Broken Dreams Club - A new EP by Girls

So according to the True Panther Sounds blog, Girls are releasing a new 30-minute EP with 6 songs called Broken Dreams Club. This comes as little surprise considering the number of non-Album songs they have sitting around in cold-storage and that they've gradually trickled out over the past few months as singles and played at shows.



You can download one of them, "Heartbreaker" for free from the True Panther blog. Sounds like a dream come true to me.

Here's a video I took earlier this year of Girls playing "Heartbreaker" at Webster Hall in NYC.

Girls - Heartbreaker (Live at Webster Hall, NYC - 4-3-10)

Titus Andronicus + Pains of Being Pure at Heart @ Pitchfork Offline/Anti-CMJ Fest

For a New Yorker without the money for a CMJ badge or the money for going to the shows a la carte (let's face it, the bands you want to see never seem to all play together in one convenient venue for one convenient cover charge), this was a bleak week. I really didn't know what CMJ shows (if any) I'd realistically be able to afford to attend.

And so here comes Pitchfork's #Offline Festival to save the day for brokelyners like me. For one $10 cover charge at Brooklyn Bowl, p4k brought together a ton of bands I wanted to see at CMJ one venue and for one convenient cover charge and didn't require any badge to get into. Even if the actual presentation of the event was fairly last-minute and half-assed (basically, from my experiences there yesterday for Day 3, it was just a bunch of regular shows at Brooklyn Bowl with some random p4k video footage playing on large screens by the bar), the bang for your buck was unrivaled.

For $20...

1. I saw The Pains of Being Pure At Heart.

2. I got 2 Chicken Tacos from the Endless Summer Taco Truck down Bedford Ave.

3. I came back to Brooklyn Bowl in time for Titus Andronicus.

4. I had a Brooklyn Brewery "Pitchfork Pilsner."

Now that's bang for your buck.

I also got to see a set by Ty Segall, in which they covered Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" rather well, and a set by Freddie Gibbs that went on a little too long but was enjoyable nonetheless. (Sorry, Freddie, I just really really wanted to see Titus Andronicus).

So yeah, don't just take my word for it. Relive the awesomeness with these four awesome videos I shot at the show.

1. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - "This Love Is Fucking Right"

2. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - "Young Adult Friction"

3. Titus Andronicus - "A More Perfect Union"

4. Titus Andronicus - "Titus Andronicus"

The best $20 I ever spent.

Celebrity Sighting - Gary Busey

Lou Reed is right. Go down near Union Square and you really never know who'll meet there. You might just meet Gary Busey.



Promoting Famiglia's Pizza, I believe. A few blocks from Union Square.

UPDATE (via Alan G.):

This whole thing is part of the TV show Celebrity Apprentice. More info here:

http://www.iheartchaos.com/post/1355646705/gary-busey-selling-pizza-in-nyc-for-celebrity

Say No To Lovely IndiePop Perfection

At some point in 2009, I started listening to an album and just couldn't stop. That album was The Pains of Being Pure At Heart's self titled LP. The album just gets everything about music right. Great rhythms, great guitar, catchy melodies, ambiguously dark lyrics. Just great. It instantly became my ride-to-work music and my ride-back-from-work-after-a-crummy-day music for basically the entire remaining year of 2009 and some of 2010. Instantly climbed to the top of my Last.fm most played, too.

Anyway, so while there hasn't been a proper follow up, my days were further brightened by a lo-fi recording of The Pains playing a then-new song called "Say No To Love" at a Slumberland records 20th anniversary party or something. While still relatively basic compared to their previous songs, I knew it'd be great. So I waited around for a bit until they released and finished it. And now, that day has finally come. Actually it probably came a while ago, but I just stumbled upon the awesome video for the "final" version of this awesome song.



I can't wait until their next full-length album comes out. But you probably already knew that.

Jens Lekman's Smalltalk Highlights of 2010

Idiosyncratic, Swedish pop auteur, Jens Lekman, blogs. It's a primitive blog called "smalltalk." There are no comments and it doesn't appear to use pHp or WordPress or MovableType or any observable CMS like that. It appears to be a straightforward, HTML page that he restarts each year. His posts are infrequent and semi-poetic, in a simple, straight-forward way. Much like his music releases. Anyway, as much as I love the blog, it has no RSS feed to subscribe to or mailing list or anything like that, so I tend to catch up on it every few months.

