TOO MANY WORDS
I'll be blogging over here now, because tumblr just ain't meeting my needs.
Monterey Bay Aquarium

if i look back, i am lost

Love Begins

No title available
todays bird
trying on a metaphor

Janaina Medeiros
Peter Solarz
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"

tannertan36
KIROKAZE

Andulka
tumblr dot com

roma★
Cosmic Funnies

shark vs the universe
cherry valley forever

JBB: An Artblog!
art blog(derogatory)

izzy's playlists!

seen from Saudi Arabia
seen from Suriname

seen from United States

seen from Spain

seen from United Kingdom
seen from Taiwan

seen from United States

seen from India
seen from T1

seen from Iraq

seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Brazil
@deviantaudiophile
TOO MANY WORDS
I'll be blogging over here now, because tumblr just ain't meeting my needs.
You just can’t make this shit up. (Picture from the Entertainment Weekly review of R. Kelly's new album "Black Panties.")
I’m totally buying this album now. Promise.
artpop
in which I go to lady gaga's artrave, and then listen to the new album. really late. because I have things that make me busy. stupid things.
So I went to this little thing back in November called Artrave, which was basically Lady Gaga's album release party. Here's a photo:
My takeaway from the event: I'm really old. And jaded. Probably far too old to actually go to Artrave, but whatever. When I get offered the chance to go to a random Lady Gaga event, you'd best believe that I'll go.
There were a lot of skinny white girls there who seemed to think it was necessary to be naked. I'm not complaining, mind you, I just find it odd. Is Lady Gaga's music really that liberating? Is being naked the conventional person's way of being "wild" these days? Are we as a society just lacking imagination? I felt like saying "yes, honey, you're being super unconventional by taking off your clothing, just like the 315 other skinny white chicks with glitter on their faces who have also taken off their clothing at this event. Go you."
Lady Gaga was showing her performance art videos on six huge screens on the walls. Apparently Maria Abramovic had a hand in some of them. Performance art is not my bag, y'all. I've participated in enough performance art over the years (ok, all before I turned 22 and stopped taking drugs, but still) to know that it is mostly bullshit. It was fun bullshit, but man, I do NOT want to watch it any more.
Lady Gaga was naked in a lot of her performance art videos. Maybe that's why so many of these girls were taking off their clothing.
I hate to tell y'all this, for fear of disappointing you, but underneath her clothing, Lady Gaga appears quite human. Not an alien or anything.
There were Jeff Koons pieces all over the place. They were shiny.
Lady Gaga performed some of her new songs. You can watch most of the performances on YouTube if you haven't already.
There was an open bar.
Here's one last picture:
So, onto the music:
For the first few hours of Artrave, DJ WhiteShadow, a producer that she worked extensively with on Artpop, performed (does DJing count as performing?). He was fine, if a bit repetitive in his beats. He tended to have very similar beats throughout each song, and tended to drop the beat at exactly the same point on each track.
Anyway, if you want to know what his set sounded like, listen to the song Aura (here's a link to her performing it at Artrave), which honestly, sounded so much like the rest of Whiteshadow's stuff, I didn't even realize the performance had started.
So yeah, the album. I bought it. I've been living with it for the past month or so. Despite my complaints about the repetitiveness of WhiteShadow, I really like the song Aura, as I feel like that goes in a somewhat new direction for Gaga. Applause, Do What U Want, Applause and Gypsy are also fun tracks. The rest of them, honestly, I can live without.
On the whole, after a month of listening to Artpop, I'm kind of... tepid. Which sucks. I'm bummed. Maybe some of the other songs will grow on me, but for the most part... eh.
Gaga puts on one hell of a party though.
I think the most significant thing about this video is that Britney is wearing pants. Twice. And they're not skin tight.
I do believe this may be the most clothed I've seen a major female pop star in a video in...forever?
I'm going to end up hating myself tomorrow...
...when I end up buying this album, despite many reviews saying it had the same problems as Part I:
Entertainment Weekly's review of it was particularly damning, me thinks.
Still, there were a couple of good songs on the first part...
