Live @ The Place 2nite!

I went to a show last night. Over the course of the last year I’ve been to a few pretty amazing shows: Of Montreal @ The Roseland last November and Broken Social Scene @ Wonder Ballroom in February immediately come to mind.

Of Montreal blew me away. It was a real “show” in every sense of the word: it was visually entertaining, it was funny, it was thought provoking, the crowd was engaged, and the sound was good too. Aside from the dirty dreadlocks on the girl next to me repeatedly hitting me in the face, it was an amazing show. A delight for the senses.

Broken Social Scene was amazing because they are amazing – more of an art collective than a band, BSS is a stage full of instruments, sounds, and sweatiness. Concert-goers are treated to not only an hour and a half of BSS, but showcases from member’s solo efforts, like my favorite: Charles Spearin’s Happiness Project.

I really hadn’t been to many shows before moving to Oregon. I may have went to a show or two in college, but I really don’t remember. In law school I went to a few of one of my classmate’s shows and I saw Dashboard Confessional and Brand New at the Val Air Ballroom in Des Moines.

My boyfriend went to school in Bloomington, Indiana and grew up near Chicago, so he has much more show experience than I do. He went to punk shows in Chicago all the time in high school and was a part of the music and art scene in Bloomington. My friends are also my show guides: they’ve seen everyone from Elliott Smith to Arcade Fire.

After the first couple of shows, I got the hang of it (we just stand here and dance or move awkwardly to the music? What is this?) and I love it. You feel such an intimate connection to the music seeing it live, especially in smaller venues. Sometimes you have to pinch yourself because the people on stage have become one unit to make this wonderful thing happen: sounds, sights, poetry, theater.

In May I will venture into a new world of live music: the outdoor music festival. Some friends and I are going to Sasquatch Music Festival in Washington for three days of awesomeness. I don’t think I’ll ever be the same…

Music is My Boyfriend

Music is a powerful thing. It can define an era, or even a period in your own life. Certain songs hold specific meaning and listening to them can immediately bring back memories of an ex-boyfriend or high school or even a season or holiday. Your musical tastes change throughout your life and what music you like says a lot about you.

I was perusing i-tunes looking for a Woodstock compilation – for the music that defined that era: Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead. Instead I found the Woodstock ’99 album. In 1999 I was in the thick of my teenage years and, admittedly, was only beginning my phase into listening to truly bad music. The Snoop Dogg gangsta rap phase was mostly over by this point, and had been replaced by terrible radio “alternative” and the even worse rap-metal genre. I think the Woodstock ’99 album represents the worst in American music, and my past music tastes. The worst. And, I went through some pretty bad music phases: Debbie Gibson, country (when country was BIG), the Disturbed, electronica. And America has gone through some bad music phases (or, is perpetually in a bad music phase). So, to be the worst, Woodstock ’99 has to be pretty bad.

Woodstock ’69 celebrated the spirit of peace and love. Woodstock ’99 commercialized that and ended up with riots.

Unfortunetly, at the time I liked this music. I’m pretty sure I even owned the CD. But now, ten years later, I am no longer an angry teenager and my music tastes have changed and these bands are no longer a part of my life. When something is no longer important to you you sometimes forget it even exists at all, so I started to wonder: do people still listen to Limp Bizkit? Is Korn still a band?

So, thanks to Wikipedia, here’s my rap-metal/things I listened to in high school/Woodstock 99/worst music ever version of “Where are they now?”:

Buckcherry
I think I enjoyed the song “Lit Up”. I don’t know how anyone can’t relate to a song that is entirely about cocaine. Buckcherry dissolved in 2002 but reformed in 2005 and in 2006 had success with another masterpiece of American song: “Crazy Bitch”.

Limp Bizkit
I don’t know if people listen to them or not, but Limp Bizkit is indeed still a band. That means that somewhere out there Fred Dunst is coming up with a follow-up to this:

I did it all for the nookie
C’mon
The nookie
C’mon
So you can take that cookie
And stick it up your, yeah!!
Stick it up your, yeah!!
Stick it up your, yeah!!

Kid Rock
Remember when he married (or almost married) Pamela Anderson? According to Wikipedia he is still an active musician and has released eleven albums over the course of his career. Eleven!

The Disturbed
They didn’t go to Woodstock ’99, but they did define my later teenage years (I think I had some unresolved anger issues). According to Wikipedia they are still together, and still releasing albums.

I’m beginning to think all of these bands are still together…which means someone is still listening to them. Maybe it’s an age thing. You have to be young and angst-ridden to listen to some idiot rant:

Drowning deep in my sea of loathing
Broken your servant I kneel
(Will you give it to me?)
It seems what’s left of my human side
Is slowly changing in me
(Will you give it to me?)

Looking at my own reflection
When suddenly it changes
Violently it changes
Oh no, there is no turning back now
You’ve woken up the demon in me

Get up, come on get down with the sickness

Maybe it’s geography or maybe it’s just the time you came of age. I was 11 when Kurt Cobain died. Nirvana did not really speak for my “generation”. In any event, judging by my past music choices I think it’s good our music tastes evolve as we do. I can’t imagine what I’ll like ten years from now. So, to the sixteen-year-old kid out there who was excited about the new Nickelback album: there’s hope.

Of Montreal…

…See them live if you have the opportunity. They offer a very engaging and entertaining show that includes mythical creatures, a mock hanging, an almost naked Kevin Barnes, one act skits, music, art, and all around awesomeness.

From Wikipedia:

With of Montreal, Barnes has always tried to cross the bridge between his love of theatre, comedy, and music, often resulting in interludes between songs – skits, slow-motion sword fights and surreal interaction between band members. Since the release of Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, Barnes has been performing as his on-stage glam rock alter ego, Georgie Fruit, first mentioned in “Labyrinthian Pomp”. The second half of the album comes after the twelve minute dark epic, “The Past Is a Grotesque Animal”, a track which stands out in the album and the rest of the of Montreal repertoire because of how it succumbs to dark thoughts of suicide and chemical imbalance, themes hinted at more cheerily elsewhere on the album. Kevin has said that the album shows his transformation to Georgie Fruit, as is evident in the variation in musical style from in album leading up to “The Past Is a Grotesque Animal” and the two songs after. He has described Georgie Fruit as a black man in his forties who has undergone multiple sex changes. Georgie, Kevin told Pitchfork Media, was in a funk-rock band called Arousal back in the seventies.

This is a terrible video a shot on my camera. I think this one is in-between songs.