LCD Soundsystem

This is Happening

DFA Records

Coming on the heels of the universally acclaimed Sound of Silver, This is Happening had mighty big shoes to fill. But rather than filling them, James Murphy (the producer/musician/vocalist behind LCD Soundsystem) decided to trade them in for some black Chuck Taylors or whatever those post-punk kids were wearing in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. I’m about 12 listens into the album, and the post-punk/art-rock/new-wavy influences have become impossible to ignore. The album is packed with Brian Eno/Frippertronic guitar solos (“Drunk Girls”), early Talking Heads percussion, driving disco beat and African-sounding guitars (“Home”), massive Gary Numan-esque synth strings (“I Can Change”) and Bowie-like (really, Eno again) guitar hooks (“All I Want”).

He’s a big dude. He’s massively bearded. And when he sings, he sings about drinking and fighting and losing his mind and everyone in the joint listens because it’s impossible not to. Add the fact that he goes by the name The White Buffalo and you’ve got a recipe for an imposing, if not slightly terrifying, figure.

But if you call The White Buffalo on his cell phone, he’ll respond to his given name, Jake Smith, and he’ll probably be driving through Los Angeles traffic near his home, where he lives with his family. Smith doesn’t look much like a stereotypical dad, but more like someone who, if 25 years older, could have battled Jeff Bridges for the lead in Crazy Heart. Smith is, indeed, a dad, but that hasn’t stopped the songwriting powerhouse from continuing to pen powerfully dark, boozy tunes that he’s been booming through bars and clubs over the past few years.

Sound Check decided to change it up last weekend and rather than roll super deep (which we always do, oftentimes laden with silver medallions), we split up – one faction stayed in Bend to monitor the Les Schwab Amphitheater activities while the other headed northward to the Sasquatch! Festival.

So here’s how things went at Sasquatch! We arrived on Saturday morning to find the campgrounds were full of crazy Canadians on crazy juice, but we managed to settle down on a quaint piece of grass and then make our way down in time to see Mumford and Sons, then the delightfully incredible Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. Then it was Broken Social Scene and Miike Snow, the Hold Steady, topped off by dancing with Vampire Weekend and general mayhem provided by My Morning Jacket. And that was just Saturday.

“We both like the Beach Boys a lot,” writes M. Ward, answering e-mail questions about She & Him, the bubbly pop duo of which he makes up half.

This isn’t shocking. One doesn’t have to listen much past the first track of the band’s newest album, Volume Two, to guess that Ward and the act’s songwriter and singer, Zooey Deschanel, enjoy the work of Brian Wilson and company. She & Him has made a name for themselves in the past two years by reviving the sunshiny radio pop of years past, but doing so with an innovative edge that has attracted fans who’ve probably never had much interest in the Beach Boys.