SXSW Day 4 (Saturday): One Last Night To Get Dirty

Clint got a little earlier start on the final day than me, and went to see Still Flyin’:

After I awoke from a too short slumber I headed out to the 40 Watt showcase at Side Bar. Our gracious host Larry dropped me off and I went inside to catch a proper Still Flyin’ set, something I wanted to do since I caught their acoustic set the other night at the Todd P. party. To my surprise D.J. from Still Flyin’ did a short hilarious rap set as his alter ego Excalibrah. It was a nice change from the serious rock shows I had been catching during SXSW. After that Still Flyin’ came on stage with too many members to count. I really enjoy the beach music meets big family band thing that they do. The stand out song was “Rope Burn” which shows they have the power to craft incredibly catchy indie pop songs similar to their sister band Je Suis France. As soon as the set ended I hoofed it to Waterloo Park to meet up with the rest of the Ohmpark crew.

Excalibrah:

Still Flyin’:

After that we met back up at the Mess With Texas free mini-festival in Waterloo Park. This event features two big stages and showcases bands that have been playing SXSW shows all week.


Click here to read the entire post…

Torrent of The Day: Explosions In The Sky (5/5/2007) (DVD)

As I write this, tickets for the Explosions In The Sky show in April are still available, but I doubt they will be much longer, so go get yours now fool! Here’s an awesome 3 camera mix DVD of a show from last year:

Explosions in the Sky 2007-05-05 Vancouver, BC [3-Cam] (NTSC)


An insane amount of work was put into this. I’m guessing close to 50 hours. The biggest reason was that I pretty much had to do this twice as my HD died when I had it complete the first time around. Angles were mixed in FCP, menus made in photoshop and authored in DVD Studio Pro. 24p and film damage filters were added to try to ‘average’ out all the angles. I was thinking of doing full motion menus, but Apple Motion had a steeper learning curve than I thought. No selling/ebaying and all that stuff. I don’t make a penny off of this and neither should you. I’ve got plenty more where this dvd came from, most which would kill this one. I’d hate to have to have to stop sharing because of a couple of bad apples. I won’t be seeding 24/7, so no whining. oh and a waffles invite would be much appreciated.

Explosions In the Sky DVD
May 5, 2007
Croatian Cultural Center
Vancouver, BC

Videography
Angle 1: Brian Conolly; HV20 -center
Angle 2: Jeffrey Mew; TRV950 -right (jeffmewATgmail.com)
Angle 3: Steven Mew; TRV18 -left
Transfer: Angles 1-3: MDV-M > firewire > HD

Audio
Brian Connolly; AKG C1000S > Edirol UA-5 (Oade T+ mod) > S/PDIF > Microtrack (16/48)
Transfer: WAV-M > HD

Post Production: Final Cut Pro > Compressor > DVD Studio Pro

Menus/Chapters/Song selection

Lineage: MDV-M > DVD-M
Video format: MPEG-2, 720×576 29.9 fps (4:3) NSTC, Color, ~8050 kbps (monolingual)
Audio format: Dolby Digital AC3, 48000 Hz Stereo, 448 kbps
Audio type: Stereo (2 Channel)

sample: http://firmdragon.blogspot.com/2007/…-05052007.html

Setlist
01.) Introduction
02.) First Breath After Coma
03.) Welcome, Ghosts
04.) With Tired Eyes, Tired Minds, Tired Souls, We Slept
05.) Your Hand in Mine
06.) Greet Death
07.) Catastrophe and The Cure
08.) The Only Moment We Were Alone
09.) Outro

Total: 1:10:58 / 4.17GB

Thank You Explosions in the Sky.

Here’s some vids of the DVD:

“First Breath After A Coma”:

Welcome, Ghosts”:

If you can’t download the DVD and want to just watch the rest of the vids online, go here.

Ohmpark’s Top 50 Best Albums Of 2007

2007 was an incredible year of music and there were so many albums I really liked that didn’t make this list. I noticed that most of the lists I pay attention to were very similar to one another this year as opposed to last year. Also, I’ve found myself in more of a disagreeance with those lists than last year. If there is any theme to be taken out of this list, I think it’s that I feel like too many great albums were underrated by the blogosphere elites, and that they were way in love with some albums I think are overrated. This list represents my personal assertions more so than the rest of the Ohmpark crew, but I worked hard to get every one’s opinions and influences in this thing. Feel free to comment on how much you hate or love it. I feel like every album on this is an essential one from last year, so go listen to some new music:

Click here to read the entire post…

Dethklok Free Show Tommorrow Night! Explosions In The Sky, Fiery Furnaces, Holy Fuck, Super Furry Animals Next Year!

