Category: Life

Since I got to New York 2 years ago (is it 2 years already? Yikes) I’ve been managing to get to a lot more gigs than I ever used to do in the UK. Last year I  went to 10 or so shows, including my personal highlight of the year of seeing The Police at the Virgin Festival (a special ‘between album’ show by Franz Ferdinand at the intimate Bowery Ballroom was a close second.)

This year is kicking off similarly as concert season gets up and running.

The first show of the year was Super Furry Animals (SFA) at the Bowery Ballroom, a quick 5 minute walk from my apartment. I’ve never been a fan enough to buy any of their CDs but I heard they were a decent live act. The show was definitely worth going to, the one disappointing part was the crowd who had pretty much halved in size by the time the band played ‘The Man Don’t Give a Fuck’ (pretty much the only song I know from hearing the band in other people’s college rooms in 1996(ish) .)

A week ago I saw Beth Orton on her first live tour for a couple of years. I remember first hearing Beth Orton on a Glastonbury show on the BBC in the summer of 96. Her first album, Trailer Park, came out later than year and has been a regular in my listening ever since, but I’ve never seen her perform. These days she’s dropped the electronica leanings she had back then (partly from her work with William Orbit and The Chemical Brothers) and her style is a very pleasing folk / indie crossover. Her live voice was a lot better than I thought it might be, she had a fun stage presence and I definitely hope to see her again in a few years time.

Finally for now I saw Hot Chip last night at the newly refurbished and renamed Music Hall of Williamsburg. Hot Chip’s ‘The Warning’ was the driving-force of the UK’s electro renaissance of a year or 2 ago. I liked it, but wasn’t overwhelmed, but this was another band I wanted to see because of the promise of their live act. Again, no disappointments here – they were energetic, unpretentious, producing a very tight show full of opportunities for the crowd to stretch their dancing legs. I think that seeing these guys in a couple of years with a little more experience under their belt at a bigger venue would be a fantastic experience.

All 3 of these venues are relatively small and it was nice to be able to get reasonably close to the artists at all of them. The Hiro Ballroom probably wins ‘best gig venue I’ve ever been to’ though – the sound was fabulous (especially for an acoustic show like Beth’s was) and the interior was lovely too, more than making up for the strange practice of keeping the crowd waiting outside for ages and only letting people in in small groups.

I already have several more shows lined up – the highlight of the summer so far is looking like the triple bill of REM, Modest Mouse and The National at Madison Square Garden, but it’s the unexpected surprises that I’m really looking forward to.

This entry is a little late coming, however I have a whole new batch of CDs arriving in the next week or so I need to clear this out!

Following my Spring music purchases, I collected some more over the summer – some bought, some given.

Jose Gonzalez is a Swedish spanish/folk/indie guitarist singer/songwriter of Argentinian descent. Confused? Don’t be. Just buy Veneer, turn the lights down, and let your ears tell you how much they love you.

I first heard Editors second album, An End Has a Start, at a July 4th party in Brooklyn. My immediate impression was that they had grown a long way, and that this was a really good album. Unfortunately after 2 or 3 listenings the impact was lost and ultimately I was disappointed. Birmingham’s answer to Interpol unfortunately they are not.

Belle & Sebastian’s The Boy With The Arab Strap has been one of the purchases this year that goes in the ‘buying the artists I listened to at college but never got around to buying’ bucket. Along with it (but unpictured in this list) go Echobelly’s On and Sleeper’s Smart. One interesting thing about Belle & Sebastian is that they sound a little like Nick Drake, but 25 years on. Both artists go in the category ‘music to wake up on a cold Sunday morning’ by.

Another British sophomore effort next – Arctic Monkeys Favourite Worst Nightmare. It doesn’t have the punch of the first album but still a worthwhile purchase. I’m looking forward to where these lads go next.

Hybrid are one of my favourite electronic music outfits. They play what I can only describe as orchestral, film soundtrack, trance. Wide Angle is one of their earlier efforts, but probably my favourite, I’d just never got around to getting it on CD. This version, Wider Angle, came with an enjoyable second disc which was a live show from around the time the album was made.

