Concert Review: Broken Social Scene - 10.22.08 at State Theatre

Broken Social Scene is the perfect name for this Toronto indie supergroup. Their band behaves more as a collective of individual talents that complement each other well than as a single unit with a single sound. The result is a wide range of musical styles and talents on display. This is great, but they can be hit-or-miss, because some of the talents are just better. But they act democratically nonetheless. 

At this show, there were as many as nine people on the stage playing at once (even their roadie got in on the action). They usually had seven or eight people on stage, with almost all of them switching off instruments. Only guitarist Andrew Whiteman (aka- Apostle of Hustle) and drummer Justin Peroff stayed on their primary instruments for the entire 2 hour and 19 minute set. They also played at least one song written by each of five band members.  

The band's core members, Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning, each came out with solo-ish albums recently. I don't own these records, but from what I heard at the show as well as from a devoted fan, Drew's was good and sounded like a BSS record, and Canning's was not so good. That sounds about right, because my least favorite songs of the show were Canning's, including one horrible attempt at a funk/soul song. I don't know what the actual dynamic between the bandmates is, but Canning seems like the odd one out. He seems like the unhip dad of the group.

Missing were the two main female vocalists of BSS: Feist and Emily Haines (lead singer of Metric). Elizabeth Powell of Land of Talk, the opener (from Montreal, nice sound), filled in ably for the songs that needed a female voice. She stole the stage on two of the highlights of the show:  "7/4 (Shoreline)" and "Anthems for a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl."

The other highlights were "Fire-Eye'd Boy" and a really interesting experimental piece called "The Happiness Project" where the multi-instrumentalist/brass/woodwind guys wrote a sax part to play over the spoken word of one of their neighbors... You had to be there, I guess. They finished the pre-encore set with "Ibi Dreams Of Pavement (A Better Day)," and they did something that totally made my night. Mid-song, they quieted down the instrumentals to a whisper, and Kevin Drew instructed the audience-members to let out all their negative feelings by shouting as loud as they could for the rest of the song. I shouted so hard, my voice is still not right two days later. And it felt so good. How often do we get to scream at the top of our lungs in a situation where we won't cause panic or annoyance? I was very thankful for that part of the show.

Like their recordings, BSS's show had some hits and some misses. Also like their recordings, though, it gave a feeling of satisfaction at having heard a very good band play some really creative, innovative music. Kudos to them.

song of the day - 10.20.08: chromeo - momma's boy

I've totally been slacking on the songs of the day. I'm not sure why. There are a million songs I could write about. Here's the one that's stuck in my head today. It's a hilarious and catchy song called Momma's Boy by electro-funk duo Chromeo, who describe themselves as the only successful pairing of an Arab and a Jew since the beginning of time. Do yourself a favor, and don't dismiss this song right away because it sounds silly. It is silly. That's sort of the point.

Five-Second Rule

The other night I went out drinking for a friend's birthday. After several drinks, I made a quick trip to 7-11 and got a vanilla almond Haagen Dazs ice cream bar. It cost me something like $4, but those things are a-mazing. And everything tastes better at 2am after a few pale ales and bourbons. I also bought it knowing that at least one of my friends would want a bite of it, and I was happy to share. As I walked through Mt. Pleasant from the Raven to Tonic, I savored my first bite of creamy, chocolaty, almondy goodness. Then I handed it over to Jess, who almost dropped it in the handoff, but made a clutch save. I thought to myself, "Damn, I'd have been pretty pissed if she'd dropped my precious Haagen Dazs bar." She took her bite and handed it back to me. And I dropped it on the sidewalk.

"Five-second rule!" Jamie yelled out. I don't know if I'd have done this sober, but I went ahead and picked up the ice cream, examined it for a second, and took another bite. Then Jess had another bite. Then I forgot about it entirely until today. Some would have looked down on Jess and me for eating food, especially food with liquid-ish properties, off a sidewalk in DC. Some might even call us barbaric. "Maybe the kitchen floor in my house, but not the sidewalk!" they'd say.

I don't know if anyone actually believes the five-second rule to be scientific fact. I'm sure bacteria takes much less than five seconds to contaminate a food surface on contact. I would venture to guess that for anyone who follows the rule, it's just an excuse to eat something you really wanted, even after it's slightly tarnished.

