Live Review: Health and Crystal Castles at Studio B [03.25.08]

The show at Studio B this last Tuesday was basically a double bill, Crystal Castles and Health have had plenty of well deserved attention, and released a couple of 7"'s together which sold out instantly. Unlike most shows, I wanted to see both of these bands live after playing their split seven inch over and over.



Based on Health's full length on Lovepump United, I knew I was going to be in for abstract disjointed rock. Health were completely surprising from one track to the next, screaming punk distortion to minimal breaks of weird sound ambience, huge drums, deftly changing between punctuated slow tribal tom beats to a high hat dance punk sound. I was looking forward to hearing this live, and they didn’t disappoint. They aren’t necessarily in the same electro/synth punk category as Crystal Castles, being more guitar-based, and their material is obviously rooted in the creation of live insane manipulated distortion, but the focus on tweaked unheard sounds is present in both.


Health would explode into tight bursts of guitar and cymbal crashes with vocal feedback, embracing the improvisation of a live performance, picking up guitars and beating on them for sounds or twisting knobs crouched on the floor, but in rehearsed bursts. They succeeded live in using their recorded album material as a base for reinterpretation. The one long performance shifted from deliberate pauses of regrouping to complete chaos. Everyone in Health was on vocals at one point or another which became just another sound that wasn’t even recognizable as lyrics but just as another musical element, and layered with unidentifiable guitars was a conceptual performance of dark ominous walls of sound and silence.
After an excruciatingly long break between bands, Crystal Castles finally appeared along with a seizure inducing constant strobe that unmercilessly went on the entire set. At times singer Alice Glass was yelling into a microphone, but there were no vocals coming out that I could hear. She was working the stage, falling into the crowd, running around, posing, accentuating vocals with anguished collapses, but it just added to this weird limelight feel I didn’t think I was signing up for.


I was a little weary noticing right away the rave element present, the neon bracelets, swinging glow sticks, tiny bouncing backpacks. I was a little disturbed this stereotype still existed, it wasn't just hipster stripped day-glo hats and ridiculously patterned bandanna's, this was the full on rave culture from ten years ago.
As a literal show it must have met the crowds expectation of a Tuesday night dance party, but the recorded material has so much more promise.
In "Alice Practice," the blips and glitches are the best parts, the sounds are bordering on something circuit bent, definitely off for the typical dance/electronic music. This was part of it's appeal, it was smart, not just programming but messing with the analogue element as well, technically arranging the best malfunctions into something different in the over saturated easily imitated dance world of laptop DJ's. Unfortunately, everything that made it different was missing from the live show.

If nothing else, this was better than average dance music, but the innovative element was gone, it was the usual pounding beats and the typical live drums which made it even more of a standard dance affair of synth sounds and effectless vocals. They played maybe 5 songs and then left for an encore.

I didn’t stick around.

[Thanks to Diana Wong for risking extreme bodily injury to get these excellent photos. Full gallery can be seen here.]

Live Review: Caribou @ Bowery Ballroom [3.28.08]

Friday night at Bowery Ballroom, Caribou played an understated but manic set for a sold-out crowd. It was a birthday party of sorts, as the prolific music maker and sole genius behind Caribou in its recorded form, Daniel Snaith, turned 30 right before our eyes. Snaith—with bandmates Ryan Smith, Brad Weber, and Andy Lloyd—nearly perfectly recreated his electronic-inflected pop music (or is it pop-inflected electronic music?) in a live setting. The melding of pop and electronic, man and machine, was evident all evening.

Fuck Buttons, the opening band out of the UK, made giant repetitive toy keyboard and synthesizer soundscapes. I enjoyed their music when it was at its most gargantuan and diverse: for instance, the first song of their set, “Sweet Love for Planet Earth,” which began with a small, key-clinking opening that gave way to huge washes of keyboarded distortion and then “vocals” sung through what looked like a fisher price toy cassette recorder microphone. It was fairly blissful noise music. But at other times their repetitive structures didn’t layer together as well, and the music sounded like a cheesy club-beat pulse with processed stuff over top. (Perhaps this is something we can forgive them; they are after all, European.)

Caribou then came on stage and were met with unbridled enthusiasm. The packed crowd, which had remained distant for Fuck Buttons, pushed up to the stage. The psychedelic turn in Snaith’s music—and its unabashed melodicism—have not changed the percussion heavy sound of the band. The stage plot was entirely representative of this: the two drummers (Snaith is one of them) were at the front of the stage, while the bass and guitar languished in the shadows (revenge for drummers after decades of being shoved to the back!). The main drummer, Brad Weber, was—to put it indelicately—insane. Hooked by in-ear headphones to a laptop giving him tempos (so that various samples could be played at the right time during the songs), he looked and sounded like an android. His eyes were always in the time-marking distance, and his body was completely in thrall to the incredible beats and fills he played (was programmed to play?). When Snaith joined the fracas the patterns and crosspatterns threw our bodies and brains all over the place. Amazing. And suddenly I realized that Caribou are secretly math-rock…



But with a heart. The melodies and the bright guitar and keyboard lines kept everyone’s brains from exploding, while Snaith’s quiet vocals created a delicate (and very un-math-rock) warmth and intimacy. The best expression of this was perhaps the band’s performance of “Hello Hammerheads.” Snaith, over a folk-like guitar line and only a small pulse from the drums, liltingly sang “She told me to stay/or go away/and I looked in her eyes/and left her.” Then came a barely-there chorus of harmonized “ohs.” It was a sad, intense song and came across even more so in the midst of all the percussiveness and noise of the evening.