Mint Royale are another electronic group, and pop is.. is a fantastic ‘best of’ that I heard played very loudly while being driven back from Baltimore to Philadelphia from the Virgin Festival. Their music ranges from big beat (the remix of Terrorvision’s Tequila from ’99) through pop (Don’t Falter) to more Ibiza-friendly tracks (The Sexiest Man in Jamaica) As summer CDs go, this was a good’un.

Edan’s Beauty and the Beat came from the same car journey. Hip-hop using 70’s prog rock as the backing? Even a non hip-hop fan like me can’t argue with that.

Onto one of my most anticipated new albums of the year: Interpol’s Our Love to Admire. Unfortunately I felt about it the same way as I did when I saw them live – good, but not the jaw dropping feeling when I first heard their first 2 albums. My hope is that they’ll take this year as a stepping stone towards true greatness.

I enjoyed the Thea Gilmore album I bought in April, so in the summer I followed up with her earlier effort, Avalanche, my dad’s favourite. I don’t know why, but I did actually prefer Harpo’s Ghost. I think it maybe the higher production values actually worked out for her on the later album.

Talking of Dad, he bought me Ryan Adams’ latest (at the time) Easy Tiger for my birthday. I’ve only listened to this a couple of times and it didn’t grab me but I have an earlier Ryan CD coming soon and look forward to a comparison of a bunch of his albums.

Also a gift was Bruce Springsteen’s We shall overcome – The Seeger Sessions. This a very un-Bruce album, being covers of american folk songs. While I appreciated it, I didn’t necessarily enjoy it. I’m looking forward to getting Magic, his latest album of a more usual type.

Yikes, a third British sophomore (I really should have sorted the CDs out a little better) – this time Bloc Party’s A Weekend in the City. Some of the youthful enthusiasm seems lost (there’s no Helicopter on here) but I think it works better as a complete album. They were good live in September too, better than I expected.

I’ve never owned any Manic Street Preachers CDs and their latest record Send Away the Tigers got good reviews. They were valid – this is a great piece of energy-filled brit pop, harkening back to the summer of ’96. More to come on the Manics in my next list.

Closing up this summery collection is the ’07 release from the Chemical Brothers: We Are The Night. This was a big disappointment – there was nothing new here (including a bunch of re-used samples from previous albums), apart from the terrible totally random track The Salmon Dance. I’m a big Chemical’s fan, but this album and the disappointing show at the Hammerstein Ballroom makes me think their days may be over. I hope not.

So that’s an end to this list, but I have 15 new CDs winging their way to me from Amazon, plus a couple of CDs that I got for Christmas so there’ll be another one soon!

Last night I got back very late (about 3am) from the Virgin music Festival in Baltimore. Here’s a write-up…

We arrived fairly late on Saturday afternoon. We missed Amy Winehouse (wasn’t worried about that) and Felix Da Housecat (which upset me more.) Our tardiness did mean that I got to see the Baltimore harbour, and meant we avoided the worst of the 100 degree heat.

On arrival Peter Bjorn and John were playing. I hadn’t heard them before, but they definitely went in my ‘meh’ bucket. From there we went (via the bar!) on our first of many visits to the dance tent. Danny Tenaglia was playing, mostly his traditional NYC house and less of the tribal stuff he (apparently) plays these days. It was crazily hot, but we were in the mood for a dance so duely joined the sweaty collective for half an hour or so.

The other trip to the dance tent for the day was for Sasha & John Digweed, 2 of my dance music heroes who I’ve never seen play before. Digweed started the set with an accessible but typically Digweed-esque prog mix-up. Sasha then took over the ropes after about 30 minutes and played some festival-friendly trance. Cue me dancing like a madman and glad that I’d drunk about 2 litres of water already that day. 🙂 No sign of Xpander (at least while I was there) but was still great fun, I hope one of these 2 comes to play at Studio B some time (hmm, I’m missing a blog entry somewhere.)

We also took brief trips to the south stage to see LCD Soundsystem (I need to check these guys out) and TV on the Radio (another meh.)

