Ohmpark Mixtape #11: An Autumn Mix

Myasoedov_Autumn_Morning

Yo La Tengo : Here To Fall
No Age : Losing Feeling
Sian Alice Group : Through Air Over Water
Health : We Are Water
Neon Indian : Terminally Chill
Bear In Heaven : Dust Cloud
Sea Wolf : White Water, White Bloom
Baroness : Swollen And Halo
Porcupine Tree : Time Flies
Karen O and The Kids : All Is Love

Torrents Of The Day: Portishead, Genghis Tron, Porcupine Tree

The new Portishead album, Third, drops at the end of the month, here’s the video for the single and a show from this month to jam:

PORTISHEAD 2008-04-03 Columbiahalle, Berlin, GER (FLAC)

I’ve been really loving the new Genghis Tron album so here’s a show from last week:

Genghis Tron 2008-04-08 The Triple Rock Minneapolis, MN (MBHOs) (FLAC)

And here’s some cool demos from In Absentia from Porcupine Tree:

Porcupine Tree 2002-xx-xx In Absentia Sessions (Demos & Outtakes) (SHN)

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:

Click here to read the entire post…

Ohmpark’s Top 10 Best EPs Of 2007

An EP, or Extended Play, is the sweet spot between a full album and a single. Typically between 10 and 25 minutes, although what has come to define the difference between EPs and LPs can sometimes be blurred. Usually EPs get a bad rap, as it carries with it connotations of being “less-than” and not good enough to be a proper album, but I like seeing variations in the art medium. There are EPs like Alice In Chains’ Jar Of Flies and Radiohead‘s Airbag/How Am I Driving? that beat most full lengths. Also, EPs afford an artist the chance to showcase things that don’t fit in the context of a larger piece of work, or explore a different sound without moving fully in that direction. Anyways, I’d take an EP of nothing but the goodness over a full-length comprised mostly of filler surrounding a few good songs any day.

In 2007 I actually heard many great EPs. A few of which I’ll give honorable mentions that just missed this list that are worth-while include Joanna Newsom And The Ys Street Band, Vampire Weekend, and Black Kids‘ Wizard Of Ahhhs, of which I’ve come around a little bit on now that I’ve listened to it more. Here are the 10 most essential short-length albums of 2007:

Click here to read the entire post…

Live Review: Voodoo Music Experience

The weekend before Halloween, we went down to New Orleans to catch Voodoo Fest. We arrived downtown early Friday, checked into the bed and breakfast we were staying at, hung out for a second, and headed down to City Park where the fest was located. Since the line-up had been announced, one of the acts I was most excited about seeing was Ghost, whose album from this year, In Stormy Nights, I’ve loved. Unfortunately, when we went to set up to catch them, they weren’t the Japanese noise-rock group Ghost, they were the New Orleans nu-metal, rap-funk group Ghost. We felt like we had just got punked. After that debacle, I went to catch Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and they were ok, but nothing really special.

Next up was Porcupine Tree, who put on a hell of a show jamming out hard. There was a relatively small crowd for this show and even Steven Wilson joked around about no one there knowing who they were. If you still haven’t looked into this band, do it now!

After wandering around the fest for a little while, we caught M.I.A. from afar while we waited for Rage. I was disappointed with her sound live, but hip-hop live almost always leaves me wanting and i was pretty far from the stage, so I won’t hold it against her, but I just don’t think I understand completely why everyone is so into her. Her rap style is so monotone and repetitive. I’ve listened to her new album a few times and I just don’t think she sounds that special.

After that, it was time for the main event, Rage Against The Machine. I had caught them at Phillips Arena back when they were touring for Battle Of Los Angeles and had loved that show so I was very excited to catch them here. They played a little longer than an hour, went through most of the hits, and by the end, I didn’t think it compared to the first time I saw them at all. They were very sloppy and didn’t sound like they were together at all, which is surprising to me since most of them have been playing together in Audioslave. The other main problem was the crowd didn’t really seem to be into them at all. When I caught them before, my favorite part of the show was watching the entire crowd go nuts, and this time it just didn’t seem to inspire that sort of reaction. Overall, though, it was still great seeing them again.

