I was in a scramble last night around 8 PM trying to figure out what I should do with my Saturday evening. I came to the conclusion that checking out a new band was much cooler than spending two consecutive nights in a dark movie theater or even worse geeking out on my computer.

For some reason the name American Analog Set sounded familiar. I’m not sure why or where I have heard this name, I just have. Anyway, I noticed that they were playing over The Bottom of the Hill and after a quick listen to their latest CD on Rhapsody, I decided the $12 was well worth the trip. Especially considering the movie on Friday night cost $10.50! But that’s another rant all together.

Vervein, an all chick band (sweet), opened up for them and rocked! Their sound is reminiscent of the Throwing Muses, and having a cello on stage really fills out the sounds nicely. Who knew that would work out so well. The drummer is exceptional and as a whole they were tight! Seeing them was well worth the $12 ticket price.

The American Analog Set didn’t come on stage until 12:30, which is typical for Bottom of the Hill. For some that place loves starting shows extremely late. American Analog Set had that place packed and for good reason. They sound fantastic, with sort of a Low and Tortoise mix, and seem to be having a great time doing so! At the end of the set the lead singer spent a few minutes talking with the crowd thanking them for all the support they have received and it was truly sincere. It was rather refreshing, even at 1:30 AM!

If you have a chance to check them out don’t hesitate, just go! Otherwise you can take a listen on Rhapsody, I’m pretty sure you won’t be sorry!

I just stumbled across David Bryne’s radio stream. You know him from The Talking Heads, you remember Once in a Lifetime, Psycho Killer, Burning Down the House… Anyway, his music has changed a bit since then, but if you dig that sort of thing then you will definitely enjoy his choices here. It’s pretty much what I was expecting, a large mix of “world” music, but I’m glad to see he’s slipped in artists like Cat Power.

Real should jump on this bandwagon and implement an easy way to set up feeds within Rhapsody. Then sign up a couple of well known artists, find out what they are playing on their home stereos these days, then publish a ‘Radio’ stream from there.

Btw, feel free to leave me suggestions on what music you like to listen to. I’m always looking for new groves to fill up my long days of hacking.

Okay, I just discovered Pedro The Lion on Rhapsody about 20 minutes ago, but so far I am really digging them. Unfortunately Rhapsody only has an EP from 1997, so it’s pretty out of date. The sound reminds me a lot of Low, which is probably why they are actually touring with them right now. Funny how that happens, they are in Austin right now for SXSW and will be making their way though San Francisco in a couple of weeks. Now I just have to remember to pick up tickets before the shows sell out. Take a listen and tell me what you think!

Why does the music industry think extended tracks are so cool?! You know what an extended track is, right? It’s the hidden track that is on the last track of a CD which happens to be after the actually song, typically a couple of minutes of silence in between.

Why am I complaining about this? Well wile listening to my new Black Keys album, The Big Come Up, this morning on the way to work, I noticed after 3 or 4 minutes that my speakers were no longer playing music. So I reached for the seek knob and let it advance until I began to hear sound again. Well I was surprised to find that a whole 20 minutes had passed between the last song and the 1-2 minute “artsy movement”. Now a minute or tow is okay, but 20 minutes! You have to be kidding me!

I find this to be extremely frustrating and actually detrimental to the artists. Yes, I had the curiosity of a cat and advanced forward to hear this for first time, but you can bet your house on it that I will never do that again.

So why put it there in the first place? Why not just make it a new track on the CD? If you have music that is good enough to be printed on the CD, then put it on it’s own track! If for some bizarre reason you STILL FEEL the need to position it as an extended track, do me and everyone else a favor, don’t put 20 minutes of utterly painfully silence in between!

I was going to write a bunch about 3+ days I spent at the show, but I’m only going to put info about each band we saw each night.

Day One:

• Nora O’Connor – Any chick who does a pretty good Tom Waits cover, “Looks Like I’m up Shit Creek Again”, is okay in my book!
• Madeleine Peyroux – French jazz/lounge music, very chill
• Grey DeLisle – Accompanied by Murry of the Old 97s. Great music, but the venue sucked! The power blew out which cut her set short, in the down time they had the bartenders dancing on the bar to Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me”, pretty pitiful! The bar name as Coyote Ugly, you would think that since the movie sucked ASS there would be no way someone would think it’s a good idea to make a REAL bar after it, but guess what THEY DID!
• Garrison Star – Good singer, band was tight, and she’s not too bad on the eyes….
• Little Richard – Still has a great set of lungs on him, but don’t expect him to know all the lyrics to his songs! He 70 for christ sakes. What really made his show for me was that he handed out a bunch Jehovah’s Witnesses books after the show! And yes it came with a sweet signed photograph of Little! Oh yes, he’s also not so bad on the eyes!

