Month: April 2009

Categories
GUEST EDITOR

From The Desk Of Mac McCaughan: “Wendy And Lucy”

Outdated reference point or not, the anti-apathy sentiment on Superchunk‘s sophomore single “Slack Motherfucker” still seems characteristic of Mac McCaughan 20 years after he wrote it. The recently dormant Superchunk is moving again, and McCaughan also fills his time with Portastatic and co-ownership of Merge Records. As if that wasn’t enough to keep him busy, McCaughan is guest editing magnetmagazine.com this week.

McCaughan: A couple years ago, Kelly Reichardt made the film Old Joy (with Will Oldham and Daniel London), and it blew my mind in a very gentle way. Not a lot was happening, but I kept not wanting it to end. When I left the theater, I wanted to: a) watch it again, and b) see her next movie, which she wouldn’t make for another couple years, and it’s Wendy And Lucy, starring Michelle Williams. Reichardt has the discipline to make a movie at the pace of how you wish your life moved, and after one movie, she had her own genre. So after two movies, is it an oeuvre? Or is it the other way around?

Categories
LOST CLASSICS

Lost Classics: Swell “41”

tapem200bThey’re nobody’s buzz bands anymore. But since 1993, MAGNET has discovered and documented more great music than memory will allow. The groups may have broken up or the albums may be out of print, but this time, history is written by the losers. Here are some of the finest albums that time forgot but we remembered in issue #75, plus all-new additions to our list of Lost Classics.

swell350

:: SWELL 41 // American/Psycho-Specific, 1993
Swell may be the strangest act to land a major-label deal in grunge’s wake. (And that includes Daniel Johnston.) What’s commercial radio supposed to do with deadpan, minor-key vocals set atop acoustic guitar and room-next-door drums? But on Swell’s second big-label effort, the San Francisco psych/rock outfit found the ultimate meeting of desert-dive twinkle and drug-induced moodiness. It might sound almost lazily laid-back at first, but 41 delivered 13 spooky, insinuating beauties that refused to be dismissed.

Catching Up: The major-label deal ended shortly after 41, and subsequent efforts delivered diminishing returns. Sole constant member David Freel had been quiet following 2003’s Whenever You’re Ready, but Swell has since released 2007’s South Of The Rain And Show and this year’s Be My Weapon.

“Is That Important”:

Categories
TIVO PARTY TONIGHT

TiVo Party Tonight: The Killers, Madeleine Peyroux

tivokillersbEver wonder what will happen during the last five minutes of late-night TV talk shows? They let musicians onstage! Here are tonight’s notable performers:

The Tonight Show With Jay Leno (NBC): The Killers
The Killers are a pompous band we love to hate, so there’s not much we can do here other than to point you to a review of the band’s headlining set at Coachella over the weekend. Thanks, L.A. Times music blog. That was a close one.

Late Late Show (CBS): Madeleine Peyroux

Categories
FREE MP3s GUEST EDITOR

From The Desk Of Mac McCaughan: The Dirty Projectors

mac_mccaughanlogo110bbOutdated reference point or not, the anti-apathy sentiment on Superchunk‘s sophomore single “Slack Motherfucker” still seems characteristic of Mac McCaughan 20 years after he wrote it. The recently dormant Superchunk is moving again, and McCaughan also fills his time with Portastatic and co-ownership of Merge Records. As if that wasn’t enough to keep him busy, McCaughan is guest editing magnetmagazine.com this week.

dirty_projectors550McCaughan: Isn’t there some kind of music scene in Brooklyn? That’s so crazy! It’s not even in Manhattan! But seriously—and I mean seriously—the Dirty Projectors melted my face off one night in Minneapolis when it was literally five degrees below zero, so you can imagine how hard it is to melt faces in that cold. But they did—the playing, of course, and the high-life or afrobeat or something on the guitar but mainly the singing and the voices, really not like anything I’d ever heard. Then he started introducing a song as being about the cops hassling him, and it was a freaking Black Flag song; I really thought I should walk outside except it was five below zero. But the great thing is now it’s spring and a couple years later, and they have this sick new song “Stillness Is The Move,” which is an epic of some kind, and I can listen to it in the sun and look forward to the album. Yeah, we wanted to sign them to Merge, but what are you going to do? At least I get to listen to them still.

“Stillness Is The Move” (live) (download):
https://magnetmagazine.com/audio/StillnessIsTheMoveLive.mp3

Categories
FREE MP3s

MP3 At 3PM: Papercuts

papercuts450San Francisco’s Papercuts (a.k.a. Jason Quever) is now on a multi-national tour to promote the just-released electro-folk You Can Have What You Want (Gnomonsong). Produced with Beach House’s Alex Scully, the rhythmic, organ-infused, analog-only album is as authentic and peculiar as an Edward Hopper painting; a bright but lonely landscape that makes you cheerful and queasy at the same time. On the title track, Quever’s voice drips with sentiment, the layers of guitar, bass and keyboard seeping through the speakers and wrenching your heart out like that time you stumbled upon a picture of you and the ex in the back of your dresser drawer.

“You Can Have What You Want” (download):