COULD YOU TELL ME? COULD YOU TELL ME 'BOUT IT?

Headlights? Nah, iPhones don't even have a flash.

Headlights are a four-piece band from Champaign, Illinois, with guitars, keyboard, bass, drums, and both male and female vocals. Ordinarily I would say an "indie pop" band, for whatever that phrase is worth anymore, but I'm worried I've been misrepresenting them. Can we still say "dream pop," or is that phrase meaningless by now, too? Because Headlights' sound, especially live, is a lot more textured and hypnotic than the type of cute directness that "indie pop" probably connotes most of the time. Anyway, enough about sub-genres. They've never really been my thing. I'm no good at them!

"Cherry Tulips" was the song that stood out for me from Headlights' 2008 album, Some Racing, Some Stopping. I wrote one of those bummers of reviews, where you basically like the record but you realize you can't remember that many of the songs, and you don't wanna strongly recommend something to people if you apparently don't like it enough to remember many of the songs, so instead you go for faint praise. I listened a couple of times to their latest, Wildlife, but I had a similar kind of feeling about it and didn't want to pitch them again to say only semi-nice things when maybe somebody else would be nicer-- I liked the overall vibe, though (busting out every over-used word here today, sorry). After Tuesday night's show at the Vaudeville Mews, however, I realize the reason I didn't remember the songs wasn't because they weren't memorable; it's because they were more about prettiness and atmosphere than I was realizing, sort of like how people sometimes ask what's the big deal about Atlas Sound-- the lyrics are so repetitive, the tunes so simple, whatever-- and you just want to grab them and make them see how pretty everything is, his voice, the choice of instruments, the delay-pedal mind games. "Pretty" isn't a word that carries much weight, but it's a nice sound to have rushing across you from the stage, with those Spector-sweet melodies that made me mentally categorize Headlights as indie-pop but also the polished tightness (this on the first night of their tour!) of a skilled rock band and the atmospheric effects of other, more pretentious bands nowhere near as fun as these dudes.

The vocal duties are more evenly divided than I remembered, with moments of three-part harmony between keyboard player Erin Fein, guitarist Tristan Wraight, and bassist Nick Sanborn. I also had forgotten Sanborn's involvement-- he's a member of Polyvinyl labelmates Decibully, a Milwaukee band I have liked since before first seeing them at Chicago's Schubas in, like, January 2003 (I was also digging on related bands Camden, who were sort of emo-rock parallel to-- but artier and probably more British-inspired than-- Death Cab for Cutie, and New Sense, an underrated synth-pop combo... really need to get out those CDs again). I see now Headlights have billed themselves as "Indie Rock for People Who Love Pop", and that's really more on the mark than you might think; they filter well-played catchiness through the slightly abstract distance that artists like Deerhunter or Cass McCombs, say, might bring to Everly Brothers or Roy Orbison stylings. And when you do notice the lyrics behind the mesmerizing guitar repetitions, you stumble across everyday torments and grand concepts, presented with quietly devastating minimalism. Ooooh oooh oooh.

They played "Cherry Tulips". And, despite worries about running past their early set's 9 p.m. ending time, they played a few more, too. I may still not remember that many of the songs until I revisit the CDs again, but now I know why. I was impressed, pleased, and humbled, and I had a good time. This was Headlights' third show in Des Moines, I'm told, and I hope they'll come back-- it's probably also a good sign that the quality bands I've seen make return trips here always seem to keep attracting larger and larger audiences with each visit.

I missed Hanwell because of dinner-- I'll be seeing them again at their CD release party March 13-- but opener Canby was also a nice surprise. I didn't realize that was the Envy Corps' Scott Yoshimura, playing some of the songs I saw him do at Dogtown Fest in Des Moines' Drake area this summer, when he was calling the project Menlo. That time Yoshimura had a band, but the other night he was just solo with a guitar. The super-sincere "With the World on a Stick" caught my ear at Dogtown Fest, as a lovely folk-pop ballad that could appeal to fans of anything from Bright Eyes' I'm Wide Awake It's Morning to Jose Gonzalez, and it struck me as a highlight again at the Vaudeville Mews. "I'm like every other guy who can play the guitar," Yoshimura acknowleges. "I'll write a song for you, even if it's no good/ 'Cause for once I know what I'm doing." If you can't relate to that, you're probably over-confident. Or I guess maybe you just don't write songs for people on the guitar. But anyway, good local music.

One for the Team: good at the Vaud lately, too.

Coming up: Poison Control Center at Vaudeville Mews Feb. 26, Cloud Cult at Grinnell Feb. 27, Charlie Hunter at Vaudeville Mews Feb. 28,  A Sunny Day in Glasgow w/ Wolves in the Attic at Vaudeville Mews March 4, Heligoats at Vaudeville Mews March 5, We All Have Hooks for Hands w/ One for the Team at Vaudeville Mews March 8, Vivian Girls at Grinnell March 13, Hanwell's EP release show with Patrick Fleming and Ely Falls at Vaudeville Mews also March 13 (so I won't be at Vivian Girls, this means... but just FYI!), the fifth annual Gross Domestic Product at All Play March 27, Red Pony Clock w/ Zoos of Berlin and Child Bite at Vaudeville Mews March 28 (awesome poster btw, guys!), Electric Six at Vaudeville Mews March 31, Love Is All at Vaudeville Mews April 8, the Morning Benders at Vaudeville Mews April 9, Dum Dum Girls at Vaudeville Mews April 12 (not 11 as I previously posted), Poison Control Center's Record Release Party at Vaudeville Mews April 30, Brother Ali at Vaudeville Mews May 2, MONO and the Twilight Sad at Vaudeville Mews May 18

I HATE PEOPLE (BUT I LIKE YOU)

Her new album has a duet with Iggy Pop!

I never really got Jemina Pearl or her short-lived band, Be Your Own Pet. A lot of people I like and respect, from Pitchfork's David Raposa to Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore (well, I don't really know Moore, so I shouldn't say I "like" him, but you know), really love Pearl and her Nashville punk band's high-energy antics, but I guess I'm not punk rock enough or something. The songs kind of rubbed me the wrong way, a little sophomoric maybe-- the omg sex/drugs/rock'n'roll shtick of "The Kelly Affair", off 2007's Get Awkward, for example-- which I guess makes sense, considering Pearl is only 22. But see her live, and everything comes together. I don't have the caffeine or the hyperbole today to do her whirligig stage presence justice-- another review I saw the other day described her as a "screaming dervish" of garage-punk-- but suffice it to say there was never a dull moment during her band's fast, furious set Friday night at the Vaudeville Mews in support of debut solo album Break It Up (also a great T-shirt FWIW). Her band members had the leather jackets and curly mops of sort of a mini-Strokes, and their set, despite a chosen genre that can lend itself to sloppiness, was just as precise and economical as those NYC forebears. No encore. Are you kidding? I talked to Pearl and the guitarist afterward, guess Pearl used to live a subway stop or two away from us in Brooklyn, and they're all based in Greenpoint now, not Nashville. Which is too bad, because if they were in the South I think they could do something really interesting in collaboration with another guy who loves Sonic Youth, Bradford Cox of Deerhunter and Atlas Sound; speaking of charismatic Nashvillian frontwomen, I'd love to see Pearl become the Hayley Williams or Taylor Swift of the avant-punk set.

As for the openers, eastern Iowa's Brooks Strause (of Old Scratch Revival Singers) did a sort of solo-acoustic take on the whole Tom Waits/Man Man/Gogol Bordello gravelly-voiced gypsy-boho-hobo thing, but was kinda drowned out by the crowd-- would love to hear him with a backing band. And I was very pleasantly surprised by locals the Jitz, whose Chuck Berry T-shirt and songs about rock'n'roll did not lie.

In other recent music action around here, I attended the Pentagram show at the Vaud not too long ago. Sabbath-style metal. A good time, but not really my thing, so I didn't have much to say.

Upcoming shows I may attend: Christopher the Conquered DVD release show at Ames Progressive Feb. 10, Aqui Estamos Landing Party at Vaudeville Mews Feb. 13, One for the Team with the Rugbies at Vaudeville Mews Feb. 15,  Headlights w/ Hanwell at Vaudeville Mews Feb. 23, Poison Control Center at Vaudeville Mews Feb. 26, Charlie Hunter at Vaudeville Mews Feb. 28,  A Sunny Day in Glasgow w/ Wolves in the Attic at Vaudeville Mews March 4, Heligoats at Vaudeville Mews March 5, We All Have Hooks for Hands w/ One for the Team at Vaudeville Mews March 8,Vivian Girls at Grinnell March 13, Hanwell's EP release show with Patrick Fleming and Ely Falls at Vaudeville Mews also March 13 (so I won't be at Vivian Girls, this means... but just FYI!), the fifth annual Gross Domestic Product at All Play March 27, Red Pony Clock w/ Zoos of Berlin and Child Bite at Vaudeville Mews March 28, Electric Six at Vaudeville Mews March 31, Love Is All at Vaudeville Mews April 8, Dum Dum Girls at Vaudeville Mews April 11, Brother Ali at Vaudeville Mews May 2

HIS BOOK OF PLOTS WAS THE ONLY THING LOST

"Let's experiment w/ captions, shall we?"