[Words: John Melillo]
[Photos: Adam Weinberg]

Vampire Weekend at the El Rey (Los Angeles) [3.21.08]

I stepped outside for a smoke during Yacht's set. Striking up a conversation with a stranger is something I love to do at shows, to probe people a bit, find out why they're at the show. I spoke briefly with a local screenwriter after borrowing his matches. When the conversation got to the “where are you from” portion (a prerequisite in the city of transplants that is LA) he mentioned first off that he was from Zimbabwe. Until he was 17, he lived in South Africa and from there he moved on to Massachusetts. I'd imagine that at any indie rock show other than Vampire Weekend, the South African pride wouldn't have shone quite as brightly.

For a sold out show, I was moderately unimpressed by the density of the crowd. Given the Craigslist frenzy that was taking place at 5:00 PM that evening, I had seen some indie-opportunists ready to gouge - $250 per ticket online, but I watched a nice couple who had just moved here from Chicago get their tickets at just about $10 over face value.

As the quartet got to the stage, you could feel the fresh spilling off them. They're glaringly young and clean looking, almost to a bizarre fault. As they opened with “Mansard Roof”, the crowd happily obliged, joyously jumping to the beat. The angular, afro-pop derived indie rock is almost overly sweet; their sound's exuberance exploding in tandem with their general youth as performers. The songs whip by, pop tune after pop tune and given that they have a brief cannon to pull from it was almost scary to watch as they sped through their set. I felt like they'd run out of rails before they got to the end of their line.

There were a lot of smiles during their set; the lanky drummer's big toothed grin as he mashed away at the poly-rythmic fills. The bassist too would often bust out in a more restrained smirk while playing. I tilted my head and realized that those kind of smiles can only come from a genuine joy. Now, I usually frown upon that kind of joy...mostly because I'm a cranky person at heart, but also because I gravitate towards darker, slower music. But, put yourself in their shoes and yeah, you'd be grinning from time to time as well. As for me, I had to wander home and puke up some rainbows before I felt like myself again, but I won't deny that “Mansard Roof” followed me around for the better part of the next day.

There were moments that felt like the dream sequences from the recent film Charlie Bartlett. Not to invest time in a metaphor about a movie that tanked at the box office, but the young lead envisions himself performing to an arena of adoring fans. Snapped back to reality, by his mother or psychiatrist to be sadly grounded in a boring upper class life. There's a similarity to the exuberant and decidedly innocent vibe that both Charlie Bartlett and Vampire Weekend's ivy league vibe had on the stage...both fresh faced and a bit outmoded with the genuine cheer to their music. Gripes aside, it is infectious and irresistible music. They're obviously cribbing more than a handful of notes from Paul Simon's Graceland but they're cool enough to mention him by name in “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa”. Toward the end of their set, they book-ended a speedy rendition of that tune with two new tracks, probably something necessary for a band with hardly a full set of material to show. The new tracks strayed little from the set Vampire Weekend sound, the first deviating slightly to incorporate a sampled loop of produced claps and dreamy synths into the mix. The song floated in between a spacier bridge that culminated with a less than charming yelped chorus. The second new track was a polyrythmic East Coast ode to Cali, which got the expected response, as it was played in an LA venue.

Barely clocking at an hour (encore included), the set was over in a flash. The band had whipped through their entire catalog, throwing in the two new songs for filler. Just as quickly, the crowd funneled out into the street underneath the retro neon glow of the El Rey marquee, digesting the sugary goodness of Vampire Weekend

[Words by Cody DeMatteis]
[Photos by Scott Gawlik. Full gallery can be seen here.]

Live Photos: Tilly and the Wall at the Knitting Factory [3.21.08]

[Photos by Elizabeth Weinberg]

Live Review: Le Loup at the Mercury Lounge [03.23.08]

Despite whatever preconceptions the heavy handed title of their debut (The Throne Of The Third Heaven Of The Nations' Millennium General Assembly) may lend itself to, witnessing the force of Le Loup's layered harmonies, horn swells, and offbeat handclaps live leaves little room for intellectualizing the shapes and colors of their mythicized burning, vacant cities. Regardless, the rumination over such dark days as well as the simultaneous fright and hope of being able to surrender to it all still somehow manage to innately resonate. The band doesn't appear to even give themselves the time to stop and think, as they throw themselves into their chaotic yet meticulous arrangements with an urgency as if buildings outside the venue were in fact collapsing.




