09.28.06 Holy Fuck / Shout out out out/ Land of Talk

Another weekday show, and probably the first of 2 for this week (Pelican being the other). As a bit of a back story, I wasn't too sure I really wanted to go to this show after hearing some of the songs on their respective myspaces. I had actually bought the tickets because 2/3 of the bands were on dependent records (which has a good track record of quality records: wintersleep, kary, contrived, brian whateverhisnameis etc). I go anyway. I get there half an hour after doors (according to my ticket). No one is there. Apparently I didn't get the memo about doors being at 9. Eventually I make my way in around 9. Antendees were I would say more than half (maybe even 3/4s) from some Fido promotion (which I suppose is pretty cool since fido could've picked more uh... pedestrian like bands to jock around).



Land of Talk is up first and one of said dependent artists. They are a 3 piece from Montreal, consisting of singer/guitar, bassist and drummer. It looks like they started kind of late and had some nervousness about them. Due to time constraints they had to rush through songs without any bantar. Adding to the problems was a broken string on her guitar. In fact Ms. Powell, broke it about 10 sec. into a song, yet played through it unfazed. Amazingly, this tour only had 2 guitars, both being hers. Pretty good set though. Definitely lived up to my expectations. Talked to Loel after the set. Realized that he probably could've hooked me up with the tix (ugh... $30 down the drain). He did get me some drinks though, so big thanks for that.




Next was Shout out out out. They played a indie/dance music much like kraftwerk with the party type of attitude of... I suppose a toned down Andrew WK. No guitar, lots of samples, two drummers, at times 3 bass players and vocals were sung through a vocoder. The stage set up was quite cool with a giant SHOUT across the stage. Real energetic with very dancable tunes, you know if you're into that kind of stuff. Definitely thought they stole the show tonight. They played for about an hour i think with a lot of people leaving afterwards. Not that I blame them. It was midnight by the time that happened.





Holy fuck rounded out the show. They're a band from the east with techically 2 members of wintersleep. I say technically because Mike Bigelow is only a touring member. Holy fuck is a totally different sounding band that Wintersleep. Wintersleep would be more straight ahead rock while Holy Fuck would be experimental drum and bass type electronica. Loel plays his drum beats in the middle of the stage and is flanked by 2 tables filled with synths, samplers, sound manipulators of some sort and other odd gadgets. In fact one of the 2 "synth" guys made noise with some sort of ancient looking tape-reel machine. (it makes a sort of whir-ing sound for those curious). Bigelow rounds out the bunch on bass. They played a 45 min set of material from their debut disc. Not as boring as I assumed it would be. Aside from their last song, most of their music is pretty moody and drum driven. Yet it all seems to fit into place nicely.






$16/$18

Pelican - Aurora Borealis (live 8.13.2005)

lucero instore

hey lucero's doing an instore at scratch records day of their show at 5:30. this is great because i don't like pyaing for shows.

i'm not going to amy milan tonight. i just listened to her new album. it's not very good.... but i still love stars.

09.15.2006 Final Fantasy/Bob Wiseman/Magali

So yesterday, Owen Pallett aka, Final Fantasy won the Polaris Prize. This means he gets 20k. Judging by how the show went it looks like he is very deserving of this honour. More later, first the undercard.

Magali of the Phenomes. I don't really know much about this artist or even the Phenomes for that matter. She did the whole singer songwriter thing. Just her and her guitar w/ help from Owen on a keyboards for a few songs and Bob Wiseman on guitar and accordian for some as well. She's not bad, a little unpolished however. Not really suprising as it appears that the phenomes are her main priority. She'd be like Feist pre-let it die era. One cool thing was when she asked the audience for a little help as she passed a bag full of maracas into the crowd. 20+ maracas. now that's crowd interaction. *edit* she reminds me of jill barbar

Bob Wiseman. Wow this guy was pretty entertaining. He's a solo artist who plays both guitars and accordian. His set started w/ him playing a black and white movie (with his own creative editing and mixing) from his macbook into a projector. It was one of those silent films with naration thrown in every once in a while charlie chaplin style. The musical score was Bob playing his accordian. He then proceded to play a few more movies, some with him singing, some just him doing an elaborate yet elaborate skit. Mixed into his set was a few songs sung by himself w/ an acoustic guitar. His songs were funny, Conan O'brien funny, so mostly self-deprecating humor.

