This Tournament Goes to Eleven 2007
Indie/Emo/Alt Music (subject packet)
Written by: Truman State
Tossups
1) This band was formed from the remnants of Flake Music in 1997, while their name was derived from that of a Mayor in the musical The Music Man. The last song off their latest album is “A Comet Appears”, and their previous album featured a track entitled “Kissing the Lipless.” The character Sam told us that this Albuquerque-based band’s song “New Slang” would change our lives in the movie Garden State, while their latest album also features the songs “Australia” and “Red Rabbits”. FTP, “Phantom Limb” is the lead single off of what band’s 2007 album, Wincing the Night Away.
ANSWER: The Shins
2) They wrote about the popular Japanese telephone greeting, “Moshi Moshi” as a B-side released on a split-EP with the band Safety in Numbers. Before working with them, their lead singer had led a band called The Rookie Lot which also featured bassist Garrett Tierney and drummer Brian Lane. Singing about his grandfather’s battle with lung cancer in the song “Guernica”, and about a feud with John Nolan and Adam Lazzarra in “Seventy Times Seven,” lead singer Jesse Lacey also wrote about his religious struggles in songs such as “Archers”, “Millstone” and “Jesus Christ” from their 2006 album The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me. FTP, name this group whose songs include “Jude Law and a Semester Abroad” and “Sowing Season (Yeah).”
ANSWER: Brand New
3) Four songs from the “Canned Applause” sessions ended up making the final cut for this album, including one that was a tribute to the Bob Dylan song currently featured in the Bob Dylan Facebook Application. In that song, the singer says that he is just “uptight” while in another, he says that “for a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself.” The video for that latter song leaves us wondering whether their lead singer was consumed in a car fire. The final note of the album, played on a triangle, is from the song “The Tourist” on, FTP, what seminal third album by Radiohead that also includes the tracks “Electioneering”, “Airbag”, and “Paranoid Android.”
ANSWER: OK Computer
4) Their debut album contains the lines “Though to say we got much hope, if I’m lost it’s only for a little while” in the song “Monster”, and that same album closed by noting “I know your best was still your worst when Hollywood was calling out your name” in the song “St. Augustine. Their first single states that it is “really too late to call so we wait for morning to wake you”, that being off the anthemic song “The Funeral” from their debut album, Everything All The Time. FTP, name this Ben Bridwell-led Seattle group who recently released the single entitled “Is There a Ghost”, off their new album Cease to Begin.
ANSWER: Band of Horses
5) In 2005, he released an EP that was most notable for its 88 page lyric booklet entitled the Living Human Curiosity Sideshow, which chronicled his lyrics from 2000’s Float and 2003’s Bazooka Tooth. His most recent release features appearances by The Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle on the song “Coffee”, and El-P on the song “39 Thieves.” The title track of this album features a chorus that raps “and I will rejoice in your fall from grace with a cane to the sky.” Born Ian Matthias Bavitz, FTP, name this Long Island-born hip-hop artist who released the 2007 album None Shall Pass.
ANSWER: Aesop Rock (accept “Ian Matthias Bavitz” until mentioned)
6) They sing of the IRO-bot Jesse Kilgannon as he attempts to destroy the evil Wilhelm Ryan and the prise Ambellina in their song “The Crowing”. This band was formerly known as Shabutie, a name which is referenced in their song “The Devil in Jersey City.” Some events from their second album take place on the ship the Velourium Camper, and at the end of “The Ring in Return” one can hear the phrase “Good Apollo, where do I begin?” These events are all part of the Amory Wars graphic novel series that parallels the events of the songs of their albums, all written by singer Claudio Sanchez. FTP, name this band that recently concluded their series with the album No World for Tomorrow.
ANSWER: Coheed and Cambria
7) The artwork for this album features a combination of the face of the girl from Jean Baptiste Greuze’s Fidelity and the body of the woman in Raphael’s Saint Catherine of Alexandria. It opens with the album’s title track, while its first half concludes with the song “Take Me Down”. Dawn to Dusk is followed by fourteen more tracks collectively titled Twilight to Starlight, a disk that includes songs such as “X.Y.U.”, “Where Boys Fear to Tread”, and “Thirty-three.” Featuring such classics as “Zero” and “1979”, FTP, this is what Smashing Pumpkins double-album that also includes “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” and “Tonight, Tonight”.
