Friday’s show at the Soft House was a blast. I managed to take a few photos of the stellar performances. Take a look:
Dead Mellotron (shot with some red/blue flash gels)
Fenster
Spanish Prisoners
Lands & Peoples
View the entire set right here.
Photography by Laurent Hrybyk.
This past Tuesday I had the pleasure of attending a pretty solid show at the Ottobar. Other Lives and YAWN, two bands I’ve talked about before, sounded great on record and backed it up live. Big big sounds from those two. Mates of State are just good. Their live show is tight and energetic. They’ve also added two new performers to their live act, a guitarist and horn player (as well as some light up clouds). Seeing them reminded how much I dig them and have been drifting back through some of their older stuff the last few days (they also have a pretty sweet new album out too). Anyway…here’s some photos I managed to capture from the show:
YAWN
Last night at the Metro Gallery some seriously sweet vibes rained down on the audience courtesy of Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Holy Spirits, Mutual Benefit, and Lands & Peoples. Every single act lit it up BIG time. Before we get to a handful of photos, let me just say…look out for Lands & Peoples yalls. Now a duo, Caleb and Beau are creating on another level. So psyched to hear more of their new jams in the near future. And now:
Phillip Seymour Hoffman:
Holy Spirits:
Mutual Benefit:
Lands & Peoples:
Photography by me (Laurent Hrybyk)
See more of the photos here.
After a disappointing experience failing to purchase tickets for Madison Square Garden, I managed to get two tickets to the third night of LCD Soundsystem’s farewell week in New York City. And last Wednesday, the band exceeded my expectations.
When LCD Soundsystem front man James Murphy announced in February that the band was playing their final show on April 2nd, it was shocking to believe the band was actually over. Murphy had previously hinted in interviews that their latest CD “This is Happening” would be their last, but it’s hard to imagine a world without Murphy’s innovative electronic-punk music. Fans scrambled to get tickets for the last-ever show and the demand was so high that four shows were added during the week to New York’s Terminal 5.
The show began at 7:30 with a set by DJ Shit Robot, who played dance-techno music for the growing crowd. One of the last songs of the set was the gem “Turn ‘Em Up”, which featured LCD’s Nancy Whang on vocals. Shit Robot managed to hype the audience up without making them restless, which is a job accomplished.
Before the show, I was worried that because it was the third night the band would be getting tired of the weeklong event. I was completely wrong. Each member was enthusiastic and was as excited to be at the show as the audience. LCD’s set began gradually- each musician took their place separately until the beginning of “Dance Yrself Clean” was in full swing. Murphy finally took the mic to the thrill of the audience and at the breakdown of the song the crowd went wild. I struggled to find a place during the first few songs where the crowd wasn’t completely insane. Everyone was dancing manically and with an energy that could only be conjured up at a band’s final show.
Murphy broke the set into three parts, with the most popular songs starting off the show. The second set included more obscure songs from the EP 45:33. Even though the songs were lesser known, the audience never stopped moving. The third part went back to songs off of their LPs “This is Happening” and “Sound of Sliver”. After two encores, the band finally finished the show with the bittersweet ode to the city, “New York I Love You, But You’re Bringing Me Down”. For me, the stand outs of the 3-hour-long set were “Get Innocuous!”, “All My Friends”, “Movement”, and “Home”. The band did an incredible job translating their songs live and kept the audience engaged until the show ended at 12:30 at night.
Unfortunately, this really is it for LCD Soundsytem. It’ll be hard to fill the void that they’re leaving in the spectrum of indie music. Here’s hoping that their reunion tour is sooner than later.
mp3: LCD Soundsystem – Get Innouous!
On an especially freezing January night, two bands that are most popular for their summer-infused music stopped in for a show in D.C. that was definitely worth seeing.
On the whole, there are a lot of mixed opinions on California bands Best Coast and Wavves. Some people praise their lo-fi sounds and some people criticize them for their over-exaggerated simplicity. But in their defense, both bands put out solid albums this summer that were nostalgic for a time past (Best Coast of the 1960s and Wavves of the 1990s).
Wavves and Best Coast, who’s lead singers are coincidentally dating, named this the “Summer is Forever” tour, which was definitely necessary in the late-but-not-over-yet months of winter. Their opening band was the fairly new No Joy, who set the tone for the evening with their psychedelic lo-fi music. The guitars, drums, and bass were very loud and the singing was a little hard to understand, but for my first listen I found them enjoyable and prepared the crowd for the insanity of Wavves.
My friend’s brother likes to say, “If New York is the city that never sleeps, D.C. goes to sleep at ten.” Not to knock on D.C., but it’s known as a city with minimal dancing at concerts, which is always a little bit of a letdown. Luckily, Wavves was one of the rare shows that brings out the D.C. dancing crowd. The exploded onstage by throwing out beach balls and blown up aliens in the crowd, which provided entertainment for the rest of the night. People in the front thrashed, moshed, and jumped around to the post-punk jams. The energy was exceptionally high for a 9:30 Club concert and the band seemed to be in good spirits and even allowed fans to crowd surf on stage.