This past weekend, I sat down to catch up on the last few months of Jens' blogging and here's what I found out:

1. Jens Lekman can sing in Spanish.

javiera mena - sufrir from denver on Vimeo.

2. There were these awesome Latino, ex-gang-member oldies-pop group in the Bronx in the 1970s called "Street The Beat"

Street The Beat - "Falling in Love"


Street The Beat - "Crazy Boy"



3. Jens Lekman can do a great Kraftwerk impersonation:



Oh, you're so awesome, Jens...

Yann Tiersen Live @ The Concert Hall, NYC

Last night, Yann Tiersen brought his twinkly minimalism to New York City's The Concert Hall. It was my first time seeing Tiersen live and my first time at this rather anonymously named venue (really, couldn't any venue be called "The Concert Hall"?) that appears to be part of something called The New York Society for Ethical Culture. Their website defines Ethical Culture as:

"a religion centered on ethics, not theology, whose mission is to encourage respect for humanity and nature and to create a better world."

Somehow, the music of Yann Tiersen fits into that world view or religion. Or not and they just rented the hall out to his ensemble. Anyway, the venue is essentially what appears to be a standard church auditorium located a few blocks north of Columbus Circle on Central Park West.

Complete with impressive, antique lighting.

Anyway, after a few minutes of sitting in the pews watching people drink $6 Sam Adamses and $5 Bud Lights and thinking that this must be the coolest church ever, albeit somewhat over-priced in their beverages, Yann Tiersen and his ensemble took to the stage.

As you can see from the pictures and videos, my orchestra-right seating kinda sucked. That's what you get when you buy your a ticket on craigslist on the cheap.

During the show, Mr. Tiersen himself alternated between melodica, acoustic guitar, violin, and piano, while the rest of the ensemble surrounded him in lush, twinkly, orchestral pop. At one point he played on his newer compositions called "Palestine," which really exemplifies all of these characteristics in a single work.

Yann Tiersen - Palestine - Video

(Note: the above video is taken from another performance of the same composition at a previous concert.)

One of the more interesting elements of the ensemble was the keyboard player using what appeared to be a Memory Moog and an Korg MS-20 to add electronic texture to the rest of the classical-meets-rock ensemble.

Yann Tiersen @ The Concert Hall, NYC - Video

Apart from several of these lush compositions, Mr. Tiersen also performed an incredible violin solo mid-set from a composition called "Wire." Seen here at another concert if you skip to around the 44:02 mark.

(Thanks to Alvago, for the link to a previous performance of the composition and the tip)

Must've been to apparently remind the rest of the strings players who's boss. I have no video of this unfortunately, since it took me by surprise and I failed to activate my camera on time.

After the set 90-minute-or-so set, he came back on stage with the drummer and played a second, encore violin solo (or violin + drums, at least) that paled in comparison to the one mid-show.

Yann Tiersen - Violin Improvisation @ The Concert Hall, NYC - Video

Due to the shame he felt from the inferiority of the second violin improvisation (above) to the million-times better one mid-set (available here as "Wire" around the 44:02 mark ), Mr. Tiersen proceeded to try to slash his own throat using a violin bow.

Fortunately for us and Mr. Tiersen, he failed to slash himself and will live on to do more incredible performances such as this one. Including one in Los Angeles in January 2011.

The Vaselines + Jeffrey Lewis + Crystal Stilts @ Webster Hall

Last night, The newly-reformed Vaselines played at Webster Hall alongside Jeffrey Lewis and Crystal Stilts.

Jeffrey Lewis got things rolling, alternating between full band performances featuring a few members from other bands on instruments like horn, violin, and drums and brother and member of official Jeffrey Lewis band, "the Junkyard," Jack, on bass.





They played several songs as a band, including two awesome songs about the collapse of the Soviet Union and the French Revolution that included slide-show accompaniment of artwork related to the lyrics drawn by Jeffrey Lewis himself. The highlight of their set was the solo, Jeffrey Lewis performance of a new song called "Cult Boyfriend."

