Crazy Talk!

Show Review: Fiery Furnaces @ Northsix

I found myself in New York for a week at the beginning of this year. For a job interview. And for a special lady friend. Or the other way around. Dammit.    

On the friday before I left, the Fiery Furnaces played at the very cool Northsix Club in Brooklyn.  Drums. Percussion. Electric guitar. Keyboards. And Eleanor out front. After apologizing for taking so long to come out, she says "... And here is Bitter Tea". Hearing that was very exciting; for, Bitter Tea is the name of the band's latest, and perhaps most cohesive album.

Haunting melodies based largely around strange rhythms that stop, change, restart, and change again, beg the listener to stay alert - which keeps this album fully interesting from beginning to end. Plus, bizarre lyrics questioning the taste of osmanthus blossoms and floating "'til the brackish warm current stops in my throat" makes this album impossible to digest in less than eleven times through. And that, my re-discovered friends, is why i luuh-huuhve this album.

Now, about the show.

We got to the show in time to catch the end of the opening band. Unfortunately, I cannot remember their name. And I cannot find it anywhere on this thing they call the internet. Sorry. So after Eleanor mentioned "... And here is Bitter Tea", the band launched into the opening song of the album. Then they played the next six songs from the album, but bailed on finishing the album for what may have been lack of instrumentation to complete some of the ideas on the record. In fact, the first few songs sounded thin to me because I was missing the layered keyboards that are present on the album. Once I realized that they could not execute those sounds live, I accepted what they gave me as ambitious enough in and of themselves. For, had I not had Bitter Tea's production in my head, what the band played would have seemed phenomenal.

Eleanor's brother and other half of the writing duo, Matt Friedburger, sat stage left behind the keyboard. He and the ridiculously solid drummer, Bob D'Amico, were the conductors. Watching them peer at each other anticipating the next sudden change was fun for me. Eleanor just kinda paced back and forth in between singing her lines. Though she wasn't the most animated performer, the voice was captivating enough to stare at its source.

The set lasted about an hour and ten minutes. This was fine considering how hot it felt in there after about seven. Not unlike the hipster scene in Los Angeles clubs, New Yorkers were still yet attentive during the set. It was only towards the end when they played a couple older songs that the first couple rows began to boogie - clearly familiar with only pre-Bitter Tea material. Fair enough.

And that's that. A poor account of a very good show. Thanks for getting through it. I haven't written here in quite awhile, so I'm well out of practice. But I hope I can see a show soon enough that will allow me to review again. Too bad I live in Charlotte. For now.

And hey How. I miss you.

Neighborhood Music Fest: Long Beach

"Girls, don't let anyone who looks weird talk to you for too long, please!! And DO NOT hesitate to call me if you get GOOGELY eyes from some spiky-haired dude with tattoos! Do you hear me?!?!", shrieked a father from his car to three embarrassed teenage girls clad in black spandex, black eyeliner, black fingernail polish, and other black accessories. Oh, geez... good thing I'm still in high school, too.

Indie 103.1 sponsored Saturday's Neighborhood Music Fest on a gorgeous southern California day. Located a full three iron away from the Queen Mary, the few festival acres sat right on the water providing a beautiful backdrop for what would be an eclectic mix of electronic, punk, rock, and even rap music.

Small notepad in hand, I strolled around the festival grounds alone, but appearing to need solitude in order to effectively describe the day's noteworthy events. Having spent my high school and even some college years following phish-type festival music (yeah, that's right), I was struck initially by the effort most of these humans in attendance put forth to look different than "regular" humans. Of course, this approach backfires when such similar-minded folks gather in one place - everyone looks the same - a la patchouli stink STS9 "heads".

The first band up were Mormons. They were dressed in exactly what you see there: Backpacks, bicycle helmets, white shirts, black ties, black pants, black shoes. As the first song began, the lead singer (Patrick) jumped inches into the air and fell flat on his back. From that point on through the rest of their predictable but tight punk/rock set, he slowly and awkwardly maneuvered his body as if he were in slow motion. He crawled around on the stage floor... slinkeed his way off the front of the stage onto the railing separating the small crowd from the musicians... then he fell onto the grass in front of my feet and proceeded to use the next few songs as fuel to stretch and compact his body into the most uncomfortable positions I've ever seen. All the while, he yelped percussive style words into the microphone. Blank stares were all that Patrick received in response to his antics. People didn't know whether to laugh or cry or dance. By the twentieth minute (the first nine bands played twenty minute sets) Patrick had pulled his way back up on stage. After the last song he said "It's like night of the living dead in the sunny afternoon on the beach. You may all eat my flesh now... zombies! Zombies!" Perfect.

Sexytime Explosion was up next. Their set contained unimpressive psuedo-punk songs, but they were relatively entertaining performers. Unfortunately for their twenty minute plight for attention, following Patrick's stunts made this set forgettable.