I decided to do a little googling to see if there's been any research on this subject, and in fact there was. I found some interesting things. First, women are more likely to eat something off the floor than men. Cookies and candy are more likely to be eaten off the floor than broccoli or cauliflower. The first one makes me snicker. The second one makes me say, "No duh." But there are some actually useful bits of info as well. For instance, although bacteria can transfer in less than five seconds, the amount of time spent in contact with a contaminated surface does affect the number of bacteria transferred. So, although the five-second rule is arbitrary, it does hold up in that, if you're quick about it, you've got a better chance of not getting sick. The difference between five seconds and a minute is tenfold. However, apparently MythBusters tested 2 seconds vs. 6 seconds, and found that there was no difference in the contamination. Another bit of info the researchers (not MythBusters) found was that most surfaces aren't very contaminated at all. They didn't test sidewalks, but the surfaces they did test around the campus of the University of Illinois had so little bacteria that they thought they were doing the tests wrong.

So, what does this mean for the five-second rule? Unclear. You can't really be certain how contaminated a surface is, but I don't see why a sidewalk would be any worse than a kitchen floor. And we eat stuff off tables that could have vermin running around on them when we're not looking. We put our mouths directly on soda cans that have been exposed to the potentially unwashed fingers of vending-machine-fillers. I'm no scientist, but I think the contamination of sidewalk is overrated. So, I conclude that Jess and I did the right thing. Neither of us got sick. And we got to enjoy a few seconds of Haagen Dazs pleasure that a more germ-phobic person would not. So hooray for the five-second rule.

Late arrival to the coffee party

I can't exactly remember when I first noticed the trend toward a more mainstream appreciation of coffee in the U.S., but I always dismissed the coffee-snobbery as just an overblown yuppie fad. Well, if it is an overblown yuppie fad, you can now count me in as a follower.

I thought I'd seen coffee-snobbery in DC, but apparently we don't take it nearly as seriously as the caffeine-junkies of the Pacific Northwest (as well as many other places, I presume). This shouldn't be surprising, as Starbucks started in Seattle, and subsequently took over every single street corner in the world. I have no idea if this is true or not, but a Seattlite told me that the Emerald City has the most coffee shops per capita. And hot damn, are there a lot!

I visited Seattle with a San Fran coffee fiend friend of mine. She introduced me to the macchiato. The word alone used to scare me. Why such a fancy Italian name for a cup of coffee? Aren't there enough other fancy names? Well, it turns out the macchiato is now my new favorite coffee drink - a good one anyway. Espresso straight up is a little too bitter, and lattes and cappuchinos are too foamy. The macchiato is the baby bear's porridge of espresso drinks. Juuuust right. It literally means "marked" or "stained," meaning it's espresso with a stain of milk. A skilled barista can make sweet looking designs with the milk/espresso mixture too.

I had macchiatos at five different places in Seattle and Portland. The best one was at a little stand on the street in the Capitol Hill neighborhood in Seattle, a magical little place called Vivace. The staff were friendly and skilled, and the coffee was soooo delicious. I'm not up on the coffee-lingo, but to my untrained palette, it was smooth and flavorful, and just the right consistency. (Vivace gets bonus points for being right near Dick's a walk-up fast food burger joint that is a Seattle institution.) Other good cups were from Caffe Vita and Stumptown in Seattle, and ... another Stumptown in Portland (where the chain originated). 

I'd had all of those good macchiatos, so I guess I didn't appreciate how hard it can be to make it correctly. Thinking all macchiatos were made relatively equally, I ordered one at the coffee shop across the street from my Portland Hostel, called World Cup Coffee and Tea. I don't know if it was the beans, the machine, the barista, or all of the above, but that thing was awful. It was bitter, foamy, and didn't have any cool design. This made me appreciate my earlier cups and baristas even more.

I hope I can find a place that makes good macchiatos in DC. If anyone knows of one, I'd love to hear from you. Until then, I will just reminisce about those delicious tiny cups I had on a street corner surrounded by hipsters and homeless people. Ahh memories. 

Determined to see a show in Portland

The second leg of my trip to the Pacific Northwest is in the beautiful city of Portland. (I've seen quite a bit in my short time here, but I'll save the details and pics for a later post.) Even though my nights here are not particularly good ones for going out on the town, I was determined to see a show to get a glimpse of the city's supposedly rich music scene. The pickings were slim for this Monday evening: a Henry Rollins spoken-word performance for $26.50 or a young local singer-songwriter named Mya Elaine for $0.00. No offense to Mr. Rollins, but I think I chose wisely.

I walked to the venue, the White Eagle Saloon, from my hostel. Portland gets props for being such a pedestrian-friendly city. I walked across the entirety of downtown, over a large drawbridge, and along a highway in the dark and managed to not get myself killed. 

I got a late start after helping an Australian-sounding Londoner hostel-mate top off his phone credit, so I missed a good bit of Mya Elaine's set. When I joined the audience, there were only about five other people watching her play, and four of them turned out to be friends of hers. This was baffling, because she was pretty damn good.

