report from the fall
so me and tommi went and saw the mighty fall play at the independent last night for their first of two shows there, featuring their new guitarist, bassist, and drummer, as their previous members had quit the band a week earlier in phoenix and flown back to england. it was pretty fucking rad, as it had all of the elements of a good show - a shitty opening band, a noise multi-media performance, a whole lotta of rock, and a hot indie mod boy all up next to me.
the opening band was birdmonster. they were cute. the bass player seemed like a real hottie, but up close, ehh, not so much. the guitarist vocalist was pretty hot for a white boy though, working the side burns, looking like springsteen sweating and playing his derivative indie rock anthems tired and true. they were spunky, they had energy, and maybe in another context they might not have totally sucked. i hollered, turn up the fucking bass, but i realized later that it was so quiet cuz the swarthy little beast couldn't barely play, at least not with any consistency that involved the dexterity of hitting less than all four strings at once. he was serviceable at the tamborine tho, i'll give him that. the lead guitarist bounced around like a giant douche, their rock moves ever so cliched. i dunno what they were singing about. they were from san francisco, furthering my hypothesis that all bands from SF suck, at least the semi-popular ones. but i don't see that many local bands, so who am i to really say. anyway, they sucked, but i woulda fucked the singer.
so then we got this multi-media noise thing, which was actually really cool. the guy played short clips of famous rock stars, like prince, elvis, barbara streisand, and michael jackson, in a back and forth loops so as to isolate the charisma and amplify the ridiculousness of their various performative aspects, essentially the sillyness in their facial movements. some asshole yelled out you suck, i yelled out this is awesome. i was laughing like hell, and while it was a bit taxing, i think a fair amount of the audience enjoyed it, as it certainly didn't take itself to seriously.
at around this point i had well noticed the hot white mod boy in my vicinity. what stood out and garnered my appreciation was that he was totally dressed up as the guy on the cover of the 50,000 fall fans can't be wrong cd, with a diamond pattern sweater and shit. plus and fine stylish haircut and a lovely smile. i wanted to immediately go up to him and declare friendship with this kindred spirit. instead we kinda smiled intermitently at each other in anticipation of the fall coming on. after about the second song he hollered out "i am curious oranj" a reference i let him know i registered and appreciated. i asked him if he had seen them play before, and he said that it was also his first time. we were at the front of the stage, eventually he moved closer to the center, while i stayed off a bit to the right so as to avoid being any closer to the mosh area. at one point he did look back, all smiles to check if i was enjoying the performance as much as he did - i very much was and knodded back. the show totally rocked. mark e smith even smiled whilst performing! the kids on the fall website who have been following the band on tour declared that it was a legendary show and that the band were in top form. the most striking aspect was how mark e smith used the stage and his band's amps as sort of a mixing board, going up to amps, twiddling knobs a cavaler assuredness, changing the sound dynamic of an instrument, and then changing it back, all within the proper time context the song. from what i've read this is totally his thing, and i can also see how it might piss off ego-centric musicians, e.g. almost all musicians. but the execution was brillant. the guitar should be louder. muffle the bass for a bit. turn down the synth, turn up the synth. that kick drum don't need no fucking mic. it was pretty rad. i couldn't hardly hear a damn thing he hollered, it was almost all distorted bass and drums with some synth from where i was at, but sounded hella good, as i drunkenly banged my hands on the stage along to the beat. pacifying joint, what about us?, and blindness were all hella rad, the whole audience singing along to the chorus of what about us and shit. bildo really should have been there!
after the show ended i had to at least still talk to the cute boy even as i had somewhat sobered up. i said hey, i really like your sweater, it's totally cool, and i meant it with all sincerity, maybe too much sincerity, i don't know if he knew how to take it, i probably looked like a jackass. i introduced myself, his name was nick, tommi did the intro thing too, and cute boy introduced himself as nicholas to tommi. what did that mean? tommi said, i really like your hair. and then all of a sudden this chick with long stringy dyed magenta hair appeared and the two of them disappeared. heartbroken, tommi and i left the club. tommi said maybe we'd see the kid around, perhaps true. i was gonna say, be in my fake fucking band, haha. how cool what that have been? going trolling for cute boys to be in yr band fall concerts, now that's epic.
