New music from John Davis (Superdrag/The Lees of Memory)

If our good friend The Internet has provided us anything great along with the giant glut of daily distractions, it's the ability to get some deep insight into the creative processes of our favorite artists. I was a big fan of the work of power pop giants Superdrag back in the day, but it's been incredible to be on board with the new creative bloom of frontman John Davis as he works on new music for his current main project, The Lees of Memory. Davis is as vibrant and excited about writing songs as he is sharing the process with his fanbase, and manages to share photos of his mountains of gear and the home demo'ing process, tracking in the studio with the rest of the band, his paintings and strolls down memory lane to his earlier years without teetering into oversharing territory. Davis is also an avid user of Bandcamp, and has dropped loads of 4-track demos, covers, B-sides and other hidden gems onto his High Bias site (most for cheap or free). The Lees of Memory are in the process of finishing up album no. 2, and Davis recently posted Cobalt and Chrome, a collection of songs that were demoed but didn't make the cut. As per usual, Davis' scraps are a feast for the rest of us. Stretch out your downloading finger and go get some treats.

If you happened to miss our podcast conversation with John Davis, head over to listen to it, too. 

BACK IN THE SADDLE/WORLD SERIES OF ROCK/TOP TEN OF 2015

2015 wasn't a bad year for The Royal Basement, by any means. I've had some inspiring chats with some incredible folks. I've taken a "news" hiatus over the last few months due to busy times with various holidays, other projects (working on an album, playing drums with Ghost Pains) and a pretty intense trip to Kansas City for most of the month of October to catch a Boys Life reunion and ending with a Kansas City Royals World Series victory. I was lucky enough to watch all of the ALCS and World Series back in my hometown of Kansas City, surrounded by the absolutely insane and exhausting energy of playoff baseball and mounds of fantastic Kansas City barbecue. (I was in KC for 18 days, and I believe I had various forms of BBQ for 15 meals over the course of those 18 days, cholesterol be damned.) Basically, normal life stopped for a good portion of the month of October, and baseball took over. Tears were shed, and my beloved Royals won the World Series. Writing that still doesn't even feel real. 

2015 was a pretty grand year for musical output, as well. While I can't say that any records I've heard this year were life-defining records (those come fewer and farther between after your 20's), I'm thrilled with the wide range of things that fell into my ears this year. I found myself with a list of about 40 things that I had spent varying degrees of significant time with, trying to whittle them down to a nice round "top ten". Here's what I came up with. 

THE ROYAL BASEMENT'S TOP TEN RECORDS OF 2015
(in no particular order)

• 10. The Velvet Teen - All Is Illusory (Topshelf)

• 9. Car Seat Headrest - Teens of Style (Matador) 

• 8. Here We Go Magic - Be Small (Secretly Canadian)

• 7. Unknown Mortal Orchestra - Multi-Love (Jagjaguwar)

• 6. Major Games - Major Games (self-released)

• 5. Swervedriver - I Wasn't Born To Lose You (Cobraside)

• 4. Swami John Reis & The Blind Shake - Modern Surf Classics (Swami)

• 3. Sam Cohen - Cool It (Easy Sound)

• 2. The Dodos - Individ (Polyvinyl)

• 1. Dungen - Allas Sak (Mexican Summer)

 

Video Of The Day: Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, Live at the EMP

It was a big weekend for the rocking and/or rolling in Seattle; Death Cab For Cutie played 3 days at the Paramount Theatre, My Morning Jacket did back to back nights at the Moore, and Stephen Malkmus came into town to play at the Experience Music Project's Sky Church. While Malkmus' generally disconnected demeanor didn't necessarily correspond with the immaculate polish of the EMP, it was a refreshing change to see a show in the Sky Church (a nice wide room with nary a bad sightline) and it was frankly great to see screensavers/stock photography loops blaring from the giant LED screen backdrop, glowering over the otherwise reserved Malkmus and Jicks. The last time I saw Malkmus/Jicks play, it was a TapeOp/Fort George beer release party down in Astoria, Oregon where the band played to 100 people and played a delightfully sloppy set, so seeing the Jicks on the big stage in a museum with all of the appropriate big-time-rock-n-roll trappings was the polar opposite experience of the Astoria show. I wormed my way to the front and caught "Freeze The Saints" on my phone, which is a beautiful song on its own but really sparkles in this live, stripped down setting (public school piano goof-ups and all). Hope you enjoy. 

To Watch: "Live At Massey Hall" Series

If there's a music documentary out there worth the film it's on, I've probably seen it. That said, I don't know that I've seen a series of live recordings that capture the atmosphere quite as well as the Live At Massey Hall series. Recorded at the 110-year-old venue in Toronto, Massey Hall is a gorgeous 2700 seat venue in the heart of downtown Toronto. 

