CMJ and a fire in the arcade
Skip all the personal reminders if you will, because at the very least this post is intended to do one singular thing: get you to scroll down to the bottom and download the mp3 of the band I am about to extoll the virtues of.
I was in New York for the past week and just got home. I was spending some time with Dawn in Brooklyn and due to her work caught quite a fair bit of CMJ, which I'd never attended before. I got to see The Decemberists and check in on their return from a triumphant first pass in England. I don't know if they'd use the word triumphant, but I talked to a British promoter who said they'd gone down incredibly well.
I did a little shooting of them at a KEXP radio performance in the Museum of TV and Radio. The hallway outside the radio booth were lined with cels from Hanna Barbara superhero shows; something that my Korean uncle had a hand in making, strangely.
Everyone was doing well, if a little hungover and having to deal with colds. Big respect is due to erstwhile bassist Nate Query, who had to lug his upright bass across lunchtime traffic on the subway to the Bowery Ballroom. Not easy. They'd played McEnroe the day before. The funniest thing about that was that Chris had managed to get a photo of Colin posing with a lifesize standup of McEnroe but not the real one, despite being on his television show.
That night they played the showcase for booker Kevin French and were their usual charming selves. The audience went nuts for Infanta, but sadly I did not hear any Fleetwood Mac bits smuggled into songs. But finally an album has usurped Tusk in my rotation now...
I managed to be in New York the same time as Duncan Jones, my old film school roommate who was visiting his Dad. Duncan just shot his first big ad in the UK. Good to see him in good spirits and inching towards respectability. Also got to see a bit of Dan Droller, one of the founders of Music for America, who I graciously marvel at for having registered some 15000 new voters in the upcoming election.
The Arcade Fire
But now the real gist of everything - there was some attendant hype about a band called The Arcade Fire. Vaguely American and Canadian. 9.7 review in Pitchfork. Art rock. Every scenester at CMJ was desperate to get into the 1am set they were going to perform at the Mercury Lounge. Usual signs of me saying "ok I'm not going to be interested in that". Visions of another Interpol. But Dawn needed to go.
Oh my dear god.
They opened with a track called Wake Up, and there's a moment where all seven members onstage were singing together and it just reached everything inside me. By the second song I was a complete convert. I haven't had a strong reaction to a band since I first got Songs About Airplanes from Nick in the mail, or heard the Decemberists in my car while driving in San Francisco. Their first words on stage were "here we are, the flavor of the month". And proceeded to fucking rock the place to tatters.
This is art rock that rocks. This is emotive music that is not manipulative or petty or self absorbed. This is joy and sweat and even dancability but still experimental and unusual. You can hear everything you've ever liked in them, but I don't wish to draw parallels. They really do have their own thing going and are about to head out on tour and I urge you to catch them before inevitable hugeness.
They were so intense onstage, crowded into that little space in the Mercury, banging tambourines off of each other and embracing and singing their fucking guts out, sometimes other members playing percussion literally off the walls, I was a little scared to approach any of them, but found them after the set to be incredibly sweet kids, too.
Jordan, Death Cab's manager, was there and agreed with me that they were amazing. I believe I caught him even doing a little bit of dancing at one point. Not to embarass Jordan but it was really sweet to see.
Please, please if you're free go to their shows and below is an .mp3 of the track of the year for me, in a pretty damn good year for music... This is my track of the year.
Wake Up mp3 by The Arcade Fire.
for me
Dawn has an apartment in the best spot in Park Slope. She's not up in the higher ave's where the rent gets ridiculous. There's a lot of color in her neighborhood, both figuratively and literally.
This is really important. It's one of the essential things about New York that is so great, and why New Yorkers themselves are so great, why they strike everyone as somewhat more American than others. For me it's not tied to vaguely patriotic admonishments about surviving 9/11. It's about the eternal collusion of people in public space, the toughness of the city and how that forces strangers to bond in civil unions that wouldn't exist otherwise. I talked to Dawn's friend about this, about the importance of a subway to any city. Any city that forces people to confine themselves with strangers of all walks of life into crowded public spaces with margins of failure or disaster must in essence produce people who are more tolerant and accepting. The old tribal lines exist in New York, but more subliminally is an undercurrent of having to deal. It may be grudging sometimes, but ultimately it's utopian, the antithesis of the privatization of public space. But there is always attendant change, and I did talk to some old neighborhood people, and Brooklyn itself is under seige, a proposed football stadium coming to Flatbush that would eradicate countless brownstones and more importantly neighboorhoods for parking spaces and dollars. I believe this is why for a city that remains at the wounded heart of the country why it is so openly and adamantly anti Bush - signs of this everywhere, since urban spaces are battles in semiotic instability. But I do not think I spied a single Bush Cheney bumper sticker anywhere I went in New York.
