Young@Heart is a documentary about a senior citizen choir group based out of Northampton, Massachusetts who cover rock songs in a spectacularly enjoyable way. They covers songs from The Clash, Sonic Youth, The Ramones, and Talking Heads just to name a few(full list here). The documentary plays a game of of shoots and ladders with your emotions. This movie will work out your mouth with all the frowning and smiling you will be doing.
The issue of death is one of the main subjects of this film, with many of the cast members crossing over to the other side, in between great moments of joy that will devastatingly remind you of how short life really is. I don’t want to make you think that once you finish this film you will find yourself in a state of depression, because in my case that was not the case. You will hopefully find yourself in a state of reflection.
The senior citizens take death so lightly, cracking jokes whenever they can about it. They make fun of bright white lights, and how many times they’ve had their last rights read to them. This movie will remind you of your mortality, it will make you not fear of growing old, and dread it all at the same time. I caught this documentary late into the night on the Houston Public Broadcasting Channel, so you will have to check your local listings to see if they will shows this in your town.
Sadly I can’t embed their music video for their Ramones cover so here is a link.
It’s not a secret anymore, Mountain Man is amazing. I’ve been seeing their name being dropped like butter on a pan by everyone from Gorilla vs. Bear, to Chocolate Bobka, to Part Time Music. And unlike the buzz that feeds around so many cute one hitindie wonders, Mountain Man, although still an infant in rock years [one year this April], have a bright and poetic future still ahead of them.
I’ve heard a couple of tracks by them, but it was not until I heard their contribution to Underwater Peoples Winter Review Compilation that had me weak to the knees. It’s sparse guitar notes and those heavy vocals, uh, I can’t even imagine how this song would sound live? I think I would weep. Luring you in like love in the spring and quickly letting you go in the dead of winter, “Dog Song”, is a short, but beautifully narrated tale of time being pleasantly spent with the one. It’s one of those songs you lay in your bed listening to, while you stare out your windows at trees.
The results are in, and the following are aggregate lists of submissions for the Llano Idea Top Albums and Top Songs of 2009. Thanks to our contributors; we couldn’t have done it without ya!
-ranking for the aggregate lists are based on number of entries for a particular song/album and the individual ranking from each contributor.
The beginning of January usually becomes a time to catch up. I don’t need to tell you that, you’re probably doing so as you read this – making sure the rent check got sent, the utilities are paid for, catching up on blogs and your mp3 downloads. I’m no different. The beginning of January always becomes a race over time to catch up to the rest of the world. You personally might not still be in holiday mode, but someone out there is, and you need them not to be so you can get your shit taken care of. With that being said I have noticed something about my music listening habits when it comes to January, it usually consists of me kicking myself for not listening to something that got released in the previous year. It’s not always an ass kicking, but usually a stern conversation with myself for about 30 minutes, which can turn sad/funny really fast. This year’s mistake happened fast with Zola Jesus.
Zola Jesus, is the solo project of Madison, Wisconsin’s (that’s right Wisconsin), Nika Roza Danilova. I first heard (around later November-ish) about her through, of course, maneuvering swiftly through the world wide web. The few facts I do know about ZJ is that she is a 20 year old University of Wisconsin student double majoring in French and Philosophy, who just happened to grow up as a opera-trained singer. With Zola Jesus, Danilova creates pretty rough sounding drones, layered pretty heavily with a steady beat, Ian Curtis style vocals and haunting piano riffs. She sort of reminds me of Ariel Pink, in the sense that at first her songs might just sound like some noise reverberation, but if one takes the time to really listen you can hear bits of Lydia Lunch, Joy Division, The Shang Ri-La’s, The Residents, and Bjork.
The history of a band is almost as interesting and complex as the music itself, which is no different for local space druganauts La Panza. This week La Panza will be playing their final show as a Lubbock band, and will take the trip many had dreamed about, but few have done. They will pack up the few belongings they own and make the 1,500 mile trek to Brooklyn, New York. But how did they come to this point? I sat down with Andrew Chavez and Sean Lewis (aka La Panza), earlier this week after a band practice to get the scoop of how La Panza came to be and what lies ahead of them.
Llano Idea: Hey guys. So tell me how you guys know each other?
Andrew Chavez: I think we have known each other since like either ’96 or ’97.
