ALL HANDS AND THE COOK

i'm pretty sure i've talked about this song before. let's talk about it again.



LISTEN TO IT LIVE, HERE

recorded, this song is good. live, different story, live it is great, live it is borderline terrifying. the walkmen know how to write a song that hits you in the face. this song might as well beat the shit out of you and then there's what hamilton called in an interview "the happy section" which is really just "the less violent section" when it will drive you to the hospital. all the reverb on the guitar and the organ and how subtle and insistent the drums are and the words, and how the words are delivered: "you were lost when i found you" --- there is something antique about this, something old, something dug up, something kept dusty in your attic, some dark familial secret. in my first post on this blog about the walkmen i wrote about how they know how to create these landscapes with music. you can see and you can feel everything, you can walk into everything, you can touch everything, everything pulls at you. what do you see in this one?

I MADE THE BEST OF IT

i am in love.
this song is beautiful.

EVERYONE WHO PRETENDED TO LIKE ME IS GONE --- THE WALKMEN

hamilton has a real gift for saying a lot with a little. there is very little in this song. it has this great bleak energy. the way it all builds up - the drums. holy shit. always the drums, with the walkmen. if the rat is as hopeless as you can be, this song is how you got there. "i made the best of it." over the organ and the drums and that fantastic reverby guitar, over loops of itself, over everything - "i made the best of it." i did all i can do. i did all i can do. this is a perfect song for the fall. leaves crunching beneath your feet. you are walking with your head down. you did all you could do.

DEAR THE WALKMEN,

STOP BEING SO GOOD (AND CUTE)

POSTCARDS FROM TINY ISLANDS --- THE WALKMEN

this band is fucking awesome. end of story. i saw them in a tiny venue in northampton on sunday. MIND = BLOWN. it was truly incredible.

here are some new songs for you to check out:
THIS ONE IS MY FAVORITE. this reminds me of white sky a little - new, unrecorded, unreleased, can't imagine my life without being able to listen to it. not to mention the lyrics about going out to lunch. i love in the chorus when there's empty spaces vocal-wise and hamilton just goes "ohhh!"
"THE ONE WITH THE WHISTLING"
funny story - when i first saw them they opened with this song and the horn section (EIGHT PIECE at webster hall!!) came out HOLDING THEIR INSTRUMENTS and just whistled. anyway, this sounds like some beautiful spaghetti western long shots across lovely italian plains.
A SAD ONE

YOU GOTTA NERVE

IS THE RAT THE SONG OF THE DECADE?

the rat is a thousand things but first of all it is very angry and very driven. "you've got a nerve to be asking a favor. you've got a nerve to be calling my number." i suppose it is best summed up by one youtube comment: "after hearing this song i wanna get drunk and wander the streets alone." there is a profound loneliness to this song. it is perhaps one of the most bleak songs that i know. it is certainly the most bleak song that i love.


IS A HUNDRED MILES OFF THE ALBUM OF THE DECADE?

i don't think so, simply because most people consider the walkmen's best album to be bows + arrows (which is really good, not gonna lie). for me, most walkmen albums have a bunch of solid songs on them and then some i just don't like. i like all of a hundred miles off. when i think of how music can deliver triumphance i think of the mariachi horns in louisiana and all of lost in boston (i think of another very important song too. but this is a story for another time). and when i think of how heartwrenching music can be i think of all hands and the cook. this album is a necessity, point-blank, and it one of my favorites of the decade for sure.


also: for sure one of the best covers of the decade would have to be this delicious piece of delicious:
MANY RIVERS TO CROSS --- THE WALKMEN
put this on in your car. try not to stick your hand out the window and play with the slipstream. try not to scream along with hamilton: MANY! RIVERS! TO CRAAAAOAOOAOAOOAOAOSSSSSSSS!!!!

A HUNDRED MILES OFF

BUY IT
HEAR LOUISIANA

their heaviest album, all mariachi horns and clangy guitar. a force to be reckoned with live. september 20 in northampton.