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but there's no rest for Mrs. Des Noise, the teacher (unusual, I know!)-- or for Des Noise either, of course. Is there ever? The two-day weekend certainly didn't feel like three days, but it felt like we packed in enough for them. After dinner Friday with my wife's family in honor of her birthday, a fun-filled Saturday peaked with ASKLAGANDAGANZA III, i.e., the third annual birthday concert for Vaudeville Mews booker Ladd Askland. If you weren't in the room to see the Poison Control Center headline that night, there's nothing I can say to convey what an un-self-consciously awesome time it was. Just, a roiling, fist-pumping crowd sing-along of spilled drinks and bodies flying back and forth between stage and floor. I missed Derek Lambert's opening set, but I did get to see him up there grinning, fighting to keep his shirt on, after helping PCC out as one of a rotating cast of two bass players along with Elliot Imes. I did get to see Ladd stage-dive. I saw PCC's guest drummer, Dave, who was totally coincidentally (no! really!) wearing a purple Northwestern shirt. I saw TJ win third annual Man of the Year honors (congrats, TJ!). I saw Patrick Tape Fleming do the splits, and Devon Frank, who had driven up from grad school in Missouri, rolling around on the floor with his guitar in the air. I saw Pat carrying Ladd's brother on his shoulders. I didn't see PCC drummer Donald Curtis (grad school-related conflicts) or bassist and past Man of the Year Joseph Terry (North Carolina)-- they were missed, but the crowd energy was better than New Year's Eve (but what is Asklandaganza if not better than New Year's Eve?). I also saw the Autumn Project, who I'd never seen before, and who put on a conversation-stoppingly loud, masterfully precise, slightly epic (but what is Asklandaganza if not epic?) set of emotion-wracked instrumental rock, "post-rock" really.  I saw Amedeo and @namedpipe and many other Des Moines friends, too. A dance party broke out; the DJ played Beck and Depeche Mode and early New Order.

  Philosophy Ph.D. students use their heads.

Sorry for the trivial post (went to trivia night with Bob Nastanovich at the Hessen Haus, too!)-- I wish I had a good quote from Dr. King to share on this important holiday (check out Pat's blog, or a Virginia professor's excellent column in the Register this morning, or your usual commentary sources, for that), or deep thoughts on all the tragic headlines. I'm thankful for what I've got.

Derek rocking out with PCC... he still has his sweatshirt on here.

The Autumn Project

TJ accepts his Man of the Year award. 

TOO EARLY FOR FLAPJACKS?

I hereby resolve not to be one of those bloggers who starts every blog post apologizing for the lack of updates. But I gotta admit, what with life and work and everything else, the posting on here is never gonna be super consistent-- I try to write only when I have something to say, not just constantly post mp3s and concert dates as done for $$$ by the more promotional blogs I still have in my RSS reader from New York. Still, I always feel like I could be doing more. So Kimberly Isburg's column in last week's Juice really struck a chord with me.

Isburg writes about how she used to consider herself an "overachiever," but 2009 left her more with items lingering on her to-do list than sense of accomplishment. She keeps thinking about that paint she bought in September and hasn't put on the walls yet. Or the unpacking she hasn't quite wrapped up since moving. The friends who are having babies, getting advanced degrees, earning promotions, "cooking gourmet meals on weeknights." And all that time wasted on social networking websites. (Which, a recent study says, lead to bigger and more diverse social networks-- duh. But they don't give me the same sense of satisfaction as having talked with somebody in person.)

Anyway, I could relate. 2009 was the first year when I didn't feel like I was making big leaps in either my business journalism or my music writing. I didn't have my work published in any new publications or take on any major new roles. I didn't compose any sprawling think pieces that someone could recommend for one of the Da Capo best music writing books. My most ambitious idea never quite came to fruition, making me just another annoying schmuck with a half-formed concept for a book, maan. And, like Isburg, I moved-- from Brooklyn to Iowa, in my case, meaning that I was also removed from a decent barometer of how my year was stacking up against those of my peers.

Then again, I had one hell of a year. I moved! I bought a home! I decided living 1,000 miles from my employer and the center of my music universe was actually an awesome idea! I met a bunch of new people, got my head out of my Brooklyn/indie bubble (sort of), and continued to write tons of stories and discover new music that moved and entranced me. I made it so I could basically walk across the street to see the Japandroids. I went to the 80/35 festival. I went to the Pitchfork festival. I saw more movies. I took time to read more. It may have been below zero around here the past couple of weeks, but with the skywalk and all the great restaurants and bars downtown, I have been spending less time in the cold than I would have had to in New York. A guy I met the other night at Hessen Haus, a Greenwich Village native, told me living in Iowa "feels like cheating," and he's right. So what if I still don't have enough shelves for all my books and CDs, or if I haven't put anything on the walls yet in my "office"? I won.

Then why do I still feel as if-- right now, while I'm productively typing these words for publication to my friends and neighbors and relatives and even total strangers-- there are a million other things I should be doing? Yesterday! In more places! Harder, better, faster, stronger! For great internet justice...

Isburg's resolution this year is to give herself a break. I don't know if I can do that. In fact, I probably can't. But it's good advice to remember.

Lots going on here lately, not much I can comment on interestingly at length. Poison Control Center, Christopher the Conquered, and Wolves in the Attic sounded great as usual during the New Year's bash at the Des Moines Social Club (whole scene was a little crowded, though). Hanwell, a band out of Newton, Iowa, were a nice surprise at the Vaudeville Mews the other day, peppering their set of Wilco-tinged rock with covers of songs by the Kinks and Elvis Costello. I stopped by the Mews again Saturday night to check out another local band, Cleo's Apartment, who I recall being really fun this summer at 515 Alive, but as I realized the show wasn't going to start until the a.m. hours, I resolved to catch them next time instead. Lame, I know. But give me a break.

I noticed only too late they were giving away free pancakes.

UPCOMING: Asklandaganza on Saturday at the Mews (I'll be there fer sure), Pentagram 01/26 at the Mews, Jemina Pearl 02/05 same place, Headlights 02/23, A Sunny Day in Glasgow 03/04, Zoos of Berlin 03/28, Electric Six 03/31, Morning Benders 04/09. At bigger venues, Brad Paisley plays Wells Fargo Arena on Friday but I'll miss due to the cost and Mrs. Des Noise's birthday, Tim McGraw 02/13, Black Eyed Peas 03/25.

YOU'RE YOUNG AND YOU'RE GONNA BE SOMEONE

Cursive have been impressing a cultish following with their emotive, literary-minded indie since 2000 concept album Domestica, if not earlier. They're from Omaha, which in better weather would be just a little more than a couple of hours away (I've only been there once, so I'm relying heavily on Google Maps here). And they're on the prominent Saddle Creek label, whose biggest name, Bright Eyes, I've been listening to since downloading "Something Vague" off of a defunct file-sharing service called AudioGalaxy. So I should definitely know them a lot better. But they should probably know Des Moines a lot better, too. It's not that there wasn't a strong turnout for their show at Vaudeville Mews on Saturday night-- there was, if not quite a sellout-- and if the crowd was pretty subdued, you could blame it on the early set time (the show was all-ages) or just, as my friend Tom at The Great Pumpkin blog tweeted, your typical intent Cursive crowd.

Still, it felt like Cursive frontman Tim Kasher, now 35, sensed the unnecessary distance, like a Dickens character realizing he should've spent more Christmases with his kind-hearted nephew. Or cousin. "I guess we're cousins," Kasher remarked at one point. "We should be sitting around eating hamsteaks." (My notes are a little less clear on the second half of that quote.) One reason Cursive and Des Moines might not be on a closer basis is the customary three-year gaps between albums, with various side projects in between; another is that Kasher moved to Los Angeles to become a screenwriter and now lives in Montana, as Joe Lawler reported in the Register.