The band's intensity is relentless, and though you might not expect it from a frontman who initially composed his songs entirely on a laptop and recruited his musical collective through online message boards, it is in that respect that Sam Simkoff really stands out - when not fiendishly plucking his ukulele or forcing his way to the keyboard on which another band member already plays, he howls and flails limbs, easily rivaling the spasticity of Thom Yorke dancing circa Kid A. But unlike Le Loup's album there is no calm after the storm; minimal tracks like "Breathing Rapture" and "To the Stars!" erupt in and out of Mogwai-like fields of noise without rest, and more epic songs like "I Had a Dream I Died" become far more sprawling and dynamic.




With Throne of the Third Heaven..., Le Loup gave us a precisely constructed, very particular landscape. They may dwell in the same territory live, but the passion and fervency with which they perform opens that world up into something bigger than them or the crowd. Just as Simkoff reverently refers to all the musicians, designers and promoters of Le Loup, both the band the audience that night were part of one collective, knowingly or not. If only more artists could give their heart to us, give their soul to us.


[Photos by Adam Weinberg. Full gallery can be seen here.]

Live Review: The Cribs at Music Hall of Williamsburg [03.21.08]

The Music Hall of Williamsburg was packed on Thursday night. People came from all over to see The Cribs show – lots of fans from the UK, judging by the accents, and even up-and-coming artist Kate Nash was dancing in the audience to show her support. For those of you losers who don’t know who The Cribs are yet: they are the Jarman brothers from Yorkshire – twins Ryan (vox) and Gary (bass), and brother Ross (beats). Certainly considered part of the UK Invasion (that never seems to stop), they’ve been playing and recording music since the early ‘00s and have been on the Loose Record lists since their first US tour back in ’04. The Cribs have several releases out, including three full-length albums, The Cribs (Wichita, 2005), The New Fellas (Wichita, 2005), and the latest, Men’s Needs, Women’s Needs, Whatever (V2, 2007). They play infectious and energetic indie pop music along the lines of the early Strokes or Futureheads.



So the crowd at Thursday’s concert was a bit on the young side, but that turned out to be a great asset to the show because the kids put a lot of energy into it - crowdsurfing and dancing their hearts out. As always, The Cribs put on a phenomenal and energetic display, especially considering they had been in Austin at SXSW the weekend before. The boys were as hipsterly adorable as ever, with Ryan dressed in tight gray pants and a uniquely shaped gray-and-white striped v-neck top; Gary in a short-sleeved print t-shirt and matching pants; and the requisite indie rocker Vans.

The band started off by launching into “Don’t You Wanna Be Relevant?” and the crowd showed its support by launching people into the air in the first act of stage-diving I have seen occur during a band’s first song. The mayhem continued with “Our Bovine Public,” with its bouncy rhythms, pop guitar melodies, and the band’s trademark singalong lyrics. As the crowdsurfers were discouraged from actually jumping off the stage the boys in the band just kept playing, obviously enjoying themselves as much as anyone in the audience.



Following the crowd-pleasing openers, The Cribs settled into a more easygoing energy level with “Girls Like Mystery” and “Moving Pictures” (one of my personal favorite songs), and the gentle melody of “I’ve Tried Everything.” For the most part the songs were familiar favorites from their newest album, but they got a couple of songs in there from their earlier albums, too. Following the mellower songs in the middle, The Cribs played “Women’s/Men’s Needs,” and the high-energy hit “Mirror Kissers,” filled with the band’s trademark “Wo-oh!”s and getting everyone dancing and singing along again.



At the end of the night, The Cribs finished their set with the bittersweet “Ancient History,” during which Ryan actually jumped off the stage for some surfing of his own and had to be tethered back from the crowd by a slightly terrified stagehand who grabbed onto his sneakers. (This same stagehand was seen earlier running around the stage trying not to get hit in the head as the boys swung their guitars and mic stands around.) In any case, it was a very high-energy set that was eventually closed out with a beautiful rendition of “Be Safe,” with poetry read by a friend of the band’s.



In the end, The Cribs are one of my favorite bands to see live. They always put on an explosive performance that elicits just as much energy from the audience, which is a refreshing change from the shows where people just stand and stare. If given the opportunity, you should definitely check them out - the Cribs can be seen in a city near you sometime soon!

[Photos by Max Flatow]

Live Review: Jaymay @ The Mercury Lounge [3.19.08]

Halfway through her first song, I had Jaymay pegged as a sentimentalist. Another one of those dreamy singer/songwriters reminiscing on past love affairs through a sepia-toned mirror, imparting every lost moment with a poetic significance that relies more on artistic license than reality. I'm no cynic, but my skepticism is not unwarranted - anyone who has sat through one too many coffee shop open mic nights would feel the same. There's a fine line between authenticity and cheese.

But perhaps I should have paid more attention to the facts. Jaymay (aka Jamie Seerman) has been performing in New York for years, her debut album Autumn Fallin' was recently released on Blue Note records, to much media praise. Days before the Mercury Lounge gig, Jaymay performed on Conan O’Brien. The Mercury Lounge was packed for Jaymay's performance. I even saw folks lining up to get her autograph. Turns out, all of these people have not been duped. Jaymay's solid set of songs quickly proved that she is not a silly sentimentalist - she is a realist, 100 percent.

