Despite the fact that lead singer and guitarist Dan Potthast now resides in LA, MU330 still manage to play home town shows in St. Louis around the holidays, and this year, they will be playing a show at the Creepy Crawl tomorrow night, Decemebr 23, with The Pubes (who will also be playing at the Creepy Crawl on New Years Eve) and Burnt Ninja. The Pubes are quite possibly my favorite punk rock band playing around in St. Louis right now; they have a great sense of humor and and play short, fast, loud and catchy blasts of punk rock in spirit of The Circle Jerks and the Zero Boys. Burnt Ninja is a little less punk and more straight rock, but are good as well.
Additionally, Potthast will be playing solo shows at the Creepy Crawl on December 29 and at the Royale on December 30.
On Friday, December 22, be sure to make it out to Off Broadway to catch two great local bands -- Gentleman Auction House and Walkie Talkie USA -- and a great band from Champaign, Elsinore. GAH always puts on a good show and WTUSA having been making a name for themselves over the past 8 months (although, with members from several classic St. Louis bands making up the ranks of the band, including The Phonocaptors, Sexicolor and Nadine, they were bound to be good). I just discovered Elsinore and I have liked every song I've heard of theirs so far; they play piano/guitar/drums-based indie rock in the vein of Ben Folds, Wilco and even The Long Winters. You can hear some of their songs on their myspace page.
If you are in town this weekend, definitely try and make it out to Off Broadway.
Check out this great, laid-back, and nearly unrecognizable version of "New York, New York" Ryan Adams and the Cardinals recently performed at a show in Ludwigshafen, Germany. Dodge at My Old Kentucky Blog has the entire show available for download; it's a great, great performance and full of wonderful takes on songs from his whole catalogue.
Sorry for the lack of posts - I have been super busy and had several engagements and Christmas parties to deal with this weekend. Stay tuned for some super-cool posts, including my best 2006 lists.
Tonight at Off Broadway, Ft. Worth, Tx's Black Tie Dynasty plays with locals Berry and The Hibernauts. While Black Tie Dynasty likes their synths gloomy and their eye-liner black, they also can kick out a serious hook or three, as evidenced on their latest album, Movements, released on Dallas' Idol Records. Think The Cure, The Smiths, and Joy Division.
Berry are great -- I have seen them live a few times and I can certainly recommend catching them. They play moody, even "dreamy" indie rock that evokes Radiohead, Red House Painters, or even meloncholy Built to Spill. The Hibernauts rock out a bit more, but are no less affecting. This is a good triple bill you'll definitely want to check out tonight. You can hear songs from Berry and The Hibernauts on their respective myspace pages, located here and here.
The Changes & Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - 12/12/06 - The Creepy Crawl, St. Louis, MO
Last night, I made my way out to The Creepy Crawl to see The Changes and Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin. This was my first visit to the Creepy Crawl's new location in Grand Center; due to schedule conflicts I've missed some great shows in the location's first six months, including Tapes 'n' Tapes, Tilly and the Wall, and The Stills. It's a good space for live music, and I'm glad there's a cool music venue in that part of town, but it just isn't The Creepy Crawl, lacking the appropriate levels of grime and, uh, "character". I kind of feel like they should have given it a new name and let the Creepy Crawl reside in a happy place in our collective memory.
ANYWAY, I got there near set's end of the third band of the evening, Troubadour Dali. They are local and decent. They seemed very young. Good music, but the vocals were a little shaky. WIth time, I have a feeling they will end up sounding pretty good. That's one of the great things aobut the Creepy Crawl, though - they let unproven local bands share the stage with touring bands way more than pretty much any other venue in town. The Changes were up next. They ruled my face. I highly recommend them. They were very engaging with the crowd, and seemed to be good people all around. They started the set off with the opening track from their album, Today Is Tonight, "When I Wake" and closed out the 40 minute set with "Her, You and I", a song that, on record, seemed to be an obvious set closer. In between at least songs, the band played "House Fire" by SSLYBY via an iPod hooked up to a PA to pimp SSLYBY, which was cool in an odd sort of way.
SSLYBY, from Springfield, Missouri, was good, too, but not as good as The Changes. They seemed very young and not entirely comfortable on stage, but that changed as the set went on and the band gained steam - by the end, they almost seemed like a different band than the one that had started plying 45 minutes earlier. I imagine they are getting better live with each and every show, so that's good to see. If you get a chance, you should definitely check out both bands.
