Waves and Wires

Leonard Cohen 2009-04-13, Oakland CA Paramount Theater

dave — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 17:35:48 +0000

http://www.flickr.com/photos/paigekparsons/3449685408/

I’ll admit straight up that I’m not a huge Leonard Cohen fan. This isn’t to say I don’t like him, just that I’m not the one who picked out this show to see and all things considered I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have bought a ticket to see this by myself. My girlfriend however is a pretty big fan, and I’m never one to say no to someone who’s supposed to be one of the best songwriters on the planet ever, so why not right? I know that Leonard Cohen has influenced pretty much half of the people that I listen to already, so I’m pretty stupid for not having given too much attention to his music. Most of my favorite artists (along with 2.2 million other people) have covered Hallelujah or one of his other songs, Tori Amos is fond of Famous Blue Raincoat and I’d heard a few songs here and there in soundtracks so I’m not TOTALLY unfamiliar… but at the same time I’m not gonna lie about things here so there you go, full disclosure.

All that said, I actually really liked the show. I’d been sternly warned before the show not to fall asleep, but really despite most of the songs being of a folk-singer-songwriter sort of vibe (which is not my primary interest but something I can definitely get into) it was amazingly entertaining. Everyone on stage played multiple instruments and the arrangements were very nice. It was a better stage show than most bands I see who mail it in, Leonard Cohen is really giving you your money’s worth in a show. I assume this will be the only time I’ll see him play, the last time he was in CA was 14 years ago, so I think this is his last tour and one for the money since tickets were not cheap at ALL. With that sort of expectation though, he really put value in the show. Some bands for otherwise expensive tickets will make a really big effort to get off the stage in an hour and a half, fill the show with opening acts that add value and it’s a tossup on whether it’s great or not. Leonard Cohen said screw opening acts (yay) started prompt at 8PM (yay) and played for a full 3 hours. An hour-ish for a first set, an hour-ish for a second set and a full hour of 4 encores. (or you could just say a third set around an hour with him skipping off stage for a few seconds and coming back on or whatever). Wow.

download the whole show as a .zip file
download the show in lossless FLAC via Dimeadozen (registration required)

Links:

Jonathan Coulton 2009-01-18, Great American Music Hall, SF, CA

dave — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 01:19:15 +0000

http://flickr.com/photos/benjyfeen/3208652843/

I know, I super slacked the last few months, so here’s the first show of 2009. I’m not seeing a ton of shows lately, but this is something worth getting out of the house to see, for sure.

Jonathan Coulton speaks to the soul of every nerd, geek, and anyone that comes in contact with anyone who considers themselves to be part of either sort of person. That’s not to say the music can only be enjoyed by nerds and geeks, but there’s a little something extra special inside for those who are. Not many people can get away with writing a song about having a mundane programming job, zombies, monkeys, evil mad scientists, and then still make some really nice and/or depressing songs about relationships in general and also fucking. It’s truly representative of humanity as a whole I think, and there’s definitely something there for everyone.

As for this show, I mean it’s tough to say anything but “he played all the songs I like pretty much” except that it’s difficult to even say there are many of his songs that I don’t like anyway… so yeah great show. I hadn’t been keeping up with the website, so I didn’t have a clue about the couple of songs for the contest thing so there were even a few treats as well as some covers. Can’t go wrong with a TMBG song at a nerdy rock show right?

I had tickets to the Saturday show as well, but unfortunately I flaked and didn’t go. (lots of reasons, none of them good). I kinda wish I had, because this show was great from start to finish and that’s something I haven’t been able to say about a lot of shows. Anyway, this one was great. Enjoy.

download the whole show as a .zip file
download the show in lossless FLAC via Dimeadozen (registration required)

Links:

Stuff you should listen to, circa 2008.

dave — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 07:12:03 +0000

I haven’t posted anything in a while. The reasons aren’t great but are many. I haven’t had time. When I’ve had time I haven’t thought about it. When I’ve had time and I’ve thought about it, I’ve been sorta sick. I haven’t seen a lot of shows lately, so I haven’t made any recordings. I’ll get over it sooner or later and I’ll be back out there and I won’t bail on shows anymore or whatever.

Until then, here’s a selection of the best stuff of 2008 that I’ve been listening to that I think you should listen to as well. Bands I’ve already covered here aren’t included, because obviously anyone I post I’m probably recommending already. I like to do this before the x-mas season, because it’s always nice to give (or get!) new music right? Right. Maybe some of these are blindingly obvious, maybe some of these are “who?”, I don’t know. It’s what I’ve been digging this year at any rate.

#1: Eef Barzelay - Lose Big.

I’d never heard of him before, I found out about him through a TV thing and his album is wonderfully pessimistic with twinges of all sorts of genres that I like.

bonus song from his first solo album, which is also fantastic.

You see I wasn’t really drunk I was just pretending
Because I wanted so much to feel the way you do

That’s brilliant stuff, I love every song on both albums.

#2: The Raveonettes - Lust Lust Lust

Oh if I could define the thing I’ve loved about the music this year the most, it’s that I really got into a lot of the bands that have that loud, feedback and reverb filled sound that echoes My Bloody Valentine. I don’t know if a lot of bands have been making music like this for years and I just now got into it or what, but this is just one of a LOT of really fantastic albums with that sort of vibe to it. I can’t get enough.

(honorable mention: The Magnetic Fields - Distortion)

#3: Tim Fite - Fair Ain’t Fair

I actually expected this guy to be southern but he’s from New Jersey or something. I expected his live show to be sorta lame, but it was surprisingly enjoyable for a guy with a mic and a backing track. He had some amusing visuals and he really got the crowd into it. It helps that “Big Mistake” is one of the best songs of the year in my head. A simple song that’s not exactly deep, but means a lot.

#4: Thao with the Get Down Stay Down - We Brave Bee Stings and All

This is one of those albums that grabs you instantly and doesn’t let go of your brain. I don’t do it any justice talking about it, you really just have to listen. Go listen.

#5: Halou - Halou

I can’t embed their music, it’s not on imeem. At least not the new album, which I think is their best yet. I know it’s a lame comparison, but honestly it’s like if these guys were more popular and everyone had heard of them, nobody would have given a shit about Portishead coming back this year with a mediocre album. It’s a lush electronic and guitar based sound that combines a lot of stuff that I really like. It’s not quite what trip-hop was (if it ever was anything really) and it’s not quite rock. It’s just really, really good stuff. I honestly have no idea why these guys aren’t huge. It seems they’re still just bubbling under in the semi-local scene, which is a real shame since they’re absolutely fantastic. Unfortunately they’re also apparently dropping the name Halou in favor of Stripmall Architecture, so if you see anything by that name in the future check it out.

http://www.myspace.com/halou

Best I can do, but check it out.

And that’s about it for now. Discover some new music, I’ll get around to posting new (old) things again soonish.

My Bloody Valentine 2008-09-30 Concourse Design Center, SF CA

dave — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 22:51:02 +0000

I’m not real sure I can review this, even as badly as I review things in general, and do this sort of show any justice.

It was loud, but I’m sure anyone even slightly familiar with MBV will already realize that it was going to be loud. If you’ve only ever heard their recorded music, you might not necessarily get the impression that they’re the loudest band on the planet (no lie, this has been measured!). Yes there are vocals, no you really can’t hear them. Yes everything sounds noisy and distorted, yes that’s on purpose and that’s why we like it. Yes they do the lights like that on purpose where you don’t really see the band as much as they’re putting lights just out on the crowd and the venue. It’s supposed to signify some sort of greater meaning that it’s not about the band, it’s about the music so just enjoy the experience and don’t worry about trying to see the band.

Oh and yes for the last 20 minutes they’re doing to assault you with a sheath of pure noise and distortion. Phil Spector may have made his Wall of Sound famous for layering all sorts of goodness, MBV created the Wall of Noise. It’s not that it’s not sound, but really the impression you get is that it’s glorifying all that is considered to not be Sound and that which is totally undesirable in music. It’s turning the entire idea of music on its ass and saying “this is beautiful too, embrace it” as a sort of grand statement on how we view music. (is this idea too pretentious?). When you experience it (and I don’t think a recording truly does it justice), you’re being bombarded by light, sound and even feeling because the rush of air from the speakers is even as intense as the music itself. It literally (and I’m not making exaggerations here I don’t think) feels like you’re standing a few feet away from a jet plane engine that’s in the midst of takeoff, except for a slight problem: Superman is holding the front of the plane and it can’t move. It’s stuck in a perpetual acceleration, and you are hanging out in the exhaust. It’s louder than anything you’ve ever experienced, the strobe lights and other things are going nuts, and the wind and vibration are just something that I personally have never felt at a show before. Sometimes you get the occasional really bassy moment and you feel it in every part of your body… go ahead and imagine this happening for 20 solid minutes.

And yes, they hand out earplugs at the door. I feel deeply sorry for anyone who didn’t use them or bring their own.

The sound at the venue wasn’t the best to start with, it’s really a terrible place for concerts and I don’t know why they’ve started a big trend of having them there on a regular basis, but the recording sounds good otherwise.

setlist:

Links:

my bloody valentine: to here knows web

mc chris 2008-08-28, Bottom of the Hill, SF CA

dave — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 16:57:53 +0000

It’d been a while since I’d seen an mc chris show, I guess because he’s been on other people’s tours and warped (and I have nooooo desire to go to festivals) or just playing in non SF venues or whatever, so it was nice to finally see an mc chris show again. I was there at the start of his touring career in Nashville a few years ago and it’s really good to see at least some refinement in his performances. At the time I think he was trying for some sort of half rap, half comedy blend of things to fill the time. This time around, more of a show. Still a backing track and no band or anything like that, but an entertaining show nontheless. He’s trying for a lot of interaction with the fans I guess to make up for any lack of a show, but that’s okay. I don’t see a lot of other rap shows in general so I have no idea how they do it either. Anyway, I liked the set and I hear it’s what he did most of the Warped tour which is a good thing. Most of the songs in it are what I really liked when I first heard of mc chris in general so this is a great starting point to get into the whole nerd rap thing in general. Maybe it’ll work for you, maybe not I don’t know. Any time you try to mix candy, star wars, and other stupid shit into rap songs, it sure doesn’t necessarily work for everyone right? Whatever, enjoy.

setlist:

Download the show in mp3 as a zip file

Download the show in FLAC via Dimeadozen.org (registration required)

Links:

Mogwai, 2008-09-08, SF Regency Center Ballroom, SF CA

dave — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:01:37 +0000

5 Years ago (almost exactly) I had basically no idea what I was getting into when I saw Mogwai for the first time. I went expecting something vaguely Sigur Ros like, with some occasional bits of loudness but not “noise as an instrument” sort of loud. I left the show with some semi-permanent hearing damage in one ear (I was kinda halfway pointed towards a stack fairly close to the stage) and it was the loudest thing I’d ever heard, ever. I never knew who My Bloody Valentine was and I’d never looked them up, but I got to reading some more about Mogwai and found out they were one of their big influences. MBV is well known for essentially using feedback and noise as a focus in their music, and for having the loudest possible shows at around 130dB (which is freaking amazing) and if I’d known… I’d have brought along some plugs. Now I know.

Overall, I think Mogwai is one of the most amazing bands to see live. Lots of bands have no range in their live shows, but Mogwai despite being very very loud also has very very quiet parts to a lot of their songs. They’ve also kinda got the “pay attention to the music, the band isn’t going to do anything interesting on stage” thing going on which I think a lot of bands should think about. Most of the time the lights were basically strobing on the crowd and for the most part it all made you want to just close your eyes and hang out. I’m pretty sure that’s what I did for most of the show. Incidentally, I think all the strobe lights and the loud noise and vibration have some sort of hypnotic effect that you have to experience to understand, but I had several revelations during the show. I managed to find a pair of lost sunglasses, and a lost cellphone charger that I’d misplaced (and replaced because I was so frustrated that I couldn’t find either) when something just clicked in my brain and I realized where they were. I don’t really know how to explain that, but don’t go see Mogwai if you have any repressed memories that you don’t want to dredge up perhaps. I found it pretty amazing, I’m not sure this is a positive thing or not but yeah. Loud bass, bright lights, hypnotic drones = I found my sunglasses. Good times.

The set was great otherwise too, with a great mix of some of their newer stuff from the new album and a lot of the best songs from their back catalog. Herod, Satan and Hunted by a Freak were fantastic to hear. It’s really one of the best live shows I’ve ever seen and you’ll be doing yourself a favor if you go see them whenever you can. Just be sure to bring some earplugs.

download the whole show as a .zip file
download the show in lossless FLAC (16-bit) from dimeadozen.org (registration required)

Links:

Beck, 2008-08-31, The Independent, San Francisco CA

dave — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 18:02:53 +0000

For me, Beck is a sort of nostalgia I think. Lots of his songs were big with me at pretty good times in my life. When I got the email last week at 3PM saying there was going to be a Beck show at a really tiny venue that went on sale in less than 2 hours, I kinda freaked out. It’s not often you get that sort of opportunity. I was lucky enough to get tickets, judging by the angry people on craigslist, sonicliving and other websites tons of good fans were shut out cause TicketWeb was not prepared to handle the onslaught. (not surprising).

And unfortunately, I have to tell all of you that didn’t get to see the show that you really missed out on something pretty awesome. For me, Beck represents another bit of nostalgia in a sense, in that it was the first time I’d ever been to a show with a taper, my friend Rich, who I’m not even sure knows that I know about his blog. Regardless, his taping of the show kinda prompted me to think that taping things was a good idea so I bought some mics the next year and now I’ve got a ton of shows under my belt I guess you could say. I won’t put it all entirely on the Beck show as I’d been to a handful of other shows that were and weren’t recorded and I really wanted the stuff that hadn’t been recorded… and ultimately that Beck show in 2000 that I saw was what prompted me to say “why wait for someone else to do it?”. I thought it was all sorts of complicated or dangerous or whatever, but I was enlightened after that and it’s all been history since.

The show itself was more than I had imagined it’d be. I was figuring a low key sort of show, maybe mostly acoustic “small venue” songs. Nope! They tore right out of the gate with Devil’s Haircut and I knew at that point it was going to be a great show. And it totally was. The coolest thing to me was probably the “live remix” they did with Hell Yes and Black Tambourine. The band all put their instruments down and picked up drum machines (or something) and Beck had an ipod with a track you could scratch and they re-created the remixes from the Hell Yes EP live. It was a pretty awesome thing to see. They even played a pretty long set for what i was expecting. I’d figured an hour-ish would be plenty but they went the distance for a full 1.5hrs. They touched on all Beck’s albums, and even threw in a Dylan cover. There’s really nothing bad at all I can say about the show. However, the crowd was a bit rowdy (expected) and the drink girl was a little loud and obnoxious, but whatever. You get that at some shows and I’d rather have been in the middle of the room than off in the back somewhere when it’s someone that I know I’ll never see from that close up again.

I fear I’m ruined for Beck shows in the future. It’ll never be this good again.

Setlist:

download the whole show as a .zip file
download the show in lossless 16-bit FLAC via Dimeadozen (registration required)
download the show in lossless 24-bit FLAC via The Trader’s Den (registration required)
Links:

2 Things (and a promise)

dave — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 15:41:58 +0000

I’ve got a couple of shows I keep meaning to post but I can’t ever remember to do it before I get distracted. I was going to post the Liz Phair show from a few weeks ago, but I screwed that one up. (typical story with my recording lately I guess) I’m going to see like 5 shows in the next few weeks, hopefully a few of them will turn out nice.

I have two requests in the meantime:

#1: please comment on this post if you’re reading (it’s quick and easy) just to let me know that comments are working on this thing. I’ve been told at times that they aren’t, but every time I check they work. I’m confused. Nobody said anything on my last few posts and that’s somewhat disturbing. Either nobody reads, nobody cares, or the site’s busted. (and it’s not like I go around promoting this blog and try to get people to read it so I wouldn’t be surprised if nobody regularly checks it, I’m not one of those quantity over quality sorts of people so I’m not going to make 10 posts a day with worthless crap if I don’t have anything substantial to post). If comments are busted for real, I’d really appreciate an email. dave @ (w&w.com) if you can’t comment but otherwise would like to do so, and I’ll have more proof that it’s busted.

#2: If you’re one of those 3-4 people with a big huge DSLR/SLR/etc camera at every single show that I see, can we please work something out so you let me use your pictures? I’m finding it harder to find pictures to use that weren’t taken on someone’s iphone, and I know there’s at least a few of you at every show in the front row snapping pictures. I know you can’t all be there from the Chron/SFWeekly (and if you are, I never ever see pictures of any show I go to in those things) and I know most of you are just using it as a vehicle to get into show for free (wish I could do it too) so it’d be super if you’d let me use a picture from every show I see that you’re at.

Thanks, and new stuff this week I promise!

Tilly and the Wall 2008-07-08, Great American Music Hall, SF

dave — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 18:41:34 +0000

Full circle! For the first time, I get to post an artist for the second time. Tilly and the Wall was the first band I posted here a couple years ago when I got the urge to make a blog just for the stuff I record. I missed their show earlier this year at the Rickshaw Stop because I’d seen the British Sea Power show the night before and I didn’t feel like going out again the next night since it was Noise Pop and inevitably they pack so many bands on the bill that you’re soooo tired before the headliner gets on. Oh well.

Tilly and the Wall’s new album “O” is definitely one of my favorites of the year. It doesn’t hold itself to anyone particular sound, they’re experimenting with a lot of stuff to great success and really bringing a more rock sound to their music while retaining that whole thing that made them awesome in the first place. I think a lot of the songs were definitely conceived with the live show in mind, and that they perhaps needed a few songs where there wasn’t as much focus on the novelty of someone in the band tap dancing out percussion. There’s still plenty of that, but at the show it seemed like at least a little less prominent than in the past. There was a real drummer, but I didn’t see him do a whole lot. I’m not terribly sure how I feel about Beat Control either, since it doesn’t really sound like anything else they’ve ever done and not necessarily in a way I like. I don’t think there was anything but a pre-made beat and keyboards on the song which is totally weird compared to 3 guitars, percussion, and keyboards. I’m glad they didn’t do a whole album like that because while I like their voices, I don’t like the 80’s style dance music revival thing going on. Maybe it’s because I had enough of it the first time and I’m just not in nostalgia mode yet or whatever, but it doesn’t work for me. I guess for the kids that weren’t born until ‘85 or later it’s awesome because it’s brand new to them, but really the song sounds way too much Miami Sound Machine to me and that’s just not my thing.

Anyway. It was a good show! They threw out balloons before the show and the hipsters tried to act like balloons are totally not cool. Seriously guys, have some fun every once in a while okay?

As an aside, I sorta got “busted” during the show. The band was cool with me taping their last show in SF, so I figured it was okay again this time and I didn’t REALLY try to do any sort of hiding of my equipment but I put it all under a hat to keep it out of the way from anyone who might set their drink down on or near my stuff. The security guy came around and asked what I had under the hat, turns out that there was a blinking light and a glow that made it real obvious that I was taping and they had no video/flash photo signs everywhere and he was making sure I wasn’t rolling on video I suppose. Luckily he didn’t shut me down and was totally cool with things.

Setlist:

download the whole show as a .zip file
download the show in lossless FLAC from Dimeadozen.org (registration required)

The Long Blondes, 2008-06-02 Great American Music Hall

dave — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:47:45 +0000

Okay, I originally wrote up a big negative thing about the show, because I honestly didn’t enjoy it a lot. I thought the band looked bored, it seemed like they were legitimately pained to play some of their older songs, despite only having played a single show at a tiny club in San Francisco before… and the show was rather short for a headliner. The first time I saw them, I chalked everything up to it being their first US tour. This time, I don’t really know. Maybe they were just tired and didn’t care by the time they got all the way to San Francisco, I’ve heard it happens to a lot of bands. Regardless for the price and the time and all that, not really a good show. Oh well. The recording is nice anyway, and without visuals it holds up a lot better, but honestly most of the band just had a “lets just get this done so we can go home” look on their faces the entire time. Kate was into it, but the rest of the band… not so much. And that’s kinda disappointing to me.

Also, nobody on flickr took pictures and made them available to the public, so I can’t link a picture for this show. Double bummer eh?

setlist:

download the whole show as a .zip file
download the show in lossless FLAC (registration required)