Zola Jesus @ Glasslands Gallery NY

Oi. Red-eye flights may seem like a good idea with the whole you-save-money-on-a-hotel-room scheme and the fact that you don't actually loose time during the day in which you could have done something better than trying to make yourself the slightest bit comfortable in an aeroplane seat that doesn't seem to be made to fit a human body, but oi. If you can't sleep in anything else than a bed (a contraption that has proved itself rather bothersome this last month) than it is absolutely not the best idea. For one thing, because one of the side effects of this kind of sleep deprivation is apparently amnesia. While there were four bands on the bill at Glasslands Gallery in Williamsburg - and I am pretty sure there actually were four bands - I can't seem to remember seeing more than two. I do remember the excellent vegan pizza I had at Vinnie's Pizza (seriously some of the best pizza I had in my life - whether vegan, vegetarian or carnivorous) and I certainly remember the taxi ride home, but in between there seem to be some serious blanks. And yes, I blame sleep deprivation.

With Vivian Girls and Dum Dum Girls around, and Mika Miko sadly passing away, there seems to be a thing around for all girl bands. Well, you could call it a trend, but girl bands are around all the time (what about Sleater-Kinney or the Spice Girls for that matter?); it just so happens that quite a few of them have decided that this is the time to get noticed. Effie Briest, named after the lead character of a novel by Theodore Fontane, are one of those bands. There's six of them, and they have just released their first album 'Rhizomes'. Live, it's a pretty impressive sight with the six of them. And it's not just the looks they're going for. Some songs are driven by catchy bass lines while most thrive on the dual forces of drums and bongos (if those things are called bongos, I'm not that into percussion to be quite honest). As Zola Jesus, they are on the Sacred Bones label, and you can expect something similar, though Effie Briest are more mysterious, or as Loud & Quiet describes them: a sub-lunar art rock sextet. And for some weird reason sub-lunar seems to be a pretty accurate description of their post-punk inspired sound, whatever sub-lunar may musically imply..

Much has been written about Zola Jesus in the past few months, most articles including the g-word. Well, I can say one thing for sure now: anyone using that particular description has certainly not seen her perform live. If I'd had to name someone her performance came close to, I could name no other than Celine Dion. Yes, you've read that correctly. Not that I've ever seen Celine Dion live, or would no any other song of hers other than that Titanic one, but that's what immediately sprung to mind. Well, if you consider the five fans blowing onto the stage creating the dramatic wind effect, and Nika Roza's size which necessitated a box for her to stand on (it is possible Nancy Wang!), and the combined effect of the two while she was spreading her arms out wide, you'll get my point.

Now, it wasn't just that moment, there was also something in the delivery of her performance which made it more 'Celine Dion'. While the album and the EP might not be most accessible records, her live performance is at times best classified as pop music, with catchy tunes and an amazing singer accompanying those. Nika Roza manages to give one of those rare credible pop performances, of the kind Sufjan Stevens has been accused of whilst touring with his 'Illinois' album. To back her (in)credible performance up, she has gathered some help in the form of three key/synth players and a drummer, giving herself free reign of the stage and the front of the audience - I'm afraid that if she'd gone further she would have gotten herself lost.

Most tracks featured on the set list are from the Stridulum EP that was released this year, but also last year's album is covered with 'Clay Bodies', which sounds an awful lot better live with less noise covering up Nika's voice.'Night' is still a personal favourite, although absolute every track sounds right on target when she performs them live. Unfortunately, she hasn't actually scheduled any Dutch dates yet, although she is planning her first European tour in August/September. But even if she skips us then, she'll be back in October to tour with Former Ghosts (as will be Xiu Xiu's Jamie Stewart), which should be even better.

New job

I started my new job this week. I am now a Research Assistant at Imperial College in London. I work in the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, doing absolutely nothing that's connected to infectious diseases in whatever way. I have an entire office to myself so it's a combination of Spotify/6Music all day long. I already have 6 different kinds of tea in my drawer.

Today, I have discovered a swimming pool in the basement. As this place is a labyrinth (as opposed to a maze, there's a difference there: a maze is hard to get into, but easy to get out of while a labyrinth is easy to get into but hard to get out of - this knowledge might be usefull in Trivial Pursuit or pub quizzes) I am not sure whether I will run into it again.

I also have a telephone, fax machine, and an apparently endless office supply budget. I wonder how many different coloured post-its I could order (suggestions as to what colours I ought to try first are welcome as well as a website listing the various options).

