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.

The Decemberists - Central Park's SummerStage, 7/16/07

If you go through your CD (ok, mp3) collection, how many of your favorite bands have you never had a chance to see live? I consider myself lucky in that the list of my top-tier artists that I've yet to catch is short and ever shrinking. Last night I finally crossed one off the list officially that had until now been asterisked. (5 song sets at the Apple Store, while certainly cool, don't quite count.)

The Decemberists got off to a surprisingly rocky start with two of their best in "July, July!" and "Billy Liar," but it wasn't long after that Colin Meloy & Co. launched into "The Perfect Crime 2" (far from my favorite song in recorded form) with an undeniable energy and awesomely loud electric guitar. The night was theirs from that point on.

In hindsight, it's probably a function of the acoustics (or lack thereof) of a large outdoor venue like SummerStage that caused some of the less electric songs to sound a little hollow. But on such a beautiful night in Central Park, with planes passing overhead and only the tallest city lights peeking over the trees, it was hard to care.

Of special note: the encore, which included "Red Right Ankle," "Oceanside," Colin forcibly putting the band and audience to sleep (or...making us all sit down) in an extended interlude during "The Chimbley Sweep," and a truly rad rendition of "The Mariner's Revenge Song" that was thankfully not cut off early as the band ran over what's supposedly a very strict curfew.

Awesome show.

(Picture from Jonny Leather's flickr.)

The Decemberists SoHo Apple Store performance

You may recall my post in November about The Decemberists' show at the downtown Apple Store here in NYC. If you don't feel like clicking back to be reminded, basically I said that if ever the show were posted to iTunes, the absolute must-have track was the slowed down version of "Song For Myla Goldberg."

Well, the show has now, in all its glory, been posted on iTunes. And the must-have track is still Myla Goldberg. You're welcome.

The Decemberists - Apple Store SoHo, 11/3/06

photo credit.

I usually attribute my unwillingness to wait in line to being "too old for this shit" but the fact of the matter is that I refuse to wait in line for almost anything because I've found that with few exceptions, the best rock and roll experiences come queue-free. But to see The Decemberists play 6 songs in SoHo for free? Yeah, I'll stand in line for that.

Let's back it up a bit. The night before (Thursday night) I had tried foolishly to see a band that a friend recommended called La Rocca play at Pianos. I hadn't known ahead of time that Silversun Pickups were headlining the night, so needless to say I didn't show up nearly in time to get in. This is the worst thing about CMJ: it becomes impossible to see bands that you otherwise would be able to see with no problem. Since I wasn't able to get into the performance area for the show I stayed back in the bar area with my friends and got drunk and took a few pictures with my camera of stupid things. Then I fell asleep on the subway until it brought be back home in Brooklyn, and stumbled to my computer to drop those pics on there before bed. I left my camera connected to the computer and powered on all night, so the battery was dead when I woke up in the morning (design flaw much!?) and went to grab it for the Decemberists show. This long aside, you see, is basically meant to explain to you why I failed to get any pictures of this totally memorable and awesome event. It's because I'm an idiot. But I met a nice chap in line who also works in internet radio and he had a really expensive looking camera with him and I saw him snapping some shots so maybe some shots will appear online eventually and of course I'll link you to them then.

When a band strips down their sound for performances like these, it can be disastrous and it can be transcendent and it often oscillates between the two throughout the set. While I wouldn't say that any particular moment in this particular set was bad, there were certainly moments that were less good than others. But this is a softball blog and far be it from me to pick on a band for trying. The great moments were indeed, GREAT. The quite-reworked "Song for Myla Goldberg" was the unquestionable highlight; it came off like a song they've done acoustic many times before and had perfected in that setting. "Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)" was also great. Another aside: they have "Yankee" spelled wrong on their own official site!

I'm not sure how these things work...whether the show was recorded for possible iTunes release in the future or what. If it ever is, I'd say the whole show is worth the buy for a big fan, and "Myla Goldberg" is worth the buy for anyone save for the most adamant Decemberist haterist.

The setlist (maybe in the wrong order, but almost surely the right songs):
1. July, July!
2. We Both Go Down Together
3. The Perfect Crime 2
4. Song For Myla Goldberg
5. Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)
6. O, Valencia!