The Post-Rockist

No peace I find
Just this old, sweet song

Sunday at Pitchfork. The Post-Rockist recollects….

1:00 p.m. Times New Viking (C)

Todd: Every time I play TNV’s Rip It Off for someone, I always hear the same complaint: “It’s too loud for my ears. They’re signed to Matador, why can’t they take advantage of more modern production techniques and add flutes and piccolos and dance beats to make it easier to listen to? I’m going to go read the AARP newsletter now.” Guess what? The way they sound on the record is exactly how they sound live. The Viking kids put on a really fun, noisy show with lots of references to being teenagers and doing drugs. Two of the greatest joys of youth.

The best part: when the drummer/vocalist brought his vocal mic directly into contact with the cymbal he was banging to create a fantastic racket on the loudspeakers. The sound guy rushed out because he thought something had fallen only to be shrugged off like the chump that he was. (Continued)

^{Jarvis Cocker}

Hi kids,

Todd and Scotter here. As some of you know, we’re based in St. Louis and Detroit respectively, but we made our first collective concert outing last weekend at the Pitchfork Music Festival. Like usual with these kinds of things, we’re a little behind the other blogs, but what we lack in timing we make up in making things up.

Here’s our report on Saturday’s festivities (many pretty pictures following the jump): (Continued)

***This is an automated response.***

Thanks for clicking onto the site. We’re currently out of the office (read: aren’t at work blogging at our jobs when we could be doing the actual work we get paid for) (j/k if my boss is reading this. LOL). The Post-Rockist is at Pitchfork Music Festival.

Sadly, we’ll be commuting Friday night, so we’ll miss Mission of Burma, Sebadoh, and Public Enemy, but we’ll have our usual half-assed coverage for Saturday and Sunday, with pics and stories about whatever trouble we got into and updates on the bands and the fans. (Continued)

Gather ’round, chirren, and let Grandpappy Prockist tell ye a tale of yesteryear — a halcyon time when there was only one iPhone, one Flavor of Love, and, thank God, only one time of year when music bloggers would rigorously compile their highly informative and not-at-all redundant “Best Of” lists. But 2008 is a different beast altogether, and facing the onslaught of all this confusing New Media I can hardly remember the name of Barack Obama’s former madrassa, let alone the name of that album that I swore was the Greatest Thing Evah way back in February. So, for the purposes of posterity and to meet your clamoring demand,* the elders at the Post-Rockist have decided to piece together the following critically definitive and immutable** lists*** of their favorite records of 2008, so far. Enjoy!

* We’re assuming
** Lists subject to change at any time, most likely December
*** “Lists” are presented in no particular order whatsoever

Todd’s Faves of ‘08 so far

Atlas Sound - Let the Blind Lead Those Who See But Cannot Feel
“Recent Bedroom”

Imagine you have a pop album. Now, go ahead and load it with all kinds of aural embellishments — buzzes, beeps, fuzz guitar, ambient drones, synthesizer glissandos, glockenspiel, bells, music box, krautrock counter-rhythms, drifting choruses, sampler collages, etc. Next, and here’s the unusual part, take the meat and bones of the album, the hooks and riffs and backbeats and overearnest lead vocals, and chuck them out entirely. What you’d be left with would sound pretty close to Atlas Sound’s Let the Blind Lead Those Who See But Cannot Feel. Listening to it is a ghostly, out-of-body experience best suited for high-quality headphones in a zero gravity environment.

Forget the early ’90s, this is what I think of now when I think of Dream Pop.

