19 posts tagged “music”
Lollapalooza was a great chance to check out bands that piqued my curiosity but hadn't yet turned me into a fan.
I had another awesome music weekend in Chicago. The weather was perfect all three days, I wasn't completely overwhelmed by choice as feared, and I obviously heard some great music. I will now write WAY too much about it! I'll start with the bands I was most psyched to see: Wilco, Amadou and Mariam, Spank Rock, Iron & Wine, and The National.
Wilco topped my list. They came on stage Saturday night in lovely sequined suits reminiscent of Gram Parsons and the Old Elvis, and they sounded awesome. Though the Wilco faithful seemed pretty unexcited by Sky Blue Sky, I liked it and Impossible Germany and Hate It Here were sooooo good live. The Being There stuff, Misunderstood, Monday, and Outtasite (Outta Mind), were definitely my highlights, though. They also played a new song, One Wing, which didn't get me super-excited, but kept the extremely drunk and horny couple next to me going strong.
I also caught Jeff
Tweedy at the Kids stage on Friday, and it was hilarious to hear
him try to be kid-friendly. At one point he asked for requests, but a
kid asked for "On and On and On," and he said that song was too serious and
played Hummingbird instead. At another point he said something to the
effect of "This guitar sounds like hell. Oops. I mean H-E-double
toothpicks." He introduced Heavy Metal Drummer by saying he had
changed the lyrics to be more kid-appropriate. He tried, singing
"...playing Kiss covers beautiful and unknown" the first time, but
slipped back into "...beautiful and stoned," saying it sounded better
anyway, and left in "she lifted up her shirt at the Battle of the
Bands."
Amadou and Mariam sounded great. Amadou rocked a gold-plated guitar, and the band was high-energy. Mariam sometimes looked a little bored, but smiles would creep up, and she playfully rubbed Amadou's head on the last song.
Though I didn't get to hear as much Spank Rock himself as I
would have liked, he and talented sidekick Amanda Blank entertained. I
got to hear fav Bump, and they dedicated a song called "Hoochie Mama" to me (...she ain't
nothin but a Hoochie Mama. Hoodrat, hoodrat, hoochie mama...), which I've since
learned was a 2 Live Crew cover.
Iron, Wine, and Sam Beam's beard's set started off promising with some of their more uptempo stuff off Shepherd's Dog, but they lost me pretty quickly. I think they'd be way better in a more intimate setting.
The National had some frustrating sound problems, so I'm glad
I got to see their great show at the 400 last summer. But they played all of my favorites from Boxer (Mistaken for Strangers, Fake Empire, Apartment Story, Slow Show, Ada) the guitars
sounded great, and they had brass with them, all of which helped make up some
for the sound issues.
¡Forward Russia! A political party formed by Yeltsin's finance minster Boris Fyodorov during 1993-94. It was still going as of 2003, but does not play a significant role in Russian politics. This Leeds, UK, dance rock band put an inverted exclamation point at the front of their name, so I'm sure their name is full of deep political significance.
All of the critical praise being heaped on Shearwater's recently-released Rook piqued my curiosity, even though the album cover gives me a seriously bad case of the creepy-crawlies. The 6 tracks they have up on their MySpace page were interesting enough, but I honestly couldn't decide if I liked them or not. So when I saw that they were playing the Entry with a local band I had wanted to catch, I had no choice but to go!
It was a fun show, both intentionally and unintentionally. The Austin band is full of skilled musicians, and they played a butt load of instruments: acoustic and electric guitar, acoustic and electric bass, banjo, melodica, whirligig, tambourine, trumpet, and keys (2 sets). And drummer Thor (yes, THOR!), who looks like an older buffer Garth, nearly doubles that number.
He jumped around from vibraphone (played both with mallets and by bowing the edges!), to xylophone, to clarinet, AND to homemade dulcimer, in addition to bass and keys. The lead singer's voice and the music's overall tone was really rich live.
