A couple of photo links this time WWII fighter plane found in the Sahara.
Because of the dry desert air, the whole wreck scene is in damn fine
shape. It looks almost like it might have just happened if you
didn't know any better.
The photo
journal page got a couple of new pages - more band
photos, plus a trip to the flea market.
Music reviews
less soccer means a few more reviews this month, but the Euro cup is
coming... Bowerbirds, El-P, Ed
Schrader's Music Beat, All Darlin', Spiritualized, Gross Ghost, and more.
Also also - made a mix for my special lady friend aka the wife. I
do this occasionally in an attempt to get her to listen
to music other than top 40 pop. Mostly tame indie pop type
musics, some of these songs have probably been posted
here before. Deal with it. You can download it here. The track list is:
1.
MGMT – Time To Pretend
2.
Stornoway – I Saw You Blink
3.
Girls – Honey Bunny
4.
Future Islands – Before the Bridge
5.
Perfume Genius – Hood
6.
Islands – This Is Not a Love Song
7.
Wye Oak – Holy Holy
8.
The War On Drugs – Baby Missiles
9.
Beirut – Sante Fe
10.
MGMT – Kids
11.
Dana Buoy – Call To Be
12.
M83 – New Map
13.
Wildlife – Stand in the Water
14.
Centro-Matic – Iso-Residue
15.
Chris Mills – Calling All Comrades
16.
Allo Darlin' – Kiss Your Lips
17.
Real Estate – It's Real
18.
J Mascis – Not Enough
19.
Golden Smog – Strangers
20.
Gillian Welch – Hard Times
The only possible word to describe finally getting to see Spiritualized
live would be "epic." It felt like someone
accidentally booked an arena rock show in the Cradle, the music and
performance felt so...big. This version of
Spiritualized was a seven-piece band including a couple of hot back-up
singers and a guitarist that looked exactly
like Noel Gallagher. While there were plenty old bald and balding
men there (aka my demographic), I was surprised
at the number of young people at the show. I'd be surprised if
the pair of girls standing in from of me were even 18,
but goddamn if they weren't amped for the gig from start to
finish.
The set list - I'm not great with
song titles, but I do know they played for over two hours and covered
the entire career
of the band. There were a number of songs from the great new
album "Sweet Heart, Sweet Light" including the album
owner "Hey Jane" that was also the show opener. There was also a
number of songs from "Ladies and Gentlemen...
We Are Floating in Space", including the title track and them closing
the show with htat album's epic closer "Cop
Shoot Cop." I said going in if they played "Ladies and
Gentlemen..." it would be worth the price of the ticket alone,
and that statement proved to be true. As an added bonus they also
played the Spacemen 3 classic "Walking with
Jesus" which got a good roar from the crowd, a crowd where at least
half in attendance were younger than that song.
Some friends drove to NYC a couple
of years ago to see Spiritualized perform "Ladies and Gentlemen..." in
it's en-
tirety, a move I found a little indulgent at the time. After
finally seeing them live, though, I'm left with regret that I didn't
go myself. It would have certainly been worth it.
It doesn't happen often but I managed to get my lazy ass out of the
house on a Sunday night. And I got out solely be-
cause Last Year's Men were playing at
the comfy dive known as Slims. LYM play out fairly often, but not
so much in
Raleigh - they seem to stick in Durham or Chapel Hill. It was
good to see them again - based on their Facebook
updates, they've been touring a fair amount and it really showed in how
tight and tuned in the band was. Most of the
songs were from their great "Sunny Down Snuff" LP that I still listen
to a lot a couple years after it's release. The band,
as always, were on top of their "garage punk meets the Replacements"
game, pulling off the always great combination
of performing their songs very close to the original versions, but
still feeling loose and non-robotic. A lot of bands
struggle with getting the right mixture in their live sound - LYM seem
to have it locked down.
Roomrunner
opened the show. I didn't know one goddamn thing about them other
than they were from Baltimore.
