You-Phoria: a music blog from youphoric and roachcraft

  • Ultimate Pipedream McCartney Setlist

    Posted 4/29/2013 by cal
    I used to concoct dream setlists for my favorite bands all the time; not sure why I stopped, but with Paul McCartney--i.e., the greatest artist in pop music history so far--playing Miller Park in July, I couldn’t help geeking out.  This playlist does not necessarily support the outrageous claim I just made, but it does demonstrate that as of his latest album of original material, 2008’s Electric Arguments, he was still writing amazing songs completely different from anything he’d done before.  I would’ve made a very different playlist if I really wanted to make a case for his total dominance throughout the past five decades, but you don’t get a full sense of the character without his cringe-inducing cheese.  (Let’s assume that the author of “Silly Love Songs” is at peace with his sentimental tendencies.)  McCartney has written quite a few awful songs, and stubbornly recorded them and played them live over and over, but nobody else ever hit 70 years of age still writing and performing pop music at such a high level.  So, here’s what a live show made up of all my favorite McCartney songs would look like.  Except I excluded “Oh! Darling” because God knows he couldn’t possibly sing that nowadays.  Absurd, yes, and perhaps a BIT lengthy, but only four more songs than at Wrigley two years ago... Read more... Comments (0)

  • Where my brain goes when I get impatient for Phish tourdates

    Posted 3/7/2013 by cal
    Been listening to a lot of Phish lately. Read more... Comments (0)

  • R.I.P., CWM

    Posted 2/16/2013 by cal
    I’m glad I’m not going to be at Cactus Club tonight.  When a band I love announces four days in advance that its next show will be its last, and it’ll be an opening set for that Alan Sparhawk side project band [NOTHING AGAINST RETRIBUTION GOSPEL CHOIR], I (apparently) feel somewhat relieved that I already have tickets to a different show.  It’s not even a band I like nearly as much as Celebrated Workingman, but it’s a good band that’s not about to end itself.  What, with a fill-in bassist [NOTHING AGAINST SCOTT SCHOENBECK] and who knows what kind of intra-band drama at the root of the breakup, is the likelihood that tonight will be the best show Celebrated Workingman ever plays?  Even if it is, I can’t live in that moment; it would only make the (let’s face it: not-so-)sudden demise of the band that much harder to take.  It’s hard enough from a distance. Read more... Comments (0)

  • Remembering MCA And A Friday Night In MKE

    Posted 5/6/2012 by cal
    Friday was a weird day.  The death of Adam Yauch weighed it down considerably.  Pretty tough to get through a Gen-X life without feeling the impact of the Beastie Boys, and with Yauch out of commission for some time and the band in general having kept a pretty low profile for most of the past decade or so, it had been easy to forget how influential they were on our world.  Licensed To Ill was the soundtrack to my fifth grade year, which may have been life-altering in imperceptible ways (certainly the most perfect fifth-grader fantasy record ever, if nothing else), but the real game-changer was seeing the band at Lollapalooza in 1994.  I didn’t even know they played instruments until that day.  It was like seeing five bands at once, and the energy they projected from the stage made pretty much every show I’d seen up to that point (and the Smashing Pumpkins set that followed) seem boring as hell.  Suddenly I realized it was okay for an alternakid to dig hip hop and R&B and jazz too, and life would never be the same. Read more... Comments (0)

  • Dave Grohl And Computers

    Posted 2/17/2012 by cal
    I know, I know, I’m always writing about things that are so last Monday. Try as I might, I suck at being hasty. Too often when I make an effort to be timely and clever, I end up looking like an idiot. Things take forever to sink into my system and even longer for me to vomit back out as pieces of my own experience. So I saw all the Facebook posts about Dave Grohl’s Grammy speech and was pretty sure I had the gist of it without even watching it thanks to the commentary of friends and acquaintances. I finally watched it yesterday, and as it turns out, I guessed right: it’s at once a painful illustration of Dave’s oblivious rock star cloud of self-promoting smugness and a valid, possibly even heartfelt plea for human passion and physical interaction. You know, the one that’s been a perennial rallying cry ever since the industrial revolution? Don’t let technology rob us of our hearts! I suppose at some point a few hominids believed that the inclined plane would be the downfall of society. Read more... Comments (0)

