The True Vine
3544 Hickory Ave.
Baltimore, MD

Telephone: 410 235 4500

OPEN:
TUES. – SAT. 12 – 9 ( except Wed. 12 – 8 )
SUN. & MON. 12 – 6

march 26th 2010

the true vine & aural states presents KONK PACK, MATMOS & LEPRECHAUN CATERING at the 5th dimension (see the flyer image below for the adress). for those of you who have never heard konk pack: tim hodgkinson (of henry cow, the work & many others), roger turner (amazing british drummer/percussionist who’s worked with hundreds of other fantastic musicians over the past few decades) & thomas lehn (on my top 5 favorite synthesizer player list {funny enough two others on this list are in the 2 other bands this night[tom boram & martin schmidt]}). matmos will be in quadraphonic sound & leprechaun catering will be in disorienting-double-stereo sound. the admission will be a $5 to $10 sliding donation. doors open at 8 pm.

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Konk Pack Excerpt

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Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center (home to the Philadelphia Orchestra) puts the Kennedy Center to shame. This 2001 building gives off an intergalactic glass air from the outside. But once you cross the orchestra doors into Verizon Hall, sweeping elliptical balconies in warm wood welcome you and provide an intimate surprise once the orchestra strikes up.

Such a hall was very kind to the East Coast premiere of Kalevi Aho’s Minea. This concertante for orchestra gets its feminine nickname from the commissioning orchestra (Minnesota) where Vänskä conducts. Ever the champion of his fellow Finn, Vänskä gave Aho’s overture a powerful push. He was jumping, bending deep in the knees, twisting from the hips before delivering an openhanded punch or swipe to call up a section to glory.

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MP3: Height With Friends – Cold Crush from the upcoming LP Bed of Seeds (2010) on Friends Records

Height With Friends plays the Windup Space with The Snails, Dope Body, and King Rhythm on Sat Mar 20. Doors @ 9PM, $7 cover.

Height is on a roll. Not only did he and his Friends drop some free knowledge on everyone earlier this week via the release of a free EP (Druid Hill Lake), but he also bids our fair city a temporary farewell with a tour send-off show this Saturday (the show is formerly known as a record release party). The crew hits the road on tour with Nuclear Power Pants.

Due to some unforeseen circumstances, the release of his next LP, Bed of Seeds, had to be delayed. Fortunately, the latest EP is culled from those tracks, so you get a good sense of what they have to offer. Let us add one more bell to that Pavlovian response as we premiere “Cold Crush.”

On Bed of Seeds, Dan and his cohorts’ impeccable ear for quality samples and beats has broadened to include a wider and more dynamic range, stretching from the expected territories of blues and soul, into the frontiers of gentle acoustic balladry and bubbly pop melodies. “Cold Crush” features a simple, smoldering sax line to back Height’s reflective narration on hip-hop pioneers The Cold Crush Brothers’ brush with wider fame and recognition. The track is as much celebration as lamentation, its descending lines underscoring the group’s fading hopes of eventually nailing down mainstream success and exposure.

While not quite a household name in hip-hop, the influence of the Cold Crush is undeniable, from their infamous live performances and tapes, to a number of moments where they seemed on the brink of blowing up. Their most high-profile run-in occurred with a donated verse on classic anthem “Rapper’s Delight.” Member Grandmaster Caz hoped to get some reciprocation for his goodwill to Hank of the Sugar Hill Gang, but got no such love. Down the line, he eventually spoke his peace on the matter with the retort “MC Delight.”

Tour dates for Height With Friends and Nuclear Power Pants after the jump.
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Photo credit: Tedd Henn

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1. MP3: The Dirge
2. MP3: Origami
3. MP3: Church & State
4. MP3: Interpretation of Dreams

Download the entire set in FLAC.

Expanding Man

Vibes – Shure SM81 (x/y)
Guitar – Shure SM57
Drum Machine – DI
stage – mxl 990 (angled at 45 deg in towards the middle of the stage)

Recorded by Matthew Leffler-Schulman & Alex Champagne @ Windup Space
Mixed by Alex Champagne & Matthew Leffler-Schulman @ Mobtown Studios

Photo credit: Tedd Henn

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1. MP3: Untitled

Download the entire set in FLAC.