Overall though, it was much too melodramatic and prog-rocky for me. Said melodrama and prog-rockiness was especially evident in the lead singer's phrasing and his trembly falsetto. He was clearly a drama kid in high school, as he even took two dramatic bows at the end of the set. Century Eyes is a good representative of the melodrama.
The fact that the only words I could make out during the set were "mother and child" in one and "God" in another were another tip that they might be taking themselves a little too seriously.
All that said, the lyrics are supposed to be about the destruction of the environment and love of nature, so if the library ever buys it or I'm ambitious enough to track down MP3s on the web, I'll probably give Rook a few listens. And more than a few members of the crowd seemed to be having a spiritual experience, so vive la difference!
It was a very good music weekend. I saw Ha Ha Tonka and Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin on Saturday night, the Liquor Pigs on Sunday afternoon, and my beloved Long Blondes on Sunday night. (More about them in another post...) My friend and I hadn't heard much of either of Saturday night's bands, but figured two bands with good buzz might be worth a listen. SO glad we went. Ha Ha Tonka totally rocked!
Ha Ha Tonka is a 4-man southern-flavored indie rock outfit from Springfield, MO, that took their name from one of the state's parks. I love watching bands that are having such a great time with the music that they wouldn't really care if anyone was there to listen or not and HHT was one of those bands. They are awesome musicians who can also sing really nice harmonies. The whole show was a highlight, but Nick on the Fourth in a Fervor and Caney Mountain stood out. In addition to stuff off the record, they covered Black Betty and ended the show with (I've got a) 12-inch, 3-speed Oscillating Fan (sittin' on the floor in front of the diVAN), which I've learned is a song by a band called Red Meat. Sorry my vegetarian friends!
I bought the disc that night and can't get enough of it. The lyrics are quite intriguing. I definitely need more time to think about them, but I think they hit drug abuse, racism, religion, love, and the U.S. healthcare system, to name a few light topics. (I read somewhere that the lead singer is a cancer survivor, so I'm pretty sure about the last one) It's too hard to pick one song, so here are a few.
Not sure how I missed it, but a little Boldtype article brought 2006's White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s to my attention. Joe Boyd is a music industry insider who was in alot of the right places at alot of the right times, probably because he never stopped moving. Tour manager for Europe's Blues and Gospel Caravan, which included Muddy Waters, Otis Spann, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Production manager for the 1965 Newport Jazz and Folk (Dylan goes electric) Festivals. Co-founder of the UFO Club, where Pink Floyd played the first two Fridays, and producer of PF's first single. Discoverer, producer, and manager of Nick Drake. The list goes on.
I definitely had trouble keeping all the names straight sometimes, but there are some awesome little nuggets in here: his behind-the- scenes account of Dylan going electric, for sure; the Incredible String Band's plunge into Scientology. But the one I liked best was not a big part of the book. Boyd had taped a bunch of interviews for his Jimi Hendrix documentary, including a particularly good one with Pete Townsend, that got mistakenly thrown out and never found. He managed to get Townsend to agree to reshoot the interview, but Townsend made it clear the day of the reshoot that he was not happy about it:
"'Eleven minutes[...]that's how long you've got. Let's go.' He looked awful, the light was poor, I [Boyd] was in despair."
but...
"The instant the camera started rolling, Pete was transformed. He did an almost identical interview, told the same anecdotes and acted as if he was vaguely enjoying himself. When it was over, I asked how he did it. He told me that early in his career Kit Lambert had introduced him to a hypnotist who gave him the trance-state suggestion that the minute he stepped onstage, whatever was bothering him would evaporate and he would perform to the maximum of his abilitites."
My friends and I were lucky enough to be at Vampire Weekend's Triple Rock show earlier this month. I completely forgot to look up their opening act, YACHT, before the show, and was surprised when loud, pre-recorded electronica started pouring out of the speakers, and one smaller dude with a microphone began singing and working the room. Amy and I stayed to watch, mostly because we don't smoke. It wasn't my thing (when I go to a live show, I want live music!), even though I could certainly relate to "don't you wanna just stay in the shower?" Here's a taste of that one, though unfortunately we weren't surrounded by nature dioramas at the Triple Rock.