Former Ghosts @ The Echo, LA

I always try to read books in their original language - except when they were written in French as I can only play bingo in French (or any language other than Dutch, English or German for that matter), so an entire book would be a bit too much of a stretch - so why not go see a band in their natural habitat? Now, I'm not implying I flew all the way from London to LA just to see Former Ghosts (that wouldn't do justice of the great city that LA actually is and might be a slight overstatement on the things my craziness and more importantly budget will allow me to do), but it certainly influenced my travel itinerary.

Now, I've just mentioned that I think LA is a great city, and it certainly is, but the downside of that city just is that the public transportation isn't all that. And why should it in a city where absolutely everyone can afford a car? I for one can't even afford thinking of buying a car, as every other student in Europe, so I had to make ado with the metro as buses where a bigger mystery to me than the solution to a Rubik's cube. I also discovered that streets can bear the same name for miles to come in the States (as in, it took me over 3 quarters to walk there). Surprisingly, I was still early and got the chance of lurking around Origami records which only sells vinyl and has the best collection of local records which I've ever seen in a city (go LA!). I may have spend a bit too much in there.

Afghan Raiders, from Las Vegas, were to start this event, kindly curated by Rainbow Arabia who took on a residency in the Echo in June. After the first few songs I'd rather taken a liking to them, and was even very interested in their upcoming album (do you also feel a 'but' coming?) which is coming out later this year, September if my memory serves me well. However (nope, no buts today), when they ended on a David Bowie cover, they lost my support. 'Fashion' isn't one of my favourite tracks, but Afghan Raiders still manage to personally offend me - but that might be because I'm a bit anal about David Bowie tracks being covered by band that are not worthy (which means everyone but the master himself and Kevin Barnes when he's wearing his golden hot pants). 'Fashion' is to be recorded for the first ever David Bowie tribute album that has actually been approved by Mr Bowie himself. The project is organised by Manimal Vinyl and profits will go to War Child - and with contributing artists ranging from Duran Duran and French First Lady Carla Bruni to A Place To Bury Strangers and Rainbow Arabia that ought to be interesting at the very least.

Luckily there's Freddy Ruppert to lighten up the mood. Okay, scrap that, no Former Ghosts performance is ever going to 'lighten' any mood - even suicidal would darken after hearing this live. But it just is so incredibly good. The sound quality doesn't really compare to the Luminaire, but it doesn't even matter an awful lot as Freddy is so emotive that his performance would be amazing even without sound.

'New Orleans', a track that is well under way of becoming my favourite song ever, is second on the set list, and seems even more stunning than the first time I got to witness it. Just hearing this one track live makes the whole 20 hour journey worthwhile for me (well, that might be just a bit of an overstatement, but it's certainly worth the overstatement). What makes it even more special, if special is a word you'd want to use to describe this, is his rendition of 'Mother', as his mother's birthday would have been coming up this very week and his father and brother - both not frequent members of his audience - are present today. This makes it almost gut-wrenching to watch, but in the best way possible.

The set almost naturally comes to an end when Freddy just doesn't seem to be able to carry on any further. So no encore, and why should you? As John Peel once wrote: "I doubt that Leonardo, having completed work on The Last Supper, presumably to some local acclaim, would have interpreted this acclaim as a signal to paint in a few more figures, and find the utterly predictable making and taking of encores rather debasing." Indeed. Without an encore, it just seems that more real, which seems like the popular term to use these days.

As aforementioned, the evening was curated by Rainbow Arabia who also allowed themselves the closing slot on this evening. Much to my own regret, I had to miss their set as sleep deprivation and an utter lack of knowledge of where I was or how to get back to my hotel urged an early retirement. Thank God for friendly taxi-drivers.

NY

LA

Stats

Yup, some more stats, this time about the 7 months I spend in London doing my placement at UCL.

I was in London from 26 October 2009 to 23 May 2010, that's 7 months, or 29 weeks or 209 days. I have seen a total of 171 bands during this time, which is 24 bands per months or 6 per week. Impressive, no? In total, I have now seen 521 bands, so my London residency makes up 32% of my total. My files go back to 2004, so it took me about half a decade to see the other 68%. If I continue at this pace, I'll reach 1,000 on 11 December 2011.

