Looking for Good Lyrics?

David Bazan is easily one of my top five favorite songwriters. As the brains behind Pedro the Lion and The Headphones, he's got a catalog of fine material that is worthy of some serious listening time. Now, Bazan is recording and performing solo, and playing house shows across the country by request! Yep, that's right. In an unusual move, Bazan played several house shows in the pacific northwest, and will be playing more shows on the east coast this August. Check out more details at Bazan's website.

For now, take a listen to one of Bazan's solo recordings. It's a solo version of a great Pedro the Lion song that highlight's his masterful lyrics. Enjoy!

David Bazan - When They Really Get To Know You They Will Run

Amazon / iTunes

Bazan's Official Website

-Chris

Album Review: Far

It's been three years since Regina Spektor's last studio album, Begin to Hope, was released. At the time, I remember thinking to myself that despite certain strong tracks, it was no Soviet Kitsch. But there were definitely some strong tracks, "Fidelity", "On the Radio", "Apres Moi" and "Summer in the City" to name a few. The real problem with the album for me was when she took the focus off of herself with guitars and a more bandlike sound, moving away from just her piano. In particular, "Better" demonstrates a song for me that stopped working after a few listens. On her latest album, she moved farther away from the sound that originally enveloped me, and despite a few standouts, maturity isn't doing it for me as much as her earlier material. The songs I find I like the most are the ones already released on Demo Cassette almost 10 years ago. Sonically, the album sounds great, her voice really sounds amazing, the production is very good. The problem is that she sounded better lo-fi, in my opinion, it almost sounds too dressed up, too professional. She was the best at making songs that didn't sound good sound good, if that makes any sense (maybe only to me...) I liked it better when she was the one drumming, and not some random person who didn't write the music. Despite seeming ornery, the truth is that Far is a very good album, very professionally done, and I'm just a little sad that the woman who captivated me a few years ago is changing, but that's my problem, not her's. The truth is, she's doing better than ever, and so long as she's happy, I should be happy. Back in 2005, when I was 15, I didn't know much about music. And when I heard Soviet Kitsch for the first time, it was a total and complete musical renaissance for me. It completely and utterly changed my opinion of what music could and should sound like. So while Far may not be as groundbreaking for me personally, there's no reason it can't be as groundbreaking for a lot of people, and maybe this album does have that capacity in itself. But to be honest, it seems like the person who said, "Can't I just be left alone? I want to take a fucking bath."[1] seems to have changed, maybe for the better, maybe for the worse. You should still check out Far, but you should definitely also check out her other albums if you have not done so already.

Regina Spektor - Daniel Cowman[1]
Preorder Far:ITunes

-Donovan

Your LOL Moment of the Week

In case you haven't heard this yet, here it is. Big hit of the summer? We'll see...

Photo by Victoria Jacob

Das Racist- Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell (Wallpaper remix)
Das Racist MySpace

-Chandler

Here We Go Magic

This is a simple post about a simple song by a group called Here We Go Magic. The song is called "Fangela," a track with a muddy sound and a persistent beat. As the song runs, melodies rise out of the murk, and the various layers make more sense. But really, it's all about the simple refrain:

Fangela, look at me / All is yours 'til the morning comes

Fangela, look and see / Feast your eyes on a winded world

Here We Go Magic - Fangela

Amazon / iTunes

Here We Go Magic MySpace

-Chris

TL/Rx & Titus Andronicus @ Toad's Place: 6/19/09

Well what can we say about Titus Andronicus? It was loud and fun, and lead singer Patrick Stickles was sporting a King Leonidas-like beard. With an array of thundering guitar-heavy songs including covers of Misfits and others, Titus melted our ears and warmed them up nicely for Ted Leo.

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists took the stage right on time and opened with a fantastic version of "Little Dawn." What made it so great? Ted Leo broke into a short cover of "One More Time" over the regular beat, sending the f/k clan into a bit of a frenzy. Unfortunately, that high caliber of energy was never reached again, despite classics like "Me and Mia" and "Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone." Overall, it was a solid performance that showed how a seasoned veteran controls the stage and the audience.

As always, head to the f/k Flickr page for more photos of this and past shows.

-Chandler

Imogen Heap's vBlogs

Today marked the end of an era of sorts, Imogen Heap created her final vBlog regarding her upcoming album Ellipse. For those of you who don't know, she decided almost two years ago as she began work on the album to start a series of video blogs informing her fans of what was going on in terms of the process of making an album. I didn't pick up the series from the beginning, but did eventually watch every video in sequence and found it fascinating. I also think Imogen is the perfect artist to make something like this because of her silly, outgoing nature and the electronic nature of her music. As much as I love Fleet Foxes, I imagine a lot of the musical process is just strumming guitars, but with Imogen you could kind of get a feel for her thoughts and ideas as they progressed. The segments featured Imogen playing instruments like toy pianos, megaphones, a "Hang", and even herself. There are 40 parts in the series, each about 10 minutes long, so if you plan on trying to catch up, make sure you have a big chunk of free time. You can find her Youtube channel page here, and make sure to catch the album when it comes out on August 24th.