Anyway, the crowd seemed particularly tall for this show, so I didn't get a great look at the stage-- but you know that already from the latest bad iPhone photo (the awesomely retro Polaroids of the future!). The set was understandably tilted toward songs from Cursive's new album, Mama, I'm Swollen, which didn't blow me away, but they still definitely sounded like a solid, practiced band, addressing weighty topics-- in one lyric, God was laughing down; in another, Kasher mused whether we were "better off as animals." "Peter Pan syndrome," he told CityView's Michael Swanger, is one of the record's themes. The band also played The Ugly Organ's "A Gentleman Caller," for one. And they closed with my favorite song of the night, Domestica's cataclysmically throat-rending "The Casualty," which was the favorite of other people I talked to, too.

See you next holiday season?

I LOST MY THUMB (NO YOU DIDN'T)

Let's say you're in a band. From Seattle. You've been on tour, in a van, for nine weeks.

You tell us this.

You're playing for a small crowd of several totally fired up teenagers, a guy who looks like he might be one of their parents, a bartender, a door person, presumably a sound person upstairs, and me. Your style of music is a slightly listless non-update of the Strokes' rock-is-back tautness and Dandy Warhols' decades-dulled Mick Jagger impressions.

You have one (pretty catchy) song that people like in Seattle, France, and Chicago. No place else.

You tell us this, too.

You're a power trio-- except for a ski-capped fourth person hidden on the side of the stage as she sort of half-heartedly bangs at the tambourine.

You played here at least once before. Last time, you told jokes poking fun at the town you were playing.

This time, you start to speak. You say something like: "Uhh, could you make this town a little less big? I think more bands would feel comfortable coming through here if you did. There are too many people here. Like, when we drove into town I lost my 3G. Also, saw lots of homeless people."

Seattle is bigger than here, it's true. But you're playing here.

"[Something about corn!]" "[Something about sexytime with cornfed women!]" (Cheers from the few, super excited male teens!) (The even fewer, somewhat less excited female teens are probably underage, ya perv!) "[More banter about corn and cornfed women!!]"

Hey, when I have a band can I play the Crocodile in Seattle and talk about all that RAIN you guys have? And grunge? And heroin addicts? (BTW I still recommend local people check out Seattle/New York radio station KEXP, especially DJ Shani. John in the Morning works well in this time zone, too.)


Anyway, not trying to be a jerk any more than necessary on this blog, just want to be honest even though I'm blogging about shows in a city that could still use more shows. I was at Vaudeville Mews again last night not for the Blakes, but for Montreal's Winter Gloves, who I only caught for a couple of songs (an opener canceled so they started early) but thought sounded pretty good. Melodic, collegiate, slightly twee, keyboard-upholstered indie pop. They record for Paper Bag (Sally Shapiro, CFCF). The lead singer reminded me not in a bad way of the bartender at the restaurant we used to go to the most often back in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn.

Sunday night I went to a listening party at the Lift for the new cassette-only third album from Des Moines-Minneapolis duo Olives, entitled Trembles (Moon Glyph). Comprising Ross Nerving and label chief Steve Rosborough, Olives do sort of a Liars-y lo-fi/noise art rock thing. Their previous tape was apparently inspired by Jorge Luis Borges' The Book of Imaginary Beings. Their latest has booming vocals, occasionally, kind of looming in the shadows, plus some shrill and metallic guitars. Trembles is a surprisingly broad-ranging listen, with funereal tribal drones and spacey drilling guitar figures and dystopian chants but also a delicately gorgeous ambient/electronic track. Olives say the effort "is an act of hymnal disassembly ... a subversion of traditional spiritual song structures and lyrical tropes." But even more than, say, such experimental noise dudes as Excepter, who I really like when they're on, these guys don't sound as pretentious as all that. They sound like they're having a blast. Their album is still goofy enough to include a line that at least SOUNDS LIKE this post's title. Comes in a limited run of 300. It wasn't martini night!

Download "Michael 'Dracula' Goldberg" by Olives as a free mp3 here.

REMINDER: Cursive on Dec. 12 at the Vaud!

SURF SOLAR (7" EDIT)

A few notes on English band Fuck Buttons (great music, lousy name), who played at Grinnell College the other night. It was my first time seeing a show there. The venue is like the basement of this dorm, and college kids-- smart, independent-minded ones-- are around being college kids. Pretty energetic vibe, pretty intimate. And get this: Show started on time! So I missed opening Brooklyn drone-rockers Growing, which, ugh, sorry. Fuck Buttons duo Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power stand across a table full of electronic equipment from each other, like they're playing air hockey. Their sound, especially on new album Tarot Sport, if you'll let me be overly reductive here, is all at once noisy, pretty, and has thundering dance beats. Vocals are distorted beyond comprehension through kids' toy microphones. They brushed off a couple of equipment malfunctions, humbly keeping their cool, and I think everybody went most nuts for 2008 debut album Street Horrsing's "Sweet Love for Planet Earth", though I might be remembering wrong-- they were going nuts a lot, at least in the middle where I was. I did overhear great chatter, just typical stuff about classes and relationship problems. I'm told the crowd was wilder for Liars, but I'll definitely be back to find out how other shows compare.

Tuesday night I saw the Athens, Ga., band Modern Skirts, who'd previously been at the 80/35 Festival here this summer. I didn't take notes as much-- "Can't tell you more than you already know," I remember him singing-- but yeah, they put on a good show (obviously, I decided to see them a second time!). More of a tense, rhythmic style of indie rock, kept reminding me of Spoon or White Rabbits. I remember at one point the singer saying he didn't expect anyone to be there, so it was cool that a decent audience came to the show. "Please, I'm beggin ya please." Went to Fong's Pizza afterward.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS: One of my favorite new-ish bands, Philly's A Sunny Day in Glasgow, will be playing at Vaudeville Mews on March 4. Any readers happen to catch them in Iowa City over the weekend?

Sorry to Young Republic, who I'd e-mailed with but couldn't get out to see Wednesday night. How was it?

EMBRACE YOUR TRUE INNER FEELING

So the Des Moines Music Coalition's free "Music University: Managing the Media" was last night at House of Bricks. I talked on a panel with Joe Lawler (Des Moines Register, Juice) and Michael Swanger (CityView) about ways the 25-30 or so people in the crowd could get media coverage for their music. Sort of like a CMJ or SXSW panel except on a Wednesday night in the middle of Iowa, I guess. First of all, it was totally great to meet Joe and Michael, whose work I've been reading and enjoying ever since getting to this town back in July. I suspect their advice to the musicians in the audience was probably more immediately useful than mine, if only because they write professionally about music events happening locally and I don't. My main theme, maybe kind of a brutal one, but brutally honest: The surest way to get attention from journalists is to have fans. If you're making emotional connections with people, I'm going to end up hearing about you, and I may want to write about you-- and I won't ever feel like, "Oh, maybe I'll do something nice for this band and write about them." I'll feel like I really HAVE to listen to you-- and, better yet, if your music connects with me, too, I'll feel like YOU'RE the one doing something nice for ME. So many of the e-mails I get are from new bands nobody has heard of yet hoping to get a little Internet buzz going, and I do love discovering somebody before everyone else does, but your best bet is to play live a lot, send your songs to a bunch of smaller blogs, build a fanbase. That way, it won't even matter whether or not the critics like you. John Mayer will be making the music he wants for the rest of his life, and he may never get a single Pitchfork album review. ...Anyway, that's my rant. Thanks so much to Jill Haverkamp and the DMMC for including me in this event. It was an honor, and I'm really excited Des Moines has an organization like that in the first place.

Also last night was a show by loosely San Francisco-based collective Still Flyin' at the Vaudeville Mews. I hadn't heard them, but the Poison Control Center's Patrick Tape Fleming had told me they included members of Masters of Hemisphere, Aislers Set, and Ladybug Transistor, so I was definitely in. When we got to the venue, Patrick talked to the band and told me they had a member of one of my personal favorite groups, recently defunct Australian indie-poppers the Lucksmiths, playing with them. I was dubious. "There are only three members of the Lucksmiths," I declared-- shamefully forgetting they became a quartet with the addition of guitarist Louis Richter (Midstate Orange) on their last few albums-- "and they're in Australia. There's no way one of the ACTUAL Lucksmiths is here." To which Patrick said something like, "No, man, he's right over there, let me introduce you to him." After I embarrassingly attempted to say hello to a couple of the wrong people (remember, I was still thinking this WASN'T a recognizable member of the Lucksmiths), Patrick finally pointed me in the right direction, and sure enough, there was Mark Monnone-- founding Lucksmiths bass player and current solo artist as Monnone Alone-- standing right there by the bar. To make the "small world" thing even weirder, I found out that this guy Gary back in my old neighborhood of Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, at whose house I had seen-- bear with me-- Swedish pop crooner Jens Lekman (who now lives in Australia) play a special post-concert set for fans, is a sometime member of Still Flyin'. Mark had been to that house, too. Gary wasn't there last night, though.

