Scripted Failures

MoS released the video for “Get Better” today!  Check it out below.  I love the song.  Lovely string arrangement.  And no organ to be found?  Hath hell frozen over?

A little later than promised, but I had a friend that needed company last night. Enjoy.

P.S. Yes, I know they suck.

The Weakerthans at The Bottletree, Birmingham, AL, March 30, 2008.

Lead singer John Samson and bassist Greg Smith	John, Greg, and drummer Jason Tait
John, Greg, and Jason	Doh! Guitarist Stephen Carroll stealing the spotlight I was trying to take a picture of Jason here, and Stephen walked right into the frame.
Christine Fellows, John’s wife Christine Fellows playing keys and singing backup. She also played an opening set	John, Greg, and Jason
Jason Tait, drumming Jason, and John and Greg’s arms.	3/4 of the Band From where I was, I couldn’t get the whole band at once. This is probably my favorite picture.
John Samson	Jason, John and Greg rocking out.
Christine Fellows again, and some dude’s nose The flash was off, so it turned out extra-blurry	John playing one of the encores by himself
John and Stephen

The Weakerthans put on a hell of a show last night in Birmingham, AL.  My wife and I arrived a few minutes late, but caught most of Christine Fellows‘ set.  I need to listen to some of her albums now.  Afterwards, The Bottletree pulled down the famous “screen” and we waited.  Next up was local singer/songwriter AA Bondy, who sang mostly acoustic love songs with strong Christian overtones.  Then came the screen again

Finally, the main act arrived.  John Samson looked so much different than I remember from pictures.  I thought I remembered him with facial hair and glasses, and a bit older.  I realize he must be going on 30 at this point, as he started The Weakerthans in 1997, but he looked really young for some reason.

They started off with “Bigfoot!”, a slow, almost lullabye-like number from the new album.  After that, they broke into “Our Retired Explorer (Dines with Michel Foucault in Paris, 1961)” from Reconstruction Site.  Then they hit “Civil Twilight,” followed by “Night Windows,” both from Reunion Tour.  The full set list (from my faulty memory) is below.  The slashed tracks comprise the section I’m not too sure of, but I think I have the order mostly right.  I’ll confirm with someone else that was at the show.  (If you were, feel free to comment and correct me).

“Bigfoot!” [Reunion Tour]
“Our Retired Explorer (Dines with…etc.etc.)” [Reconstruction Site]
“Civil Twilight” [Reunion Tour]
“The Reasons” [Reconstruction Site]
“Sun in an Empty Room” [Reunion Tour]
“Night Windows” [Reunion Tour]
“Tournament of Hearts” [Reunion Tour]
“Benediction” [Reconstruction Site]
“Reconstruction Site” [Reconstruction Site]
“Aside” [Left and Leaving]
“Virtue the Cat Explains Her Departure” [Reunion Tour]
“Watermark” [Left and Leaving]
“Left and Leaving” [Left and Leaving]
“Confessions of a Futon-Revolutionist” [the only track from Fallow]
“Plea from a Cat Named Virtue” [Reconstruction Site]
[Encore]
“One Great City!” [Reconstruction Site]
“My Favourite Chords” [Left and Leaving]
“This Is a Fire Door, Never Leave Open” [Left and Leaving]
“(Manifest)” [Reconstruction Site]

It was a fairly balanced set.  I was expecting a run-through of the new album with some older songs interspersed, but I was happy to hear a good mix of new songs plus some of the songs that I never had a chance to see when they were touring for previous albums (esp. “Aside” and “Watermark”, both of which I was very excited to hear).

It’s hard to pick highlights when the whole show was excellent, but I think the encore might’ve been my favorite part.  John Samson came back onstage to play “One Great City!” (before which I kept hearing people yelling “I Hate Winnipeg!” and during which I sang “I Hate Birmingham!” which elicited a smile from a couple of people next to me).  “My Favourite Chords” is such a great song, and when I was convinced these two solo songs were going to end it, the band came back and joined in on cue for the ending, after which they threw in “This Is a Fire Door…”, a song I hadn’t thought about in a while, and had forgotten how much I loved, and then, to top it off, a postlude of “(Manifest),” my favorite of the 3 segues on Reconstruction Site (due to how much more rocking it is than the others, and how awesome the words are).

After the show, we waited outside for a few minutes, hoping John would come out.  Stephen came by, and I looked at him, but by the time I recognized him, he had gone inside.  He looked to be in a hurry, and I’m not for hassling bands after a show, but I did want to meet John and tell him how much I enjoyed it.  I bought a tour poster and Reconstruction Site (I’m horribly embarassed that I didn’t own that until yesterday), completing my Weakerthans catalog.

I have pictures!  But they’re at home and I’m at work, so bear with me.  They will be posted tonight post-haste!  To everyone that came out, I hope we gave ‘em a warm enough welcome that they’ll consider hitting AL again on their next tour!

Update: I found a video someone took of Civil Twilight from the show at al.com.  Check it out here (http://videos.al.com/2008/03/the_weakerthans_live_at_bottle.html).

Death Cab revealed the art for Narrow Stairs.  I don’t know what to think, really.  Anyone else?

Death Cab for Cutie released (streaming from their MySpace) the first single from their forthcoming album, Narrow Stairs.  It’s an 8 and a half-minute jam called “I Will Possess Your Heart,” where the at least the first half is a bass-infused groove reminiscent of a more mid-tempo, jammier, “National Anthem.”  It’s pretty good.  The lyrics strike me as typical Gibbard fare.  I think it could’ve been shorter, but they warned us.  People are already preemptively calling this Album of the Year, which is a bit far to go after one single, but it definitely has promise.