Maybe I'll just wait until it goes on sale at Amazon for very little money. Maybe I won't actually buy it.
Maybe my soul is redeemable after all. (probably not)
economics of audiophilia part I: stadium shows
in which I grouse about seeing live shows.
So, I'd say I love going to see live (rock) music, but honestly, I'd be lying. There are so few shows that I can say were truly amazing throughout the course of my life, and the only ones that come to mind are those by ¡TchKung! in the Seattle/Olympia era of the late 1990s. Because yeah, musicians who play on trash, fire breathers, concert goers covering themselves in mud, and random takeovers of the city streets are, in fact, amazing. Also, the sound quality was pretty good, in or out of the theater.
(Live classical music, by the way, is a totally different animal. I have zero issues going to see/hear symphonies, other than cost, and the potential for whoever I'm going with falling asleep and/or making fun of me for being consistently moved to tears. Yeah, I cry at live symphonic performances. Whatever.)
Anyway, one of my favorite bands, Phoenix, is playing at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn next week, and for about five seconds, I was ready to buy tickets, before going "nah" and shrugging in a very Gallic way (Phoenix is from France, btw).
I really loathe seeing concerts in huge venues. The last one I went to was the final show of the Police reunion tour at Madison Square Garden, and yeah. Feh. I went to that show because it was going to be the only chance I'd have to see them live, ever (being under 10 for most of the 1980s put a crimp in my concert going during the Police's heyday). It was... ok. The performance was great, but all the bullshit in the venue detracted from it (for me at least).
And mind you, I've been to huge stadium concerts all over the country. King Dome in Seattle, some gigantic fucking place in California, RFK Stadium in DC, blah blah blah. They all suck. It's not just MSG (which mind you is probably the suckiest of all of these).
The tickets are ridiculously expensive. Overhead's a bitch man, and while I'm all about supporting the bands, paying for these ugly ass, energy hog, sports-oriented, architectural monstrosities is not really on my agenda. I really HATE paying hundreds of dollars to be herded around like mentally disabled cattle through what is essentially a temple to concrete. And then sitting really really far away from the stage, and having to use binoculars because I can't deal with the fiscal ass-raping that comes with buying "good" seats.
Also, the sound quality blows. Almost always. And I hate leaving these venues mostly deaf, with my ears ringing. Or having to listen to the show through ear plugs, which is almost as insulting as having to watch it through binoculars. Because, what's the point of going, at this point?
Additionally, I have no desire to pay craptons of money to basically hear/see a rehash of a studio album that I could have listened to in the comfort of my own home for free. There's also the chance that you're going to pay a ton of money to see a really shitty show because the performers feel off that night, don't give a shit, are really tired, or had their pipeline of cocaine cut off.
Fuck that noise.
Sorry, my dear, dear (imaginary) friends Phoenix, I will not be seeing you at Barclays Center next week unless the magical ticket fairy somehow coughs up free tickets to your show. (Then, I'd be there with bells on.) I'll stick to listening to your albums obsessively while on the subway.
all this time...
in which [the royal] we discuss the relevance of older artists.
So, Sting released a new album today. I honestly have no clue how well it is going to do, nor do I really care. I mean, I guess the dude has enough money, and probably has enough fame at this point. Given what emotions come through in his songs, I figure that probably part of the reason why he's still writing, recording and releasing songs is for art. Or joy. Or love. Or something. Whatever that thing is, it works for me.
I mean, it worked for me when he was younger, cockier, and more of a jackass. I've always loved his stuff. Grew up on it. We're talking more than three decades of having Sting in one form or another in constant rotation with all my other music.
The only other artists that I've had on constant rotation are Michael Jackson and Bruce Springsteen. And I don't listen to them nearly as frequently as I do Sting. For instance, I have every single one of Sting's albums on my phone, for daily listening, but only three songs from MJ and Bruce...
