And no, that wasn’t a plug for a show that over the years has disappointed me greatly, but that should serve as a quick and dirty reference to the kind of music a potential first-time listener should expect to listen to.

However, if that serves as a deterrent, then I will apologize in advance to Mr. Garneau. I was only trying to help.

I’ll try another one.

On El Radio (the follow-up to his debut Music For Tourists), Garneau channels the quirkiness of Andrew Bird with the delicate decoration of The Decemberists. I hope that works.

The aforementioned stylings happen with a relative calm that at times might seem a little too unstressed, while at other times seem rather dour — I have yet to fully absorb the opening “The Leaving Song” and all of its despondency. “Dirty Night Clown” (even with its higher tempo) somehow continues the not-so-upbeat mood.

I had trouble pinpointing my exact emotional response that resulted after the many full repeats of El Radio. Did I feel upset? Not really. Did I feel depressed? Nuh-uh. It wasn’t until another listen of the ballad “Hands On The Radio” that I realized Garneau had put me into a perpetual state of vulnerability. The playful “No More Pirates” and the Nellie McKay–like “Fireflies” somewhat alleviated the tension, but there was no use in denying that I needed a hug — badly.

I desperately wanted to be held by someone who loved me for me. I know this wasn’t a Kelly Clarkson album, but I still felt like I was falling without a parachute or like I was Maverick without Goose in the second act of Top Gun.

After the somber “Cats And Kids”, I officially felt as if Manny Pacquiao had punched me in the gut. It was too much. Life is too much. The “Black Hawk Waltz” can’t stop this emotional trainwreck. Chris, I think we need to take a break, at least for a little while.

[photos via Tell All Your Friends]
____

Track list:

1. The Leaving Song
2. Dirty Night Clowns
3. Raw And Awake
4. Hands On The Radio
5. No More Pirates
6. Fireflies
7. Home Town Girls
8. Over And Over
9. Cats And Kids
10. Les Lucioles En Re Mineur
11. Things She Said
12. Pirates Reprise
13. Black Hawk Waltz

There’s the ironic Nellie McKay and there’s the pop-heavy addicting Matt & Kim. Now, there’s also Elizabeth & The Catapult that somehow finds a balance between being smart and witty and smart and proper.

Elizabeth Abby Ziman (vocals), Pete Lalish (guitar), and Danny Molad (drums) met each other way back in 2004, and the three have spent the subsequent years experimenting and crafting their sound.

But oddly the three felt that New York wouldn’t be the best place to record their debut album Taller Children and instead had sessions in producer Mike Mogis’ Presto! Recording Studios in Omaha, Nebraska. Elizabeth explains, “New York is so much a part of us, and there’s such a kinetic energy here, but there was a sense of calm recording in Omaha that really added a new dimension to what we were doing” (press release).

The calm is definitely present in much of the album, even in the more upbeat pop songs like the jazzy pop number “Momma’s Boy” and the ‘kids will be kids’ tune “Race You.” The title track “Taller Children” helps really kick start the album’s overall theme in that growing up is a continual and probably never-ending fact of life. While it’s a true and ironic idea, Elizabeth puts it in a much more serious perspective: “On a grand scale, that can sometimes be a pretty scary concept, especially when it’s regarding people in power who can’t handle their responsibilities.” Unfortunately that perspective is still true and ironic.

With that in mind, Elizabeth & The Catapult keeps it mellow and serene as much as they can. From the Carpenters-sounding “Rainiest Day Of Summer” to the Feist-like “Apathy” to the folk ballad “Just In Time,” the trio doesn’t hesitate to recreate those moments where futures are determined by life-altering decisions.

Elizabeth lightens up music that could’ve been cliché and moody, especially in the dreary Leonard Cohen cover “Everybody Knows.” Taller Children is an interesting and enjoyable debut album from New York-based threesome Elizabeth & The Catapult.

[photo via Sneak Attack Media | Elizabeth & The Catapult]
____

Track list:

1. Momma’s Boy
2. Taller Children
3. Rainiest Day Of Summer
4. Race You
5. Apathy
6. The Hang Up
7. Hit The Wall
8. Right Next To You
9. Everybody Knows
10. Complimentary Me
11. Golden Ink
12. Just In Time

That’s not something any artist would usually admit much less proclaim as the 22-year-old Essex, England-native wouldn’t hesitate to do. “I would describe myself as a songwriter who sings.”

