Man, Pitchfork is having some ridiculous technical difficulties this week.

Dan the Man

As mentioned previously, Dan Deacon continues to step it up with each subsequent live show, most recently performing in Brooklyn with a full band. Now he's taking that full band on the road, with a stop at the Metro on May 7. This I gotta see.

Burlington Fun

Radio Free Chicago is hosting a DJ night and a record release party this Wednesday. Check it out.

Secretary of the Arts

From the inbox today:

Dear Artist:
Quincy Jones has started a petition to ask President-Elect Obama to appoint a Secretary of the Arts. While many other countries have had Ministers of Art or Culture for centuries, The United States has never created such a position. We in the arts need this and the country needs the arts--now more than ever. Please take a moment to sign this important petition and then pass it on to your friends and colleagues.
http://www.petitiononline.com/esnyc/petition.html

Bird

Andrew Bird Month continues as ABCNews gets on board the Bird bus with an interview with Andrew Bird called- yes- "Bird Is the Word".

Return to the Air

After an extended holiday hiatus, I'm back on the radio starting tonight. I've temporarily given up on trying to record the show for podcasting purposes due to rampant technological difficulties, so if you want to listen and aren't typically in a car on Monday nights, I suggest listening online at wluw.org.

Flight

Check it out, an interview with Bret and Jemaine on the AV Club.

Another one bites the dust

Sad, LA's Indie 103 is shutting down and going online, probably to be replaced by hispanic or religious programming.

Will Oldham

Bonnie "Prince" Billy is one of those artists I've been wanting to see forever, yet every time he comes to Chicago (not often), I have a conflict. So it goes again, as he comes to the Vic on March 14th in support of his new album, and I will be out of town. Fate does not want me to see this man, for some reason.

In the meantime, I'll just read this New Yorker profile on him and cry into my hot chocolate.

Songs in the Key of Blago

Whoa- this is awesome. The Red-Eye had a songwriting contest inspired by Rod Blagojevich's claim that he likes to jog because it "keeps love in your heart". They picked their six favorite original songs out of 36 entries, with the top songs posted on the website and the winning entry set to a video montage of Blago running. The winner, "Bla-Go", by the Keith Harrison Band, is a pretty clear standout over the other five if you ask me, though John Garvey's "Blah Blah Blah" also has its moments.

You can see the Keith Harrison Band play the winning song on WGN tomorrow, January 14, during the WGN midday news.

Awdio

I guess there's a new website that broadcasts live music from clubs and concert venues called Awdio. Smart Bar and Sonotheque shows are available live on the site if you're ever at home and in need of some hot beats.

Jeffrey Lewis

So last year I saw this guy Jeffrey Lewis open up for Super Furry Animals and Times New Viking. Only caught a couple minutes, but he did this pretty funny singing + comics routine. Turns out he, like Andrew Bird, has a Measure for Measure blog on the New York Times website. Find out what his 2008 was like in comic form through his most recent posting. Awwww- cheer up Jeffrey, at least you played with some pretty awesome bands all year long!

More Andrew Bird

The Andrew Bird promo push continues with this great article in the New York Times Magazine that looks back at his career and the expectations for him going forward. I got my pre-order for Noble Beast in this morning (along with my pre-order for Animal Collective's new one, which apparently if it had been released a couple weeks earlier would have topped everyone's best of 2008 lists. C'mon guys, it's only five days into the year!).

WSJ

Even the Wall Street Journal has picked up on Bon Iver.

More indie rock love

My indie romance updates via People.com gets a doozy with this announcement that Zooey Deschanel and Ben Gibbard are engaged. People.com failed to tell me that they were ever dating though.

Chicago in DC

Chicago music comes to the Inauguration!

On Monday, January 19th, the Black Cat in Washington DC is hosting a special pre-inaguration bash presented by The Hideout and Interchange, featuring short sets by Andrew Bird, Tortoise, Waco Brothers, Eleventh Dream Day, David "Honeyboy" Edwards with Michael Frank, Ken Vandermark, Jon Langford, Sally Timms, Freakwater, Icy Demons, and Judson Claiborne (basically, the standard Hideout favorites). Tickets are $50, with a portion of proceeds benefiting the Future of Music Coalition and the Chicago Public Schools marching bands program. Chicago residents can purchase tickets at the Hideout. So if you're one of the lucky ones to have a DC friend with a couch to crash on for free, this would be a great way to experience Chicago in DC.

