July 13, 2004 | Posted by mark at 1:34 PM

I Can't Type, I Can't Temp

The Meadowlands

The Wrens - This Boy is Exhausted (demo). The Wrens are a wonderful pop band from New Jersey. I wasn't nearly hip enough (or Jersey enough) to catch on to their Seacaucus album, but I finally caught on for the Meadowlands [Buy It]. This track is a demo cut for a song off of that album, and I prefer this one. The album version seems intentionally rough, and it doesn't quite work for me. As a whole, the album is near perfect -- it's all these cool pop melodies with great guitar riffs and whatnot. Totally worth picking up. You can get their other albums directly from the band here. There are tons of mp3s on their site as well.

Also, they're playing at the Knitting Factory in Hollywood on Saturday night for 13 bucks. Are any of our Angelino readers going to this? My girlfriend works on Saturday night, so I might be going solo to the show. [ed. note: Are any of our readers even in Los Angeles?]

[Update] Someone mentioned Devendra Banhart in the comments. Fans of quiet, acoustic music should check out the compilation that Banhart put together for Arthur Magazine. You can stream the entire album here.

[Update #2] - For those of you wondering the origins of this particular track, I got it from the Wrens own site. When the album first came out, they posted a few demo tracks. I'd say I picked this up about a year ago. I also have a demo version of "Everyone Chooses Sides" that I'll post if there's enough interest in it.

Comments

I am an LA reader, but I can't make this show. Did you catch Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom the other night?

Posted by: Milkworms at July 13, 2004 4:30 PM

No! I missed that one. Was it any good?

Posted by: robot mark at July 13, 2004 4:34 PM

I'm an LA reader also. Unfortunately, I can't make the show either. Sounds like a good one, though.

Posted by: four eyed girl at July 13, 2004 4:41 PM

I'm an L.A. Reader, three.
Tend to prefer power-poppier Grass-era Wrens to the slower, Meadowlandsian Wrens, though.

Posted by: Fiestas and Siestas at July 13, 2004 5:56 PM

Not an angelino, but I'm sure someone must be? LA's a big city after all.

Posted by: jae at July 13, 2004 10:18 PM

I'm an LA Reader, and I'm going to be at this show on Saturday. I can't wait.

Posted by: BlackenedDove at July 14, 2004 1:22 AM

I own Meadowlands (fantastic album) and i much prefer this version too, thanks.

Posted by: Aurelien at July 14, 2004 8:49 AM

OH, and Catbirdseat -- this was actually posted on the Wrens website while they were recording the meadowlands. They had this track, as well as a cleaner, different version of Everyone Chooses Sides (which is also superior to the album version). I might post that one later on.

Cheers.

Posted by: robot mark at July 14, 2004 4:22 PM
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