Let me fill you in on all the exciting stuff that's been happening in my quarantine stay - I'm not sure I'm going to be able to fit it all in!
Well, maybe not, but we're managing to fill our days pretty well. Today is our first day off work, but between breakfast, cleaning up the room, a quick session on the spin bike, and a walk around outside, I've got through to lunchtime, and there's a couple of cricket games to carry me through the afternoon.
Exercise is interesting, now that we've passed our first COVID test, we get three sessions a day to walk around the 'exercise area', which is the hotel parking lot, screened off from the outside world with black fencing. There's a couple of windows in the fence that people are using to chat with locals outside, but in general, each exercise session is the same 20 people drearily walking around the perimeter of the lot. Despite that, it's good to be outside and to see some different faces.
Alcohol is proving to be a minor problem - we are allowed 6 cans or a bottle of wine into the room every day, but if you get out of sync on your deliveries, it's pretty easy to run out. However, we will soldier on.
We took our Day 3 COVID test today, which means I'm only going to have my brain impaled by a swap one last time, on Day 12. Thank heavens for small victories.
The three meals are the highlights of the day, but the breakfasts are a little weird - yesterday was bacon and egg pie, which I thought was awesome, and today's was a doughnut and a brownie, which was a little much for 7 in the morning. Last nights dinner was roast lamb, and it was amazing. I forgot how good meat is here.
Alright, the cricket is starting, time to go. Go Black Caps!
Yesterday I flew from Vancouver to Los Angeles to Auckland
to Christchurch over about 30 hours, and if I have any advice for you about
flying in a pandemic, it would be “don’t”.
The flights themselves weren’t that bad, but from constant
worry that at some point an overzealous gate agent would tell us our COVID
results weren’t comprehensive enough to fly (we saw it happen more than once), to
nothing being open in the airports, to a surprise extra leg when we learned we
were being quarantined in a city 1000 miles from our destination, it was a long
and tiring day. So much so that I claimed I’d lost my bag, when I really just
couldn’t pick it out from the baggage claim.
However, we’ve now spent one full day in quarantine, and we’re
getting into the swing of it. So far, it’s not too bad. The team at the hotel
are wonderful – a mix of New Zealand Defence Force personnel, public health
nurses, and some hotel employees, and all are friendly, empathetic to what we’re
going through and incredibly nice, even when they’re confiscating your third
bottle of wine.
We got our first COVID test just after arriving (and I swear
they put the swab deeper up your nose than elsewhere in the world), and we’re
confined to this room until we get that result back. We get three meals delivered
a day (which is way more food than I can handle) and we’ve had a range of
things delivered – groceries (including the contraband wine), fresh ground
coffee, a pie, an extra desk, and even a spin bike that arrives later today. It
still feels a little weird having a uniformed soldier deliver your lunch, but I
guess we’ll get used to that.
The attention to wellness is pretty amazing – half of the
material the team has provided has been around keeping yourself sane through
this process, and we’ve had both phone and in-person checkins from the team
here.
It’s good to have work to do -spending 9 hours a day looking
into a computer screen fills a good chunk of time, and we’re still maladjusted
to the time, so we’ll sneak in a quick afternoon nap before dinner.
After dinner, there’s a cricket game to watch, then we’ll be
back up early for work again tomorrow.
After 5 years away, my first pie back in New Zealand was a
little inauspicious, but the circumstances around it were unique. See, I’m in a
Managed Isolation hotel for the next 14 days after arriving from Canada, and so
far, the food has been great. However, lunch today was smoked salmon, which is
not my favourite, and thanks to the wonders of modern technology, within minutes,
Brent from Uber Eats was off to the local gas station to pick me up a Mince and
Cheese pie. I could quibble that it wasn’t as hot as it could have been, and
that they didn’t have the pepper steak flavor on the online menu, but at the
end of the day, I just ordered a delicious pie off the internet while being
housed in a military-run quarantine facility, and that isn’t a sentence I thought
I’d ever type.
After 11 years, I'm dusting off the blog to capture a very unique time in our lives. I'm currently in quarantine in New Zealand after traveling here to escape the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. Here I'll share notes from my travels, and the feature that you're all here for, review all the pies I have.
For those who were holding their breath waiting for this, you can now exhale (hi Mum!). Here's a random collection of overshare, loosely based around my top 10 songs of the year.
10. Never Look Back - Slow Club Slow Club's 2010 debut album "Yeah, So" should really be my album of the year as it spent more time playing this year than any other record else I own, but rules are rules, and it doesn't qualify for this annual parade of indulgence. But this year's "Paradise" is pretty goddamn special too - filled with plenty of boy/girl angst, and a healthy dollop of ukelele picking.
This particular cut starts slow, but sweeps into a full orchestral chorus - and I think I also like the fact that it mentions a marching band, joining the lofty pantheon of other songs that are awesome that mention marching bands (American Pie, that Death Cab one).
They're coming through Vancouver in early March playing a 50 person venue, and I'm looking forward to being woefully awkward trying to talk to them.
9. Weekend - Smith Westerns Despite being roughly 11, the Smith Westerns have spent more time digging through crates of old T-Rex records than I have (not an elementary achievement), but they have mined 70s glam-rock for its best riffs, basslines and swagger. "Weekend is essentially just a single guitar riff, but its so good it doesn't even matter"
8. I Might - Wilco To an aging hipster such as myself, there's nothing more stereotypically appropriate than dropping a Wilco song into each year's year-end list. Sure, they're my dad's age, and their new record sounds like their last one, and the one before that, but they just keep writing fantastic songs, and putting on fantastic live shows full of musical mastery.
"I Might" was on repeat for weeks on end and is a perfect slice of Dad-rock.
7. How the West Was One - Kyprios
9 year-old me would think it was pretty awesome that 31 year-old me featured a rap about sports in his year-end list, but everyone else in the universe just thinks its lame. But for three months this year, pretty much all I did was watch the Vancouver Canucks play in the Stanley Cup playoffs. At a time where there wasn't too much other good news floating around, the playoffs were a wild ride, featuring a lot of mid-week drinking, a lot of nervously chewed fingernails, and ultimately, no parade at the end of it (we did muster a pretty sweet riot at the end of it). It was an amazing time to be in and around the city, and this tune from Vancouver's favourite hipster rapper (who has one hell of a live show) does a nice job of capturing the moment.
6. Kaputt - Destroyer Mostly because the cover photo is taken at the place I play pitch and putt golf 10 blocks from my house. But also largely because it features the sleaziest synths since the pinnacle of 80s porn, as well as an 80s porn themed video.
This is hands-down the most accessible Destroyer record, but still has more than it's share of weirdness.
5. Every Defeat A Divorce - Los Campesinos For the 5th year in succession, Los Camps! make this list - they're still my favourite band, and North America's favourite soundtrack for Budweiser commercials, and I flew across a continent to spend 24 hours in DC and see them play (and to earn enough airmiles to get access to the Air Canada lounge for a year - but that's a story for another time). This particular song seems to be about watching England get knocked out of the World Cup, which doesn't make it as cheery as something like "World in Motion", but it also doesn't feature John Barnes rapping, which makes it a win in my book. Like the rest of their last record, it's dark, churning, original, and compelling, and I'm still a mega-LosCamps! nerd. Go see them live this February, North America.