Lion Fever cleverly made soundcheck part of their set by creating ambient noise with each instrument before launching into an ominous melody that sent me jogging back to the stage to watch it unfold. I needed some shade tree time before dropping my Scotch-Irish paleness back into the melting sunlight. Jennifer Pearl led their attack with a hauntingly crooning voice that I liked right away. However, next thing I knew, four of what must have been the band's friends, came on stage with maracas. They stomped about shaking those things and annoying me more and more as their once interesting sounding tune turned into an eleven minute experiment with distortion and arhythmic maraca playing.

As 8bit took the stage, I wasn't quite sure what dimension I had entered. Four MCs and a DJ were on stage in full Astronaut gear. They came out calling everyone "motherfuckers" and "bitches" before going into their smash hit "suck my dick, bitch". It was around this time where I started to hate the indie scene's acceptance of electronica, as a music genre, into their club, so to speak. Of course, not all electronica bands have MCs, and of course not all MCs are annoying. But while others at this festival seemed to like the gimmicky 8bit performance, it just made me want to call up the teenage girls' dad to pick up his daughters... along with Anti-Log Le Frost and Robo-T from 8bit... and punish them all for their lame, adolescent taste.

Thankfully The Bronx were next up. Straight up hard rock n' roll at its finest. The drummer steadily wailed away behind the well-rehearsed fingering of the bass and guitar players while the singer howled like it was his last day on earth. Although the singer's voice had limited range, his two-tiered scream fully embodied the emotion of the band's sound. Hooray.

Next up was Mika Miko. Shrill voices on top of spastic, untidy punk. One of the girl front wemenz shrieked into a red phone that created a tele-tone vibe that was somehow cool. Right. So there that is.

Oh yeah. Whirlwind Heat. This three piece band, based out of Grand Rapids, Michigan, put on a tremendous live show. Wearing grey tee shirts, sweatpants, and velcro shoes, these guys absolutely threw down. David Swanson, the lead singer and moog player, dances it up all over stage much like Beck. And it turns out Beck likes these guys since he let them open for him on his past tour. It's part hip-hop, part funk, part rock. The drummer is animated (in a good way) in his playing, and the bass player's occasional fuzz tone puts some sweet ol' stank into the songs' meat. Uh huh. I recommend picking up their new album, Types of Wood, if you see it around. Unfortunately, these guys took off before I could get one myself. Stupid touring life.

Unfortunately for the Rolling Blackouts, the ever-growing audience was reeling some from Whirlwind Heat's set. Don't get me wrong, these guys were pretty good all around, but their songs just didn't have the quirkiness, virtuosity, or spectacle they needed to retain attention.

Because I'm writing this at "work", I don't have my notepad with me. The notepad has scribbled descriptions of each band, most of which I've remembered thus far. But I cannot remember anything about Icarus Line's set. All I know is people started crowding the stage during this set in preparation for Los Angeles' new superstar.

Mickey Avalon is everywhere now. Since this article ran in the LA Weekly a few weeks ago, I see his name all over. While the article is a good read, his music is a rough listen. I can appreciate his writings, as they come from his bizarre experiences. But as a rapper, he is not among the finest. He took huge swigs from his bottle of tequila every so often, between gropes of the scantily clad skinny blond dancer, and the loosening of his belt so his tight jeans would expose the upper half of his ass crack. Yeah. Just the way I like it.

Following Mickey's thirty-five minute set, Ima Robot came on to help drain the impurities out of my head. This is simply a band of good players with good songs to sing. Nothing more, nothing less. And... I'm tired of thinking of descriptions... and typing letters. So there that is.

Moving Units finished off the night to the finally ready to boogie crowd. Too bad they didn't make me want to boogie at all. While their musical ideas were fine, their stage personalities annoyed me (which, in and of itself, wouldn't cause me to stand boogieless). The singer and sometimes guitar player had initial trouble getting his loop machine to work... so he just flipped off the engineers and bass player who were trying to help him. And the drummer wore headphones. Sure, headphones on a drummer could equal monitor... but it could also equal click track. In either case, I feel he or she misses out on the live nature of the performance. This also disallows the tempo to "breathe".  Plus, the songs just never seemed to groove particularly well. I never visited the proverbial pocket during this set... which is where I like to sit during a show.

Instead, I sat on the ground to stretch my aching legs after nine hours of festival absurdity.

The Helio Sequence

Having overplayed Love and Distance and Com Plex in my car over the past couple weeks, I was fired up to finally see The Helio Sequence at Spaceland this past Thursday night. Unfortunately, I missed seeing Destroyer just two days before due to lack of funds and sleep. So this just added to my excitability about seeing live music. I mean, it had been four days since the last show I saw!

