Idlewild - Post Electric Blues

So Idlewild's great experiment ended for me yesterday when I received an envelope, customs declaration and all, containing the record that I preordered eons ago, and the poster with my name, and everyone else's (image of someone else's) that preordered the thing.

Also in the package was a note, asking very politely that I not give away for free that which I paid for months ago, and alerting me that each cd has been individually watermarked to track uploads. I don't know if that's true or not, but my Google search for an image of the cover revealed that it doesn't seem to have deterred a fair number of people from sharing away anyway. Sad, really.

Anyway, this has been an interesting journey for me, because it's the first time that I've participated in something like this and felt, pretty much all the way through, that the band bit off just slightly more than it could chew. Here's a recap of what was originally promised (from Myspace) with markups to reflect my experience:

By going to idlewildmusic.com you will get details on how to pre-order and what you will receive. [The order process was...sketchy? A secure purchase is a secure purchase, I guess, but make it look like something I can trust.]

These include a limited edition CD album (with free download version [Never happened.]) in exclusive packaging & including at least one bonus track. This will be shipped within weeks of completion & before any standard release.

You can get your name to appear in the CD booklet with the album and on a roll-call on the web site. [No roll call yet, not that this was a huge selling point.]

Access to download 15 free tracks from live recordings at the King Tuts "album by album" shows [Except the shows for Warnings/Promises and Make Another World. This process was riddled with bugs and caused a bit of a tempest in the WordPress teapot.] In December '08 & access to a members only section of the web site [Users needed to remember completely nonsensical passwords generated by WordPress (mine was ur2EsFuz32s@) that weren't changeable.] with album progress updates, exclusive photo and video content from the recording and preproduction process with diaries/blogs by individual band members and lots more.

Signing up will also automatically enter you into draws for special prizes.

So here's the thing: the record is really good. A joy to listen to. And while it's too fresh still for me to rank it in the Idlewild pantheon, I'm already confident that when the dust settles I'll still like it much more than at least Make Another World, and I'll take great pride in recommending it to people, and maybe once in a while showing a friend my name in on the enclosed poster.

I like it so much, really, that I feel a bit shitty even pointing out the bumps in the road along the preorder process, because it's not like the band itself hasn't acknowledged them, and been pretty up front about most of them. Still, a little more preparation in this era of bands shrugging label support and handling distro themselves would have gone a long way. Here's to hoping Idlewild tries something like this again for the next record, and that it works a little better.

**Update** I spent some time talking to my friend Andy about this on his podcast last night, which is now posted here.

Idlewild will let you buy a record that hasn't even been made yet.

Idlewild will be spending early 2009 in the studio to record an album slated for conventional release over the summer, but fans are being given the opportunity to buy the record (and some nice bonus material) now, months before the first note has been committed to hard drive. Bonuses include 15 downloads from also-yet-to-be-recorded live shows in December, access to the music (download and CD) within weeks of completion, and one's name in the CD booklet, perhaps. I don't really understand how that last part's going to work. Anyway, in their own words:

By going to idlewildmusic.com you will get details on how to pre-order and what you will receive.

These include a limited edition CD album (with free download version) in exclusive packaging & including at least one bonus track. This will be shipped within weeks of completion & before any standard release.

You can get your name to appear in the CD booklet with the album and on a roll-call on the web site.

Access to download 15 free tracks from live recordings at the King Tuts "album by album" shows In December '08 & access to a members only section of the web site with album progress updates, exclusive photo and video content from the recording and preproduction process with diaries/blogs by individual band members and lots more.

Signing up will also automatically enter you into draws for special prizes.

The pre-order will set you back £16.50, or approximately $500 (I kid). So yeah. I bought this because I'm a superfan, and because it's nice to see that bands continue to buck standard record release trends, and bands that do so deserve support. And also because I want my name on their website.

Interested parties should pull out their credit cards and head directly to idlewildmusic.com.

