Steven Hyden's profile of Huey Lewis is another home run in his Grantland portfolio. It's partly the proverbial trip down memory lane, and partly a subtle reminder that the "winners' history of rock and roll" still has a few unfinished chapters. Where was the chapter about the hair metal bands who can play nostalgia shows to thousands of people from now until forever without ever releasing another new album? Huey Lewis and the News had more top ten hits than almost any other band currently playing the so-called nostalgia circuit, so they're probably good to keep touring from now until forever and a half.
Lewis doesn't say anything particularly insightful in the interview, but he clearly understands his niche in the music industry. He still plays up the same hard working bar band image that worked for him in the 80's and he knows how to play that role perfectly to the tune of filling concert halls with 2-3K happy concertgoers in medium sized towns basically any time he wants. That kind of drawing power is nothing to sneeze at, almost indie bands would kill for that kind of steady income. His little speech about making a new record -- "I don't know what a new record is anymore," Lewis says. "I think what we have to do is record it, and video the recording and make a YouTube clip." -- comes off a bit like granddad going on about those crazy kids these days and their internets. But you can't claim that the man doesn't know exactly who he is and where he belongs in music in 2013.
The article mainly focused on the success of "Sports", but "Fore!" was huge as well. It spawned five top ten hits, one more than "Sports", which is a remarkable number for any album in the 80's or any other decade. They had a solid five year run as one of the top bands in pop music, which doesn't even include "Small World" and its few minor hits. The synths on the title track were an obvious rip off of Prince's "1999" and "Perfect World" tried to be reggae (and fairly successfully too!), but at least they were trying something new and not standing in place like so many other 80's bands did as that decade came to a close. However, it's not true, as Lewis claims, that rock stations wouldn't play their album in 1991 because grunge was breaking through and they couldn't be less cool. Huey Lewis and the News were never cool. They always looked totally out of place. They were the hard working bass-drums-guitar-sax band who wore suits on the beach in their videos and always looked out of place (and a little bit too old to be there). They never fit the mold of the plastic, image driven 80's band, it's just that their songs were generally too good to ignore.
An unexpected side effect of Hyden's article was my rediscovery of the "We Are the World" video, which I hadn't seen or heard in a million years, and has now been inexplicably stuck in my head for the past two days. From there, I simply had to re-watch the Canadian famine relief record, "Tears Are Not Enough", and ... wow.
First of all, even South Park couldn't come up with a charity record parody as good as this one. Out of all the charity records I've seen, I don't think any of them manage to piece together this kind of motley crew of oddities, pseudo stars, and people that look like they were beamed in from other planets to appear in the record. In the latter category, Neil Young looks like he's in his own dreamworld separate from the rest, with his skullcap, long hair, sunglasses, and thin, reedy voice on a song that demands the corniest drama possible. Who convinced underground artists like Carole Pope and the famously reclusive Jane Siberry to show up? You've got SCTV alumni, Paul Schaeffer, a few token lyrics in French, and Geddy Lee and Bryan Adams getting their vocals specially reverbed just for them. "We Are The World" featured the biggest superstars in music at the time, but "Tears Are Not Enough" leads off with Gordon Lightfoot, Burton Cummings, and Anne Murray. Lightfoot is and will forever be awesome, but you'll be hard pressed to find three more quintessentially Canadian cultural icons/punchlines.
Saturday, June 29, 2013
Sunday, June 09, 2013
Two comebacks: Stone Roses and Primal Scream
The Roses' classic lineup reunited a couple of years ago for the first time since 1994, and while Primal Scream never technically went away, they've been playing "Screamadelica" live in its entirety at concerts, and reliving the glories of their most successful album from over twenty years ago feels like something that reuniting bands do.
Both of these acts were my favourite band in the world at one point in time. A quick and subjective history:
1990-1991. With all due respect to Depeche Mode and Nine Inch Nails, The Stone Roses were my favourite band during this period. They'd already gone into hibernation in the UK by the time I heard "Fools Gold" sometime in the summer of 1990, but that hardly mattered to me at the time.
