I arrived at Neil's at around 8:00 PM. Mark showed up very shortly after I did, and we loaded in. Interestingly, I think any anxiety I truly had about the show dissolved quickly after getting there. Paul wasn't far behind, though he had to go back to his house for his amp--his house isn't too far away, so it was no big deal. Ryan (SnakeOilSalesman) arrived as we were loading in. He had some really cool equipment. I enjoyed a bit of trainspotting.
I can't recall when Dana got there but she showed up before 9. She had most everyone she invited show up...they were all very nice. Kathryn Brawley showed up with her mother not too long before 9:00 PM if I remember rightly. She's a very nice gal and I sincerely hope she goes far with her art. She went on around 10:15 and did fantastically.
It really surprised me how worried she was about the time. She asked a couple of times about how much time she had, and we all encouraged her to play as long as she wished.
SnakeOilSalesman had a fantastic set as well. Having a small lighting setup (!) really added a lot to the show. Electronic performers always have to compensate for visceral elements in a live setting. Little boxes of lovely electro-chaos just don't titillate in the live setting. His show was quite good, and he was even kind enough to let us use his lighting for our own set.
As for our own show, I do believe we did well. It was a very relaxed affair, and I think that made all the difference. The time away from shows didn't really hurt us at all, and the new songs were well-received.
For the curious:
An Unfinished Man
Waiting For the Sunlight
Song For Vara
A Novel Idea
Automata
You Are the Answer
Horizon Line
It's No Good (a Depeche Mode cover, Dana Paisley on additional vocals)
Vanity Tax
Discontent
Call and Response
Survival
Loose Arrow
Thanks to everyone who made it out. The next show is October 6th at The P&H with Clouded Son and Demons to Diamonds.
What do you absolutely refuse to eat?
Lots of stuff. I will not eat poo (mine or anyone else's). I will not eat random crumbs that I see on the ground. On a more serious note, and a nod to Lewis Carroll, if I see a plate with stuff on it that says "EAT ME" or "DRINK ME", I abstain.
I almost drank after Devendra Banhart once, but he was joking about sharing his drink.
 | You scored as Old-school Goth, You are an old-school goth. Forget Tina and Rogue, your idols are still Siouxsie and Peter and Fat Bob, and black lipstick and white powder is still the way to go. Click on my name to take my other tests if you liked this one.
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What subcategory of Goth best fits you?
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And my 1994 Chevy Corsica is now the prized possession of one E. Grim. He has affectionately named it Red Stupid (a product of one of our many in-jokes). I get visitation rights every Wednesday (for band practice, you know).
My parents gave me that car in 1997, after my Geo Storm (aka the "Tupperware Deathtrap") crapped out. While it never gave me the joy that TD gave me, it served me well. We went on many a road trip, band practice, date, et cetera. On many a night out to the club, we listened to Underworld and The Prodigy...through breakbeat, jungle, drum-n-bass, on to many different genres and subgenres, it was with me.
I'm happy that it's in such good hands. I really am. I didn't expect to be very sentimental about it, yet here I am writing an entire blog entry about it.
And now, I need to see if anyone paid their rent that I didn't find out about yesterday...
27 years ago today, Joy Division’s Ian Curtis took his life at the age of 23. It was by all accounts a sad end to a bittersweet life, leaving a child behind and a wife already devastated by an eroding marriage.
I come not to celebrate Ian Curtis the adulterer, or to glamorize his suicide—there’s been quite enough of the latter and the first part is shameful no matter what brand of morality you ascribe to. I come to celebrate the amazing and beguiling music of Joy Division who, in two proper studio albums and a smattering of singles, helped to rewrite the rules of making rock music. The group who, with producer/mad scientist Martin Hannett, made music rife with intrigue and uncertainty.
I’ve made a short list of my absolute favorite JD songs, in no particular order, with some notes on why, exactly, these songs resonate with me:
There is no way of knowing what could have followed. What did follow, what grew from the remains—that became a pop sensation. New Order, as sublime as they could be, as perverse and wonderful as their story was…they could never be the fly in the amber that Joy Division is and will always be. Joy Division will remain special for so many people because we will never know what could have been if one sad little man had not taken his life.
Levinhurst What Are Records, 2007 The first post-Cure project to actually produce a second record, Levinhurst—the brainchild of original Cure drummer Lol Tolhurst and his wife Cindy Levinson—has endured to follow up the electronic delights of their debut Perfect Life. Where the first one paid homage to the clean electro of Kraftwerk, this one finds Lol and Cindy doing a bit of soul mining and inevitably harkens back to those emotionally vivid early Cure albums.
Cindy Levinson’s voice is a very interesting thing to describe, possessing a timbre so clean and pure that many of those long phrases and notes verge on the transcendental. These songs, to hear her delivery, seem so much more personal than the bulk of their debut—"I Am" and "Never Going to Dream Again" are standouts. It’s plain to see, also, that Lol’s programming prowess has grown by leaps and bounds from the last record. Murky synth lines bubble under clean rhythms and occasional sprinkles of electronic noise break any chance of monotony with ease. The end of "Beautiful Lie" is gorgeous and heady in its aquatic suggestion, waves breaking against craggy rocks. "Heart and Soul", by contrast, is a study in minimalism, relying on a arpeggiated synthesizer part for its rhythmic motion.
Thematically solid from start to finish (did I mention all those watery flourishes and shadowy scenes are part of the concept?), this album ends with a title track and the same kind of resolution that concludes that legendary 1981 record Faith—in spite of all the heartache and uncertainty, still something remains. In this case it’s the strong bonds of family and home, and to account for the third person mentioned in the lyric, their son Gray contributes guitar for this tune.
Hopefully, this artistic pairing will continue to endure, too, and continue to grow in their craft with strong albums such as House by the Sea.
House by the Sea
We got together at the venue at around 8:00 PM. Met Lee from Simon pretty early on, who was incredibly good to us. I traded him a copy of the EP for a t-shirt. Dana came to the show and got some pictures which I cannot wait to see. We ended up with a small crowd but there were indeed some familiar faces in the room. Since Paul brought his B.C. Rich Warlock, I used my Samick and Robert from Clouded Son loaned me his Vox amp (I have GOT to get one of those.)
The set went off without a hitch for the most part. I thanked everyone for leaving prom early to come see us. I got to play second guitar on a few of the tracks (enjoying the axe most on "Song For Vara"). "Call and Response" was on-target as usual. I completely forgot the words to the new song, "A Novel Idea", but the music itself sounded pretty good. I ad-libbed my way through it and had a good laugh after it was said and done. "Vanity Tax" was great, "Discontent" is always good and to me was even better Saturday night than it was in March. I think I tried to make a joke about Mary Hinkley and ended up saying something about Henry Winkler having shot his husband. We wrapped up with "Automata" which sort of left things on an edge—it’s not a closer like "Survival" is, that’s for certain. We got lots of compliments from the other bands for doing something different, and the sound guy said this performance smoked our last one.
The good part about opening is you can just stop and enjoy everyone else’s shows and we did just that. Seafood Hotline and Simon mine from heavier places, but both are remarkable at what they do. Seafood Hotline are a somewhat sick duo who honest-to-god recapture the fury and strangeness of indie-label Nirvana, and I loved the hell out of it. Joe from the Hotline is such a cool guy, he made mention of us throwing down in Murfreesboro sometime. I can see doing that sometime. Simon were hilarious and heavy, stoner rock with a sense of humor and some art-rock leanings. They also take established songs and completely nuke the arrangements (their version of the Sex Pistols’ "Anarchy in the UK" is price of admission alone).
Altogether it was a good show. I’m already looking forward to May, and then to recording the album.
nine inch nails Year Zero Interscope, 2007 Trent Reznor is hot pissed, and this time he actually has a lot to be irate about. Year Zero is probably the first post-Katrina album, if there exists such a sub-subgenre—it’s apparent that the tragedy in New Orleans had a profound effect on the making of this disc. The pretty hate machine no longer sounds "pretty", its wires fried and short-circuiting and its engineer standing on the edge of sanity in a world even less sane.
It’s a concept record, though it’s not as gutwrenching of a listen as The Downward Spiral tends to be nowadays. It’s heavy but less internal. This is the sound of a man who is speaking for the people of a damaged world moreso than himself, and that in itself is a refreshing change (for all Year Zero’s fatalism, George Orwell would be proud). The contrast in sounds is even more drastic this time around—muted synth sounds clash with glitchy rhythm, often with Trent’s voice serving as an instrument just as much as a focal point. "The Greater Good" is a perfect example of the latter. It’s also important to note that guitars often take a backseat on this record (hell, the bass in "The Warning" practically carries that song most of the way through) and thus this album is not quite as muscular as 2005’s _With Teeth_. If you’re looking for balls-out rock, this is not the disc for you.
What Year Zero is, though, is probably the best nine inch nails record in 13 years.