Jaymay sings in a strong, self-assured voice, sounding at times like a less affected Regina Spektor – (they call it anti-folk, but am I allowed to just call it folk music?) “Gray or Blue” stood out as an all-too familiar tale of semi-requited love – the kind you get just a good enough taste of to be irreparably smitten: "You haven’t written to me in a week I’m wonderin’ why that is/are you too nervous to be lovers-- friendships ruined with just one kiss/I watched you very closely I saw you look away/your eyes are either gray or blue I’m never close enough to say/but your sweatshirt says it all with the hood over your face/I cant keep starin’ at your mouth without wonderin’ how it tastes." What I want to know is who hasn't been done wrong by a boy in a hoodie?

I'm not saying that a music supervisor won't be tempted to set a tear-jerking montage on Grey’s Anatomy to one of Jaymay's songs (the thought crossed my mind during the melancholy “Blue Skies”,) but the authenticity of her stories and the simplicity of her songwriting rise above sappiness. Jaymay's songwriting serves as a down to earth counterpoint to all those “baby I need you, baby I can’t live without you” love songs. Although I saw plenty of couples watching Jaymay wrapped around one another, swaying sweetly to the music, I bet there were just as many people standing awkwardly in the crowd next to that guy or girl they really like, agonizing whether it would be an absolute disaster to just take their hand at a certain moment, and then deciding against it over and over.

Sometimes people just don’t get you, sometimes they move away, sometimes they decide to love someone else. You might cry about it, you might sleep with their scarf under your pillow for months, you might take lonely walks to that diner where you shared a 3 AM coffee on your first date, but yeah, real people do those things. Real people need real love songs, and Jaymay is our champion.

[Photo by Rebecca Lewis]

In and Out :: New Death Cab For Cutie, "I Will Possess Your Heart" [MP3]

Death Cab For Cutie is back ... sort of. It is undeniable that the band is physically returning to the catalogue of recorded music with a new album, Narrow Stairs due out on May 13th but perhaps more debatable is if the new record will be any good. After releasing a fairly inspiring video preview, featuring shots of the band doing the actual recording the record (read: Ben Gibbard not finishing the Postal Service album), it would be safe to say there was at least a little buzz behind the finishing of this release. And so yesterday at just before 5pm, Atlantic Records (who fantastically overpaid for what ended up being Plans and not Transatlanticism) released the new Death Cab For Cutie single, "I Will Possess Your Heart."

It clocks in at 8:28 and will end up getting a "Radio Edit" (the idea of radio play being filed somewhere between "optimistic" and "three people at Atlantic Records should start cleaning out their desks") down to somewhere in the four-minute range. Ben Gibbard drives into the parking lot at about the three-and-a-half minute mark with some quiet "na, na, na's" but doesn't really show up until 4:30. If you're scoring at home, that's more than half the song as vocal-less intro, begging the question of who at Atlantic Records is paying an ounce of attention to this release?

The melody smells a little like the sing-songy depression of an Interpol song and Gibbard sounds a little rougher than "Soul Meets Body." It's not close to a growl but there is an edge to his vocal that we have seen in at least two records, maybe ever. The chorus, "you've got to spend some time, love" will get stuck in your head and might, just might crack your next mix-tape. Check it up or check it down.

Death Cab For Cutie - I Will Possess Your Heart

Live review: The Walkmen @ Satellite Ballroom, Charlottesville [3.12.08]

