Los Campesinos, You Say Party! We Say Die!, The Parenthetical Girls, The Plaza, Vancouver, June 1, 2008

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).

Black Mountain, Ladyhawk, The Commodore, Vancouver, April 5

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.

The Satellite Nation, Whitfield, The Bourbon, Vancouver, April 4, 2008

I told myself I wasn't going to post about Friday night - both the band and the venue have been covered at length previously, and I didn't really feel like I had anything of note to add.

But then I sat down Sunday evening to put together a 3 hour presentation about the joys of Finite Element Analysis for evaluating stress in structures and products, which I'm giving in ten days time and still haven't really started, and decided that pretty much anything is an improvement on doing that. It seems like every time I'm under serious pressure to get anything done (exam times, during work crunch), I find ways of procrastinating and doing something completely different. For example, my house was never cleaner than it was during exam time, and during one particularly stressful period, I decided I'd take a day and a half out to teach myself how to do cryptic crosswords.

Anyway, Friday night it was back to the Bourbon for a second peek this year at The Satellite Nation, Vancouver's finest transplanted Australian modern rock band. We walked in to the final strains of the support, Whitfield, who were plodding their way through a number that sounded like Pablo Honey-era Radiohead. Turned out that it might have been just that, as their closing song was a Muse cover. Whitfield were notable for two things:

1. Their bassist played a Thunderbird. Regular readers of this blog will remember that I'm in love with said piece of machinery, so after seeing one in the hands of a mediocre local band, I thought that I may be able to get one for myself, just to keep on a stand in the corner of the room (all I know how to play on the bass is a series of Pavement songs, and the riff from Gigantic, and it doesn't seem right to play Pavement songs on that). However, after researching the cost, I realized that the bassist from Whitfield either has a) more money than sense, or b) a copy.

2. They employed one of the best set-closing manouvres I've seen for a little while. The singer finished the last verse, and walked off stage. The band continued to play another couple of bars, before the lead guitarist rang out a note, put his guitar down, and walked off, followed a couple of bars later by the bassist, and finally the drummer. It's obviously a move they stole from The Alpha Males international pop hit "Taken" (83 plays in 2 years, and counting) and it was great. However, the effect was diminished somewhat by the fact that they rushed back on stage to pack up their gear about 15 seconds after the drummer had walked off, while the sustain was still ringing out.

I bumped into the guitarist for The Satellite Nation before they went on stage, and found that it was his birthday, and that he'd been celebrating appropriately. The mark of a true rock star is the ability to play competent rockandroll despite being fall-down drunk, and the young man in question confirmed that he is part of that lofty pantheon already. The band were as tight as ever, and still look like they suit a much bigger stage. It says something both about the type and quality of their songs that the person standing next to me said to me "I've seen these guys 3 times, but I know most of the words to their songs". The songs follow a fairly set formula, but they don't skimp on the pop hooks, which makes it pretty fun to watch. These guys also do their best to look good on stage, and it makes a big difference, I'll never forget how underwhelmed I was when I saw a band in Vancouver wearing flannel shirts and sweatpants.

Again, post-show there was an appearance by the world's weirdest DJ (my favourite 3 song stretch went Justice>Beatles>Justin Timberlake), and dance floor silliness ensued. I vaguely remember trying to teach someone how to emulate my not-graceful-at-all spin, and also picking up an australian and jumping up and down, but that might be my imagination. It was that kind of night.

Vampire Weekend, YACHT, Richards on Richards, Vancouver, March 27

To say I was excited about the show tonight would be an understatement. Firstly, I'm a big YACHT fan, not so much because of his music (which is admittedly fun), but because of his positivity, energy and enthusiasm. It's almost like he's the Andrew WK of indiepop dance music (and you could totally imagine him stopping halfway through to tell the crowd that they're each awesome individuals, and that they can do anything they want, just like AWK. Incidentally, should you ever get the chance to see one of Andrew WK's motivational lectures, you should. They're awesome (and he uses that particular adjective about 10,000 times in an hour).

And I was curious about Vampire Weekend. If you own a computer, you've probably been able to chart the 3 month long narrative arc from obscure college band, through critically blog-acclaimed next-big-thing, to the inevitable backlash (made worse by the fact that they're good-looking, educated, upper west-side-living young men). All that notwithstanding, they've got a batch of crackingly interesting songs, but I'm always curious to see how newer bands that might not have too much experience playing lots of big live shows adapt to the shift in paradigm.

The show sold out tonight, and I was surprised at how quickly it did - when it was announced Vampire Weekend still hadn't released a record, but still tickets vanished within about 3 weeks - for notoriously apathetic Vancouver that's pretty quick - and I was wondering what sort of folk were going along. More on that later.

I also took my camera, so this post may be a little more visual than usual. I'm remarkably lazy when it comes to taking things with me when I go out - I hate having to carry things all night, so I'd rather freeze my ass off and walk to a show in the snow in a t-shirt than carry a jacket, and a camera is nearly always a bridge too far. I also take photos in a weird way - if I hold the button down on my camera it takes a photo every second, so I end up coming home with about about 400 photos, which if you view them fast enough represent a kind of stop motion account of the entire evening (although without sound), but mostly end up being out of frame, blurry, and too dark. Sometimes, I can pass them off as being intentionally arty (example below) but normally they just suck, like the one that leads this post.


Richards was starting to fill up as YACHT came on - I last saw Jona supporting Architecture in Helsinki last summer, and since then he's added his girlfriend to the live show - she sings and dances just as maniacally as he does.

The central premise of a YACHT show is that his songs are all lined up on his macbook - he hits play, and then sings and dances his way through them.

Luckily the kid can dance, which makes the whole escapade a lot more exciting. Having said that, he's got three moves that he relies a little too heavily on:
a) sweeping his fringe dramatically from over his eyes (sadly, not captured on film),






b) gesturing with the microphone in time with the melody, as if playing a giant, aerial xylophone,








and c) a big sliding side-step to the right, sometimes preceded by a jump, for added effect (captured mid-slide to the right.














