It’s been some time since the last update, but the first entry should explain why. I’m down to 261 remaining songs spanning 20 hours, which seems remarkably manageable considering the 900 I’ve been through.

Biggest Realization: About halfway through this endeavor I recognized that the excitement of hearing unfamiliar songs at unfamiliar times had slowly dissolved into a new familiarity. Yes, I still have unfamiliar songs waiting, but they’re all from albums whose aesthetic I’ve accepted as part of the fray. I’ve realized that if I do this again (and I’m really thinking about keeping this going for at least one more round), I have to bump the ratio of familiar records to unfamiliar records far more to the latter, particularly on genre inclusion (i.e. more rap, jazz, and classical) and not include entire records for some artists so I can mix up the flow even further. I already have some ideas of records I need to include and records I need to dump, but if any readers have suggestions of records that I tend not to mention and might do well to include, I will probably use those suggestions for round two.

Strangest Grouping: Sandwiching a classically oriented track from Eluvium’s Copia between two tracks of Pilot to Gunner’s DC-styled indie rock threw me for a loop. I can understand one of those PTG songs coming up, but hearing two of the eleven tracks from Games at High Speeds in that scenario was just baffling.

Flashback: I threw Arab Strap’s Philophobia on the iPod, but I hadn’t ran into too many of its tracks until this round. I typically mention how strong Arab Strap’s dynamic rockers are—the live version of “Girls of Summer,” “Pulled,” “We Know Where You Live”—but I have to admit that the skeletal aesthetic blueprint of Philophobia fits the subject matter better than the fleshed-out arrangements of later records. Most of the songs succeed with thoughtful guitar lines and drum machines, so when flourishes come up, whether in the horns of “The Night Before the Funeral” or the twinkling piano of “Islands,” they seem like respites from the din of sexual frustration, not defining aspects of the sound.

Best Album Track: “Monkey Man” helped the slow process of seeing the Rolling Stones more as an album band and less as a singles band. I grew up on Hot Rocks and always appreciated that side of the band, but including Let It Bleed and Beggars Banquet (Aftermath hasn’t fared quite as well) in this round has helped bring some of those album tracks to the forefront. Next round I’ll include Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street.

Best Timing: I knew that Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s “BBF3” would come up at some point, but not having listened to the group much since seeing them in 2000 and knowing the track’s eighteen minutes would take a significant chunk out of a commute made me a bit wary. Fortunately the song started playing during my ride home last night, a grey, dreary commute from Boston College to MIT in the midst of a light snow. It truly came into form when I had to navigate the narrow lanes of Memorial Drive, gazing over at the foggy abyss of Boston proper over the half-frozen Charles. Turning Boston into a post-apocalyptic wasteland was significantly easier than I imagine.

Worst Timing: Silkworm’s “Give Me Some Skin” is one of the group’s finest moments, defined by a cavernous drum sound and a particularly affecting Tim Midgett vocal performance. Yet hearing it on what appeared to be the first day of spring (spoiled a few days later by the above-mentioned snowfall) was completely antithetical to its strengths. “Do you think it took talent or vision / to be strung up on a pine tree in the snow?” just doesn’t sound right amidst the first blast of near 70 degree temperatures and a shining sun.

Most Memorable Double-Shot: I keep hearing about the Lungfish trance, but even though I feel like I “get” the band’s appeal, I hadn’t hit the trance until hearing “Cut to Fit the Mouth” and “Indivisible” back to back on a commute home. I ended up being honked at after zoning out at a traffic light on Cambridge Street, which bums me out since I measure my success as a Boston driver as having a good ratio between honking at other people and being honked at by other people. Those two songs don’t rock as hard as “Space Orgy,” “Mated,” or “Fill the Days,” but they have that mid-tempo Lungfish repetition that just sucks me in.