The crowd was small, but Still Flyin' still managed to put on a fun, energetic set. There were nine people onstage, and I didn't get a good look at how many different instruments they were playing, but I do remember they had one dude who was basically a full-time hypeman/dancer. I also remember Gabe-- the one with the mustache, the 'stache that puts my still-tentative attempt to shame-- played some trombone. Patrick had described Still Flyin' to me as sort of a white reggae band-- a twee-reggae band-- which I have to admit didn't exactly sound like the greatest thing (sorry, Matisyahu). Turns out, yeah, there's a bit of that Jamaican upswing on tracks like "Forever Dudes". More than that, though, it's just gleeful indie-pop party music, the kind of music that actually teaches the indie kids to dance again while us bloggers opine about European dance music and hip-hop from the comfort of our headphones with nary a booty-shake. Sounded sort of like LAKE or early Architecture in Helsinki to these ears, really. Which is good. Couldn't hear a lot of the words-- as a sound guy once told the PCC, "If you're trying to get some kind of life-changing point to come across with your lyrics, it ain't happening"-- but as usual at these kinds of shows, it didn't really matter. It probably helped that three of us each bought a round of shots for the band. I remember Mark and I had one of those great, rambling conversations afterward about Australian music. He likes (and has played with some of!) the same Australian bands that I like: Crayon Fields, Sly Hats, Guy Blackman, the Twerps. He also mentioned a few bands I didn't know and will check out: The Motifs, Milk Teddy, and Sleepy Township. Neither of us cares for the Temper Trap. Thanks to Fong's for the chicken and broccoli slice right before closing time, and my apologies to the empty planter on Fourth St. in front of the Lift or someplace like that, I can't really remember, you know how we do.

ARE YOU GONNA BUY OUR RECORD OR WHAT?

I've still been going to shows, I just haven't been finding much I needed blog-length posts to tell you about.

For my random brain spatterings, there's Twitter. To highlight recent articles, blog posts, or songs of interest, there's Tumblr. And then there's all the stuff I've been writing for work, whether as a business journalist or as a reviewer over at Pitchfork.

That doesn't mean there haven't been fun things going in Des Moines-- hopefully you didn't miss 'em-- and that doesn't mean there aren't still fun things coming up!

First, let's look ahead. Turns out my fall concert preview was premature and left out some great shows.


Catchy, clever, slightly yelpy Alabama garage-poppers Thomas Function (above) play tonight at Vaudeville Mews, and I would highly recommend that anyone who isn't seeing Miley Cyrus or Gwar/Lamb of God go check this out. They share a label with So Cow, who released one of my favorite albums of the year, and they should be a great time.

Local piano-pop heroes Christopher the Conquered have a few shows coming up. First is the free CD release party for new album You're Gonna Glow in the Dark, coming Oct. 10 at Ames Progressive with Patrick Tape Fleming, who also recorded the album. Christopher the Conquered come back to the Mews again Oct. 17 with the Atudes, Andrew Fish, and Nuclear Rodeo. They play Scented Vinyl at Mars Cafe on Oct. 26. Then come a couple of Iowa shows outside the Des Moines area before they return to the Mews with Des Noise favorites the Poison Control Center, plus Atudes, New Bodies, Bradley Unit, and Coax from Chuckanut. If you're curious about local music, you should put at least one of these shows on your calendar, because these guys are some of our best and brightest.

On Oct. 13, indie website Daytrotter swoops into Johnston with its Barnstorming Tour. The lineup, featuring up-and-comers Suckers and Paleo, looks pretty good! Here's the info: 6pm -- Johnston, Iowa: BARN SHOW #4: The Simpson Barn, 6169 Northglenn Dr. (Performing -- Dawes, Christopher Denny, Suckers, Snowblink, Paleo)

Also Oct. 13, though, shoegaze pop group Ringo Deathstarr plays Vaudeville Mews. Hmm. I'm also really into their locally based openers, Wolves in the Attic. (Deep Sleep Waltzing opens, too, but I haven't heard that band yet.)

Omaha's Little Brazil hits the Mews on Oct. 18, with Weatherbox, Bright Giant, and the Chatty Cathys. I'm told they've played Des Moines a few times before, so there should be a good crowd for this one. (The doors open at 5 p.m., show starts at 5:30. It's all ages and $7.00.)

Oct. 25, South Dakota folk-poppers We Have Hooks for Hands play the Mews. They're on Minneapolis-based Afternoon Records, same label as the Poison Control Center.

And on Oct. 28, you should go check out... uhm, me. I'm honored and really excited to be a part of a panel being held by the Greater Des Moines Music Coalition at 7 p.m. at the House of Bricks. Jill Haverkamp, marketing and PR co-chair of the DMMC, will be the moderator. For me, it'll finally be a chance to meet Jill, CityView critic Michael Swanger, and Juice/Register critic Joe Lawler for the first time, and to hear some questions from locals who share my interest in music. For you, well, here's the panel description:

Exploring the best ways to approach reporters and bloggers to get coverage for your band. Panelists will discuss how to stand out amongst the clutter, their process in deciding what to cover, and the ins and outs of being a music journalist in the new music industry. The discussion will also expand upon press kits, biographies, pitch letters, and general media relations techniques.

What's more, Grant Hart of Husker Du is playing the Mews on Nov. 5, and I hear local band Why Make Clocks' Chuck Hoffman may be opening.

Also, Old Crow Medicine Show plays Nov. 6 at Hoyt Sherman. I don't know their music very well-- they're a little bit on the jammier side of my tastes-- but a friend burned me some tracks a few years ago, and they should be a good time.

Don't forget the Meat Puppets are coming to the Mews on Nov. 8. Why Make Clocks is definitely opening for that one. Bob Schneider will be there Nov. 10, and Modern Skirts, who put on a good show at 80/35, will be there Nov. 17. Folkie Ellis Paul, whose "Did I Ever Know You" was on a good mix CD I got once in college, comes Dec. 4.

Even further ahead, country-pop darling Taylor Swift will be headlining at Wells Fargo Arena on May 6, 2010.

Another country star, Brad Paisley, comes to Wells Fargo on Jan. 15. If that weren't Mrs. Des Noise's birthday, I might be tempted to see if I could finagle a way to go for opener Miranda Lambert (Justin Moore also opens). But though I may be dumb, I'm not THAT dumb.

Me, I'm roadtripping to Omaha tonight for one of my favorite veteran bands, Yo La Tengo.
In case you missed it, New York magazine had a great profile on the band last month. Mrs. Des Noise and I used one of their songs as our going-down-the-aisle music at our wedding a couple of years ago up at Jester Park; I wrote something about the song for Pitchfork's "Top 500 Tracks of the 2000s" list, which you can read (#182) while listening to the song here.

Last night we went to see Maya Angelou speak at Drake University. She started by singing a snippet of an old spiritual about a "rainbow in the clouds." At first I wasn't sure what was going on, but then she brilliantly incorporated that theme into her entire speech, relating it to events in her life and closing by singing a bit of the song again. She was hilarious and wise, like a grandmother who has seen it all and is going to share some life lessons with you. She could've chosen to speak on some intellectual topic, or to wax political-- her interview in the Des Moines Register defined courage as "defending the defenseless"-- but with her background of accomplishments, she didn't need to. Instead, she shared a message that even the preteen sitting behind us could probably appreciate, about how there can be hope in darkness (a rainbow in the clouds), and how we every one of us can make a profound difference in someone's lives-- even if we don't know it.

I've been to a few other fun music-type things lately, including Christopher at the Conquered at the Mews, Austin May at Scented Vinyl, indie-folk group Menlo and rappers Maxila Blue at the Dogtown Festival (apologies to Beati Paoli-- I didn't mean to miss your set, it's just that dinner took longer than expected), and the Rural Albert Advantage with the Love of Language and Pink Kodiak at the Mews. Oh, and I did some successful record shopping at ZZZ Records, too: Picked up some old Kraftwerk, Talking Heads, Harry Nilsson, Fleetwood Mac, Sylvester, Jan Hammer, Slade, New Order, and George Carlin, along with the new Jim Guthrie LP and a couple of personal favorites I should've already owned on vinyl (Belle and Sebastian's Tigermilk and If You're Feeling Sinister).

Other notable recent musical goings-on:

Sian Alice Group canceled. So did Skee-Lo. No, you can't wish for infinite wishes.

The John & Mary Pappajohn Sculpture Park! I love it. Totally proud to have this in our city.

On a sadder note, longtime local rock'n'roll radio DJ Dic Youngs died at 68. I never heard him, but it sounds like he made a great contribution to music and culture in this city, and he will be missed.

So: What else is coming up? What am I forgetting? I always blank on something.

