cooltunes

A journalist recounts his experience with a condition associated with world wars.

His advice: Don’t stand around in wet socks, don’t wrap plastic bags around wet socks, don’t sleep in wet socks. If not treated right, amputation is necessary.

Jaco Pastorius playing Portrait of Tracy with Weather Report.

A version of the song is in the album The Essential Jaco Pastorius. I wonder what he’d be doing if he had gotten treatment for his condition, and lived.

They covered some songs the crowd didn’t quite expect, including Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms and Rare Earth’s I Just Want to Celebrate.

I attended the opening performance for the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival on Wednesday night. The event had additional sigificance outside of being the opening night of the festival - it was also the first time the festival had booked a night of only Mexican artists to perform.

The Mexicans in question, .pig and Murcof, put on an excellent show, although they weren’t as good as I was expecting.

.pig’s performance was a piece entitled “feto talk”, which consists of massively filtered and distorted turntable scratches and vocal effects. Speaking objectively, I don’t think I’d ever listen to them on my own time but as a performance they were impressive. The music was very harsh, very static-y and dissonant, so I was a little relieved when they finished after about half an hour. I think that’s probably all I could’ve put up with before getting irritated or bored.

Murcof is one of my favorite musicians of all time and I had extremely high expectations for his live performance. He has a new album coming out on September 17th, Cosmos, so I was looking forward to hearing some new material, and he did not dissapoint in that aspect. He played four new tracks from the album, ranging from one I’d heard from his myspace page, Cielo, to a couple of extremely drone-y ambient pieces that were new to me.

All of the songs were great and I’m eagerly anticipating the new album, although I’m a little surprised by the direction his music seems to have taken. The two drone-y pieces were a surprise, as most of his music seems to incorporate a fair amount of IDM-like percussion. Picture Tim Hecker-style ambient, except built from the classical sample-based palette that Murcof uses, and you’ll have something pretty close to what I heard Wednesday.

Anyway, the music was good but the performance itself left a little something to be desired - Murcof basically sat in front of his laptop and didn’t move for most of the show, except to tweak knobs on a mixer and a MIDI controller. I’m used to at least video being projected when I see electronic music acts, and its absence at this show reminded me of why it’s usually necessary with laptop-based musicians.

Most laptop artists are god damned boring to watch live.

Also, Murcof only performed four songs. The show didn’t start until 9:00 and I was out of the theatre by 10:30. What the hell.

I had tickets to the next night’s show, which Tim Hecker was performing at, but honestly, I didn’t think it was worth the effort to Bart it to the Mission, then walk to the train station and get home at 1 AM just to see him play a half-hour set.

Even if the festival has good performers next year, I’m not sure I would consider going if the format is the same. I’d much rather go to something like the upcoming Biosphere show at the Recombinant Media Labs Compound.

Having endured the ever-popular habit of hovering in almost every public toilet situation, I can only applaud the appearance of products to encourage alternate hygiene solutions among the female population. Whether this be at live shows, clubs, restaurants, or your average shopping mall, the Whiz and the Go Bag (which made their appearance at Glastonbury) can only mean that a hoverer-contaminated seat is a thing of the icky past. And if we should be so lucky, maybe word will get out to the guilty parties.

Which brings to mind a joke I heard in college a long, long time ago:

Student A (all students being women):
My mama taught me to always wash my hands after peeing.
Student B: My mama taught me to always wash my hands after having a number 2 (this college being in the South and polite)
Student C: My mama taught me to never pee and have a number 2 on my hands.

Student C must be the one peeing and having the number 2 all over public toilet seats, although logically, we can’t rule out Students A or B.

Murcof posted a few videos of himself performing with Eric Truffaz and Talvin Singh at the Montreaux Jazz Festival.

Rios, from Remembranza.
Ulysses, from Utopia.

I’m kind of miffed I found this on his myspace page. I still refuse to use that site on general principle, but it seems like I’m not going to be able to avoid that for much longer.

I went to this show at the Recombinant Media Labs Compound last night.