Jona's partner, and collaborator, Claire, looked like she was having a ball up there, and there was a nice little moment where he asked the crowd to thank her, not just for being fun on stage, but also for being a great person. They also ran a neat little skit where Claire told the story of how she met Jona at a club, complete with an R&B slow jam as a backing track. 'twas genius. (incidentally, my favourite part of the photo at the right is that you can see just how close the people on the upper level are to the band - it literally hovers out over the back left part of the stage).

Sadly, there was no mid-set question and answer session like last time, but he made up for it by jumping in to the crowd and dancing right where I was standing -twice!(is it wrong to become excited by a dude in a flannel shirt rubbing himself against you) - and once they finished up I was left looking around the crowd a little bewildered, in a mild state of post-excitement shock.

But what I saw was a little alarming (and be warned, it's gonna be nothing but unadulterated rock snobbery from this point forward). While I hadn't been looking, the crowd (or at least a sizeable swathe of the crowd near the front) had metamorphasised into a collection of ball-cap wearing, beer swilling, frat boys, and the female equivalent thereof (whatever that is called). There was nary a cardigan, plaid shirt or a pair of black-framed spectacles in sight. Don't get me wrong, I like beer and ballcaps as much as the next guy, but these looked like the kind of people that don't understand irony. I'm betting that some of them even comment on youtube videos.

It appears that these were the individuals that bought all those tickets 3 months ago. I dunno whether they got a special bus organized to ship them in from the 'burbs, but they were here in force tonight, and intent on having a big night.

The excellent from blown speakers compared Vampire Weekend to The Strokes - and there are a bunch of parallels, from their appearance of privilege, their snappy trousers, and the rapidity of their rise to fame. But there's also similarities in their mixed fan base. When the first Strokes record came out, they were immediately embraced by hipsters everywhere (and this was before my earnest acceptance of the internet - I still remember huddling around the television watching them with my flatmates on UK Top Of The Pops, reading the air-freighted (not surface freighted) NME, and getting a friend who was in the UK on vacation to bring me back a copy of the Modern Age EP), but afterwards they seemed to attract an extended crowd, that bought the record en masse about 9 months later. Where that process took nearly a year back in 2001, it looks like the entire process takes about 6 weeks in 2008.

(Incidentally, while I'm ranting about the Strokes, whichever record company executive decided that this abomination (which is only made partially cooler by the fact that it appeals to the particle physicist in me) -
-is better than this wonderful, Spinal Tap-referencing piece of pop cultural genius. Smell the Glove (fast forward to 4.00) indeed.
But anyway, rant over. Oh, apart from the fact that taking New York City Cops off the american version is equally retarded.

The final parallel between Vampire Weekend and the Strokes, that is pertinent to getting me back on track with this post, is that their songs are fantastic. Vampire Weekend were tight as all hell, and it's easy to get distracted by the internet hype, but at their core, they have a set of fantastic pop songs, with unique elements that give them a sound that's instantly identifiable as theirs (I know a lot is made of the african influence on their record, often by the band themselves, but I don't see it so much).

They ambled out full of smiles and preppy goodness - the lead singer Ezra wore a fetching v-neck sweater, that he didn't remove, despite the fact that it got pretty hot, and others in the band were visibly sweating (maybe he is some sort of genetic freak, he didn't appear to have ever needed to shave, either). They kicked off with the lead track off the record, Mansard Roof, and followed that up with a run through of the majority of the rest of the record (a recorded output that barely stretches to ten songs doesn't make for a whole lot of selection when putting a setlist together). They did play one new song, that didn't really suggest any bold new direction, as it fit the VW-template quite nicely.

Righto, this is far too long, and most people will have long since given up, or just skipped to the photos, so I'm going to finish this up in bullet point format.

• During their second or third song (Walcott, maybe?) I was shocked to hear the crowd heartily singing along with the chorus, with a gusto I imagine they normally reserve for "Living on a Prayer". When the band did try and get some organized call-and-response happening during "One", the crowd were way ahead of him, shouting back the correct response before he'd even told him what it was).
• There were people moshing. Somehow it didn't seem appropriate, but then again I've always been a bigger fan of dancing than flinging myself at my over-testosteroned friends (actually, that's totally a lie, I love moshing. I just think there's a time and a place) and the band looked a little weirded out. Luckily I'd moved to the back to be among the other old people, but I know a couple of my friends were lodged further forward, and didn't enjoy it so much.
• The band announced that the next song was a little bit slower, and within seconds, three lighters were held aloft, completely without irony. I was waiting for someone to yell out for Free Bird, but nobody did (admittedly, there was a point in my life where I thought yelling "Free Bird" at indie pop shows was pretty much the wittiest thing possible)
  

• Ezra has a fairly unique guitar playing posture, he looks something like a hunch-backed rabbit, caught wide-eyed in the headlights. He also only seems to play the bottom three strings on his guitar, but something I only really realized live was that he uses his voice in fairly unique ways, such as in "Oxford Comma", where the end of each line in the chorus features an abrupt increase in pitch.

• My friend informed me she had a crush on the bassist, which I didn't quite get. I mean, he's not classically attractive, and he was standing 3 feet to the left of a floppy-fringed cutie, but then Wikipedia tells me that he's Scott Baio's nephew, so maybe there's a little bit of Charles in Charge that shines through.

But for all my whining and elitism, it was a pretty fun show. I guess one good thing about going to a show where the majority of the audience doesn't go to many shows, is just that it seems to be a bigger deal for everyone involved, and there's a lot more enthusiasm in the room. The band seemed genuinely excited to be there, although they need to hold back on the banter that panders to the home crowd - I think if they'd mentioned that the beach was beautiful one more time, I was going to bottle them.