New Pick for Favorite Song: Cat Power’s “Metal Heart” from Moon Pix had long stuck out as one of the finer songs in her catalog, but I always leaned toward some of the singles as my favorite song. Hearing “Metal Heart” to start the long drive from Pleasant Valley to Somerville changed that, though, as I was completely absorbed by the subtly multi-tracked vocals as I passed by rural farmhouses and small towns on my way up the Salt Point Turnpike to reach the Taconic. “You’re losing the calling and you’ve been faking / and I’m not kidding” seems like the inverse to the firebrand dismissal of Juno’s “The French Letter,” that sentiment stripped of the threat of violence and given a slight hint of hope with “I was lost but now I’m found / was blind but now I see you.”

loudQUIETloud: A Film about the Pixies documents the band’s reunion, starting slightly before the first shows and following the band until the end of the first round of touring. On the surface it seems like it should be a compelling, dramatic documentary, since Charles Thompson is getting a divorced and having a child with his new lady, Joey Santiago is having another kid that he can’t quite support with the Martinis and soundtrack work, Kim Deal is fresh out of rehab and brings Kelley Deal on tour with her, and David Lovering is a struggling magician with an ailing father. Yet these elements just underscore the reason for the reunion—$$$—with the life stories often intruding awkwardly on the film. Here’s a shot of Charles with his girlfriend’s son at the aquarium. Isn’t he a real human being? They’re all “real human beings” (a frequent term from the unilaterally gushing Amazon reviews), but their near steadfast lack of interpersonal conflict on the tour stifles most genuine conversations and conflicts. Kim’s in another bus. Joey will tell the camera about David’s growing valium problem, but won’t tell David. Charles only confronts David when it seems like his problems might derail the tour. Yes, they come off like real human beings to some extent, demystifying whatever enigmatic rock personas might have developed since the group first disbanded, but their actions are always tempered by the ultimate motive: keep the tour going, keep the shows selling out, keep making money.

The live footage is well-shot, but ultimately lacks something in comparison to the 1988 concert included on the self-titled DVD released in 2004. It’s certainly easy to get excited about seeing a band perform songs that you love and didn’t expect to see live—I enjoyed the reunion show I went to at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago—but Charles’ scream doesn’t have the same edge as before, Kim doesn’t seem quite as joyous, Joey relies more on pedals than ingenuity. If you’ve never seen any footage of them, it’ll probably be exciting, but check out the Pixies DVD first. That particular DVD also includes the documentary Gouge, which is essentially a big wet kiss from the bands they influenced, but does not include any shots of Charles Thompson with his shirt off. Choose accordingly.

I missed seeing Isis last May when I opted for paper writing over show going, but there isn’t too much guilt about heading out on a Saturday in March aside from missing a late NCAA game. Jesu (pronounced “yayzu”) managed to get their recent visa problems worked out, so I managed to see two bands that had records in my top 20 of 2006. Zozobra was the other opening act and were alright for a more scream-heavy metal band, but naturally I preferred the closing instrumental song to the rest of their set.

Jesu quickly topped the finest moments of Zozobra’s set with an absolutely crushing rendition of “We All Faulter” from the self-titled record. I cannot stress how loud this was from my vantage point twelve feet away from the big speakers; my scalp was vibrating for almost the entirety of the set and my teeth started to hurt. Most of the sonic details of the songs were relegated to background tracks running off a laptop, but Broadrick and his rhythm section filled in every possible gap underneath the occasional melodic twitch of those feedback loops. His voice sounded excellent live, a soothing, meditative presence amidst the punishing heft. Jesu only played five songs (“Silver,” “Conqueror,” “Friends Are Evil,” and “Transfigure” filled out the set), but since almost all of these reached toward the ten-minute mark, it felt complete. I might have preferred if Broadrick had recruited a second guitarist or keyboard player to replicate the details from the studio rather than opt for the laptop route (cough, M83, cough), but since the end result still strayed heavily from the studio versions, I’ll let it pass.

Isis treads a very fine line in their live performances; their recent songs are based on interlocking parts, which all need to be heard live in order for the songs to take shape, but the band also needs the bulging riffs to carry the necessary weight and energy. I was a bit surprised at how well they accomplished both of these without sounding too much like spot-on re-enactments of the records, a practice I’ve been wary of since seeing a textbook, but somewhat lifeless Pelican performance last summer. It was great seeing who was doing what on the songs and how. Aaron Harris didn’t reveal any major surprises, but his drumming held the songs together during the drifting sections.