Imogen Heap's MySpace

-Donovan

fork/knife Joins Facebook

Hey guys. This is just a short post letting you know that we've finally gotten a facebook page for fork/knife. Check it out HERE! Below is the inexplicably long list of places where you can find us on the interwebs, although I have to say that you'll find great stuff at each one. And hey - thanks for reading fork/knife.

fork/knife on the web:

twitter - read our witty quips

flickr - scope out our beauteous pics

facebook - hang with all our cool friends

-Chris

764-Hero and MMM #16

As much crap as we give Pitchfork, I plan on going to their festival this summer, because it's very inexpensive and has a DYN-OH-MITE lineup. I have to say I'm extremely excited to see Built to Spill, and therefore have been sneaking them into my heavy listening rotation when I get a chance. I've also been listening to similar sounding bands, including more bands off Up records, the best being 764-Hero. Here's a little ditty from the boys.

764-Hero - Sunburnt
iTunes / amazon
764-Hero MySpace

The big video of late has been the new Animal Collective video for "Summertime Clothes," which we already featured. So we're going to continue the AniCol trend, but add some additional videos for your viewing pleasure. I wanted to post "Peacebone" because a) it's a great song and b) it's one of the weirdest things I've seen. Until I saw the next video. The second is a short student film starring Noah Lennox (Panda Bear) as a person obsessed with fish. If you're looking for an odd time suck, look no further. And finally, we can't mention AniCol and videos together without posting an f/k favorite (ok, just Donovan and I) : the live version of "The Purple Bottle" with Doctess.







Animal Collective MySpace

-Chandler

New Album From The Dodos

There's no one quite like The Dodos. I've been eating up their album, Visiter, since I got it a few weeks ago. If you haven't heard it, check out the song and video that I posted recently because both are wonderful. Now, to the news! Pitchfork is reporting that The Dodos have announced their new album! It's going to be called Time to Die, and will be released by the Frechkiss label on September 15th. YeeeeHaw!! I've posted the tracklist below.

Time to Die:

1. Small Deaths
2. Longform
3. Fables
4. The Strums
5. This Is a Business
6. Two Medicines
7. Troll Nacht
8. Acorn Factory
9. Time to Die

-Chris

Camera Obscura on Late Late Show

Last night Camera Obscura performed "French Navy," the fantastic opener off their latest album that came out only a few months ago, My Maudlin Career. Shockingly, the band from Scotland had never performed on TV before in their 14 year career, but they certainly knocked the performance out of the park. Hopefully this will garner the band a little publicity if that is indeed what they're looking for, because it's hard to think of a band that deserves it more than them. Here's a video of the performance:



On a side note, I love the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, and if you happen to awake at 1 AM, you should definitely check it out. Or if you have DVR or TIVO or whatever the kids are using these days... Here's another video of Craig dancing pointlessly but hilariously to "Istanbul" by They Might Be Giants:



-Donovan

Discovery Album Coming July 7th

If you haven't heard about Discovery yet, you're in for a treat. Just in time for summer, they're a laid back duo ready to give you the ultimate party soundtrack. One part Vampire Weekend and one part Ra Ra Riot, they leave all of their previous work behind, instead whipping up glittery pop gems. Be sure to pick up their album when it comes out on July 7th!

Discovery - Swing Tree
Discovery - I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend (ft. Angel Deradoorian)

Discovery's MySpace

-Chris

Video: "Summertime Clothes" by Animal Collective

This is Animal's Collective's latest music video from their fantastic '09 release, Merriweather Post Pavillion. Pick it up if you don't own it already!

Directed by Danny Perez

-Chris

New! Check out the fork/knife Flickr!

The four of us here at fork/knife just set up an account on Flickr. We'll be posting pictures from concerts, album covers from the albums we're listening to, and other miscellaneous photos. We're far from professional photographers, but hopefully it'll be a cool way for you to see what we're up to.

CLICK HERE to see our first pictures. They include photos from the Local Natives/Blind Pilot concert in Boston, as well as a few albums that we're digging at the moment.

Local Natives Band Interview

-Chris

The Cave Singers Announce New Album

Most of you have probably never heard of The Cave Singers, but hopefully this post will be their big breakthrough!

The Cave Singers - Dancing On Our Graves
Amazon/iTunes

The band from Seattle quietly released their first album, Invitation Songs, back in 2007 on Matador Records. It slowly grew in popularity by word of mouth and now people, including myself, are looking to see where their sophomore effort, entitled Welcome Joy and due out the 18th of August, will take them. The trio of Peter Quirk, Derek Fudesco and Marty Lund were joined on this record by Amber Webber from Black Mountain, and Lightning Dust and Ashley Webber, of Lightning Dust, so I expect great things.

Here's a taste of the new album...

The Cave Singers - Beach House

-Bishop-

Ohhhhh Nelly

Do you like Bright Eyes? Love M. Ward? Are you a fan of My Morning Jacket? Soon you'll be able to get all three in one package. Prepare yourself for The Monsters of Folk.

The band is a collaboration between Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes, Jim James of My Morning Jacket, and M. Ward. They are indeed the monsters of folk; between the three of them they have released brilliant, genuine albums that range from freak-folk to straight-up-country. It'll be thrilling to see what these proven songwriters can create now that they've joined forces. The album is set to drop September 22nd. Until then, enjoy this song from My Morning Jacket's early album, The Tennessee Fire. If there ever was a perfect campfire song, this would be it.

My Morning Jacket - War Begun
Amazon / iTunes

My Morning Jacket's MySpace

-Chris