Back to Final Fantasy. I don't believe i've ever seen a more arty show. We all know the deal w/ this guy. Solo violinist, multiple loop pedals. He's also added keyboards (also looped) to his repatoire. Owen brought out a touring film director w/ him. She stood onstage making art w/ a projector and transparencies. Each of the songs that had transparencies had a theme. themes of abjuration, illusion, conjuration, necromancy, enchantment, evocation, divination, and transmutation were explored. Not suprising as he is dungeons and dragons fan. Overall, not a bad visual i suppose. I guess it was better than having just owen play onstage. Only thing was that this person ended up obstructing my view :( For the encore owen played 2 covers. "this modern love" by Bloc Party and "Fantasy" by Mariah Carey. Ok the last one had me smiling from ear to ear. Rightfully so the crowd ate it up. Owen even came out for a 2nd encore. The crowd was well behaved. I can't remember the last time where i couldn't hear someone else's conversation during a quiet part of a song.

$11.50/$11.50

Early Week update

Not much news, looks like the dredg shows did get taped. Apparently it was all an elaborate scam. ha. hrmmm. Thinking of seeing Kasabian solely to see MEW. oh and Final Fantasy is tm and sold out. Pretty good and slightly suprising since there was like zero advertising. well not zero, but you know what i mean. hooray for the indie scene i suppose.

Dredg special shows

So apparently I just found out that people who were trying to film the 2 special dredg shows (where they were playing Leitmotif fand El Cielo), got shut down. Apparently it was due to the venue's policy. Man that just sucks.

06.04.2003 Explosions in the Sky

Since its been pretty slow in terms of the shows, I thought I would write a bit about some of the older shows that happened before I was blogging. Classic posts if you will. Most of these are shows when I was still living in Portland.

At the time, I was not much of a post-rock fan. In fact, I had hardly heard of the genre, and I had certainly not heard any eits songs. But my bro told me to go so I did. The show happened at a place in NE portland called the Blackbird (which was actually gutted and turned into a deli or something a few months later). The building itself is very well arty. theres a small kitchen, with tables, recessed playing area and dinky stage. I think i got there around 8 or so and the was told that bands got on stage at around 10. That and there were 5 bands tonite. Doing the math in my head... yea that didn't sound good at all.

After waiting a couple of boring hours and trying to kill time. The first few bands played. I really don't remember anything about them except they weren't to impressive and they had funny names. The swirlies, the Lillies and Lazarus. There was also another local i think, making it even longer.

Before eits gets on, I try to get some girl to save my spot, cuz I got some stuff to prepare near the soundboard. The soundguy was pretty cool as I recall. Anyway at this time it is really late. 1-2 in the morning and in a surreal sort of way, the place is packed solid and right out side the streets are completely empty. I get back and find that the bitch doesn't save my spot. My memory is kinda hazy, but I think I was trying to get her to save me a chair or something. Whatever, I decide to stand right in front of her, blocking her veiw. With that, eits hit the stage.

I am completely floored. I think that was one of the first times I've ever been to a concert and totally blown away by a band that I've never heard before. They play for about an hour, which at the end felt like I could hear them play all night. Every song had the pleasent characteristic of long building passages. At times I really couldn't tell one song from the other, but at the same time I was mesmerized by the whole experience that I really didn't seem to care.



setlist:
memorial
greet death
yasmin the light
first breath after a coma
the only moment we were alone.



At the end of the show, I left feeling suprisingly awake at 2 in the morning. I didn't feel the same the next day.

$40/$8 probably one of the best shows I went to all that year.

Mastodon 7.13.2006

http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=111849

Mastodon
07.13.2006
Vancouver, BC
GM Place

source: DPA 4061>IHP-140
lineage: WAV-M>FLAC

01.) Intro
02.) Iron Tusk
03.) March of the Fire Ants
04.) Circle Cysquatch
05.) Where Strides The Behemoth
06.) Mother Puncher
07.) Aqua Dementia
08.) Capillarian Crest
09.) I Am Ahab
10.) Crystal Skull
11.) Megalodon
12.) Blood and Thunder

there's some bass distortion, not so noticable if you don't use headphones.