It’s said that good can come from any bad.  In the wake of his mother’s (Carrie’s) passing, Sufjan Stevens has affirmed this adage with his masterful album Carrie & Lowell.  Adding to the album, Stevens deftly drove this point home last week in LA with consecutive astonishingly-good and heart-stirring performances at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.  It had been nearly three years since Stevens last traipsed through these parts (for his wondrous “Wheel of Christmas” holiday-party at the Fonda) and five years since his Age of Adz tour de force, and so we were determined to catch both nights of his local stand.

Though his live shows bear the weight of the new album and its devastating themes, the performances are also musically magnificent and dynamic, varying from delicate Simon & Garfunkel/Nick Drake sounds to the massive, end-times bombast of Blue Bucket of Gold.  During the first half of the shows, Stevens killed us softly by performing nearly the entirety of the crestfallen-yet-cathartic Carrie & Lowell (though re-sequenced for his tour).  Though the album’s songs are generally quiet affairs (lending a feeling of intimacy at the Pavilion despite the grand surroundings), the pin-drop crowds were kept on the edge their seats by Stevens’ evocative vocals, deft playing and additive arrangements, coupled with the gifted support of multi-instrumentalists Ben Lanz, Casey Foubert, Dawn Landes, and James McAlister.

After the instrumental prelude of Redford (For Yia-Yia & Pappou), Stevens opened on Death By Dignity by singing, “I don’t know where to begin” and “I’ve got nothing to prove.” Despite these concerns he managed to begin anew magnificently and proved both nights that he is a musical heavyweight despite the ostensibly miniature frames of many of his songs.  Stevens went on thereafter to perform nearly the entirety of Carrie & Lowell.  Should Have Known Better is one of the standouts of the new album and was one of the highlights of the evening (see for yourself below in the fan video).  Other highlights included the superb Paul Simon-ish Eugene, John My Beloved (with Stevens’ otherworldly vocals and Dawn Landes’ harmonies), the desolation and beauty of The Only Thing with its musical “sounds and wonders,” the frankness (“we’re all going to die”) of Fourth of July, and the album’s eponymous homage.  Throughout the first half, Stevens’ home movies of Carrie and others were projected onto church-like window-screens behind the stage.

As a transition to the second half of the shows, Stevens treated the audience to a moving/entertaining monologue each night, and a mesmerizing mix of older songs.  On Wednesday Stevens explained his parents indifference to death:  “I blame my parents for everything.  My obsession with mortality comes from them.  They were unflinching on the topic of death.  I remember one time we were driving in a blizzard and my father lost control on ice, and I looked up in the passenger seat and saw my step-mother grab a ginger ale, drink it and say ‘kiss it goodbye kids.’  As the centrifugal force force gathered in me my entire life.”  He then told a story about his father having him put his pet albino rat (“Mr. Bossy Pants”) out of its misery.  After the deed was done, Stevens’ father said ‘Mr. Bossy Pants just went to meet his maker.'”  And Stevens led into the next song by saying “‘Cause we’re all headed there someday.”  On Thursday Stevens discussed how we are all given great encouragement throughout our lives until we graduate from college and are essentially left alone to weather the harsh realities of life.  He closed by calling for the crowd to commit anew to encouraging others in these times.

The shows’ second half songs included the delicate, given-new-meaning The Owl & The Tanager, three consecutive songs (on Wednesday) from Seven Swans (the first banjo moment on the building In The Devil’s Territory, The Dress Looks Nice on You, and superb solo highlight To Be Alone With You), and Age of Adz’s Futile Devices.  And then on Wednesday it was time for one of the greatest songs ever written, the heart-rending Casimir Pulaski Day (RIP Matt and Claire).  Stevens then closed his main set each night with album-closer Blue Bucket of Gold and its release of Carrie to Revelations-worthy bombast and light.  About this song and its high-decibel backdrop, Stevens has said:  “I didn’t know (my mom) well in a lot of ways and I didn’t know how to say goodbye on the last track with articulation. So I quit playing piano and vocals and just stopped. I wanted to surrender her to the beyond with noises that sound bigger than just me.”  Mission accomplished, as they say.

