New Annie Woodward

ICYMI:  Here's the new video from Annie Woodward.

Win Free Ticket To The War On Drugs at The Tabernacle, October 16, 2014!

War On Drugs at Hopscotch Festival, 9/4/2014

I'm pretty sure this post is going to be misunderstood.  I like The War On Drugs, a lot, but due to other commitments, I'm going to give away my ticket to next week's show at The Tabernacle to either the first person to email me or the person who gives me the best reason to give it to them.  My choice.

But already,  I've gotten ahead of myself.  I saw The War on Drugs last month at the Hopscotch Festival in Raleigh, and they played a great set, playing well past 2 a.m.  The next night in the same theater, I saw anger bear Sun Kil Moon have his by now well publicized breakdown on the same stage, resulting in anti-Moon graffitti on the sidewalks of Raleigh and later attempts by Mark Kozelek to pass it all off as a joke, including selling t-shirts with his tirade printed on them.

Apparently, some people never learn.  According to the usual sources (Pitchfork, Brooklyn Vegan), Kozelek was recently playing at some festival somewhere, and got upset that The War On Drugs were playing too loudly on another stage.  He allegedly told the audience that the band sounded to him like generic beer-ad guitar or some such thing, and said The War On Drugs could "suck my cock."

Now he's apparently back to the "it was all just a joke," denial phase, and to show what a swell guy he really is and how he can even laugh at himself, he's released a song called War On Drugs, Suck My Cock.  

The first verse talks about the War On Drugs feud, while the second recounts the Raleigh incident. For some reason, he identifies the city as Chapel Hill, either because it works into the rhythm scheme better than Raleigh, or because he didn't even know where he was or he doesn't know the difference (tell me what the difference is between Oakland and Berkeley again?).  But other than geography, it is a pretty accurate description of what I saw that night, although I wouldn't go so far as to classify the audience as "hillbillies" and the Lincoln Theater didn't actually smell particularly bad.  

What's most interesting to me is the third verse, where he talks about some "spoiled-bitch rich-kid blogger brat" who got offended and posted pictures of the anti-Moon graffiti.  I'm not so vain that I think that this song is about me, but I did post an account of the incident on Blogspot with pictures of the graffiti, although I'm hardly the only one.  But if that's as harsh as the blow back gets, I can deal with it.  In any event, Pitchfork thinks the reference is to a writer at Raleigh's Indy Week, although I don't know how they could know that from just the song.

  

But anyway (and here's where I'm concerned that I'm going to be misunderstood), none of this has anything to do with why I'm giving away my War On Drugs ticket.  The Sun Kil Moon song hasn't changed my opinion about them (although it does have me reconsidering Sun Kil Moon).  

I've already seen The War On Drugs about three times and each show was great, but I've seen them just last month (at Hopscotch) and while I wouldn't mind seeing them again, that same night Courtney Barnett is playing her first show in Atlanta, with San Fermin opening, and I bought tickets to that show, too.  So rather than see TWOD for a fourth time, I'm going to opt to see Barnett instead and give away my ticket, free, to anyone who wants it.

I'm not convinced I even have any readers here, except possibly my friend Lesley down in Griffin who's also going to the Courtney Barnett show, but if anyone does see this and wants the ticket, just contact me at shokai.atl@gmail.com and I'll email the ticket to you.  As stated earlier, the ticket will probably go to the first (only?) responder, but in the unlikely event that I get multiple requests, the ticket will go to the person who most makes me want to give it to them (hint: humor works better on me than guilt).

Good luck, and enjoy!

Poliça at Terminal West, Atlanta, October 6, 2014

Poliça played Terminal West last night.  The funny thing is I almost didn't go.

Generally speaking, it's very difficult for me to go to shows on Monday nights, and we just saw Poliça at Bumbershoot in Seattle.  I reasoned that in order to realize cost savings by going all the way to the Pacific Northwest for a festival, it would make sense to pass up the local appearances by bands that I've seen, and save my money just for those that I didn't.  But then I realized that by that logic, I would be paying to go to festivals in order to miss going to local show that I wanted to see.  That didn't make any sense, and when the Monday Night Meditation Group got out early, I suddenly realized that I had plenty of time to drive over to Terminal West before the first band even came on stage.

