Austin Sound

8/23/07
If you’re a geek like most of us, it’s hard not to love this video. Not only is it rife with Japano-tech, with the little yellow dancing Keepon creature as its centerpiece, but the robot breakdown at the end is priceless. Oh yeah, the song ain’t too shabby either.

The video is part promo trailer for the Wired NextFest to be held in LA on September 10, but it is also a plug for Creative Commons, the new take on outdated copyright laws (and which Austin Sound adheres to under their fair use policy - see the footer at the bottom of the page). What’s even better, is apparently Spoon and Keepon will be getting together for a show at NextFest. Of course, judging from the many Spoon shows we’ve seen, the little robot might be the most animated thing in the building.

LP doesn’t seem to stand for much these days. Granted, the record industry is plying an already outdated model, and they know this as well as anyone, which makes the frustration of a full-length that clocks in at just over 35 minutes that much more absurd, especially when coupled with whatever high sticker price is likely set on the album. Perhaps it’s unfair to fault Spoon in this - they’re hardly the worst offenders, or the first - but they just happened to get caught in the crossfire of an ongoing personal tirade. Don’t Make Me A Target, indeed. Having finally said this, however, Spoon’s sixth studio recording is an exceptional album at any length. Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga ranks among their best work, no small feat for a band with a catalog as illustrious as theirs, and it’s worth any unreasonable dollar amount that might be attached to it.

7/5/07
So the new Spoon album, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, or Ga⁵ as we’ve dubbed it, is quite good. Very good in fact. Next week will see it’s official release, and in preparation Merge Records has released the video for “The Underdog.” The song is perhaps the most traditionally Spoon-like on the album - poppy, clever and catchy - and the video is a playful romp through the Tequila Mockingbird studio. But more fun than the song even is spotting the number of cameos from Austin artists.

Among those involved in the video that we spotted are Jason Reece (Trail of Dead), David Longoria (The Black), Chepo Peña (Karaoke Apocalypse), and the Nasty siblings Pink and Black, all being hassled by the Wannabes’ Hunter Darby playing the producer. Filmed as one long shot by director Kevin McAlester, who also directed the Roky Erickson documentary You’re Gonna Miss Me, the video’s a bit dizzying and must have been hell to coordinate.

4/9/07
Spoon has announced via their myspace, message board and email list that they will be playing a number of “super-secret shows” while out on tour this Spring. So, um, at what level of announcing is the show no longer super secret?

While we don’t know if any will pop up in Austin or not, we figured it was worth mentioning in our ever vigilant Spoon watch. You can find out about the shows by signing up to their email list or subscribing to their myspace blog, or, you know, giving Britt a call just to say, “Yo, ‘You Got Yr Cherry Bomb’?” Now you can go Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga with speculation over what will fall between these dates:

3/26/07
Honestly, we really just wanted to post this picture more than talk about the new Spoon album. This pic of Daniel chillin’ with Flavor Flav popped up on the Merge blog over the weekend and it’s got to be the best thing we’ve seen in a while.

But now on to the new info about the new Spoon album. Although it still hasn’t been titled, the tracklist has been set, as has a release date of July 10. Hopefully they have abandoned the idea of taking suggestions for the album name as we reported back in September, though really, judging from these song titles, maybe they could use some help.

Here’s the tracklist, which is a bit fuller than their previous announcement - (They’ve been drawing this out a while now):

11/1/06
Spoon’s Britt Daniel will be taking the Parish Stage (along with a fully backed Pink Nasty!) tomorrow night at the Parish. One of the songs he’ll undoubtedly be showing off is “The Book I Write,” a new song that the band has contributed to the upcoming soundtrack for the film Stranger Than Fiction. The soundtrack isn’t available until November 7, but Sony’s site is now streaming the new Spoon material on their website. You can check out the song here.

Tickets for the show tomorrow night are $10 in advance and $12 at the door and the show should kick off around 10pm. You can also view the trailer and info about Spoon’s new album in our previous news post.

10/24/06
Britt Daniel and the boys from Spoon have been busy lately. Since their show last month at Emo’s, they have been working on their new album and Daniel has been gearing up for
the release of his first foray into film. Daniel has also just announced a solo show at the Parish on November 2nd and will likely be showing off some of that new material.

Daniel, along with Brian Reitzel, composed the instrumental score for the upcoming film Stranger Than Fiction, a Will Ferrell and Emma Thompson flick about a guy that slowly comes to realize he’s the character of a novel. The film opens November 10 and you can check out the trailer below. In addition to handling the score work, Spoon will contribute a new song to the soundtrack, which will be released on November 7. The song is appropriately called “The Book I Write.” Daniel said Gimme Fiction and I guess he got it.

Click images to view full size picture

Sunday September 30th was a good day to live in Austin. Not that most days go by without some small reminder of why this is our city of choice�just some days are more Austin-y than others.

From mid-afternoon to early evening the annual Pecan Street Festival took over 6th street with scads of vendors, bands, and my personal favorite: children wearing those hats made from balloons. Yet the shutting down of the festival gave way to the beginning of a night of musical menagerie, with Fishboy, Brothers and Sisters and Spoon taking the stage at one of the few mid-sized Austin venues, Emo’s.

Spoon is arguably the biggest indie-band in Austin these days, jumping to national attention and airplay on the back of last year’s Gimme Fiction. So a hometown Spoon show, especially at Emo’s, is a big deal, if you want to catch it, you should plan on getting your tickets early.

Gimme Fiction was undoubtedly Spoon’s most ambitious album in terms of production, matching Britt Daniel’s literate and often skewed narratives with strings and a more powerful sound. “I Turn My Camera,” perhaps the best track, turns a twisted voyeurism into pop bliss with a funky bassline and Daniel even channeling a Prince-like groove in his singing.

But this summer also produced the re-release of Spoon’s spectacular debut Telephono and the Soft Effects EP by Merge, bringing the group’s exceptional early work to an audience that likely missed it the first time around. Indeed, a Spoon show often packs the house with dreamy-eyed fans that seem only several years older than the band’s twelve-year career, which is more a testament to their fans’ good taste than the band playing down their smart lyrics and quirky pop arrangements.

Just thrilled to be here

9/7/05
Spoon has been hard at work on their follow up to last year’s Gimme Fiction, which helped launch them into national airplay. Details of the new work are scant right now, but in a recent post on their website the band offered up this little blurb: “This one is largely about mid-century modernity, busting off, and world politics.”

That’s an interesting mixture, to say the least. Britt’s so the new Bono. We’re still not sure what “busting off” means though, but our debates have hovered between guns and masturbation. They’re also apparently taking suggestions for the title of the album, so go ahead and send ‘em them your ideas – it can’t be any worse than “Caligufornia” which one fan suggested on the band’s myspace.