4. Need You Now - Cut Copy
I remember seeing Cut Copy when I was a precocious little shit of a 27 year-old and claiming they were just a shit Australian New Order (it might even be somewhere in the blog archives if you're feeling adventurous), but then I spent more and more time with In Ghost Colours, and was forced to quickly revise my hastily informed opinion.
I dunno if Zonoscope is as good as that first record, but it still has its fair share of hits, and Cut Copy and I spent a lovely autumn evening on an island in the middle of San Francisco Bay.
3. An Argument With Myself - Jens Lekman
This pretty much only makes the list because halfway through the song Jens Lekman actually has an argument with himself, which might be the most endearingly retarded thing I've ever heard in a pop-song.
2. Heart In Your Heartbreak - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
The chorus "she was the heart in your heartache, she was the miss in your mistake" and I really like it when bands drop out the bass and drums for a verse. See, that's all you need to do to make this list - bands of the world, pay attention.
1. Revelations - Devon Williams I picked up this Devon Williams record after I read the most ridiculously emphatic staff recommendation blurb in Zulu records (as seen in the woefully underrated Jason Lee/Julia Stiles romantic comedy "A Guy Thing"). I think I bought it just so I could be smugly superior next time I went back in there, but I got it home, hit play, and was presented with this as a first track. Like a one-man Polyphonic Spree, the "bom-bom-bom" refrain, the strings, and the pure explosions of joy through this song send it straight to the top of this list.
If I had a dollar for every blog that started with a sentiment something along the lines of "Long Time, No Blog", I'd have $7.63 million (thanks, google), so I'm going to ignore the fact that I haven't posted on this blog in nearly 2 years, and just jump straight into the annual festival of self-indulgence that is the year end list.
One rule - each band is only allowed one entry overall, just to keep this list from becoming a Hold Steady and Arcade Fire love-fest.
Favourite Songs...
5. Younger Us - Japandroids
I can count the number of times I moshed at a show this year on two fingers, and during this song was one of them (for those keeping score, the other time was about four songs later, during Young Hearts Spark Fire). But this three minute nugget of distortion revels in nostalgia for the recent past, in which two 27 year old kids wistfully rock on their porch swing and remember their golden youth, the high point of which seems to be "that time you were already in bed and said "fuck it" and got up to drink with me instead". If I wrote the song, I'm sure I'd remember something a little more lofty, like "do you remember that time we were on the snuggie pub crawl of silicon valley and we got kicked off the caltrain for being a suicide risk". But I guess it doesn't roll of the tongue the same way.
4. Write About Love - Belle and Sebastian
I'm a sucker for Belle and Sebastian. I believe my entire year-end list of 2004 was merely an essay about how Belle and Sebastian were awesome because liking them made girls like me. I'm apparently much older, and wiser, now, but album and poster imagery featuring beautiful, pale-faced scottish girls gazing wistfully into the middle distance, and a song featuring a couple of lines extolling the virtues of being intellectual, some boy-girl call and response, and a Stevie Jackson surf guitar solo. and they're romping right back into 2010's year end list. (In other news, I saw them live for the first time in San Francisco, and they were charmingly awesome, and got cute girls (and Surfer Blood) up on stage to dance with them.)
3. Lingering Still - She and Him
Sure, the second She and Him record sounds a lot like the first She and Him record, but they're still fantastic, and M. Ward still has the shiniest guitar known to man. You can see that thing from space. This sugary pop-nugget wedges its way into my subconscious for months at a time, becoming the soundtrack to bus rides, showers, and marathon Angry-Birds playing sessions.
2. We Used To Wait - The Arcade Fire
Apparently its the year 2010 right now, so it is somewhat appropriate that at least one song on this list is based on a web experience - namely this amazing film here: (best viewed in Chrome) wherein a young man in a hoodie runs through deepest, darkest, Bucklands Beach, New Zealand, before arriving at my parent's house, only to be presented with a postcard from his older self, telling him that in the Sixth Sense, Bruce Willis is actually a ghost.
But in all seriousness, it was a good year for me and the Arcade Fire - "Suburbs" is a fantastic record, their Vancouver show this year was so epic I had a 50-year old asian man crowdsurf over me, and every time I hear Rebellion (Lies), I think its the olympics again, and I start to cry.
1. Tightrope - Janelle Monae
Again, another web-sourced piece of genius, but I'm glad I found it. Janelle Monae's performance on Letterman should a blueprint for how to perform on television. I see this song has made its way to a car commercial already, but if there's any justice, it should be propping up dancefloors the world over for the next 40 years. Doo Wop Motown Pop recast with an art-school aesthetic, and catchy as all hell. Plus, its from a record that seems to be about Robots.
Favourite Albums...
5. This is Happening - LCD Soundsystem
I think I've bought every LCD Soundsystem record to this point, and I can't honestly say I've ever sat down and listened all the way through any of them. For every fantastic slice of brilliance (daft punk is playing at my house, all my friends) they always seemed to be a couple of tracks that seem to be there solely to act as source material for amateur DJs to mash up. Hands up if you've ever made it all the way through the full 9 minute version of "Yeah" - nobody? I thought as much.
This is Happening seems like more of a pop record than a dance music record, and is filled with bullets, from the opening quiet, quiet, quiet, car-speaker blowing loud of "Dance Yourself Clean", through the best 4-song run of the year - "I can change", "All I Want", "You Wanted a Hit" and "Pow Pow".
If it really is the last LCD record, its a fitting bookend to their particular narrative arc. But if the amount of fun they were having the two times I saw them live this year is any indication, there's a good chance it won't be.
4. Astro Coast - Surfer Blood
These kids look like they're 12, but I suspect they're closer to 21 (and the singer looks like a tubby Kevin Arnold from the Wonder Years), but at either age they're still far too young to be this talented. The record is full of big, nuggety riffs drenched in distortion, and hooks thatsounds instantly familiar, and cause me to ask "what is this" every time I get in the car and it's playing.
3. Romance is Boring - Los Campesinos!
Disclaimer: I'm a Los Campesinos! nerd. I may have just signed up for their new zine subscription service, I may have driven to Seattle to see them play this year, and I may also be currently drinking tea out of a Los Campesinos! coffee mug. However, I still listened to this record more than any other this year, and there are redeeming features that should be appreciated by even non-fanboys.
Herewith:
a) Romance is Boring, the band's second proper "record", and third full-length, shows them shelving the all-out wall of sound that characterized the first two, and making use of space and lush instrumentation, best captured in "The Sea is a Good Place to Think of Future", linked below.
b) One song details a plan to move to Malta, get citizenship, and then get picked for the national football team, therefore being able to play England, France, Spain etc in World Cup qualifiers. This is notable, because I had the same plan, and would often discuss it with my co-conspirators, Messrs Dave Pearce and Christopher Burton. This is the part where you appreciate the irony of 3 people, who weren't even on the best team at their suburban football club, in a nation of 4 million people who aren't really very good at football, thinking that they could up sticks and head to Europe and waltz onto a national team.
c) Another song features the line "I think we need more post-coital and less post-rock", a sentiment we should all take to heart.
d) When you see them live, it is perfectly acceptable to shout "Can't we all please just calm the fuck down" over and over again.
