ITS ALL THAT WE CAN DO: FOALS @ BOWERY APRIL 24

Spring is in the air, which means its time for a Foals concert obviously. I had forgotten the simple pleasure of being able to walk to a concert without freezing your ass off. My friend Annie and I went to Cosmic Cantina before the concert and can I just say it was some of the freshest bestest mexican food ever? Its all organic and delicious and full of yum. It was the perfect complement to the perfect weather that I basically wanted to make love to, but it didn’t really prepare us for the sweaty pit of Foals madness.

We missed the first opening band, but I ran into my friend Keith from the awesome band A Million Years, and he said that they were called Telepathe and they were “really horrible and boring”. Since Keith and I have very similar music taste, I trust his opinion. I wish his band had been opening. Because they rule.

The second band we were there to see and they were called The Epochs and I really couldn’t decide if I liked them or not. They had moments where I kind of just sounded like they were making a lot of okay sounding noise and added some creepy vocals over the top, but then they would have these moments of total epic-ness where if sound could explode, I think it would have exploded. I used to think that I really didn’t like prog-ish rock very much but lately I’ve really been getting off on the jamming parts of shows so pretty soon you might find me learning Stairway to Heaven on my guitar and listening to The Wall.

When Foals took the stage was very excited because 1. Foals are from the UK and that puts them at an advantage already and 2. I found their music so catchy and addictive that I couldn’t go one night of DJing without playing one of their tracks. They played my very favorite song “Cassius” second which, for some reason always makes me want to do a Native American type jig while simultaneously windmilling my arms in opposite directions….yeah. The crowd shared my enthusiasm and before long I was swept up in a sweaty man filled mosh pit. Maybe its the heavily featured saxophone but I found this crowd to be kind of testosterone driven, with this group of guys behind us pretending they were English (yelling out “alright boys?” and chanting “England, England” etc.) it was pretty entertaining. Despite all the men around there was this group of girls who was getting super annoyed with them being rowdy. I would like to take this opportunity to vent against pissy girls. Dear bitches, maybe you don’t go to very many concerts or something, but there are two constants: beer and drunk people. When those factors are present combined with the fact that people are dancing and in close quarters there is a very high chance that drinks are going to get spilled. Its a way of life, so get over it. I got like three beers dumped on me and do you see me complaining? No. It cooled me off. It tasted good. Get over yourselves. Whew, OK end rant.

Foals’ music simultaneously makes me want to jump out my skin in ecstasy and listen really hard to what they are doing because their music is so complex with the guitars and the sax and the drums and they keyboards and everything its just insane. In any case I just wish that they had more material than one album because their set was just under an hour due to the fact that they “sort of ran out of songs to play ” for us. Which was sad, because all of their songs are awesome. If you want to know the setlist, just check out their debut album Antidotes, because its awesome.

So Annie and I skipped home high on music and life, and windmilled all the way home. The End

THIS IS MUSIC: THE VERVE @ MSG APRIL 28

When I heard that The Verve were going to be playing a few months ago, I basically flipped. “Bittersweet Symphony” has been one of my favorite songs since I was about ten. I had only just gotten into the rest of their discography, so I was eager to hear live the songs I had recently grown to love.

My friend Bennett and I took a cab up to MSG because it was raining and we were both having bad days. But we both foresaw it turning around after this concert. We got some drinks to take the edge off, and settled down in our seats to wait for the show to start. Looking around observing the crowd, I realized that we were only a few other (barely) teenagers there besides us. I guess that makes sense, since the band hadn’t performed in New York for almost ten years. In about three minutes, we had both finished our drinks (we had REALLY bad days, ok?), and decided to go for round two. Its a good thing we did because I ran into my favorite Mancunian, Paul Adams! He had the sad misfortune of going with a friend who had not yet recovered from ankle surgery and was forced to sit near the back of the theatre, despite having a general admission pass. He offered to switch tickets with us so we could get closer down into the action (we were in the seated section), and we trekked down to
the side of the stage to try to explain to the guards that we wanted to switch tickets but since Bennett and I didn’t have GA wristbands, they wouldn’t let us switch. So we grudgingly slogged back to our seats.

