BBC News sums up a speech by southern Sudan’s leader in their article’s first sentence: “The leader of southern Sudan says the country is at a “historic crossroads”, as it gears up for a national vote and a secession referendum for the south.” The story is buried somewhat in the Africa section. It isn’t mentioned on the front page. Iran dominates the headlines today. Merkel is mentioned on the front page as well. Even the Roman Polanski story is getting more attention.
VOA News interestingly leaves the “historic crossroads” quote out. The lead instead paraphrases: “The President of the semi-autonomous Southern Sudan has reportedly said that there is a real chance the results of the 2011 referendum on the future of South Sudan will lead to secession from the north.” This is the top story in the Africa section and under the African section of the front page.
Concert Review: Wavves, Ganglians, Many Mansions @ Great Scott (9/27/09)
Bands: Many Mansions, Ganglians, Wavves
Venue: Great Scott (Allston, MA)
Date: Sunday, September 27, 2009
Many Mansions
This band embodies what has become of the psychedelic trance/drum and bass genre. Their set up was different for sure: one man controlling the drum and bass machine, the effects pedals, and singing while the other dude was just on stage to (apparently) play with the visuals on the projector. And the visuals were weird as hell. Some of the images: an African boy running in a field, an African guy nailed to a cross and decaying, trees, a bunch of people moving away from a building, people break dancing, and an African woman doing a dance in the forest. These images did all sorts of crazy things like spin, flip, illuminate, and fade. The visual arts component was better than the music. I felt bored by the music, at least initially. A few of the electronic drum schemes were catchy and maybe one song was actually “good,” but other than that this band just didn’t do too much for me.
Ganglians
The best I can describe Ganglians is proto-Wavves. They played a lot of catchy noise-pop that certainly the crowd was into. There was definitely an element of their music (the bass lines, probably) that really allowed for dancing and grooving. The lead singer was rocking out and everyone in the band looked like they were having a blast. I sensed a lot of Jay Reatard garage-pop, especially in the drumming and singing. There was one number in particular that had a near identical drum part as “Blood Visions.” A song I highly recommend checking out that they played is “Blood on the Sand.” “Hair” had me mistaking this band for the War on Drugs with its active keyboards. Overall, this was a really good second band!
Wavves
After ten minutes of “technical difficulties,” the crowd got a little antsy. Like…maybe Nathan Williams consumed Valium and E before the show and couldn’t figure out which amp to plug his guitar into. Or maybe not since the only amp on stage was a huge Marshall double-stack mammajamma. Safe to say that no public breakdown happened last night. Williams, with his New York Death Adders hat and tee, welcomed the crowd saying “Hi, we’re Wavves” before blasting into “So Bored,” my favorite song! Everyone easily recognized this song because it’s Wavves’ biggest and just started going nuts, singing along, dancing, etc. The next set of seven or eight songs potentially ended with the word “Goth” or “Demon,” I just can’t remember. That’s because there was, at least for me, an unexpected amount of moshing. The first I got hit I was kind of like wtf okay that’s cool. But then I looked behind me and people were getting pushed around like crazy, bumping into each other. So the next twenty minutes turned out to be an awesome re-visitation of old No Age shows, because of both the music (noisy punk) and the crowd response (moshing). The final song they played was “No Hope Kids,” an awesome song to end the show! Pure pop beneath the massive wall of noise. Unfortunately they only played for 30 minutes, but it was a lengthy 30 minutes. After sweating my ass off from all the moshing and losing track of time, it felt like just enough.
Final Comments: Wavves put on a great show and the experience of watching them play was very top notch. Wouldn’t it have been better if I knew a majority of the songs performed? Probably. I didn’t let them bug me and in the end I walked out of Great Scott knowing that I had a shitload of fun. That said, this show is not comparable to some of the best shows I’ve seen. I would give it somewhere in the B+/B range.
Food Review: Kane’s Donuts
Kane’s Donuts in Saugus (MA) is the real deal!
I used to be a Daddy’s Donuts junkie before it closed its doors a few years back. They had a great honey dip stick and a pretty solid blueberry donut. Since then I’ve mainly been patronizing Honey Dew Donuts simply because I find Dunkin’ Donuts to be extremely lackluster. DD is the hallmark of meh doughnuts, in fact. Honey Dew is a bit better than Daddy’s was…I find the honey dip stick to be pretty filling and it has a nice amount of glaze. There is certainly the question of freshness in my mind when I eat it. Any questions or concerns I had were eliminated when I took my first bite of a Kane’s old fashioned glaze stick. It was as fresh as you can possibly imagine, overflowing with glaze, and very soft on the inside all around. Sometimes with Honey Dew I find the batter to be a bit hard on the inside. Not at all with Kane’s. I had a circular honey dip in addition to the old fashioned stick and it was awesome as well! Ten thousand times better than DD and much much better Honey Dew.