And sings she does on her self-titled debut. While Scattergood insists her music is personal and not autobiographical, it’s hard to believe her when the words she sings carry so much sympathy and weight. Neither slight nor tongue-in-cheek, her lyrics provide a dose of reality missing in a world yearning for stark truth or escapist fun.

Her Myspace page describes her music as alternative, which anyone would immediately shake their head no within ten seconds of listening to her. I’ve read “experimental pop” (to her horror), which oddly enough seems somewhat accurate. However, good ole Gracenote (or CDDB) is right on the money with “Unclassifiable.” Hopefully it’s not a system quirk.

How else could the brooding of “I Hate The Way” or the rankling of “Other Too Endless” be explained? When she puts the sass in overdrive with a legendary Elvis Presley lyric for good measure in “Please Don’t Touch” only images of contemporary society come to mind and not nostalgic flashbacks of a seemingly prehistoric black and white world.

A cross between Joanna Newsom and Nellie McKay, Scattergood’s merges the wry and veracity of today’s cultural demands.

It isn’t until “I Am Strong” hits you like a pot of hot coffee that you truly understand how Scattergood feels. Strangely proper and downright genuine, the declarative lyrics are soft yet firm, unabashed yet poignant, simple yet powerful. It just might be the anthem of this generation.

[photo via Mute Records]
____

Track list:

1. I Hate The Way
2. Other Too Endless
3. Untitled 27
4. Please Don’t Touch
5. I Am Strong
6. Unforgiving Arms
7. Poem Song
8. Bunny Club
9. Nitrogen Pink
10. Breathe In Breathe Out

The other descriptive words they use are “lyrical” and “rock” — both plain yet accurate. Ice Palace can be forgiven for using the general umbrella genre; however, lyrical hit me strangely. They didn’t use poetic, which I imagine musicians more in the vein of Bob Dylan or Neil Young.

I guess I’ve always associated lyrical with limericks or more amusing songs, like in the sassiness of Nellie McKay or the sarcasm of A Camp. In the end, happy hardcore fits better.

Wonder Subtly Crushing Us is Ice Palace’s second full-length LP, and first album on fellow Minnesota band Cloud Cult’s eco-friendly Earthology Records. Cloud Cult’s frontman Craig Minowa helped produce the album alongside the five-piece (Adam Sorensen — vocals/guitar, Jacob Grun — guitar/vocals, Amy Hager — keys, vocals, trumpet, Jacob Mullis — bass, vocals, guitar, and Joe Gaskill — drums). Ice Palace self-released their debut Bright Leaf Left in 2007.

Sorensen and Minowa have been friends for over a decade, and Wonder Subtly Crushing Us represents the first real (pseudo) collaboration between the two since their work on a single 4-track 15 years ago.

There isn’t any noticeable Cloud Cult influence on Ice Palace’s sophomore album, which seems like a mishmash of varying sounds. The opening “Phonebook Pillow” somewhat reveals the validity of the happy hardcore description with its overt positivity and quasi-ska punk sensibility.

This styling is found on other tracks (“Devils Tower” and “Thoughts/Facts”), but the whole album feels underwhelming when the happy-go-luck affair is juxtaposed to more folksy tracks like “Lily” and “Coliseum.” Oddly enough, the more interesting songs are the moodier ones. The brooding “Just Wait” exudes mysteriousness similar to a throwback to a spaghetti western, while “Younger In A Year” feels like it could be the anthem track to a Wes Anderson movie.

Unfortunately, Wonder Subtly Crushing Us runs at a short 32-minutes, which makes its inconsistencies more apparent. Ice Palace could have gone more in either the happy hardcore or the folksy Americana direction, but instead treaded down both for a very ‘is that it?’ experience.

[photos via Ice Palace]
____

Track list:

1. Phonebook Pillow
2. Devils Tower
3. Coliseum
4. Pirate By Thirty
5. Just Wait
6. Thoughts/Facts
7. Lily
8. Slow Motion Fall
9. Outside The Gates
10. Younger In A Year

Pop vocalist Nellie McKay stopped by Daytrotter to record an unusual nine songs. Most artists I’ve seen record only three to four tracks for their session.