He closed each night with crowd-favorites from the much-loved Illinois album, including Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois; The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us!; and Chicago.

Differences between the two nights?  The crowd was supremely reverential on Wednesday with no humming or singing along, which reduced distraction and heightened the focus and intensity of the performance.  And Wednesday was our preferred setlist.  On Thursday the sound and vocal effects had been completely dialed-in and the volume levels had been seemingly doubled as the revelatory bombast at times pounded the Pavilion.  And we were treated to For the Widows in Paradise, For the Fatherless in Ypsilanti (watch below).

Stevens never fails to impress live, and these consecutive two-hour shows in Los Angeles confirmed he is one of our most gifted songwriters, composers and performers. Stevens received confirmatory standing-ovations each night from all five levels of the Pavilion. It’s telling that a few days later we still find ourselves gleefully singing “we’re all gonna die” over and over as the unforgettable melody continues to scroll through our minds.

Helado Negro opened each night in solo performance (save two tinsel-covered, nebulous beings in tow) and impressed each night with his songs, but especially his uniquely sonorous vocals.  We can’t wait to catch him the next time he returns to town.

Finally, kudos to Stevens for having the foresight to select the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion for his LA stops.  Doing so cut down dramatically on distractions and brought added focus to the superb songs and performance, without the usual chat and scat fests.  Bravo!

Should Have Known Better:

Fourth of July:

For the Widows in Paradise, For the Fatherless in Ypsilanti:

Casimir Pulaski Day:

Chicago:

Setlist Wednesday:

Redford (For Yia-Yia & Pappou)
Death With Dignity
Should Have Known Better
Drawn to the Blood
All of Me Wants All of You
Eugene
John My Beloved
The Only Thing
Fourth of July
No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross
Carrie & Lowell
The Owl and the Tanager
In the Devil’s Territory
The Dress Looks Nice on You
To Be Alone With You
Futile Devices
Casimir Pulaski Day
Blue Bucket of Gold

Encore:
Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois
The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us!
Chicago

Setlist Thursday:

Redford (For Yia-Yia & Pappou)
Death with Dignity
Should Have Known Better
Drawn to the Blood
All of Me Wants All of You
Eugene
John My Beloved
The Only Thing
Fourth of July
No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross
Carrie & Lowell
The Owl and the Tanager
For the Widows in Paradise, For the Fatherless in Ypsilanti
Heirloom
To Be Alone with You
Futile Devices
Sister
The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us!
Blue Bucket of Gold

Encore:
Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois
Chicago

The great band Spoon is experiencing renewed popularity these days and for good reason. Their 2014 album, They Want My Soul, was not only amongst the Best Albums of 2014 but was also one of the band’s best ever.  It is rare to see a band hit such lofty creative heights 16 years into their career, but that’s exactly what Spoon has done.  And the band has been playing live to sold out shows across the planet.  Britt Daniel and the boys continue to lay down intelligently crushing rock and roll, as Daniel continues to cut the quintessential rock n’ roll figure.

We caught the band last Saturday at The Wiltern, and all was right with the rock n’ roll world.  After a solid opening set from Austin’s stage-filling and energetic Sweet Spirit, Spoon hit the floor and gave heaping spoonfuls of propulsive, guitar-and-keys dominated songs that were rounded out perfectly by Daniel’s rasp-accented vocals (he is one of the best, most-unaffected vocalists in rock).  The sold out and souled crowd ate it up, giving back due adulation to the noticeably appreciative band.

During their set, Spoon played songs spanning their 17-year discography (see setlist at bottom), ultimately closing the night with a thrashing, reverb-laden (naturally) cover of The Cramps’ song TV Set.  The band opened the night with a ringing Rent I Pay and the highlight Knock, Knock, Knock, two of the six songs they would play from They Want My Soul (matching the six songs from Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga and featuring five from Gimme Fiction).  Standouts this night were the superbly-spare Inside Out, the groove-heavy and heavenly Don’t You Evah, new song Satellite, the closest Spoon comes to a ballad–Black Like Me, and You Got Yr Cherry Bomb.  But our favorite of the evening without question was Outlier, which gathers and grooves in a rhythmic throw-down that would never end in a better Eden.  It was a great night of music and we can’t wait to catch them again (perhaps when the sound is more on-target than the curious levels at times on Daniel’s vocals and guitar at The Wiltern).

