Maritime @ Lincoln Hall [12/10]

Amidst rumors of a short Cap'n Jazz reunion set at this Sunday's Joan of Arc show at the Empty Bottle, last Thursday brought Davey von Bohlen's latest outfit to town...all the way from Milwaukee.

Formed from two-parts Promise Ring/one-part Dismemberment Plan, Maritime originally struggled to come to grips with what exactly a post-emo indie-pop trio [you heard me] should consist of. Josh Modell - managing editor at the A.V. Club and frequent contributor to Spin, with friendly personal ties to the band - wrote this about the Midwest act's early days and subsequent cultivation of their sound:

"Slow chaos followed: Somewhere in there, [bassist] Axelson left; other people came and went, all amicably. A string of superstar guitarists did some Maritime business: Mike Kinsella (Joan of Arc, Owen), Matt Clark (Pinebender, Bella Lea), Mike Feurstack (Wooden Stars, Snailhouse), Slash (GnR, I'm lying). For a while, the current drummer of the Arcade Fire, Jeremy Gara, played keyboards. (I'm not making that up.) Naturally, amid all the personnel hoo-ha, energies changed."

Mystery solved. The resultant kineticism from the fluctuating rotation spilled into Maritime's 2006 release We, The Vehicles, defining their sound by starry guitar riffs, choruses with singalong hooks, and even dance hall bass lines that are oh, so full of life and swell.

If that isn't reason enough to check them out, allow me to entice you with some trivia: Know that Jimmy Eat World song "A Praise Chorus?" Remember the part where Jimmy starts to reference lyrics to songs that "started [his] rock 'n' roll fantasy," which is itself a reference to Bad Company's "Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy?" It so happens two of those songs are by the Promise Ring, the aforementioned Maritime predecessor helmed by von Bohlen. [Bonus points: they are "Why Did We Ever Meet?," which contains the title as its lyric, and "All of My Everything," which finds the lyric "Why did we ever part?" You're welcome.]

In fact, von Bohlen is the voice on the album singing the background vocal loop during the bridge - "Crimson and clover, over and over" - while Sir Adkins sings the "praise chorus" lyrics, hence the "So come on, Davey! / Sing me something that I know!" shoutout that appears after the last instance of the carpe diem-meets-bootstrapping mantra "I'm on my feet, I'm on the floor; I'm good to go" in the final stanza. Yup: he's that Davey. Now is that doing anything for ya? Knowing the protagonist of this here blog entry was not only a major influence for but also sang on that extremely catchy James Devours Multiverse track? Well, you could have earned a pie piece or two for knowing this mind-blowing shit. How do you like them Gala apples?

Oh, and rock was had. Maritime plays a tight, "studio-sound replicating" show. Even the venue matched the radness of the performance verily; great local/regional beer selection with some particularly delicious portions (especially the buffalo chicken satay and sweet potato fries) helped pass downtime between sets without having to break out Travel Scrabble. [That's right. Portable. Board games.]

A food, drink, and trivia contest masquerading as a show review, you say? I'm here to serve everything in one sitting, just like, I don't know, Applebee's.

Young Alumni - Maritime [mp3] (iTunes)

Parade of Punk Rock T-Shirts - Maritime [mp3] (iTunes)

Tearing Up the Oxygen - Maritime [mp3] (iTunes)

Theme Thursday - Sadism

Today's theme is (drum roll please): songs for sadists. That has a good ring to it. Should be an album title. If I hadn't just changed my blog name, maybe I'd consider it. No, it wouldn't really fit with most of the stuff I post.

It's already kind of a song title: Songs for Sadists Without a Place to Sit Down, by Charles Bukowski from "70 Minutes in Hell." Too bad I can't find a working sample of the song to listen to anywhere, so I have no idea what this song actually sounds like...

The bands that came up when I Googled "songs for sadists" were unimpressive so I'm not going to put them on here. If you're that curious, you can Google them yourself.

But the point of this theme is not to find songs that have sadism in the title. The point is that some songs just have a sadistic nature. This is actually surprisingly hard. There are tons of songs about masochism out there (hell, every song about unrequited love but the person just can't stop loving them and keeps going back for more rejection has a hint of masochism in it), but not as many on the sadistic side - I suppose those are more controversial if you're talking about getting pleasure out of other people's pain.

Let's start with the song that inspired me to pick this theme -

Smile [mp3] - Lily Allen - "Alright, Still" (iTunes). Now, this jolly-sounding tune may not strike you as sadistic sounding, and it is a song about smiling and recovering from being dumped, but listen to the lyrics: "at first, when I see you cry, yeah, it makes me smile." Definitely a little sadistic. Or at least full of schadenfreude. So maybe our theme is sadism/ schadenfreude because sadism has that kinky sexual undertone, and I'm not sure how many songs I could/would want to find about that.

Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) [mp3] - Eurythmics - "Greatest Hits" (iTunes). I know I already used this song for the first Theme Thursday, but with lyrics like "some of them want to abuse you, some of them want to be abused," how could I not use this song? And it's a great song. It deserves to be used twice.

I Can't Decide [mp3] - Scissors Sisters - "Ta-Dah" (iTunes). Another song I've already posted... Damnit, I should've thought of this theme earlier so I wouldn't be reposting these songs for this theme. Oh well. Choice lyrics: "I could bury you alive but you might crawl out with a knife and kill me when I'm sleeping that's why I can't decide whether you should live or die..."

The Cell Block Tango [mp3] - Chicago, the Motion Picture Soundtrack (iTunes). Ah yes, a song every girl loves and every guy gets uncomfortable listening to. Very fitting. Very fitting indeed. "You know some guys just can't hold their arsenic." He definitely had it coming... *evil laugh*

Schadenfreude [mp3] - the original broadway cast of Avenue Q (iTunes). Yet another musical. Not my favorite number from Avenue Q, but still a good number nonetheless. And obviously it fits with the theme.

Enjoy. And, as always, feel free to leave me ideas for next week's Theme Thursday. Tata dahlings.