Track list:

1. Oversure
2. Pink Chandelier
3. Politan
4. Mother Of Pearl
5. Tipperary
6. If I Had You
7. Do You Know
8. Inner Peace
9. Broadway Melody

Nellie McKay is her customarily upbeat and sometimes ironic self.

For those that want another download delivery (RS).

[photo via Star Tribune]

Saturday’s festivities began at 1:00pm, and featured SF’s lovely cloudy weather.

Abigail Washburn & The Sparrow Quartet Featuring Béla Fleck

I wasn’t too thrilled about seeing any of the opening acts, but I’m glad I decided to see banjoist Abigail Washburn alongside the Sparrow Quartet, with special guest acclaimed fiddler Béla Fleck. The group had just come back from playing in Beijing for the Summer Olympics, and they were really jazzed about playing in Golden Gate Park.

The group’s bluegrass music really matched well with the festival and its early easy-going attitude. The crowd was quite large, which surprised the group who were expecting a much smaller audience for the Sutro stage. But they didn’t disappoint, especially with the Chinese folk songs they played like “Kanding Qingge” which Washburn cited as a favorite overseas.

They also played “A Fuller Wine” that she wrote after listening to Puccini Opera and Woody Guthrie back-to-back. The finale “Strange Things That Happen Everyday” was the group’s attempt at breaking the festival’s harmony with a dose of “death, doom, and destruction.”

Everest

Los Angeles-band Everest was the next band I saw at the Presidio stage, and with the thirty minutes they were allotted played almost straight through with nary a word. Their mellow indie rock went well, with “Rebel In The Roses” being a stand-out performance.

Devendra Banhart

Easily the best performance of the festival, indie rocker Devendra Banhart did well to match the festival’s vibe with its brand of laid-back rock. The crowd was ecstatic with the cover of Mungo Jerry’s “In The Summertime.”

Banhart had so much energy, complaining that since he was from San Francisco he couldn’t get away with his crazy dancing. He danced anyway, but not with the robot that he mused about being one of his main moves. They hit the right chord of mellower affair like “Samba Vexillographica” with more body-moving tracks like “Long Haired Child” very well. The set was slightly shorter than advertised because the band really wanted to see Liars perform.

Sean Hayes

New York-native and current SF-resident Sean Hayes proved the perfect reflection of Outside Lands. “Alabama Chicken” was certainly his more amusing tracks, which Hayes described as what happens when you meet an Alabama chicken in Birmingham.”

I’m more used to Hayes’ more solo material, so it was a little weird to see him with a full band. One result was a more reggae tone to the otherwise up-tempo pseudo-blues number.

M. Ward

I only allotted twenty minutes for Oregonian M. Ward so I could get a good spot to see overlapping Nellie McKay. Like the earlier Hayes, I thought Ward would go a more solo route, but he also was accompanied with a full band, including two drummers. I guess I’m not too big a fan of his if that’s his normal band.

“Post-War” was a standout performance, but unfortunately I had to exit his Sutro stage area which was unbelievably crowded (no doubt because Regina Spektor was scheduled to play after).

Nellie McKay

My previous decision to skip out of M. Ward early proved disastrous. Lupe Fiasco ran overtime at the nearby Twin Peaks stage which would have drowned out Nellie McKay’s more intimate Panhandle stage performance. Unfortunately the official reason wasn’t officially announced and twenty minutes would pass before McKay finally walked onto the stage.

Unlike other performers, McKay was delightfully animated and talkative, even improvising a few of songs with political and current event tidbits as in her satirical “David,” “Sari,” and “The Dog Song.” At one point the SF weather became slightly uncomfortable for McKay who had to rush for a jacket, prompting an audience “aww” to which McKay replied “Cause I’m a bad motherf*cker!”

I guess I didn’t realize how political McKay was until almost every other song was given a brief commentary about the country’s current state, which leaned toward a more left sensibility. Although she teased the audience with what seemed to be a defense for John McCain until it was apparent she wasn’t defending him: “It’s not that McCain is too old (repeats)… it’s that his policies are f*cked up!” The crowd laughed and enjoyed the extra twenty minutes that McKay took back for starting late.

Regina Spektor

In spending twenty more minutes seeing McKay, I wasn’t able to rush to see Regina Spektor on time. I mentioned that lots of people were gathered to see M. Ward, and in fact there were tons more people to see Spektor play.

