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A great surprise of a debut album by this 4 piece Indie Rock group from Denton Texas.  The album has a great mix of barn-burners, slower tunes, and lo-fi numbers.  Absolutely Brilliant.   The group is led by Guitarist/Singer Will Johnson and is only one weapon in his arsenal of sonic assault.  Additionally you can find quite a few releases under the Centro-Matic banner, a handful of albums from the slower South San Gabriel, and two solo full lengths from Johnson himself if you are interested in expanding your knowledge of his work.  I highly recommend it.

Check out the album below.  If you do not see the embedded playlist below, follow this link.

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A more concise, direct, and vocally clear effort than their first two albums. The Austin TX bands 3rd full length features shorter songs and less instrumental preludes.  This is Indie Rock at its most hypnotic, beautiful and droned out.  I personally prefer the later releases, but this is where you start feel band starting to find their place.

Check out the album below in its entirety, if embedded content does not appear follow this link.

Today’s feature is the 2008 film documentary by dutch director David Kleijwegt about one of my favorite Minnesota bands – Low.  This 70 minute document is a multimedia portrait of an unique American family and band.  The film focuses on the two core members of the band; Alan Sparhawk and his wife Mimi Parker.  Throughout the film you are treated to interviews with both members (although it focuses on Sparhawk), along with snapshots of their daily life (along with their two children), with ample time for live performances.  The locale of the film was mainly Low’s home town of Duluth Minnesota which I found a little peculiar considering I had just vacationed there a week before viewing the film.

Sparhawk is an odd interview subject as he hardly ever makes eye contact with the director or looks into the camera unless he is singing.  Most of his time is spent looking off into the distance obviously caught up in what is going on inside his head.  The film surprisingly tackles the two hot-buttoned issues (if there can be such thing) that surround the band, those being the fact that the two core members are devout Mormons, and Sparhawk’s emotional breakdown in 2005.  The film covers the two issues delicately and both Alan and Mimi answer questions honestly and bravely.  I still was left a little confused by some of Alan’s explanations about his breakdown as he was really unable to answer clearly – but I can imagine that the experience would be the least clear to him.

Considering I grew up in Minnesota, and I have been a huge fan of Low since the late 1990s I may be a little biased on this film.  Overall I thought the film was a perfect companion to their music, having the same emotional properties of their songs – chilling, pensive, minimal, and starkly beautiful.  So obviously if you are a fan of the music this film is a must see.  The film may be a little too quiet and slow for most music fans, so unless you are at least a little familiar with their music I would start with some of their early releases.  If you like that, then you will most likely enjoy the film.  Personally I dream of a world in which everyone is a Low fan, it would be a much better place.

There is also another Low documentary out there called Low In Europe which was released on DVD in 2005.

The DVD also features 6 audio tracks that were especially recorded during the filming of the documentary as a special feature titled “At Home with Low”.  Preview them below… (click here if you do not see the playlist)

Cadillac records is the Hollywood treatment of the story of the Chess record label.  The film centers on the founder of Chess Records – Leonard Chess and the labels first star Muddy Waters.  Although the film is not a complete disappointment, its your basic Hollywood over-simplification / over-dramatization of the true events.  Granted the film is “based on a true story”, they omit and make up connections that weren’t there to enhance the dramatic effect and dumb it down for the audience.  I had similar issues with the Johnny Cash /June Carter romance “Walk The Line”.

Here is a quick list of my disagreements with this movie:

• Very early on they portray Leonard Chess as being the underdog with a ridiculous exchange between him and some girls father.  Additionally they play up his death as if it happened on the way out from his last session with Etta James.  In reality he died a few months after he sold Chess Records.
• The relationship between Leonard and Etta James is completely fictitious.  Many other relationships and conflicts in the movie are also embellished including the scene in which Little Walter hits on Geneva.  Also Muddy’s conflict with Leonard about his pay (in truth he cheated Chuck Berry more in that he was using his earnings to pay Muddy during hard times) was played up quite a bit.
• The story completely omits Muddy’s trusty pianist/band leader Otis Spann and doesn’t lend any focus on his guitarist Jimmy Rogers.  Also almost completely passed over save for one scene in which Etta James is introduced is Leonard’s brother Phil who was part owner of the label/studio.  There was also no mention of the fact that Leonard & Phil got their start in the record business when they bought stake in Aristocrat Records where they recorded a lot of Muddy’s original hits.
• Even though I think Jeffrey Wright (Muddy Waters) is a very talented actor I did not feel him in this role and thought they could have casted someone more fitting.

In the interest of being fair & balanced here is a list of things I enjoyed or thought the film did well:

• Casting in the film overall is right on.  The choices of Mos Def as Chuck Berry, Eamonn Walker as Howlin Wolf, and Columbus Short as Little Walter were perfect.  I even found myself enjoying Beyonce as Etta James and I usually find her unbelievably blank.
• One relationship they hit right on was the tension between Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf.  I think in later years they chilled out but early on there was a rivalry between the two blues singers.
• The film does a wonderful job remaking the music with the actors doing the vocals for the most part.  I thought Jeffrey Wright was a little weak, but the others did a great job.  The song picks were also well done.  Leonard’s son Marshall acted as the Executive Music Producer on the film.
• Included are quite a few important moments and characters for which the film does a passable job at blending them in.  For example the introduction of Muddy Waters getting recorded by Alan Lomax & John Work which was true.

Overall not the worst movie, but what things the film does well are ruined by the film bending the truth to make it more interesting to common movie goers.