I’m a bit behind today. Sorry for that, but I have spent the morning scrolling through all the various blogs and websites that attended last night’s Charlotte Gainsbourg show at The Bell House and I kind of feel like the coverage of the event has been blown out of proportion. Now I understand that last night was Charlotte’s first ever New York performance and likely her first ever show for paying customers, but just because of the special nature of the performance and the fact that Wayne Coyne showed up to watch the show does not make it the greatest concert of all time as all the other sites would have you believe. Instead what we saw on The Bell House stage last night was a performer that was nervous, quiet, and terribly shy - spending most of the set hiding behind her hair while standing at the microphone and the other half sitting on a stool gently crooning along with her band.
Starting with opening act Dean & Britta, the show last night was a subtle affair with hushed, whispering that took the place of singing, and a sound system that was as quiet as I have heard in New York in ages. For the opening set most of the crowd provided a huge din that over shadowed the nuance of Dean & Britta and forced their set to be skewed by my disdain over the folks that spent $30 just to have a conversation. Normally that doesn’t matter when I go to shows, the sound system is usually so loud you couldn’t talk over it if you tried, but last night was meant to be something else and I truly wish people would have been able to restrain themselves from ruining a performance that could have been somewhat magical.
Last week we felt pretty lucky to catch one of three live sets from the new indie "supergroup" The Babies! Consisting of members of Vivian Girls and Woods, The Babies have had one tune on the internet for quite some time now, but seeing them do a full nine song set we kind of fell in love with the band and their pop-punk hooks and off key harmonies. It was a really energetic and fun little set from these guys and we were hooked by the end of the first song.
You can consider this as one of the reasons I chose ‘Sup Magazine as one of the Top 10 Music Blogs of 2009 , they are constantly breaking bands like this from other countries that have so much to offer to us. Recently I was reading their site when I came across this interview with a young Australian band named Songs.
The world of music blogging is a pretty tight knit little world. We all know each other, at least on the internet, we follow each other’s Twitters, we are friends on Facebook and we usually know what the other one is doing each day. It’s a fun little sect to be a part of and so each year I like to include my ten favorite blogs of the year in my year-end run down.
Who: Animal Collective
Title: Fall Be Kind
Release Date: December 8th
Label: Domino
Thoughts: It’s a little odd that the leak of Animal Collective’s latest EP is not the big story of the week. It speaks volumes as to how good the new Beach House record is, though it isn’t a slight on Animal Collective in any way. The Fall Be Kind EP is not just a castoff of also recorded music left on the Merriweather cutting room floor. These five tracks could easily have found placement on their best record to date, or probably on any of their last three albums for that matter. These recordings seem to span the breadth of what Animal Collective have evolved into, mixing the odder sounds that were far more present on their earlier work with the more inviting, pop oriented style of their last two albums. The songs here fit the general rise and fall aesthetic of Animal Collective, slowly building and introducing all the working parts of each song. It’s fantastic to listen to, but it does lack some of the immediate impact and charm Merriweather Post Pavilion introduced us to. To be fair I haven’t spent nearly the amount of time with this as I have with their past albums or that I have with the new Beach House, it’s been a busy week so we’ll have to wait and see how this grows with each successive listen.
Listen: Animal Collective - "Graze"
Animal Collective - "What Would I Want? Sky"
Who:Sleigh Bells
Location: Brooklyn, NY
elbo.ws Ranking: #39
Thoughts: ‘Tis almost the season for holiday merriment, but back in October Sleigh Bells were getting their wish with music fans and critics alike fawning over their every move during the annual CMJ Music Marathon. Sites like Stereogum, Pitchfork, and more were quick to anoint them the breakout stars of the Marathon without ever hearing anything more then a few shoddy recorded mp3’s beyond the live show. We still can’t attest to the power of their live performance but we can attest to the novelty of the songs that have found their way to their MySpace and the Hype Machine. The songs seem to mix elements of the lo-fi, scuzz wave that has been assaulting our ears all year long and the bounce and beat of some sort of British hip hop act.
Who:Tom Waits
Title:Glitter and Doom Live
Release Date: November 24th
Label:Anti-
Thoughts: Having never seen Tom Waits live I have conflicting feelings about listening to his new live album. On the one hand here is a chance to hear what Waits’ live show is like without ever leaving the comfort of my home. On the other, it kind of spoils the possibility of being surprised if I ever do manage to see Waits on stage. That said, I did listen to the record, both discs, straight through and I’m a little disappointed in the disjointed nature of the two discs. On one disc we are given the live songs of Waits, performed with his standard, raspy voice, that includes a slew of great tunes. It sounds fantastic, beginning to end and is exactly the way I would imagine Tom Waits sound live. On the second disc we are given the hysterical stories that Waits tells from stage between songs.
Now that the World Series is over and the Yankees have won their 27th World Championship life around these parts can get back to normal. No more scheduling things around game time, waiting till the last out to go out, and missing everything I hope to see! That means this weekend I will finally have a chance to see Where the Wild Things Are my second most anticipated movie of the year (The Road is first) three weeks after it came out! At this point everyone’s probably seen it so don’t spoil it for me! Anyway, since I’ll be seeing the movie I thought it was a good time to look back on the career of the movie’s director Spike Jonze, specifically the amazing music videos that helped to kick start his ascent to fame! Jonze has worked with some of the best bands throughout the last two decades, putting an emphasis on dancing and movement in his videos and they are a spectacular collection of the best in all genres - rock, hip hop, dance, you name it he’s probably dabbled in it. He’s won tons of awards from MTV, has a DVD collection of most of his videos, and has pretty much done everything he could to push the music video into a new direction all of his own making. It was tough to narrow it down to 10, there are so many great ones, so feel free to chime and let us know what you think we left out! Enjoy!
After spending a week at the CMJ Music Marathon I was a bit worried about what music has been presenting us with lately. Most of the bands of that week seemed to be trying to cash in on trends, sounding eerily similar to each other, and blending into a huge blur that was really difficult to differentiate between. Luckily there are bands out there that can remind you of the power of rock music in one fell swoop.
Have you forgotten the way to your lover’s heart? It’s through their stomach you idiot. I should know – I’m massively overweight, but I am also a great lover.
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Read the review of the gig here.
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Artrocker.com exclusive: for fans of White Lies and Crocodiles we’ve got some fresh pictures from their UK show at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire earlier this month, courtesy of Alessandro...
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