The Wheel's Still In Spin

Best Albums Of September 2007

Summer is offiically over. And the only good thing that brings is a large amount of real good releases. This month had a number of strong releases. Here is a list of the best:

1. Black Lips - Good Bad Not Evil | buy it at insound! and receive a FREE Black Lips DVD entitled Do They Walk On Water (while supplies last).

   This band sounds like a combination of 50's rock and punk. While the album is full of songs that are smart and edgy, "O Katrina" makes this album great on its own. This band keeps getting better and better which each release.



2. Iron & Wine - The Shepherd’s Dog | buy it at insound!

   Sam Beam adds full instrumentation to this entire album. The songs still have the emotional qualities, but the arrangements are full and lush. It took me a few listens to get into the album, but once I did I was unable to stop listening.



3. Japanther - Skuffed Up My Huffy | buy it at insound!

   This is minimalistic dance punk tunes. Self described as "Two guys, bass, drums, tapes falling over anthemic awesomeness." Short, quick punk songs full of samples and low end heavy music behind pop style melodies. It's lo-fi and witty. It's great.



4. Oakley Hall - I'll Follow You | buy it at insound!

   This New York band melds rural and urban sounds into a unique version of country rock. The music is layered with acoustic and electric guitars, an electric guitar strung as a banjo, electricified fiddle, slide and steel guitar, melodic bass, and drums. The vocals sound mature and seasoned. The songs are full of dynamic and original arrangements.



5. The Weakerthans - Reunion Tour | buy it at insound!

   This band creates poppy sounding story vinettes. Lots of guitar driven songs with the specific characterization stylings and sonic qualities of The Decemberists and Fountains Of Wayne.



6. AA Bondy - American Hearts

   Each listen to this al country album highlights the subtlties that make is a notable. The produce is great. The instrumentation is diverse and the playing can volley between sounding simple times and full of complexities. The handclaps, varying electric guitar tones, and pianos and wonderful layers to the acoustic guitar based tracks. Bondy's voice sounds mature and learned.



7. The Acorn - Glory Hope Mountain

   Lead singer Rolf Klausener based this album on his mother's story from her beginnings in Hondoras to her immigration to Montreal. The album is an excellent project that is full of lush indie rock with hints of world beat influences.



8. Little Barrie - Stand Your Ground | buy it at insound!

   This three-piece band from the UK plays good retro blues. It's high energy, raucous blues rock. Kind of sounds like an English power trio version of The White Stripes.



9. Daniel G. Harmann - Anthems From The Gentle War

   This album is full of musical landscapes that are lush, sincere, and diverse. He's a singer-songwriter, but one who writes songs with a larger palette of emotions than most songwriters. This is the kind of album that would be perfect to listen to if you were taking a relaxing drive around the countryside, wanting to escape from, while keeping your mind focused on, a larger life.



10. Matt Pond PA - Last Light | buy it at insound!

    This album sounds like a grandiose version of Nada Surf. There are great layers of instruments, but all centered by an indie pop, melodic core of good songs.

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Midpoint Music Festival - Cincinnati, OH - Overview

This year's Midpoint Music Festival was a successful event. Since 2002, the festival has focused on showcasing independent original musicians. Each year, the number of participating bands has grown. As the festival grows, more out of town bands are added to the list of performers. This year also brought an handful of international artists.

The festival does not book nationally known and signed acts to perform. There are no label showcases here. All of the bands playing must be independently releasing their music and/or on a small label. This year there were a number of great performances from independent musicians. Most of the showcases of local and national acts were playing to substantial crowds. The festival seemed to go off without a problem.

Midpoint Music Festival also offered a conference on Friday and Saturday. Due to scheduling conflicts, I was not able to attend the conference either day this year. I was disappointed to miss one of the two keynote addresses. Lyle Preslar discussed his time with Minor Threat, as an A&R rep and label executive, and law degree and copyright analysis. Most of the panel discussions were guided towards the musicians in attendance and addressed recording, business, and licensing options.

The highlight of the festival was the evening's live performances. Breaking Laces, Coltrane Motion, Southeast Engine, Paper Airplane, and Western Civ were some of the standout acts. Here were some more of my favorites.

Midpoint Music Festival - Day Three - Cincinnati, OH - Sept 29th, 2007

Day 3 was the final night of the Midpoint Music Festival. Once again, there were full venues throughout downtown Cincinnati. Tonight I was able to squeeze in seeing and hearing these bands: Breaking Laces, leerone, Otter Petter, Paper Airplane, Ferdinand Fox, Lonesome Tumblers, Church Of The Red Museum, Turnbull AC's, Beau Alquizola Band, Miranda Sound, The Seedy Seeds, Hotpipes, and Stephanie's Id. The following is a list of my favorite performances.

