Thirty Years Cool & Still Doin’ It. Also: That Band Yeasayer, Which Got Some Gondo Blog Trussage Earlier This Year.

Two days in a row, wooo &c but only because today I turn 30, to little-to-no acclaim–by myself, not from friends and family, because that’s why we keep them around. I’m too busy now to really do anything self-celebratory except attend one of the myriad “indie-rock” concerts coming through Bloomington this semester, like effectively the best semester of concerts I’ve ever seen here. Tonight is Shapes & Sizes, with whose dulcet tones I’m only passingly familiar, and Yeasayer, about whom I’m cautiously optimistic, not just about live performance, but the record in general, and its eventual situation, if any, in my year-end canon.

I’m not sure if their schtick is “winkingly self-referential” (I made that up myself from scratch), and that’s stopping me from getting too close to it. Tell me what your deal is, Yeasayer, and I’ll let you into my good graces and faith. First, the name. I can’t tell if they’re smart-assedly referencing those who will clap hands and chant affirmatives, or the band of the same name that’s entered the realm of symbol: for blog proppage and weirdly-magnified/hard-to-quantify fame-age. They sing from the anglo-ethnic sheet shared by Arcade Fire, Danielson, Sufjan, Animal Collective, and all the other currently vogue bands who express themselves like National Geographic representations of hidden cultures. But (BUT) there’s more to them. There’s a weird space-prog vibe. There’s a primality (like at the end of “Germs,” and the beginning of “Ah Weir”) of no distinct origin, that might be of a catalog desingation on par with Planet of the Apes-indie. There’s some Lindsey Buckingham going on here, especially in the vocals, especially on this song, which apropos of my above comment and the data on the other side of that link, got some gondo (GONDO) blog trussage earlier this year.

Bands who also received blog trussage who sound also like Yeasayer: a.) Midlake, who rocks the “Eye in the Sky”-with cuffed-blue-jeans vibe exclusively. There’s no b.), not yet at least.

Okay, so those around the middle part of Indiana have this as an option for activity tonight, courtesy of the awful-cute civic shoebox theatre the Waldron Arts Center, and Dan Coleman, who books shows here now, who is a fine gentleman and scholar, and who I’m told will eventually have a website for his little venture, for his blog friend to link up.

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Also, speaking of bands I can’t get snuggly with, here’s Matthew Friedberger putting one over on a dumb Billboard reporter, and, with Eleanor, explaining (with video formatting) the Fiery Furnaces’ Brecht-rock once and for all (note: explanation might not prove satisfying). Widow City: ingratiating itself. That stare on Friedberger’s mug? Infuriatingly goofy.