Grade: 9.5
Ditzs use Facebook insteading 000(911)
While watching Chelsea Lately, Chelsea had mentioned a piece of news in which two idiotic Austrailian girls–both 10 and 12–fell down a drain. Instead of using their mobile devices to dial 000 (their equivalent of our 911), they used their phones to update their facebook statuses for someone to help them. Curious, I went online to check and see if this story was true. Low and behold, I found this: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/09/07/2678945.htm. Wow, I’m completely at a loss for words at their stupidity. What is our world coming to? As one of the comedians on her round table cleverly put it “That’s like being lost in the ocean and deciding to burn the boat!” I couldn’t have said it better myself!
Extension of KYLAM Coming!
The capabilities of doing things other than blogging on WordPress are few and far between, at least to semi-beginners like me. I do prefer organized pages (see É2.0 Fail for more details) occasionally. I’ve added an extension of KLYAM that will strictly sort out all music related stuff. It’s in its very very early stages right now…I’ll update about it more. Click below to check it out:
CD Review: Far
Band: Regina Spektor
Label: Sire
Release: June 2009
1. “The Calculation” – 8.7
2. “Eet” – 8.9
3. “Blue Lips” – 9.1
4. “Folding” – 8.9
5. “Machine” – 8.5
6. “Laughing With” – 9.3
7. “Human of the Year” – 9.0
8. “Two Birds” – 8.8
9. “Dance Anthem of the 80’s – 9.2
10. “Genius Next Door” – 8.411. “Wallet” – 8.2
12. “One More Time With A Feeling” – 8.7
13. “Man of a Thousand Faces” – 8.6
Comments: I know this about Regina…she has a beautiful voice! I have a crush on her, sort of, not just because of her music. Like many of her contemporaries she has a great way with words and is obviously a tremendously skilled pianist. I prefer her minimalist, piano/vocals only numbers. It’s interesting how easily she can go from all anti-folkish to blarinly pop-ish. No “Us” or “Hero” kind of awesomeness, but that’s fine.
Grade: 8.8
WTF? Lost Vegas
The Sun
LOVEBIRDS Steven and Kathryn share a well-organised home in bustling Las Vegas.
They have a neat, if compact kitchen, a furnished living area, and a bedroom complete with double bed, wardrobe and bookshelf featuring a wide selection including a Frank Sinatra biography and Spanish phrase book.
And they make their money in some of the biggest casinos in the world.
But their life is far from the ordinary.
Because, along with hundreds of others, the couple are part of a secret community living in the dark and dirty underground flood tunnels below the famous strip.
Band Spotlight: Tom Jefferson
Top Album: The Declaration of Independence (1776) This is Tom at his finest; one incendiary motherfucker. Before he completely sold out with 1803’s corporate shilling Louisiana Purchase. No expansion my ass!
Top Lyrics: “Whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government.” and “A little rebellion now and then is a good thing… the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
Chris
CD Review: Album
Band: Girls
Label: True Panther
Release: 2009
1. “Lust For Life” – 9.2
2. “Laura” – 9.0
3. “Ghostmouth” – 8.9
4. “Goddamn” – 7.7
5. “Big Bad Mean Motherfucker” – 9.6
6. “Hellhole Ratrace” – 9.2
7. “Headache” – 9.0
8. “Summertime” – 8.6
9. “Lauren Marie” – 8.4
10. “Morning Light” – 8.9
11. “Curls” – 8.2
12. “Darling” – 8.2
Comments: Girls!!! Omg! The whole internet is buzzing about Girls! Or maybe just a few “indie” sites here and there. But are they really deserving of the hype? Singer Christopher Owens has a (unique) voice that causes me to deeply wonder whether it is musically fit or semi-annoying. The melodies are there. Pretty damn awesome! Anthem-esque at times, sunshine poppy at others. A bit more obscure than say the Pains of Being Pure at Heart and maybe a bit more older sounding, but structurally there are similar elements between the two bands. “Big Bad Mean Motherfucker” is one heck of a song, reminding me a bit of the lo-fi throwback elements of Wavves and Black Lips. The album’s throwback nature is sort of funny and maybe a bit superfluous…making it sound like a Weird Al original. There are some boring spots towards the end. Overall, this album will be memorable in some way at some point down the line. If they crank out more “Big Bad” tunes then I see a shitload of potential.
Grade: 8.7
Wavves – So Bored
I kinda wanna see Wavves on Sunday @ Great Scott, but I don’t know! I kinda was just there two days ago. Not like that matters.
This song kicks ass:
Kids Like You & Me (KLYAM) 