I wasn’t able to get a good position, and I really didn’t feel like weaving through people to get closer, but I was close enough to hear her well but far enough that I couldn’t see her. I caught a few pre–Begin To Hope songs, but then I left and headed toward the CrowdFire tent which was televising that particular performance. I left and then heard a large applause, which only meant that Spektor was singing “Fidelity.”

Two Gallants

San Francisco duo Two Gallants was a different band that I was used to seeing at the festival with their blend of emo, indie, and quasi-punk music. “Despite What You’ve Been Told” and “The Hand That Held Me Down” were very good songs.

Matt Nathanson

Singer-songwriter Matt Nathanson was enjoyably talkative too. There were undoubtably more females than males in the crowd, and it probably had something to do with Nathanson’s good looks (I’m assuming…).

His big hit “Come On Get Higher” was a huge crowd favorite. Being from SF, Nathanson was thrilled to be able to play and only spend ten minutes to get home. He remarked that the festival had an amazing renaissance fair feel with quips about horse-drawn carriages and references to his band mates as lieges.

He sang a song I think is called “Princess” that he wrote as a rip-off to Rick Springfield’s “Jessie’s Girl.” He admitted it, even pausing from the song to actually cover and ask for audience participation in “Jessie’s Girl.” There was also a song about the Kardashian family and their reality television show, which Nathanson commented as a show about “rich people doing stupid sh*t.”

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

I managed to get a better spot for Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers at the main Land’s End stage. I was surrounded by many die-hard Petty fans who couldn’t stop saying how much fun this festival was (which it was).

Petty and the band rocked the audience with “Free Falling” and the crowd-roaring favorite “Mary Jane’s Last Dance.” Petty mentioned the band’s intention to cram as much music into the set before the curfew law set in.

I was already getting sick of the cigarette and pot smoke blown in my face that when a technical malfunction delayed the performance for five minutes, I decided I had enough. Unfortunately for me that was only about a quarter or a third of the set, with the lone bright spot having a traffic-free exit from the festival grounds. I’ll have to check back at AT&T’s Blue Room for a videocast of the entire concert soon.

It’s more of a firm proclamation of what music Nellie wants to make and less of a dig on the music Norah makes. Nellie is one of those rare artists that is extremely passionate about the music, just look at her spats with her label executives.

These spats have delayed her music from being released in a more timely fashion, but Nellie’s third album Obligatory Villagers is out and without too much internal hassle. The most notable difference between her latest work and her previous albums is the length. Her debut and sophomore release, Pretty Little Head, were double disc efforts clocking in at least 60-minutes. Villagers plays a brisk 31-minutes.

Like many fans, this writer is disappointed that there is less Nellie to listen to, but Nellie’s music doesn’t disappoint. Nellie’s creative songwriting continues with the opener “Mother of Pearl” (“feminists don’t have a sense of humor / feminists just want to be alone / feminists spread vicious lies and rumor”), but it has a mellower tone than previous upbeat, light-hearted tracks like “David” or “Toto Dies.”

Overall there’s a more mature feel and a greater variety of genre-mixing and technique usage. There’s a big band-like intro in “Oversure,” an electric guitar solo in “Galleon,” a brief group sing-along in “Lovin,” and a duet with Nancy Reed in “Politan.” It’s interesting through all of these experiments (if you could call them that) that these songs still sound like Nellie McKay songs.

With her previous double-disc albums, there was a sense that Nellie was able to do creatively whatever she wanted and did so. Here, Nellie sounds more restrained, which probably has to do with the fact that Nellie was joined by many different musicians and thus needed to be more focused on the musical direction (especially since she orchestrated all of the tracks), in addition to maintaining flexibility in such a collaborative environment.

Nellie blends her vocals perfectly with the smooth jazz mood in “Gin Rummy,” controls what would seem like a manic presence in “Identity Theft,” and never gets carried away in the anthem-like “Testify.” Amusingly, Nellie closes the album with the very playful, new dance move-starting “Zombie.” A music video would be both amusing and informative. Nellie McKay always sounds like she’s having fun, and Obligatory Villagers is no exception.

Track list:

1. Mother Of Pearl
2. Oversure
3. Gin Rummy
4. Livin
5. Identity Theft
6. Galleon
7. Politan
8. Testify
9. Zombie