#Frenchkiss Records

[man-kills-everything]

You're screaming

And cursing

And angry

And hurting me

Then smiling

And crying

Apologising

#the antlers #hospice #antlers #antlers hospice #the antlers hospice #2009 #the antlers 2009 #alt rock #alternative rock #concept album #frenchkiss records #peter silberman #darby cicci #sharon van etten #Michael Lerner #Justin stivers #sylvia alive in nightmares #epilogue #the antlers epilogue #epilogue (sylvia alive in nightmares) #the antlers epilogue (sylvia alive in nightmares) #Spotify

[thejoyofviolentmovement]

New VIdeo: Hello Mary Shares Trippy and Uneasy "Spiral"

New VIdeo: Hello Mary Shares Trippy and Uneasy "Spiral" @HelloMaryBand @Frenchkissing @grandstandhq

Brooklyn-based indie rock trio Hello Mary — Helena Straight (guitar, vocals), Mikaela Oppenheimer (bass), and Stella Wave (drums, vocalsmutl) — can trace their origins back to high school: Oppenheimer and Straight started th band when they were high school freshmen. When they met Wave through happenstance, the trio became an inseparable unit with the band consisting of good friends, who are also…

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#Bryce Goggin #Frenchkiss Records #Hello Mary #Hello Mary Ginger EP #Hello Mary Looking Right Into the Sun #Hello Mary Rabbit #Hello Mary S/T EP #Hello Mary Sink In #Hello Mary Spiral #Hello Mary Stinge #indie rock #music #music video #New Video #Spiral #The Slipper Room #Tompkins Square Park #video #Video Review #Video Review: Hello Mary Spiral #Video Review: Spiral

[ramalbumclub]

20 Years of Almost Killed Me

Let me quickly run through the biography.

Craig Finn, future leader of The Hold Steady, was THAT kid in school - neither the first to be picked for the sports team, nor the last. A bespectacled adolescent navigating the school corridors, aware that there’s an “in-crowd” and he’s on the outs. 

He's the kid in-between - like most of us. Like me.

So what's the plan? How does he get from there to here?

Does he settle or does he aspire?

He does neither, he retreats into a world of books and music and becomes an expert in HIS field. He learns how to play guitar, becomes a fan of local Minneapolis bands like The Replacements and Husker Du, and, even though he's still a kid, he goes to see them at the "all ages hardcore matinee shows" in town.

Just a quick aside here but "hardcore matinee shows" sound like the most fun in the world - something to really build a day around. I'd basically vote for any political party that introduced them into the U.K.

But back to the story....

In his early '20s, Finn forms a band called Lifter Puller who are simultaneously pretty good but also not quite right. What works, spectacularly, is Finn's lyrics about drugs and the shady characters that surround them but "the not quite right" bit is the music - a sort of '80s inspired synth overdose that, at its worst, sounds like the soundtrack to a Brian De Palma movie and, at its best, sounds like the soundtrack to a Brian De Palma movie.

After a few albums, a modicum of success, Lifter Puller split up and Finn becomes a financial broker for American Express before moving to New York to get a job at a digital webcasting company. At this stage in Finn's life it would appear that his brief flirtation with a career in music had ended and he was now on a course for a series of jobs in tech and finance. In fact, he doesn't do anything related to music for two whole years. He's just the guy at work, the one who used to be in a band called Lifter Puller.

And then it happens.

Craig Finn is watching Martin Scorsese's The Last Waltz, the film of The Band's final concert, and he turns to his friend Tad Kubler, and says "Dude, why aren't there any bands like this anymore?"

Finn's observation is correct - there are no bands like that and I'm not sure there ever will be. But that's obvious, that's the bit we can all see. Even I've watched The Last Waltz and said to my mate Dan (I don't have a mate called Tad, I wish I did) - "Dude, why aren't there any bands like this anymore?"

No, what I love about this moment is what they did next. Finn and Kubler, there and then, decide to form a band like that. They took the completely mad decision in 2003, when everyone was still floored by that Neutral Milk Hotel album and everything it spawned, of creating a band with just guitar, bass, and drums.

