tv on the radio vs mellowdrone
me and tommi went and saw tv on the radio play at the independent on tuesday night. it was pretty cool. the opening band was called celebration, and while i dug their drummer and all the odd-meter shit, and the presence of a real bona-fide organ, i just couldn't get into the singer. like i felt like her voice just wasn't all that strong and she was just mainly screechy the fucking time. maybe it works better on record, but i thought she was pretty tuneless and lacking artfullness or subtlety. there were some good songs and i was pretty close to buying their cd, but in the end i was like fuck it.
as for the indie rock bellys of tv on the radio, seriously boys, yr major label deal making ya all hella fat now, ain't it? the hottest guy was the hired drummer who also played some accordion and guitar at the end. as for the band, well i thought the singer dude's voice would sound better, but really it was just all over the top emoting, again, not a lot of subtelty. i understand that their is a certain messy murkiness to their sound, but considering how polished the rhthym section rock aspect was as grafted onto their live performance, a lot of the falsetto vocals and guitar by the afro guy came off as lazy, err perhaps, stoned as fuck? white boy was just plain embarassing to watch, bobbing and sweating profusly in excitement at being in the presence of music making, shall we say, the rock. though he redeemed himself quite nicely with his damn impressive beat boxing on the last tune, ambulence. while the show was not revelatory, and the amount of buzz of these fatties surprises me, given that they aren't that terribly accessable or melodic, with the tunes that hit, they fucking hit and filled the audience with energy. guess i was just expecting a little bit more, more craft maybe.
so we went and saw mellowdrone on wednesday night, of which i am familiar with throught the rantings of Jaye of popperattic in LA, who saw them open for Johnny Marr several years ago, saying the use of guitar opened her mind up or some shit. anyway, at some point i had downloaded some of their eps off the internet, and remember that a few songs were really good, but nothing really held my attention. but for $7 and my first wednesday night off in like forever, why not check it out.
opening up was an emo-pop-punk band called lola ray. they were pretty terrible, sounded like fall out boy or any other crap on mtv that's market to adolescent girls. they'll never make it in this racist ass country/music business cuz they got an asian boy singer, but damn was he cute! all skinny with peircings and they were in shirts and ties, fucking hottie. their second song was alright in it's bouncyness, but god damn the lyrics throughout were horrible, "i need to be with you...ooooh oooooh oooooh...being inside of you, changed the way i feel" type horse shit.
mellowdrone was ok. i really don't like bands that play to pointless drum loops. just do it all live already, nobody can hear the fucking electronics anyways once the drums start pounding. fucking wankerish. the chick on keyboards didn't seem to do anything, and the main guy's guitar was barely audible. but the lead guitarist, what wonderful reverby chorused tones coming from him, good stuff. the music was hit or miss, but their were a couple songs that really stood out. "oh my" was totally a hit single (though when i put on their cd, it sounds like shit, no hit single there), and the second to last tune had a great minor major 7th type chord progression that should have gone long or reprised, cuz that melody was the heart of the song and the essense of music. no one care about the stupid verse and chorus, gives us the bridge and the vamp. what was most shocking however was the fact that it took me nearly half their set to realize who he was aping vocally, especially when it was so obviously julian casablancas from the strokes. that was annoying. even better was the song of which the verse was the exact same chord progression to "eyes without a face" by billy idol. i hollered out my eureka moment, this is billy idol, much to the evil glares of young females their to revel. whatever, fuck them. anyways, at the end of the show tommi and i came to the conclusion that the main dude was totally drunk, as he kept swigging his beer during songs, but also totally coked the fuck out, cuz he was anorexically thin and confident yet detached as fuck. plus they're from LA, the album is out on columbia records, so of course he's gonna blow all his advance on...blow! anyway, i bought his cd, cuz it was only $10 and i figured for the few good pop songs it might be fun. but i was listening to it in my car this morning on the way to work and it was making my ears hurt. too many layers of vocals and crap, not enough guitar, not really mixed very well, and the keyboards sounded hokey. oh well more later.
as for the indie rock bellys of tv on the radio, seriously boys, yr major label deal making ya all hella fat now, ain't it? the hottest guy was the hired drummer who also played some accordion and guitar at the end. as for the band, well i thought the singer dude's voice would sound better, but really it was just all over the top emoting, again, not a lot of subtelty. i understand that their is a certain messy murkiness to their sound, but considering how polished the rhthym section rock aspect was as grafted onto their live performance, a lot of the falsetto vocals and guitar by the afro guy came off as lazy, err perhaps, stoned as fuck? white boy was just plain embarassing to watch, bobbing and sweating profusly in excitement at being in the presence of music making, shall we say, the rock. though he redeemed himself quite nicely with his damn impressive beat boxing on the last tune, ambulence. while the show was not revelatory, and the amount of buzz of these fatties surprises me, given that they aren't that terribly accessable or melodic, with the tunes that hit, they fucking hit and filled the audience with energy. guess i was just expecting a little bit more, more craft maybe.
so we went and saw mellowdrone on wednesday night, of which i am familiar with throught the rantings of Jaye of popperattic in LA, who saw them open for Johnny Marr several years ago, saying the use of guitar opened her mind up or some shit. anyway, at some point i had downloaded some of their eps off the internet, and remember that a few songs were really good, but nothing really held my attention. but for $7 and my first wednesday night off in like forever, why not check it out.
opening up was an emo-pop-punk band called lola ray. they were pretty terrible, sounded like fall out boy or any other crap on mtv that's market to adolescent girls. they'll never make it in this racist ass country/music business cuz they got an asian boy singer, but damn was he cute! all skinny with peircings and they were in shirts and ties, fucking hottie. their second song was alright in it's bouncyness, but god damn the lyrics throughout were horrible, "i need to be with you...ooooh oooooh oooooh...being inside of you, changed the way i feel" type horse shit.
mellowdrone was ok. i really don't like bands that play to pointless drum loops. just do it all live already, nobody can hear the fucking electronics anyways once the drums start pounding. fucking wankerish. the chick on keyboards didn't seem to do anything, and the main guy's guitar was barely audible. but the lead guitarist, what wonderful reverby chorused tones coming from him, good stuff. the music was hit or miss, but their were a couple songs that really stood out. "oh my" was totally a hit single (though when i put on their cd, it sounds like shit, no hit single there), and the second to last tune had a great minor major 7th type chord progression that should have gone long or reprised, cuz that melody was the heart of the song and the essense of music. no one care about the stupid verse and chorus, gives us the bridge and the vamp. what was most shocking however was the fact that it took me nearly half their set to realize who he was aping vocally, especially when it was so obviously julian casablancas from the strokes. that was annoying. even better was the song of which the verse was the exact same chord progression to "eyes without a face" by billy idol. i hollered out my eureka moment, this is billy idol, much to the evil glares of young females their to revel. whatever, fuck them. anyways, at the end of the show tommi and i came to the conclusion that the main dude was totally drunk, as he kept swigging his beer during songs, but also totally coked the fuck out, cuz he was anorexically thin and confident yet detached as fuck. plus they're from LA, the album is out on columbia records, so of course he's gonna blow all his advance on...blow! anyway, i bought his cd, cuz it was only $10 and i figured for the few good pop songs it might be fun. but i was listening to it in my car this morning on the way to work and it was making my ears hurt. too many layers of vocals and crap, not enough guitar, not really mixed very well, and the keyboards sounded hokey. oh well more later.
posted by eriq at 5:45 PM
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