What’s the Deal: On tour with The Walkmen right now on the East coast and eventually making their way to Austin for ACL are Luke Temple, Michael Bloch, Kristina Lieberson, Peter Hale and Jennifer Turner, better known as Here We Go Magic. This Brooklyn-based group released their debut on Austin’s Western Vinyl - home to Dirty Projectors, J. Tillman, Balmorhea and others - earlier this year to the sound of soft praise from peers and critics alike. The album, recorded at Temple’s house over the course of two months, contains a range of sounds, from the trancelike to the hushed, psych folky, but it manages to steer relatively clear of the singer/songwriter stuff Temple used to make while painting murals in the homes of rich New Yorkers.
“Fangela” is one of the folkier tunes with distant acoustic chords, synthesizers, hand claps and higher-pitched, comfy, catchy vocals. It’s also likely one of the first to ring out as a single, which is probably why the group chose it to make into a video. Both of their videos, “Fangela” and “Tunnelvision” were created by artist and filmmaker Snejina Latev, which are anything but standard. “Fangela” is full of animated shapes, drawn faces, exploding points of light and video footage of spooky trees.
Something Interesting: They are playing the Xbox stage on Sunday at ACL at 1:15pm, which is the same time as David Garza and just before The B-52s.
Other Tracks Worth Checking Out: “Only Pieces”
What’s the Deal: Ah, supergroups. Where would we be without them - The Highwaymen, Traveling Wilburys, Temple of the Dog, Velvet Revolver, Angels & Airwaves, The Dead Weather, and the list goes on? Now, there’s Them Crooked Vultures, a project sure to sell out tours and churn out crave-worthy songs built on the strength of the millions of albums sold of their independent projects. Them Crooked Vultures is vocalist/guitarist Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age), drummer Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters) and bassist/ keyboardist John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin), with Alain Johannes as a live guitarist. They have yet to release a recording, and the only music out there is from snippets of songs released by the band and live recordings on YouTube, which surely, combined with the fact that they haven’t played a date in the U.S. since their debut post-Lollapalooza performance, has hard rock fans chomping at the bit to really see what they’re made of.
October 1st in Austin at Stubb’s and on October 2nd at Austin City Limits fans are going to get that chance. They’ll also be playing a taping for Austin City Limits on PBS to air later. Odds are they’ll be playing tunes that, until now, have only been teased like “Scumbag Blues” and “Nobody Loves Me And Neither Do I”, both of which have the kind of big rock sound with blistering guitars and spotless, explosive drumming you’d expect from members of bands with rock reps like these.
Something Interesting: They’re closing out the Xbox 360 stage Saturday at ACL with a 7:30pm performance. Your only choice after that is whether to go see the Yeah Yeah Yeahs or Kings of Leon.
Other Tracks Worth Checking Out: “Elephants” and “Dead End Friends”
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
Them Crooked Vultures play ACL Fest on Friday, not Saturday.