As I’ve mentioned before, Spaceland is my second home. But it was too far away from my first home, so I moved to be closer. Now it is a delicious one point two mile walk down the mountain to my Pabst Genuine Draft slash live music distributor.

Aloha kicked off the night with a very impressive set of songs. The lead singer played guitar and keyboards, too. The drummer played keyboards and guitar, too. The keyboard player played drums and xylophone, too. Perhaps I shouldn’t designate them by the first instrument I saw them play then. Oh well.

I did, however, discuss touring and such with their bass player – the only one in the band to stick to one instrument. Based out of Cleveland, Aloha has been around for ten years, and it showed. Their sound is difficult to describe, so check out this pitchfork review of their latest album: http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/a/aloha/some-echoes.shtml. I’d rather to discuss The Helio Sequence set.

If you’ve heard Love and Distance, then you know that while the whole album is amazing, the first five songs are particularly tremendous – if only for the band’s sense of melody. Before most songs played on this night, Ben would walk around behind him to click away on his laptop to begin a sample. On songs such as “Repeater” and “Let it Fall Apart”, they left adequate space for the sample to settle into our brains before launching perfectly into the tightly structured groove.

Brandon’s vocals were mixed beautifully amidst the distorted guitar tone and Ben’s heavy right foot. Some of the intricate layers that exist on the record did not come into play during their set, and I think this was wise. Because Brandon’s guitar surrounds all aspects of the songs’ foundations, the overall live sound could have easily felt messy. Fortunately, this was not the case.

While “Don’t Look Away” and “Everyone Knows Everyone” were the most fun to hear live, a couple sleepers from Com Plex sounded amazing, too (“Transistor Radio” and “Sassafras” - to name a couple). In between songs, my friend Vic (who had not heard any Sequence before) suggested that Brandon sounded a bit like John Lennon at times. Just a few songs later, they encored with a ripping rendition of the Beatles’ own “Tomorrow Never Knows” – appearing on Com Plex as the only non-original piece.

Now, it must be understood that I love to watch drummers play - especially if the drummer appears to care about what he or she plays. Having said this, I can honestly say that Benjamin Weikel is one of the best performance drummers I have ever seen. Period. He alone is reason enough to see The Helio Sequence live. His conviction for each groove he plays jumps from the top of his balding head and lands directly in the audience’s lap. How one cannot dance when watching him is beyond me… but of course, leave it to the LA “indie scene” to do just that – stand there and stare. Yes, I know they are studying the band and doing their best to appreciate the performance. And yes, this is better than leaning on the bar talking with your roommate about remembering to Tivo “Curb Your Enthusiasm”. But really, do these people not have any soul? Different… strokes… I guess. Fine. But I want my neck to hurt the morning after.

By the way, Benjamin grew up with Isaac Brock from Modest Mouse, and has percussively contributed to several of their albums… which is sweet, of course.

And the Crystal Skulls played between Aloha and the Sequence. I didn’t like them at all.

And the new Chili Peppers’ new album, Stadium Arcadia, is very, very good. I also understand that they will tour with The Mars Volta this summer. Umm… wow. Talk about a sore neck…

Dresden Dolls. Don't worry... you're not too late.

I saw them play an in-store last night at Virgin Megastore in Hollywood - soon after taping their performance for "Jimmy Kimmel Live" across the street. Eventually, I will add to this post with opinion about their show followed by a review of Yes, Virginia... their new album. For now, please know the following: Amanda dressed in black and white thigh-high stockings, black garter belt attached to black ruffled tiny shorts, and black t-shirt showing THE WHO band. Brian dressed in black pants, black shirt with grey capitalized letters reading "DIE HIPSTER SCUM", and a Charlie Chaplin type black hat. But now... the extremely necessary part: http://www.dresdendolls.com/bio/bio_theband.htm

That is all for now. Once my reeling has tapered, I will type my thoughts on The Dresden Dolls.

Show Review: The Robocop Kraus

Mondays at Spaceland: Free admission, four bands, two-fifty Pabst Blue Ribbon on draft, the Mexican vendor with two dollar tamales, and a room full of thick-rimmed rectangle eye glass wearing obscure band followers. And to think, before I started hanging out in this place, I truly believed my cardigan style was for me and seventy year old men who lean forward when they walk.

The April residency is Army Navy – a four piece with two guitars (one plays the keyboard as well), bass, and an amazing left-handed drummer. I enjoyed their set enough to come into work this morning to write their review. However, as their set ended, I noticed many of the wall and bar huggers filing nonchalantly throughout the course of stage changeover to the middle of the dance floor replacing the “I’m here because it’s free” crowd. Sounds familiar. Anyway, these humans appeared to be a bit older and more purposeful in their new lean-free stances. So I stayed.

