Our trip to New Orleans was only five days, but it spanned so much awesomeness that I’ll break this into a couple posts.
Wednesday was our travel day. The nice thing about New Orleans is that it feels pretty distant, but isn’t terrible tough to get to. Some friends were even driving down, but at 12+ hours we were gladly flying. Airline checked bags fees aside, the flights were uneventful and we were in the Big Easy by mid-afternoon.
Our hotel was right in the French Quarter, less then half a block off Bourbon Street. Shortly after checking in we ran into Brian and Amanda (the bride and groom to be) and we opted for an early happy hour at the bar right next to our hotel, The Old Absinthe House. Bourbon street is really interesting. Besides all the cheesy bars selling tropical drinks by the yard and all the houses of ill repute (er, Gentlemen clubs) there are also some very historic bars and some very exclusive restaurants. There’s no such thing as a good end or bad of Bourbon Street – like gumbo it’s all mixed up from door to door. The Old Absinthe House is a dusty old corner bar, but has stood there since 1807. Faded pictures on the wall showed that the bar hadn’t changed much through the last two centuries. We relaxed into the NOLA scene with a couple rounds.
Then it was time to head to House of Blues, for some much needed food and a concert later in the evening. The HOB was only about five blocks away and there was no wait for a table. D and I torn into some of the best skillet cornbread we’ve ever had before moving onto yummy Cajun entrees.
Making our way into their music hall I didn’t know how large of a venue to expect. I’ve always heard of big acts playing at various HOBs, but never seen a show at one. Luckily it turned out to be a pretty small room with elevated sides and a cool wrap around balcony. As a restaurant patron we got in sooner than most and snagged a great elevated spot at house left. The opening band was Brahms, a sort of dark-wave three piece from NYC. They did a pretty decent set, and I dug their all electronic setup, but they seem a bit out of their element playing to the sizable HOB crowd. Next up was the Canadian indie band Tokyo Police Club. They brought more energy to the stage and helped amp things up for the main act. I’m a fan of their singles, but their other tunes seem to lack a few hooks, and their style works best with a good hook.
By the time Passion Pit took the stage the house was packed. They are still touring off their first full album, Manners, from 2009 so the setlist was as predicted, except for the awesome encore cover of the Cranberries’ “Dreams”. Hardly any other male singer could attempt the soaring vocals in that song, but it was right up the alley of Michael Angelakos. You can tell they’d been touring behind that material for a solid year, everything was well-paced and effortless. I’ve been enjoying that album since it came out and it was great to see it live after skipping their set at Lollapalooza last summer. All in all, a super fun show and a great finish for our first night in the Big Easy.
A friend’s band, Bludstone, celebrated their 20th anniversary last Friday with a show at Dirty Jacks, a west side bar. It was a reunion show of sorts in that many different musicians who had played in the band over the years all came together to contribute to the show. As a homage, Joe, Chris and I had worked up new arrangements of a couple of their songs and practiced (inconsistently) for a couple months. For me, it was the first time I’ve played out in around 8 years, and the first time since high school on a drum set. For Joe, it was his first public bass playing since high school. Chris on the other hand is a seasoned performer, but was getting married the very next day, which brought its own set of nerves.
The performance space at Dirty Jacks is actually pretty impressive for a grungy bar. The room can fit a lot of people (there were maybe 50 people comfortably spread out and more back by the bar) and there’s a decent raised stage with lighting. By the time a couple other bands played it was close to 12:30 by the time Bludstone was getting set up. We used their equipment for our short set, then they took over for the rest of the show. Because there were so many musicians involved, the setup and sound check was hectic. Joe and Chris barely had time to check their own levels, and I had just enough time to wiggle in behind the kit, before we were off and running. In the scramble we had to ditch the sampler which would have been a nice compliment. It wasn’t integral to the songs, but would have provided some great segues.