The band went off for the obligatory pre-encore break, but at least had the decency to keep it brief, and crack a joke about it when they got back (sorry guys, we just had to grab some magazines from out the back). The campaign for an end to encores starts here. The encore was actually pretty special - Vampire Weekend are coming back to the area for a corporate behemoth of a festival in July, which also features Tom Petty, Jay-Z and Coldplay, and Ezra spoke about this, before claiming that Tom Petty was a huge influence on the band (at least 3 people around me asked if he was being serious - he wasn't), before dropping into the opening riff of American Girl. The rest of the band looked dumbfounded - this clearly wasn't rehearsed, but after their frontman told them what was what, they manfully ploughed their way through a verse and a chorus before seguing into Oxford Comma to round up. It was a nice, playful way to finish a good night.

So, my conscience is probably not gonna allow me to make it up to Pemberton for that festival (actually my conscience is making me feel bad because the Flaming Lips are playing within 200 miles of my location, and I'm not planning to go), but luckily I get to see Vampire Weekend the weekend before in a little city called Chicago (maybe you've heard of it?) where they're sharing a bill with a rather attractive gentleman called Jarvis Cocker (apparently he used to be in some band from the UK).

And one more photo to finish, because I can.

Born Ruffians, Said The Whale, The Media Club, Vancouver, March 26, 2008

It feels kinda weird to be writing about the show I went to last night, when all I can think about is the awesomeness that is going to be the YACHT show tonight. Last time I saw him was before Architecture, and it was outstanding - from the simple fact that all he does is hit play on his tape player and dance and sing, to the fact that he stopped the show halfway through for a Q and A session, it was a barrel of joy. Luckily, I don't believe my employers read this, because large swathes of my afternoon have been spent trying to dream up the perfect question to ask, should he do it again tonight.

But alas, I've got two hours to kill before dodgeball, so I should reflect upon the awesomeness that was the Born Ruffians last night.

In what seemed like a carbon copy of Monday night, I rolled into the Media Club at a gig-appropriate time, after force-feeding myself a couple more cans of Colt 45 (and while it still tastes like armpit, it does run at 8% alcohol, which eases the pain, and I now only have one can left, which makes me feel even better), and prepared myself to watch a shambling country rock band from Eastern Canada.

Kicking off proceedings were a band by the name of Said the Whale. For some reason I thought the name seemed familiar, but I figured it was just a consequence of seeing it on gig posters and concert listings around town. It was only halfway through that I realized that they'd spammed me on Myspace, and in a rare bout of charity, I'd accepted their friend request. I'm incredibly demanding when I scrutinize unsolicited friend requests, if your page layout is cluttered, for example, you're automatically out. But after a quick check of the internet on the iPod to confirm that they were in fact my myspace friends (how I settled arguments before the advent of mobile internet, I'll never know), I realized this was the first time I was seeing a band that had sent me an unsolicited friend request in real life, which kinda reinforces just how useful that particular marketing tactic is (and speaking of marketing - check this piece of capitalist genius). And not that anyone uses Myspace any more. Poor Tom.


The band themselves were actually pretty goddamn good - simple upbeat guitar pop, reminiscent of the good bits of Weezer songs, that warmed up the building crowd quite capably, even if the bassist did look a little too clean-cut to be in an indie pop band. But then again, they do come from Vancouver, where clean-cut is the rule.

The last time I saw Born Ruffians was as a warmup for a particularly dull Caribou show, and they were far and away the greatest element of that particular evening. I was impressed enough to buy their record on the way out, which never happens now that I'm old and cynical. and after listening to it at home, I was even inspired to purchase another copy to give to my sister for christmas - and if you realized the esteem I hold for my sister's musical taste you'd appreciate that this is high praise indeed.

In conversation with someone before the show, I mentioned that I was heading down, and they commented that they really liked the song with the yelping - which didn't really help me much. See, one of the key components of the Born Ruffians experience is the way that all three members join together in a staccato hey-hey-hey-ha-ha-ha yelping as both the central focus of many of the choruses and as backing vocals for the verses - think of the annoying shouty songs on Modest Mouse records that you end up skipping, but then imagine it being awesome. The only downside to this characteristic sound is that as it becomes the central focus of each song, they can take on a little bit of a sameness, especially in a live setting.

They're a 3 piece, guitar-drums-bass (and it broke my heart when the bassist broke a string two songs in on a gorgeous thunderbird bass, only to switch to a crappy old replacement rather than repair the string (which admittedly is always a pain for a bass), and the drummer sets down a swampy rock and roll stomp which sets off the rest of the band quite neatly.

For a band that specialise in 3 minute bursts of energy, they played for a generously long time, and it was nearly 12.30 before I ended up hitting the streets. If you're out and about, I'd highly recommend you pick up their record on Warp (?!), or do as I did, and fork out a tenner on their self titled EP, and you won't be sorry.

righto - the Jona Bechtolt excitement train leaves from here - talk soon.

Plants and Animals, The Media Club, Vancouver

This blog has been a little neglected of late (though not as comprehensively neglected as my two other blogs, ayearinsex.blogspot.com and ayearinnutritiousbreakfasts.blogspot.com (and you can keep your idle speculation about which one of those gets updated most often to yourself, thankyou very much), mostly due to a nasty case of the end-of-winter lurgy. If it weren't for antipodean folk going to outstanding shows, this would be a paltry exercise in web-publishing (and don't think I don't expect a review of the Kiss/Alice Cooper/Wilco weekender - you know who you are).

So, in between watching Caddyshack (awesome), Caddyshack 2 (stick to the original) and the Breakfast Club (and practising my Emilio Estevez dance), and groaning on my deathbed, I've been nurturing the seeds of a desperate yearning to get out of the house and see some shows. And it's weeks like this one that make Vancouver a fantastic place to be - there's 5 shows I could conceivably see myself at over the next four nights, and I think I'll end up at least 3 of them for sure (and I'm so very very excited for YACHT on Thursday night - and the so-called-"Buzz" band he's playing with).