THE FALLING LEAVES. THE FOAMING ALES. THE BELATED DES NOISE FALL CONCERT PREVIEW.

I barely managed to post my summer concert preview before it officially became summer and my list would've no longer been even technically on time. I've been hoping I could be at least that punctual with my fall concert preview, especially after seeing the Cityview and the Des Moines Register's Datebook fall entertainment guides pile up on my coffee table. This is my best effort.

Britney Spears on Sept. 11, I'm sorry I missed you.

(Hat tip to Tom Ewing for the title of this post. Thanks to Patrick and Ashley Tape Fleming for making the adjacent photo with the IOWA shaved-head fan guy happen... it was our dirty iPhone, not any shakiness by Ashley, that caused the blur. Mrs. Des Noise is cropped out, to protect the innocent. And the jobs thereof.)

SEPTEMBER

Friday, Sept. 18: Grace Basement @ Vaudeville Mews
Catchy, jangly St. Louis guitar-pop with reverence for '60s psych: "Today I made some hummus for you" (listen)

Saturday, Sept. 19: Silversun Pickups and Manchester Orchestra @ Hoyt Sherman
Two popular indie rock bands I've never seen live. L.A.'s Silversun Pickups go for taut rythms, Placebo-pinched vox, and post-"Popular" Nada Surf mellow anthemics, while Atlanta's Manchester Orchestra do the "grandiose 1990s alternative (slight keyboard)" thing. If I can convince Mrs. Des Noise, I'll go.

Sunday, Sept. 20: Laura Barrett @ Vaudeville Mews
My favorite moment for the kalimba, or thumb piano, so far is former Vaud-playing Swede Jens Lekman's cover of late Iowa native Arthur Russell's "A Little Lost". Expect Toronto's Barrett to play the instrument-- and maybe keyboard, kazoo, bass pedals, and "other percussion"-- when she brings her low-key, minimalist folk-pop to Des Moines. (listen)

Monday, Sept. 21: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band @ Wells Fargo Arena
The Boss returns to Des Moines for the first time since 2006, this time with his longtime accomplices. OK, I really like Nebraska, "The River", "It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City", and probably plenty of other songs I'm blanking on right now-- I'm not a total Philistine!-- but I've always found "Born to Run" ridiculous, winced after Springsteen got a career boost out of 9/11 with The Rising, and I don't have $90 to shell out on tickets, so since I'm sitting this one out anyway I'm gonna have to side with Richard Meltzer, who compared Bruce's blend of 1950s nostalgia (Roy Orbison!) and 1960s nostalgia (Bob Dylan!) to another 1970s phenomenon: the Fonz. This view is probably the real reason I could no longer live in the mid-Atlantic states.

Monday, Sept. 21: Trivium @ People's
Three years ago, friend of Des Noise Tom Breihan called Trivium "the Jackson 5 of Underground Metal." I'm not one of those indie rock guys who nurtures a pet metal obsession; the only aggressive bones I have in my body are passive. But still.

Monday, Sept. 21: The Chambermaids @ Vaudeville Mews
Pedal-pushing Minneapolis power trio (their MySpace bio invokes shoegazers My Bloody Valentine, art-punks Wire, the Auckland Sound of New Zealand's Flying Nun, and the heady foreboding of 4AD) gets Down in the Berries. (listen)

Wednesday, Sept. 23: (early show) Good Old War @ Vaudeville Mews
My God, Fleet Foxes already have their own Thorns. At least that's what I thought when I first heard this band, a splinter project of Philadelphia indie-rockers Days Away, but it was only a live acoustic track. The full-band material is more textured and forceful; my RSS reader suggests these guys, like Jersey's Gaslight Anthem, are affiliated with the punk world despite their easygoing folk-rock sound. (listen)

(late show) Yourself and the Air @ Vaudeville Mews
"I don't know why but I feel so strange," these shimmery Chicago indie-rockers murmur plaintively on "So You've Come to Mingle", a buzzing, chiming, handclapping, whoa-oh-ohing stop-starter from their record Friend of All Breeds. "I don't know why but I feel like a mess... with you." I've only heard a couple of tracks, as with most of the up-and-coming groups playing at the Mews this month, but I could totally see myself bouncing around and making a mess of myself to this energetic, emotive stuff. (listen)

Thursday, Sept. 24: The Love Language @ Vaudeville Mews
Red-lining North Carolina indie band rocks nostalgic for Western swing, Buddy Holly, and a girl named Mary Lou who stole their heart. Says Ladd: "I really, really love this band!" Consider me there. (listen) Also: Saddle Creek-signed Toronto indie-folkers the Rural Albert Advantage (listen)

Friday, Sept. 25: Dave Matthews Band @ Principal Park
I understand Dave Matthews fandom. I heard about the band from an older cousin in 8th grade. When I moved to Nashville a year later and everyone was freaking out about some Hootie and the Blowfish band, DMB was common ground. They were even my first concert, in Phoenix in 10th grade. I still have some of the bootlegs. And I find this video hilarious. Everybody who goes will have a good time! I get it, and I think there's something good to be said for it, but I don't think anybody wants to read my take on it.

Friday, Sept. 25: The Shirelles, the Crystals, the Chantels @ Prairie Meadows Racetrack and Casino
What are the chances these are the people who actually sang on the records?

Saturday, Sept. 26: Dogtown Fest
The Register's Sophia Ahmad has the lineup (I've only see Beati Paoli; curious about the others):

• Main stage at 23rd and University Street — 4:20 p.m. – Finn Miles, 5:30 p.m. – Menlo, 6:30 p.m. – Beati Paoli, 8 p.m. – Maxilla Blue, 9:30 p.m. – Cashes Rivers
• Acoustic stage at Mars Cafe, 2318 University Ave. — 6:15 p.m. – James Biehn, 7:30 p.m. – Seedlings, 9 p.m. – Curry & Red

Saturday, Sept. 26: The Airborne Toxic Event @ People's
Earlier this year, I wrote: "When I read the Don Delillo book from which this band got their name, I thought it was overrated, the sort of thing a celebrity might say is great just to feel smart-- the postmodern Old Man and the Sea. OK, I was still just a freshman in college. There's a very good chance I was wrong."

Monday, Sept. 28: Mark Mallman @ Vaudeville Mews
Minneapolis piano-rocker with grandiose guitar touches befitting Wells Fargo Arena performers Trans-Siberian Orchestra toes up to the Weird Al irony line. (listen) (Star Tribune profile)

Tuesday, Sept. 29: The Rosewood Thieves @ Vaudeville Mews
Rootsy recent Hold Steady openers have the double-track vocals, syllable-stretching tunes, and melancholy guitar arrangements to earn comparisons to Elliott Smith or Earlimart, if not quite John Lennon. The folk and country tinges also align the New York band with the likes of Blitzen Trapper, Fleet Foxes, or Whiskeytown. (listen) with Portland's slightly folksier rock howlers the Dead Trees (listen)

Wednesday, Sept. 30: Wovenhand @ Vaudeville Mews
Former frontman for Denver alt-country band 16 Horsepower gets heavy and Nick Cave ominous in support of last year's Ten Stones. (listen)

Thursday, Oct. 1: Wilco at University of Iowa Memorial Union, Iowa City
Wilco (The Des Noise fall concert preview item).

Thursday, Oct. 8: Owl City @ House of Bricks
Mrs. Des Noise has already instantly denounced this EXTREMELY Postal Service-like band's "Fireflies" as more or less a crime against humanity. So I may be in the minority here. But I like the Postal Service! I like the idea of a band revisiting the Postal Service/Discovery sissy electro-pop sound and translating it for a mainstream radio audience! I like "Fireflies"! And I hope to like Owl City live.

Friday, Oct. 9: Miley Cyrus @ Wells Fargo Arena
Miley's "Party in the U.S.A.", like Kylie's much better "Can't Get You Outta My Head" before it, sounds like a pop hit with both mass audiences and critics in mind. I don't know that I'd believe the KISS FM DJ I heard saying he saw a trucker blasting the Hannah Montana star's current hit with the windows down, but I do know that it's a fascinating song to talk about. Meta to the max, it's already been called "the first Michael Jackson tribute record," and it prompted Mrs. Des Noise to ask whether she's getting paid for all those endorsements: KISS FM, Britney, Jay-Z. The only people the Top 40 really matters to, though, in terms of IRL social impact, are teenagers and preteens, and I sort of hate how endorsing this song would suggest you're endorsing the conformity that makes Miley's tummy feel better. Hey young girls: Don't like KISS FM or Britney, let alone that sweet feminist Jay? You don't get invited to the party! I won't be showing up, either, but I am morbidly curious.

