Aidin Vaziri | Interviews, Reviews and More: December 2008

30 December 2008

The Best Tunes of 2008

Aidin Vaziri | The songs that made the year go pop!

Santogold, "L.E.S. Artistes": The most effective Slits throwback ever from a Brooklyn singer who vomits gold glitter on her album cover and isn't afraid to dump on her hipster flock with minimalist future electro pop.

Adele, "Chasing Pavements": A big, booming ballad about summoning the courage to follow your dreams by a young British singer with a knockout voice.

Kylie Minogue, "The One": Having faced down cancer, Minogue wasn't looking for sympathy but unadulterated adoration on this electric comeback track: "Love me, love me, love me, love me!"

Lykke Li, "Little Bit": The helium-infused vocals and spaced-out rhythms are pure Scandinavia, but it's the unexpected splash of bawdiness that makes you wonder where this bonkers singer has been all of your life.

Scarlett Johansson, "Anywhere I Lay My Head": The general rule is that actors shouldn't sing, which makes this ethereal, aching Tom Waits cover as rare as a Palos Verdes blue butterfly. Continue reading.

Review: Cat Power, 'Dark End of the Street'

Cat Power, 'Dark End of the Street': Aidin Vaziri | Cat Power's "Jukebox" album, in which singer Chan Marshall sleepwalked her way through covers of songs by James Brown and Bob Dylan, was 12 shades of boring. So why would anyone want the six songs that were left on the cutting-room floor from the very same sessions? Because Marshall, an indie-rock singer who is almost as well known for her bad career decisions as for her music, typically has gotten it all wrong. The tracks on this EP are superior in every way to the ones that made it on the mother ship LP, each one seemingly tailor-made for her new heavy-lidded lounge singer guise. She casually blows all the bluster out of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son," transforming it into an eerie gothic ballad. Aretha Franklin's "It Ain't Fair" gets a similar treatment, as Marshall strips the song down to its basic blues core with her lazy, calm voice. And then there is the disc's centerpiece, a supremely restrained take on Otis Redding's "I've Been Loving You Too Long (to Stop Now)" that packs all the emotion of the original with only a fraction of the sweat.

Pop Quiz: Shiny Toy Guns

Aidin Vaziri | Things were going well for Shiny Toy Guns - the Los Angeles electro-pop group that scored a hit with the cell-phone jingle "Le Disko" two years ago and earned a Grammy nomination for its first album, "We Are Pilots" - until earlier this year, when singer Carah Faye Charnow decided to take off running, Forrest Gump-style. Undeterred, the group simply recruited old friend Sisely Treasure, who happened to be a finalist on the Pussycat Dolls reality show, to fill the spot and recorded a cacophonous new album, "Season of Poison," that has fans and critics divided. Shiny Toy Guns performs Wednesday at Popscene's Disco 2009 New Year's Eve party at the Rickshaw Stop. We asked the group's co-founder and keyboardist, Jeremy Dawson, to clear the smoke.

Jeremy Dawson of Shiny Toy Guns
Q: A lot of people have trashed "Season of Poison." Do you care?
A: Coldplay. The "X&Y" record? It got riddled. The New York Times gave it one star. They went on to sell, what, 6 million copies and had five singles from it? I'm not worried about that at all. I'm not saying I have this amazing record that's better than anyone else's. What I'm saying is most of the reviews we've gotten are from fans and press people who enjoyed the previous record. Some I'm getting are comparative reviews and not actual reviews. Everything starts out like, "Compared to their first album, this album doesn't have this and this." I know you're not supposed to read your own press, but from what I've been reading I'm getting a load of that. Like, "Leaving their trademark dance sound that made them who they are, they are now sounding like this." That's not where our brains went. Continue reading.

19 December 2008

Pop Quiz: John Doe of X

Aidin Vaziri | When you think of Christmas, you don't usually think of Los Angeles punk icons X. That is, unless you spell it Xmas. Anyway, the original lineup, featuring singer Exene Cervenka, bassist John Doe, guitarist Billy Zoom and D.J. Bonebrake - together more or less since 1977 - is playing Friday and Saturday at Slim's. Christmas might technically be over by then, but that's not going to stop the band from rocking out to a bunch of holiday standards, along with college radio staples such as "Los Angeles," "Burning House of Love" and the totally seasonally inappropriate "4th of July." Doe spoke with us from a tour stop in Eugene, Ore.