I’d been to a show at the RML before, but at their old location in Hunter’s Point. I’ll start off by saying that their new location is in a thankfully less scary area of SF, in the SOMA near 7th street.

I arrived 10 minutes early, and the show didn’t actually start till around 10, which was kind of annoying. I guess the first hour was for the benefit of their regular crowd, who consisted mostly of grey/black-wearing trendy-young-professional types, mixed with a healthy dose of tattooed, dreadlocked alternative-y folks. The first group is the kind you’d expect to see in a modern art museum doing a lot of chin-stroking in front of Rothko paintings. They all seemed to know one another.

Once 10 PM rolled around they lead us into the studio, which is the room pictured on their homepage. It’s an amazing space, you’re completely surrounded by speakers and a seamless wall of screens for their “surround cinema”-related stuff.

After everyone was inside, we were treated to three experimental videos which utilized the surround cinema effect. A guy who introduced himself as “Not Human” forewarned us that the first two videos were at normal volume but the third was “fucking loud” and that we were advised to utilize our earplugs. The videos were set to two Biosphere tracks, and the third was a recording (I think?) of one of the tracks Ryoichi Kurakawa played there a couple of weeks ago, and was as loud as advertised.

An aside on the loudness of their system - on the way into the studio they have a machine that dispenses earplugs, and warnings that the sound level inside exceeds 120 dB regularly. That pretty much sums it up.

After the third video and a short break, Deadbeat stepped up to a laptop plastered with an “I <3 Dub” sticker and began to play. I’ve heard people say that Deadbeat’s albums are kind of a pale reflection of his live performance, and after finally seeing him perform solo I can see where they’re coming from. It was interesting seeing him play very loudly, as his dub basslines are groovy enough to encourage dancing, yet his music isn’t quite uptempo enough to allow one’s self to actually dance continuously. Thus everyone was very vigorously head-nodding or swaying for most of his show. He ended with a DNB-esque remix of Saul Willliams - Black Stacey, which was awesome.

I didn’t know what to expect from Richard Devine, as all I previously knew was that he produced abrasive IDM. It’s kind of hard to put a description of his set into words, but I’ll try. Essentially, Richard Devine is a complete psycho, a rockstar, and his music is the electronic music equivalent of death metal. I’m almost surprised people didn’t start moshing during his set, it was that percussive. People (including Devine) were seriously throwing the devil-horns hand sign during pauses in the harsh beats. On that note, Devine was incredibly fun to watch, as he grimaces and winces like he’s struggling to defecate pieces of solid iron. After the show was over I seriously felt like I’d been beaten; the sound was so loud you could literally feel the waves of compressed air from the subwoofers travelling over your skin. Amazingly enough, the earplugs did their job and my hearing was pristine once I removed them.

Oh, and I got to watch Deadbeat rock out during the Devine set. He was jumping around with the enthusiasm of a little kid, it was great.

All in all, an amazing show. I’ll definitely be attending more events here.

I saw Tool and Isis this month with my brother at the Oakland Colliseum.

Not a big fan of Isis’ vocalist but they put in a good 30-minute warmup. From what I can remember most of what they played was from Panopticon, although if I’m wrong Chris will probably pipe in and correct me. They started with the first track on the album, So Did We.

Tool managed to put a huge smile on my face by opening with the track that made me buy Ænima 10 years ago (!), Stinkfist. Rather than heavily favoring tracks from their new album, they played a pretty even distribution of songs from all of their last 3 albums, including Sober from Undertow. Encores were Vicarious and Ænima.

Maynard James Keenan has a pretty bizarre stage presence. He was shirtless and had a spiked mohawk. He was also wearing a cowboy hat at times, and I’m not exactly sure how that managed to not crush his ‘hawk.

He kept to the back of the stage mostly, and all I can say about his movements was that he… undulated a lot. That’s the only way I can describe it. Oh, and there was a lot of pelvic thrusting during Ænima, for some reason.

Maynard quote of the night, directed at the moshers in the general admissions area:

“What are y’all doin down there? Rugby? Football?

