Excellent Calexico News
I don’t like to just trot things out like some sort of parrot-powered news service if I can avoid it, but this news is very fine news indeed.
Calexico, who are one of my very favourite bands, have released a teaser mp3 for their new album, which will be called Carried to Dust and will be available on September 9th of this year. I am not sure if there are different release dates for the UK, but given the idiocy of international distributors it wouldn’t surprise me. Anyhow, the song is called Two Silver Trees, is downloadable from their MySpace page, and is bloody excellent. Has the pre-release mp3 leak become the new, revenue-less single these days? It looks like it I guess, and I suppose it makes a degree of sense if you treat a single as being there to drum up excitement and anticipation for the album. Less so if you think of it as a revenue-generator in its own right, of course.
Anyhow, yes, there’s a new album. And they’re playing here. Yes, instead of the more habitual trail to Glasgow that bands visit Scotland tend to beat, we are getting Calexico at the Queen’s Hall on Thursday 11th September.
In terms of my favourite bands, I think it is safe to say that Calexico are right up there with the best. I bought and sort of liked Spoke, before somewhat losing track of them for a while. Then with Feast of Wire I was hooked, and have since explored forwards and backwards through their back catalogue with what I suppose can be described as gleeful abandon. When Mrs. Toad and I get a little tipsy of an evening, and the stereo is on just that little bit too loud, the chances of Calexico coming on the Toad Hall PA system are very, very high indeed.
Calexico – Two Silver Trees
Does the title of that song remind anyone else slightly of Dr. Seuss? “Through three cheese trees, three free fleas flew. Through these cheese trees, freezy breeze blew.” Or something vaguely like that!
I’ll be there with bells on (if we’re not playing ourselves of course – which is usually what seems to happen when something good is on!)
They’re touring with Woodpigeon.
It’s very exciting.
To be honest, Calexico bore me.
I’ve not heard that much of their recordings, so am maybe not in the best position to make such a sweeping statement, but from what I can tell it goes: early stuff = good, recent stuff = bland.
I saw them play at the ABC a while ago, with Beirut in support – who, in my opinion, kicked their asses. And I fully expect woodpigeon to do the same.
I was at that gig too, and I skipped Beirut to watch three quarters of the most boring match in Champions League history.
However, Bart, I can confidently say that if Calexico bore you then you are just not paying attention. Try listening with your ears, instead of through three days of accumulated cornflake detritus in your beard. So there.
I was paying attention.
I do really like some of their earlier stuff that I’ve heard – but from what I can tell they keep pushing for a bigger and more polished. Which I’m not into at all. Beirut had a big sound, but it was all a bit more cobbled together, a lot looser – and so their personality came through a lot more. No doubt technically not as proficient, but a lot more enjoyable to watch.
I mean, during Calexico’s set some (middle-aged, single) guy started salsa dancing next to me.
Really. Salsa dancing. By himself.
i love the comment – they are touring with woodpigeon. hahaha. i know you probably didn’t mean anything by it – or maybe you did – just made me laugh as if calexico were supporting him! i have no comment on calexico. have never been tempted to buy their stuff even though i have read good things about them. and the album I have by beirut massively disappointed me – so if they kicked calexico’s ass then calexico must be significantly more disappointing than beirut are which is significant in itself – to me anyways. sure they are both better than black kids though.
Calexico are so-so, these days. Love their early stuff. There’s an accomplished yet scruffy naïvité to it, a joyous clattering parade-band warmth & familiarity. The later, recent stuff is just a little too polished Coffee Table for me. But, none the less, a bloody excellent band live. Their DVD Calexico – World Drifts In (Live At The Barbican, London) is a joy to behold.
Beirut, on the other hand, kick ass in an entirely different way – live, Condon is a very inclusive performer &b the audience goes away feeling like they’ve participated in a concert rather than experienced or simply watched one.
That’s the difference, for me, bewteen the two: Calexico are a sensory experience & Beirut are a BYoB type happening/hullabaloo.
On record, I’d say Beirut* have pipped Calexico in the last two years with their urgent organic quality, which is missing from the recent Calexico outings but it is definitely evident they are chasing it down. It will be interesting to see if they’ve snared it for the next LP.
