A Blessing from Sufjan.
Gillian Welch and a Roche can bless too…
Communal band Paul Simon Bless…
Josh Groban fans feel fairly blessed about Dan.
As does Josh himself…
Naturally Patrick Stewart wanted to be involved…
Unity.
The Roches have spirits that are in line with Dan.
From the upcoming stunning album by Beach House—Devotion, to be released in February 2008.
Download Beach House - Gila
“D.A.R.L.I.N.G.” removed by request of Carpark Records.
I’m sorry; I just can’t not post about one of my favorite bands. I get too excited, and I want the world to hear it and appreciate them.
Hello, creatures of the fall. Our touring has ceased; we are taking a lovely break—each working on new material, which we are excited about. Touring with our favorites Beach House (download “Saltwater” mp3) this fall and playing Iceland Airwaves were both incredible experiences, topped off by what was definitely our favorite hometown show ever, at the Society For Ethical Culture. We were so honored and excited that Paul Simon came, so Dan and Chris Bear did their cover of “Graceland” (download) for him, which they normally don’t do live.
The Friend EP came out, and the response has been so amazing—surprisingly so, actually. Thanks to everyone who went out and got it. It’s a funny and strange EP, but we had a great time making it. Naturally NME hated it and said the only thing good about it was the CSS cover, but considering how little credibility they have these days, we took it as a compliment!
I (Ed) turned 29 in late October and had a bowling birthday party, which was tons of fun. I didn’t realize it until midway through the festivities, but I had a bowling birthday party when I was 11. I guess everything comes full circle. Just like plaid flannels, huh?
For a good year I’d been pestering my band-mate Daniel to do a cover of the ridiculously cheesy (but might I add very catchy) Jo Jo track “Too Little Too Late.” At first I was bribing him with an old iPod, but no dice. He wasn’t having it. Finally, actually over a year from when I first asked him to, he decided to surprise me and give me a cover of the song for my birthday. He had remembered I wanted him to sing it very seriously, as if he really meant all those lyrics (which, if you know the song, is really hilarious) and he did, and what happened? Well, everyone who has heard it can’t even believe it’s the same song. He turned something so auto-tuned and trite into a really great song. I’ve been listening on repeat. Hopefully you’ll enjoy! Here it is:
Download Daniel Rossen - Too Little Too Late [Jo Jo Cover]
I’m low on pictures on this post. In fact I’m not going to post any, but I’m going to keep the MP3 flow alive and healthy. We’ve been working on a track with Feist for a yet-to-be-announced compilation, and it’s gotten me into relistening to her albums, and I chanced upon this really great alternative version of her song (my favorite) “Intuition.” As I do with almost every song I love, I’ve been playing it on a repeat as well.
Download Feist - Intuition
Thanksgiving was great. Chad cooked an enormous turkey. We had some friends over. I made brussel sprouts and pancetta, which is my favorite dish ever. I can’t even believe I ever used to hate brussel sprouts as a kid. Someone told me the reason kids don’t like strong flavors like blue cheese or brussel sprouts is because their taste buds are too sensitive and the flavor is its true strength and not tasty. As you grow older, your tastebuds die or become less sensitive (this is all hearsay, mind you) and so you can handle those flavors. I also used to hate tomatoes, too, and now I can eat an heirloom tomato like an apple. Thank god, my taste buds dulled. That’s all I have to say to that.
Bradford Cox from Deerhunter has been in town doing press for his new solo project Atlas Sound. A few nights ago, he played me tracks from the follow-up to this album, which he is already halfway done writing and recording (dude is prolific), and I was already swooning for this January /February release of Atlas Sound’s debut, but the new stuff takes it even further. Not to be a tease, but get excited even if you have to wait a year. It’s incredible stuff. Perfect fall/winter music.
A artist by the name of James Rutledge from the UK wrote us recently to let us know he did a remix of our DNTEL track “To a Fault,” which is always fun to hear. To listen download the track here! Thanks, James.
Download DNTEL - To a Fault [James Rutledge Remix]
Anyhow, I’m getting ready to go to a wedding of one of my best friends in California. I guess that’s life in the late 20s. Marriage first, babies next?
Hope everyone is having a lovely fall and winter and holiday season. We are excited about recording the new album. Promise no alternative takes or remixes. All. New. Stuff.
XOXO
P.S. Here is my year’s end list of my favorite fiften albums of 2007. Everyone is doing it, so I figure why not? Cheers!
