Frightened Rabbit Tour EP -- new tunes

Oh, Frightened Rabbit .... you have me worried, lads. Your shambly, Scottish-churning urgency and clumsily brilliant lyrics have soundtracked large portions of my life. I can tell tales of attempting to sing along to The Twist with my wife and sister-in-law while trying to drive blind through summer fog in Newfoundland .... or humming Keep Yourself Warm during a Screech (Newfie bath-tub rum) chug-a-thon prior to a rainsoaked Newfie hike. You also delivered one of the best shows I've seen in a small-ish bar here in Tempe (I think the crowd that night surprised even you). Thank you for playing nearly the entire catalogue in a cathartic power set after you had to cancel the Tempe date a year prior due to the volcanic eruption in Iceland.

I would plead with you not to lose the melodic, ramschackle brilliance as you transition to major label heights, but I think I would be preaching to the choir in a sense. I trust that is on the radar. That being said, I do have to ask about this tour with Death Cab for Cutie. My question is simply, "Why?" And then I worry.

The news that Frightened Rabbit has released some new material on this arena experiment does restore some faith that this jump won't interrupt the song-craft too much. Keep it up Frightened Rabbit, and DON'T take a single word of advice or influences from Death Cab ... please.

Frightened Rabbit's tour-only EP (being sold at the merch booths) contains three tracks. It offers a studio version of "Scottish Winds" and another studio cut of "Fuck This Place" featuring Camera Obsura's Tracyanne Campell. It also contains a track called "The Eork" with Scottish folk singer Archie Fisher. Stream the tracks here:

Frightened Rabbit - Scottish Winds by ListenBeforeYouBuy


Frightened Rabbit - Fuck This Place (Featuring Tracyanne Campbell From Camera Obscura) by ListenBeforeYouBuy


Frightened Rabbit - The Work (Featuring Archie Fisher) by ListenBeforeYouBuy


Let's hope they eventually offer the EP to all their fans online.

I (and Im betting others like me) can't make that show to purchase the EP, because I can't fathom paying for a high-priced tick for a Death Cab concert (in an arena, no less). I want to salute Music Savage (http://www.musicsavage.com/) for expressing the same thoughts (http://www.musicsavage.com/2011/07/new-music-frightened-rabbit-ep-tour-only/).

Twin Sister Bad Street Video

Ever since I found Twin Sister and their stellar little album Color Your Life, I can't get enough. Yes...it's a full-on band crush. Twin Sister is steadily churning out some new material. The band treated us this summer to Bad Steet, a trademark floaty, dance-ish number (with a melodic, subtle beat that delightfully pumps along at a cool 15 mph in a 25 to 30). Now, they give us a summer-y video to pair with the tune:




The debut LP entitled In Heaven, from Domino, will drop September 27th.

Support Twin Sister; enable them to make more fantastic tunes for our pleasure. Do so here:
http://twinsistermusic.com/music/release/color-your-life/



Twin Sister are touring the US this fall. Highly recommend you see them now in a more personal venue while you can. See dates below.

09/01 September 1st Tucson Rialto w/ Explosions in the Sky 
09/02 September 2nd San Diego SOM Aw/ Explosions in the Sky
09/03 September 3rd FYF Fest 1st and Main Downtown LA
09/04 September 4th San Francisco The Rickshaw Shop
09/05 September 5th Big SurHenry Miller Library w/ Explosions in the Sky
09/08 September 8th MFNW Festival Holocene
09/09 September 9th Vancouver Vogue Theater w/ Explosions in the Sky
09/11 September 11th Boise Egyptian Theater w/ Explosions in the Sky
09/13 September 13th DenverFillmore Auditorium w/ Explosions in the Sky
09/14 September 14th Albuquerque Sunshine Theater w/ Explosions in the Sky
09/15 September 15th Marfa Vizcaino Park w/ Explosions in the Sky
09/16 September 16th Dallas AT&T Performing Arts Centerw/ Explosions in the Sky
09/29 September 29th New York Mercury Lounge
10/01 October 1st Chicago Lincoln Hallw/ Wild Beasts
10/02 October 2nd Milwaukee Turner Hallw/ Wild Beasts
10/04 October 4th Minneapolis Varsity Theaterw/ Wild Beasts
10/14 October 14th Oklaholma City University of Oklaholma w/ The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
10/15October 15th Memphis Hi Tone w/ The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
10/16October 16th Nashville Mercy Lounge w/ The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
10/18October 18th Baltimore The Ottobar w/ The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

Tuesday's Trimmings

From a perusal of the great blogosphere,it seems that the industry is getting ready for a fall push. Tracks from some established and some up-and-comings are surfacing. Here is a list of some compelling new tunes for this week.

