Human Heat

Yellow Ostrich at The Earl, Oct. 28, 2011

Yellow Ostrich, a band that I've enjoyed hearing over the past couple of years, have broken up. We've seen YO open for The Antlers at the godforsaken Masquerade and for Ra Ra Riot at The Earl back in 2011, and missed them at The Earl earlier this year.  But according to an email from frontman Alex Schaaf, we won't have a chance to make up for that missed show because "Yellow Ostrich will be playing our final show as a band.  We've had an amazing few years together, and we couldn't be more grateful and satisfied, but the time has come to move on to the next thing."  

"We want to give a huge thanks to all of you, for giving us a chance and listening. Connecting with you guys was the whole point, and we couldn't have gotten as far as we did without you.  We went all over the world with this band, and it was a great ride."

The demise of the band is unfortunate to hear, but the good news is that Alex has already started a new project called Human Heat, and has already released an initial EP, which you can stream below and features some terrific songs, not the least of which is opener All Night, featuring backup vocals by T. Lieberson of the band Teen (and before that Here We Go Magic).  

While we will fondly remember Yellow Ostrich (Marathon Runner, Whale), these songs give us reason to look forward to the next chapter from Alex.

Yacht

Motion Sickness of Time Travel

Motion Sickness of Time Travel is the solo drone project of Georgia's Rachel Evans.  She describes her sound as "musical witchcraft from outer space."  Sometimes she plays in Atlanta.

To say anything else would be unnecessary.

An Appreciation of Kathryn Calder

I thought that Thursday night's New Pornographers show could have been better if the band had allowed all of its talented members to perform at least one song each from their solo careers, instead of just strictly New Pornographers' material. Neko Case could have sung something from, say, Middle Tornado, and A.C. Newman something from Shut Down the Streets.  Most especially, it seemed almost negligent to have Dan Bejar on stage and not perform any Destroyer songs.

Throughout the show, Kathryn Calder kept very quiet over on the right side of the stage, mostly singing backup behind AC Newman's voice.  Many people may not even have noticed her, focusing their attention instead on Case over on the left side or Newmman and Behar at center stage, but I would have loved to have heard Arrow or So Easily Fooled from Calder's 2010 album, Are You My Mother? 

Somehow, Are You My Mother? came into my possession a few years ago, and while I didn't have high expectations for it at first for some reason or the other (maybe that title), it fell into heavy rotation on my CD player and eventually the songs on the album came to be among some of my all-time favorites.  Since the album was in the rotation mix with a bunch of other CDs (my player holds 50) and I wasn't that familiar with it at first, I had assumed every time Castor and Pollux came on that it was actually one of Allo Darlin's better songs (I'm glad I didn't call out for it when they played at 529 last month).   

Calder's TED lecture, where she discusses her mother's struggle with ALS (she recorded Are You My Mother? while caring for her), is at the top of this post, and she also performs her songs Turn a Light On starting at 09:14, Arrow (12:38), and Slip Away (15:55),  Several members of The New Pornographers appear in the film clip featured in the lecture.

I'm hoping that her current tour with The New Pornographers doesn't burn her out on the road, but instead inspires her to do a tour of her own, preferably with a stop here in the American Southeast.

Broken Bells

Broken Bells at Center Stage, Atlanta, 2010

As hard as it is to believe, Broken Bells, the collaboration between James Mercer of The Shins and Danger Mouse of, among other projects, Gnarls Barkley, is still continuing.  We saw them back in 2010 at Center Stage, and here they are last summer in Portland's Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, aka The Schnitz.  

The New Pornographers at Buckhead Theater, Atlanta, November 7, 2014

Last night in Buckhead, Canadians The New Pornographers performed a nearly 90-minute, late Rocktober show.

Brooklyn's The Pains of Being Pure at Heart opened.

We last saw The Pains of Being Pure at Heart at Bumbershoot 2012 on a sunny Seattle afternoon after a day spent mostly inside the Key Arena watching Best Coast and M83.

This is a new lineup for the band.  Most notably gone is keyboardist/singer Peggy Wang, and in her place is new vocalist, who's name I did not catch, but frontman Kip Berman keeps the band still more than recognizable as The Pains of Being Pure at Heart.  

The New Pornographers were upbeat and poppy.  A.C. Newman is the defacto leader of the supergroup, which last night included Neko Case, Kathryn Calder, and Destroyer's Dan Bejar.

Bejar played his role as the resident genius well, only appearing on the stage when he had a song to sing, and then disappearing offstage during the other songs.  Case played the diva, at one point insisting that someone in the audience leave the venue "right now" for some offense that eluded most of the audience.  Calder was fairly low-key, mostly singing backup behind Newman, who did most of the heavy lifting. 

In short, all eight musicians played their roles well, making it an interesting show.

Here they are on Letterman, with Neko wearing the same King Tut leggings she wore on stage last night.

Open Eye Signal

Just because I've never posted Jon Hopkins here before.