Death Cab For Cutie

Friday News and Notes

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Friday Cheers

Lots of fun stuff to check in about:

  • CD Monday update: New Lions & the Not-Good Night is a gift that keeps giving and giving. Even more in love with it than I was before. The band is heading out on tour today — get a taste of what those shows will be like here, and join the band in figuring out what their tour hashtag will be (current frontrunner is #thisisandisnotTOURture2016).
  • One Week One Band did Punch Brothers this week! I  read a fair amount of it, but I’m planning to go back through and make sure I saw everything. Might be my favorite OWOB week since I started following along. Really thorough.
  • Y’all see the Lincoln commercial where Sharon Jones covers “Midnight Rider”? It’s fantastic. You even get a little Matthew McConaughey at the end.
  • It was so rewarding following along on social media as Sleepwalkers played Red Rocks two nights this week. This may be the most excited I’ve been for shows that I wasn’t even going to. The pictures are breathtaking — hit up their Twitter account to check a few out. Prepare for goosebumps.
  • I dunno about you, but I’m fixin’ to hop on that there Bonnaroo live stream a fair amount this weekend. I wrote a thing a while back about about how much I love festival live streams. As a substitute for being able to co-locate and do all of the things at all of the times, they’re pretty snazzy.
  • Another song from the new Avers album hit the interweb! It’s called “Santa Anna” and I’m enjoying it very much. Listen over at USA Today’s FTW site. Speaking of FTW, they came out with a list of the 16 best songs of the first half of 2016 and Clair Morgan’s “Rogue Island” is ranked #5, between Chance the Rapper and ANOHNI. How cool is that?!?
  • No gig tonight, but I feel compelled to share with the world that, at last Friday’s gig, I got to say — all in seriousness — the following sentence into a microphone: “This one’s for the dude in the bouncy castle who requested Skynyrd.”
  • Tonight’s might be the season’s most anticipated Friday Cheers show — Kurt Vile and Richmond’s fast-rising phenom, Lucy Dacus — and I will most assuredly be there. Might even bring my copy of No Burden in hopes that Dacus will sign it. I did just that with my copy of Phil Cook’s Southland Mission album and, while I definitely felt like a nerd doing so, it was well worth it. Also bears mentioning that the National has a crazy run of shows coming up: Death Cab for Cutie tonight, M83 on Sunday, Fitz & the Tantrums on Tuesday, Violent Femmes on Wednesday… not too shabby. And the Broadberry has Lucius on Wednesday. Lots of good stuff to see.

See y’all at Cheers!

Death Cab for Cutie

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Keys and Codes Remix EP

You guys! ZOMG! Did you hear the news about Ben and Zooey? OK, OK, so it’s not exactly news anymore that Death Cab for Cutie frontman and 500 Days of Summer starlet Zooey Deschanel filed for divorce after their own 500 days (give or take) of marriage. According to my sources… A. That news broke in early November; B. It’s now the middle of December; and C. I’m a terrible celebrity gossip blogger. Regardless, it’s always sad when two seemingly nice people split up (apparently not too sad to use the whole incident for a blog post setup), leaving them to wonder what could have been, and what could have been done differently. Though there are seldom second chances in marriage, fortunately for Mr. Gibbard, there are second chances in music, as his band’s Keys and Codes Remix EP exemplifies so enjoyably. All the way back in October, when Ben and Zooey were still hitched and Death Cab for Cutie’s most recent full-length Codes and Keys was but a six-month-old bundle of joy, the group started releasing one remixed track every Monday, each featuring a different guest producer, leading up to the November 22 release of a 7-track remix album. From the beginning, I was a fan. I liked the marketing — the slow rollout built suspense, letting you hear one piece of the (CHEESY ALBUM CONCEPT METAPHOR ALERT) puzzle [groan] at a time. I liked the results — the tracks vary wildly but each one offers a fresh view on the source material. But more than anything else, I like this concept. Given how difficult it is these days to profit from record sales, I love that artists are taking control of the secondary consumption market by releasing their own remix albums. Radiohead did the same this year with TKOL RMX 1234567, the follow-up to King of Limbs, as did Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr with It’s A Corporate World’s companion Horse Power EP. Some might say that these groups should leave well enough alone and let their albums stand for themselves, and it’s true that not every single one of these remixed tracks has been a winner for me, but so many of them are winners, and I can’t help but enjoy having the opportunity to look at all of these songs in a different light, like I’m hearing them again for the first time. Listen to the Keys and Codes Remix EP for yourself to decide where you stand on the matter, and if you like what you hear, head over to iTunes to make it official.

Death Cab for Cutie — Keys and Codes Remix EP

Death Cab For Cutie

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It’s been almost 3 days with no power, thanks to hurricane Irene. Without evening interweb time, You Hear That is a boat without oars, so there’s only one thing left to do: quick-post a song about darkness! Here’s my all-time favorite darkness-related tune, Death Cab For Cutie’s “I Will Follow You Into the Dark.” Sure the void he’s talking about is actually death, and the darkness I’m experiencing is just a neighborhood without electricity (except for the a-holes next door with a generator. Richmond Playlist — you know what I’m talking about), but when you’re creeping up on 72 hours without power, you’re allowed to be a little melodramatic. Check out the video for “I Will Follow You Into the Dark” above and download the album, Plans, here.

Postal Service

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Give Up

Collaboration Week: Day 3. The Collaborators: Jimmy Tamborello and Ben Gibbard. The Band: The Postal Service. The Album: Give Up.

Some collaborations are like one night stands, crazy in the light of day, leaving you wondering, “Did that really happen?” Others are like long, drawn out affairs, where you’re tempted to tell those involved to “Get a room!” But in some instances, lightning strikes, something special results, and a world of possibilities seems to appear. In 2003, Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie and Jimmy Tamborello, also known as Dntel, worked together from different sides of the country to create Give Up, an album that went on to sell over a million copies, appear in a million commercials, and change my perception of sampling in pop music. Ever since, rumors have swirled about a follow up album, only to be squashed, time and again. I can’t help but think that the Postal Service would be one of my favorite bands, if only they were a band. However, in this case, it’s clearly better to have loved and lost than the alternative. Check out the Postal Service performing “Nothing Better” on Morning Becomes Eclectic in May of 2003.