#mac mccaughan

[musicollage]

Mac Mccaughan – The Sound of Yourself. 2021 : Merge.

! enjoy the album ★ donate a coffee !

[joanofarc]

race you home, portastatic (1994).

the rope has all but slackened

[ohc-and-the-music-tapes-archive]

Documentary "Firewall of Sound" by Devin DiMattia featuring i.a. Julian Koster and Merge Records. Premiered in Autumn 2010

(link if video isn't working; it’s Vimeo so you might need to be logged in to see it)

It's great but if you want to watch only the parts with Julian, it starts around 0:20:00, also 0:37:00 (0:35:27 for context) and 0:57:49.

[spilladabalia]

Superchunk - Precision Auto

[sinceileftyoublog]

Superchunk Live Show Review: 7/8, Square Roots, Chicago

BY JORDAN MAINZER

From the Czar Bar to the middle of Lincoln Square: Such is the story of Superchunk’s three-decade history in Chicago. Looking on at the crowd Saturday night at Square Roots, it was clear to Mac McCaughan that not many people knew what he was talking about when he mentioned the long-defunct venue. You know what, though? That’s Superchunk’s fault for attracting a new generation of fans. Since 2010, the band has released three great and one very good post-hiatus records. Saturday night, the crowd was perhaps expecting to hear more of their latest, 2022′s Wild Loneliness (Merge); instead, the set was practically two-thirds old material, including a few deep cuts, geared towards perhaps the very people at the Czar Bar in the early 90′s.

Superchunk’s brand of indie rock never went out of style. Even when baroque instrumentation pervaded the sound of the who’s who of independent music, there were always fans of power pop-bordering on-pop punk to be found, somewhere in between Cheap Trick and the Warped Tour. McCaughan and company’s earnestness never wore off. During the Aughts, the band simply wasn’t releasing music, but as soon as they did again, they returned right where they left off. All of this is to say it makes sense that Superchunk could attract a wide variety of listeners, versatility they showed off better than ever on Saturday. The gentler-than-usual lilt of What A Time To Be Alive’s “Black Thread” found a kindred spirit in the sway of “Driveway to Driveway”, while burner like On the Mouth’s “Precision Auto” mirrored the urgency of Majestry Shredding’s “Learned To Surf” and I Hate Music's shout-along anthem “Me & You & Jackie Mittoo”.

Meanwhile, the festival offered an opportunity for established bands like Superchunk to reflect on themselves and the others playing, how far all of them have come. During their set, McCaughan shouted out the stage’s previous occupants, local alt rock legends Eleventh Dream Day, as well as the Mekons’ Jon Langford and Sally Timms, who both joined Eleventh Dream Day and played a set of their own across the grounds earlier in the day. As for those who weren’t there, Superchunk dedicated No Pocky for Kitty’s “Seed Toss” to the late Rick Froberg, the Pitchfork/Drive Like Jehu/Hot Snakes lead vocalist who passed away late last month. They unexpectedly ended their set not with a no-brainer like “Slack Motherfucker” but their version of Lou Barlow’s oft-covered “Brand New Love” from their 1992 Tossing Seeds singles compilation. On Monday, I looked at the band’s setlist at Thalia Hall the following night to find there was not much crossover. For the uninitiated and the familiar, every Superchunk show is an invitation to dive in or rediscover something great that just happens to have been there the whole time.

[danicalithegirl]

I think you'd like this story: "Echoes in the Sanctuary" by DaniCaliTheGirl on Wattpad https://www.wattpad.com/story/375291284?utm_source=android&utm_medium=sms&utm_content=story_info&wp_page=story_details_button&wp_uname=DaniCaliTheGirl

[asailorsdrunkeneulogy]

Seam || The Wild Cat

purchase on bandcamp.