Anyway. I mentioned Sting's new album to a coworker, who mind you, is older than I am, and her first response was to ask "Is he still relevant?"
She brought up Rod Stewart, who she mentioned had released an album earlier this year. I had to fact check this statement, and apparently he did release an album of original material in May. (It didn't do well in the US as far as I can tell, but went to the top of the charts in the UK.) She spent some time reminiscing about Rod during the 70s and 80s, and then again in the Aughts, and how hot he'd been back then.
Which raised a lot of questions for me.
Does it matter if musicians are making music just because they can? Or to appease diehard fans? Or to hold on to past glory? Or to please themselves? Or to pay their kids' college tuition bills? For nostalgia's sake?
Why would we care if that's all they were doing?
Does it fucking matter if an artist is still relevant? If somebody, somewhere, gets enjoyment out of art, sees the beauty in it, and it somehow adds to their existence, doesn't that negate any questions of relevancy?
What does it matter if the only person in the world who is listening to Rod Stewart is some 60-something cat hoarder living on the dole in Great Britain who pops on his record to masturbate to while fantasizing about his lithesome 1970s era bod? (or, his not so lithesome 2013 one...)
Or that Sting releases some song that has a ridiculously complicated time signature that only certain math/music geeks understand? (or jerk off to. fine. whatever)
This is a large part of why I try not to slag on musicians (or artists of any sort.) I'm not going to emotionally connect with Miley Cyrus making out with a sledgehammer (Ke$ha making out with unicorns is way more my speed), but obviously millions of other people are, so who am I to judge them for their tastes in art? It's doing something for someone somewhere.*
(Although, I may be somewhat disturbed by what it says about our culture that watching Miley simulate sex with a wrecking ball has garnered 149,000,000 views on YouTube, but whatever. I mean, I watched it. Once. I guess it is kinda like a car wreck.)
Yeah. I still love Sting's music. So what?
*Please note that this attitude does not so much extend to genocide, cannibalism, Yoko Ono's recordings, and other things that cause harm to any living being.
Randomesque Side Note: I once had the opportunity to meet Sting, and I declined, because I was afraid that he'd be a total asshole (I think he was still in his jackass phase) and I didn't want his shitty behavior to ruin my love of his music. That particular modus operandi still stands for most of the musicians I deeply admire. (i.e. stay the fuck away)
lovin it
in which I discuss Ariana Grande.
I gotta start this by saying I'm a huge fan of Mariah Carey. Always will be. And despite the inevitable comparisons between Mimi & Ariana, that's the last thing I'm going to say on the subject here, because I honestly don't think that in the long run, the comparisons are going to do either artist any favors.
So yeah, I bought the Ariana Grande album, Yours Truly. And, at the absolute base of all of it, I find this album to be a highly enjoyable experience.
So a few notes:
This album is full of 90s nostalgia in a seriously good way. Little Mix is 90's nostalgia in a really bad way.
I've always been a sucker for a Babyface written/produced song. Since he was so heavily involved in this album, it kind of naturally follows that I'd like it. (side note: I think Babyface was the first producer I was actually aware of.)
Have been excited about this album since I first saw the video for "Baby I"
This album has a lot of production elements in it (like that irritating slowed down deep voice thing that is in EVERY FRICKEN SONG on the radio these days), that I think are going to sound dated in about five minutes, and yeah, that annoyed the shit out of me.
Can't wait to hear her voice grow, mature, and, well...ripen.
Why the fuck did somebody decide to put that boy band guy on "Almost is Never Enough?" Ariana so dramatically outshines him from a talent standpoint that I actually get embarrassed for the dude every time I hear the song.
Anyway. Yeah. I like this shit. A LOT.
It's just pure pleasure to sit back and listen to somebody do something that they clearly love, and have an awful lot of natural talent for. Really looking forward to the rest of this chick's career.
radio silence
literally. been so busy at work the past two weeks I haven't even had time to listen to music, much less think or write about it.
stupid having to make a living. stupid not being independently wealthy.
double standards
