here there be rodents

Man, Webster Hall was gross as all get-go last night; a million sweaty beards glistened in the disco lights. We arrived too late to see Torche, whom I’ve heard described as a kind of stoner rock but I think is a bit more shopping at the mall than smoking t’weed. We also missed Clouds, whom I’d never heard of, but seem kinda snappy.

Boris? It had more than a dash of what I’d imagine seeing Great White in a California rock club would have been like in the 1980s. The drummer was a whoopin’ and hollerin’ throughout the first half of their set - playing their overdriven cock-rock anthems with a furious tightness, he kept pointing his drumstick in the sky, at which point the entire middle of the crowd would howl with delight. Being old and cynical, it was very funny. Watching him nearly fall off his drumset after picking apart his kit during the heavy wall closer was an interesting coda as well.

Far more understated was guest Michio Kurihara, who is some kind of guitar genius, and he stayed largely motionless; only his hands fluttered and shook. Similarly still was tiny guitarist Wata, whose small frame barely moved throughout the set. It made for an interesting counterbalance for the first part of the night. The crowd seemed completely unfazed by the lack of English, especially during the first half’s meatstick bop numbers.

But halfway through their hour-and-forty set, the mood shifted and they played what seemed to be most of their new album, Smile, including tight renditions of “You Were Holding an Umbrella” and “My Neighbor Satan.” It ended with a scorched earth version of what I think was the untitled track that ends the US version of Smile, and was completely excellent.

Apparently Boris aren’t as big in Japan as they are in Europe and America, so being able to live out this intersection of indie cred and maximum rock n’ roll adoration is a kind of reward. I may not care for stage antics, but I can appreciate a well-deserved payoff; even when it comes in the form of a skinny Japanese man with a Brett Michaels haircut throwing up horns - and being greeted likewise - before tossing himself bodily in the crowd, only to be answered by dozens of adoring hands to carry him.

If their debut album was a small boat floating down a creek on a humid summer night, and their second album was a slightly corny campfire sing-along, then Love is Simple is Akron Family running a riverboat that only allows you to gamble on frog races.

Now, does that make any damn sense? No, it does not. But it’s true.

“Ed is a Portal” - ok? There are something like seven musical styles in this song, and over those six minutes you get drum machines and synths, the campground vocal harmonies they love so much, twangy geetars, and some other stuff too. I mean, it basically comes down to this - do you like good things? Yes?

Then you shall like this. Read the rest of this entry »

I bought this album direct from the label after listening to a single track off of myspace. I found the site after reading someone’s post on tgq’s music thread. Even the funds were transferred electronically.

Ten plus years after Rushkoff and the rest, it’s still kinda cool.

Variations of Static: short, intense press of strings, piano dotted by subtle electronics. It’s a bit sad, tangy, and dank. Reminds me a bit of the soundtrack to Angels of the Universe by Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson and Sigur Rós, though not as helplessly bright.

www.myspace.com/olafurarnalds

erasedtapes.com

Pure shine pop.

Every song on this album exists as the soundtrack to a perfect prom that exists only in the imaginations of relatively well-adjusted people. It’s intensely focused on delivering that feeling of what being young and invincible is imagined to have been like.

It’s almost a little too much at points but never quite crosses over into parody. It gets real close though:

” Like a moth she moves to the red light
Her blood warms and boils there
She skims the sweat like a new milk
And pops the buttons off her wet blouse”

I don’t know what to make of that.

But I do feel like putting on a prom.

The indie/hipster post-rock-label- label- label- grind-death-jazz-fusion thing continues to tear along in weird places. So you end up with some really good things, like Genghis Tron, but outside of the more extreme Casio grind bands you also have this post-rock/prog metal fusion that’s pretty popular. Off the top of my head you have Pelican, Cult of Luna, Jesu, anyone who’s ever put out anything on Hydrahead Records, and stuff like that. Wikipedia actually calls this “post-metal” but as the Father of Lies, we would expect nothing less. I will agree with the Lord of Fetid Hosts, however, in blaming most of this on Neurosis.

The biggest name among all of these newer folk is Isis. Friends of mind have been repping Isis fairly hard for a while now, but I’m two albums into this particular journey and I still just don’t get it. Panopticon struck me as being very flat, and while I do like the way the band plays together quite a bit, I think the singing is, at best, ill-considered. Read the rest of this entry »

For the longest time I’ve described Will Oldham’s music as the sound of a bewildered encounter with the eternal feminine. I don’t know if that fully stands anymore, but it does accurately describe obvious classics like I See a Darkness.

But Lie Down in the Light is far more celebratory than baffled, which is a nice change of pace. I fully agree that women are a deeply confusing species, but the duets with Ashley Webber are a nice way to move past that heavy feeling of being sledgehammered by life and love. Read the rest of this entry »

It is difficult to straddle the line between introspective and self-involved. Unless the self-absorption is being played up for laughs, sort of like the hapless jerkoff narrator of Death on the Installment Plan. But for singer/songwriter types, you either have to have a collection of stories so amazing that no one cares if they can relate to them or be able to make one’s private pain a conduit. There’s also the Michael Gira method of making things so batshit and brutal that frustrated rage becomes a catharsis sideshow, which is a better category for this particular record.

Read the rest of this entry »

EXPLANATORY NOTE: I’d had some serious tooth work done about two weeks ago, so this is a combination of painkillers, pain and aimless whimsy that became a “great idea.” Under the light of morning it doesn’t seem so hot, but the pictures make me laugh. Especially since I don’t quite remember editing them.

Read the rest of this entry »

This was easily the best tax day I’ve spent in a long time. Of course, I file months ahead of time to keep ahead of the voluntary taxation trainwrecking machine we call the Federal Government, but I am unusually paranoid about such things. Though I cast a very dim view toward the “tax amnesty” types and their scams/religious crusades, I do understand the crucible in which their fear/joyful mania is forged. Read the rest of this entry »

Terminal 5 used to be Club Exit, which I knew from radio ads and little else. Think a guido meat machine and you’re probably not too far off the mark - it’s not this venue in Greenpoint, though. It’s an interesting venue - loud but not too painful, cool and crisp and security was pretty good in terms of not beating people up and whatnot. Not that this was that sort of crowd, far too educated - and rail-thin - to engage in such ROCK AND ROLL shenanigans.

Read the rest of this entry »