Good Weather For Airstrikes

Seriously, my face still hurts from getting rocked off by Ted Leo on Saturday night. Mr. Leo and his merry band of pharmacists (featuring Abraham Lincoln on the drums… the guy on the right in the picture) rolled through New York City on their current tour on Saturday, and I took the train up to see them, as well as to visit the always fantastic Kathryn Arffa and the equally marvelous Carrie Shiffrin, who accompanied me to the concert. Despite Kathryn and Carrie’s persistent comments on the cuteness of the bassist, the concert was amazing. It was on pace to be the best show I’d seen all year, but the song distribution on the setlist could have been MUCH better. First of all, he didn’t play “Since U Been Gone”, which would be understandable if he didn’t want to alienate the rest of the band, but he ended up playing four solo songs in the encore anyway, so I was upset (as a consolation, you can download it below). Apparently much of the rest of the crowd was as well, because there were frequent screamed requests for it. Also, he used up all of his best songs (”Me and Mia”, “Counting Down The Hours”, “Timorous Me”, “Little Dawn”, “One Who Got Us Out”, “Biomusicology”… all of them) in the main set leaving nothing of worth for the encore (at least in my opinion).

Ted Leo is definitely one of my favorite artists (I mean, he’s been M3′d four times, which I believe is second only to Bloc Party), but he issue for me is that half of his songs I absolutely love, and the other half I could do without. In fact of the half that I love, a bunch of those are some of my favorite songs of all time (”Biomusicology”, “Timorous Me”, “Me and Mia”, “Counting Down The Hours”). It’s just unfortunate that the encore contained only songs from the half I don’t love, but it’s conceivable that they are great songs and I just haven’t given them enough of a chance (a couple of them I didn’t even recognize). Ted tore through all of the songs (seriously I think “Counting Down The Hours” might have lasted less than a minute) injecting them with awesome new energy and life, and was just an all-around incredible performer, jumping all over the stage and even giving the audience some very funny witty in-between-song banter. After much deliberation and calculation, it’s been determined that Ted Leo is officially my favorite person over 40 (sorry Denzel, Training Day was awesome and all, but this contest wasn’t even close). Also, the drummer, whose name I don’t know so he will be from here on referred to as Abraham, was incredible, at times even looking “like he was going to die he played so hard” according to Zack Friendly, who saw TL/Rx the week before in Baltimore (which would have been a much more economically sensible thing for me to do). He did this awesome thing where he would hit the drum and then twirl the drumstick through his fingers before hitting it again. He is now officially my second favorite drummer, behind only Bloc Party’s immaculate Matt Tong, who Pitchfork once called “the most technically proficient drummer” in music right now. As for the other songs, the crowd, myself included, went crazy during “Me and Mia”, and “Biomusicology” changed my life a little bit. Long story short, Ted Leo is an INCREDIBLE live performer on par with the Arcade Fire in terms of energy (but not in terms of number of performers) and Bright Eyes in terms of intensity (but not in terms of quavering).The Exit, who opened the show (Black Hollies also opened but we missed them), did a fantastic job. They’re really a great live band - I’ve seen them once before opening for Rx Bandits - that I unfortunately don’t enjoy nearly as much on recording, but they have one song, “Don’t Push”, that’s really great. They had a highly energetic performance that I think the crowd really enjoyed, and they do a great job with their dual vocals and looping techniques (as is evident on “Don’t Push”). The Exit released their second album, Home For An Island, at the end of last summer, but are planning a re-release featuring

Download “Don’t Push”, along with a bunch of great Ted Leo MP3s and the video for “Me and Mia”, below. There are so many incredible Ted Leo songs, so I’m just going to post the ones I’ve not yet put on an M3 mix (TL/Rx were featured on M3 V1, V3, Zack Friendly’s Guest Edition, and Rock Edition)… as for the pre-Good Weather For Airstrikes M3s, for those who want/need them I will be doing my best to post them over the Christmas break. And just as a side note, “Where Have All The Rude Boys Gone” was named the # best single of the last five years on Pitchfork’s Top 100 Singles of 2000-2004 list (which is kind of a big deal), and is frequently used (or at least it use to be) as the bumper music (what they play as they go to commercial or come back from commercial) on MTV’s TRL.

UNNECESSARY LYRICAL ANALYSIS THAT WON’T BE OF INTEREST TO 90% OF THE READERS: “Me and Mia” was recently propelled from the “awesome song” category to “amazing lyrical masterpiece” status, and also earned the title “best and happiest song about eating disorders ever” upon the aforementioned Zack Friendly informing me what the song is really about. We all knew Leo could right compellingly political anti-Bush lyrics, but turns out he’s not just a one trick pony, as the “me and Mia, Ann and Ana” chorus actually refers to eating disorders ( the “me and Mia, Ann and Anna” chorus actually is referring to bulemia and anorexia (”me and [bule]mia, Ann and ana[rexia]”). This insight brings new meaning (or just, you know, the correct meaning) to the rest of the lyrics (”fighting for the smallest goal to gain a little self-control, won’t anybody here just let you dissappear”) and really ties the whole song together neatly. For the full lyrics and further analysis, if that’s your kind of thing, go here.

MP3s:
“Don’t Push” - The Exit
“Where Have All The Rude Boys Gone” - Ted Leo & The Pharmacists*
“Hearts of Oak” - Ted Leo & The Pharmacists*
“The High Party” - Ted Leo & The Pharmacists*
“Tell Balgeary, Balgury Is Dead” - Ted Leo & The Pharmacists*
“Me and Mia” - Ted Leo & The Pharmacists^ [highly recommended]
“Little Dawn” - Ted Leo & The Pharmacists^ [highy recommended]
“Since U Been Gone” - Ted Leo & The Pharmacists [highly recommended]

* = from 2003’s Hearts of Oak [buy]
^ = from 2004’s Shake The Sheets [buy]
Video:
“Me and Mia” - Ted Leo & The Pharmacists
The video’s alright I guess. It’s very high resolution, but it’s just a video of Ted and the gang playing above a Ray’s Pizza in NYC, and then in the middle of the song Ted goes downstairs for a slice before returning to close it out. I used to always be like “Yo, Ted, you’re filming a music video, man. Can’t you wait until the song’s over to grab a slice, like couldn’t you have gotten something before you came?”. But now that I know the song is about eating disorders it makes sense and I’m all “Oh, alright Ted, I feel that”. Also, this video is good because you get to see Abraham Lincoln in all his percussive glory.

As for the main body of this post, sometimes I use parentheses way too much. Sorry. It happens.

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