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Live Review And Photos: Sonic Youth, The Entrance Band at The Variety Playhouse in Atlanta, GA (07/13/09)

All Photos by Clint Miller

For the month of July Davy is off on the This Piano Plays Itself tour so Ohmpark has decided to enlist myself to keep you updated on what’s happening in the ATL. I was asked to review the Sonic Youth show Monday night at the Variety Playhouse. I was a bit skeptical that I could accomplish this at first due to the fact that I realized their is no way I could cover them properly since I belong to a younger generation of music fans and have not followed them for very long. In fact I am most familiar with their most recent album, The Eternal that was just released this year. I soon realized that this line of thinking was complete nonsense. That’s an elitist viewpoint. Also, who better to report on a band such as Sonic Youth than a complete noob? If they are able to impress me then that will show how incredible they actually are. So this review is for people like me, who aren’t familiar with 28 years of Sonic Youth records and live shows.

After arriving at Clint’s house and discussing the supposed $12 abortions that are available in California we quickly headed to Wendy’s. (BTW, We decided that if that’s true we need a mass exodus to California. That’s cheaper than condoms, pills, or moving to Mexico). After fucking with the Wendy’s girl (talking super slow and acting really surprised they had change for my 20) we headed to the Variety Playhouse in order to get there ten or fifteen minutes before the doors open. This would assure us a bad ass up front spot. To our absolute fucking chagrin there was a line of at least 60 people that went all the way past El Myr. Despite the bullshit of the situation we ended up very front stage right, which Clint informed me would be Lee Ranaldo’s side. As we waited we ended up talking to several die-hard fans. It turned out one kid has the same Radiohead tattoo as me and we had met before. I noticed some kids next to us bitching about how the set list would be comprised of mainly newer songs. I noticed them later rocking out harder than anyone to the very songs they were bitching about.

The Entrance Band opened up and despite their name they were actually pretty good. Their female bassist was the highlight for me.

Everything she played sounded right off of a Rage Against the Machine CD, but in a good way. I kept thinking the words “hippie” and “grunge” during their set. That seemed to best classify what I was hearing.

After a brief set from them it was time for Sonic Youth to come on.

I was expecting a four piece to hit the stage, but was surprised by a fifth member, Mark Ibold, who plays bass. I was familiar with him as the bassist for Pavement. He did a really good job yet it was obvious which members have been touring together for the longest.

Their set was almost entirely comprised of songs off of The Eternal. The songs “Anti-Orgasm”, “Antenna”, “What We Know”, and “Massage The History” stuck out as the best songs from The Eternal.


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Live Review: Animal Collective, Black Dice @ State Theatre in St. Petersburg, FL (6/8/09)

Animal Collective is playing Bonnaroo this year, but they are playing a short set in the middle of the day against other acts I want to see, so I decided to make the trek down to St. Pete, Florida and catch a proper AnCo show. I got to the venue two hours before it opened and there was already a few people camping out. By the time they began letting people in, the lie was running around the block. The opener was Black Dice, and while I was excited to check them out, I was very disappointed with their show. I’m a huge fan of noise jamming bands, but that doesn’t mean all noise performances are created equal and I’ve seen too many great acts doing something similar. I feel like I could take a random person off the street, get them really drunk, and let them play with a studio’s worth of gadgets and they would do something more interesting than Black Dice did. I can’t recall ever witnessing something so over-the-top intense yet so boring. Clearly these guys are hype-by-association.


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Classics Revisited: Bruce Springsteen ‘Born to Run’

***Note from the Editor: Our old friend Jared Davis has done a review or two for ohmpark in the past as our Louisiana corespondent, but he is moving to Atlanta this summer and will be doing this new series “Classics Revisited”. With Bonnaroo next week, this seems like an appropriate record to start with. Enjoy:

I realize that this album at this time might be considered cliché. After all Springsteen did just play this past Super Bowl and if I remember correctly he opened with “10th Avenue Freeze-Out.” One of the band members is the bandleader for Conan O’Brian and another band member was a member of The Soprano’s cast. But that doesn’t change the fact the sound of this album is timeless as well as the lyrical content. Hell, the look that Springsteen has on the cover is still worn today by many hipsters. It also seems a lot of young people haven’t heard much Springsteen, and if they have they’ve only heard a few songs and labeled it dad-rock and put it to the side. Well it would be good to familiar yourself with his music, you might end up like The Arcade Fire and make a career off stealing his sound (the first time I heard “Keep the Car Running” I thought it was a long lost Springsteen B-side). Enough with the introduction let’s get to the album.

There are 2 themes to the album: a lyrical theme and a musical theme and they both compliment each other to make the sound of the album epic. The musical theme is that of the Wall of Sound technique that was invented/perfected by Phil Spector. A lot of critics and fans complain about this and think it clutters up the sound but I don’t feel this way at all. In fact I didn’t even really notice the similarities of the production techniques until I read about this album and found out that’s the sound Springsteen was going for. Once I did know that though, it was obvious that that’s the sound he’s going for. I realize people say the Wall of Sound only works for girl groups and straight pop music but I think it works perfectly here to give the album a giant larger-than-life feel. I mean can you imagine a Born to Run: Naked album, that would be awful.

The lyrical theme is a theme that can still be felt today, the feeling escaping and moving to a big city to follow your dreams. This is the feeling that every hipster in small town/suburbia America deals with every day. Just look at hipsterrunnoff and you’ll see at least 5 posts about “feeling trapped in suburbia”, well that’s what The Boss is talking about this whole album just about. The two tracks that confront this the best are the opening track “Thunder Road” (covered by Bonnie “Prince” Billy/Tortoise) and the title track “Born to Run.”  On “Thunder Road” Springsteen tells the story of two teenagers (male and female) contemplating whether or not to just ditch the town their living in and head out on the open road but it’s a love story as well. Some of the lines on this song are some of Springsteen’s more memorable lines, lines like “Don’t turn me home again, I just can’t face myself alone again” which is really just a glorified way of saying don’t send me home to masturbate again, and the famous line “You ain’t a beauty but hey you’re alright, Oh and that’s alright with me” is a feeling that any male over the age of 12 has felt. The song closes with a line of hope “It’s a town full of losers And I’m pulling out of here to win.” Ending the first track and starting the album off with a bright outlook.

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Film Review: We Fun

Last week I attended a screening of the Atlanta music scene documentary, We Fun, as part of the Atlanta Film Festival. Every good documentary I have ever seen either meticulously informs or tells a compelling story, and unfortunately We Fun does neither. The movie is a barrage of total randomness that ambles along playing show and tell for various ATL institutions. You see a badly shot band playing a song, you hear them say a couple of random things, then you see something else. For someone from Atlanta familiar with this scene, the kaleidoscope of sights and sounds will be nostalgic and enjoyable, but anyone being introduced to the Atlanta music scene for the first time will find very little in this movie to care about.

There had been some premature criticism of the documentary that it didn’t cover enough bands to represent the whole city, and if anything, I wish they had put less bands in this movie so they could have explored the central characters more in depth instead of wasting our time being democratic about giving enough bands screen time. For instance, the part with the Coathangers starts with a clip of them playing a song, then you see a short clip of one of the girls massaging one of the other girls, which is only entertaining for someone searching for bad softcore porn. Then you see a clip of one of the girls getting hit on and then complaining about it. Then we never see them in the movie again. Nothing about it feels connected to any other part of the film. Outside of the Black Lips, every band’s relevance is completely left to mystery outside of the fact they deserved a couple of minutes to be showcased. The Mastodon “cameo” is a complete tease. It reminded me of the movie Executive Decision where Steven Seagal got top billing and was killed off in the first 15 minutes. Putting the band’s name on the poster and then only showing 60 seconds of an interview is very disappointing, especially since their brief conversation outshines almost any other artist’s banter in the film.

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SXSW 2009 Wrap-Up & Final Thoughts

One last post about South By Southwest 2009 to rule them all. I’m sure everyone who didn’t go is sick of hearing about it by now, but it is pretty much the greatest festival in the world, so one final discussion is warranted. If Bonnaroo is the Super Bowl of fests, SXSW is the World Cup, March Madness, and the Olympics all rolled into one. There simply isn’t anything else like it. So I’m going to ramble on about what I took from this year’s event after a photo journey through our SXSW 2009:

All photos by Clint Miller:

Anathallo:

Port O’Brien:

Loney Dear:

Wavves:

Anni Rossi:

M Ward:

Department Of Eagles:

St. Vincent:

Camera Obscura:

Oh No Oh My:

Arizona:

Bell:

Women:

Evangelicals:

Mt St Helens Vietnam Band

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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.


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SXSW Day 3 (Friday): School Of Seven Bands


All photos by Clint Miller

The three of us that embarked on this road trip a week ago have been hitting it hard everyday and after staying up until nearly dawn Thursday night, we had to catch up a little it on sleep. So unfortunately we almost completely missed Friday’s day parties. We did, though, make it to the Asthmatic Kitty showcase just in enough time to catch DM Stith. This day party was very much in the peripheral of the where the main SXSW action was, and there was only a small, comfortable crowd for this one. They played in a garage of some art center, and the vibe reminded me of WonderRoot. I have been listening to DM Stith‘s full-length, Heavy Ghost, like crazy for the last week so this was a show I was very excited about. The album seems to possess a lot of instrumentation and production tricks, so I was skeptical as to how good he could reproduce the songs live, but with a fairly minimalistic 3-piece setup, he played his stuff beautifully.