Friday, Oct. 9: Lamb of God, Gwar @ Val Air Ballroom
Yeah, so I probably won't go to this. I know that some of my friends probably would. Metal! And joke-metal! And unfair jokes about metal that write themselves, thereby perpetuating metal's embrace by indie kids who maybe used to joke about metal!

Friday, Oct. 9: Yo La Tengo @ the Slowdown, Omaha
I will, in fact, be heading to Nebraska to see Hoboken's post-Sinatra finest this night. New album Popular Songs is their second straight triumph after 2003's uncharacteristically middling Summer Sun. I wrote something about their song "Our Way to Fall" for one of Pitchfork's best-of-the-decade lists: here.

Saturday, Oct. 10: AC/DC @ Wells Fargo Arena
Totally worth $90, says aforementioned friend of Des Noise Tom Breihan, who wrote up the classic kilt-rockers' 2008 Madison Square Garden gig for the Village Voice. Almost certainly true, but anybody wanna get me on the guest list?

Wednesday, Oct. 14: Dethklok, Mastodon, High on Fire, Converge @ Val Air Ballroom
Finally! A metal show I really want to see!

Wednesday, Oct. 28: The Veronicas @ the M Shop, Ames
I'd still be curious to see this Avril-like band some time.

Thursday, Oct. 29: Matisyahu @ People's
Everyone's favorite Hasidic reggae-rapper from this year's 80/35 festival makes his autumnal return.

Sunday, Nov. 1: New Found Glory @ People's
Whoa, these pop-punks are still around? That one guy looks kinda like Morrissey with a skunk hair-stripe.

Sunday, Nov. 22: Minus the Bear @ People's
Mathy Seattle indie rockers.

ONE FOR THE MONEY

I haven't been ignoring you. I've been going to shows! Nothing particularly earth-shattering to report (other than: 515 Alive? Fun!) so let's keep this casual:

The highlight of the past few days would have to be the 515 Alive festival here in downtown Des Moines on Saturday night. Compared to the higher-profile 80/35 earlier this summer, this free event skewed younger, with lots of high school kids walking around. Hardly a crowd worthy of the kind of fun-hating done by local business owners last week (I didn't stay until the end, but "drunkfest"? Have you been out on a weekend night around my building lately? No comparison).

No way I would've been allowed to go to something like 515 Alive when I was 15 or 16, but man, it must've been an exciting experience for those kids-- out in the downtown at night, dancing under the stars to music you'd usually have to be 21 to check out at a bar or club, if you even knew where to find it. I tried to put myself in their frame of mind. Three stages-- the middle one felt the hottest, so we mostly stuck to the main stage and the techno stage at the opposite end of the event. (Oh, and there were people performing in a few of the local bars, too, but with everything looking too crowded-- last year's event brought out 14,000-- we braved the muggy heat outdoors.) At the techno stage, we saw a couple of DJs spinning some relatively minimal, straightahead stuff, beneath an empty building with a flashing applause sign in the window. Wish I caught their names, but the first guy did a great job of letting the beats build, so you'd get peak after peak and hands would go into the air. The second guy would just sort of alternate between peaks and valleys, but the beer must've been flowing because there always seemed to be someone who was really feeling it.

Over at the main stage, I actually caught the performers' names. Journalism! Jurassic Five apparently split up, but former member Akil the MC made the trip to Des Moines in support of a new solo album, Soundcheck. I can freely admit the things that separate Akil's music from some of my favorite rap: It looks backward rather than forward, it means exactly what it says without a hint of mischief or wordplay, and it can be super preachy. But I'm not gonna pretend he didn't put on a charming, good-time show the other night. Akil seemed sort of sad and uncertain without his group, and that vulnerability made him more likable-- you felt like he actually wanted to be here. It didn't hurt that he kept shouting out Iowa, with a hint maybe of effort but not sarcasm. We got to the stage right in the middle of Jurassic Five's "I Am Somebody", and Akil-- now backed by the DJ from his pre-Jurassic crew-- also briefly did an a cappella snippet of "Concrete Schoolyard" (I guess the whole song is a little too group-centric to fit in at a solo show, bummer). All in all, lots of old-school beats and unbridled positivity. Local MCs came up to join Akil on stage to show off their stuff, and the highlight had to be when one woman opened her mouth and sang in a gorgeous gospel voice instead of reciting her (in one would-be Asher Roth's case) crisply delivered but not exactly spontaneous-sounding verses. Akil did new stuff, too, including one song based around the whole "one for the money, two for the show..." shtick. Not so great, but it was an uncritical kind of evening and any musical shortcomings couldn't dim the overall enthusiasm. Akil later came back to do a verse with local funksters Cleo's Apartment, who were fun to dance to and had a lead singer whose hairdo and tie gave her a space-age look reminiscent of Janelle Monae. Never did see the Jungle Brothers, though... anybody have a recap?

Christopher the Conquered, Casper & the Cookies, Nuclear Rodeo, and Bradley Unit and the Members played at Vaudeville Mews on Thursday night, and I was there, too. I don't really feel like I retained enough observations from that night for a thorough review, but I was pleased by Bradley Unit's wry, low-key jangle-pop, complete with a cover of my beloved Scottish group Belle and Sebastian. I realized I had seen Nuclear Rodeo before-- catchy power-pop, highlighted by a song about Iowa's own Shawn Johnson. Athens, Ga. power-poppers Casper & the Cookies were energetic performers with lots of stage moves, and I know they've toured with Ames band the Poison Control Center, but the crowd was REALLY thin this night, and I gotta say I don't remember any of the songs well enough to run out and bring everybody I know next time-- maybe I just wasn't in the right mood. And locals Christopher the Conquered headlined, with a fine set of piano pop that culminated in a ballad for singer Chris Ford's girlfriend, away in Chicago that night. The PBR was getting to me by that point, but I seem to recall Chris (who is a reader and a nice dude, so in other words someone difficult to write about objectively) coming out into the crowd and singing that one from the floor.

Which is about where I want to be right now, unless I can make it as far as the bed.

Atmosphere tomorrow night at Simon Estes, and I'm already definitely going to see Jamey Johnson at the State Fair. Caught the I-Cubs on Friday, too, but you don't need a recap of that (they won!). What else is going on?

This post would've been a lot more interesting if I had taken pictures as I was people-watching on Saturday night. Really varied crowd that night, from hippies to just about everybody else. The common thread was people looking like individuals-- always refreshing.

FIVE QUESTIONS WITH... SAM SUMMERS

Sam Summers, of concert promoter First Fleet Concerts, shares some thoughts about what he sees going on musically here in Des Moines. (Neither of us are really fans of the word "scene.") Where he used to compare turnout against Boise or Madison, now the benchmark targets are Minneapolis or Kansas City. He digs not only Ames/DSM overseas sensations the Envy Corps, but also Wolves in the Attic, who I saw play a little while ago. And I curse myself for missing Gogol Bordello... even to see an I-Cubs game. (I'm hoping to check out Silversun Pickups on Sept. 19, also maybe Atmosphere next Tuesday.)

Sorry I've been quieter lately, keeping busy with writing and getting settled and stuff, I guess. Sounds like there are some great things going on over at Des Moines Social Club these days, from a short film screening of local screenwriter Ben Godar's short film Fatherland last night to a Readymade issue release/launch party (the do-it-yourself magazine recently relocated to Des Moines from Berkeley) on Wednesday night. I may hear a Grain Belt calling. Oh, and the 515 Alive Urban Music & Arts Festival hits the East Village this weekend-- I want to check this out, too. [Previous Five Questions: Derek Lambert, Amedeo Rossi, Patrick Tape Fleming, Ladd Askland]

1. I've never been to People's Court... what should I expect?

SS: People’s Court is really Des Moines’ first “venue”. On the small club level you can afford to have “indie”, “metal” and “rock” bars but when you start getting to the mid-sized to large-sized venues your programming really has to feed all the people. People’s is conducive to all genres. No one is going to feel out of place when going to People’s.

2. More generally, what's the Des Moines music scene like?

SS: The music scene here is greater than ever before. I look at it in terms of numbers. When I started doing shows I would base the success of any given show based on how the show did compared to places like Boise, ID or Madison, WI. Now my bar has been raised to.. “how did this show do in Des Moines vs. how it did in Minneapolis or Kansas City”. The great attendances have really made me take chances on things like Gogol Bordello or MGMT or The Kooks. Things I never would have thought about booking when I started. As a whole the good attendances are still heavily influenced by what is played on the radio. Des Moines should look to online music outlets as an alternative so I can start [to] bring more bands I like ;)

3. What shows are you most looking forward to this summer?

SS: shit… my favorite show of the summer was Gogol Bordello. You really get your money’s worth on Gogol shows. No bathroom or bar breaks. You have to make sure you catch their whole set. Pretty pumped for Silversun Pickups this fall.