No Age - Nouns
“Eraser”

Nouns is a raw, noisy, dense punk rock bulldozer. But underneath the squalls of distortion is a highly nuanced album, crafted with daredevil riffs, shocking melodicism, and a merciful willingness to plant green spaces in the wake of No Age’s destruction. It’s kind of like being roundhouse-kicked in the face by Chuck Norris: it’ll knock you flat on your ass, but at least you’ll appreciate the artfulness of the kick as you’re flying through the air. (Continued)

Looks like we beat Pitchfork to the punch yet again. Through friends of friends of friends of friends of friends of friends of friends of the band, The Post-Rockist has acquired a complete track listing to of Montreal’s next full-length album, entitled Skeletal Lamping, due out on Polyvinyl in October 2008. Reportedly, the album will more closely resemble of Montreal’s early albums like The Gay Parade and Coquelicot Asleep in the Poppies in that it will be composed of several shorter vignettes.

Pagan Wanderlust
Stealing the Metamorphosis En Route to Gothenburg
Mortician’s Studio Hopscotch
Pwning God
Feminine Effects
Grover Cleveland’s Been Schemin’
Mingusings
Our Last Summer of Independence
The la Rochefoucauld Palindrome
Tran-Sister Radio
The Parade of Pompous Paramours
The Enduring Appendage on the Doctor from Eckernförde
We Can Do it Softcore if You Want
Billy Goat Stomp
Part-Time Doughboys and Predisposed Dissidents
A Requiem for Judy
Rhapsody in Rouge (Parts I - III)
Exquisite Confessions
Rhapsody in Rouge (Part IV)

TODD’s TOP 15 SONGS OF 2007

At the risk of sounding like a rock snob (which, after all, is the very antithesis of what being a post-rockist is all about), I can’t honestly say there were very many albums this year that grabbed my attention and drew me in obsessively from start to finish like in past years. Maybe it was because some of my favorite musicians released new records this year and my expectations were too impossibly high to meet, or maybe really good just isn’t good enough sometimes. But maybe it’s just been a result of my changing listening habits — weekly album downloads causing me to cycle through new releases at such a fast clip that if an album doesn’t catch my attention after one or two listens it’s automatically consigned to the digital dustbin. It’s a shame, really, but I’m not making any excuses for it.

In any case, there has been a slew of really fantastic songs, and the following is a list of some of my favorites in an only slightly meaningful order:

15. Wilco - “Either Way“ (buy)
(from Sky Blue Sky)

A hope-filled lullaby for the depressively predisposed. “Maybe you still love me, maybe you don’t, either you will or you won’t,” Jeff Tweedy sings with perfect complacency. Rarely do you hear such patience, restraint, and beauty in a song, but the opening track on Sky Blue Sky strolls along like a cautious optimist for those too old and tired to beleaguer the weight of pessimism. This isn’t soft rock, this is Zoloft rock.

14. Paul McCartney - “Ever Present Past“ (buy)
(from Memory Almost Full)

Upon first listen, you might think Macca’s “Ever Present Past” was released around the same time George had a hit with “I Got My Mind Set On You,” but despite the song’s sharp, youthful chorus it actually reveals to us a remarkably candid and far older Paul who is exposing his concerns of finding true happiness in the later years of his life and the fleeting permanence of his youthful exploits. It’s an honest, personal, and incredibly catchy song from one of pop music’s greatest songwriters.

13. Apples in Stereo - “Skyway“ (buy)
(from New Magnetic Wonder)

This is what rock ‘n’ roll sounds like to kids: electric riffs, banging pianos, ecstatic one-note solos, hand claps, and choruses where everybody chimes in with a “do-doo-doo-doo-do-doo!” All music should be this joyous.

12. The Pink Mountaintops - “Single Life“ (buy)
(from Single Life)

Good God this song rocks. Every single second kicks my ass and bleaches my bones. Take the two-chord punk energy of early Spacemen 3, the blasts of blistering white noise from The Jesus & Mary Chain, and add surrealistic, druggy vocals reminiscent of Bobby Gillespie and you’ve got a close approximation of The Pink Mountaintops’ “Single Life.” It’s a gritty, fuzz-rock gem and the closest thing to an endorsement of down and dirty hedonism you’re going to find on this list.

(Continued)