[relativelyfvcked]

i know, i know, i know we said fair warning

[interstate40]

spent five hours in a bar for a show and did not fuck up my sobriety, so that's rlly fucking slay of me

[mymelodic-chapel]

Polvo- Cor-Crane Secret (Indie Rock, Noise Rock) Released: May 6, 1992 [Merge Records] Producer(s): Jerry Kee, Mac McCaughan, Polvo

[diceriadelluntore]

Storia Di Musica #263 - Neutral Milk Hotel, In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, 1998

Tra le storie che ho raccolto sul tema dei dischi ispirati a libri, questa è sicuramente la più particolare, anche per il titolo che ispirò un geniale musicista della Louisiana a cimentarsi in una cosa del genere. Siamo a fine anni ‘80, il grunge è pronto ad esplodere e esaurirà la sua potenza in pochi anni con la tragica uscita di scena di Kurt Cobain. A Ruston, una cittadina di 22 mila abitanti, un gruppo di ragazzi fonda una comune artistica con annessa etichetta discografica, la Elephant 6 seguendo tutt’altra linea ideale: sono Robert Schneider, Will Cullen Hart, Bill Doss e Jeff Mangum. Condividono l'attenzione per le registrazioni “casalinghe”, soprattutto le registrazioni su cassette, che portarono pochi anni prima alla nascita del lo-fi, la musica colta, la psichedelia degli anni ‘60. Provano a suonare insieme, il punk (come Maggot), il pop (come Cranberry Lifecycle e Synthetic Flying Machine) e decidono di spostarsi a Athens, in Georgia, città famosa nel rock per essere la città natale degli R.E.M. Il gruppo si divide: Hart e Doss continuano come Olivia Tremor Control, Schneider va a Denver, Mangum parte per una sorta di tour spirituale degli Stati Uniti con la chitarra e un registratore a 4 piste. Ripesca alcune canzone scritte verso la fine degli anni ‘80, quando era ancora alle superiori, che aveva intitolato Milk, e le sviluppa nel suo nuovo progetto, Neutral Milk Hotel, nome su cui ha sempre glissato dal dare spiegazioni. Si inizia con Everything Is, singolo del 1993, poi Mangum suona il basso per la band che Schneider fondò a Denver, Apples in Stereo. A questo punto succede una cosa particolare: gli Apples in Stereo volevano firmare con la SpinART Records e incontrarono il loro rappresentante legale, Brian McPherson, a Los Angeles: Mangum quel giorno indossava una maglietta della Shrimper Records, una giovanissima casa discografica che si stava specializzando sul nuovo cantautorato americano. McPherson venne a conoscenza che aveva scritto Everything Is, una canzone che aveva molto apprezzato, e finì per chiedere rappresentanza sia agli Apples In Stereo sia di Neutral Milk Hotel. Alcune copie di Everything Is e un'altra canzone Ruby-Bulbs vengono spedite ai fondatori della Merge Records Laura Ballance e Mac McCaughan, che subito proposero a Mangum un disco. On Avery Island esce nel Marzo del 1996, prodotto a Denver con Schneider che aveva costruito un piccolo studio di registrazione, i Pet Sound Studios. Caratterizzato dal suono grezzo e lo-fi, dai suoi testi immaginifici, criptici e sognanti, il disco viene ben accolto dalle riviste specializzate ma vende pochissimo, qualche migliaio di copie. Il contratto con la Merge prevede un secondo disco, e Mangum inizia a leggere moltissimo per trovare ispirazione. Si imbatte, per caso, ne Il Diario Di Anna Frank, e ne rimane scioccato: piange per tre giorni consecutivi, in preda a incubi su cosa la giovane ragazza avesse passato. Ne viene fuori la volontà di scriverne, e nel marzo del 1998 viene pubblicato In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, un disco che partendo da quella storia parla del disagio delle paure, dell’impossibilità di scappare (argomento che si rivelerà di lì a poco molto personale per lui). Sempre con Schneider a Denver, inizia a scrivere e provare: insieme a lui ci sono Jeremy Barnes alla batteria, Scott Spillane ai fiati e al dirigere una sezione archi e Julian Koster che, per precisa decisione di Mangum, suona strumenti stranissimi. Infatti verranno utilizzati, anche in modo del tutto originale, la sega musicale (una normale sega trapezoidale da falegname in acciaio che si suona con l’archetto del contrabbasso), le cornamuse irlandesi, lo zanzithophone (che è uno strumento digitale della Casio dalla