sufjan mount zion

added 2 videos.
Sufjan Stevens - A Good Man is Hard to Find (Live 10.14.2006)
A Silver Mount Zion - God Bless Our Dead Marines (Live 08.16.2006)

10.22.06 Black Angels / Tyde / Sun Arise

I'm going to keep this short.

Sun Arise: Boring and bad

Tyde: Just boring. I wasn't the only one who thought that too. there was a guy (with more balls than me) who yelled 'boo' after every song.

Black Angels: Having seen them at the Capitol Hill Block party a couple of months ago, I was hoping to give them a second chance to wow me. Everyone deserves a second chance when their shows are $10. (well not everyone, a la biff naked) In the end I was far from impressed and almost disappointed. The fact that they played with only reds and the bare minimum in terms of lighting irked me as well. Perhaps I don't really get this type of psychadelic stoner rock. They are, admittedly good at what they do but, they're just not my thing i suppose. I really should've went to New Pornographers instead.

$5/$10

10.21.2006 New Pornographers/Immaculate Machine/Novillero

NP are playing 2 shows in Vancouver as part of Mint Records and Exlaim Magazine's 15th birthday tour. I chose to go to the night one because the black angels are playing the night afterwards, while no one else I care about are playing during the first night.

Novillero are a Canadian band from Winnipeg? They aren't bad, just your (above?) average pop/rock band. Good opener.

Up next, Immaculate Machine. NP's Kathryn Calder plays in this outfit. Kinda like Novillero, less rock, more pop. Also a good opener.



So this is the second time i've seen the New Pornographers. They definitely made my night. They must have realized they had 2 shows and 3 albums and a hungry hometown crowd, because they gave a really good mix of songs from each album. They even took a request during the encore. Newman had asked what people wanted to hear, and a couple people replied with 'Miss Teen Word Power.' Good choice. As with the last show i saw, I think Kathryn Calder definitely fit right in with the band. She filled in Neko's parts quite nicely. Though, I found that she came up a little short during the closer, 'Letter From an Occupant.' She just doesn't have Neko's pipes, but the rest of the night was fine. Ok hate-mode off.







$25/$25

10.14.2006 Sufjan Stevens/My Brightest Diamond

so the annual birthday show rolls around again. I've had some pretty cool birthday shows in the past, (opeth, deftones, G3, probably more) but this was the only one that took place in a church. The promoter couldn't have picked a better place for this. There were 2-3 other top-draw shows, but I ended up going to this one because I knew this one was going to sell out, I wasn't aware Yo La Tengo was playing and I couldn't get tickets to YLT before they sold out.

Got to the venue around 8:30 (1/2 after doors were supposed to be open.) and boy was there a line up to get in. The lineup basically went around the corner pretty much the full block. Man i didn't know there were so many sufjan stevens fans in vancouver, or rather how many people read pitchfork. It's a church and if you're not there early you won't get a good seat, err i mean pew. I think it basically took me 30 min to actually get into the venue when they did eventually let people in. To my chagrin, the opener 'My Brightest Diamond', who also plays/sings in sufjan's band, started as people were being let in. Thus I was only able to catch maybe 2 songs. Shame, cuz she's got a pretty voice, possibly even classically trained.




Sufjan Working the Guitar



Sufjan's band entered the stage in full costume. They were all adorned in masks and wings. It was like a scene out of Cirque de soliel. Now I'm not really a fan of chamber-pop or whatever the genre you want to put him in, but this guy knows how to hold my attention. He's got a fantastic voice and knows how to use it and he's also a wonderful storyteller. Most of his between songs banter consisted of him telling stories which related to the song he was about to play.




Sufjan Also Plays Piano


Right: My Brightest Diamond, Shara Worden


Now You Know Why He Doesn't Play Small Clubs Anymore





Sufjan Stevens - A Good Man Is Hard to Find (Live 10.14.2006)



$27/$27 and to think I wanted to go to YLT instead.

thanks to treehugger for the headsup.