They called themselves The Hold Steady and there wasn't a singing saw, a zanzithophone, or a wandering genie organ in sight.

What started out as an excuse for a bunch of guys in their '30s to hang out, drink, and play the occasional show, then becomes something of a going concern. Finn's lyrics, framed by Kubler's big riffs, created an unlikely breath of fresh air, a sense of celebration. Before long they're signed to Frenchkiss, the best name for a record label ever, and they release their first album - Almost Killed Me.

The album, in fact their career, opens with A Positive Jam, a song which tells the history of 20th Century America in 171 words. In the background, a lazy guitar struggles to wake up as the events are passed like road signs. It's their first song, on their first album, and after 90 seconds there's been a stock market crash, a World War, and 3 Kennedys are dead. The lyrical economy is remarkable, the way he deals with each decade precisely and definitively in one sentence. 

This is how he nails the '50s -

"We got shiftless in the '50s, holding hands and going steady, twisting into dark parts of the large Midwestern cities"

No need for the white picket fence trope, no need for Ike or Truman to co-star. Post war America perfectly reduced to "Holding hands and going steady". And then The Twist tells you the ‘60s are coming.  I got it straight away.

And this is how he nails the '70s -

"We woke up on bloody carpets, got tangled up in gas lines and I guess that's where it started"

He rhymed "carpets" with "started" and reduced the long term economic and political effects of the 1973 Oil Crisis to a line. What's not to like? I can still vividly remember my first listen now - the time, the place, and an album cover of blacked out faces. It was immediate. I was in.

And I didn't even know then what I know now, that he was providing context - that he was explicitly saying "We have shared history." Because at the end of the song, he brings us up to date, the guitar does wake up and the band kicks in. It's then that he tells us that he was bored so he started a band, it's then that he tells us that he wants to start it off with a positive jam.

The first time I heard Almost Killed Me I rewound the opening song again and again. I guess the "positive jam" that the song was trailing was The Swish, the second song on the album. But I couldn't get to it, I couldn't get past how good the opener was. I listened to it five times on the spin – by the time I was finished 15 Kennedys had died.

But then I did I get past it. I got to The Swish and my head fell off. Honestly, I stood there laughing, air riffing and dancing, in thrall to my new favourite band after just two songs. The bridge from A Positive Jam to The Swish is one of THE moments in music for me. It simultaneously comes out of nowhere yet evokes a memory. I made it through the rest of the album, breathless and giddy.

I'd never heard anything like it, despite having heard things like it.

Does that make sense? That bit really needs to make sense.

You know when The Sopranos came out and you thought "Jesus, not another story about Italian American Gangsters. Surely not THAT again." But then you watched it and saw that the characters were immersed in that culture as much as the viewer. They existed within their own context and couldn't move without referencing it.

And that was the difference. It was derivative but it was spun, from an angle so it wasn't head on.

That's The Hold Steady. That's Almost Killed Me.

It would be easy to say it's my favourite album of the 21st Century if only it didn't have to compete with what they did next - Separation Sunday, Boys and Girls in America and, finally, the hangover, Stay Positive. Finn had done it, with his friends they'd made one of the greatest runs of albums ever - an aggregate score of at least 36 out of 40.

At least.

Yes, there were comparisons to things you'd heard before, a familiarity, but for me it was almost entirely different. People screamed Springsteen, people screamed The E Street Band but I never really knew why. These weren't stories about open roads, about making love to the interstate. These were stories about the claustrophobia of community, about the kids in between - confined by drugs and religion. And you know what? Springsteen never swished through the city centre to do a couple of favours for some guys who looked like Tusken Raiders did he? No he didn't, he was probably driving somewhere.

