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Archive for the ‘Postal Service’ Category

Death Cab for Cutie / The Postal Service / Warpaint (The Mann Center, Philadelphia, PA, September 21, 2023) [DID NOT ATTEND]

Posted in Death Cab For Cutie, Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Philadelphia, PA, Postal Service, The Postal Service, Warpaint on September 21, 2023| Leave a Comment »

[DID NOT ATTEND: September 21, 2023] Death Cab for Cutie / The Postal Service / Warpaint

Back in December, Ben Gibbard announced an upcoming tour:

The Postal Service and Death Cab for Cutie have announced a co-headlining tour taking place next fall. The 2023 dates will celebrate the 20th anniversary of their respective 2003 records: Give Up and Transatlanticism. Bandleader Benjamin Gibbard will pull double-duty each night of the tour, as his bands perform the albums front-to-back. The trek also marks the first live performances from the Postal Service in a decade. Find the full tour schedule below and scroll down for a trailer video.

“I know for a fact I will never have a year again like 2003,” Gibbard said in a press release. “The Postal Service record came out; Transatlanticism came out. These two records will be on my tombstone, and I’m totally fine with that. I’ve never had a more creatively inspired year.”

I was pretty excited about this show since DCFC are so great live and that Postal Service album is pretty great as well.

As it turns out, the show sold out in about 5 seconds.  I was sure they’d announce a second Philly show, but they didn’t.  So, nope I didn’t get to see this one.  It was later announced that Boris would be playing this night in Philly and I would have been pissed if I had to miss them again even if for a show I wanted to see.

Warpaint seems to be an opening band for a bunch of shows I’m interested in and yet I’ve never seen them.  I feel like they should be noisy and wild, but they’re really not.  The only thing I really know about them is that drummer Stella Mozgawa is pretty dynamite.  They remind me a lot of Luscious Jackson.

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André Alexis–“Kawabata” (The Walrus, December 2009)

Posted in 19th Century, André Alexis, Antony and the Johnsons, Canadian Content, CocoRosie, Colin Meloy, Constantines, Devendra Banhart, Ida, Joanna Newsom, McSweeney's, Postal Service, Richard Buckner, Silver Jews, The Baffler, The Decemberists, The Mountain Goats, The Shins, The Walrus, Wolf Parade on December 11, 2009|

SOUNDTRACK: The Believer June 2005 Music Issue CD (2005).

The second annual Believer CD ups the ante from the first by featuring all previously unreleased songs. And, just to put more of a twist on things, the artists were asked to do covers of songs that they have been listening to lately. There was only one song that I knew the original of (The Constantines’ track), so I can’t say a thing about how well the covers were covered.

This becomes something of a fun rarities mix CD. As with the previous one, there’s not a huge amount of diversity in the musicians, but given the target audience of The Believer, it all seems to make sense.

We get The Decemberists (actually Colin Meloy solo) covering Joanna Newsom (who I don’t know but whose song I liked quite a bit). The most interesting track to me was by a band called CocoRosie who I’m totally unfamiliar with. The song is recorded as if it they were using a 19th century recording machine. It sounds so far away and yet it feels modern at the same time. I have no idea what they normally sound like, but I’m certainly intrigued.

There’s a few parings that are practically predestined: The Mountain Goats cover The Silver Jews, The Shins cover The Postal Service and Devandra Banhart covers Antony & the Johnsons. There’s also a track from Wolf Parade, a band I have recently gotten into. Only two bands perform and are covered on the disc: Ida and The Constantines.

It’s an interesting assortment of songs. As with any cover, it’s hard to know if you would like the original artist or if you just enjoy the new artist’s’ interpretation. But a song like “Surprise, AZ” by Richard Buckner is so well written that I don’t think it matters what Cynthia G. Mason’s cover sounds like (which is quite good).

The disc is largely folky/alt-rock, but once again, it’s a good distillation of the genre, and a very enjoyable collection.  The track listing is available here.

[READ: December 10, 2009] “Kawabata”

This story had the (in my estimation) fascinating attribute of reading as if it were written a long time ago. The writing was very formal. It also centered around a man and a woman who meet at a bed and breakfast and do little more than walk around town. Since no real clues as to the time it is set are ever given, I could imagine them dressed in nearly turn of the (20th) century garb.

A few things do dispel this fantasy: the use of the word “tits” for one, and the fact that no married woman would have been seen out with a widower while her husband was away. But despite that, I enjoyed the formality of the story. (more…)

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