the most exciting thing about the day was walking an hour up cass from rosa parks, and trying to time the length of the walk for future use. the weather was finally co-operating in throwing out a nice, hot, humid night. i've been here three years and this was really the first nice night walking through detroit.
palm was on first and they were most notable for being able to actually pull off what they put down on record, which was not obvious walking into the show. i remarked at some point during the night that this is the kind of band that exists for a few years, disappears with little notice and then gets discovered a few years later. you should probably see them the first time, while you have the chance.
here is a full set:
ought was on second, and i wasn't very impressed. i was expecting something generic, in the broad scope of the kind of fruity "indie rock" that has been popular for the last few years. a danceable beat, with some broken chords and some synth stabs. *yawn*. but, they ended up more schlocky than fluffy, navigating through that minimalist-guitars-with-gruff-vocalist post-punk space. it came off as a kind of vanity pick by ian ilavsky. check out new era building, compare and you'll see what i mean.
the walk back in the dark was really not bad at all. you can imagine that this big, collapsing city remains a little bit scary to this shy, polite canadian. but, i'm getting used to it. it was really mostly through campus. apologies to anti-gentrification activists, but it'll feel that much safer when they finish with the hockey arena. that couple of blocks between mlk and temple is really the only creepy part of the walk.
so, i went to the trouble of ensuring i had both sufficient intoxicants and a colourful babydoll, and then the band i went to see decided not to show up.
"apparently, the drummer had to work."
"hey, it's a thing that happens."
(pause)
"he had to work?"
"yeah."
(pause)
ahahahahahaha....
ahahahahahahahaha....
--
i had already paid customs, so what would be the use of going home without getting drunk? the reviews will be terse, though.
--
this was the second time i've seen river spirit. last time, i suggested the rhythm section was kind of funky, but the singer wasn't really paying attention and the result was disjointed and discombobulated, but not in a good way. the suggestion was that maybe there's some divergence, there. on this night, however, the band was actually pretty tight. she often took a step back from the mic to just rock out on the bass, instead. i don't know what changed between november and now, but it's just a more coherent and unified presentation.
--
nokomis were a pleasant, but generic, indie/post-rock thing. they were having fun. it wasn't bad, either. it was just entirely forgettable.
--
i didn't stay for much of the sax & violence set - the first fifteen minutes, or so. there was an electronic violin looking thing and a saxamophone of some variety. they took turns jamming aimlessly over some pre-programmed loops; they were really literally just fucking around. in theory, you could do something with that idea. but, see, you have to write some music first. by playing at the same time. i know. life is complicated.
i was planning on this show being an in and out on a holiday weekend in canada that you generally want to avoid cars, and really roads altogether, on. the ideal was to show up halfway through the local band's set in order to catch the math band....and maybe stay for the third set. instead, the math rock band played first and came on a little late, even by phog standards. i ended up catching the first two acts and skipping the third.
this was the second of three lengthy combinations; it happens to have been the least interesting of the three. you can hear plenty of evidence here that these are capable musicians that like to play acrobatic parts. so, why are they retreating into repetition for these long periods?
but, this is kind of a pointless critique, in some ways, too. i mean, there's more than enough going on, here. it's just that if you're accustomed to this hyper-adhd style of math rock, the reliance on repetition comes off as a crux. a faux pas, even.
but, i mean, listen for yourself and see what you think.
i wasn't really intending to stay for this set, but i decided i was feeling pretty relaxed and, hey, why not? the output surprised me quite a bit...
the impression i got from their bandcamp page was a kind of poppy post-punk, maybe with gazey leanings. i was expecting something fairly timid that i'd get bored of quite quickly. however, the actual show was fairly noisy and riff-oriented, and seemed to exist somewhere in that nice intersection of grunge and math rock that happened in the mid 90s. think polvo, for example. now, see, i suspect that they were playing mostly new material, or at least mostly material not accessible online, so there wasn't really any way to get a grasp of things ahead of time.
the drawback is that they seem to want to hold to a kind of traditional emo framework. in 2016, you only do this because you never really thought not to. it's just what you've always done, kind of thing. but, the genre is beyond dead, it's already been reincarnated as farce. there's nowhere to go with this. not even with kids, who are nowadays actually mostly going to interpret it as dad rock. they'll be better off if they can drop this. but, they'll probably have to redefine themselves to do it, and unknown bands tend not to survive such a thing.
but, the upshot is that they were legitimately tight and legitimately interesting. the bassist is unusually loud, given the genre, and it's a positive.
so, i guess the honest assessment is that while i wouldn't expect this precise configuration to go anywhere, this band may have the seeds of a successor project that is able to let go of the songwriting formulas they're accustomed to and expand a little more in that polvo-style direction.
dropping or muzzling the vocalist is going to be key in evolving the sound.
i should be asleep, but it's a saturday night and my parents don't really force me to go to sleep. well, how can they, really? they need to sleep, too. fatalism is actually pretty rational, in context - it's an unresolvable problem. and i'm a bit of a hard-headed little punk rascal.
i just find that i only need a few hours of rest, not something crazy like eight hours. who sleeps that long? wow. i'm ok with four hours, really. so, what should i do for the rest of the night, then? toss darts at the wall? count sheep? lying in bed when you're really not tired is just simply being unproductive. if i'm going to be awake anyways, i'd rather stay up and read something, or listen to some music. i guess it's a good time to do some blogging, too.
i don't have internet access in my room, though, so i need to sneak into the spare computer room when i want to use the internet at night. i do have a computer in my room, but it only has windows 3.1 on it. i need windows 95 to use internet explorer. so, i probably won't be able to do this blog every night.
i've been up all night playing civ2 and listening to this new soundgarden cassette on my walkman. i skipped the afternoon class on tuesday (computer class, and i already know it all, anyways, so it's just a waste of time) to go down to the hmv at st. laurent to pick it up. i get a free bus pass from school, so i can go wherever i want in the city whenever i want, which is actually very liberating. much easier than bicycling. there's a music world at billings, too, but it's always over priced and under stocked. the hmv at st. laurent is only a few minutes up the transitway and always has what i want.
it's a little different than superunknown, a bit poppier, but it's still pretty good. parts of it remind me a lot of the beatles, and i really like the beatles a lot. parts of it are sort of weird, and i like that, too. i always like to hear things that i haven't heard before. i think i'd like to teach myself how to play some of these songs, too, but i'm wondering if maybe they're in weird tunings. i know soundgarden likes weird tunings. my ibanez has a locking bridge so i try to avoid weird tunings. maybe, i can figure out how to play them in normal tunings, anyways. when songs are in weird tunings, it's sometimes helpful to find tabs on the internet, because then i can figure out how to play it with normal tuning. sometimes, that means transposing the song up a key or two but it's all relative so it doesn't matter.
i've been playing civ2 ever since i got home last night. dad says i'm totally addicted, but it's a video game, not a drug, so i think that's a weird thing to say. but, i do sometimes play it all night, until the sun comes up and the dogs come running in and i have to pretend i'm sleeping. i like to change the civilizations i play with so that i can learn the names of the cities in different parts of the world. tonight, i am catherine the great of russia. i always liked to learn about geography, ever since i was very small. i knew all the capital cities in the whole world, almost!
i found a tab for burden in my hand, and it is actually in a weird tuning. i should try and convert it to normal tuning when i wake up tomorrow.
stoked by fears of not getting in to see the show due to it selling out, whether conspiratorially worked up by the bar owners or not, i convinced myself of the need to transit to the show relatively early so that i could stop by a record shop on the way there. this, it seems, is somewhat of a useful trick to be put aside for reuse. but, it left me with the need to walk a good distance through an unknown part of detroit (in somewhat girly attire) and arrive at the venue at least an hour before doors.
the walk in was actually a lot less creepy than anticipated. it was ultimately just a fear of the unknown, but i need to assert myself - some apprehension is intelligent when walking through detroit alone. the thing is that huge amounts of the city are virtually empty, so there is literally nobody that is going to hear you yell. yes - nobody will hear your cries. let's not sing this song. see, i've mused before that this implies that wild animals are a more pressing concern than desperate people, but it remains true that the city is a kind of a predator's twisted wet dream, and this simply can't be forgotten. i will not apologize for being careful about where i'm walking and when and fuck you for criticizing me for it.
but, the truth is that the walk up bagley was of minimal concern. it seems that the area directly surrounding the railroad tracks has been left for dead. the abandoned twenty story office buildings would no doubt be useful to the homeless folk huddled around them, even as mere shelter from the rain, but there are barbed wire fences to prevent use. again: i found myself more frightened of the possibility that i was walking through coyote territory, and i truly probably was. but, this took up no more than a few blocks of a half hour walk, which was mostly through a pleasant commercial district populated by ethnic mexican businesses.
i got there eventually and tried to chill in the dog park across the way, hoping i'd bump into somebody with my favourite thing, but instead i found myself looking over my shoulder at pit bulls and dobermans left off their leash to sneak up upon me with intent. first i escaped the coyotes, and now this. is detroit run by shape-shifting canids? well, if the lizard people are truly so ubiquitous, they'd have to have evolved thermoregulation at some point, right? it might explain some things you could never get your head around. nor did i see a bar up the strip that i'd feel safe in, although there were plenty of ice cream stores. and, so, i ended up parked in the front of the venue for upwards of an hour and felt myself start to get slightly cold.