  • Why I'm Sick Of Radiohead

    Posted 9/29/2011 by cal
    Liam Gallagher , the bitterest Brit in the music biz, recently suggested that Radiohead ripped off The Beatles somehow with the tune “Karma Police”.  Anyone who’s ever heard an Oasis song knows how preposterous that accusation was, at face value, and the Gallagher brothers have a long history of slagging Radiohead in the press; if only Liam could’ve channeled his jealousy into a more pertinent argument… Read more... Comments (0)

  • U2 played at Soldier Field a couple nights ago.

    Posted 7/7/2011 by cal
    To be a music critic and a U2 fan, you have to fear for your credibility.  At some point, maybe around the time of Rattle & Hum, it started to become increasingly unhip to believe in Bono.  Nowadays, a fun and socially admirable thing for writers to do is to point out the hypocrisy of a man who stretches himself thin to help and bring joy to people uncool enough to like him (at the perceived expense of his band), to suggest that his humanitarian efforts are merely fuel for his massive ego, to scoff at him for daring to work with world leaders from whichever side of the political spectrum you don’t agree with, and for the audacity of working for environmental causes while toting around umpteen tractor trailers worth of equipment to build a monstrous stage from city to city.  Less famous but more credible musicians maintain aloofness toward their fans, spend their time committing varying degrees of statutory rape, abandon their families for drugs, spread messages of violence or misogyny or self-loathing, or simply don’t bother to take a stand publicly about what they believe in, but these private hypocrisies are easier to look past than the benevolence of an enviable superstar riddled with contradictory impulses just like the rest of us. Read more... Comments (6)

  • the wall for the first time

    Posted 5/15/2011 by youphoric

    do you remember the first time you heard the wall?

    Read more... Comments (1)

  • AV Club, Et Cetera

    Posted 4/18/2011 by cal
    Just a quick note for anyone who doesn't get my Twitter/Facebook updates: I've been doing quite a bit of work for The Onion's AV Club lately; too much to put links to all of it here, in fact.  If you're interested, here are a few recent reviews

    Robert Plant and Band Of Joy @ The Riverside

    Bright Eyes @ The Pabst

    Sharon Van Etten @ The Pabst

    At this point, you can't really search for my name at the AV Club's website.  I hope I can get them to fix this at some point.  If you happen to be on Twitter, I'm @roachcraft.  Much more to come this week and in the future at You-Phoria, have no fear.  Thanks for reading!  We really do appreciate it.

    Read more... Comments (2)

  • Brew City infiltrates SPIN

    Posted 5/26/2010 by cal
    There's no SPIN jinx, right?  No less than four mentions of Milwaukee appear in the latest issue.  There's the dubious notoriety of Weiland's latest crash-and-burn during STP's March show at the Rave ("...Weiland was out of it in Milwaukee, forgetting lyrics and looking confused...").  Summerfest gets a brief capsule in the festival feature story ("DON'T MISS: Thievery Corporation's politically fiery Bollywood-dub chutney"--no argument here).  Naturally, the review of the widely-acclaimed new disc from local heroes Kings Go Forth receives eight pink dots (that's four stars to the rest of the publishing world).

    But perhaps the most satisfying blurb is a shout-out to our very own Radio Milwaukee from Elijah Jones of The Constellations: "'We sent songs to everyone,' explains the singer.  'And 88.9 in Milwaukee was the first to catch on.  They invited us to play a show, and the day I got there, I heard three of our songs on the radio.'"  Between the Mighty 91 (still in need of ten grand in community support by the end of the month--show 'em some support at wmse.org!!) and 88Nine, we have the best radio airwaves pound for pound in the country.  Believe it, people: MKE is bustin' out.