The Hold Steady wore their influences on their sleeve but they spun them. They humoured them. They said "Tramps like us and we like Tramps" and told stories about people who looked like people -  people who looked like Rocco Siffredi, Elisabeth Shue, Izzy Stradlin, Alice Cooper, Mickey Mantle, and, of course, Tusken Raiders. They were doing that thing again - they were saying "We know you know. Because we have shared history"

But this analysis, my attempt at explanation, is nothing compared to the visceral triumph and joy of a Hold Steady show - the pleasure of watching this band that had been plucked from their own lives and were creating anew. I used to spend hours looking at the bass player, I'd never seen anyone work so hard whilst standing still - a man who started the night dry and ended it dripping in sweat and smiles.

And then there was Finn - the inbetweener, the most generous of front men. He was always so warm and inclusive to his audience, so glad that they're there with him. Yet he never forgets the band. Never. And for someone so wordy it's remarkable the gaps he leaves for them - the gaps for them to play and for him to admire. Often he’d be clapping, dancing, and having so much fun in admiration, that I’d worry he’d forget to join in again – that he’d forget that the moment after the gaps were his.

But he never did.

Fast forward to 2014 - to the Holiday Inn, in Brighton, a few hours after a Hold Steady show.

I'd probably had my back to him for about 10 minutes, having a night cap at the hotel bar and thinking about what had come before. But then I turned around and there he was - Craig Finn, sitting alone, a hero rather than a star. I decided to say hello and he gestured for me to sit down. We talked about The Last Waltz. I asked him if it was true, whether that's really how it started, and he said it was. We talked about the rest of the film, all those conversations, you know where they go - Joni Mitchell and all her chords; Van Morrison and that ridiculous high kick. And somewhere in the drink and The Last Waltz I lost the memory of the night, other than to say he was good company and he paid his way.

And if I met him now?

If I met him now, I'd probably get lost down another rabbit hole - about how we're the same age and how I wasn't picked first for the sports team either. I'd ask him how he feels now, at 44, about the start he gave himself at 33 - whether that still surprises him, whether it ever did. Whether he knows, REALLY knows, that for about four years The Hold Steady were the best band in the world. But more than that I'd tell him about how HE influenced, how HE inspired, about how Ruth and I always used to say this album club was about spinning familiar stories, about telling them from an angle rather than head on - just like The Hold Steady.

Because that's what we used to say. When we wanted to avoid nostalgia and reheating the past , we used to say it should be "JUST LIKE THE HOLD STEADY".

And before I lost another evening, and its fluid memory, I'd like to take the opportunity to thank him for that.

Martin Fitzgerald (2014)

[calvsy]

[mymelodic-chapel]

The Drums- Portamento (Indie Pop, Jangle Pop, Indie Surf) Released: September 13, 2011 [Frenchkiss Records] Producer(s): Jonathan Pierce, Jacob Graham, Connor Hanwick

#indie pop #jangle pop #indie surf #2010s #2011 #The Drums

[swvlswvl]

My Favorite Albums of 2023

Previously: 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014

I haven't been posting here much lately. In fact, my last post was exactly a year ago, when I shared my last year-end list. You can always find my most recent writing over at my Rolling Stone author page, if you're looking for it. Anyway.... here are 30 albums I loved in 2023!

Boygenius, The Record (Interscope)

Blondshell, Blondshell (Partisan)

Model/Actriz, Dogsbody (True Panther)

McKinley Dixon, Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!? (City Slang)

El Michels Affair & Black Thought, Glorious Game (Big Crown)

Wilco, Cousin (dBPM)

Annie Blackman, Bug EP (Father/Daughter)

Mitski, The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We (Dead Oceans)

Tainy, Data (Neon16)

NewJeans, Get Up EP (ADOR)

billy woods & Kenny Segal, Maps (Backwoodz Studioz)

U.S. Girls, Bless This Mess (4AD)

Olivia Rodrigo, Guts (Geffen)

Blur, The Ballad of Darren (Parlophone)

Debby Friday, Good Luck (Sub Pop)

Hello Mary, Hello Mary (Frenchkiss)

Belle and Sebastian, Late Developers (Matador)

Anohni and the Johnsons, My Back Was a Bridge for You To Cross (Secretly Canadian)

