so, the student record label i work for, village records, is having a showcase this friday at the knitting factory. it is going to be interesting to say the least, so you all should come. maybe you will see me make an ass of myself while doing trivia between acts onstage. yeah, you should definitely come just to witness that. it's friday, at 7, and it's five dollars.
also, my band Slow Century (www.myspace.com/slowcenturymusic) is playing at the knitting factory on sunday, the 1st. we go on at 7pm, and it's 8 dollars. so, after you witness me making an ass of myself on friday, you can see me try to redeem myself on sunday. that is all.
Afer the show-attending and show-playing from Takka Takka's first day at SXSW, we were tired. Beat. And ready to do it all over again.
Following a brunch of yet more Mexican food (chicken tacos for me), my bandmate Gabe and I once again headed out to hear some music before our afternoon show. After missing Do Make Say Think by five minutes, we decided to try and catch Montreal's Land Of Talk. We had played a show in Cincinnati with Land Of Talk on the way down to SXSW, so we knew how fantastic they were. Sadly, they were running late, but before we could get down about things, we caught Snowden, an electro-glam quartet from Atlanta that put on an exciting show. One out of three ain't bad! We then walked a brisk five blocks to see the incomparable Apostle Of Hustle. We took in three tunes before we had to leave for our own show. Here's a shot of Apostle Of Hustle. FYI, frontman Andrew Whiteman also handles lead guitar in Broken Social Scene:
Three songs under our belt, Gabe and I departed to make our way to South Austin for Takka Takka's second show of the week. Unfortunately, the venue was well out of walking distance and cabs were nowhere to be found. Of course, this did not present a problem to your intrepid reporter and his bandmate; we merely stood at a bus stop and figured out which bus to take. While on the bus, we were called out as tourists. "I can tell y'all aren't from around here." spoke the woman sitting across from us. "Y'all are wearing jackets." I should point out that it was 68 degrees or so. Still, one can never tell when the weather might change, especially in central Texas. I think we were the shrewd ones, tourists or not. But I digress.
After a ten minute bus ride we arrived at the venue, a coffee shop called Ruta Maya. The lineup was put together by our friends Goes Cube and The Deli Magazine and included us, Goes Cube, Foreign Islands and more. The gig was at 4pm. Sometimes it's odd to play in the afternoon but in Austin it seems to feel just right. We played a short set of our quieter stuff that seemed to fit the vibe of the place. Very fun. For us, the show was a fun, no-pressure gig with friends. And at a festival like SXSW, where bands definitely feel pressure to play their best for industry types, a relaxing show can be a welcome, calming respite.
After the show we tossed a Nerf football in the parking lot and posed for a few photos with our Goes Cube pals. Left to right we've got Kenny from Goes Cube, yours truly, Grady from Takka Takka and Gabe (wearing shades) from Takka Takka.
With our work for the day completed by 5pm, we were able to relax and enjoy the evening. We decided to get dinner. Hmmm, what to get. How about Mexican food. This time I got the guacamole tacos. Oh and more music. We spent the evening with our close friends Raising The Fawn, a Toronto band (also featuring a member of Broken Social Scene, John Crossingham) we don't get to hang with as often as we'd like. Instead of hopping from venue to venue, we picked one place and stuck there. And there are worse places to be than at an Arts & Crafts label showcase. The lineup was pretty stellar: Young Galaxy, Amy Millan, Apostle Of Hustle (yes, I saw them twice in one day) and The Dears.
By the time the Dears played their final notes, it was past 2am. Since we had to load in at, no joke, 9 the next morning, it seemed like a good time to call it a day...
STAY TUNED FOR THE THIRD AND FINAL INSTALLMENT OF TAKKA TAKKA AT SXSW...
Quick introduction since this is my first post here:
Hi! I'm Lisa, and I'm interning here at Fuse...and I LOVE it.