There are so many concert announcements going on right now it’s hard to keep up. The fictional band Dethklok from the Adult Swim cartoon Metalocalypse will be playing at Center Stage Thursday night. The first 450 people in line get in the show. Thanks to It Covers The Hillsides on the heads up. Get a taste:

Explosions In The Sky are returning to Atlanta April 13th, this time at The Variety Playhouse. Here’s 22 minutes of EITS bliss:

And what promises to be an amazing show, Fiery Furnaces, Holy Fuck, and Super Furry Animals are all playing a show together at The Variety Playhouse on January 30th. Super Furry Animals are dropping a new album on January 22nd, The Fiery Furnaces‘ Widow City from earlier this year is one of the year’s best, and I’ve been jamming the new Holy Fuck album, LP, like crazy lately. It is some top tier psychedelic dance music. Check it:

Holy Fuck : LP : Royal Gregory
Holy Fuck : LP : The Pulse

This Week In The A

Here’s the shows in Atlanta that we recommend checking out this week:

Tonight: Parade (who if you read this blog you already know is awesome) and Exit Clov (A band from DC that you need to know is also awesome) at Lenny’s

Exit Clov : MK Ultra

Tomorrow Night: Enon (A cool northeastern band), Love Of Diagrams (Rockers from down-under that we caught earlier this year), and Untied States (Another local band we love) at The Drunken Unicorn

Enon : Mirror On You

Wednesday Night: Tori Amos (Always a great show) at The Fox theater

Tori Amos : Space Dog (Live from 6-11-1998)

Thursday Night: Smashing Pumpkins and Explosions In The Sky at the Fox Theater (I bet you can score some tix to the rescheduled shows if you’re crafty)

Explosions In The Sky : Remember Me As A Time Of Day

Friday Night: Jens Lekman (Dude from Sweden who has the internets all buzzed up) at The Drunken Unicorn

Jens Lekman : And I Remember Every Kiss

Saturday Night: Joanna Newsom (OMFG!!!!!!!!!!) with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra at The Woodruff Arts Center

Joanna Newsom : Monkey & Bear

Torrent Of The Day: Explosions In The Sky (5-6-2007) (DVD)

You can watch the show in google video, and download it below:



Explosions In The Sky 2007-05-06 Seattle, WA (NTSC)

Explosions In The Sky
Neumo’s
Seattle, WA
2007-05-06

Audio Taper: Jarod Watson
Audio Location: DFC, ~35′ from stage lip. MBHO’s NOS and LSD2 Blumlein. Mics 10′ on stand.
Audio Source: MBHO 603/KA100LK (Channels 1 & 2) & Studio Projects LSD2 (Channels 3 & 4) > Edirol R4 (Channels 1 & 2: Busman W Mod, Channels 3 & 4: Busman T Mod, @ 24/48)
Audio Lineage: Edirol R4 > USB > Adobe Audition 2.0 (cropping, fades, mix to stereo, mute LSD2 source -3db, boost stereo mix +8db, dither)

Video Taper: Brian Connolly
Video Location: Stage-Right, front row
Video Source: Canon HV20
Video Lineage: DV(m) > firewire > Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 (sync w/ audio) > TMPGEnc Xpress 4.0 (to .m2v) > DVD-Lab Pro 2.0 > DVD5

Setlist:
01. intro
02. Memorial
03. With Tired Eyes, Tired Minds, Tired Souls, We Slept
04. Welcome, Ghosts
05. The Only Moment We Were Alone
06. Greet Death
07. Catastrophe And The Cure
08. The Moon Is Down

Notes:
Here she is. Big thanks to Jarod for handling audio in the back (which sounds amazing) while I did video up front.
Even though this is a single camera DVD, it looks pretty damn good I think. Enjoy.

Live Review and Photos: Explosions In The Sky, The Paper Chase, Eluvium (3-13-2007) Lenny’s

It seemed like forever since i had raced down to Criminal Records to scoop up the last 2 tickets for this show. I had no idea who was even opening for Explosions In The Sky until a couple days earlier. Me and Biggie C arrived one minute after the supposed door opening time and were barely able to secure a spot in the front row. Lots of kids with “X”s on their hands were already setup. After The crowd quickly grew behind us, Eluvium came through the audience and climbed on stage right next to me. With all three bands’ equipment cluttering the small stage, it seemed to be the only way to get up there. Eluvium‘s new record, Copia, is really good and I’ve been jamming it a lot over the last month or two so i was very excited when I learned he was on the bill. Eluvium is the stage name of Seattle’s Matthew Cooper. He plays really ambient and distorted music on a keyboard and guitar. His performance was much more “wall-of-sound” than I had expected from the very mellow album, and continued a trend of being way too loud to not have earplugs(I’m stupid, I know i should be wearing earplugs to shows but they are just annoying to me). Looping each instrument into massive sonic waves, it was even better than I expected. The underage kids surrounding us were not impressed but good music taste often takes a while to develop. I’ll post some Eluvium tracks next week. Biggie C with some pics of a very dark stage: (click to enlarge)