John Doe of X
Q: How far are you going with the whole Christmas thing?
A: We have worked up a couple of Christmas songs in a sort of X fashion. They're a little faster, a little louder. We're also working on some new songs. I don't think Billy Zoom is going to dress as Santa, but we're working on that.
Q: Why don't you dress up like Santa?
A: No.
Q: Come on.
A: No.
Q: You're the one with all the acting experience.
A: Well, maybe so. However, Billy is just much more Santa-like. We're typecasting. Billy Zoom. Santa Claus. It's like the same number of letters in each name. Wait a minute, that's not right.
Q: Are you just trying to say Billy Zoom is fat? Continue reading.

Review: Justice, 'A Cross The Universe'

Justice, 'A Cross The Universe': Aidin Vaziri | Live techno albums rarely make sense. Considering that most of the music came out of a laptop in the first place, the experience is most definitely lost without getting off your head in a club as strobe lights blind your eyes, half-naked people fall on you and the sound of the bass bludgeons your ears. But on this riotous concert recording from San Francisco - which comes packaged with a seedy American tour documentary - Paris' most famous Christian electronic music duo (Gaspard Augé, left, and Xavier de Rosnay) convincingly gives new life to the songs from its breakthrough album, "Cross." Using the white noise of the audience as just another element in its ominous dance music cacophony, the duo's songs, such as "DVNO" and "Tthhee Ppaarrttyy," sound even more intense than they did the first time around.

Pop Quiz: Sarah Brightman

Aidin Vaziri | It's a shame more people don't like pop music doused with classical chimes and weird gothic overtones and performed by a singer with a penchant for not wearing very much clothing, because Sarah Brightman's concerts sound like incredibly mind-bending experiences. See for yourself when the former Broadway star and ex-Mrs. Andrew Lloyd Webber plays Wednesday at HP Pavilion in San Jose. In a show that blends 3-D holographs with fairy-tale-inspired dramatic sequences, Brightman will perform songs from her most recent studio album, "Symphony," and its holiday companion, "A Winter Symphony." We spoke to the 48-year-old British singer by phone from her home in Los Angeles.

Sarah Brightman
Q: Wouldn't it just be easier to hire the guy who did the stage sets for Madonna's 1993 tour?
A: I thought very seriously about bringing in an art director, but then I decided, no, what people want to see is what comes off of my own head.
Q: I bet your bathroom at home looks awesome.
A: If I work with any interior designer, I drive them nuts - completely nuts. Life can be so textured and colorful; we're here for such a short time, I just try and make the most of it.
Q: Will you come over to my house before the concert and make it less boring?
A: OK, I will. To tell you the truth, I love minimalism as well. My set is actually incredibly simplistic. It's just a few screens on white pathways in the center. If you came to my house in London, that's what you would see as well: a white room. Continue reading.

Music Upgrade 2008

Aidin Vaziri | When's the last time you bought a new album? If the answer involves any year that "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" was on the air, you're officially out of the loop. Don't worry, though: We're here to help. Taking some of the best releases from 2008, here's how to give your music collection a makeover and keep your iPod happy.

Update your iPod with these stars of 2008:

If you like...
Lauryn Hill "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" (1998)
She hasn't been heard from since, but with her 18 million-selling first album, the Fugees singer delivered an impeccable collection of songs that mixed laid-back soul, reggae and socially conscious rap with cool confidence.

... then try
Estelle "Shine" (2008)
Hill's former collaborator Wyclef Jean, along with chart superstars John Legend and Kanye West, help this striking English singer serve up her own brand of hip-hop-inflected pop with fresh luster.

Continue reading.

Review: The Flaming Lips, 'Christmas on Mars'

The Flaming Lips, 'Christmas on Mars': Aidin Vaziri | Seven years in the making, the Flaming Lips' low-budget sci-fi flick "Christmas on Mars" was shot in singer Wayne Coyne's backyard using a cast of friends, lots of refashioned household appliances and very little color. Frankly, it's awful. The soundtrack, on the other hand, has more to offer. Consisting of droning, bleeping instrumental scores with swelling strings and telling titles such as "Space Bible With Volume Lumps," "In Excelsior Vaginalistic" and "The Gleaming Armament of Marching Genitalia" - no, really - it finds the Oklahoma psychedelic rock troupe operating at its looped-out best. There are too many flushes of self-indulgence to make the album truly necessary, but in the instances when things take flight, it makes for some of the most unreal lullaby music imaginable. The deluxe edition even comes with its own popcorn.