JDay

DJ Set

Recorded by Matthew Leffler-Schulman & Alex Champagne @ Windup Space
Mixed by Alex Champagne & Matthew Leffler-Schulman @ Mobtown Studios

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1. MP3: Chalkboard Skies
2. MP3: Old World Streets
3. MP3: Pulley and Breeze
4. MP3: Ring-Tone Rain
5. MP3: Gargoyle
6. MP3: Snow Plow
7. MP3: Island Barnacle

Download the entire set in FLAC.

Field Athletics

kick – shure beta 52
snare – shure sm57
floor tom – sennheiser 421
drum overheads – spaced pair (angled out) – shure sm81
guitar amp – sennheiser 421
stage – apex 460 tube (c12 clone) (set to omni)
stage – mxl 990 (angled at 45 deg in towards the middle of the stage)

Recorded by Matthew Leffler-Schulman & Alex Champagne @ Windup Space
Mixed by Alex Champagne & Matthew Leffler-Schulman @ Mobtown Studios

Tracked with Logic 9.1

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1. MP3: Mercury Switch
2. MP3: Cornish Guilt
3. MP3: Mr. Fritz-Fantasia
4. MP3: Future Nails
5. MP3: No Huffy
6. MP3: Fallsway
7. MP3: Space Caesar

Download the entire set in FLAC.

The Water
Kick – shure beta 52
Snare – shure sm57
Floor tom – sennheiser 421
Overheads – spaced pair (angled out) – shure sm81
Guitar amp – sennheiser 421
Keys – DI
Dan’s pod – DI
Stage – apex 460 tube (set to omni)
Stage – mxl 990 (angled at 45 deg in towards the middle of the stage)
Mid room – oktava 012 (x/y)
Back room – AT boundary

Recorded by Matthew Leffler-Schulman & Alex Champagne @ Windup Space
Mixed by Matthew Leffler-Schulman @ Mobtown Studios

Tracked with Logic 9.1

Editor’s Note: To the right is one of the most hideously obnoxious album covers ever, for MGMT’s upcoming release Congratulations.

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MP3: MGMT – Flash Delirium from upcoming LP Congratulations

I never really liked MGMT’s first album, Oracular Spectacular, but I’d be lying if I said its three singles (“Time to Pretend,” “Kids,” and “Electric Feel”) didn’t approach guilty-pleasure status. What surprised me more was how the band’s Idiot’s Guide to Psych Pop approach managed to reel in a lot of my friends who wouldn’t ordinarily get into music this, well, weird.

I still can’t figure out why this happened. Having a very danceable beat certainly helps, and in that age-old pursuit of getting the opposite sex on the dance floor, MGMT seemed to work as effectively as “Party in the USA” or the latest Lady GaGa track. Despite the lack of any surface-level similarities,  it wasn’t unusual to hear such a pairing when I was out with said friends in Federal Hill (don’t crucify me). And sure enough, people danced. But I don’t think that entirely explains why this band was so universally appealing. To me, it’s still a mystery.

At the time, I thought their crossover success could be a good thing, like it would serve as some sort of gateway to enlightenment and much better music. Surely people could find bands with similar sonic elements to MGMT but much more complex arrangements and the light bulb would go off. In my own little circle, that didn’t really happen.

Now I can only imagine how my friends will react to the train wreck that is “Flash Delirium,” the first single off the band’s sophomore album, Congratulations. Essentially, the band took any redeeming qualities they once had (however few), and any good will they had earned from a living organism with a working pair of ears, stabbed them with a dull butter knife and then pissed all over what was left. We better hope some higher-up at the Pentagon doesn’t get a hold of this and ship it off to Guantanamo, because it will easily become the most effective torture device ever. [/snarky hyperbole]

But really, one can only imagine what the band was thinking when they sat down to write this, somehow thought it was worth recording and then, defying all sense of reason, released it into the world. There should have been red flags all throughout the process signaling the time to torpedo the track once and for all.

