Vampire Weekend @ Bowery Ballroom January 30, 2008

Indie-blog flavor of the month Vampire Weekend brought their Talking Heads-meets-The Feelies vibe to a packed Bowery Ballroom last night, baiting New Yorkers with pro-Patriots rhetoric, and then re-winning hearts with cheerfully low-cal beat-pop. I haven't quite figured out how I feel about these guys. They're incredibly tight live, but there's something slight about their music. It's as if they aren't quite sure how seriously to take themselves. Given the fact that 80% of their lyrics are about college, youth may be a factor.

[Additional photos at Flickr]
Rock-crit considerations aside, the band sounded terrific and a good time was had by all. Here's some tropical guitar action caught on video...

(Also... Shots from the previous night's show on Pitchfork, and a Vampire Weekend Guest List to boot.)

One bit of unrelated ephemera: Check out Sleeveface immediately.

God Bless the USA

It is a proud time to be an American. After tonight's State of the Union address (Baby GeeDubya's last), we are sure to be prouder still.

America, the land of plenty, where all who dwell enjoy freedom of choice amid an embarrassment of riches. (We are free, for example, to wantonly mix metaphors.) The choices facing American moviegoers this weekend, however, may explain why the terrorists hate our freedom (to paraphrase David Cross). On the one hand we had Rambo, an unholy cross between classic batshit vanity project and populist kill-lots-of-brown-people brutality-fest. On the other, Meet the Spartans, an equally unappetizing mishmash of (what I presume to be) already-dated pop-culture references, strung together with fart jokes, juvenile homophobia, and countless variations on the collision of projectile and crotch. One thing's for sure: that's a uniquely American set of choices.

And so, being an American, I chose. Unfortunately, I did not choose "c) None of the above," even though I knew this to be the correct answer. Instead, I chose to see what happens when a 61-year-old pumps himself full of elephant growth hormone in order to mumble incoherently and blow shit up for 90 minutes. What happens is one's I.Q. drops precipitously. I am doubtlessly stupider today than I was yesterday. Much more stupider. In addition, I never want to stop showering. If it were possible to remove my brain and wash it, I would. Never has man's inhumanity to man been so gleefully sprayed across the silver screen. No amount of ironic distance could hold back the tide of objectionable material; a thick, clotted wave of rape, decapitation, limb removal, baby tossing, flamethrowing, and blatant machete misuse. There isn't enough "meta" in the collected works of Roland Barthes to separate one's consciousness from Rambo's infectious bloodlust and all-consuming stupidity.

And also, like a good American, I had a wonderful time. Sure, I could break my arm patting myself on the back because we laughed our way through the film and felt tired and dirty and guilty and violated afterwards. But you know what? Rambo still got our $11.25. Tongues in cheeks or not, we still had a blast watching human bodies get turned into piles of raspberry jelly.

And so tonight, when Good Ol' Boy #1 gets up and dangles that pretty $600 check in my slack-jawed face, I'll probably just giggle, drool, and fantasize about all the violent games I can play on that brand new XBox 360 I'm gonna buy.
GOD BLESS AMERICA.

Friday Quickie

I have no idea whether this video is legit, but I can't resist because Kim's description was so priceless:

"A bird poops in a loser's mouth"

Dead Meadow @ Bowery Ballroom, 1/16/08

Matador's finest psych/metal/groove-meisters, Dead Meadow, played a smashing set at Bowery Ballroom this past Wednesday in support of their upcoming album, Old Growth (which streets on February 5). Minds, they were blown. More distortion pedals that you could shake a stick at. Flannel; moustaches; sweet, sweet grooves: the airbrushed-van-and-skull-bong vibe was in full effect. Needless to say, the venue smelled like a Rastafarian wedding.



In the spirit of true heaviness, the band employed not one but two--count 'em two--Orange Music Electronic Company stacks.


The Orange stack brings the heavy (as evidenced by the name of their Thunderverb amplifier head), and its presence on stage is always cause for celebration. (Check out the FULL PHOTO SET at Flickr.) (Redboy got some [depressingly superior] shots as well.)

In totally unrelated news, the full Coachella lineup has been announced. No My Bloody Valentine. No Radiohead. Yes Jack Johnson. Yes Slightly Stoopid. Yes Roger Waters doing Dark Side of the Moon without the other members of Pink Floyd. Most pathetic festival lineup of all time? If not, it's certainly on the short list.

The Big Sleep @ Mercury Lounge, New Year's Eve

Truly a New Year's Rockin' Eve at downtown Manhattan's Mercury Lounge. The Big Sleep played a scorching set of old favorites, tracks from their new album, and, naturally, a 100% instrumental Led Zeppelin medley. Faces were rocked off. Ears were injured. A truly wonderful way to ring in 2008.

As you can probably tell, I was also breaking in a brand new camera. Needless to say I had not yet spent any quality time with the instruction manual when these shots were taken.



While my mastery of the photographic arts remains a work in progress, I was able to shoot a brief snippet of decent video:

Onward and upward with the arts! Happy New Year!