16 posts tagged “music”

It was kind of like a dream. You know the one where you're in a familiar location—the house you grew up in or a relative's home—and you know the place very well, except there are doors or hallways where they shouldn't be and the whole layout of the place turns into something unexpected.

We went to The Echo last night to see The Walkmen. That showed, paired with The Jesus and Mary Chain show last Thursday, was our substitute for the 100º+ heat and long lines for Coachella, happening out in the desert this weekend.

We tried to time it so we would arrive between the second opening band and The Walkmen. The line was short to get in, and once we did, it was like I was somewhere else. Instead of giving our tickets at the entrance and walking straight into the small open dancefloor near the tiny Echo stage, we swerved to the right, down a stairway I had never seen before, and emerged in this huge space with a ton more people than the normal. Two full-sized bars compared to the single bar upstairs. An actual sound booth for the technicians to work from rather than the DJ platform upstairs. And a much bigger stage than upstairs.

The Echoplex. I had heard rumors of its existence, but for the first time I was seeing it, as if in that dream I mentioned. A band came on and everyone gathered. They had the right number of musicians, but we didn't recognize their first song (and admittedly we haven't been Walkmen fans for very long). Is that them? I looked for clues, like the singer's voice, and how densely the crowd was packed, and things the singer said between songs. We finally decided it wasn't the Walkmen yet, though we really enjoyed the set.

When the Walkmen came on, there was no mistaking the lead singer's voice, which my girlfriend astutely pointed out is a mix of Bob Dylan and early Rod Stewart. We didn't expect them to look the way they did – generally clean cut, healthy and not dangerskinny, wearing Oxford shirts tucked in to jeans and sort of coming off a a displaced group of fraternity brothers.

And yet they rocked. My favorite line was apropos of the evening:

When I used to go out
I'd know everyone I saw
Now I go out alone
If I go out at all

It feels like that now that we're well older than the median age of people at these shows.

Years ago, I managed to score tickets to a surprise Beck show at The Knitting Factory in Hollywood. It was a great show (Elliott Smith walked right past my girlfriend — that's how long ago it was). We figured that was the last time we would see Beck at such a small venue. This was confirmed a year or two later when we saw him at the Universal Amphitheatre from the nosebleed section.

Well, let it never be said that Beck has forgotten his 'hood. He played a show last night to a couple hundred people at The Echo in Echo Park (3 blocks from my old apartment). My girlfriend managed to get two tickets via our friend the browser Reload button at the Ticketweb site (even better: no money to Ticketmaster). We got there early enough that we were able to walk right up to the stage. How close were we? This was taken from my cameraphone:

Bottles and cans, clap your hands

No, not Vox. And no, not Trott. [1]

Voxtrot. As in that hip new brit pop band out of Austin, TX that sounds like Belle and Sebastian, The Smiths, and every other hugely adored indie band you can think of.

We bought tickets the day of, and fuck you very much Ticketmaster. Our $12 tickets each had $9.50 added in service charges. What, did you send an individual messenger to deliver each ticket to the Troubadour box office?

The show itself was quite good. We arrived while the band was just coming on. The place was packed, with everyone looking at everyone else and thinking, "I didn't realize this many people knew about them."

Their songwriting is excellent. Their showmanship will come in time. Lead singer Ramesh Srivastava has a great voice, though it lacks some polish and subtlety, he's got a good indie pop range. Really, the only problem I had was with Ramesh's exuberance. He's like the president of the student body, gangly arms gesticulating wildly during a pep rally for his band. You can tell he's smart. But compare him with Stuart Murdoch from Belle and Sebastian or with Morrissey, and there's a lack of restraint. He's smart, but doesn't come off as clever, because he's literally spewing everything he can think of in between songs.

Maybe enthusiasm is the new cool, and I'm just getting old. I just doubt that Morrissey ever announced the address of an after party during any of his sets.

[1] Dave gets credit for putting 2 + 2 together.

What are your top 25 most played songs? 
Submitted by Cooxie.  

1. I'd Rather Dance With You - Kings of Convenience
2. Such Great Heights - The Postal Service
3. Somebody Told Me - The Killers
4. Haiti - Arcade Fire
5. Like Eating Glass - Bloc Party
6. Everybody's Changing - Keane
7. This House Is Not For Sale - Ryan Adams
8. Obstacle 1 - Interpol
9. It's A Hit - Rilo Kiley
10. The Dark of the Matinée - Franz Ferdinand
11. White Confection - The King of France
12. Nowhere Again  - The Secret Machines
13. Smile Like You Mean It - The Killers
14. The Sporting Life - The Decemberists
15. Somebody That I Used To Know - Elliott Smith
16. Bitter Sweet Symphony - The Verve
17. Beetlebum - Blur
18. Unconditional - The Bravery
19. (So I'll Sit Here) Waiting - The Like
20. Fire Fire - M.I.A.
21. Pink Bullets - The Shins
22. Blue Orchid - The White Stripes
23. Gold Mine Gutted - Bright Eyes
24. Since K Got Over Me - The Clientele
25. Biggest Star - The Elected
    

All the listings we saw had Architecture in Helsinki opening for Clap Your Hands Say Yeah at the Henry Fonda. Doors open at 8pm, show starts at 9pm. So we got to the venue at about 8:45pm, had enough time to get a drink, and sat on the floor in front of the stage with all the kids. The first band came on right on time, but we were confused. Weren't Architecture in Helsinki kind of a keyboard band with a girl? This was your traditional four guy lineup. And what was with the lead singer's harmonica. The first song was okay, nothing special, and then they introduced themselves as Takka Takka. I leaned over to my girlfriend and said, "Oh, I saw their shirt at the merchandise table. I just thought it was a nonsensical Clap Your Hands shirt." So we left and went upstairs to lounge on the sofa until they takka-takka'd off the stage.

