CD Review: Monsters of Folk

Chocolate is delicious but it’s even better with peanut butter and pretzels and Monsters of Folk which features Jim James from My Morning Jacket, M. Ward, most recently of She & Him, and Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis of Bright Eyes might be the indie/alt. country/folk rock equivalent. Their premiere self-titled album is a sonically eclectic but thematically coherent musical piece and interestingly it strays quite a distance from “folk” music at times.

The band might be best compared to the original 60’s folk rock super group Crosby Stills Nash (and Young) because the combinations of writing, musical sensibilities, and most notably vocals in combination make for a sum greater than the individual parts. This isn’t true of every track but the standouts such as “Baby Boomer” which is an extraordinary song that gets political in the old school folk tradition certainly shows off how fruitful the collaboration between the members can be.

There are quite a few memorable tracks on the album such as: “Dear God (Sincerely M.O.F.)” which begins the album on a spiritual note with a colorful blend of 1970’s downbeat disco and folk, “Temazcal” which is a beautiful poem set to music, and “The Right Place” which questions personal ethics with a sound reminiscent of Gram Parsons. For fans of any of these musicians the album is a must have and even in this era of side project madness this one feels a little more special than the rest.

For Short & Sweet NYC

Interview with The Faint's Todd Fink

I had a chance to talk with Todd Fink (lead singer and keyboardist of The Faint) last night about their latest album Fasciinatiion, the band's creative process, and the evolution of the geekdom.

I've always found it interesting that such a modern sounding punk-synth-dance band was born out in Nebraska so I had a chance to ask Todd about how they evolved out in what seems to be the middle of nowhere and how their sound developed. As a full blown tech/art geek I was a fan of The Faint's new single "The Geeks Were Right" and Todd admitted that he too had become a geek-

"I grew up skateboarding - I knew geeks and liked them but it wasn’t me. Now I’ve really become a geek - everybody in my band has become a geek- we’ve got tables of toy keyboards with tons of sottering irons everywhere".

Todd and I also talked about the creative process and finding inspiration in art, literature, and music. We are both fans of the philosophy of Bucky Fuller so it is cool to see a resurgence of some of his ideas lately. I was interested in the band's decision to leave their label, Saddle Creek, and start their own Blank.wav Records and Todd said the band wanted to take control of things (and it was clear that it was the direction the music industry was going in).

I also wanted to see what new music the band was listening to and if we should look forward to any new remixes. Todd gave former band mate Conor Oberst praise on his new solo album and said that the band was listening to The Kills on tour and are thinking of doing a remix for them. You can read the full interview on the Short and Sweet blog later this week. Also check out the album, it's pretty sweet- especially Machine in the Ghost and The Geeks- they'll be in town on August 18th for a show at Terminal 5.