*took me a while to ‘get’ the 2nd Beirut LP, especially after the ripe burst of genius that was the debut, but I love the effortless, tumbling Francophilia & consider a handful of tracks on there as the best Condon’s ever committed to plastic.
The only vaguely dubious Calexico album is Garden Ruin, but even then only vaguely. Feast of Wire wipes the floor with anything Beirut have ever done, and I say that as someone who really likes Beirut. The Black Light is another brilliant record. Then when you add all the EPs, like Convict Pool, Even My Sure Things…, Alone Again Or and the like you have a band who are basically in a different league to the thus far promising, but no more than that Beirut.
And that doesn’t even factor in the early Giant Sand years and the countless collaborations they have contributed to over the years. It just doesn’t bear comparison. Condon is a promising musician, but Calexico have reapeatedly proven over the years that they are genuinely, unarguably the Real Deal.
What a bunch of fucking philistines.
Says the Rod Stewart fan.
Excuse me, darling, but do or do not Calexico wipe the floor with Beirut?
I’m sure Calexico have a great back catalogue, and have proven themselves to be on top of their craft countless times. I have the Black Light somewhere, and remember really enjoying it.
But at the ABC show, in Beirut I saw an exciting and engaging performance from a band that seemed to be playing music for the sheer pleasure of it.
In Calexico, I saw a well polished but – for me – relatively lifeless show.
And a middle aged man salsa dancing. By himself.
I can’t overstate the importance of that in this argument.
Bart it is not compulsory to stand at the back and make vaguely perceptible head-nodding motions through every gig in the universe.
Hooray new calexico!
Many thanks, Matthew!
Well, we’re just going to have to agree to disagree on that one.
I’m talking about the last couple of years & Calwexico have simply not released anything of any great achievement. Repeated themselves, in fact, one would say.
Now, I would agree that Garden Ruin wasn’t, half the time, as good as earlier stuff, but repeating themselves it was not. It was a much rockier, less ramshackle sound than before – the whole album. Now, I am not convinced that was the way to go, but there are some great songs on there. Roka is as good as anything I’ve heard in years.
Wow, so if Matthew and Bart fight their battle in a bottle and the bottle’s in a puddle with a noodle-eating poodle, do they have a muddled fuddled wuddled Calexico sucks, sir!?
No. They never have a Calexico sucks, ever. Poodles, noodles or otherwise.
I think you’re all missing the point.
I mean, he wasn’t just swaying from side to side, or girating his hips a little bit – as the other (normal) members of the crowd were doing.
He was actually fucking pirouetting!
And it wasn’t off to the side either – it was right up front and centre, where I was already a bit pushed for space.
I tried to explain this to a member of the venue security staff in an effort to have him promptly ejected, but he seemed to share your inexplicable ambivalence to such behaviour.
I’m all for enjoying a show, I’m all for people expressing their enjoyment of a show through a combination of rhythmical body movements – but not when they’re actually spiralling into you!
Not when they’re flayling about as if to say “Look at me! Look at my moves! Sure, my wife still ended up leaving me, but those evening classes have finally started to pay off!”
I tend to favour the Graeme Souness approach to such problems – take his knees.
A new Calexico album might be the best news I’ve had in ages. And I disagree somewhat, with the lost of you, in that their early electronicy stuff was little more that masterbation with a wah-wah peddle. They’re a funny bunch because I always find the more Mexican they get, the better they get. Put down the electric guitars and pick up a trumpet. In an early concert I remember they took a break and let the mariachi band they tour with play for a bit, the Mariachi’s were so brilliant that there was a palpable sense of disappointment when Calexico showed up back on stage. But that was before they were good.
There was a ‘too enthusiastic dancer’ at that concert too. Hmm, maybe he tours with them…
At least the chap wasny fucking line dancing. lets all feel the palpable relief and move on.
That’s not answering my question, darling.
No.
Well?
Nope, sorry. Listened to this like 20 times & it’s doing fucking Geoff all for me. I tried to relax into it but it is far too bland. They’ve lost it, as far as I’m concerned, & so I stick by my Beirut point even moreso.
Well I was only half impressed with their latest, so perhaps they are starting to lose inspiration, but Beirut’s last was no better than pretty good, as far as I’m concerned. Some great tracks on it, but not a great overall album.