nothing too brilliant or thought provoking, as I am currently sick as hell, and dealing with an immense work load. (saving the world ain't easy, folks)
However, here's some nepotism: bruce71's awesome comment on this article (scroll down to find it. he makes sense, y'all).
Also, not to defend Cyrus or Thicke or anything for this craptacular "performance," but seriously, this double standard regarding the grinding going on betwixt the two of them being gross due to their age difference is fucking ridiculous.
How come nobody's saying anything about the grossness of the age differences between the models and Thick, Williams and TI in the video for Blurred Lines? Because I'm pretty they're all about 20. Oh, but wait, they weren't Disney Princesses.
Sigh.
Stupid double standards. Oh, and models are supposed to be slutty and there for the public's sexual consumption, whereas, somehow, Hannah Montana isn't?
further thoughts on the stinking pile of shit that happened yesterday
ok, so somebody who shall remain nameless, just made me watch a video of Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke from the VMAs last night.
I will forgive them for having their head up their ass (somewhat) because this person is a millennial. But honey, this performance is not "amazing." By any stretch of the imagination.
Some observations:
Ew.
Miley Cyrus was grossly outclassed (musically, anyway) by Robin Thicke.
Why the fuck would they ruin anything by putting 2Chainz on a song? Seriously? His lyrics seemed to mostly consist of yelling "2CHAINZ" over and over again.
Ugh.
Why?
Kendrick Lamar was a bright spot. Thank you.
things I don't give half a hairy flying shit about, part 2
The MTV Music Awards.
(and apparently neither did the NYT critic Jon Caramanica)
Or honestly, any other awards show.
Stupid self-referential, self-congratulatory, mutual masturbation sessions.
Feh.
exposure
in which I connect emotionally with pop music for the first time ever.
Due to my father's hatred of pop music, as previously discussed, I didn't really hear pop music in any meaningful way until I was six.
Now that I'm a parent and watching my daughter's burgeoning awareness of the world around her, I realize this was probably also a function of being a kid. To some extent anyway.
It is really fuckin cool to rediscover the world through my kid, by the way.
For the most part my friend's parents were also classical music listeners so I didn't really have any exposure there either.
In winter 1982 when we went to Colorado for our annual ski trip. As always we stayed at my parents' friends' house, and these friends had a pair of magical creatures called teenaged girls, as well as a son who was about my age.
One non-skiing day, apparently us kids were being obnoxious little shits, or the adults wanted some day time wife swapping, or to drink themselves into an alcoholic stupor in peace, so we were locked out on the deck together.
Did I mention this was Colorado? In the winter? And that we were literally locked out? God, parenting in the 80s rocked. I'm happy to report that no one died of exposure.
So we're out on the deck in five feet of snow, and like all brilliant kids, the boy and I planned ahead and packed roller skates. The magical teenagers packed their record player. Which, I suppose was slightly more practical than fucking roller skates.
Anyway, while their younger brother and I were unsuccessfully trying to skate in three feet of packed snow, the teenagers were busy digging out the outdoor outlet to plug in their record player. Once we'd finally given up on our fruitless enterprise, they had plugged in and started playing the one record they'd managed to get outside.
It was Aerosmith's Toys in the Attic, which apparently was the right album at the exact right time for me. Something about the music reached out and grabbed me, and I clearly remember Walk This Way and Sweet Emotion. It was an epiphany and I remember sitting in the snow listening with the same weirdly rapt attention I'd give to a major symphony orchestra.
For the rest of the trip when I wasn't terrifying my ski instructors, I was begging the girls to play me more records. They got annoyed, but I was completely entranced by their baseball sleeve concert ts, posters and record collections. Even the cover art was a revelation. I'd sneak into their rooms to flip through their albums, and run my fingers down the track lists memorizing the exotic song names.
I also started to explore other music voraciously. I got a Columbia record club membership, much to my mothers chagrin. I discovered that radios played music other than classical and spent hours holed up in my room with a shitty clock radio listening to every station I could get a decent signal for.
