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Archive for the ‘Shellac’ Category

Shellac (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, October 25, 2016)

Posted in Philadelphia, PA, Shellac, Union Transfer on October 26, 2016| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: October 26, 2016] Shellac

2016-10-25-22-32-01My friend Andrew asked me if I wanted to go to see Shellac.  They were a band I liked in the 1990s and had kind of forgotten about, although I did get and enjoy their album from last year, Dude Incredible.  And I thought that they would be a fun band to see live.

Shellac is known as Steve Albini’s band.  Albini is a famous record producer and famously cantankerous dude.  But people love the clarity and crispness of the sounds he gets.  On the Shellac albums, the guitars are so sharp and piercing that they feel textural.  But he also doesn’t mix things super loud, so nothing is overloaded.  Things are sharp and crisp.  And that is the same for the drums.  Drummer Todd Trainer’s snare drum really pops and the rest of his kit is just as sharp sounding.

On the other end is bassist Bob Weston.  Weston has one of the best bass sounds I’ve ever heard.  Deep and resonant, clean but not pretty.  While the guitar may be the most notable thing about Shellac, it’s the bass that sounds so impressive on those records.  And the three together make loud aggressive sorta punk, with Albini’s spoken/screamed lyrics.  This was definitely a show to bring earplugs to.

The sound of Shellac is quite minimal and, appropriate, so was the stage show.  Before the show Andrew and I joked that the blue gels covering the lights would be too much embellishment for the band.  And indeed, when they came on stage, there were eight white spotlights that lit them from the back.  And that was it.  It was all about the sound. (more…)

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Shannon Wright (Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, October 25, 2016) [SHELLAC]

Posted in Kishi Bashi, Philadelphia, PA, Shannon Wright, Shellac, Twain, Union Transfer on October 26, 2016| 2 Comments »

[ATTENDED: October 26, 2016] Shannon Wright

2016-10-25-20-43-31My friend Andrew got us tickets to see Shellac. When I looked to see who was opening, the site listed “Shannon Wright.”  I had never heard of her.  I had t laugh that the blurb on Shellac was literally two sentences.  While Wright’s was 8 large paragraphs.

It made me excited to see her, but I had no idea what to expect.  And then she came out with just her guitar (and flashbacks to Kishi Bashi’s opener Twain came hurtling at me).

But Wright was no Twain.  She started with a looped guitar melody–rather pretty.  And then she turned it off–that appears to be her “tuning music” because once she started playing–it sounded nothing like that loop.

Wrights play a very aggressive guitar–she doesn’t strum of pick so much as pluck those string so that they slap back against the guitar.  Her low notes are percussive and her high notes are painful.  She uses no pick, so it really emphasizes this abrasive style.  Her songs have a very steady rhythm on the low notes–very easy to bob your head (or in some cases seriously headbang) along to, while the melody gets hammered out on the high strings. (more…)

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Daniel Abraham–Balfour and Meriwether in The Incident of the Harrowmoor Dogs (2014)

Posted in Built to Spill, Daniel Abraham, Demons, Fantasy, Fears, Neil Young, Shellac, Short Books, Slint, Steampunk, Steve Albini on April 10, 2014| Leave a Comment »

balfourSOUNDTRACK: SLINT-Spiderland (Remastered) (1991/2014).

slint2Slint is an overlooked band except by those who think they are really super important.  Slint played what would eventually be called post-rock before people called it that–they had spoken vocals and dark guitar, loud and quiet riffs and intense building sections (and on this album no songs under 5 minutes).  Some riffs were super catchy, indeed, many of the songs on Spiderland have super catchy sections, and yet there is something that resists you casually getting into them (probably those spoken lyrics).

I’ll even say that I tend to forget about them.  They get lumped in with other Steve Albini produced bands (Albini produced their first album, but not Spiderland, and since Albini’s band was Shellac, they are even close in the alphabet), but they don’t really sound like Albini’s output.  They’re much warmer and, dare I say ,emotional–the screamed vocals are incredibly passionate.  Plus, they only released one album before they broke up (this one was after the breakup), so their legacy is bigger than their output.

So I’m thrilled about this reissue if only so that it will give them a wider audience. And you can hear the entire two hour spectacle before it come out at NPR.

At the same time I didn’t notice a huge difference in the production.  It sounded great, but then I haven’t listened to it in a while so it’s hard to compare.  The deluxe package is a behemoth: the box comes with the album, outtakes and demos on 180 gram vinyl and on CD. It also includes a 104-page book with never-before-seen photos, lyrics, and a foreword by Will Oldham and Breadcrumb Trail, a 90-minute documentary about the making of Spiderland with interviews with the band, James Murphy, Steve Albini, David Yow, Ian MacKaye, Matt Sweeney and others.  Since it retails at about $150, I won’t be buying that.

slintI did listen to the whole thing and again was reminded of how great the album is.  The bonus material is, well, a little disappointing.  You get three more early versions of “Nosferatu Man,” one of which is an instrumental.  Two demo versions of “Washer” and “Good Morning, Captain” (one is an instrumental kind of goof).  There’s three versions of a song called “Pam” which didn’t make Spiderland, so that’s interesting.  Then there’s another outtake called “Glenn” and two post Spiderland songs called “Todd’s Song” and “Brian’s Song.”  They’re all good, but are in various stages of construction.

Perhaps the most interesting bonus track is the live (from Chicago 1989) version of Neil Young’s “Cortez The Killer.”  But I have to admit that vocally, they just can’t handle it.  The music sounds good, but the singer just never seems to be in tune, but nor is he talking it either.  It was a little disappointing (especially compared to Built to Spill’s live cover).

So if you are a die hard fan of this unheralded band, this is a worthy addition (especially for the book and movie).  Otherwise, enjoy the original, it’s a great album.

[READ: April 7, 2014] Balfour and Meriwether in The Incident of the Harrowmoor Dogs

I was immediately attracted to the cover of this novella–two men in bowler hats and button down shirts wielding weapons in front of a spooky background.  What’s not to like?  Especially when the book is tiny (80 pages).  I grabbed it and brought it home to read.

That’s when I learned that Balfour and Meriwether appear in other books and that this was “the first novella-length work” about the pair.  Did that mean that there was a lengthy series and this is the first short piece about them?  Indeed, no.  There are two other stories about them which are both shorter (these first two stories have been collected in one book).  And according to Abraham, he has no plans to write more, but that doesn’t mean he won’t.

So this is a fun and surreal adventure story set in England in the 1880s.  It is taken from Meriwether’s Diary (written in 1920).  Meriwether acknowledges that God the Creator has made many beautiful things but He has also made some abominations that walk the Earth.

And that leads us into this story of subterranean creatures and British political dealings with them. (more…)

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