Let me just say this: if you don't have a killer, kick-ass, blow the beanies off your fans stage presence, you shouldn't have Architecture in Helsinki open for you.

Despite the staid, uninteresting connotations of their name, this band is like an Australian version of the Scooby Doo gang, a traveling 24-hour party that roams the country in their Mystery Machine and blows the doors off unsuspecting venues. Holy crap was I impressed. There's a definite percussion/chanting aspect to the performance, and it's enhanced by the fact that these kids genuinely look like they're having the best time of anyone in human history when they're playing on stage. I can imagine shows in their hometown Melbourne turning into sweaty, naked pogo orgies. This is one of the best non-headliner shows I have seen in memory.

Another note: all ages shows suck.

Having established a relatively strong position on the floor, after Architecture in Helsinki wrapped up, I left to get another round of drinks. This scenario is always a bit of a concern, because my girlfriend is five feet tall on a good day, and returning is like trying to find a sewing needle in a pile knitting needles. Also, people are more forgiving when a girl is trying to squeeze her way through a crowd. But, we all make sacrifices.

So right, all ages shows suck. When I got to the bar, there were a half dozen eighth graders standing in front of me. I could see right over them to the bartender, but they were caught up in some scandalous gossip session, one or two of them departing at various times for reconnaissance missions. When I finally got to the front of the line, the bartender said, "One drink per visible wristband."

"What?"

"All ages show. I can't give out more than one drink to each person."

So I ordered my girlfriend's drink. Damn you fourteen year olds.

I squirmed my way back through the crowd and found my girlfriend by a couple of signposts I'd eyeballed around her before leaving: old guy, and big hair guy. She had just ingratiated herself with the crowd by yelling at a 6 foot 5 guy who had dared to stand in front of her.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah came on. Their name is just egging on the crowd. I don't think I've heard so much clapping along to a band ever. We had obnoxious people next to us who in addition to not clapping in time with the music also felt it necessary to "Wooooooooooo!" throughout the songs and bump into everyone around them. Perhaps I'm just getting curmudgeonly in my old age.

I'm going to say it: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah sound better on their album. The sound was muddy, very garage bandesque, and you couldn't pick out the little flourishes that make every song on their debut album a winner. Their stage presence was flat compared to Architecture in Helsinki, and perhaps that's owing to them not liking Los Angeles (so my girlfriend read in an interview). The crowd really carried their show. All in all, it was fun, and I even liked some of the non-album (couldn't tell if they were new) songs they played. But now I can say I've seen them and not see them again.

Somehow in the feeding frenzy of Ticketmaster.com ordering, I managed to score two loge (lower balcony) seats to the Sufjan Stevens show at the Wiltern. That the seats were on the aisle was a bonus. We arrived during the opening act, My Brightest Diamond, which as best I could tell was a subset of Sufjan's band, but led by his talented backing vocalist and musician, Shara Worden. We caught the last two songs, one of which was a heady cover of a Nina Simone song. The aisle seats paid dividends immediately, because we were able to vault to the upstairs bar before anyone else knew the opening act was over.

The crowd was entirely made up of what my girlfriend affectionately calls "nerdbos" (long 'o'). A nerdbo, as best I have been able to decipher, is a term of semi-endearment referring to a position in the spectrum of nerds to geeks thusly: they are cooler than nerds, but not as internet-centric as geeks. Nerdbos are often seen at other venues in our neighborhood, because they border on hipster. Sufjan Stevens, my girlfriend deemed, is also a nerdbo.

The show began with about fifteen musicians coming out wearing masks and butterfly wings. There was a string section of violins and cellos (or were they violas? I wouldn't know how to tell.) The horn section had trumpets and a trombone. Sufjan himself came out also wearing a mask, but bird wings. He introduced the ensemble as "the majestic songbird and his butterfly brigade."

His album, Illinois, was my favorite of 2005, so I was very familiar with all those songs. Less so the ones from Michigan, which I do own but now view as a warm-up act for the former. I know even less from The Sevens Swans, but the songs are all very accessible: intricate arrangements tending to make full use of the horn and string sections, which die out in time for his soft-spoken vocals. At times the music overwhelmed the vocals.

During The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts, they brought out dozens of inflatable Supermen and tossed them into the audience. It was amazing to see these cartoon characters crowd-surfing below us. However, a lot of people soon realized that the Supermen would be make great concert souvenirs, and merely held on to them. These folk immediately lost "nerdbo" status and were demoted to "downers".