forma a sassofono, che usava la tecnologia del Midi sound). A ciò, Mangum aggiunge una creatività originale, mischiando rock al folk, a mini cavalcate hard rock, a elementi elettronici con l’uso del “white noise processing”, in tutto con un’aria triste si, ma felicemente anarcoide. Si inizia con The King of Carrot Flowers, Pt. One e The King of Carrot Flowers, Pts. Two & Three, che sono due canzoni divise in tre parti, senza soluzioni di continuità, che si sviluppano l’una nell’altra a ritmi circolari, un primo gioiellino. In The Aeroplane Over The Sea ci sono questi versi: Anna's ghost all around\Hear her voice as it's rolling and ringing through me\Soft and sweet\How the notes all bend and reach above the trees. Two Headed Boy, che sembra una storia di Freaks, ha due parti, la seconda come chiusura del disco; il disco è composto anche da due stupendi strumentali, il doloroso andare di The Fool, con gli archi arrangiati da Scott Spillane a cui fa contrasto la verve da giga irlandese di (untitled), con la cornamusa in primissimo piano. Holland, 1945 che ascoltandola si capisce bene quante band ha ispirato, sempre ispirata al Diaro di Anna Franck, dice: And here's where your mother sleeps\And here is the room where your brothers were born\Indentions in the sheets\Where their bodies once moved but don't move anymore\And it's so sad to see the world agree\That they'd rather see their faces filled with flies\All when I'd want to keep white roses in their eyes, ed è quasi straniante il contrasto tra il testo e la musica con echi di festa mariachi soprattutto nei fiati e nel ritmo baldanzoso e power pop. Communist Daughter è una delicata ballata, che riflette sulla sessualità umana e sui confini morali che la società ha posto, metaforizzando su fascismo e comunismo, e poi altri due gioielli: Oh Comely, dolorosissima, dal testo misterioso che probabilmente parla di un incesto, per poi arrivare a Ghost, tratta dalla sua fobia che la sua casa fosse abitata da un fantasma, che immagina essere quello di una ragazza, “she was born in a bottle-rocket in 1929\With wings that ringed around a socket right between her spine\All drenched in milk and holy water pouring from the sky\I know that she will live forever, she won't ever die” altro chiaro riferimento a Anna Frank. La copertina dell'album è stata realizzata da Mangum in collaborazione con Chris Bilheimer, già staff designer dei R.E.M. ed è ricavata da un ritaglio di una vecchia cartolina proveniente dall'Europa con l'immagine di alcune persone che fanno il bagno in un resort, il viso principale viene sostituito con quello di un tamburello. Per promuovere il disco, che inizia a vendere pochissimo come il precedente nonostante anche stavolta le critiche siano molto positive, la band va in Tour. Tra concerti strampalati, cover di brani jazz che non vengono mai bene, un caos regnante in ogni esibizione, girano parte gli Stati Uniti e anche l’Europa. Nonostante tutto, la fama del gruppo cresce con il passaparola, e vengono sempre più sottolineate le caratteristiche uniche della musica di Mangum. Il quale però reagisce in maniera del tutto inaspettata: stanco di scialbe interviste e di spiegare i suoi testi (parole sue) si ritira in isolamento. Leggenda vuole che faccia scorta di riso per il baco del millennio Y2K, ma contrariamente alle sue intenzioni il suo intento non fa altro che aumentare ancora di più il piccolo culto per lui e per la band, che si scioglie nel frattempo per l’impossibilità di rintracciare il suo leader. Mentre intanto il disco inizia a vendere, viene recensito nuovamente a distanza di anni e in pratica finisce in tutte le classifiche come uno dei dischi più geniali del decennio. È il seme da cui nasceranno gli Arcade Fire e tutti i loro fratellini, che non hanno mai nascosto ammirazione per l’album, e rimane uno dei culti più privati della storia della musica, come disse un altro fan di Mangum, Kevin Barnes, che entrò dopo poco negli Elephant 6: adoro il modo in cui è diventato un album di culto per antonomasia, ampiamente amato e anche ampiamente sconosciuto, perchè rende facile credere che ci sia qualcosa di speciale tra te e il disco, che sia solo tuo, non importa quante persone lo amino.