Bonny Doon, Let There Be Music (ANTI-)

The Rolling Stones, Hackney Diamonds (Polydor)

Water From Your Eyes, Everyone's Crushed (Matador)

Katie Von Schleicher, A Little Touch of Schleicher in the Night (Sipsman)

Victoria Monet, Jaguar II (Lovett/RCA)

Patio, Collection (Fire Talk)

Lil Yachty, Let's Start Here (Quality Control/Motown)

Bar Italia, The Twits / Tracey Denim (Matador)

Allegra Krieger, I Keep My Feet on the Fragile Plane (Double Double Whammy)

Sen Morimoto, Diagnosis (City Slang)

Palehound, Eye on the Bat (Polyvinyl)

Bully, Lucky for You (Sub Pop)

#year in music #best albums of 2023 #music #Boygenius #Blondshell #Mitski

[parkerbombshell]

#BombshellRadiomelodicrockradioshowrockalternativejustanothermenacesundaydjDennistheMenaceSynthpopradioreplaytodayTheyMightBeGia

[chasenews]

SOMEBODY’S CHILDShares new single ‘I Need Ya’

SOMEBODY’S CHILDShares new single ‘I Need Ya’

Photo credit: Jim Fuller Today, Somebody’s Child aka Cian Godfrey shares new single ‘I Need Ya’ – another taster of his debut self-titled album out 3rd February via Frenchkiss Records. The album has its roots in Godfrey’s formative years growing up in Dublin and the experiences that went with it. It was recorded at East London’s Hackney Road Studios with the producer Mikko Gordon (The Smile,…

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[radiomax]

Thursday 11/10/22 7pm ET: Feature LP: Passion Pit - Gossamer (2012)

Thursday 11/10/22 7pm ET: Feature LP: Passion Pit – Gossamer (2012)

Gossamer is the second studio album by American electropop band Passion Pit. It was released on July 20, 2012, by Columbia and Frenchkiss Records. Recorded in 2011 in Los Angeles and New York City, the album was produced by Chris Zane, who also produced the band’s debut album Manners (2009), and lead singer Michael Angelakos. In an August 2010 interview with NME, Angelakos stated that work had…

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#Feature LP #Passion Pit #RadioMax #Wikipedia

[ithinkibetterfollowyouaround]

Les Savy Fav - "Legendary Tippers"

Les Savy Fav have shared the first single, “Legendary Tippers” off what will be thie upcoming album “LSF:OUI” out sometime soon via Frenchkiss Records. The video for the song was directed by Matt Conboy. Tim Harrington shared this about the song: “When we finished our last record, there was a sense that if we were going to do more, we wanted to do something more ambitious. I think it took us a…

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[fancypantsrecords]

The Antlers - Hospice | Frenchkiss Records | 2019 | White

#the antlers #hospice #frenchkiss records #vinyl #colored vinyl #lp #music #records #record collection #rock #indie rock

[goodsouldept]

There are no angels. http://islandislandisland.com/ https://www.facebook.com/islandislandisland https://www.instagram.com/islandislandisland/ https://island.bandcamp.com/music (ISLAND)

#indie #indiepop #indie rock #vocal #ballad #alternative #island #feels like air #london #uk #british #leo taylor #beatnik creative #frenchkiss records

[abductionradiation]

Seattle, WA -- If you’re looking for something a bit somber to round out your week, take a listen to Valley Maker’s new song “A Couple Days”. The instrumentation really has this hum to it that is numbing yet hypnotic at the same time. Valley Maker’s vocals almost feels like a consistent chant across the song but there’s a depth to the lyrics that draws you in more. “A Couple Days” is a song that you can put on repeat and find yourself getting lost in it every time.

“A Couple Days” is from Valley Maker’s upcoming album Rhododendron out October 12 via Frenchkiss Records.