And I loved everything. My friend's dad introduced me to AC/DC, Led Zeppelin and Simon & Garfunkel (go figure). I watched MTV in my allotted 30 minutes of TV per week, and absorbed music videos. I listened to the poppiest of pop, heavy metal, hair bands, the blues, alternative stuff, dance music...
Still do. Still love it all. I've steadfastly clung to my childhood openness to everything.
Now, rather than voraciously consuming everything all at once, I tend to go through phases. Right now, it's alternative rock, but I'm seeing EDM looming on the horizon.
"You say, "Now what's your style and
Who do you listen to?" Who cares?"
(pardon if there's any weird typos, I wrote this whole post on my phone. Which is hard.)
audiophilia & misophonia
in which we discuss my father's bizarre relationship to music and the rest of the world.
My father was autistic. Straight up. Not gonna sugar coat that one, folks.
(that's dear old dad, at about 20)
He couldn't handle all of the different layers of sound and meaning and words and sound in pop music, and didn't listen to it at all. Couldn't stand it, actually. Most pop music would cause him to get somewhat catatonic, or curl up in the fetal position in his armchair and start rocking back and forth. Or run away, or get angry.
My mother married my father in 1966, so her consumption of pop music stopped that year, given my dad's issues. In the 80s, when I was starting to become aware of the music world outside of classical, the only bands she could name were The Beatles (good) and the Rolling Stones (satan).
Despite my dad's issues with pop, he loved music.
Loved. It.
It was one of the only ways that he could express emotions. Art, architecture, dance, film all did nothing for him, and in fact, in many cases, would also send him into catatonia. So classical music it was.
Dad had thousands of classical music records, reel to reel tapes, and CDs. He had the best headphones money could buy at the time, and he built his own sound system, including speakers, from scratch. I spent many hours with him in his basement workshop, silently sanding mahogany panels for the subwoofers he was building, or watching him solder components together. Quality time, autism style, I guess.
I have no idea how he knew how to build the speakers, as he didn't work from plans at all. I guess just made it up? Maybe he took apart some speakers when he was younger? Maybe he looked it up in a library, memorized the plans, and built it from memory at home? No clue. He was a genius, or idiot savant, and could easily memorize HUGE swaths of text, including various languages, without any issues at all. He just had massive issues expressing himself. Words, sounds, concepts and emotions didn't really connect for him (no wonder I'm so into semiotics), so speaking his native language of English was tough for him, even though he could read and write in something like 30 different languages.
Once Dad finished the speakers, he put them in the living room, where they sat as gorgeous, highly functional pieces of furniture. Art, maybe? No clue. He then fiddled with the sound system, and the EQ board he had for our home system for hours, getting the levels, which were completely imperceptible to me, exactly right. He'd put a record on, blast it, stand in various spots in the living room, go back to the sound system, lift the needle off the record, fiddle for a bit, and then repeat. For days. I think I heard the same snippet of Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty something like 95 times over the course of a week.
Do you all know about the concept of the Golden Ear? I'm betting that my dad could have schooled all those motherfuckers. Then again, maybe he was just completely insane. Both are distinct possibilities. Who knows how my father's brain worked? I was probably the only person who came even remotely close to understanding him, and he's still a complete mystery to me.
We were constantly taking trips to the giant Tower Records store in Washington, DC, so Dad could lock himself into their classical music listening room and purchase new recordings. He was so happy when CDs came out, because their sound quality was much clearer for him. I guess the absence of the snap and crackle of vinyl made the experience even more pure for his incredibly sensitive brain.
