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

[mixed cats]

Oh man so my oldest friend came here from California and we went to the Pavement show today.. We had ice cream and there was a thunderstorm that was bad enough to make them stop mid set for 15 minutes. We were pretty soaked but had a great time. Nasty has the best job.

[jm]

That is so true!  Shit that was fun.

[mixed cats]

More shows need to offer me root beer floats.

[edison]

anbb (a.k.a.Blixa Bargeld and Alva Noto) were pretty fantastic last night. Introducing their encore, Bargeld talked about how he had become aware that, with his voice, he could produce an effect akin to having "the hair in your inner ear start dancing", and creating a "strange wind in the room" - the song they proceeded to play quite eloquently showed the aptness of these descriptions. And, damn if hearing that unearthly, feline howl of Blixa's during an otherwise very soft and lilting version of Harry Nilsson's "One" wasn't a genuinely spine-chilling moment. BB seemed to be in a very cheery and playful mood, often leaving his side of the stage to go and rest on Nicolai's shoulder or whisper things in his ear. They played for nearly an hour and a half, effectively covering the entirety of their Ret Marut Handshake EP and of their full-length, which comprises often different versions of songs from the EP.

Bought the album from the merch table afterwards - it isn't officially out until October, but it's one to look out for!

[coldforge]

I didn't know Alva Noto had another project. I need to keep better tabs on that dude.

[edison]

I think he's actually got many different things currently going on. I have yet to see them, but there are I think two of his audio-visual installations shown in Strasbourg for a few days, including this:

http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/10/view/9370/carsten-nicolai-rota.html

[coldforge]

Yeah, when I said 'another project' I meant 'In addition to the half-dozen I already knew about'. Dude is a maniac.

[Nick Ink]

Looking forward to that anbb album!

[jm]

ES TANZT, DIE INNENOHRHAARE

[narlus]

Matador week continued w/ Superchunk, Teenage Fanclub, and Come. goddamn was there some great music streamed into my ear drums over the last few days. Getting ready for Vegas!!

[auto-da-fey]

my lady is pretty into a lot of borecore kinda stuff. I'm not sure if that's what Mice Parade is, but that's how it felt to me: some people who seem nice, playing music that goes nowhere but seems to make them happy, and a lot of strummed holding patterns. I didn't hate it, despite their obnoxious band name (made more and not less so by being an anagram for the main dude's given name), but mostly I just sort of drank a lot and squeezed her and derived happiness from being part of her enjoyment.

then after it was over she said they were pretty dull, and I let the vitriol flow. but whatever, I didn't even mean it, that's just sort of what I'm like. but I would not be interested in seeing them again.

[lucky strike]

the shows i've got lined up for the next two months so far are:
neon indian next week
scout niblett the week after
bts the next week
os mutantes and ariel pink in another two weeks after
also that week is tim and eric and neil hamburger
iron and wine a week later and then blonde redhead a week after that

the weather is just getting nice here in houston, too! i'm SO excited! we've been in a sort of out-of-town show drought since that fool got tazed by cops at the two gallants gig on washington a couple of years ago.

also this american life is "performing" live in mid october. should i drop the b frank for two tickets? i think i might

[Ah_Pook]

Tobacco randomly played a free show here tonight, along with some other BMSR offdhoot who weren't that great. Tobacco put on a helluva entertainig set though. Everything was weirder and noisier than his already weird and noisy albums. He had some pretty funny scavenged 80s vhs stuff projecting behind him too. Definitely check him out if he's playing near you.

I took some videos with this new phone that I'm going to upload tomorrow, also.

[Black Amnesia of Heaven]

SWANS ARE BRUTAL

[Trousers and Pat]

I saw Greg Malcolm last night, opening for Josephine Foster, and it was so good, it made me want to take apart a bunch of guitars and put them back together wrong. He has some kind of harp built into the body of the his guitar, and a bunch of springs and rubber bands everywhere. Plus he did wonderful things with a spatula and butter knife. But all this messing around without losing the melodic theme underneath. Simply put, he plays the songs on his guitar, it just happens to be a very strange and complicated one. Beautiful songs. I liked it.

[auto-da-fey]

I just remembered this from last weekend, but had a weird moment where we were walking through a street-fair in Market East and some white dudes were playing a frat-bro version of "Say it Ain't So," complete with awful Nickelback-style vocals. Then, walking north into Chinatown, some punky Asian American teenagers were set up in front of a fire station, rocking a decent version of "Hash Pipe."

Somewhere in here is a parable about Rivers Cuomo and multiculturalism, but I don't know. We were gonna drop some money in the second band's guitar case, but then they launched into Kings of Leon and I vetoed that gesture.

[lucky strike]

i saw neon indian and prefuse 73. man, that prefuse 73 set was one of the worst things i've ever sat through. could not fucking stand it. neon indian was okay. free show for me!

[lucky strike]

adf, that post is bad ass

[Killdozersnakeboy]

Boredoms - Boadrum 10/10/10 Melbourne
This started with 9 drummers on stage, all hitting snare, floor tom and kick in time. Then we hear something behind us and there's several burly guys carrying a small platform on their shoulders which holds Yojiro Tatekawa going loose on a full kit. Then it just turned into a show unlike anything I've ever seen. Stunning drumming obviously (Zach Hill was one of the 10) but really so much more. I was expecting one long track written just for the show but they played various stuff from the catalogue with highlights being Super Going and a 15 minute total monster version of Acid Police. Amazing night.

[ellaguru]

Boredoms are awesome. That sounds like a great show.

[mountmccabe]

I keep thinking back to seeing the 9-drummer Boadrum last year and every time it comes to mind I am more impressed. Glad you were able to catch that!

[Maaik]

GUYSGUYSGUYS I had an epic hang this evening w/ Messrs Davy & DC + my friend Hilary. There was loud, unapologetic drnkenness that at points involved expensive whiskey, Terrapin ale and a glass of beer consealed in a bag of popcorn. There was also some manhumping at the 40 Watt and on the hood of Hilary's car. There was a meal at the Grit (thanks Dave!) and at some point, we saw Built to Spill.

Davy's takeaway, after they didn't play "Car": "We basically just saw Lynyrd Skynyrd not play 'Freebird.'"

The night went by much too quickly for my tastes. Y'all shoulda been there.

[davy]

god damn. so epic. so NOT gonna make it to my morning session at the conference today. 

also, hilary's great. i'm pretty sure i left my ipod in her car though. can you see about that?

blerrrrrrrrrrrgggggh.

epic to the max.

 

[Chet]

DOOM came to Manchester last night. It was actually him and he killed. It was awesome.

[kyle]

Thermals last night in DC. They were wonderful. The most of their set was made of of pairs of songs from an album. So two from MPPM, and then two from BBM, and so on. It was great! They finished their set with a cover of My Name is Jones by Weezer, fully solidifying the fact that Weezer is in fact nonexistent. I was only let down by not hearing Test Pattern or Ear For Baby. But no big deal!