… or do you just like grinding up against other guys?

It’s just fucking rock songs people, don’t hurt each other.”

Does it define you? Is anything cooler? Does it help you meet interesting people? Did any band ever sell more t-shirts than albums? Is it worth the $45 you paid?

I attended the Unholy Alliance Tour yesterday in San Jose at the HP Pavillion, the first of many concerts this summer that I will be attending. The line-up was Slayer, Lamb of God, Mastodon, Children of Bodom, and Thine Eyes Bleed. I missed Thine Eyes Bleed due to traffic and parking, but I didn’t really mind. For some reason Slayer concerts always seem to start on time, and this always surprises me (maybe that is just because all my other concerts are at The Pound, which is notorious for late starts). So here are my thoughts on the rest of the bands:

Children of Bodom was the first band I saw play. I don’t really like their style of music, but they seemed to have quite a few hardcore fans at the show, and it’s always cool when talented bands from Europe make their way over to play here. They had one song in the middle that was pretty good, the rest I thought were just OK, but the crowd was pretty into them.

Mastodon came on next, and they were pretty entertaining. Apparently they don’t tune their guitars very low, but somehow they manage to get a very bassy, extremely HEAVY sound. Their drumming was alot more interesting than Children of Bodom’s, and although I wasn’t really familiar with their material at all, they put on a crushingly good live show. I was right next to the pit and people were going nuts; at one point a guy with blood running down his face pushed his way out of the pit and through the crowd, so I guess the moshing got pretty violent. Also from my vantage point one of the guitarists looked alot like Will Ferrell, so that was somewhat amusing.

Next up was Lamb of God. Again I wasn’t familiar with their stuff, but pretty much the entire rest of the crowd was I guess, and so the floor was packed full when they started playing. Their style didn’t keep my attention as well as Mastodon, and I eventually got bored and wandered out to concessions to grab a snack (and get ripped off). For some reason the event staff wasn’t letting people back onto the floor, I guess it was crowded to the point of being dangerous or something, so I ended up missing the remainder of Lamb of God’s set, which didn’t really bother me that much.

I managed to get back down to the floor in time for Slayer, and was pretty close to the stage when they started. As soon as they started playing, people began pushing from all directions and everyone was mashed shoulder-to-shoulder for the first couple songs, and going crazy headbanging etc. One thing about Slayer shows - there are alot more big sweaty shirtless guys in the audience than at most shows I go to, and so it was hard not to get other peoples’ sweat rubbed all over you during Slayer’s set. After a few songs things calmed down, and the audience didn’t go nuts again until Slayer played some classics like Raining Blood. Saw a guy with his nose bleeding wandering away from the floor. Slayer put on an entertaining show as usual, but I think I somewhat spoiled it for myself by reading some reviews of the show online that included the setlist and descriptions of some of the theatrics. I will have to remember not to do that next time…

The youthful drunks set up their beer crates and ball game near the band, which was performing for 300 elderly couples. When the conductor was hit by a ball, the concert-goers were incensed. The band began to play the theme from The Great Escape. Almost as one, 20 audience members, former soldiers many of them, some using walkers, some carrying sticks, got up and marched toward the drunken group.

Even though they outnumbered the veterans by 10, the drunks ran for their lives.

No matter what’s happening on the field, the players will interpret and improvise. That’s the premise at the Vortex Jazz Club, a tiny spot in east London, where fans are treated to spontaneous music from teams of musicians who strive to match the game’s actions with appropriate responses.

Can music affect the content of your dreams? The Sky Orchestra, developed by Dan Jones and Luke Jerram in collaboration with hot air balloonist Peter Dalby, will find out.

Their music/art project consists of seven speaker-equipped hot air balloons. Each balloon will play a separate part of a musical score as the group floats over a city. Performance time is dawn, when most of their audience is still asleep, presumably in REM sleep mode.

More details from Futuremusic.

An interview with the NYT in which the band members talk (among many other things) about musicians who influenced them. These include Stevie Wonder, Philip Glass and Steve Reich.