They set up on the floor in front of the stage and played really REALLY
fuckin' loud. A friend who has seen many more
shows than me at Slims said it was the loudest he's ever heard a band
in there. My first impression, other than the
volume, was that of mid-nineties melodic punk, the sort of stuff
Revelation Records released a lot of. Bands like
Fireside, Quicksand, even the last Jawbreaker record maybe. They
didn't sound exactly like any of these acts, but
would have fit in well with them. I'd see them again, but I am
very glad I had my earplugs with me.
Allo Darlin' with The Wave Pictures
& The Big Picture
Local 506
4/27/2012
My excitement for this show appeared to be inversely proportional to
the attendance of it. Having no idea if anyone
listens to Allo Darlin' or not, I eagerly
bought a ticket right after they were released. Turns out that
wasn't necessary.
And while I wish more folks had been there to see this incredible band,
part of me loves that it felt like I had them all to
myself (or more like all to our fifty-or-so selves). The band
live, in a word, was fantastic. Very, very tight and pro-
fessional musically, as any good pop band should be. Not sure if
I'm dense or it's just not easy to tell, but I had no
idea how many of their songs had ukelele in them - singer Elizabeth
Morris manned the tiny guitar on at least three-
quarters of their performance. And speaking of her - oh that
voice....angelic, golden, insert your own descriptor. I've
never been huge on female singers, but the ones I do like I really,
really, REALLY like. And Ms. Morris' voice is as
good as any I've seen live in years. They played much of their
new album "Europe" as well as a fair bit of their self-
titled debut. The crowd, while small, were more than enthusiastic
- these people were just as happy seeing Allo Darlin'
as I was, and we all made up for poor attendance by cheering extra hard
between songs. Hopefully the band had a
good time and come back again...I'd probably still buy an advanced
ticket, as I'd never want to chance missing them.
There were a couple of openers,
first of which was The Big Picture. A local
band apparently, they had a hippie-pop
sound and felt like the house band of some sort of free love
cult. I guess you'd compare them to Edward Sharpe, which
means you're basically comparing them to Rusted Root, and that seems
like an insult when I'm not really looking to
insult the group. There was a bunch of them on stage including a
standing drummer and a couple of cute gals and
I think at least a pair of brothers. You ever been sorta
impressed by a band, but at the same time not that into them?
That was these guys for me. I'd give them another listen though
if they were playing with someone I wanted to see.
The middle group was The
Wave Pictures, who were over from England doing the whole
tour with Allo Darlin'. At their
best they reminded me of a ramshackle Clientele, but for some reason
they deemed it a good idea to insert guitar
solos, sometimes more than one, into every single song. No doubt
the guitarist was incredibly talented, but hearing it
song after song it was a bit too much for me. They seemed like
nice lads though and were great at awkward banter
between songs, just wish I could have gotten into their music
more.
I had a ticket to Magnetic Fields for this same night, but when I saw
Kings announce that Chain & the Gang were
going to be playing on the same night, I was looking for a buyer for
that ticket two seconds later. Why does Chain &
the Gang get my dander up so much? Easy - Ian Svenonius, former
front man for one of the greatest bands of all time,
Nation of Ulysses, is also the man behind Chain & the Gang. I
never got to see the Nation live (one of my great regrets
in life); but I did get to see his next band The Make-Up a couple of
times, and Chain was very much a continuation of
that spectacle. I guess their music would be best described as
garage punk, with a heaping helping of...sassiness.
Ian struts around the stage like Mick Jagger after a three day bender,
cocksure and televangelist-like in delivering his
sermon, er, songs. The band plays along nicely, either very well
rehearsed or quick at recognizing when Ian is going
to deliver one of his monologues that leads into a song. I was a
little surprised there weren't more people there, but it
was clear that everyone who did show up were as big of fans as I
was. After the gig I said to someone they sounded
like the house band in a John Waters film, which is a huge compliment
in my book.
