An Open Letter

Dear Art Brut. Dear Spaceland. Dear whoever set the prices for Jack & Cokes at six measly bucks, and dear waitress who served 'em up stiffer than a 2x4. Dear Porterville, surprisingly good opening band. Dear suspiciously overexuberant dancing fans of Porterville. Dear Every Room A Picture, perfectly acceptable support band with at least two songs that just need a little polish into radio-readiness. Dear everyone in attendance who failed to appreciate the irony of the DJ playing Bloc Party right before Art Brut went on. Dear whatever kept Eddie Argos from being unable to "finish ripping off Billy Childish". Dear Eddie Argos' story about Emily Kane showing up at an Art Brut show (!). Dear Jasper, oft-spotlighted new guy who nearly kicked the drumkit over mid-set. Dear the drummer who played standing up the whole night. Dear cute girl in the green shirt in front of whom I was reduced to a COLOSSAL blithering idiot by Art Brut's sheer outrocking power (hi and sorry). And dear LA attention whore chicks who decided to start aggressively making out for no apparent reason right when the concert ended:

Last night was beyond awesome. Let's do this again real soon.

xoxoxo,
James Cobo

Fear of Music, "Skin & Bones" - I ordered Power Overload, the recent and surely-soon-to-be legendary local-scene compilation from Manchester label/mag/night High Voltage, mostly on the basis of the tracks from Omerta and Keith, but try as I might I can't seem to get past this song without pressing repeat, and unfortunately, it's frickin' track one. Well, too bad; I'm a sucker for anything loud, catchy, and containing at least one good howlalong hook, and "TAKE A LOOK AT ME SWEETNESS" sure fills that role. It's also something of a surprise coming from Fear of Music, whose EP has been sitting neglected on my iPod since the digital equivalent of the Carter administration - not that it's bad, mind you, just "decidedly indie" in the way that lets me listen to the Wolf Parade album and say "Yes yes, very nice" as I file it away forever. I do believe I'm going to have to see about changing that - even if they never equal this song's giddy ferocity, a band that puts out a song that takes over my brain this thoroughly deserves closer inspection. (Click here to buy the Power Overload compilation from High Voltage, or click here to buy the Fear of Music EP from Rough Trade)

Sebastian Tellier, "La Ritournelle" (Mr. Dan's Magic Wand mix) - Personally, I'm mostly just surprised I could ever run across a mix of "La Ritournelle" that actually held its own against Sebastien Tellier's masterful original, but seeing as how I've been devouring this mix for about three weeks solid since downloading it from Gigabyte Picnic a while back, I am willing to reconsider. It probably would have been easy and damnably effective just to edit the song down to the vocal bit, but fortunately the mysterious Mr. Dan takes his remix way further out, compressing the luxurious eight-minute original down into a three-minute furnace blast of pop bliss. Think of it as The Magnificent Seven to the original's Seven Samurai - sure, you lose the stateliness and solemn grandeur of the original, but it can be a hell of a lot of fun. (Click here to buy the "La Ritournelle" single or here to buy Politics, Tellier's original album, from Amazon.co.uk)