It seems like these videos are coming on a fairly regular basis, but yesterday's upload of a particularly well-polished but rough-hewn Constantines show had me feeling like it was Christmas morning. Bands at the Constantines level don't often have someone with the budget to document/edit a performance this beautifully, so I'm thrilled to see that time and energy go into a band so deserving of proper documentation (note: there's also a set from Cons frontman Bry Webb in the playlist). Do yourself a favor; plug whatever device into your TV/stereo and watch this Constantines episode on the big screen, fully amplified. You can thank me later (although I take no responsibility for damages caused by couch-bound circle pits). 

Who knows what else to expect out of this series, but if the quality is anything like what's out there right now, it's going to be worth watching every single episode. Cheers to the makers of Live At Massey Hall. 

New Kurt Vile LP out, Vile plays Conan

The new Kurt Vile album (b'lieve i'm goin' down) is out today via Matador, and first spins showcase an album full of Vile's penchant for finger-picked crystalline lazy Sunday jams mixed with moments of spine-tingling anthemic bliss. He stopped by Conan O'Brien's show to play the first single ("Pretty Pimpin'") and do a stripped down version of "Wild Imagination". This iteration of Vile's band appears to be loaded for bear, featuring (amongst others) Farmer Dave Scher (Beachwood Sparks) on keys and backing vocals. 

Kurt Vile plays the Showbox in Seattle with Cass McCombs on October 18, 2015. 

WILCO SURPRISE WITH NEW FREE ALBUM "STAR WARS"

It's Christmas in July! (One of my favorite holidays, BTW.) Wilco just dropped a new 11 track album entitled Star Wars for the low price of FREE. For real!

"Why release an album this way and make it free? Well, the biggest reason, and I'm not sure we even need any others, is that it felt like it would be fun. What's more fun than a surprise?" said singer Jeff Tweedy via Instagram.

Star Wars is available for free here, provided you want to give Wilco your email address. They've had mine for years and I've never gotten so much as a late night drunk email from them. Legitimate. 

Wilco is on tour now, probably coming to a city near you. Go see them and bring your favorite Jar Jar Binks joke. 

THE ROYAL PICK: TELEVISION AT THE MOORE THEATRE

In life, we are often dealing with conflicts. For this particular man, some of the worst kinds of conflicts are those of interest. For all of our technological advancements of the past few decades, we still haven't figured out how to be in two places at the same time. So, tonight, when the legendary Television play this song and a grip of other guitar redefining classics at the Moore Theatre in Seattle, I'll be siding with my loyalty to my hometown and my beloved Kansas City Royals as they take on the Mariners at Safeco Field. My inner jock and inner artist are currently not on speaking terms with each other, but I'll be blasting the intertwined guitars of Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd all day long in an attempt to make peace between these warring factions. If you live in Seattle and hate sports/my hometown, you have no excuse for missing one of the most musically revolutionary and innovative bands to come out of the late 70's, live and in the flesh. Gimme friction, indeed. 

Television plays with Jessica Dobson (Deep Sea Diver) at The Moore Theatre on Tuesday, June 23, 2015. Ticket information is available here. 

The Royal Pick: The Life and Times @ Barboza (Saturday, June 13)

As a kid growing up in Kansas City, I cut my teeth on the dissonant noise of a lot of our local bands; Season To Risk, Molly McGuire, Boys Life and Shiner (amongst others) were all in constant rotation around the house during my high school years. Shiner, in particular, seemed the most malleable of all of those bands, able to stretch their legs comfortably over the chasm of brutal noise and sparse, ethereal beauty. After Shiner's breakup in the early 2000's, singer Allen Epley's newest project (The Life and Times) carried on the torch into a bit more stripped down/spaced out territory alongside bassist Eric Abert (formerly of St. Louis' Ring, Cicada) and drummer Chris Metcalf (Stella Link). The result isn't terribly dissimilar to Shiner (who are back together again), but a bit more atmospheric and anthemic, bubbling over with melancholia laid atop deliciously dark hooks and some absolutely crushing drumming by Metcalf propelling it all. 

I'm always thrilled to have some folks from my hometown brightening our Northwestern doorstep, but I'm particularly thrilled this time to be playing in a band (Ghost Pains) opening up for some good Kansas City folk up here in Seattle. Come out and let's talk Royals baseball. 

The Life and Times & Ghost Pains play at Barboza on Saturday, June 13th. Early 21+ show (7pm). Tickets are $10. 

New podcast up with Trapper and Tanner Schoepp!

Catching up on some podcasts that I've recorded but needed to get published for a while. Milwaukee's best (Trapper Schoepp and The Shades) were in Seattle a couple times this year already, and I managed to win a coin toss and get them down in the basement for some late night chats and song-singin'. Head over to the podcast page to hear us talkin' baseball, big boots and just plain goin' bossanova. 

