Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Strange Mercy by St. Vincent | Strange Teaser Videos First

Saint Vincent

The first Strange Mercy teaser video involved young women talking directly into the camera and saying things like "Is you hair supposed to look like that?" The next video shows newborn kitties and a somewhat curious mother cat keeping an eye on the camera. Where is St. Vincent leading us? Teaser video is right. Finally, why did Annie Clark record this new album in Dallas? I'm scared.



St. Vincent Follow Up Album Titled Strange Mercy



The track list of the new St. Vincent album titled Strange Mercy reveals nothing more than words. Recorded at 4AD studio, I must say that it looks like the right environment for Ms. Clark. Milwaukee will be the third stop on the tour, and they are playing at the Pabst Theater.
As Ms. Clark had to record most of the tracks to her second album in her apartment, she was forced to keep the volume levels down. Did she restrict herself to that same quiet creativity on the new album? We will all find out on 9/13.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Awolnation Needs a Bit of Polish

Awolnation Summerfest


I love Awolnation when it comes to their videos and studio work. As I write this, I'm once again looking at a frozen screen that should be the band's home page. Let's just say that this band is still in the crawl stages, taking their first steps, but mostly crawling. They played the US Cellular stage at Summerfest this past Sunday night, and I must say that I went away unsatisfied.


First, the mix was terrible. Okay, that's not really their fault, but who was working the sound board? Was it their own engineer, or was it a worn out, last night, just-two-bands-to-go before it's over, Summerfest hire? Second, what happened to Aaron Bruno? His vocal work was not the best that evening. His timing was bad, notes off key, and he just didn't get the audience to stick around.
Keeping fans at the Summerfest stage is easy when you are the last band before the headline act. I was part of that situation at Summerfest 2005, and it was amazing to play the last half of our set in front of 3000 people. Yes, those people were waiting for the headline act, but they gave us some good love too. I'm still buying the Awolnation disk, but I might have to pass on their next Milwaukee show unless I can find some good reviews leading up to that date.