1. a random, steady, unvarying, electronically produced sound
2. nerdy notes from suburbia
No news to report on the computer build just yet, however we went to our last symphony night of the season last night. We’ve been season subscribers to the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra for 12 years (wow, how time flies!). Even after all this time, Music Hall still blows me away. There’s really not too much I like about Cinci (or Ohio, or the Midwest), but the concert halls are amazing.
I think the ceilings there even inspired me with our basement to some small degree.
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Just a note that I’m beginning to post something I’m listening to every week (give or take) over in the sidebar. Just spreading a little musical love this year. Party on Garth!
This week’s pick, “Dawn of the Dead”, falls squarely into my recent mode of all things undead (with reading “World War Z” and playing “Left 4 Dead”). This track by the British group Does it Offend You Yeah? is a guilty pleasure of mine of late. Along with that ultra poppy hook, I gotta give props to the combination of the Killers-esque guitar line, some very unexpected steel drums, and the tribal “Ooos” and “Ahs”.
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I’m not usually one to give into making an obligatory end-of-year “best of” list, but I thought I’d give it a go for once.
The New York duo MGMT exploded in 2008 with their debut on Columbia/Sony Records. They have a great vibe and can smoothly swing between indie rock and synth pop. I gotta admit that “Time to Pretend” has been played out after appearing in heavy rotation lists and so many TV shows and movies. But ya know what, I still love that track. “Kids” is also a manic bomb that hasn’t lost a bit of luster for me. Between the ambiguous yet catchy lyrics, pulsing synth bass, and thumping beat, this track has continually been in my playlists. “Electric Feel” is down right chillin, funky goodness. Other tracks like “The Youth”, “The Handshake”, and “Weekend Wars” recall a retro psychedelic feel without sounding recycled. Whether MGMT can follow Oracular with a second quality record remains to be seen, but they have certainly left their mark.
For me this was a really weak year for attending shows. So many acts just don’t make it here, and for a change I didn’t chase any down. I missed Lolla (again) and all the reunion dinosaurs on tour this year. Jonathan Coulton was certainly a blast earlier in the year, but the recent show The Faint put on was just crazy.
I neither intend to be on the fan wagon nor pick the most obvious choice, but quite simply I paid to see this twice within a couple weeks of its release, and that NEVER happens. It’s not a perfect flick, but it was a great, gritty turning point for comic-based movies. As everyone knows Heath Ledger put in a heck of a performance that was both funny and fearful, but there were other quality moments. Hearing Michael Caine say how “some men just want to watch the world burn” was classic. And let’s not forget the visual effect masterpiece in the tumbler turned bat-pod sequence.
A real tough call here, but I gotta give the nod to a game I don’t even own. No other game quite redefined Friday and Saturday nights throughout the year like this one. Rock Band forever changed the face of rhythm games as it brought more people into the jam session. It also reminded me that playing drums (even silly plastic ones) is a hullava good time. From fearing “Run to the Hills” and closing with “Still Alive” to rocking the endless setlist – 1 3/4 times – the Dubya Oh had a blast in 08.
D and I took a trip down to the Southgate House to catch The Faint Wednesday night. I find it’s getting harder and harder to pull me out of my comfy suburb to see a show in a smokey club – especially in the middle of the week – but every now and then one comes along that can’t be missed. This was one of those nights.
My friend’s band Eat Sugar opened and put on a solid set. People were still filtering in when they went on, so it wasn’t as packed for them as they might’ve hoped, but everyone seemed to be having a good time. Their music was a great fit with The Faint, so hopefully they picked up a few new fans and sold some discs.
The next act, The Show is the Rainbow, was a hot mess and doesn’t merit any space here. Let me just say Rainbow is a single dude onstage flailing away to prerecorded laptop tracks in some terrible, unmusical, unfunny version of Jack Black. I was cringing with his first song and cowering by the sweaty, shirtless finale.