Paint Fumes opened the
show. It feels like this statement could be uttered many, many
times over the past six months
in Raleigh...these guys never stop playing. I realized this time
they have a song that reminds me a ton of "Sonic Re-
ducer", even though it had never occurred to me to think of them as
sounding like the Dead Boys. They have a much
poppier vibe than those classic Cleveland proto-punkers. And for
a couple of songs, a Wooden Shjips/psyche rock
vibe, complete with prolonged instrumental jam sessions that never
quite crossed into hippie territory. I'm glad these
kids are playing so much, because they are one of my new favorite
locals on the scene.
Going to see US Christmas aka USX sometimes
takes you to off-the-beaten-path locations. Turns out this
particular
visit to the Triangle had them playing at a mini metal festival on the
outskirts of Carrboro at a bar called the Kraken.
Five miles outside of town is like a different world though...this was
not the Cat's Cradle or Local 506. This seemed
like the sort of joint that would have been in the running as a filming
location for "Road House" - I was both surprised
and disappointed that there wasn't barb wire around the stage to
protect the band from the patrons throwing bottles.
They had four wheelers parked out front, video poker, signs for a "lost
goat" on the bulletin board, and airbrushed pic-
tures of conquistadors on the wall. There were actual Hell's
Angels in attendance apparently. Despite having grown
up in a world not that different, I felt very much like an outsider, as
if I stumbled into the setting of a real-life Harry Crews
book.
Despite or maybe because of all
that, it was a damn fun time. In their never-ending quest to
perform in different con-
figurations every time I see them live, USX were playing as a four
piece. Despite the barely existing PA the sound
was actually half decent, in the loud-as-fuck sort of way. The
band played songs from a pretty wide swath of their
releases, and I quite enjoyed it. As did the crowd, a weird
cross-section of humanity including hipsters, rednecks,
rockers, bikers, random old drunk men, and even a handful of
women! For my money they could have just played their
last record "The Valley Path" in it's entirety, but I do recall them
playing "Lazarus" and that was almost as good.
Colossus
were...interesting. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, but pretty
entertaining throughout. Real showmen
for sure, lots of playing to the audience. They play a party rock
version of "new wave of British heavy metal" bands like
Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, and at least for part of their set played
it well. And then about four or five songs into
their set, maybe sometime around when all the shots and hard lemonades
they chugged kicked in, things got sloppy.
They were still pretty fun to watch, but the songs went off the
rails. Most of the crowd was so drunk and rowdy that it
didn't really matter though.
And then I went outside and ate a plate of BBQ, how any weird southern
gothic night of metal should always end.
"How
would the Civil War have changed if Abraham Lincoln had octopus
tentacles instead of a beard?"
Terry Malts - I
Do. Easily one of my favorite records of the year so
far. The perfect combination of the Ramones and
Jesus & Mary Chain.
Bonus: Something
About You.
Bonus: Waiting
Room.
Nobunny - Ain't
It a Shame. Despite already being a fan for years, it
took me until now to finally spend some quality
time with his 2010 album "First Blood." Which is great, not
surprisingly.
Bonus: Breathe.
Bonus: Motorhead
with Me.
31Knots - Hearsay.
This band made a strang transition from math rock to glammy prog rock
that I'm actually ok with.
Akimbo - Great
White Bull. Metal up yer ass part one.
Pelican - Specks
Of Light. Metal
up yer ass part two.
CoCoComa - Suspicious.
Not completely sold on this group's vocals but they know pop
hooks.
Tim Kasher - Cold Love.
Solo work by the Cursive front man. Sounds like...Cursive.
Kid Cudi - All
Along. "Man on the Moon II" ain't as strong as the
first one, but these two tracks are strong.
Bonus: Scott
Mescudi Vs. The World.
The Twilight Singers - Gunshots.
From last year's "Dynamite Steps," Dulli's best effort since
"Blackberry Belle."
Bonus: Waves.