ALL HANDS AND THE COOK

as some of you might know, my friend anthony and i went to see the walkmen last thursday, april 16. they were incredible. in the middle of their set they played one song that blew me away, and i just figured out what it was and want to share it with you because it will blow your mind too:

ALL HANDS AND THE COOK --- THE WALKMEN

in the end of this song, hamilton held one "note" (by which i mean he just yelled one word) for at least thirty seconds. it was insane. all of us in the audience were screaming and cheering expecting him to stop, but he just did not stop.

if you are not convinced, youtube does more justice than i ever could with words.

IT'S SUCH A DRAG TO BE ON YOUR OWN

many thanks to the blog i stole this from.

today i discovered a huge gem: the walkmen take my favorite jimmy cliff song / one of many childhood jams and transform its reggae-tinged afternoon-sunlight bliss into a tortured, nostalgic anthem. i don't know how this makes so much sense to me.

MANY RIVERS TO CROSS --- THE WALKMEN.

BONUS:
WE'VE BEEN HAD --- THE WALKMEN. oh hey, piano! hey, do you remember i taught myself this whole thing in the auditorium in high school. it echoed all the way up to the ceiling. i get tired with this whole mess now. i could go back to that and learn a thousand songs and echo them up to the ceiling and forget whatever.

2009

here is a gift for your new year:
IN THE NEW YEAR --- THE WALKMEN
AND I KNOW THAT IT'S TRUE
IT'S GONNA BE A GOOD YEAR

ALBUMS OF DA YEAR

i'm going to do a top three because i was really only blown away by the sheer and undeniable flawlessness of three. but i also would wholeheartedly recommend this year's releases by:
MGMT, FRIENDLY FIRES, THE MORNING BENDERS, GIRL TALK, LYKKE LI, FLEET FOXES, THE TING TINGS, SANTOGOLD, FOALS, and TOKYO POLICE CLUB.



3) YOU + ME --- THE WALKMEN. this album speaks of a place and time and incredible distance, a kind of divided nostalgia. in its ecstatic moments it is ecstatic, quick hand-clapping, this chimey, awkwardly tuned guitar, hamilton leithauser's voice uniformly joyous. on other tracks he is distant, another place and time, regretful. the drums, the bass and guitar, all are hollowed out, as if pulsebeats from the depths of a cave. this man, this voice, this music, have seen a thousand new years, and all of them have turned out to be something separate from whatever was promised. and they are still hopeful, for the kind of closeness this album's title promises and can only deliver in segments that seem like flashbacks.


2) THE RHUMB LINE --- RA RA RIOT. i saw ra ra riot three times in three months this year - july 19, august 19, october 16. the rhumb line is a sheer testament to how powerful and affecting music can be, and seeing it live reinforces this, at least for me. ra ra riot, more than any band i have ever seen live, feel their music like a physical entity, and it effects you like it effects them - watching, in the late-afternoon heat, wes miles in a button-down shirt and cutoff jeans sob "all, all, all your soaking wet dreams, you've spent them, you have gone and dreamt them dry" into a microphone wedged into the neck of his bass player mathieu santos is an image i doubt i will ever forget in all the years that i live. the shock to the rhumb line, though, is how that energy, so rooted in the visual, is carried into the music itself - the unrestrained insanity, personified and multiplied, in ghost under rocks, the glee that is saint peter's day festival (see my favorite songs list), the heavy loss and regret that is winter '05, and that devastating, pulsating organ and drums in too too too fast - that hook, "when i look in your eyes what am i supposed to do!?" you feel it. you will always feel it. you feel it in headphones, at your computer's speakers, you feel it then like you feel it when it is being played right in front of you and these six individuals writhe around, not standing still for a second, a reflection of the divisible entities of their music.