Dawn's around the corner from the 826 Valencia Brooklyn branch, a Superhero outfitting store. An incredible deli called Pollio's that sells most importantly the best bagels I've ever eaten and more importantly San Pelligrino Limonata, the best soft drink in the world. In a few days there I managed to settle into a morning routine of waking up just before Dawn and sneaking out to grab bagel, New York Times, and getting in just in time to make her tea to wake her up with. Smoking a cig on her stoop in early morning, watching the street wake up. There's something about patterns and habits that are entirely satisfying, and that's what I fell into.
She was really busy throughout the week but we got to do some walking through the city. Kissing a girl you're crazy about on the Brooklyn Bridge at dusk is really wonderful.
I love New York. I'm crazy about my girl, something I don't have to be so quiet about any more. Chris Funk says he knows who the wedding band will be. Everyone is silent for a moment then giggles. We already did Vegas and didn't do it then so I don't believe that's a possibility. Colin is supportive and kindly about the whole thing in a gracious manner that cuts through all that. Like him I have distrust of marriage as an institution, maybe not for the same reasons. But I have always believed there's someone you can share your time with and it is in the tiniest things that they make everything full of elation. The way they hold your hand while walking or how they look at you while eating. He sings in a new song, a quiet ode to a person like that, that "we go a drowning". Intense feelings are terrifying, getting to be known is immersion. And you risk drowning. But you can also drown in sharing a Sunday newspaper and doing small nice things to each other that renders all the problems of the day and maybe even the world tolerable.
Yeah, I love New York.
somethin' * filled up * my heart * with nothin' * someone * told me not to cry * but now that * i'm older * my heart's * colder * and i can * see that it's a lie
children * wake up * hold your * mistake up * before they * turn the summer into dust * if the children * don't grow up * our bodies get bigger. but * our hearts get torn up * we're just * a million little gods causing rain storms * turning every good thing to rust * i guess we'll just have to adjust
with my lightining bolts a-glowin' i can see where i am going to be when the reaper he reaches and touches my hand
with my lightning bolts a-glowin' i can see where i am goin'
Look out below!
Wake Up mp3 by The Arcade Fire.
I was in New York for the past week and just got home. I was spending some time with Dawn in Brooklyn and due to her work caught quite a fair bit of CMJ, which I'd never attended before. I got to see The Decemberists and check in on their return from a triumphant first pass in England. I don't know if they'd use the word triumphant, but I talked to a British promoter who said they'd gone down incredibly well.
I did a little shooting of them at a KEXP radio performance in the Museum of TV and Radio. The hallway outside the radio booth were lined with cels from Hanna Barbara superhero shows; something that my Korean uncle had a hand in making, strangely.
Everyone was doing well, if a little hungover and having to deal with colds. Big respect is due to erstwhile bassist Nate Query, who had to lug his upright bass across lunchtime traffic on the subway to the Bowery Ballroom. Not easy. They'd played McEnroe the day before. The funniest thing about that was that Chris had managed to get a photo of Colin posing with a lifesize standup of McEnroe but not the real one, despite being on his television show.
That night they played the showcase for booker Kevin French and were their usual charming selves. The audience went nuts for Infanta, but sadly I did not hear any Fleetwood Mac bits smuggled into songs. But finally an album has usurped Tusk in my rotation now...
I managed to be in New York the same time as Duncan Jones, my old film school roommate who was visiting his Dad. Duncan just shot his first big ad in the UK. Good to see him in good spirits and inching towards respectability. Also got to see a bit of Dan Droller, one of the founders of Music for America, who I graciously marvel at for having registered some 15000 new voters in the upcoming election.
The Arcade Fire
But now the real gist of everything - there was some attendant hype about a band called The Arcade Fire. Vaguely American and Canadian. 9.7 review in Pitchfork. Art rock. Every scenester at CMJ was desperate to get into the 1am set they were going to perform at the Mercury Lounge. Usual signs of me saying "ok I'm not going to be interested in that". Visions of another Interpol. But Dawn needed to go.
Oh my dear god.
They opened with a track called Wake Up, and there's a moment where all seven members onstage were singing together and it just reached everything inside me. By the second song I was a complete convert. I haven't had a strong reaction to a band since I first got Songs About Airplanes from Nick in the mail, or heard the Decemberists in my car while driving in San Francisco. Their first words on stage were "here we are, the flavor of the month". And proceeded to fucking rock the place to tatters.
