the oh so quiet show

Editors

I’m not a big fan of “Editors”:http://www.editorsofficial.com/ (I like them, just not intensely so), but since my friend Patricia invited me to see them and it’s not like I have anything else to do on a Thursday night besides eat and procrastinate (homework?…no), I joined her at Webster Hall last night. We got there rather late compared to when I go to more concerts (I’m paranoid about tonight’s Flaming Lips show; I NEED A GOOD VIEW, NEEEED…first time I saw them I started waiting at 4 PM or something, seriously), but there weren’t a crapload of people there at 8:30. I still ended up standing right behind a tall person though–I think that’s Murphy’s Law.

I heard their live show was good, so that was another reason to go. And…it was good. I mean, they played really well, the crowd loved it, and the band looked happy. But Patricia and I had the same thought about the lead singer, Tom: “forced spazziness”. Did anyone else get this idea? At first, I thought, “Oh, he likes to wave his hands around and stuff,” but it looked…forced. I didn’t mind the “running around the stage” bit and overall excitedness, but after a while all the spastic hand movements got distracting. Hohum.

It’s kinda weird for me to go to a concert where I’m not a huge fan (I don’t go to random concerts unless other people ask me to); I more likely to observe other people’s reactions than just pay attention to the concert. To my left was a group of guys who’d go jumping-crazy every now and then and in front of me were some girls who’d also go jumping-crazy while pumping their arms in the air. All around me fans sang along to the most popular songs. The stage had some nice lighting going on…all the better for me to take photos on my dinky Canon powershot while others whipped out their digital SLRs. Ahh. Someday, someday.

You’ll probably hate me for this, but I’m one of those docile concert-goers. I was more of the screamy time in high school, probably because 1) I was younger and 2) I hadn’t discovered the importance of earplugs yet. Most of the music I listen to is pretty docile anyway though, so it works out.

Near the end of the show, Tom whipped his beer at the audience. My first thought was that it was water…until I realized it smelled like beer. Ohhh. Hm. Well, I can’t say I got showered with it, so it wasn’t the worst thing in the world, but some of it got into Patricia’s eye. Yeeeah…that’s not fun. Afterwards she asked why we didn’t dodge the airborne liquid as we saw it splatter towards us; we had noo ideeaaaa. Maybe brains work more slowly when they’re bombarded with the stimuli of bright lights and loud music, which is fine and dandy, until someone overexcitedly throws stuff at you.

So…overall, Editors know how to put on a tight show. As usual, I was freaked out by the drumming. Is that weird? As in, I love drums. Like..”Hey you other guys…are playing guitar…but that dude in the back that I can hardly see is pounding out 16th notes like a machine and watching him makes my arms feel tired.” I’d write something better, but I’m not qualified to write any kind of in-depth review.

But tonight? FLAMING LIPS? BUUH? YES.

Read a bunch of other reviews:

* “Music Slut”:http://musicslut.blogspot.com/2006/03/editors-webster-hall.html
* “Chris’ Music Snobbery”:http://musicsnob.blogs.friendster.com/chris_music_snobbery/2006/03/editors_webster.html
* “Stereogum”:http://www.stereogum.com/archives/002447.html
* “Village Indian”:http://www.villageindian.com/village_indian/2006/03/editors_webster.html
* “The Modern Age”:http://www.themodernage.org/2006/03/30/the-editors-overtake-webster-hall/
* “Yeti Don’t Dance”:http://noyetidance.blogspot.com/2006/03/editors-massive-attack.html
* “The Underrated Blog”:http://theunderrated.blogspot.com/2006/03/editors-webster-hall.html

After scouring the Internet more than any sane person should, I found some nice words about Magnet’s performance at the Living Room last week (all on MySpace, for some reason):

* South Park Dan
* Crystal
* Craig Smith

I love reading good things about Magnet. They justify my…um…fandom. Right. But reading these just made me sad because I could’ve actually seen the show. Maybe. Maybe not. I wouldn’t care if it had been a show in Norway, but NYC? While I wasn’t mad at the Living Room before because it’s not their fault that I’m not old enough…more than a week later I decided that maybe I am allowed to be a little angry. A little pissed. Just a smidgen. Am I allowed that little bit? Can I leave my shell of inhibition for a split second and leave a message for The Living Room that goes, “WHAT THE FUCK?”

After the show got a message from someone that made me laugh and hurt at the same time. “Did you go to Magnet at the Living Room? I heard it was great.” Nope. But I heard the same thing.

I need to think of something else. Really. Need to. Not just the 500000 calorie cake I ate last night. Not the documentary about staving, skeletal Sudanese people I watched in class yesterday morning. Actually, there are a million other things I could think about–Flaming Lips concert, eating pizza this Saturday, impending doom–but every day I come back to the same thought:

“Why did he give me his guitar?”

I’m not kidding. I still can’t grasp the generosity or why he gave it to me. I mean…yes, I can think of reasons, but I still don’t fully get it. There’s probably nothing else to it–I was sad, I’m a nice person, end of story. However, I still don’t feel like I deserved it (not that I don’t play it; my germs are all over that baby now), and I continue to ask myself a million Even-related questions that start with “Why?”