the opening band was birdmonster. they were cute. the bass player seemed like a real hottie, but up close, ehh, not so much. the guitarist vocalist was pretty hot for a white boy though, working the side burns, looking like springsteen sweating and playing his derivative indie rock anthems tired and true. they were spunky, they had energy, and maybe in another context they might not have totally sucked. i hollered, turn up the fucking bass, but i realized later that it was so quiet cuz the swarthy little beast couldn't barely play, at least not with any consistency that involved the dexterity of hitting less than all four strings at once. he was serviceable at the tamborine tho, i'll give him that. the lead guitarist bounced around like a giant douche, their rock moves ever so cliched. i dunno what they were singing about. they were from san francisco, furthering my hypothesis that all bands from SF suck, at least the semi-popular ones. but i don't see that many local bands, so who am i to really say. anyway, they sucked, but i woulda fucked the singer.
so then we got this multi-media noise thing, which was actually really cool. the guy played short clips of famous rock stars, like prince, elvis, barbara streisand, and michael jackson, in a back and forth loops so as to isolate the charisma and amplify the ridiculousness of their various performative aspects, essentially the sillyness in their facial movements. some asshole yelled out you suck, i yelled out this is awesome. i was laughing like hell, and while it was a bit taxing, i think a fair amount of the audience enjoyed it, as it certainly didn't take itself to seriously.
at around this point i had well noticed the hot white mod boy in my vicinity. what stood out and garnered my appreciation was that he was totally dressed up as the guy on the cover of the 50,000 fall fans can't be wrong cd, with a diamond pattern sweater and shit. plus and fine stylish haircut and a lovely smile. i wanted to immediately go up to him and declare friendship with this kindred spirit. instead we kinda smiled intermitently at each other in anticipation of the fall coming on. after about the second song he hollered out "i am curious oranj" a reference i let him know i registered and appreciated. i asked him if he had seen them play before, and he said that it was also his first time. we were at the front of the stage, eventually he moved closer to the center, while i stayed off a bit to the right so as to avoid being any closer to the mosh area. at one point he did look back, all smiles to check if i was enjoying the performance as much as he did - i very much was and knodded back. the show totally rocked. mark e smith even smiled whilst performing! the kids on the fall website who have been following the band on tour declared that it was a legendary show and that the band were in top form. the most striking aspect was how mark e smith used the stage and his band's amps as sort of a mixing board, going up to amps, twiddling knobs a cavaler assuredness, changing the sound dynamic of an instrument, and then changing it back, all within the proper time context the song. from what i've read this is totally his thing, and i can also see how it might piss off ego-centric musicians, e.g. almost all musicians. but the execution was brillant. the guitar should be louder. muffle the bass for a bit. turn down the synth, turn up the synth. that kick drum don't need no fucking mic. it was pretty rad. i couldn't hardly hear a damn thing he hollered, it was almost all distorted bass and drums with some synth from where i was at, but sounded hella good, as i drunkenly banged my hands on the stage along to the beat. pacifying joint, what about us?, and blindness were all hella rad, the whole audience singing along to the chorus of what about us and shit. bildo really should have been there!
after the show ended i had to at least still talk to the cute boy even as i had somewhat sobered up. i said hey, i really like your sweater, it's totally cool, and i meant it with all sincerity, maybe too much sincerity, i don't know if he knew how to take it, i probably looked like a jackass. i introduced myself, his name was nick, tommi did the intro thing too, and cute boy introduced himself as nicholas to tommi. what did that mean? tommi said, i really like your hair. and then all of a sudden this chick with long stringy dyed magenta hair appeared and the two of them disappeared. heartbroken, tommi and i left the club. tommi said maybe we'd see the kid around, perhaps true. i was gonna say, be in my fake fucking band, haha. how cool what that have been? going trolling for cute boys to be in yr band fall concerts, now that's epic.
posted by eriq at 9:38 PM
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