On one notable occasion, my father purchased a CD of Bax's Spring Fire from Tower, which he was incredibly excited about, as it had been years since he'd last heard the piece played, and apparently had a hard time finding the recording. When we got home that evening, he popped the CD into the player, and out came the sounds of the Talking Heads' Psychokiller. Apparently the CD had been mislabled with Bax and was actually a recording of Stop Making Sense. I thought my poor father's head was going to explode, but he actually found it funny, and went back to the store where he convinced the guys in the nice quiet, glassed-in classical enclave to pop the disc on, which immediately cleared the room.
(quick note: after numerous years of living with my dad, it became easier to read his emotions. Even when he couldn't express them, I got pretty good at sussing out what he was feeling, thus being able to describe him as happy and/or excited)
Our house was constantly filled with classical music. Dad would get home, put on a record, and sit in his armchair with a beer, a book, a cat, and listen. It was kind of awesome.
Except that he liked either music playing in the household (with no one talking) or silence. Makes things difficult for a little kid, but I somehow adjusted.
We also went into DC to the Kennedy Center and to Vienna, VA to Wolftrap for performances on a regular basis. He'd spend days researching the best seats in the house, or location on the lawn for sound quality.
From a very young age I was able to sit still and listen to whole orchestral movements without fidgeting or freaking out. Probably because of the model of connecting emotionally to the music that my father presented me with. Either that or I was scared of my dad. Maybe some of both. I guess I got some of his obsession with good sound quality (hence, the deviant audiophile thing), but it really blossomed into a love of sounds of all sorts, and dad, for whatever reason, couldn't handle most noises.
Really long side note:
As a teenager, I forced my dad to interact with pop music again. He still hated it.
However, when I was 19, I was at home drawing or painting with VH1 on in the background. We were out in the middle of nowhere in Oregon and couldn't get any decent radio stations. My father couldn't handle MTV, so VH1 it was. Mariah Carey's song Always Be My Baby came on, and my father sat there, stony faced, watching the video, before getting up and stomping out of the room.
Two days later, my dad and I are hiking through the wilderness, and out of NOWHERE he starts singing the "doo doo doo's" that open the song. I picked up the harmony, and we sang for a few minutes together, dogs at our side, filling the silence of the Oregon Coastal Range.
One of the most surreal moments of my life, and there were many, given my parentage.
(Dad died in 2006. RIP)
Road Trip Music
in which I write about torturing my family with music for the duration of our drive.
So we're on vacation. We drove from NYC to Cape Cod this past Friday, which meant I drove, which meant that I picked all the music for the trip, which meant that my poor family was completely tortured by my musical choices.
I love listening to music in different contexts, because I always end up hearing things that I've never noticed before, or getting to experience new emotions in the music. In the car, the music goes along with the scenery, keeps me awake, and gives my brain something to focus on, other than watching that double yellow slide by. I can think differently about the songs, experience them differently, and like them in a completely new way.
Plus, my main context for music listening is on headphones, either on the subway, which has a lot of background noise, or while walking through the streets of NYC, which, again, has background noise issues. So getting the chance to listen to music played through a sound system (however shitty) and with different things to look at is pretty central to my existence. And thought process. And my enjoyment of music itself.
I know it might sound weird, because these are the same songs, but I'm not the same person each time that I listen to them. There are fundamental shifts in my perception of, and interaction with, the music when I'm listening in different locations, times, and mental states.
Here is the playlist for the road trip (and yes, we only have a CD player, not an MP3 player, so we listened to actual albums. OMG. I know you thought nobody does that any more, but I do. Post on that forthcoming.):
Atlas Genius - When it Was Now. This album did not sound good in the slightest on my car's craptacular sound system. Nor did it sound good with the windows open. (we don't have AC). Terrible choice on my part. But I listened to it to the end. Bruce and I continued the trend of analyzing the band obsessively, although again, I feel bad because he's only heard them live (with a crappy sound system) and in the car.