4. Any local bands we should be watching?

SS: I would have to say The Envy Corps. Their hugely energetic set at 80/35 just reminded me why I back this band so much. Wolves in the Attic are great too. I was able to get them on my Faint show last year and I feel like they went over really well. Outside of Des Moines... will whitmore and old panther are a couple of my favs.

5. What would you change or improve about what's going on musically in Des Moines?

SS: I feel like with a lot of bands locally they are trying to create music that they think they are supposed to be making. There are very few bands that I feel have a natural sound. Poison Control Center is really one of the only bands that I get a “real” vibe from. Their energy and passion is so natural. I would love to see more bands writing music that is less predictable and more from the heart.

EDIT: P.S. Don't let me forget, free Why Make Clocks CD release party at Vaudeville Mews on Aug. 14. Sorry to the nice guy who e-mailed me from locals Hanwell for sleeping on their show at House of Bricks the other day-- next time, I hope. Oh, and I also happened to correspond with (I think-- Googled the name) a member of Iowa band the Postulates (a clever Newton pun?).

YOU SAY THAT THE WORLD IS HALF EMPTY I KNOW THE WORLD IS HALF FULL

I'm so glad we don't have to introduce off-kilter, lyric-driven folk music like David Strackany's with the prefix "freak" anymore. And don't even get me started on "New Weird Americana," no matter how easily a less-sleepy blogger could probably use that as a segue into mentioning the Illinois singer/songwriter's previous collaboration with Washington, D.C.-based Jesse Elliott as These United States. The tunes Strackany played at Vaudeville Mews tonight as sole member of Paleo weren't as archaic-sounding as that band name, though his measured, reedy tenor and ingenuous yet grandiose figurative language certianly owed something to the 1960s folkies, specifically Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. Even when Strackany was most backward-looking, he brought to it something whimsical and original-- "Nothin' blowin in the wind but the breeze," he sang on what might be a new song, while "Somewhere There Is a Mountain" moved from some eccentric personification that perhaps unintentionally recalled Donovan's "There Is a Mountain" to small but legitimate epiphanies like "Somewhere there is a rich man dreaming he is me." As a rule the music was slow, Strackany's left hand lingering high up the fret board to give the strums and arpeggios a distinctively pinched, twinkly sound, almost mandolin-like. His voice also wavered between the self-consciously flawed plainspeak of Jeffrey Lewis-style anti-folk (if you haven't heard him, then let's say early Beck-- but you really should check out a couple of Lewis's songs) and the more staid roots revivalism of an M. Ward. His imagery was big and simple, Biblical in a way, never saying "light-winged Dryad of the trees" when he could say "bird," and I liked how he took the time to cram his songs with extra twists and details-- one about a window with a view of the sky had a nice closing metaphor involving someone who throws stones but never watches the window break. You might wonder if Strackany is an even better self-promoter than songwriter, because he joined the likes of Podington Bear in getting himself national media attention by embarking on a super busy online recording/release schedule a couple of years ago. Then again, 365 songs in 365 days is no small feat! It's hard to imagine too many of the products from that kind of process turning out that great, but Strackany would had to have learned a few things about songwriting along the way, and it showed tonight. Definitely not for everybody, and he's not Josh Ritter yet even though he has a few of the same lyrical tics that seem to bother other critics about Ritter, but I'll keep an eye on him and am totally pleased to have seen him for five bucks on a quiet Tuesday night.

Anybody see Gomez tonight? Anybody going to Gogol Bordello tomorrow?

YOU CAN KEEP TOMORROW AFTER TONIGHT WE'RE NOT GONNA NEED IT

"Do You Realize?" is to Oklahoma City acid casualties as "All My Friends" is to Downtown disco-punks

Column today in the Des Moines Register about Iowa transplants. "I learned a long time ago that newcomers must endure a waiting period before voicing strong opinions," Marc Hansen writes. "As in, 'How about living here awhile before telling us what we should do or think?'" And then he REALLY hits home: "Sophisticates from the bigger cities arrive with moving vans full of misconceptions and uninformed opinions." It's a nice column that actually turns out to be about a guy who wants Iowans to listen more to their non-native neighbors. Hansen also wrote a column recently called "Thugs from Chicago in Iowa? Fact or fiction?", which I was ready to read skeptically. It's a smart, appropriately and refreshingly modest, inquisitive piece on race relations and the relationships between the historically high-crime Chicago and sleepy ol'-- except for that guy who got beaten and stabbed almost to death around my block, or the guy who stabbed his mother, or the July 4 brawl that claimed two Des Moines women's lives, or the tragic shooting of a high school football coach-- Des Moines.

I can't help sometimes expressing strong opinions, but as a New Yorker for five years and a Chicagoan for almost five before that, I've been surprised how busy Des Moines has kept me since I landed in town just about three weeks ago. Part of the whole appeal for me of moving here from Brooklyn was the idea that suddenly I'd have more free time to sit around and read and listen to records, because hey, that's what I really like to do. Instead I've constantly been doing stuff, whether trying new restaurants and bars or going to the 80/35 music festival or checking out some really good live acts at Vaudeville Mews and Des Moines Social Club. And I still haven't been to all the other places around town where I'll end up seeing bands! Also, yeah, sometimes I'm working a little bit. So, in the interest of brevity and saving time for non-blogging activities, I'm summing up an insane amount of activity in a single post.

The Pitchfork Music Festival was a blast for me last weekend, probably more fun for me musically than last year's and with more good friends to catch up with too. And a new baby to hang out with, although she also got to hang out with Wu-Tang Clan's GZA. Didn't have electricity or hot water, but that wasn't my always insanely gracious host's fault. How do you get tobacco juice stains on a ceiling? Yo La Tengo and Built to Spill sounded great the first night, the former playing what sounded like a pretty varied set (including stuff from the most recent album, which I feel like I loved more than everybody else) and Built to Spill getting a little Dead-ier than I had even expected, never seen either band before (!!!). Lindstrom did his classic "I Feel Space" and just generally killed, space-disco-wise (somebody mentioned "Miami Vice" music man Jann Hammer), and Ponytail were a high-energy baby-talking highlight with a great drummer (Mrs. Des Noise: "Is it the same nonsense every time? She's OK, right?") (yes), and Wavves was better than expected, still a strange and bound-to-backfire vibe of entitlement around many of these new lo-fi ppl though. On Sunday, DJ /rupture (did I capitalize that right?) stopped sounding like a curator to me (Brian Howe's phrase?) and started a globetrotting dance party, Japandroids' set was this year's Art Brut look-at-us-we're-a-great-new-band-and-this-is-our-moment moment at least from right to the stage left of the mosh pit behind a guy handing out gum and a girl who was darn generous with her water bottle full of vodka, and Flaming Lips did the confetti and the balloons and the wacky video display and the great great psych-pop swooners (not exactly following the "Write the Night" fan-voting rules, but all the better for it)-- set was too short, if anything, a deal with the city I guess but all for the best. Had always found Frightened Rabbit a little Counting Crow-ish, but his voice isn't his fault and their set-- no banjos, unlike on the album!-- was much better than I expected. M83, Black Lips, etc. also sounded good from afar.

AHHH!!! AHHHHHH!!!!!! Des Moines is nice because I can be a fanboy here and not feel self-conscious about it, which is harder to do sometimes than you'd think. Japandroids came to the Vaudeville Mews for the first time last night. I'd been looking forward to it for months, and it definitely helped get me excited about making the move-- hey, if they can book one of my favorite new bands of the year before there's even a record out in the U.S. yet, this place is gonna be awesome, right?-- almost as soon as the virtual ink was dry on my "Young Hearts Spark Fire" track review. Opening locals Wolves in the Attic sound like early Sonic Youth, as observed to me by the guy who recorded them, the Poison Control Center's Patrick Tape Fleming. Except unlike many bands that would meet that description, they were remarkably tight and practiced, too, especially catching my attention with a blistering instrumental and a real energetic thrasher right before the end. About to listen to their album, which comes packaged in a book (I got The Expectant Father). Met Ryan from another local band, too, Beati Paoli, whose historical references and literary air put me in mind of pre-Hazards of Love Decemberists, only more electrified and voluble (I heard that Stone Roses quote, man!). Japandroids did their thing and it did well, despite a relatively small Monday-night-on-a-band's-first-time-through-town crowd and the fact that they were planning on driving toward Denver that night after the show: two dudes, a wind machine, anthemically synchronized guitar-drum pyrotechnics, sweating hearts and sparking fires and boys leaving town and staying crazy forever together and some new stuff I didn't recognize, too. There's a more 1990s Lollapalooza-style grind to them that's not in a lot of stuff I like, something that makes them more guy-oriented (could be the name), but I actually pretty much enjoy near-head-banging when it's to music like this. Their first driving album of the night was going to be Master of Puppets. EDIT: They did their cover of McLusky's hilarious and awesome "To Hell With Good Intentions," too, pretty faithful except with more "whoa-ohs," amazing hair.

