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Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Jim Connelly's
Favorite Recordings Of 2006
Monday, January 15, 2007
Jesse Steichen's Favorite Recordings Of 2006
Friday, January 12, 2007
Bill Bentley's Favorite Recordings Of 2006
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Tom Ridge's Favorite Recordings Of 2006
Thursday, January 4, 2007
Lee Templeton's Favorite Recordings Of 2006
Tuesday, January 2, 2007
Anthony Carew's 13 Fave Albums Of 2006
Monday, March 27, 2006
SXSW 2006: Finding Some Hope In Austin
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Letter From New Orleans
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Jennifer Przybylski's Fave Albums of 2005
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Music For Dwindling Days: Max Schaefer's Fave Recordings Of 2005
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Sean Fennessey's 'Best-Of' 2005
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Lori Miller Barrett's Fave Albums Of 2005
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Lee Templeton's Favorite Recordings of 2005
Thursday, January 5, 2006
Michael Lach - Old Soul Songs For A New World Order
Wednesday, January 4, 2006
Found In Translation — Emme Stone's Year In Music 2005
Tuesday, January 3, 2006
Dave Allen's 'Best-Of' 2005
Monday, January 2, 2006
Steve Gozdecki's Favorite Albums Of 2005
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Johnny Walker Black's Top 10 Of 2005
Monday, December 19, 2005
Neal Block's Favorite Recordings Of 2005
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Jenny Tatone's Year In Review
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Dave Renard's Fave Recordings Of 2005
Monday, December 12, 2005
Jennifer Kelly's Fave Recordings Of 2005
Thursday, December 8, 2005
Tom Ridge's Favorite Recordings Of 2005
Tuesday, December 6, 2005
Ben Gook's Beloved Albums Of 2005
Monday, December 5, 2005
Anthony Carew's Fave Albums Of 2005
Thursday, November 10, 2005
Prince, Spoon And The Magic Of The Dead Stop
Monday, September 12, 2005
The Truth About America
Monday, September 5, 2005
Tryin' To Wash Us Away
Monday, August 1, 2005
A Psyche-Folk Heat Wave In Western Massachusetts
Monday, July 18, 2005
Soggy But Happy At Glastonbury 2005
Monday, April 4, 2005
The SXSW Experience, Part 3: All Together Now
Friday, April 1, 2005
The SXSW Experience, Part 2: Dr. Dog's Happy Chords
Thursday, March 31, 2005
The SXSW Experience, Part 1: Waiting, Waiting And More Waiting
Friday, March 25, 2005
Final Day At SXSW's Charnel House
Monday, March 21, 2005
Day Three At SXSW
Saturday, March 19, 2005
Day Two In SXSW's Hall Of Mirrors
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Report #1: SXSW 2005 And Its Hall Of Mirrors
Monday, February 14, 2005
Matt Landry's Fave Recordings Of 2004
Wednesday, February 2, 2005
David Howie's 'Moments' From The Year 2004
Thursday, January 27, 2005
Lori Miller Barrett's Fave Recordings Of 2004
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Noah Bonaparte's Fave Recordings Of 2004
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
Kevin John's Fave Albums Of 2004
Friday, January 14, 2005
Music For Those Nights: Max Schaefer's Fave Recordings Of 2004
Thursday, January 13, 2005
Dave Renard's Fave Recordings Of 2004
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Neal Block's Top Ten Of 2004
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Jenny Tatone's Fave Albums Of 2004
Monday, January 10, 2005
Wayne Robins' Top Ten Of 2004
Friday, January 7, 2005
Brian Orloff's Fave Albums Of 2004
Thursday, January 6, 2005
Johnny Walker (Black)'s Top 10 Of 2004
Wednesday, January 5, 2005
Jennifer Przybylski's Fave Albums (And Book) Of 2004
Tuesday, January 4, 2005
Mark Mordue's Fave Albums Of 2004
Monday, January 3, 2005
Lee Templeton's Fave Recordings Of 2004
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Sunday, February 29, 2004
Noise Pop Report #5: The Wrens Give Us Hope
Neumu's Nicole Cohen reports: What's a girl like me doing in a place like this? Backstage at The Bottom of the Hill, in a shantytown of corrugated metal roof panels attached to a dilapidated roof structure — a "dressing room" of sorts — is where I wait for a few words with tonight's (Saturday, February 28) main attraction, the New Jersey rock quartet The Wrens, back on the scene in a big way after a seven-year absence. The bands generally relax on two dark dirt-colored sofas, which still have a few areas left where the original cream color of the upholstery peeks through. It was on one of these couches that I cautiously sat and talked to the members of The Washdown earlier this week before their performance. Tonight I see no one relaxing. I see no one at all. After 20-odd minutes I decide to return to the innards of the Hill to look for anyone resembling an affiliate of the indie world's best comeback band — and one of Noise Pop's hottest tickets this year.