2. Chant Master - Lawrence Arabia
The trainspotters reading this will note, quite accurately, that this record came out in 2009. However, I'm using the fact that this soundtracked my 2010, as well as the fact that it didn't get a North American release until this year, and the fact that I make the goddamn rules around here, ok, to sneak it under the bar into this years list.
It's somewhat gratifying to see someone who you've seen play in such luminary venues as the masonic, Edens (which still has the distinction of being the best club I've ever been to that was under a strip club) and that crappy flat party in Kingsland, show up in your transplanted home town playing a grand old theater, opening up for Crowded House. And then join you for a beer at the library square afterwards, where we tried to explain L&P to canadians.
The record is a magnificently listenable, totally unclassifiable, and stunningly unique. And James maintains one of the greatest twitter accounts ever, especially if you like cricket, or current events.
1. The New Pornographers - Together
The best New Pornographers record yet, it has all the elements of power-pop magic, but it sounds like an album of a proper band, instead of a disparate set of songs from a group of separate songwriters. Silver Jenny Dollar, Your Hands (Together) and If You Can't See My Mirrors are fantastic highlights, and showcase the individual talents of the group at large.Their show at the gorge during Sasquatch is the first time I've seen them play live with both Neko Case and Dan Bejar, and everything sounded fantastic, even if I did get myself in trouble in a rather unfortunate popcorn incident.
Best Shows... (Vancouver, unless otherwise specified)
7. Zeus/Jason Collett - The Biltmore
The first time I saw Zeus, in Victoria late last year, I thought they sounded like the Beatles. The second time I saw them, they still sounded like the Beatles, but at this show at the Biltmore they had some assistance, with Jason Collett, of Broken Social Scene affiliation, and Bahamas. Zeus apparently were Jason Collett's backing band for a while, before striking out to create their own pop gems. At this show at the wonderfully cosy, low ceilinged Biltmore nominally had three bands playing, but mostly had the same 10 musicians on stage throughout all three sets. Zeus were a particular highlight - the band constantly change instruments and lead vocals, and even threw in a Genesis cover for good measure.
6. Wilco - The Olympics
I could write any number of posts about the awesomeness that was the olympics. Put aside the corporate sponsorship and non-stop TV coverage that you get from afar, when you're in the host city, your olympic experience becomes a 2 week party, where every non-working hour was spent strolling the streets, pavilions, and licensed establishments of the city, trying to absorb a constant onrush of cultural experience, from watching curling at the Saskatchewan House, to a 2am Cadence Weapon show (at which the curling team was present, I believe) at Alberta House, to high-fiving cops while drinking beer on a streetcorner after the hockey final, it was amazing madness
One particular highlight on day one of the olympics was the city-run livesite, which featured international-caliber bands playing live for free less than a kilometer from my house, and the opening act on the first day was none other than Wilco. It was rainy, and nobody really knew how busy the shows were going to be, so we showed up at 2pm for a 7pm show, and got good and wet through, but within 30 seconds of Wilco stepping on stage, it was instantly worth it. The joy of the Wilco live experience has been extensively catalogued elsewhere in these pages, but their sound is always brilliant, they are incredibly talented musicians, Nels Cline plays guitar like a retard getting electrocuted, and Jeff Tweedy seemed comfortable in the spotlight, cracking jokes, making fun of Canadians, and totally revelling in the fact that playing a show at the olympics is kinda weird. >
The played their feelgood hits, Yea Yeah and Daylight, and I think I sweated out most of my bodily fluid. But that didn't stop Matt coming out after the show to give out hugs to anyone who wanted one. We got ours, and he was still giving them out half an hour later. It took two days to wipe the smile off my face.
4. Phoenix - The Orpheum
This show should have been an early indication of how awesome the Olympics were going to be - it was about a month before they kicked off, and this show was part of the "cultural olympiad", whatever that is. Regardless, it brought Phoenix to a grand old theater downtown, which normally hosts opera, orchestra, and the occasional adult contemporary reunion tour. The show was kicked off by local dance-poppers You Say Party!, who were great despite nobody being there (the joy of a 6pm show).
Phoenix came on stage, looking as stylish and french as possible, and played a solid set that spanned all three of their records, dipped into Air's Playground Love, and all was well, apart from the fact that most of the crowd was still sitting down.
Then they come out for their encore, and one kid jumped up on stage and danced around. He was expecting security to come out and turn him away, but nobody did. It appears they forgot to hire security for the show. Within seconds there were thousands of people on stage -I know for a fact that I stood on some of the guitarists gear, yet after initially looking terrified, the band played on, even playing 1901 while being completely surrounded by crowd. Excuse the sound in the video below, but otherwise its tres awesome.
3. Die Antwoord - Treasure Island Music Festival, San Francisco
I'm not much into Zef-Rap, but Die Antwoords live show is quite something else. It all starts off with them wearing boilersuits detailed with cartoon characters (one of which seems to be a caricature of the male singer holding his dick - which also seems to be tattooed on his arm)
There was much fist pumping, hip thrusting in inappropriate trousers, and ass flashing, but it was a train wreck I couldn't look away from. Couple that with the fact that I could look to the left and see alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge, and San Francisco downtown, and it was a pretty satisfying afternoon.
2. The Hold Steady - The Showbox, Seattle
If you know anyone that doesn't believe in the beauty of rock and roll in its purest form, you need to take them to a Hold Steady show to convert them. These are 5 guys who love the simple action of standing in front of a crowd of people, and playing songs to them, and it shows in the grin on the face of the lead singer.
This show was one of those happy accidents - I was away on a work trip, and my plans changed last minute, leaving me in Seattle with nothing to do. A quick scan of the local street paper revealed a Hold Steady show, so within 4 hours of finishing work I had a ticket, and a couple of beers under my belt.
And I'm so glad I did - a Hold Steady show is a wonderfully awesome place to be - Craig Finn says things that make you feel warm and fuzzy inside, like "Tonight we're going to have a lot of fun", and through his literate stories of teenage characters ("you're a beautiful girl, and a pretty good waitress" from Hurricane J), and his knack for getting people to chant unlikely things (the word "sequestered" doesn't feature often in rock choruses, but it does here).
Somewhere towards the end he said something along the lines of "all any of us ever need is this room, you people, and a whole lot of good times" and it made a lot of sense. Until I went outside and realized I'd forgotten where I was staying.
1. Pavement - Central Park, New York
I'm a nerd. And I'm proud of that fact. And myself, and a fair number of my peers made their way to Central Park in New York for the centerpiece of Pavement's reunion tour on a sunny September afternoon.
In order to get tickets for these shows, you had to purchase them nearly a year in advance, with only a day's notice between them being announced, and them being sold out. It takes a certain kind of person who is willing to take that sort of leap of faith, and it was evident when looking around the crowd.
I've been a Pavement fan as long as I can remember (i think I stole Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain off my then 12 year old sister), yet I'd never seen them live. I changed that three times this year, but the New York show was the best. The crowd was the nerdiest group of music snobs I've ever seen, but they saw no shame in belting out every lyric to every song Pavement played, whether it be MTV video hit, or unreleased b-side, and it was utterly fantastic.