One additional note: The album by album shows mentioned above will be happening in Glasgow, which is a bit of a commute for me so I won't be going, though I have long dreamed of witnessing a full performance of The Remote Part.

I guess this is a trend? I kinda like it.

To commemorate the 15 year anniversary ATO reissue of the had-been-out-of-print Exile In Guyville, Liz Phair recently announced a second round of shows that will feature a beginning-to-end performance of the album.

In celebration of the 15th year anniversary of the groundbreaking album Exile in Guyville and its reissue by ATO Records, Liz Phair will perform the entire album at three engagements: August 27 at Theater of the Living Arts in Philadelphia; August 28 at 9:30 Club in Washington DC; and August 29 at The Paradise in Boston. Tickets go on sale Wednesday, July 23 via Ticketmaster.

These three additional shows come on the heels of four hugely successful sold out June events - two in New York City and one in each San Francisco and Chicago. Said Jon Pareles of The New York Times in his recent review of one of Phair's Exile in Guyville shows, "After 15 years of other people's indie-rock idiosyncrasies, "Exile" still holds up in all its conflicting impulses: its determination to be 'adamantly free' and its longing for someone to trust, its swagger and its pain." A modern classic, Pitchfork recently gave the album a 9.6 rating while both Rolling Stone and Blender gave Exile in Guyville a perfect score of five stars ("*****").

A few notes:

1. I never knew Exile In Guyville was written as a song-by-song response to Exile on Main St. before. I guess there really are things to be learned from press releases after all.
2. I'm sure he wasn't the first to do it, but the first guy I recall recently doing full-album performance of records that weren't by Pink Floyd was Ben Kweller a while back. This could be an ATO thing, then? Or maybe just coincidence. What am I, motivated to do research? If it were an ATO thing, though, It'd be rad to see Mike Doughty do all of Skittish.
   
3. Here are 5 other records I'd like to see performed in full (off the top of my head):

• Bruce Springsteen - Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.
  
• Idlewild - The Remote Part
• The Format - Dog Problems
• The Decemberists - Castaways & Cutouts
• Stone Temple Pilots - Tiny Music...Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop (Quiet, you.)
• *BONUS SIXTH* Tom Waits - Rain Dogs
  

Note: this is not just an excuse to post a bunch of Amazon links in fact The Format's link is to Amie Street, this is a prompt for discussion.

Roddy Woomble - My Secret Is My Silence will see US release

I've been listening to it forever because I'm a drooling fanboy, but I just read on Stereogum that Roddy Woomble's amazing solo record My Secret Is My Silence will be released in the US in July. Head over there to download the title track, which should give you chills if blood courses through your veins. Especially if any of it is Scottish blood.

Roddy's day job, FYI, is to front Idlewild, arguably the best band in the known history of the universe. He keeps a painfully RSS/Archive-less diary on their site. It's basically the only site left in the world that I regularly check for updates, without the help of my Google Reader. Here's what he had to say yesterday about mice:

I've lived in many different rental flats in various cities over the years, and in each one I've always, sooner or later, discovered mice. Hiding behind the cooker or Fridge, behind wardrobes, or in the case of a flat Allan and I shared in Edinburgh in the late 90's, wandering around carefree in broad daylight, hanging out in-front of the stereo, generally having a good time at our expense.

Now that I own an abode, whenever I see a mouse (for if you live in any building over a hundred years old, they’re living in the walls whether you like it our not – and can always find a way into a warm house), it feels more and more like an uninvited guest than it used to. When I rented, I accepted that I shared the rent (non-financially speaking) with some mice, but now as a 'homeowner' I'm not as immune to all the psychological pitfalls as I thought I'd be. For better or for worse, I see the home as 'belonging to me/us', which is a strange confession. The property ladder. Give me a real ladder any day.

'a man can have everything he desires in his own home yet have nothing outside the door'. I think wild child beat poet hipster Gregory Corso was right on when he wrote this line down in his notepad.