I search the bar high and low. I see nothing but grungy girls in low-rise Levi's and boys in black or blue jeans drinking up the High Life. Miller Beer is supplying the festival with affordable brew, so discounted that everyone is usually pretty well bombed by the time the headliners appear on stage. Tonight appears to be no exception.
I decide to carve out a safe spot on the sidelines to watch for the arrival of The Wrens, who should be easy to spot, seeing that they are 33-40 years old in this sea of 20-year-olds. 11:30 came and went, and still no Wrens. I decided to "let it go" — no interview, no problem. I already knew a few things about them. Like in 1996, after refusing to sign on the dotted line for an aggressive new owner of the company Grass Roots Records (now Wind Up Records), they caused such a fury at the label that management swore that the next band they signed would be made a star at all costs — that next band being Creed. That their 2002 wrap party for their critically-acclaimed latest record, The Meadowlands, included in the evening's festivities the destruction of the album's master tapes so as to keep the already four-years-in-the-works project (seven years total since the last critical-success album, Secaucus) safe from further perfectionist tweaking. I knew three of the four members have lived together in the same house for 10 years, and recorded much of Meadowlands in the living room. I knew they were fired for playing The Pixies' "Debaser" while serving as the house band on a Jersey ferry which floated primarily with people over the age of 65. What I did not know, and would soon find out, is that The Wrens are one of the greatest bands I have ever seen.
I am tempted to leave this piece at that, maintain a critical distance from my subject, and hope a declaration of such magnitude is enough to compel you to run out and buy every last Wrens CD you can get your hands on (which should not take long, being the total is four — three albums, one EP), and do everything in your power to see them live at least once in what up until now has been your ignorant and pathetic Wrens-free life. I am tempted, and tired (after they kept me, and the rest of the sold-out audience, up until 1:30 a.m.), but don't/can't/shouldn't these guys deserve a few more paragraphs of appreciation? Hey, I'm the writer, and I'm telling you they do. So listen up!
Tonight was an hour of jaw-dropping displays of rock 'n' roll virtuosity and nearly faultless band cohesion, plus that rarest of emotions (at least these days) on display: joy. Even though most of the songs were brutally honest confessions of heartbreak and the crushing malaise of working-class oppression and disappointed ambition (perhaps best reflected in the ironic opener of the evening, "Happy"), just when the lump in your throat was about to go public, The Wrens would heroically rally and defeat despair with 500hp guitars. These were the type of guys Nero would have jammed with while Rome was burning.
I'm not familiar enough with the band's discography to recognize and be able to chronicle the set list of the evening, but suffice to say that every song was familiar and recognizable in a broader, organic sense. The Wrens sing your story, their story, and everyone's story. With their music, their piercing, devastating truths and a whimsical joie de vivre, they are so genuinely sincere that it's sometimes disconcerting, the contrast so vivid when seen against the palette of what usually passes as depth these days. Maybe it's more a function of age, or of a uniquely frustrating search for a decent record deal, but these guys deliver a mature, inspiring perspective, both musically and lyrically. The Wrens do not write abstract songs; they write figuratively and valiantly about very genuine and poignant moments in life, and they encase these intense feelings in a nuclear-strength energy that transforms toxic ache into music radiant with hope and reminders that happiness is not something that happens to us, but that we create.
When they weren't playing, they dedicated songs to friends, to themselves, to the owner of San Francisco's Absolutely Kosher Records (the label they now record for); they marveled out loud about now having a booking agent to thank for the first time in their careers, whispered sweet nothings and inside jokes in each other's ears, affectionately berated their "Colonel Park Tommer-fuck, I mean Tom Parker"-esque road manager for allegedly "forcing us to play two shows a day on the road for 40 weeks!", and spent quality time with their audience reminiscing about towns in New Jersey shouted out by beer-blasted boys between songs ("where all we rednecks live and listen to nothing but Lynyrd Skynyrd and mate with crocodiles").
There was a 20-minute encore, and though the audience begged a couple of minutes for a second, a collective guilt began to set in over asking these exhausted guys to run around the track another time, and the quest was abandoned. The faithful filed out into the first hour of Sunday morning with eyes still wide and ears ringing from the spectacular show, infused with that special spirit that comes from bearing witness to someone else's soul — someone who has felt a lot like you.
Another night of Noise Pop is closed for business, but the festival will open again Sunday afternoon with a film screening of "Glenn Tilbrook: One for the Road" and "King of Bluegrass: The Life and Times of Jimmy Martin," afternoon performances of Canoe, The Minders, Fivehead, and Oranger at Café du Nord and Tussle, Loose in the Wild, and Seksu Roba at Bottom of the Hill. The festival finale tonight will see The Cuts, the Clarke-Nova, The Everyothers, and The Proles at The Kilowatt... and Dying Californian, The Actionslacks, Preston School of Industry and Great American Music Club sending us home until next year from the Great American Music Hall. For more information, check out the festival Web site.
The InsiderOne Daily Report appears on occasion.
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