Media melange - Real Steel, Madness of Angels, Gotye + Husky
Went to see Real Steel on the weekend, aka One Must Fall, the movie, which is what I've been calling it since we saw the first trailer. And I stand by it, because sure, the fighting robots weren't 80 feet tall and the movie was more actual boxing versus the game's street-fighting (points for realism), but the statue of the robot outside the arena totally looked like the Nova from OMF (minus the shoulder spikes) so lalalalala. Anyway, whatever you call it, it was pretty good fun. It had that unfortunate kids-movie thing where it was occasionally too belaboured about things, but Hugh Jackman is always good value. I came out with a burning desire to write about an older Max, having grown-up in and still immured in the heart of this industry, but I have no idea what to do with that, so I read until it went away - A Madness of Angels, by Kate Griffin, which is AMAZING and totally the modern Constantine. And then I had hilariously weird dreams.
ANYWAY. Let's talk music. Because we went to see Gotye in concert a couple weekend's back, and he was pretty splendid. It's always shocking when his voice - that beautiful, resonant, wild and clear voice - comes out of that lanky grinning stick of a man, but I loveloveLOVE watching him throw himself at his drumkit. (Also, he was born in Bruges, so we automatically have to love him.) We were a little disappointed that the setlist was basically Making Mirrors stuff, plus Heart's A Mess and Learnalittlegivinandlovin. The Male likes Boardface best, and Out Here in the Cold would've been awesome, thought I was hanging out for Only Way or Nightride. But his band didn't really have strings and Boardface is pretty stringy. Like him. See what I did there? Pow.
Supporting him was an outfit called Husky. They had played approximately two-thirds of their first song when the Male and I turned to each other and said in unison, "Augie March ten years ago." The musicality, the mystery, the poetry, the tantalising unease, the creativity, the wild imagination, the journeying through song. ALL OF THAT. These guys are great, and the moment they release an album, we are buying it.
Not going to the Laneway to see them, though, because they are the only artist on the line-up that I can actually say I have consciously heard. I am so old and unhip! Besides, we are already definitely heading to Big Day Out and Soundwave (Soundgarden! System of a Down! I'm pretty much delirious with musical joy already) so we should probably curb our music spending somewhere.
ANYWAY. Let's talk music. Because we went to see Gotye in concert a couple weekend's back, and he was pretty splendid. It's always shocking when his voice - that beautiful, resonant, wild and clear voice - comes out of that lanky grinning stick of a man, but I loveloveLOVE watching him throw himself at his drumkit. (Also, he was born in Bruges, so we automatically have to love him.) We were a little disappointed that the setlist was basically Making Mirrors stuff, plus Heart's A Mess and Learnalittlegivinandlovin. The Male likes Boardface best, and Out Here in the Cold would've been awesome, thought I was hanging out for Only Way or Nightride. But his band didn't really have strings and Boardface is pretty stringy. Like him. See what I did there? Pow.
Supporting him was an outfit called Husky. They had played approximately two-thirds of their first song when the Male and I turned to each other and said in unison, "Augie March ten years ago." The musicality, the mystery, the poetry, the tantalising unease, the creativity, the wild imagination, the journeying through song. ALL OF THAT. These guys are great, and the moment they release an album, we are buying it.
Not going to the Laneway to see them, though, because they are the only artist on the line-up that I can actually say I have consciously heard. I am so old and unhip! Besides, we are already definitely heading to Big Day Out and Soundwave (Soundgarden! System of a Down! I'm pretty much delirious with musical joy already) so we should probably curb our music spending somewhere.