Tuesday, February 24, 2009

And You'll Know Us by the Trail of Dead

The only Trail of Dead music I own is a mix CD that a friend made for me quite some time ago. It's really good; I've listened to it enough to know most of the lyrics, but, for some reason, I've never felt compelled to delve deeper into their catalogue.  Beyond that 17 song mix, I've never heard any of their stuff.  I read today that they have got a new album.  It didn't take much more digging to uncover this: 




The National is easily the band I need to get into.  Been frequenting their Facespace page lately after they were indirectly recommended by Poodik. Here's a video of their's:

Apartment Story


When I first heard Dan Deacon, I thought his sound was pretty cool, but like so much electronic button pushing music, it wasn't interesting.   Well, Dan appears to have found a remedy for that.

Even if you typically ignore my musical recommendations, or gloss over the blog entries where I post videos, I implore you to listen to these performances.



And for good measure:











1 comment:

Ed Feldheim said...

So that Dan Deacon brings up a couple of thoughts.

First it reminds me of the early days of the New Deal - the Canadian band, not the program. Those guys really raged, and they weren't shy about being obvious. The progressions were tight and predictable and it was a welcome mental break from the intensity of the Disco Biscuits. The concerts were rough and sweaty and lots of high energy fun. This seems rather close in both form and content.

The amount of drums and percussion that is incorporated is what makes the whole thing work, I think you were alluding to that in your introduction to the videos. Without the layers that are laid down with the percussion this is just kind of a bearded sweaty guy that likes to push some buttons. With them, it is a raucous good time that can be listened to critically. I'm not sold on his voice synth, but I get what he is trying to do.

The other thing that it makes me think of is that I am glad I wasn't in the audience with all those stinky kids hopped up on extacy and yelling about how this was the greatest night of their lives. Makes me want to appreciate this guy from afar, which I will.

The Raconteurs on the other hand are something special indeed.