So I did.

And I'm glad I did because I really liked the first band, Web of Sunsets.  Web of Sunsets play dreamy folk rock with just the right amount of experimentation and Velvet-style drone.  Occasional samples of ambient nature sounds were played during their set, and most of the songs feature three guitars, but occasionally one or the other members might turn to the keys.  Here's a little taste:

Here's something I've never seen before - during one song, one of the two Sarahs in the band (apparently they have a "Sara" and a "Sarah"), played harmonica with the harp pressed against the strings of her electric guitar, so that you could hear the harmonica through the pickups, but you could also hear the vibrating of the guitar strings.  Cool.

I look forward to hearing more from Web of Sunsets, but last night we were out to hear Poliça, and were we ever rewarded.  It was probably the most energetic, charismatic performance I've seen from the band yet, and Channy Leaneagh was lovely as always.

The set rewarded close attention but kept everyone engaged with their two-drum attack.  I never realized before last night how much bassist Chris Bierden contributes to Poliça's sound, not only with his bass playing, but how much harmony he contributes, even filling in the higher registers for many vocal parts and even soloing on some passages that I had just assumed were Channy. 

They started their set with Bierden's thundering bass for Amongster, and ended the set with Wandering Star and their encore with Dark Star.  In between, it was all one happy blur to me.

Concert Alert

This one snuck up on me:  Paolo Nutini is apparently not a delicious European chocolate spread (that's Nutella), but instead a neo-soul singer/songwriter.  He will be performing at Variety Playhouse on Tuesday, October 7.  Baraboo, Wisconsin's Phox are opening.

I'm pretty sure I don't understand about 70% of this video, but I commend Nutini for covering such dark subject matter, and not just releasing the standard rock-video fare.

Update:  Apparently, the show has already sold out, or at least "tickets are not available."

J Mascis at Terminal West, Atlanta, October 3, 2014

Rocktober continues.  Last night, it was Dinosaur Jr.'s J Mascis performing a solo set at Terminal West.  But first, Luluc opened.  

I first heard Brooklyn-by-way-of-Australia's Luluc this summer, and was looking forward to hearing them live.  I've previously posted a song of theirs here, and here's a video of them performing that song live.

I had imagined a fuller band based on the few recorded songs that I've heard, but the duo of Zoe and Steve performed just fine as, well, a duo,  It was their first appearance in Atlanta, and the audience seemed to appreciate them as much as I.    

Zoe announced that this was Day 4 of their tour with J Mascis.  My unreliable cell phone camera was being even more unreliable than usual and most of the few photos that I did take managed to somehow get corrupted in storage, so instead of posting my own pictures, here's a great pic from Luluc's Facebook page of Zoe and J.

After a long break following Luluc's set, Mascis strolled onto the stage, sat down, looked around, and then strolled back off to fetch his beverages for the set.  Once be did settle in, though, he treated the audience to a magnificent set of solo tunes.

The set couldn't have been more casual,  J only muttered a few words of stage banter, but instead treated the audience to the kind of set one might expect if one had dropped into a friend's living room on a summer afternoon,  He jumped from song to song without any introduction or segue, sometimes stopping abruptly to re-tune or to  start a riff over.  He made good use of his pedal board, and even though he only played an acoustic guitar and didn't have his customary bank of Marshall amps behind him, the sounds that he produced sounded every bit as electric as a Dinosaur Jr. solo.

I recognized a few D.J. songs in the set, and he played other songs from his new solo album. Covers included Mazzy Star's Fade Into You and, as my camera started to die, for his one-song encore, he performed The Cure's Just Like Heaven.

Here's a video, I don't know, maybe the video, to Every Morning, the second track from his new solo album.

Anyhow, if you're anything like me, you're probably spending the rest of your day watching the Funny or Die videos on auto-play, so I won't say anything more than "enjoy."

I Heart Alabama