When we got back to our place Friday night, before heading down to Bourbon St. until 5am, we found a note from the woman running the bed and breakfast accusing us of eating her food in the freezer. The next morning, Biggie C woke up first to go through his photos from the day before and the woman came out and started screaming at him about the supposed missing food. After about an hour and a half of drama, the end game was that she was mistaken about the food and since Biggie C didn’t apologize for disagreeing with her about the fact that we didn’t eat the food, she kicked him out of the bed and breakfast. So we then had to waste another hour finding hotel to stay at for the rest of the weekend. The crappy B&B‘s email is hosts@ArtsBandB.com, so we urge all our readers to have some fun with that.

Saturday I didn’t really get to catch much music because of the above fiasco, but i caught a little bit of Ghostland Observatory, Ben Harper, and Spoon, who were all decent but not inspiring.

The best show of the weekend in my opinion was next, The Smashing Pumpkins. While I had some trouble enjoying the Asheville show I had caught over the summer because I didn’t know most of the songs they played, now that i know and love Zeitgeist, they were simply amazing. The almost two-hour set contained very little old-school hit songs you would expect from the typical festival show, but rather put on a compelling display of why the nu-Smashing Pumpkins are phenomenal in their own retro-rock ‘n’ roll way. If you can score a ticket to one of the make-up Atlanta shows this month, do it. For all of the music critic masses that just won’t take the new album seriously, you’re only depriving yourself of some great tunes.

After that, I caught the Tiesto set, who did some pretty good trance, capped by a Tegan And Sara remix that was, for better or worse, stuck in all of our heads for the rest of the weekend.

Sunday I started on the tiny stage to check out Good Guys, I really interesting hybrid of metal and Lounge music. This New Orleans native band came out dressed in Ghostbuster uniforms and were really cool and weird. If you want to hear something unlike anything you’ve heard before, i recommend checking them out.

Next up I checked out Quintron And Miss Pussycat. Despite the fact that Miss Pussycat , Quintron‘s wife, seemed more like a prop than a musician, Quintron tore it up with a really interesting array of instrumentation that apparently he has invented or built. I was way in the back for the show so I didn’t really get to see everything he was using, but I hope to catch this New Orleans act again, maybe at one of their upcoming Mardi Gras shows.

After that I caught the end of the Black Crowes show, and it was better than the first time I saw them at Bonnaroo, which was terrible, but they just aren’t my thing. Common came on next and I thought he put on a really great show, with a full band backing him. After that I caught Wilco to close out the fest and they rocked just as hard as their spectacular Bonnaroo set earlier this year, but I didn’t quite like the song selection as much. There is no denying that Wilco as it is now is a pretty top-notch band and I will go see them every chance I get.

My overall impression of my second Voodoo experience was overwhelmingly positive. I’m a big fan of the two opposing stages going back and forth keeping music constantly going that both Pitchfork Fest and Lollapalooza also employ. The sound systems seemed to have a minimal amount of problems, although I did hear a few. My biggest complaint about the weekend would be the crowd. At the peak times on Friday and Saturday, there were ridiculously long lines for the bathrooms and food and beer outlets, but the Voodoo Fest’s estimates on attendance were over 150,000 people for the weekend, up over 50% from the previous year’s 93,000, so i don’t think they were fully prepared for so many people. Also, the crowd seemed to remind me most of the Music Midtown crowds of a few years ago that don’t exude the same level of respect for their fellow festival goers you expect at hippy fests like Echo Project and Bonnaroo. But for me, those were only minor annoyances that did very little to curb the fun I had this year at Voodoo and I’m looking forward to checking it out again next year.