To get a feel, last night on Conan, Spoon let the world experience their fantastically schralping cover of TV Set.  Check it out below, followed by their riveting cover of the great Wire’s Mannequin (Wire played Saturday night at the nearby Echoplex–conflicts, ya know).

And then get ye to a Spoon show. 

Wiltern Setlist:

Rent I Pay
Knock Knock Knock
Don’t You Evah
The Way We Get By
Small Stakes
My Mathematical Mind
The Ghost of You Lingers
Satellite
Outlier
The Beast and Dragon, Adored
I Turn My Camera On
Inside Out
Do You
The Fitted Shirt
I Summon You
Don’t Make Me a Target
Got Nuffin

Encore:
They Never Got You
Rainy Taxi
The Underdog

Encore 2:
Black Like Me
You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb
TV Set

In the wake of her consecutive sold out shows at the Roxy this past weekend, Melbourne’s indefatigable Courtney Barnett slipped in an afternoon show at the Grammy Museum on Sunday afternoon.  And we were there.  Barnett was thoughtful and her usual clever self during her 40 minute chat with Robert Santelli (the director of the Grammy Museum) in the phenomenally intimate Clive Davis Theater.  During the question-and-answer time that followed, Barnett divulged that her record label, Milk! Records, will soon put out a new compilation of her songs and that Whole Foods is her favorite thing about America (really, not LA’s freeways?).  Following a young lad’s diatribe/question about being born in the ’80s, urban flight and the economic collapse of Wall Street, Barnett responded by recommending a “listen to Depreston.”  Afterwards, Barnett performed a small cadre of songs, including Avant Gardener, Pedestrian at Best, Depreston, Elevator Operator and Small Poppies.  Barnett sounded fantastic throughout and gave good indication that at the Roxy that night the punky Pedestrian At Best would blow the doors off.  Depreston best highlighted her unique lefty, claw-hammer guitar-playing style. Unfortunately, Barnett just started getting going at the tiny  Grammy Museum when she had to stop, probably to run over to the Roxy for  soundcheck.  It was like ordering an appetizer and then finding out the restaurant closes in 10 minutes, and the walk out past the Taylor Swift memorabilia on display nearby was just a little bitter sweet.  Oh well.  That’s what we get for missing her at the Roxy!  If you get the chance, don’t miss her and her tight band.  The remaining tour dates, including Bonnaroo, can be found HERE.

To get a better feel for Barnett, check out her performance last night of Dead Fox on Conan.  Barnett and her lads (CB3, as she’s dubbed them) played tight and with aplomb.  Superb!

Elvis Costello is one of the greatest singer-songwriters extant.  His discography soundly shames most of the other pretenders to the throne.  Though he got his start ostensibly as a “punk,” this ruse was quickly routed, and it wasn’t long before critics and fans alike were lauding his songwriting skills.  Though his great songs are too numerous to list, following our stay over the weekend at a Los Angeles motel/hotel we have had Costello’s underrated song-noir masterpiece, Motel Matches, on repeat.  Featuring an alluring melody, well-wrought lyrical couplets and storyline (lyrics at bottom), stellar playing, and above all, Costello’s passionate vocal delivery (he’s one of our best vocalists), Motel Matches is amongst the highest in our ranking of Costello’s great songs.  We only regret it isn’t longer.  Giving you away like motel matches.  Indeed.

About the song, Costello has said:  “Upon my first motel night in Los Angeles I was hoaxed into believing that I had been assigned the very room where Sam Cooke had been murdered. I didn’t sleep much until I found out in the morning that it had occurred in an entirely different location. Such innocence was short-lived, but the infamous Tropicana became the site of many less serious crimes, indiscretions and comedies.”