Oh wait, there were. MGMT’s Ben Goldwasser told Spinner recently: “When we first wrote that song, we were laughing so hard. Andrew [VanWyngarden] just reminded me of that — that we thought it was the funniest thing we’d ever heard.”

Okay, Ben, glad to know your ear drums are still intact. So why make the rest of us suffer?

“And then we got used to it, it started to sound more normal.”

It did? Really? How many opiates did you have to consume to reach that conclusion?

“It’s not a single, but we thought it was a good way to entice people to listen to the whole record.”

Seriously?! This?!

“I’m sure there are plenty of people who think it’s completely weird and not what they were expecting. I’m sorry.”

As well you should be. Too late now. Only time to analyze.

Basically, what they tried to do was take all sorts of genres and reference points– from a brief visit to their own electric origins to post-acid Beatles to punk –and cram them all into one 4-minute song. Some of the homages are only 30 seconds or so long. It’s like they tried to create the musical equivalent of that YouTube video about the evolution of dance, only they didn’t bother using any semblance of a chronological order… or transitions that make sense… or good judgment.

You won’t find any of the beats or hooks that endeared them to so many. The end result, if it isn’t already painfully clear, is an incoherent disaster the likes of which hasn’t been seen in a very long time. Everything they tried for, or at least what I think were trying for, didn’t work in any conceivable way.

So why?

Goldwasser said in the interview that the record was a response to the band’s rapid ascent to fame.

“We’re trying to come to grips with that world,” he said. “It’s not our world. We don’t feel comfortable in it. But we didn’t want to make that typical second album either, about fame. So we’re definitely observing it, as opposed to revelling in it.”

Their cure for that uncomfortable feeling, it seems, is to take that world and destroy it– to push everything away that brought it into existence. If the rest of Congratulations is half as bad as “Flash Delirium,” then they will truly get their wish, because the people who loved them before most certainly will not be back.

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Note: Some tracks not posted by artist request.

MP3: 1. Elder Days (3:28)
MP3: 2. Ohhhhh pt 1 (6:45)
MP3: 3. Ohhhhh pt 2 (3:00)
MP3: 4. Sea Stones (4:48)

Total time: 18:02

Lineage:

AKG 414 mid/side pair -> Zoom h4n 48/24 -> Nuendo (stereo encoding, limiting) -> MP3

Recorded by:

David Carter (carteriffic@gmail.com)

Okay, well we’re a little late with this one. Chances are you’ve already heard and formed an opinion about Vampire Weekend’s second album, Contra. Fortunately for us lollygaggers, that has given us the opportunity to try and put this album into context.

Some of the facts:

- Contra debuted as the number one album in the country, selling 124,000 copies in its first week. It was only the 12th independently-released album to do so. According to Billboard, their previous best sales week was when their debut self-titled album netted 28,000 sales in the opening week.

- Almost every U.S. show in support of this album has sold out. Locally, the band has progressed from the Rock and Roll Hotel (capacity 400 people) in early 2008, to two nights  at the 9:30 Club (1,200) later that year, to DAR Constitution Hall (3,720) this coming April. All  sell outs.

- In their second video in support of this album, for single “Giving Up the Gun,” we get a futuristic tennis match featuring Joe Jonas and Jake Gyllenhaal as players, Lil Jon as a French-speaking instructor and RZA as a Neo-from-The-Matrix-like referee (no joke). This is almost as random/absurd a group as another video starring Gyllenhaal, Jamie Foxx’s “Blame It (On the Alcohol),” which also features Forest Whitaker, Ron Howard and Foxx himself rolling up to the club in a Rolls Royce to party with Samuel L. Jackson, T-Pain and many more. Seriously.

- On March 6, the group made its second appearance on “Saturday Night Live.”

All of the above accomplishments, including the ability to cobble together such a large swath of the cultural zeitgeist for one music video, demonstrate that Contra has launched Vampire Weekend from the flavor of the month to one of the biggest bands in alternative music. They have managed to do this by writing catchy tunes that can hook in somebody oblivious to the hype while incorporating technical elements that appeal to portions of the indie set.

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