1992. "Screamadelica" became a sensation, winning the inaugural UK Mercury Music Prize and creating superstars out of both the band and it's producer (Andrew Weatherall). This oddly mirrored what had already happened when the success of The Stone Roses' debut turned its producer John Leckie into a household name. I was too busy waiting for Manchester to rise again and scouring the music press for even the tiniest snippet of news about a new Stone Roses album (or gig, or sighting, or anything) and didn't really get into "Screamadelica" until 1993 or so.
1994. Primal Scream released the blues-y, Stones-y "Give Out But Don't Give Up", which everyone desperately wanted to like. The collective brainwashing lasted until 1997 or so, at which point a lot of people stopped pretending to like it (the fact that they pulled another 180 with the release of "Vanishing Point" definitely helped). But it wasn't all bad, because the singles "Rocks" and "Jailbird" were hits and still hold up today, and I got to see them when they toured with Depeche Mode on their summer tour (making an already debauched tour even more debauched).
Meanwhile, The Stone Roses finally released their second album, "The Second Coming", and it was a big disappointment in the "we waited five years for a Led Zeppelin tribute album?" sense. In other words, if it had been released in 1991, people would have called it an interesting direction for a sophomore album and respected the band for leaving Madchester behind (even if the resulting album was even more retro-sounding). They would have regularly drawn thousands of people to their concerts for the next couple of years and been as big if not bigger than they were before. But they released it in 1994 on the heels of Blur, Oasis, Suede, Pulp, and a wave of other breakthrough albums by British bands, turning them into just another Britpop band in a long list of them, rather than the saviours of rock as we knew it. Expectations were through the roof, and the only thing that could have saved "The Second Coming" was if it turned out to be as good or better than their debut, which was of course an unfair burden, albeit one the Roses brought upon themselves by sitting at home doing nothing for a few years previous.
1995-1996. The Stone Roses imploded in spectacular fashion. Reni left the band. John Squire broke his collarbone, leading to a cancellation of their headlining slot at Glastonbury and a golden opportunity at a homecoming that could have restored them to their previous stature. John Squire left the band and a replacement level Stone Roses played at Reading 1996 with a tone deaf Ian Brown. By the time of the inevitable final breakup in the fall of 1996, I was past the point of caring. Once in a while I'd listen to the debut album and still be blown away by its ageless cool, but for the most part The Stone Roses had vanished from my life. Unlike with, say The Smiths or Joy Division, I didn't revisit their music and wonder what could have been had they stayed together. They were in the past, period.
2000-2001. Having never really bought into the idea of Primal Scream as an era-defining band the first time around, I certainly wasn't expecting them to climb the mountain a second time. Somehow, Primal Scream 2.0 turned out to be even better than the first version. The jet fueled noise/dance hybrid "XTRMNTR" was the best album of 2000, Kevin Shields joined them on tour, and Primal Scream were my favourite band. Thirteen years later, I'm still not exactly sure what to make of "XTRMNTR" (it remains a very polarizing album, even among Primal Scream fans) and I still can't quite believe the 2000-1 years really happened.
2002-2008. "Evil Heat" was a worthy follow-up to "XTRMNTR", but they'd always walked a fine line between sharp but twisted and demented commentary and lunatic ravings, so it was inevitable that they'd go off the rails. By mid decade they'd returned to making classic rock and flipping their lids on stage at Glastonbury. I stopped caring about them almost as quickly as I'd (re)started.
2011 - 2013. The Stone Roses announced the reunion of their classic lineup, a series of gigs, and rumours circulated about a third album being in the works. Mani left Primal Scream to focus on being in the Roses again, and has been replaced by MBV's Debbie Googe! (apparently Primal Scream are contractually obligated to have their bassist pull double duty!) The "Screamadelica" revival shows don't excite me, but the idea of a new album ("More Light") produced by David Holmes is certainly intriguing.
With the introduction out of the way, let's check out some recent gigs by these bands. Are they still any good? Is there any reason to still care about these bands?
