Review: Modest Mouse @ City Market [8/3/07]

My parents were at this show. This was a little weird to me. I never saw them save for one passing glance, but I think my impressions may be slightly colored by the disturbing specter I felt knowing that somewhere in the crowd of somewhere close to 10,000 people lurked those that spawned me.

This whole show had a certain unsettling vibe, actually. The people around me at the front were just bizarre, reckless, irresponsible people and almost ruined everything. Honestly, every time I write a review I am tempted to go off about how people are so lame at shows, and pose the question, “How do such horrible people like good music?” But really, these people were just obnoxious and rude, and it seemed like a lot of them had never been to a rock’n'roll show before. People were throwing up devil horns and crowd surfing constantly (seriously, more people crowd surfed at this show than at the Warped Tour last summer). I guess this is the typical listenership of the 96.5 the Buzz, a radio station that becomes more irritating by the minute, and these days, probably the typical Modest Mouse fans. That Lazlo dude came out and gave lame introductions and was every bit the tool you would expect him to be if you have ever listened to his “show.” But goddammit, I love Modest Mouse, or I used to, and I still do love some of their music, and I was willing to spend $30 and endure lame people and a crappy venue to see them live again.

Love as Laughter kicked off the super rad party. I’d never heard them before. They played some good, honest pop songs — I could dig it. To be honest, I wasn’t paying that much attention, but I didn’t mind them at all, and they seemed like some pretty cool dudes.

Band of Horses played a pretty righteous set. They emulated the whole spacious vibe and layered sound of Everything All The Time beautifully, and played a decent amount of material from their upcoming Cease to Begin. They were pretty down to earth and very gracious, although they seemed a little out of place at a big outdoor show; I’d really like to see them at a club sometime. I’m sure all the cool kids loved toking up to “Weed Party,” hah hah hah.

Modest Mouse, well, they weren’t as good as when I saw them at the Uptown in ‘05. But there is a good chance that is only because I am much more jaded and less impressed by the idea of live music. There was, however, a marked difference in their performance. They still play with a hard enough edge, but their sound bore the same polish that We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank had, making a lot of songs, namely those from their two newest albums, slightly boring. They simply can’t function the same as they did as a trio back in the day, leading to an over-rehearsed, overly glossy delivery, the live equivalent of the irritating backbeats which plagued We Were Dead. Seriously, “Little Motel” and “Fire It Up” were even more painful live than on the album, and that’s hard to do; the former is truly cringe-inducing and embarassing, and the latter is just pure bubblegum shit. And most of the excessive cuts from Good News (seriously, I would have thought they were touring for this album instead of their new one) fell flat, except “Bury Me With It” and “Black Cadillacs,” which are both pretty decent songs.

I probably sound like I didn’t like the show and that isn’t true. Hearing some of my favorite songs ever made me uncontrollably happy. “Doin’ the Cockroach” was loud and intense and had a really sweet jam added to it — these possibly improvised bits made the show for me, and gave me hope for the band’s future. Same deal for “Tiny Cities Made of Ashes;” the new arrangement with Marr really brought out a lot of what’s great about the song, and transformed it into a lengthy industrial epic, complete with slam dancing and several drunken fights in the crowd. “Out of Gas,” one of my favorite songs, followed it. They played “Paper Thin Walls” early in the set, which was fun, although nowhere near as great as when they played it in their encore the first time I saw them. However, their encore this time around probably surpassed it; it consisted of “Spitting Venom,” probably the best song from the new album, followed by a really, really great jam/medley which included a lot of pieces from Ugly Casanova songs and some from “I Came As A Rat.” Watching Jeremiah Green and Joe Plummer weave these really interesting and complex drum patterns was really a pleasure to watch. Which leads me to the conclusion that they need to stop trying to condense their talents into small packages and embrace their sprawling, jammy tendencies. But what the fuck do I know.

My parents loved the show. They loved it. But my dad was confused about why Isaac Brock was standing on the side of the stage, because he couldn’t see him. And they thought the guy in Band of Horses was very polite.

Review: Yeah Yeah Yeahs @ the Granada [8/1/07]

My friends paid $50 a piece for their tickets from some super sketchy scalper dude from Craigslist. The show was not worth that much money. I paid $20 (plus fucking service charges). The show was maybe worth that much money.

Really, all three acts displayed different and varying degrees of fakeness, with varying degrees of success.