As a native of the greater Washington Metropolitan area, I’d seen the Walkmen plenty of times, usually at ridiculously packed-to-the-gills weekend shows at the Black Cat. As the draw of the Walkmen increased so too did the temperature inside, making the long, low upstairs of the Black Cat feel like a hipster sauna. As a rule, these shows were almost always great, and kinda felt like house parties (you know, the kind you see in teen movies, where every kid within a ten mile radius is there, rocking out to some long-haired band in cut off shorts and sipping spiked punch out of a plastic cup). Perhaps not exactly, but given that DC is the former home of the Walkmen, there was always that friendly, we-knew-you-when vibe. Having since moved from the DC area, I was curious to see the Walkmen outside of the friendly confines of their homeland of yore, and see whether the joyful abandon of DC shows past would follow them to the hallowed, Jeffersonian streets of Charlottesville.
After a sparse early going, the Satellite Ballroom got nice and cozy, with a youthful crowd eagerly gazing at the stage, waiting for the likely lads to appear. And finally, the lights dimmed, and appear they did, to enthusiastic cheers from the pretty full house. The quintet seemed in relaxed yet high spirits as they meandered through a set filled heavily with newer material, even dedicating a song to disgraced NY governor Spitzer. It could just have been my imagination, but I gauged the Walkmen to be a little more at ease as they powered through their set, like there was less a sense of performance anxiety. “Little House of Savages” was the standout of the set for me, with statuesque mouthpiece Hamilton Leithauser sounding intensely, yet functionally, scratchy. Perhaps this’ll come off as somewhat sacrilegious, so sue me, but at times Leithauser seemed to be channeling Faces-era Rod Stewart mixed with very early Dylan. And the instrumentations and machinations provided by Messrs. Walt, Paul, Matt, and Pete were quite possibly as in synch as I’d ever seen them. Which means it all sounded pretty darned good.
The dapper dandies maybe their way through eleven songs before ambling offstage, only to reemerge a few short moments later for an encore that was lustily received by the increasingly intoxicated patrons, comprised of four songs they “forgot to play.” The Satellite Ballroom version of “What’s In It for Me” came off as less brusque and even more organy than on Bows + Arrows. “The Rat” caused much excitement, as is to be expected by this point, and was appropriately frenzied but not quite out of control. The excellent cover of Mazarin’s “Another One Goes By” followed. It was my first time hearing it live, and I’ve got to give the band credit for their reinterpretation of a song I thought couldn’t be successfully covered. I wasn’t totally won over by the song’s inclusion on A Hundred Miles Off, but they got me with the live version. Very subtle. The final song of the evening was unnamed, one of the new songs the boys have been tweaking over the many months since the last album release. It was catchy, go figure, and features many mentions of a “silver lining.”
When it was all over, the crowd rapidly departed, leaving behind a feeling of warmth and contentment, and not just with their beverages. The Walkmen tonight were congenial, entirely pleasant, and mollified all my curiosities about their performance outside the four quadrants of DC. Well done, boys. Well done.

[Words by Megan Petty]
[Photos by PJ Sykes]

Live Review :: The Wombats @ The Annex [3.17.08]

The Wombats look a little like hell. They tell us they are sleep-deprived. They tell us they've been in seven time zones in two weeks. Their lead-singer looks a little bloated and is losing his voice - facts they don't need to tell us. It's debatably St. Patrick's Day on the Lower East Side and The Wombats look a little like hell.

Frontman, Matt Murphy is sweating through his green sweat shirt in little viral colonies. As little spots of sweat establish foothold on the front of his chest, they slowly expand to include other sweat-spots until there is an outbreak of wetness darkening the shamrock green. In a time-lapse video this would look like a reverse Pangaea - disparate parts coming together to form a larger whole. If he was working less hard, you might think he was sick. If The Wombats were playing less hard, you might question their ability to make it through the set. Murphy's voice strains but not from illness. He sweats but not from fever. This exhaustion isn't just from time change or sleep deprivation. It's from playing this hard in seven time zones and how the fuck can you sleep on that?

The Wombats open with "Lost In The Post," a song, ostensibly, about dating a girl who is all sunshine and rainbows when you're all rain storms and Wuthering Heights. There's some irony afoot when a band this exuberant addresses being too depressed for a girl who just wants to watch Mary Poppins. Then again, irony ain't a stranger and halfway through the set they play "Let's Dance To Joy Division" and everyone shouts the lyrics,"Let's dance to Joy Division/and celebrate the irony." A little like the irony of a band this tired playing a set with this much fervor. It. just. doesn't. wash.

Fast-forward to the end; instead of an encore, The Wombats' drummer makes a reference to cutting through the bullshit and why bother with the charade of going backstage when you and I know damn well that they've got two more songs they're planning to play. They've already played "Moving To New York," a song that uniquely lights up New Yorkers to feel successful and important based solely on zip code, and it's easy to wonder what the band has left to close this show. But, for a second-ever show in New York, The Wombats save "Backfire At The Disco" as their final note.

The song is about things going abjectly awful at a nightclub - about totally, completely bombing with woman. That seems a little out of sorts for band who just killed The Annex for the past 45 minutes. The irony is things have been going pretty well. But then again, a worn out band shouldn't have played this set in the first place. And again, the dark green sweat spots on Matt Murphy aren't simple exhaustion but they are why he'll feel a little worse tomorrow than he did today. Because sometimes you give enough to look like hell. And you can't fucking sleep on that.

Live Photos: The Black Lips at Bowery Ballroom [3.10.08]

Live Review: Ra Ra Riot @ Bowery Ballroom [03.07.08]

On Friday night, the miserable cold and rain outside of Bowery Ballroom was made all the more miserable by its contrast with what was happening on the inside. Ra Ra Riot, along with Bear Hands and Sam “Buck” Rosen, filled the space with a kind of unadulterated, giddy happiness that blasted away all thoughts of rain, disappointment, and sadness. And perhaps even thought itself. After all, we — a crowd of separate people, individuals — found ourselves melted down into a single mass of smiles, or rather, one giant smile that stretched across the room and that was so big and so long it made our collective face hurt.

Sam Rosen started the evening with flair and a lot of delay soaked solos with doubled trombone. Then Bear Hands took the stage, and began to blast us with the kind of hybrid rock we expect from good bands in New York. That is, they are an unapologetically aggressive guitar band, but they combined dance-able moments, evocative spaced-out guitar, and sing-along vocals with the old-fashioned riffage. I will resist saying that they are “tribal” merely because they have a stand-alone tom played by the bassist, but they definitely make use of complex and interesting rhythms. I especially enjoyed the sweet-and-sour noisescapes created by guitarist Ted Feldman and—in a nice throw-back twist—the theatrical spitting by bassist Val Loper.

They played a short but searing set. Their new song, which was, in the words of lead singer Dylan Rau, “About FUCKING VIETNAAAAAM” stood out for the dramatic contrast between its piercing guitars, the huge drum n’ bass throb, and the chanting chorus. The audience wanted more: Bear Hands were definitely ear and eye-catching.

But then Ra Ra Riot took the stage and it seemed as though all the other bands disappeared in the audience’s mind—not just the other bands on the bill but all bands everywhere always. They were truly stars of the show. The hall was packed in that intimate way only the Bowery Ballroom can be. Everyone stood shoulder-to-shoulder with stranger and friend and screamed for the six beautiful people on stage.

Ra Ra Riot, feeding off that energy, didn’t disappoint. They began the evening quietly, with just Wesley Miles on the keyboard playing what he called, “Crazy Days, an old John Pike song that we’ve never played this way before.” As he played, the drummer (sadly, not John Pike, as we all know) entered and then came the rest of the band in short order, building up the song. It was a perfect start. The rest of the show seemed to go the same way: every song built upon the last song, until it seemed like it was one single extended peak of sing-along happiness.

The band played and sang with completely unself-conscious abandon. I know that this is what we expect of all bands, especially bands that project Ra Ra Riot’s brand of catchy rockness, but here genuine excitement and genuine gratefulness shined through the players’ faces. They rampaged around the stage, knocking into each, dancing around, hugging, singing. They looked like an amoeba stuck under glass, constantly pushing out and reshaping itself at its periphery but always remaining stuck together. Or a less ridiculous metaphor: it was a living room dance party with really close friends and family. They presented themselves as a model for the kind of life we’d all like to have: togetherness, happiness, and boundless energy.

The best part of the evening came with the conclusion. Asked back for a second encore, the lead singer told us, “We don’t know anymore songs. We played all of them.” So he took a vote (election season everywhere), and the audience wanted to hear “Ghosts Under Rocks.,” instead of a newer song. They roared through it again. Singing the anthemic chorus, Miles was sucked into the crowd, where he surfed on top of loving hands and then found himself deposited on stage for the conclusion of the tune. Live music is so cool.

[Words by John Melillo]
[Photos by Bryan Bruchman]

Live Review: The Stills @ Bowery Ballroom [03.08.08]

In almost three years of New York City concert-going, I have never seen a venue worker alter the stage lights between bands. Yet somehow The Stills accomplish this feat, floodlights moved not by some random yahoo, either, but by the middle-aged, beer-bellied man who guards the entrance to what passes for backstage at the Bowery. As the Montreal band and its roadie set up the stage, the "guard" — earplugs still firmly in place — uses a 10-foot pole to move the lights above the stage into their proper position.

As he works, the buzz in the room, killed by openers Wild Light's dull set, builds. The Stills have come from the Great White North to conquer New York. They've already broken the take-no-shit, close-enough-to-a-bouncer veteran of hundreds of shows. The only obstacle left are some indie kids, waiting and willing to be transported. We are ready to explode with arms-crossed, head-nodding fury.

As the band takes the stage, the reason for the overhead light shift becomes clear. Eight brilliantly florescent vertical bulbs light up behind them, throwing guitar and bass and black clothes and unkempt hair into a silhouetted rock band tableau.

This should be epic.

It's not.

For the next hour, The Stills are fine. Solid, tight, and occasionally alluring, most notably on "Lola Stars and Stripes" and "Still in Love Song," the two jams that, judging by crowd reaction, introduced 75 percent of the audience to the band. The show's enjoyable, but never transcendent. Interpol threw out these black uniforms two years ago. The florescent backdrop works, then grows tired and morphs into a gimmick The Stills purchased at The Strokes' stoop sale last month on Second and A.

Canada's finest are never light-alteringly good. The songs aren't quite there, and neither is the live show. They are a good band, with an excellent first album and a weaker second one. If the two songs they play off their upcoming third album are any indication (one called "Eastern Europe," another about tea), they'll try to recapture the magic of "Logic," get close, but ultimately fall short.

Just as the show does.

By about 10 feet.

In and Out: Dark Meat Will Totally Kick the Polyphonic Spree's Ass

With a press photo that looks like a Where's Waldo cartoon, Dark Meat are a 17-member psych-rock collective from Athens, Georgia. They'll be packing into a green, 35-foot 1972 GMC coach tour bus for a SIXTY SIX date Spring tour kicking off at SXSW.

With song titles like, "There Is A Retard On Acid Holding A Hammer To Your Brain," is it really any surprise their album Universal Indians is being released on April 8th via Vice Records?

The group describe their sound as "the Stooges meets Crazy Horse meets Albert Ayler." Go ahead and try to make sense of that, or else just see for yourself by downloading "Freedom Ritual".

New Yorkers can catch Dark Meat at the two Union venues, Hall and Pool, on April 7th and 8th, respectively. There might still be room for a few audience members to squeeze in after the band packs themselves into the modest-sized venues, but I'd get there early, just to be safe.

In and Out :: Someone Still Loves You Boris Yelstin

This isn't exactly like showing up late to a party. It's a little like being invited to someone's wedding in June and showing up in October. But in the last 24 hours I've shown up to a party, the Someone Still Loves You Boris Yelstin party, and it's far, far too late. For instance, I received this message from my loose college acquaintance John on December 14th, 2006 at 11:53am: "Hey, Check out a band called Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin. They have a disc out called Broom which is really good. I particularly reccomend [sic] 'Pangea' and 'House Fire.'"

John, always famous to me for hooking up with a senior girl when we were freshman, sent this message in spirit of information; in the spirit of sharing. Sadly, I just didn't want to hear it. Perhaps, I knew they were good and just didn't have the time. Perhaps, at the time, I was too heavily spitting the Voxtrot gospel to make room for another indie-pop outfit. Perhaps, I am an asshole.

I never responded to John's message which surely made him think I didn't give a shit. Which isn't entirely incorrect. But like great artists, saying something early can be misunderstood but it is always, always vindicated in time. So, John, today is your day. My fucking apologies. SSLYBY has a record coming out and it is awesome. We are almost 15 months removed from John's offer of a good band and I feel nothing but gratitude and thanks for the heads up that I largely ignored.

The record is adorable in all the right places without being cloying. It's cute little pop songs that remind you of what Bishop Allen could end up doing in a year or so. Enjoy and send cosmic apologies to John.

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yelstin - Think I Wanna Die

Live Review: Bowerbirds @Mercury Lounge [02.29.08]

Bowerbirds walk towards their airstream trailer, point out how beautiful the fresh snow looks covering everything, and open the screened door to go inside and write about this moment. They tell long stories about their friends talents and abilities, and thank them profusely on their website…all in all they seem like downright nice people.

I can't imagine how long this is going to last...why do I feel sad about them already? Unless they stay locked up forever in that trailer or have the musical stubbornness of Tom Waits they are inevitably going to change. The only reason I worry is right at this moment they are so perfect.

The show at Mercury Lounge was a flawless example. The weather certainly wasn't encouraging anyone to make the trip, but those who did witnessed the rare stripped down, humble performance of a downright genius album Hymns for a Dark Horse and a few new untitled worthy ones. Absent were cymbals, or any percussion on the recorded album apart from the giant bass drum in the middle of the stage played by Beth or Marc with mallets, alternately hitting the edge with the stick between booming hits, wearing a hole into the side. In their place was a harpsichord and a midi foot pedal contraption connected to a blinking box adding ominous swelling bass chords underneath the shining high nylon acoustic guitar and vibrato violin notes.

Phil Moore is a virtuoso in his ability to separate the lyric melody from his acoustic accompaniment; it’s two separate entities playing apart, all the while the minimal instrumentation providing a pedestal for the flawless cautionary verse.

They never said anything to break this fantasy of an exceptional gypsy band just arrived out of the backwoods, completely alien to any kind of scene. They played one song after another to a hushed crowd, so quiet you could hear the clicking of the paparazzi in the front row lined up, flashing photo after photo.

The thing that keeps these songs compelling is this contrast between the simple sound of real instruments and the primal savagery of the content....living things conspire against each other, everything is going to decay and I don't know how hopeful we really can be in the end.

Politics aside, they seem to be saying we are pretty much destined, not necessarily to screw it all up, or even knowingly have a choice in the matter, but that there's something inevitable about the way we're constructed and continue to live that isn't going to lead to a happy ending.

I think it's their ability to carefully describe a place and feeling very particularly that gives them a truly unique sound. Coupled with Phil's vocals, Bowerbirds paint not a pretty picture but the reality of nature so reverentially that I'll go down listening with the whole beautiful awful mess on repeat.

[Words by Jason Dean]
[Photos by Mina K]

Live Review: The Bravery / Switches / Your Vegas [02.22.08]

As a former student of anthropology, I have a certain curiosity for how demographics affect a person’s experience of large cultural gatherings like concerts. Specifically, I’ve been interested in how age, socio-economic and regional factors influence the atmosphere of a show as well as the band’s performance. Without going into detail, my research to date has left me with a general fear of All Ages shows.

This fear brings me to my experience of The Bravery concert at Terminal 5, where the 3000+ crowd was a patchwork quilt of tightly wrapped hipsters, unbuttoned bankers, forty-something parents with their tween daughters and (most unfortunately) hordes of heavily intoxicated teenage girls. Though none of these groups were a problem in isolation, the areas where they mixed were a total killjoy. The forty-somethings (who have brought their kids to what they think will be a clean rock show from a clean rock band) are continually assaulted by full cups of beer thrown from the balconies, shouts of “move bitch!” and “make me whore!” and the hair-pulling cat fights that followed. Fights between drunk girls broke out everywhere like it was prom night on an episode of The O.C.. To make matters worse, the offending drunks were often whisked off by their less-intoxicated girlfriends before security arrived. Now to the music.

