I remember driving 4 hours from Sioux Falls, SD to Fargo, ND late 2007 to see Bon Iver perform in a tiny, dark bar that was half full. I had decided to go after reading a short write-up that detailed what a grease fire his life had become, and how that led to the creation of the album For Emma, Forever Ago.

A third of the crowd was watching sports on two TVs behind the bar; another third was shooting pool or interacting with friends. So it was me and 30 other people, standing there, taking it all in. I never will forget that performance. It was like catching Pacino doing community theater before he landed roles in Scarface or The Godfather. You knew things would never be the same. They couldn’t be.

A year and a half later, Bon Iver is an indie icon. The band has toured relentlessly and with good reason, decided to make October 11^th’s performance at the Riverside Theater in Milwaukee its last. For awhile.

Radio Milwaukee broadcast the performance and is now streaming Bon Iver Live at the Riverside here.

P.S.  For those of you Bon Iver super fans (like me) who think you’ve heard all his songs, you haven’t. He covers The Outfield (I’m serious) during this set.

Months ago, I told you about Fun, or, the new incarnation of The Format.

First, a little background: Fun is fronted by Nate Reuss, former lead singer of the now defunct band The Format. If you lived in Phoenix in the mid 2000’s and were dialed into local music, you had them on repeat and often muttered “These guys are ridiculously amazing. Seriously.” They were the one of the hottest things to come out of AZ, besides, you know, the fucking sun.

Well, the band is knee-deep in its kickoff tour. I caught them in Houston when they opened for Manchester Orchestra (Audrye Sessions was also on the bill).

In between stops, Fun sat down for a studio performance at Paste. “The Gambler” is a pretty ( “I swear when I grow up,  I won’t just buy you a rose / I will buy the flower shop”), haunting (”We moved to Arizona to save our only son”) song that is amongst my list of top singles for 2009.

Note: Click on Menu to navigate songs.

There’s something to be said for lead singers of bands who look like they could also be serial killers in their down time. They are always really fucking good. John McCauley from Deer Tick certainly qualifies. I’m half wondering if he celebrated the release of Born on Flag Day by watching Silence of the Lambs and then kidnapping a few blondes in a creeper van while listening to Tom Petty.

I also wonder if he and Matthew Sweet get together and share creeper secrets:

John: “So I’m thinking of growing out my hair. Should I wear it in a pony tail?”

Matthew: “Absolutely not. That’s dorky, not creepy. You’ll look like an IT guy, or a tennis player.”

John: “Good call. No ponytail. What are your thoughts on the receding hairline and the mustache?”

Matthew: “Killer dude, pun intended.”

I have no idea how to classify Deer Tick’s sound. Grunge country seems fitting. I think if Kurt Cobain smoked a carton of Marlboro Reds while watching a CMT marathon on Merle Haggard and then recorded, it would probably sound something like McCauley

I saw Audrye Sessions open for Fun and Manchester Orchestra a few weeks back in Houston. Halfway through the band’s set, I turned to a fellow fan:

Me: “They sound a bit like Radiohead.”

Fan: “Maybe, dude, but that’s saying a lot. I mean, they’re good, but fuck.”

Me: “No, I know. But there’s a little resemblance there. Maybe they’re not like Radiohead, but the poor man’s Radiohead.”

Fan: “Maybe, dude, but that’s still saying a lot. I mean, they’re good, but fuck.”

Me: “True. Maybe they’re like the homeless man’s Radiohead.”

Fan: “Sort of.”

Me: ‘What do you mean ‘sort of?’”

Fan: “Well, yeah, generally speaking, they sort of do. But on ‘Turn Me Off’, they do especially, but in a coked-up kind of way. Like Tom Yorke is in a hurry to finish a song.”

Me: “So Audrye Sessions is a coked-up, homeless man’s Radiohead?”

Fan: “Well, yeah.”

Me: “Is that good?”

Fan: “Good? That’s great.”

First, a qualifier. I like, no love, California. I mention this because taken at face value, it appears as though the singer has grown weary of CA, and by posting the song, I am attaching my sentiment to it. 

But the song has nothing to do with California. Or San Francisco, Or Oakland. Or anywhere specific. Really, it has to do with everywhere.

Most of us have lived in a place, grew tiresome of it, and remarked to a friend or to our pillow “Fuck [insert city here]” or “Fuck this place.” I have. A few times. I don’t know what that makes me. To my stay-near-home friends, I may be described as “antsy” or “unsettled.” To my mobile friends, I may be described as, well, “mobile.”