A few months ago, I was very lucky to be at the right open mic at the right time (Lach's Anti-Hoot at one of the other rooms at Webster Hall a few months ago during summer) and Jeffrey Lewis casually dropped in and played the open mic. The song he chose to play that night was a very early version of "Cult Boyfriend" in which he comically forgot some of the lyrics and laughed his way through a few mistakes. Still, the song was instant, classic Lewis. I was really happy to see the "final" version of the song at this show last night. Here's a video I recorded of the song at the show, including the last bit of his inter-song banter about his fans not fighting over his dropped guitar picks and instead simply returning them to him.

Jeffrey Lewis - "Cult Boyfriend"



After Lewis, Crystal Stilts took to the stage. They played a decent, but (in today's climate of dime-a-dozen lo-fi, 60s pop meets Joy Division revivalists) ultimately generic and forgettable set. Still, they showed me that they're deserving of the hype surrounding them.



Finally, at about 10:45 and a little past my usual, weeknight bedtime, The Vaselines took the stage and did not disappoint. They sounded crisp and true to their recordings, though significantly more polished than the days of Dum-Dum.




The Vaselines - "Jesus Doesn't Want Me For A Sunbeam"

Last Person In The World To Get Into Elliott Smith

Being among the first to discover a new, awesome musician feels "cool." Like you have found gold buried in your back yard and see a lot more beneath the surface and no one else knows about the gold. Maybe there are better analogies than that, but the feeling of being among the first to discover a band has few parallels in life. Conversely, though, being among the last to discover an awesome musician can feel almost embarrassing.

When you are among the last to discover how awesome a musician is, no one else knows about your discovery and that's kinda how you want it to stay. You feel like vast music knowledge is something you pride yourself on and people come to you for recommendations and yet you overlooked something really important. You somehow let a major player slip through the cracks. It's like you somehow fell asleep at the wheel of the truck hauling the bandwagon. This is the case with me and Elliott Smith. Sort of, anyway.



I've heard of Elliott Smith before. In fact, I've known his music for seemingly always. I recognized (and loved) "Needle In The Hay" when I saw Royal Tenenbaums in theaters. I was saddened by the news of his suicide. I watched a short film he made when it streamed on Pitchfork.tv. I downloaded his entire catalog from Torrents--years ago. However, I failed to give him the close listens he deserved. His music, on the surface, struck me as pretty, sensitive, but ultimately generic singer-songwriterly stuff. Like just another depressed guy with an acoustic guitar and a piano emoting on to tape or ADAT or whatever. However, Elliott Smith is everything but those things.

I mean, okay, in some ways, some of his songs are those things. Pretty, sensitive, acoustic ballads with more than a hint of melancholy. Yet in a very he's also a pop craftsman. He passes my litmus test of ignoring the content of the lyrics and just listening to the sound and music and still ending up pleased. He has much more in common with Jon Brion than your average acoustic singer-songwriter because of his ability to just layer sounds and harmonies so well.

I've spent the day thus far listening to XO a lot and, so far, more inclined to repeatedly listen to the entire album than the others I have on my iPod (Either Or and From A Basement On A Hill). From that album "Waltz #2" and "Oh Well, Okay" are my favorites thus far.

Elliott Smith - Waltz #2



There's something schmaltzy and corny about most Waltzy songs. Or at least it's easy for them to come off that way, but something between the chromatic descending melodies and the lean piano melody save this song from schamltziness and give it an more contemporary and elegant sound that many other pop artists' too overtly retro experiments with waltz-time lack. Or maybe it's the string scrapes near the end of the song that do it?

Elliott Smith - Oh Well, Okay



Now "Oh Well, Okay" on the other hand could've easily wandered into cliche, acoustic singer-songwriter territory. But there's something about the atypical movements of the chord progression and the subtle cello swells that add much more space and harmonic depth to this song that so many bare-bones, acoustic-guitar-plus-vocals singer songwriters lack. To make matters worse, the lyrics are not altogether disposable either. They have pleasant moments that articulate the feelings of real situations. Such as:

If you get a feeling next time you see me
Do me a favor and let me know
'Cos it's hard to tell
It's hard to say
Oh well, okay

I don't like to delve into lyrical interpretations or anything, but sometimes simple, ambiguous lyrics such as that say much more than something more elaborate. Not knowing what the listener/other person is feeling seems to be somewhere at the bottom of these lyrics and yet interpretation could go in other directions too. Good stuff.

So despite being the last person in the world to get (at least fully) into Elliott Smith, I'm glad I made it. R.I.P. Elliott, and thanks for the wonderful music.

