Goin' Commerical: Bishop Allen Clicks with Sony

As readers probably already know, I am very fond of Bishop Allen and have really enjoyed seeing them get more attention recently. I'm of two minds about music being used in commercials these days, but when I saw a new Sony digital camera ad on TV last night featuring BA's Click Click Click Click I couldn't have been more chuffed.

I went to YouTube today to find the commercial to share with you all, but when I found their video for the song I had to share that instead. Because it's awesome. So, enjoy:

All Austen, All the Time!!

Ladies and Gentlemen, Morland is extremely excited to find out that adaptations of all six Austen novels are being trotted out by PBS' upcoming 2008 Masterpiece Theatre schedule. Apparently four of the six adaptations are brand spankin' new, to which we can only say hooray! Northanger Abbey, in particular, is in dire need of a fresh take (and we're not just saying that because of not-so-obvious reasons). So, it would appear that I am officially booked on Sunday nights from January 13th until, say, about mid-May. Yay!

As the Light is Long: Elvis Perkins in Deerland @ the Bowery 12/7

Last Friday, HT and I checked out Elvis Perkins in Deerland at the Bowery and had quite the enjoyable evening. Their performance was very tight, which should be expected since they appear to have quite a heavy tour schedule, and I was very happy to hear them experiment with some of their material, which has been around for a while and could use some new additions (hint hint).

The meat (and bones) of the show is the music presented on EPD’s album, Ash Wednesday, which is very heavy on the religious and metaphysical overtones.* And a quick overview of Perkins’ oft-cited back-story perhaps gives some insight as to why he would be so concerned with such topics: his father, Anthony, died from complications of AIDS when Perkins was still a teen and his mother was on one of the planes that crashed in 9/11. Part of me feels bad bringing up his back-story in this context because I don’t think EPD can be understood, nor approached, only from that particular angle. In fact, to cite my own personal experience, I saw EPD open for the Pernice Brothers at the Merc nearly-to-the-day a year ago and bought their album on the spot. It wasn’t until a couple of months later that I was enlightened as to Perkins’ personal history and I had already fallen in love with the lyricism and imagery of Perkins' writing. I find his lyrics to be as full of meaning as most Dylan tunes (to again, sigh, offer an oft-cited influence on EPD) and they could be interpreted in a myriad of ways…it’s not even clear to me that the common interpretations given of his songs in light of his personal back-story are as definitive as they are made out to be. [That said, let me offer my own opinion that the album’s title track is (intentionally or not) the best song about 9/11 I’ve heard.]

All of which is to say, given the religious overtones of the album, it was fitting that EPD started their set on Friday night with the ghostly “Good Friday”, which opened up like a hymnal calling us to church. The rest of the set was smartly constructed with build-ups leading to aching minimalist songs that were even more striking once the listener had been warmed up by more raucous tunes. I loved the energy projected on stage by Deerland—they too provide the relief by which a more somber Perkins is enhanced. EPD are a great band and I was happy to see them stretching themselves a bit—I look forward to their future efforts.

HT and I also managed to get to the show early enough to catch Bon Iver open for EPD and I thought he was great. It definitely motivated me to look into him some more and perhaps I’ll post a Listening post about him at a later date. As a quick summary: think Anthony and the Johnsons gone folk (with a little bit of—don’t laugh—Kenny Loggins sentimentality thrown in…and I truly mean that as a compliment and I say it mainly for the benefit of Boo).

*A quick clarification: the album is a solo effort recorded under EP, before the formation of EPD. A quick judgment: EP benefits as EPD, although the album is very good.

**Thanks to HT for the awesome picture too!!