As we were about to sit down, the band took to the stage (there were no openers), and we jumped right back up because OH MY GOD, there they were in all their legendary glory with the amazing Richard Ashcroft right in center stage. I forget what song they opened with because I was too in awe of how Ashcroft does not appear to have aged a day since I watched a video of him walking down the street for five minutes in fourth grade. By the time they started their second song “This is Music” I had come back to reality and started dancing my pants of, because this song and pretty much every other Verve song makes me feel like my feet could just lift right off the ground. I guess the rest of the crowd didn’t share my feelings, or maybe they were tired, because we were almost the only ones standing up in our section, and probably literally the only ones dancing. I felt kind of bad for the poor sod who had his view of obscured by my shakin’ booty, but not that bad. You paid good money
for these tickets, sir! Get up and dance!

Despite Ashcroft’s handsome appearance, after the first few songs I spent very little time looking at the stage. The sound they made (especially with the crap MSG acoustics) was phenomenal and I was lost in my own little eyes-closed-arms-waving-hair-flying universe. Even though I knew almost every song they played, it sounded new, and I think that is the mark of a legendary band. Their sound is just so all-encompassing and huge sounding that its hard not to get caught up and find yourself in distortion and reverb heaven. They stormed through most of the favorites (except Slide Away, which is an amazing song) including “Drugs Don’t Work”, “Sonnet”, and “Lucky Man”, “Life’s an Ocean” and “Weeping Willow”. As the songs progressed, Ashcroft’s zip-up shirt kept getting more and more unzipped, and I made a bet with Bennett that he would take his shirt off. Crushingly (for both my wallet and my heart) he did not. They also played the epic ten-minuter “Gravity Grave”. I am telling
you, I used to hate long songs passionately but lately they are just my favorite part of gigs! Its like you are going into an underwater tunnel and lose all concept of space and time when they song is going on, until it stops and you come up gasping for breath on the other side, realizing that you were only in a temporary reality. Sorry if that was a little metaphysical, but it was seriously a spiritual experience. It was THAT good.

They kicked their encore off with the heart-wrenching and gorgeous “History” which , in a very cliche way, sent a wave of shivers all over me. But this was no match for my reaction to “Bittersweet Symphony”, which basically consisted of me melting into a puddle. . It sounded a hundred times better live, which is incredible considering how great it sounds recorded. Finally the whole crowd was standing up and waving their hands in the air, huge smiles of ecstasy plastered on their faces. They just kept playing it for what seemed like forever, the sound just kept getting bigger and bigger and I thought I would just combust with happiness. Thankfully I survived. They played a new song for their closer, which I found kind of lame. I mean, the song was good, but it was sort of an anti-climax after “Symphony”. But that didn’t make me any less ecstatic as I made my way out into the drizzly night . Our night (and the weather) had improved so much we didn’t even mind taking the subway
home.

GOING TO THE CLINIC MAY 8TH @ MUSIC HALL

I had never heard Clinic’s music up until last night. I had heard of them many times, in magazines, on blogs, on the street. But I had never heard a clear definition of their sound. Some people (ahem, ohmyrockness) says they sound like a “post-OK Computer Radiohead”. This means almost nothing to me mostly because Kid A and Hail to the Thief are not records I listen to very often (please don’t shoot me). Others (ahem Pitchfork) calls them “recombinant rock”….uh….okay. So I really didn’t know what to expect when I turned up at Music Hall (by myself because all of my friends are in the midst of finals….something I somehow miraculously avoided).