The Faint came on about 11 and played for an hour (with a three song encore) and they completed shook the joint. For the unfamiliar, they are an electro-punk-pop band from Omaha who really started taking off around 2000. As expected they played a lot of tracks from their latest album, Fasciination, but also threw in their older, harder rocking favs as well. They brought all the AV equipment they might normally use in a much larger venue – so much that they actually had their own generator running in the ally to help power it all. On stage there was barely enough room to move. In addition to the drums, four keyboards, and lots of monitors I counted at least 6 LED light panels, 4 flood strobes, 2 spot strobes, 6 programmed scanner spots, and 2 huge video projectors. The lighting and video (mostly black and white processed collages) was intense and meshed with their sound perfectly. The audio was very good and balanced considering it can be a hard room to mix for. The bass was heavy and throbbing and the synths growled and screamed nicely. And to top it off, singer, Todd Fink, performed in a very Dr. Horrible-esque outfit. Mad scientists or not, they were legen…dary.
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Caught a great show last night with Jonathan Coulton playing down in Oakely. Coulton’s gained moderate popularity with songs about zombies (“RE: Your Brains”) and programmers (“Code Monkey”). I, in fact, discovered him a couple years ago while searching for “zombie” songs for the soundtrack to our Nightmare of the Living Dead party. Newer fans have been introduced to him through the song, “Still Alive”, in the game Portal which made its way into the game Rock Band as well. Coulton’s music is smart blend of humor and heart. A lot of his songs reflect his own geeky bend (he’s a former software programmer) with references to mathematics, robotics, and genetic engineering. I usually prefer my humor clearly separate from my music – telling jokes to a jangly guitar wears thin on me fast – but Coulton works for me, thanks in large part to his witty but subtle lyrics and a hell of a lot of musical talent.
The venue, the 20th Century Theater, was a little unusual, with tables and chairs for everyone on the two-tier floor. Above hung a odd assortment of paper lanterns, disco balls, and icicle string lights. The houselights couldn’t be darkened, so the crowd (no more than 200 I’d say) and the stage were about equally lit giving a feel more similar to a gig at a friend’s house than a typical theater performance. Despite the odd appearance the acoustics were very good with clear vocals and all the between-song banter easy to hear.
The opening act was Paul and Storm, who in this region may be even more popular due to their occasional bits on Bob & Tom. They put on a short but spirited set with plenty of audience participation. They’re not the kind of band I’d listen to at home – their humor is of the more blatant variety (ala Adam Sandler) and their songs are not very interesting musically, but they are an excellent show live with lots of improvisation.
JoCo did healthy 18 song set. He played solo, usually with guitar, but brought out a couple electronic gizmos for a couple songs. First he used a Tenori-On to perform “My Monkey”, which was really creative and hypnotic. Then, he used a Zendrum to perform “Mr. Fancy Pants” and he even Rick Roll’d himself during the break. Paul and Storm joined him for five songs, including a first-time cover of “Birdhouse in Your Soul” by They Might Be Giants. He finished with “Re: Your Brains” complete with crowd participating zombies. Here’s a little montage on the evening:
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We caught They Might Be Giants in concert last night at southgate house. Unless I’m forgetting something this is my second time seeing them; the last being well over ten years ago. They put on a heck of a show, with everything you’d expect from them…a few classics, a few new songs, lots of humor, audience participation, and good a backing band. Since I haven’t listened to a new Giants CD in ages, the highlights for me were the Flood hits “Birdhouse in Your Soul”, “Particle Man”, and the closer, “Istanbul”. They also played “Twisting” and “Whistling in the Dark” so, Flood was really well represented.
Their opener (the real point of this post) was Oppenheimer, a synthy drum and guitar duet (Shaun and Rocky) from Belfast, Ireland. Their sound is a bit like a The Postal Service, but with more pep and cheer. At times I hear a Her Space Holiday tint to them, and other times something more along the lines of We Are the World Trade Center. I enjoy all these bands I’ve just drawn comparison to, so Oppenheimer hits the mark for me, too.
