by Jon Stone | @jwstone

I’ve been looking forward to seeing Those Darlins play again ever since they (insert music-blogger hyperbole) last year at the Highdive. That night they played way too well for the smallish audience that had gathered to see them. I knew it was just a matter of time before things kicked in and last night it was clear that they have. The crowd at the Independant Media Center was much larger, but that wasn’t the only thing that was different. Those Darlins have metamorphosed. They are no longer the FOB (fresh out of the barn) dirty dixie chicks group that I saw (and loved, let’s not forget) last year. Carter family covers? Gone. The hits, i.e. “Snaggletooth Mamma” & “The Whole Damn Thing”? Totally absent from last night’s set. In fact, I think one of the only songs they played last night off of their 2009 eponymous album (and certainly the only “hit”) was “Wild One” (I’m pretty sure I heard “Who’s that Knockin’ at My Window,” too. Hit?).

Instead we got a band that has turned the dial from country-punk to a decidedly punk*/sexy sixties rock. That asterisk constitutes a now-subtle nod to their Tennessee roots which, as they have said themselves, shows up mostly in a not-easily-repressed southern accent. Not that I think they are repressing their roots, but surely the Darlins I heard last night have grown up significantly in the last year of road-weary touring. Part of that growing up included some battle scars, including the unfortunate injury (broken arm) of baritone uke player Nikki Darlin.

But maybe that injury wasn’t so unfortunate because it was Nikki Darlin that shined last night. All three girls have swagger, but woah, when Nikki Darlin put down her ukelele and took the mic in front of some of Those Darlins’ new material, the band transformed from the tin-roof tanned trio I was familiar with into a different thing all together. Nikki has the strongest voice of the three and when she is singing lead other crazy stuff started to happen: Jessi Darlin (or what you could see of her behind her huge Epiphone hallow-body) started playing these psychedelic rock riffs and solos that I didn’t realize she was capable of. Also, at least once during the growing-evermore-frenzied set, every member of the band found their way out into the audience. Over and over, my friend and I turned to each other open-mouthed, both thinking the same thing: Who is this band?

Jarring as this Patsy Cline to Janis Joplin move seemed, the punk germ was always there. I guess I shouldn’t have been so surprised. Now that we know that Those Darlins are not just about a single formula, it will be fun to watch what other shapes they can take.
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I also took in sets from the Mean Lids (a great local string band that I feel connected to, if tangentially: Matt Turino, who plays fiddle in the band, is the son of an Ethnomusicology professor on campus that I am currently taking banjo lessons from. woo!), the Duke of Uke and his Novelty Orchestra (also local, these folks do it up as a multi-instrumental 7-piece), and I also caught the first half of the band Psychic Twin, Erin Fein of Headlights‘ new sequencer-and-keyboards driven band. If you like Headlights, be sure to watch for Psychic Twin — I think they may be even better.

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I’m off again. Looking forward to sets from Colour Revolt, +/- (plus/minus), and Cut Chemist tonight!

One thing I look forward to each year is the Global Union World Music Festival that takes place in Humboldt Park. Curated by the amazing people at Alverno Presents, this year’s festivities take place this Saturday and Sunday, providing multiple opportunities to see and hear things you’ve never heard before. Check out the line-up below.

Saturday:

1:00 p.m. – Mahala Rai Banda
Wild gypsy brass from the Romanian suburbs

2:30 p.m. – Joan Soriano
“El Duque de la Bachata”

4:00 p.m. – Debo Band with special guests Fendika
Ethiopian jam band funk

Sunday:

1:00 p.m. – Delhi 2 Dublin
Bhangra meets celtic with a dash of dub reggae + electronica

2:30 p.m. – Meklit Hadero
If Joni Mitchell were East African and met Nina Simone for tea in San Francisco’s Mission District, she might sound like this!

4:00 p.m. – La Excelencia
Salsa Dura, Salsa de Verdad, Salsa de Nueva York

Pavement played “Unfair” and “Stereo” last night on Jimmy Fallon. Check out Bob Nastanovich rocking the Real Chili shirt in a big way during “Unfair.” Milwaukee represent!

My college bound cousin visited Milwaukee earlier this week to get a feel for the schools and the city. It was exciting on many levels, but the most exciting was him telling me that he’d just seen Maps & Atlases at the Union Terrace in Madison. It was similar experiences that led me to Milwaukee for college. I wanted to be somewhere where there was a lot going on, plenty of live music to experience.