“Somewhere in the distance I can hear ‘Who Shot Sam?’
This is my conviction, that I am an innocent man
Though you say I’m unkind
I’m being as nice as I can

Boys everywhere, fumbling with the catches
I struck lucky with motel matches
Falling for you without a second look
Falling out of your open pocketbook
Giving you away like motel matches

I wake with the siren in an emergency
Though your mind is full of love
In your eyes there is a vacancy
And you know what I’ll do
When the light outside changes from red to blue

Boys everywhere, fumbling with the catches
I struck lucky with motel matches
Falling for you without a second look
Falling out of your open pocketbook
Giving you away like motel matches”

The incredibly talented Canadian artist, Patrick Watson, has a newly released album entitled Love Songs for Robots that is rightfully receiving rave reviews.  One of the great songs off the new album is the Dr. Zeuss homage Places You Will Go (lyrics at bottom).  About the song, Watson has said:

“That is kind of a song that is the most similar to what we’ve done in the past. I read a lot of Dr. Seuss books when I was a kid and the book I took the title from is one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read. All Dr. Seuss books make incredible adult songs. I was reading the book to my kids and I realized Dr. Seuss wrote so many smart things in it that even adults don’t tell each other. If something were to ever happen to me and when my kids become twenty years old I would want them to listen to this song as my personal message to them.”

We couldn’t agree more.  To add to the composition’s largesse, watch below as Watson and ensemble give a great live reading of it at the recent CBC Music Festival.  Watson’s vocals (together with his backers’) are superb as usual.  There will be joy!

Watson is currently out on tour and though his Hollywood Forever Cemetery show on June 4th is sold out, there are lots of options to be found HERE.  And ferheavensake go buy the great new album HERE.

And if that wasn’t enough to convince you to go see Watson and buy Love Songs for Robots, then watch below their Arcade Fire-ish performance at the Fairmount Theater in Montreal of another superb track off the album, Hearts.  Wow.

Places You Will Go:

“You could have stepped to the top of the water poles
Into the wells of the shimmer love
She’s gonna drive you to the shores
But you don’t know who you are
I tell her take your time now
You’re gonna take, take your time

Walking through the city of too many roads
When I don’t know how to talk
Swallow all the pretty lights
Gettin’ off, this kinda feels right
Places you will go

It can be shiny, tiny, stranger wandering
And if you don’t wanna ride
It’s gonna get a little lonely, that’s right
The only thing you need to feel
Should have eyes on the melody

Bla, bla, bla-bla, bla
Been talking, sorta talking but you don’t wanna hear
It’s one of the seasons, let me try, try
Get out, get out the world you came
Places you will go

All the places you can go
It’s so simple now
Feels some things I do wrong
Put your head down on my shoulder
I can turn, we can turn to the places we know
I can turn, we can turn to the places we know
Turn in time and find some

It’s so simple right now
All the places
through the ground
Places you-ooh-ooh”

Courtney Barnett continues to take the world by storm with her new album Sometimes I Sit and Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit, with its wise-hearted wordplay, meandering melodies, propulsive meters and captivating guitar wrangling.  La Blogotheque recently captured Barnett in a walkway in Paris performing Depreston (one of our favorites off the album) on a Take Away Show.  Check it out below.  Barnett plays two sold-out shows at The Roxy in LA this weekend, but there are still tickets available for other shows to be found HERE.

Little Wings has just dropped its outstanding new album Explains on new label Woodsist.  We’ve been huge fans of this under-appreciated ensemble for well over a decade and were thrilled to learn of the new release.  After non-stop, repeat listens, we believe this to be amongst the band’s best albums to date (extremely high praise given their prior output and Wonderue in particular).  To our ears, Explains contains some of the band’s most melodic and accessible (in a blessedly off-kilter way) songs to date, and all without losing leader Kyle Field’s unique wordplay and world-vantage.  In short, Explains is amongst our favorite albums of the year thus far and has survived repeated listens phenomenally well.  Check out the tremendous opening track By Now below, and go HERE to buy this superb new outing from Little Wings.  Afterwards, check out our email interview with Kyle Field in between live performances, others’ recording sessions, and a foray to Japan.

