By Jeff Kollath

On January 16, the world of country music lost another one of its legendary figures. “Mister Country” Carl Smith. who had over thirty top ten hits from 1951 to 1965, passed away after suffering a recent stroke. Smith was one of the first major stars to crossover into television and pop music - his looks, brightly colored sequined suits, and his sophisticated, crooner-like voice making him a natural for the screen. Many of his songs were fast-paced, with a backbeat and catchy choruses, giving them almost a rockabilly feel. Early steel guitar legend Johnny Sibert was a featured player on many of his early hits as well (he’s playing on the above clip).

By 1950, Smith had his own radio show, had signed to Columbia Records, and was a regular on the Grand Ole Opry. Smith gained additonal fame by marrying country sweetheart June Carter in 1952, with whom he had future country singer Carlene Carter. After the couple divorced in 1956, Smith left the Grand Ole Opry, joining the Philip Morris Country Music Show, an eighteen month, 250 city tour. Leaving the Opry in the 1950s was akin to career suicide – the Opry was the seal of approval for the established and the starmaker for the hopefuls. Dwindling record sales and radio play tended to follow a departure - ask Little Jimmy Dickens. Even men like bluegrass legend Jimmy Martin, who went his entire career without so much as an invitation, and Hank Williams, who was famously ousted by Roy Acuff for his hard living, sustained, but struggled without Opry membership. 

Although Smith charted a single on the country charts every year until 1973, he never fully regained the fame and success he saw in the early 1950s. He eventually retired from performing in 1978 and became a horse breeder, hearkening back to some of his early album covers that featured Smith riding high in the saddle. With his biggest hits coming nearly 60 years ago, Smith’s legacy is obscured by contemporaries like Ray Price, Hank Snow, Lefty Frizzell, and Webb Pierce, whose legacies have been carried forward by country stars from Willie Nelson to Tim McGraw. Yet, in terms of short-term success, Smith’s career is nearly unparalleled. So, next time you’re crate digging, or happen upon WJVL (99.9FM – Janesville) on a Sunday morning, check out Carl Smith – you won’t be disappointed.  

Video: Carl Smith – “You Are the One”
Video: Carl Smith - “There’s Nothing As Sweet As My Baby”

By Alex Schaaf

In my opinion, some of the best albums are the ones that make you feel like you have opened a gateway directly into the artist’s mind, as they nakedly reveal everything that defines who they are, laying it out there for us to see. I guess I value honesty and authenticity over something that creates a wall between the artist and the listener.

What is the best way to go about this, as an artist? Obviously it’s a very subjective idea, and there’s no set formula – “Okay, this is how you make an honest, personal album” – but looking at the albums I respond to the most in this way, I’ve found some things in common.

The solo artist often has an advantage in this area, as they are not held back by anyone else’s opinions or values, and are allowed to present themselves as fully as they want to. This is not always the case of course, full bands can create these “gateways” as well (see: Wilco, Neutral Milk Hotel) but it tends to be harder to accomplish.

The production of the album is also something that factors into this idea — burying one’s voice in reverb; doubling or tripling the vocals; layering instrument over instrument; polishing up the production to make it as “perfect” as possible — these things can be quite enjoyable, and surely there is nothing wrong with them. Kevin Barnes (of Montreal) utilizes these things quite effectively to create intensely personal albums.

However, looking at the albums that I value most closely, the ones that make me feel the closest to the artist – these albums often do not contain those studio enhancements, and are relatively “lo-fi.” If there is evidence of months and months of hard work in the studio, ironing out all of the wrinkles and getting everything “perfect-sounding,” one could fear that the personal feelings and emotions behind the music had also gotten ironed out somewhere along the way. In something like Bon Iver’s “For Emma, Forever Ago,” you don’t get the sense of studio trickery wiping out personal emotions, rather you feel like you’re getting an uninhibited look at Justin Vernon’s mindset during the making of that album.

The example of this kind of personal album that I’d like to bring to your attention today is tUnE-YaRdS and her debut album, BiRd-BrAiNs. The artist behind the delightfully capitalized tUnE-YaRdS is Merrill Garbus, possessor of one of the most unique voices out there today. Garbus can go from a delicate falsetto to a wild scream within seconds, and this kind of vocal range lends each song a sense of unpredictability, as these mood shifts can seemingly come out of nowhere.

Tying back to the previous point, this album is decidedly – and intentionally – lo-fi. Garbus recorded all of the parts with a Sony digital voice recorder, and mixed the album in Audacity, a free audio program that anyone can download off the Internet. This leads to an intimate experience, as you get the feeling that you’re listening to some unearthed cassette tapes found in your grandmother’s attic, discovering a lost gem from the past. But it is certainly not an amateur-sounding affair; even with the cheap equipment used, Garbus expertly produced the tracks to be full of life, pumping and wheezing with huge drum beats, which she uses as the basis of most tracks, layering her ukulele strumming and vocal loops over the percussion.

