Showing posts with label my bloody valentine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label my bloody valentine. Show all posts
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buffaBLOG's Best of 2013: Staff Picks - Favorite Shows Part 2


Editor's Note: As part of our best of 2013 coverage, we asked our writers to break down their favorite live shows of 2013. Shows did not have to take place in Buffalo to be included on this list. Part 1 of this list can be found here.

Joe Speranza
Grace Potter & The Nocturnals @ Town Ballroom in Buffalo, NY, September 11th

Circumstances, execution and expectations. Those are key aspects of a show; I won't say they are the key aspects of a show, but if circumstances are favorable, execution is solid and expectations are exceeded, the result is a fucking blast. Take the first Tragically Hip concert this summer: my expectations were outrageously high, the circumstances (summer, water, friends, beer tents) were just about perfect, and everything was going well until that deluge of rain almost washed us all into Lake Erie. The execution – while nobody's fault – really sucked; what could have been Woodstock '13 turned out to be a long, wet walk to our cars. But during that failed show, a new set of expectations arrived as they announced an upcoming show: Grace Potter & The Nocturnals at Town Ballroom.

I've attended some gems this year. The Black Keys. Limp Bizkit (I know). Sleigh Bells. But Grace Potter at Town Ballroom could not have been improved upon. I was with some of my favorite people in the world. They played awesome music for almost two and a half hours. They exceeded my soaring expectations. It's a great feeling to blindly attend a show and walk away amazed (I see you, Portugal. The Man), but when you want so badly for a show to be great and then it goes and becomes legendary, well, that's what keeps us coming back. We all like going to see shows. But we go for more than the music; we go to feel a connection. Sometimes, it happens.


Michael Torsell
My Bloody Valentine @ Kool Haus in Toronto, ON, November 5th

Buffalo saw a lot of great shows this year and winnowing it down have proven to be a difficult task. The Mallwalkers' album release party at the Polish Library was epic and a real reminder, along with The Vault’s final night, of the awesome community we have in Western New York. In terms of national acts, getting to see DIIV, Wild Nothing, Beach Fossils, and Melt Banana was great and a nice reminder that one can see great live music in Buffalo throughout the year. 

Personally however, my favorite show was My Bloody Valentine in Toronto. This was a band I never expected to see live, but then again, I never expected a follow up to Loveless to be released this year, and I certainly would have never thought it would have been so good. Loveless has been constant presence on stereo for the last 12 years, so the opportunity to see them felt almost sacred. The group did not disappoint, quickly establishing that they were tighter than ever and my hair stood on end for most of the show, even during the seemingly eternal barrage of noise at the end. It was a great reminder that noise and feedback can become beautiful in the right hands and it brought me to all of the private moments I had enjoying their music. I really cannot ask for much more from a live performance.


Jon Krol
FLAG @ Town Ballroom in Buffalo, NY, June 13th

I grew up listening to Black Flag and my favorite incarnation by far was the pre-Rollins, pre-Reyes, pre-Cadena (on vocals) era; the Keith Morris era. Morris, before leaving to form the Circle Jerks, was angry, passionate, and arguably their best singer, although I’m sure many will disagree with that statement. Tracks like “Fix Me” and “Nervous Breakdown” are as much a part of my youth as any other band. Hell, my favorite skateboard section of all time is Jim Greco’s part in Misled Youth and he skated to “Fix Me.”

Until a few years ago, the idea of a Black Flag reunion was preposterous, let alone that the band would re-form as two separate entities; the Ginn-Reyes collaboration which took on the Black Flag name and the FLAG collaborative featuring Keith Morris, Dez Cadena and Chuck Dukowski. While I did not get to see Black Flag, I was able to see FLAG, in all their primordial glory.

My expectations were high and I kind of approached the show with nervous trepidation. I didn’t really expect them to deliver to be honest. What I got was more than I could have ever asked for. Morris was fierce and played with his heart on fire, as did the other members of the band. Their energy and excitement was palpable and spread like a wild, contagious fire. They didn’t play the tracks of yesteryear. They blitzed them. They destroyed them. They HURT those songs.

And Dez even got to sing! And they even played some of the Rollins and Reyes tracks! And it was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen! Simply put, it was a special night to be a fan of punk rock and a special night for those of us who finally got to see a band that defined our youth and inspired us all. They secured their place in the punk pantheon of greats. They lived up to the hype.
Mac McGuire
Mohawk Place's Last Waltz: Night 2 @ Mohawk Place in Buffalo, NY, January 12th

Any other year, seeing Spiritualized, a bucket list band of mine every since hearing "Ladies and Getlemen...," would have topped my list. They were devastatingly good at the Waiting Room. But Mohawk Place doesn't close every year. I won't rehash my memories of the place (its been done enough), but the venue's final night was a special experience like nothing I will ever be a part of again. All of my Buffalo music heroes were in one room, drinking every last drop of booze that old bar had, shedding tears that I didn't know were in a few of them, and recalling years of memories that could never be replicated. 