Torrent Of The Day: Porcupine Tree (10-18-2007)

Here’s a good quality audience recording from this recent US tour in which PT blew my mind twice:



Porcupine Tree 2007-10-18 Albany, NY (FLAC)

Porcupine Tree
October 18, 2007
The Egg
Albany, NY

Steven Wilson – vocals, guitars, keys
Richard Barbieri – keys
Colin Edwin – bass
Gavin Harrison – drums
John Wesley – guitar, vocals

Disc one
1. Intro
2. Fear Of A Blank Planet
3. What Happens Now?
4. The Sound Of Muzak
5. Lazarus
6. Nil Recurring
7. Anesthetize
8. Open Car
9. Dark Matter
10. Drown With Me

Disc two
1. Half Light
2. Way Out Of Here
3. Sleep Together
4. Blackest Eyes
5. Trains
6. Halo

Lineage: SP-CMC-2 > SP-SPSB-8 > Sony MZ-NH1 (Hi-SP mode) >
USB > Sony SonicStage > Wavelab 4.0 > CDWAV > FLAC Front End.

Also, you can get some DVDs of Porcupine tree performances here (2003) and here (2005).

Photos: Voodoo Festival 10-26-07 at City Park – New Orleans, LA

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

Porcupine Tree

M.I.A.

Rage Against The Machine

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:

Porcupine Tree In The ATL

Over the last year, I’ve really been getting into Porcupine Tree. I’m still listening to Fear of A Blank Planet constantly. PT will be at the Roxy on October 29th and tickets go on sale tommorrow. I highly recommend checking them out:

Live Show: Porcupine Tree (5-25-2007)



Porcupine Tree
2007-05-25
Roxy
Boston, MA

Taper = BennyBlanco

Source: CSB > CSB Batt Box No Rolloff > SONY MZ-RH910 (PCM)

Location: Dead Center Front Of Soundboard

Transfer: SONY MZ-RH910 > Sony Sound Forge 9.0 (0db normalization, Volume , Slight High End Boost & Rubmble Rolloff & Tracks) > FLAC.

Fear of a Blank Planet [09:21]
Lightbulb Sun [06:07]
My Ashes [05:48]
Anesthetize [17:42]
Open Car [04:53]
Mellotron Scratch [07:14]
Drown with Me (unreleased) [06:22]
Sentimental [05:08]
Blackest Eyes [04:46]
Half Light [05:47]
Sever [05:07]
Way Out of Here [08:21]
Sleep Together [07:24]
Crowd [02:39]

Encore

Trains [06:26]
Mother & Child Divided [05:35]
Halo [06:15]

DOWNLOAD LOSSLESS TORRENT HERE

Monday Mash-Up

Thanks to everyone who came out Saturday night for the From Exile and Passer By show. They both rocked out hard and much fun was had. Here’s some phlogs from the party:

From Exile leaves for their first tour on Wednesday. If you are in any of these cities you should most definitely check them out:

05/23/2007 08:00 PM – Volume 11
w/Tooth and Gun Metal Black
658 Maywood Ave
Raleigh, North Carolina 27603

05/25/2007 08:00 PM – Cherrywood Rock Club
Blackwood, New Jersey
US
Description:w/ Blasting Caps, August Skies

05/26/2007 08:00 PM – Underworld Lounge @ Odin’s Tavern
365 S. Bayview Ave.
Freeport, New York 11520

05/27/2007 08:00 PM – THIRSTY JOHN’S
Palmer, Massachusetts

05/30/2007 08:00 PM – el n’ gee w/half shaved yak, mind over malice, working mans army
86 Golden St.
New London, Connecticut

06/01/2007 08:00 PM – The Federal Building w/ The Honestown Massacre, Shotgun Revelation, Morrorcage, Headache…
305 East Main St.
Waynesboro, Virginia 22980
US

So, some kids have hacked the Guitar Hero video game guitars and started a band playing them. Watch a vid:

Method Man got arrested for weed.

Andre 3000 talks new Outkast album.

How about some new Animal Collective material they are playing live:

Fiona Apple will be joining Nickel Creek for their farewell tour this summer.

SeepeopleS are touring around the southeast, but not coming to Atlanta.

Here’s a new Spoon video:

This week’s releases I’ll be checking out:

Battles : Mirrored

Handsome Furs : Plague Park

The National : Boxer

Voxtrot : Voxtrot

Tonight there are two great shows:

DRUNKEN UNICORN: Kylesa, Withered, Tualatin all ages 9:00 / $7

THE MASQUERADE: Lovedrug, Morning State, We Fly Standby 21+ 7:00 / $10

I leave you today with a Porcupine Tree video:

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