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Review #288: James Iha, Let It Come Down

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

For some reason I thought about this the other day and then today KC suggested I do a review of it from memory alone. I thought it was a great idea because it would be really easy. So here goes.

I only heard part of one song on the album, whatever the single was. Something about silver strings or something. I remember reading an interview with Iha in Guitar World and him saying something about listening to some The Band albums. Based on all that I gotta say it wasn’t a very good album. And the cover is cheese.

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Review # 253: Cut Copy

Friday, May 30th, 2008

This album by some Austrailian people is so good, I want to share it with you. Not the music, the CD. I really want someone to have it. The copy I have, that is. This CD is certainly meant to be given to someone else. I tried to give it to Jeremy, but he declined. So please let me share it with you and please…, just take it.

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Review # 237:Quickie Album Twofer

Saturday, January 12th, 2008

I haven’t heard an entire Imperial Teen album before this, but I have heard three earlier singles. I enjoyed each one a lot, so when Jeremy’s friend Derek said they had put out a new album this year I thought I’d check it out. I had been wanting to get some new music lately so this was a good lead. The album isn’t as good as the singles I heard before, but it still has it’s merits. It’s clear that the rockers are aging and it is reflected in some of their lyrics. The tunes are good and make me want to dance, but not rock out like the others. So here, listen to these older songs instead. Although the band might have never achieved super stardom because they don’t have a knack for making videos.

In my search for new music I thought I’d get an Arcade Fire album. My uber snob best friend told me to check them out a couple of years ago. If he liked them, it was surely worth a listen. Still, I never gave them that listen. I finally decided to, becasue they seem to be getting high acclaim and some of my favorite bands have come out of Canada. When I went to the record store I chickened out and just bought a Ween album instead.
At first listen I was disapointed. It seemed that Gene and Dean were stonder than usual and just phoned this one in. A lot of droney songs with repetetive lyrics relying heavily on their weird vocal effects. But after listening more I noticed a few more rocking moments with their fun guitar licks and some of the songs I thought were boring before became more catchy. There are still a lot of parts I skip over. I have yet to find an album by Ween better than the Mollusk.

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Review #234: Dina Martina’s Christmas show

Tuesday, December 18th, 2007

Oh, Secret Santa!
This isn’t going to be a very good review. That is to say, the quality of my review will be poor. I don’t know if it was because of the drinks I had before and during the show or because I was just having such a great time, but I didn’t take many mental notes. I mean, I could describe the things that happened and jokes, but there is no way it would do the show justice. But I assure you, I give the Dina Martina Christmas Show the highest rating I might give if I had any sort of rating system.
One great thing a performer can do is put their audience at ease. I knew some audience participation would be involved, and I had an aisle seat. I get nervous about getting picked out of an audience sometimes. When the time came, she only picked people who raised their hands because she didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable. How considerate! It makes me love her even more. Since I was in an aisle seat she still sang at me a couple of times.
The show was a mix of singing, videos, and handing out gifts (pronounced “jifts”). The singing was out of control of course, with its off-key, out-of-tune incorrect lyrics. She sang one song towards the end with a vocoder on her vocals. That’s the part where I laughed the hardest. The videos were fun, with Dina’s head imposed over old footage. My favorite was “It’s A wonderful Life”. The card said “…and every time angel gets it’s wings, Zuzu’s head spins around.” You can guess what happened after that.
The jifting was fun because you get to see what cool things people get (like Dr. Pepper flavored beef jerky) and there was a particularly creepy helper named “Secret Santa.” How to describe him…I can’t really. He had on a mask and wig and a dirty Santa’s hat. He didn’t say a word and was just generally creepy-looking as he held the bag with the jifts in it. I really wish I had a photo of him.
In all honesty, there isn’t a lot I can say about the show. I’m sure I could go in depth with it if I had been wearing my blogging goggles during the show, but I wasn’t. I can say that I’ve had more fun at this show than I have had in a while and you should really just go if you get a chance.

Here’s a video that also does not do the show justice.

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Review #233: Man2Man-Male Stripper video

Friday, November 30th, 2007

This is a great song on it’s own and is more than likely to get stuck in your head. This video, however, is a huge let-down. First of all, don’t you think someone who was a satripper would be a little more…active? Why did he stop stripping, did he become paraplegic? It starts out promising with all this leather unbuckling and unzipping and such hottness, but quickly cools down and delivers rather boring visuals. About halfway through, the dude strokes some mechanical lever, it’s suggestive and fun but that’s it. Like a drop of water in the desert.
There’s a lyric “Tips in my g-string/Made my living.” At the end we see the stripping close ups again and when the pants actualy come off, is there a g-string? No, some baggy boxers that leave way too much to the imagination. We do get to see a hairy chest,though, that’s nice.
I will continue to listen to this song and am glad that I got to see the video at all, but I probably won’t watch the video again.

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Review #231: Britney Spears- Blackout (2007)

Wednesday, November 21st, 2007

Before last week I had never heard an entire Britney Spears album. I know a few of the singles, but not all of them, and even found myself liking and listening to “Toxic” a lot. Other than that I don’t know much about what she sounds like.
Well, if what they are saying is true, that this album sounds like a Britney album, and a good one at that, I have absolutley no interest in hearing another Britney album ever.

The first three tracks are the best. We have “Gimmie More,” which debuted during her infamous VMA performance this year, “Piece of Me,” a fun song that explores the tabloid obsession with Ms. Spears, and “Radar,” a catchy little pop tune. These songs at least have some aesthetic value to me. My favorite is “Piece”, even though it’s flawed. She says “Mrs. She’s too big now she’s too thin,” saying this is one way the tabloids describe her. Honey, I don’t recall anyone ever saying you were too thin. She also uses the word “derriere” which makes her sound like a 60-year-old, and uses a singular form of “magazine” when she should be saying “magazines.”

After that the whole album is crap. I can’t even enjoy the last song that is sung to K Fed in an ironic way. Every song is crammed with so many sounds and vocal effects that I couldnt tell and/or didn’t care what was going on in the song. Chaos in music is not something I frown upon, but everything layered on top of cheap unoriginal chord progressions and unispired lyrics left me sour. I understand that vocal effects are just part of the industry but it was to the point that I didn’t know if she was singing with a dude or if they warped her voice to sound like a man. I also am of the school of thought that lyrics in pop and rock songs don’t really matter, but sometimes they are so bad that they grate on me. This is one of those times. I just don’t like how that album makes me feel.

I don’t want to waste too much energy on this since I might have to do so debating the album with my good friend Jake who loves it.

If this music is sugar, I think I’m in diabetic shock. I need a shot of rock and roll insulin.

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Review #222: Britney Spears on VMA2007

Tuesday, September 11th, 2007

Yeah, it was pretty bad. A lot of people are saying that she looked fat and out of shape and gave a half-hearted performance. I agree with most of that. Yes, she looks heavier than she has, but for someone who’s had two (ugly) children she looks pretty good. I mean, out-of-shape? Yes. Fat? Not really. She could have pulled off that outfit and extra weight more effectively, though, if she just didn’t seem so bored. Her moves were slow and minimal as she just paced back and forth while the extra dancers did all the work. If she was more on her game and danced like she meant it, most people would overlook the pudginess. The best way I can describe it is that she looked like she just woke up from a pill-induced nap. Not the best way to execute a highly publicized come-back.

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Review #215: Daft Punk, Seattle 07/29/07 (or, Daft Punk and Me)

Friday, August 3rd, 2007

You know how as time goes by, you like things you used to not like, or you dislike things you used to enjoy? For instance, I used to not like asparagus but now I love the stuff. I used to not like almonds. When I was a kid The Brady Bunch came on right after He-Man and I used to despise it. By high school it had become my favorite show ever. What’s my point?..oh, yeah…

When Daft Punk released Homework, I made fun of them. A lot. Why, I’m not sure. Was it because Alex Bennet, the current morning DJ on Live 105.3 FM blasted them after they played in the studio because they just spun records the whole time? No, even then, knowing nothing of electronic music, I knew the difference between a band and…whatever you call Daft Punk. I think at the time I was getting into indie rock and home-recordings, so the idea of an overproduced DJ album just did not appeal to me. “Da Funk” was getting a lot of air play at the time and it seemed too repetitive. Of course at the time dancing was a completely foreign concept to me so having a catchy riff over a fat beat over and over made little or no sense to me. Add to that the fact that I only ever heard that song and “Around the World”, mostly on MTV’s Amp, which I did try to watch once or twice, and you can see why I wasn’t a big fan. Why did I make fun of them with my friends, though? Probably because I was an angsty teen with a chip on his shoulder who felt that the world owed him something and would therefore find anything to “hate”.

When “Discovery” came out, I saw the video for “One More Time” and actually thought the song catchy. The video was fun, too. Then I heard that they were going to make an anime video for every song on the album. I thought that was a cool concept, but when I heard that Daft Punk were robots, no, they insisted they were really robots, I thought “lame”. I never saw any of those other videos and forgot all about them. Fast forward to 2007.

Jeremy told me Daft Punk is coming and he is going. I don’t remember if this is before or after he told me that they did make a DVD of all the songs for “Discovery” and sent me to youtube to watch some. I was kind of digging on it. See, throughout my entire working life I have, save for that one year at the gas station, been subjected to Muzak and that, of course, means a healthy dose of disco music. Boogie Nights, I will Survive, Knock on Wood, and tons more. A veritable Time-Life collection of the stuff. I developed a fondness for a lot of it so when I started dating a guy who’s Bic was flicked by dance and electronic music I wasn’t surprised that I was turned on to some of it (Not a lot of it, mind you, but some of it).
So they were coming, it was a big deal, and I wanted to go. I was partly excited, partly scared both because I didn’t know what to expect. And I was also afraid I’d have to dance but not be in the mood. Ok, enough back story, let’s get to the concert. Or performance. Or set. Or whatever the hell Daft Punk would call it.

The first thing I noticed when we went in was just how massive it was. The show was at the WaMU Theater and I have NEVER been to any musical performance this big, ever. I don’t do arena shows. In fact I hardly do shows, but whatever. This wasn’t arena-big, but it was big. And sold out. So there were TONS of people there. You know how in the movie “Dazed and Confused” it’s like this big party with all these individual stories going around at once. I could totally see a movie set in this place with stuff happening at the merch booth, in the bathroom, at the beer table, in the audience. It was a little surreal and easy to lose yourself in the crowd. I welcomed it, but it got too crowded on the floor. The show was sold out and if you had any intention of dancing, well…forget it. Like sardines in a can, I tell you. During the show, there was one point where a good 2 feet of space opened up in front of me. I pulled Jeremy into my spot to give him the room if he wanted to try to dance. Naturally, the space closed up really quickly.
Before the show Jeremy, Bill and I puttered around, got a beer, and waited for it to start. Once it did, I was sort of blown away. It was so loud. It was so flashy. The bass was…my hair was vibrating…I could feel it in my chest, in my bowels…I wanted it to just consume me. I have developed a taste for beats and this show certainly delivered. I don’t so much like to dance to the beats as much as I like to stylishly walk to them with headphones on. As a result I ended up standing there, maybe trying to dance, but mostly letting the rhythm and music pound into me like a cannon ball. It’s sort of hard for me to explain, not having heard much of their music. Jeremy said it was really deconstructed. I know what he means because there were only small fragments of the songs I knew…none of them as a whole, from the album that is. The light show was great. See, the two musicians (?) were standing at a pyramid-shaped podium thingy that lit up, plus they had all the lights around them as well and a huge video screen.

I have since purchased a Daft Punk album, Discovery. I chose this one because I had to get the one that had “Face to Face” on it. When I listen to this album I feel a little ignorant for being so closed-minded as a youngster, and so long afterwards as well.

I did a piss-poor job of reviewing the actual concert, but whatever. Jeremy got some video of it, but the poor guy has been busy, has fallen ill, plus he seems to have some hurdles to deal with in the video-editing department. So here’s someone else’s:

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Review#211: Tilly and the Wall

Sunday, July 8th, 2007

The gift of a fat-lipped grin

I really wanted to make this review about Steel Reserve, but that ain’t gonna happen. Instead it’s about Tilly and the Wall and their two full-length albums. Last year about this time, my friend Gil made an indie rock mix CD. I was seriously looking for new stuff to listen to. He gave me some great tracks, too, like Of Montreal- The Party’s Crashing Us Now, Envelopes-Isobelle and Leonard, Acid House Kings-7 Days, and lots of other great tracks. One, however, stuck out like a sore thumb, a thumb slammed in a door, the way my head and heart felt when I let this song sink in. It was Tilly and the Wall-Rainbows in the Dark, the first track off their second album, Bottoms of Barrels. Here’s the video for it.

The first thing I felt was the pounding percussion, but more on that later. The most influential part of that song were the lines “My sister went kissing a maple skinned boy, finally threw up her hands, said ‘I’m done being coy!’” This is what inspired me, only a scant five years after coming out, to finally go out and start kissing boys (kissed two, neither of which I should have) and say “What the hell?” when my boyfriend Jeremy asked me out (I totally lucked out there).

Sometime over the past year I looked for more tracks and found two from their first album, Wild Like Children. Nights of the Living Dead is a youth freedom anthem that’s comparable to (I can’t believe I’m going to say this) Sonic Youth’s Teenage Riot. The end has the background accompaniment of GLASS BREAKING! It is so satisfying to hear! The other track, The Ice Storm, Big Gust, and You, seems to have an anti-establishment theme, characterizing weather as oppressive forces which, of course, “won’t bring me and all my friends down”. My thing about this song is that whenever it is played, it must be played as loud as possible. Like, don’t wake up your neighbors or piss off your roommates or anything, but it needs to be listened to as loud as it can be played!

I don’t go looking for a lot of music. I have always just picked up whatever my friends listened to that I like. There were a couple of gems that I found on my own…L7, Eric’s Trip (R.I.P.), The Microphones (who my friends would have found out about later anyway). But for the most part, I just roll along and collect things like a sticky ball of goo. When I recently visited California, my best friend KC had the Bottoms of Barrels album and actually thanked me for referring him to it. This meant a lot, seeing as how KC has been the dominant influence in shaping my musical tastes. Well, him and my dad. I was surprised because I had not actually heard the whole album yet. So upon my return to my lovely Seattle I purchased both of their albums.

The first album is better. The second album is still better than anything I’ve heard in a while, but not as good. This saddens me because I know exactly what is going to happen. Now that I have been turned onto them with this renewed hope in indie rock music their next album is going to blow monkey balls. That’s just what happens. Enough of my cynicism, though…
The reason I like “Wild Like Children” more is that it has a more consistent sound that drives it through the album. “Bottoms of Barrels” has a more varied sound, both rocking songs and ballad-y songs. Their ballads tend to get a little boring, especially after I get pumped up by the first few tracks. That’s not to say they’re not pretty. “BoB” has one slower song I like that seems a little over produced for the band, with some 80’s sounding electronics in the back. I half-expect Limahl to start singing “Neverending Story.”

I don’t particularly like writing reviews of music because it’s a lot like art…you just have to listen to it and decide whether it pleases you or not. I can’t really do it for you, so I’ll just wrap it up by getting back to the percussion I mentioned earlier…Did you watch the video? Was it not brilliant? What was it? TAP SHOES! Thats right! A huge portion of the percussion on both albums is done with TAP SHOES! It’s so beautiful, the driving, banging sound just makes me want to stomp and destroy and fly!…ok, I’m getting carried away.

Tilly and the Wall’s songs are by no means complex. The chord progressions are very basic and the percussion, when in drum or electronic form, is simplistic at best. The beauty lies mostly in the arrangement, the use of different instruments and footwear as well as the vocal melodies and harmonies that carry profound yet simple lyrics throughout the albums.
There is only one thing that I am certain of in this world. If and when Tilly and the Wall come to Seattle I will be there. And I will dance. And if it’s an all ages show, I’ll be mad. But still go.

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