After that I walked around the area near that day party and checked out a few others nearby. I caught a little bit of The Mae Shi at some interesting venue that had an outdoor roller skating rink and while they were playing, the crowd surrounded them with a big parachute looking thing that the band played under. It was a cool scene, and I think I’m coming back to this venue for something again later today.

After that we headed to the Radio Room where our choice of showcase for the night. First up we caught Micah P. Hinson. I listened to one of his albums one the way to Texas and it was pretty cool. He seemed to have a ton of technical difficulties for this show, and while it didn’t really match up to what i heard of his studio work, I did enjoy the set. His clothing was a hodgepodge of clashing styles, and it paralleled his music. He would go from a Texas sort of country to loud noise jams at the drop of a hat.


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SXSW Day 2 (Thursday): I Guess I’m Gloating


All Photos by Clint Miller

We started day two with a mad dash through traffic to make it to the I Guess I’m Floating day party in time to catch Oh No Oh My. We made it moments after they began their set, and they went on to play all my favourites off of Dmitrij Dmitrij plus a new one. It was a really good first set of the day.

Next up was a band called Arizona. I have no idea how I have heard of this band, but for some reason the name sticks out to me. They turned out to be great, with some serious guitar jams. The lead singer had a really unique, weird voice that added an interesting dimension to their sound. Check it:


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SXSW Day 1 (Wednesday): Return To The Center Of The Universe


All photos by Clint Miller

We left Savannah, Georgia a few hours after the St. Patrick’s Day parade and made the cross country trek to Austin, Texas. Upon arriving at SXSW around noon, everyone in our crew was already exhausted from traveling, but there is certain adrenaline that carries you through upon arriving to such a magical experience, and we were poised to tackle the day regardless of our condition.

We started things off at Paste magazine’s day show, and it was a fantastic way to kick this thing off. First up, I finally got to see Anathallo and they were everything I had hoped for. They churned out a set mostly made up of Canopy Glow tunes, and they sounded spectacular. I couldn’t have asked for a better way to start the day.

We hung out a little while and then checked out Port O’Brien. I had listened to their last album and enjoyed it, but it didn’t really blow me away. Live, the songs took on new life, and the dueling solo contest between the two guitarists was fun to watch. In typical SXSW fashion, the band had arrived in town about 10 minutes before their set and even said their manager was driving their van around in circles during their set because they didn’t have time to find a parking spot. It was apparent they were “winging” the set, but it sounded tight despite that.


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Deerhunter Live @ Noise Pop 2009 (4 New Songs!)

I hope I get to hear some of these new jams in person at Harvest Of Hope this weekend. Here is all 56+ minutes of their set:

I Heart Lake Trout


Photo by Laura Germida

If i had to pick the most underrated band of the last decade, I would probably go with Lake Trout. I first got exposed to them near the end of my short raver phase. I was getting bored with the way most electronic music held so rigidly to sub-genre definitions, and I wanted to find people who were taking those sounds, especially the rhythms of Drum ‘n’ Bass, and applying them in more dynamic music. I stumbled across this Baltimore, Maryland outfit who combined DMB dance music with a free-jazz jamband sort of approach, and loved what I heard. I picked up their live record, featuring DJ WHO called Alone At Last, saw some live shows, and became a fan.

After a while i moved on to new music and forgot all about Lake Trout until I caught them at Voodoo Fest in 2004. During the time I wasn’t paying attention to them, they completely retooled their sound from their previous primarily instrumental, long songs, to a Radiohead influenced brand of indie rock. This stark departure seemed to alienate their hippie/raver-centric fanbase, but the change of direction helped them go from a good band to a truly great band. Their last two albums, Another One Lost (2003) and Not Them, You (2005) are two of the best records to come out in their respective years. Had they released these instant classics in today’s super-hype-blog days, they would probably have blown up, but they were a band just a few years before their time and have remained a hidden gem for lucky listeners like myself. For those of you not familiar, jump on the bandwagon:

Lake Trout : Not Them, You : Riddle

Lake Trout : Not Them, You : King

Lake Trout : Another One Lost : Another One Lost

Lake Trout : Another One Lost : Bliss

Without a recent album or tour, I had sort of forgotten about these guys again, but I just learned they have been rather busy. They have all been working on side projects, and three of the members have been part of UK based UNKLE‘s touring band. Lake Trout‘s James Griffith actually co-wrote most of UNKLE‘s last album, End Titles…Stories For Film.

Also, coming early next year, Lake Trout will be a releasing a live album complete with unreleased songs and golden oldies. They will be releasing the album through an experimental distribution method via The Biggest Label Ever. It is a record label centered around a website consisting of free music supported by advertising, and Lake Trout‘s record will be the first they release when they launch next year. Until then, they have other free music available on their website, including a new song, and they are streaming both of their most recent albums there as well, so go soak it up:

Lake Trout website

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