Pac Tour Presents:
Manchester Orchestra
White Denim, The Dear Hunter
Sun, November 13, 2011
Doors: 6:30 pm / Show: 7:30 pm
The Wellmont Theatre
Montclair, NJ
$19.99 advance / $22 day of show
Tickets
This event is all ages
http://www.wellmonttheatre.com/event/61733/Manchester Orchestra
On April 1st, 2009, Andy Hull started to put his life back together.
Manchester Orchestra’s new album, Simple Math, is about that experience. “It’s the reaction to my marital, physical, and mental failures. But for the first time, I’m not blaming anyone but myself,” Hull says. Produced fat, tactile and beautiful by Dan Hannon, Simple Math is Hannon’s third full-length LP with the band, starting with the debut album I’m Like A Virgin Losing A Child and then the follow-up Mean Everything To Nothing. Recorded at Blackbird Studios in Nashville and mixed by Joe Chiccarelli, the band kept the same studio set-up and production team intact from their second to third records.
Simple Math is a concept album. As Roy Shuker defines in his book Popular Music: The Key Concepts, a concept album is a record "unified by a theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, narrative, or lyrical." Simple Math is indeed unified by all of these. The instrumentation is big, even in its smallest moments. The composition is emotional and complex, expertly weaving music with story. The narrative is a trip through a man’s brain, through his mistakes, regrets and realizations. And the lyrics, which take us firsthand through this life-changing experience, are poetic and raw, honest and passionate.
But Manchester Orchestra has always been about truth; about passion. It’s why Alternative Press gave MO’s 2009 acclaimed Mean Everything to Nothing (which yielded the Top 10 Modern Rock hit “I’ve Got Friends”) a five-star lead review that called the album “a masterpiece of intricacy and honesty.” You can feel their passion in the power of Hull’s voice and the fury of the band’s music in every track they’ve ever laid down, a power that wraps itself around you and demands your attention as Hull’s lyrics guide you through the world as he sees it. “I’ve always had a clear perception of right and wrong around me,” says Hull, “I’ve constantly questioned my beliefs, trying to find the truth.”
The son and grandson of southern ministers, Hull formed Manchester Orchestra in 2004 at the age of 17 with his lifelong friends (Jonathan Corley on bass, keyboardist Chris Freeman, guitarist Robert McDowell and drummer Tim Very) and used their music as a way to explore the issues that mattered most to him, issues of life, emotional vulnerability and the human condition. “I’ve always believed in God, but modernized Christianity can scare me. I’m a spiritual, but not a religious, person. And I like to use my music to explore how that faith stretches and challenges me to be a better man.”
In 2005, before they were even old enough to vote, Manchester Orchestra headed out on the road and played over 200 shows, quickly building a legion of loyal fans that grows bigger and bigger with every show they play and every album they release. “We wouldn’t showcase for the record labels,” says Hull of the band’s early days. “We wanted to play as many gigs as we could and we wanted the labels to come see us live, with our audience, in the clubs.” And the labels came. In 2007, their explosive first record I’m Like a Virgin Losing A Child became a critical favorite, the New York Times praising it as “Music to swoon to.” Two years later, Mean Everything to Nothing arrived and was heralded as one of the best records of 2009, with Absolute Punk raving: “Quick note to the rest of the albums coming out this year: The bar has just been set.” And now with the arrival of Simple Math, the bar has been set yet again. “The songs on this record are stories,” explains Hull, “but more directed and personal. In many ways, it can be called a dueling conversation between my wife, God and myself.”
The opening track “Deer” sets a simmering and descriptive starting-point to Hull’s and our journey. It begins with an honest confession, carefully full of vivid detail. The lyric I’d go out in public if nobody ever asked perfectly sums up just how hard it is to lead a normal life once your pain becomes public. This is followed by the hard driving and rich Mighty, which Hull describes as sounding “like the Apocalypse. It’s my darkest hour, in a sense.” The third track, Pensacola, is a meditation on where the band has taken him and where he thinks he may be heading. “In this song, the innocence is leaving,” says Hull. The raw and masterful April Fool is next, an exquisite dynamite blast of big guitars, giant drums and soaring harmonies that, ironically, “was my first attempt at a love song on this album.” This moves directly into Pale Black Eye, a power-chord powder keg that builds from controlled discourse (“The song is sung three ways: Me to God, me to my wife, and God to me”) to earthshaking confession, a rock and roll bloodletting. Bite your veins/ bleed your pain/ into me.
