Live Eye Tv is back with another great year of videos, and what better way to start it out than taking a peak back at some of our favorites of the last year; as well as, some hot bands to keep your eyes on in ’07. This month in the Video Music Dept. we have perennial indie favs., Thom Yorke and Chan Marshall, as well as that Sub Pop band catchin on like the cold, Band of Horses… Thom Yorke creates an eery, hyper-world for the song “Harrowdown Hill”, Cat Power gets all emotionally naked and available for “Lived in Bars”, and Band of Horses put aside equestrian and musical pursuits to play a little game of softball in “The Great Salt Lakes”. Rounding out the episode this month, live and loud music from The Silver Jews, MAN MAN, and Blood on the Wall– all filmed for “reals” in Seattle, Wa…
In the 1990’s, The Silver Jews, along with a handful of other bands like Pavement, Dinosaur/Sebadoh, and The Royal Trucks, helped to fill out and define what an independent aesthetic might sound like for a new generation of musicians and fans. Though notoriously stage shy, David Berman formed some important musical friendships early in his career, while still a student at The University of Virginia; and upon graduation he, Stephen Malkmus, and Bob Nastanovich headed out for NYC. Berman and Malkmus got jobs as custodians at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and so it was-livin’ on Art’s dime by day and floggin’ the corpse of Rock by night! The trio quickly struck cracked gold with the 7″ Dime Map of the Reef in 1990, and followed it up in ’93 with the hazy and impossible Arizona Record. Smart ass wit and booky geekishness shone through the snowy crackle of pasted together 4-track jams, and bedroom audiophiles everywhere creamed themselves with the arrival of the “homemade” album. In limited edition, it had the record dorks tripping over themselves to get a copy. However, it was just as the rock ship started to take off for the Jews (and Malkmus, and Nastanovich finding success with their band Pavement), that Berman decided to take a right turn on his boho days by enrolling in a creative writing program at The University of Massachusetts. School didn’t stop the group from recording, though, and in ’94 they released their first studio album Starlight Walker to immediate acclaim. Yet, growing interest in the Jews work, was not enough to overcome Berman’s stage fears and indifference towards rock life on the road; and so the formula of making albums with good friends during well earned time off from teaching and studying continued, and continues to this day, as 2005’s Tanglewood Numbers has renewed musical meetings with Malkmus and Nastanovich, as well as playing from his wife Cassie, Will Oldham, and Azita Youseffi, to name a few. With each album Berman has solidified his mastery for penning charming, off-handed ballads about the American Wasteland, and each record is solidly backed by his comrades’ intuitive understanding for the musical equivalent to these poetic visions…Recently doffing his apprehensions for performing, in 2006 Mr. Berman decided to take the Silver Jews out for a little spin, and Live Eye Tv had the supreme fortune to catch up with them at Seattle’s Showbox Theatre!
Also up this month, in the Live Music Department, out of Philly, a group of ruthless musicians recording on Ace Fu Records…Man Man, yo. Their live shows blow things through the roof, and have earned them quite the reputation for shakin’ down the proverbial “house”. As a group, Man Man has more recently coalesced into a hard working five piece that make genre defying hairpins inside a collapsing circus of styles…rum soaked waltzes polka through klezmer into the raucous multi- chorus of stoned gypsies marauding the Saturday morning cartoons. The band has for the most part played without guitar, and instead the percussively led ballads are carried by the keys…sometimes more organ sounding and other times more piano. With all the layers to embellish, and moody gruff sung lyrics, it is quite a disorienting and beautiful sound to behold. Live, the band extolls a maximum energy approach, and shreds through rambling sets with ne’er a word in edgewise. To see this band in full swing, we caught up with them live at Neumos in Seattle. If you like what you see give these records a whirl…Six Demon Bag or The Man in the Blue Turban with a Face.
And to finish for Live Music…last, but not least, Brooklyn’s Blood on the Wall, out on The Social Registry. This three piece, made up of brother and sister duo, Courtney and Brad Shanks, with Miggy Littleton on drums, makes crazy noise out of loose blaring jams driven by Littleton’s hard punching rhythms. The sound on the bands second full length Awesomer is a kick-ass reminder how much “fuck-it-all” loud music, with heavy beat and bass, rules, and the album ultimately prevails with it’s 90’s slacker ethic still intact. Nice to see it back, actually, all drunk up and riding the dance floor. This is punk rock live from The Funhouse in Seattle, WA.
