Photos: SXSW Day 1 – 3-12-08 in Austin, TX

Earlimart


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SXSW 2008 Day 1: Wednesday

The festival season is in full swing here at Ohmpark as we are now in the thick of South By Southwest. This is about the polar opposite of a fest as you can get from Langerado, and so far it has been an amazing experience. After spending many hours traveling yesterday, we finally arrived here in Austin, TX and headed downtown to pick up our passes. We were trying to catch the Akron/Family show at the convention center. We were only able to see the last few minutes, but they were an incredible couple of minutes. Hopefully I can catch them again sometime this weekend.

After that we walked around the city and grabbed some grub and some Fat Tire beers. The downtown scene sort of reminded me if you took Key West or New Orleans downtown and filled it with hipsters and rock stars. It certainly appealed to me. We went back to the convention center to catch Earlimart next. They were playing in some room that was decorated very fancily called the “Bat Bar” that I’m guessing was broadcasting their shows to some Direct TV channel. Everyone had to wait in line outside until they started, and then everyone ran in. They had professional video cameras everywhere and some dude telling us to cheer and stuff. I’m guessing it was similar to what a MTV live broadcast would be like. It felt really fake and weird, and even Earlimart was joking about it. The show was great though, as they played some new stuff from their next forthcoming album.

After some more walking around and taking in the atmosphere, we headed to Orange Twin party, but we got there too early and weren’t really digging what we heard. We decided to check out the Brooklyn Vegan party down the street. We caught the end of Deer Tick, who was pretty cool. We decided to get up close for the next act, Jeffrey Lewis and The Jitters, even though we had no clue what it was. It was a wise decision because i think it was the best show of the day and my first discovery of the fest. Jeffrey Lewis is a very unique singer/songwriter who is the epitome of an artist. In addition to performing awesome songs with extremely clever lyrics, he also had storybook comics he had drawn and to go with some of the songs. Check out these videos:

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Ohmpark’s Top 50 Best Albums Of 2007

2007 was an incredible year of music and there were so many albums I really liked that didn’t make this list. I noticed that most of the lists I pay attention to were very similar to one another this year as opposed to last year. Also, I’ve found myself in more of a disagreeance with those lists than last year. If there is any theme to be taken out of this list, I think it’s that I feel like too many great albums were underrated by the blogosphere elites, and that they were way in love with some albums I think are overrated. This list represents my personal assertions more so than the rest of the Ohmpark crew, but I worked hard to get every one’s opinions and influences in this thing. Feel free to comment on how much you hate or love it. I feel like every album on this is an essential one from last year, so go listen to some new music:

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Ohmpark Mixtape #3: My Favourite Songs Of 2007

The best ofs continue. Here are the songs I really dug this year, arranged in what i think is a great flowing hour and a half experience. I did cheat a little bit and included a few tracks from my best 2006 Albums of 2007 list, but these songs will always make me think of this year, so it’ll work. Enjoy:

The Shins : Wincing The Night Away : Sleeping Lessons

Midlake : The Trials Of Van Occupanther : Roscoe

The Cinematic Orchestra : Ma Fleur : To Build A Home

Blonde Redhead : 23 : Spring And by Summer Fall

Earlimart : Mentor Tormentor : Happy Alone

Wilco : Sky Blue Sky : Impossible Germany

Beach House : Beach House : Master of None

Low : Drums And Guns : Breaker

Parade : Answer Me : Booths

Of Montreal : Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? : The Past Is A Grotesque Animal

Deerhunter : Fluorescent Grey : Wash Off

Akron/Family : Love Is Simple : Don’t Be Afraid, You’re Already Dead

Snowden : Anti Anti : Anti Anti


Moorish idols : Moorish Idols : Why Are We Whispering

Phosphorescent : Pride : Wolves

Smashing Pumpkins : Zeigeist : Neverlost

Radiohead : In Rainbows : Reckoner

Marnie Stern : In Advance Of The Broken Arm : Patterns Of A Diamond Ceiling

Humpday Randomnimity

First, some quick show reviews from the last week. Last Wednesday night at the Orange Peel in Asheville, NC, which is a great venue to see a show, I caught Porcupine Tree and the opening band 3. Stylistically, 3 was something i would never like, what i would describe as dark-cheesy-metal-rock, but they were so good at it that it was thoroughly enjoyable. The two goofy percussionists were the highlight of this band for me, and they did a great drum solo near the end. Porcupine Tree came on next and did a beautiful set with almost all of Fear Of A Blank Planet and their new EP Nil Recurring plus a few other goodies. Steven Wilson, the genius behind this thing, plays every show barefoot for some reason, so that was interesting. PT will be here in Atlanta on October 29th at The Roxy, so I highly recommend you go catch that show, and if you still haven’t listened to their new album or EP, now is the time to pick those up because they are some of the best music to come out this year. Some phlogs from Benjammin:

Porcupine Tree : Nil Recurring : Nil Recurring
The other great OTP show I caught in the last week was Earlimart at The Bottletree in Birmingham, AL Monday night. After getting lost for half an hour, i found the place and it was more of a restaurant than a music venue, but it was still pretty cool. It also seemed like most of the people there had no interest in seeing Earlimart (some local band played first and I think most people were actually there to see that). I was able to catch most of Office‘s set and it was terribly mediocre. I haven’t listened to any of this Chicago band’s studio stuff, but live they didn’t really show me anything interesting. The venue had a big projector screen come down and play videos between sets instead of a curtain, so that was a nice touch. Earlimart came on as a five-piece with fake fall leaves across all of their equipment. They did a heavy dose of Mentor Tormentor with some other jams for a short and sweet set. I’ve really fallen in love with this album and this band so check them out. Some pics:

Some live video action:

CMJ fest in New York is in full swing right now and Atlanta’s own Morning State has come out of the studio where they are working on a new release to do a show with Peter and Bjorn (minus John), Black Kids, and Zambri this Saturday night, so if you’re up there, catch it.

Looking for a show to catch tonight? Here’s two good choices:

A great show i recommend checking Friday night:

Here’s the Black Lips on Conan last week:

It’s Echo Project Week!

For me, this is gonna be a killer week. Wednesday I’m heading up to Asheville to catch Porcupine Tree. Thursday I come back and head a little OTP for Echo Project. Then on Monday I’m heading to Birmingham to catch Earlimart. A few Echo Project details I forgot to cover is that Common got added and that Dubconscious will be playing at the campgrounds Thursday night. As excited as I am about the festival, there happens to be a ridiculous amount of great shows in the Atlanta area this weekend, so if you can’t go to Echo, there’s still plenty of great tunes to be absorbed:

Tuesday night The Brunettes and The Preakness will be at The Earl.

Wednesday night Ghostface Killah will be at Georgia Tech.

Thursday night Octopus Project and Morning State will be at the Drunken Unicorn.

Friday night offers many great options: Caribou at the Earl, Minus The Bear at the Variety Playhouse, and Portugal. The Man at The Loft.

Subtle and Sunset Rubdown at the Drunken Unicorn Saturday night is pretty sweet.

Sunday is packed out too with Ryan Adams at the Fox, Band of Horses at Park Tavern, and my pick for best show of the week, Earlimart at the Earl.

Minus The Bear : Menos El Oso : Drilling

Portugal. The Man : Church Mouth : Shade

Earlimart : Mentor Tormentor : Happy Alone

The Octopus Project : Hello, Avalanche : I Saw The Bright Shinies

Caribou : Andorra : Eli

Sunset Rubdown : Random Spirit Lover : For The Pier (And Dead Shimmering)

The Hottness: Earlimart

Earlimart is a band that I’ve heard about and listened to a little but never really knew and every chance I had to see them just hadn’t worked out yet. But since getting Mentor Tormentor, their new album, it is all I have been listening to. I have a feeling this is going to sit high atop my best of 2007 albums. The sound is very heavily Elliot Smith influenced (who was a friend and mentor to the band) but i also hear alot of the Yo La Tengo and Autolux vibe. Check it out for your self:

Earlimart : Mentor Tormentor : Everybody Knows Everybody

Earlimart : Mentor Tormentor : Bloody Nose

Buy Mentor Tormentor Here

Earlimart Myspace

Here’s a live show they did for KEXP:

EARLIMART (1disc-Uncompressed Stream)
2007-08-25
USA-Seattle, WA-KEXP In Studio Performance and Interview

SOURCE: Uncompressed Stream 44.1KHz PCM Webcast (WMA lossless at 1411.2 kb/s) -> Total Recorder -> WAV

TRANSFER: WAV -> Normalized with Adobe Audition 2.0 -> Cut on CD sector boundaries with CD Wave -> Converted to FLAC (8) with FLAC Frontend

SETLIST:
01 KEXP Intro
02 Answers & Questions (*)
03 Never Mind The Phone Calls
04 Interview
05 700>100
06 Gonna Break Into Your Heart
07 KEXP Outro

LENGTH: 19:10
DATE: Saturday, August 25, 2007 | 12:01 p.m.

(*) NOTE: There is a drop out at the 3:10 mark. Tried 3 recordings and ALL dropped at the same point so it seems to be a KEXP issue.

Download Lossless Torrent Here

Earlimart will be at The Earl on October 14th. I’ll be going to Birmingham, AL the next night to catch them there because of Echo Project.