It’s back to The Independent to see Tiga perform! Booka Shade was a great show as was RJDJ years back. The venue, while hard to find parking, is fairly decent and the staff is usually courteous so this can’t be so bad a night, eh? Oh how wrong I was!
Rarely do I get to a show purposely before the headlining act goes on stage. I have only been to a few shows where the preshow acts are decent. When I do accidently catch one and it’s great, I’m always amazed. The Tiga show at The Independent was one of the worst I have had the pleasure of witnessing. We head in around 10pm and “DJ Omar” is finishing up his set of mediocre remixes of decent mainstream tracks and by 10:30 or so (and I only put the myspace link up for posterity but I do not suggest clicking it) Jaimie Fanatic prances up to the center stage with his Macbook to let us listen to some of his new beats. This guy (”Jamie Fantastic” as I mistakingly refered to him as) worked the knobs in a most enthusiastic fashion (including the crowd-pumping favorites Tomahawk Chop, Lasso Whirl, and Resuscitation Press) but only ear-splitting laser noises came out of the speakers. Truly, this was the single worst thing I have ever heard (and I listened to that terrible Animal Collective ”Animal Crack Box” album). I’d hate to even try to pinpoint the worst part of his act but it was probably the Rage Against the Machine forced audience participation remix. At one point, people were just booing in an effort to get him to stop his set and leave.
Finally around 11:45 Tiga starts to set up. It only takes a few minutes as he’s only there to “spin” it seems. $18 and I can hear him spin some dated 90’s progressive jungle house nonsense? 10 minutes into his set and he takes off his jacket to reveal some free ad space on his chest promoting his own album. Bravo, sir. 30 minutes into his set we decide to leave. I was a bit upset that I couldn’t bring my camera to the show as it was deemed “too professional” by the ticketers but in the end, I missed nothing. Here’s a G1 Phone pic of Tiga doing something.
”Why did you even go?” you ask? Well, Tiga’s last album ”Sexor” was actually pretty cool and the new one “Ciao!” has some great sounds going on. Not only that, but Tiga, himself, is actually a pretty amusing guy. Here, check out this “interview” he did. It’s full of scripted douchebaggery as he makes himself out to be Canada’s best export.
I missed Passion Pit last Tuesday but made it to this? Pfft. . .my priorities are all mixed up. Do yourself a favor and snag their latest album “Manners.” It expands their “Chunk of Change” EP with more feel good music (even if you think Michael Angelakos’ voice is abrasive).
May 4th - I had the greatest pleasure of witnessing Ratatat play at Brisbane’s newest club, the Hi-Fi at West End. I admit, I wasn’t too sure of Ratatat’s popularity in Brisbane, and expected a smaller crowd. It’s not necessarily that Ratatat is expected to be too ‘experiemental’ for the popular ‘youth’ taste - not at all, infact its the fact that their raw combination of synth and guitar that successfully catch new listeners are, by opinion, setting a change in trends of popular music to begin with - and particularly with younger ‘commercial’ audiences (well… in Brisbane, anyway) - but I digress…
So a large crowd at the Hi-Fi roared as Mike Stroud & Evan mast came on stage - approaching a set up of guitar and bass, synth, sampler pads, congos & toms and best of all… the classic auto-harp. Mike in particular is quite theatrical, as his guitar licks soar over the Even’s rumble bass, supported by their backing of sequenced melodic and distortions.
While being a simple set up, with only the two fellow strutting around with their bass & guitar - the visuals we as hoped for, with some of the best visual manipulation to back the surreal awe of Ratatat’s unique sound. An example of this was the very cool video clip for their track: Shempi
Overall, an impressive show to say the least - if you’re not familiar with Ratatat’s raw electronic/guitar instumental music, I urge you to check out their myspace for a listen.
Let me tell you something about The Glimmers. The Belgium duo of Mo Becha and David “Benoelie” Fouquaert have a couple of great mix albums with the FabricLive and DJ Kicks series respectively. Now, let me tell you something else. They blew it at the Paradise Lounge last Saturday (March 28th). It could have been for several reasons, but they were underwhelming and we ended up leaving mid-set (which I rarely do if ever). We were told they’d come on around 12:45 but it ended up being around 1:30 before they even got started (*yawn*) and I believe they might have been somewhat drunk (the club was mostly empty all night so perhaps they were waiting for maximum patronage). All in all, they were a complete train wreck as they fumbled CDs around for uninspired music offerings and mixed tracks with the grace of a deaf person without arms. On the plus side, local musician Hatchback saved the night (as a bonus, he has an album out on Lo Recordings so I should have known he’d have a good set).
