April 25th, 2007

Beer Commercials Rock

Occasionally I’ll let the TV rot my brain.  Lately however, there has been a surge of great programming and great commercials.  These Errol Morris commercials are gorgeous, clever, and well…. gorgeous.  I just want someone to explain this one to me.  Are they really saying that by enjoying Miller High Life you’ll be able to better manage your vehicle?

Awesome!

April 23rd, 2007

Klaxons. Live. My Take on it.

The Klaxons.  If you haven’t heard of them or read about them then you friend, you are in a dark and sad place.  They’ve been on the covers of magazines, displays at the big box retailer, and all over iTunes.  These NME darlings recently stormed the US with a tour that kicked off at Studio B in brooklyn and triggered a torrent of blog posts and downloads.  I’ve read so much about how much energy they have and how the cd translates really well into a live show — so I stopped by Seventh Street Entry last week to check them out.

I really can’t think of a better local venue to see a loud british rock band than Seventh Street Entry.  It was hot, it was crowded, it was very small, and very loud — and this is exactly how I would design it if I knew bands like The Klaxons were going to play there.  The energy of the crowd was insane.  A small group of younger kids in the front were enjoying dancing around, the really drunk guy standing next to me was content to stop jumping up and down to grope his girlfriend every once in a while, and the older kids near the back were drinking like madmen and foreshadowing their spillage down onto the floor to drunkenly sway around and then trade punches with each other.  This was a rare show for me — I wasn’t drinking, wasn’t drunk, and had a pair of sober eyes to observe the entire mess with.

The band seemed to feed off of this energy.  They were very chatty with the intimate crowd — posing for pictures — answering questions that were shouted out (“What Do you think of the USA?”  “Fucking way better than the UK.”) and jumping off of things as they played.  It was an ideal situation for a show and I thoroughly enjoyed the entire atmosphere.

Here’s where things go south, however.  The show was $12 (expensive at the entry) and listed on the calendar was TBD for an opening band.  When I showed up I was optimistic that they would have a solid local opener, so I was pretty dissappointed that they had substituted a house DJ to play the set before the band went on.  Once the band did come on they played a really short 45 minute set with no encore.  I guess they stuck around and hung out to meet fans afterwards, but I still felt slightly taken advantage of.  They could have tacked in a few cover songs or an extended jam and I would have left feeling much better about the whole transaction.

The other thing that was bothering me during the entire set was the obvious influence of The Libertines on this band.  (Let’s not get all huffy here, readers — I understand that the libertines came from oasis, oasis from the smiths, the smiths from the velvet underground, etc…. that’s a different post altogether.  just be patient and see where I’m headed with this.)  These days it seems like every NME band is trying to jump on the flavor that was invented by The Libertines by way of Oasis, by way of the Doors.  This involves wild shows, sloppy guitar playing, improvised vocals, and chemicals.  Lots of chemicals.  But the Klaxons look to be about 17.  They were all drinking red stripe throughout the show, but I didn’t see any of them actually finish one.  They just nursed them the entire time, and then flailed around and bounced off of things and played their guitars all sloppy like they were at the end of a 9 day bender.  They weren’t.  The music couldn’t vary too drastically from the plan or they would have gotten out of synch with their sampler (that pretty much served as a prettier click track) to keep them all together.  They vocals were awful, their harmonies could have been invented in a shower or a speeding car, and their technical abilities on their instruments were just embarrassing.  I overheard a younger girl comment about how cool it was that they were constantly switching instruments and I wanted to grab her, shake her, and just explain that if you were going to play one or two notes throughout a 3 minute song — it didn’t matter if you were playing an accordion or a tambourine — it would be easy enough for anyone to master.

Their live set on the Current from earlier that day confirms that.  Without the wild dancing, alcohol, sweaty, packed, hot crowd — these guys would pretty much just be a regular garage band that crossed an ocean and ended up with shoes too big for them to fill.  You hear that Brooklyn?  YEAH?   Good.  Then we can go ahead and backlash this shit real fast, thanks.

Klaxons – It’s Not Over Yet
Klaxons – Golden Skans
Klaxons – As Above, So Below

Thanks to The Smudge of Ashen Fluff for the mp3s.  I’ve done the right thing and hosted them myself, but where credit is due credit is given ’round these parts.

Next we’ll get to something somehow related.   I haven’t finished how to draw the link yet, but I saw Modest Mouse on 4/20 and Isaac was as sober as sober could get for the entire set.  It made me miss the Modest Mouse I used to see when he would drink at least a bottle and a half of Jack Daniels before he even went on stage.   His band mates seemed much happier with this Isaac, however.  Much happier.

April 19th, 2007

Two Videos for Thursday

Hey kids — I have been hard at work in real life so I’ve been neglecting you and your needs.  (Ok, honestly I’ve been spending all my time trying to get caught up on Werner Herzogs complete body of work.  It hasn’t been easy.)

Here’s two things that I know you’ll appreciate — because I appreciate them.

The first sounds really lame on the surface, but it might possibly be one of the funniest things I’ve ever witnessed on the internet.  This guy sits down to play the worlds hardest level of Super Mario Brothers and narrates his progress.  His narration is effin’ hilarious.

Super Mario Brothers Commentary 

The second is the new feist video.  Feist you sez?  One continuous shot with hundreds of dancers?  Beautiful, you sez?  I’m down.   Bingo Orangutans!