    Read more... Comments (0)

  • Dire week for metal

    Posted 5/19/2010 by cal
    Devil horns up: you owe that iconic rock and roll gesture to Ronnie James Dio, who passed away this week after a prolonged battle with stomach cancer.  Metal purists lament the ubiquity of the hedonistic sign language, but it's only a thumb away from love anyway.  You can thank/blame Dio for much of what has happened in metal since the mid-70s.  With Rainbow, he sowed the seeds of hair metal.  He rescued Black Sabbath from an early grave following Ozzy's collapse.  With Dio, he established himself as a brand name, and endured for the rest of his life as both a legend and a punchline, embracing the entirety of his legacy with humor and class.

    I am not a Dio fan; the style of music he gravitated to just ain't my bag for the most part (exception being the excellent Heaven And Hell album).  But the guy had an incredible voice, the most influential of all time in metal, from Bruce Dickinson and Rob Halford to Dave Mustaine and Geoff Tate to Cedric Bixler-Zavala and legions of followers to come.  And there's no denying that he tirelessly injected the spirit of heavy metal back into pop culture over and over again throughout his life.  He cared about it as much as anybody ever has, if not more, and for that he has my undying respect and gratitude.

    More sad news today: Isis is calling it quits.  This is the band that forcibly evolved metal with the untouchable Oceanic album in 2002.  I've already gone on and on about the swarm of imitators that flooded the market with post-metal in its wake.  I haven't been impressed with the band's last couple of albums, although I have to admit that last year's Wavering Radiant isn't as bad as I initially thought.  I was just beginning to hope that Isis was on the upswing.  Maybe the kiss-off EP that's in the works will be the crowning achievement.  Either way, it's a bittersweet ending, a legend carved in stone: far and away the most influential metal band of this young century.

    So, thanks for changing the course of music forever, guys.  That was awesome.  Please add a Chicago or Milwaukee date to your tour in between L.A. and Bonnaroo!  You will be missed.


    Read more... Comments (0)

  • Almost seven years ago...

    Posted 4/15/2010 by cal
    The date was June 21, 2003. Pearl Jam, at Alpine Valley, was in the middle of possibly the best performance I've ever seen from the band. Mike McCready was on fire, and Eddie Vedder was a little drunk. After going on a hilarious, foul-mouthed tirade making fun of reality TV (among other things), he proffered this little tidbit:

    "But we were just talking in the back, and we were thinking that maybe uh, on the strength of a night like this, and uh, really, uh, so you understand how much we appreciate it, we were thinking that instead of uh, waiting 2 years or even, uh, after we finish the next record, maybe just next summer, we could come back and play, just a few places that we’ve been to and this would be one of them."

    Fast forward to March 11, 2010: Pearl Jam announces yet another measly mini-tour. The closest date to Wisconsin is a five-hour drive. Still waiting for that promised Alpine return, Eddie. Read more... Comments (1)

  • Quotes of the Week

    Posted 4/15/2010 by cal
    JamBase commissioned me to go see John Mayer on Monday, which was weird. I'd spent some time reading his recent Playboy and Rolling Stone (too paranoid about the decline of print media to put the story online...) interviews, so I was sitting in the audience watching this suave rock star after just reading way more details about his sex life than I ever wanted to know (and zilch about his music). Read more... Comments (0)

  • Why does this strike me so funny?

    Posted 4/14/2010 by cal
    An email from Spin magazine today contained this teaser headline:

    "COURTNEY LOVE SPEAKS!

    "With her career -- and her family -- at stake, the Hole leader makes a bold move with her controversial new record."

    BWAAAAHAAAAHAAAAAAHAAHAHAAAA

    Did I wake up this morning in 1994? Did Courtney write her own headline for this story? Does the word "controversial" actually have any meaning at all in 2010? Read more... Comments (0)

  • While Dinosaur Jr. Played At Turner Hall Last Thursday, I Wrote This.

    Posted 11/25/2009 by cal
    I planned to review the show. I really did. But sometimes that's just not what comes out. It was a good show, though... Read more... Comments (0)
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