Artist                                                              Track

Army Navy                                                      The Long Goodbye
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah                              Maniac
Dum Dum Girls                                                Coming Down
Gardens & Villa                                                Black Hills
Girls                                                                Vomit
Letting Up Despite Great Faults                         Sophia in Gold
Letting Up Despite Great Faults                        Teenage Tide
M83                                                                Midnight City
Scharling                                                          Steal the Sun
Seryn                                                               River Song
Seryn                                                               So Within
The War on Drugs                                            Come to the City
Yellow Ostrich                                                 13 Mary


The Dum Dum Girls track and the Girls track are both stand-outs here. They have been on heavy repeat this week.

However, new favorites have to go to Seryn and to Yellow Ostrich. I suggest locating those tracks and getting familiar with them. You will not be disappointed.

I would also like to point you to the streaming tracks posted earlier in the week. The Analog Rebellion tracks and Laura Marling's "Sophia" would certainly have made our list this week if we (I) could have located an mp3 format.

Crescent Ballroom to Open in Downtown Phoenix

Here at Pulled Pork, we (as in I) often come face-to-face with the hard reality that the greater Phoenix area epitomizes the strip-mall daytime and the foam party nighttime. Phoenix, you may have a "newish" metropolitan smell and a lot of fancy Escalades surrounded by bougainvillea, but you live and die by the credit card and you have the taste of a washed-out frat boy/sorority girl. You are, in a nutshell, culturally shallow. It's not too much of a knock; it's just who you are.

Perhaps, though, change is possible. Recently, with the indie scene catching the popular eye, the consumerism of Phoenix has taken notice. The hipsters are growing in numbers, and the little bars that used to cater to small numbers trying to catch a blur of their favorite midlevel band as they race through town are filling up. Now, Phoenix will get its very own mid-range, hipster venue.

The Crescent Ballroom will open it's doors in October to a flurry of concert activity. It is the work of hard working promoter Stateside Presents (Charlie Levy). It appears he shall use his influences to fill our ears with even greater goodness at this new establishment. The venue will be located at 308 N. 2nd Ave, Phoenix, AZ.

Check out the full schedule here: http://www.crescentphx.com/

We will be updating the calendar with the new ballroom dates.

Note: You can also read a news story about the new venue here: http://www.azcentral.com/thingstodo/music/articles/2011/07/27/20110727phoenix-music-venue-crescent-ballroom.html

Laura Marling "Sophia"

Folky songstress Laura Marling has released a unraveling, jaunty tune named "Sophia". It's a beautiful and long-developing number. Moreover, it bears the same namesake as my gorgeous wife (Although I should reserve some judgement on any association until AFTER I have dived into the lyrical content, as my Sophia is a beautiful, stunning woman.).

Marling's new, already-thrid disc named "A Creature I Don't Know" will be released on Sept. 12th.


Laura Marling - Sophia by ListenBeforeYouBuy

Analog Rebellion

The self-important indie-verse is filling up fast with righteous hipsters chasing the sound dejour. I hate to say it, but its getting cliche at this juncture. I think I started to lose my palette a little with the Mumford and Sons explosion of toneless, pop-folk-grass. Yes, the popular eye has turned on the indie-hipster scene, and the copycats and soul reavers are starting to amass.

When you find an artist who just straight-up plays the hell out of his instrument and writes strong rock songs, you have to celebrate it. Time to celebrate the craft once again, ladies and gentlemen.

Analog Rebellion is one Daniel Hunter who returned from the electro-pop badlands (gotta love his F*** Auto Tune merch gear) to master catchy guitar riffs and get lost in song construction. The influences and sound are right up front and the music doesn't hide behind most current fads. Have a listen here and keep your eyes open for some new material.

Analog Rebellion - Father Abraham from Yes Go Productions on Vimeo.

Head over to Futuresounds http://futuresounds.com/ for additional info.

Girls "Vomit"; new album 9/13

I have to admit that I wasn't a tremendous fan of Girls after the debut album. I found some appeal in the straightforward Americana, countrified surf with drug culture influences, but not too much to get excited about.

Then, Girls released the Broken Dreams Club EP. It's in that record that I hear the full-tone country-wrappped Cali sound with a pining lyricist from beach street-kid environs. Broken Dreams Club contained a mini-epic of a track called Carolina that pointed the way to new and ambitious frontiers. Go locate a copy of that EP if you don't already have one.

In anticipation of their new alum (dropping 9/13), Girls hit the blogosphere with their next sprawling mini-epic Vomit. Enjoy .. I know I am.




Girls - Vomit by sexmusic

Stream the Horrors Skying

The IT Crowd is a brilliant show. Part of that brilliance is a goth to "recovering goth" to "reformed goth" named Richmond. Is this a common occurrence in the British isles, so much so that it requires its own character-spoof on a nationally televised Brit-com??

Perhaps it is. Reformed hyperbolic-goth-horror rockers The Horrors truly transformed themselves and their sound with their last album Primary Colours. Great album ... great droning, landscapey sound.

The Horrors have now all but gamed the system in another evolution that demonstrates they may have more greatness to come. The new effort Skying is a great listen, and has now debuted at No. 5 over the pond.

Stream here:


Discuss, praise, or complain below.