I’ve been putting off updating the blog for ages for the stupidest reason! I just had too many pictures; I was overwhelmed. I’ve been dying to put up pictures from Roskilde and Pitchfork festivals, and my trip to Cape Cod and Iceland, both of which were equally amazing, beautiful and relaxing, and now I finally get to it. Things to get excited for in this post: a comparison of Roskilde vs. Pitchfork Festival, as that we them sort of back to back (and they couldn’t have been more different). Pictures of lovely landscapes. An MP3 of “hot buzz band” that I totally buy into—Vampire Weekend (I just can’t resist their songs and preppy New England attire; reminds me of carpooling in the late 80’s in Boston—in a good way that is). AND: THREE AMAZING DIGITAL CAMERA VIDEOS! Yup, it’s all that and more in this post, which will be largely image-based, but I’m trying. It’s just also demoralizing when everyone else is such a better blogger than you! We just got back from playing a few shows with our buddies (and supergroup) Deerhunter, and man does Bradford know how to blog. He knows his shit is the best, too. I mean who else does countless cover songs on request and update that often? I’m too busy hanging on Cape Cod (should have invited the Vampire Weekend boys, since they have such a fixation with the area, but I didn’t know their music until a few weeks ago). Anyhow, it’s September now, we recorded our EP during August and are really excited about it. It’s all meant to be a very “fun” and smörgåsbord-type collection of songs. My favorite is how the mellowest song ever—”Granndy Diner”—runs into CSS’s electro-pop version of “Knife”; somehow it works (I think?). Anyhow, mostly I’m really pleased with the four recordings we did in August, especially that of “Alligator,” which just sounds so insanely different it might as well be a new song. So enough random tangents; let’s start with pictures and videos.
So I begin with Roskilde vs. Pitchfork
I think this video really sums up Roskilde to me. You could NOT survive there without boots, and every band we saw kept arriving and asking us “Do you REALLY need them?” and I’d point them to the entrance and say “Just try to walk around for ten seconds without them and see for yourself.” The mud stank like piss and shit b/c the porta potties were overflowing into the goop. Backstage was nice. There were grills at each respective stage and a really pleasant, less wet sitting area. The only annoying thing about the festival which—CSS and Beirut and I struggled with all weekend—was trying to get from one stage to another that you weren’t playing at. All three of us were at different stages, and the festival allows access only to your stage on the day that you are playing, so when you want to visit other bands, you are just plain screwed unless you happen to run into them and they escort you. Luckily for us, we are good at sneaking in places, so we made it to CSS’s stage and got to enjoy their and Peter Bjorn and John’s sets; the latter I’d never seen before. Here’s a little shot of the girls getting pumped just seconds before they went on stage. Chris Taylor ate a steak on the side of the stage while watching. I have a picture of it, but I ‘m not sure he’d want me to post it, but you can imagine. No utencils, just a steak and Chris, and CSS’s rocking out. It was an amusing sight.
Here are Lovefoxxx and Simon from Klaxons with their his-and-hers tats. That was really cute, but I couldn’t help but think to myself, “What’s he going to turn those three X’s into once they break up?” I guess I’m jaded, but I’m rooting for them!
I have a few more pictures from the festival of rows of porta potties, but I think I’m going to skip to Pitchfork. How does it compare? Like night and day. First off Roskilde is about 100K people, maybe more? Pitchfork is 15K (I think). That makes things a LOT chiller, and one thing I realized about festivals is the chiller the better, for the crowd and the artists. Pitchfork takes the cake for most enjoyable festival in my book. It had tons of bands I love and enjoyed meeting. They had free Chipotle and beer, which everyone ate all weekend long. You could go to any stage and check out a band without any hassle from security; on top of that, it was sunny! Something was in the air that weekend because everyone I ran into there was just completely having the time of their life and not worried about letting it all hang out. Alcohol was a good friend to everyone that weekend. Just look below! Three out of the five of them are double fisting!
Was the festival playing a joke by putting us with Clipse? We were highly amused by that pairing in the dressing room. Our sound engineer Matt did a photo op with their Alizé. Later we did a shot with them and Girl Talk, which was funny, but it’s already floating around all over the place, so no need for redundancy.
Ty and Bradford.
I’m hiding here because I look haggard from the night before. Jamie looks as dapper as ever and was as charming a man as he always is. Wish we hadn’t had to leave midday on Sunday and miss his set.
I had to include this shot b/c it’s really cute, but also super funny in a Hallmark sense. Angelic image of man with daughter who makes angelic music.
Ryan and Bradford before Girl Talk…
Moses from Deerhunter has the best t-shirt collection ever. This past weekend he was sporting another t-shirt that I was drooling over. I later found out it was made by the same guy who did this amazing dolphin bikini tee. I need to figure out who this guy is so I can spend all my money on his t-shirts.