--
i found myself in the smoking section for most of the next two hours, floating from a to b and not really saying much of any value to anyone. but, i did eventually find what i wanted before the show started, and i have to acknowledge that it was more essential than i expected.
--
i had heard some chelsea wolfe years earlier; apokalypsis was in rotation for a little while over 2011 or 2012. i'm going to throw out a comparison i haven't seen before: it reminded me a little of jar of flies period alice in chains, but with a kind of impressionist swirl to it. then, i seem to have forgotten about her. it was less about rejection and more just about overlooking it. this is a thing that does happen when you're a music nerd, and there is really simply no way to avoid it without solving for the very hard problem of mortality.
so, when i saw she was playing here, my mind floated back to memories of that record. the next step was to explore some new material; i both found it surprising and interesting. i had picked up somewhere that she had swung a little more goth, but i wasn't expecting as strong of an embrace of electronics. it was compelling, though - i am a fan of the style from multiple different angles. i mean, i grew up listening to stuff like curve and garbage, not to mention skinny puppy and nine inch nails. while i didn't get a chance to really absorb the disc, i heard more than enough to convince me to attend in the handful of times that i streamed it leading up to the show.
i was surprised a second time by the set, which seemed to meet me halfway by pulling in quite a bit of a heavy grunge aesthetic. it was a return to alice in chains, but the heavy side. a bit of soundgarden, even; there's some swans in there, too. pj harvey. it’s all 90s. the press is going to want to name drop witch whatever, black this and doom that. but, i'm an old grunge kid. i knew what i was listening to. and i rather enjoyed it...
i found myself remembering some of the older tracks, too, which was nice.
the show was strong enough that i'm going to no doubt find myself exploring her last two records more carefully and in the process i may find that i was mentally overcompensating for the electronics at the expense of the guitars - that they were there all along, and i just didn't hear them. but, my immediate impression was that the show was brutal in a way that the record isn't and that may be a little surprising to some. it's ultimately just a mixing decision to make sure the guitars are loud enough and dirty enough to make the output fundamentally guitar-oriented, rather than fundamentally electronic. it's just not what i picked out when i was listening beforehand, rightly or wrongly.
so, i'm torn between suggesting that the live show is an improvement in sound over the record and wondering how i would have reacted to a more electronic set.
but, i will say that if you like the head cave then this is a good one.
here is a full set:
the walk back was a little bit scary, but i need to put it in the perspective of being unfamiliar with the walk. it was again the coyote patch that bothered me most, although it seemed at a few points that slow moving cars with their lights off were trailing me through the abandoned streets, with unknown motives and for unknown lengths. people wanted me to stop to talk to them; i didn't really want to do that. and, etc. but, i ultimately made it home without incident.
my apprehension about repeating that exact route is grounded, but i'm going to need to experiment to determine something more optimal. detours. bus schedules, maybe. or perhaps even just getting used to it....
there's a lot of stuff on that record that doesn't sound much like soundgarden, but is actually extremely well put together. the record continues to get flak for being "unfocused", but that's always missed the point - the late 90s were really a final renaissance of expansive art rock, and the record really fits in perfectly along with other period classics like mcis, aenima and ok computer. i'd argue it's highly underrated, and arguably even their best record. the psychedelic sound that dominates the disc was picked up by cameron & shepherd in the wellwater conspiracy, which seems to suggest that it was actually the rhythm section that had taken over the band in it's twilight phase.
anyways. i'll get to this. but this is another underappreciated track from that disc that i used to listen to quite a bit.
if you're too young to know what i'm talking about:
my records going back to 1996 are not perfect, but, then again, i've been over this before: who has digital records from 1996? the oldest cd list i can find is from 2002. there are records in archives somewhere that are older than this...if i can find them...
but, here is what i can reconstruct.