Interview with Kyle Field:

Lefort:  Your last album’s title (Last) was a bit foreboding and, like many of your fans, we were concerned that it might indeed be your last.  But then news of the new “Explains” hit and the concern was annulled.  Is it fair to say, as alluded to on the new album, that you’ve determined/resigned-yourself to keep laying those “golden eggs” for your friends and fans?

KF:  The foreboding title was in some sense a reaction to the Mayan Calendar scare and year and it was recorded in 2012 before the world was supposed to end [Lefort:  listen to the allusion thereto in the song By Now above], in turn making it the last Little Wings album.  My backup meaning for that title was that Little Wings “last” like, survive the apocalypse or “since ’98.”

Lefort:  Having had the new album on repeat for weeks and still loving it, where do you see it falling?  How does it differ in your mind, if at all, compared to your other albums?

KF:  I have no idea…. I don’t compare my albums to each other.  In a sense I am focusing on the new songs that aren’t recorded yet and that leaves me very little time for bean counting. [The album] survived the mixing/mastering phase in my ears and that says a lot because you end up hearing it so many times and picking apart every moment.  If I was forced to compare, I would say that it has more rhythmic drive and push than most of the others thanks to Zeb Zaitz and Tommy McDonald’s ears and natural style.

Lefort:  Which of the songs on the new album are you most proud?

KF:  I celebrate them all. I enjoy the sequence and how the record works beginning to end.

Lefort:  Thematically, the album seems to ask big questions and to be an assessment of your life and work.  With questions about growing older, higher beings, the vagabond vs. conventional–life, solo vs. relational life, what was the backdrop and context for the creation of “Explain”?

KF:  It started as an idea for a list, like: “Little Wings explains: a blade of grass, this evening, etc.” So it was like a lecture about the world or something near to it.  It bled out from there, taking on subtler angles and themes arriving at “Little Wings explains Fat Chance.”  Explaining what I have learned by now.

Lefort:  With respect to your last album, LAST, you said:  “Lots of things I feel and inject into the experience I realize are just for me and me alone as guidelines and motivations.”  What aspects of the new album fall into that category?

KF:  I think this one is more open and generous in a sense; not subduing the keyboard sounds and less hiding perhaps.

Lefort:  What portion of your songwriting is “spontaneous inspiration” versus painstaking attention to crafting a song?

KF:  Besides a few band-aids (word overdubs), the lyrics for the first song By Now were completely improvised.  I was basically serenading Tommy McDonald (The Range of Light Wilderness) who was pressing “record” in his living room where we did a lot of the secondary overdubs of the album.  I don’t feel “painstaking” could really apply because if i get a good idea for a song, it feels like a puzzle to solve and the process is different each time.  I don’t tend to force myself to write very often.

Lefort:  When and where was the new album recorded, who were the players and who produced?  How was the process for you?

KF:  The initial song-beds for the new album were recorded at a house near Morro Bay where drummer/pianist Zeb Zaitz (Sparrow’s Gate) lives by John Baccigaluppi (Tape Op, The Hangar) with whom I recorded LAST.  Additional layering was added a few weeks later at a house in Big Sur where bassist/keyboardist Tommy McDonald lives. I sometimes have a funny relationship with the word “produced” as I figure anyone who added to it helped.  But I guess I would say it was produced by John, Tommy, me and Kyle Mullarky (who I mixed the album with at his home studio in Topanga Canyon). Paul Dutton added some great guitar overdubbing, and sounds. Lee Baggett layered guitars and a few vocals. Fletcher Tucker (Gnome Life, Bird by Snow) put on some dulcimer, bowed dulcimer,and keyboard parts.  Tommy and I both put keyboards on it, and Joel Tolbert played slide guitar and accordion, which is very low in the mix. The process was pretty great; we all get along really well, and Tommy and Zeb have been friends of mine for a while, and have been in different versions of the live band over the last two years.  Essentially I had put together [Tommy, Zeb and me] as a trio and played a handful of shows and just liked the way we sound and play together and wanted to run new songs through that tube.