But all that enthusiasm was very nearly rent asunder by my first can of Colt 45. While I may have waxed lyrical in these very pages about the joys of said beverage previously, my initial excitement was tempered by the immediate realization that it is nigh on undrinkable. Even the faintest taste makes me gag, and I'm beginning to realize why the last time I drank it, they were giving it away for free in a Chicago nightclub (in other news, somehow I'm on Colt 45's mailing list, and they keep sending me mail asking me to submit stories of nights I've been retarded on their product, to be turned into comic format, a la this. I've definitely got a couple for them.). So after two cans (I could throw it away, but I'm yet to sink to the level where I can happily throw away alcohol), I was feeling sick to the stomach, but I washed it down with some whiskey, and merrily stepped out to the Media Club.

Support for the night was billed as No Gold, although I'm not sure if the band that showed up actually were - I swear I heard them introduce themselves as something else involving an acronym. I could have misheard, as the young man delivering the banter was mumbling, and while I got the impression that what he was saying was quite witty, and he'd been working on it for weeks, but I couldn't understand a word. Enunciate, young sir, enunciate. Anyway, what I can tell you about the mystery possibly-no-gold is that they sported at least one cardigan (my father called me (in an international toll-call, no less) to tell me there'd been a feature on the NZ national news about cardigans are hip again, only to hang up. My mother then called back ten minutes later to tell me that they'd actually won the lottery, and that my father was supposed to relate that information, but he was too excited about the cardigan thing, and forgot), engaged in plenty of instrument swapping, and belted out six or seven country-tinged shambling rock and roll numbers of varying degrees of quality. They employed one of my top 5 stage moves, of having the singer grab a drumstick and lock down a beat on the splash cymbal while the drummer played, so points need to be awarded there, but they also let some of the rhythm section wigouts play out a little too long, which saw those same points being removed.

I'll admit, as I often do, that I wasn't paying much attention to the support, as I was belting out conversational gold/previous untold levels of obnoxiousness. There's something about the media club that leads me to crystalline perception of the human condition, which I then relate to the unfortunate folk in my immediate vicinity. I decided this evening that the reason that tall men have much better taste in music than short men (I was one of the shorter folk at the MC, and I'm well above the national average - compared with being at the Bourbon a couple of weeks prior, where I stood head and shoulders above the other gentlemen (if you can call them that) in attendance) is that the short man's desire for acceptedness sees him jumping on any bandwagon that comes past, while the tall man's greater confidence means he has more inclination to go out on a limb and enjoy something a little riskier, but eventually more fulfilling. Or something like that.

I also decided that dying at 27 could be my ticket to rocknroll superstardom, a piece of news that any short folk reading this will be applauding heartily. Having said that, I do need to finish the two songs that may or may not become as universal as I Wanna Hold Your Hand, but I've got six months left to work that out. Incidentally, any ladies out there who have been holding yourselves back, you may also have only six months, so I'd go for it if I were you.

So after probably unknowingly making a dozen conversational faux-pas, as Plants and Animals came out, I was mentally sharpening my literary knives. I've been waiting to see a band that I definitively hate, or at the very least have bad facial hair, so I can rip them mercilessly to shreds. Everyone knows it's a thousand times more fun to write a rippingly bad review than a good one - for instance, this is still the best record review of all time.

And things were looking good for me. The band sport the kind of patchy facial hair beloved of French-Canadians everywhere, and the lead singer's plaintive Kings of Leon-esque wail had me eagerly thumbing my thesaurus for synonyms for 'apocryphal'.

But alas, my enthusiasm was short lived. As I was prepared to write them off as yet another country-rock MOR 3-piece, these Montreal natives showed me up. The KOL wail softened into a soulful tenor, and was joined in charming 3-part harmony by the other two members of the band. Some of the rowdier songs dispensed with the bass entirely, running a guitar-guitar-drums lineup to great effect, and at times the sheer noise being produced belies the limited lineup - at times it sounded like the Polyphonic Spree were up there, but the softer songs were executed with tenderness, thoughfulness and care, and provided both a neat contrast and a chance for a breather.

The encore came and went, and was enthusiastically requested, and they finished up with Bye Bye Bye, a song so good it deserves repeated listens from everyone reading this. The live version posted above differs considerably from the recorded version I've heard previously, which can get a little too Coldplay in parts. Firstly there's no piano, everything runs a little bit faster, and the harmonies are more shouted than sung. It sounds like a bastard child of the Beatles, the Kinks, and the Beach Boys, only to break down halfway through into Exile-era Stones, with the Flying Burrito Brothers loitering somewhere in the background. Seriously, it's that good, and everyone in the crowd left into the wintry (1 degree in March? are you serious?) night with a spring in the step. Good work, young sirs.

Finding Friday, The Bourbon, Vancouver

I had bold plans to have a quiet night in tonight, curled up with some text commentary of test cricket (my dream job is to write wry, funny, and charming text commentary of cricket matches, much like the folk on cricinfo do), my copy of the new LC! record
(which proves that if you drown pretty much anything in enough glockenspiel, you can make it sound wonderful - and it's got enough snappy one liners to keep me in facebook statuses for a month), and hunting the internet for news of a Pavement reunion (an enterprise that is always positive - even if you don't find any concrete news, you can take solace in the fact that everyone involved realizes that it would probably be an unmitigated disaster (I mean, they kinda sucked live while they were together orginally), and probably shouldn't happen). So I dropped in to the record store on the way home, picked up their last Dirtbombs ticket (and thus begins the countdown to the greatest live garage rock band in the universe), and a sixer of Colt 45 (8% and still only $11 a six pack? how do they stay in business), and went home to settle in on the couch.