Robin Thicke - Blurred Lines. Holds up surprisingly well in the car. I didn't get too much negative feedback from the family. In fact, all of his albums hold up well with the car's terrible speakers. Go figure.
Bruno Mars - Doo Wops & Hooligans AND Unorthodox Jukebox. I requested it, and the husband said, "Why do you hate me?" and then commented on Mars sounding quite a bit like MJ. He might have actually liked a couple of these songs.
LCD Soundsystem -Sound of Silver. I think this was a 55:55 minute endurance experiment for Bruce. Poor, poor man. While I absolutely adore this album, I will concede that it is not good car music, sounded terrible in the car, and I should probably have never played this for Bruce, despite the fact that he likes the song New York I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down. Also, listening to it in the car really made me realize exactly how much LCD Soundsystem stole from the Talking Heads. Which is cool, because the Talking Heads are awesome.
Los Amigos Invisibles - Repeat After Me. Bruce chose it, because he likes them (we've seen them live twice now). We listened to it until we pulled into the driveway on the Cape. Life was good.
Bruce is driving us up to Provincetown on Wednesday, so he'll be choosing the music then. He purchased a HUGE sleeve for CDs and packed music that he likes.
We have fairly divergent musical tastes (although we agree on some things, like Tom Petty's awesomeness). This should be interesting.
shuggie!
The kiddo and I just went to see Shuggie Otis at Metrotech Center in Brooklyn:
He was great. Amazing guitar player, and honestly, I hadn't really thought about it before, but I was a little shocked at how much Prince has borrowed from Shuggie's music. Dayum.
All of the musicians were amazingly talented, and played well together. The kid enjoyed the music, but said it was too loud (we were right in front of the stacks). And, best of all, there were a trio of elderly black ladies sitting right behind us doing a running commentary/editorial on the music. Loudly.
"Damn, Shuggie, that was a weak ending! Don't you think that was a weak ending Gladys? I agree. WEAK ENDING, SHUGGIE"
snort.
atlas genius
In which I write about the next great hope for rock. Or something.
So. Atlas Genius. If you haven't heard about them yet, you probably will soon, providing they don't implode in a morass of music industry bullshit within the next few years.
They are...a great band. Their sound, in its nascent form, is pretty clearly influenced by U2 and Coldplay (among various other folks), and is awesomely accessible, but smart, rock. I bought their album, When it Was Now, a few weeks ago, and its been on constant rotation ever since (with a break here and there for Robin Thicke). I'm a little worried about getting sick of them, since I've listened to this freakin album about three times a day for the past few.
What I'm trying to say is, the album is good, y'all. Go buy it. (Amazon & iTunes both have it).
Yesterday, I was telling 7-year-old daughter about going to see Atlas Genius in concert later that evening. She was interested, so I popped on their album. She listened for about 10 minutes, and said "their guitar player sounds like The Edge."
Sniff. So proud. She really DID watch It Might Get Loud closely. He DOES sound like The Edge on occasion, with those really excellent clear, church bell tones on the guitar.
These crazy bastards apparently built their own recording studio where they recorded this album and produced it themselves. Which is amazing, because its really fucking good for a first album (there isn't a track on here that I dislike), their song writing is damn good, and I can see that it will only get better. There's a quality to their songs and sound that, given the right environment to flourish, will go from really fucking good to completely transcendent.
They use a little too much synthesizer for my taste but then again I'm a child of the 80s and got plenty of that shit the first time around. Still, the kids these days seem to go for that sort of thing, so who am I to question their musical choices? (Lack of quals will not stop me from questioning, by the way)
My greatest wish/hope is that they get a really excellent producer on board who will help them refine and direct their artistic vision to the aforementioned transcendent phase. (for instance, what producer Alex Da Kid did for Imagine Dragons.) They're so young, and to have that much talent, both from a musicianship standpoint, and from a songwriting one... GAWD, I hope they have a solid mental/emotional foundation so that they don't burn themselves out.