Surprisingly maybe, I've still got a lot bands I want to see. These include:
Sufjan Stevens
Perfume Genius (and he's playing in London on 13 July)
Zola Jesus
Interpol with Carlos D (not gonna happen)
David Bowie
Crying (not sure whether they actually exist yet though)
Infinite Body
Maps & Atlases
Washed Out
Dum Dum Girls (playing de Affaire :) )
Toro Y Moi (also playing de Affaire)

Best bands I saw in London:
Former Ghosts

(appropriate distance)

Parenthetical Girls
LCD Soundsystem
Los Campesinos! (first time was the best)
Vega (though he was officially performing as Neon Indian)
Wolf Parade
Cold Cave
The National
YACHT
Phoenix
Beach House
Grizzly Bear
Xiu Xiu
Islet
Shy Child
Memory Tapes
Fever Ray
Mew
The Whip

Scarecrows on a killer slant

I love this band, and for once not because of their music, but because it reminds me of a week when everyone I met told me I was absolutely crazy: the Four Day Marches. I participated in this madness, and the day before I was supposed to start walking a marathon a day and would have to get up at the very appropriate time of 3 in the morning, I went to see Liars. They were awesome. I can now say that I did manage to finish on the fourth day, even after seeing Late of the Pier the night before and going out till half two in the morning. I especially loved my supposed insanity: the friends who where also walking the 40k thought I had completely lost it as they were happy to reach their bed at the end of the day and some of the party people at the festival believed I was taking drugs of some kind (which, just for the record: I was not). As to this video, given the awesomeness of the title, I am slightly disappointed, but hey, what else would you expect from Pitchfork?

Clip van de dag

De clip van de dag heeft elke dag een nieuwe clip, hopelijk zorgend voor een blijvende stroom van nieuwe, leuke, en/of goede muziek. Vandaag is de clip van de dag...

*tromgeroffel*


‘You Won’t B Here’ van Perfume Genius! Op 21 juni zal het debuut van Perfume Genius, ook wel Mike Genius uit Seattle, uitkomen onder de titel ‘Learning’, wat ook meteen een van de meest briljante nummers is die ik de laatste tijd gehoord heb. Om maar met wat namen te gooien: Perfume Genius klinkt een beetje als Bark Cat Bark met zang of Anthony Hegarty maar dan net-wat-minder-camp-maar-nog-steeds-heel-goed. De clip is niet bepaald opvallend, maar als je nog thuis woont bij je moeder zullen je middelen ook wel beperkt zijn. Voorlopig staat er alleen nog een London-date op het programma, en wel op 13 juli, wanneer ik net London verlaten heb zou hebben (note the doubt about actually leaving London before that date due to this announcement). Maar aan de positieve kant is dat ook net voor de Affaire, en gezien Los Campesinos! ook heeft geluisterd en nu op de bill staat, schat ik de kans reëel dat Perfume Genius hetzelfde doet. Yup, I deem my powers limitless. 






‘Evelyn McHale’ van Parenthetical Girls! “Evelyn McHale, a 23-year-old woman who jumped from the Empire State Building observation deck on May 1, 1947 and was photographed immediately after by Robert Wiles in beautifully serene repose atop a crushed car." En als je dat eenmaal hebt gevonden op Wikipedia, dan is de accompanying video met kalkoenen, kippen en een ezel natuurlijk meer dan logisch. Het nummer is afkomstig van het laatste album van Parenthetical Girls, dat nog steeds aan het uitkomen is. Patrick Wolf mag het misschien leuk vinden om zijn laatste album in twee delen uit te geven, (((Girls))) gaan daar overheen door hun album in vijf delen uit te brengen: iedere drie maanden één deel. Privilege part 1: On Death and Endearments kwam eerder dit jaar uit en het tweede deel zal snel volgen zodra ze dit hebben geschreven en opgenomen na hun korte Europese tour samen met Former Ghosts. Bijkomen zal sowieso ook even nodig zijn gezien alle 500 limited edition LPs met de hand genummerd zijn met het bloed van Zac Pennington. Nice.




‘Cover the Walls’ van Internet Forever! Hey, ik woon in London, zal ik dan ook maar iets dat daadwerkelijk uit London komt bij mijn clips van de dag doen? Okay, technisch gezien komt de band voor 1/3 uit Cambridge, maar de meerderheid is toch Londons - in ieder geval dat ze daar wonen, het aantal Londenaren dat ook daadwerkelijk als Londons zou kwalificeren is bedroevend laag. ‘Cover the Walls’ is de derde single van Internet Forever, die live ook zeer vermakelijk zijn - al stonden ze toen ik ze zag in het voorprogramma van Jeremy Jay, en het is niet heel moeilijk om een betere indruk te maken dan eerdergenoemde. Een debuutalbum is nog niet in de planning, maar erg lang zal dat, of in ieder geval een EP of some kind ook niet op zich laten wachten. Eerder deze maand releasden ze nog een single ‘Break Bones’ op het label Art Fag, waar ook bands als Best Coast en Dum Dum Girls bij thuis horen. Niet dat ik ook maar in enige mate een gelijkenis hoor met said bands, maar hey, oordeel zelf.