Playing in Fog Presents
The Heavenly States
Built Like Alaska
David Dondero
The Rum Diary
August 06, 2005
The Independent
9pm • $10
Poster Artist: Terrence Ryan
Imagine if you were at an electro dance party that didn't suck because the music was played with the verve and bravado which, at the time of writing this, is still beyond the capability of most robots or even your average hipster grist. As you would at a good dance party, you find your self blasted against and enveloped within a complex and rocked-out wall of frequencies somehow navigable as carefully crafted verse-chorus-verse-bridge-chorus tunesmithing. All this is achieved without the gimicry of odd mathy time signatures or Kool pallettes of sounds. The instrument setting takes rock performance in a new direction. This my young friend, is he Heavenly States.
www.theheavenlystates.com
The isolation of the Central Valley has provided Built Like Alaska (Neil Jackson-vocals/guitar, Matt Candelario-bass, David Burtch-drums, Susane Reis-keyboards/vocals, Sean Norman- guitars) with the physical and mental space to develop into a creative force. Their new album contains vivid pictures of rural life with all the beauty and struggle that comes with it. Autumnland was recorded in Oakdale CA, near Modesto, by band member Neil Jackson with additional help from friend Lucky Lew, who has also helped on many of Grandaddy's recordings in the past. Autumnland as Neil puts it, "is like smelling the air full of chimney smoke from the first fire of the year or making a homemade Halloween costume when you were a kid, comforting feelings a person hopes they never lose." From the airy keyboards of "Train Wreck" to themes of small-town ennui that permeate "Does Your Mother Feel Sick?" and "Happy Home", Built Like Alaska is able to transcend the open isolation of the Central Valley with majestic, melancholic, music. (bio)
www.builtlikealaska.com
Singer/songwriter David Dondero's musical career began in 1993, when he released the first of three records as a member of the alt-rock band Sunbrain. But since he split the band and headed out on his own, his music has been more comparable to such American folk music/troubadour greats as Woody Guthrie and Townes Van Zandt. The year 2001 saw the release of his solo effort Shooting at the Sun With a Water Gun, an album in which Dondero assumes the role of different characters for nearly each song (while some were biographical, such as "Analysis of a 1970's Divorce," which recounts his parents' split). The album was produced by Billy Konkel, and was recorded in Konkel's living room. In 2003 he released Transient, his second full-length for Future Farmer records. - allmusic.com
www.futurefarmer.com/davidd.html
The Rum Diary's Poisons That Save Lives sounds like the answer to that rarely asked musical question, "What would happen if a bunch of emo kids got hold of a stack of early-'70s space rock albums?" The results are actually quite delightful; this style of music has been resurrected several times, most recently by the post-Radiohead, chillily artsy likes of Sigur Rós and Godspeed You Black Emperor!, and just before that by the mid-'90s wave of slowcore bands like Codeine and Bedhead. The similarities between the Rum Diary's take on this music and their immediate predecessors is obvious -- the bass, wooden and hollow-sounding, takes the melodic lead most of the time, with the guitars mostly there to anchor the drones and offer single-chord rhythm parts, and the drums are alternately nearly amorphous and tensely, skitteringly, driving -- but Poisons That Save Lives is much more musically direct and vibrant than either of the previous subgenres. Their songs have a stronger melodic focus -- "Killed By the Cowboy President" is practically a pop song, and would not sound at all out of place on any late-era Yo La Tengo album -- and even at their most droning, as on the lengthy closing track, "The No Hunt," the songs are never simply shapeless haze. Highly recommended. - allmusic.com
www.therumdiary.net
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www.playinginfog.com
The Heavenly States
Built Like Alaska
David Dondero
The Rum Diary
August 06, 2005
The Independent
9pm • $10
Poster Artist: Terrence Ryan
Imagine if you were at an electro dance party that didn't suck because the music was played with the verve and bravado which, at the time of writing this, is still beyond the capability of most robots or even your average hipster grist. As you would at a good dance party, you find your self blasted against and enveloped within a complex and rocked-out wall of frequencies somehow navigable as carefully crafted verse-chorus-verse-bridge-chorus tunesmithing. All this is achieved without the gimicry of odd mathy time signatures or Kool pallettes of sounds. The instrument setting takes rock performance in a new direction. This my young friend, is he Heavenly States.
www.theheavenlystates.com
The isolation of the Central Valley has provided Built Like Alaska (Neil Jackson-vocals/guitar, Matt Candelario-bass, David Burtch-drums, Susane Reis-keyboards/vocals, Sean Norman- guitars) with the physical and mental space to develop into a creative force. Their new album contains vivid pictures of rural life with all the beauty and struggle that comes with it. Autumnland was recorded in Oakdale CA, near Modesto, by band member Neil Jackson with additional help from friend Lucky Lew, who has also helped on many of Grandaddy's recordings in the past. Autumnland as Neil puts it, "is like smelling the air full of chimney smoke from the first fire of the year or making a homemade Halloween costume when you were a kid, comforting feelings a person hopes they never lose." From the airy keyboards of "Train Wreck" to themes of small-town ennui that permeate "Does Your Mother Feel Sick?" and "Happy Home", Built Like Alaska is able to transcend the open isolation of the Central Valley with majestic, melancholic, music. (bio)
www.builtlikealaska.com
Singer/songwriter David Dondero's musical career began in 1993, when he released the first of three records as a member of the alt-rock band Sunbrain. But since he split the band and headed out on his own, his music has been more comparable to such American folk music/troubadour greats as Woody Guthrie and Townes Van Zandt. The year 2001 saw the release of his solo effort Shooting at the Sun With a Water Gun, an album in which Dondero assumes the role of different characters for nearly each song (while some were biographical, such as "Analysis of a 1970's Divorce," which recounts his parents' split). The album was produced by Billy Konkel, and was recorded in Konkel's living room. In 2003 he released Transient, his second full-length for Future Farmer records. - allmusic.com
www.futurefarmer.com/davidd.html
The Rum Diary's Poisons That Save Lives sounds like the answer to that rarely asked musical question, "What would happen if a bunch of emo kids got hold of a stack of early-'70s space rock albums?" The results are actually quite delightful; this style of music has been resurrected several times, most recently by the post-Radiohead, chillily artsy likes of Sigur Rós and Godspeed You Black Emperor!, and just before that by the mid-'90s wave of slowcore bands like Codeine and Bedhead. The similarities between the Rum Diary's take on this music and their immediate predecessors is obvious -- the bass, wooden and hollow-sounding, takes the melodic lead most of the time, with the guitars mostly there to anchor the drones and offer single-chord rhythm parts, and the drums are alternately nearly amorphous and tensely, skitteringly, driving -- but Poisons That Save Lives is much more musically direct and vibrant than either of the previous subgenres. Their songs have a stronger melodic focus -- "Killed By the Cowboy President" is practically a pop song, and would not sound at all out of place on any late-era Yo La Tengo album -- and even at their most droning, as on the lengthy closing track, "The No Hunt," the songs are never simply shapeless haze. Highly recommended. - allmusic.com
www.therumdiary.net
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www.playinginfog.com
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