So yeah, to summarize the Pitchfork Festival—it was a sunny blur of awesomeness. Sure some complained about sound issues, but we had a good time and as far as outdoor concerts go (it’s not exactly the best setting for us), this one was ace! So let’s switch gears. Festival mania is over. After that everyone in the band was about to pass out from exhaustion. We’d done Europe, then Feist tour, and about eight festivals criss-crossing the Atlantic, and at that point it seemed as though we just wanted to disappear for life. That’s when I took my cue and went to an island off Cape Cod with a bunch of friends for ten days and enjoyed total isolation. The house we were at had no electricity, just a bit of running water and a fireplace. Here’s a bunch of pictures. I don’t need to explain much, other than it was great fun.
Oh wait, I should add, my mom got married! Very casually as you can see—on a boat. So one day I left my friends and Chad, and I came to celebrate her second marriage. Here’s a shot of the vows. Very salty New England, no?
We love to take night walks to the beach. Here is a shot from one of those adventures.
Our good friend Piera made these delicious desserts for us one evening.
In the middle of the ten-day trip, most everyone had to leave on Monday to get back to work, but Chad and I remained and were met by the lovely Owen and Patrick. They, too, were taking a break from touring, so we were treated to their company for a few days and a lovely rendition of “Jesse” by Owen on the piano.
If you haven’t seen Final Fantasy live yet, please do. I think his show with Cadence Weapon at the Bowery in November is going to be incredible. What a double bill!
After Owen and Patrick left, Chad and the beast and I had one night alone in the old spooky house. We mellowed out waiting for the second weekend of people to arrive.
And arrive they did, in the middle of a huge cloud of fog. They brought Kadema paddles, too, which are always popular in the lawn area.
Here’s a final shot of the amazing lake we’d walk to to swim at. It was the most beautiful last day ever.
THEN CAME ICELAND. My Lord, I must say my camera and these pictures do NOT do justice to the intense beauty of this country. People always told me it’s incredible, but driving around the country doing the ring road was hands-down the most majestic, surreal, and intensely gorgeous thing I’ve ever done. It’s a shame everything is so expensive (a random bowl of tomato soup at a “cheap” cafe was 25 bucks) because visiting Iceland is something everyone should do if they can. Reykjavik is cool and all, but it’s really all about the nature there, as evidenced by these photos, which are about 1% as beautiful as it really was in person.
One bizarre total coincidence about our trip to Iceland was that Chad and I were there for Reykjavik’s Gay Pride parade, which we soon discovered was the biggest public gathering in Iceland every year. It was hilarious. Iceland itself I heard is only about 300,000 people—180,000 of which live in the capital—and the parade pretty much attracted everyone. It seemed like all the gay people of iceland were IN the parade and that thousands of families and kids were the spectators. It was so different from the sometimes lewd NYC parade. This was for everyone. Kids were everywhere with rainbow flags painted on their cheeks, etc., etc. It’s enough to make the religious right in America scream with terror, but it was really quite amazing. In the end it was more a time for everyone to have fun together and dress up, rather than a major political statement, which just says something about the liberal/progressive Icelandic people. I mean I caught tons of Euro bro-down, gel in hair, straight dudes at this parade with their girlfriends having as much fun as the dancing queens. Below is a video of a kid busting a move behind a float. I thought he was pretty rad, so I took a video
The whole reason we were able to afford staying in Reykjavik was because of the extreme hospitality of producer extraordinaire Valgeir Sigurðsson, with whom we were lucky to meet and befriend via Nico Muhly. Nico was there was well and did an amazing performance at the big church on the hill in Reyjkavik. This is the inside of it during the performance.
Here is the outside of it:
And here we have Nico, friend of Nico in middle, and Chad post-performance, getting ready to
enjoy a sunny night in town:
Below are just a ton of pictures from the trip. They speak for themselves. Thanks for reading. Here’s that vampire weekend track I’ve been enjoying so much lately!
Download Vampire Weekend - Bryn
P.S. Oh yeah, Beast is tired from all the activities this summer, too.
So before I talk/post some fun pictures from last night’s evening with CSS at Studio B (drinks are way too $$$!!!), I’d like to make note of what I’m prematurely going to say are my three bands of the year. I sort of know my listening habits, and I’m pretty positive that I can say nobody will top these three bands this year for me, unless something so fresh and so new unearths itself from under a blog and smacks me across the face.
