UNKLE - Hold My Hand video

For fear of giving UNKLE too much attention lately I was all set not to post this video. Until I watched it. Some bands just never miss with videos. UNKLE is one of them.

War Stories is out now. Download a megamix of the album for free (until the link expires) here.

UNKLE - Webster Hall, 10/18/07

One of the eggs I most regret breaking to make the omelet of a real-life life is the lack of attention I've been able to devote to blogging lately. I didn't always work so much. Now I do. It happens, I guess.

A few weeks before I got hired into my new gig, I frantically and excitedly bought tickets to see UNKLE play their first ever show in New York City. Fast forward. The new job demands a lot of late nights, in a lot of remote places. Committed to working on Staten Island until 10pm last night, I was resignedly accepting of the fact that my tickets to UNKLE would go to waste. Still, I had them in my car, in case by some bizarre twist of fate some Staten Islander wanted to meet me in a parking lot and take them off my hands for the low price desperately floated over craigslist at the last minute.

Then a coworker with a CMJ Schedule told me something that in hindsight I absolutely should have checked for myself: UNKLE wasn't going on until 11pm. What followed was a pedal-to-the-metal 10:35 departure from Shaolin, culminating in being turned away from a filled-to-capacity parking lot on 12th street, only to find an open parking spot on 11th street, right in front of Webster Hall. FTW.

Christ, I just wrote 3 paragraphs without telling you a thing about the show or the band. I'll make it up to you.

I've often heard people shit on the sound system at Webster Hall, but for my money, there are few better systems for the kind of band that UNKLE is: heavy on the bass and the atmosphere, loud and proud. Sure, It sounded like James Lavelle had marbles in his mouth every time he came out from behind his console to address the crowd and I couldn't understand a word of it, but when the band was playing, I could FEEL the songs in a wonderful way. Every note seemed to vibrate my clothes, but not hurt my ears. Rad.

The band was content to play most of the show in darkness, the stage backlit by some better-than-most film clips that ranged from would-be-cool-if-i-was-stoned geometric gyrations to Max-Headroom-ish singing heads for the songs (Burn My Shadow featuring Ian Astbury, Mayday featuring Leila Moss) the band performed with prerecorded vocals.

They were good. A little rough around the edges ("It's my first gig!" one cries after starting the wrong song, necessitating a do-over), but with sufficient swagger and chops to pull off a decidedly cool stage show, regardless of the few prerecorded vox. They played mostly War Stories stuff, but mixed in enough Psyence Fiction to keep the "old school" among us happy.

The encore began with the Thom Yorke vehicle "Rabbit In Your Headlights," which should have been really rad, but which basically amounted to putting the video (below) on the screen and playing the record. If anyone in the band was doing anything at that point other than pressing play, I couldn't tell. Mercifully, they only played a verse or so before ripping through a noisy as hell rendition of "Eye for an Eye," also video accompanied (also below). I left entirely satisfied, and thoroughly worried that my car wouldn't be there when I got outside, because no way a spot as awesome as the one I parked in could be legal. But it totally was. Victory.

Oh yeah, this was cool: At the show they were handing out a CD. It's a "megamix" of the record my some dude named Psycho Pab. On the CD it says to "Rip it/Burn it/Share it" and I'm taking them at their word. Here's a Yousendit link for as long as it lasts: UNKLE - War Stories (Psycho Pab's Def-Mix).

Rabbit In Your Headlights


Eye for an Eye

Is someone at Ticketmaster listening?

I just bought 2 $20 tickets on Ticketmaster (UNKLE at Webster Hall, FTW). Total for the order, all said and done, was $51.90. For the record, that's $2.50 in order processing fees and 2x$4.70 for the convenience. I don't want to say I'm happy to pay $11.90 in fees for my $40 worth of tickets. But either I've blown the exorbitant charges way out of proportion in my head, or they're less than they used to be. I was expecting the total to be more like $60.

Anyone out there know if Ticketmaster has reduced their fees at all? Or am I just crazy?

UNKLE - War Stories (now with mp3)

When UNKLE's Psyence Fiction was released in 1998, I was a senior in high school, and deeply concerned with collecting everything Radiohead-related I could get my hands on. At one out of the two keg parties I ever got invited to in my entire high school career, (if you can remember that far back, party soundtracks were CDs, or -- if the host was truly enterprising -- mix CDs), someone put on Psyence Fiction, which even at background music level perked my ears up when I heard Thom Yorke's unmistakable guest vocal on "Rabbit In Your Headlights."

In college, long after my Radiohead obsession had subsided to a much more reasonable appreciation, Psyence Fiction remained a frequent go-to soundtrack for it's-due-tomorrow late night paper writing. And still, with only a vague awareness of their existence, I let subsequent UNKLE releases pass me by for the better part of a decade.

I never spent much time thinking about why then, but reflecting on it now I realize that I probably never went looking for more UNKLE for the same reason Psyence Fiction ended up playing on the stereo that night in 1998: it played like a really good mix CD. With different guest lineups on the newer records, and nobody playing them at parties, there was just too little to grab me again.

It wasn't until I saw the video for "Burn My Shadow" off UNKLE's War Stories that my interest was renewed -- in a big way.

War Stories doesn't play like a good mix CD. It plays like a record. UNKLE mastermind James Lavelle, almost 10 years after his first commercial success and after numerous label and lineup changes, has really hit his stride. Despite the fact that the record still boasts an all-star cast (Josh Homme and Ian Astbury headlining, see production videos here and here), there is a steadfast captain steering the ship, and it shows.

The aforementioned "Burn My Shadow" featuring Ian Astbury is a highlight, as is the Josh Homme track "Restless," and "Mayday," which features The Duke Spirit. But the record holds up best when taken in all at once, and I encourage you to hear for yourself. It's streaming in full at MySpace.

Try it. I bet you'll like it.

**UPDATE**
Get "Burn My Shadow" ft. Ian Astbury at zSHARE.

UNKLE - Burn My Shadow video

I haven't been paying much attention to U.N.K.L.E. for a while. Pretty much since Psyence Fiction, actually. So long, in fact, that it appears they've dropped the periods right out of the name without me knowing -- It's just UNKLE now. But this video is completely awesome. Consider me interested again.
Burn My Shadow

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That's Goran Visnjic in the video, of ER fame. Ian Astbury of The Cult fame on vox. UNKLE's War Stories is out in the US July 24.