The Tallest Man on Earth - Streaming Full Live Set

The Tallest Man on Earth Live Brooklyn Vegan’s Northside Festival showcase on June 12, 2009, at Music Hall of Williamsburg. You can download the set from the internet archive here.

This is almost the same exact set from the show at the Middle East. It includes several unreleased gems as well as a chillingly down-tempo version of Over the Hills. This set is finished off with a bootleg Dylan cover done tallest man style, which only seems appropriate. The set is courtesy of Hooves on the Turf.

At his show with John Vanderslice, I bought a copy of Shallow Grave. It's the kind of album that you want to have on vinyl. It also came with a 7" EP of four bonus tracks, that could've just as easily fit into the album. They only pressed 1000 copies for the tour and two weeks in, they've already sold out. This was a unique item for two reasons. Each record was hand numbered, adding that little overwhelming personal touch.









I got #237.

After The Tallest Man on Earth records their "Blonde on Blonde" this will be a great thing to have.

Kristian Matsson also drew a picture on the back of my record. It turned out to be an interesting free association experiment. He's got hills, valleys and pine trees on his mind at most times it seems.

There should be 1000 more copies pressed on white vinyl by Mexican Summer, sadly without the EP included. Follow the site and you can get you own copy. While you're enjoying these digital goodies, I've got to remind you that in our current musical climate, if you want a musician to keep playing you've got to buy stuff. Especially if the musician is a shirtless Swed playing amazing stripped down folk songs. Pick up his record, even if you can't get it on vinyl.

www.myspace.com/thetallestmanonearth

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Oldest Musical Instrument in Existence

This is what it sounds like.

They crawled out of the ocean, humming and chanting as their limbs and stature rearranged itself. They found themselves in Europe 35,000 years ago feasting on some prize vulture carcass. As they stood upright, their mashing mandibles blew air through bone and they even carved it holes. It was their need to make logic out of noise that set them ahead in the evolutionary race against the neanderthals. Little did they know that they were building our modern music even then. Campfires were the first blogs and their wandering tribe was the first UK tour. The idea is the same, the only thing that's changed is how its organized and what we call it. This creative spirit is what distinguishes us from unevolved protoplasmic goo.

BBC article.

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Rare Elliott Smith Track - Let's Turn the Record Over

Elliott Smith - Let's Turn the Record Over (right click save link as)


A great unreleased Elliott Smith track. It was recorded during the From a Basement on a Hill sessions.

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Feature:: John Vanderslice and The Tallest Man on Earth, June 14, 2009

John Vanderslice WERS In Studio Session

1. John Vanderslice - Romanian Names
2. John Vanderslice - Forest Knolls
3. John Vanderslice - Sunken Union Boat

John Vanderslice - Fetal Horses (Live at The Empty Bottle in Chicago on 6/6/09)(right click save link as)


The Tallest Man on Earth - King of Spain (Live at Union Music in New York on 6/14/09) (right click save link as)
(courtesy of hooves on the turf)



John Vanderslice took a seat next to me on a sill beneath the large, glossy windows facing the bustle of Tremont Street as his band finished packing up their gear in the studio. His brown hair was disheveled from the headphones and his pale blue eyes gazed intently as if I were an old friend. He had about ten minutes before they were officially late to sound check for their show that night at the Middle East Downstairs. Their tour with The Tallest Man on Earth was in support of the newly released Romanian Names. Vanderslice told me his plans for after the gig, “Tonight we’re driving to Cape Cod and staying at Matthias’ parent’s house.” He said, “We’re sleeping on the beach, having dinner at three in the morning and then driving to D. C. It’s thrilling.” His love for performing makes a hectic touring schedule suit him well. The WERS studio session and the concert gave two unique perspectives to the pithy pop enchantments of John Vanderslice.