Speaking with Rocky after the show, he told me this was their third time to the area – second time at SGH and once at the Comet. They were thrilled with this show since their first gig at SGH had about 20 people standing around. Anyway, I picked up their CD and it’s under heavy rotation. (Yes, I actually bought a CD. I’ve all but given up that archaic practice, but I’ll still gladly fork over $15 if I can give it straight to the artist – instead of the store, the distributor, the label, etc.). If you like synth-pop that’s low on testosterone, check em out:
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Dave, Donna, and I had a blast in Indy on the 3rd. Bauhaus and NIN played a great show. The Bauhaus sound didn’t translate well outdoors in the daylight (dusk), but it was still awesome to see Peter Murphy (for the first time) and Daniel Ash (again since I saw L&R; 16-17 years ago). They closed with a cape-swirling rendition of Bela Lugosi’s Dead which was freakin perfect.
Then Trent and company came on and rocked for close to two hours. They played a lot of old favs (probably just 4 shy of the entire Pretty Hate Machine album) and the new singles (e.g. Only, Hand that Feeds, Every day…). They also played a number of great song I’d completely forgotten about– like the Piface project’s “Suck” and “Burn” from the Natural Born Killers soundtrack. Quiet moments like “Something I can never have” and “Hurt” (performed solo) gave us some rest through the otherwise exhausting set. He closed with bringing Peter Murphy back on stage for “Final Solution” and lastly “Head Like a Hole”.
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Big ass concert in Chi-town! Two days, 5 stages (plus one for kids), over 60 bands. This was our third Lollapalooza, and while it may not have beat the first one, it was huge.
The first day started around noon, with a little M83 on our way into the park. Once in, we headed straight for The Dead 60’s ( a very fun ska/Clash-influeneced band – check em out live if you can). They play better to a small venue like when we saw them open for Garbage, but they still rocked out. “I gotta have more cowbell!”
We milled around a while after that, catching a little of Liz Phair’s act (just too poppy!), and from there we set up a blanket to enjoy The Bravery. Their set sounded great, but their performance plays a lot to the people up front, so we didn’t feel much energy from our vantage point.
Content with having watched them do “An Honest Mistake” and “Tyrant”, we made an early exit to get good stage position for the next act…
Billy Idol. This is a guy I never thought I’d see live – after all, that was a different era. But the Brit was back and as lean and mean as ever. His set was a blast…full of classic hits (“Rebel Yell”, “Dancing with Myself”, “White Wedding”, “Eyes without a Face”, “Flesh for Fantasy”)…and the crowd was rocking out.
This was the highlight of the concert for me. An hour after Idol rocked the stage, Frank Black, Kim Deal, and company tore it up with over an hour long set. We were standing about 8-9 people back from the front of the stage. It took standing an hour in 100 degree heat to get that spot, but it was worth every drop of sweat. Hearing songs like “Monkey Gone to Heaven”, “Debasser”, “Broken Face”, “Here Comes Your Man”, “Wave of Mutilation” (twice!), and the closer “Where is My Mind?” is something I’ll never forget.
How to conclude such an awesome day? While most of the kids were grooving on Weezer’s cheesy goodness, we decided instead to kick it with the Digable Planets. Donna and I saw them back in the hay in Columbus, and seeing them together again was a lot of fun. The Chicago skyline and ‘Nickelbags of Funk’…a perfect nightcap.
Saturday was phenonemal…and exhausting (we got up early and drove up that day before everything started)…and Sunday was even hotter. Temps hovered around 105 to 110 with some heavy humitity. This day consisted of more up-and-coming bands so we chilled (I mean roasted!) on a blanket and enjoyed more of the festival atmosphere itself. We watched Kasabian (would love to we them again), a little of Tegan and Sara, and a good chunk of Perry Farrell’s latest project, Satellite Party (with bassist Tony Kanal from No Doubt). The latter was quite cool, a definite notch above Porno for Pyros.
But alas, we had to hit the road. A 5+ hour drive and the need to be up early to teach the next day, meant we had to miss The Arcade Fire and The Killers (sniff, sniff).
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