shows recap
This was the plan on that Tuesday night -- take the 3:15 Acela to New York the day before a client meeting; check into the hotel, drop off bags, change clothes, and walk down to Avalon for Mono, possibly meet up with damiel enroute, head back to hotel, sleep, get up for 9AM meeting, drink lots of coffee and cover-up any hearing loss by solicitiously asking the client to rephrase their question with more context. It seemed like it'd be fun, but arriving at the hotel and realizing that I had stayed there before was a bit of a bonus.
Fifteen years ago, in high school, I had a stint in the Model UN. Originally, it was because of a genuine interest in studying and debating the merits and flaws of foreign policy, but after one stint as the Chinese representative campaigning for the dismantling of the Security Council, imperialist bourgeois tool that it was, I realized that being a teenage iconoclast had a certain amount of appeal for the few girls who also attended the meetings. Sign-up for the intellectual stimulation, stay for the hormones. That's prep school.
I also went to the Model UN's annual General Meeting in New York, which wasn't far from that model. Ostensibly it was the cream of a teenage crop, gathering together from across the continent; kids putting on diplomat clothes and playing house in the chambers of international order. In reality, it was a thousand teenage kids in New York with few chaperones and a lot of hotel rooms.
The hotel was near Penn Station, and on the second night, my classmates wanted to go clubbing. We were 16/17 years old, and none of us had fake ID, but the ringleader, H, a porky Jordanian who seemed to have a money printing machine hidden in his voluminous pants said that it shouldn't be a problem. We went to the Limelight and waited in line while the bouncers regarded our baby faces with a skeptical eye. As we stood, there, I remember thinking how cool the venue was, this old church that glittered with neon and strobe, and that it was way out of my league. Yet, H did his money-waving thing and in we went, and for a moment I thought that we were the coolest kids on the block.
That didn't last long. We weren't in for more than a few minutes before, H's "do you know who I am?" shtick pissed off the wrong person and we were unceremoniously sent back out the door. We were still kids trying on adult clothes and it didn't fit.
The building had been renovated since I was last here, and the suite that I was in was a league away from the cramped hotel room from so many years back. And this time it certainly felt like it fit. I dropped off my bags, emptied my pockets of everything save my wallet and phone, then headed off once more into the night.
The Limelight was now Avalon, and at first I was a little surprised at how small the place actually looked. My youthful memories were of some massive cathedral glittering amongst the nightcrawlers, but the present reality was of a modest village church barely larger than a high school gymnasium. Nonetheless, I made my way in and circulated among the hipsters waiting for the show to start.
It's tempting to make sweeping generalizations about New York indie kids based on one show. I think that's the curse of an online content diet of self-referential music punditry via blogs and message boards. One arrives to any show already pre-informed, already mentally crafting the blog post in your head, now it's just a matter of collecting evidence and getting your pull quotes. So, it's easy to observe how all of the jeans are so deliberately distressed, and so specifically tattered. It's tempting to count the number of Chrome messenger bags and try to match them to the number of fixed gears chained up to the meters outside. It's all too obvious that the crowd is really white, and really male, save for the handful of Japanese girls staring stoically at the empty stage. It's possible that one would point out how all of the guys do this head scanning thing like they're sizing each other up and figuring out if there's anyone that they need to impress, but the Asian girls don't seem to give a fuck and are therefore automatically bad-ass.
I ran into damiel before the show started, glad for the distraction from the ethnography, and we both spent the rest of the evening catching up quickly before Mono came on and proved to us that Japanese girls actually can be automatically bad-ass, especially if they're named Yoda. The band is in that post-rock vein popularized by Godspeed You Black Emperor and Mogwai, but whereas Godspeed is usually described as the soundtrack to the end of the world and has had their music turn up in its share of zombie movie, Mono was a groove of a different sort. All guitar melodies with some drums, building, like Godspeed, to these fabulously emotive crescendoes; it starts off with beauty and light and layers in bass and noise that plunges you into a vortex that is by turns violent and breathtaking. And in the center of it all was this one woman and her guitar strumming notes that sounded less like one world ending and more like one heart breaking. She didn't sing anything, said nothing except for one word of thanks, but there was presence enough in that guitar and the intensity in which it was played.
Mono's coming to The Middle East in two weeks, and you should see them. No, really, you should. Especially if you like Godspeed, You Black Emperor or Mogwai.
A couple of weeks later, I found myself at another Avalon, this one in Boston, and the crowd was more familiar, if not more white and possibly more male. I ran into brigid and plankton shortly after showing up and killed time until the band took stage.
They were five Scots dressed in tracksuits, and they weren't bad-ass by any measure, but just five lads out for a bit of fun. They were pretty laid back, which went at odds with their music, which was intense and crazy and loud. The day after, when I returned to the office, a co-worker came by asking if I had seen the show, because he saw someone who liked me but wasn't sure. We started comparing notes as I said,
"so, Godspeed You Black Emperor is the soundtrack to zombie movies and the world ending; and Explosions in the Sky is the soundtrack to heavily wrought football movies."