This is art rock that rocks. This is emotive music that is not manipulative or petty or self absorbed. This is joy and sweat and even dancability but still experimental and unusual. You can hear everything you've ever liked in them, but I don't wish to draw parallels. They really do have their own thing going and are about to head out on tour and I urge you to catch them before inevitable hugeness.
They were so intense onstage, crowded into that little space in the Mercury, banging tambourines off of each other and embracing and singing their fucking guts out, sometimes other members playing percussion literally off the walls, I was a little scared to approach any of them, but found them after the set to be incredibly sweet kids, too.
Jordan, Death Cab's manager, was there and agreed with me that they were amazing. I believe I caught him even doing a little bit of dancing at one point. Not to embarass Jordan but it was really sweet to see.
Please, please if you're free go to their shows and below is an .mp3 of the track of the year for me, in a pretty damn good year for music... This is my track of the year.
Wake Up mp3 by The Arcade Fire.
for me
Dawn has an apartment in the best spot in Park Slope. She's not up in the higher ave's where the rent gets ridiculous. There's a lot of color in her neighborhood, both figuratively and literally.
This is really important. It's one of the essential things about New York that is so great, and why New Yorkers themselves are so great, why they strike everyone as somewhat more American than others. For me it's not tied to vaguely patriotic admonishments about surviving 9/11. It's about the eternal collusion of people in public space, the toughness of the city and how that forces strangers to bond in civil unions that wouldn't exist otherwise. I talked to Dawn's friend about this, about the importance of a subway to any city. Any city that forces people to confine themselves with strangers of all walks of life into crowded public spaces with margins of failure or disaster must in essence produce people who are more tolerant and accepting. The old tribal lines exist in New York, but more subliminally is an undercurrent of having to deal. It may be grudging sometimes, but ultimately it's utopian, the antithesis of the privatization of public space. But there is always attendant change, and I did talk to some old neighborhood people, and Brooklyn itself is under seige, a proposed football stadium coming to Flatbush that would eradicate countless brownstones and more importantly neighboorhoods for parking spaces and dollars. I believe this is why for a city that remains at the wounded heart of the country why it is so openly and adamantly anti Bush - signs of this everywhere, since urban spaces are battles in semiotic instability. But I do not think I spied a single Bush Cheney bumper sticker anywhere I went in New York.
Dawn's around the corner from the 826 Valencia Brooklyn branch, a Superhero outfitting store. An incredible deli called Pollio's that sells most importantly the best bagels I've ever eaten and more importantly San Pelligrino Limonata, the best soft drink in the world. In a few days there I managed to settle into a morning routine of waking up just before Dawn and sneaking out to grab bagel, New York Times, and getting in just in time to make her tea to wake her up with. Smoking a cig on her stoop in early morning, watching the street wake up. There's something about patterns and habits that are entirely satisfying, and that's what I fell into.
She was really busy throughout the week but we got to do some walking through the city. Kissing a girl you're crazy about on the Brooklyn Bridge at dusk is really wonderful.
I love New York. I'm crazy about my girl, something I don't have to be so quiet about any more. Chris Funk says he knows who the wedding band will be. Everyone is silent for a moment then giggles. We already did Vegas and didn't do it then so I don't believe that's a possibility. Colin is supportive and kindly about the whole thing in a gracious manner that cuts through all that. Like him I have distrust of marriage as an institution, maybe not for the same reasons. But I have always believed there's someone you can share your time with and it is in the tiniest things that they make everything full of elation. The way they hold your hand while walking or how they look at you while eating. He sings in a new song, a quiet ode to a person like that, that "we go a drowning". Intense feelings are terrifying, getting to be known is immersion. And you risk drowning. But you can also drown in sharing a Sunday newspaper and doing small nice things to each other that renders all the problems of the day and maybe even the world tolerable.
Yeah, I love New York.
somethin' * filled up * my heart * with nothin' * someone * told me not to cry * but now that * i'm older * my heart's * colder * and i can * see that it's a lie
children * wake up * hold your * mistake up * before they * turn the summer into dust * if the children * don't grow up * our bodies get bigger. but * our hearts get torn up * we're just * a million little gods causing rain storms * turning every good thing to rust * i guess we'll just have to adjust
with my lightining bolts a-glowin' i can see where i am going to be when the reaper he reaches and touches my hand
with my lightning bolts a-glowin' i can see where i am goin'
Look out below!
Wake Up mp3 by The Arcade Fire.
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