The set list seems to be typical for this tour, which is a bit frustrating seeing as it avoided most of my preferred Isis tracks (“Garden of Light,” “So Did We,” “Weight,” “Carry” “Syndic Calls”) in favor of half of the new record, although “Holy Tears,” “In Fiction,” and “Not in Rivers but in Drops” all killed. They did play “Celestial” as an encore, which came as a surprise since I’d heard that the band hadn’t taken kindly to recent requests for the song. I hoped that they might stick around to play “Garden of Light,” which would have been an excellent closer, but no dice.

Beyond the two excellent performances, I was also able to pick up a few of the recent vinyl releases that had either eluded me or been overpriced at Newbury Comics: Jesu’s Silver and the Isis/Aereogramme In the Fishtank collaboration. The former was only $15 (as opposed to $20 plus shipping from Hydrahead’s store) and the latter only $12, so grab them from the shows if possible. Both bands had wide arrays of clothing, but since my t-shirt drawer is reaching critical mass, I decided against further merch pick-ups.

Ever since I missed the majority of an epic Penguins–Flyers playoff OT tilt (the 5/4/2000 5OT classic) because of a National Skyline show and, more brutally, the Illinois comeback against Arizona in the 2005 Elite Eight because of a Slint reunion show, I’ve been wary of sporting events coinciding with major shows. Fortunately this show only caused me to miss out on a predicted Duke loss to VCU in the first round of the NCAA tournament, not the greatest game in the history of sports, so things worked out fairly well.

I managed to catch the last three songs of Caspian’s set, which piqued my interest in their upcoming full-length. They managed to shed most of the Explosions in the Sky comparisons when they stuck to more violent, riff-oriented post-rock on penultimate song of their set, but the set closer was more of a slow burn crescendo into a drum circle. Drum circles, eh? The only one of those I remember enjoying was XBXRX, since it comprised half of their eight-minute-long set and did not involve their guitarist climbing on my shoulders and riding me around the Fireside Bowl. Despite this tangent, I’ll gladly see Caspian headline in the future and hope that The Four Trees gets a vinyl pressing. (I e-mailed the band and learned that they also hope the album gets a vinyl pressing, but nothing is guaranteed at this point.)

Harris played next, enjoying a hometown show with their parents in the audience. Aww. Their MySpace lists Braid and the Dismemberment Plan as logical comparisons, but I thought more of their emo peers circa 1998 or so; a bit of the Get-Up Kids keyboard-laden enthusiasm on a few tracks goes a long way. They succeeded when their enthusiasm didn’t overwhelm, but the keyboard player ruined his otherwise excellent contribution to their set with some rap-shouting in the middle of the song about parking spaces and dumping urine on the roof of a car. Nothing against the lyrical concept, mind you, but “rap-shouting” is perhaps even sub–drum circle.

I went to the show to see the Life and Times and, much like the previous five times I’d seen them, they didn’t disappoint. No “The Sound of the Ground,” but “Mea Culpa” and “Muscle Cars” both have great new intros and blow away their solid recordings. The sound was considerably more balanced than the last show at T. T. the Bear’s, meaning that I could hear both guitar and bass at the same time. The only bummer of the night was when Allen played a few bars of the Jesus Lizard’s “Mouthbreather,” not the whole thing. I don’t know how well that song would have fit into the muscular shoegaze of the rest of the set, but risking potential audience alienation is a decent price to pay for goddamn “Mouthbreather.”

I saw the Appleseed Cast in Champaign at the Cowboy Monkey in 2003 and largely enjoyed their set and this performance didn’t stray too much from that memory. Unlike the Life and Times, who got to the shoegaze aesthetic through a math-rock emphasis on rhythm and riffs, the Appleseed Cast came from a more strict second-wave emo approach (defined by the first two Sunny Day Real Estate records in my view) and their set vacillated between instrumental jams with post-rock dynamics and relatively catchy emo songs with shoegaze overtones. Amazingly enough, the kids seemed to be more into the yearning songs with vocals.

I was pretty stunned to learn that the next show of the tour (Friday night) was in Poughkeepsie, New York—i.e. roughly where I grew up—since shows of this particular standing rarely came through town when I was in high school, but hopefully that one went well despite a poorly timed Nor’easter. If you can catch any of the remaining shows of the tour (and there are plenty), I recommend doing so.

Since All That to the Wall, the upcoming full-length album from the Narrator, leaked last week, I’ve found it difficult to listen to any of the other big name albums that also found their way into advance digital formats (namely Pelican, Modest Mouse, Caspian, Bill Callahan, Shannon Wright, and The Sea and Cake). Whereas its predecessor, 2005’s Such Triumph, forced its songs to emerge out of a messy, snotty aesthetic, All That to the Wall unsurprisingly cuts most of this fat. Sorry “Crapdragon” and “Roughhousing” devotees; this album steadfastly avoids feedback fests in favor of chiming guitar hooks and sturdier song structures. Such Triumph benefited from its riotous energy and vaguely threatening cacophonies, but All That to the Wall makes far more sense veering toward maturity (a mid-tempo break in the middle covers both “Panic at Puppy Beach” and a cover of Bob Dylan’s nearly forgotten “All the Tired Horses) than holding on to raging youth too long.

“Son of the Son of the Kiss of Death” opens the record with a canned drumbeat and a newfound precision, leaving the messy lines for the throat-searing vocals. Along with the clear single “SurfJew” and the surging “Breaking the Turtle” (“And this is a song for / All the Nascar generation / The more they sit there / They’re just gaining momentum”), “Son of the…” seems noticeably better than many of its neighbors on the first listen (much like how “This Party’s Over” and “Ergot Blues” initially stood above Such Triumph), but after further inspection, the gap between these songs and the “album tracks,” if that term is still viable, decreases noticeably. “Chocolate Windchimes” wears its closing introspection far better than the down-tempo moments on the last album. “All the Tired Horses” makes perfect sense for a melancholic end to the first side of the album, provided that it’s pressed to vinyl. “Papal Airways” dusts off the enthusiastic background vocals and handclaps of “This Party’s Over.” Considering how All That to the Wall is the product of two fill-in drummers (from Russian Circles and the Oxford Collapse), it’s astonishingly coherent.

Pencil this one in for my top ten of 2007.

In related news, I saw Chin Up Chin Up at Great Scott on Sunday night. (Flameshovel Records guy and the Narrator singer/guitarist Jesse Woghin moonlights as CUCU’s bassist.) The crowd looked like a Charlie Brown Indie Rock Special, bouncing around like popcorn kernels to the more energetic moments of the band’s two full-lengths. It struck me how much clearer the chorus hooks came out live, particularly on the title track to We Should Have Never Lived… and “Virginia Don’t Drown.” After their set I talked to Jesse for a while, finding out that the Narrator should tour later in the spring (April or May), may press All That to the Wall on vinyl (I “pre-ordered” a hypothetical copy), and have a new drummer. You, too, should go see CUCU on their tour and put your name down for a vinyl copy of All That to the Wall.

I feel like I should have a notebook with me in the car so I can jot down notes on songs as I commute back and forth, since that would make the process of remembering a week or two of listening significantly easier. I’ve now listened to 412 of 1162 tracks, leaving me more than a third of the way through the project/ordeal. I would be much further along if I counted the times when I’ve left the iPod running in the car for a few hours, but I wouldn’t have much to report on with those runs.

Damning Double Shot: I’ve been particularly wary of songs from Accelera Deck’s Pop Polling after sitting through “As Always” on a drive home, but I was actually excited when “Ferric,” perhaps the best song from the record, came on during a morning commute. This excitement did not last, however, as “Lips,” one of the other two dreaded tracks from the LP, immediately followed it. Whereas “Ferric” mixes pointillist guitar pinpricks and compelling swells of fuzz, “Lips” wavers in and out of its largely aimless guitar feedback, waiting until the eighth of twelve minutes to gain even the slightest shape. Worse still: “Sunskull” and its blaring feedback assault still wait for me.

A Friendly Reminder: I never fell in love with The Moon and Antarctica and only liked half of Good News for People Who Like Bad News, but hearing “Doin’ the Cockroach” from Modest Mouse’s Lonesome Crowded West was a nice punch to the jaw. It’s hard to reconcile the rougher edges of this era of the band with the fact that Johnny Marr of the Smiths is now their guitar player, but I definitely prefer the looser, unhinged version of the band. Right after this song ended I had to fight a serious impulse to put on “Trucker’s Atlas” or “Cowboy Dan.”

Please Not Again: I picked a handful of the mid-80s R.E.M. LPs last year and played at least a side of Murmur a few times, especially enjoying “Pilgrimage.” I don’t know if I’d lose my focus by the end of side B, but hearing “We Walk” on a drive into campus one morning was brutal. I just can’t listen to certain songs—Enon’s “Get the Letter Out” immediately comes to mind—that have such dominant sing-song hooks without fearing a parasitic invasion of my memory. R.E.M.’s “We Walk” is now on that list.

Theory Jam: We read “What Is an Author?” in my Foucault seminar and the professor brought up the topic of mash-ups with regard to how recent shifts in technology have changed the notion of a static author in contemporary music. I remember bringing up how the democratization of the production of music via the dismantling of the label system could ultimately limit the budgets of artists and thereby change the conditions for cultural production, but after class ended I kept thinking about how different periods in the ’90s—the lo-fi revolution, the full exploration of the DJ, and the rise of electronica—affected notions of the author far more than the more recent mash-up trend. DJ Shadow’s “High Noon” is a particularly interesting case study, because it follows a more typical rock build-up and the synthesis of the various parts could be considered a makeshift band in a postmodern sense. (It’s impossible not to mention how well Juno brought the “actual band” aspect of the song to life on their cover of the song.) I’ve never been fond of mash-ups and “High Noon” illustrates why; whereas DJ Shadow extracts disparate pieces of music and combines them under a new structure and new aims, mash-ups only merge two existing aims, typically maintaining the structure of at least one of the songs. There’s no question as to whether DJ Shadow is truly the author of “High Noon,” whereas I’ve never felt comfortable calling any person concocting a mash-up much more than a remixer.

Realization: Kool Keith is my favorite MC, but after hearing a handful of tracks from Black Elvis/Lost in Space, it’s impossible not to note how weak his choruses are. He excels in verses, but almost every chorus from that record is a tremendous let-down, with the notable exception of “I Don’t Play” (which hasn’t come up during the shuffle). “Keith Turbo,” “I’m Seeing Robots,” and “The Girls Don’t Like the Job” would all be notably improved if the choruses were instrumental.

Best Timing: After listening to most of Slint’s “Washer” to start an early morning commute (it’s strange hearing anything from Spiderland in bright day time, especially “Washer” and “Don, Aman”), I need a boost and Mock Orange’s “Birds” was the best conceivable option. Still the most played song on my Last.FM account, “Birds” manages to be upbeat and enthusiastic without approaching being cheesy or grating, a rare accomplishment in my collection. It highlighted most of my commutes last semester, so I couldn’t imagine much better timing for the song.

Poor Record Choice: I put on Tortoise’s self-titled debut instead of my favorite release of theirs, Millions Now Living Will Never Die, thinking that I might finally appreciate it on the same level. No, not this time. Too many of the songs from Tortoise linger on their quiet beginnings for too long and leave the eventual groove before its logical time is up. I’m not giving up on the album, but it may need the confines of my living room to truly excel.

Best Transition: I actually saw this one coming when I looked back on the recently played tracks to write the above paragraphs, but hearing Juno’s “The Young Influentials” dissolve into Pinebender’s “There’s a Bag of Weights in the Back of My Car” improved my ride back from a Friday night get-together. Whereas Juno opted to follow up the emotional crest of “Young Influentials” with the bile-spewing “All Your Friends Are Comedians” on This Is the Way It Goes and Goes and Goes, the quiet introspection of Pinebender’s glacial epic made for a smoother transition.

Errors' How Clean Is Your Acid House? EP hit the top ten of my Best of 2006 and I'm thrilled to report that their new single, "Salut! France," may very well surpass that release. Here's the video for the single, which sadly (like its predecessors) lacks a US release date. While you're at it, watch the videos for "Hans Herman," "Terror Tricks," and "Mr. Milk." You may want to just listen to "Mr. Milk" if you want your eyes to work properly in the future. "Salut! France" is the only thing keeping me awake right now, so I hope YouTube doesn't break in the next two hours.

At the behest of a message board cohort, I saw three completely unfamiliar bands at Great Scott in Allston on Saturday night, a rare occurrence for nowadays. The Swimmers, an indie pop/rock band from Philadelphia, played first. I should have known by the press quote heralding their “strident cheerfulness” that the law of diminishing returns would be in full effect, but I watched most of their set before turning my body and my attention toward the third period of the Bruins–Hurricanes game. All I could think about with regard to their music was the slew of promotional CDs I received six, seven years ago containing a similarly nondescript blend of enthusiasm and instantly forgotten songs. It almost frustrated me that I couldn’t remember a specific band name for comparison’s sake, but that ultimately seemed more appropriate.

The Young Republic, an eight-piece from Boston, occupied the middle slot. With two violinists, a keyboardist, a bassist, a drummer, a flautist, a pedal steel player, and a singer/guitarist, there was certainly enough going on, but the lead vocals and guitar tended to dominate the mix to the detriment of the whole. Most of the songs hit the intersection of Glossary’s alt-country and Belle and Sebastian’s layered indie pop, but occasionally they’d veer into ill-advised guitar freak-outs which boiled down to hyper-strumming high on the fret board with little regard for tone or texture.

When I went to get specifics on the band, I was pleasantly surprised by their MySpace page. No, not by the music, but by the presumably self-penned press blurb. I almost missed reading completely ostentatious one-sheets, but given the number of participants onstage, I’m not particularly surprised that they chose this route. I’ve highlighted my favorite parts.

Outside of Boston, they have enjoyed success courtesy of college and public radio, internet blogs and their parents. From Dylan veined folk songs to Gram Parsons country to Beatles inspired rock n’ roll, The YR takes each tune and deliberately and delicately adds instrument upon instrument, with keen ears for harmony, color and counterpoint to create music that aims more towards the 60’s pop music giants (Wilson, Lennon, McCartney) and the luminaries who overshadow even them (Mozart, Beethoven, Debussy, Stravinsky) than their indie rock contemporaries. They are at heart, a rock band, but it is perhaps a willingness to stretch into new musical territory that sets them apart from the rest of the pack. “She’s Not Waiting Here This Time,” the centerpiece of their latest effort YR 7 calls for a full string orchestra, twenty voice mixed choir, a trumpet soloist and a classical percussion section along with the full time players. A sprawling eight-verse folk song at its core, it may be the most ambitious and complex DIY recording project to date and a sign of things to come for the band.

This section of their press kit beautifully documents this inflated self-worth:

They study music with passion and are unafraid to write, arrange and perform with a skill that has been greatly devalued by most current rock acts. Their original sound is based off traditional folk and rock styles infused with classical sophistication and sensibilities - they can handle most genres. As popular indiedom passes through their periphery in flaming whirlwinds of dust and smoke, the young men and women of The Young Republic pay little mind to this fleeting fanfare as they concentrate on their own extraordinary work.

This tangent obviously goes beyond the show report, but I don’t understand why bands feel the need to write about themselves in this way. Bands can and should be inspired by music beyond the boundaries of contemporary indie, but being so adamant against the acknowledgment of the influence of your peers is ridiculously off-putting. I remember seeing a flyer for a Mercury Program show in Champaign which had a long paragraph not only listing their influences, but heralding their importance in contrast to the band’s own genre, something like “Though lumped in with the burgeoning post-rock crowd, the Mercury Program draws their influence from the avant-jazz of the 1960s and ’70s, particularly the works of….” Sure. You’re too good for post-rock. We get it. Go play another post-rock song, dudes. I could tell that the Young Republic liked bands outside of the contemporary scene, much like the Mercury Program wears a lot of its direct jazz lineage on its sleeve, but neither band transcends its timeframe enough to merit such open contempt for the reality of their condition. It’s a fine line to walk—no one wants to list only the latest, “greatest” acts—but being so self-conscious only serves to underscore your own limitations.

Back to the actual show. Mako closed to a thinned-out crowd. Picture Morrissey fronting a heavy-ish ’90s alt-rock band (they say Hum, but I wasn’t feeling that comparison) and that’ll cover it. There seemed to be a fundamental disconnect between those two elements that wasn’t reconciled before I left halfway through their set to venture back to Somerville (a thoroughly frigid hour-long walk), but I kept thinking about how easily Shudder to Think’s Pony Express Record could have been a complete disaster. I can imagine Mako putting out a solid record in a few years (unlike the other bands, they haven't released anything to date, so it's still very early), but the material I heard just seemed too disjointed. I wonder if the need for immediate coherence is an effect of the MySpace era of instant consumption.