The songs of tUnE-YaRdS tend to start out as calm, clean affairs, before slowly building into huge, screaming climaxes with earth-shattering drums. “Sunlight” is perhaps the best example of this, as Garbus delicately sings “I could be the sunlight in your eyes, couldn’t I?” at the beginning of the song, but by the time this line is repeated at the end, it’s being frantically screamed. Weaved throughout the album are samples and field recordings from Garbus’ former life as a nanny, as children scream “Fire!” before and after “FIYA,” and discuss blueberries with Garbus at the end of the first track. These kind of personal, homemade touches add even more character to the album.

My first experience with tUnE-YaRdS was back in November, when I saw her open for the Dirty Projectors in Chicago. I had never heard of her before that day, and was not especially looking forward to whoever was going to delay my Dirty Projectors experience by yet another hour. But by the end of her set – heck, by the end of her first song – I was converted. The rest of the crowd was right there with me – it was the biggest crowd reaction I’ve ever seen to this kind of “unknown” opener, as she received huge ovations after each song, and countless hoots and screams at the peaks of her live jams.

In conclusion: I do not mean to imply that “great” albums have to be simply produced and created by solo artists; I merely have noticed some of my favorite albums as sharing these traits, and have tried to explain what ties them all together. Merrill Garbus has stumbled upon the perfect combination of lo-fi quirkiness and solid songwriting to create one of the most unique albums of the recent past, and is sure to be a musical force for a long time to come.

MP3: tUnE-yArDs – “Sunlight”

Buy: tUnE-YaRdS – BiRd-BrAiNs

We’re pretty excited for this weekend’s Austin City Limits episode featuring two bands who delivered two of our favorite albums from 2009. That’s right, The Avett Brothers (#1) and Heartless Bastards (#12) will both be appearing on the longest-running music series in American television history. We’re excited, make sure you tune in, set your DVR’s, or watch them online next week.

The Avett Brothers Austin City Limits Set:

I And Love And You
January Wedding
Murder in the City
When I Drink
Slight Figure of Speech
Die Die Die
Talk on Indolence

Heartless Bastards Austin City Limits Set:

Hold Your Head High
Out at Sea
The Mountain
So Quiet
Sway

By Pete Donahue

There is a very good chance you’ve already heard about Vampire Weekend’s new album, Contra. Perhaps you’ve heard the Brooklyn, New York, Ralph Lauren-clad Ivy Leaguers have managed to live up to the success of their 2008 debut. Maybe you’ve heard Contra‘s lead single, “Cousins,” but are skeptical the band can deliver another album of world music-inspired pop goodness. Considering Vampire Weekend’s meteoric rise to stardom over the last two years (later met with some hipster backlash), Contra was accompanied by a considerable amount of hype, skepticism and ambivalence. But after two weeks-plus with the new LP, I can say Contra absolutely lives up to the hype and delivers even more.

For Vampire Weekend fans who backlashed against the backlash against the band, their loyalty to the quartet is graciously rewarded. While the Paul Simon/Graceland comparisons will probably never die, the band continue to channel worldly, poppy guitar hooks and under-appreciated storytelling on Contra, but have proved they have the ability to offer much more. For example, album opener “Horchata” starts with an excellent melody delving up the beginnings of a vivid story backed with a heap of Latin-influenced percussion, including marimba. The very guitar that made songs like “A-Punk” and “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” such lovable tracks is hardly in sight, taking a back seat to a string section and a considerable amount programmed synth samples, both of which make several appearances on the album.

The album opener is important because it exposes listeners to several re-occurring themes. Kicking off your highly-anticipated LP with “In December drinking horchata/I’d look psychotic in a balaclava/Winter’s cold is too much to handle/Pincher crabs that pinch at your sandals” will certainly come across as daft to some, but Contra tells the story of better times in better places than where our narrator appears to be now. I recently read an interview with singer/guitarist Ezra Koeing where he describes the lyrics as a careful look at when the privileged’s highs come crashing down. While the band’s first album was all about the good times and care-free living, Contra examines what happens when the good times fade away and reality sets in. Koeing is an under-estimated lyricist because his social commentary often gets overlooked by the poppy, hooky elements of Vampire Weekend’s songs. “Holiday,” an organ-led old school ska jam (think “Oxford Comma“) is arguably the most upbeat song on Contra. Armed with the ability to pack a dance floor like “A-Punk” can, “Holiday” reads more like an insecure rich girl’s diary when faced with the realities of “the real world.” “I can’t forget how bad it gets when I’m counting on my tea/But if I wait for a holiday/Could it stop my fear?/To go away on a summer day never seemed so clear.”