The real treat of the day (and the biggest draw for me to go at all) was The Police. I remember ‘permanently borrowing’ the Synchronicity album from my dad when I was about 8 (sorry Dad!) and it was huge part of my musical upbringing. I was surprised and thrilled earlier in the year to hear they were reforming for a tour. They did not disappoint. I know this tour has been pretty intense, but I was extremely impressed with how tight the 3 played considering they haven’t been together for over 20 years. Sting, Andy and Stuart are all fabulous instrumentalists and it was a pleasure to watch them belt out all the classics. The highlight was probably a slightly re-envisioned Wrapped Around Your Finger, but the whole set was thoroughly enjoyable. Hats off also to the concert organisers – considering this was an outdoor festival gig the sound was very good with punchy bass and clear vocals.

Onto Day 2. I was hoping to see Girl Talk but due to a lazy brunch we only made it to the Pimlico racecourse most of the way into Dieselboy & Andy C’s Sunday lunchtime drum ‘n’ bass set. This wasn’t really my thing (mostly because I’ve not been to many d ‘n’ b nights out) but there was no denying the crowd (and some of my friends!) were loving it.

I liked Panic! At the Disco but they didn’t have too much depth. They were followed up by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs who I really just don’t get. I know Karen O is a pretty extravagant frontwoman but I didn’t enjoy them. I think I need to borrow last year’s album off of someone to try them properly.

The biggest surprise of the weekend was probably yet another trip to the dance tent for Infected Mushroom. I’d never heard of them before but their guitar-led psy-trance was just what the mid-afternoon doctor ordered. Thankfully I’d drunk even more water on Sunday and the temperature had dipped because my inner raver had it’s way. Just to top it off Matisyahu lent a hand on vocals at one point – crazyness!

After visits to listen to the Wu Tang Clan (I still don’t get hip hop…) and a brief listen to The Crystal Method DJing (I was danced out by this point) the rain started coming down and we decided to call it a day. I missed Interpol (but I’ll probably go and see them in NYC anyway) and the Smashing Pumpkins but we’d already had a fantastic weekend.

Will I go back next year? Well it depends on the line-up I think. Someone like The Police playing would be a big draw, but I think I might do Austin City Limits next year as an excuse to see another US city.

As you may have figured out from my last post, I still have an inner raver. Yes, I know when you’re 29 the thing you’re supposed to be doing at midnight on Saturday is putting away the pipe and slippers and drinking a nice mug of warm cocoa before tucking in for the evening. But that’s not for me.

What I really enjoy every now and then is to listen to some good dance music, dance till my legs ache, with a whole bunch of friendly people around me doing exactly the same thing. It wasn’t hard to do when I lived in London. The End, Turnmills and Fabric when you picked the right nights were little pieces of electronic heaven.

New York City has proven to be more than a little disappointing on this front though, and it’s not just me. Several friends of mine who are NYC locals say ‘yeah, there’s no decent clubs here any more’. At the end of May I went to Cielo, supposedly one of the better clubs in the city, and was extremely disappointed. The venue was great, the music was so-so but the worst thing was the crowd – AWFUL! I like clubs where the people are there mostly to enjoy the music, and yes sure there’s always a bit of flirting on the side. But in NYC, in Manhattan at least (and concentrated in the Meatpacking district on the weekend), it’s all about ‘the scene’ – what you look like, how you’re dressed, whether you’ve got the greenbacks to spend on ‘bottle service’ (there’s a whole rant in me on that subject alone) and seemingly almost everyone is there for some kind of gratuitous mating ritual.

As you can tell, I’d pretty much assumed that my clubbing-life was over. That’s OK, there’s plenty of other things in my new home to keep me occupied. But little did I know that in a corner of Brooklyn a little spark of healthy rave-dom lived on…

I’d never come across Green Velvet before, but he’s a really rather good house / trance DJ. When one of my friends suggested an outing to Studio B to see him I was pretty convinced I was going to be as disappointed as ever by the New York party scene. But how wrong was I. Finally a good venue, GREAT DJing (when he dropped Blue Monday in the middle of an already wonderful sequence I thought I was going to cry) and *GASP* a crowd that actually wanted to be there for the music! An amazingly pleasant surprise and should I decide to keep the pipe & slippers waiting a little while longer, I’ll be making return trips.

The moral of the story? There are good parties left in New York, but you’re probably going to have to leave Manhattan for them.