Honestly, though, it’s not quite as much of a change as I was expecting, given the original promises/threats.  Take a listen:

I’ve been seeing the newest Fair to Midland album, “Fables from a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True,” at Best Buy for a long time, and while its artsy cover and long title always intrigued me, I never bothered to take a listen to it.  Not too long ago, I stumbled upon their earlier “Drawn and Quartered EP” for $1, and so I picked it up.  It contains older demos and a few live tracks from their independent releases.  The reason I’m writing all of this is because the first track on this EP is killer.  I can’t stop listening to it.  So I thought I’d share.

Fair to Midland, “Orphan Anthem ‘86″

I’ll admit, upon listening to this song, one of my first reactions was that they were a Christian band.  The following lines piqued my curiosity:

Instilled in us ethics, not by god, but by our choice
I can’t even imagine, but I can see it
and
Encompassed by standards, and we give ourselves all of the credit
Can’t put my finger on it, but I can see it

I did a quick Google Search and came upon an interview that the lead singer, Darroh Sudderth, did with Mp3.com.  Here’s what he had to say on the subject (I thought the interviewer was not-so-subtle in his questioning):

Chris Rolls:You said you were out on the road with…who did you say, Flyleaf?
Darroh Sudderth:Yes.
Chris: Not now, but before…the Christian hardcore band?
Darroh: Yes, sir.
Chris: Now, I have to ask: Do you have any particular religious affinities?
Darroh: It all depends on which one of us you ask. I wouldn’t say we’re a Christian band, but some of us are Christians in the band.
Chris: I see. I see. But it’s not something that you’re promoting as a band?
Darroh: No. No.
Chris: OK.
Darroh: It may be something that subconsciously comes through at some points, with one or more of the members. But…yeah.
Chris: But is it something that you work into your lyricism?
Darroh: Well, I grew up…me personally…I’m sure it works its way into a lot of the lyrical content because I grew up in the Bible Belt.  So it’s almost…  But I won’t say which ones of us are Christians and which ones aren’t and which are atheists. But it’s about a 50/50. We’re cut in half.
Chris: Well, that must make for some interesting conversation on the road, especially if you’re doing a rock tour.
Darroh: Oh, yeah.

The whole interview is worth reading, actually.  They sound like an interesting band.  I’ll have to give their latest endeavor a listen.

Mood Mix

1. Mew, “Am I Wry? No”
2. Radiohead, “Lucky”
3. The Junior Varsity, “Get Comfortable”
4. The Cure, “Homesick”
5. Jeremy Enigk, “Been Here Before”
6. Circa Survive, “Act Appalled”
7. Foo Fighters, “Up in Arms”
8. Armor for Sleep, “Remember to Feel Real”

Friday Mixes is a weekly feature that showcases a mix of songs from various genres that usually share some common theme.  If you have an idea for a theme, email us at feedback@scriptedfailures.com and maybe we’ll use it.

So I’ve been listening to a lot of Cursive’s Domestica lately.  It’s one of those records that just seems to go through frequent cycles of high-rotation.  This time around, however, I paid attention more to the themes of the record and noticed more than a couple of parallels, so I decided to figure out once and for all what the common threads were in these songs and share them with you. The following table illustrates my findings:

As you can see “The Radiator Hums” exemplifies the most of all of these common threads.  I should do this for all of their albums (that is neither a threat, nor a promise).

EMI is still sore about In Rainbows, so they’re doing the only thing they can do: trying to milk as much money from the Radiohead properties they do control as they can.  They’ve already released all the old albums in a box set.  What else can they do?  Oh, yeah, a Greatest Hits album.

How can you blame them?  If I owned stock in a major record label, I think I’d be on the phone with my broker right now.  Granted, not everyone can afford to take the Screw You approach that Radiohead did, but it’s definitely becoming less and less important to have a deal with a major.  The music industry is in a tizzy over the fact that technology is just plain making them unnecessary.  It makes sense.  Home recording software has been lessening the cost of getting quality recordings, and the internet/digital media have made distribution methods cost nothing.  Scripted Failures has been recording pretty good DIY recordings for years, and we have practically no funds.  With just a little money spent on the right equipment, we could probably make a pretty good sounding album at home.

So this Greatest Hits thing.  It’ll sell.  It’ll sell well.  If you casually like Radiohead, you’ll probably pick it up.  If you’re a die-hard fan, and you own all the original albums, you might still pick it up, as Justin says, “just to have”.  Radiohead can’t do much about it, but drummer Phil Selway doesn’t seem to pleased about the prospect: “It’s well within their rights to do it. *sigh* So we’ll have to see.
But as I say, for us the main thing is that we’re excited about the
process of releasing In Rainbows and what we’re doing, around the
touring, around the way we’re able to release it, and most importantly
around the music itself.”

(Read the full interview with Analogue here)

I just found out yesterday that Winnipeg, MB’s own The Weakerthans are scheduled to play at The Bottletree in my former college town of Birmingham, AL, only 1.5 hours from here, on March 30.  I’m ecstatic.  This will be the first time they’ve ever played in Alabama.  Tickets (via etix.com) are only $13, and there are two other bands, Liam Finn and Christine Fellows, neither of which I am familiar with, but I plan on being so before the end of March.

I never thought I’d see The Weakerthans live without heading up to Canada, so this is amazingly awesome.  Here’s a video of their most recent single off of their most recent album, Reunion Tour, entitled, “A Civil Twilight.”  Enjoy: