Last night I was invited out to see a band called Dead Child. I think it features one of the dudes from Early Man or something like that. I listened to a couple of MP3's and decided I'd give it a chance.
I got to the Knitting Factory right at 10PM, which is when they were scheduled to go on. Of course they didn't go on until about 15 minutes after 10. So I only got to hear 3 songs but I think that was all I needed to hear to pass judgement.
Dead Child is what I think people mean when they say "hipster metal". It was what metal would sound like if non-metalheads did a spoof of metal. It was like every metal cliche rolled into one and it wasn't terribly good, or funny. I honestly couldn't tell if they were serious or being ironic. The riffs were the easiest power chord palm mute shit I have EVER heard. Considering I grew up a metalhead I've heard my fair share of half ass riffing.
Now the question is "did they suck?". The answer is no, they didn't suck but I wouldn't recommend seeing them. They kinda sound like a decent quality high school metal band. It really amazes me that indie people are into dumbed down metal like this when they take such pride in the cerebral nature of indie rock. Go see Lamb Of God if you want to hear metal.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Yoko Ono & Friends - "Yes, I'm A Witch"
Hahaha... Sorry but this is pretty damn funny. Apparently indie's elite have joined together for a Yoko Ono tribute album. They were allowed to keep elements of the original songs(?) and build new music around it.
It hits stores Feb. 2007
"Ahead of her time" - Now that is rich. I think if you substituted "crazy" in for that it would make more sense. Yoko Ono is a god damn no talent hack who should have never been allowed near a studio. Sorry but screeching jibberish yelled into a microphone is NOT music, or at least not good music. If Yoko Ono is "ahead of her time" then the future is a scary place. Here is who took part in this wretchedness.Hence the new Astralwerks release, Yes, I’m A Witch, a totally different kind of collaboration with some of
today’s most exciting musicians.Each artist was given her catalog to listen to, and upon selecting a cut, was provided with the vocals and
whatever other instrumental elements attracted them from that cut. Almost all the artists chose just the
vocals. They then produced entirely new musical tracks that make it clear just how ahead of her time her
compositions and performances were, and how they remain so.
Yes, I'm a Witch - Tracklisting
1. Witch Shocktronica Intro / Hank Shocklee 1:47
2. Kiss Kiss Kiss / Peaches 3:18
3. O'Oh / Shitake Monkey 3:39
4. Everyman…Everywoman / Blow Up 4:02
5. Sisters O Sisters / Le Tigre 2:47
6. Death Of Samantha / Porcupine Tree 4:36
7. Rising / DJ Spooky 4:37
8. No One Can See Me Like You Do / Apples In Stereo 3:56
9. Yes I'm A Witch / The Brother Brothers 3:49
10. Revelations / Cat Power 4:22
11. You And I / Polyphonic Spree 3:27
12. Walking On Thin Ice / Jason Pierce (Spiritualized) 5:07
13. Toy Boat / Antony (Antony And The Johnsons) and Hahn Rowe 4:25
14. Cambridge 1969/2007 / The Flaming Lips 5:36
15. I'm Moving On / The Sleepy Jackson 5:01
16. Witch Shocktronica Outro / Hank Shocklee :32
17. Shiranakatta (I Didn't Know) / Craig Armstrong 3:09
UCLA Cops Attack Student (Video)
This is some fucked up shit here. I don't know how these bystanders restrained themselves during this bullshit. Fuck these punk ass cops - they gotta use a fuckin tazer on a skinny ass college student who was on his way out the door?
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Rock N' Roll Legos
Someone decided to recreate your favorite musicians as Lego poeple. I took a look and most are kinda dumb, as in they don't look like the person they're supposed to. But a few of them are pretty good, like Flavor Flav.
Movable Hype: Apes And Androids 11/15
Last night was the Gothamist party Movable Type 10.0 at the Knitting Factory. I went because this was the last Apes & Androids show of the year and they were headlining, which usually means they do something crazy.
I got to the show kinda early and went to the bar and had a few Kronenbourg's. A&A were scheduled to take the stage at 11PM so around 10:30 or so we headed into the main stage room. Some band was on stage setting up who were not Apes and Androids. The band was Bad Veins from Cincinnati. I'll start by being nice and telling you that they sounded decent. They were far from spectacular but they didn't suck either.
