Evangelicals (10/09/08) at The Drunken Unicorn in Atlanta, GA

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“What’s the deal?” I read from my phone, a message from Davy. He’s already at The Drunken Unicorn enjoying a opening set from Atlanta’s Tealights. The deal is I’m currently meandering through sweaty dancing Hot Chip fans on the way out of Variety Playhouse because the security oaf won’t let me sneak out the side door during the encore. Shortly after I arrive to the Drunken Unicorn to see a small turnout for Evangelicals (maybe 25 people) which is a bit bittersweet as I’d hoped more people would be into one of my current favorite bands. The set consisted mostly of songs from one of this year’s most stellar albums, The Evening Descends. As much as I like the production on the album, the song’s stand out on their own in a live setting.

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Live Videos: Evangelista (Carla Bozulich), Xiu Xiu (8/23/2008) @ The Drunken Unicorn

A few weekends ago I checked out this show because I’ve really enjoyed the last two Carla Bozulich albums and was very excited to see her. It was pretty good, but she was suffering equipment issues and her set got cut way short as the show was running behind because of it. Although she nailed the vocal parts pretty dead on live, so that was cool. You’ll notice in the last video she goes into the crowd and starts falling on people in the audience as she was belting it out, and totally knocks the glasses off someone I was with.

Xiu Xiu was very impressive live, but I just don’t enjoy their music that much. I mean it’s good and all, I just can’t seem to get into it. Their setup looked like a drum set had been dipped into that ooze that mutated the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They had the biggest cymbals I have ever seen and maybe the largest quantity of percussive equipment I’ve ever seen on a stage, half of which I didn’t recognize.

Evangelista (Carla Bozulich):

Xiu Xiu:

Live Videos: Club Awesome, Brass Castle (8/6/2008)

Here’s some videos from last night’s show at the Drunken Unicorn. I had to leave early so I didn’t catch Cheeseburger, but our ATL bands rocked it out, and I thought Club Awesome was particularly on top of their game for this one:

Club Awesome:

Brass Castle:

Live Videos: Cinemechanica (4/24/2008) Drunken Unicorn

I was able to get out of work with just enough time to catch Cinemechanica at The Drunken Unicorn last Thursday night, and again they were straight up spectacular. I think they may be my favourite Athens band short of Of Montreal right now. Here they are rocking out:


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Live Videos: The Ruby Suns, Throw Me The Statue (4/14/2008) The Drunken Unicorn


The Ruby Suns

Monday night’s sparsely attended show at the Drunken Unicorn was really sweet. I missed ATL’s Chainstereo, but I hope to catch them soon, because they seem interesting. Throw Me The Statue, from Seattle and signed to Secretly Canadian, took a substantially long time to set up their equipment and seemed to suffer from various minor malfunctions throughout their set. But, for the pop-rock style of which I typically don’t care much for, they played a thoroughly enjoyable show and seemed to be really nice dudes, volunteering more conversation with the audience before and after the show than most acts I see. Slightly after midnight, The Ruby Suns took stage. The 3-piece incarnation of Kevin McPhun’s project did a respectable job of performing the music from an album that I would have figured to be very hard to reproduce live. I listened to Sea Lion again today and I love it so much. Here’s some vids and pics:

Throw Me The Statue


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Live Videos: One Hand Loves The Other, Strezo, Antic Clay (2/23/2007) The Drunken Unicorn

Last Saturday night I went to the Stickfigure Distribution February Showcase and caught some ATLiens. First up was Antic Clay, whose double disc album Hilarious Death Blues from last year I loved. He is a bit too country for the hipsters, but if you can get over that, he makes some great music. Next up was Strezo, who I thought did an impressive set. Frontwoman Kristin Strezo combined beautiful vocals with some strange performance art that I really dug. While I’ve had trouble getting into their album, I have to say they were really good live. One Hand Loves The Other closed out the show, and did some acoustic versions of their songs and a cover, of which I got videos below. I bought their remix album after the show and it is very cool. They will be at The Star Bar tonight, so you should check it out.

Antic Clay:

Strezo:

One Hand Loves The Other:


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Live Review: Stickfigure Distribution January 2008 Showcase

Last week I caught two of the four nights in a row of Stickfigure at The Drunken Unicorn. If you are somehow unfamiliar with Stickfigure, they have been an Atlanta underground music institution since 1992 and consistently put out Atlanta’s most interesting independent releases. Wednesday night I got there just in time to catch most of Big Penguin. They were doing the power duo thrash punk thing and it was cool:

Next up was Zandosis. They were a serious noise-jam band beating on weird instruments and using lots of feedback. I thought it was decent, but as much as I like noise, I think it was a little over the top for me.

I had just recently discovered Sorry No Ferrari, so I was excited to catch them again. I’m a sucker for straight-up post-rock instrumental bands, and so far I think they are the best of this sort of thing I’ve heard in Atlanta. They really rocked out hard for this one:


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B-Sides: Marnie Stern Videos (7/26/07) The Drunken Unicorn

I had promised six months ago that these vids would get posted, so here they are. Thanks to David for filming and letting me rock out:

“Logical Volume”:

“Absorb Those Numbers”:

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Photos: Marnie Stern, Celephais, Lid Emba 7-26-07 at The Drunken Unicorn

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Lid Emba

Celephais

Marnie Stern

Live Videos and Review: Menomena, The N.E.C., Midwives (4-3-2007) Drunken Unicorn

Tuesday night I arrived at the Drunken Unicorn at 8:15pm because I thought I read somewhere that doors opened at 8pm. Well, they didn’t end opening until about 9:20pm. I spent a good hour at the coffee shop next door playing Super Mario Brothers on the DS and then went in with the large crowd of folks waiting to be let in. First band up was Jeffrey Butzer‘s Midwives. They came out in masks and and matching suits like a classic ska/surf outfit and then did some fantastic surf rock. I’ve been getting into this genre a lot lately going back and listening to old stuff so it was great to hear a band doing that style so well. They even had a tiny piano for like kids that they would play on some songs. Really cool:

Next up was this band called the N.E.C. It includes members of Kill Gordon and Snowden‘s Jordan Jefferes. I like both of those bands but I was disappointed with this project. They sounded like the a watered-down version of the Black Lips with less intensity and less of an edge. It wasn’t necessarily bad, but it just felt too much like a cheap ripoff. Near the end, some kids in the crowd came on stage hitting some of the band with vegetables and it just came off very contrived and out of place. Due to Snowden blowing up and Jordan Jefferes not having much extra time, he has left the band since this show and the N.E.C. will continue on as a three-piece:

I had been listening to Menomena‘s new album all the time lately and I was very excited about the show. I was not let down. Most of the set included songs off of Friend And Foe and they played them beautifully. They made use of an extensive instrumentation for a three-piece including an e-Bow and a Moog Taurus. There’s something special about a band where everyone can take on vocal duties and shine. They seemed very appreciative of the crowd response and recalled bad previous trips to Atlanta while talking a lot of smack about Smith’s Old Bar. You could tell that they were loving the crowd and were utilizing the energy well. If you have not looked into this band, do so because their album is one of the best to come out this year and they put on a hell of a show. My friend Bobloblaw79 took some videos:

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