VAGUE SPACE

Modest Mouse #1

I'm back from a brief hiatus just to say that I read in this morning's USA Today that the #1 album in America is none other than We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank by the one and only Modest Mouse.  All the apologies from all my friends who were making fun of me back in 2000/01 when I was raving about this band that they "cleverly" called "Mighty Mouse" can come any time now, preferably in the comments.  Congratulations to Isaac and the band.  You definitely earned it.

From Pitchfork...

    Hey, remember when Modest Mouse was just that little angry band on college radio? Well, now they're that big angry band perched atop the Billboard 200.

This past week, Isaac Brock's outfit moved a not-so-modest 129,000 units of its fifth full-length proper, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, according to Billboard.com-- enough to best Joss Stone and some "American Idol" pan-flasher for the chart crown. This debut trumps that of 2004 LP Good News for People Who Love Bad News as well, which opened at 19 with paltry sales of 68,000.

Modest Mouse's no. 1 of course dashes James Murphy's hopes of copping the top spot. LCD Soundsystem's Sound of Silver narrowly missed the Top 40 in its first week, landing at a respectable 46. That's still cause to crack open the bubbly, as it marks LCD's first Billboard 200 appearance.

The much-discussed decline in album sales-- and, perhaps, a slight de-homogenization of listeners' tastes-- has worked wonders for indie-label-signed and indie-sounding bands hoping for chart placement: both the Shins (Sub Pop) and Arcade Fire (Merge) scored impressive number two first-week debuts. Your next mission, indie-ites? Help the next Wolf Eyes LP go platinum.

A Moment of Silence

I'm sorry, but this will be the last scheduled post for some time, since I don't plan on having a free night again at least until next Monday, so I really won't have time to do any more posting.  Work has been crazy busy recently, so I don't think I'll get anything done there, and I'm trying to finish up a major paper on racism for my class, due a week from today.  I am listening to some pretty great music, though, and here's some of it before I go.  See all you Vague Spacers next week.

• Download Sufjan Stevens - "Free Man in Paris".mp3
• Download The National - "Fake Empire".mp3
• Download Bonnie "Prince" Billy (new version) - "New Partner".mp3
• Download Caspian - "Brombie".mp3
• Download Andrew Byrd - "Darkmatter".mp3

Buy Andrew Bird's Armchair Apocrypha, a very good album...

Dumb Luck

In the past month, I've bought new albums by Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire, Explosions in the Sky, Low, Eluvium, Andrew Bird, LCD Soundsystem, Do Make Say Think, Jesu, Bonnie "Prince" Billy (EP), and Bright Eyes (the Four Winds EP - I don't have Cassadaga yet), as well as Sun Kil Moon's re-release of the brilliant Ghosts of the Great Highway and Caspian's first album (I can't wait for The Four Trees now).  So that's a pretty decent amount of new music floating around my ears right now.  Not to mention that fully 4 of my favorite 15 bands of all time are represented above, including two of my all-time top 5.  And there really isn't a clunker in the bunch.  All the releases range from good to fairly excellent, so I can really only complain about being awash in so many great songs that my ears can hardly adjust, especially since it's going to be until the end of the week - STILL! - before I get my car back.  Fucking deer.  Anyway, the point of the post, is given all of that, how come my #1 song of the week on the left side of this page is not by any of those bands?  How is that possible? 

Dntel is the pseudonym of Jimmy Tamborello (one of his many), a prolific electronic artist with only one full-length under his belt as the Dntel moniker, the well-received 2001 album Life is Full of Possibilities.  But while the reviews of that album were stellar, I have to admit that I think I've only heard one song off of it, the phenomenal "This is the Dream of Evan and Chan" featuring Ben Gibbard on vocals.  As everyone knows, the Gibbard/Tamborello collaboration continued in the form of Postal Service, who also have one excellent full-length album under their belt to date (which was better in my opinion than the last two Death Cab albums).  Tamborello has mostly kept silent since the release of Give Up, though, performing only in another "side" project, Figurine, which released the also well-received Mistake Mistake Mistake Mistake last year, an album I didn't really love.  But now comes Dumb Luck, releasing in April, Dntel's second full-length, and the lead single is apparently sung by Tamborello himself (he relies heavily on guest singers on the rest of the album).  Take a listen and enjoy.

• Download Dntel - "Dumb Luck".mp3
• Download Dntel - "This is the Dream of Evan and Chan".mp3
• Download Dntel - "Umbrella".mp3
• Download Figurine - "All the Way to China".mp3

Division II Championship

For reasons only known to the part of my brain that agreed to host two 5-hour poker tournaments on the weekend of the Sweet 16, I was only vaguely aware of the sports world's happenings this weekend, losing complete interest after Kansas lost on Saturday night, thereby missing the overtime Georgetown-UNC game (I actually fell asleep watching it after I got home from an afternoon party).  I also apparently missed the amazing Barton College comeback for the Division II championship.  Watch it here if you missed it as well...

Weekend Recap

Thanks to Kansas crapping out and playing a horrible game against UCLA, I went from near first to a distant position in my NCAA pool, but fortunately I have a backup bracket, which was actually originally my main bracket, that called all four Final Four teams correctly.  Rather impressive, except that bracket did so horribly early on that there is no mathematical way that I can win the pool.  I could still come in 2nd, though, with a Florida and Georgetown win on Saturday and Florida winning it all.  If that happened, I'd finish in 2nd behind Todd, and Billy would finish in 3rd.  Switsky would finish just out of the money.  Nice.  Go Big East!!

In other news, I finished a somewhat disappointing 3rd in the Tournament of Champions for the NJPT poker group.  Sure, I outlasted Switsky (not that difficult), Billy (ditto), and Lenny (out first despite having the most points on the season), but I played an excellent game with really good cards (that helps) and got beaten by a couple clearly inferior hands, including my final all-in of QQ vs. A-10, which Jeff didn't hesitate to call, leaving me in third after he flopped an ace.  Jeff ended up winning, powered by the huge chip lead he accumulated by knocking me out, and Rocco came in 2nd after leading for most of the day.  On the bright side, I can pay 1/5th of my insurance deductible after coming in 3rd in the year-end tournament for a 52-week poker game between upwards of 15 players a week.  Big money, baby.  I'm pretty sure I spent the same amount on beer and soda and snacks after hosting two poker games this weekend.  Woo hoo!

You Tube of the Day

I'm not usually even remotely into zany antics / embarrassing footage / Bob Saget-formula videos on YouTube as anything more than a mild amusement and a huge waste of time.  I love the site for music concerts and videos or clips from news or television programs that I've missed.  But I just had to pass this one along... possibly the greatest video ever - University of Michigan students filming a 1000 cup (each) beer pong tournament.  And if you don't know what beer pong is, you're better off not knowing, but basically it was an excuse in college to get really, really drunk.  Not 1000 beers drunk (which we have no evidence that they actually drank), but pretty drunk.  Not that Vague Space is remotely promoting such behavior.  But enjoy anyway.  And yes, this is the first official "ska" song posting in the history of this site.

We Were Dead

Modest Mouse
We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
Rating:  8.4 (out of 10)

Buy at Amazon

I have to admit that I'm a very biased reviewer as a huge Modest Mouse fan and pretty much any of Isaac Brock's distorted yelping is going to get a positive response, but I really enjoyed the new album.  While it does not approach the heights of This is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About, The Moon and Antarctica, or their masterpiece Lonesome Crowded West, the days of the band making music like that are probably gone forever, and the new album is good in its own right, closer in nature to the more pop-heavy, mainstream-ready Good News for People who Love Bad News, but in most ways better.  And although there is no track as immediately accessible as "Float On," it is possible that the new album could continue the Mouse's recent mainstream success, which would be good for the band, and for the sensibilities of the larger public, if not necessarily a wonderful thing for fans of indie rock.  But good for them, and good for us.  Modest Mouse is making enough money to still be making music over a decade into their careers, so I for one cannot complain that the music has veered toward greater accessibility, even if I still long for the glory of Lonesome Crowded West.

• Download Modest Mouse - "Parting of the Sensory".mp3

Our Life is Not a Movie

South by Southwest is coming to a close in Austin, and I'm sure it was a big hit.  One of these years I've got to get down there, but for now, I have to be satisfied with simply enjoying the great music and stories coming out of the festival, including news from Okkervil River that they are in the midst of completing a follow up to Black Sheep Boy, which should come out sometime around August if everything goes well.   Will Sheff is from the Austin area, so his appearance at the festival was not a surprise, and in an interview with KEXP, he revealed that the new album is an attempt to go as far away from Black Sheep Boy as possible, which sounds like a noble idea, even if I thought that the album (and its appendix) were absolute masterpieces that I'm still listening to regularly some two years after their release.  If this new song is any indication, though, Okkervil River might be quickly moving into my top 10 bands of all-time.

• Download Okkervil River - "Our Life is Not a Movie (live at SXSW)".mp3
• Download Okkervil River - "The Presidents Dead (live at SXSW)".mp3
• Download Okkervil River - "For Real (live at SXSW)".mp3

• Download  Okkervil River - "The Next Four Months".mp3

• Buy Black Sheep Boy (The Definitive Edition - 2007) at Insound

Weekend Recap

Apparently the NCAA tournament was waiting until Saturday to have all the dramatic games that failed to develop on Thursday and Friday, as nearly every game finished within a couple points, three went to overtime, and one game went to double overtime.  But Sunday was mostly a dud and in the end, the only real "upset" team still left of the 16 remaining teams is 7-seed UNLV.  The next closest thing to surprises are a couple of 5 seeds still alive.  So it has been the year of the favorite, which - while setting up a number of great games this weekend - has taken a lot of the juice out of the early rounds.  Of course, part of the reason for this was the horrendous job of the selection committee, with borderline teams like Stanford and Arkansas failing to put up much of an effort in their first round losses, but I've spent all week complaining about that, so I will leave it alone.  Interestingly, Purdue did put up a hell of a showing, although the Big Ten was left with an embarrassing lone school remaining after having 6 members make the tournament.  They were the #2 rated conference in RPI.  The # 1 rated?  The ACC, which lost 6 out of 7 team. 

And yes, those RPI ratings were the number one reason why Syracuse set a record for an NIT crowd Monday night (see photo) and the Big East got horrible seedings, leading to difficult first round match-ups (except for Louisville, who got lucky to play an over-matched and out-manned Stanford squad that didn't belong anywhere near the tournament). 

By the way, all the ACC seeds were 6 or higher except for BC (7) and Georgia Tech (10).  The committee apology for totally screwing up the tournament and relying way too heavily on league RPI should be coming when?  Soon I hope.

Here's the league tally after the first weekend:

Conference tally
Sweet 16:
Pac-10 3 (UCLA, Oregon, USC)
SEC 3 (Florida, Vanderbilt, Tennessee)
Big East 2 (Georgetown, Pittsburgh)
Big 12 2 (Texas A&M, Kansas)
Big Ten 1 (Ohio State)
ACC 1 (UNC)
Mountain West 1 (UNLV)
Horizon 1 (Butler)
Missouri Valley 1 (Southern Illinois)
Conference USA 1 (Memphis)

New Music Week

Tuesday will see releases of the following albums, which you can purchase by following the links attached.  I'm thinking it's going to be an amazing week.

• Modest Mouse - "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank"
  • Tracklisting:
    

    1. March Into the Sea1

    2. Dashboard

    3. Fire It Up

    4. Florida

    5. Parting of the Sensory

    6. Missed The Boat

    7. We've Got Everything

    8. Fly Trapped in a Jar

    9. Education

    10. Little Motel

    11. Steam Engenius

    12. Spitting Venom

    13. People as Places as People

    14. Invisible

• LCD Soundsystem - "The Sound of Silver"
  • Tracklisting:

  • 1. Get Innocuous

    2. Time to Get Away

    3. North American Scum

    4. Someone Great

    5. All My Friends

    6. Us v. Them

    7. Watch the Tapes

    8. Sound of Silver

    9. New York I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down

  • Download LCD Soundsystem - "Us vs. Them (Go Home Productions Remix)".mp3