But then I get home, and my boss IMs me to tell me to go get drunk, and expense it, and because I have the willpower and spine of a sea cucumber, I find myself at the Bourbon in Gastown, watching Finding Friday.

When I used to spend a lot of time in suburban pubs, I'd be amazed at the musicianship of the covers bands that played there. They could snap out note-perfect renditions of remarkably mundane MOR rock and roll songs (there was one that had a singer that looked a lot like the guy from Creed, and even seemed to cut his hair at roughly the same time as the Creed guy - I think this covers band also used to employ a front-of-stage rotating fan to blow the singer's hair back while he sang), and I always wondered why you'd spend all that time getting that good at your instruments only to waste it by playing junky songs to a shitty crowd. As soon as I was good enough not to be totally embarrassed playing in public (and whether I've actually reached that level is still up for debate), I wanted to get out there and play our own stuff, hoping that one day we'd put together a pop-gem that was even a small fraction as good as I wanna hold your hand. Admittedly, in a covers band I imagine you get paid, people actually come to watch, and I imagine there's a certain type of suburban girl that finds that attractive, all three of which didn't really happen for my band. But at least I got to dream.

Having said that, Finding Friday aren't a covers band. But I think if they decided to go that way, they'd make a damn good one. There was probably more musical talent on stage than at the last 5 indie shows I went to put together, the singer has a great soulful voice, and the rest of the band is tight, sharp, and not unattractive. Their songs are standard fare, but not without hooks, even if the rhythm section does occasionally get a little bit of a RHCP funk thing happening, and there was one point where something about the wahwah pedal made me think I could have sworn I was listening to the Doobie Brothers. This is not a good thing. And if I were them, I'd shelve the midset banter about their new lighting rig, and the constant requests to buy their t-shirts - Matchbox 20 tried the corporate thing, and look where it got them - playing second fiddle to Alanis Morrissette.

Regardless, they're not going to change the world (but then again, neither is Bono), or teach you how to talk to the girl in the stripes, but once I got over my rockandroll snobbery, I had a cracking time. There's worse ways to spend a Friday night than dancing to a competent rock and roll band in the company of an appreciative crowd with some good friends.

Post-show the DJ started off by announcing that he was going to play a mixture of stuff, which normally means he'll play both "progressive" and "commercial" house music, but this dude was bananas. Everything from the Stones, to Daft Punk, to C and C Music Factory (it's always good to dust off my running man, it was getting a little rusty). The enjoyment level was aided by the fact that I was talking to and dancing with the cutest blond girl I've seen in Vancouver (albeit without fruition - any other short girls in black dresses with librarian glasses can post their phone numbers in the comments thread), and I finally got back home to resume my quiet night in at around 3 in the morning (although I walked home just so I could listen to the LC! record again on my ipod - if anyone lives under or near granville bridge, and heard someone shouting "nothing says I miss you like poetry cut in your door with a stanley knife", "every sentence began and ended with ellipsis" or "when the smaller picture's the same as the bigger picture, you know that you're fucked", that was just me. Sorry.)

And luv, I'm sorry, but I'm not gonna teach your boyfriend how to dance with you.

Holy Fuck, A Place To Bury Strangers, The Clips, Richards on Richards, Vancouver, February 25

Everything was coming up 'me' on Monday. For some reason I was in an unfathomably good mood, I had a relatively gentle day at work, and I'd newly discovered the joys of hypemachine (thanks for the assist, sis), which lets me listen to new Stephen Malkmus songs in a neverending loop, and around lunchtime the Sasquatch lineup was posted, and it was of supreme quality (The Cure, the Malk, Destroyer, Flight of the Conchords and Christmas on Mars, the most eagerly awaited piece of bad cinema this side of the next Rocky or Rambo remake).

Actually, I'm gonna digress here. If I was ever asked to compete on the television quiz show Mastermind, I think my area of specialist knowledge would probably be "Charming anecdotes about how nuts the Flaming Lips are" (that or "Jarvis Cocker's haircuts"). And one of my favourite Lips moments is from the Fearless Freaks movie, where they admit they had to halt scriptwriting for the film because they weren't sure if Stephen Drozd was going to kill himself with his heroin addiction or not - and as he played the lead character, that would have been a problem.

My other favourite thing about the Flaming Lips is that at special shows, they have a goddamn UFO, and they're bringing said UFO to Sasquatch. Given that the last time they played out there it was the most surreal experience of my life (doing a karaoke singalong of "War Pigs" at 2 in the morning after a torrential hailstorm while pouring fake blood on yourself is exactly why I wish Wayne Coyne was my dad (I don't really mean that, dad)).

But anyway, enough digression. It should be relatively clear that I was in a pretty good mood. So I returned home from work, and was contemplating my evening, when I decided on the spur of the moment that I was gonna go to the Holy Fuck/A Place to Bury Strangers show that I'd been loosely contemplating. And I'm remarkably glad I did.

I was surprised to note that I haven't actually been to Richards yet this year, which is a shame, because it's my favourite venue in town, and I normally end up sneaking along there about once every two weeks. It's got a pretty sweet upstairs area, where if you're early enough and smart enough, you can stand behind and above the band, and I've never waited more than 3 minutes for a drink at the little bar tucked in the back corner. It is a happy place.

I rolled in at 9.30ish to a surprisingly full Richards - I'm not hyperfamiliar with either of the headliners, but the venue was a good 2/3 full. I walked in to a band playing, so I ended up playing the good old-fashioned guessing game to deduce how far through the bill they were (tips for new players - see how many drum kits are still stored at the back of stage). In this case, there were two, which meant that I was watching the last half of the set by the Clips, who seemed a competent little shoegazey/stomp-pop - the one song that sticks in the memory had a neat little ooey-ooey-oo refrain. As I normally do during support bands (and lets face it, during headliners as well) I started scanning the faces of those around me - and noticed two things - that they were undeniably attentive (for a support band) and almost exclusively male, and in their late 20s or early 30s. I made a mental note to suggest that shows by art-noise bands were awesome places to meet your future husband, until I moved across the room, and found that the other side of the room was predominantly female. I don't really know where this anecdote is going, but for some reason (i.e. alcohol) I thought it was a fascinating point last night).

