As a listener and collector of music I’ve never been a big fan of the EP format. It always felt like too much work for far too little music. Personally, I always felt as if I was getting force fed leftovers from someone else’s meal. On top of that if you purchased one of these EPs there was a good chance it would be full of remix filler. No one needs four different versions of the same song. That doesn’t scream EP to me That screams OCD. I held this anti EP stance for most of my adult life. Truth be told I’m still kind of standoffish towards them but once Radiohead announced they’d be pushing their future recordings towards an EP existence I felt like it might be time for me to embrace the EP temperament and attention span. Helping this transition was the stellar group of EPs that I came across in 2009. I now present them to you, in list form:
(Year end lists are like crack cocaine to me. I need this to stop. January 1st can not come fast enough!)
10) Yim Yames – A Tribute I’m a sucker for George Harrison and for cover albums so this was an easy choice. Jim James of My Morning Jacket peels away the Phil Spector meddling and leaves you with the stripped down basics of Harrison’s key solo tracks.
Key Track: “My Sweet Lord”
9) Memory Cassette – Call & Response On top of some great tracks this EP was home to the best video of 2009 and the coolest cover art.
Key Track: “Surfin’ ”
8.) Delorean – Ayrton Senna I was willing to track this band’s EP down thanks to their brilliant remix of the Teenagers “No Love”. It was well worth the effort.
Key Track: “Deli”
7) Suckers – Suckers I had to skip this blurb and come back to it at the end of the list like that annoying person who stares at the menu for an hour and then tells the waitress to come back to them after she’s gotten everyone else’s order. I hate that person…but I could relate as I didn’t have much knowledge of this band. What do you say about a band that is more or less a mystery to you? That’s when I realized that’s the beauty of the shortened EP form. You can go out on a limb and reach for a band you know nothing about at the lower price point. No one wants to drop $11.99 to experience an unknown album or artist. What if it blows. You’d feel like a real Sucker (no pun intended). People are crippled with fear when it comes to picking something unknown that they may not like. I once dated a girl who suffered from the crippling fear that she’d hate everything on a restaurant’s menu. It would usually end with us fleeing the scene and running to the comforting embrace of Subway. If only more restaurants priced their food under $5 maybe she and people like her would be more willing to roll the risk dice. I paid under $4 for this Suckers EP and was pleasantly surprised . This Brooklyn band sounded like part Modest Mouse part Clap Your Hands. Not bad. Not bad at all. Lesson learned: Embrace the unknown. After listening to these four tracks I found myself wanting more. Lucky for me the band signed with a major label last month and are currently recording their label major debut LP.
Key Track: “Easy Chairs”
6) El Perro Del Mar – Love is Not Pop The way Sweden churns out beautiful blond moody songstresses one might think that they’re interchangeable Ikea parts. They’re not. El Perro Del Mar is the rich man’s Lykke Li. “Change of Heart” slays me every time.
Key Track: “Change of Heart”
5) Animal Collective – Fall Be Kind It’s nice to see the darlings of the indie rock circuit not resting on the laurels of Merriweather Post Pavilion. Instead they released Fall Be Kind, an EP of songs that push even more sonic boundaries. Take that, Grizzly Bear, you good for nothing slackers.
This is the last time I’ll say this. I’m so glad Summer is over.
Ok, I’m done, I promise.
Well, maybe just once more…
YAY!!!!!! Summer is over!!!!!!
Ok, now I’m really done. Really. Pinky swear. All done.
I’m not sure if Fall will be any better, as when I went to check my e-mail inbox I had 666 unread emails (yeah I know, and this email account isn’t even the account that gets spammed, newsletters, nor most of the Facebook/Myspace alerts).
On a brighter note, here is some wisdom that was subliminally imparted upon me this morning via a song playing on KCRW that I thought I’d enlighten you with (I don’t know the song name and won’t look it up, as I actually didn’t really enjoy the song all that much), “the road doesn’t move, you’re the one that moves.” All thanks to Jason Bentley and his efforts in making my morning eclectic.
Alright, September’s 2:05pm list…here we go.
The Who – ” So Sad About Us”
I actually can’t decide if I like this original or The Jam’sversion better. I think I’m going to go listen to this song as soon as I’m done posting this.
Also, have you ever seen The Who cover “Heatwave”? This song is one of my favorites for bands to cover. The New Fidelity still do the best live cover of this as far as local bands go.
The darlings of our Summer Soundtrack, Silverlake based Robotanists enjoyed a whirlwind season full of sunshine, radio airplay (KCRW), and lots of new friends. Two of the band members Sarah Ellquist and Daniel de Blanke have taken a few moments to bring you firsthand some of the highlights of their summer, as well as how they feel they’ve grown as a band. They even let you us in on what songs they wish they had written.
Robotanists are: Daniel de Blanke – guitars, keys, songwriting Sarah Ellquist – vocals, keys, songwriting Preston Scott Phillips – percussion, drums, iphone Keith Boyarsky – bass
TRAffIK: Where can we learn more about your band? DANIEL:Google “robotanists” or go to http://robotanists.com
TRAffIK: How did you come together? DANIEL:We were all in other bands, and then left those bands and formed this one. The social lubricant was alcohol and a fondness for screaming at the television. That, and Dostoevsky.
TRAffIK: How would you describe your sound? DANIEL: Up-tempo sad music for amoral intellectuals SARAH: Make-up sex
TRAffIK: How does the songwriting process work for you? Where does the inspiration come from? SARAH:Dan and I are a song writing team, but every song is born in a different way, from a different place. I write all of the lyrics, but sometimes, I write the melody and Dan builds harmony from there, or vice versa. If either of us ever thinks that we’ve written a complete song, the other is there to edit and refine. We take everything to the rhythm section for the final seal of approval… and the rest is history. Lyrics come from a very personal place, but I try to craft them in a way that the listener can interpret as they choose. Music is a personal thing, I want listeners to make our music theirs. DANIEL: I have three thousand song ideas that are half crafted at any given time. I generally force Sarah to listen to them until she starts singing melodic material.
TRAffIK: Lately you’ve been performing acoustically a lot more than we’d seen previously. Do you have a preference for either performing unplugged or plugged in? SARAH:I think we all prefer the energy of playing as a full band, but performing with just an acoustic guitar is a great way to really showcase our songwriting. It’s liberating to strip things down and just let the melody and harmony dance with each other.
TRAffIK: What started this trend for you? SARAH: I suppose you could say that most of our music starts out “acoustic” during the demo phase, but we started performing them that way after some friends of ours (the band Vanaprasta) asked us to come to the Bond St. Lounge at the Thompson Hotel in Beverly Hills over the summer and play a few songs. The next thing we knew we were getting weekly invites to perform all over LA.(more…)
