Farewell to The Manor and Clone, Inc (for now)

Too much sad news for the Laramie music scene this week.

Clone, Inc announced that the June 9th show at will be their last. According to their myspace blog:

So, some of you may have heard that Clone Inc. is finising up as a band. Well, for the moment that is kind of true. Right now both Mike and I are going through some rather life altering changes and between how busy we are and how much is going on we have diecided to put Clone Inc. on the shelf for a while.

We'll miss seeing Will and Mike out on the scene, making waaaaay too much noise for two guys on one stage.
In more bad news, The Manor, a local home that played host to bands such as The Divorce and Photo Atlas, is closing up shop. According to their myspace bulletin:

Our stint as venue owners lasted for about a year and four months and we couldn't be more pleased with how it all turned out. Our goal was to make our home a welcoming and comforting place for those bands on the road who were away from their family and friends, and I feel confident in saying that we succeeded in this.

Any other Laramie venues ready to pick up the slack? The Manor girls did a great job booking, we wish them the best of luck!

Cloud Cult @ Larimer Lounge 5-10-07

This concert review not quite a month late, oops.

I went into the Cloud Cult show not knowing what to expect and only somewhat familiar with the band's sound. The opening band did not bode well, a terrible mishmash of styles and no real presence.

That all went by the wayside when Cloud Cult took the stage with (I think) 7 band members, two of whom started painting on large canvasses during the music. A full sound and tight band, the strings sounded fantastic as did Craig Minowa's voice. I loved that CC made the Larimer Lounge seem big... I've never seen a band own that stage so well, what with the paintings and the smoke and the lasers and tons of instrumentation.

The crowd knew most of the songs but also consumed rather too much Miller High Life before the show, so their enthusiasm turned into asshole-ishness at times.

The band closed with my fave and everyone else's, Take Your Medicine [thx to mokb]. A fantastic performance, worth catching during Monolith for sure.

My photo of one of the stage paintings, this one by Scott West, it was auctioned off to benefit the earth or similar, did not come home with me:

Arcade Fire on Fresh Air

NPR's Terry Gross interviewed Win Butler and Regine Chassagne on today's Fresh Air. Imagine my surprise and delight upon entering my car at 3 p.m. to the sounds of Intervention on Wyoming Public Radio.

Archived interview available via NPR.

Live Preview: The Faint, Land of Talk, Rosebuds

The early part of this week offers a couple interesting shows. Day job responsibilities will likely keep me in Laramie, but tell me about the shows if you go.

June 4th & 5th: The Faint @ the Fox Theatre, Boulder
I've never seen them but people keep telling me I would love their live show. Curious -- maybe it's a Nebraskan thing?

June 5th: The Rosebuds with Land of Talk and Everything Absent or Distorted @ the Larimer Lounge, Denver
This promises to be a good show... I like the Rosebuds' brand of dark dance music, and Everything Absent should draw a good local crowd. PFork offered some inscrutible details about Land of Talk tour drama, so keep an eye out for shenanigans and cross yer fingers that they found a new drummer.

Menomena & Grand Archives - Missing it

Oh for a longer vacation! While in Seattle last weekend I *kept seeing* the flyers for the Menomena and Grand Archives show tonight at Neumos and felt very blue indeed that I would miss it. Just listened to their in-studio on kexp and now feeling even more blue about the situation.

I already tried to convince Menomena to hit the Rocky Mountains again on this tour since I could not attend their Hi-Dive show this spring, but no dice. Drummer Danny did console me with kind words about our great state, even after eating at the Cheyenne Applebees.

And special note to Grand Archives: Please visit Wyoming and/or the greater Front Range and I will make you a home cooked dinner and rave about Carissa's Wierd, Band of Horses, Sera Cahoone and your new EP. I swear it.

Torn Blue Foam Couch from Grand Archives, courtesy of Spin.

And silly video, super song.

Arcade Fire Sasquatch Update

Arcade Fire fan? Yes I am.

Today's evidence in the form of this beautiful memento, ordered today:

Monolith Tickets Presale

Thanks to Julio over at Cause=Time for a tip on Monolith pre-sale tickets today.

Also up on the Monolith website, daily schedules. It looks like I might need to attend both days, just unsure whether my definitely-not-20-years-old body is up to the task.

Friday September 14th:
CAKE
The Decemberists
Kings of Leon
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Ghostland Observatory
Editors
Juliette & The Licks
Flosstradamus
Kid Sister
Das EFX
Vienna Teng
The Broken West
Everything Absent or Distorted
Ra Ra Riot
Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band
Mason Proper
Born in the Flood
De Novo Dahl
Cat-a-tac
Mobius Band
AutoVaughn
Angie Stevens
On a Sun
A Verse Unsung
Bela Karoli

Saturday September 15th:
The Flaming Lips
Spoon
Turbonegro
Art Brut
Brian Jonestown Massacre
Cloud Cult
Matt & Kim
The Dears
Au Revoir Simone
The Little Ones
Bob Log III
William Elliot Whitmore
Rocky Votalato
Earl Greyhound
Ian Ball of Gomez
Yacht
Hot IQ's
Lords of the Underground
Otis Gibbs
Forget Cassettes
Tim Barry of Avail
Cameron McGill
Laylights
The Thieves
Machine Gun Blues
The Swayback
Minus Story
Gregory Alan Isakov
Nina Storey
Stranger Lazy