Roger Wilco

by Bob Boilen

Last night, we webcast Wilco from the 9:30 Club. It's the third time we've done this, though it's the first time I got to sit down and talk with Jeff Tweedy.

I used to prepare for interviews -- what I'll ask, etc. I'd even write down questions. Not anymore. Now, I just go and sit down and start talking, and I trust that something will spark a natural conversation, for what's always a fairly unnatural situation.

At the moment I was walking with Jeff Tweedy toward the basement of the 9:30 Club for the interview, my phone rang, and two projects were about to collide. Chris Walla's plane came in about an hour early. The Death Cab for Cutie guitarist (and solo singer-songwriter) is in town to record a Project Song for us, and I was to give him a tour of our studios. A nice dilemma, but awkward timing.

When Jeff and I sat down to talk, I told him that Chris was in town and started to talk about Project Song -- how we have musicians come to our studios and write a song in a couple of days, given a set of pictures and words. He went on to tell me about how he would do songwriting sessions with little kids. The conversation flowed from there.

As for the concert, I'm going to let our illustrator, Ariel Kitch, tell the tale.

Click the image below for a slide show.

You can also give a listen to the entire concert and see photographs from the show. Thanks to Wilco, as always.

and
aren't these illustrations wonderful?

2:38 PM ET | 02-28-2008 | permalink | comments (8) | e-mail post

 

Bon Iver Illustrated

NPR is lucky to get great interns. One of them this winter is Ariel Kitch, who's working for All Things Considered.

This past week we webcast a live performance by Bon Iver and Black Mountain. Ariel attended along with our own All Songs Considered intern, Calei Chan. Afterward Ariel put together this really cool set of drawings that tell the story of her night at the show.

Click the picture below for a slideshow:

3:59 PM ET | 02-22-2008 | permalink | comments (6) | e-mail post

 

Desert Island 5

by Robin Hilton

If stranded on a desert island (with, of course, electricity and a stereo) the 5 CDs I'd have to have:

1. Everybody Knows This is Nowhere by Neil Young

2. Our Endless Numbered Days by Iron and Wine

3. Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd

4. It's a Wonderful Life by Sparklehorse

5. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel

This list has evolved over the years with few changes. Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, Dark Side of the Moon, and In the Aeroplane Over the Sea have always been in the top five while the other two slots are always up for debate.

What are your Desert Island 5?

11:03 AM ET | 02-22-2008 | permalink | comments (80) | e-mail post

 

NPR to Webcast 14 bands at SXSW

by Bob Boilen

Let's cut to the chase.

I'm going to have an out of building experience and you're coming with me.
Here's the minimum you can expect:

Wednesday March 12, 8pm CT

R.E.M.
Dead Confederate
Johnathan Rice
Papercranes

Thursday March 13th 12:30 CT

Shout Out Louds
Jens Lekman
Adele
Yeasayer
Bon Iver
Vampire Weekend

and that night:

March 13th 8:00 CT

The Whigs
Yo La Tengo
My Morning Jacket

I'll be there with:

Carrie Brownstein (Sleater-Kinney and the NPR blog Monitor Mix)
Stephen Thompson (NPR Music's Song of the Day)
Robin Hilton (All Songs Considered producer)
Joel Didriksen (photographer)
and a staff of talented engineers and producers that will make your house/office sound like Austin.

Get a good set of speakers hooked up to your computer; headphones will sound great too. We will podcast much of this on the All Songs Considered Live Concert podcast, So subscribe soon.

Some of NPR's amazing stations will help make all this happen and they'll be broadcasting some of the shows on radio.

If they're not carrying it in your area, you can hear it webcast here at NPR.org.

After 19 years of directing a news show I finally get to go to SXSW. There will be a lively blog, interviews, pictures and of course music.

My out-of-building experience will be webcast.

4:03 PM ET | 02-21-2008 | permalink | comments (11) | e-mail post

 

To Banter or Not To Banter...

by Bob Boilen

Last night at the Rock and Roll Hotel in Washington, D.C., the bombastic band Black Mountain took the stage -- or, should I say, stood on stage. This was a band with talent and a band with some vision, but this was also a band that barely acknowledged the existence of a sold-out house.

So... fierce music is followed by silence and swigs of liquid, and maybe some instrument adjustments.

Now, I'm of two minds about band banter with the audience:

1. If you play great music, the audience should come along for the ride and enjoy.
2. You have to win your audience over, and no matter how talented you are, you have to make it all somewhat personal and memorable. Banter is the place to start.

