News Brief: New Los Campesinos! and Circulatory System Albums Coming

I thought I'd make this post to break up my posts of SXSW on Saturday and my interviews (with The Thermals and Titus Andronicus) and posts of SXSW on Sunday.(By the way, sorry for it taking so long with the posts, the picture upload takes for every). Anyway, why not talk about two up coming albums from two extremlly great bands. First, Los Campesinos! are quickly recording their second (oddly, they don't consider We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed a album) full-length album and blogging about it as well. Look on their blog right hear-http://loscampesinos.wordpress.com/.

Secondly, though slightly less offical, the Cirulatory System are FINALLY, after eight years in the making, are releasing their second album on Agust 4th. It will come out on Cloud Records on both CD and vinyl. For those of you who either a)forgot who the Cirulatory System are or b)don't know who they are (obsetting, but I will let it slide in this case) The Cirulatory Systme is the project of Will H. Cart, the key singer and one of the key song-writers of The Olivia Tremor Control, one of the Elephant 6 Collective's best bands. See the story hear-http://opticalatlas.com/

Update: Los Campesinos! have finished the first half of their recording and will finish when they get back from their U.S. tour. The Circulatory System have released the album artwork and release date of the album (8/4/09)

Los Campesinos Myspace-http://myspace.com/loscampesinos

Circulatory System Myspace-http://myspace.com/thecirculatorysystem

Ponytail Live @ Ms. Bea's 3/20/09

Ponytail is officially the most underrated band of last year. Sure, go on and say how Ice Scream Spiritual "broke them" and how they made Pitchfork’s end of the year list, but answer this: How much of Ice Cream did you really hear last year? Did you hear any song besides Celebrate the Body Electric (It Was Given To Us By an Angel) (despite that being a great song)? I think not and that was one of the crimes of last year. While everyone was talking about Lykki Li, Ponytail were entertaining anyone who would listen.
Anyone afraid that Ponytail would be unable to match their live shows to their albums, let your fears be put to rest. Ponytail lives up to every piece of hype about their live shows and more. Molly Siegel is a pixie on stage; a frantic, never stopping, pogoing, unhuman moaning pixie. Jeremy Hyman’s drumming is even better live and the guitar work of Ken Seeno and Dustin Wong is unmatched. It’s the way it all comes together that is the true feat. The entire performance feels like one of those impromptu jazz bands (replacing super experimental rock for jazz) that make up everything on the spot. But you know that everything was carefully crafted and made just for these hyper speed performances and that is so enjoyable about it. Without a doubt the best show I saw at SXSW.
(On a little semi selfish side note; I danced on stage with them during their last song. If anyone has any pictures of this, could you please send them to me, thanks.)

Ponytail's Myspace

Titus Andronicus Live @ Ms. Bea's 3/20/09

Titus Andronicus is the United States equivalent of Los Campesinos!, both lyrically and in speed. However, unlike Gareth Campesino, Titus’ Patrick Stickles forgoes crypticness and a pop coating, instead choosing to wear his heart on his sleeve and telling exactly what he’s feeling at that moment. Despite it being a year since their debut, The Airing of Grievances, came out and having toured for almost as long, they still brought all of their energy to Ms. Bea’s. Not even playing on the main stage and being horribly time limited the band still played on of the best sets of SXSW. From Patricks’ signature jump off drummer Eric Harm’s bass drum to Ian O’Neal and Andrew Cedermark frantic guitaring, an eight song set never felt so fulfilling.

Vivian Girls Live @ Ms. Bea 3/20/09

One of the biggest problems I had last year was not liking much loved debut by the Vivian Girls. Don’t get me wrong, I not one of those music critic sadists who have to hate everything that is hyped or loved unless it has "Grizzly Bear" in the title, quite the opposite in fact. My problem was that I couldn’t understand why I didn’t like the debut as much as everyone else. On paper I should be drooling over this entire album and should have every song in my Itunes top 25. Three girls, making punk rock, making it lo-fi, and being influenced by the Velvet Underground. But something just went wrong. Every time I heard one of their songs it was... just so repetitive in my mind; something just did not click. Thankful seeing them live triggered that click. Despite this being their 15th show, it didn’t show and they went through their set list like the Ramones (with out pausing between songs either). Plus they give one hell of a rendition of Wavves’ So Bored.

The Thermals Live @ the Radio Room 3/20/09

Anyone who says punk is dead has not seen the Thermals. Anyone who says The Thermals are not punk didn’t hear their 2006 album, The Blood, The Body, The Machine, about, what else, a United States controlled by fascist Christians. Since then The Thermals have not lost a single step, and if their live shows at the Radio Room and Mess with Texas are anything to go on, The Thermals’ upcoming tour is going to be one of the year’s best.

Kicking off SXSW (at least for me ), The Thermals charged right into their set. Choosing to ignore most of their previous album, they chose to concentrate on their back catalog and play quit a few songs from their upcoming album, Now We Can See. The energy traded between Hutch and Kelly was great and, oddly enough, Hutch as a tendency to break into a huge sweet.

The Thermals Website

Holy Crap, I'm Still Alive!

Wow, that was an insane two nights. Allow me to set my problems. I had no badge, no wristband, and I'm under 18 meaning I was blocked from a large amount of the clubs(a quick call out: Hot Freaks, fuck you for turing the Mohack from an all ages club to a 21+), plus I didn't see a single offical show. And when I woke up today my legs were sore and my eyes were on fire. However, I can say that was one of the best musical experiences of my life. This was my first true SXSW despite, this being my third time attending, seeing only free daytime shows, and only going Friday and Saturday. Still great and I’m still recovering. Anyway, I plan to post about everything I saw. This includes live show reviews of The Thermals, Vivian Girls, Titus Andronicus, Ponytail, Peelander-Z, Jason Lytle, Thao Nyguen, and the Crystal Antlers. Plus a got to interview Hutch Harris and Kelly Foster of the Thermals, plus Patrick Stickles of Titus Andronicus, No promises on the interview, however, incase Skyscraper asks for them. However I will try to post as much as I can plus a few opinion posts of the festivle as well. Keep watching for the next few days.

Two Apologies and Getting Something Right

Hello everyone. I am sorry that for the last week I've not posted anything new on this blog. I am also sorry to say that I don't expect to post anything for another week. This I apologies for and plan to correct as soon as possible. So allow me to explain. I will be attending SXSW. After it ends, I will spend as much time as I can posting about it. This will include a lot of live reviews and hopefully some interviews (the interviews depend on the band and whether or not Skyscraper wants to publish any of them). I will also begin posting recurring posts that include Lost Classics, Classics?, Bands to Care About, What Wrong With Music, and posts that simply don't fit into catagories. Look for all this in the coming weeks and thank you for being patient.