that the Lee Lewis Harlots are no longer playing, for reasons that I have only heard in rumor form.  And I don't want to be one to go spreading rumors...

And finally, one more Denver-related release on the horizon is the new Woven Hand record Ten Stones, slated for an August release.  Hopefully that means they'll play a hometown show by that time, although they seem to have a more adoring fan base in Europe than here in the U.S.  

i can't get a word in