Not only was Hatchback a pleasant surprise, but such club staples as “Lonely Dancing Girl,” “Fat Guy Who Can’t Dance but Dammit He Tries,” and “Two Party Boys Dancing Too Close” (pictured below next to The Glimmers) made their debuts on the dance floor. Here’s hoping this night was just a fluke for The Glimmers.
Did I go see Booka Shade, you ask? Well, of course I went to see them live at the Independent last night! There was a very diverse crowd of spectators there to cheer them on. I couldn’t remember who I last saw at The Independent until I walked in and saw various photos of notable guests along the entrance hall and then it hit me. I dragged bazooie with me a few years back to see RJD2 and stole his wife’s ticket as they sold out and forced her to go watch some movie down the block. She was a good sport about that.
The show itself started around 10:45 and lasted until about midnight. Sometimes I feel a little cheated for spending $25 on a ticket for an hour of music but honestly, if it’s as jam-packed with excitement as a Booka Shade show, you really won’t have buyer’s remorse. They even played an abridged version of their O Superman remix (originally by Laurie Anderson). Why Walter felt the need to lip-sync during the track is beyond me but as long as he was having fun. . .
Though honestly, with the photos I take it could have easily been any electronic duo but it was in fact Arno Kammermeier on drums and Walter Merziger on synths. Oh and they had an Apple laptop between them. . .I’m sure it probably had Ableton Live running. . .most likely
We took an adventurous trip up to San Francisco Sunday to visit the piers and eat at a restaurant no one should ever really eat at, the Rainforest Cafe (side point, when I stepped foot into RFC, I realized that I had been to the one near Disney World about 20 years ago and it looked exactly the same). Along our walk to the restaurant, we passed by a merry assortment of street performers and ended up at the breakdancing circle over near Pier 39. The same gentleman I’ve seen several times now over the years hosts a group of young dancers with the “above the influence” theme. Good for them, I guess. So, we gathered around the dance mat constructed of the finest cardboard boxes and packing tape and watched as they breaked it like it was the 80s (complete with a portable mic and ghettoblaster pumping out some Planet Rock derivative).
Many more photos taken with my new camera of some slick moves for your enjoyment coming up!
First, off I should mention that I’m no fan of the Australian drum’n'bass outfit known as Pendulum. I only know a handful of their work but Brian admires them and Jarrett (of JX2) as well (and I believe Adam does too so I’m pretty much an odd man out here). But, I decided to join Brian in going to see them up at the Regency on Tuesday night anyways.
It was a surprisingly decent show that started at a great time (10pm) and ended at a reasonable hour. To me, Pendulum is a cross between Rage Against the Machine and Prodigy. It was a fun mix to bounce to but their MC, Ben “The Verse” Mount, isn’t too appealing to me. I don’t know what it is about that Australian accent, but it just doesn’t work for me (though he did have TONS of energy that was good for the show). Other than that, I was amazed that Paul Kodish kept quite an accurate beat on live drums and the lead vocalist and guitar-synth player, Rob Swire kept the music interesting and varied.
And that, folks, is what we call a crappy camera phone photo that may or may not be proof that I went to see some lights and moving objects!
It was fifteen dollars, approximately $35 in drinks sipped, and 1:20 AM when the beanie-capped, fully bearded Lindstrom finally started working magic. It was short lived at only about 70 minutes worth of material but it was a fantastic Norwegian space-disco voyage combining material from his ‘It’s a Feedelity Affair’ and ‘Where You Go I Go Too’ albums. It’s unfortunate but some asses in the balcony were throwing their drinks down on the people dancing and caused an electrical short and killed the set midway through. After it got going again, it was all good (and hopefully said asses were ejected from the club). We didn’t stay around for the remaining dj set (as it was 2:30 and the record vibe was starting off kinda lame) but fun times were had. I’d say that Paradise Lounge is actually a pretty decent club with two floors of music and three bars (with acceptable beer even) except they let in WAY too many people. It was almost impossible to move around. I’m surprised someone didn’t catch on fire in the “lounge” section upstairs.
Why yes, we were that close. Is that Ableton Live I see there, Hans?
PLUGS: Not that he updates but you can catch his “personal myspace music section” over here. Also, thanks to my buddy Tom for taking the photo. The fancy G1 phone doesn’t even attempt to take photos in the dark. I guess I’m going to have to get myself a “club cam” at some point.