Feist Video for 1-2-3-4 

April 13th, 2007

Fribootdayleg. Hayden, Madison, 2-28-02

Does the title make sense?  Not really.  Do you get what I’m going to try and bring you every friday?  Yes?  You can shift your over-active brains into slow-mo mode to try and pick up what I’m throwing down?  Good.  Very goood.

Hayden is and has been for a very long time one of my favorite singer/songwriters.   I forget how I was turned on to him, but some kid lent me his 45s when I was in High School and I never gave them back.  He emailed me on MySpace just a few months ago wondering where they ended up and I have no idea — but I would suspect that they are worth a few bucks on ebay.  Haydens been with me on plenty of adventures.  I rarely leave the house without him on my ipod or stuck in my head.

So yeah.  I’m a Hayden fanboy.  I’m not ashamed.  I’m ashamed that you’re not one.

The very first bootleg in this series is going to be one that I recorded.    The quality is ok, you get to hear me talking to random people (Haydens girlfriend) in the beginning and trying to get a good microphone position, but by track 3 I’ve got it all sorted out and the quality is very good.  It’s at a bar and even though I believe tickets were $12, there are still plenty of people there to drink that I don’t think even realized a show was going on — so there is some crowd noise issues from time to time.

This post also feeds into the next post in our 50 states project: Wisconsin.  As I drove down from Minneapolis for the show I was faced with many obstacles.  It was snowing and hailing so hard that Hayden (who was also in Minneap. the night before) commented he thought the windshield on his van was going to give out.  When I showed up to the show — frightfully early — I found out it was 21+ and I was still 19.  Luckily, as I was hanging out outside trying to figure out my options (songs: ohia was playing across the street) I saw Hayden pull up in his van.  I introduced myself and offered to help him out with his stuff if he could get me into the show.  Everything obviously worked out, a-ok.

Without further ado, Hayden – Live in Madison.  Recorded on February 18, 2002.

 Hayden – Live in Madison – Track 1
 Hayden – Live in Madison – Track 2
 Hayden – Live in Madison – Track 3
 Hayden – Live in Madison – Track 4
 Hayden – Live in Madison – Track 5
 Hayden – Live in Madison – Track 6
 Hayden – Live in Madison – Track 7
 Hayden – Live in Madison – Track 8
 Hayden – Live in Madison – Track 9
Hayden – Live in Madison – Track 10
 Hayden – Live in Madison – Track 11
 Hayden – Live in Madison – Track 12
 Hayden – Live in Madison – Track 13
 Hayden – Live in Madison – Track 14
 Hayden – Live in Madison – Track 15
 Hayden – Live in Madison – Track 16
 Hayden – Live in Madison – Track 17
 Hayden – Live in Madison – Track 18
 Hayden – Live in Madison – Track 19

April 10th, 2007

Saying what I wanted Said

This post is overdue. I’m sure you’re used to that. I’m not holding up my end of the bargain — but I’m trying and I appreciate your continued love. I owe you. You see…. I’m brilliant at the first 80% of any project. I can whack off a good majority of the work, but when it comes down to finishing that last 20% I freeze up. This is true almost universally in everything that I do. (Except drinking… I can SLAY that last 20%.)

When blog posts are coming fast and furious, and smooth — it’s easy for me to just force myself to deal with the unpleasantness. To come face to face with completion and whoop its ass. And these are small projects. Miniatures. Sometimes it’s as if they get stuck in the barrel — obstructing anything else new from beginning to steep because I’m so frustrated with their retardation.

Last week I started working on a post that was going to relate a conversation I had with a nice young lady. I had just met her and we began discussing film. She had recently viewed Shortbus — a movie that features a very graphic auto-fellatio scene (to the point of ejaculation) — and I had just watched Ken Park — a movie that includes numerous graphic sex scenes and a full on, uncut (unedited, sicko) auto-erotic asphyxiation scene. The post did not come easily for me. It doesn’t have the tone that I want it to have and it’s just sitting there all retarded and staring up at me making me want to back over it with my car and then toss it in a pillow sack full of doorknobs and feed it to a shark.

Let’s skip that one for now. I’ll finish it someday. (right)

Today I’ll do a post that should have been done in the meantime. I’m going to do my best to keep you somewhat updated on shows that I’ve been attending. Last week (or the week before, perhaps) I went and caught The Long Winters. They are a band that I’ve always liked, but never REALLY liked. Now I REALLY like them. Great stage prescence, fantastic songwriting, and a very intimate show. Oh yeah, and I was there with good company.

Check out two tracks below. If anyone was there or has seen them on this tour and has a recording of Hey Joe that they did during the encore. (ok… not really… they are a band that refuse to play encores. They are right, too. They say if every kid in every school gets an A, then the A has no value. If every rock band is obligated to play an encore, then that encore is meaningless. They will do their part to make it a great show — they will play an “extra special” set after their main set and then they will leave — it’s sound reasoning.) The version of Hey Joe they played was incredible — one of the best covers I’ve heard in a long, long time.

The Long Winters – Hindsight
The Long Winters – Honest

I’ll do my best to get back to the good posts. Ones with relevant information. Oh yeah. And the states. The states are coming back. “Huzzah!” said the masses.