It’s not a very surprising list, as I’ve been endlessly gushing about these bands, but what cemented my third pick was hearing the new Cass McCombs track, which just brings me back to my previous obsession with PreFection and a total realization that he might be one of my favorite songwriters ever—at the very least, in the past few years. You simply must download it (below) and enjoy it on repeat as I’ve been doing these past few days.
Then there is, of course, Deerhunter, who possess that glorious quality in music that I love the most. Longevity and subtlety. It took me AGES to really “get” Deerhunter, but now that I do, Jesus Christ! I will just remain a #1 fan for life, and I’m saying this despite being friends with them. I think at this point I can sort of separate friend from music, etc. The EP is a thing of magic and should definitely be purchased by ALL. Also live?—:LADHJGF:ldjas;fglkdjsa;glfkdjs;glkajds!!!!!!!!! Yes yes yes………….yes.
Which brings me to my last band of 2007—the Dirty Projectors. Again, friends; Chris Taylor recorded and produced it, but fuck it; I know music that I love regardless of nepotism. Rise Above is 100 percent the most original album I’ve heard in centuries. Not since 1402 have I heard something this amazing. And the best part is the live show totally lives up to the recordings and is that great kind of live show that changes every night, so you can see them ten times in a row and get a different amazing experience each time. If there is an indie rock god (Pitchfork?), please shine your love on this glorious album which curiously is released on Sept 11th.
Here are three songs—one from each. Please buy these bands’ music. I happen to know nobody here is shifting hundreds of thousands of units, and every sale helps!
Download Cass McCombs - That’s That
Download Deerhunter - Fluorescent Grey
Download The Dirty Projectors - No More
OK… a few early-August observations.
So the CSS show was, per usual, a ton of fun. Had I forced myself into the beyond-crammed Studio B front audience section, I would have been treated to a shitload of crowd surfing. Funnily enough I was both amazed at the excitement and enthusiasm in the room and surprised at how sort of tepid the applause was. I suppose I’m used to seeing them in Europe, where they are super stars and everyone hangs on her every word and FREAKS THE FUCK OUT when they finish a song. That said, people were definitely having the time of their life. And it was late. And everyone was drunk. I was sad to hear about their airline troubles this morning. At first I was excited because they were talking about staying in New York and grilling, and I love grilling, but then they couldn’t find a hotel and had to drive to Baltimore, and my couch doesn’t fit five Brazilians.
So anyhow, here are some random pictures from last night. None from the show because I didn’t have a proper camera—just camera on the phone.
Happy summer, everyone.
Post totally stolen from Brooklyn Vegan, but it’s too link-heavy and informative NOT to steal:
In today’s installment of ‘Indie Rock Orgy’….
It was the end of a nice drunken evening in Paris with Zach Condon. We sang and played guitar and toy piano. And when we went home, we made this present to Ed Droste and Grizzly Bear. ***This is not a Take Away Show. The real Beirut Take Away Show will be later***
Also from that drunken evening…
A small guitar, Sidi Ali form France, Zach condon from the US, some beers and Hallelujah…
‘The Knife’ has also been sung by a choir, covered by some kids, mixed with the other Knife, covered by CSS?, covered by Born Ruffians, and mashed up with Clipse.
Sometimes Final Fantasy Owen is playing with Ed. Sometimes he’s playing with Zach.
And since I already posted the picture of Zach and Ed that would have gone better in this post, here’s one of Ed and Feist instead - taken backstage at Bonnraoo this weekend:
Feist and Grizzly Bear just toured together, and played Town Hall in NYC. Feist is playing McCarren Pool. Grizzly Bear is playing Summerstage. Beirut has three shows coming up in September.
La Blogoteque has also filmed Grizzly Bear.
The Gorge, early in the day.
Bear looking summery.
Bear just moments later looking less summery in long pants.
T setting up his pedals in the grass before the show.
There actually was a huge wooden grizzly bear rocking out. It was so fitting.
Richard Perry and I right before eating some ice cream.
T at the Xbox tent trying to figure out how to play a racing game.
Chilled-out Gorge times.
Filling up…
Right before our set.
Mr. Juice himself getting ready to do some sound, but then the comedian announcer guy announced us before we’d even line checked or Juice had gotten to the sound booth! So the first few songs were quite rough, thanks to Aziz jumping the gun.
Patrick Wolf double fisting.
Triple fisting…
Sarah Silverman and her man Jimmy Kimmel. Weirdly she didn’t do much MC-ing.
St. Vincent and Patrick Wolf.
Arcade Fire and thousands of fans. Damn, they have a complex lighting/stage set up. Were fantastic, as usual. Wanted to get some pictures of Björk’s performance, but there was so much flashing lights and movement that I couldn’t hold the camera straight.
