TCB
Choosing Darkness, a Chairman, and the much-appreciated new air-conditioning at Emo's
By Christopher Gray, Fri., June 10, 2005
Darkness at Noon
A lengthily named band beloved by both locals and the Pitchfork crowd is hard at work in Mob House Studios, but it's not owners ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. While the Worlds Apart crew tours Europe with Audioslave, thus uniting the authors of 2005's two best Interscope albums on the same bill, their good friends in I Love You but I've Chosen Darkness are keeping busy back on Reinli Street. The low-light quintet is working up material for their first proper album and possibly an EP and 12-inch single as well. A big reason for the fertile patch, relays guitarist/singer Christian Goyer, is their recent decision to sign to Secretly Canadian. Though they were courted by bigger labels, Goyer explains that the band liked the freedom offered by the Bloomington, Ind., indie. "We can do whatever we want without any of the hassles or weird expectations," he says, adding that fans can expect richer textures, different percussion, and more keyboard and electronic sounds than their stark 2003 Emperor Jones debut. "Where the EP was more us playing in a room, we're trying to make a record that's for listening," Goyer says. "How it's performed live will shake out at some point." (They may provide some clues Friday at Emo's, their only local appearance for the foreseeable future.) Chosen Darkness would like to have the LP out by the end of the year, but Goyer admits he loves working without a deadline. "It's amazing," he says. "It's nice to know that if you track a song and the tempo's a little slow, or that guitar sound sucks, or the bass doesn't sound right there, you're not fucked."
High Hopes
Not many people would mistake Terry Lickona for Frank Sinatra, but now they're both Chairman of the Board. May 27, the longtime Austin City Limits producer began his two-year elected term as chairman of the Recording Academy's national board of trustees, the first time for both a member of the Texas chapter and someone with a television background. Unfortunately, "I can promise the Grammys aren't moving to Austin, no matter how much clout I have," Lickona says from the big island of Hawaii, where he's been vacationing since learning the news. However, adds Lickona, he'd like to bring his years of ACL experience to bear both on the Grammy telecast and possibly other related TV projects. "The Grammy name opens a lot of doors," he says. Further priorities are increasing the Academy's membership and expanding its services into areas of the country not presently served by its existing chapters. Though it's an unpaid position, "I intend to be really active in this role," promises Lickona. "It's not just an honorary title." How will his new position sit alongside his ACL duties? Quite nicely: "I just confirmed Franz Ferdinand for a taping in September."
New York Minutes
According to the Village Voice's clarity-free syntax, Spoon's Gimme Fiction "has the trappings of adoration-averse post-hoopla ambivalence." This means it's OK for Vice subscribers to load "I Summon You" and "Sister Jack" onto their iPod Shuffles without any lingering guilt over liking a band from W.'s previous ZIP code. It also means Britt Daniel and friends are worthy of headlining the Voice's annual Siren Music Festival, July 16 at Coney Island. They and fellow acts Q and Not U, VHS or Beta, Mates of State, Brendan Benson, and the Dears will perform at the free event while enjoying gift bags of sponsor-provided goodies: shampoo from Garnier Fructis, shoes from Converse, music from Tower Records, and longnecks from "King of Indie Beers" Budweiser.
Also, SPIN's annual SXSW synopsis sprawls over a whopping seven pages in the current issue (My Chemical Romance cover). Senior writer Chuck Klosterman goes to church over Austin's Sword ("the guitar player looks exactly like Garth from Wayne's World"); Associate Editor Melissa Maerz thinks the Jackalope "is probably the crappiest dive bar down there"; Music Editor Charles Aaron met a local who waited in line four hours just to see the Bravery (poor kid); and AE Caryn Ganz "watched more bands set up than I heard." Half the photo spread is devoted to SPIN's day party at Stubb's, and in an unprecedented display of originality, the 20-year-old mag seems to think Young Heart Attack (now prepping the sequel to last year's Mouthful of Love) sounds a bit like AC/DC.
Mutual of Omaha
Nebraska-based synth troupe the Faint certainly lived up to their name at a sold-out Stubb's last Saturday, where it seemed like security had to carry out another gasping young Saddle Creek fan every other song. While conducting their séance with the ghosts of Depeche Mode and Skinny Puppy, singer Todd Baechle (pictured) et al. managed to steal the show out from under nominal headliner Bright Eyes. While Conor Oberst's crushingly romantic songs were sprawling, elaborate, and often overwrought, at least he didn't say anything stupid about Texas this time.
Bullet the Blue Sky
• Recent visitors to Emo's may have noticed its front room is no longer a sweat-sucking morass of swamplike humidity. Thanks to the arcticlike AC the club recently installed to the tune of thousands of dollars, you might even want to take a sweater. "Now we've got the coldest club and the hottest sluts," smiles manager Bill Stapleton. To properly insulate said space, they had to remove all those posters on the ceiling that amounted to a pictorial history of the club. Stapleton says the entire lot is yours for $5,000, or else they'll auction it off later this summer. And mark your calendars for Emo's lucky 13th anniversary July 15, when Boston post-punk pioneers Mission of Burma headline.
• That old Native American saw about photography stealing your soul evidently doesn't apply to musicians. If it does, several local photographers – including frequent Chronicle shutterbugs Kenny Braun, Traci Goudie, Scott Newton, and Todd Wolfson – have some explaining to do. See what they have to say about siphoning the life forces of Sara Hickman, Patty Griffin, Willie Nelson, the Polyphonic Spree, and others at – wait for it – "Capturing the Soul of a Musician," 7pm next Thursday at the Austin Museum of Art, 823 Congress Ave. The evening coincides with ultimate soul-stealer Annie Leibovitz's "American Music" exhibit, showing at AMA until Aug. 7. Tickets are $7, $5 for members and students, and benefit the SIMS Foundation's HAAM program.
• Anyone who didn't get enough of the Dicks' blues-punk grind back in March is in luck: They're back Saturday, along with singer Gary Floyd's Buddha Brothers and the Shootin' Pains, for Room 710's fifth anniversary. New York punks Electric Frankenstein headline Friday over Drunken Thunder, the Black Novas, and Poor Dumb Bastards. In case you're wondering, proper gifts for the fifth anniversary can be either wood or silverware.
• It's been an especially love-struck spring around the Chronicle. Last month at the Driskill, production guru Mark Gates married ad-sales sweetheart Tobi White, and now former Associate Music Editor Michael Chamy ends his bachelorhood Saturday in Austin by pledging his troth to longtime girlfriend Lela Bell. Yet to be determined is if the future Mrs. Chamy will allow their first dance as man and wife to be Kraftwerk's "Trans-Europe Express."
• Special aside to those in the know, or who'd like to be: Read local zine Misprint, if you can find it. You'll laugh. Their article on Austin bathrooms is very informative, especially if you happen to be in one at the time.