I tend to lean toward number one if you are established. For example, when I saw Pink Floyd in 1971 perform a 40-minute piece called Eclipse (A Piece for Assorted Lunatics), which later became The Dark Side of the Moon, I was fine with them not saying anything. I knew the band, and I was ready to go for a ride.

But what I see happening over and over again with relatively new bands is that they don't know how to engage an audience, and it's usually an audience prone to forgiveness. So even something like, "This is the first time we're going to play this song," or "I love to play this tune, 'cause I get to crank up the fuzz box" can be all it takes to let the crowd know it's in for something personal, something memorable.

Opening acts are in a tougher spot: Too much chatter doesn't work, and if you don't chatter at all, the audience might as well see it on a video tape.

So where do you fall on band banter? Do you hope for it, hate it, or what?

12:52 PM ET | 02-20-2008 | permalink | comments (36) | e-mail post

 

Old Music Tuesday: Neutral Milk Hotel

by Robin Hilton

Watch a video for 'In the Aeroplane Over the Sea'

When I moved to Athens, GA in the early '90s it felt like I'd missed out on everything that was cool about the music scene there. R.E.M. and the B-52s had already made their biggest mark on rock, and while plenty of smaller bands were still banging away in the local clubs, there wasn't anything particularly groundbreaking coming out.

All that changed by 1996 or so with The Elephant 6 Recording collective, a large group of musicians with a shared love of lo-fi, neo-psychedelia. It spawned bands like The Olivia Tremor Control, Elf Power, Of Montreal, and The Apples in Stereo, all of them churning out remarkably rich, melodic soundscapes that left me wide-eyed.

It was a magical time to be in Athens. Each live show or new E-6 album that came out made the town crackle with excitement. Many of us felt like we were witnessing a creative milestone... at least something special and memorable.

Of all the E-6 bands, for me, none were more magical than Neutral Milk hotel and the songs of frontman Jeff Mangum. Mangum's music has been called "folk fuzz" with a sound like "a marching band on an acid trip." But for me it was just inspired, sonic bliss.

NMH's first album was the largely overlooked On Avery Island in 1996. It wasn't as interesting as what the other E-6 bands were doing. But then in 1998, ten years ago this month, came the truly breathtaking LP In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, Jeff Mangum's epic masterpiece.

Aeroplane was (and still is) grand but intimate. The acoustic guitars were so compressed and crunchy it felt like each song was about to burst apart at the seams. But it was Mangum's lyrics that made me feel like I was soaring through the stratosphere. Though some of the songs were twisted and sad, like "Two Headed Boy," others, like the title track, were filled with so much hope and beauty I truly felt like I'd discovered in them the meaning of life.

Okay. That's a little corny. But it's also true. Whenever I'm about to take a nose dive into some existential downward spiral I just remember these lines: "And when we meet on a cloud, I'll be laughing out loud. I'll be laughing with everyone I see... can't believe how strange it is to be anything at all..." ...and suddenly everything is better.

4:04 PM ET | 02-19-2008 | permalink | comments (7) | e-mail post

 

When All Songs Collide: Jimmy Durante, Meet Thom Yorke

by Bob Boilen
This week, thanks to you and perhaps the alignment of the planets, we truly earned our name.
We began the week with another installment of A Band To Call Your Own. Hundreds of you posted to our blog, telling not just me, but the entire All Songs community about the bands you hold dear to your heart -- bands that you want everyone to know about, but also secretly like to think of as your very own discovery. Thanks for opening up.

Then we posted a show I've been wanting to do for a long time: a show about today's English and Irish folk music scene. I'd met a young fiddler/mandolin player, Gus Voorhees, this summer at an Irish music camp my son and I attended called Augusta. As it turned out, Gus became my intern for two weeks, and for his school project put together a wide-reaching show that highlights some of the best musicians in modern English and Irish traditional music, including Eliza Carthy, Bellowhead, and John Doyle.

Over the past few weeks, the possibility of speaking to Radiohead's Thom Yorke looked like it might happen. We've come close before, even had him on the line, but mood and circumstance, and perhaps the stars, dashed our plans but not our hopes.
On Monday, we dialed up the BBC in Oxford and had a quite a delightful chat with Thom Yorke -- not about the business of music or the history of his band, but about the music he loves and what touches his soul. You can hear his music, his bands, and the music he chose on our show or our podcast, and feel free to comment about it here.

Then there's music about love. Last year, we invited filmmaker John Waters to pick our love songs, and in the past we've asked our audience to do that. What John Waters loves about songs of love is beautifully twisted. Hearing Doris Duke sing about "lying here on this lumpy bed" or the line about how "his sweet talking added up to street walking that was the part that finally broke my heart" was a pleasant diversion from hearing "Best of My Love" on the airwaves.

This year, we tried to get Flight of the Conchords to pick our Valentine's Day tunes.
We've been trying since the summer but keep getting turned down. I know they're busy, but I like them too much to stop trying. Lyrics like "The Most Beautiful Girl in the Room" are too damn funny.

And when you're on the street
Depending on the street
I bet you are definitely in the top three
Good-looking girls on the street
Depending on the street

Love and laughter are a great combination. Maybe next year.

And so you -- our audience, our contributors -- came to our rescue, posting songs about love on this blog.
And what a list of songs, from Regina Spektor singing John Lennon's "Real Love," to Jimmy Durante singing "I'll Be Seeing You." And the stories!

I've heard from many of you over the eight years or so that Robin Hilton and I have done this show. I've met you through email and at concerts, and you are an extraordinary audience. You are insightful and thoughtful, and you show a great deal of compassion and passion.

This blog is a chance for you to discover each other, and I think as you begin to read it, you'll see what an amazing community this is. From Jimmy Durante to Thom Yorke, you're all here, and I love that.

Happy Valentines Day.

Bob Boilen
with Robin Hilton

11:13 AM ET | 02-14-2008 | permalink | comments (13) | e-mail post

 

SXSW: We Are There: The List Is Here

by Bob Boilen

The SXSW (South by Southwest) music festival in Austin is about a month away (March 12-15). We'll webcast from there this year, as well as present a showcase of bands. Details are coming very soon, but you'll like it, trust me.

The list of the bands performing just came out, it's a wonderfully fun list to browse.

Some Figures:

21 bands with black in their name
12 white
10 red
9 kid
7 blue
6 big
5 bear
3 f*ck

176 bands from New York
168 Austin
96 Los Angeles
44 San Francisco
3 Tehran

There are two bands called Jet Lag, one from Spain and one from New Jersey; I hope to get them together somehow.

A band called Ladyfinger and a band called Ladyfingers
A band called Let's Go Sailing and a band called Let's Go to War

Take a look at the list, and maybe make a haiku or a limerick out of the names, or think of two bands that would be awesome on a stage together, just for their namesakes. Or point out any other oddity. Have fun, kill some time -- oh, and there are five bands with "kill" in their name, five with "some," and four with "time."

4:25 PM ET | 02-12-2008 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post

 

Are All Indie Bands Democrats?

by Bob Boilen

I don't think I've met a young, creative musician who was not politically left of center. In fact, I would go as far as to say that a huge majority of any crowd at any of the concerts we've done at the "9:30 Club" or "Rock and Roll Hotel" -- with bands like The National, Regina Spektor, Arcade Fire, Okkervil River and Iron and Wine -- were all Democrats.

Some of my observations are based on things said during interviews about life habits, attitudes or just straight out hatred of George Bush. (Always a hot topic for banter on a Washington, DC stage).

So, why is this? Is it:

Right brain = Democrats?
Left brain = Republicans?

Surely it can't be that simple, can it?

Are we really a country not of Red States and Blue States but more right brain States and Left brain States (where left of the political center = right brain and right of the political center = left brain)?

Now my brain hurts.

Are you most often a supporter of Democrats or Republicans or something else?

What's your favorite band at this moment?

Let's see how this poll adds up.

4:50 PM ET | 02- 5-2008 | permalink | comments (73) | e-mail post

 

What's Your Favorite Love Song?

by Robin Hilton

Love it or hate it, Valentine's Day is drawing near. We want to know your favorite love song. We did this before on All Songs Considered back in 2006 and got a lot of great songs from people. If you're not familiar with All Songs Considered it's our weekly music mix featuring a lot of great songs and artists you often don't hear anywhere else.

There's certainly no shortage of love songs out there. My personal favorite is "I Don't Want to Get Over You" by the Magnetic Fields.

Tell us your favorite love song and give us a little story explaining how it came to be your favorite. We'll feature select songs on our upcoming Valentine's Day edition of All Songs Considered.

1:59 PM ET | 02- 4-2008 | permalink | comments (214) | e-mail post