Last week I posted 2 videos I shot of Micah playing some Two Cow Garage songs solo at Valentines here in Albany. At that show I bought his solo CD When the Stage Lights Go Dim. Acoustic/singer-songwriter stuff isn't usually my thing - it's not that I don't like it or that I don't think it's good, it's that my general M.O. involves rocking hard, and such music does not usually do so. When buying it I assumed I'd like it good enough because (1) Micah's a really good songwriter and (2) I like/am accustomed to his style. However, I didn't think I'd like it this much. Holy crap, this is a really great record. Now you've always got to be careful with such proclamations - not me in making them, but you in reading them. When someone is a big fan of a band (as I am with Two Cow), they may have a tendency to go ga-ga over anything that artist does (Micah drops silverware in the sink..."That silverware dropping was the best I've ever heard - check out the resonance when the spoon collies with the tines of the fork. That "ka-pling" was the coolest sound on earth. It's my new ringtone!"). I don't think I'm doing that here (but I can never know if I'm free from any bias - no one can). This record is that good.
This recording of this album is very sparse. There's just some small accompanyments - mixed in here and there there's some cello, a female singer, some piano. And they fit perfectly. You can clearly tell this was recorded very raw and simply and without much forethought and it gives the album a lot of weight and really draws you in. In this day and age where everyone's got some sort of angle, a well defined marketing plan and Pro-Tools the shit out of everything, some straight-from-the-heart, no pretention, no bullshit music really strikes a chord with me.
Apparently Two Cow's label Suburban Home has picked up the album and are going to release it within the next month or two. And it's going to come with a free live Two Cow Garage recording (live in Colorado at the Suburban Home anniversary bash, I guess. I haven't heard any of this, but I've been interested in a good quality live Two Cow CD for a while now (actually, I'm really interested in a super quality, shot-to-film (or at least with film-like depth) with crisp audio DVD of Two Cow playing a show straight through in front of an apeshit crowd. Get Scorcese on the horn...))
This recording of this album is very sparse. There's just some small accompanyments - mixed in here and there there's some cello, a female singer, some piano. And they fit perfectly. You can clearly tell this was recorded very raw and simply and without much forethought and it gives the album a lot of weight and really draws you in. In this day and age where everyone's got some sort of angle, a well defined marketing plan and Pro-Tools the shit out of everything, some straight-from-the-heart, no pretention, no bullshit music really strikes a chord with me.
Apparently Two Cow's label Suburban Home has picked up the album and are going to release it within the next month or two. And it's going to come with a free live Two Cow Garage recording (live in Colorado at the Suburban Home anniversary bash, I guess. I haven't heard any of this, but I've been interested in a good quality live Two Cow CD for a while now (actually, I'm really interested in a super quality, shot-to-film (or at least with film-like depth) with crisp audio DVD of Two Cow playing a show straight through in front of an apeshit crowd. Get Scorcese on the horn...))
http://www.suburbanhomerecords.com/releases/micah-schanbel-when-the-stage-lights-go-dim/
Listen to some tracks on Micah's myspace (why the hell it's rivervalleycancerscare and not micahschnabel I have no fucking clue). http://www.myspace.com/rivervalleycancerscare
Anyway, here's a cool video of a track from the album, "American Static". Let me know what you think.
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