Friday, Feb 5 -7:00PM

The Red Lions w/ ZGress
Jack’s Place, The College of St. Rose, Albany

Friday, Feb 5 -8:00PM

Phantogram, Minus the Bear, Maps & Atlases

Northern Lights, Clifton Park

Saturday, Feb 6 -8:00PM

Matt Durfee, Timbre Coup

Red Square, Albany

Saturday, Feb 6 -8:00PM

Railbird

Café Lena, Saratoga Springs

Saturday, Feb 6 -8:00PM

Who’s Bad (Michael Jackson Tribute)

Northern Lights, Clifton Park

Sunday, Feb 7 -8:00PM

Que Caro (Ms. Caroline Corrigan)
90.9 WCDB FM Live on DJ Phatrick’s Show

Thursday, Feb 11 -8:00PM

Sea of Trees w/ The Blisterz
Jillian’s, Albany

The mid-nineties was a glorious time for music, it was a period of time that saw the popularization of an oft-overlooked genre of “indie rock”. Much like Buddence “Buddy” Lembeck, from the 80’s “Charles in Charge” Isaac Brock and Modest Mouse was able to sneak into our lives with just a hint of confusion as to from whence they came and utter enjoyment once the scale of their greatness sunk in.

The ninth track from the second EP released by popular (even at the time!) indie rock group Modest Mouse, titled “Broke” is a sobering song about self-restraint, defeatism, and aimless disappointment. From the second verse “Broke your glasses, but it broke the ice/You said I was an asshole and I paid the price” through the sixth, “Broke up, and I’m relieved somehow”, Isaac Brock paints a picture of a serendipitous meeting over a pair of broken glasses culminating with apathy and suicide.

The soft and circular guitar melody takes the listener on a journey of sadness and depression, using financial and emotional hardships to bring to light a deeper physical hardship. Alcoholism and debt make dangerous bedfellows, and the waxing and waning electric guitar add stark realism to the topic.

Isaac Brock manages to play not just the strings of his low-fi guitar, but the strings of my heart as well.

Mp3: Modest Mouse-Broke

If I hadn’t fallen off the face of the internet between the middle of December and now, I would have posted the rest of the B3nson Collective’s B3st of the Decade lists, you (the avid reader of b3nson.net) would have noticed that I placed Dust From 1000 Years Buzzard as my 6th favorite album of the last decade. Since I didn’t post that list you are going to have to take my word for how much I love that album.

SInce 2005 when Buzzard was released, Dust From 1000 Years has toured a whole bunch, changed their line up a few times (though Ben and Jimmy have remained a constant) and recently got picked up by Moon Jaw Records a new imprint of Absolutely Kosher and Misra records (Mountain Goats, Xui Xiu, Sunset Rubdwn) run by Leo DeLuca of the band Southeast Engine. The fledgling label deal may just be the well deserved break Dust from 1000 Years has been looking for.

Marble Memo, Dust’s first release on Moon Jaw bears the unmistakable imprint of Dust from 1000 Years’ earlier work, starting exactly the same way Buzzard did with Ben quietly counting three to begin the first song. “In Dream Time” the opening song affirms that band still has its knack for haunting melodly and harmony. Ben’s voice and song writing are still something completely unique but manage at the same time to be comforting and familiar.

The album also continues to expound on the themes familiar to Dust,  small town mysticism, the lives of small town people a deeply felt love for food (any food). These seemingly mundane themes are transformed through honesty and artistry to be expansive tropes through which Ben expresses a singular and captivating view of the world.

The album as a whole is more subdued than Buzzard exuding on the whole a feeling of remorse and compassion a feeling which starts from the proper songs of the album and is expanded by a number of instrumental/ soundscape interludes which litter the tracklist. This makes for a cohesive and beautiful album in the mood of glum.

I have to say I do miss the lively bass and drum interplay that lifted Buzzard into a more adventerous mood. The bass tone on that album is my favorite bass tone of all time ever and I am constantly failing at replicating in my own recordings. Still this album comes highly recommended from me, one of my favorites of the new decade so far.

mp3: In Dreamtimem

Preorder from MoonJaw