The Beautiful Bodies from KC played first. Their success with the audience (people fucking loved them) hinged entirely upon their frontwoman’s sex appeal. I mean, yeah, she is pretty attractive I guess — I’ve seen the girl around tons of times before, but I couldn’t tell you where. But, c’mon, she kept on zipping and unzipping this skimpy leather thing and she was sporting some serious sideboobs — I think every female in the theater developed a serious girl-crush on her. As far as their music, it is really pretty generic, and basically sounds like a Yeah Yeah Yeahs tribute band. It just seemed kind of silly for them to be opening for a band without which they would probably not even exist. Whatevz, it is cool that they were able to open for a band that they clearly love, and they didn’t pretend to be a big deal or anything.

As for the Ssion, meh, I really haven’t ever liked them too much, and this wasn’t an exception. It’s basically that Ashley Miller dude playing mediocre dance music while some hipsters entertain themselves with nonsensical performance art. Don’t get me wrong, performance art can be rad if done right, but I don’t think these guys have much to say beyond vague feminism and bad attempts at homosexual shock value. Nothing really serves any purpose or says anything at all. They are basically the personification of “hipster bullshit.”

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs certainly delivered a confident and sharp set, but unfortunately it never quite felt honest. I tend to favor musicians just being themselves and connecting musically on an honest level over contrived, theatrical stage personas. I mean, they rocked hard and I had a great time dancing around to some solid jams, but they don’t really have the arty edge that I’m sure they did at their early New York shows. Oh well. They started with the first three songs from the pretty solid new Is Is EP, which consists of songs written between their debut and Show Your Bones, and then a new song which they had never played before, I guess, which was pretty cool. Highlights after that were “Maps,” which is still a pretty rockin’ pop song, “Phenomena,” which is probably their best song just because it is so fucking sassy and grooved out, and “Black Tongue,” which is just snotty as fuck and scathing. And some of Karen O’s fakeness was kind of cool sometimes — she kept taking this hat with streamers and this mask on and off for different songs, and holding this cool industrial green light with her microphone, which looked kind of neat. And Zinner consistently looked like a badass, and played pretty hard. Everybody was rocking out, sometimes too much — there were the usual dumb kids who were all like, “DUDE MOSH PIT” and pushing people around, even during mellow songs. But what can you do. I had fun. It was worth $20 (plus fucking service charges), I guess.

Dan Deacon + Video Hippos @ the Jackpot Saloon [6/29/07]

So okay, my rationale for going to this show was that when I go to the Pitchfork Music Festival next month I thought I wouldn’t be able to see Dan Deacon because his set overlaps with Clipse, and lord knows that Clipse is incredible, so I should probably see him now. But now I am having serious second thoughts about that plan, and I am thoroughly convinced that Dan Deacon is a beautiful, beautiful angel. Like, from heaven.

Seriously, Deacon is an awesome performer and a super-rad guy who comes off as totally un-pretentious and un-self-conscious and un-everything that’s shitty about anything. Spiderman of the Rings is both brilliantly titled and one of my favorite albums of the year so far, just way off-the-wall and ecstatic and annoying in the best way possible.

If you don’t already know what he is about, watch this hilariously awkward appearance on an NBC affiliate station.

Deacon’s friends/fellow members of the Wham City art collective the Video Hippos opened the show. The drum/guitar duo (with backing bass/synth tracks) play tripped out, garagey pop music in front of some actually really cool projected psychedelic imagery — one of the best uses of a projector I’ve seen, I’d say (behind Sigur Ros. And Tortoise, maybe). One song was accompanied by manipulated Teletubbies footage, and another by that awesome fly-swatting game from Mario Paint for SNES (you know, with the mouse). They surpass the pretension of other similar bands I’ve seen (Mixel Pixel came to mind), and play some damn catchy jams.

Dan Deacon started his set with a countdown from the number 35, first by just saying the numbers 35 and 25, saying each syllable with one whole breath, then saying nothing between 25 and 10 and just sort of shimmying around and making awkward eye-contact with a stranger, and then from 10 to 1 real sassy and suave-like. Fun! He then proceeded to essentially blow away everybody in the place away with quite a few of his best jams, about half from Spiderman, including “The Crystal Cat,” “Trippy Green Skull,” (yes, the trippy green skull itself was present) and “Okie Dokie.” His set-up consists of a table (always on the floor of the venue, never the stage) with various electronic instruments; a Casiotone keyboard, effects pedals, a vocoder, lightswitches, an iPod shuffle taped to a banana (his “backing band”) — very mad scientist. How much of the music was actually being performed? Probably not very much. But who cares? Deacon is all about interacting with the crowd, which he does superbly.

I have this thing about dancing around like an idiot and looking really stupid at any vaguely dance-oriented show I go to. For the first time ever I felt like one of the least stupid-looking people there. Deacon’s utter lack of self-consciousness apparently rubbed off and basically everybody was getting down. He put together a dance circle, and plenty of people threw down some way awesome moves. I wouldn’t have guessed that people would be jumping off the stage into the crowd and almost destroying my glasses, but, well, they were, and they did.

Toward the end of his set, before his 12-minute epic “Wham City,” he passed out the Wham City robes he has been handing out to a “choir” of 8 people at each date, and I wore one (yellow, with a W on it). They haven’t been washed since the beginning of the tour, and goddammit that thing smelled and felt disgusting. But seriously, going bat-shit and singing along (he handed out lyric sheets) to one of my current favorite songs with a bunch of other people going crazy was just fucking awesome. I think the moment kind of personified the inclusive, joyful vibe that makes Deacon’s music and the whole Wham City thing in general so great.

I think I said it was the best night of my life several times in the couple hours following the show. I hope that wasn’t true. But maybe it was. He is unofficially planning on playing at the Pistol, a warehouse in the West Bottoms in KC, in October, which could quite possibly be an even better show, so LOOK OUT FOR THAT!

A letter to the future of high school journalism.

I had to write a letter welcoming some girl I don’t know to my position on the newspaper staff next year. She is going to receive, by far, the coolest letter.

Dear Ms. xxxxxxxxx,

Word on the street is that you’re going to be the lifestyles editor (I think) for the wonderful publication that is the Northmen’s Log next year. And I’m supposed to write you some really boring letter about how I had such a great time this year, and had sooooo many great experiences that will like totally stay with me for the rest of my life. Or maybe give you some advice about what it takes to succeed! So let’s see how this goes.

I guess the main challenge next year will be basically starting fresh, only holding over two staff members from this year. I say use this to your advantage. Think original. Don’t try to mimic the example of the last few years. Because, let’s be honest, there has been a lot of retreading the same ground, and nothing, in my opinion, that has been anything too exceptional. Honestly, if I learned anything from being on staff this year, it is that it is much easier to just slide by and produce mediocre work than it is to really step up and do something cool. But I think if one pays any amount of attention to the student body, he would have to conclude that they’re pretty bored with the publication. While a paper does need to cover the “important” news stories, I think things could be much more reflective of what, you know, the kids who read the paper want to read. But that’s just me!

The following of a list of things I think would make the Log much better next year. And mind you, I am being completely serious. Completely.

• Gossip columns. Libel laws are just formalities – they haven’t enforced those things for years! We need administrator gossip. We need to teach our photographers paparazzi tactics. We need people outside of the house of every teacher and administrator at every moment we possibly can. “Skretta: affair with Roberts?” “MacArthur is a communist sympathizer!” Now that would get the kids talking, am I right!?

• More stories about global warming. I mean come on, this is serious business!

• More editorials about things that annoy people. “What’s the deal with flip flops?” “The color white is so overrated.”

• More negativity. Particularly in the sports page, I think. I mean, how cool would it to see an article completely bashing the quarterback of the football team for screwing up the season? Pretty cool, I think. And more personal attacks on bad teachers. I mean, these people need to be held accountable.

• Less words, more pictures. Seriously, who reads these days?

• More stories about animals. Honestly, I don’t think we had a single story about animals this year. And it’s a shame! Everybody loves animals

• More water stories. One story about water this year was simply not enough. Particularly about fluoridation. Come on, that’s a commie conspiracy if I’ve ever heard one.

Follow my words, and you will find yourself in the ranks of the greatest journalists in the history of the art form. I’m talking Bill O’Reilly caliber. Don Imus. Stone Phillips. April from the ninja turtles, even. And, xxxxxxx, it is an art, and don’t let anybody tell you it isn’t. And follow your heart, always. Don’t let anybody tell you how to do your job when you know what’s right. The journalism world is a cruel mistress – trust me, I know. It never came easy. It sure as hell never came easy back in ‘Nam. I’ll tell you one thing. I know pain. I know pain. Having to look a crying Vietnamese boy, clothed in tatters, after the US Marine Corps mercilessly burned his village to the ground – that’s pain. Nope, it never did come easy. Everything I’ve earned – all the fame, all the women, all the money – I had to fight for it all, and nobody ever gave me any encouragement. So take it out there into the real world. Fight the good fight. But mostly, follow your heart.

Sincerely,

Mr. Daniel C. Giordano

Of Montreal + Elekibass @ Granada / Lawrence, KS [2/20/07]

My review/pictures are up over at Patchchord. Czech it.

Allen Ginsberg & Paul McCartney – Ballad of the Skeletons

Directed by the wonderful Gus Van Sant. So good.