My first experience with the New York combo Liars is an interesting one. I went on a date with a girl to go see the band Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. The opening acts were two New York bands, one band that was already getting a fair amount of press called The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and the other was Liars. They blew my mind! They played brilliant layered noise that was chaotic and danceable. I was overjoyed to learn about this new band. My date thought that they were absolutely wretched. By the end of the night, I had a new favorite band, and she started making out with some guy that resembled Kim Thayil of Soundgarden. I think I won.
The years have been very kind to Liars, gradually improving upon their sound, while also building a fan base. I was always going to be excited about a new release by these guys, but nothing prepared me for Sisterworld.
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Hunting for H2O this weekend at Thee Parkside
Hey Kids! It’s time for your early/mid-March guide to music in the bay. It’s going to be good! Lotsa bands visiting on their way to Texas, lotsa people starting tours that end at Coachella… Spring is a good time for living in Northern California!
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Appearing at Bottom Of The Hill this weekend. Also opening for Vampire Weekend next month. This dude is pretty hip.
Kind of exciting… SXSW Music starts in only two weeks, which means that a whole lot of great bands are starting to tour. Expected hippest of the uber-hyped to be coming around these parts. Here’s the very beginning of it: [read the whole post]
This show was, to some degree, the after party for the big YOKO ONO PLASTIC ONO BAND on Tuesday night. It was just quite a bit later, but every member of the Plastic Ono Band was onstage, aside from the very famous lead singer. In fact, only one person appeared on stage tonight that didn’t appear at the previous evening’s show. It also consisted almost entirely of music that isn’t yet available in recorded form, which helped even out the familiarity playing field, but based on the turnout, it had little effect on ticket sales. It was a rare show that all in attendance came based on the reputations of the performers. Of course, when you have the son of a Beatle, leaders of two of the most innovative and influential acts ever to come out of japan, and the go-to girl for session violin of the alternative rock era, you’ve got a pretty set to work from.
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Four Nights, Four Fences, One Quartet. Nice.
There’s more to life than Noise Pop. Not much more, so these week’s list is going to be a bit shorter than usual, but there is still plenty to do that isn’t with the masses.
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I have spent a lot of time defending different artists in my day. Usually this is because, well, my tastes are difficult to define, to say the least. (Case in point: two of my early reviews, which happened one right after the other were this and this) But, the one single artist that I come to the defense of more than any other is Yoko Ono. Everyone has an opinion about her, and generally speaking, this opinion is pretty negative. The primary cause of this is most likely either a.) they blame her for the break up of The Beatles (I still think that this was Linda’s fault) or b.) they blame her for the widespread acceptance of the avant garde. I personally don’t hold her responsible for either of these things. I also think people either don’t take her seriously enough, or take her far too seriously.
I must give a respectful shout-out to the good people of Noise Pop for making this show happen. They took a chance at booking such a divisive figure for their opening night show, and it paid off pretty nicely.
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