The White Stripes/The Shins/M.Ward

This weekend brought us to Coney Island for the White Stripes/The Shins/M. Ward show..

By the time we got there we had been beaten to a pulp by the Holland tunnel traffic and general highway chaos. But upon entering the stadium that had all ended and the excitement arose.
At 7:00 M. Ward took the stage and played a 7 song set that recieved a pretty good reception by the crowd, despite his lack of notoriety.

Following up M. Ward were The Shins, the main reason I attended the show. And they impressed as I had hoped. The set included 12 songs all from either Chutes to Narrow, and Oh, Inverted World. The closed with perfect stands of Saint Simon, and Those To Come. All in all their act was tremendous, their line up was perfect and seeing them live was all that I had hoped for.

Next came Jack and Meg White. Not being a fan of their latest CD "Get behind me satan" I was worried that I may not enjoy myself, but I was quite pleased, minus the fact that they played the most annoying song ever written "My Doorbell". Thank god that "DeadLeaves and the Dirty Ground" was the next song, and that was enough for me.

With a vengence the Music returns, somewhat!

"Killing yourself to Live" was completed on a prop plane from New Bern, NC to Charlotte. A disappointing finish, a dificult to comprehend but an interesting read. Not dificult because of lack of understanding, but dificult, because it was not what I suspected. There were more than a few highlights, moments that were strikingly similar to thoughts that I swear I have had before. Yes, this may be selfish, but many moments in this read were deja vu 'ish. I few poignant moments were nearly duplicated, yet, now I am afraid to say that I could care less about the locations that Chuck K. chose to visit to figure out the mystery at hand. The more I read it was only his own mystery that was being solved, and I cared about that less.

So on the leg from Charlotte, NC to Newark, I retreated to the confines of my Dell JKbox. That is after I thought I had left it in New Bern Airport on the seat next to me. It took me 2 minutes of shear panic on the plane to finally find it stuck in bewtween the wall of the plane and my seat.

I decided at that point that my line up of tunes would be directed towards those moments where I felt greatful for something, so strangely enough, I summoned Portishead to the front of the pack, solely for the purpose that I am thankful for my girlfriend for introducing them to me 7 years ago, and also because I had not listened to them for 5 years. Shockingly it felt like it was just yesterday that I was stealing her CD prior to our first breakup, ah, good times..

Upon triphopping myself to death, realizing that there was only a little over an hour of flight time to take advantage of, I stared out the window and reverted to Pink Floyd's "The Wall" I only made it through the first 3 tracks and I was summoned to detach my "electronic device".

So now, I continue to try and find "Architecture in Helsinki" tracks, and the new John Vandeslice, but to no avail. I am sweating with aticipation of leaving my office and retreating to a couch ASAP.

Ok, the music is missing.....

the music seems to be missing as of late....I have been substituting words, on paper words, in the form of books recently, and the time spent has seem to have filled a spot normally reserved for tunes. Music has always been an escape, weather it was The Mars Volta that created a dreamscape that has blocked out all that was going on in life, or it was some other musical rendevous that created a cloud around the specific moment that was creating itself. I have put a song to every point in my life,,, I have thought about guns when thats all the beatles told me happiness was about, (warm guns), I have stood on rainy street corners and thought that "Rocket Queen" was my themesesong, I have driven hundreds of miles, all the while going from "Summertime" where life was ever perfect, and ended the treck on an overdose of "Nick Drake". I don't listen to listen, I listen to make the moment. That track is on because is means something at that moment. That is why the radio means nothing to me, because I have no control. The Soundtrack of Our Lives, a band I was never interested in for anything other than that the name of the band is perfect. I think that at this point, I have heard two of there songs.. Neither grabbed me......yet I can picture the lead singer, bearded, I almost feel like I have patterned my winter mask from his picture, I bit chubby, yet comfortable.....

The music that makes me ok right now is this, "Garden State" the movie is on, Nick Drake plays while Zach Braff drives down the road in his war time cycle and sidecar. I remember when I decided to investigate Nick Drake, it was when Volkswagen used "Pink Moon" in one of their commercials, I feel in love at the first CD purchase, strikingly depressing, awkwerdly uplifting. That is irrelevent. Not that it has not helped shape me in some way, but that is not what is going on right now. Chuck K. (Killing yourself to Live) has just described to me earlier in the day that Thome York predicted 9/11 in the midst of writing Kid A..... I understand this portion of the book less that any other portion... he is amazing me, yet thig portion confuses me and pastes nothing together to me, I pass this off as 3 pages of waste.. So back to what music makes me ok right now.... A CD, that was missing for 3 weeks, reason being that I temp. lost it. But it was recovered, how much it means to me, no one really knows, but it is The Soundtrack of the past month. It is so, not only because I have not had time to listen to anything new, but it just seems right to concentrate on it right now.

One week, one night

I have been extrememly lazy in keeping this page up to date lately. It has been a busy month, but there are no excuses. I may have even not started writing today, as it has taken me a good 24 hours to get over episode 61 of Six Feet Under.

I have spent the last week at the beach, listening to the latest Jack Johnson CD, spending time listening to oldies, G n' R Appetite for Destruction, and yearning for a chance to see The Mars Volta on their latest stent around the country. A side note, I could care less about their being accompanied by A System of the Down.