From outside, his manager put an iPhone to the glass so Vanderslice could see the time. He was ready to leave, but I asked him another question and he crossed his legs, interested in talking about pop music. “If we want to be very general, there’s a thread running from western classical music. Shit man, you can see echoes of it in Fleet Foxes and Animal Collective,” he said. “There’s a Bacchic kind of chord that’s part of what we do and what we’ve been doing for a long time.”

The buzz Vanderslice gets from playing his songs still lingered in his gestures and voice. It’s the reason why he’d rather not explain his music, encouraging fans to listen to his records any way they can. “Isn’t that the cool thing about the Internet, is that we don’t need to sell anything anymore? If you sign up for my twitter, it’s free. I’m not obliged to say anything intelligent,” he joked. “If you do something that you really feel passionate about doing and you spend a lot of time on it, people will come.” This attitude has been working for Vanderslice so far. Romanian Names is his eighth album and he’s played and produced music at his studio, Tiny Telephone, with The Moutain Goats, Spoon, Okkervil River and Death Cab for Cutie.

When asked to compare his experience in Boston to other places, he was cautious in defining the city as he noticed that the personality of the nation is blending together. “People move around so quickly in the states now. If you’re in Boston you could see someone that you saw in LA six months ago,” he said. “So, I wouldn’t say there’s a character difference going from city to city as much anymore.” He explained that his experience depended more on the architecture of the room, the sound system and the audience. As far as Boston’s listeners go, Vanderslice feels like he fits in well. “Boston’s got a very well educated music audience, like New York,” he said. “Those are the people that I relate to, man.”

Vanderslice said he likes the energy of playing in the studio better than at a live show or on a recording. “It all happens really fast. It’s an arrangement that’s determined by their instruments. For example, I’ve never seen Jamie play upright bass,” Vanderslice said. “He’s never played any of those arrangements. Things like that make it an immediate challenge.” At WERS, John Vanderslice took the form of a five piece acoustic set. Jamie is James Riotto, who helmed the deep, meandering bass line for “Romanian Names.” It’s a song that Vanderslice explicated later at the show to be about two gymnasts who fall in love, but shouldn’t be together. Sylvain Carton relinquished his guitar duties for the session to play woodwinds and his delicate flute playing set the floral ambiance of the tryst.

The mood then shifted to the bumping chill of “Forrest Knolls,” guided by Ian Bjornstad’s spacious, booming piano. The drummer Matthias Bossi sat with only a floor tom and thumped out the skittering heartbeat of the song. This eerie aura framed the listener in a movie shot from the stalker’s point of view, watching deer through a window and from down a long hallway. Carton switched between flute and saxophone to punctuate the track. Vanderslice’s melodies for the last two tunes, “Too Much Time” and “Sunken Union Boat,” were so addictively catchy that afterwards any radio listener must’ve gone through a touch of withdrawal.

The concert that night at the Middle East had a heavier, more energetic tone. The Tallest Man on Earth’s engaging and erratic opening performance was no exception. When Vanderslice chooses a band to tour with, he wants them to be someone with whom he’s close. “We’ll never play a show without knowing who the person is, not only their music, but as people,” he said. There must be some cosmic force behind this idea, because Vanderslice has a knack for touring with artists that end up getting a lot of attention. “We choose everyone we tour with. We toured with St. Vincent, Bishop Allen, Bowerbirds, Sufjan Stevens. We might just be ahead of the curve and later people catch on,” he said. The Tallest Man on Earth’s first release Shallow Grave has already garnered a lot of favorable attention.

This lone Swedish guitarist’s finger picking was so furious you wouldn’t think he’d be able to concentrate on anything else. Kristian Matsson wandered around the whole stage the way his lyrics and sound venture without a compass through the wilderness. There was an unpredictable comedic element to his performance flowing from the enthusiastic and crazed faces he made at the crowd. During guitar interludes he walked right up to the audience and awkwardly bowed in, at times face to face, forcing them to lean back to avoid the guitar. It was a sight which always elicited laughter. Combined with the intensity of his sharp rasping voice and his possessed stage presence, his set was simply fun to watch. His set ended with the life-threatening fury of "King of Spain," a brilliant unreleased song in which Matsson yearns to dethrone Spanish royalty (and wear his "boots of Spanish leather").

Back at the studio, Vanderslice warned me that for his live show I should expect something far more aggressive. There were thrashing thunderous riffs on songs like “Fetal Horses.” They played songs off of nearly every album, including many songs from Cellar Door. The band took their usual arrangements with Sylvian Carton’s hollow body electric guiding rhythm and melodies. Ian Bjornstad manned the electronic grindstone, playing the keys of a beautiful antique Wurlitzer and a Moog synthesizer. The only thing missing from Vanderslice’s live show were the digital decorations and the flurries of female voices or layered vocals, which adds a lot of the individuality to his recordings.

Even when the band left the stage for Vanderslice’s solo acoustic, his songs still had intensity. He played “Lucifer Rising” from the tour only release Moon Colony Bloodbath, his latest EP written with John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats. The low lighting bathed his face in bloody colors for the cannibalistic curse in which he took the role of “John the Ripper.” Vanderslice said, “We wanted to make this song as violent as possible, but we probably could’ve taken it further,” with which the crowd agreed. Even lines about tearing through flesh seem to contain his defining optimistic ambience.

Vanderslice and his band jumped down into the middle of the crowd to play their last song acoustically around a little lamp on the floor. They got the whole crowd singing “Keep the Dream Alive” from Time Travel is Lonely. Vanderslice joked that he wanted to have a Public Enemy dance party at the end of their set, but this sadly never materialized. Instead, Vanderslice hung out at the merch table, embracing fans with blissful euphoria.

John continues to tour in support of Romanian Names around the country through October.

www.myspace.com/thetallestmanonearth

www.johnvanderslice.com

~Lee Stepien

Photography by Amanda Albion

Posted at WERS.org on June 23rd, 2009

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Concert Review:: Maria Taylor, Johnathan Rice and Nik Freitas at The Paradise, June 23, 2008 at the Paradise

Maria Taylor serenaded her fans at the Paradise on Monday, June 23, along with friends Johnathan Rice and Nik Freitas. Like the intermingling indie circle at Saddle Creek, each musician played in each other’s live bands. The music was more stripped down then their recorded siblings, sticking to an electric and acoustic guitar, bass and drums, but it provided for a very personal concert experience.

The opener, Nik Freitas recorded all his albums himself, before joining Team Love Records and Conor Oberst’s Mystic Valley Band. He tracked his latest release, Sun Down at his house in Pasadena, for the most part recording every instrument himself. In accordance with his singular style, Freitas played most of the set alone. It was just him and his acoustic guitar, strapped around him with a belt and coat hanger. He played fast and slow tunes without a pick and with painless precision.

During "Sophie", his voice heaved like Bob Dylan and he plucked his guitar with adeptness similar to Elliott Smith. "All the Way Down" felt like a jive down Sesame Street, an innocent and playful song that would make you want to dance.


Johnathan Rice began his set with a few cowboy songs including "Further North", the title track of his latest release, backed by Taylor on drums and Freitas on guitar. A few songs later, Rice took the stage alone to play some ballads. He bellowed sweetly along to the counterintuitive message of "It is Best to Keep it All Inside."

Rice’s stage presence gave a little extra flavor to his sets. Whereas Freitas’s and Taylor’s felt like an intimate display of emotion, Rice’s was personal in another way. He would take the time to crack a joke or tell a story before songs. “I have to apologize because the last few times I was in Boston, I was in sorry shape,” Rice began toward the end of his set, referring to how drunk he had been. “But, I’ve been drinking naked juices all day. I’m seeing Boston clear and … it’s looking alright!”