I was happy to see Sufjan mess up a couple of times, only because he's such a prolific songwriter and multi-instrumentalist that it was nice to discover he was actually human. The concert overall was very fulfilling, and he had probably been at the top of my list of favorite artists I haven't seen live. The Wiltern, which I usually hate, ended up working well, especially because we had seats – none of his songs are especially danceable, so it was fine. The crowd was uber-enthusiastic, and the standing ovation at the end of his set was one of the longer ones in my recollection. Nobody sat down until he came out and played a few more songs in the encore.

Last night we went to our last Hollywood Bowl event of the summer (and just in time – it's getting crisp out there at night). Due to work schedules, as well as my desire to not pay $25 for closer parking (we paid $4 at Hollywood and Highland and paid ourselves $7 for each additional block we had to walk), we got to the show late. The Bowl was as crowded as I had ever seen, and it took us some time to cattle-walk with the other concertgoers up to where our seats were.

Whenever we show up early to the Bowl, we have aisle seating on the long benches. Anytime we're late, we get stuck in the center and have to beg and pardon and climb over and bump our way there, usually knocking over or stepping on whatever people put at their feet. Such was the case last night, and by the time we got settled in to our seats, we were able to hear about 2 and a half songs by the Strokes. At least we've seen them 4 or 5 times before – but never at the Hollywood Bowl.

The gentleman next to me (who must have been in his fifties or sixties) applauded at the end of the set. His wife asked, "Did you like them?" He replied, "No, I'm clapping for them to get off the stage."

So, having sat on the bench for all of ten minutes, we got up to go get drinks. We politely climbed over our bench to the row behind us, having realized that there was nobody in that one (when our own row was filled with people shoulder-to-shoulder). The concession lines were not lines at all. They were crowds. Half of the people in line were just trying to get past the lines to their seats.

One of the early-twentysomething girls behind me said, "That opening band sucked."

I couldn't believe it. How old are these kids? At twenty-two, wouldn't they have grown up on The Strokes? I feel like I grew up on The Strokes, and I'm considerably older. This wasn't just, "The Strokes played a subpar set." This was "I don't know who those guys were, but I didn't like them." Damn.

We ended up switching to a different concession stand (with a more clearly delineated line), and spent the entire 40 minute intermission standing inline for a beer and a sangria. Twenty-six dollars, please. I kid you not. Usually we're allowed to bring our own food and drink, so this was a bit of a shock.

The Tom Petty show was awesome. I don't call myself a fan, in the sense that I don't own any of his albums, but I've always liked his music, and I knew 90% of the songs they played. Jeff Lynne came out to play The Traveling Wilburys' Handle With Care. The biggest surprise of the evening was "the only honorary Heartbreaker in the world," Stevie Nicks coming out for several songs.

One thing I've noticed with both the Tom Petty show and Willie Nelson's performance a couple weeks ago is that these older bands have a real sense of showmanship. They ooze experience when compared to the youngster rock bands I usually go see. There's a distinct difference in quality – and the fact that the entire audience knows the words to most of the songs doesn't hurt.

I've mentioned The Submarines before, but finally got the chance to see them perform last Friday. Of course it couldn't have been when they were playing somewhere small like The Hotel Cafe or even Spaceland. No, it had to be when they were opening for Nouvelle Vague at the Henry Fonda.

It was just the two of them, Blake and John, on stage with their guitars and a drum machine. And by drum machine, I mean the 2000's version of a drum machine, an Apple laptop. They had been on tour for several days already, but were back home in Los Angeles, and so my guess is they had a larger than normal audience for their opening act. But I still felt bad because the Fonda has a way of carrying the din of conversation around the back bar area all the way to the stage.

Blake sounded great, and had a bit of a quirky goofiness about her stage presence. John was more low key, and my girlfriend said there was something too dry about his vocals (he used more effects on his vocals on the album).

They played one new song, which was a bit more dramatic than the songs on Declare a New State, allowing Blake to really exercise her vocal range. Afterward, when she mentioned it was as yet untitled, some guy in the audience suggested "Bananaphone!" (even though it had to do with neither bananas nor phones). But I hope it sticks, because then I'll be able to say what every blogger wants to say: I was there.

We didn't stay for Nouvelle Vague, owing to the cold I've been nursing for almost a week now. But I'm glad we made the trip down the street to catch them before their songs appear on the new season of The OC or One Tree Hill and they skyrocket to fame.

What song or lyrics are stuck in your head at the moment?  What album is it from?
Submitted by Lox Ly. 

Declare a New State!

Submarines

We had this conversation
So many times before

And I know that you are tired
Of the same questions but maybe
If I keep asking them
The sounds from your mouth
Will form words that
I want to hear

And I saw my shadow next to yours
Slowly fade away
And I saw my shadow next to yours
Just fade away

— This Conversation, by Submarines

The Submarines have a special story to them. They were boyfriend and girlfriend who broke up and moved apart and wrote songs to each other. They reunited and married, and now have released an album of those songs. With other artists, you don't know who (if anyone) they're talking about in their songs. Here, you definitely know. Recommended.