Oh, and I told them "great set at Pitchfork" when they first walked into the building... they thanked me and apologetically said they had expected Des Moines to be a "shithole"-- "no offense" (none taken, esp. because they explained it could just be because it's a place you've never been before, so far from home in Vancouver). Drummer Dave Prowse (!) seemed to be digging Wolves in the Attic. So anyway, all this leads to them dedicating "Young Hearts Spark Fire" to the guy who saw 'em the night before in Chicago, i.e. me. Without knowing I was a Pitchfork writer-- who had reviewed that very track! Weird coincidence, and very fun. I bought a white vinyl album and a T-shirt.

Maybe Paleo (sort of Neutral Milk Hotel meets an M. Ward or Iron & Wine, on first cursory MySpace listens) tonight? We'll see when I can get my actual work done. Also want to see the Iowa Cubs this week sometime, and have great Chicago/Brooklyn friends coming to visit. Also, also: Gomez tonight at People's, Gogol Bordello tomorrow night, Derek Lambert working sound. So like I said, there's more going on than you might know about. I haven't been here long enough to say if it will last me through the winter, but it should be fun either way.

I MISS MY FUN I MISS MY FRIENDS

If your fingers fall on the wrong place on the keyboard after a long day at work and you accidentally type "poppryd" instead of "poppets", Google gives you only four results. It also asks, "Did you mean: poppyd". Which actually gets you 33,900 results, mostly thanks to a self-proclaimed "Dustin Hoffman lover" named Poppy D. But now if you search for "poppyrd" or "poppyd", you'll see this post, too. I can already feel the sense of satisfaction I will experience when I check the insane traffic numbers, the next time I remember how to check that sort of thing, which I haven't done yet so I'm assuming I have more than a billion happy customers served like the butter Michael Jackson.

Poppets are a two-piece band from Gothenburg, Sweden, which seems to be where all the bands I write about come from anymore, so I figured I should check 'em out when they came through Vaudeville Mews last night. With only a handful of 7" and cassette releases to their name on labels like Sacramento's Plastic Idol and Austria's Bachelor, they do noisy lo-fi melodic pop-punk about Jack the Ripper-philes and people who're crampin' their style, oh yeah, like it's 1977 and they're hoping to get a post on punk rarities blogs (see: Killed By Death) about ohhhh 32 years from now. Didn't really sound much different live than on MySpace except for standard stuff like not being able to hear the lyrics as well, guitar problem (quickly and gracefully handled by borrowing a guitar from the opener, to whom I'd already like to apologize for some bad-look joke tweets), etc. Just a couple of slender Swedes, Magnus and Lina, staring straight ahead and shouting back and forth and bashing out three chords and reclaiming someone else's nostalgia in a way that's still weirdly fascinating to me-- what prompts young people to go out and start a punk band now that it's tradition, you know? Would've been more fun if there were 12 rows bopping along heedlessly in front instead of maybe two, but it was a Tuesday. I'd see 'em again just to find out if they broaden their steez into a Love Is All kind of thing or stick to their guns ('slong as it isn't Phil Spector's gun) like the Ramones.

ON A SATURDAY NIGHT IN A TOWN LIKE THIS I FORGET ALL MY SONGS ABOUT TRAINS

For some reason I closed my eyes. You couldn't see a thing, anyway. But you could hear the voices-- raucous, ecstatic, doomed-- floating from the 200-some crowd and bouncing off venue walls virgin to cigarette smoke. "Dubya dubya ay-ay-ay," we called out. That's not the secret incantantion behind Karl Rove's political black magic, but the answer to a crossword-puzzle clue in the quietest song Josh Ritter played last night, "The Temptation of Adam". From underrated 2007 album The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter, the song is a gentle acoustic ballad-- a friend who remains a Ritter skeptic once described it as standard "coffeehouse" stuff-- about a man and a woman who find love in a nuclear missile silo, tempting the man to push the button and stay down there with his beloved forever. "'What five letters spell apocalypse?' she asked me," the Idaho-born, New York-based folk-rocker had just finished singing, in a plaintive, plains-y tenor. Before the song, he had asked the crew at Vaudeville Mews to kill the lights. But if someone took a flash photo at that very moment, I'll bet you my vinyl copy of Blood on the Tracks that Ritter was grinning. He almost always is.

Ritter and his four-piece band, recognizable by their handlebar-mustachioed bass player and Stetson(?)-hatted guitarist, don't play many venues this small anymore. The last time I saw them they were in Central Park backed by the New York Pops, doing a set heavy on slow songs for an audience of wine-sipping Upper East Side picnickers who got in for free. But the first time I saw Ritter, in late 2002 or early 2003, was at a place a lot like this: a small-ish venue called Schubas, in Chicago. He was by himself in those days, and I was there with one of my best friends from college, drinking Sierra Nevada and having our minds blown. Last night's show couldn't match the first-impression dynamism of that night, especially because the setlist left out moralistic rumbler "Harrisburg" (a personal fave from that era), but it was about as close as you could get sans a time machine. For a packed house at the Mews, Ritter and the band romped through 19 barnstorming songs rich with crunching guitar, pealing Wulitzer, and a couple of hundred years of American myths and imagery.

Critics, myself included, tend to praise Ritter for his torrential, almost Biblical lyrics, but some of the best lyrics he ever wrote aren't even words. Case in point: "Kathleen", a poignantly romantic roots-rocker from 2003's Hello Starling, in which anyone who's new to Ritter's metaphors about the Northern Lights can still fill the room joining in on his perfectly timed "Whoa-oh-oh-whoa-oh"s. Plenty of people did know the words, however, and they weren't afraid to sing or clap along, adding a nice, communal spirit from churning opener "Mind's Eye" to encore finale "Empty Heart"(both from The Historical Conquests). As for time machines, we got "Me & Jiggs", a classic about carefree Saturday nights and their fleetingness, from 2002's The Golden Age of Radio, and also "Lillian, Egypt", from 2006's The Animal Years, with some onstage juggling to match the song's melodramatic silent-movie themes. "Thanks for coming back," someone shouted, as Ritter was playing the Buddy Holly-ish new-love rock & roller "Right Moves", again from his most recent album.

Ritter also played some promising new songs, which continued his trend toward broader stylistic variation without leaving behind his familiar American folklore tropes. One was piano-based and something of a waltz; the lyrics mentioned both New York and Iowa (yay). "There ain't nothin' new about the world," Ritter sang on another, sludgier song with a lumbering bass groove-- I think that one might be called "Black Hole". Probably my favorite of the newer songs was slower but full-sounding, with Ritter on electric guitar and singing about the Southern Pacific Railroad. "Remember me to Roxyanne," he beseeched. Anybody who somehow wandered into the show without knowing any of Ritter's songs, old or new, might have recognized a couple of covers: Ritter worked a snippet of the Beatles' insipid calypso-tinged "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" into The Historical Conquests secret weapon "Rumors", actually a fun touch, and he opened up his encore with his gorgeous solo version of Bruce Springsteen's "The River", marred only by some drunken burps and chatter from over my shoulder. I'm no Springsteen fan, but even I have gotta recognize "The River"; Ritter's version is soft and appropriately pained.

Des Moines was seeing Ritter at what must feel like a strange place in his career. His last couple of albums have been on corporate labels or their imprints, and he has played on national TV, so he's not exactly an unknown anymore, and he's too earnest and rootsy for most of the novelty-seeking hipster crowd, anyway. At the same time, he's not exactly a household name, and whoever decides what gets played on radio stations these days seems to have blown it by not making "Right Moves" bigger than whatever that latest awful Rob Thomas jam is. Another friend complained to me once about Ritter repeating some stage patter at multiple shows-- a forgivable offense for a touring musician, of course, but also always kind of a bummer-- but last night he was ready with real Des Moines reminiscences about the "High Life Tavern," fishing in the Raccoon River, and a local waitress recognizing him as being in "the Fifteen Dollar Band." What if he never gets the critical and popular recognition he deserves? What if he plays the Mews again the next time he comes to Des Moines, and the next, and the Central Park shows start turning back into Bowery Ballroom shows start turning back into Mercury Lounge shows? I don't know. But Josh Ritter's songs are stuck in my head, and he's coming to the chorus now.