Luckily, Terminal 5 is big enough and dark enough that all three acts seemed nearly oblivious the frequent eruptions of chaos in the crowd. First up was Your Vegas, a five-piece indie-rock oufit from Leeds, England. The band, whose work has drawn favorable comparisons from U2 to Coldplay, played a tight set of tracks from their upcoming album and A Town & Two Cities EP. Though they were unknown to the majority of the audience, the epic vocals of frontman Coyle Girelli and the anthemic riffs of guitarist Mat Steel had heads nodding just minutes into their set.

Next in the lineup were Brit power-poppers Switches. Though the band played a virtually flawless set complete with all of the big hair, British accents, and tight jeans a pop-punk fan could ask for, their lighter, often sugary lyrics and multipart operatic vocals ran counter to the more stoic mood of their New York audience. While it was clear from Matt Bishop’s wide vocal range and the band’s tight execution of their songs that Switches have talent, their live set felt meticulous, overly rehearsed and slightly restrained. Their debut album Lay Down The Law successfully pays homage to pop/glam legends like Bowie and Queen on several occasions, but somehow the live show comes up short.

The Bravery took the stage to raucous cries from all three floors of Terminal 5. Despite the steadily increasing B.A.C. of their younger fans and the indifference of those who had already reached their intoxicated zenith, the band brought the rock to their home town crowd. With the radio hit "Public Service Announcement" in the three-slot, The Bravery wasted little time bringing the energy up to a danceable level. In addition to a couple of new tracks, the band ripped through a songs from The Sun and the Moon before laying down crushing synth entries for crowd favorites “An Honest Mistake” and “Fearless.”

The band’s performance would have been superb were it not for several noticeably frustrating technical problems that plagued guitarist Michael Zakarin. Throughout the set, Zakarin took center stage for some wonderful guitar solos as well as lead vocals for the b-side track “The Dandy Run.” Unfortunately, it was these changeups that proved the most problematic for the Terminal 5 sound guys. Through it wasn’t quite the fiasco heard at Cat Power, the sound was noticeably off at key moments.

From the first few bars of “The Dandy Run” it was clear that the mic levels had not been adjusted for Zakarin’s thinner, and somewhat raspy voice. It wasn’t until the final few seconds of the song that the levels were increased to the proper proportion. Zakarin, who was clearly surprised by the sudden boost in volume backed off the mic causing the end of the song to die in an anticlimactic fade. Though I doubt this ruined the song for anyone, things could have gone better. During “An Honest Mistake,” just as the first pumping had peaked, Zakarin ran into trouble again. With several small motions in the direction of his pedals he sent the stage crew into a connection checking fury. When it was clear that the guitar solo would not happen as intended, bassist Mike Hindert jumped on the metaphorical hand grenade with a song saving stage drive into house left. Admirably, the band would play through their encore without complaint.

YOUR VEGAS





SWITCHES





THE BRAVERY





Review and Photography by Chris Owyoung for Loose Record.

Live Review: Pela at Music Hall of Williamsburg [02.27.08]

The Brooklyn band, Pela, has gotten a lot of acclaim over the past year not least because their debut full-length album, Anytown Graffiti (Great Society, 2007)is one of the best albums of the year. Their show at the Music Hall of Williamsburg was sold-out and Pela definitely lived up to my performance expectations. Vocalist Billy McCarthy was great and really brought out the local hometown crowd, playing it up and bantering with audience members.



As usual for the venue, the sound was amazing, and I managed to fit myself into the back corner up against the soundproofing on the walls. While this might not be a great position from which to listen to many bands, (I tried it with openers Apollo Sunshine but couldn't deal with the reverb) but for Pela it was perfect. Their songs definitely strike my heartstrings, so I enjoyed losing myself in the performance while also feeling the sound deep in my bones.



Pela played all of their hit songs, including crowd favorites "Waiting on the Stairs," "Drop Me Off," "Song Writes Itself," and "Trouble With River Cities." The band also set up their encore perfectly with the song "Tenement Teeth," which had the audience cheering for more. Finally, they closed the night with "Venom" and "Cavalry," two of their most anthemic and memorable songs. I guess the only complaints I have are that Pela is almost too perfect. It would be nice if they messed up and played something terrible for once, just to prove that they are human. At time they sound a bit like The National, which would not be a problem except that in my opinion, The National is a little precious, and Pela has a unique sound and should push that distinctiveness a bit further.


Aside from the show at the Music Hall it's my unfortunate duty to report that the rest of Pela's tour has been cancelled due to a mishap involving "Cavalry," a broken bottle, and Billy's hand at their show in Philly on Saturday night. For updates and more information, you can check out their website or myspace pages at:

www.pelamusic.com
www.myspace.com/pela

[Words by Anna Loosli]
[Photos by Elizabeth Weinberg]