A Place To Bury Strangers (henceforth aPtBs - I love bands that you can acronymise) were not nearly as much like Joy Division as I had prepared myself for- all the stuff I've heard from them thus far has been characterized by the singers deep voice and clipped delivery, a la Mr Curtis (and possibly the fact that nearly everyone in the world seems to have a Joy Division obsession right about now). They sounded a little more like a more interesting, faster Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (and note that I'm a child of the mainstream (as much as I don't like to admit it), so while I imagine there's a bunch of bands that are much better comparisons, I'm gonna have to stick with what I know).

I believe there was dancing, and plenty of toe-tapping, the bassist had one of the prettiest Thunderbird basses I've seen in a while (actually, is there such a thing as a non-pretty thunderbird bass? It could quite possibly be one of the most aesthetically pleasing pieces of machinery ever) and aPtBS were a whole bunch of fun. But they had nothing on Holy Fuck, who are from Toronto and play instrumental electronic music, but there's nary a computer in sight. There was a sizeable delay while one of their mixers caught fire, and was replaced with a different one. The band were most apologetic, but once they got started, it was worth the wait.

With a stage setup that features a keyboard set up across from a mixing desk, with a drummer and bassist in the middle, the band play off each other right throughout, and they're obviously pretty excited to be up there playing, the smile doesn't leave their faces. There's a rotating cast of quirky assorted noisemaking devices, from a child's microphone, which delivered some incredibly distorted vocals reminiscent of the otherworldly squeaks in that Battles single that gets posted everywhere, to one of those keyboards with a tube that you blow into to generate the noise (which I last saw in the Los Campesinos! video for the International Tweexcore Underground.

All this enthusiasm and quirkiness can obscure the fact that they play hip, danceable, electronic music, and after a couple of tracks the toe-tapping metamorphosed into full scale dancing - unheard of for Vancouver on a Monday night. For a moment, it felt like a Girl Talk show without the frat boys and retro samples. So after an hour of this, a dig at how bad their Calgary show was the previous evening (the second best way to endear yourself to a Vancouver crowd, is to tell them they're better than the crowd in Calgary - the best way? - compare it to Toronto) a delightfully brief, and enthustiastically filled pre-encore break, and you had one fucking good time. Nice work, sirs.

show of the year thus far. But they'll face some stiff competition from the Lips in May)

I had about a thousand things I wanted to add to this in my head last night, but I'm pretty sure that the drunk fairy came and took all my original thoughts away, and didn't even have the decency to leave me a quarter in return. bitch.

The Cave Singers, Fanshaw, The Media Club, Vancouver

This is exactly the sort of show where writing this sort of thing isn't the best idea in the universe. Don't get me wrong, it's not like The Cave Singers were bad - in fact - far from it. It's just that it was just a perfectly serviceable indie rock show at a club that I go to ten or twenty times a year. There's just nothing particularly interesting to construct a decent narrative about - nothing noteworthy happened, and there were no on-stage shenanigans worthy of conversion to web-sludge.

But then I find myself with 6 idle hours in the hell-hole of humanity that is LAX, and a cute blond girl in a dress sits down across the lounge from me, and tapping this out is the closest I get to this:

XKCD Journal

Although, maybe that's not the best idea in the world, because there's also this:

http://www.xkcd.com/377/

We'll see what happens. And my desire to talk to her has diminished now that she's pulled out a copy of Us magazine and is reading it as intently as if it's a Dostoyevsky novel.

Anyway, enough digression. Thursday night it was back to the Media Club to see the Cave Singers, upon the hearty recommendation of my sister, who promised to make my life hell if I didn't partake (and as I'm actually seeing her this week, she can actually make good on that threat this time).

I strolled in at what I thought was a reasonable time (9pm - I'll never figure out what time to get to shows in this town - I've turned up at 9pm before to be greeted by crowds of people leaving, talking about how good Magnolia Electric Co were.) to find that I was pretty much the only one there - apart from the band, who stuck out as they were the ones peering intently at the currency trying to figure out what denomination they were holding (when you're from Seattle, which is less than 2 hours from the border, shouldn't you know what it looks like? - I get enough crap when I'm in the states for having to read the denominations on the notes, and there, it's all the same colour). But luckily, I wasn't too early, as the room packed out within minutes, and my premature arrival meant I got a table.

Support for the evening was a band called Fanshaw. I'm reliably informed that they feature ex-members of various other Vancouver collectives (to paraphrase Karen "the bassist is in EVERYTHING") and they played a split show - the first half was a boy/girl guitar/voice Gram and Emmy-Lou-type thing (and you're gonna have to take my word for it when I tell you that I was planning to use that analogy before they dropped in to Love Hurts), and the second half featured a full band, playing some laid back country rock. I'd offer more, but apparently I've turned in to one of those people that talk all the way through shows, because I don't really remember actually watching too much of them. I hate myself right now.

Drat, blond girl just left, but another girl just sat down next to me with a copy of the national enquirer, which I can kinda see. On the negative side, she can also see this screen, so I probably shouldn't be writing this.

Anyway, the Cave Singers are a three piece, but I can't tell you what three pieces, and I'm resisting the temptation to look up on the internet to find out, because I was too far back to see on Thursday. However, I did notice that they play dreamy country pop, that was most engaging, and I can totally see why my sister is so into them. They're a little bit Grizzly Bear-ish, they have a genial stage presence (even if some of the banter fell flat, but sometimes, that's the best thing about banter) and they finished up with a good old-fashioned foot stomper, that sent everyone home on a positive note.