Primal Scream in Berlin in 2011
This is an hour long TV-quality recording of a "Screamadelica" show, and it's nostalgia at its worst. I mean, if this wasn't Primal Scream playing "Screamadelica" then you'd shut it off in disgust after five minutes. Bobby Gillespie's "singing" is lifeless, tuneless, and completely devoid of energy, save for the two minutes at the end of the set when he just screams random things into the mic, which seems to be the only thing he knows how to do anymore. I've put "singing" in quotation marks because at no point could you conceivably claim that he's carrying a tune, emoting the lyrics, or doing anything else that you'd normally associate with singing.
The band and even the background singers are not doing much more than going through the motions. "Loaded" gains some momentum toward the end and it's nice to hear them mix the original "Come Together" with the Weatherall remix from the single. There were a few brief instances when this gig brought a smile to my face because I remembered how much I used to love these songs. Then Bobby Gillespie would screech some kind of horrible phrase and I'd return to the hellish reality of the husk of Primal Scream in 2011.
Like I said, pure nostalgia, and the worst kind because it only makes you think about what once was. The present is barely tolerable and contains almost no new musical worth.
The Stone Roses live in Barcelona and Lyon, June 2012:
Having watched the Primal Scream concert before this one, let's just say I was fearing the worst here. Yes, I'd heard that the Roses reunion shows had been successful, but I'd heard the same about the "Screamadelica" shows. Ian Brown's voice, which was never what you'd call "polished" even in his younger days, has been steadily heading south over the past decade and a half, and his solo career hasn't exactly disguised that fact. Whereas the Scream have been playing together for over twenty five years (plus or minus a few lineup changes) and should have been energized or at least something approaching professional at this stage in the game, this lineup of The Stone Roses hadn't played together in over twenty years at the time of their reunion. Hell, Reni hadn't even played drums live on a stage in twenty years.
This is a complete concert pieced together from fan footage of shows in Lyon and Barcelona. I'm always shocked that somebody has the patience to carefully piece together these things and post them on Youtube, but am usually thankful that they did. Plus I've always loved a great bootleg, with crowd noise and muddy sound and all the nuances that go into making you feel you were really there, packed in among thousands of people. Some of these songs cut off a bit before the end, but otherwise the concert is complete.
Three out of the four Stone Roses have been active musicians for the past two decades. That said, is it obvious that the added experience and time spent honing their stagecraft separately would help them play better as a reunited unit? I don't think it is ... who's to say that the chemistry would still be there after fifteen years apart?
This is a remarkable concert, and far better than it had any right to be. What the Roses lack in technical precision is made up for by sheer determinedness. They're going to put on a great show by force of willpower, and they're going to do it their way. Ian Brown is going to prance around not doing much of anything other than shake the occasional tambourine, John Squire is going to jam when he feels like jamming, Mani's going to hold the whole thing together with his steady bass playing, and Reni's going to show that he can still drum with the best of them after eons away from the stage. That's the plan. They don't let little blips like the distracting unintentional tempo changes in "When Angels Play" and "Standing Here" bother them. Ian Brown's voice might falter at times, but it still sounds stronger than it has in years, possibly (hopefully) because of the added motivation behind this reunion. Plus, he's got a safety valve -- whenever he's low on lung power, thousands of people are more than happy to help him out.
The entire band looks great, especially John Squire, who hasn't aged a bit or changed his clothes or hairstyle in 20 years.
Like all great gigs, this one builds momentum toward the finish, with the band sounding better as they go, until "Made of Stone", "This is the One" and "She Bangs the Drums" close the set with a flurry of hand waving and crowd participation. It's just so great to hear these songs sounding so anthemic more than twenty years later. The finale, naturally, is "I Am The Resurrection", and it still sounds unstoppable.
It's not the kind of show I'd want to watch and rewatch every day. I know I'd keep finding holes in it and some memories are meant to be revisited only occasionally. But reunion shows can't get much better than this.
Both of these acts were my favourite band in the world at one point in time. A quick and subjective history:
1990-1991. With all due respect to Depeche Mode and Nine Inch Nails, The Stone Roses were my favourite band during this period. They'd already gone into hibernation in the UK by the time I heard "Fools Gold" sometime in the summer of 1990, but that hardly mattered to me at the time.
