Grizzly Bear Live
In my opinion, Grizzly Bear’s Yellow House was one of the best albums of the past couple of years. I finally got a chance to see Grizzly Bear live 2 weeks ago at the 6th and I Historic Synagogue in DC.
The venue was strange for sure… it had amazing acoustics/sound, great visibility from everywhere in the venue, but the strange element of actually being in a synagogue for a rock show - the synagogue staff broke-down and set-up the stage in between sets, while all the house lights were kept on. The patiently-waiting mixture of Hipsters, and 14 year old jewish kids accompanied by their parents, sat quietly because there was really no where to go at these awkward breaks (no bar, obviously). The other weird/annoying thing was that this was a seated show, but with no assigned seating… so like, even if you wanted to get up to walk around, you could expect to have no seat when you returned.
I was being looked at like a criminal for shooting video, so I kept the LCD screen closed, and couldn’t stand up to get my viewfinder over the balcony banister that was right in my field of vision - sorry… at least the sound in these clips came out great. Hey, here’s to three more shakey youtube concert clips!
Anyway, the show was way better than I expected. On another note, Ed Droste (the sort-of front man) looks exactly like Dave Glanz!
Little Brother:
Knife:
Colorado (part of it anyway):
1 comment
Yellow Magic Orchestra
I thank my good friend Zack for turning me on to Yellow Magic Orchestra. This whole album is way ahead of its time (1981), sort of reminds me of a more industrial, Japanese version of the Art of Noise. These two tracks go together like hot peas and butter, play them back to back and enjoy.
“Stairs” and “Seoul Music” from the 1981 album Technodelic:
PSA from Bike Snob NYC
This is a PSA from Bike Snob NYC, and because I have been enjoying countless hours (okay, minutes) oh hilarious, comedic entertainment on his blog for the past couple of days, and because I ride a bike to work everyday, i decided to support his cause.
Funny read of the day…
From Bike Snob NYC:
“This is the most busiest place in the world and you’re riding around on a bike being stupid.” The use of “most busiest” in the sentence he used to call me stupid stopped me like a stick in the spokes. All I could do at this point was repeat “most busiest” over and over again like a shock victim. Finally he concluded his speech by telling me that I should thank him for protecting me from getting hurt. I suppose he had a point. I had been quite lucky to have been on the receiving end of so many favors this morning. First a guy in a van beeped at me so he wouldn’t run me over, then a guy from Jersey who says he’s from Manhattan tried to back into me. Still, I didn’t feel lucky. I just felt angry. I told him that he had indeed hurt me and that my brain was now smarting from his retardation. Something told me he wasn’t taking that well though, so as it sunk in I opted to ride off before he figured it out and started swinging.
Full story here.
And in case you haven’t seen this yet, it is one of the things Bikesnob is referring to in his opening paragraph:
4 commentsGravediggaz…
on some old Gravediggaz shit today…
Remember the days before your pants was sagged, Puerto Ricans on the block just throwin up tags…
David Byrne + Bike Racks + NYC
NYC, in an attempt to encourage bicycle commuting (another reason to love NY), is holding a competition to design bike racks for the city. David Byrne, who is one of the judges for the competition, apparently couldn’t help but design a bunch of submissions of his own (and another reason to love David Byrne). They look pretty awesome.
Below is a feature the WSJ did on the project, and a track off of his album Grown Backwards.
David Byrne is also going on a big tour soon in support of his newest release which is a collaboration with Brian Eno called “Everything That Happens Will Happen Today.” I’ll be catching him in his hometown of Baltimore! Ah, David Byrne, how I idolize thee.
No commentsSome new(ish) albums…
…that I am feeling at the moment. Here’s one track from each, they are all very different. enjoy!
1. Lau Nau - Nukuu - Painovoima Valoa
2. Vast Aire - Dueces Wild - The man Without Fear
3. No Age - Nouns - Things I did When I Was Dead
4. Matmos - Supreme Balloon - Rainbow Flag
5. Stars like Fleas - The Ken Burns Effect - You Are My Memoir
6. Xiu Xiu - Women as Lovers - I Do What I Want When I Want
Silver Apples - Simeon
Last month I saw The Silver Apples live at the Velvet Lounge in DC.
For those who don’t know:
The Silver Apples were an early, influential, yet fairly unknown, psychedelic electronic band from NYC in the late 60’s. The band was made up of Simeon Coxe III (Simeon) and drummer Danny Taylor. They were active for a few years in the late 60’s, defunct for a couple of decades, then reformed in the late 90’s with the addition of Xian Hawkins (Sybarite). The Silver Apples activity came to a tragic halt when Danny Taylor was killed in a tour bus accident. In the early 2000’s Simeon began to recover from his injuries, started releasing records and doing occasional tours.
The Silver Apples have inspired generations of psychedelic rock bands, as well as experimental electronic artists over the years - The track “We Carry On” off of Portishead’s recent album “Third” is a great example of this influence.
I was more than a little excited to hear that The Silver Apples (now just Simeon, and his homemade wall of synthesizers, also called the Simeon) were playing in DC at the small, intimate Velvet Lounge last month. Here are a couple of the videos I snagged, there are more on my youtube page. Below the videos are the original recordings of “Lovefingers”, “Program” and “Misty Mountain”. Simeon seemed like a real cool guy, especially because he was sporting a Spy vs. Spy t-shirt! Enjoy.
Lovefingers:
Program:
Misty Mountain:
Draplin Design Company
I have been looking at the awesome Draplin Design Company’s site for a few days now, my boss showed it to me last week in regards to a project that we are working on. There are a lot of really inspired things to see and some funny things to read - Today I stumbled upon this video of Aaron Draplin on youtube, its pretty hilarious and frighteningly true: