Tours: Camera Obscura

Download: Camera Obscura - "My Maudlin Career"

03-24 Brooklyn, NY - The Bell House
03-25 New York, NY - Mercury Lounge
04-21 Newcastle, England - Academy 2
04-22 Manchester, England - Club Academy
04-23 London, England - Shepherd's Bush Empire
04-24 Warwick, England - Leamington Assembly
04-25 Sheffield, England - The Leadmill
04-26 Glasgow, Scotland - Barrowlands Ballroom
04-29 Belfast, Northern Ireland - The Stiff Kitten
04-30 Dublin, Ireland - Andrew's Lane Theatre
05-27 Nashville, TN - Mercy Lounge
05-28 Newport, KY - Southgate House
05-29 Chicago, IL - Metro
05-30 Minneapolis, MN - Cedar Cultural Center
06-01 Denver, CO - Bluebird
06-02 Salt Lake City, UT - Urban Lounge
06-04 Portland, OR - Wonder Ballroom
06-05 Vancouver, BC - Commodore
06-06 Seattle, WA - Showbox
06-08 San Francisco, CA - The Fillmore
06-09 Pomona, CA - Glasshouse
06-11 Los Angeles, CA - Henry Fonda Theatre
06-13 Mexico City, Mexico - Lunario
06-15 Austin, TX - Antones
06-16 Dallas, TX - The Loft
06-18 Birmingham, AL - Bottletree
06-19 Atlanta, GA - Variety Playhouse
06-20 Carrboro, NC - Cat's Cradle
06-21 Washington, DC - 9:30 Club
06-22 Philadelphia, PA - TLA
06-24 New York, NY - Webster Hall
06-25 Boston, MA - Somerville Theatre
06-26 Montreal, Quebec - La Tulipe
06-27 Toronto, Ontario - Lee's Palace
06-29 Columbus, OH - Wexner Center Ohio State University
06-30 Pittsburgh, PA - Mr. Small's
07-25 Derbyshire, England - Indietracks Festival


Twee-pop sextet Camera Obscura, promoting their upcoming fourth record My Maudlin Career (the refrain of which might give fans of the band pause: "My Maudlin Career/has come to an end"), have announced a series of dates in North America and the United Kingdom. The band will play the Cedar Cultural Center on May 30th. No word on a supporting act.

Check out the video for Camera Obscura's "French Navy" here

Camera Obscura MySpace Page

(Jon Graef)

New Live Video: Aby Wolf - "Keara" (@ Cedar Cultural Center)

Aby Wolf herself uploaded this video of "Keara," a track from her recently released solo debut Sweet Prudence. This footage was taken at the CD release party for said disc, which was back in January at the Cedar Cultural Center. "Keara" is defined by luminous multi-part harmonies and a laid-back, shuffle-y feel. Watch the video of the performance at the top of the post.

Sweet Prudence is available now

Aby Wolf MySpace Page

Chicago in Minneapolis: Chicago Afrobeat Project at the Cedar Center

Download: Chicago Afrobeat Project - "Open and Close"

Chicago Afrobeat Project
Cedar Cultural Center
Minneapolis, MN
7:00 pm Doors
$15

Chicago Afrobeat Project MySpace Page

(Jonathan Graef)

More Cowbell Gives Away Tickets To Friday St. Vincent Show

Download: St. Vincent - "Now Now"

St. Vincent's Marry Me is still a stunner of a debut record, so it's no surprise that Annie Clark and her band of merry men are unwaveringly touring behind it. That tour includes a stop at the Cedar Cultural Center on Friday, the 22nd. Tickets are still available for the show, both online and at the venue, but those of you who think that you're lucky, punk, can get tickets for free.

More Cowbell is giving away tickets to the show in question. All you have to do is email Paul@Howwastheshow.com for your chance to win a pair of tickets to the concert. Pretty simple, but also pretty awesome. You have until tomorrow, Thursday, at noon to enter. Winners will be chosen at random so, if you lose, don't take it personally. It's an all-ages show and doors open at 8. Foreign Born open.

Once again, the email is paul@howwastheshow.com. Good luck!

Marry Me is out now.

St. Vincent MySpace Page

(Jonathan Graef)

Just Announced: Andrew Bird Adds Sunday Afternoon Show At The Cedar

Download: Andrew Bird - "Imitosis" (Four Tet Remix)
Download: Andrew Bird - "Simple X"


Directly from Andrew Bird's fan newsletter:

Please join us for a special Sunday afternoon show (first time for everything)

THIS SUNDAY DECEMBER 16

Where: Cedar Cultural Center

When: Doors@1, Show@2 sharp

Why: To help benefit various projects of the Cedar Cultural Center, a nonprofit venue in Minneapolis.

Tickets on sale today at 10 AM: Ticketweb

That's in 30 minutes! The link for purchasing said tickets is not up yet, but searching for Andrew Bird on Ticketweb, the search engine will take you directly to here. Once 10 A.M. Central Time rolls around, that will surely become the link where you can buy tickets. Update: Thanks to Solace for pointing out that the link where you buy tickets is up RIGHT NOW!

The show is all-ages and tickets are $27 bucks. Steep, for sure, but ultimately, very worth it, seeing as seating is very limited.

Once again, Andrew Bird at the Cedar Center this Sunday afternoon, the 16th! Show is all-ages and doors are at 1 p.m. for what will undoubtedly be Bird's last show of 2007. Update: Buy tickets here.

Andrew Bird MySpace Page

(Jonathan Graef)

The Owls - Daughters And Suns

Download: The Owls - "Peppermint Patty"
Download: The Owls - "All Those In Favor"
Download: The Owls - "Airplane"

The Owls
Daughters and Suns (Magic Marker, 2007)
Grade: B-

Daughters And Suns, the first recording in four years from beloved Minneapolis quartet The Owls, begins with the lines "We could take the hard road/if it's the only way/we could take the long road/that we've just begun". These could mean one of two things for the listener. The first is that the line will illuminate the reasons why the band took so long in between recordings and the second is the group is telling you that you are in store for a long, strange musical adventure.

To find answers to these questions, one may have to listen very carefully to Daughters and Suns, which is The Owls first album proper. This is an approach that is both beneficial and detrimental: beneficial because careful listenings show that The Owls are expert craftsmen, delicately layering sunny-sad songs like "Welcome To Monday" and "Issac Bashevis Singer" with intertwining boy-girl harmonies (which, at different times, sound like Low and The Velvet Underground), shimmering 12-string guitars and an adorable sense of melody; detrimental because, after 14 songs, the music begins to bleed into each other so that you have a hard time telling one midtempo Kinks/Belle and Sebastian song from the other. It's as if that, in the time between records, The Owls have gotten so comfortable with themselves that they see no need to shake things up

Fortunately, there are a few highlights, such as "Peppermint Patty" and "All Those In Favor" which are flat-out gorgeous and show the band at their most assured. But other songs, like "Yellow Flowers", are pretty, but fail to stand out. Ultimately, Daughters and Suns feels like having a conversation with a person who is clearly intelligent, but also very shy. The points they are making are clearly worthwhile and worth sharing, but you'd wish that they would say what they are saying with a little more confidence and variety.


The Owls on the Current
CD Release Party Tonight At The Cedar Cultural Center
Myspace Page

(Jonathan Graef)

Haley Bonar and Erin McKeown: the camera phone special!

Disclaimer: One of this post's subjects, Haley Bonar, is on Afternoon Records, in which some of this blog's writers have a financial interest. This doesn't change the fact, however, that Bonar is objectively awesome.

Download: Erin McKeown - "To The Stars"

I caught Haley Bonar and Erin McKeown at the Cedar last night, and hot damn. That was a show. Though I preferred McKeown's jazzy, bluesy, and extremely entertaining performance to Bonar's subdued, though lovely, set, the whole show was a perfect example of how the opener/headliner dynamic should work. Bonar gave what amounted to a beautiful warm-up; her songs easily filled the huge room, even though she only had a drummer as back-up.

McKeown came up next, and owned the stage from the first moment. McKeown's diminutive frame was already striking surrounded by the Cedar's giant space, and her look - bright orange t-shirt, yellow necktie, hair standing on end - made the overall visual immediately great. Then there's her songs, which sound timeless. Not only does she dip into both Tin Pan Alley and the Brill Building for inspiration, she does it in a way entirely her own. This is folk music that isn't exactly "folk" - it's part rockabilly, part swing, part pop. And McKeown's amazing guitar skills, played on an instrument making up a third of her size, are something to behold. She was backed by crack band Allison Miller on drums and Sam Kassirer on piano and organ.

Be a good music fan and check out her records Distillation, Grand, and Sing You Sinners (the latter being her new record, a covers album of standards).

(David Brusie)