What pissed me off about these guys was the douche level. It was like they took every hipster music nerd cliche and rolled it up into one. First they start with a damn reel-to-reel tape player as a backing track. Which is dumb for two reasons, the first being they don't even make reel-to-reel tape any more. So these guys have to go out of their way just to record a damn backing track when they could easily do it on a digital format. Which brings up the second part, "Analogue is so much better sounding, man" - I mean come on dicks, maybe analogue is better but fucking reel-to-reel? Do you really think you look cool because a reel-to-reel tape deck is your third member.
Then it got even better, the singer starts off the song singing into a fucking megaphone. Come on! The best part is that the thing was feeding back like crazy and yet he stuck with it. Then on the next song he switched to a telephone he had hooked up to a mic stand. What I didn't get was that he was singing into the speaker end. Which means he either rewired the phone that way or his vocals were actually being picked up by the mic right next to it and he was just faking the phone thing.
Oh and here's the final kicker for these guys. The singer sounded almost exactly like Julian Casablancas. He was even using the distortion Julian uses. You know, where it sounds like he's singing through a fucking drive through speaker? Which was funny because in between songs he was talking to the crowd but no one could understand what the fuck he was saying.
After that whole thing ended I went for another beer and waited for Apes and Androids to get set up. After they finished tuning up and shit they all left the stage. Then the house music went down and a weird chanting chorus thing came on. It was the chorus of "Hot Kathy" but done in a very Viking-esque style. Then the band comes out into the crowd wearing black robes and carrying a boat above their heads. The boat was covered in black light paint and was glowing as they went in circles through the crowd.
After a few rounds with the boat they brought back stage and went on to perform. This is were I'm going to jump ahead a bit because they just played for a while. They were fucking spectacular but the only semi-weird thing that happened during mid-set was the glowing orbs got passed around.
At the end of the set they played the outro track they often close with. I was kinda surprised because they didn't play "Hot Kathy" which is by far their best tune. When they finished the outro they all kinda put down everything and there was a pause in the performance. In my prior experience this pause usually means something insane is about to happen.
Then out from the stage door came three horn players. You see "Hot Kathy" has a section with horns which are usually just done on the keyboards. I thought it was cool that they added live horns but I was expecting a bit more. Despite my slight disappointment "Hot Kathy" sounded amazing. And then it happened, towards the end of the song the stage door opens again and out come a troupe of Asian drummers. They were wearing what I assume is traditional costume for this sort of troupe. Then they started jamming with Apes & Androids to finish off "Hot Kathy". It was A&A, three horns, and about 6 Asian drummers - it was unbelievably awesome.
After they finished the song the drum troupe kept playing while the band members stood around watching. The crowd was still going crazy and you could tell by the looks on everyone's faces that this was one of the best shows they had ever seen. When it was all over a guy towards the front yelled out "Apes & Androids, you made me cream my pants" - which is a fair assessment of this show. I've seen some amazing performance by this band but this was probably the best one. Apes & Androids - I'll see you next year!
I got to the show kinda early and went to the bar and had a few Kronenbourg's. A&A were scheduled to take the stage at 11PM so around 10:30 or so we headed into the main stage room. Some band was on stage setting up who were not Apes and Androids. The band was Bad Veins from Cincinnati. I'll start by being nice and telling you that they sounded decent. They were far from spectacular but they didn't suck either.
What pissed me off about these guys was the douche level. It was like they took every hipster music nerd cliche and rolled it up into one. First they start with a damn reel-to-reel tape player as a backing track. Which is dumb for two reasons, the first being they don't even make reel-to-reel tape any more. So these guys have to go out of their way just to record a damn backing track when they could easily do it on a digital format. Which brings up the second part, "Analogue is so much better sounding, man" - I mean come on dicks, maybe analogue is better but fucking reel-to-reel? Do you really think you look cool because a reel-to-reel tape deck is your third member.
Then it got even better, the singer starts off the song singing into a fucking megaphone. Come on! The best part is that the thing was feeding back like crazy and yet he stuck with it. Then on the next song he switched to a telephone he had hooked up to a mic stand. What I didn't get was that he was singing into the speaker end. Which means he either rewired the phone that way or his vocals were actually being picked up by the mic right next to it and he was just faking the phone thing.
