Last eight days seemed both completely jammed AND entirely uneventful. How does that happen?
- almostaghostAuthor Archive for almostaghost
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A few days back, I went to see Sharon Van Etten and The War On Drugs concert at the Avalon in Hollywood. A strange combo! But I am a fan of both, and was excited.
The War On Drugs, who put out one of my favorite albums last year, opened. I saw them headline five months ago at a smaller venue, which was fun. But I think their sound fit this slightly bigger venue a little better. But their momentum, tight on record, is given more expanse on the stage. More specifically, that means a bit more jamming, longer ambient build-ups, phatter bass.
To be honest, I cannot decide if their groove is derivative, or unique. A fine line, I guess! In the end, it does not matter. But original or not, I really enjoyed their noisy, groovy set, once again. And if they come back again in five months… I’m sure I’ll enjoy it then too. Here’s a song from the excellent Slave Ambient:
Sharon Van Etten, who, on the other hand, I last saw at a MUCH bigger venue (opening for The National), was impressive as well. She has a somewhat goofy, self-deprecatory stage presence, which was a little surprising considering sad, emotional songs make up the core of her catalog. Fortunately, this presence does not get in the way of the songs. She can switch focus and deliver a jaw-dropping performance like it ain’t no thing, even after awkwardly talking to the person in the front row (PS. we in the back had no idea what you were saying). Musically, I enjoyed her ability to pull off some of her slower, more drone-like pieces; and her band was also skilled enough to jump on faster ones too.
I did find myself wishing for a couple of songs where she just played acoustic guitar alone. Her first demo recordings are basically just that, and are so beautiful. But the new stuff has opened her up to a much wider palette, and for someone with such a great voice and such great songs, that’s nothing but a good thing.
- almostaghost
Boom. Fair warning–track 2 is 18 minutes long. Went to another concert tonight, will write it up soon.
- almostaghostLast week I drove out to Glendale, Arizona for to see my seventh Radiohead concert. I’m proud of the fact that I have seen them once per album since 1997. And while I cannot say this was as epic as some of the shows in the past, it was a total blast and quite memorable for a few reasons.
First, an indoor arena has a significantly different feel than the big outdoor concerts they have been focused on the past 10 years. While the capacity of the arena in Glendale was not drastically smaller than, say, the Hollywood Bowl (surprisingly very similar), the fact that it was indoor with a general admission floor gave a much different experience. You could actually see the band! I could, anyway, as I was on the floor, not too far back from the stage. This video is indicative: it seems to have been shot and zoomed over my head.
That video also brings me to my other point about Radiohead’s setlists. Most bands will play their new songs pretty straight, while maybe experimenting a bit with their older songs. Radiohead? The exact opposite. As you can hear with this old song (“Packt Like Sardines In A Crushd Tin Box”), it sounds fairly similar to the recorded version on Amnesiac. But compare that to the new “Bloom” at the top, which has expanded and blown up into an entirely new experience. Most of the new King Of Limbs songs were like this. “Little By Little,” while dark on record, sounds downright menacing live. “Good Morning Mr Magpie” is sped up. “Feral” explodes into some crazy thing, somehow becoming one of the more exciting songs in the set. (Why can’t it sound like that on the record?!) The new songs were pretty mindblowing, and that is what I will remember most of all about the music this tour.
But then, the converse is true too: the old songs sound exactly like you’d expect. I love hearing the songs fucked with and expanded like this and why can’t they do that with the old songs too? Doesn’t have to be drastic, but “Paranoid Android” and all those sound like they always have. Do they have to? If they can experiment with “Feral,” why not the old stuff? I do not mean to diminish the excitement of hearing the “Airbag” riff in person, don’t get me wrong. I definitely recognize how great it is to still go to a show, 15 years later, and still have that “Paranoid Android” crowd frenzy. But it did make me wonder if they cruise through certain things to some extent? I don’t know, I’m conflicted on this–torn between wanting more experiments but also loving their back catalog. In the end though, Radiohead on cruise control still sounds like this, so I’m just nitpicking:
Other little thoughts: “Lotus Flower” appears to be their new most-popular song, the crowd went crazy for it, along with old faves like “Idioteque” and “There There.” I really can’t imagine them dropping any of those from any set they do, ever.
Outside the King Of Limbs stuff, they also played recent tracks like “The Daily Mail” and “Identikit.” A few other new songs have shown up on this tour, but those were the two I heard. Thom told the crowd that their goal was to play more new stuff–looking back is ok but looking forward is what keeps them going. “Identikit” reminded me a bit of “Lotus Flower,” maybe just less seductive. That’s first impression though, and will be curious if they release it soon (Thom said it was his favorite new song). They did release a live version of “The Daily Mail” recently, and it’s been growing on me quite a bit.
Anyway, Radiohead’s songs are so good and they’re such amazing performers that there’s no way a show won’t rejuvenate you.
- almostaghost
Next week’s should be awesome–I’m roadtripping out to a Radiohead concert in a few days. 
Until then, here’s this week’s.
Meant to have this up last night, but slipped my mind. Half a day late once isn’t so bad. Lucky #42 — the answer to the ultimate question.
Happy Leap Year Day! Also, it’s the end of the month, so here’s some of the new music I’ve found and liked enough to share! Still haven’t found all that many albums I love yet this year, but there’s a couple and the rest here are from singles or compilations.
- almostaghostAs I continue to go through the Coachella lineup, I get even more stoked. The Saturday lineup is particularly intense and exciting, and I cannot wait. I touched on it a little in looking at the Friday lineup, but Saturday is an even more British day! I’ll have an accent by the end of the day. There’s literally no way I’ll be able to see everyone I like on the Saturday, conflicts will abound. This mix is a little long, my 23 favorites from the day.
UK: Radiohead, Laura Marling, SBTRKT, Buzzcocks, Kasabian, We Were Promised Jetpacks, Squeeze*, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds*, Kaiser Chiefs*, Sub Focus*, Jacques Lu Cont*, The Big Pink*, The Vaccines*
Canada!: Feist, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Dragonette, Destroyer*, Zeds Dead*,
I’m particularly excited for the women artists this day: St. Vincent, Laura Marling, Feist, Azealia Banks, tUnE-YaRdS, Grace Potter, Keep Shelly In Athens, Dragonette
Reasons I’m even going to Coachella this year: Radiohead, Bon Iver
Artists everyone else is a little more exicted to see than I: Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Jeff Mangum, tUnE-YaRdS, Childish Gambino*
Old bands/Coachella reunions: Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Buzzcocks, fIREHOSE, Squeeze*
Artists I now dig who I just learned about from doing this: Azealia Banks, Gary Clark Jr., tUnE-YaRdS, fIREHOSE, We Were Promised Jetpacks
* not on this mix
- almostaghost
I continue to amuse myself by picking a song-of-the-day every day, and then sharing them in a mix.
- almostaghost
the wind begins to howl
One last disc of this, so far, surprisingly underwhelming collection. I certainly didn’t expect everything here to be good, but I was optimistic there would be more stuff blowing me away. Outside one or two so far, hasn’t happened.
1. Maroon 5 “I Shall Be Released”: I refuse to believe that a band as uncool as Maroon 5 is familiar and admires something as totally cool as Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes. So I wonder, how did they know this song? Other covers? Some producer forcing them on it?
2. Seal & Jeff Beck “Like A Rolling Stone”: Well, I guess someone had to do this one. Why not Seal? Their version kind of sounds messy to my ears–raw vocals, Beck shredding all over the place. This is a tough song to cover, and I’m not sure it’s possible to get it right.
3. Carolina Chocolate Drops “Political World”: The coolest bluegrass/string band around takes one of Dylan’s newer songs and turns it into old-time music. Just like, I think it is safe to assume, Dylan always wanted.
4. Taj Mahal “Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream”: Old bluesman dives into one of Dylan’s more surreal, bizarre trips. Maha’s voice is an acquired taste, but he’s clearly an influence on Dylan’s more recent growly old blues vocals, and I imagine, if Bob Dylan were to recreate Bringing It All Back Home today, it would sound like this.
5. Dierks Bentley “Senor (Tales Of Yankee Power) (live)”: Bentley does a live version of this cool song. There’s a Willie Nelson version of this song which, while also in the country vibe, is much more skilled. But if you like traditional country/bluegrass, this taps into that fairly well.
6. Mick Hucknall “One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later)”: The lead singer of Simply Red jumps in the crowd, and tries what has lately been my favorite Dylan song ever. (That changes a lot, of course.) It’s pretty tame, but Hucknall’s voice is good, and this is not one that gets covered enough.
7. Thea Gilmore “I’ll Remember You”: Gilmore years ago released a great cover of “I Dreamed I St. Augustine,” which eventually led to her putting out an entire cover of the whole John Wesley Harding album. It is a pretty sweet release (my 51st favorite album of 2011), and she obviously is a big fan, and it is nice to see her included here.
Thea Gilmore “I’ll Remember You”
8. State Radio “John Brown”: Don’t know this band, but Wiki lists their genres as “alternative rock” and “reggae.” Don’t have high hopes for that combination, to be honest. While the affecting story of the song gets slightly lost in this version, State Radio does drastically change the song–melody/rhythm/everything–and for that, they get some credit.
9. Dave Matthews Band “All Along The Watchtower (live)”: a 7-minute Dave Matthews live jam? No comment.
10. Michael Franti “Subterranean Homesick Blues”: Was excited to hear a rapper attack “SHB,” one of the forerunners of rap, with it’s stream of images and phrases. I didn’t really like Franti’s version, I found myself wishing it had more typical hiphop beats. But he is definitely having a fun time performing this, and who wouldn’t with those lyrics?
11. We Are Augustines “Mama, You Been On My Mind”: These guys are a pretty standard rock band; I checked them out for my upcoming Coachella trip and was not overly impressed. They tap into this amazing song, and do a nice job, though.
12. Lucinda Williams “Tryin’ To Get To Heaven”: One cool thing about this collection is to get to hear some good artists cover some of Dylan’s more recent things. Though, by recent, I mean his ’90s albums–for some reason, nobody did anything from any of his 2000s works. What’s up with that? There’s some amazing songs on there. You artists need better producers to tell you these things. Anyway, here, Williams pulls out the folky/country side of “Tryin’ To Get To Heaven.”
13. Kris Kristofferson “Quinn The Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)”: You know, it’s about time that someone covered “Quinn The Eskimo” again and had a big joyous hit song. Kris Kristofferson probably isn’t the right guy for that though. He makes it sound sad, which is an interesting choice.
14. Eric Burdon “Gotta Serve Somebody”: I had no idea Eric Burdon was still around.
15. Evan Rachel Wood “I’d Have You Anytime”: Actress Evan Rachel Wood makes one of the more unlikely picks for this, doing a song that Dylan cowrote with George Harrison, and is on Harrison’s epic All Things Must Pass. OK! She turns it into a smoky jazz nightclub type of song too. Cool.
Evan Rachel Wood “I’d Have You Anytime”
16. Marianne Faithfull “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down (live)”: Faithfull attacks this blues song vocally, which doesn’t quite fit with the banjo picking that makes up the music. Her voice is strong, but the music is fragile.
17. Pete Seeger “Forever Young”: Well, how can we get even older than Marianne Faithfull? Pete Seeger! But he’s a great ending for the collection: he still has a vibrancy and the joy in this song is awesome.
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There is also a Bob Dylan song after Seeger (“Chimes Of Freedom” of course), but that seems irrelevant by this point. Quick note: this fourth disc was probably my favorite of the four.
Disc 4 favorites: Thea Gilmore, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Lucinda Williams
Disc 4 least favorites: Maroon 5, Michael Franti, Eric Burdon
This was an odd collection of popular musicians, young and old, of quite a few different styles. If you like diversity, I definitely think it’s worth at least listening through on the Amnesty website. Even if you’re not familiar with ALL of these Dylan songs, the collection comes off as adventurous just because of the sheer diversity present. And that, I think, above all the numerous reasons, is one of Dylan’s most amazing genius.
- almostaghost