Ralph (founder of Bludstone) opened with a few words about the wild ride over the past 20 years. He introduced us and Joe added a few words about how Bludstone might have slowed down a little over the years. And that led into our loungey version of a typically-sinister Bludstone song, “Check the Children”. After thrashing to metal all night, we weren’t sure how it’d sit with the crowd, but applause and laughs reassured us we’d hit the mark. From there we launched into a nice driving rendition of their song “Necronomicon”, which proved we weren’t there just for the lols. Except for Chris maybe – he wore no shirt and an authentic Mexican wrestling mask. It was pretty epic.
It all rolled by in a flash of adrenaline. The drum kit we were sharing felt great. There were toms, cymbals (omg, all the cymbals!), and accessories everywhere. Any random swing of an arm was sure to land on something. And when you’re playing a strange kit in front of an audience with no warm up, that’s a good thing. We’re still waiting on getting photos or video of us, but here’s a couple Bludstone shots that you can Photoshop us into if you like :)
Last year I did a little “best of” list, and it was a fun exercise forcing myself to review a few of the things I enjoyed most over the past twelve months. So, I’m doing it again…
Best Album: Passion Pit Manners
Some of the things I end up enjoying most, come first as a surprise. Like my shock my when I first heard Mike Angelekos constant falsetto. After all, I’m usually drawn to the very low, nearly foreboding style of Stephin Merritt or Leonard Cohen. But as I listen to each track on Manners I’m really impressed with the tonal result. When I realized that Angelekos also managed worked in the awesome kids of PS-22 in NYC on some of the tracks, I was even more impressed. Somehow there’s something very chill behind those frantic, bubbling synths and the soaring lyrics. It’s that calm within the pep that makes this album great for so many situations.
There were other great releases this year, so it was a close call. Phoenix, Matt and Kim, and Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs proved they could continue rocking some good hooks. Bats for Lashes captured me in its grand soundscape infusing Kate Bush-esque vocals with new rhythms. And the understated release by The XX is unique, intimate, and excellent. But for me, Passion Pit brought the electro-pop that will remind me of 09.
Best Concert (that I saw): Snoop Dogg / The Killers @ Lollapalooza
I’ve been to a number of Lollapaloozas and, of course, they just get larger and more over the top each time. Even with the last minute cancellation of the Beastie Boys and all the rain on Day 1, nothing could dampen this year’s edition. There were so many great sets the best I can do is claim a tie between Snoop Dogg and The Killers who played back to back on the final night. With Snoop’s set I was seemingly in the middle of the biggest party of the year. With each classic song everyone shared the same nostalgic vibe of Summer days past. We were mostly white suburbanites singing about Compton, but it was guiltless fun. With the Killers, it was just a flat out great performance. From hit to hit Brandon Flowers put the throttle down and led of us all on a great ride to close the festival. Runner up: NIN|JA @ Verizon (Indy)
Best Movie: Star Trek
I will need to revisit this later after I catch up on more films in my annual Oscarpalooza, but the reboot of Trek is the movie that is still sticking with me several months later. Watchmen was very well done, Paranormal Activity was an awesome surprise, and Avatar was pretty, but I have to hand it to Trek for not disappointing and setting the Federation on a whole new course cinematically.
Posted Friday, January 15th, 2010 4:57 PMNo Comments
The holidays were great. D really surprised me this Christmas by giving me an awesome Breedlove acoustic guitar. I’ve been involved with percussion for about 28 years and piano/keyboards for about 21 (though both fairly on and off). Most of that time I’ve never been a big guitar fan. But just over the last year, I’ve started to come around, thinking it’d be interesting to finally tackle the most popular musical instrument of our time. I’ve flirted with the instrument a couple times briefly in the past. Just enough to appreciate the learning curve, then ran back to more familiar ground.
So with sore, deadened fingertips I’m giving an honest go of it. I practice 20-30 minutes a day, sometimes a little more, left hand willing. It’s cool to see so much familiar terrain (like chords and scales) in such a foreign setting. I’ve only scratched the surface and the number of fretboard variations (like chord augmentations and inversions) already blows my mind. I’m not sure if I’ll ever write music from a guitar, I have always approached that very differently, but it’ll be great to add into things I do (or even just play various songs to relax). Here’s to new skillz for the New Year!
Posted Wednesday, January 6th, 2010 12:32 PM1 Comment