She performed solo with her acoustic guitar. Her songs were folksy/bluesy, her guitar-work was crisp, and her voice was sweet and versatile. She reminded me a little of Iron & Wine, Jewel, and David Gray. It's not like she has a growndbreaking sound, but she played her songs confidently and beautifully. 

Unfortunately her recordings on her MySpace page don't do her justice. I'd just recommend seeing her play if you happen to be in Portland at the right time. The price will probably be right, and Henry Rollins probably won't be there.

Concert Review: Black Kids 10.10.08 at Neumos in Seattle

I guess my exploration of Seattle wouldn't be complete without going to a live show of some kind, as it has such a rich musical tradition. My friend Katie and I made an impromptu decision to see the Black Kids and the Virgins at a place called Neumos in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. This show should not and will not be the yard stick by which I measure Seattle's music scene, since the bands are neither from Seattle, nor very talented. My blanket judgments of the city's music scene are adjusted accordingly.

It's pretty apparent to me, though, that the city's ultra-hip status is in danger of being run out by yuppies. The famed Crocodile Cafe, a Seattle music landmark, has closed. Belltown, the neighborhood at the epicenter of the grunge scene, has become overrun with condo developments and fratty bars. I've only been here a couple of days, but I would bet a lot of Seattlites would agree with me that the Emerald City is in a cultural decline.

I'm not sure what kind of reputation and regular crowd Neumos has, but the people at this show were less hip than I expected. Capitol Hill, after all, is the heir to Belltown's hipster throne and has not yet been completely gentrified and condo-ized. I'm sure part of the reason for this was the quality of the bands, but I can't help but think non-Seattlites give the city more credit than it is currently due for being cultural and musical trend-setters. Anyway, Seattle definitely still is very cool. Just more yuppified than I expected. 

But wait! Isn't this supposed to be a concert review? That's what the title says? Oh dear, I better get on with it then. 

I didn't catch whatever the first opener was. The second opener was the Virgins. They were pretty bad. It's not their fault they aren't talented. It's just sad that this band has actually gotten so hyped by their label. Shouldn't record contracts be handed out by people who know good music from bad music? Clearly that's not very important these days. The Virgins are similar to the Killers and the Offspring in that they're all bands whose only real talent is doing bad impersonations of other bands... only the Virgins are much worse. The singer couldn't sing his own songs, and they just looked like a bunch of amateurs. But, enough about them. They suck, you get the point.

The Black Kids came on with the benefit of having the bar set really low for them by their openers. Though Katie would disagree, I think they sucked much less than the Virgins. They were at least tight instrumentally, could sing their songs, and had some genuine energy. Their synth-heavy dance music and Robert Smith-esque melodramatic vocals made me want to get up and dance... but the Seattlites wouldn't have it! I'd have thought the whole point of going to this show was to show off some dance moves, but these folks were content to do the standing still. I was pretty surprised. Katie and I agreed Seattlites are a self-conscious lot. 

But I digress... again. The show... well, it wasn't bad, definitely worthwhile, but didn't leave much of a musical impression on me.

Yup, Seattle Is In Fact Pretty Cool

They have an incredibly nice library.

Poetry on the buses! Brilliant!

The original Starbucks. I'm told they made a few more since. 

High tech cranes

Pike Place Market

So, I've been in Seattle for a little over 24 hours now, and I have to report on some discoveries:

• The rain is seriously not that bad. It's like a light drizzle that comes and goes.
• They must be the most caffeinated populace in the world.
• Their bus system is crazy. But everyone says thank you to the bus drivers. Even the crazy people.
• KEXP is a fine radio station.

Cascadia

"The Doug"- a proposed flag of Cascadia

Tomorrow, I head to the Republic of Cascadia.

Concert Review: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - 10.6.08

I know Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds have a fiercely loyal following, and that he deserves every bit of the adoration of his fans. He's a very talented musician and songwriter, and he's still coming up with quality albums well into his middle-aged years. But this show was a disappointment for me. It probably didn't help that I had a headache, and I'm sure I'd have enjoyed it more had I had a few beers and been on the floor instead of the balcony. And probably the biggest factor in my non-enjoyment was the fact that I'm not that familiar with his catalogue. There were definitely a lot of people there who had been listening to him for decades, and who had probably seen him a dozen times. They seemed to think the show was amazing. "That was one of the best shows I've ever seen," said a 50-something, tattood, soul-patched, spikey haired, aging hipster. I just didn't see it.