So this song isn’t about a specific location so much as it is about a feeling. A feeling when you want to leave a city, a company, a person, a …

First, a little background: Fun is fronted by Nate Reuss, former lead singer of the now defunct band The Format. If you lived in Phoenix in the mid 2000’s and were dialed into local music, you had them on repeat and often muttered “These guys are ridiculously amazing. Seriously.” They were the one of the hottest things to come out of AZ, besides, you know, the fucking sun.

The Format’s history makes for a decent Behind the Music episode. The band garnered critical acclaim, Reuss started dealing with a slew of relationship disasters and boozing more heavily, and the band got a shit load of dogs together, which Reuss was stuck with when The Format broke up.

Reuss is the only former Format member in Fun, but his voice is so impressionable that it’s impossible not to dub Fun the “The New Format.” Whatever. Fun’s debut EP won’t drop until this summer. Until then, enjoy “At Least I’m Not as Sad (As I Used to Be)” – which is your typical saloon-inspired, orchestra-fused indie ballad.

I gravitate towards music that was inspired by angst. All the sublimely magnificent writers, poets, and artists seemed to have it, or did have it. Hell, most classic writers had a drinking problem at one time or another. I’m at the point where I’m thinking of developing a meth problem so the metaphors come easier.  

So, when buzz started to build in mid 2008 about Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) and the album he had spit out after three months of solitude in a desolate log cabin following the breakup of his band, getting dumped and battling mono, I thought,  “this record is going to be fucking brilliant. How can it not be?”

And it is.

“Skinny Love” and “Flume” are the two most acclaimed songs off of Bon Iver’s solo masterpiece, For Emma, but it is the title song that allows the listener to best understand how overwhelming that angst was for him.

“Go find another lover; / To bring a. … to string along.”

Just typing that hurts.

A friend recently asked me to post a song of the day by Foo Fighters. I immediately thought, “OK, we’re going to have to get creative here.”  I can’t come to the table with a Top 40 hit.  That’s what your local wacky FM DJ Fly Guy is for.

But then I remembered that Dave Grohl covered a Creed song a few years ago.  OK, fine, so Creed sold millions upon millions of albums and made millions upon millions of dollars.  Not sure how to explain that one. Let’s call it the “Nickleback Effect.”

Unfortunately, success does not always equate respect, and frontman Scott Stapp, while worth a ton of money, is unintentional comedy at its best.

Pop quiz – what’s most funny:

a) Greeting card Stapp

b) Karaoke Stapp,  brought to you by the temple grab and the double mic clutch 

c)  Under Armour Stapp

d)  Artsy Stapp

e) Dave Grohl’s mockery of “Arms Wide open”

I dislike repetition of lyrics in songs – beyond the chorus of course. People don’t repeat themselves in life. You never overhear someone say, “You want to get lunch today? How about Jimmy John’s? You want to get lunch today? How about Jimmy John’s?” Then again, people also don’t sing in life (aside from annoying coworker Debbie in the cubicle next to you), so I’m not sure I have a point.

Having said that, I do like the haunting repetition of the question “What do you know?” in the Puscifer song “The Mission.” The song itself in its entirety (highlighted by that phrase and a pounding drum) reminds the time I stumbled upon the Michigan State marching band having a seance. Or something like that.

If the voice on this Puscifer track sounds familiar, then you’re a fan of Tool and/or A Perfect Circle, for the lead singer of all three is Maynard James Keenan. Puscifer is a side project.

Keenan describes Puscifer as “simply a playground for the various voices in my head, [...] a space with no clear or discernible goals, [...] where my Id, Ego, and Anima all come together to exchange cookie recipes.”

Ummmm … why don’t we move on and listen to the song.

While we’re on the subject of bad ass folk rock musicians from the upper midwest like Damon Dotson, we may as well talk about Nick Rallis, or what has emerged recently as the Nick Rallis Band.

Nick Rallis is a singer/song writer from Sioux Falls, SD who has been performing solo for a few years. He started collaborating with Ryan Rickert and Paul Tims six months ago, and soon formed the Nick Rallis Band. 

In a few shorts months together, they’ve garnered a good deal of attention. They recently played the Sundance Film Festival on an invite from Chris Breed, owner of The Green Door, the Roxbury, and other venues in LA. His claim to fame is that he discovered Mariah Carey. He’s bringing them out to California to play the Green Door in LA on February 17 and The Viper Room in Hollywood on February 19. The band has also been invited to play the Oscar’s gifting party at Boulevard 3 in LA.

Though the band has yet to produce a CD together (the self-titled Nick Rallis solo CD is available on iTunes), a live demo from the band’s performance at Sundance is in existence. “Is It Love” is this demo’s most capitivating track.