"well, movies about struggle and triumph, really."
"true. So, Mono is the never-was soundtrack to Requiem for A Dream, all delicate beauty that leads, inevitably, into a rush of awe and terror. And Mogwai is the never-was soundtrack to Heavenly Creatures, all gorgeous dreaminess interspersed with moments of crazy violence."
"I tend to think of it as the soundtrack to a dysfunctional relationship. Starts off with beauty and love then you get into building tension that leads into intense screaming and catharsis. Then, when you think you've had enough, you want to come back for more."
"they're kind of like Sigur Ros with issues, then?"
"after a fashion, I guess."
The day after, I was at the Paradise for Coldcut, but showed up in time for the opener, Blockhead and DJ Signify. The set was a pretty straight up Traktor performance, with Blockhead on his laptop, cueing up tracks, riffs and samples while scratching and tag-teaming with Signify. Unlike the post-rock shows, this didn't invite any comparisons to intense catharses or grand emotive crescendoes. It was just beats, breaks and truckloads of awesome. It was the first time that I had seen a performer ask if someone could get him a Corona from the bar, which was also excellent.
I don't quite remember when I first listened to Coldcut but I do remember picking up on them when I was deep into UK acid house and first wave industrial dance; and was hungry for anything sample-heavy, like the early Meat Beat Manifesto albums, and Coldcut had fallen naturally into that vector. I got Let Us Play and the cut-and-paste opus of "More Beats & Pieces" is still one of my favorite songs for, like, ever. They had, by that time, already amassed enough money from producing UK hip hop records to launch Ninja Tune, and even if Matt Black and Jon More weren't producing any new albums, the artists that they got into their label were sufficient company for most of my 20's.
I'd been wanting to see them for a long while and finally got a chance two weeks ago. They had a four man setup, two doing the audio and two others doing live video mixing. It was similar to the Meat Beat Manifesto show that came to town a year ago, but less high concept and more fun. Beats, thump and a choice sample or two as a wink and a nod to keep the vibe going. Boston crowds are notorious for their passivity, content as they are to just stand there and nod along. Maybe the nodding gets really vigorous, or, if they're really into it, they'll shake their hips ever so slightly.
Coldcut actually had people dancing, and by the time they were in encores, the entire venue was just bouncing around the floor, getting into the music and having an excellent time. I left that show sweaty, happy and thinking about the kid that I was fifteen years ago, and how it all fits now and that's all one can ask for in life.
Fifteen years ago, in high school, I had a stint in the Model UN. Originally, it was because of a genuine interest in studying and debating the merits and flaws of foreign policy, but after one stint as the Chinese representative campaigning for the dismantling of the Security Council, imperialist bourgeois tool that it was, I realized that being a teenage iconoclast had a certain amount of appeal for the few girls who also attended the meetings. Sign-up for the intellectual stimulation, stay for the hormones. That's prep school.
I also went to the Model UN's annual General Meeting in New York, which wasn't far from that model. Ostensibly it was the cream of a teenage crop, gathering together from across the continent; kids putting on diplomat clothes and playing house in the chambers of international order. In reality, it was a thousand teenage kids in New York with few chaperones and a lot of hotel rooms.
The hotel was near Penn Station, and on the second night, my classmates wanted to go clubbing. We were 16/17 years old, and none of us had fake ID, but the ringleader, H, a porky Jordanian who seemed to have a money printing machine hidden in his voluminous pants said that it shouldn't be a problem. We went to the Limelight and waited in line while the bouncers regarded our baby faces with a skeptical eye. As we stood, there, I remember thinking how cool the venue was, this old church that glittered with neon and strobe, and that it was way out of my league. Yet, H did his money-waving thing and in we went, and for a moment I thought that we were the coolest kids on the block.
That didn't last long. We weren't in for more than a few minutes before, H's "do you know who I am?" shtick pissed off the wrong person and we were unceremoniously sent back out the door. We were still kids trying on adult clothes and it didn't fit.
The building had been renovated since I was last here, and the suite that I was in was a league away from the cramped hotel room from so many years back. And this time it certainly felt like it fit. I dropped off my bags, emptied my pockets of everything save my wallet and phone, then headed off once more into the night.
The Limelight was now Avalon, and at first I was a little surprised at how small the place actually looked. My youthful memories were of some massive cathedral glittering amongst the nightcrawlers, but the present reality was of a modest village church barely larger than a high school gymnasium. Nonetheless, I made my way in and circulated among the hipsters waiting for the show to start.