And the music just never ended. I stepped foot in Mohawk around 7pm to the sounds of disbanded Buffalo greats the Thermidors and left just after 5am with my ears ringing from the Mark Norris led power pop heroes Girlpope. Between an Old Sweethearts reunion I never thought I would get, my first experience with Semi-Tough(!), and sets from Chylde, Failures' Union and other relics of Mohawk's past, the night was as close to perfect as you can get in Buffalo. 
Tom Dennis
Captured Tracks Showcase @ The Parish(SXSW) in Austin, TX, March 16th

 On the last night of SXSW, I saw a tour de force showcase put on by Captured Tracks at The Parish in Austin. With sets from Naomi Punk, The Soft Moon, Chris Cohen, Mac DeMarco, Widowspeak, DIIV, and Beach Fossils, the show was the ideal finale to an exhausting week of music. Chris Cohen brought each track from Overgrown Path into its cool blue light, Mac DeMarco was slightly less of a knucklehead than I’d imaged he would be live, and Beach Fossils sparked a hiccuping dance-pit, which they kept stoked ’til 2am. Extracted from the rock club, I hummed "Home" by DIIV in an attempt to drown out the waning madness of Sixth Street as I navigated my way to the nearest bus stop. 
Scott Mancuso
Okkervil River @ The Haunt in Ithaca, NY, September 27th We rode our bikes from the motel on the edge of town to the middle of Ithaca. There were no "sharrows." We went to a bar and ordered beers and then we went to another bar and ordered more beers. It was a Friday night and there were a lot of professors and a lot of students. We went to a dive bar with a rooster logo where a middle-aged ex-military bartender appeared ten minutes after we walked in. She served us more beers. We rode our bikes over the train tracks to the Haunt and drank more beers. Okkervil River played their instruments very well and Will Sheff sang very well. It made me happy. It made a man in front of us with a green shirt that said "Paddy's" on it even happier. "Paddy" drank a lot of beers. Sometimes he drank half-empty beers that were just sitting on the edge of the stage. Sometimes he put his arm around girls that he didn't know, and they didn't like it at all, but that didn't slow Paddy down. I went to the bathroom after the show and Paddy was there and he asked me, "so what's your deal." I think he meant it to be friendly but I didn't know what to say, and I didn't have a deal, so I just shrugged and left. We rode our bikes back into town and I realized that my back tire was flat. We stopped. We drank whiskey in a bar in a basement and then we tried to go back to the rooster bar and then we learned that, in Ithaca, bars close at 1 in the morning. That's why they all had to drink so fast and so early and ask what the deal was because they were running out of time.
Tom Etu
buffaBLOG Summer Party @ Duke's in Buffalo, NY, August 10th

 Some people remembered bits and pieces the next day. Others needed verbal cues and a bit of shoving before it all came swimming back into their recollection. Jack Topht enraged, elated, irritated and enlightened us. A beach ball and other inflatables were passed around in a massive game of "keep it up!" Some in attendance probably played their own version of 'keep it up' that night, but that's irrelevant. The Malones killed it, and bass player Elliot Douglas was feeling it so hard that he jumped offstage. A fellow blogger guarded one of the band's lead singers (name undisclosed) while he urinated into a garbage can outside DBGB's. Shit got weird at the buffaBLOG Summer Party.

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Album Review: My Bloody Valentine - mbv


I never really expected to write this review. At this point, I don’t think anyone was expecting to write this review. It has been 22 years since Loveless, their last release and now an almost sacred moment of early 90’s musical history. Even when band leader Kevin Shields publicly stated that an album was finished, or that it would be released in “2 to 3” days, I did not fully believe him. So, when the album was available last Saturday, with no real fanfare or believable warning, I scrambled. This couldn’t actually be real, could it? It was and now I am here, writing a review of My Bloody Valentine’s latest album, mbv. 

First, a caveat, it is nearly impossible to take mbv on its own terms, as a standalone album. Loveless remains such a landmark record and many of us (myself included) have distinct memories of our first experiences with it. Also, Loveless, despite shoegaze being a relatively easy style to reproduce was never really matched by anything similar; it remains one of a kind. Now, where does that leave mbv? It cannot be Loveless and it really should not be Loveless. Plus, with 22 years of expectations behind it, it is coming with a lot of critical baggage. Yet, mbv does not disappoint. It is not Loveless, but it arrives at a time when the influence of Loveless is abundantly clear. In many ways, this record resembles Loveless in its overall aesthetic, it definitely sounds like a follow up more than a stylistic leap. Perhaps, mbv’s lack of innovation is a continued testament to how much an impact My Bloody Valentine has had since 1992. While this album is not as innovative as it might have been had it come out in the early 90’s, it is still a compelling, well-made work that uses white noise and feedback to both placating and jarring effect and that is capable of introducing surprisingly new elements to the band’s old formula. This record does more, subtly, to confound our expectations, to suggest directions forward should there be other My Bloody Valentine records after this.