[dustedmagazine]

Mary Lattimore — Goodbye Hotel Arkada (Ghostly)

Photo by Daniel Boczarski

The late poet Richard Hugo, in his slim essay collection The Triggering Town, presents a line — “That silo, filled with chorus girls and grain” — then asks us to “notice the word ‘that.’” With just this one word, we are on the scene with the poet, who is pointing at something; something palpable, something with a discernible, shape, setting, and surface. Not a silo, but that one. Even if you don’t know where precisely the poet has taken you, you know it is somewhere — and that, per Hugo, “is a source of stability” and earns the poet the authority to “indulge [their] flights” into the extraordinary. The harpist and composer Mary Lattimore’s latest album, Goodbye, Hotel Arkada, performs a similar trick. The certainty in her playing and the narrative clarity of her voice as an instrumentalist, composer, and weaver of sound convey a comparable authority and evoke the same sense of that, of somewhere —  even if that somewhere lives only in the fragments of memories or the specters of dreams. Like Hugo’s poet, she points, dropping us into scenes that we believe and recognize, whether they’re real or imagined. Lattimore, like a great poet, opens a window in each song for the listener to take flights of their own.

Unlike the solitary poet that illustrates Hugo’s advice, though, Lattimore is an accomplished and frequent collaborator. She has found common cause with musicians across a wide sonic spectrum. In previous full lengths, she has mixed her harp’s erudition with artists as diverse as Superchunk’s Mac McCaughan, guitar explorer Paul Sukeena, and folk powerhouse Meg Baird,  also featured here, among many others. Her experience melding the talents of disparate performers with her own comes alive on Goodbye, Hotel Arkada. While none of the six featured artists are credited on more than one track, the album has the feel of an ensemble cast. Their contributions are not just backing but lend drama and tension. This is storytelling music, complete with varied perspectives and nuanced characters.

“Arrivederci,” track two, features ex-The Cure drummer and keyboardist, Lol Tolhurst. His synthesizer, wistful and a little chilly, and Lattimore’s harp are in conversation: positing, responding and giving way. This is a duet, a dramatic dialogue, and Tolhurst is a formidable interlocutor. He starts brightly, his chords flowing and pliant, until, after a long passage from Lattimore, which sees her begin to play with greater determination, he rejoins with scratchy, persistent bass pulses. Tolhurst’s character eventually resorts to volume over reasoning. But, rather than be crushed under the weight of the bass, Lattimore continues to play with sparkling emphasis, adding more flourish, and, apparently, getting her point across, perhaps, per the title, saying goodbye for now, as Tolhurst’s keyboard lines return to their bright, ethereal beginnings.

If “Arrivederci” was a dialogue, a plot’s catalytic disagreement, then the following track, “Blender in a Blender,” featuring the guitarist and composer Roy Montgomery, is a Greek chorus zooming out to describe a ravaged world in flux, filling in macro, expository details as the characters continue on below. The song swoops and builds for almost five minutes as ominous keyboards and somber strings bear witness to the landscape, eventually fading to a contemplative silence, until an epochal torrent of keys storms back in from some shadowcast mountain range. It is martial, a threatening, destructive surge of sound, but soon it too is gone. The echoing, driving style is pure Montgomery and immediately recalls, in pace and rhythm, the tense, controlled waves of guitar from his 1996 album, Temple IV, though without quite the extremity of those reeling provocations. On an album that so often and ably shows a nuanced darkness underneath beauty, “Blender in a Blender,” given Montgomery’s presence, feels like a missed opportunity to escalate towards something more visceral.

While most of Goodbye, Hotel Arkada’s 42 minutes are spent in the company of Lattimore and at least one other musician, for a two song stretch, starting with the appropriately named “Music for Applying Shimmering Eye Shadow” and the somehow even more appropriately named “Horses, Glossy on the Hill,” Lattimore is showcased alone. Both have their moments: “Music…” finds a calm, evocative fullness in the trio of twinkling harp, bright but enveloping synths, and Lattimore’s textural breath, but it’s ”Horses…” that’s the standout performance, perhaps the most theatrical piece on a very theatrical album. It starts with knocks that can be nothing but the hooves of the eponymous horses, soon joined by Lattimore’s stuttering harp, which plinks just out of step, struggling but steady, just able to keep pace with the cavalcade. The line finds its stride in a passage of bright picking and strumming that’s ukulele-like in its taut simplicity. The climax is a stream of consciousness: echos and reverb, a blossoming, articulate medley of sound that loses none of its heft or form in the rush. While Lattimore’s effects pedals are a hallmark of her work and present throughout the album, “Horses, Glossy on the Hill,” stands out on Goodbye, Hotel Arkada for the vigor and intricacy with which she applies them, and for the complete vision she’s capable of conjuring in a soliloquy.