I bought a shirt off one of them afterwards (if someone (namely, me) was ever going to devise a mathematical formula to determine how much I might potentially like a band, selling your own merch would definitely need to be worth a lot of points) and they seemed like good dudes. There were a couple of people trying to get some dancing happening after the show (they're obviously new in town, because it won't happen in Vancouver - although I am 24 hours from Auckland, where the show itself is just something that has to be endured before the post-show dancing starts) and I was accosted by a drunk girl who berated me for my lack of knowledge about the violently fashionable record label advertised by my t-shirt, only to turn out to be wrong. (and I wikipediaed the second I got home just to prove to myself that Final Fantasy wasn't on Secretly Canadian, just so I could go to bed secure in the knowledge that I was, in fact, right)

right, I'm gonna go now - only 3 hours of airport hell to go. but I'm gonna pretend to write this a little longer, so I can finish the story I've been reading vicarously about how Jared from the subway ads' wife left him because "celebrity drove a wedge through their relationship". Awesome.

The Satellite Nation, Media Club, Vancouver

So, Saturday didn't quite turn out like it was supposed to. My sole task for the day was to get from Mountain View, California, back to Vancouver, and by 11am, things were looking rosy. I'd managed to shake off the effects of a tough night playing Rock Band (the gravelly voice, the ache in the calf muscles and forearms, the sense of edgy excitement - it was like I'd just got back from a big night out on the town and/or a live show, but really I'd just stayed up late playing video games with workmates - and don't be surprised if people stop forming real bands and just sit around living rooms playing this - it really is that much fun), and get myself to San Jose airport. Flight number one to Portland was a little tense, I was sitting next to a scared flier, which is always a nerve-wracking experience, especially when my casual nonchalance towards flying intensified her agitation even more.

But in Portland, things went south, with weather and mechanical problems turning a 40 minute layover into a 8 hour ordeal, of which the only saving grace is the fact that in PDX airport you can get a microbrewed pint of beer for less than $4 dollars. And then they have the gall to run a happy hour from 3 to 6, where the price dropped even further. And there's no sales tax. I don't know how other states stay in business, because everyone in their right mind should move to Oregon.

So let's just say that by the time I got to The Media Club in Vancouver, at around 10.30, I was in quite a state. and it didn't help my mood at all when the first thing I saw was a Dustin Diamond lookalike (what is it with people looking like him? there was a guy playing second drums for Menomena last time I saw them who looked like him as well) draped in an Australian flag. And behind the stage was another incredibly large, red, white and blue monstrosity (the best thing about the australian flag? if you're a little bit drunk, and you squint your eyes just right, you can convince yourself it's the New Zealand one). Things were not going to turn out well.

Now, I like Australians as much as the next guy. Sure, they've generally got an smug air of superiority about them (the Flight of the Conchords episode where the Australian character brags about Ayers Rock - "It's a bloody big rock, mate" - is pretty much spot on), and they can lay it on a bit thick with the sheep jokes, but when you're on the wrong side of the world, you generally find yourself relating to their way of thinking more so than you do than with any other nationality. And plus, it's someone to talk about cricket with.

However, as soon as you get a large number of australians in one place, and make any sort of mention of nationalism, patriotism, or sporting events, pretty soon you're ready to strangle anyone who dares shout "Aussie, aussie, aussie, oi, oi, oi" for the ten thousandth time (Also - Dear North America, It's pronounced "ozzy", like the lead singer of Black Sabbath, not Oss Si, as you seem to be intent on pronouncing it. It's their nickname, learn how to say it properly. Regards,). I wouldn't be surprised if the numbers of TVs smashed in New Zealand during the Sydney Olympics skyrocketed to unprecedented levels - every time there was a crowd shot or the local colour reporter was mingling with the populace, there'd be a parade of green and gold-clad buffoonery as far as the eye could see.

But you see, when walking in to the Media Club on Saturday night, I realized what I'd done. I'd gone to see an Australian band on Australia Day, which is pretty close to hell to someone of my geographic persuasion.

Luckily, it all turned out pretty goddamn well. For all the doom and naysaying to this point, the kids in Satellite Nation know what they're doing. In the interests of full disclosure, I should probably mention that I have, on occasion, spent time with the members of said band, and enjoyed their company. But they're still a whole bunch of fun.

Now, their particular brand of pop/emo/rock is not really my cup of tea (and I realize how much of a knob it makes me while sitting on my couch watching Vampire Weekend videos on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlgNFwoApec&feature=related - PS - anyone wanna teach me how to embed videos?) and making holier than thou comments like that) but sometimes people like me just need to get over themselves and enjoy a night out for what it is - a group of enthusiastic and talented (and it must be said, not unattractive) young men play cracking pop songs to a captive audience. Which, also means that they've got the Alpha Males beat on at least two of those three points (I'll leave it up to you to deduce which ones).

The lads left the australio-centric histrionics to a minimum and let the music do the talking, belting through 8 or 9 songs (it could have been more, I was long gone by this point) of good quality, sandwiching their radio hit somewhere in the middle. From what I understand, they were relatively popular in Australia, doing national tours supporting some high level bands, and have come up to North America to try their luck here. They've got a nice clean live show, and I've seen them blow local bands off the stage on more than one occasion. It sounds like they're getting some play on one of the local rock stations, which will do them well. and the video's pretty fancy too (and looks like it's racked up nearly 3,000 hits on youtube in the last two months, which currently is roughly 2920 more hits than the last song I wrote that got posted on the internet, but who's counting? (and again, in the interests of full disclosure, I should again note that at least 40 of those hits on my song were probably from me))

As always the Media Club was it's divealicious self, as per standard the bathroom had been repeatedly soiled by 11pm, and by about 12.30, I was pretty close to soiling it myself, so I beat a hasty retreat to my icy apartment. Thank the lord my winter is being temporarily interrupted for a two-week burst of temperatures in the mid 20s. And did I mention Interpol, Sonic Youth, Rufus Wainwright, and enough summery pop from people who spent too much time listening to Pet Sounds to sink a battleship. God bless the southern hemisphere.