Preceding LPs from My Bloody Valentine begin with a prominent drum in the first track, so it was a bit of a surprise to see the pattern broken with “She Found Now,” which opens the record with a wash of feedback. mbv eases you back into the band’s sound, picking up where Loveless left off, drifting through the album’s opening 6 minutes. From there, the album moves in a similar pattern, it is for the first 6 tracks, generally subdued, marked with contemplative melodies that sometimes rise up above the feedback. It is to the band’s benefit that they can mix melody and noise so well as to make this section as strong as it is and leaves you to wonder what Loveless might have been with slightly better recording quality. These songs are slightly stranger, slightly more off kilter in a way more reminiscent of Isn’t Anything. If anything, this somehow seems a more smooth transition from that album than Loveless, as if, in some way, the timeline of these releases had been somehow eschewed. The discord at the bottom of a track like “Who Sees You,” and the spookily clear “Is This and Yes,” is especially emblematic of this albums kinship with Isn’t Anything. 


The next three tracks continue to work under this familiar rubric, with the single ready “New You” closing out the section. If the album continued at this pace, for the last 3 tracks, it would have been a strong record in and of itself, a solid continuation from previous records and a welcome return. However, something shifts and the album moves in a completely new direction at “In Another Way,” making mbv something more difficult to pin down. 


With “In Another Way,” the layer of dreamy feedback and distortion clears with shrill squeal of guitar and synth, and the the prettiness of the first 2/3 of the album is replaced with something sharper and more abrasive. Following this, the instrumental “Nothing Is” pushes that change further, a drone of pounding drums and noise leading into the closing, “Wonder 2” which finishes the album on the cusp of something wholly different, the pitch slowly rising until the song, and album cut off abruptly. My Bloody Valentine could have just coasted through those first 6 tracks and we would have thought it a fitting follow up; it would be the event it was regardless. It is this last third that make the album something wholly more respectable than a simple follow up and rehash of what worked so well in the past. It establishes, if only briefly, a commitment to pushing forward.

The drastic shift in style and tone, of course, suggests that maybe these tracks were written much later in the 22 intervening years and could be easily read as a response to what has happened since Loveless. Shields and co suggest that, yes feedback, distortion, noise, those things can all be hazy and dreamy and, in fact, pretty, but noise is also meant to be something abrasive as well. Loveless felt revelatory because, at the time, it was jarring, a coming together of several musical currents. 

However, and this is extremely important, Loveless cannot be revelatory again, you cannot simply go back and do the same thing and have the same effect. No, the context has shifted and the influence of Loveless has made that initial break a well tread part of today’s musical landscape It is with those last three tracks that mbv suggests, at least for the band, a way forward, a hint towards something new in the future, should they continue to record and release albums.  

The sudden release of the album was almost a phenomenon in and of itself. Even with the warning, it was such a shock to see that yes, there was actually new material available from this band and that you could be listening to it right now. It took many by surprise and marks one of the rare times, in a time when blogs like this (and writers like me) give you new albums in an endless drip of singles. It has been sometime since a new album could just spring out of nowhere. But, somehow, a band guarded their new material, held it from everyone, and released it when we all least expected it. This, apart from the album, made for an interesting moment and it was nice to be reminded that you could be excited enough about an album to put off any other plans in an attempt to get a hold of new music. Hopefully this signals a full return for Kevin Shields and My Bloody Valentine, because, as mbv demonstrates, they don’t appear to be out of new ideas.

 Grade: A 

Michael Torsell
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Top Ten February Album Releases


As you've been hibernating the past few weeks, staying cozy inside while windchill levels approached sub-zero, the music world has kept warm too, grilling up an entire month's worth of awesome new releases. Check out what February has in store for your ears!
10. Frightened Rabbit - Pedestrian Verse
When Scottish indie rock outfit Frightened Rabbit released their track and subsequent video for "State Hospital" last year I was pretty blown away. The song has the stamina and intensity of a stadium rock anthem, but wields weighty lyricism that cuts to images of suffering and hope. Overall, their EP release last year wasn't great, but just good enough to stir up a longing for their fourth studio full-length which is out today.
9. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Push the Sky Away 
The legendary Nick Cave has stayed prolific as ever in the past few years with his Grinderman efforts and reissues with his band, and will be releasing his fifteenth studio record with The Bad Seeds on 2/18 via the band’s own label, Bad Seed Ltd. The debut single off the new record is called “Jubilee Street”. Check it out below:
8. Pissed Jeans - Honeys
Pissed Jeans are back with more of their corrosive, ear-punishing punk on their third full-length, Honeys. As Sub Pop points out: “Honeys stews on the kind of mundane, niggling things that keep you up late at night. It’s an ode to the misery and shackles of being a responsible adult, and the shame of one’s own narcissism.” That description, along with the buzzing guitar riffs of album cut “Cathouse” already have me sold. 