I got there just as the second band Violens was about to go on. I was eager to hear what they sounded like since I had read about them in the last L Magazine’s new band feature. I scuffled in the stage area like a bum and slid down on the side wall to the right of the stage. Did I mention that I was stoned? Oh yeah, I was. Really fucking high. Right after I sat down these two girls started talking to me and seemed to think I was really cool despite me looking like I had just rolled out of bed and was probably responding to all of their questions with only semi-decipherable word vomit. Maybe that’s the reason rock stars are so popular. Somehow within (what seemed like to me) about 5 minutes, one of the girls was talking about how we were gonna hang out or something and I seriously started to freak out. Had I given these girls my cell number? full name? social security? God help me. Just as I started to get really confused, the sound of the band coming onstage saved me.

The first thing I noticed was that the lead singer looks like that character Sawyer form Lost. Which is a plus for the band, they were really working from advantage form the beginning. They, like I would later discover with Clinic, had a sound that was like a water nymph of genres: totally impossible to pin down. Their intros sometimes sounded rhythmic and almost Libertines-ish, but then they would add in synths and kind of slow everything down. Then they would speed up again into an almost metal-like frenzy. And the vocals sounded like almost an American Morrissey. Really. This guy had a good set of pipes. But it was almost like Jekyll and Hyde. We’re hard rock! No wait, we’re mods! But I was nonetheless pretty captivated by their performance. Mostly because they couldn’t seem to keep one sound together for more than a few minutes.

After Violens were over, I went to the bathroom. When I came back the girls were gone. Probably to steal my identity with all of the information I had given them. I sat back down and tried to make myself be less high. It didn’t really work. Then the band came on and they were wearing surgical masks and Hawaiian shirts. I really thought I had lost my mind at this point. But I sort of forgot about all that as they started to play. Although they played very differently music then Violens, their style of encompassing just about every genre you can imagine into one song was very similar. When I asked the random girl I met what Clinic sounded like. She said “electro-folk”. That kind of describes them, but not really. They are like a word in a foreign language that isn’t directly translatable into English. No matter what words you use to describe them, it doesn’t quite cover all the bases. At times I heard what sounded like a native american chant over a synth melodies or really b
eautiful rocking vocals over marching drum and base lines.

The crowd was pretty thin, especially for a Thursday night, but I guess Clinic is not as big a band as some of the other headliners. Most of the people there were older hipster types. Ones that didn’t necessarily full deck themselves out in hipster garb but then again, are drinking PBRs on a Thursday in Williamsburg. Kind of hard to deny. They seemed to be enjoying the performance but you have to have x-po-mo-ray specs to tell because their enjoyment was hidden behind a veil of feigned apathy. But because it wasn’t too crowded I got to move around to all different locations to see the band. Which kept me entertained.

So after the band was finished I rushed out of the doors, unsure whether I had just witnessed the two most confused rock bands ever or the two most genius. I’m still not quite sure.

SHE'S NOT DEAD

Yo bitches and hos

sorry I've been e-dead for the last little while. I have been out, you know. Living life etc. But I am going to do a little catch up posting the rest of my review's for Almack's and maybe a few other things. But I am going to be a lot more active around here. Mostly because I am going to be killing myself with boredom for the next few months as a go back home to Sacramento.

PICS FROM COLIN MELOY

AN EVENING WITH COLIN MELOY

I went to see Colin Meloy last night and it was great. Here is the show review that will be posted later at Almack's Dance Hall

Amazing pics coming soon courtesy of Elise Largesse!