Sean Lewis: Were both from Plainview, a super small town outside of Lubbock, where everyone knows each other. So I feel like I’ve known Chavez my whole life. But I think we started to hang out after some Plainview Little Dribbler’s practices.
AC: (Nostalgic laughter) Yeah that sounds about right.
Well I’m sure we’ve all gotten bad gifts at some point so here is some Garfunkel and Oates to help you find a little joy in receiving a bad gift when you try your hardest to pretend you like what you got. Also their are a lot of great cameos by TV actors showing off their present faces.
It seems like Virgina rap duo Gene and Terrance Thornton (otherwise known as Malice and Pusha-T, aka Clipse) revel in releasing their albums in December, purposefully screwing up everyone’s year-end list order after its been made. Although their latest effort doesn’t pack the punch as past releases Hell Hath No Fury and Lord Willin’, in a year when rap music was devoid of great albums and people were debating if this was the beginning-of-the-end of hip-hop, their release is probably second only to Raekwon’s epic wordily titled masterpiece Only Built 4 Cuban Linx Pt. II — which, to be honest, is kind of sad.
2009 has come and gone, and most notable music blogs and webzines have been posting their picks for the best of the year – choices picked by a handful of people for the music world to see (Pitchfork is releasing their picks this week, and so far the results have been pretty predictable.)
Here at the Llano Idea, we have a different approach; we are a community of music lovers, and so the choice is yours. E-mail your submissions for YOUR personal picks for Best Songs and Best Albums of 2009 to llanomusic@gmail.com by December 31, 2009. That gives you plenty of time to compile some decent lists.
We want your feedback; it doesn’t matter if you can only make a Top 3, or if you spent way too much time on music this year and can produce a Top 200. And if you only want to do albums and not songs (or vice-versa) that’s cool too. And if you’re not into ranking, we’re okay with that. Any way you can help us produce the best year-end lists ever would totally rock. Submissions will be tallyed and a post in January will give two aggregate lists of everyone’s picks together: The Llano Idea Top Songs of 2009 and the Llano Idea Top Albums of 2009.
How big these lists are will depend on the amount of submissions we get. We’ll also post your individual picks on the site for all to see (if you don’t want your picks posted, just let us know via e-mail when you submit). Just make sure your picks were actually released in 2009.
To get us all started and to get an idea for your own lists, I have posted my picks for the year after the jump. Thanks for your help, and have fun! Here’s hoping 2010 is as awesome of a year for music as 2009 was.
For those who live and breath Lubbock’s live music scene, this comes as no surprise: WE HAVE THE BEST CROWDS AT OUR SHOWS! Apparently, we have also converted the oddball orchestral group the Portland Cello Project, as they just wrote a glowing review of their recently performed Lubbock gig (alongside Thao with the Get Down Stay Down) for their popular hometown newspaper The Willamette Weekly.
Here are some noteworthy excerpts:
“That was at the last of four straight shows in Texas, which culminated in this Supersized Sports Bar in a strip mall in Lubbock called Jake’s. On its website, this bar boasts 60 television sets. There were three in the men’s bathroom alone. In spite of all outward appearances and the context through my admittedly, and now ashamedly, prejudiced eyes, this was easily one of the coolest shows of the tour. It was definitely the most energetic…”
“…And then two days later, Lubbock beat Austin hands down, with probably the loudest and most energetic crowd I’ve ever played in front of with any band.”
So this is not the official video for this song, but the classic Mickey Mouse cartoon does sync up pretty well with the song (with some minor editing). This is the lead single track from their new LP (of the same name), and with the new album also come a new line up. Now featuring new drummer of Seth Densham, Tim Preseley (precussion/vox) and Jenna Thornhill DeWitt (sax/vox ex Mika Miko), the six pack punch of the Strange Boys is gonna be harder than ever. If this track is any indication of how amazing and awesome Be Brave is gonna be, this very well could be a contender for those infamous end-of-year best-of lists…
I’ve been digging this band for a little of a year now. I have only seen them once, but they blew my mind, and after a killer Monotonix set nonetheless. They were hand picked by Trent “I don’t play shows no more” Reznor to open up for NIN in Europe! And they are singed to gold-making producer Diplo’s Mad Decent label! Did I also mention they are all brothers, and while they were all born in America, their family is from Pakistan! You can now tell how they won my heart.
This live version is taken from a home show in Philly @ Johnny Brenda’s ,which from what I can tell from stalking their Myspace for over a year, is like our Bash’s!
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