7. Unknown Mortal Orchestra - II 
Unknown Mortal Orchestra had a pretty fast climb to prominence as their debut self-titled LP found itself at the center of a critical love fest two years ago. Reaping instant acclaim, the Portland-via-New Zealand transplants toured their asses off, and the relentlessness of that experience has been the slow-burning fuel for their latest record, II, which is out today via Jagjaguwar. With frontman Ruban Nielson’s unique lyricism and seamless guitar-playing to boot, it is interesting to see where this next record will take us, as it is almost always the case that a sophomore LP will up the ante on production value. Listen to “So Good At Being In Trouble” below:


6. Autre Ne Veut - Anxiety 
Known by friends as Arthur Ashin, this Brooklynite is fresh on the scene with his latest album Anxiety due out 2/26 via Mexican Summer. The newest single off the record is “Play By Play” and highlight’s Ashin’s dynamic renewal of 80s pop and R&B that raises eyebrows with its spellbinding percussion and Prince-like vocals. Listen below:

5. Doldrums - Lesser Evil
Canadian beat-smith Doldrums aka Airick Woodhead will release his debut record Lesser Evil on 2/25 via Arbutus. The Toronto DIY-er has released a few small EPs in the past and relies heavily on brief loops of samples and tortuous percussion. Woodhead’s high pitched hum is unmistakable, as his vocal tracks are often cut and warped to match the psychadelic vibe of his music. Listen to "Egypt" below:


4. Beach Fossils - Clash The Truth
Back with their follow-up to 2010’s underrated surf-rock self-titled effort, Beach Fossils will release Clash The Truth on 2/19 via Captured Tracks. While the band has expanded with various members coming and going, it all started with mastermind Dustin Payseur, who recorded everything on the first record by himself, playing every instrument. As the musician received continued acclaim in the indie community, Captured Tracks took notice and brought Payseur on to record a sophomore LP. Payseur brought on some core band members for recording in a proper studio, including a feature from Blonde Redhead’s Kazu Makino on their track “In Vertigo”. Listen to their latest track "Generational Synthetic" below:
3. My Bloody Valentine -mbv
Remember My Blood Valentine? I don’t. Because I was two years old when their last studio record was released back in 1991. it’s been a long time coming, but in the last 22 years, after many rumors of a new material, lead singer Kevin Shields going crazy, and countless throw-outs, My Blood Valentine has finally released their follow-up to Loveless with mbv, which was released on February 2, subsequently crashing the online server that was facilitating the release. So far the album has gotten favorable reviews with The Guardian giving it a perfect 5/5 rating. Listen to the opening track below and stream the rest via YouTube.

2. Iceage - You're Nothing
Strait-up, Iceage is putting out some awesome music right now. Still riding off the coattails of 2011’s 24-minute hell-raiser, New Brigade, they’ve just released the video for the new single “Ecstacy” about a week ago. Picking up where they left off, the Danish teens let out a surge of dark energy on the track with chunky guitar riffs coating hair-raising shouts of “Pressure!” While it seems the trend has been for many current indie-punk bands to shift toward more refined, poppier territory, Iceage have committed themselves to louder and gnarlier thread of punk, one that requires cheap beer and trashed speakers. You’re Nothing is out 2/19 via Matador.

1. Atoms for Peace - Amok - 2/25
Perhaps the most anticipated album of 2013, Atoms For Peace’s Amok, is something like four years in the making. The supergroup was first concieved when Thom Yorke called Flea (bassist for Red Hot Chili Peppers), Joey Waronker (drummer for R.E.M.), Mauro Refosco, and Nigel Godrich (Radiohead producer) together to play the entirety of Yorke’s solo record The Eraser in LA in 2009. Playing at Coachella in 2010 they were simply known as “??????” Since, they've slowly come into form, officially giving the band its name, releasing their first official single “Default” last year, and another “Judge, Jury, and Executioner” last month while detailing the release of their debut album. The tracks sound quite reminiscent of Yorke’s solo record Eraser, but there is definitely a stronger reliance on drum and vocal loops giving way to nuanced and textured sound that we’ve really yet to fully experience from Yorke. Amok is out 2/26 in the US. Listen to "Judge, Jury, and Executioner" below:

Tom Dennis

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