Sound-checked, plugged in, and ready to rock (bands you saw)

[narlus]

the only thing minimal about 'the claw' is how small they made the band look

[diesel_powered]

Only in comparison to their previous sets:

[Andrew_TSKS]

Remember the set that had Trabants providing the lighting?

[Andrew_TSKS]

Oh god, yeah, I need to mention that tonight I saw the first of 5 Rorschach reunion shows. For those of you who don't know, Rorschach existed between 1989 and 1993, put out two albums and two EPs, and all but invented the genre of metallic hardcore. There'd have been no Converge, no Dillinger Escape Plan, no Deadguy, and no Acme if it weren't for Rorschach. It took me a long time to wrap my head around their music back when I was a teenager, but I've loved them for at least 15 years, and I still play their records regularly. When I heard they were doing a reunion mini-tour, and that one of the shows would be in Richmond, I had to go.

My god, the show exceeded all of my expectations. First off, they played 21 songs, which covered all of their second album and second EP except for one song from each, plus over half of their first album. Every song I would have wanted to hear got played, without exception. And they played just as well as they did when they were around, if not better. I mean, I'd say it sounded like the records, but that wouldn't do the performance justice. It was better than the records. I sometimes go to shows and am really excited to see the band, but keep my rocking out under control. Other times, though, I freak out so completely that I don't even really know what I'm doing, and even as I'm realizing "God, I'd be really embarrassed if I could see myself right now," I can't really stand to stop. This was one of the latter nights. By the time they were a dozen or so songs in, my neck was aching, I was losing my balance, and I felt so sweaty and tired that I wanted to pass out. And yet, they'd go into another song, which I inevitably knew, and I'd freak out all over again. It's probably gonna take me days to recover, but it was totally worth it. It was one of the better live music experiences of my life, and while sometimes I get a bit cynical about how often bands seem to reunite these days, I can't be sorry about it when something this good comes of it. Any of you who live in the northeast and have a chance to go see Rorschach over the next few days will be totally blowing it if you don't avail yourselves of the opportunity.

You can read more of me freaking out over how awesome Rorschach was/is, and hear one of their songs, over at my tumblr (which is starting to overshadow my blog, for whatever reason).

[alexandra]

my friends played a festival and the edge showed up with his wife and they drunkenly said "nice to meet you misses the edge." and it's all i think about whenever u2 is discussed. that and bad advertising choices.

[lastclearchance]

Any of you who live in the northeast and have a chance to go see Rorschach over the next few days will be totally blowing it if you don't avail yourselves of the opportunity.

Scheduling conflicts caused me to miss the NYC show so this morning at 12:18am i decided that although i'd just gotten home from work the evening before, and although I'd have to work on Monday morning as well, I would book a Bolt Bus roundtrip to Philly and catch the last night at the 1st UU. Rorschach were indeed very good. Thanks for the encouragement Andrew!

[dieblucasdie]

FK and I are going to ACL next weekend.  My goals are, in order:

-procure a Toadies t-shirt.

-trick my dad into going to Girl Talk. 

-get my sister really drunk so we don't have to go Ben Harper. 

[coldforge]

If you get a cool Toadies shirt, buy me one too.

[mountmccabe]

I went to a show at Modified Arts - which isn't going to be having such shows after the middle of December - last night.

The openers were The OSS.  The first song opened slow and one guy looked like he was just there to be buff and stare.  After several minutes of building he went into hardcore punk singing/shouting.  These guys are relatively new and local but I hadn't seen them before but the anticipation of the explosion was awesome.  They played a relatively short set; I'mn't sure I figured out what was going on/was able to take myself out of it enough to pass on any details at this time.  They were good.

Next were The So So Glos, which is a terrible name.  They are from New York.  They had an anthemic power pop Springsteen thing going on.  Like, say, the Gaslight Anthem.  But, say, with a somewhat more adventurous approach to the guitars.  They were really good with the crowd.

The headliners were Titus Andronicus.  Patrick Stickles has a serious beard.  And it was all skinny, like four inches down from the chin but only an inch or so out.  The vocals were rather low in the mix but when you can sing along anyway it can still be fun.  They were in more of a happy/slightly goofy mood.

I would guess there were 90 people at the show.

[Andrew_TSKS]

Any of you who live in the northeast and have a chance to go see Rorschach over the next few days will be totally blowing it if you don't avail yourselves of the opportunity.

Scheduling conflicts caused me to miss the NYC show so this morning at 12:18am i decided that although i'd just gotten home from work the evening before, and although I'd have to work on Monday morning as well, I would book a Bolt Bus roundtrip to Philly and catch the last night at the 1st UU. Rorschach were indeed very good. Thanks for the encouragement Andrew!

Hey, no problem. That was the show that 1.6 Band also played, right? How were they?

[lastclearchance]

Hey, no problem. That was the show that 1.6 Band also played, right? How were they?

I don't really feel qualified to review them unfavorably because I'm not familiar with their music and so I didn't know whether I wasn't into it or whether they just did NOT practice enough before the show. But just from that reservation you can sort of get an idea of what I thought.

[Andrew_TSKS]

Yeah, their songs are really complex and if they weren't together it would sound like crap. They actually have been back together since the spring, though, and I would think they're playing together regularly since they've got a new EP coming out. But I guess it could have just been a sloppy performance on their part, which is a bummer, since when they are on point they are awesome. Oh well, glad I didn't try to make it up to Philly just to see them.

[narlus]

review of Wednesday's Butthole Surfers show:
http://www.prefixmag.com/photos/butthole-surfers-w-psychic-ills-paradise-in-boston/

[ieatrats]

didn't realize the old thread was dead:

This is a little late, but I went to Gonerfest in Memphis last weekend and was won over by a bunch of bands I'd either never heard of or heard briefly and didn't pay attention to or previously didn't like.

Magnetix - Cramps-inspired French garage duo that goes off kilter and gets weird and unexpected a lot of the time

Cococoma - Makes me think it's approximately 1979, only way faster

River City Tanlines - Alicija Trout is a smoking guitarist and this is a real, honest-to-goodness rock and roll band, and that's a pretty rare thing these days

Highlight though was Cheater Slicks and the Compulsive Gamblers - I'm not moved by live shows much, and these bands were so awesome that I feel it's my personal duty to start a rock and roll band that's all heart right now.  They were that good.  Inspiring.  If you've never heard them or if you're anything but 100% sure you don't like these bands, they are absolutely must-see bands.

[Snarfyguy]

Faust live at the Williamsburg Hall of Music or Something, I Forget What the Place Is Called, October 1, 2009

Well, this was a treat: stuff I never would have thought I'd see performed live. Nice cozy venue, good sound, audience in high spirits. As we assembled outside, a long haired gent in a nice jacket came up the street and we exchanged smiles and nods. He went inside and it turned out to be Jean-Hervé Peron.

A lot of things happened that I didn't expect, one of which was that they started exactly on time. A fanfare of trumpet and power tool noise came from backstage and presently the band walked on: J-HP and the enormous Zappi comprising the rhythm section (I never understood who did what on the records, but now it's all clear. Well, more clear anyway), accompanied by a guy who played guitar, kybds and effects and a woman who played guitar, squeeze box, keyboards, recited poetry and even did what they used to call an "action painting." Peron also doubled on trumpet and used a sort of small, miked, cement mixer full of little rocks to create a clattery background wash. He got a little carried away while he was dumping the rocks into the thing and I got bonked in the head with one, so I have a souvenir.

They played for 90 minutes including encore, about half of which was new (to me, meaning post-70s). Some of the new stuff was in the familiar vein of the classic, crazed stompers and some of it was more deconstructed, random and improv-y

Peron has a unique bass playing style: very rapid and manic using mostly downstrokes. Zappi's drumming is instantly recognizable with irresistable beats, even on the quiet numbers. He employed an amplified piece of sheet metal in his kit for a clangy percussive element. He also used some kind of power grinder or mini circular saw that made a nice racket and sent sparks flying, which looked great. Rumor had it they'd wanted to use a goat or a sheep, but Brian Turner (WFMU music director and curator of the event) drew the line.

I'm not good on song titles, but here are the ones they did that I can name:

So Far (first number proper)
Psalter (aka something long and in German on Faust 4, I think)
The Sad Skinhead
Jennifer
Krautrock (one of the encores)

There were two or three others I recognized but I can't think of what they were now. One of them might have been Mamie is Blue, but I'm not sure how that one goes. They didn't play the one I most wanted to hear - Picnic on a Frozen River. I really wanted to see how they do that turnaround; I've never been able to get it.

Anyway, Great show, lots of fun, good energy, all the old faces turned out. If you like them and they're playing near you, don't hesitate.

[narlus]

unfortunately for me, the closest they came was Schenectedy, which was the same night as the buttholes.  i think they played hartford back when Table of the Elements did that tour in the early 90s.  no boston shows.

[dieblucasdie]

FK and I are going to ACL next weekend.  My goals are, in order:

-procure a Toadies t-shirt.

-trick my dad into going to Girl Talk. 

-get my sister really drunk so we don't have to go Ben Harper. 