10.05.2006 Rocky Votolato @ Scratch Records

Previous to this day, my only knowledge of Rocky Votolato was that he's the brother of Cody Votolato (of the Blood Brothers fame). However, this didn't stop me from checking him out at a free instore at Scratch Records, because hey free is free :) . He's got kind of a singer song writer thing going on with a country undertone without being too country. He's good at what he does. Sweet melodies and interesting lyrics. Played about 25 min and was even willing to play an extra song.


Portland is Leaving



White Daisy Passing



She Was Only In It For the Rain



Alabaster



Suicide Medicine




also taped ben from lucero will post that later when I fully figure out how to use this final cut thing.

rating: $5/$0 (not really my thing, but math majors would agree that this is actually a good rating, an infinitely good rating)

Wintersleep BC dates

Looks like Wintersleep is returning to BC with dates in Victoria and Vancouver. This includes a date at something called the Transmission festival??? News to me.

News of some sorts

Apparently Vancouver's own You say Party! We Say Die! got busted for trying to frauduently play shows in the US without the proper papers. The consequences appear to be a five year ban from entering the US for their bass player. Kinda sucks. eh, who am I kidding. I find this news highly amusing.

It also looks like the blood brothers are playing Oct 25 in Bellingham at what appears to be Western Washington University? Is this something I want a part of? Probably. Will I end up going? We'll see (tho probably not).

Yea I have a Sufjan Stevens report to write up. and some rocky votolato/lucero videos to add. Eh. Does anyone care?

the shout out out out out sign

holy fuck's unique instrument

as mentioned before:

New Converge...

just got leaked. title track is just... wow.

Daughters 2 songs (live 10.01.2006)

sorry i don't know the names of the songs..

10.01.06 Pelican / Daughters / Ken mode

Two shows in a week for me. This has to be a record of some sorts. Granted I don't like seeing shows on weekdays or sundays, this one looked like it had an earlier start time and it was Pelican. I do like my post rock. The lamplighter is an interesting venue. Small intimate club, but a lot of bad sightlines and obstructions. 1/3 of the stage was covered with the PA. Kind of reminded me of i guess the brickyard.

Kenmode up first. Apparently they're from Winnipeg. Don't remember too much about them. Had a sort of Isis vibe to them. The guitarist was having trouble with his mic staying attatched to the mic stand. At one point he put it in his mouth and started singing sans hands or micstand. They played for about 30 minutes.





Next up was Daughters. I was told by buddies of mine, who saw them in CA, that Daughters were possibly the worst band they've ever seen. Antics such as spitting on the crowd, spraying water and pretty much dropping their draws. Well it wasn't as bad as they described it, but it really wasn't too much better either. It was still a trainwreck by all accounts. The singer actually had this shtick where he would climb all over the stacks and monitors (in an attempt not to touch the floor?), and in the process ends up jumping on top of some poor guy. Later into the set he would get into the faces of people in the front row. He actually spent most of their set in the crowd stumbling into people. All the while, he'd beg for someone to buy him a drink. He was only taking ginger-ale + whiskey however, because he flatly denied the beer offered to him by the guitarist. Not to be outdone by the guitarist in Kenmode, the singer also put the mic in his mouth before singing. But just before that he took in a mouthful of water. Interesting effect i guess.. Musically they were ... well hard to describe. Basically the locust with the singer trying to amuse himself during the set. Their bass ends up crapping out after about 3 songs. This led into a 3-4 minute wait. Crowd didn't seem to mind, but the singer seemed to be bored out of his skull.





After Daughters I had almost felt like I just wasted 2 hours and 15$. Having seen Pelican about two years ago when they toured with Big Business and Red Sparrows (RS stole the show), I really wasn't too excited. That and the fact that I recall them posting that a lot of the shows that they did before the mono/pelican tour they weren't playing that well. Tonights show was a lot different. They were ten times better than when I had seen them 2 years ago. This was helped by the fact that the new songs that they played (about 3-4?) were really good. They were much more animated and into the show than when I had seen them previously. They played a solid 60 minutes. One of the guitarists even broke out the violin bow. Their set made up for the previously lacklustre night. Plus they definitely redeemed themselves for 2 years ago. Solid turnout for the show I might add. Oh and big ups to Dana their soundguy.





15$/15$