**Blog Neglect**

Picture Streets has been suffering from a big of 'blog neglect'. Let's carry it into the next month with something fitting...

Wait Til June - The Go-Betweens

The Young Friends - Hella

The Young Friends
Hella
(Moodgadget Records)
Rating: 2.9 of 5


A little different from their usual lineup of electronic artists, Moodgadget Records took a chance on a couple of adolescents making inviting beach pop with the release of Hella by The Young Friends. Three chords and three minutes mark the limit on seven summery songs.

The subject matter may not exceed any expectations from a couple of fresh-outta-high-schoolers, but a nice pop sensibility is ever present throughout. It’s true that the songs kind of bleed into each other; making it hard to remember one over another, but the naivety and charm in the delivery is somewhat endearing.

The vocals are mostly moaned out overtop of bright chinsy guitar lines that are a little too insistent—particularly on “North End”. The drumming is a bit lackluster and static in a ‘played via keyboard’ kind of way. But, the energy is still here.

The first track, “Be My Baby”, glides along some breezy guitar passages—making the most out of its repetitious choruses. The bass parts are undermixed and seem to exist out of necessity. The handclaps on “Riverside Kids” give the album a youthful merriment. Who knows, it sounds like it could have been a really fun album to record. Perhaps, The Young Friends could have utilized a tremolo box for the guitars on a track or two.

Certainly without the bookworm lyrical depth of Vampire Weekend, The Young Friends still put out singalong bouncers in a similar approach. Potential might be a dangerous word to use, but honestly, let’s wait until they grow up a bit.

Be My Baby - The Young Friends

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Of Montreal, to a roller rink near me...

Of Montreal is playing at the Ches-a-rena Roller Rink tonight in Cheswick, PA off of Route 28 for twenty bucks. They're playing with Noot D'Noot. Be there or be square...

It shall be a fun time...

Happy Friday, ya'll!

***L I N K***

Full Coverage (Vol. 2: Bob Dylan)

It's a rainy Saturday morning... and about time to put up another issue for Full Coverage. This one's most surely a crowd pleaser--it might be early, but we're gonna do Bob Dylan.

* * * * *

There have been so many renditions of Dylan tunes over the years to include, and I didn't want to steal from too many selections from the well-put-together I'm Not There soundtrack. So, among classics are some fun ones... enjoy!

Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands - Phoenix
Lay Lady Lay - Magnet & Gemma Hayes
Buckets of Rain - Neko Case
It Ain't Me, Babe - Johnny Cash & June Carter Cash
Ballad of a Thin Man - Stephen Malkmus & the Million Dollar Bashers
Down Along the Cove - Johnny Jenkins
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue - The Places
Fourth Time Around - Yo La Tengo
Blowin' In The Wind - Marianne Faithfull
Early Mornin' Rain (Gordon Lightfoot cover) - Bob Dylan

'So I best be on my way / in the early mornin' rain.'

True Womanhood - Basement Membranes EP

True Womanhood
Basement Membranes EP
(Environmental Aesthetics)
Rating: 4.1 out of 5


Like a dirty mass of glacial ice, True Womanhood carves deep distinguishable grooves in the haunts of avant pop song confinement. Taking strange cues from bands like Slowdive, Sonic Youth, and No Age; the trio’s sound is sonically conglomeratic. The marriage of the ethereal with the guttural on their latest EP, Basement Membranes, will keep your head swimming like too many spoonfuls of Robitussin. You’ve got to love it when D.C. sounds this good.

The sour note dirge of the colossal second track “Dignitas” shifts from discordant guitar grunge into a gaze-y hypnotic bridge and back again—all to a steady timpani shuffle. Thomas Redmond’s vocals are a perfect match for this swatch of post-punk revivalism.

Cutting back in from the dreamy feedback spills are the whipping guitar chugs on the trembling “Rubber Buoys”. Perhaps the highpoint is appropriately right at the beginning of the record with the Radiohead-conjuring “The Monk”; featuring lines like ‘we tried and failed’ and ‘we eat our young’.

Aurally darker than some ears can tolerate, True Womanhood’s recent contribution to a UK compilation ("This is Wind Fucker") was eschewed on the grounds that it sounded like a ‘chant to the devil’. If curiosity doesn’t set in for you from there, I don’t know what it takes.

The Monk - True Womanhood
This is Wind Fucker (unreleased) - True Womanhood

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Judson Claiborne - Time and Temperature

Judson Claiborne
Time and Temperature
(La Société Expéditionnaire)
Rating: 3.3 of 5


When the transitions between seasons may leave you spiritless, sometimes there is solace in solitude. Chris Salveter aka Judson Claiborne understands this better than many. With his former slowcore band Low Skies on hiatus, Chris spent a lazy nine months spanning from summer of ’08 to early ‘09 writing and recording a second solo album—this time to be released on La Société Expéditionnaire.

Sauntering along in indie folk song format, Time and Temperature tosses in elements of bareboned neo-Baroque, alt-country, and Appalachian music. Through the vocal evocation of a weathered Jason Collett, Salveter spins yarns about waiting and wandering in pining romanticism.

In front of straggling guitar lines, Salveter sings ‘Baby, you can tell the songs so well to a stranger you don’t mind / where they’re from or what they’ve done or when there’s anger in their eyes’ on the simple and reflective “A Song for Dreaming”. The pronounced “Oh Cyril” comes next in sequence; following each sparse verse with a clement horn-sweeping chorus. “My How We Change!” and closer “Moonraker” are other ragged standouts.

What Judson Claiborne does with negative space is a marvelous achievement. Allowing the songs to promenade at their own intended speed lends the record a discreet maturity. ‘When the twilight spirit comes around, I’ll be somewhere nearing with my head to the ground’, he sings on the opening track. Salveter certainly understands the virtue that is patience.

As the cheerless inertia of the winter season slowly ferments into the halcyon swell of spring, Time and Temperature will accompany you in the gap.

Twilight Spirit - Judson Claiborne

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Revisiting another great record

I enjoy this record so much that I rebought it. Which is to say that I first scooped it up off of iTunes as a digital download, but couldn't help but buy the CD itself as a used copy found in the bins at Half Price Books.

I'll continue to support Andrew Kenny, through either AmAnSet or The Wooden Birds (who I got to see perform at The Smiling Moose last year). Know By Heart is a classic to me, however. A consistent listen all the way through, including memorable tracks "Aaron & Maria", "The Kindness of Strangers", "Choir Vandals", "The Postman", and "Punk As Fuck".

My ex-roommate Dave and I used to rock this record during roadtrips, or even just spinning it at our old apartment. This post goes out to him...

Punk As Fuck - The American Analog Set
Choir Vandals (AmAnSet cover) - Ben Gibbard

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Untying Loose Ends: An Interview with Untied States

From the dissonance of the preliminary drones and ensuing dual-guitar aggregation on “Gorilla the Bull”, you might suspect you’re cashing in on a hefty slice of serrated experimental rock. You are, and it might be about time. Untied States, a blusterous four-piece from Atlanta, Georgia, has been banging away at their instruments for over seven years. Possibly breaking too many mirrors recording two full-length releases and still flying under the radar, their third record would be the one to finally end the curse.

With any expectations knocked into a cocked hat on their 2010 Distile release Instant Everything, Constant Nothing, Untied States alchemize visceral post-punk riffs and spurning No Wave irreverence into three-quarters of an hour of amnesic math-rock esprit.

Finding it absolutely necessary to hear for myself how these fractured tracks coalesce in a live set, I made my way out to Garfield Artworks in Pittsburgh to see how the proverbial land lies. The Untied States were third on the bill and that gave me the opportunity to chat with the band about the new record, their hometown in the South, playing shows together, and their recording processes past and present.

The Untied States are Colin Arnstein (vocals and guitar), Skip Engelbrecht (guitar, bass, and effects), Darren Tablan (synthesizers and bass), and Satchel Mallon (drums).

Is this your first time in Pittsburgh?

Colin: Yeah, it's our first time.

You guys are gonna spend some time in the city, maybe, and check out some things?

Colin: Yeah. Yeah, we're gonna check it out tomorrow 'cause we have, uh, I think we have a good break. We're only goin' to Columbus, so...

Skip: How far is Columbus? Do you know? Three hours?

Four hours maybe? Something like that. Definitely not as bad as what you guys had already pulled last night. You guys came in from Providence?

Colin: After what we pulled, exactly. Right.

How was the show in Providence?

Colin: It was, uh, interesting. It was at a really cool place.

Skip: We played RISD, the school of design.

Colin: It's called the Tap Room.

Skip: It was, like, the Talking Heads had played there before or something. That's what they said.

Tap Room? Do they have a good beer selection there or something?

Colin: Uh, no. It was a university deal. They had money so they paid us well.

Skip: We had to sign that W-9 or something to get the money, really…

Colin: Very professional.

Skip: But it was in their Memorial Hall and it was, like, pretty swank. You know, but it was kids—Monday night and it's finals week and supposedly that school has, like, the heaviest load in the country.

Now, the band hails from Atlanta. You guys grew up around there. Tell me about that scene.

Colin: That's interesting. There's a lot going on there. There are pretty much kind of two big groups out of there.

Skip: Deerhunter and Black Lips.

Colin: And Mastodon.

Skip: We know all these people, pretty well.

Colin: I think we fit in a different category between them. You've got, you know, Black Lips—really garage-y primal rock. Then, Deerhunter's ethereal. And then, obviously, we're nothing like Mastodon. We fit somewhere in between.

(motorcycle flies by)

Colin: That's our amp starting up! (laughing)

You guys are playing Garfield Artworks here in Pittsburgh. Do you guys prefer playing art galleries versus dirty rock clubs?

Colin: Yeah, because i think people are more enthusiastic. We played a couple shows. We just played in East Hampton, which is in Massachusetts, which is a big art space.

Skip: It's always less pretentious. and people feel free to be loose. And, they consider themselves artists too.

Colin: Yeah, there's more like a communal back-and-forth kinda thing… and, the kids are going nuts as well.

I actually took that from an Ian MacKaye interview, and he also said the same things. You know, because he's also trying to get out of the 'black boxes'…

Colin: Exactly, because clubs are just… it's a weird thing. You walk in the door, you pay money…

Skip: They're not friendly for people to go into.

Satchel: Well, i think they're kinda used to a bunch of assholes all the time, drinking…

Colin: They stink, cigarettes…

Satchel: Beer, and they're all fucking black. They’re depressing.

Let’s talk about the record. Untied States' material capsulizes a sense of alienation and paranoia.

Skip: (laughing)

Colin: Interesting.

Satchel: Great.

I was thinking kind of a jaggedy retelling of OK Computer. Now, I understand that you guys construct each of the tracks in such a way to get certain emotional responses out of the listeners. What “strings” do you like to tug at?

Colin: I think the best analysis of what we do is that we are kind of answering to a world that wants this instantaneous gratification; this “I gotta have everything.” We're kind of answering that tempo that is set.

Aptly titled on the album.

Colin: Yeah, right, exactly, it's like the promise of everything; the emptiness.

Skip: The alienation thing is something that we definitely don't want, though…

Colin: We're just products from our environment.

Does that spawn from the scene in Atlanta at all?

Colin: No, we're really personable guys.

The band is embraced very well there.

Colin: Yeah, yeah… it’s just different. We don’t try to do anything on purpose. We just say what we feel, you know. While we made that record, it was pretty crazy.

With all of the off-metered time signatures that you feature in your music, it's almost expedient to assume that everyone in the band enjoys listening to their share of progressive music and art-rock. Who do you guys like to study?

Colin: Well, the thing that we kind of get weird with is we don't like the word 'progressive'.

They kind of did away with that word.

Colin: Yeah, it just implies… we’re not musical nerds. I mean, Darren and I have a little bit of classical background. But, we all take from big ideas, you know, we like big things. And, I like a lot of older music just because the arrangements were wilder. We're not trying to do anything that's complicated. We just want to make a good song.

Skip: As far as groups, I mean it's endless. When you listen to some of our songs, you can pull a melody from an old Beatles song, you know, and then weird stuff from other others. We like all kinds of stuff. We like all music, so...

I was hearing a lot of different influences on the album.

Colin: I guess anytime you do anything as an artist that's obviously too “something”, you wanna go and not make it so...

Fuck it up a little bit or something.

Colin: Exactly.

Because of those winding progressions and the tempo shifts, do you guys ever have trouble playing older material because you forget all the parts?

Satchel: You have to relearn...

Colin: When we make our record, there're a couple of tracks that we made, you know, we kind of built them up from all these places. We had a sample from one night drunk at the house, and then a sample of where it stops. Sometimes, we have to learn it from the recording.

Skip: The prior record, if you asked me to play one of those songs, i'd be like 'fuck you'. (laughing)

Colin: We want to get to the point where we're doing the oldies, but we've always been doing fresh music. We're doing three new songs tonight that aren't on the record.

Yeah, I had heard something about an EP?

Colin: We're working on it. We just laid some basic stuff. When we get back, we're gonna finish it off.

That's great. You have that excitement—you put something down and you just want to release it.

Colin: Absolutely.

Do you guys have any idea how difficult it is to search the words “Untied States” on Google?

Colin: Yeah… (laughing)

Skip: You gotta hyphenate it, or something. You gotta put it in quotes in Google. (laughing)

Colin: It's weird, I don't know what it says about our group. We made that name thinking “okay, let's just take something and tweak it a little bit.” And, it's come back to mean a lot of different things. And, you can't search us. It says "Did you mean... ?"

There you go. You’d have to contact 'big brother' on that one. Going back to the album, a lot of the songs on Instant Everything, Constant Nothing are so thickly-textured and frenetic, yet all of the band members seem to contribute to the material and complement each other so well. Did any of these songs come together out of a jam or just letting the tape roll, that kind of thing?

Colin: Yeah

Skip: No, you tell me which one.

Colin: “Wrestling with Entropy…” is a total mash of five different worlds. We grabbed the samples...

Skip: Yeah, but it didn't come off from a jam.

Darren: Well, it kind of did. We took a lot of stuff from jams, recorded it, and then used the samples for that. So in a way...

Skip: I guess you're right.

Colin: Yeah. There's a lot of stuff like that, and it's not so much as the previous record. This was a little more cohesive. Let's go in, do more cohesive pop songs. Our last record was “off the wall”. While we didn't think so, but then when we played it for other people and they looked at us upside-down. Then we knew.

Satchel: The songs changed as well. When I entered the band, it was like “here's this other material, some of its done, some of its not”. So there's room to...

Colin: It's a very crazy thing. The thing that's interesting is that Darren was working at this high-end studio and we kind of came in with parts of this dirty world that we recorded and then we brought it into this kind of high felluten thing. So, there's this mash of really lo-fi and really hi-fi.

How long did it take to put each track together?

Skip: It's wild because we had this house where we started the recording in and we built it out to have studios and different booths and stuff and it was like real swank and we were really fortunate to be there, but then the shit hit the fan there and we had to leave in one day.

That wasn’t the empty warehouse?

Colin: No, that's where we've been recording recently.

Skip: And, then we met up with Darren and it was sort of like 'hey, bring those tracks here'. But, then the problem with going there was that we were recording for free after hours and we would, like, get kicked out of the studio for Bruce Springsteen to come in and record.

Where was this at?

Skip: Southern Tracks.

Colin: So, it added a little bit to the mystique.

Skip: So, it took a long fucking time.

Satchel: …looking at all the gold records on the wall, and (Bruce) is, like, hanging out.

Colin: But, it was fun because we were literally sneaking in between Bruce Springsteen and… uh... Sugarland? Is that a band that people know? (laughing)

I think so. I have you on tape saying 'Sugarland', by the way. (laughing)

Darren: That's off record (laughing)

I'll cut that one out. Alright, just to end things up here, what are you guys doing on April 3rd of next year? Do you guys know about this?

Satchel: No…

Colin: Oh God…

WrestleMania XXVII in Atlanta at the Georgia Dome?

Satchel: Oh my God.

Colin: Well, I guess you just told us.

Yeah, there you go. Consider yourselves informed. One of the fastest-growing cities, you’re hosting WrestleMania now.

Colin: Absolutely. (laughing) Skip did the monster truck rally.

Skip: I did the monster truck rally, like, three months ago and it was wild. I would definitely go again.

Colin: Maybe we can play it? (laughing)

See if you can get that gig. That'd be a really sweet gig!

Satchel: They would love us wouldn't they? (laughing)

* * *

Check out Untied States on MySpace

www.untiedstates.us

www.distilerecords.com

Javelin - No Más

Javelin
No Más
(Luaka Bop)
Rating: 4.1 of 5


Ears of the indie megacosm, welcome Javelin. This sonic collage duo migrated down the coast from the ‘Creative Capital’ Providence, Rhode Island to the funky streets of Brooklyn where their hunky electro-jams can be embraced with open arms. After last year’s cheeky demo, Jamz N Jemz, it was time for cousins Tom Van Buskirk and George Langford to rework their material into an accessible and concise full-length. That’s just what they did. Thanks to Luaka Bop, we have at our disposal No Más.

At our disposal; I suppose that was an interesting way to put it, seeing as this can be deemed ‘disposable’ music. These kinds of records need the charm to pull an instantaneous response from the audience the way that Beck’s Odelay or Avalanches’ Since I Left You have done in the past. Nowadays usually met with success through a catchy single or blog-hyped track, No Más has these kinds of options.

“Vibrationz” has been all over the feed since last year. It’s true; many selections come to us re-noodled from Jamz N Jemz. Yet, doing away with the corrosive etchings and tape hiss now on this Luaka Bop outing, evidence shows that Javelin cleans up well. Swapping out the boxy acoustic guitar melody in “Mossy Woodland” for a vocal one, the beginning of the album sounds well-rehearsed. Followed by the infectious “Oh! Centra”, listeners are in for a hell of a tune wedgy. Abounding with silly lines sung by dwarfed vocals, shaking this song from your head might prove painful.

“Intervales Theme” shows up here, as well; still highly effective as an intermission piece. New inclusion “Tell Me, What Will It Be?” feasts on 70s-soundtrack funk; grooving a staccato bass line with car horn organ screeches. Javelin ricochets between genres track-by-track, from Hot Chip-style indie electronic (“Off My Mind”) to block-party hip hop (“Susie Cues”). Muted hand claps get lost in the hurtling shuffle of the Farfisa-laden “Shadow Heart”—the first of three strong that close out the record.

Full tilt on the sampling, this Javelin debut is a boffo success in the cut-and-paste medium. If only it was still considered cool to walk the streets with your ghettoblaster blaring. Saccharine-sweet and party-approved, No Más deserves spin-time at your next vintage-themed hipster shindy. When you walk up to the DJ table, throw this LP at him. If nothing else, the psychedelic cover will look damn good on his stack.