Speaking of Andrew Bird, on January 3 you can stream Noble Beast in its entirety at NPR Music. The album comes out January 20.

Best of 2008

Nicole's favorite albums of 2008:

15. Bonnie "Prince" Billy- Lie Down in the Light
14. Why?- Alopecia
13. Neon Neon- Stainless Style
12. Department of Eagles- In Ear Park
11. Dodos- Visiter
10. Fleet Foxes- Fleet Foxes
9. She & Him- Volume One
8. The Acorn- Glory Hope Mountain
7. TV on the Radio- Dear Science
6. Santogold- Santogold
5. The Helio Sequence- Keep Your Eyes Ahead
4. Wolf Parade- At Mount Zoomer
3. M83- Saturdays=Youth
2. Cut Copy- In Ghost Colours
1. Beach House- Devotion

Not sure if my inability to get to 25 was due to a "just ok" year of music or my lack of exposure to a lot of new albums.

Best albums from 2007 I didn't discover until 2008:
Yeasayer- All Hour Cymbals
Bat for Lashes- Fur and Gold
Le Loup- The Throne of The Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly
Low- Drums and Guns
Burial- Untrue

Favorite songs of 2008:
Santogold- "L.E.S. Artistes"
Why?- "Fatalist Palmistry"
Neon Neon- "Raquel"
Helio Sequence- "Keep Your Eyes Ahead"
Hot Chip- "Ready for the Floor"
M83- "Kim and Jessie"
Beach House- "Heart of Chambers"

More year-end fun

TinyMixTapes has its annual year-end extravaganza up today. I was less involved in its production then in previous years, though my list was still thrown into the mix. I'll post my favorites tomorrow.

Andrew Bird @ Hideout, 12/15/08

Last night's Andrew Bird show was a fun, intimate time with everyone's favorite violin-looping, whistling Chicagoan. As Tim Tuten eloquently explained before launching into a diatribe about how everyone at the Hideout would soon be bailing out all the Republican Douchebags in Wrigleyville who made bad investments and brought our economy down, whatever that meant (though his delivery was good, I think the guy has been taking some stand-up comedy lessons in his spare time), the Hideout purposefully didn't oversell the show so we could enjoy our personal space while experiencing excellent sight lines of the men on stage.

Dosh played a short 30-minute set of his ambient electronica+drumming with Mike Lewis on saxophone and bass to warm up the crowd before the main event. Andrew Bird and his touring band (currently Martin Dosh- drums, Jeremy Ylvisaker- guitar, Mike Lewis- clarinet/bass) took the small stage, which was barely able to fit the spinning horn speaker he's been touting around lately. Turns out these two small shows were added in order to get footage for the album's first music video, with secondary opportunities to preview the entire new record and let the band practice the songs live. This aspect of the show proved to be necessary, as there were several times where Andrew needed to stop and restart songs, or a pedal didn't work properly; however, in a setting like this one, the mistakes only made the show feel that much more quaint and intimate, like we were a part of something special and behind-the-scenes that the crowds at the Riviera or Millenium Park would never get to see.

"Fitz and the Dizzyspells," the track warranting the video, was clearly the most poppy, radio-friendly of the record, featuring plenty of hand claps as well as the members of Mucca Pazza roaming the crowd while the audience flailed around; by the second time we ran through the song (yes, we heard it twice in a row for video purposes), I had a feeling it was a song I could easily get sick of, catchy though it was. Much more interesting were "Souverian", a darker song than we're used to from Andrew Bird that had more layers than I thought possible from Bird's looping, and a drum machine-driven song apparently developed when Bird heard a Dosh song he liked and decided to add violin and vocals. This Dosh-inspired song made for an interesting departure that I thought would make for a great collaborative album between the two in the future (Bird noted that "Simple X" was also a Dosh song he added to, interestingly enough).

Towards the end the band gave the audience some familiarity with "Imitosis," "Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left" and "Tables and Chairs." It was interesting hearing these older favorites next to the newly unveiled tracks; Andrew Bird could probably play these in his sleep, and it was interesting seeing the confidence and energy during these songs compared to those that clearly needed more practice. Again, it only added to the intrigue of seeing the beginnings of what these songs will be when they are ready to take them on the road.

Onion's Favs

It's year-end list time! I'll post mine at the end of the week. Here's the Onion's top 30; I think we're looking at another TV on the Radio number 1 sweep (though not on my list).