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[silverwood]

I was just watching adam greens pretty crazy ketamine inspired film that he filmed on an iphone. And was pleasently supirsed to see jeff lewis crop up at at about 33 mins in.
Theres a pretty cool cast of people who pop up in this

anyway thought some people might be interested.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liRE9UQIogA
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[jefflewis]

I still need to watch that whole movie! I've only seen bits of it. Seems great. I'm only in it for about 5 seconds, but it was fun to see them working on it. Jack Dishel is sooo funny.

Just listening to Adam's "Minor Love" album today, took a long while to grow on me since I first bought it, and I was thinking about how the album packaging design seems to have impacted the album... it seems like such a crappy packaging that the album feels un-artistic, even though the songs and the album are actually really good. This isn't a problem for a lo-fi album, because a cheap, fast album cover makes sense for a lo-fi album... even when Adam's fancy albums had simple cover designs there was usually something that worked a bit more - the Gemstones cover is simple but still has a nice design.
Maybe the problem with Minor Love is it just seems out of date to use a plastic jewel-case for a CD package nowadays.
Anyway, it's like the Minor Love CD art/package is trying to act classy but comes across sort of shoddy, and I think it has altered the public perception of this album. If it had a really nice package, something that was actually classy, the album would have been more successful, I think. I don't think you would ever catch Devendra Banhardt putting out a CD product that looks this inartistic, right?
Adam succeeded at doing lo-fi stuff and then succeeded at doing hi-fi stuff, but Minor Love seems a little trapped in the middle in a way that doesn't succeed at either, in the presentation anyway. Or does anybody even see what an album looks like anymore? I guess people do, because it Minor Love was mostly ignored and the packaging feels like the start of the problem. Maybe I'm wrong.

[jack fe]

I found Minor Love quite hard for a long time too. The artwork, I'm sure, had an impact on that. It seemed so "rock and roll". I didn't like the artwork for Sixes and Sevens so much when I first saw it, but it completely suited the music (which I loved).

What I found difficult with Minor Love, was the production (all Noah Georgeson, from Banhart's band, right?). I don't know Adam, and what the impetus was for anything, but it felt a bit contrived. Maybe there was a need to step away from the (wonderful) polished strings and keys thing he'd been doing (Sixes and Sevens maybe took it as far as it could go). Also, it was right after the wave of Juno publicity, and it seemed at the time like he was trying to milk the "lo-fi dollar", but maybe that was just due to the timing.

Listening to it over the last year, I've really noticed how great the writing is one some of the songs. 'Give Them a Token' is as good as most of the songs on Friends of Mine (one of my favourite records).

What I always loved about Adam's songs is how, especially on the first two albums, it felt like he was talking about serious, "grown-up" problems and pains in these totally childish, scatological and confused images, like a kid trying to make sense of everything.

But yeah, the layout is just ugly.
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[jack fe]

I'm listening to it now. It's great. I feel like my struggles with it at the time were all down to context rather than contents.
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[jefflewis]

Yeah, right? The context of this album is all wrong, but the content is actually really good.

I didn't think much of the album until I played a show in Alabama a few months ago and these guys at the show talked to me after about how they are big fans of Adam Green and they especially love his newest album... I was like "really? I thought it was one of his weaker albums..." They told me to listen to it again with new ears, and so I've been listening to it more ever since.

I haven't heard his recent collaboration album, but apparently it's doing well.
Has anybody seen/heard the stuff?

[jack fe]

I heard the new album a few days ago. Some of the songs are really good, some haven't had any impact yet. Stuff was happening, but I couldn't figure some of them out as songs. The ones that are good are really good though.

Last time I was in the USA, Morgan (Orion) was telling me how much he rated the songs on Minor Love. Maybe it'll be one of those 10 years on, "word of mouth" records.
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[silverwood]

I really enjoyed minor love. It was a nice change from the ove the top cabaret style that he had been on for a long time. maybe that's an unfair genre explanation, i do love those albums.
But i thought it was great to hear some more stripped back moments on minor love. and i think his lyrics contain a great balance of sensitive surrealism.

I was actually given the album by a friend on CDR, so i never saw the cover. so perhaps it was never able to sway my decision.
but i try to never judge an album by its cover. With adam greens presentation i always tend to look at it with an overall tongue-in-cheek element.
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I had a common goal. i caught a common cold.

[AFB]

I remember when Minor Love came out and I listened for the first time I was really excited because it was a million times better than Sixes and Sevens, in my opinion. Really didn't rate that album and I thought the good stuff was lost.

Anyway - new album with Binki Shapiro? Pretty top notch.