Man, I love YouTube. Here's some great footage of Husker Du performing on "Live In London".
The clips are divided into seven parts. Enjoy.
"New Days Rising" and "It's Not Funny Anymore":
"Everything Falls Apart" and "The Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill":
"Terms of Psychic Warfare", "Powerline" and "Books About UFOs":
"I Apologize", "If I Told You" and "Folklore":
"Chartered Trips":
"Diane":
"Celebrated Summer":
And, as a bonus, here is footage of Husker Du performing in San Francisco in 1985:
"Diane", "Hate Paper Doll", and "Green Eyes":
"Divide And Conquer", "Pink Turns To Blue", and "Eight Miles High":
"Makes No Sense At All", "Louie, Louie" (featuring Minutemen and Meat Puppets):
Tonight at Off Broadway, Gentleman Auction House are playing with The Ten Thousand and The Blunts. The Ten Thousand features Mic Boshans of the late, great St. Louis band The Floating City, but don't expect to hear hear anything like the dreamy, slow-core stylings of The Floating City; The Ten Thousand play considerably louder and more upbeat music in the vain of Cursive and Sunny Day Real Estate... except they apparently use an accordian sometimes. If you're reading my blog and don't know how great Gentleman Auction House are, then you're not reading hard enough.
Here is the University of Arizona Marching Band practicing a medley of Radiohead songs, including "Fitter Happier", "Optimistic", "National Anthem", and "Karma Police":
This is them performing "Airbag", "Paranoid Android", "National Anthem", and "Karma Police" at halftime of the University of Washington game:
For those of you that came upon this post thinking it was about The Go! Team, here are some Go! Team remixes for you, via yousendit:
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah found themselves (put themselves) all over the interwebs today, after they announced the tracklisting and release date for their second full length album, Some Loud Thunder. They also have made available three songs from the album for download from their website and myspace page.
Here's the tracklisting:
1. Some Loud Thunder 2. Emily Jean Stock 3. Mama, Won’t You Keep Them Castles in the Air and Burning? 4. Love Song No. 7 5. Satan Said Dance 6. Upon Encountering the Crippled Elephant 7. Goodbye to Mother and the Cove 8. Arm and Hammer 9. Yankee Go Home 10. Underwater (You and Me) 11. Five Easy Pieces
And here's their Tour Dates:
12.31.06: New York City, NY // Hammerstein Ballroom 02.02.07: Manchester, England // Academy 02.03.07: Glasgow, Scotland // Barrowlands 02.04.07: Birmingham, England // Academy 02.06.07: Cologne, Germany // Gebaeude 9 02.07.07: Brussels, Belgium // AB Club 02.08.07: Amsterdam, the Netherlands // Paradiso 02.09.07: Berlin, Germany // Postbanhof 02.11.07: Hamburg, Germany // Kunst 02.12.07: Paris, France // La Cigalle 02.13.07: London, England // Shepherds Bush Empire
Here's a quick clip I took of CYHSY performing "The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth" at this year's Coachella Music Festival:
Rumor: The drummer for Clap Your Hands Say Yeah will be recording some songs with a Local St. louis musician, author and lawyer (not me) and singer/songwriter Tom McBride in January...
Akron, Ohio's The Black Keys are playing at Mississippi Nights this Saturday, December 2nd, with Dr. Dog. Unfortunately, I will be out of town this weekend at a wedding, but if you are into The Black Keys brand of raw and dirty bluespunksoulfunk-inspired rock, you'll definitely want to check the show out. Dr. Dog play lo-fi indie pop in the vein of Guided By Voices or Olivia Tremor control and have opened previsouly for My Morning Jacket and M Ward.
Be sure to listen to 88.1 KDHX at 6:00 p.m. on Saturday to hear Dr. Dog perform live in the KDHX studio on Coin Operated Radio, before their show at Mississippi Nights. You can listen online here and on the FM dial at 88.1 FM in the St. Louis area.
The mp3's I provide on this blog are provided to expose you to music you may not otherwise be familiar with. If you download a song and like what you hear, go check out the artist's website and spend some money on them.
If you are an artist featured on this blog and you want me to take any mp3s down, please contact me and I will do so.
The Radio Show
Dividing By Zero Will Get You Nowhere was a radio show on KWUR 90.3 FM in St. Louis, Missouri, and this blog started as an extension of that radio show, providing playlists, mp3's and anything else I deemed relevant, but the show is on indefinite hiatus, but the blog lives on.