VIDEO OF THE DAY: MIKAL CRONIN "TURN AROUND"

Bay Area popster Mikal Cronin's third record (MCIII) drops today on Merge Records, and with it, a new video full of some of comedy's finest faces (Kristen Schaal and Kurt Braunohler taking on the starring roles) parodying Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn" video. It's been a while since Kool-Aid Man busted into a video, so I am thrilled to see him making a comeback, even if he does get brutalized by Mikal Cronin toward the end. Get better soon, Kool-Aid Man. 

VIDEO OF THE DAY: METZ "THE SWIMMER"

Toronto's METZ is back with their second record (the subtly titled "II", out today on Sub Pop Records), and it's got the band doing exactly what I hoped they would do; taking their already jittery, agitated sound and somehow winding it up into an even more aggressive, anxious mess of noise that somehow still retains it's hookiness. They're touring basically from early May until October of this year, and if they don't come to a town near you? You might want to move. 

Video of the day: Sleater Kinney "A New Wave"

The appearance of an indie band on Bob's Burgers is nothing new, but seeing a full-length video of Tina, Gene and Louise going bonkers to a private Sleater-Kinney concert in Tina's room sure is. (Tina does have a little bit of an Evergreen vibe to her.) I'm trying to imagine a better music video than this right now, and I really can't. As the icing on the cake, they even managed to get a Carrie Brownstein kick in there. Feast your eyes. 

The Royal Pick: It's Gonna Blow! (San Diego's Music Underground: 1986-1996)

In the magical pre-internet days of 1992, discovering new music wasn't as ridiculously easy as it is in 2015. For a kid growing up in the suburbs of Kansas City, my musical expansions were generally found in pilgrimages to record stores, stocking up on fanzines and whatever used CD's my grubby 16 year old mitts could afford (which, in all fairness, was basically the same as downloading a record these days, but whatever). The gaps therein were filled by having Monday evening watch parties with friends, poring over VHS recordings of last night's 120 Minutes (MTV's version of Pitchfork), occasional lapses in judgment that lead to joining BMG/Columbia House for the 10th time, and picking up copies of SPIN at the grocery store.

The back pages of SPIN were a veritable Etsy shop of alternative culture, and an ad for "Rock Video Monthly" sucked me in. It was a subscription service that delivered a VHS tape chock full of alt-rock videos to your door every month. As a voracious devourer of the alt-rock culture at that time, it didn't take a lot to sell me. Long story short, a tape came one month, full of forgettable cutout bin also-rans, but one video captured the entirety of my brainspace. Rocket From The Crypt's "Sturdy Wrists" was a firecracker in my television set, exploding with air-raid horns and a relentless staccato riff that went supernova during the chorus. 

That video set me off on a Rocket From The Crypt binge that I'll write a doctoral thesis about some other time, but it also served as a wormhole into the world of the San Diego music scene. Singer John Reis is arguably one of the figureheads of the scene, and his involvement in Drive Like Jehu and Pitchfork spiderwebbed into the discovery of a network of new bands that I wasn't seeing covered by the zines that I was reading. Before I knew it, my stereo was stacked with records by No Knife, Heavy Vegetable, Three Mile Pilot, Tanner, Inch, Creedle, and enough Cargo Records samplers to fortify a small jungle hut.

I've always been amazed at the quality and diversity of sounds that came out of San Diego during this time, and thankfully, director Bill Perrine felt the same way. In his new documentary (It's Gonna Blow!), Perrine does his best to fit the tangled web of San Diego bands from the mid-80's to the mid-90's into a tidy 90 minute time period, and does a fantastic job at balancing live footage with stories from the music makers themselves, never focusing too much on one success or failure. While so much has happened in the nearly 20 years since the film's cutoff, it's crucial to go back and revisit this particular time period. From an industry standpoint, it's about appreciating the wheels that were in motion that brought punk and alternative rock into suburban households.  All of this music was happening so close to Los Angeles, the music epicenter of America, and most of these things barely registered so much as a blip on that radar. Something about that was truly magical to my 16 year old brain, and is still befuddling to my 38 year old brain. From an artistic standpoint, this was a musical golden era for a lot of cities, but the growth and body of work that came out of San Diego during this period is fascinating (and a bit overwhelming). It's Gonna Blow does a great job touching on the significant players in this period, explaining why these bands were important while giving live snippets that inspire further inspection of the bands and their respective works. Bring a notebook and be prepared for a few hours of YouTube wormholes soon after viewing.

It's Gonna Blow! San Diego's Music Underground 1986-1996 is showing at the Grand Illusion in Seattle on January 24th and 25th. Saturday night's showing includes a live performance from San Diego band Physics. Tickets are available here. 

The Royal Pick for 1/16/15: Paul Collins Beat @ Lo-Fi Gallery

If you're deep into the world of classic power-pop, dropping Paul Collins' name into a conversation about as common as blinking. For the more casual fan who can't name everything Bomp! Records has ever put out, discovering the world of Paul Collins is the sort of rare treat that you don't find every day. Collins started out his career with Peter Case (The Plimsouls) and Jack Lee ("Hangin' On The Telephone") in The Nerves, honing his chops as a songwriter and a drummer before forming The Beat in the late 70's.

Without falling into the hyperbole-filled world of "what ifs", The Beat should have been a massive band. A pass through the band's 1979 self-titled debut release reveals a band firing on every cylinder, blowing through some absolutely perfect power-pop songs that don't have an inch of fat on them with crisp drums and guitar solos that cut through the mix surprisingly well for a 35 year old recording. Collins' voice leaps through the speakers, simultaneously charmingly clear-headed and chain-smokingly anxious, pining away for the planets to align and that perfect girl to find her way to him atop a bed of major chords.  Alas, the band found modest success in the days before MTV (appearing on the Merv Griffin show and American Bandstand, when those were cultural barometers), but ultimately, never took flight to the extent that those songs deserved. True to the loyal underdog he plays in his songs, Paul Collins has continued to soldier on, having released 15 records as The Beat/Paul Collins Beat/Paul Collins over his career. In another universe, Paul Collins Beat is selling out amphitheaters on a reunion tour. In this universe, we get to see him up close and sweaty, blaring through a duct-tape-infused PA system. The Beat goes on, indeed. 

The Paul Collins Beat play The Garageland Fest at Lo-Fi Gallery/Victory Lounge tonight alongside Rich Hands, Acapulco Lips, The Gods Themselves, The Knast, Loud Eyes, Bread & Butter, The Crush, Killer Ghost and others. Alongside the bands, there will be record vendors who are stocked up on all sorts of power pop and garage rock. Show starts at 5pm. More information available here. 

New Podcast up with John Davis of Superdrag/The Lees of Memory

One of the finest pop songsmiths alive today, John Davis from Superdrag is back (with his old Superdrag bandmate Brandon Fisher) in a new group called The Lees of Memory. John chatted with me and picked out an awesome guest DJ set for the newest episode of The Royal Basement Podcast. All of this can be yours if you just click here!

Jeremy Enigk announces New Years Eve show in Seattle

Just when I made plans to do something other than be in Seattle for New Year's Eve, Jeremy Enigk (the reclusive solo artist/frontman of Sunny Day Real Estate/all around incredibly inspired creature) announces a New Years Eve show at El Corazon. Enigk has been pretty quiet since I moved to Seattle 6+ years ago; aside from the Sunny Day Real Estate reunion tour, I've seen Enigk play one solo show (complete with small chamber orchestra), where he proved to still have that same charisma and otherworldly possession that he's always had. Here's hoping we see a bit less reclusiveness and more new material out of Enigk in the new year. Tickets for Jeremy Enigk's New Years Eve show are available here. 

The Royal Pick for Nov. 14, 2014: GRUFF RHYS @ Barboza

While I've written about Gruff Rhys' solo shows before, this tour promises something different, even by Rhys' standards. Well known as a founding member of the genre-hopping Super Furry Animals, Rhys' solo work tends to be a bit more slightly more placid while still retaining it's stratospheric ambition. With his newest project (the playful and curious American Interior), Rhys has written a bit of a rock opera dedicated to his ancestor John Evans, a Welsh explorer who came to America on a quest in search of a fabled tribe of Welsh-speaking Native Americans. Rhys embarked on a tour of the areas that Evans had traversed, stopping to speak with town historians and stand in the footsteps of Evans along the way, and documented the whole thing in a recently-released documentary (also called American Interior). The documentary is available online until November 16th, and is a fascinating tale of a man exploring his own heritage in a foreign land and obviously taking a boatload of creative inspiration from the fearlessness of his ancestor. The tour appears to involve Powerpoint presentations, history lectures, puppets, and Rhys' trademark gentle nature and dry wit. Gruff Rhys' restless energy and relentless curiosity is contagious; while the American Interior project is a fascinating look at our own history as well as Rhys', I would bet money that an evening of Gruff reading off nutritional label information would still be hilarious and inspiring. 

I'm also incredibly excited to chat with Gruff for the Royal Basement podcast tomorrow evening. The podcast should be available sometime in early December for your listening pleasure. 

Read more about Gruff Rhys' American Interior project here. 

Gruff Rhys plays at Barboza in Seattle, Washington on Friday, November 14, 2014.
The show starts at 7pm. Tickets are $13.