Delightful and inventive as Lattimore is on her own, Goodbye, Hotel Arkada is still most remarkable for its collective efforts. In the opening track, “And Then He Wrapped His Wings Around Me,” the accordionist Walt McClements’ nuanced drone and Baird’s articulate, wordless vocals, like Tolhurst’s keys, seem to inspire a greater tenacity in Lattimore’s playing, glissandi grow more insistent and her riffs more oratorial. In the closing track, “Yesterday’s Parties,” too, the presence of Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell vocals and Samara Lubelski’s luminous violin create a lovely, highly reflective fog that Lattimore’s playing reflects from, vibrant and beautiful into a controlled squall at the end. A Bandcamp supporter of Lattimore’s wrote, about her work with the drone group GROWING, that the music “highlights each participant’s strengths while bringing forth something new and wondrous.” This is also an apt description of Goodbye, Hotel Arkada, an album that, without lyrics, tells its stories with many voices and in a poetry that feels tangible, even as it transforms in front of us, catching more light in its sound as it blooms.

Alex Johnson

[daggerzine]

THROWBACK THURSDAY #41!- The 6ths – Wasps’ Nests (1995-London)

It was 1995 and the Magnetic Fields were flying high, at least in my household. The year before they had released not one, but two brilliant albums, Holiday and The Charm of the Highway Strip. What was leader Stephin Merritt supposed to do next?

He wrote another album full of quirky/catchy synth music and got different vocalists to sing on each one (Merritt did sing on one of the songs) and boom, Wasps’ Nests was born!

The first song is the great “San Diego Zoo” where Barbara Manning sings and it’s one of his best (and the lyrics will get you to the zoo if you are in S.D.) as is the next one, “Aging Spinsters” (the one where Merritt sings in his classic, droll vocal delivery), another ace Merritt tune,

“All Dressed Up In Dreams,” sung by Helium’s Mary Timony is probably my favorite song on here with a unbelievably magical feel (“I waited by the door but you never even called to tell me you don’t love me anymore”).  Another corker on here is the bouncy “Movies In My Head” (sung by Yo la Tengo’s Georgia Hubley). and slightly darker “Heaven in a Black Leather Jacket” sung by The Bats’ Robert Scott. Again, these are brilliant Stephin Merritt pop songs brought to life by the individual vocalists. 

Some of the other vocalists on these songs include Luna’s Dean Wareham, Sebadoh’s Lou Barlow, Superchunk’s Mac McCaughan Heavenly’s Amelia Fletcher and plenty more. I think this whole thing is brilliant.

There was a 2nd volume a few years later that was good, but not nearly as good as this. Wasps’ Nests is thee one!

www.the6ths.bandcamp.com

[ohc-and-the-music-tapes-archive]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Mac McCaughan (@macsuperchunk)

"We get great visitors! Awesome to have Julian Koster in Durham for a minute. Fun things in the works!"

[spilladabalia]

Superchunk - 100,000 Fireflies [The Magnetic Fields cover]

[lastchancevillagegreen]

Thursday, 1 February 2024:

Misfits & Mistakes: Singles, B-Sides & Strays 2007-2023 Superchunk (Merge) (Released 27 October 2023)

Superchunk's fourth compilation of their singles, B-Sides and tracks off tribute albums or other albums not found on a Superchunk album was released last year. It's funny because their first singles compilation, Tossing Seeds (Singles 89-91) came out in 1992 and was a single LP. Their second singles comp, Incidental Music 1991-95 came out in 1995 and was a double LP. When their third singles comp, Cup of Sand came out on vinyl in 2017 it was a triple LP (it had originally been released as a double CD set in 2003). And now their newest singles comp is a four LP set! (Someone how I own all of these compilations on LP except for the very first album, which I only own on CD.

Above you see the album cover and the back of the album. The next two photos following that are of either spine. I'll be looking at that top spine for the remainder of my days! (I ended up with this because of the big box store we all tend to hate yet still order from on occasion was selling it for a mere $40. It actually retails for twice that amount!)

Since this is a quadruple album, it is packaged as two double albums inside a slipcase. The first thing you will see in the photos below is the album cover of album #1 (with bassist Laura Ballance on the cover), followed by the gatefold, then you will see the back of the album (with guitarist Jim Wilbur on the back).

The next four pictures reveal all four sides of the record labels.

Each album contains a poster. The photo below shows you what the first poster looks like.

Next up is the second album: the cover (featuring guitarist Mac McCaughan), the gatefold and then the back of the album (featuring drummer Jon Wurster).

The next four photos show you all four sides of the record labels.

The next photo is the second poster found in this second album.

The final photo is a close up of the hype sticker on the album cover.