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[Photos] From Exile, Lazer/Wulf, Brain @ Drunken Unicorn (2/3/12)

Kevin Griggs — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:24:08 +0000

Brain:

Lazer/Wulf:

CONTINUE READING [Photos] From Exile, Lazer/Wulf, Brain @ Drunken Unicorn (2/3/12) (2 words)

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Post tags: Brain, Drunken Unicorn, From Exile, Lazer/Wulf

[Photos] Circle Takes The Square, City Of Ships, An Isle Ate Her, Hello Cobra @ Drunken Unicorn (11/7/11)

Kevin Griggs — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 03:54:39 +0000

Hello Cobra:

An Isle Ate Her:

CONTINUE READING [Photos] Circle Takes The Square, City Of Ships, An Isle Ate Her, Hello Cobra @ Drunken Unicorn (11/7/11) (7 words)

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Post tags: An Isle Ate Her, Circle Takes The Square, City Of Ships, Drunken Unicorn, Hello Cobra

[Photos] Cousin Dan, Shortwave Society @ Drunken Unicorn (9/16/11)

Kevin Griggs — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 21:32:56 +0000

Shortwave Society:

Cousin Dan:

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Post tags: Cousin Dan, Drunken Unicorn, Shortwave Society

[Review] Washed Out, ANR, Soft Powers @ Drunken Unicorn (2/10/11)

Davy Minor — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 21:22:12 +0000

Tired of this cold weather, I had been reminiscing about spending last summer by the pool listening to a lot of chillwave. So between that and watching the opening sequence of Portlandia for the past few weeks, I was pretty stoked to catch this show. Unfortunately as of late, I’ve been disappointed with every concert that I had high expectations for, and this was no exception.

I got there nice and early to catch Soft Powers, whose recorded material I really enjoy. If I’m not mistaken, this live incarnation of Soft Powers featured a couple of members of the Four4 Collective bringing up the rhythm section, and it definitely felt like the band lacked cohesiveness and obviously had a lot of miscommunications with each other during their set. They opened with two songs from Bad Pop, played sloppily at a slow tempo. Then they performed a lot of stuff I didn’t recognize that was more rock based, and rock doesn’t seem to suit these guys as well as their more glo-fi material. The entire set just screamed of amateur hour, but these kids are young and still have plenty of time to improve their live show.

After that, Clint and I headed to Cameli’s to grab some slices and endure some bad karaoke before returning halfway through ANR‘s set. They definitely possessed some musical talent, but their actual music wasn’t doing it for me. Although they closed with a great cover of Sonic Youth‘s “Schizophrenia.” It’s a bad sign for a show, though, when the best moment of the night was a cover.

We waited in the packed out crowd for Washed Out to set up while Clint made entertaining comments like “How long does it take to tune a Powerbook?” Washed Out then played a fairly short set followed by an encore of his best songs. The Washed Out live show featured some traditional-type band members around Ernest Greene, and the stage presence gained came at the detriment of the music. I understand that it’s difficult to get this sort of music to translate well to a live setting (I’ve heard that he never intended to perform this music live when he wrote it in the first place), but I would have preferred the “Girl Talk dance around a CD player method” to having a live band suck out everything appealing about the songs. For instance, they played some really weak reggae jam that didn’t sound anything like Washed Out‘s studio stuff . Also, Greene didn’t seem to have any effects on his vocals like on the record, and without the effects, he isn’t that great of a singer. Even the version of the hit “Feel It All Around” they closed with didn’t sound that good.

Maybe chillwave just doesn’t work in a live setting, or maybe these guys lack the experience necessary to be a good performer. But either way, it was a disappointing concert.

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Post tags: ANR, Drunken Unicorn, Soft Powers, Washed Out