Midpoint Music Festival - Day Two - Cincinnati, OH - Sept 28th, 2007

Day 2 of Cincinnati's Midpoint Music Festival showed a strong increase in attendance from Thursday night. The attendance for the opening performances this evening appeared to be equal to the strongest attendance from Day 1. The crowd continue to increase throughout the night, filling Cincinnati's Main Street in its Over The Rhine district. While Day 1 seemed to gather momentum as the night progressed, Day 2 was full of powerful bands from the evening's first notes played. With more people in attendance, it was a little harder to bounce around to venues. I was able to see these bands: Western Civ, For Algernon, Direc-T, Arrow Sparrow, Brice Woodall, Loyal Divide, The Wrenfields, Twilight Revival, Coltrane Motion, Southeast Engine, Of God And Science, The Newbees, The Electric Souls, and The Jack Fords. The following is a list of some of the strongest performances.

Midpoint Music Festival - Day One - Cincinnati, OH - Sept 27th, 2007

The sixth annual Midpoint Music Festival has descended upon Cincinnati, OH. With 19 stages and 240 bands, the festival is run by an all-volunteer staff and focuses on showcasing independent original musicians. With this many bands, I find it's best to try to catch a 3-4 songs of one band and then keep moving. Last night I was able to see: The Nathan Corsi Band, Mark Brecknell, The Prime Ministers, Josh Weinstein, Ruetschle, Elliott Ruther Trio, Hojas Rojas, Liz Pahl & The Pahlbearers, The Teenage Prayers, darynyck, Industrial Jazz Group, Angelo M., murmur, Cabin, and The Swarthy Band. What follows is a list of the highlights from the first day of showcases.

Oakley Hall - I'll Follow You

Release Date: 11 Sept 2007 (Merge)

Oakley Hall made my list of The Best Albums Of 2006. They mix together a cache of influences. There are rural tones, from fiddles and slides, to urban timbres, like distorted guitars and organs. Their latest album, I'll Follow You, throws the songbooks of country, rock, folk, and punk into a cauldron to make a thick, rich stew of original excellence.

No Dreams (mp3)

Charlie And The Music Factory

While most of Charlie's family seemed disconnected from his Uncle Jeff, the two had something in common. Charlie always looking forward to visiting his uncle and even went out of his way to do so. You see, the two both loved music.

Uncle Jeff grew up listening to the radio. He dreamed of being a radio DJ, spending his days listening to music, and talking about the music he loved. As it turned out, he spent his career as a computer programmer. But he spent most of his truly expendable income on music. In addition to buying the music he loved, he was also working on a collection of every song that every charted on Billboard.

During this particular visit, Charlie got into a conversation with his uncle about the genres of music.

"When I read a review or description of a band, they pigeonhole it into a specific sound. But when I read an interview with the bands I really like they always say they can't describe their music and list a wide range of influences. Why does all the music have to be defined by a specific genre?" Charlie asked.

Uncle Jeff never hesitated to speak his opinion as fact. "Because the record labels have to sell the music. They only know how to sell things that they can put in a box. So they market music by describing it as the sound the consumer is looking for. So we get these buzz words. A few years ago it was all about alt country. Now it's indie rock everywhere. But there's always going to be musicians who defy the genre specifics and keep making great music no matter what."

Okkervil River - The Stage Names

Release Date: 7 August 2007 (Jagjaguwar)

It was hard to write a short story review of this album. Lyrically, each song reads like a short story on their own. And the whole album adds up to a very descriptive tale. The imagery and symbolism is clear and tangible. Musically, the album is dense, dynamic, and diverse. The elements combine to create one of the best albums of 2007. Since the album is such a conceptual project, it seemed the best way to capture it's aura was to write this review as a movie script with a few of the songs from the album being the soundtrack to the movie.

Our Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe (mp3)

Steven's Movie

MUSIC: "OUR LIFE IS NOT A MOVIE OR MAYBE" BY OKKERVIL RIVER. The percussive acoustic guitar and subtle sustained tones open the film with a BLACK SCREEN

FADE IN:

EXT. B&W - CLOSED MOVIE THEATER

MUSIC lyrics "It's just a bad movie, where there's no crying"

CREDITS and MUSIC CONTINUES over following.