IF THIS IS A SURPRISE TO YOU, YOU DEFINITELY STUMBLED ACROSS THIS BLOG BY ACCIDENT AND DO NOT KNOW ME, BUT MY FAVORITE ALBUM OF THIS YEAR IS OBVIOUSLY

1) VAMPIRE WEEKEND --- VAMPIRE WEEKEND.
"in newport the air proclaims only the sources of money. even as the sun dapples the great lawns and the fountains plash all around, there is something in the air that has nothing to do with pleasure and nothing to do with graceful tradition, a sense not of how prettily money can be spent but of how harshly money is made, an immediate presence of the pits and the rails and the foundries..."
--- joan didion, "the seacoast of despair"
here is an image of an outsider in privilege. here is a precocious kid, handed a hefty sum of financial aid, who moves to cambridge or new haven or, maybe, morningside heights rosy-cheeked, only to find his every motion suddenly soundtracked by harpsichord and ironic afro-beat. this is a world he finds instantly difficult to understand. all he needs to be happy is to take the 79 across the park. the rich girls he hooks up with are more interested in keffiyehs and louis vuitton. his friends - bryn, without whom he is useless and loveless, joanna, who dwells on past relationships and is not mature enough to let go, blake, fake enough to present a different face to everyone - are all awkward people who have no interest in visualizing, imagining, or planning for the outcome of their lives after graudation. like didion in newport he sees not the glory of money, but the depravity with which that money is made. he sees himself sinking into this life, and knows that there is no getting out of it now. he is already lost, but for three minutes and forty-eight seconds he will beg you on his knees, with these strings behind like some kind of ghost, something chasing he cannot escape, to get out of this cape-cod illusion, to not let this take you over, to flee to whatever kind of safety not-new-england can supply. and this is his final stand before we lose him. this album's penultimate moment lies in his admitting, without doubt or denial, that he has fallen into this life where money is spent prettily and earned in secret, and that he has, without struggling, embraced it, become a part of it - "your pillow feels so soft, now." and yet this is triumphant, refined. a peaceful admission. a little death, a little life.
the shock of this album is its amalgamation of so many perfect things into one perfect thing. there is joy in it and sadness. there is privilege in it, yes, but people don't realize that this album's two longest songs are about taking the bus and fleeing cape cod. there is africana in it and ska and an echo of something like elvis costello. i still have the faith in this album i had when watching it performed, live, in stunning entirety, on the day of its release in january. i can only hope that i always have that faith.




i still have to do favorite concerts + stuff i'm excited for next year!

THE RAT

watch that drummer!
the walkmen also did on the water and in the new year for juan's basement; watch it on pitchfork.tv.
really breathtaking bunch of performances. i was glued to the computer screen the entire time. you & me is really worth buying.


unrelated --
due to their selling out terminal 5 in about 12 minutes, vampire weekend added a second new york date, december 4. i, however, got tickets for the sold out date, dec. 3, and will be there takin detailed notes for u.

YOU + ME

LET'S TALK ABOUT THE WALKMEN:

they have that one really great song that was on the OC, "little house of savages" (forgive me, i can't find an mp3). that song is amazing. hamilton leithauser employs The Yelp with a cameron-birdish sense of abandon, but with the proficiency and talent of britt daniel, and there's that nagging feeling the song's about some kind of spousal abuse: "somebody's waiting for me at home... i don't wanna go!"

the walkmen have a new album out on august 19 called you&me. i predict that it is going to be breathtakingly awesome based on the collection of songs i have heard, one of which i will give to you:
THE BLUE ROUTE.
check out that yelp! "what happened to you!?!"
"all the blackbirds in the sky... a hundred fireflies at night..."

my favorite thing about this band is how they create these LANDSCAPES OF SOUND. i'm trying to think of other bands that do this. you will not understand what i am saying unless you listen to this song, or others by this band. also elusive is a way to describe this: every sound is so necessary, you know: you have the voice i described above, the drums (excellent, very crisp, lots of cymbal and tambourine), the guitar (which is really reminiscent of spoon to me), this great organesque keyboard, nice clean simple bass... when these things come together you don't just get a picture - you know how some songs make a picture? the walkmen make music that you can walk into. three-dimensional, i guess. i'm thinking... big, wide blue sky, desert - windy. cold. little house of savages made me picture a house outside los angeles or in the bronx, broken-down, summer night - hot. old-style station wagons, big cars, maroon, circling.

THE NEW YEAR, for an added point. what do you see with this one?

stereogum said they were "taken aback" by how great you&me is. this means, i'm excited. i think i will buy this when i go buy the rhumb line.

i can't find that noah and the whale album.

RADIOHEAD IN THREE DAYS.
BATTLES IN ELEVEN DAYS.

m12=real
genevieve=super excited.