Plastic Impossible's 3rd Birthday!

Although it doesn't seem like it from my relatively infrequent posting, yesterday marked the 3rd birthday of Plastic Impossible. It all started with this meager first post back on Oct 2, 2007.

To mark this occasion, I've added 2, much needed features to this blog:

1. a pop-out music player on the bottom-left of the window that plays some of the songs I mention and embed in my posts.

2. a logical labels system to browse Plastic Impossible's blog posts via topics. Just check the sidebar for a list of "topics" you can browse through my 200+ posts since day-1.

Here's how the break down of the topics by label (please note that some posts have more than one label since they cover multiple topics.)

news - posts about some recent development in the world--even small ones.

life - posts that essentially discuss my life or life in general.

music appreciation - posts discussing, reviewing, or sharing music of other artists.

lists - posts including playlists or recommendation lists or other forms of lists.

politics - posts about politics/social-issues--mostly from the 2008 election.

live show coverage - posts about live shows I've attended.

recording audio - posts about my experiences recording audio--or at least attempting to.

covers - posts presenting/explaining my YouTube covers.

little insects - posts talking about my Little Insects music.

More topics/labels may come about as time passes, but for now this is my first attempt at any kind of logical topical organization system for this blog so chances are there will be others.

Anyway, thank you for the tens of you who read this stuff and have kept encouraging me to write more over the years. Happy 3rd birthday, Plastic Impossible!

How to Make (and Record) a Box Kick Drum

The Joys (and Pains) of Brooklyn

Living in the greater New York area (Brooklyn?) has been a blast in so many ways. For one, being able to eat cheap, exotic foods (and a whole lot of cheap pizza) as conveniently as eating at McDonald's anywhere else in the country is awesome. So is the abundance of venues to play and see live music in this city and the caliber of musicians that you just happen to stumble upon just on a random trip through the Union Square train station. Since I moved to Brooklyn, I've had essentially only one regret: the lack of cheap, abundant space available in places like Orlando, FL.

Here in Brooklyn I live in a three-bedroom share with two other roommates and I can't afford the luxury of having an entire spare bedroom to fill with recording equipment and instruments like I did in Orlando. Instead, I've packed most of what I have into my 10x8-or-so bedroom with very little room to spare. Fortunately, this has allowed me to reduce my equipment to the bare essentials of what I need to record my music and helped me eliminate excess stuff. Eliminating excess helps any musician grow, in my opinion, since getting too used to having too many tools at your disposal could make a musician lose sight of the fundamentals of recording music and go overboard in the studio. That's not to say that there aren't any great musicians out there that are studio maximalists--Phoenix, Belle & Sebastian, and others that are actually studio maximalists and among my favorites--but that when you are operating at the entry-, borderline-hobby- level that I'm working on, studio excess can only be detrimental. If only for the obvious reason that even if I had an ample studio full of top of the line gear, I just wouldn't know what to do with all of it. So I try to acquire and learn equipment/instruments based on whatever I grow to need. However, in my transition to smaller spaces in Brooklyn, there was one thing I needed that I lacked: drums.

Through a combination of piece-by-piece FedExing from Florida and stuffing some cymbals in a suitcase during my mom's last visit to NYC, I've managed to assemble a bare-bones drum kit in my Brooklyn apartment.



Not included in the photo (but stored under tables and in closets in other parts of the apartment) are a Paiste 20" ride cymbal and a hi-hat that I hope to use in future projects. However, not included in the photo and still in Florida are the meat and potatoes of the kit: the three toms and kick drum. Although I probably could've managed to afford the postage for these drums, the neighbors above, below, and on both sides of me would not approve of the racket I'd create playing all these. But since I'm pretty much not going to be gigging with this kit and simply recording it, I decided to simply find some quieter and more space-efficient alternatives to a kick drum, if not the toms.

How To Make (and Record) a Box Kick Drum

Materials:

1 x Empty Pearl Snare-drum Box (or any box that's fairly rigid and larger than a snare drum)

1 x Shoe Box Full of Shoes (or relatively heavy contents that'll weigh down without crushing)

1 x Kick Drum Pedal (preferably a real one, but I'm sure home made alternatives exist)

1 x Small Mic Stand

1 x Shure Beta SM58A dynamic (or kick drum mic)

1 x Old Sock

1 x Rubber Band


Part 1: Making your Box Kick Drum

Step 1 - Empty out your snare drum box and place it vertically on the ground at a comfortable distance from your snare drum.