Bison, January 12, the Astoria, Vancouver

It's a little sad that show number 1 of 2008 didn't arrive until 12 days in to the month, but for some reason winter turns Vancouver into a musical backwater. So it was with some excitement that I opened my account for the year by trooping to a metal show in the Downtown Eastside.

I've written at length elsewhere about how the DTES is a weird paradox of a place, and a fair proportion of the people who may eventually read this are already familiar with the concept, but it's a part of town that is a haven for the indigent, addicted, mentally unstable, and unhealthy. The poorest postal district in Canada, it's a place where it's probably easier to get crack than a can of coke, but lately it also seems to be home to a bevy of hipster bars, rock shows, and general awesomeness (rock and roll in a japanese restaurant where the audience sings karaoke hits in the breaks between bands, anyone?). And when I say "lately" I mean "in the two years since I've been in Vancouver" - any time the Vancouver Sun does a profile on the "new" trend of kids hanging in the 'hood, you can pretty much guarantee it's been going on for a considerable period of time.

So we rolled up to the Astoria, and it was packed - for possibly the first time in the bar's long and storied history, there was a line outside. I've not been to this particular establishment before, so I can't comment on it's normal level of patronage for a Saturday night, but it's obvious they were expecting big things - they'd set up supplementary alcohol stations at alternative locations around the room in order to sate the audience's thirst for cut-price beer (it's the closest I've seen to a crowd drinking a bar dry since the Alpha Males Bastille Day Extravaganza at Rick's Pool Bar, where we even finished the Turkish beer right at the back of the fridge).

Anyway, Bison are a local metal band, who came heartily endorsed by my friend Karen, who had seen them previously (I believe she called them "hard-driving", whatever that means). I can't remember the last metal show I went to (or if I've ever been to a metal show), but I did kinda see Mastodon in Chicago last summer (and by kinda, I mean I walked past, stopped momentarily to admire the amount of hair on stage, and then kept on walking to get another slice of deep dish pizza and to watch skinny kids in plaid shirts try and play basketball), so I'm familiar with this particular genre of metal.

Standing in the crowd, nursing a locally mass-produced beer (no product endorsement here, kids) I was reminded of a conversation I'd had earlier in the week, about whether hipster and scenester were complimentary or derogatory terms. I've always used hipster to describe a certain aesthetic (e.g, you can drink hipster beer, or go to a hipster bar), but I generally use it in a positive context, whereas I'll use scenester to describe the bandwagon-jumper in the corner, who read in GQ magazine that cardigans, beards, and slumming it at downtrodden bars was in this season. So, it turned out that my fellow conversationalist had fairly similar definitions for the same words, but they were directly reversed. Which is all apropos of nothing, except to say that the crowd for the most part fell into the first category, whatever that might be called.

I felt remarkably clean cut. Admittedly I have had a haircut in the last 3 months, which is good for me, and I'd shaved sometime in the previous 48 hours, but I was overwhelmed with a desire to go sit in a dark corner and concentrate on growing some facial hair. And you have no idea how much I wished my hair was long enough to shake around - having your fringe flop foppishly onto your forehead might gain you kudos at a Smith's covers band, but it is nothing compared to the waterfalls of unwashed man-mane that fly about at a metal show.

and the astoria is a weird venue. the sound set up looks about as reliable as the Vancouver weather (screamcore skate-metal bands lose something of their visceral power when the mike and several of the amps cut in and out during the course of a song), it has a strange medieval theme inside (arched panels line the walls) and it looked like someone set up a coloured disco ball (and those traffic lights that flash in time with the music) in 1976 and forgot to take it down.

The support for the evening was the aforementioned screamcore skate-metal band, Jaws, (highlights include the drummer stripping down to his underwear, the banter "this song's about skateboarding. Actually, all our songs are about skateboarding", and when the bassist's phone rang, and he went to answer it, saying "It's one of my bass buddies"), and Ladyhawk, of whom I didn't know what to expect. I have a friend who is in love with them, and we've been planned to get to their shows on 6 or 7 occasions, only to have our plans derailed by travel, apathy, or forces of nature. I have another friend who said she saw them supporting Mates of State, and that they were so out of place and bad, that she drunkenly heckled them for the duration of the show. Turns out that the band she saw and heckled wasn't Ladyhawk, because seconds after they came on stage, she sheepishly had to admit that they were someone completely different. Anyway, Ladyhawk were impressive - sharp, well-structured and solidly performed songs, that I wouldn't mind seeing again (and I'm betting I will, they seem to be relatively prolific about town).

and the headliners? Well, I don't really remember actually listening to them, I certainly remember being jostled (although I don't want this to be read as complaining - going to a metal show, standing within ten feet of the stage and complaining about being bumped into by a succession of over-enthusiastic gentleman is like going to the opera and complaining that some fat woman sang all the way through, ruining an otherwise enjoyable night out.) and I remember checking to see where my next beer was coming from, and looking about the room to see if any of the attractive women in attendance were looking at me (they weren't) - but everyone else seemed to enjoy it, and I'm pretty sure I'd go again, especially if it's at the Astoria.

PS - extra points go to the drummer in Bison who wore an improvised hat designed to look like a Buffalo. But let it be noted that points were removed when he took it off after one song. I realize it's hot up there, but you've got to suffer for your aesthetic.

PPS - anyone who was with me who may have said some of the things above that I have shamelessly copied and attributed to myself, I'm sorry. But get used to it. It will happen again.