The sarcasm of his personality matches his music, with ironically upbeat tunes about death, like "We’re All Stuck Out in the Desert (and We’re Going to Die)", which ended Rice’s set. He called it the "feel bad hit of the summer."

Before giving her set "A Good Start", which she opened with, Maria Taylor in her blueberry dress declared, “I’ve had way too many cigarettes today.” She whispered with entrancing vitality, while strumming her hollow body electric guitar. Seeing Taylor live enhances the sweetness and innocence of her songwriting. The acoustic guitar, played by Taylor Hollingsworth, had a white body and was decorated with playful sharpie patterns.

She then bounced into "Lady Luck", which she said would be the title track of the new record she was working on, which has an undetermined release date. The standout new song she played was "Orchids". After the show, we went out in front of the Paradise to talk while Taylor had another cigarette. She said "Orchids" is her favorite new one to play because “It’s a quiet song and it’s really nice when we all come in together." Taylor said she went all out on the production of the new record, including full string and woodwind sections.

A cover of The Carpenters song "The End of the World" was given new life by Taylor’s ethereal vocals. Before the encore, the band rocked out to a riotous, distorted jam version of "Xanax". Afterward, Taylor took the stage to perform alone, playing requests from the audience. She explained why her guitar was duct taped together, telling a story about their last show in Kingston where they all got rowdy and woke up with bruises and broken instruments.

Looking toward the future, Taylor wants to get something together with her sister, Kate, and her brother, Macey. “Family band: 2010!” she said.

www.nikfreitas.com

www.johnathanrice.com

www.mariataylor.com

~Lee Stepien

Photography by Ben Weitzenkorn

Published to WERS.org on June 23, 2008

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Album Review:: Bob Dylan - Together Through Life

Bob Dylan initially wrote “Life is Hard” by request of French filmmaker Olivier Dahan for his upcoming movie, My Own Love Song. A blues infused, slow-churning groove record dilated from that one song into Together Through Life.

Simple tales of romance, told in black and white on old 35mm film, flicker from Dylan’s 33rd release. It makes for a much lighter listen than the previous, heavily themed Modern Times. Dylan said he channeled the energy from his days with Chess and Sun Records early in his career.

The sound is spontaneous and ragged, as if a session band were jamming at a bar with Dylan rambling into the microphone, a beer on the floor by his tempo tapping boot. An example is the opener “Beyond Here Lies Nothin’,” which has a kick to its meandering solos and tattered vocals. Dylan even uses his sense of humor on the album, with lines like “hell is my wife’s hometown” from the song of the same title.

The session band he’s assembled is a diverse group. For nine out of the ten songs, Dylan shared the pen with Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter and his band is joined by guitarist Mike Campbell of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Along with the playful mood, there is simultaneously a ghastly effect as the cathedral accordion compliments of David Hidalgo from Los Lobos floats around Dylan’s grizzled groans.

In the ballad of longing “Life is Hard,” Dylan’s voice is at times pleading even to make a noise. The instrumentation on this track is the most unique as mandolin plinks nicely into the strings of a slide guitar.

It’s hard not to think that whenever Dylan mentions change that it carries the heavy burden of significance. However, “I Feel a Change Coming On” is a reluctant love song with James Joyce references and uncluttered phrases like “life is for love.” He seems to be unfettered, even though he notes that “some people say I’ve got the blood of the land in my voice.”

The speeding, locomotive “It’s All Good” does breeze through some light social commentary like “big politicians telling lies” and “wives are leaving their husbands.” Mostly though, the song affirms Together Through Life’s overall easy going, worry free philosophy, ending the album with an ode to simplicity.

Mango Nebula Favorite from this artist:
Bob Dylan - The Times They are a Changin'

www.bobdylan.com

Published at WERS.org on June 16th 2009.

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Man goNe bula.

send your thoughts and ideas this way:

Lee Stepien
princeofilliterature@gmail.com

***Please DO NOT send me automated messages without contacting me first. It's just annoying and impersonal.

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