His comments also reminded me I’ve not yet mentioned my fondness for the new Maps & Atlases record, Perch Patchwork. It was actually the above video from Yours Truly that forced me to pay attention to the record. I’m so glad I did. “The Charm” has become one of my favorite songs of the year.

MP3: Maps & Atlases – “The Charm”
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Buy: Maps & Atlases – Perch Patchwork

By Jon Stone | @jwstone

Pygmalion Day 1

“This is an interaction!” announced the man in the top hat and tux at the opening of Champaign-Urbana’s Pygmalion festival. “Get your tweeting and your facebooking out of the way because you will be needing your hands free for this interaction!” The PA system boomed and the crowd screamed and with that as a cue, two gigantic projections of Janelle Monae‘s head appeared on screen and told us the story — the legend — of the ArchAndroid. At the end of this Oz-like encounter, One commandment was levied on the crowd: “you will dance or die.”

And we did. And it was good.

Pygmalion kicked off last night at Canopy Club and when I say kicked off, I mean kicked off. Janelle Monae was incredible. Her record ArchAndroid is groundbreaking, but her performance of the material is truly outstanding. The key word there, I think, is performance. There is no shoegazing here, no moments in between songs with awkward banter. From start to finish (and not unlike a theatre performance), Monae and her band perform. It’s refreshing and the music is great, so it is also fantastically fun. Part of that fun had to do with the visual projections that accompanied the performance. During “Cold War” images of Muhammad Ali in the ring were projected: punches thrown and paint splattering to the beat which then modulated into a lightsaber fight. Boxing and lightsabers? Yes! I also loved the tune “Locked Down” which manages to mix Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson in a single bundle, and of course “Tightrope” moved the crowd from thrilled into ecstatic. A mid-set cover of the old standard (By Charlie Chaplin, which seems appropriate) “Smile” was also an appropriate and palate cleansing number.

The only moment of her set that sagged for me was her duet with of Montreal’s Kevin Barnes. His presence on stage seemd a bit forced and opportunistic and, frankly, his voice is so outstripped my Monae, that it ends up kind of difficult to listen to.

Which is part of the reason I left before of Montreal’s set. Watching a band get upstaged is always a little awkward.

My last word here is this: if you have the opportunity to see Janelle Monae, take it. Her show is worth the price of admission and then some.
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From there, I made the short journey over to the Highdive in Champaign to see Built to Spill’s set (because as an avid indie-rock fan, I can’t live too long without my shoegazing and awkward stage banter).

It was my first time seeing Built to Spill who had, until a year or so ago, flown beneath my radar. And, to tell you the truth, for me their records, while good, leave something to be desired dynamically. They are the kind of band that has me pining after a live performance where I know things like volume and messiness and noise translate so much better and feel so much more authentic.

Built to Spill didn’t disappoint in this regard. When the band opened with 1999′s “The Plan,” I immediately had that “Now I get it” moment and it carried throughout the evening. Their sound strikes me as a distillation of everything I loved about “alternative” rock in the 90s (dichotomous heavy/soft guitars, chunky solos, etc.) with what eventually became the “best” of indie-pop in the 2000s (messiness, complex simplicity [if that makes sense], etc.). I left feeling bad that it’s taken me ten years to see them–they seem like a crucial touchstone between the old(ish) and the new.

It’s impossible to listen to Built to Spill and not hear their influence on other successful acts. I was especially struck by how much Doug Martsch’s vocal style is Ben Gibbard-esque. Maybe Death Cab was the original Owl City. Ruminate on that one for a moment. Boise and Seattle are only a day’s car ride away. (Actually, I think that those kind of influences are of the more friendly, apprenticeship variety. Don’t they call that the “Northwest Sound” or something?)

Here were a few of the standouts from the night on Built to Spill’s setlist: “Randy Described Eternity,” “Liar,” “Twin Falls” (not just a Ben Folds Five song!), “Time Trap” (maybe my favorite of the night), “Distopian Dream Girl”

And they also covered the Grateful Dead’s “Ripple.” I had to look that one up, Ryan.

I look forward to seeing them again soon.

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Tonight I’m looking forward to our local string band, the Mean Lids and, of course, Those Darlins. The later evening will be full of more great bands as well. More tomorrow!

We’ve shared First Aid Kit with you previously on our podcast. They just released the gorgeous new video for “Ghost Town,” which appears on their 2010 release, Big Black & the Blue. Good stuff.

MP3: First Aid Kit – “Hard Believer”
MP3: First Aid Kit – “I Met Up with the King”
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Buy: First Aid Kit – Big Black & the Blue