It's tempting to make sweeping generalizations about New York indie kids based on one show. I think that's the curse of an online content diet of self-referential music punditry via blogs and message boards. One arrives to any show already pre-informed, already mentally crafting the blog post in your head, now it's just a matter of collecting evidence and getting your pull quotes. So, it's easy to observe how all of the jeans are so deliberately distressed, and so specifically tattered. It's tempting to count the number of Chrome messenger bags and try to match them to the number of fixed gears chained up to the meters outside. It's all too obvious that the crowd is really white, and really male, save for the handful of Japanese girls staring stoically at the empty stage. It's possible that one would point out how all of the guys do this head scanning thing like they're sizing each other up and figuring out if there's anyone that they need to impress, but the Asian girls don't seem to give a fuck and are therefore automatically bad-ass.
I ran into damiel before the show started, glad for the distraction from the ethnography, and we both spent the rest of the evening catching up quickly before Mono came on and proved to us that Japanese girls actually can be automatically bad-ass, especially if they're named Yoda. The band is in that post-rock vein popularized by Godspeed You Black Emperor and Mogwai, but whereas Godspeed is usually described as the soundtrack to the end of the world and has had their music turn up in its share of zombie movie, Mono was a groove of a different sort. All guitar melodies with some drums, building, like Godspeed, to these fabulously emotive crescendoes; it starts off with beauty and light and layers in bass and noise that plunges you into a vortex that is by turns violent and breathtaking. And in the center of it all was this one woman and her guitar strumming notes that sounded less like one world ending and more like one heart breaking. She didn't sing anything, said nothing except for one word of thanks, but there was presence enough in that guitar and the intensity in which it was played.
Mono's coming to The Middle East in two weeks, and you should see them. No, really, you should. Especially if you like Godspeed, You Black Emperor or Mogwai.
A couple of weeks later, I found myself at another Avalon, this one in Boston, and the crowd was more familiar, if not more white and possibly more male. I ran into brigid and plankton shortly after showing up and killed time until the band took stage.
They were five Scots dressed in tracksuits, and they weren't bad-ass by any measure, but just five lads out for a bit of fun. They were pretty laid back, which went at odds with their music, which was intense and crazy and loud. The day after, when I returned to the office, a co-worker came by asking if I had seen the show, because he saw someone who liked me but wasn't sure. We started comparing notes as I said,
"so, Godspeed You Black Emperor is the soundtrack to zombie movies and the world ending; and Explosions in the Sky is the soundtrack to heavily wrought football movies."
"well, movies about struggle and triumph, really."
"true. So, Mono is the never-was soundtrack to Requiem for A Dream, all delicate beauty that leads, inevitably, into a rush of awe and terror. And Mogwai is the never-was soundtrack to Heavenly Creatures, all gorgeous dreaminess interspersed with moments of crazy violence."
"I tend to think of it as the soundtrack to a dysfunctional relationship. Starts off with beauty and love then you get into building tension that leads into intense screaming and catharsis. Then, when you think you've had enough, you want to come back for more."
"they're kind of like Sigur Ros with issues, then?"
"after a fashion, I guess."
The day after, I was at the Paradise for Coldcut, but showed up in time for the opener, Blockhead and DJ Signify. The set was a pretty straight up Traktor performance, with Blockhead on his laptop, cueing up tracks, riffs and samples while scratching and tag-teaming with Signify. Unlike the post-rock shows, this didn't invite any comparisons to intense catharses or grand emotive crescendoes. It was just beats, breaks and truckloads of awesome. It was the first time that I had seen a performer ask if someone could get him a Corona from the bar, which was also excellent.
I don't quite remember when I first listened to Coldcut but I do remember picking up on them when I was deep into UK acid house and first wave industrial dance; and was hungry for anything sample-heavy, like the early Meat Beat Manifesto albums, and Coldcut had fallen naturally into that vector. I got Let Us Play and the cut-and-paste opus of "More Beats & Pieces" is still one of my favorite songs for, like, ever. They had, by that time, already amassed enough money from producing UK hip hop records to launch Ninja Tune, and even if Matt Black and Jon More weren't producing any new albums, the artists that they got into their label were sufficient company for most of my 20's.
I'd been wanting to see them for a long while and finally got a chance two weeks ago. They had a four man setup, two doing the audio and two others doing live video mixing. It was similar to the Meat Beat Manifesto show that came to town a year ago, but less high concept and more fun. Beats, thump and a choice sample or two as a wink and a nod to keep the vibe going. Boston crowds are notorious for their passivity, content as they are to just stand there and nod along. Maybe the nodding gets really vigorous, or, if they're really into it, they'll shake their hips ever so slightly.
Coldcut actually had people dancing, and by the time they were in encores, the entire venue was just bouncing around the floor, getting into the music and having an excellent time. I left that show sweaty, happy and thinking about the kid that I was fifteen years ago, and how it all fits now and that's all one can ask for in life.