The other two times I saw them, there was obvious tension on stage, but in New York, I think they could see the end of the road, and were just happy to bathe in the admiration.
For extra points, see if you can figure out how the song linked below is the inspiration for my blog/twitter name.
So its 19 day's late, and much more than a dollar short, but I wouldn't be an annoying idiot with a penchant for overwrought analysis of popular culture if I didn't put out a year-end list.
and songsmith can only entertain me for so long
So here it is - My Year In Lists
Song of the Year
1. My Year In Lists - Los Campesinos. You see what I did there? Just sit back and appreciate the irony of naming a song about not wanting to compile a new year list at the top of a new year list.
But happy coincidence aside, in 1 minute and 42 seconds, 7 precociously talented whippersnappers from Cardiff cram in enough great lyrics for Belle and Sebastian to build a career from, more glockenspeil taps than a Brunettes record, and the best boy/girl harmony since Ike and Tina or Lee and Nancy.
"I declined because I decided I do not believe in the new year any more"
Indeed.
2. Keep Me in Mind, Sweetheart - Mark Lanegan and Isobel Campbell
Mark Lanegan's gravelly baritone is a bit much on its lonesome, but on this highlight from his second collabaration with ex-Belle and Sebastian Yoko Isobel Campbell, it balances perfectly. There's a simplicity to it that brings to mind classic Johnny and June Cash, and proves that sometimes all you need is a melody, an acoustic guitar, and a couple of different voices.
Honorable mention to some of the stuff that Mark did with Greg Dulli, formerly of the Afghan Whigs as the Gutter Twins - which is also worth a look.
3. The Hold Steady - Sequestered in Memphis
The genius of Craig Finn and the Hold Steady is that he can write barnstorming festival- and dive bar-rocking anthems, without failing to be literate, obscure, and unfailingly witty. The sight of a sun-drenched field of college-aged hipsters chanting "Subpoenaed in Texas - Sequestered in Memphis" was one of the most gratifying things I saw this year.
At their live show in Vancouver, Reggie Youngblood prefaced this number with the statement - "This is gonna be one of your mad jamz, yo", and he was pretty goddamn close to the truth. It stomps, stamps and doowops, totally unhindered by the silliest couplet of the year, and really hits its straps when it breaks down and the twin female vocalists take center stage and play the song out. I'm not sure if it's just because of the memory of watching them grin, sparkle and shimmy their way through a live show, but it always makes me feel good.
5. I Know Your Girlfriend Hates Me - Annie.
Some may call it tokenism, and to a degree it is, but you can't fail but appreciate genius pop music. And in a year when Justin et al did nothing of note, the best pop song of the year came out of Norway.
It's marginally less sugary than 2004 year-end favourite "Chewing Gum", but it still is classic Richard X production pop, that reminds of those heady days in the early 2000 when that ruled the airwaves. Rachel Stevens, anyone?
She's the norwegian Kylie, don't you know? and the wikipedia entry for this song says it is inspired by Prince's Kiss, which should be the inspiration for much more stuff.
6. Knots - Pete and the Pirates.
The bastard child of a C-86 Sarah Records twee pop band and the Clash, Pete and the Pirates are one-part charming, and two-parts energetic. Everything about this song is dead simple, but it rollicks through and is good enough to force me to stick an extra song onto my top 5.
Albums of the Year
1. Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea, Silver Jews
2. The Luxury of Hysteria, Tim Rogers
3. Vampire Weekend, Vampire Weekend
4. Fleet Foxes, Fleet Foxes
5. We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed, Los Campesinos
Shows of the Year
1. Cadence Weapon, Vancouver
2. Jarvis Cocker, Pitchfork Festival, Chicago
3. Jonathan Richman, Vancouver
4. The Blakes, San Francisco
5. The Decemberists and Barack Obama, Portland
Five pieces of random culture that have re-entered my sphere of influence this year
1. The Thrills' So Much For The City
2. Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde
3. The Wombats' Let's Dance to Joy Division
4. Pavement's Brighten the Corners
5. Superchunk
Five other things that are rattling my dags
1. Songsmith
2. Physics raps
3. XKCD
4. The New York Times Crossword on Sundays
5. Entourage
more detail to follow...because I won't rest until this is at least 10,000 words
Things are getting kinda ridiculous - it's been exactly a month since I updated this blog, and I've got a backlog of 11 shows to write about, all of which I have incredibly charming and wonderful things to write about (or not - does anyone really wanna read a clumsily assembled argument about why baseball is better than basketball, and therefore, rocknroll is better than dance music?).
But because I've run out of excuses, and because I've already seen the episode of Beauty and the Geek that I'm currently sitting in front of (and that is a show I could totally excel on), I should probably get the feet wet again. And you'll be pleased to know that democracy is, in fact dead, because despite asking for submissions on which show review to write first, I've gone with something completely different entirely.
Sunday night began with an excursion to see my favourite band of the past 9 months, Los Campesinos!. I've had a little bit of a Los Camps! problem since someone pointed my to their Myspace page in January 2007, and while I can see how you could find the male singer's voice annoying, and the glockenspiel-fueled wall of noise is a matter of personal taste, their boy/girl charm, lyrical wit, punctuational appropriateness and Pavement-referencing awesomeness had me hooked from the first, well, hook.
The attraction soon turned into an obsession, which this year saw me purchase two copies of their debut LP, Hold On Now, Youngster, one downloaded from iTunes, and another physical copy, just because I wanted the artwork (downloaded music is so aesthetically unsatisfying, even with the fancy graphics on my iPod). The record has been keeping me in oh-so-witty facebook statuses for the last 3 months (example - "G-there were conversations about which Breakfast Club you'd be - I'd be the one that dies A- no one dies G- well then what's the point?.”) and accompanying me on late night walks home, much to the chagrin of the unfortunate folk who live close enough to the granville street bridge to hear me singing as I walk across it at 4 in the morning.
So, like a 14-year old girl going to a Fall Out Boy show, I was lined up outside the Plaza just a tick after 7pm, with the other 14-year old girls, who probably also like Fall Out Boy (on that point I'm guessing, but the two bands aren't that far apart). Being an all ages show, I'd come prepared, by getting drunk much much earlier in the afternoon, which was a worthwhile endeavour, as there was nary a drink to be had in the Plaza (surely they could open the upstairs bar and just keep the kids out - not that I want to seem like a crotchety old drunk).
Supporting this evening, and on the rest of the tour (and who I suspect were unceremoniously bumped to a ridiculous 7.30pm time slot by the other support band) were The Parenthetical Girls, out of Portland, Or. Featuring a lead singer that resembled the guy from Criminal Minds that dresses nerdy on the show, but that you know is probably a male model in real life (IMDB check - turns out I was right), a moustachioed gentleman in a vaudevillian striped jacket, and a pretty wee thing playing keyboard, they kicked off with the singer wending his way through the crowd to sing the opening number. Like a less dancy Of Montreal (the comparison could possibly attributed to the singer's effeminate stage presence), they shimmied through a series of tunes, that I wish I'd been paying more attention to (there seemed to be an outstanding amount of instrument swapping), and had the audacity to claim that this was "the most punctuationally outstanding bill they'd been on", but I was slightly distracted by the fact that Gareth Campesinos was standing in front of me.