This particular line-up did little to persuade me to drop eight bucks on unknowns more regularly, but if I do it’ll probably be at the more experimentally oriented (and perhaps more important, much closer) P.A.’s Lounge. I may very well have reached the point in my concert-attending career when I give up on seeing unknown acts entirely, but I’m still hoping to be proven wrong one of these days.

I had a brief internal debate between seeing Mission of Burma at the Paradise and Pinebender at Great Scott, but the higher-ranking band on my best of 2006 list won out. Having seen Pinebender in three cities in Illinois (at the Fireside Bowl in Chicago with Engine Down and Taking Pictures, at the Prairie House in Bloomington with the Botanists, and at that hookah bar in Champaign with Denali), I know quite well that they come off better live than on record, earning their “drudge” sub-genre with a loping pace and stomach-churning baritone guitar.

Blanketeer opened up, but since I had a chance to talk indie-rock shop with notorious baby killer Scott Peterson, I didn’t pay too much attention to their keyboard-centric blend of indie lite. I remember talking about how rare it is for me to sit through the entirety of an unknown opening band’s set nowadays, but Blanketeer’s MySpace page made them seem innocuous enough.

I moved to the front of the stage for Pinebender’s set, which started with “Simp Twister” from Things Are About to Get Weird. Hearing this slow-burner gradually rise above the din of the crowd until it finally kicked in and grabbed people’s attention was quite amusing, since Pinebender’s affection for high volume levels noticeably ended a few conversations. “Begin Here” and “Mask Tree” were the pre-“Parade of Horribles” highlights. I can’t underscore how well that song comes off live. Both guitarists get lengthy solos, but drummer Dennis Stacer’s vicious beat is the band’s secret weapon. As much as the fourteen-minute-long song should be always the set-closer, I wanted them to play another one so I could request the twelve-minute-long“There’s a Bag of Weights in the Back of My Car.” They didn’t. I talked to Stephen for a while afterward and insisted that they should play four song sets from now on, and he said that they consider doing so from time to time. I also asked if there were any plans to press the other albums on vinyl (Things Are About to Get Weird just got a super limited pressing on double vinyl—grab it soon), but it seems unlikely.

The Big Sleep headlined with their metropolitan brand of post-rock, primarily recalling a looser version of Trans Am’s Futureworld. I specified metropolitan with either Brooklyn (their actual home) or Los Angeles in mind, since there was a certain trumping of style (aesthetic) over substance (songs) that I couldn’t fathom coming out of the Midwest. Vocals occasionally stumbled out over the Krautrock grooves and wiry guitar riffs, but it was effectively an instrumental set. Unless they pull Scott McCloud from Girls Against Boys on board, they should drop the vocals. Enjoyable enough, but not something I need to listen to at home.

I watched two recent films on Wednesday: Idiocracy, Mike Judge’s cultural satire, and Crank, a possible target of that satire. I’d heard widely different opinions about Idiocracy, ranging from those heralding its potential status as a mishandled masterpiece to cries over a monumental lack of laughs. I approached it with moderate expectations and felt rewarded, if not quite floored at this point. The nature of the film—that America in 2505 is populated by imbeciles—necessitates the repetition of many of the film’s gags. Whether it’ll age as well as Office Space or gain the same following is unclear, but it’s worth seeing. Related trivia I did not know until today: Maya Rudolph had P. T. Anderson’s baby.

When I first saw a commercial for Crank, I came up with the only conceivable pitch to studio executives: “Alright, check this one out. Let’s remake Speed, but have Jason Statham play the bus.” If nothing else, I had to see the film in order to test the accuracy of this claim. I’d hesitate to call it dead-on, since I think I had more fondness for the bus than for Statham’s character. Crank is effectively Grand Theft Auto the movie, minus the missions and set against a ticking clock. It’s absolutely bizarre when Statham’s character stumbles into ill-conceived character development midway through the film—he’s a jerk of a contract killer but awfully patient with his pothead girlfriend. It hardly compares to Domino in terms of horribly edited recent train wrecks, but I don’t think that the makers of Crank had any pretensions of greatness. It’s Speed III: The Dude. Don’t see it.