I was a little weary when my friend Dorit asked me to go see Colin Meloy's solo show. Don't get me wrong, I love the Decemberists, but I didn't know if he was going to play just solo stuff, or Decemberists stuff or what, and I didn't really want to risk my $30. But I realized that I should go, because, let's face it, Colin Meloy is amazing, and I should be taking more chances in my life anyways.
We arrived at Music Hall in time to see the opener (shocking I know), Laura Gibson, who was a delightful surprise. She said she came from a tiny logging town outside of Portland, and from the top of her strawberry blond pony tail to the hem of her peter pan collar dress, she looked just the part. She had a refreshingly authentic demeanor that was really endearing, and by the end of her set I just wanted to put her in my pocket and take her home with me. She said the funniest things, but since she said everything in a quiet little girl voice, I'm not sure everyone heard her. Her voice was not overtly powerful but at the same time hypnotizing. She really won the crowd over when she sang a haunting rendition of traditional song "All The Pretty Horses", so much so that she got the crowd to sing along with her on the last song of her set "This is Not the End", although I think most people were warming their voices up for Colin.
It took the roadies a surprisingly long time to set up for AN ACOUSTIC show...as in only using a guitar, but I guess there needed to be three guitars on stage, a table with pictures on it and a bottle of Smart Water, and a chair with a record player on it. Whatever it takes Colin, just do your thang. Anyways, finally he comes on and the crowd goes nuts. I mean, these are like the die-hard fans of the Decemberists and boy were they excited to see their messiah saunter down the stairs carrying a two-thirds empty bottle of wine. This was a far more casual (and probably slightly more intoxicated) Colin than the one I saw dressed in a sharp pinstripe suit in San Francisco last year. Wearing jeans and a plain white t-shirt, he almost looks like a bro, save the quirky little newsboy cap he kept tipping to the audience. It is still a mystery to me how so many people (myself included) find Colin incredibly sexy, despite his incredibly average appearance. Must be his extensive knowledge of literary mythology.
From the first note of "Apology Song" he had the crowd hanging from his every word. Everyone had their heads tipped upward, just absorbing every note with the biggest smiles on their faces. I breathed out a sigh of relief knowing that this was going to be a set full of Decemberists songs. Huzzah! The second song (and my all-time favorite), "The Sporting Life", made my heart so happy. When he ended the song with a few lines of The Smiths "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now", my heart basically just fell out of my chest. Colin and Morrissey are just a deadly combination that my emotions can hardly take. Sadly, that was the last I was to hear of Morrissey for the rest of the night. After that he made his way through crowd favorites "O Valencia!" and "The Engine Driver". Somewhere in his set he told us a "really embarrassing story that shows how dumb I am" about how up until very recently he thought that Williamsburg, BK and Colonial Willaimsburg in Virginia were the same place. "I just thought these gentrifying hipsters were encroaching on this little circle that was being preserved for history". Needless to say, he had the crowd in stitches.
The thing that was so great about his performance was that it was like when you watch your favorite movie with the directors commentary on. He would pause in the middle songs to tell little anecdotes about how the song was written, or how it gets performed onstage. He introduced us to the characters sitting on his table, including Consuela the naked mermaid, Cornwallis the something-I-can't-remember, and a picture of a sock puppet who was soon to be named Alex after some dude in the audience who kept shouting out questions. I think Colin named the puppet after him to shut him up.
He proceeded to play through both new material (including a song about methodically killing children), an more Decemberists like "Leslie Anne Levine", "On The Bus Mall", and "Red Right Ankle". The closing number of his encore was "The Mariners Revenge Song", which is typically the most theatrical number of the Decemberists live show, so it was a surprise that he attempted it with a lone guitar, but the crowd was ecstatic. He had the crowd sing Jenny's high part to great success. He finished with a flourish, tipped his hat one last time, and left the crowd to soak in the epic-ness of their experience.

HERES ANOTHER

Pic that I took at Crystal Castles that I realized was kind of amazing. you can like see the shadow of where Alice was a second before. Its pretty bomb:



sweet right? Ok Im going to Bedfordshire now zzzzz. But before I go....guess what?

CHRISTIAN SIRIANO IS HOSTING CLUB NME AT ANNEX NEXT THURSDAY!!!!

omg I fucking flipped when I heard this. I heart that boy. And Im gonna be spinnin your tunez. so make sure to head out to annex for a super fun time!!!

And lastly I want to dedicate this blog post to my gorgeous and wonderful friend Lynne Rey who celebrated her birthday yesterday and is seriously one of the most beautiful souls I have had the pleasure to know. I love you!