Virgin appears next, a four and a half minute rock opera that looks back at the road that led the band to the present. “It’s a tri-fold story that parallels three ‘firsts’ for me,” explains Hull. “The loss of my virginity, the potential loss of relationship, and the realization that our band has and will change after our first album. To all of these issues, the same lyric applies: It’s never gonna be the same.” It’s here that the heartfelt and elegant title track (and first single) Simple Math arrives. “This is a song about an affair, non-existent but unrealized. I cannot hide from the truth. It finds me. The chorus is myself questioning God. Had I convinced myself, my family, my band that something is real when it isn’t?” Leave It Alone next slips quietly (at first) into the aftermath, a beautiful yet angry recounting of a three-hour argument brought on by what five years on the road can do to someone. “I love the last line, If we end up alone, a plague on my head and a curse on our home. This song is my realization that there’s a chance no one will ever love me like my wife Amy.”
Second from last is Apprehension, a sobering, lyrical tour through the guilt, the blame, the questioning of who’s at fault. “Not only is the song about Amy and me, it’s also about several friends and family members going through a miscarriage. It represents that even after all has been mended in one heavy situation, life will continue to give you trials that require immense trust and faith in someone or something.” And ending it all is Leaky Brakes, which tiptoes quietly but confidently in to lead us back into the present. “The final breath is essentially to admit to everything I’ve ever done wrong,” says Hull of this final track. “The lyrics are so evolved compared to where we began. It’s all here and ready to be confronted. It’s up to me now.”
Rarely does an album come along of such monumental honesty and vulnerability. The power of the music, the complexity of the songwriting, the opportunity to hear a band at the top of their game evolving before our very eyes – it all makes Simple Math so much more than a collection of songs, so much more than just a concept album. Simple Math is a deeply emotional experience. And, simply put, it is a masterwork.
Manchester Orchestra’s new album, Simple Math, is about that experience. “It’s the reaction to my marital, physical, and mental failures. But for the first time, I’m not blaming anyone but myself,” Hull says. Produced fat, tactile and beautiful by Dan Hannon, Simple Math is Hannon’s third full-length LP with the band, starting with the debut album I’m Like A Virgin Losing A Child and then the follow-up Mean Everything To Nothing. Recorded at Blackbird Studios in Nashville and mixed by Joe Chiccarelli, the band kept the same studio set-up and production team intact from their second to third records.
Simple Math is a concept album. As Roy Shuker defines in his book Popular Music: The Key Concepts, a concept album is a record "unified by a theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, narrative, or lyrical." Simple Math is indeed unified by all of these. The instrumentation is big, even in its smallest moments. The composition is emotional and complex, expertly weaving music with story. The narrative is a trip through a man’s brain, through his mistakes, regrets and realizations. And the lyrics, which take us firsthand through this life-changing experience, are poetic and raw, honest and passionate.
But Manchester Orchestra has always been about truth; about passion. It’s why Alternative Press gave MO’s 2009 acclaimed Mean Everything to Nothing (which yielded the Top 10 Modern Rock hit “I’ve Got Friends”) a five-star lead review that called the album “a masterpiece of intricacy and honesty.” You can feel their passion in the power of Hull’s voice and the fury of the band’s music in every track they’ve ever laid down, a power that wraps itself around you and demands your attention as Hull’s lyrics guide you through the world as he sees it. “I’ve always had a clear perception of right and wrong around me,” says Hull, “I’ve constantly questioned my beliefs, trying to find the truth.”
The son and grandson of southern ministers, Hull formed Manchester Orchestra in 2004 at the age of 17 with his lifelong friends (Jonathan Corley on bass, keyboardist Chris Freeman, guitarist Robert McDowell and drummer Tim Very) and used their music as a way to explore the issues that mattered most to him, issues of life, emotional vulnerability and the human condition. “I’ve always believed in God, but modernized Christianity can scare me. I’m a spiritual, but not a religious, person. And I like to use my music to explore how that faith stretches and challenges me to be a better man.”
In 2005, before they were even old enough to vote, Manchester Orchestra headed out on the road and played over 200 shows, quickly building a legion of loyal fans that grows bigger and bigger with every show they play and every album they release. “We wouldn’t showcase for the record labels,” says Hull of the band’s early days. “We wanted to play as many gigs as we could and we wanted the labels to come see us live, with our audience, in the clubs.” And the labels came. In 2007, their explosive first record I’m Like a Virgin Losing A Child became a critical favorite, the New York Times praising it as “Music to swoon to.” Two years later, Mean Everything to Nothing arrived and was heralded as one of the best records of 2009, with Absolute Punk raving: “Quick note to the rest of the albums coming out this year: The bar has just been set.” And now with the arrival of Simple Math, the bar has been set yet again. “The songs on this record are stories,” explains Hull, “but more directed and personal. In many ways, it can be called a dueling conversation between my wife, God and myself.”
The opening track “Deer” sets a simmering and descriptive starting-point to Hull’s and our journey. It begins with an honest confession, carefully full of vivid detail. The lyric I’d go out in public if nobody ever asked perfectly sums up just how hard it is to lead a normal life once your pain becomes public. This is followed by the hard driving and rich Mighty, which Hull describes as sounding “like the Apocalypse. It’s my darkest hour, in a sense.” The third track, Pensacola, is a meditation on where the band has taken him and where he thinks he may be heading. “In this song, the innocence is leaving,” says Hull. The raw and masterful April Fool is next, an exquisite dynamite blast of big guitars, giant drums and soaring harmonies that, ironically, “was my first attempt at a love song on this album.” This moves directly into Pale Black Eye, a power-chord powder keg that builds from controlled discourse (“The song is sung three ways: Me to God, me to my wife, and God to me”) to earthshaking confession, a rock and roll bloodletting. Bite your veins/ bleed your pain/ into me.
Virgin appears next, a four and a half minute rock opera that looks back at the road that led the band to the present. “It’s a tri-fold story that parallels three ‘firsts’ for me,” explains Hull. “The loss of my virginity, the potential loss of relationship, and the realization that our band has and will change after our first album. To all of these issues, the same lyric applies: It’s never gonna be the same.” It’s here that the heartfelt and elegant title track (and first single) Simple Math arrives. “This is a song about an affair, non-existent but unrealized. I cannot hide from the truth. It finds me. The chorus is myself questioning God. Had I convinced myself, my family, my band that something is real when it isn’t?” Leave It Alone next slips quietly (at first) into the aftermath, a beautiful yet angry recounting of a three-hour argument brought on by what five years on the road can do to someone. “I love the last line, If we end up alone, a plague on my head and a curse on our home. This song is my realization that there’s a chance no one will ever love me like my wife Amy.”
Second from last is Apprehension, a sobering, lyrical tour through the guilt, the blame, the questioning of who’s at fault. “Not only is the song about Amy and me, it’s also about several friends and family members going through a miscarriage. It represents that even after all has been mended in one heavy situation, life will continue to give you trials that require immense trust and faith in someone or something.” And ending it all is Leaky Brakes, which tiptoes quietly but confidently in to lead us back into the present. “The final breath is essentially to admit to everything I’ve ever done wrong,” says Hull of this final track. “The lyrics are so evolved compared to where we began. It’s all here and ready to be confronted. It’s up to me now.”
Rarely does an album come along of such monumental honesty and vulnerability. The power of the music, the complexity of the songwriting, the opportunity to hear a band at the top of their game evolving before our very eyes – it all makes Simple Math so much more than a collection of songs, so much more than just a concept album. Simple Math is a deeply emotional experience. And, simply put, it is a masterwork.
White Denim
After an incredible breakthrough year in 2008, White Denim celebrate the first year anniversary of Workout Holiday (Albums of the Year from Observer Music Monthly, Uncut, The Sun and Clash) by releasing the eagerly anticipated follow up Fits. 2009 promises to be as incendiary. The band returns for live dates in May, shows that are bound to be rammed after their now legendary UK shows that killed it at Bloomsbury Bowling, Borderline, Cargo and culminated in the you-really-should-have-been-there Dingwalls show in November 2008 – one of The Independent's Gigs of the Year – "the kind of group that becomes one's favorite band. If they carry on at this rate, they should be one of next year's big crossover successes".
When a band's first album is unpredictable enough to invoke comparisons with artists as wildly diverse as hardcore innovators the Minutemen and professorial idiosyncrasy of Randy Newman, then you can reasonably assume its been made by people who care about music. Lots of it. Jazz, punk, funk, country, acid rock, even piano ballads – all these labels have been used, accurately, to describe White Denim. Their second record is more problematic though. It has to sound like them.
Fits; the title is both a knowingly bad pun and a reference to the odd tantrum endured in its creation- manages just that. Anyone familiar with the ferocious drive of the Texan trio's renowned live shows, where songs merge into each other and the playing guides the direction of the performance, will recognize their approach. Recorded and produced by the band in their infamous studio/trailer, Fits is more coherent than debut Workout Holiday, yet sacrifices none of its imagination. Though there's barely a pause between tracks the set ebbs and flows, ranging from the soft-hearted to the ferocious.
The band describes it, with only light sarcasm, as The Friendship Record. 'We were congratulating each other for having good ideas," says singer/guitarist James Petralli of the sessions, "We went through a lot of positive and negative things and came out of it a lot closer."
Declared influences range from the obvious – the early works of Funkadelic, to the deep – drummer Josh Block has been listening to a lot of seventies Brazilian pop, and it shows.
There are the curveballs you might expect from White Denim, but they are unifying and never forced. The mysteriously titled 'Sex Prayer' is an unexpected groove-led fusion riddim instrumental composed and largely performed by bassist Steve Terebecki. The frantic 'Hard Attack' is in garbled Spanish. More typical is the pummelling yet swirling upcoming single 'I Start To Run', as blunt as any sixties garage band that ever attempted rhythm and blues, yet dressed in a post-post punk arrangement that DFA would be proud of. Danceable rock music does not always have to fit the Brooklyn template. The playful touches act as a wonderful counterpoint to the soulful holler and keys/drums/harmonies second half of this killer tune.
The woozy, fuzzed up 'All Consolation' extends the mind-expanding Texan tradition of Roky Erickson, Butthole Surfers and Secret Machines while 'Everybody Somebody' is their own take on classic rock, powered by nagging percussion and bubbling keys. Yet White Denim can never be merely nostalgic. 'Radio Milk' and 'Say What You Want' indubitably rock, yet the rhythms driving them are quietly unsettling and anything but predictable. According to Petralli the songs "deal directly with the sense of paranoia that came with the congratulations we got. Once it's out there it's no longer yours. We're just addressing the fears that come with that."
The fabulously driving 'Mirrored And Reversed' has a 'Suspicious Minds' false fade that confounds expectations. Lyrically it deals with the contradiction of their current situation. "Being in a rock band is absurd for an adult. Until last year we lived our lives growing up, worrying about insurance and starting families. Now we do this. So it's about being afraid of preserving your dreams," says Petralli. Or, as he sings, "Hoping the hopes of a child". More prosaically, he describes the music as 'a good steady shuffle.' This could possibly be one of the most humble understatements of the year.
These are songs born of experience and doubt. The skipping country-rock of 'Paint Yourself', closer to the Meat Puppets than Laurel Canyon, the heartfelt 'Regina Holding Hands', White Denim's take on Shuggie-style soul music (and signals, if it were needed, the emergence of a great singer), and the gentle, moody closer 'Syncn' details a relationship that can't succeed. As bold a closer as 'Radio Milk' is an opener, with James' voice nudged and encased by a fantastically restrained drum workout and predatory instrumentation until the vocal breakdown rounds out a triumphant return.
For all the contemplation, Fits is effortlessly fun. There are more elements of jazz and soul than previously. Vocals sit in the mix rather than on top, effectively another instrument. The playing is, again, deft without being showy, and there are melodic hooks to spare. So what's the secret? "We set the tempos high and set off," says Petralli. It's that simple. And it works. In spades.
When a band's first album is unpredictable enough to invoke comparisons with artists as wildly diverse as hardcore innovators the Minutemen and professorial idiosyncrasy of Randy Newman, then you can reasonably assume its been made by people who care about music. Lots of it. Jazz, punk, funk, country, acid rock, even piano ballads – all these labels have been used, accurately, to describe White Denim. Their second record is more problematic though. It has to sound like them.
Fits; the title is both a knowingly bad pun and a reference to the odd tantrum endured in its creation- manages just that. Anyone familiar with the ferocious drive of the Texan trio's renowned live shows, where songs merge into each other and the playing guides the direction of the performance, will recognize their approach. Recorded and produced by the band in their infamous studio/trailer, Fits is more coherent than debut Workout Holiday, yet sacrifices none of its imagination. Though there's barely a pause between tracks the set ebbs and flows, ranging from the soft-hearted to the ferocious.
The band describes it, with only light sarcasm, as The Friendship Record. 'We were congratulating each other for having good ideas," says singer/guitarist James Petralli of the sessions, "We went through a lot of positive and negative things and came out of it a lot closer."
Declared influences range from the obvious – the early works of Funkadelic, to the deep – drummer Josh Block has been listening to a lot of seventies Brazilian pop, and it shows.
There are the curveballs you might expect from White Denim, but they are unifying and never forced. The mysteriously titled 'Sex Prayer' is an unexpected groove-led fusion riddim instrumental composed and largely performed by bassist Steve Terebecki. The frantic 'Hard Attack' is in garbled Spanish. More typical is the pummelling yet swirling upcoming single 'I Start To Run', as blunt as any sixties garage band that ever attempted rhythm and blues, yet dressed in a post-post punk arrangement that DFA would be proud of. Danceable rock music does not always have to fit the Brooklyn template. The playful touches act as a wonderful counterpoint to the soulful holler and keys/drums/harmonies second half of this killer tune.
The woozy, fuzzed up 'All Consolation' extends the mind-expanding Texan tradition of Roky Erickson, Butthole Surfers and Secret Machines while 'Everybody Somebody' is their own take on classic rock, powered by nagging percussion and bubbling keys. Yet White Denim can never be merely nostalgic. 'Radio Milk' and 'Say What You Want' indubitably rock, yet the rhythms driving them are quietly unsettling and anything but predictable. According to Petralli the songs "deal directly with the sense of paranoia that came with the congratulations we got. Once it's out there it's no longer yours. We're just addressing the fears that come with that."
The fabulously driving 'Mirrored And Reversed' has a 'Suspicious Minds' false fade that confounds expectations. Lyrically it deals with the contradiction of their current situation. "Being in a rock band is absurd for an adult. Until last year we lived our lives growing up, worrying about insurance and starting families. Now we do this. So it's about being afraid of preserving your dreams," says Petralli. Or, as he sings, "Hoping the hopes of a child". More prosaically, he describes the music as 'a good steady shuffle.' This could possibly be one of the most humble understatements of the year.
These are songs born of experience and doubt. The skipping country-rock of 'Paint Yourself', closer to the Meat Puppets than Laurel Canyon, the heartfelt 'Regina Holding Hands', White Denim's take on Shuggie-style soul music (and signals, if it were needed, the emergence of a great singer), and the gentle, moody closer 'Syncn' details a relationship that can't succeed. As bold a closer as 'Radio Milk' is an opener, with James' voice nudged and encased by a fantastically restrained drum workout and predatory instrumentation until the vocal breakdown rounds out a triumphant return.
For all the contemplation, Fits is effortlessly fun. There are more elements of jazz and soul than previously. Vocals sit in the mix rather than on top, effectively another instrument. The playing is, again, deft without being showy, and there are melodic hooks to spare. So what's the secret? "We set the tempos high and set off," says Petralli. It's that simple. And it works. In spades.
The Dear Hunter
The Dear Hunter is a full-time project of Casey Crescenzo, formerly of post-hardcore band The Receiving End of Sirens. The band's sound is not unlike that of Casey's former band, but with more alternative and progressive rock tendencies and a wider variety of instrumentation.
Venue Information:
The Wellmont Theatre
5 Seymour Street
Montclair, NJ, 07042
http://www.wellmonttheatre.com/
The Wellmont Theatre
5 Seymour Street
Montclair, NJ, 07042
http://www.wellmonttheatre.com/