He tried to give me cab fare. [buries head in hands]

Every time I see Even, I feel more embarrased because the list of stupid things I do during each encounter just keep piling up. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

I just want to note this artist, Adam Stidham, on MySpace because:

# He doesn’t have an effed up customized profile that makes my eyes bleed more than they already do while looking at MySpace. You know what I’m talking about. Like neon green shit with fixed backgrounds and things that are semi-transparent.
# His music is very sweet and pleasant. Boring description, yeah. Um. Admittedly, I first thought of John Mayer, but I’m not a John Mayer fan. Well. I suck at comparing artists to other artists.
# He hasn’t released anything, but sounds like he should.
# He’s 21. Damn young’uns.

this room is freakin’ huge

Watch the new Mew video for “The Zookeeper’s Boy” [via no snow]:

WindowsMedia: Broadband | 56k
Realplayer: Broadband | 56k

I don’t know what the point of the video is, but that’s okay. Because. It’s Mew. See those screenshots? They pretty much cover the whole video. Not that they’re the same, but the ginormous painting in the background reminds me ofThe Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover, which is a weird correlation. If you’ve never seen that movie before, it’s probably for the best.

peennguiinnnss

It has penguins. That’s the only reason I’m pointing out this video for The Brakes’ “All Night Disco Party”. Penguins. Animated penguins. I think this song would annoy the hell out of me if I listened to it too many times…

…but it does have penguins.

YouTube…what have you done to me?…

I’m not really into tea, but I do love scones. Plain scones. No tea.

[via the very tasty Becks & Posh]

A sweet Japanese Magnet fan, Mami, recorded a bunch of Magnet shows and sent them to me. I don’t think she’d mind me sharing them. Not like there’s a lot of live stuff out there. …And most of you probably aren’t interested anyway (I originally uploaded these just for one friend). Since these are on YouSendIt, only download if you’re really interested. First ones:

Live at Club Quattro, Osaka (November 9, 2005)
Live at Club Quattro, Toyko (November 10, 2005) (concert review at fusion musique)

I didn’t label all the songs correctly; some tracks are composed of two or three songs. The sound is a bit distorted, but if you’re me you’ll still love the recordings. He opens both shows with Quiet & Still, which I’m still dying to hear live (although solo, not necessarily with the band). Even though I don’t really like “All You Ask”, it sounds cool live. Actually, everything sounds cool live. Dammit.

Oh. Man. …This is ridiculous, but I’m still bummed that I only got to see him once when he was in the US. Once! That’s more than most Americans will get to see him. Why can’t I just be thankful for what I get? I constantly think about how undeservedly lucky I am, but then I think about how…oh, I saw him perform once this year, not in a small venue, boohoo…I guess I need to be smacked. I want to snuggle in with the Japanese crowd. They sound so polite, quiet and captivated. My god. There are so many times that I really feel like that I was born in the wrong country, with the wrong ethnicity, knowing the wrong languages, wrong wrong wrong…(yeah, I’m really not on topic anymore)…

Anyway, here’s another zip file:

Live at Docks, Toronto (March 1, 2006), Comfort Zone Toronto (March 2, 2006), and SXSW (March 16, 2006)

The shows in Canada were recorded by Mami–the quality’s pretty good. I added the SXSW show from Lullabyes because I figured I may as well get close to the 100 MB upload limit.

I probably shouldn’t be amazed by this, but…well, I am kind of amazed by how old some of these songs are, yet haven’t become tired from repeated listenings. Like. A gazillion repeated listenings. How many versions of “I’ll Come Along” can I take? A GAJILLION, apparently. The first time I heard it in 2001, I didn’t even know what it was called until his webmaster told me the title. And I’ve come to the conclusion that I could listen to “Nothing Hurts Not” a gajillion + a zillion times without getting tired of it. It almost makes me cry…

…but a different kind of crying than this anthropology homework makes me wanna do right now. Please shoot me.

Please don’t hurt me for bringing this to your attention.

It was funny at first, and then became kinda disturbing, and then kind of funny again…and then disturbing. What scared me most was that there’s an extended version of the theme song. Very extended. LIke 200% longer than it ought to be. Whyyyy?

For a split second at the end, there’s a frame of the main dude clad in Spongebob Squarepants boxer shorts. I don’t know why. …God, why does this video even exist? [via Kinki Style]

I was looking through old crap on my computer and had no idea that I took this video of “Magnet”:http://www.homeofmagnet at “Summer Sundae”:http://www.summersundae.com/ in 2004:

(I couldn’t take hi-res videos, but the sound’s pretty good.)

Besides that most of us probably won’t see him with a full band, there’s also that outdoor stage …thing. Hm. For some reason I don’t remember much about the performance. I’m sure it was good. Yeah. It started raining by the end, which was a nice touch. THANKS, NATURE.

I like his solo shows the most, but it’d be cool to see another show like this again.

For whatever reason I’ve had to listen to “Copy”:http://www.mobiusbeard.com/ over and over again. WHYYY?

…Oh, I like his songs. Okay. Good reason. “Audio Dregs”:http://audiodregs.com describes his music like so: “Copy busts out the gate with an essential sound somewhere between Ratatat’s upbeat triumphant numbers, Dabrye’s deceptively simple melodics, and YMO’s orchestral 8-bit.” I have to admit, that only 50% made sense to me. But maybe that helps you. (I never got into Ratatat for some reason. Or I got into them 50%.)

My description: Blippy, bleepy, spastic,and twitchy. Hey, that almost rhymed. But not. If I weren’t so uncoordinated, I might even dance to this stuff. Here is the song “A Slight but Delicious Warble” from his latest album, “Mobius Beard”:http://audiodregs.com/releases/adr061/index.html.

[audio:http://www.audiodregs.com/noise/mp3s/copy_slightbutdelicious.mp3]

And another one called “Afro Oven”:

[audio:http://www.mobiusbeard.com/COPY-Afro_Oven.mp3]

(And more at that “myspace thing”:http://www.myspace.com/copy.)

And…that’s all I’ve heard from this album, but I’d think the rest is good too. Buy from “Audio Dregs”:http://www.audiodregs.com/order/, who also has a special Dim Dim discounted cd-pack thinger!…which probably doesn’t interest you, but I wanted Bounce anyway so I may as well buy that.

Is it sad that I don’t remember the last time I bought a CD in an actual store?