Japandroids @ Lifetime Collective April 30, 2010

Great live performance by this two-men only band.
http://www.myspace.com/japandroids

Black Lips and Deerhunter prove you can never have too much of a good thing

By Jenny Charlesworth (Georgia Straight)

At the Commodore Ballroom, on Thursday, July 23




















photo: sarah bastin / Flickr

If you can make it through Groundhog Day without furiously chucking your remote at the TV during the painfully repetitive 1993 cult classic, then the Black Lips–Deerhunter double bill last Thursday night at the Commodore wouldn't have fazed you at all.

The pairing of the lo-fi Atlanta bands is a no-brainer as far as crowd-pleasers go, but you've got to ask yourself: how many times are these guys going to repeat this particular tour configuration. Isn't it a bit much to hit Vancouver three times in the span of two years on this seemingly never-ending Black Lips–Deerhunter package?

Whatever the reason—a wacky time loop or a secret love affair between Black Lips bassist Jared Swilley and Deerhunter lead singer Bradford Cox—it's a damn good thing that both sets of Pitchfork poster boys were in top form on this evening.

Thanks to the perfect mashup of colourful acid-flashback-inducing stage lights, shoegazing psych-pop, and rambunctious '60s-tinged flower-punk, debating how high the night registered on the déjà vu meter seemed like the last thing on anyone's mind. The packed room—an intriguing mix of squeaky-clean UBC students still trying to get their bearings after a harrowing stint tree-planting up north and beer-guzzling hipsters—was about as gung ho as Rosie O'Donnell in front of a stack of Burger King Double Whoppers.

While Deerhunter's opening set was more subdued than that of its spunky Vice-sanctioned counterparts, the quartet's experimental jams still managed to whip those front and centre into a reverb-loving frenzy. During hypnotic numbers like the far-out soundscape “Cryptograms” and the relaxed, Tropicália-tinged “Rainwater Cassette Exchange”, there was no sign that the crowd's members were anxious for the mayhem of the Black Lips—arguably the bigger draw of the evening.

But once the Lips arrived, the dance floor was a swarming mess of outreached arms and kicking legs, as overzealous crowd surfers rode the buck-wild throng to Black Lips anthems like “Starting Over”, “Sea of Blasphemy”, and “Not a Problem”. Given the group's highly publicized history of debauched show antics, it wasn't that surprising that the southern punks didn't seem concerned by the insane onslaught of stage divers throughout their set. What was baffling, though, was that the guys didn't pummel the dumb shlub who, after clawing his way on-stage, slow-danced like a sedated gorilla alongside some half-baked Aldo sales associate, all within steps of guitarist-vocalist Cole Alexander's mike stand. Perhaps the members of the foursome knew that its adoring fans would take care of them

And that's exactly what happened when a Good Samaritan took matters into his own hands and leapt on-stage, flinging the doucheface back into the throbbing masses below. As the night went on, the chaotic energy never let up, which was excellent news for best buds Black Lips and Deerhunter. Apparently, you can never have too much of a good thing.

Video impressions from the folk festival 2009

By now, some of the Vancouver Folk Festival highlights found their way to Youtube. For example, Great Lake Swimmers with their hit "Your Rocky Spine"




Or Geoff Berner, the Vancouverian "wunderkind" and enfant terrible of folk, with his song "My half-German girlfriend"




Finally, in comparison to Geoff Berner, the local facebook-mySpace-Twitter-shooting-star Dan Mangan's song "robot" is also about love but it's just cute.

Lets play Yoga - follow your bliss!

Last Saturday Anja, Rabea and I went to the Vancouver Yogathon & Blissfest, an anual fundraising event to raise money forcamp moomba, a summer camp for children with HIV/AIDS. After having difficulties to find the Thunderbird stadium in the labyrinth of UBC we were overwhelmed and infected by the energy and bliss of about 2000 participants. Before the actual Yoga programm there was nice Yoga Rock from Scatterheart and a marketplace for all kinds of products connected to Yoga (or not).
The programm was led by Eoin Finn according to his Facebook page a "yogi, writer, surfer, blissologist and ocean worshipper" and a star in the Vancouver Yoga community. He was supported by a team of eight other Yoga teachers including Bernie, Semperviva Yin expert, and Rebecca, the power flow lady. They took turns in describing poses that combined Yin elements, Hatha and Vinyasa Power flow.
The sun was burning on us all day and after an hour of Yoga it was really difficult to focus. We drank litres of water and the provided cereal bars gave back some energy. We still needed cooling of in the ocean at Spanish banks afterwards.


Welcome speech by mayor Gregor Robertson


Scatterhearts singer Jesse Enright showing off :-)


bowing to the sun and whatever else.


Feel the Bliss?