now, note that this is going to necessarily be mildly revisionist, in the sense that i didn't buy every cd on the day it came out. some of it, i know i did - like the i mother earth disc, or the nin disc. but i didn't get into stuff like labradford or tortoise until 98 or 99. i can remember exactly when i got into labradford - i saw them open for gybe! on the slow riot tour, which was the spring of '99. tortoise is a little more blurry. i remember getting standards on the release date.
the point is that this is going to have to be approximate, whether i like it or not. although, there is a possibility that it could get very, very accurate starting about mid '97, if i can get to those archives.
i don't get online until mid '97 or so, and there's going to be a big gap over that period. i'm comfortable waiting until i get there before i start looking for usenet and listserv archives.
but, we can see where i'm going with this quite clearly. my first post is going to no doubt be about enjoying the new soundgarden record, down on the upside.
hard-headed, fuck you all.
just add it all
to the hot rod death toll.
that mandolin solo, though.
the page will be up soonish.
download microscopic 1996 ep jan 9, 1996
radiohead street spirit 1996 single jan 22, 1996
limblifter llimblifter 1996 lp jan 23, 1996
stabbing westward wither, blister, burn + peel 1996 lp jan 23rd
the smashing pumpkins 1979 1996 ep jan 26th
tortoise millions now living will never die 1996 lp jan 30
econoline crush affliction 1996 lp feb 20
skinny puppy brap 1996 2xlp feb 27
the process 1996 lp
charlie's family 1996 lp
gravity kills gravity kills 1996 lp mar 5
the smashing pumpkins 1979 mixes 1996 ep mar 12th
stp tiny music 1996 ep mar 26
the tea party alhambra 1996 ep mar ?
the smashing pumpkins tonight, tonight 1996 ep apr 15
man or astroman? experiment zero 1996 lp april 16th
the smashing pumpkins zero 1996 ep apr 23
download sidewinder 1996 ep april 30, 1996
soundgarden down on the upside 1996 lp may 21
***********
download the eyes of stanley pain 1996 lp may 28th
nine inch nails quake soundtrack 1996 lp june 22
kmfdm xtort 1996 lp june 25th
sponge wax ecstatic 1996 lp july 2nd
i mother earth scenery and fish 1996 lp july 9th
ost escape from l.a. 1996 lp july 15
alice in chians unplugged 1996 lp july 30
various (charity) sweet relief ii 1996 lp aug 6
rhcp coffee shop 1995 single aug 12
white zombie supersexy swingin' sounds 1996 lp aug 15th
foetus boil 1996 lp aug 20
pearl jam no code 1996 lp aug 27th
rem e-bow the letter 1996 ep aug 27th
rem new adventures in hifi 1996 lp sept 9
the smashing pumpkins live at the corel centre in ottawa sept 13
tool aenima 1996 lp sept 17
moby animal rights 1996 lp sept 23rd
weezer pinkerton 1996 lp sept 24
the tear garden to be an angel blind, the crippled soul divide 1996 lp oct 1
garbage milk 1996 single oct 7
korn life is peachy 1996 lp oct 15th
swans soundtracks for the blind 1996 2xlp oct 22
bjork possibly maybe 1996 single oct 28
garbage #1 crush 1996 single oct 29
aphex twin rdj album 1996 lp nov 4
james gorner / billy corgan ransom 1996 lp nov 5
the smashing pumpkins 33 1996 ep nov 11
bowery electric beat 1996 lp nov 12
labradford labradford 1996 lp nov 12th
barenaked ladies rock spectacle 1996 ep nov 19, 1996
bush razorblade suitcase 1996 lp nov 19, 1996
our lady peace superman's dead 1996 single dec 16, 1996
the offspring all i want 1996 single dec 31, 1996
i was dreaming this morning. and, in case you're curious....
the truth is that i'm actually very content with the life that i live right now. it would be nice if disability could be a bit more, but i'm actually not complaining - there's really no point you could set it at where it wouldn't be nice if it were a bit more. i'm truly well fed and consider myself to have a very high quality of life.
so, if i were to do it all over again, what would i do? well, i'd be moving towards getting to where i am today faster, not trying to get to somewhere else. that may have meant applying for disability at a younger age. or, perhaps i may have focused on investment.
if i had the advantage of foresight, i would have probably studied finance and then not spent the time afterwards working but trying to rip people off on the various markets, until i could approximate the lifestyle i have now. it might mean $3000/month off dividends rather than $1000/month off government assistance. but, that actually doesn't really scale into a substantial difference. less walking, more cabs. more pizza, maybe? buying software instead of pirating it?
i just get the impression sometimes that people think i expected more out of myself. but, what that really means is that they weren't actually listening to what i was saying. i was never about winning the game; i was always about trying to get out of the obligation of having to play it. that's my conception of freedom: walking away.
this was another show without a backstory; i left the house at 9:30 and was home by 12:30, not stopping anywhere or interacting with anybody in the process. the venue was actually at capacity for the show, due to the fact that a local band was having an ep release. i did not stay for the ep release. this was actually partly out of altruism; i was the last person they let in, and thought it would be more appropriate to let somebody in from outside that really wanted to be there. but, it was also partly due to disinterest, of course.
i was actually expecting basic nature to play first, but i did end up sitting through an opening set that was some kind of generic white blues. it's the kind of thing that a certain kind of aging white dude may identify with, but i didn't get much from it. it was neither as raw as the white stripes nor as jaded as the hip, and consequently didn't really excel at much of anything. but, it's actually the kind of empty drinking music that goes over well in this venue on off nights.
the basic nature set was quite strong, even if they lost most of the audience throughout it. i said most; they captured a subset, and kept it. i'm pointing this out because they played just a little too quietly to get their effect across. it's no doubt on some level a consequence of being nice polite young women from the western canadian tundra, and that's stated as more truth than empty stereotype, and there's even a certain aspect of their sound that kind of demands they play with a softer touch. yet, acknowledging this truth, there is also a part of what they do that needs a hefty roar of fuzz and reverb to cut through and drown out the chatter. perhaps they simply weren't used to playing in front of crowds. ok. but, the takeaway from the set is that you don't shush a bar, like they tried to - rather, you turn up and drown them out.
ignoring the volume issue, it was a solid set that accurately reflected the recorded material. other things to note include sporadic use of a saxophone player and a cover of a filter song (take a picture). i happen to have been a big fan of their previous record in high school (short bus), which was seen at the time as a nine inch nails side project, so that was a pleasant surprise.
it's worth the $5 if you like the style. they're not really doing anything novel, but they're colouring inside the lines far better than most neo-gaze acts that i've heard over the last few years.
i enjoy pile, and have seen them a couple of times, but i couldn't really identify track names. this does sound familiar, put pile kind of have two settings - overdrive and alt country. so, the fact that it sounds familiar doesn't necessarily mean it's an old song. if somebody can correct me then do so, but i do believe it's a new track.
please see the comments for a review. this was a festival show and a long day for music, with around ten bands to review.
this was my path through the day:
scripps park:
Virginia Violet & The Rays (very end)
ambesaw [this was chill]
Flowers Bloom [very end]
Devinition [this was hilarious]
Blakdog [this was a little face melting, i enjoyed this]
Bronze Mambas [dude needs a fat strat]
Indigo Black [didn't stay long....]
martez (second half)
market [about half - and i did dance]
the errers [most, and enjoyed it]
pile
phog, in windsor:
bad channels
zones
==
so, i'm writing this review a week after the fact after hoping that a specific site would upload footage from the event that would help jog my memory a little. unfortunately, that site seems to have skipped out on precisely the shows that i attended, so i'm not going to have that resource.
full day shows like this can be a little daunting to narrate, and i was far from sober throughout the day. but, let's see what i can get out. remember: this is merely my experience of the day. ymmv regarding my opinions of the various sets.
--
i was late out of the door, and only really regret it on principle. i would have even been perfectly happy to just show up at 9:00 for pile. but, my logic was that a nice day in the park is worth experiencing - partially for inebriation purposes. so, i was planning to get there for 1:00, but slept in and didn't arrive until close to 5:00. in hindsight, both statements are true: (1) i didn't bring enough alcohol for the whole day and (2) i probably wouldn't have made it through the whole day, if i had.
--
the band that was playing when i got in to the park was virginia and the violet rays, which was a kind of a horn band. i only caught the last few minutes and wasn't really paying attention but it struck me as a literal throwback - a novelty act, really. they may have even been playing standards, or mildly altered standards.
i spent the first half hour or so walking around between the electronic tent [ambesaw] and the rock tent [gray bliss], looking specifically for a specific odour - which was eventually found near the electronic tent in the form of a target delivery apparatus of proportions rarely seen outside 4/20. see, i have to admit that i feel no shame in putting through requests for wealth redistribution when i see somebody with a quantity that could knock a horse over - and i exaggerate only mildly. that's a party platter, my friend - you can't have that all to yourself. you'll hurt yourself, even. i'm doing you a favour. so, we had a pleasant conversation about the quality and "treeishness" of our shared delicacy, while enjoying the act, before i got up to place my empty can in the recycle bin, and faded back into the rock tent for a while.
the music coming out of the electronic tent during my stay there was mostly instrumental hip-hop, of a mildly orchestral and slow motion nature. this is a sound that seems to be trending in hip-hop circles, although i can offer no expertise on the topic. it was legitimately a chill vibe, and a good soundtrack for the moment.
--
the band that was playing when i got back to the rock tent was flowers bloom, and i can in fact be seen transiting if you look at the top right of the following video (@1:15-1:30):
i only caught a few minutes of this act and simply don't have any defined memories of them.
--
i have much clearer memories of devinition, a white rapper that came on and just made me laugh very hard. it no doubt had something to do with my experience over at the electronic tent, but it was built on a legitimate level of accidental self-parody. see, he wasn't really sure if he wanted to be tough like eminem or if he wanted to hit some kind of a beyond cliched hallmark/disney moment. it was partly the juxtaposition that cracked me up, and partly the hokeyness of it, but i was really literally doubled over in uncontrollable fits for a substantial proportion of the set. the peak of hilarity ensued over the following line:
"life is not the same since you've been gone",
which was sung off-key over a sample of a plucked classical guitar that sounded something sort of like "it's a small world after all". i was actually still laughing well into the next set; every time i thought about, it set me off again. in fact, i'm still giggling as i type this up.
--
blakdog, clearly named after the zeppelin tune, were up next - and actually started while devinition was still speaking, indicating the set had gone a little long. i should point out that a part of the hilarity was that he seemed to have a substantial media presence filming and photographing him, although i can't find any of it at the moment.
they weren't doing anything particularly novel, and likely weren't aspiring to, either. however, i managed to find a sweet spot near the front of the stage where the distortion was perfectly saturated. my subsequent enjoyment of the set was really purely on terms of guitar tone geekery, combined with being pleasantly baked - a sweet fuzz pedal through a tube amp can do that to you, if you have ears that can pick it out.
while it may seem sort of trite, the fact is that this was the exact experience i was seeking for the afternoon - floored guitar effects coming at me at high volume, while in an inebriated state. this is when i'm most content. so, i dug the face melt - but only after i found the sweet spot, where the harmonics were appropriately fucked
--
at first, bronze mambas seemed to be carrying on the psych rock vibe, but it quickly became apparent that they just didn't have the roar that they needed. see, the guitarist kept jumping back and forth between a strat sound and a paul sound. the singer was doing some kind of cedric blixler thing, which made it a little more apparent where they were coming from with the latin vibe. but, he didn't seem to know if he wanted to be santana or page, frusciante or thayil. in some ways, that's fine - a little flexibility is a virtue. but, his guitar was set up solely for his strat sound, which just killed the bottom end when he needed it.
now, i need to be clear - his strat actually sounded outstanding, when he wanted it to sound like a strat. it's when he obviously wanted his strat to sound like a paul that the only thing that actually got through was a wall of high end static.
i had a talk with him after, because he really needs to address it if he wants to be taken seriously. like, immediately. he can't possibly go on like this. it's a travesty. what i wanted to get across was that the issue wasn't too much treble. i mean, his strat sounded great. it really did. what he needed was a way to get a thicker fuzz when it was required.
so, i strongly suggested that he look into a fat strat, and i hope he does. it could convert a band that obviously has quite a bit of potential out of a sound spectrum catastrophe and into the real thing.
in hindsight, there is a second option - get a second guitarist, and make sure that person is playing with thicker pickups. whatever it is, he needs to find a way to thicken his sound when he needs to without losing his nice strat tone when he needs it, too.
i found some footage of the set:
the next few acts at the rock stage were hip-hop acts, and so i found myself more attracted to the electronic stage - and managed to get in on a pass as it came around to me, once i got there. i was present for at least a few minutes of all the acts that came on next, on all the stages, but the only one i have any real memory of is market. i actually caught the start of market's set, and stayed for most of it. it was a largely ambient/idm set that found itself periodically building into more traditional techno - which allowed for the opportunity to dance. and, dance, i did. but, i must also acknowledge that the set is a little hazy. as with the distorted guitar harmonics, though, what one wants is a hazy electronic set.
i didn't bring a clock with me, and didn't think the event was on time, anyways. so, i had to go back a few times to make sure i wasn't missing pile - which is why i caught bits of everything. i do think the electronic set was mostly on time, so the fact that i was able to catch most of market's set meant i was back at the rock tent very close to 9:00, to catch most of the 8:30 act.
so, i caught most of the erers, who were sufficiently raucous at the time to be enjoyable, but, overall, a little boneheaded for my tastes. i've been over this before with some other acts: it was a nice head cave, but it kind of only works in that precise context. and, frankly, *in* that context it doesn't even matter what you're playing - it's just all about the guitar tone.
i did enjoy it, but what i was thinking through the whole set was that i was really mostly hanging around so i didn't miss the start of the pile set. the other thing i remember about the set was that it was starting to get kind of cold out....
a good part of their set is up here:
pile were what they have been every other time i've seen them - loud, obnoxious and kind of ironically stupid, in a pretty smart way. that's pile. and, i got what i came for.
unfortunately, the set lost a few minutes due to a blackout, which i pick up in the vlog. besides that misstep, it was about what one expects from pile. which is what is actually in the video....
here is a full set from pile:
i wasn't sure if i was going to stay for the idiot kids or not; i figured that if somebody cancelled and things got pushed up then i probably would but was largely planning on skipping them. you also never know what the atmosphere is going to be like when you hit a show like this, or how long you want to stay. i could have been convinced to stay until midnight, if it felt right. it was clear on this night that the place was clearing out. and, while i hadn't brought a clock, i knew it was later than 9:30 (it was actually after 10:00). the real driver, though, was that i was just starting to get a little bit cold.
i warmed up as i was moving, but i do think i made the right choice to leave a little early. i didn't hear anything really interesting on their bandcamp, and the footage i tracked down wasn't particularly compelling.
the event organizers had an after party lined up on the other side of downtown, but i was more interested in catching the bus over early enough to get to a sort of a psychedelic/coldwave show in windsor. the optimistic plan was that if i could get out right at 9:30, i could be back in windsor by 10:30 and probably catch all three bands. as it happened, i got to the bus stop at about 10:45 and into phog around 11:30.
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the bands that were playing at phog were called zones & bad channels, but i have to admit that i have no clear recollection of either of them - or which order they played in. i was actually mostly hoping to catch the first act, learning, and seem to have read the bill backwards, expecting them to play last (or maybe my logic centers were just broken that night - it does happen). what i remember about the show is consequently actually sitting and waiting for a band that had finished their set before i got there. that's ok - they're local, i'll get another chance.
i do recall that one of the bands had a guitarist and seemed to be having fun jamming over a sequencer; i remember thinking it was a little repetitive at points, and wasn't really accomplishing anything. i think this was "zones". the other band was more interesting, as it featured a live vocalist and a bit of an industrial/goth kind of feel to it [maybe the kids want to use terms that end with house or wave. whatever.]. they did quite the cover of frozen, by madonna, actually. could have and probably should have been a bit spookier, though. i think this was "bad channels".
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i was surprisingly awake when i hit the 7/11 to get some doritos for some nachos, if not really particularly sober. i suppose that's the combined effect of caffeine, guarana, alcohol, nicotine and thc. see, here's the thing: it's actually exactly where you want to be after ten hours of drinking and smoking various things. significantly damaged, but absolutely wired. the other option is passing out when you get home, and that always sucks as you end up wasting half your intoxicants. it's the caffeine that's key. i do highly recommend ensuring you remain caffeinated when you're drinking. it's a lot more fun.
i finished the night off by watching a stiglitz lecture, and greatly enjoying the clarity of his logic. krugman does make some good points about how the most sparkling logic is not always upheld by the data, but i wasn't having any of that at the moment - i was just enjoying the clarity of thought in the dismantling of classical assumptions.
i really do not have a review for this show; it was an 11:00 show and i was only really out of the house between 10:30 and 12:00.
i will say that they played some new material and it is a continuation of their previous record, rather than a repudiation of it. i will also say that what i captured is a b-side that is a little more radio-friendly than their record, which leans more towards a late 90s radiohead sound.
it's worth the $5, if you get the chance. the bar seemed to like it, anyways.
this was the first show i had hit in a bar in windsor in quite a long time, and i was entirely unsurprised that it was virtually empty. there were some people in the bar that were coerced into paying cover; otherwise, i only found one other person that was there to see the show.
this bar actually does more promo than any other venue in the city, which is just a very closed and insular place. what i've noticed is that the music scene in the city is driven virtually entirely by word of mouth, meaning that there isn't actually a music scene at all - there's merely a party scene. people just go to see their friends play, and bands don't seem to really aspire to get out of their groups of friends. the result is that most of the music is very bland (as it is written to please - that is, to conform) and nobody really seems to be interested in going anywhere with it.
