A song for all those times you knew better, but didn’t care. Or, a brief essay on how new and interesting pain is sometimes also old and familiar pain, hearts and flowers edition, by Old English.
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Author: Jennifer
Postcards from the Pit: The Darkness / The Dirty Pearls / Sweatheart, 10/22/12
This show fell into the time period I refer to as “Halloween or Tuesday?”, in which, due to New York’s ah, vibrant populace, it is sometimes hard to tell if the person / group of people wearing what appear to be costumes are on their way to/from a Halloween party, or if they customarily rig themselves out in, say, top-hats, tails and corsets just to make a quick run up to the store.
So when Sweatheart came out in their vaguely Medieval-looking outfits, you could probably see the Hmmm thought bubble floating above the crowd. I wasn’t really sure but was willing to come down on the side of Halloween. (I was also wondering what The Darkness would come up with as Halloween costumes.)
As soon as the next band came on, though, it became apparent that we were not at a Halloween show, and snakeskin bodystockings, furry cuffs and monk robes were just Tuesday for Sweatheart. (Or Sunday night, as the case may be.) I appreciate that kind of ridiculousness in a band. They had excellent tunes, too, raunchy and hilarious in equal measure and driven by big crunchy riffs. And to top it all off they had a puppet playing the keyboards:
The Dirty Pearls were next, and they swung the pendulum back a hair or two in the direction of Very Serious Heavy Metal. They also had great tunes, including a particularly good ballad. (Heavy metal love songs are my weakness, yes they are.)
And then it was time for The Darkness. I really love The Darkness. They have all of the things I love(d) about glam metal – sing along choruses, shredding, big riffs, ridiculous outfits – and they manage to, I don’t know – revive? celebrate? acknowledge? – the genre in a way that’s playful, knowing, and funny but not mocking. Attending their show is a genuine joy, from overhearing serious discussions about Poison in the line to joining the crowd in singing along to a A Thing Called Love.
Postcards from the Pit: JJAMZ and Beast Patrol, the Studio at Webster Hall, 10/19/12
One of these years I will get myself together and actually acquire a CMJ pass. This year was not that year. That said, while I only saw two CMJ sets, they were very good sets.
The event I attended was the CAA Showcase in the Studio at Webster Hall, and the first band was Beast Patrol, from Brooklyn. Beast Patrol are much heavier, aggressive, and face-melty live than they are recorded. Seriously, the music they have on-line is a shadow of their live show. They can shred.
Sample track:
Disbeliever by beastpatrol
And then, switching genres at CMJ’s traditional breakneck speed, it was time for JJAMZ, of Los Angeles, who were their usual delightful power-poppy selves:
Sample track via their latest video, which I love because it is a lyric video with French subtitles that uses mashed up footage from B-movies and anti-drug PSAs from the ’50s and ’60s:
Vuvuzela, Like a Lion
And now, to add some carnival flavor to your Friday, is Vuvuzela, with Like A Lion, from The Hollow Choir.
It is a great song from a great record. As you are about to hear, they do fantastic things with harps, synths, and crashing cymbals to create dark cabaret music that has both verve and bite.
Video: Julien Pras, Angel of Mercy
My comment to April on first viewing this one was “the moths are creepy but the melody is pretty.” Having watched it a few more times, I feel exactly the same way.
The song is Angel of Mercy by Julien Pras (Calc, Mars Red Sky), from his new record Shady Hollow Circus, set to be released in January 2013.
Halloween Special: Sleaze of the Reaper, Blackwater Jukebox
For all of your Halloween party / waiting for trick-or-treaters / quiet evening at home with zombie movie needs: the latest from NTSIB favorites Blackwater Jukebox. I suggest you download it – it’s free! – and then crank it up.
Some of my favorites include Black Rain, from the Restricted Archives of the Smithsonian:
And also Harvest Tarantella from the Sicilian highlands:
Video: The Mouth of Ghosts, When the Sun Sets
This video for When the Sun Sets by The Mouth of Ghosts is not a Halloween themed video – sp00ky band name aside – but it is a vehicle for a song that is a shimmery, delicate fusion of trip-hop and rock.
It’s beautiful and soothing and delicious, and you should check it out.
Halloween Special: Citóg Mixtape Volume IV
Gothic Christmas has (probably) been rained out for me this year – I’m writing this as Hurricane Sandy rolls over Manhattan – but I’ve been staying in the holiday spirit by listening to this mixtape from Citóg, a record label/ independent collective from the west of Ireland.
Milan Jay, scrappy little band of my heart, contributed a track called Mask Up (The Ballad of Michael Meyers) which I am sharing below, but the rest of the compilation is also excellent.
Postcards from the Pit: Fiona Apple / Blake Mills, T5, 10/16/12
This show was part pilgrimage, because I had never seen Fiona Apple play live before, and part penance, for largely the same reason.
The show started with music from her band, led by Blake Mills, who sang some of his delicately lovely pop songs and put on something of a master class in the fine art of the electric guitar:
Here is what I learned, about Fiona Apple‘s shows: every single one of them is a cage match between the spirit of rock n’ roll and her demons. She does not so much sing a song as conduct a jazz cabaret-inflected exorcism.
It’s incredible and intense; I actually spent several long stretches standing mostly still, eyes closed, just letting the chords bounce and crash around my head while her voice – her big, brazen, smokey, flexible, magnificent voice – washed over me.
I am, as usual, completely useless with things like set lists. I recognized several from The Idler Wheel, including Every Single Night, Daredevil, Anything We Want, Left Alone and Fast As You Can, but what really defined the evening for me was the song she didn’t play: Criminal.
I heard some people near me calling out for it, and they were doubtless disappointed when it was not forthcoming. I, on the other hand, was both relieved and pleased. It’s not that I hate the song. It’s that watching the video she made for it – the raw misery on her face – makes me feel sick and sad and wish I had a time machine so I could go back and pull her out and away and give her a blanket and a warm beverage.
And this might be faulty logic, but on some level, its absence from the set list suggests to me that there is at least one demon she’s beaten and one battle she no longer has to fight. That, and the secret triumphant smile she flashed at us as the last notes faded into the woodwork, were the true highlights of the night.
Video: The Rest, Hey! is for Horses [NSFW]
There is really nothing that gets my attention like an email encouraging me to watch a video containing puppet fornication. That kind of thing is my Kryptonite.
The video is the first of nine which the band intends to make and features puppets and set design by Kori Pop and horses by Amber Edgar. It mixes puppetry with delicately lovely animation and is truly a work of art. It’s also not safe for work OR small children.
The song is Hey! is For Horses, and it is from SEESAW, by The Rest. SEESAW is the Record That Almost Wasn’t – everything that could go wrong, did – but happily for all of us, it is also The Little Record That Could, and has made it to the light of day.
The last time I wrote about The Rest, I described one of their songs as a “bubblebath of noise” which is still the best description I can give you for their sound.
The only thing I would add is that they have the ability to be bouncy and poppy, and also to roar and soar within the same song, like a great dragon opening his wings and lungs to express his love to his beloved.