Grouper live @ Zulu Records

Last Sunday, Grouper, the opener of Animal Collective, played a short live gig at Zulu Records. Although she made a slightly bored impression, it was amazing to see her handling all those little cassette recorders which she looped and accompanied with her voice and her guitar, creating a dark ambient sound landscape.

electronic music

Als wir nach Kanada gegangen waren, hatte ich noch einen Artikel in der de:bug gelesen, dass inzwischen alle elektronisch ausgerichteten Musiker aus Kanada in Berlin lebten (abgesehen von Akufen). Der erste Eindruck schien dies zu bestätigen, denn Punk, Indie, Folk, Country, Metal und die unseligen Nickelback sind allgegenwärtig. Mittlerweile sind aber doch ein paar elektronische Nachwuchskünstler hervorgetreten:

- Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles (was vom Namen her wie eine schlechte EBM Combo klingt, ist feinster Techno)
- Thunderheist - Thunderheist (sehr tanzbar, erinnert mich manchmal an Peaches. Ach ja, Peaches hat auch ein neues Album am Start)
- MSRTKRFT (ganz guter DJ)

Bezeichnenderweise wurden die oben aufgezählten Acts bereits dadurch geadelt, dass sie beim diesjährigen MELT auftreten...

Sebastian Grainger without the Mountains

Yesterday at the free and live performance by Sebastian Grainger from Sebastian Grainger and the Mountains, though without the mountains this time, at the world's greatest record shop, Zulu Records.

Although, he was more talking weird than actually playing: "I wanna tell a story. Actually, it's more of a confession. I've been drinking too much. End of story." "You wanna talk about economy? I've heard there is a rezession going on. Buy real estate now!" "Should I smash my guitar now?" "How about going shoplifting right now - we all go to XXX and steal kale."



Funny guy!

Hank Pine and Lily Fawn

You think, comic books and live guitar music with a mariachi-like trumpet and background-singers, dressed up as nun, won't go together? Hell, it does!





It was the night when Broken Social Scene played some sold-out big stage and we didn't get any tickets anymore that we went to the free-by-donation afterhour session of the Push club where Hank Pine and Lily Fawn from Victoria performed. They are a performer and comic book drawer duo, who dress up like their comic characters on stage, performing a mixture of music with a true punk spirit.



The atmosphere was great and despite seating, most people got up and started dancing, many of them dressed up for the night, too. And last not least, the music was great too as you can listen yourself on MySpace or watch on Youtube (unfortunately, a less impressive night where they played without this week's background band):



Screw Broken Social Scene, this was way better !

Sirens

Until febuary 8th there will be the 5th annual PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. Today we went to see Siren. I was totally unprepared, just new it would be some kind of art installation. What it really was is hard to describe but I will try:
Siren is an audiovisual experience. On the performance site there are large metal tripods from one up to three metres tall. They have rotating arms powered by motors, electronic tone generators (sirens) and a speaker at each end. It starts slowly. The performers consecutively switch the "instruments" and tune the sound. When they are all running they create a chorus of analog sounds. They also start spinning, some slow some faster. The audience can wander around the tripods freely while the performers tune the oscillators to change the musical composition and try not to get hit by one of the rotating arms. The small red LEDs at the end of each arms trace circles of light as the arms rapidly rotate, which is expereinced best when there is no other light (see images below). I enjoyed this unusual experience with sound and light very much. If you have the chance, go see it!


photo: Ray Lee; You can watch videos on the website but its not nearly the same experience then when you see it real

Gang Violence at New Year's Eve

Don't worry - we didn't get involved into gang violence but that's the name of a local music band...

New Year's Eve, we had spent with Anja (out of Brackenheim Blog) and Rabea, first cooking at our appartment. Later, we went to the "Emergency Room VS Icecream Social" party at Biltmore Cabaret. Emergeny Room is the probably hottest music label in Vancouver and they presented the band "Gang Violence", who played pretty loud noisy music.


In contrast, Icecream Social is a party DJ playing 50s and 60s music, famous four his great parties and many guests had dressed up with pettycoats and similar clothes. If you think, these two music directions don't get along, well, it was interesting, but somehow, it fits. Or, as Anja said, it was a "Potpourri, ein bunter Strauss an Melodien".

















Photos: Steve Louie Photography @ Flickr

Jingle Bells Rock

We went to Jingle Bells Rock before Christmas, seeing The Dears, Tokyo Police Club and Metric with Emily Haines live (unfortunately, we had missed the first band, Sebastian Grainger and...). In contrast to our previous concert visit in an underground venue, this official event took place in a run-down theatre with seating though no heating. Most people stood up to the music later, but still, it was somehow a strange atmosphere. Perhaps, because it was so bitterly cold. At least, the bands made it easy to move to.

The seven, around our age old, members of The Dears presented pretty good craftmanship with a cude keyboarder and a great Murray Lightburn as singer/gitarist.















Afterwards the much younger and hip Tokyo Police Club rocked the younger part of the crowd with their 2-minutes songs. Sometimes, we had problems distinguishing their songs but who cares - they are all good.














Last not least, Metric entered the stage with their "hearts beating like a hammer" and I wondered who that was. How was that possible, I didn't recognize their lead singer and keyboarder (did I mention that I love keyboards?) Emily Haines who is also well-known for her solo projects. Instead, I bet that it was an 80s band, so 80s-like they sounded. But no, it was Canada's famous Indie band Metric! Just bought their latest record a day after.














(Source of the photos: Flickr)