“California English,” with its clever, start/stop rhythm and western African-influenced guitar interludes, features Koeing in a yelping, stream-of-conscious rants loaded with reverb and a small hint of auto-tune. Picture our narrator as a spoiled rich brat as she complains “Contra Costa, Contra Mundum contradict what I say/Living at the French Connection but we’ll die in L.A.” Yet the band also offer a counter observation to the upper-class with a day dream of what it’d be like to escape from everything negative we’ve ever encountered on “Run.” With a soaring chorus featuring a sprinkled synth melody that sounds like it was played on that Casio you got when you were eight years old, Koening (or another narrating character?) wonders aloud “Every dollar counts and every morning hurts/We mostly work to live until we live to work/She said ‘You know, there’s nowhere else to go/But change in rows, it struck me that the two of us could run.’” Perhaps “Run” is even “California English’s” narrator unable to cope with a “real” job; what better way to escape than to simply run away? The truth is, Koeing and Co. offer enough to allow listeners to formulate multiple lyrical interpretations., showing Vampire Weekend are intelligent and crafty as much as they are catchy and fun.

Another re-occurring theme throughout Contra that makes the album a desirable sophomoric release is multi-instrumentalist/producer Rostam Batmanglij’s production. Simply put – more synthesizers, sampling and beat programming. Fans of Batmanglij’s Discovery project with Ra Ra Riot’s Wes Miles will certainly appreciate Vampire Weekend’s second LP over their first. “Giving Up the Gun” contains thick, arpeggiating 80′s synths scurrying over a thundering big beat with various hints of additional synth programming underneath. The song is the closest we’ve heard the band come to full-on drum & bass, yet hardly comes across as ironic, new-wave revivalism. The song is also Vampire Weekend fans’ ideal dance party starter that doesn’t lean heavy on the guitars.

Clocking in at over six minutes, “Diplomat’s Son” is a very unique blend of samples, strings and synthesizers and tribal drums, inducing a hazy raggaeton/dance hall vibe that M.I.A. would be right at home rapping over. Like the latin-influenced percussion on “Horchata,” “Diplomat’s Son” displays Vampire Weekend’s further embrace of world music outside of Africa. The lyrics complement the song’s exotic sound, as if the track is a memory of a ritzy vacation when life was much…easier: “That night I smoked a joint with my best friend/We found ourselves in bed. When I woke up he was gone/He was the diplomat’s son, It was ‘81.”

When discussing Vampire Weekend, it is important not to overlook one of the band’s obvious strengths, one that thankfully pops up quite often in the duration of Contra – fun. By now, you’ve probably already jammed out to the highly-energetic “Cousins,” a wickedly sharp pop song with frantic drumming courtesy of drummer Chris Tomson that borrows a bit from Stuart Copeland’s style. If all you needed was “A-Punk” to reel you into the band’s first album, “Cousins” is likely all you need this time around. “White Sky,” the obvious choice for the album’s second single, ties in Koeing’s lyrics, Batmanglij’s digital-leaning programming, and a good-time aesthetic into one excellent jam. With it’s looped, bubbly synths interweaving with a snappy digital back beat, Koeing croons things like “Look up at the buildings, imagine who might live there/Imagining your Wolfords in a ball upon the sink there” before culminating in a falsetto that more than adequately acts as a sugary chorus.

So I’ve attested to the plethora of positives Contra offers. After appearing to suffer from a backlash from some circles (jealousy, perhaps?), Vampire Weekend did the only thing they knew how to do, the one thing that could silence the unjust criticism and backlash the backlash. They made not just a great sophomore album, they made a knockout album, period.

Discuss: What do you think of the new album? Is Contra their best work to date?

Buy: Vampire Weekend – Contra

Join us tonight at Cactus Club for Sharon Van Etten + Daniel Knox. Doors open at 8 with tickets ($7) available at the door. This show is riding a great wave of press, so don’t miss your chance to see one of music’s rising stars tonight in Milwaukee!

A.V. Club Milwaukee: Sharon Van Etten’s crazy ex-boyfriend can suck it
OnMilwaukee.com: Van Etten maximizes with minimalism
Shepherd Express: Sharon Van Etten’s Songs of Suppression and Absolution

Buy: Sharon Van Etten – Because I Was in Love
++
Myspace: Sharon Van Etten
MP3: Sharon Van Etten – “For You”

By Jeff Kollath

Since 2007, ABX (Aaron Brant) and DJ STV SLV (Steve Reidell) have performed, mixed, and mashed as the Hood Internet. Based in Chicago, the duo began putting tracks on the web, but eventually began performing live at clubs around the city. 2009 saw ABX and STV SLV hit Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo, and has much bigger things on the horizon for 2010. In the coming months, they will hit the road with Tobacco (of Black Moth Super Rainbow), heading out West for a series of dates, before finishing back in the Midwest in April. This Saturday, True Endeavors will present the Hood Internet, with support from the New Loud and DJ Vinnie Toma at the High Noon Saloon in Madison. The show is 18+ and starts at 10pm.