Sadly, the only one of these I accomplished was the last one.

Toadies were fucking awesome, though, probably the highlight for me.  No flash, just tshirts and jeans, zero stage banter (Karen O's constant "How are you dooooing tonight Austin" made me want to stab things), 4 dudes with way more stage presence than their younger competition, and 60 minutes of RAWK.    They played "Possum Kingdom" early in their set and half the crowd left afterwards, which made me think how bizarre of a song that is to be their "hit."  The days when any band who could put "alternative" on their one-sheet could get radio play were kinda awesome. 

Andrew Bird was, unsurprisingly, another highlight.  I haven't seen him since Pitchfork Festival Mark I, and was a little worried since I've been lukewarm on the albums he's put out in the intervening years.  But he just killed, and some of the Armchair Apocrypha stuff actually suited a live setting well.

Then there was Girl Talk.  I got over my Girl Talk issues a while back, just sort of deciding to say, "It's fun.  Fuck it.  Why wring your hands over the implications?  Just dance."  But, like... to see him doing his thing in a surprisingly prime spot (late in the day, right before Pearl Jam), for a crowd of ten of thousands, at a festival that would never deign to have any of the hip-hop artists he samples perform there (the weekend's token rapper was Mos freakin Def) left me with kind of a bad taste in my mouth.  That said, it's still a fun spectacle, and I think the way he does his live shows is a smart solution to the problem of "How do I perform this shit live?"  And hearing the new (live only?) mixes was fun.  Especially "Move Bitch" over "War Pigs" and 'My Neck My Back" over "Sunday Bloody Sunday."

I saw a bunch of other stuff, too (Daniel Johnston, Phoenix, Robyn Hitchcock, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, some others) that I might write about later, if anyone wants to hear about it. 

[coldforge]

more toadies

[Ignatius]

I didn't read the Avalanches write-up in the PFM top 200 list, but I spitefully assumed they wanted to demonstrate that they knew all about Girl Talk when it was still cool to do so.

[auto-da-fey]

more toadies

in 1994 or 5, the Toadies opened for White Zombie. all my friends went, but I was at the height of my punk dogmatism and refused to go. it was a Sunday night, and when the show was over my pals all came over to my mom's house, drenched in sweat and hyped up to all hell, to tell me how much Zombie and the Toadies fucking ruled and what a chump I was for sitting at home and writing poetry or something. I insisted through a clenched jaw that I didn't care, it sounded like a stupid show, and the DIY basement punk show coming up would be cooler.

I knew I was lying even then, and I've regretted not going ever since. So help me Jesus.

[coldforge]

Thank you, auto-da-fey! That was a very good story! Who's next? For full credit do remember to include one line from an actual Toadies story into your presentation.

[auto-da-fey]

if 15 years of unToadied regret don't do it for you, I could always tell my full conversion narrative of ultimately recognizing their awesomeness, then hearing Hell Below/Stars Above when it came out and kind of unrecognizing it again. do hardcore Toadies fans try to defend that album, or just pretend it never happened?

[dieblucasdie]

"I Come from the Water" was probably the highlight.  Their frontman (sorry cf, I don't know their names), made his O-face and they held their instruments upright for the opening riff.  Again, RAWK.

Also, I had no idea that they're from Ft. Worth, but in retrospect, them being Texans totally makes sense. 

edit:  Oh, and weirdly they played the first half-verse of "La Grange" before going into "Tyler" at the very end.

[coldforge]

if 15 years of unToadied regret don't do it for you, I could always tell my full conversion narrative of ultimately recognizing their awesomeness, then hearing Hell Below/Stars Above when it came out and kind of unrecognizing it again. do hardcore Toadies fans try to defend that album, or just pretend it never happened?

I will defend that album. Especially in the face of the latest one. HB/SA isn't the powerhouse that Rubberneck was, but there's still some songs from that record that regularly get themselves stuck in my head. It is definitely canon for me.

"I Come from the Water" was probably the highlight.  Their frontman (sorry cf, I don't know their names), made his O-face and they held their instruments upright for the opening riff.  Again, RAWK.

Also, I had no idea that they're from Ft. Worth, but in retrospect, them being Texans totally makes sense. 

edit:  Oh, and weirdly they played the first half-verse of "La Grange" before going into "Tyler" at the very end.

Yeah, 'Tyler' is rather famously about some ugly goings-on down in Tyler, Texas.

[dieblucasdie]

Huh.  What is it about?  The lyrics are vague enough that I never gave it a thought.  Songmeanings just has a bunch of stuff about the whole Pixies thing, then a bunch of people discussing Fight Club