Connect with Valley Maker:

Official Site | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

#valley maker #seattle #frenchkiss records #rhododendron #toro y moi #chaz bundick #austin cran #austin crane #singer-songwriter

[sinceileftyoublog]

Eleanor Friedberger Album Review: Rebound

BY JORDAN MAINZER

On “Nice To Be Nowhere”, a song from Eleanor Friedberger’s new album Rebound, things are slow. Not much is happening about anything. It’s winter, or maybe fall, perhaps the beginning of spring, probably not summer. The windows aren’t down. It’s a song for being inside, appropriate for an album Friedberger recorded mostly alone with lots of programmed drums and Juno synthesizer (unlike her previous album New View, which included members of Cones as her backing band). Rebound is inspired by time Friedberger spent in Greece, and it’s named after a club there open only on Saturdays after 3:00 A.M. where people go either by themselves or in groups not to interact with the crowd at large. And everybody does the chicken dance. This kind of solitude-influenced absurdity is all over Rebound, where your semblance of time, place, and the rules of physics low-key go out the window.

To say that there are no real standout lyrics or tracks on Rebound is not a slight--it’s to say that it’s cohesive in its great writing. The songs have the uncanny ability to sound free-flowing even though they were labored over, their arrangements changed a bunch. The washy, swaying, Beach House-like synth melody of opener “My Jesus Phase” (one of multiple tracks to reference Friedberger’s acquaintance with a born-again Christian) transitions naturally into the “Time After Time” melody and buzzy guitars of “The Letter”. “Now all we do is fuel, refuel / Yak, yak, yak,” Friedberger sings, poking fun at modern life the way she’s always done best. She’d rather react to what comes her way. “Coat’s covered in ash and my heart’s still full of wine,” she sings on “It’s Hard”. “Arms swing in time to the tune I don’t know / Sounds familiar but it’s sure not The Cure.” To say that Rebound goes with the flow is an understatement.

Yet, Rebound’s zen-like quality is important when Friedberger uses it to empower herself and others. “Everything” is a song against the idea of having to compromise, in a relationship or life in general. “A house, a chair and a rug / That’s everything / I mean two houses, please,” she quips. “Make Me A Song”, meanwhile, purposefully tries to connect to everyone: “It takes the ear to hear the waves / And the heart to know your fears, so fear it / There’s no hiding here.” And then there’s “Are We Good?”, an extremely goofy track that’s composed entirely from text message fragments, most of which Friedberger sent to others. It's so surreal, it makes Courtney Barnett songs appear like Rockwell paintings in comparison. Over arpeggio synth lines, hand percussion, and guitar stabs, Friedberger paints a picture of a world where relationships between people and people and animals disrupt our everyday schemas. “I proposed to a woman for a man last night / She said yes, they cried and we kissed,” a much more joyful version of the heartbreakingly uncomfortable surrogate scene in Her.

That the album ends with “Rule of Action” is the final confirmation that Friedberger’s artistic vision is complete. Its aesthetic is strikingly similar to And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out-era Yo La Tengo: jazzy drums, Casio keyboard, cymbals, bass, and low-fi, whispered vocals. That album’s ultimate sense of calm is a predecessor to Rebound’s. Friedberger may sing of “Days with no structure and nights with bad dreams / When we don’t know if the door is open or closed,” but the process of writing songs, embracing culture, and exploring her own relationship to the world gives her purpose.

7.3/10

#eleanor friedberger #album review #rebound #frenchkiss records #new view #cones #beach house #courtney barnett #norman rockwell #yo la tengo #And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out #her

[knowledgepronto]

Local Natives – World News Local Natives - World News

#Frenchkiss Records #Gorilla Manor #Infectious Records #Local Natives #Matthew Lessner #world news

[heartbreakingbraverywi]

Twen - Holy River (Stream)

Twen – Holy River (Stream)

Twen have been quietly kicking around the upper midwest punk scene for a while, taking their time in perfecting a psych-inflected strain of dream pop on tracks like the recent “Holy River”. While their audience has yet to blossom, a recent signing to Frenchkissonly means that next step’s only a matter of time. The tracks they’ve been releasing leading up to their first major effort for the label…

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#Frenchkiss #Frenchkiss Records #Holy River #stream #Twen