Like the aforementioned 14 year old girl, I was desperately wracking my brain for something, witty, charming, and knowledgeable to drop in to casual conversation, eliciting an invitation to come backstage and drink their contraband alcohol (part of me wanted to meet the band, but most of me was just getting really thirsty by this point). So, after 3 songs of such deliberation, the Parenthetical Girls finished, and it was my time. So I stepped up, and delivered my line:
"So, what time do you guys go on?" "About 9.30" "Thanks".
After which he gave me a look that said "I pity you for being a clumsy fan-boy, but I also understand, because I've done that too".
After that, it was time to drink, so we nipped across the road for a quick pint, stopping first to purchase a t-shirt from the drummer, and then do a complete about face as I walked outside and the bassist was standing out there alone smoking. Did I stop, and invite her across the road for a drink, or say something witty? Nope. Instead I decided to stare at her for a couple of seconds, before turning around again to continue crossing the road.
After the interlude, we returned to the second headliner, You Say Party! We Say Die!, who are a Vancouver live staple, that I'm yet to have the pleasure of experiencing.
They began with a quick warm up stretch, and a quick bout of call and response (you say! we say!) and launched into a multi-instrument, high energy spree of pop songs. The dude with the emo haircut danced angularly, and I found myself shaking along, but I again found myself distracted. For the rest of Los Campesinos! had decided that next to me would be a great place to stand and watch the band. LC! and YSP!WSD! toured Europe together last year, and the two bands obviously hit it off, as the kids from Los Campesinos! had set up shop not far from the front of stage. Also, they had alcohol, although they weren't sharing. I stood on Aleksandra Campesinos' toe at one point, during a bout of overenthusiastic shimmying, and she apologized to me, which I thought was a nice touch.
Los Camps! were invited up on stage to play and sing along during one of YSP!'s final numbers, and between the two bands, there were about 12 people on stage, clapping hands and singing songs, and it looked and sounded pretty good. Next time I see You Say Party! We Say Die!, I'm going to have to make a point of paying more attention.
Los Campesinos! proper hit the stage next, and by this point I'd worked myself into a fairly feverish fit of anticipation. The drummer, who looks like a 16 year old child, stripped off his shirt within 15 seconds of being on stage, to reveal a 16 year old's body (not that I'm in any position to be casting aspersions on others' pectoral physique), and the other 6 members assumed their positions.They kicked off with the shouted 1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4 intro to "Broken Heartbeats Sound Like Breakbeats", and a sizeable portion (which in vancouver, translates to roughly 30%) of the crowd start jiggling and pogoing in time. The primary strengths of the LC! sound are all quite nicely encapsulated in this one tune - from the off-key shout-singing of Gareth's verses, the sugary cooing of Aleksandra's choruses, and the wall of guitar/glockenspiel/violin sound in betwee, coupled with some wtf lyrics that sound much too intelligent for a 3 minute dance pop song ("Singing I see songs in shapes and colours/Like nuclear physics or pottery ovens").
After a few songs it became apparent that things weren't going too well on the sound front - half the stage couldn't hear anything through their monitors, which means they were pretty much playing blind, and there were a couple of mis-steps that were probably due to this. The singer quipped "when you go home and blog about this, make sure you mention that we couldn't hear ourselves". Consider it done. Otherwise, pretty much every song on "Hold On Now, Youngster", got a showing, along with the International Tweexcore Underground. Their outstanding rendition of Pavement's Frontwards was prefaced with "hi we're Los Campesinos!, and this next song isn't one of ours, which is probably a good thing - it's by a band called Pavement". I wanted to grab the 14 year old kids by their collars and shout "Pavement are the best band in the universe, look them up, appreciate them, and then appreciate the fact that LC! took a middling EP b-side and turned it into an anthemic call to arms. So much style that it's wasted, indeed.
The main set finished up with a stirring rendition of "You Throw Parties! We Throw Knives!", featuring another on stage appearance from You Say Party! We Say Die!, before disappearing backstage. They got called back for an encore, and I thought they were going to rise to the occasion and forgo the obligatory, but they popped back for the bonus track off the record, "2007, the year punk rock broke my heart", which ends in a satisfying fortress of noise, which was an appopriate way to go out. And then I was turfed onto the street, to find it was only 10pm, and I could still get home and to bed at a reasonable hour. Maybe all ages shows aren't that bad, after all.
I'm heading to Music Waste tomorrow, and I'm excited. I actually ended up at the opening night at Fake Jazz at the Cobalt, "Vancouver's Hardcore Bar". It was the weekly Fake Jazz, which is an experimental music showcase, and while Ejaculation Death Rattle is an outstanding name, detuned saxophones, violins, and miscellaneous knob twiddling from a dude in a cop moustache is not my cup of tea, at least not on a wednesday. At least there was a full house, and I knocked out a high score on the PacMan machine (crushing the hopes and dreams of the young man who highscored before me, who was pretty happy with his performance).
So, life gets in the way of blog sometimes, and there's a live show backlog that would put Chinese Democracy to shame. In order to organize the trickle of these items into a meaningful order, I'm leaving it up to you, my faithful readers (yes, both of you) to request what you want first. Here's your options:
Daniel Johnston Stephen Malkmus The Kills The Cure The Decemberists (w/ Barack Obama) Simian Mobile Disco Queens of the Stone Age Mars Volta The Dirtbombs The Von Bondies Los Campesinos Islands
Votes on the back of the postcard to the usual address (or for those of you who are into this new-fangled world-wide-internetweb, you can use the comments thread).
Things have been kinda crazy of late, and there's a blog backlog of unprecedented proportions. I've been to a bunch of shows of late that I'm yet to write about, but sometimes necessity prevents doing things in chronological order. So with deep apologies to Daniel Johnston, Simian Mobile Disco, Stephen Malkmus and the Queens of the Stone Age, I hereby present a stirring account of my night out at the Black Kids et al.
To say I was excited about the show this evening would be an understatement. I still remember the first time I played a Black Kids song (which is not that much of a nostalgic stretch, given that it was less than 9 months ago), but I remember finding it somewhere on the internet while mid-conversation with a young lady. The title caught my attention to begin, but within a dozen bars the conversation had ceased due to my distraction and the sheer catchiness pumping out of the stereo. I don't believe the young lady in question was happy, but I didn't even notice.
Within a week or so I'd downloaded their Internet-only Wizard of Aaahs EP, and those 4 songs soon came to soundtrack my weekend. Hurricane Jane became my Friday afternoon, driving home from work, blow out, Not Gonna Teach was my pre-night-out anthem, and Underestimated my Charm was a Sunday morning hangover cure of the finest calibre.
News that they were to be playing as part of the post-Coachella caravan of quality music up the west coast was greated with great anticipation, so I was pretty excited to be rolling in to Richards at a gig-appropriate time on a Tuesday night.
First up were Brooklyn's the Mobius Band. Apart from the outstanding name, they're notable for a drummer with outstanding painfully contorted facial expressions (and it has already been noted in these very pages that this is an essential element of any successful live show), some interesting drum effects boxes, dual singers, one of which looked a little like a guy i used to know, and some laid back country/electronic Lucksmiths-esque pop songs of a relatively high standard. It didn't send me rushing for the merch table, but it could be worth investigating further. But to be honest, my affections were promised to another.