Much of the time was spent with neices and nephews, brothers, and the lady friend, drinking wine and beer, fending off bug bites, and waking early to the cry of the early waking babies. I began reading THE TRAVELER, by the ever anonymous JOHN TWELVE HAWKS, and am burning to finish so that I can start CHUCK KLOSTERMAN'S "KILLING YOURSELF TO LIVE". I will give you an update to both shortly I hope.

My latest frustration lies in the fact that I cannot get rid of extra tickets that I have to The White Stripes/The Shins show. I purchased tickets to the first show in Brooklyn NY, and the next day Keyspan Park released the news that there would be another show with M. Ward opening. Being that was the case, I had to buy tickets to the second show. M. Ward has been a mainstay of my ladies and my MP3 players since we saw him at The Strand in RI with Jim James and Conner Oberst of Bright Eyes. I guitar genius, and folk renaissance man, he strums until it seems like is fingers are going to burst.

The giants game delayed by lightening has just started again to my suprise at 10:00,, so I am off the clock, hope to get to you all soon.

Wolf Parade / N' Orleans

It is not fair calling this a wolf parade review. Consider it catching up for lost time, a plethora of random thoughts and ramblings on the last few weeks.








Cancelled, trip to the city just was not on me or the ladies agenda that night. So we drank at home ordered out and drank more at home....... Things that have me pissed right now include.....reruns of "The OC". I dont want to see anymore... Maybe in a month or so when I need a refresher. LARPERS seen to the left, lack of time to search the web for new music, and work in general. See Below:




And basketball games that are lost or won by margins of 25 points really piss me off. With the talent that lies in these past finals, a 30 point win never made me want to drink by myself more... .....




Thankfully at the time that points were being racked up like Minnesota Fats Balls at a billiards tourny, I had no reason to worry, because the Brothers de Mottram were on their way to pick me up from The Pelican Bar N'Oreleans.......





and accompany me along the sidewalks of Louisiana into what was proven to be a fantastic weekend.

The Faint/Bright Eyes Webster Hall

Review: Bright Eyes/The Faint-Webster Hall NYC

a rainy Sunday evening begin very slow with with much exhaustion from a hectic day of chasing flying kittens all over my apt. complex. All of this exhaustion seemed to compound itself through the day, and the night out was slowly looking to be more of a hassle than a night of great music. not to mention it was raining.

so, we decided to spend some time with a friend in the city prior, and thank god we did. 2 hours of pre show food, beers, etc. hit the spot and around 8:00 we made out way outside to catch a cab to the show. To our surprise the rain had stopped, and we walked the 23 blocks. beers were the name of the game so we continued our pace and by the time The Faint appeared, we were well on our way. All I can really say is thank god for The Faint.

What a show. Stealing it was The Faint, thrashing out bass drenched tracks off of "wet from Birth" and "Danse Macabre". Making the night special was that it was bassist and death metal riff genius, dapose, birthday. The combination of his guitar pounding, and pouncing around the stage, almost stood up to the head pounding mic work of T. Fink. The crowd was moving quickly but not out of control, and the whole hour and a half of songs was hard to keep my eyes off of, and my head bobbing to.

I am not going to waste my time writing about Bright Eyes. Connor came out, sang "Time Code", got up on the drum stage and said, "we are not going to play any of that folk shit tonight, so if you want that, get the fuck out" We listened to 2 or 3 more tracks that were nothing much more than Oberst kneeling on the floor, and synthized and disorgranized noises circling the hall, and then we obliged him by walking out and stumbling home.

Foo

Thank you Dave Grohl for giving me "The Best of You". Freaking genius.

The Life Aquatic

Move in....../ life aquatic

moving sucks. I have realized after this first real change of location that from this point on, I will start to throw away anything that has no significance. This is going to be a big time saver. I figure the time that it is going to take me to determine if an object is of any value + the time that it is going to take me to throw it away is going to be much less than the time that it would take me to move it the next time I decide to pack up and live somewhere else. The first thing that I need to consolidate is clothing. I have so much crap that is either to big, to small, or just not the slightest bit flattering. I have never considered myself to be interested in popular fashion, but I have a crapload of clothes, and that needs to stop. I gave away 3 bags of clothing this weekend, and it is sill piling up.

One of my first adventures yesterday was a trip to the new blockbuster that I will be visiting now that I have moved. My original intention was to rent "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou", but I ended up buying it instead. This was not a hard decision, as Wes Anderson is normally making movies right up my alley, and "Bottle Rocket" is one of my favorite films.
I found that this film was just as intriguing as all other movies by Anderson, with a bit more quirkiness at times. Specific moments that pop out to me, the pirates taking over the Belefonte, and SteveZ's escape and gunfight with the Filipinos, and the "Cross this line if you are leaving" speech near the end of the film. Wes Anderson tries to draw on your emotions in this movie by stressing the difficulty that SZ has in the possibility that he is a father, as well as the loss of his best friend Esteban and the latter loss of Ned (Kingsley). This fist loss is the reason behind SZ's search for the shark that has eaten his best friend yet, also, this shark is the object that makes this movie and its comedic insecurities possible. Thumbs up on this one, but you have to be in the mood, and understanding of what you are about to sit down for, and don't miss the CGI graphics used to create the sea life.