O.K. - So this morning some reps from Warner Bros. came in to give us a sneak peak of the new Linkin Park album. I learned that this band pretty much locked themselves in the studio for 14 months, and came up with about 150 demo's!!! That's nuts. So you can imagine they had a large pool of songs to choose from. They worked with producer Rick Rubin (who also did the Dixie Chicks album) to make their new cd exciting, different, and something they can truly be proud of. We heard 6 songs today, and honestly, I was never a huge LP fan, but they were really good. You can tell they worked hard, and the sounds on the album - the engineering, the production, the harmonies and instrumentations....really good. All the songs are so different, and they all demand your full attention. I feel like I would have to listen to them a couple more times to pick up on all the different pieces of the songs, because of all the work that went into them. Let me just say that if you are a Linkin Park fan, you should be pumped for this album.
I feel like I'm in the calm before the storm right now, because there is a lot of planning going on over here at Fuse for things that are about to happen, and once they happen it's going to get crazy! April 1st our new live daily show The Sauce premieres, so there will be so much going on all the time with that, and it's going to be super exciting. Planning for Warped Tour began also....and I am so excited for Warped Tour because I get to work on it this year.
I'm in charge of the Warped Panel (www.warpedpanel.com) which my bosses and I have begun setting up for this year, so check back to that site once in a while and register to be part of my panel when you can!!! I do market research for the tour, so I take a whole lot of pictures of new trends and have some of the audience members fill out some surveys and things like that. If you sign up for warped panel you will have have a chance to win a VIP pass to the warped tour date of your choice, and I'll take you on stage to see the band of your choice! Awesome, right? Well I get to pick my 10 kids for every city, so sign up, do your surveys, post on the boards, and if you're lucky you'll get to hang out with me this summer!
But before I get to go on tour, I need to finish school. boo. I have three 12 page papers coming up, a final, and a protools project due in a month. yikes. I wish I could just be permanent full time intern here and not write essays.
SXSW. If these letters mean nothing to you, then i'll spell it out: South By Southwest. What is it? Essentially, it's the largest music and music industry festival in the world. Each March, thousands of people and, more importantly, thousands (yes, thousands) of bands descend on the impossibly awesome town of Austin, Texas for four days of music, drinks and food. This year, i was fortunate enough to be able to both attend and play SXSW. Put simply, it ruled.
Though my band, Takka Takka, was excited to play three shows throughout the week, we were determined to see a lot of great bands and, especially, eat a lot of Mexican food. Mission accomplished. I saw about 20 bands in three or four days and ate Mexican food for seven straight meals. The streak was not planned, but I wasn't complaining.
So after a breakfast of migas at South Austin's El Sol Y La Luna on Thursday the 15th, my bandmate Gabe and I decided to check out some music in the warm, non-Northeastern March sun. We headed to a small place called the Scoot Inn. The venue is a juke joint that has a sizable yard. During SXSW, bands played both indoors and outdoors. Given the balmy conditions, I chose to stay outside most of the time. Here's a pic of Gabe watching the fantastic Matt & Kim.
We also got to watch Denmark's proggy Mew (fantastic), Minnesota's Cloud Cult (dreamy) and Sacramento's Hella (scary, but good scary). At one point in the afternoon, we took a 15 minute break to have free ice cream and be interviewed by Rice University's student station. The interview was lighthearted and dealt mainly with ice cream.
By 5pm it was time to head over to Momo's for our first show of the week. Momo's is a small, fine place on West 6th Street, capacity probably about 150, and blessed with a large and inviting roof deck.
We were scheduled to play at 1am, so it was a bit weird to load our gear in approximately seven hours before we went on, but SXSW is all about unusual start times - there are ALWAYS shows going on. Morning, noon and night. Shows and interviews, that is. After loading in to Momo's we went across the street for our second interview of the day. This was with the A.P. (Associated Press, not Alternative Press). The theme was how bands that play SXSW find time to watch some of the NCAA March Madness hoops action, which kicks off as SXSW rages. We were paid to drink beer, watch Duke lose (yes!) and talk about basketball. Pretty rough.