Shortly after that, The Paper Chase took the stage. i didn’t really know anything about these guys, but they were great, and very very loud. I heard one of the kids around me describe them as “jagged noise-pop”(which they obviously found on Wikipedia), and that’s them exactly. Front man John Congleton was extremely entertaining between singing great, Jamming some amazing, piercing guitar lines, and dancing around in a really awkward way. The rest of the band was going at it like machines and it was well worth the damage it did to my eardrum. I’ll have some songs from these guys next week too: (click to enlarge)

So, for those who don’t know, Lenny’s has just recently moved to a new building down the street from the old one. I was not a big fan of the move at first because I liked the old, crappy, tiny place and that building has a lot of history (like this DVD I have of Cat Power with Steve Shelley drumming there back in 1995 when it was called Dottie’s) But the new place is pretty cool, especially the murals across the wall. That said, it was a very unfavorable location for an Explosions In The Sky show. First, the stage is very short and the EITS dudes are often on the ground playing with their pedal gear so most could not see what was going on. The sound setup and “shotgun” building shape combined with the thick sea of people made for greatly different volumes depending on how far away from the stage. Being lucky enough to be in the very front, my concert experience was quite different than most people I’ve talked to who also attended the show.

While EITS was setting up, all three of the axe wielders came on stage with an old suitcase containing about 7 pedals each. After setting up, they then laid down the rock. The entire set was pretty much one big crescendo. I really can’t remember a show where the music had such a steady building momentum. I remember seeing Mogwai twice last year and thinking it was rather “underwhelming” and kid of wondered if post-rock could really grab you in a live setting and EITS proved that i could. The venue exploded in cheers at the Set’s conclusion and after the crowd roared for what i thought was an impressive plea for an encore, One of the guys came out and said they didn’t have anything else. Encores sometimes seem so cheesy to me that it doesn’t bother me when a band comes and just puts forth the show with no bells or whistles and just kicks ass with pure sound. The way the entire show built up and let loose, I can understand why it would be hard to just throw another song in afterwards. Overall, a great show and i highly recommend you check out EITS when they come back (they said they’d be back in the fall). Hopefully they will play in a venue better suited to them. Just make sure to bring some protection for your ears because all I could hear afterwards was ringing until I passed out.

(click on image to see the full size)

What The Hell Am I Listening To?!?

Some really good stuff:

Menomena

This Portland 3-piece’s Friend And Foe is quickly becoming one of my favourites of the year. Describing this band is difficult for me, a little Clouds Taste Metallic era Flaming Lips, maybe a touch of old school Modest Mouse, maybe a touch of Morphine. I don’t know. Give these tracks a listen, and if you like, go get the album because every song on this thing is great.

Buy Menomena : Friend And Foe

Explosions In The Sky


Their new album, All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone, is a great example of a band that just does their thing, and gets better and better. Many may think that this album sounds very much like most of their others, and that’s somewhat true, but some bands just do what they do masterfully, and that’s all they need to do. Sometimes a band just doesn’t have to head off into another direction (Modest Mouse comes to mind). Give a listen to a great band in their prime:

Buy Explosions In The Sky : All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone

Do Make Say Think

Another great post-rock album i’ve been listening to is DMST‘s You, You’re a History In Rust. Part of the Broken Social Scene extended family, these guys are really awesome. Where the new Explosions In The Sky record works to perfect an already “classic” style of post-rock, this album takes alot more liberties and avoids any derivative labels. Enjoy:

Buy Do Make Say Think : You, You’re A History In Rust

Final Fantasy

I knew when I did my top 50 List of 2006, that i would miss some albums that deserved to be on it because I had only a limited amount of time and resources. He Poos Clouds is the first one. Final Fantasy (aka Owen Pallett) is a violinist/vocalist who played with Arcade Fire on tour and even did some of the string arrangements on their new album, Neon Bible. This second full album as Final Fantasy is just simply phenonemal. You really need to get this:

Buy Final Fantasy : He Poos Clouds

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