Live Review: Straight No Chaser at Great American Music Hall

Straight No Chaser on holiday: Aidin Vaziri | Straight No Chaser has become the season's unlikely crossover bet, like Josh Groban in 2007 and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra every year before that. On Monday, the group performed for an eager, sold-out crowd at the Great American Music Hall, playing a set filled with songs from its first album, "Holiday Spirits." It was best appreciated by people who wait all year to break out their Bedazzlered Christmas sweaters and get a kick out of watching grown men pretend to dance badly as they call one another "dawg." Continue reading.

07 December 2008

Review: Maroon 5, 'Call and Response'

Maroon 5, 'Call and Response': Aidin Vaziri | What's this, a secret ploy to convert Maroon 5 fans into V-neck-and-hoodie-wearing hipsters? The cover is a straight knockoff of the Rapture's disco-punk classic "Echoes." Or is it a more sinister attempt at converting nascent indie-rock bloggers into slap-bass funk-pop aficionados? Either way, you have to admire the innovation behind an album that offers up-to-the-minute, no-expense-spared remixes of some of the Los Angeles band's biggest hits. The Roots' drummer, Questlove, gives "Sunday Morning" a lush '70s soul spin; Pharrell Williams turns "She Will Be Loved" into the android love ballad it's always wanted to be; and Bay Area feedback merchant Deerhoof applies a surprisingly delicate touch to "Goodnight Goodnight." With additional contributors covering everything from techno (Tiesto, Paul Oakenfold) to hip-hop (Just Blaze, David Banner) and all points in between (Of Montreal, Cut Copy), Adam Levine's (left) high-pitched voice and the group's knockout melodies serve as the only common threads. Taken as a whole, it's a pretty uneven listening experience, but break it up and "Call and Response" is brilliant download fodder, nowhere more so than on Mark Ronson's horn-drenched rewrite of "Wake Up Call," which you'll be lucky to escape during the next few months.

Pop Quiz: Death Cab For Cutie

Aidin Vaziri | Having scored its first No. 1 album, campaigned for Barack Obama and survived its current tour despite scorpion attacks, Death Cab for Cutie will have plenty to celebrate when it reaches Live 105's Not So Silent Night concert on Thursday at Oakland's Oracle Arena. The Grammy-nominated Seattle indie-rock band will play in support of its most recent release, "Narrow Stairs," alongside the Killers, Franz Ferdinand, Jack's Mannequin and Bloc Party. We caught up with Death Cab's guitarist, Chris Walla, by phone from a tour stop in Germany.

Chris Walla of Death Cab For Cutie
Q: Your singer, Ben Gibbard, was stung twice by a scorpion backstage in San Diego. Are you worried that there are going to be more scorpion incidents before you get to the Bay Area?
A: No, I very much doubt it.
Q: You weren't exactly expecting it the last time. How can you be sure?
A: No, that's true. It was a surprise, particularly since we hadn't been anywhere in the desert in months, so I don't know how that happened.
Q: Do you think the little guy was riding with you?
A: I think he was. I think he was a stowaway in our wardrobe case.
Q: If only you were more like Madonna and had 800 wardrobe cases, then the odds of getting stung by a scorpion would have been so much lower.
A: I think that's true. Well, in a long list of "if we were more like Madonna" scenarios, that's definitely one of them. There's a whole list of things that would be happening to us if we were more like Madonna.
Q: Could we go through that list? Continue reading.

Christmas Music That Doesn't Suck

Aidin Vaziri | Don't let Josh Groban ruin your holidays. Turn off the round-the-clock Christmas station and load up on these tunes instead. You'll get through the rest of the year with your spirits high and sanity intact.

The Playlist: 21 Modern Christmas Classics:
There's no need to listen to the same old dusty holiday tunes - not when there are so many weird and wonderful alternatives to choose from.

The Flaming Lips, "White Christmas"
Glasvegas, "Please Come Back Home"
Saint Etienne, "I Was Born on Christmas Day"
Damien Rice and Lisa Hannigan, "Silent Night"
The Vandals, "Hang Myself From the Tree"
Band Aid, "Do They Know It's Christmas?"
Low, "Just Like Christmas"
The Pogues & Kirsty MacColl, "Fairytale of New York"
Cocteau Twins, "Frosty the Snowman"
The Waitresses, "Christmas Wrapping"
Continue reading...