The last week or so, Reader's Digest style
This is going to have to be somewhat abbreviated, I'm afraid: between hectic work (last week with this manager! yay!) and busy social life, I've hardly had a moment to breathe.
radiantbaby accompanied me to badelf's wedding ceremony on Saturday. It was out at a relative's house on Lake Allatoona, so far north that it was practically a straight shot west on GA-20 from my place. That's really far north, for people not familiar with North Atlanta geography. The house was amazing, the ceremony was beautiful in its simplicity, the bride was stunning in her dress, and the company afterward was quite pleasant.
Fast forward to the concert on Tuesday. radiantbaby met me at my office about 6:30. We grabbed some food on the run and were at The Cotton Club by 7. There were a few people hanging out there before us, but not many. The doors opened around 8; we rushed the stage to be sure to get good spots. Hard to find a good spot with those damned columns in the middle of the stage, but we made do.
The first band started around 9. This Moment In Black History were a silly garage-ish punk-ish hardcore-ish noise-ish rock band from Cleveland. Whenever they started to play the lead singer would alternately hop around the stage or break into apoplectic fits as he screamed into the mike while occasionally playing a Moog (Oh, so *that*'s a Moog!). I lost count of how many things he knocked over and almost destroyed. Apparently they were booked to play The Echo Lounge, but the venue cancelled rather than try to compete with the Von Bondies, so the band called some friends in Detroit, pulled a couple of strings, and opened for the VB show instead.
From a strict musical standpoint the show really wasn't that great: screaming doesn't usually do much for me, and the vocals were almost completely inaudible over the guitar, bass, and drums. Nonetheless, technically they were pretty good, and their quirky personality more than made up for the problems: I loved them. The lead singer got in a random conversation during the show with one of the crowd members who happened to be from Cleveland, and halfway through the set he counted the crowd (all 14 of us), and had us gather all together so that he could take a picture of us from onstage. I grabbed their album Midwesterncuttalistick from the merch table. 17 tracks, just over 30 minutes. Same style, but much better balance. I recommend it to anyone looking for a shot of that style, and I definitely recommend their show for the personality to anyone who can stomach the musical style.
After a bit of a break and some setup time, vhs or beta took the stage. They were interesting. The music had a strong taste of 80's club dance music -- a clean electronic feel with long songs and synth drum backing. I didn't get a huge amount of personality out of them; they felt pretty young, and part of me wants to say that factored into it. Anyway, I'm a little hesitant to declare a verdict, but on the whole I think I like them. I definitely liked them enough to stop by merch during the break to grab their album Le Funk. It's 40 minutes and 6 tracks (2 of them live) with about the same sound as their show, though during the show they announced that most of their playlist was from their new album coming out in September.
After another break (of course) The Von Bondies took the stage to the cheering of an audience that had grown markedly since TMIBH was on, possibly selling out the venue. I was surprised at how open the stage looked. TMIBH had set up in a tight formation and VoB had a lot of equipment, and both setups made the stage look somewhat cramped. The Von Bondies were very light on equipment: I didn't see any foot pedals for the guitars or bass, and Don's drum set was downright minimal. All that nothing, and they'd set up pretty wide too, leaving for a lot of open space. I though it complemented their sound and presentation really well, actually.
It was a really excellent show; I enjoyed it a lot. It had the feel of their CDs -- more the second than the first, though I don't have a strong enough feel for the differences yet to say for sure. There wasn't a lot of crowd interaction for most of the show, but at the very end Jason called out xtwitch, which was amusing. After the show we hung out in the parking lot for a bit, fending off the panhandlers so common near that venue. Eventually the band filtered out and socialized with the fans for a while. They were great in person; they seemed very down-to-earth. Overall it was a great evening: I recommend seeing them in a small venue soon if you can; a lot of people are saying they'll likely break soon, and they probably won't see many small venues for a while if that happens. Catch 'em while you can.
(LJ Spellchecker genius of the day: merch -> mooch)
radiantbaby accompanied me to badelf's wedding ceremony on Saturday. It was out at a relative's house on Lake Allatoona, so far north that it was practically a straight shot west on GA-20 from my place. That's really far north, for people not familiar with North Atlanta geography. The house was amazing, the ceremony was beautiful in its simplicity, the bride was stunning in her dress, and the company afterward was quite pleasant.
Fast forward to the concert on Tuesday. radiantbaby met me at my office about 6:30. We grabbed some food on the run and were at The Cotton Club by 7. There were a few people hanging out there before us, but not many. The doors opened around 8; we rushed the stage to be sure to get good spots. Hard to find a good spot with those damned columns in the middle of the stage, but we made do.
The first band started around 9. This Moment In Black History were a silly garage-ish punk-ish hardcore-ish noise-ish rock band from Cleveland. Whenever they started to play the lead singer would alternately hop around the stage or break into apoplectic fits as he screamed into the mike while occasionally playing a Moog (Oh, so *that*'s a Moog!). I lost count of how many things he knocked over and almost destroyed. Apparently they were booked to play The Echo Lounge, but the venue cancelled rather than try to compete with the Von Bondies, so the band called some friends in Detroit, pulled a couple of strings, and opened for the VB show instead.
From a strict musical standpoint the show really wasn't that great: screaming doesn't usually do much for me, and the vocals were almost completely inaudible over the guitar, bass, and drums. Nonetheless, technically they were pretty good, and their quirky personality more than made up for the problems: I loved them. The lead singer got in a random conversation during the show with one of the crowd members who happened to be from Cleveland, and halfway through the set he counted the crowd (all 14 of us), and had us gather all together so that he could take a picture of us from onstage. I grabbed their album Midwesterncuttalistick from the merch table. 17 tracks, just over 30 minutes. Same style, but much better balance. I recommend it to anyone looking for a shot of that style, and I definitely recommend their show for the personality to anyone who can stomach the musical style.
After a bit of a break and some setup time, vhs or beta took the stage. They were interesting. The music had a strong taste of 80's club dance music -- a clean electronic feel with long songs and synth drum backing. I didn't get a huge amount of personality out of them; they felt pretty young, and part of me wants to say that factored into it. Anyway, I'm a little hesitant to declare a verdict, but on the whole I think I like them. I definitely liked them enough to stop by merch during the break to grab their album Le Funk. It's 40 minutes and 6 tracks (2 of them live) with about the same sound as their show, though during the show they announced that most of their playlist was from their new album coming out in September.
After another break (of course) The Von Bondies took the stage to the cheering of an audience that had grown markedly since TMIBH was on, possibly selling out the venue. I was surprised at how open the stage looked. TMIBH had set up in a tight formation and VoB had a lot of equipment, and both setups made the stage look somewhat cramped. The Von Bondies were very light on equipment: I didn't see any foot pedals for the guitars or bass, and Don's drum set was downright minimal. All that nothing, and they'd set up pretty wide too, leaving for a lot of open space. I though it complemented their sound and presentation really well, actually.
It was a really excellent show; I enjoyed it a lot. It had the feel of their CDs -- more the second than the first, though I don't have a strong enough feel for the differences yet to say for sure. There wasn't a lot of crowd interaction for most of the show, but at the very end Jason called out xtwitch, which was amusing. After the show we hung out in the parking lot for a bit, fending off the panhandlers so common near that venue. Eventually the band filtered out and socialized with the fans for a while. They were great in person; they seemed very down-to-earth. Overall it was a great evening: I recommend seeing them in a small venue soon if you can; a lot of people are saying they'll likely break soon, and they probably won't see many small venues for a while if that happens. Catch 'em while you can.
(LJ Spellchecker genius of the day: merch -> mooch)