New Dum Dum Girls

On the heels of their amazingly thick EP enttiled He Gets Me High, the Dum Dum Girls offer up more new goodness. The band found their sound in the EP to produce a record of early 60's inspired pop-punkish rock tracks with significant space and depth. Too many bands in the genre turn to the distant reverb sound (ala Best Coast). Dum Dum Girls, instead, have thickened-up that sound and located a lot of space in their tracks for a full sound that I really dig. These are tracks so wonderfully thick that you can hear the recorded space; when you listen, you can hear the depth of the room and the place of the instruments in it. Heard several complaints that the sound is too Tarantino-filmish ... but Im liking the full sound with the clean vocals.

Download the new track for the price of your email address.

Tuesday's Trimmings

Here at Pulled Pork, I am reserving a weekly space for posting a tracklist that represents the mostly new material I've been digging into each and every week. The segment, in part, honors the New Tunes Tuesday tradition of that former temple of new rock'n roll WOXY. Trying to keep the tradition alive!

Here are your first Tuesday's Trimmings:

Artitst                                       Track
Blood Orange                            Sutphin Boulevard
Cheerleader                               New Daze
Dominant Legs                           Hoop of Love
Foxes in Fiction                          School Night
Radical Dads                             Walking Wires
Filligar                                       Guilty Good Intentions
Filligar                                       Robbery (Shocking Love)
Pure X                                       Dry Ice
Pure X                                       Easy
Tin Sparrow                               From the Boat
We Were Promised Jetpacks     Act on Impulse

Fav-o-rites from this bunch include Tin Sparrow, Pure X's Easy, Filligar, and Blood Orange. Thus far, I give the edge to Tin Sparrow.

The Tin Sparrow is folky, and opens with a drumline and simple acoustic riff that might lead you to believe this is headed towards a Ha Ha Tonka-style folk track that seems ubiquitously popular these days. However, Tin Sparrow has a bluesy-depth, or a watery melody that many other bands in this genre do not display. This track possesses a rich fullness of voice and a deep, hollow space in the instrumentation that pulls me in at each turn.

Tin Sparrow are an Aussie folk outfit. Head over to their bandcamp page http://tinsparrow.bandcamp.com/. Support their work; buy a record.

Tuesday's New Trimmings

Each Tuesday, WOXY.com (http://www.woxy.com/) would serve up a new helping of the "future of rock'n roll." WOXY called its segment New Tunes Tuesday. Unfortunately, WOXY has remained silent for a long, and growing longer period of time. I maintain hope that the "future" will rise once again!

Mike Taylor, one of the amazing crew at WOXY, has since founded his own fine space among the interweb spaces. He calls his piece of the web-verse the Big Beat (http://www.thisisthebigbeat.com/). Mike kept the New Tunes Tuesday segment alive in a webcast for a good number of months. He now posts this segment as the Big Beat'cast. I strongly encourage each and everyone who finds this small space to head over to the Big Beat and spin at least one Big Beat'cast. I know it will lead to many more trips to hear Mike Taylor's voice and share his fine selections.

In my own attempt to honor WOXY's weekly tradition of serving you the future of rock'n roll, I will be posting a tracklist that I will call Tuesday's New Trimmings (since we call this small piece of the interweb universe Pulled Pork, after all). Currently, I gather new tracks together from other parts of the web-verse and post them for several friends on Dropbox. I may one day host digital copies of these tracks for any audience that finds its way here. But, until that time, I am content to post the tracklist so that others can follow along with our quest for the new, the challenging, and the ever-so-difficult listening each week.

July 2011 Mid-summer Gems

1. Artist: WU LYF     Album: Go Tell Fire to the Mountain

Big sounds, large echoey delay, gritty energetic angst with some alternative harmony, and tons of lo-fi, hidden, guerrilla promoting ... yep, smells like the next subterranean hipster hype of 2011. To complete the package, it's worth the hype. Get yourself a copy of the album Go Tell Fire to the Mountain and pester your local promoting company to get these guys to your town while they still got that precocious ambition of rebellion!

2. Artist: Cults    Album: Cults

What decade is this? This neo-late 50's and early-60's sound is almost more ubiquitous in the current hipster universe than chillwave. Great summer pop-throwback rock record with jangles and just enough guitar riffs to fill out the sound. Some tracks stand out more than others here, but it's a solid effort most of the way through. 

3. Artist: Washed Out    Album: Within and Without

More chillwave spillover from last summer....and, unfortunately, I'm buying this one. There certainly is a lot of hype and buzz surrounding an album devoted to blissing out. In addtition, Mr. Washed has been producing tunes for our aurcular-mind-body pleasure for an eternity in hipster-interwebs time. Yet, the emergence of the full-length, right in the heart of summer does pleaseth!














4. Artist: Typhoon  Album: A New Kind of House EP

Orchestral pop done beautifully well, with just the right amount of home-spun, living room style production and chorusey passion. This is the music I want to break out in the later stages of a summer thunderstorm. Looking forward to a new proper full-length at some juncture.