Lefort:   Live and on some tracks on LAST (Neptune’s Next and Knock of Every Door), you performed a couple of songs with quasi-rap elements.  We were anticipating some expansion into this realm on the new album.  But you seem to have resisted/squashed that vein for now.  Any prospects for the future?

KF:   I feel a lot of rap in the new album, and I have introduced boasting for the first time, which i feel is even more rappy than in the past.

Lefort:  Like many, we enjoyed your brief collaborations with Feist a while back.  Do you stay in touch and are there any further collaborations contemplated in the future?

KF:  Thanks. We stay in touch here and there, and who knows? Everyone is busy with new things, but stranger things could happen.

Lefort:  How did the Woodsist collaboration come to be?

KF:  I asked Jeremy Earl (Woods) if he would want to put out a Little Wings album, and he said he had been wanting to put one out for years.  Mutual admiration i guess.  I had been invited to play the Woodsist Festival for two years in a row ,and his interest and support seemed reliable/attractive.  I like his label and think it’s a nice fit  working together.

Lefort:  During another musician/artist’s (Joseph Arthur’s) recent tours, he painted canvases on stage while performing songs.  Knowing your artistic ways, any possibility of your doing the same (we asked, anticipating a “what-am-i-a-circus-act” response)?

KF:  I would love to.  I have used an overhead projector before and drawn and sang at the same time.  I need to hit that note again.

Lefort:  Out of all your recordings, do you have a favorite album and a favorite song?

KF:  Not so much.  I am usually into my latest song that has just been written, when the paint’s still wet and pre- studio.

Lefort:  What are you upcoming performance plans?

KF:  We performed as a big band (seven piece) at the Woodsist Festivals.  Now in Japan to play seven solo shows. I used to go to Big Sur in the 90’s and wondered if I would ever get to play music there, and now I play at least two times a year it seems.  So no complaints.

Lefort: Your lyrics in particular seem at times improvisational and at others painstakingly penned.  Is that the case?

KF:  Yes, I think I go for some sort of juxtaposition/inconsistency in some sense because i think it’s more interesting than a blatantly straightforward narrative.  That being said, I rebounded from that thought and began learning more country songs and then re-realized the power of straightforward storytelling. It’s hard to do.  This album dabbles in some abstract expressionism that may feel topsy-turvy to some.

Lefort: Are there other lyricists/poets that have inspired your own lyrical style?

KF:  Too many to name, and I am a pretty lame name dropper.  But, you know….poets, country singers, divas, and this rapper named “Cold G” from Oakland, CA.

Thanks Kyle.  We will have a full review of Explains soon come.

Bon Iver went on deserved hiatus a few years back following their never-ending world tour in support of their eponymously-dubbed second album.  Last week leader Justin Vernon confirmed hiatus interruptus when he announced that the band will return to headline the first annual Eaux Claires Music Festival this July.  Vernon went on to say that the appearance is anticipated to be a catalyst for the band’s next cycle.  We can’t wait because their 2011 album and 2012 concert at the Santa Barbara Bowl were absolute highlights of those musical years.

A day after hearing this good news, we found that Austin City Limits has made its Bon Iver episode available for viewing, but only until June 13th.  Do yourselves a favor and watch that segment below before it goes on hiatus.  It’s as good as it get.  In a word it’s:  magnificent.  And get ready for the return of the great Bon Iver.

Photo at top by Jake Moore

Years ago, folk singer John Gorka paid tribute in his song Let Them In by setting in song a poem written during World War II.  To those that have served….

“Let them in, Peter,
They are very tired
Give them couches where the angels sleep
And light those fires

Let them wake whole again
To brand new dawns
Fired with the sun
Not wartime’s bloody guns

May their peace be deep
Remember where the broken bodies lie
God knows how young they were
To have to die
God knows how young they were to have to die

Give them things they like
Let them make some noise
Give roadhouse bands, not golden harps
To these our boys

And let them love, Peter
Cause they’ve had no time
They should have trees and bird songs
And hills to climb

The taste of summer in a ripened pear
And girls sweet as meadow winds
With flowing hair

Tell them how they are missed
And say not to fear
It’s gonna be alright
With us down here

Let them in, Peter”