After the interview, another bandmate, Grady, and I walked around 6th Street meeting friends and checking out bands. At Bourbon Rocks, a watering hole with a feel befitting it's name, we met up with our friend Nate from a wonderful band called My Brightest Diamond. Though he was scheduled to play several shows, he also spent his free time chicking out music. We wandered in and saw Marissa Nadler perform her acoustically delivered tunes, as well as Portland's hard, psych-rocking Danava.
Soon, it was time to head back and play our set. Though the late start time threw us off a bit, we settled down and just concentrated on having fun. Once you're onstage, the time and location don't matter anymore - you just PLAY. And it's like no other feeling. Following our last notes at approximately 1:45am, Takka Takka packed up the van and crashed at a friend's house. On the schedule for the next day was more shows, and more Mexican food.
I went to see Jesse Malin
last night at the Bowery Ballroom. I am a big fan of Jesse’s music and
I have seen him play all around the city over the past few years but
last night’s sold out show may have been my favorite in recent memory.
The home town show (Jesse is from Queens originally) was a celebration
of sorts as Jesse has an excellent new album that comes out today called Glitter in the Gutter.
Jesse and band had just taped Conan earlier in the day - so they had a
lot to be excited about. As you might expect the set included lots of
material off the new record including: the first single Don’t Let Them
Take You Down (Beautiful Day), Tomorrow Night, Broken Radio, Little
Star, Prisoners of Paradise, Black Haired Girl and In The Modern World.
There
were also plenty of tracks from Jesse’s solo debut The Fine Art of Self
Destruction including Riding On The Subway, Almost Grown, Downliner and
Brooklyn. He also threw in Hotel Columbia from The Heat. A highlight of
the set was Solitaire during which Malin entered the jumped off the
stage- got the entire crowd to sit down on the floor- turned on the
house lights- and had a little sing along. Jesse was typically
talkative- sharing strange stories and telling jokes that at times
seemed to go over the crowd’s head. Both are parts of what make him a
compelling stage presence.
During the encore Jesse spoke for a
bit about some new bands he was into including The Hold Steady- he then
proceeded to cover one of their songs You Can Make Him Like You. The
encore also included Going Out West, Lucinda (dedicated to Lucinda
Williams), Wendy and finally closing with my favorite tune from the new
record Aftermath.
There was a camera crew from HBO filming the
whole time - so I hope a lot of folks get to see the final product- and
discover Jesse Malin.
I caught the Korean film The Host this
weekend and the Landmark Sunshine theatre; I was expecting a monster
movie but got a little more than that. First and foremost this IS a
monster movie. A chemically mutated creature emerges from the Han River
in Seoul and beings eating people- or rather- eating them- spitting
them out- saving them for later and then eating them. The action
centers on a family whose youngest member, a girl named Hyun-seo, is
taken by the creature. One element that set this film apart was its use
of humor to cut tension. Not an uncommon technique; but uncommonly
executed in this film. Many of the scenes could potentially have
serious dramatic weight- but almost always they were cut with a sort of
over the top humor or joke. The most extreme example being the family’s
hysterical (take that anyway you want and you’d be right) reaction at a
memorial to Hyun-seo.
The
other interesting thing about this movie was its depiction of the
United States. This film was made in South Korea and the perspective is
certainly worth noting. The film starts with a scene in which an
American military official orders a worker in a Korean lab to empty
chemicals into the Han River (ostensibly the agents that lead to the
creature’s development). The scene is rooted in reality; “in 2000 a US
military civilian employee named McFarland ordered the disposal of
formaldehyde into the sewer system leading to Han River despite the
objection of a Korean subordinate. Korean government attempted to
prosecute Mr. McFarland in Korean court but US military refused to hand
over the custody of Mr. McFarland to the Korean legal system. Later, a
Korean judge convicted Mr. McFarland in absentia.” - IMDB. The United
States’ actions in Iraq lurk in the subtext of the film as well. It is
determined (by the United States) that those who have been in contact
with the creature have been exposed to a virus – their response is
extreme - later in the film it becomes apparent there was really no
virus in the first place. Humm…sounds familiar.