Anyway, we've killed a few in the very old fashioned Grandpa Broon style non humane traps. I'm not proud about it, but despite their cute little faces, they're bullet-quick vermin with persistence. It's a myth that they like cheese though. Don't know who made that one up.

In competition for the worst price

Because I'm obsessed, I just went and checked amazon for the status of the new Idlewild record. Of course, since there's not currently a deal for distribution in the states, if I want this record I have to import it for...$30.99! What a deal.

The world is very, very small (I'm talking to you now, record companies and band management). People who want this in the US aren't going to wait for it to be released here at a reasonable price, and they sure as hell aren't going to be shelling out $30.99 in any kind of huge numbers. If you ever want it to do well in the US, you NEED to release it at the same time everywhere.

I'm bothered because I love this band. I really want them to do well here, so they'll tour here more often, so people won't look at me cross-eyed when I wax rhapsodic about them. But a $30.99 pricetag basically dooms this record to stateside failure.

Here's the tracklisting:

1. In Competition For The Worst Time
2. Everything (As It Moves)
3. No Emotion
4. Make Another World
5. If It Takes You Home
6. Future Works
7. You & I Are Both Away
8. Ghost In The Arcade
9. Once In Your Life
10. Finished It Remains

Idlewild - No Emotion video

What you're looking at here is a decently shot live version of "No Emotion," Idlewild's latest. Of course, an official video has been shot, and it's done and readily available for you to view. Just not on YouTube. Seems Sanctuary would rather keep a tight grip on where you watch the video.

WRAONG!!!111eleven

Here's how it works:
1) I hear a song. I wonder if it has a video.
2) I search YouTube.
3) I don't find it. Oh well. Guess there's no video. Guess I'll go watch some nubile teens lipsynch to OK Go songs instead.

These days, it's a waste of money to film a video for a song if you're not going to hand it over to the fans and let them spread the gospel.

The official video is available here. It's funny because it took me a while to get it even though it's totally obvious. They've got no emotion! Get it!? But if you've seen them live, you know that the emotionless performance shots aren't really that much of a stretch (which has always been one of the things I love about them).

Roddy Woomble - My Secret Is My Silence

A history of near-certain disappointment hangs dark and low like a thundercloud over me whenever I approach the solo project of a musician whose band I love (I'm looking at YOU, Weiland) so when I originally heard about Roddy Woomble's solo offering My Secret Is My Silence, I took a pass. I love Idlewild too much, I thought. I can't let this get in the way.

Well, when I got my first taste of Idlewild's forthcoming release Make A New World this weekend, I could contain myself no longer. He still had plenty of good material left for the Idlewild record, I rationalized, maybe this solo thing won't be so bad. Nervously, wincingly, I pushed play.

Few things in this world are more satisfying than being surprised when you expected disappointment. The material on My Secret Is My Silence ranges from good to brilliant, and while I'll agree with Roddy's assessment that the songs "would have never lived with Idlewild," it's doing the songs and oneself a great disservice (as I admit guiltily to having done) to assume that means it's not as good.

The longer I sit here trying to say intelligent things about this record the more frustrated I'm getting, though. This is a systemic problem for me and one that I need to address, but I find it harder and harder to write about records that I love without feeling like I've already said these things about another record. Maybe it's just a matter of coming to terms with being a human Teddy Ruxpin. But I'm going to cry "Uncle" and just say this:

Realizing these songs outside of Idlewild allowed Roddy to explore his folksy side even further than in Idlewild's latest, Warnings / Promises, and clears the path for Idlewild's most rocking record in Make A New World since 100 Broken Windows*. Really, it's a very cinematic record in that, even more than much of Idlewild's very consciously Scottish rock, it SOUNDS Scottish. And not only because of accents or fiddles (though those don't hurt). You'll really have to listen for yourself. It's beautiful.

*All of which are wonderful records. Really, Idlewild's entire catalog is must-have.

(You can pre-order Idlewild's Make A New World here, as well as order Roddy's solo gem.)