Saturday, March 13, 2010

Review: The Lawrence Arms - Buttsweat and Tears Ep

A big challenge for most bands when recording the follow-up to a successful album is what direction to go. Follow the formula to carefully and they'll be accused of simply rewriting the same album, divert too drastically and they risk alienating their fans. Chicago, Il's The Lawrence Arms had a tough act to follow after 2006's Oh Calcutta!, widely agreed to be the strongest to date in a catalog of strong releases (it kicks ass). Now, after several years and a couple of great side projects, the ramblin' boys of pleasure are back with the Buttsweat and Tears Ep and my biggest criticism is that they've stood pat. The five songs on this disc could easily have been five that didn't make it onto Calcutta. That said, they are pretty great songs, everything I look for from a Larry Arms song: ragged vocals, quirky lyrics, and awesome grimey broke-ass punk rock. I had kind of hoped that guitarist Chris McCaughan would bring back a little bit of his solo acoustic effort Sundowner to influence this release, but the only track that can be called mellow is the last "The Redness in the West" which is typical of the slower songs on LA's releases. For me the stand out tracks are "The Slowest Drink in the Saddest Bar on the Snowiest Day in the Greatest City" (or something like that, christ is it a mouthful) which sounds a bit like "Are You There Margaret? It's Me God" which is about as high as praise gets, and the song "Demons" which wikipedia informs me did not make the cut for the physical 7". So umm. that sucks, but hey, wouldn't you know it, that was the song I was going to post anyway. So everyone wins. Except me. You know if I get sued. Please don't sue me Lawrence Arms. I bought Oh Calcutta on vinyl. That has to count for something. So I guess the moral here is, it's ok not to go too far out of the box, as long as the box was already pretty sweet.

The Lawrence Arms - Demons

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Lawrence Arms

Monday, March 8, 2010

Spring Break Video Goodness

Saw Britney's Spear last night on their Topless Spring Break Tour. They acquitted themselves quite well in front of a face breaking crowd. It's always fun to see Alan get naked in front of people who aren't prepared for it. It was a weird bill, all the other bands were seriously hardcore. The best of the rest was probably the two bands from New York. Crown of Lions from Plattsburgh, who I thought were going to be really bro-y sort of hardcore guys but then I talked to a couple of them and they were super nice, played seriously brutal music. And then from the city of New York itself was Turn It Up who seemed like they had a lot more going on melodically then the P.A. gave them credit for. They are apparently recording right now so I look forward to hearing what they sound like on record. They were also really nice guys and one of them had an awesome Lemuria shirt (that's right, it's always a good time to bring Lemuria up).

In addition to that show-recap (I don't think it was long enough to be a review) I have some video goodness I have found in my travels of the web (it was mostly punknews). First off is the Dropkick Murphys playing Shipping Up To Boston live, joined on stage by Dickie Barret and the rest of The Mighty Mighty Bosstones who fit into the song pretty well.


Next up is a great video combining two bands I really love, The Who and The Gaslight Anthem. The only thing that would top that would be Cursive covering Shield Your Eyes (Tim if you're out there, think about it maybe????). Here it is, Gaslight covering Baba O'Riley:


Finally, I couldn't find a way to embed it but here is a link to video of Jacoby Ellsbury doing his thing, i.e. being crazy athletic. Have a fantastic day.

Dropkick Murphys - I'm Shipping Up To Boston

Gaslight Anthem - The Backseat (Acoustic)


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Dropkick Murphys
Gaslight Anthem