Oh and here's the final kicker for these guys. The singer sounded almost exactly like Julian Casablancas. He was even using the distortion Julian uses. You know, where it sounds like he's singing through a fucking drive through speaker? Which was funny because in between songs he was talking to the crowd but no one could understand what the fuck he was saying.
After that whole thing ended I went for another beer and waited for Apes and Androids to get set up. After they finished tuning up and shit they all left the stage. Then the house music went down and a weird chanting chorus thing came on. It was the chorus of "Hot Kathy" but done in a very Viking-esque style. Then the band comes out into the crowd wearing black robes and carrying a boat above their heads. The boat was covered in black light paint and was glowing as they went in circles through the crowd.
After a few rounds with the boat they brought back stage and went on to perform. This is were I'm going to jump ahead a bit because they just played for a while. They were fucking spectacular but the only semi-weird thing that happened during mid-set was the glowing orbs got passed around.
At the end of the set they played the outro track they often close with. I was kinda surprised because they didn't play "Hot Kathy" which is by far their best tune. When they finished the outro they all kinda put down everything and there was a pause in the performance. In my prior experience this pause usually means something insane is about to happen.
Then out from the stage door came three horn players. You see "Hot Kathy" has a section with horns which are usually just done on the keyboards. I thought it was cool that they added live horns but I was expecting a bit more. Despite my slight disappointment "Hot Kathy" sounded amazing. And then it happened, towards the end of the song the stage door opens again and out come a troupe of Asian drummers. They were wearing what I assume is traditional costume for this sort of troupe. Then they started jamming with Apes & Androids to finish off "Hot Kathy". It was A&A, three horns, and about 6 Asian drummers - it was unbelievably awesome.
After they finished the song the drum troupe kept playing while the band members stood around watching. The crowd was still going crazy and you could tell by the looks on everyone's faces that this was one of the best shows they had ever seen. When it was all over a guy towards the front yelled out "Apes & Androids, you made me cream my pants" - which is a fair assessment of this show. I've seen some amazing performance by this band but this was probably the best one. Apes & Androids - I'll see you next year!
Apes & Androids
Bad Veins
Link:
Full Set on BSC Flickr
**Link:
A review from someone who has never seen them before and doesn't like the songs on MySpace - for all you doubters out there.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Tonight: Movable Hype w/Apes & Androids
This will be your last chance to catch Apes & Androids this year. They are headlining tonights show which means they've probably got some crazy shit in store. Oh, it's a Gothamist party which is kinda cool, I guess.
"So Divided" by ...Trail Of Dead
This is not a full review, I'll let Tom or Gabe handle that, but I just wanted to say a few quick words about this album since it hit stores today. I have never been a fan of this band in any way. In fact, I've done my fair share of shit talking when it comes to Trail of Dead like, "The only good thing about them is their name". So when I received the advance a few weeks ago I just threw it in a pile and didn't think about it. Today for some reason I decided to give it a spin and I have to say - it ain't bad. I might even go as far as saying it's really good. It gets a little whiny at times but overall they really stepped it up on this one. It has a lot more energy then the last album, which I found extremely boring. So what I'm saying is, you should go buy this album.
"While My Guitar Gently Weeps"
My absolute favorite Beatles song performed by Petty, Prince, and many other all-stars. I know this is old but I just stumbled upon it and it's fan-fucking-tabulous. Seriously, I think I might like it better then the original version. I know that's blasphemy but it's up there.
Monday, November 13, 2006
The Blog Search Engine
Joe from Each Note Secure has put together a nifty little search engine for blogs. It's cleverly title Music Blog Search Engine and it seems to work pretty damn well. The sites it searches is fairly limited but I'm sure it will be added upon.
Updated The Side Bar
I just cleaned out the side bar. The only thing that would be interesting to you is that I added a ton of shows to the "show review" section. See if you missed anything.
CMJ Photos
I was going to do a Saturday CMJ post and then a final wrap up post but I decided against it because it's too fuccking late at this point. Here's a brief summary - I saw White Whale at the Brooklyn Vegan party, they were good. While there I also drank a bunch of Sparks, which is not recommended at noon. Later that night, after Borat, I went and saw The Low Frequency In Stereo. They are pretty fucking awesome but they could use some more vocals. I also saw two bands open for them but I can't remember who they were - the first was good the second... not so much.
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