Friday, May 20, 2011
Monday, May 16, 2011
M. Ward @ La Gaité Lyrique
Experience Portland in Paris, is how la Blogothèque advertised M. Ward’s concert at La Gaité Lyrique this past Friday. It isn’t hard to see why when the venue is a converted theater built in 1862, the bar an opulent Haussmmanian reception hall, and the concert a man on stage with his acoustic guitar singing the epitome of music proper to America: country. There’s more to it, of course. M. Ward at times uses a harmonica or switches to the keyboard; his songs are also colored with the weight of blues and the edge to rock.
Still, M. Ward is above all guy-on-guitar music that evokes a very different, simpler setting – one of campfires and cowboy boots, lawn chairs and hand-rolled tobacco. What isn’t so simple, however, is the way this Oregonian manipulates his instrument. Opening his show with a medley of “One Hundred Million Years,” Ward saved his distinctive scruffy singing for the songs to follow. But under the dance of Ward’s fingers, voice was given to his guitar as it alternatively whispered and choked, became feverish or impatient with emotion.
Country is distinctive of the South, not the West Coast where M. Ward is from. But to those music fanatic foreigners who have only a romanticized conception of Portland – a granola-eating, peace & love place that breeds a surprising number of talented, alternative musicians – the purity and timeless quality of M. Ward’s music embodies just that.
Still, M. Ward is above all guy-on-guitar music that evokes a very different, simpler setting – one of campfires and cowboy boots, lawn chairs and hand-rolled tobacco. What isn’t so simple, however, is the way this Oregonian manipulates his instrument. Opening his show with a medley of “One Hundred Million Years,” Ward saved his distinctive scruffy singing for the songs to follow. But under the dance of Ward’s fingers, voice was given to his guitar as it alternatively whispered and choked, became feverish or impatient with emotion.
Country is distinctive of the South, not the West Coast where M. Ward is from. But to those music fanatic foreigners who have only a romanticized conception of Portland – a granola-eating, peace & love place that breeds a surprising number of talented, alternative musicians – the purity and timeless quality of M. Ward’s music embodies just that.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Gummy Skulls, The Flaming Lips
Watch how The Flaming Lips delivered four new tracks. Some less sophisticated procedures include biting straight into the yummy flavored gummy.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
"Soft Shock", Yeah Yeah Yeahs
The acoustic version of this song came up in the episode of Bones I watched this morning. It was very emotional - Bones was tracking down the parents of a child who had been kidnapped at age three and abused since; not really a "soft" shock. Anyways, here's there more lively original to start off your Saturday night.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Monday, May 2, 2011
"Wicked Wisdom", Of Montreal
On Of Montreal’s most insularly eclectic album Skeletal Lamping appears “Wicked Wisdom” – a rhapsody with a two-minute interlude of sultry smoothness; a back and forth between what parades as bridge and chorus. Reminiscent of Queen (when such a structure appears in the world of rock, how can it not) but very different in tone to the epic “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Kevin Barnes asserts the cheerful nature of his music here with his opening line, “I’m a motherfucking headliner, bitch, you don’t even know it,” and solidifies the song to our times with a borrowed interjection: “Process it”. Next? Drum roll, please, before Of Montreal lead you into their wild playground including an exercise in falsetto, a minimalist background to the address of Georgie Fruit (Barnes’ “black she-male” alter-ego) and a claustrophobic tunnel of reverb and electronic machination. Now add to this the insane costumes Of Montreal perform in…
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