Day Two:

• Old Crow Medicine Show – It’s blue grass, and wasn’t at all good for my liking.
• Concombre Zombi – Psychobilly crew, could only take it for 3 songs, but the last was a decent cover of a Johny Cash tune.
• Black Keys – Best show of SXSW!!! 2 guys with a ton of energy! I got sort of the same feeling from them that I do when I see the likes of Jon Spencer, or Wilco. Kick ASS! Highly Recommend!
• British Sea Power – Couldn’t get into the show. Maybe it was because we just saw the Black Keys, or maybe the music just didn’t do it for me. They are rather young kids and have some serious potential.

Day Three:

• Robyn Hitchcock – Very funny / nutty performer, extended his show by playing fully acoustic at the back of Rockstars venue. He was joined by John Wesley Harding, I have no idea who he is but Nicole thought it was super cool!
• Patty Griffin – Decent pop/country music, venue was full of people who felt the need to talk and not listen to music. Btw, this is a huge pet peeve of mine! Why do you feel the need to go to a show and pay to money to get in, if only you’ve come to try to talk as loud as you can over the music! Go somewhere else where they aren’t playing music so you can carry on your shitty conversation at a normal level! Anyway, she came on a bit too late, so we had to split before Old 97s made it on stage.
• Iron and Wine – The next show, which caused us to miss the Old 97s! Great music, good performance, and crazy beard! Also, again obnoxiously loud crowd…

All in all a very good time, maybe we’ll hit it up again next year…

One thing I really miss about Austin, TX is Waterloo Records! I could waste a whole afternoon there searching for new music. Now don’t get me wrong Amoeba is an excellent store with probably one of the largest selections of music around. But the one thing they are missing is CD listening stations, which is KEY to finding new music! At Waterloo I would grab a stack of CDs, typically based on flashy cover art, head over to an open CD player, and race though each one checking to see if any of tracks lived up to my expectations. I would typically walked out of the store with at least 3 new CDs.

Anyway, about 3 weeks ago my friend Christopher had turned me on to Rhapsody. It took me about 10 minutes to realize I was hooked! This is my new Waterloo! I have found two new CDs which I need to go pick up at Amoeba, The Gotan Project and Iron and Wine.

BTW, good luck finding a decent margarita in SF too!

Nicole and I went over to Amoeba tonight to trade in a bunch of CDs which we haven’t listened to for some time now. The total came to about $60 in credit so of course we spent it immediately! My half went to:

• Super Numeri – Great Avaries
• Prefuse 73 – One Word Extinguisher
• Brokeback – Morse Code in the Modern Age: across the Americas
• Autechre – Draft 7.30

Now I’ve only given a couple of tracks on the Super Numeri CD a listen, but I’m definitely happy with what I hear so far…

Radiohead put on a great show last night at the Shoreline. The set list had a little bit for everyone, including Lurgee from Pablo Honey! VERY NICE!

Yorke and the rest of the band seemed a bit off to me. I’m not sure if it’s because this is the first show of the second leg of the US tour or if was just the Shoreline.

Let me tell you, this venue really sucks! We were lucky and got reserved tickets so the sound wasn’t too bad for us, but if you are in the lawn then forget it. Plus with the way the seats are laid out, if you are not 6′ 4″ then you will most likely have trouble seeing anything on stage.

I’m pretty sure this is the LAST show we will see at the Shoreline. I know, I’ve said this before.

Well I woke up this morning around 4am and couldn’t sleep. So what do I do? Get on my computer and start messing around with my linux configuration.

Around 6am I got a message from W.A.S.T.E, which is sort of a portal for all things Radiohead. The message stated that my tickets to the San Diego show are actually for September 28th and not the 27th as their site stated. They were letting me know about this error, and giving me a chance to cancel the order if I am unable to make the show. Of course, being the huge Radiohead fan that I am, I was already aware of this.

But, this did make me think about others who may have given up their tickets. So I checked the site to see if any more were available. When I hit the site I noticed that not only were there more tickets for the San Diego show, but they had a new allotment of reserved tickets for the Shoreline performance earlier that week. Of course I instantly bought 4 tickets to the show and then phoned my buddy John to tell him to get his butt out of bed and buy tickets!

I can’t wait to find out where these seats are…