The Black Kids were up next, and they strolled out to a packed house and some cheers. The lead singer, Reggie, sports an impressive mop of curly hair, which probably doesn't suit his face shape, but looks goddamn impressive when shaken in time to a pop song. The two girls manning the keys/organ/electronic shimmy and shake while hunched over their instruments, while cooing Supremes-esque backing vocals into the mix, and the drummer and bassist are ice-cold, barely breaking a sweat as they hold down the bottom end.
It's always a risk going to see a band play when their recorded output amounts to 6 songs (of which one is a Sophie B. Hawkins cover), but the Black Kids weren't wanting for material. All 5 non-Sophie B tracks (alas, Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover didn't make an appearance this evening) were featured, and elicited head nods, mis-steps, and over-enthusiastic air-punching in the "DANCE DANCE DANCE DANCE" crescendo of "Not gonna teach" (or maybe that was just me).
Reggie has a cultured arrogance about him on stage, which is something I admire in all my pop-rock heroes, but the stars of the show are the two girls on the keys, who bop, hunched over their instruments, all the while grinning from ear to ear, as if they've just realized that they get to spend the rest of their summer, and possibly much further, playing upbeat pop songs to packed houses the continent (and world) over.
There were a bunch of new songs, that I've seen bootlegged on blogs across the 'web, but the most memorable was one called "I Wanna Be Your Limousine", which was introduced with the lead in "this is gonna be one of your monster jamz, yo", and shimmies all over with Prince-baiting glory.
So, the sound was rubbish, but I was still pretty stoked with my Black Kids experience. And I left with a most fetching "I'm not gonna teach your boyfriend how to dance with you t-shirt".
After that, I was in excitement hangover, so I moved to the back of the room for Cut Copy. It pains the music perfectionist in me that I spent many years of my life being subjected to Australian music by default (and to be honest, enjoying most of it a great deal), but I'd never really heard of Cut Copy. I'm familiar with the school of Australian indie dance music, and I must admit I was expecting something a little different than what I got.
Which was New Order. I don't know if it's because most of the bands I see live have north american accents, and I've forgotten what a good antipodean singing voice sounds like, but all the rattling hi-hats, the nasal vocals, and the crazy kids jumping and bopping around made me feel like I was in Manchester in the mid-80s. Or at a rugby league stadium in the early 2000s, which was the last time I saw New Order.
I don't mean the comparison as a bad thing, and while certain elements may sound a little like them, their songs are completely different. Apparently Duran Duran were also playing that evening, and the band thanked us for choosing them over Simon leBon et al (although I'm told Duran Duran did a pretty impressive Kraftwerk tribute/takeoff).
Unfortunately, I'm a little short on Cut Copy details, but I do know that they finished the set off with kids dancing on the pillars at the front of the stage, and with my favourite rock and roll set closing move, which was the singer and keyboard player grabbing a spare drumstick and pounding away on the cymbals while the drummer kept time. I think the best example I've scene of this was at the Franz Ferdinand secret show in 2005, but this one comes a close second.
Righto, Daniel Johnston, Simian Mobile Disco, Queens of the Stone Age, Stephen Malkmus and hopefully Dirtbombs reviews to follow. Watch this space.
Shamefully, this was my first time at the Thirsty Dog. It won't be my last: anywhere with live music yet carpets this plush deserves a second visit. Squares that we are, we were a little early - I'm getting awfully confused in my old age about whether a rock gig that says it starts at 9:00 starts at 9:00 or at 11:45, and I've been burned a few times recently. Anyhow, there were cosy benches, a stereo with various Clash and Mescaleroes records on shuffle and a handy system where my coloured bits of paper can be exchanged for their bottles of cold beer, so passing the time was easy.
Atsushi and the Moisties have a memorably awful name and a handy brass section who like to dance when not musically employed. Atsushi himself wears a cow costume and plays a mean guitar; it was unclear whether the gentleman in the front row in a similar outfit was a Moisties associate or just a particularly dedicated fan. I've never quite decided how I feel about ska: I'm pretty confident there's only been one ska song ever written, and every ska band plays it eleven times each night (I'd wager the name Rudy in the title somewhere), but it's a pretty decent tune to hear a few times on a saturday night after a few beverages. Given the dancing horn section and the multiple bovines, vocals would have been one gimmick too many, but if you're after an instrumental ska band to open your night, you won't go too wrong with the Moisties.
I'd seen the Rebelles once before, as the post-game entertainment at a roller derby, which was about as perfect a venue for their three girl, one boy ramalama as you could get. Here, they blitzed through about 15 songs in around 20 minutes and still found time to incite a human pyramid in the front rows. Their singer's Kat Bjelland / Poly Styrene-styled voice is a powerful thing, and carrying on singing without missing a beat even when being tackled to the ground by your fans is pretty impressive. I'm not sure how the Rebelles would fare as headliners, given the brevity of the tunes and the intensity with which they are played, but if a short, sharp statement is what you want, they do a fine job.
The King Cannons sound is reggae bottom end with a punk sensibility, buttoned-up Ben Sherman style. The band is new to me, but they've been round long enough to have a record for sale behind the bar, and long enough to know just how to work a friendly crowd such as this. I'm trying awfully hard not to use the word skanking, but even someone as allergic to reggae as me was getting into the rhythm, and the Cannons' stage presence is undeniable. Faithfully covering "White Man in Hammersmith Palais" is a pretty decent way to get the non-believers on board too...
Taking advantage of free tickets (thanks, job) to the unfortunately deserted *mantis show at Rising Sun was a nice way to finish off the evening: following up a punk reggae act with a hip hop gig was almost too unusual for my poor little brain, but some comfortably familiar squid rings at the Burgerie, just like after every rock show ever, sorted me out just fine. Take note, indie kids - if you're worried you're expanding your musical horizons a little too much, greasy takeaways do a pretty good take-two-aspirins-and-call-me-in-the-morning job
Disclaimer - the post that follows has nothing to do with music or anything interesting. It's also woefully out of date, but I didn't want to push the excellent Wilco review below the fold. ------------------------------------------------ In these uncertain times, it can be difficult to know which way is up, and which way is down (especially when you move to the other side of the world and find that the water in the toilet doesn't actually flush in the opposite direction - if I had a dollar for everyone I've tried to explain the coriolis effect to, and who hasn't been convinced until I took them to the bathroom and proved that I could make the water go down in different directions based on whether I used the hot or cold tap to fill the basin.)
So, in order to make sense of life, and to give myself a basis to construct my ideological framework around, there are 3 facts that I know irrefutably to be true, that I can fall back on in times of self-doubt and crisis. They are:
1. Pearl Jam suck more cock than you do. 2. Bacon improves any food it is combined with. 3. If you play Prince in any social situation that includes a dancefloor, that dancefloor will fill with people.
Or so I thought.
But Saturday night, at the Roxy, I saw the opposite of #3 occur, where Let's Go Crazy sent them running for the bar, the toilets, the smoking area, and the exits. As my entire DJ career was based around the fact that even after I'd bore people into submission with obscure Norwegian pop-tarts, I could still fill the floor with the Purple one, and it pained me to see the exodus.