ANSWER: Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
8) Their first EP features the songs “Little” and “Walking By” and was released through Drive-Thru Records in 2001 under the title Audioboxer. One of their most popular songs contains the lyrics, “stop the rain from falling, keep my ocean calm, this time I know nothing’s wrong.” The song “Me and the Moon” says that “I am a butterfly, but you wouldn’t let me die,” and they write “home is this quiet place where you should be alone” in the song “Space.” Both of those songs come from the album North, which is a follow-up to 2002’s Leaving Through the Window. FTP, name this band which recorded “Hurricane” and “I Woke Up in a Car”, led by Jack’s Mannequin front man Andrew McMahon.
ANSWER: Something Corporate
9) While writing their sixth album, this band’s lead singer retreated to a cabin once inhabited by Jack Kerouac in Big Sur, where he penned the ten-minute jam “I Will Possess Your Heart.” Their first release featured the songs “Pictures in an Exhibition” and “Line of Best Fit”, and was called You Can Play These Songs with Chords, while a later album for Barsuk Records included a song with the lyrics “I loved you Guinevere” and was entitled The Photo Album. Chris Walla and Ben Gibbard lead, FTP, what indie pop band which hit it big with songs such as “The Sound of Settling” and “Soul Meets Body,” off their album Transatlanticism.
ANSWER: Death Cab for Cutie
10) Although Pitchfork Media chose it as the #3 album of the 1990’s, it never broke the Billboard 200. One of its songs says that “others, though they’re gashed, they’re still going” and another wonders “What is The Light?” Two scientists race for the cure that is the prize in the opening track and another song laments that “it’s just too heavy for a superman to lift.” Lead singer Wayne Coyne sings that “A Spoonful Weighs a Ton” on, FTP, what 1999 release by the Flaming Lips, the predecessor to Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.
ANSWER: The Soft Bulletin
11) The storyteller of this song recalls that he was “getting his muskets clean when came this rumbling from beneath” and “it gives me great joy to see your eyes fill with fear.” Played as an encore at almost every show from its release to the end of its band’s 2006 tour, the story is of an orphan whose mother is abandoned by his abusive roustabout father and eventually dies of consumption. The orphan works in a priory keeping their “vestry nice and neat” until hearing a “penitent whaler from the sea” describe his father as a wantonly cruel captain. FTP, the orphan finally completes the title action after being swallowed by a whale in what epic song by The Decemberists?
ANSWER: “The Mariner’s Revenge Song”
12) In an interview with Uncut magazine, The Edge states that this band’s 2004 album was the last that he fell in love with. That album, which opens with the 9 minute Led-Zepellinesque “First Wave Intact”, was called Now Here is Nowhere and also featured the single “Nowhere Again.” They were invited by David Bowie to headline his Highline Festival in May 2007 and notably covered “Blue Jay Wray” and “Flying” for the Across the Universe Soundtrack, while also playing backup to Bono on the song “I am the Walrus.” Started in Dallas by the Curtis Brothers alongside Josh Garza, this is, FTP, what indie rock band that has released the single “Alone, Jealous and Stoned” from its 2006 album Ten Silver Drops.
ANSWER: Secret Machines
13) The lead singer of this indie band was once part of a troop of Wilderness Girls, and is the daughter of Shelley Long in Troop Beverly Hills. The lead guitarist has been known to put Corey Matthews in lockers, and has also been made to salute his shorts. Members of the band have said it is named for a famous Scottish athlete, or the person who predicted the date of their lead singer’s death. Blake Sennett is the lead guitarist for this band, who released More Adventurous and sang about the “Good that Won’t Come Out” on their album The Execution of All Things. FTP, name this Jenny Lewis-led group whose latest album is entitled Under the Blacklight.
ANSWER: Rilo Kiley
14) Released on July 10, 2007, the first single from this album featured B-sides “Carried Home” and “Kingdom of the Animals.” Supporting by a tour with Califone, it features a song with lyrics “Now I’m a fat house cat cursing my sore blunt tongue” in “Flightless Bird, American Mouth.” Another song begins “In our days, we will live like our ghosts will live”, while another states that “I’ve been swimming to them in my sleep and I’ve been dreaming our love and our freedom.” Those two songs, “Resurrection Fern” and “House by the Sea”, are just two highlights of this album, whose first single is “Boy with a Coin”. FTP, what is this third full length release from Sam Beam, better known as Iron & Wine?