After Wavves, Best Coast brought down the mood quite a bit, but not in a bad way. The crowd happily swayed to Best Coast’s beach-y garage rock and seemed especially excited for their hits “When I’m With You” and “Boyfriend”. The band announced that they managed to make it down to D.C. after taping David Letterman with none another than Justin Bieber, which elicited only a few screams from the mostly of age crowd. Best Coast played the majority of their relatively short debut album and included a few songs from their seven inches and a Loretta Lynn cover. The set felt slightly repetitive at times, but I guess that’s one of Best Coast’s charms.
Overall, the show was worth trekking out into ice-covered D.C. on a Monday night. You can find the rest of their tour dates here.
mp3: Best Coast – This Is Real
mp3: Wavves – Post Acid
mp3: No Joy – Heedless
Photo via
This past Saturday Tobacco, Junk Culture, and Dreamend all performed in one pretty stunning show at the Ottobar here in Baltimore. I’ve reviewed all of these bands fairly recently so I was interested to see them perform live.
Dreamend opened the night and I was pretty surprised by their sound. Ryan Graveface, the frontman (also bass player for Black Moth Super Rainbow), came out masked and vibrant. Dreamend’s album So I Ate Myself, Bite By Bite seemed to be much more subdued than their live sound, which almost felt very Kurt Vile-ish. That being said, the drummer was COMPLETELY trashed, so it made for an interesting, sometimes hilarious, sometimes awkward dynamic.
mp3: Dreamend – Magnesium Light
Junk Culture came next and pretty much stole the show for me. I was expecting some sample based grooves. I actually would have been okay with that. But that was not the case at all. Deepak Mantena has an energetic presence on stage and uses his charm and wildness to coax a somewhat mellow crowd into a little more lively one. His drummer was not drunk (or at least didn’t mention or show that he was) and was super crazy good as well. If Junk Culture comes your way, please go see them.
mp3: Junk Culture – West Coast
The main attraction, Tobacco, came out with a bang (of sorts). He sat behind his laptops and devices and did his thing. The bang came with the two screens of projected visuals. These were completely insane. The show started with some old school WEIRD porn between two dragons and a girl (with Tobacco’s basketball head and logo conveniently covering the naughty parts). These then fluctuated to video of the Fat Boys, random 80s porn cuts, old work out videos, horror movies, 1-900 commercials, and the kicker – ET porn. That’s right a female ET having relations with some Old English gentlemen. It was strange, but it all worked to the grimey sounds bursting from Tobacco’s set. It all changed when the members of Dreamend (and co-members of Black Moth Super Rainbow) entered the stage and proceed to friggin ROCK THE REST OF THE NIGHT AWAY.
mp3: Tobacco – Fresh Hex featuring Beck
And here’s my photos of the night:
Wednesday night’s show of Miniature Tigers, The Spinto Band, INEVERYROOM, and the Ex-Replicas was the first show I’d been out to see in a good while…and it did not disappoint. I came in at the tail end of the Ex-Replicas set (I was interviewing Miniature Tigers – more on that soon) so I didn’t quite get into them. They were loud and played rock – simple as that. Up next was a band I was pretty psyched to see, INEVERYROOM. I’ve praised their Friends Record release on this blog before, and their live set lived up to and exceeded my expectations. Chase, Rob, and Amy pulsed their way through a tight set of their experimental electronic tribal thumps. A couple of things about their set: I really love the way Amy’s soft vocal harmonies counters Chase’s bonfire yips. For relatively a new band, their sound is remarkably tight and I was actually saddened that their performance had to end. Also Chase and Rob were kicking in socks – no shoes – for some reason that made me laugh. All in all I’m ready for the next INEVERYROOM show, release, whatever, gimme!
The Spinto Band followed. While I’m not too familiar with them, one thing is for sure – they like to have fun. They play pop rock with good energy and…kazoos. They also seemed to have hit it up with Miniature Tigers on this tour, because they were jeered constantly from some of the MT members in the crowd. Eventually they even invited them onstage to celebrate their last show on the tour with them.
Something odd was definitely in the air that night with Miniature Tigers. They came our rocking more than I ever remembered them rocking. Soon into their set lead singer Charlie Brand broke a string on his Dharma issued acoustic guitar and pleaded to the other musicians in the crowd for another. He was then handed a guitar of The Spinto Band – which also had a broken string. Oh well, Brand determined he didn’t really “need” to use that string on the ensuing song. After that they broke into a fantastic performance of “Gold Skull” in which Brand ditched the instruments and headed for the crowd. All the while their manager was scrounging around backstage looking for strings. Finally after bassist Alex took us all on a journey with his tales from conquering Zelda (backed by drummer Rick’s fabulous Zelda theme music) a guitar was presented to Charlie, and we were off to rocking once more. Thats about when my camera battery died so I have no proof of the following craziness that included a gigantic teddy bear, a 4 foot replica of a slim jim made with a rainstick, and of course The Noid. Most of this was courtesy of The Spinto Band when they joined Miniature Tigers on stage to help them play a few more songs to end the night including one chaotic cover of Harry Nilsson’s “Me and My Arrow”, and completely off the charts versions of “Cannibal Queen” and “Last Night’s Fake Blood”.
mp3: INEVERYROOM – EEM E GEE
mp3: Miniature Tigers – Cannibal Queen
Did you go? If so, what did you think?
Here’s a few pictures and a slideshow of the night:
INEVERYROOM:
The Spinto Band:
Miniature Tigers:
Photos by Laurent Hrybyk