It was at this point that I stopped, and thought, how did I get here?
Well, I have a little bit of a drinking problem. Mainly the problem is that I quite enjoy it, and I'm remarkably good at it. But sometimes it leads me to say and do things that I end up cringing about the next day. For example, I vaguely remember telling a random stranger on Friday night that, when you strip it down to its base elements, "Love Will Tear Us Apart" is essentially no different than "The Macarena" (and no, I'm not going to link to it - nobody needs to endure that). No matter that it was part of an elaborately constructed argument about how a classic pop song is nothing more than a couple of melodic hooks, it was an entirely inappropriate conversational subject for a chance meeting with a random stranger, and a remarkably stupid thing to say. And who do I have to blame? Well, mostly myself, but Mr Alcohol also needs to take some responsibility.
This same problem saw me lined up outside the Roxy on Saturday night. The Roxy represents different things to different people, but among my circle of acquaintances it is the very epitome of the trainwreck that is most of the bars in the Granville Street corridor in downtown Vancouver. There's always a line outside, that never seems to move anywhere, and the people in that lineup always look like bridge-and-tunnel kids. Having said all that, I've never actually been inside. So, when the chance came up head out for a few drinks with a friend, and he mentioned that he had some other friends heading to the Roxy, I was initially apprehensive, but eventually curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to tag along.
The Roxy was much bigger than I'd imagined, and the stage was filled with an assortment of gentlemen that looked like their best years were behind them. The lead singer looked a little like the lead singer of the woefully underrated band Auckland band of the late 90's, Pash. (who in turn looks like the guy in the Something About Mary duo that's not Jonathan Richman).
They were halfway through a Cars cover (sadly, not My Best Friend's Girl) as we walked in. While it was kinda empty as we showed up (were it not for the swift action of a friend of a friend, we would have been stuck at the back of a remarkably long line, which is just wrong for 8.40pm on a Saturday night), it soon filled with a crowd that seemed to be entirely comprised either with single women in their late twenties to early thirties without any imagination, who couldn't think of anywhere else to go on their one night out this month, and kids from the burbs who were there to prey on the others.
The band were unashamedly competent, as most covers bands are, and probably better paid than 90% of all bands I normally see (with the possible exception of Radiohead - I heard a rumour they're getting paid $600,000 to pay the Outside Lands festival in San Fran this summer), but the members looked like they were once contemporaries with the bands they were covering (and that they hadn't changed their wardrobes since the mid 80s). They also have the worst band name I've ever heard.
The keyboardist did China Girl with the third-best Bowie voice I'd ever heard live (after Mr Christopher Burton, and the man himself, in that order), but I suspect he was grotesquely ugly, as they made him stand behind a pillar. Occasionally they dipped into regions of the classic rock playbook that I'm not a huge fan of airing (for some reason, I never got the attraction of Journey), but for the most part, it was most enjoyable (although this is coming from someone whose standing orders for his tombstone are "Here Lies Glenn, he knew how to dance to classic rock" - although "Here Lies Glenn, who was tragically murdered by pirates" is running a close second).
The portions of the night where the band took a break were less enjoyable, and were the scene of the aforementioned Prince abomination. Luckily by that time my attention had been distracted by copious amounts of alcohol, and an empty ice bucket, so it didn't really matter.
PS - I've got a backup of show reviews that's nearly 3 posts long - I'll try and get one a night out through this week, now that I'm no longer working 12 hour days (and drinking for a good portion of the other 12 hours in the day). Not that anyone cares.
PPS - the overall air of smug superiority that invariably weaves its way through this post, is more a quirk of my particular writing style, and not really how I feel about people that go to the Roxy, and bars just like it (every town has one) the world over. I just can't help the way I write.
While the metal hordes who had descended upon Wellington like a late 80s coked-up Ozzy to a line of ants (just read The Dirt whydoncha) were so very conspicuous, it would have been hard to guess that Wilco were playing if you were unlucky enough not to have a ticket. No posters up around town, not even at the venue, and the stylishly nerdy crowd of Tweedy enthusiasts beating their way to the Opera House blended in pretty nicely with Monday night Welly. Check shirts, quality pullovers, sensible footwear and trendy specs are part of the uniform in NZ's best, smartest city, and staying under the radar isn't too tough after a weekend where leather vests and studded codpieces seemed strangely appropriate.
Miriam Clancy was first up: Doc Matrens, pregnant tum and a big voice that comfortably filled the hushed, seated venue. The Opera House was an excellent choice of venue: like the Ryan Adams shows last year, the choice of an all-seater seemed to be well-received by an audience who were more than happy to sit down, shut up and listen from the moment the curtain opened. A loud, solo voice in a quiet room always makes the hairs on my neck stand up, and "Girl About Town" and "The Game" were powerfully performed: the latter's unfaithful lover / game of cards metaphors come close to being overplayed, but when cheerfully dedicated to a chap in the audience, the "You cheated on me" chorus packs some punch.
I latched on to Wilco quite late in the piece. Friends dug them, but at the time of their early 00s Big Day Out appearance, I opted to see the D4 for the umpteenth time on the other stage (and lost both shoes in the process, but that's a very different story). I finally cottoned on though, and hungrily tucked into the back catalogue. I'd never seen them live however - I even lived in their home town of Chicago for a while and still couldn't swing it: they played the day I arrived, the day after I left and a couple of times when I was out of town. So this was big news in my world: I was pretty excited about KISS, Alice and what was once Ozzy, but this was something else again...
It began with a lot of cheering, some shy waves and "Sunken Treasure". That Tweedy-centric opener was a bit of a curveball: for the first forty five minutes or so it was the Nels Cline show. He was on seated slide duties for the first song, but soon became the dominant presence on stage. Six-foot-lots in blood red jeans, looking for all the world like Britt Daniel’s crazy European uncle, he jerkily punished his guitar, throwing angular shapes over cracking versions of “You Are My Face” and “Company in My Back”. After six or seven songs we hadn’t even got a hello from the singer, but this never seemed standoffish or rude, just a man happy to forget the niceties and keep playing songs with the best set of musicians he’s ever been involved with. By reputation he can be prickly and curt on-stage, but when the greetings finally came, it was clear this was a relaxed and confident Jeff Tweedy. A few off-hand jokes about the weekend’s metal shows followed, and later he would even stop “Red Eyed and Blue” mid-song for a pretty sharp Ozzy impression.
Sometimes bands who enjoy changing direction on record struggle to put together a coherent live set, with stylistic changes from disparate albums jarring when mixed together live. I had wondered (until Kicking Television at least) whether this would be the case with Wilco, given the various tangents their albums have taken. Like the live album though, this set came together seamlessly – with the pop heart of the more experimental album tracks like “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart” exposed, and the straighter tunes like “A Shot in the Arm” given a Yankee Hotel Foxtrot-style roughing up.