what that means for a person like me, that strongly dislikes making friends and maintaining friendships, is that i don't get to many shows in town (and i'm happy that a more disjointed market like detroit is so close). it also means that the few shows that i do go to tend to be practically empty. i'm ok with that, actually - less people to be irritated by. but, the bands tend to be disappointed - and for good reason. if you're coming from anywhere in canada, and staying in the country, chances are you took a detour to get here.
about the only way out of this is if you know somebody in town and can get them to spread the show by word of mouth. flyers, posters, facebook events....they seem to be mostly useless, and to an extent they're even frowned upon as breaking out of the insularity and small town mindset. after all, if you put up a poster then somebody that you don't even know might show up. who wants that?
the bands were both aware of their predicament, and willing to make light of it, although - and this is the part that is always hard to hear - they actually seemed surprised by the low turnout. did they do any promo at all? i mean, i'm telling you it won't matter - but did they even do it? maybe, it should be written in some kind of a place somewhere that you can be pretty sure to be playing an empty bar in windsor unless you have some friends here, and to try to make some kind of arrangement before you bother.
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the first act was a little poppy for my tastes, but was also fairly dynamic in their stage show. they really needed a bigger crowd to feed off of, and a bigger stage to roam on. it wouldn't have converted me or anything, but it would at least be properly experiential. the reason phog can be great sometimes is precisely because it is so small, but you need to be the kind of band that excels in small spaces for that to make any sense.
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japanese girls made a bit more sense in the small space, and the set seemed to lack surprises - they did a good job running through some of the material on their last record and in previewing some material from the new one. there was unfortunately a gradient in terms of the material, with the newer material coming off as more of a generic, muscular kind of garage rock. the record is actually very strong, but it builds quite a bit on a good sense of melody (and a good sense of musicianship, too). both of those things seemed stripped out of the newer stuff. but, first impressions can often be misleading.
the show is definitely worth the $5 if you get the chance to see it.
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on the way out, i noticed that there was a band playing across the street. that venue (milk coffee shop) doesn't even publish show listings, at all, anywhere, so if you want to know what's going on there, you pretty much need to know somebody - which, again, i'm not willing to invest the energy into. but, as an aside, based on what i've seen playing there, it's not really worth the effort. it's a lot of local or regional stuff of mostly low quality.
nonetheless, this bar was actually full of people. there was a heavy blues band playing. no cover, apparently. why not stop for a beer?
see, it was apparent fairly quickly that almost everybody in the bar knew each other, and they were all friends of one of the bands or friend of friends of one of the bands. this is just how things are, here.
the blues band (the stroll) was done within seconds, and a pop punk band (harbour) came on within a few minutes. it was absolutely generic, but i stayed for the beer - and was treated to a guitarist walking across the room, clearly demonstrating that the guitar was not plugged in. oops? well, maybe not: nobody seemed to care.
there's no real backstory to this show, or any meaningful narrative. i decided to check it out mostly on a whim, after checking some samples on the bandcamp site and being intrigued by them.
i'm frankly not sure if this is a new track or not - i can't claim a deep familiarity with their work, and wasn't expecting to pick up a 20 minute track. i'm also not sure if this is one track or, perhaps, three - although note that it was introduced as one "thing". the last part of it has some resemblance to the track 'rhubarb', but it's far from a clean match. there's several sections that i can't match to anything at all on their bandcamp site. so, i do suspect that it's new material. they are apparently suffering a long delay in waiting for efrim menuck to finish sequencing their new record.
what i found intriguing about the band was it's ability to combine weird syncopations and a sense of atonality [both vocally and over the dobro] with a defined pop aesthetic - and that is very much at play in the material on the bandcamp site. the post-rock side of the sound seemed more atmospheric. what i picked up at the show was a fair bit of weird syncopations and a lot of atonality, but a lot less of a pop aesthetic - in favour of a bigger, post-rock presentation. now, i happen to be a huge fan of this kind of thing, if it manages to get out of the formulaic trappings that have set in over the last ten years, so, despite being a little surprised, i can't claim i was less impressed. but, it shouldn't be hard to hear that this is necessarily an acquired taste.
i showed up on a whim, out of curiosity, and i have to say the show managed to maintain that curiosity. i'm eager to hear what the new record sounds like.
regarding the visuals, this is the second time that i've got very bad exposure at the trumbullplex. it's a garage in detroit. the lighting is very soft. this is what the equipment that i have is capable of.