1. Since you and ABX started the project and the website over two years ago, you have had millions of downloads. Why do you think there is such a demand for what you guys are doing? Is the Hood Internet exploiting a gaping hole in the music industry that labels and other artists are missing?

Music blogs are such a big part of how people get new music nowadays. The way we release new tracks functions like a blog, and people subscribe to stuff, look at it in their Bloglines or Google Reader or whatever — so every time we post up a new track, people grab it. And the way people even found out about us in the first place was from other music blogs writing about what we were doing. I don’t know that we’re filling any sort of void (especially since mashups are already considered fairly out of vogue), but we’ve definitely found that lots of people really like the tracks we make.

2. So far, the Hood Internet has done four mix tapes, plus a bevy of other tracks. You mix navel-gazing emo with house music, bubblegum pop with R&B slow jams, and classic rock with hardcore hip-hop, genres that, to the untrained ear, don’t really mix. How do you go about putting these tracks together? Are you looking for similarities or stark differences? Briefly describe the process and the method your madness.

We just draw from the bank of things we like and try to re-imagine them in various combinations/permutations. Some stuff works shockingly well, others should probably be put to bed instead of posted on the internet. But there’s no real guidelines behind it.

3. Was there a particular moment that you and ABX realized that was something much more than a hobby?

In the first few months of the Hood’s existence (once the word had gotten out), our site kept crashing from going over bandwidth. That encouraged us to do more tracks — at one point we were doing them every weekday — and we were getting crazy downloads from all over, geographically. I can’t remember a particular moment, but it was earlier on that we could see that people were responding to what we were doing.

4. What has been it like to take your show on the road and play in clubs and theaters? What kind of crowd response are you getting? What’s the difference between doing this live and playing live with your other bands?

DJing a club and getting the dance floor moving (and keeping it moving) is pretty fun, and gratifying, but in a different way than playing guitar in a band is gratifying. May Or May Not (the band that ABX and I were both in) is fairly dissolved at this point, but you should check out this new band SHAPERS.

5. In March/April you are hitting the road out West and in the Midwest with Tobacco. How did that tour come about? Will you guys do anything together?

We did a mixtape for Tobacco when he put out “Fucked Up Friends”  last year. But every time he/they would come to Chicago, we’d miss him — then finally met up this summer at Bonnaroo. I don’t know if we’ll necessarily collab it up, but you never know.

6. Recently, MoB has been featuring gig poster artists from around the Midwest. Many folks might not know that you are a damn fine graphic artist, too. Tell us a little about the poster work you do and where you draw inspiration from.

After I got laid off from my first job in Chicago, I learned how to screenprint at Steve Walters’ Screwball Academy. I did a couple of prints for friends’ bands, including one for the now-defunct New Black, who were opening for Secret Machines at Metro. Shortly after that, Metro was hiring a new graphic designer, so I threw my hat in the ring and got the job — so then I got to make lots of prints for bands I really liked. There are so many poster artists I get inspired by that it’s hard to list, but Aesthetic Apparatus and Delicious Design League are two that come to mind right away.

7. In a previous conversation, you described yourself as having “musical ADD tendencies,” always looking for the next thing. So, what is NEXT for the Hood Internet and for STV SLV?

We’re making a record. Not a mashup record, and that’s all we really know about it right now. We’re gonna try to get people we know to contribute parts to it, and do a bunch of our own production, aaaaand… we’ll see what happens.

Now, onto the lists:

Top 3 bands we should be listening to: Signals, tUne-YarDs, Felt (Slug and Murs)

Top 3 favorite places to play (town, tavern, or whatever): Chicago IL, Austin TX, Brooklyn NY

Top 3 artists you have not mixed but hope to soon: Pill, Nicki Minaj, Broken Bells

MP3: The Hood Internet – DJ STV SLV – “Band on the 16th Stage” (Wings vs Osborne)
MP3: The Hood Internet – DJ STV SLV – “Psycho Break” (Talking Heads vs Eileen Allien)
MP3: The Hood Internet – ABX – “Floating Paranoia” (Modest Mouse vs Kanye West)
MP3: The Hood Internet – ABX – “Two Weeks of Hip-Hop” (GrizzlyBear vs Dead Prez)