Electric guitar, keyboard/piano/organ, bass guitar, drums, and singer make up The Robocop Kraus from Nurnberg, Germany. Thomas Lang, the lead singer, reminds me of a combination of David Byrne, Ian Curtis, and Peter Garrett when he performs. He holds the microphone in his left hand with the cord wrapped around his wrist, at times, a la Henry Rollins, and he holds up his right hand as if he were swearing to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. However, the look on his face reveals a wry and gentle smile as if to say “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but…” He is fantastically appealing in his presence, which more than makes up for his note shouting; for, he cannot sing terribly well.

The Robocop Kraus (I love this name) sound ties its melodies and rhythms together effectively without stacking similar progressions unless it needs to hit harder. In other words, each part in and of itself seemed often to stand on its own only to join together for the heaviest of sections. Of course, I dig the heaviness very much. And only seven or so times before have I seen a drummer lay it down any thicker than Hans. Mmmmm, Hans.

At the end of the set, Thomas stood on the kick drum and bent over Hans while he was wailing away on the snare only to pick up the snare from under him. Hans then stood up and continued playing the song’s beat on the snare (band still playing) following the singer out into the crowd and into the middle of the room. And suddenly, without any build up, the band stopped as Thomas tossed the snare into the air only to be hammered on and caught by Hans to end the song, the set, and the night. Gorgeous.

Ok, I’ll finish soon. But I wanted to mention that around the sixth song they played, Thomas says, “We’re going to play a song by the great, great Minor Threat. We like them because they proved that rock n’ roll can be played without alcohol. It was just years later when we discovered this isn’t true. Regardless, they were an amazing band, and this is a fucking sweet song.” They then launched into “I’m seeing red” in German – the only German worded song all night. This was incredible. Moshing ensued immediately, and Thomas was right there with us.

Ok, I’m sorry. One last thing. I’ve been reading over lyrics for the album I bought of theirs called TIGER. I got this one because it isn’t for sale in the states. I’d advise you to get their newest one first. It’s called They Think They Are The Robocop Kraus. Most of what they played last night is from this. But I dig TIGER so far. Here is a sample of the writing from the song, “Tell the Kids That it’s Alright”:

The morality of the young soul says don’t do anything.

So when you start to do something you rule out morality.

When puberty’s poetry cannot grasp the horror

of all the nice people and the cute people

who never had any bad intentions

tell the kids its alright!

See you again soon as I jump yet another track.

Deadboy and the Elephantmen Review

Ok. Thanks for letting me type here. To be honest, though I dislike when people preface their comments with that phrase, I’m somewhat intimidated. Everyone who writes here can write well. I cannot. Disirregardless, a triple or quadruple negative (see?), I aim to briefly describe what I saw this past Thursday night at Spaceland. Spaceland is a relatively small but usually great sounding room in Silverlake, Los Angeles. I’ve lived in LA for a month now, and Spaceland is the only room where I’ve seen live music. Most notable indie bands that play LA have played Spaceland. In fact, it’s interesting to mention that the first night the club opened (not sure when – their website is pretty brutal, www.clubspaceland.com), the following bands played: Beck, Foo Fighters, Possum Dixon, and Lutefisk. Actually, check this: http://www.clubspaceland.com/history.htm... this list speaks for the club's taste.

Dax Riggs sings lead vocals and plays guitar for the Elephantmen. Tessie Brunet harmonizes occasionally and plays drums. To read their very interesting band history, check http://www.fatpossum.com/artists/deadboy.html. 

Because of the band's setup and "garage rock" sound, it's difficult not to compare Deadboy to the White Stripes. So I won't do that here. Dax's wide-eyed yet expressionless stare is eerie to watch, but the dude can flat out sing. He's got a soft, familiar tone to his voice with some sand thrown in for texture. And out of the fifteen or so songs they played within the fifty-minute set, he showed off his huge range on twelve of them. You know how it goes. Dive into the simple melody caught in a foot stomping backbeat and toss in matching vocal patterns for ninety seconds or so, then stop, change keys by jumping up the guitar neck in time with head-nodding, heavy-thump drumming, then lean the head back, close the eyes, and reach the highest pitch in range by singing louder. Hammer away at this for several seconds before belting out a phrase like "wake me when I'm sane." End the song timely with a guitar strum, right foot pound and crash catch for that oh, so utilized abrupt ending. I can dig it. I've dug it before. I'll dig it again. But unfortunately for my overall interest in this particular show, this song structure happened far too often. As a result, my broke ass will not buy their album. Which is too bad because I really, really like Dax's writing. It's dark and ominous. Like if e.e. cummings had angry sex with Trent Reznor's thoughts on God.

Ok, then... enough. I look forward to contributing again as my train jumps yet another track.