Prior to this show, I didn’t rate a number of the Sky Blue Sky tracks as highly as others in the back catalogue, but tunes like “Impossible Germany” and “Side With the Seeds” were made for this kind of setting, their lengthy instrumental parts showcasing the brilliant musicianship of the current line-up. Glenn Kotche’s drumming is a key part of the latter-day Wilco sound, but it looks fantastic too, all jazzy flicks and fencing with the ride. Bassist John Stirratt’s impeccable backing vocals were also prominent, but it was hard not to focus on Cline, his lanky, jerky style belying an incredible dexterity. Cline’s skills were easy to contrast with the public guitar solo-off or Zakk Wylde’s lone shredfest at Rock2Wgtn – here, the solos made absolute sense with the song, rather than being just an aimless pissing contest. The fingers may not have moved quite as supersonically over the frets as those in the Cake Tin, and he probably can’t play behind his head or with his teeth, but I know who I’d rather be on Guitar Hero, and he ain’t the guy with the black and white circles on his guitar.
It wasn’t all layers, textures and dueling guitars – the likes of “Reservations”, “How to Fight Loneliness” and a gorgeous version of Mermaid Avenue's “California Stars” helped keep the light and shade balance. Encore one brought us back to Being There, and the straight-ahead country rock of “Monday” and “I Got You” sounded almost crude in comparison to what had come before – great, potent songs, but easy to see why they are kept separate from the main set. Encore two, never in doubt for a crowd who had long since given up on the idea of a seated gig (and kudos to you, lady who started the dancing), had to be “Kidsmoke”, and we piled out into the night, deaf and grinning.
We walked home past the last few hangers on in souvenir metal tees, and I couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for them: even without pyro or a dragon, they’d just missed easily the best show of the weekend. Maybe I just needed a bit more sleep, a bit less of a holiday diet and a couple of nights without a rock gig but a killer plan hit me: give Tweedy some fake blood and a flying fox to the back row and they’d be utterly unstoppable…
If there's one topic I'm not at all qualified to write about, it's local Vancouver bands. I've been in this town for less than 2 years, and for reasons beyond my control, I've only been gig-active for about a year. Having said that, the fact that so many touring bands come through town means I only occasionally end up seeing local bands in small venues.
In good old Auckland town, local bands are pretty much the only option you have, and luckily there's a bunch of good ones to see. In any given weekend you've got a choice of 4 or 5 excellent bands, that you listen to on the radio all week. The other perk is that there's about 100 people that go to shows and clubnights regularly, many of whom are in bands themselves, so you become intimately familiar with the love lives, habitual substance abuse, and tendencies for self-harm of the members of all your favourite bands.
It took me seven or eight years of gig attendance to obtain that level of familiarity with the scene and it's key players, and in Vancouver, I just don't possess the knowledge of the history of the scene to write with any real authority on the subject, when others cover it so much better than I can. Having said that, because I'm an obstinate ass, I'm going to try, regardless.
So after a most enjoyable art opening, where I got to see some fine people, some fine art, a couple of tasty beverages, and some parking lot frustration, we got to the Commodore just as Ladyhawk were kicking off their set.
When I first got to Vancouver, I was quite enamoured with the Commodore, it's a great space, and when you're as tall as I am, you can get a great view from anywhere. I've got friends that don't like it that much, and while it's not as intimate as somewhere like Richards, for a larger venue, it still has a great feel, and it's got 4 (count 'em) bars, which speaks to me in a way that few other venue features do.
As we walked in, the sold-out Commodore was pretty full. Since I last saw Ladyhawk I've been dabbling with some of their stuff, and I'm quite taken with it. I was reading a story in the local free streetmag on them while waiting for my burger this evening, and the story made much of their Neil Young grungey tendencies, which are certainly prevalent, but like the godfather of flannel, their songs also have the same melodic backbone that is such a feature of Young's material.
The band's set was snappy and sharp, and the bassist unleashed a waterfall of hair with such ferocity that I wager he was nursing a remarkably sore neck the next morning.
Right now is where I admit that I've never listened to a Black Mountain song all the way through before. While I like to listen to as much music as I can, I'm also (especially at this point in time) an impatient listener with the attention span of a gnat. If I haven't heard a pop hook in the first 90 seconds, I'll normally give up on it. As most Black Mountain embody the very definition of "slow-burning", that's normally where I tap out. I also like to go to shows where I'm not familiar with the band with an open mind - if I'm going to hear their stuff for the first time, I'd rather hear it live at the show, than indulge in a pre-show cram session to try and force myself to become familiar beforehand.
However, I appreciate that Black Mountain and their assorted offshoots/side projects have a long and storied history in the Vancouver musical landscape, and while I have assimilated an idea of what I was in store for from conversations with friends and magazines. Also, there was idle chatter (and it was incredibly idle) with a filmmaking friend about filming a Black Mountain video in my orange, sponge-painted kitchen.
So as Black Mountain walked out to a psychadelic light show and a wall of smoke (most of which seemed to be British Columbia's finest and generated by the crowd), I was a picture of curiosity. Black Mountain consist of a bearded guitarist with a penchant for Zeppelin licks, a keyboardist, who stands in a console surrounded by a keyboard, an organ, and a Moog, a drummer, and a cute female singer with a maracas, a floppy fringe, and a cute dress (and yes, I realize I used the "c" word twice in that sentence).
They specialise in dense, loud, dark jam rock that inspires communal synchronised head-nodding, and for the forty minutes or so of the band's set, I was having a pretty good time (although not nearly as good the guy who pumped his fists, enthusiastically through the entire show - I don't think there was a single beat that wasn't marked with a shake of this man's forearm). The crowd was incredibly stylish, the wall of tall people in front of me was proving my tall-person/musical taste hypothesis true, and the other outlandish claim I'd made earlier in the day was also proving true (which will remain undefined).
So, in short, Black Mountain were enjoyable, if a little prog for my taste. That was, until the encore. After a blissfully short pre-encore break, the band picked up tools again, and launched into a 12 minute bass jam, which was at least 11 minutes too long. When the singer in the band starts looking bored, and most of the audience is looking around for something else to do, you know it's probably time to start playing another instrument, or drop into a chorus of some fashion.
However, all told, my first Black Mountain experience was a good one, I think I'll just quietly slip out pre-encore next time. Which also has the advantage of making the coat-check line so much easier.
So I went home, and listened to a series of sub-2 minute pop songs, just to recalibrate, and I went to sleep satisfied with my weekend's activities.
PS - In pre-set conversation a friend and I were unable to name the 4th character in the village people lineup - we had the indian, the construction worker, and the policeman, but the fourth was eluding us. After asking the internet, it turns out there's six of them, and we missed the moustachioed motorcyclist, the GI and the cowboy.
Live reviews and unrelated nonsense about bands you probably wouldn't want to see anyway.
The AYIS Nowcast
Things that AYIS would rather partake in than mop his floor this week.
1. The Deadliest Catch on Discovery I have no idea why watching crab fishermen is so compelling, but the tension of waiting to see if the pots contain any crab normally sees me punching the air when they come up full.
Sometimes, thinking about the LHC makes me feel all squidgy inside.
3. The Thrill's "So Much For The City" This record is what summer sounds like. A loving homage to west coast sunshine and unrequited love from a bunch of Irishmen.
4. "Pete And The Pirates" "Sometimes I can't see your face/It makes me sad." 'nuff said. I just wish someone would import their LP...
5. The new Silver Jews record. Although at the moment I listen to track 3, "Suffering Jukebox" over and over again, so I can't comment with authority on the rest of the record. But that song along could be the best Silver Jews song since Tennessee.