They did a bunch of things that annoyed me, actually. These things made me think about all the things that annoy me at shows in general. Here's a list:

1. It really annoys me when singers completely change the melodies of their songs when they play them live. Ok, so you've sung them a million times and you want to make it interesting. I'm all for improvisation, as long as it maintains the same feel and sounds good. On songs like "Red Right Hand" and "Deanna," Cave just seemed like he was winging it because he couldn't hit the high OR low notes.
2. I had a real problem with the showboating tonight. I expected and enjoyed Nick Cave's antics. He was all over the place, jumpin around, making fun of his bandmates and the audience, doing pelvic thrusts to accent his singing. I enjoyed it. It was one of those Bad Seed guys that pissed me off. The one that plays the violin and what looks like a tiny electric guitar (electric mandolin? electric ukelele?). That guy looked like a psychotic homeless man/ serial sex offender. He had crazy long hair and a crazy long beard. He made vaguely sexual movements throughout the show. He did the playing over the head thing with his violin, which in my book, should only be done if you are playing a solo or something really impressive, which he was not. And most of the time he was doing all this showboating, I couldn't really pick out what he was playing in all the commotion of the 7-piece group. I'm sure he's a very talented guy, but he was a distraction to me.
3. It always ticks me off when people yell out song requests between songs. I accept that there's always gonna be some asshole who will do it, as much to call attention to himself as to actually have the song played. There were a lot of those assholes tonight, but Nick Cave actually encouraged the calling out. I'm not sure which, if any, songs he actually did play because of a shout-out, but he made clear that he was listening, and even asked, "what else do you guys wanna hear?" after the first encore song. Don't encourage them Nick! Don't make them think it's ok to do that at all the other shows I have to see with these people, where their shouting is just an annoyance to the audience AND the band.
4. They had the amps up so freakin loud that I actually regretted not wearing earplugs. I never wear earplugs. Not to System of a Down. Not to Rattler. Not to any show I've ever been to. I rarely regret it. I listen to my Shure inner ear headphones for several hours a day, often at pretty high volume. My eardrums can take a beating. This show was excessively loud. I don't know whether to blame the band or the 930 club sound guys, but I am definitely slightly closer to deafness than I was before the show. There were a couple of times, maybe from feedback, maybe on purpose, there was a burst of sound so loud that it HURT, and I grimaced. What's the point of that? Who's gonna enjoy the show any less if it's slightly less deafening?
5. The band tonight committed what I consider a truly unprofessional musical sin, too. One I'd never actually witnessed. They were playing "God is in the House," one of my favorites of their songs, and they messed up and stopped a whole bunch of times. Then Cave just said "fuck it" and gave up on the song, promising to come back to it later. Then he didn't come back to it. What the hell!? Who does that??
6. Another thing that irked me at this show, which was not at all the fault of the band, was the demographic of the crowd. It wasn't any different than I'd have expected: a lot of older white people, especially men. Not that there weren't young people, but I saw a lot of people that could've been my parents. Still, no big deal. The band itself is full of old guys too, and they've been around for years and years. The thing that irked me was that I saw my future in these old single men with long hair trying desperately to be hip, but just not pulling it off. I don't judge them. For all I know, they're enjoying their lives more than anybody. I just don't want that for myself, and I see myself heading in that direction. I'm already obsessed with music, and not much of a ladies man, and go to a lot of shows, and try to dress hip, and have long hair, and wear band t-shirts, and search out obscure bands. I don't want to stop going to shows. I just don't want being a music fan and critic to take over my life. This blog isn't helping that, but I'm having a good time doing it, so I won't rain on my own parade. Still... eeek, it's a scary thought.

I'm sure there were other reasons I came away from that show with a bad taste in my mouth. It wasn't a great day for me to be going to a show, what with my headache, lack of sleep, and generally snarky mood. And it's not as if there wasn't anything good about it. I enjoyed the beginning of the show a lot. They had great energy and chemistry, and they were very good showmen. The show just happened to poke at a couple of my pet peeves, and it took away from the whole experience for me. Oh well.

[I asked Ed, my housemate who I saw the show with, to write a guest post/review of the show. Hopefully he will do it, because he is a longtime fan, and he liked the show, and it'd be a nice point-counterpoint.]

Set List:

1. Hold on to Yourself

2. Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!

3. Tupelo

4. The Weeping Song

5. Red Right Hand

6. Midnight Man

7. God Is in the House (gave up)

8. Love Letter

9. Today's Lesson

10. The Mercy Seat

11. Moonland

12. Deanna

13. Papa Won't Leave You, Henry

14. More News from Nowhere

Encore

15. Your Funeral, My Trial

16. Jesus of the Moon

17. Get Ready for Love

18. Stagger Lee

suggestion box

I'm uninspired today, but I wanted to post something, because I won't have much time over the next week and a half. I'm going to Seattle and Portland to do some exploring and memory-making. 

Anyway, today, I want to invite comments from anyone and everyone about what I can do to make this blog as interesting as possible, so it gets on your (and others') daily list of sites you peruse.