January 2007

I hadn’t heard of a band called Hymns before today. They reached out to us to see if we were hosting a party at SXSW 2007, where they offered to perform. While we’re more than happy to have them rock out in our hotel room or follow us around Austin performing our walking soundtrack, they really deserve much better.

Brian Harding, Jason Roberts, Tony Kent, and Jeremy Kay have a west coast folk-rock that sounds like a cross between Pavement and The Thrills. They also just wrapped up a couple of tours with bands you may have heard of: Ben Kweller and the Lemonheads.

If you’re hosting a party or good barbecue at SXSW, hook these boys up with a gig and let us know where you’ll be. I’d love some brisket and will even bring the PBR.

http://www.myspace.com/hymnsband
http://hymnsband.com/

Hymns – Brothers/Sisters

I was in Best Buy the other day, buying the new Tweedy DVD, and I saw someone buying a CD. For some reason my jaw dropped. It was as if I spotted a woolly mammoth. This creature before me was making a purchase for and item, soon to be an artifact, and she was paying in cash! How will she get points?! She might as well have been bartering with a beaver pelt.

Yesterday I read an article in the Chicago Sun-Times about the survival of the record store. This month, CD sales are down another 5% and downloads are up 65%. Although it looks like the CD may become obsolete, there are still some optimists out there. Here are some of the key quotes:

“I think there also is a large group of people who are always going to want something tangible, to hold a CD, to read the liner notes, to build a traditional music collection.” Patrick McNamara, of Insound.com

“Music stores will be like the neighborhood bar, only we won’t serve alcohol,” Laurie said. “It’s a place to hang out and discuss music and discover something new. As long as people like music, there will be record stores.” – John Laurie, owner of Laurie’s Planet of Sound in Lincoln Square, Chicago

“There will always be a need for the physical product — you’re not going to give your mother-in-law an iTunes download for Christmas, but you might give her a box set of classical music.” – EMI Music chairman Alain Levy

McNamara has a point. I do like reading liner notes, but sacrificing those was easy in exchange for the convenience of downloading digital files and storing them on a tiny hard drive. I can’t even imagine the space I would need to store my music library if it were all on CD’s. At some point, those people building their traditional music collections will get wise and begin to go digital.

And Alain and John, I’m sorry. You are both dead wrong. My parents now have iPods and I go to bars to drink. Children are teaching their parents about iTunes and someday those parents will die and the children will grow up. It’s too convenient and economical to download and if Gracenote’s deal with the music publishers progresses, we’ll soon have digital liner notes too.

CD’s are dead to me (mostly) and I won’t be sorry when they’re gone. I won’t miss holding the case in my hands, and in case you’re wondering, I’ll be able to do without the smell and taste of the CD too.

I recently came across a website that we should all come to love and appreciate in time. AudioMap, is a fairly simple concept: take one band and find out what bands are similar to it. Without much shine or flashes, TuneGlue does this very well. Simply type one band into the list at the top of the page, hit enter, and their name will appear center screen. Then click on the band “Node” and hit “Expand.” Here, up to 11 other bands will appear that have a similar sound. This process can be repeated ad finitum. From each band, “Expand” is the primary option, yet there is also a “Releases” option that brings up a window with their 10 most recent, get this, releases, and a link to the Amazon.com site.

Now, how the connections are made is beyond me. The methods used are unknown, though it does claim to be run by LastFM and Amazon. I have been fairly content with the answers provided and even garnered some new bands (Pit Er Pat – review coming shortly). I do believe, after much tinkering, that the suggestions are based on assumed likings, not necessarily similar musical leanings. However, I am very OK with their assumptions.

People always try to make the following argument with music snobs like some of us at HearYa: If you really like an artist or band, why do you suddenly like them less once they “make it big”? The argument is always the band’s music didn’t change, they didn’t change, the album they recorded didn’t change…so you must be a pompous ass if you don’t like a band once they achieve commercial success.

I’ve got a secret – I used to like John Mayer. There, I said it. I can’t stand him now, but I won’t apologize for it. Let me tell you why it’s okay to start hating a band after the rest of the world suddenly pops a boner over them.

The Makeout Analogy
Let me start by saying that I like making out with girls as much as the next guy. I think it’s a great time, and often get ¾ to full boners during makeout sessions. Last time I checked that meant you were enjoying yourself. Let me draw two parallels from making out to listening to music, and how this analogy sort of proves that you’re allowed to dislike a band once they make it big.

1) No One Likes a Slut
Let’s say you are having consistent sloppy makeout sessions with this really hot girl. You absolutely love it. This goes on for several weeks, but then you find out that lately she’s been making out with all of your buddies. With Ryan Seacrest, Fabio, the guy that works at the convenient store down the street, and around 1 million other people you don’t know…even your own mom. After you find that out, an extra-sloppy makeout session with this babe doesn’t sound quite as good anymore, does it? Didn’t think so. It’s the same thing with music. If you hear of a band and make an emotional connection with them, I think it’s natural for you to want to keep them from getting overexposed. If they do become overexposed, I think it’s also natural for you to dislike them. Much like the guy who won “Average Joe II” but couldn’t date Larissa because she made out with Fabio.

2) Too Much of a Good Thing May Cause Chafing
When I was in high school I used to love making out with my girlfriend for hours on end, occasionally stealing 2nd base. When I first discovered the exotic French kiss, I couldn’t get enough. We were necking in the back seats of friends’ cars, church parking lots, underneath blankets at crowded parties…wherever and whenever we could. Kind of like the first few times you hear a great song. You crave it. You want to listen to it all the time. You’ve got to be careful not to put it on repeat. Hearing a song everywhere you turn is like making out for 3 hours straight. Anyone that’s made out for more than 5 minutes consecutively knows what starts happening. Your mouth starts getting a little tacky. Lips start sticking together a little bit. You’re not sure where to put your hands anymore because you’ve exhausted all of your face-caressing and back-rubbing moves. You might even get a stray hair swimming around in there that, if you’re savvy, sends you down to the neck area so you can gather yourself, sneak a hand up to your mouth, and get that dang thing out of there.

Where am I going with this? I can’t really remember. But hearing a song over and over and everywhere you turn is something like making out over and over and for a really long time. You can love that song or that band, but once it starts getting played everywhere you turn, it’s natural for you to begin disliking it. (That’s why I never understood those “NOW! That’s What I Call Music” CDs. Rather than drop $20 on the CD, why not just turn on the radio and hear those same songs every hour for free?)

Getting back to John Mayer, I think my new goal is try to make out with someone for 3 hours straight while listening to “Your Body is a Wonderland” on repeat. I think it might rip a hole in the universe.

Great news for those attending SXSW. Here are the Alive Records acts that will be performing:

Trainwreck Riders (Read HearYa Review)

Trainwreck Riders – Christmas Time Blues

Buffalo Killers (Read HearYa Review)

Buffalo Killers – San Martine Des Morelle

SSM

SSM – Sick