ANSWER: The Shepherd’s Dog
15)Their latest album features a story in its liner notes by author Daniel Handler and a song that laments “I’m not a film star beauty, I’ll send a photograph, I hope that you don’t laugh”, that tracks being “Personal.” They cover the Smiths’ song, “The Charming Man”* on their album Nightsongs, and share three members with fellow Canadian indie pop group Broken Social Scene. Singer Torquil Campbell asks you to “take me, take me to the riot” in the first single off their latest album, In Our Bedroom after the War. FTP, name this group whose 2004 album Set Yourself on Fire featured the hit songs “One More Night” and “Ageless Beauty.”
ANSWER: Stars
16) Its cover was taken from a European postcard of bathers at a resort. Indie artist Kevin Devine has been known to cover songs from this album, one of which says “the only girl I’ve ever loved was born with roses in her eyes,” lines that are probably a reference to the life of Anne Frank. One song swears that “I love you Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ I love you, yes I do”, while the finale ends with the line “But don’t hate her when she gets up to leave,” seconds before the vocalist is heard exiting the room. In his final effort, Jeff Mangum produced the songs “Two Headed Boy,” “Oh Comely” and “Holland, 1945” on, for ten points, what 1998 indie classic by Neutral Milk Hotel?
ANSWER: In the Aeroplane over the Sea
17) Two members of this group contributed to the songs “Hot Knives” and “Make a Plan to Love Me” from Bright Eyes’ seventh studio album, Cassadaga. Another member was recruited to play bass at the age of 15 when friend and fellow Tyler, Texas native Jonathan Wilson quit. Originally calling themselves The Towheads, they had some success in 2003 with a song that stated “With your telescope eyes, metal teeth, I can’t be seen with you”. Currently co-headlining a tour with Mute Math in support of their 2007 album, Combinations, FTP, identify this family band consisting of Sherri, Chauntelle, Stacy, Weston, and Garron DuPree.
ANSWER: Eisley
18) In 2002, MTV published a collection of his poems entitled Cool Gardens, which many regard as good as his songs. The first single from his first solo album features kindergarteners playing out the events from 9/11 to the war in Iraq- ending as a casket draped with the American flag is placed into a hearse just outside the school. Host of the Souls 2004 Concert, he is also a leading proponent for the recognition of the Armenian genocide by the Turkish government. Recently having released the album Elect the Dead, FTP, name this activist and lead singer from System of a Down.
ANSWER: Serj Tankian
19) This album features 13 untitled songs lasting 17 seconds apiece, with a 14th untitled song of 16 seconds. It also includes a track that samples Lou Reed’s 1975 album Metal Machine Music during the verses called “Let the Devil In”. Guest appearances include Katrina Ford of Celebrations and Kazu Makino of Blonde Redhead, on the songs “Blues from Down Here” and “Hours”, respectively. David Bowie provided backup vocals to lead singer Tunde Adebimpe on the song “Province”, while its lead single was “Wolf Like Me.” FTP, identify this album that begins with the song “I was a Lover,” the most recent effort from TV on the Radio.
ANSWER: Return to Cookie Mountain
20) One of her songs was used in a Saturday Night Live digital short that featured Shia LaBeouf, Bill Hader, and Andy Samberg shooting everyone and their sister in slow motion. The title of her first album, i Megaphone, is actually an anagram of her name. She joined with Guy Sigsworth for a side project that released the popular song “Let Go”, which appeared on the album Details under the band name Frou Frou. FTP, name this artist who released a 2005 album featuring the songs “Headlock” and “Goodnight and Go”, entitled Speak for Yourself.
ANSWER: Imogen Heap
21) The original version of this collection was released in 2000 by Italian musician Paolo Buonvino, but its better known reincarnation surfaced in 2006 and begins with the lines “This could be the very minute I’m aware I’m alive”, in the Snow Patrol song, “Chocolate.” Track 7 starts with the lines “Where are we? What the hell is going on?”, and is Imogen Heap’s “Hide and Seek.” Also featuring “Warning Sign” by Coldplay and the songs “Star Mile” and “Paperweight” by the compiler’s friend Joshua Radin, this is, FTP, what movie soundtrack, the second major film to feature music chosen by Zach Braff, notable for also starring Jacinda Barrett, Casey Affleck and Rachel Bilson.