Vibrationz - Javelin

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Woodpigeon - Die Stadt Muzikanten / Spirehouse

Woodpigeon
Die Stadt Muzikanten / Spirehouse
(End of the Road)
Rating: 3.7 of 5 / 2.8 of 5


First digging into the newer five-song EP, Spirehouse, we find Mark Hamilton of Woodpigeon bearing heart with more diffident acoustic workings in the vain of one Sufjan Stevens. Yet, surprising and rushing is the string overtaking deeper into the title track and I want to realize this to be a submissive but fostering confection before the LP. But, three uneventful musings later, we meet with an extraneous remix of said first song and not much that sticks. Allowing the full album to set the bar, missing here are the lavish arrangements and gorgeous harmonies that I would later be in for.

Beginning to track Die Stadt Muzikanten, Woodpigeon’s third record proper, I am flitted away to yesteryear by the vinyl crackle and seesawing arrangements of the eponymous opener. Cueing into “Woodpigeon vs. Eagleowl (Strength In Numbers)”, the window into this young release begins to prop open. Soft and plush are the harmonizing vocals on kindling “Morningside”; a highlight from the album’s first half sandwiched between two pert numbers.

There is plenty to leaf through here; Hamilton contributing 16 tracks on the record. He knows how to pen beautifully intricate compositions and spruce them up with the trappings of ambrosial orchestration. The listener will be taken aback by the powerful dynamic shifts that some of these songs feature. Many other groups in the twee pop category will utilize thin vocals and modest acoustic guitar arrangements, but when Hamilton goes full-voice on the hearty “Duck Duck Goose”, he separates Woodpigeon from the pack.

Not as emotionally arresting as William Fitzsimmons, or even Sam Beam, Hamilton’s afflicted delivery on the abbreviated “Unmissable Grey, Mixed Paint” aches with every imagerial line; similar in construction to Paul McCartney’s “Junk”. Affecting is the dark nostalgia of the highly personal “Such A Lucky Girl”; a track that burns slowly in seven minutes length.

“Spirehouse” from the EP is slotted in the ten spot here; sounding more reserved than before amid this resonating collection. Sometimes, the sheer volume of the instrumentation supersedes over Hamilton’s non-rock voice as he is heard trying to sing above the come-in of electric guitar and turned-up bass track on the final chorus of “Redbeard”.

Frequently, Hamilton sings with his tail between his legs and it compromises the focus of the record a bit. But, listen closely because Hamilton’s lyricism on the full-length is as refined as it’s ever been; rescuing songs that are not as immediate or obviously memorable.

My Denial in Argyle - Woodpigeon

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No skin! No skin! No skin! No skin, no!

David Dondero from Sunbrain

* * * * *

I intended to record a new song I wrote this afternoon, but the iPod is quite the scummy whore again. I'm in the middle of an umteenth restore. Then, I'll try to get it down clean slate--if I still remember how the song goes, that is.

I'm headed to the bar for free pool/karaoke. I leave you with this tasty nugget from '94.

Enjoy!!

No Skin - Sunbrain

Against Me! in Pittsburgh; 'protest songs to try and stop the soldier's gun'

Against Me! tonight, May 2nd at Diesel with Dead To Me and Moneybrother...

Doors at 6pm; show at 7pm...

This night is gonna end when we're damn well ready for it to be over.
Worked all week long, now the music is playing on our time!

Happy Free Comic Book Day!

Extra, extra, read all about it!

For all of you hungry back-issue collectors out there, make your way to the local comic book shop today for Free Comic Book Day!

I certainly would if I could free up my day.

I used to be an avid collector for a teenager. I've got a few gems hiding in those egg crates of mine, as long as they were rightfully returned to me by mother. I haven't checked for it yet, but I hope she didn't horde my copy of Daredevil #168 (Elektra's first appearance/writing debut of Frank Miller on Daredevil).

Have fun at the 'stands!

Superman - R.E.M.
Iron Man - Black Sabbath
Spiderman '79 - Veruca Salt
In The Garage - Weezer
Jimmy Olsen's Blues - Spin Doctors
That's Really Super, Supergirl - XTC
Ode To A Superhero - "Weird Al" Yankovic