My heterosexual life mate (and he adds "regular provider of cock". Just keepin it classy), Bruce, (fine, husband. Whatever. don't label me) and I went to see them in concert at the iheartradio theater in NYC this evening, after scoring free tickets. The theater is small. like, only slightly bigger than our NYC apartment small. Which is pretty fucking small. There were maybe about 100 people there. The sound quality was dubious. On a few occasions, the PA system was completely overwhelmed, which was kind of a bummer, because some of the musicality was lost. And on their final song, Electric, the vocals were completely overwhelmed.
This was also Bruce's first time hearing any of their music, and while he liked it, he's unfortunately going to have a not-so-optimal next listen to their stuff as I will likely play it on our 1994 Jetta's shitacular sound system, with the windows open, while driving up to Massachusetts next week. Yup.
Having now seen Atlas Genius live, after having listened to their album (obsessively) for the past few weeks, it was clear to me that they've really lived in the songs for a while. They're all excellent musicians, and it sounds like they're having fun with the music. At one point in the show, the keyboard player threw in a different synth drum beat than is usually played on one of their songs, and it was cute to see the other band members react to it.
So, a listy review of the live show:
They seemed tired. They looked tired. I have nothing but respect for people who are going through the music business mill, because I know that they're all working ridiculously hard. And... yeah. Tired.
They're so cute and so tiny and young! Sometimes it seemed like the lead singer was a little bit too aware of how attractive he is. But whatever.
They had terrible rock star faces. That, in and of itself, was fucking adorable.
I was a little bummed that the lead singer/guitarist had equipment issues on the song Centered on You. So was he. Definitely showed in the next song, when he was clearly playing pissed off. Or frustrated. or whatever. But he got his head back in the game. (I was bummed because we missed out on one of the prettiest guitar parts I've heard in a while.
The lead singer played All These Girls solo. Which was fine. It's my least favorite song on the album. As I mentioned before, I like them all (and freakin adore most of the songs), but this one... Yeah. So Bruce was saying that it sounded like something that would be used in a TV ad for Verizon. Or in a very intense scene on One Tree Hill. I said maybe for a tampon commercial. Yeah, we're assholes. But I like that about us.
Did I mention that I really enjoyed the live arrangements of the songs? I did. That's one of the things that I like the most about going to live shows, is listening to how the artists are interpreting their songs in that moment, on that stage, with whatever emotions they happen to be having at any given moment. I like listening to the experiments and the failures and the expressions of their "now" through these pieces of music that belong to so many people other than them. It's pretty beautiful. And I'm thankful that these boys did that with their music this evening. Looking forward to seeing them do it some more.
The show started on time (7pm) and ended before the sun went down. Which rocked. Because I'm old, and want to go to bed on time.
I'm a little bummed that I went to see a concert at apparently the only venue in all of NYC that doesn't serve beer.
It would be awesome if they did move to NYC. I would encourage them to move to Astoria, not to Brooklyn, because Brooklyn is so fucking clichéd. Also, Astoria is cheaper. And has a great music scene.
Side note that has nothing to do with Atlas Genius:
Every time I see live music in the city, something bizarre happens on the subway afterwards. This time was no different.
After the show, while in the middle of analyzing the band to death, poor dears, my man and I got on the subway to go home. While we were talking, this guy in his 20s got on the train, clearly tripping his balls off. He was also wearing clashing plaids on his shorts and shirt. This nearly sent my husband into apoplexy, but that's another story. Anyway, tripping boy was freaking out because we were making fun of him, but he was too fucked up to figure out whether it was actually happening, or if he was just being paranoid. On top of that, he was tripping about a couple of teenagers dry humping on the seats next to us. Fucking awesome.
Ah, New York. We love you so.