Step 2 - Place the kick drum pedal at a comfortable distance from your box

Step 2a - Optional Step: if you can find a way to latch your kick drum to the box, it is recommended. However, I was not able to figure out an easy way to do this so my pedal moves around a bit as I play.

Step 3 - Wrap the old sock around the mallet of the kick drum pedal. This softens and widens the attack on the box and ultimately improves the tone in the recording.

Step 4 - Wrap the old sock with a rubber band to keep it snugly around the kick drum pedal

Step 5 - Place your shoebox full of shoes (or other weight) on top of the snare-drum box as to prevent it from moving while you play.

Step 6 - Position your microphone and mic stand close to the box, but being sure to keep it relatively far from the snare drum so as not to get too much snare-drum sound on your kick drum mic--remember, unless you are playing with brushes like I do, the snare drum will be much much louder than the kick drum, so this will be the biggest problem come recording time.

Step 7 - Play a short beat with your kick drum to make sure everything is sturdy and sounding about right. If necessary, move things around a bit to accommodate your playing style and sound.

Here's what the final product should look like below:

If yours looks like mine, then you are now ready to record.

Part 2: Recording Your Box Kick Drum (and The Rest of the Kit)

Materials:

1 x Firepod FP10 (or or other recording interface)

3 x 15' XLR Cables

3 x Velcro Cable Ties

3 x Dynamic Microphones

1 x Pair of Vic Firth Wire Brushes

1 to 3 x Wall Hooks/Push-Pins

Note: This part is a little trickier than building it and depends more on your specific recording space. Therefore, I will just go into how I recorded mine and you can simply tweak this method to your own spacial needs.

Step 1 - Wrap your three XLR cables together using the Velcro Cable Ties, placing one in the mid-point of the cables and the other two a few feet/inches from the tips--depending on your needs. This should result in what looks like one thick, three-strand cable of XLRs.

Step 1a - Optional Step: Create small numbered tags at the ends of each cable to easily identify which cable is which. I use tiny squares of paper on which I write numbers with sharpies and then use scotch tape to attach to the cables. You can kinda see in the picture below:

Step 2 - Plug your snake of cables into your Firepod, remembering which cable goes into which input:



Step 3 - Snake your cables around door-frames, book shelves, walls, etc. using hooks/push-pins/etc. to keep them from being on the floor, in the way and easy to trip on. Below are some pictures of how I snaked my cables around the door frame and a bookshelf and down to the drums again.

Step 3a - Here is where the cables leave my Firepod.

Step 3b - Now they make their way up the door frame, held in place by a push pin.

Step 3c - The cables then make their way over the threshold of the door and are held in place by a plastic hook you can get from Target that sticks to the wall with double-sided sticky tape--gotta keep the holes in the wall to a minimum if you want the deposit back from your apartment.

Step 3d - Here is where it gets messy on my part and I just let the cables dangle over my bookshelf. You can probably do better than this, if you want a more permanent setup than mine. (Note the last remaining copies of Little Insects' Almost Ghost CDs. Now's the time to buy folks!)

Step 3e - Finally, the cable ends up where your drums are. This setup is up to you depending on your space and recording needs.

Step 4 - Fire up your computer, recording interface, and software.

Step 5 - Whip out your wire brushes and start playing a beat to test it all out. If something doesn't sound right, just go back and tweak EQ, volumes, and mic-positions to your liking. I just use trusty ole' trial and error until things sound just about right and you can do the same. Unless you have any better ideas. If so, just shoot me an email and let me know about them.

The Final Recorded Product: Little Insects "Feeling Just Like 20 Bucks"

After setting all this up, I recorded a rough demo of a new song using my Box Kick Drum. Although the kick drum is low in the mix, you can get a sense of how it sounds in the context of an entire song. You can make it louder in the mix depending on your genre, but here I was going for a kind of country sound, where the kick drum is not usually terribly loud in the mix.

Anyway, this song is called "Feeling Just Like 20 Bucks" and it's about feeling down in the dumps post-rejection, but being semi-hopeful about the future. A classic, Little Insects theme at this point. I recommend viewing it in HD if your bandwidth can handle it.