I got home and learned that Mr. YACHT is a Jona Bechtold, and considers himself a bit of a performance artist. I probably would have paid a little more attention had I known.
Last Saturday, Arctic Universe led off a quadruple-header at the Turf Club. Again I had not done my research, but when I saw a slight guy wearing glasses and a jet-black, Eric Estrada-mussed-up-hair wig milling about on the floor, a definite feeling of deja vu set in. Soon and sure enough, a pre-recorded dance beat kicked in from the sound system and the guy started crooning with a far-off look in his eyes and working the room. He spent most of the second half of the set up on the edge of the booths, hugging the poles at either end. I think if I had gone out to dance that night I might have been more into it (we were there to see The Owls and The Deaths, not exactly ABBA wannabees...) but you really couldn't help but watch to find out what he was going to do next. Here's a little more about Mr. Arctic Universe.
I can't help but wonder if the music gods were trying to say something to me by putting me at two performance artists' sets in less than a month. (Because everything happens for a reason, right A-Lu? ;)) Erin and B were at both shows with me. Maybe our "band" is actually meant to be performance art...
After filling up on hotdish and jello Sunday, Amy and I headed to the Turf Club for the second of Bon Iver's two shows there last weekend. So glad I went. As you've probably already read (thanks to Pitchfork- and blog-fueled hype), Justin Vernon/Bon Iver retreated to a northern Wisconsin cabin to regroup during a low point in his life, where he wrote the songs for what is For Emma, Forever Ago. Weirdly, I'd purposely been avoiding reading about him because I thought I might like the record, wasn't ready for some reason or another to give it a careful listen, and didn't want to ruin the experience. Also glad I did that! I loved the record, but wondered how it would fly live. He sings largely in falsetto, which could have been cringe-worthy but ended up being even more beautifully haunting than on the record. He knows how to use tempo and loudness (there's probably a musical term for loudness, but I have no idea what that term would be), and really knows how to use his voice like an instrument.
He played the songs from For Emma in order. The fireworks-like drums on Wolves were awesome to hear done live. I particularly liked Blindsided for some cool guitar stuff he did in the middle. He added just the right amount of jammy guitar to another song, too, but unfortunately I can't remember which one. I think it might have been Creature Fear, which I think was the one he dedicated to a girl named Erika who had been following the band around on her motorcycle for the past few weeks. I was excited when he brought out a friend to play trumpet on what is now my favorite song on the CD (it will probably change...first it was Skinny Love). Oh, how I love live horns in a rock show! (...except for the sax...except when it's Clarence Clemmons playing it) The set ended acoustic and alone with a cover of Mahalia Jackson's A Satisfied Mind and the last song on the record, re: Stacks, with the crowd silent and hanging on every note.
The Turf fit the intimacy of the music well. It'll be interesting to hear how he sounds outside at Rock the Garden this summer
With a snowstorm outside, it was a great day to sit at home and read. I checked out Baby Plays Around from my library only to rescue it from being "deaccessioned" due to the sin of low circulation. I figured I had to at least give it a try, since it was a memoir by a female drummer. It sucked me in. The book is set primarily in late 90s Manhattan during an eventful time in the author's music and married life. It's certainly not a book for the ages, but the writer is smart enough and fun enough to make it worth the read. And Minneapolitans will enjoy the author's visit to our fair city as she works on a story about a rabid young Japanese music fan named Yoko making her way around the U.S. She sees Matt Wilson perform at the 400 right around the time his brother's band is hitting the charts with Closing Time, and sees a little known band named Modest Mouse play at the U of M's Whole.
The book also taught me an awesome but ugly-sounding new word, epigone, inspired me to learn a few waltz beats, and reminded me of an awesome Clash lyric (10 points if you can name the song w/o googling):
"'N' every gimmick hungry yob digging gold from rock 'n' roll/Grabs the mike to tell us he'll die before he's sold/But i believe in this-and it's been tested by research/He who fucks nuns will later join the church"
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