1992. "Screamadelica" became a sensation, winning the inaugural UK Mercury Music Prize and creating superstars out of both the band and it's producer (Andrew Weatherall). This oddly mirrored what had already happened when the success of The Stone Roses' debut turned its producer John Leckie into a household name. I was too busy waiting for Manchester to rise again and scouring the music press for even the tiniest snippet of news about a new Stone Roses album (or gig, or sighting, or anything) and didn't really get into "Screamadelica" until 1993 or so.
1994. Primal Scream released the blues-y, Stones-y "Give Out But Don't Give Up", which everyone desperately wanted to like. The collective brainwashing lasted until 1997 or so, at which point a lot of people stopped pretending to like it (the fact that they pulled another 180 with the release of "Vanishing Point" definitely helped). But it wasn't all bad, because the singles "Rocks" and "Jailbird" were hits and still hold up today, and I got to see them when they toured with Depeche Mode on their summer tour (making an already debauched tour even more debauched).
Meanwhile, The Stone Roses finally released their second album, "The Second Coming", and it was a big disappointment in the "we waited five years for a Led Zeppelin tribute album?" sense. In other words, if it had been released in 1991, people would have called it an interesting direction for a sophomore album and respected the band for leaving Madchester behind (even if the resulting album was even more retro-sounding). They would have regularly drawn thousands of people to their concerts for the next couple of years and been as big if not bigger than they were before. But they released it in 1994 on the heels of Blur, Oasis, Suede, Pulp, and a wave of other breakthrough albums by British bands, turning them into just another Britpop band in a long list of them, rather than the saviours of rock as we knew it. Expectations were through the roof, and the only thing that could have saved "The Second Coming" was if it turned out to be as good or better than their debut, which was of course an unfair burden, albeit one the Roses brought upon themselves by sitting at home doing nothing for a few years previous.
1995-1996. The Stone Roses imploded in spectacular fashion. Reni left the band. John Squire broke his collarbone, leading to a cancellation of their headlining slot at Glastonbury and a golden opportunity at a homecoming that could have restored them to their previous stature. John Squire left the band and a replacement level Stone Roses played at Reading 1996 with a tone deaf Ian Brown. By the time of the inevitable final breakup in the fall of 1996, I was past the point of caring. Once in a while I'd listen to the debut album and still be blown away by its ageless cool, but for the most part The Stone Roses had vanished from my life. Unlike with, say The Smiths or Joy Division, I didn't revisit their music and wonder what could have been had they stayed together. They were in the past, period.
2000-2001. Having never really bought into the idea of Primal Scream as an era-defining band the first time around, I certainly wasn't expecting them to climb the mountain a second time. Somehow, Primal Scream 2.0 turned out to be even better than the first version. The jet fueled noise/dance hybrid "XTRMNTR" was the best album of 2000, Kevin Shields joined them on tour, and Primal Scream were my favourite band. Thirteen years later, I'm still not exactly sure what to make of "XTRMNTR" (it remains a very polarizing album, even among Primal Scream fans) and I still can't quite believe the 2000-1 years really happened.
2002-2008. "Evil Heat" was a worthy follow-up to "XTRMNTR", but they'd always walked a fine line between sharp but twisted and demented commentary and lunatic ravings, so it was inevitable that they'd go off the rails. By mid decade they'd returned to making classic rock and flipping their lids on stage at Glastonbury. I stopped caring about them almost as quickly as I'd (re)started.
2011 - 2013. The Stone Roses announced the reunion of their classic lineup, a series of gigs, and rumours circulated about a third album being in the works. Mani left Primal Scream to focus on being in the Roses again, and has been replaced by MBV's Debbie Googe! (apparently Primal Scream are contractually obligated to have their bassist pull double duty!) The "Screamadelica" revival shows don't excite me, but the idea of a new album ("More Light") produced by David Holmes is certainly intriguing.
With the introduction out of the way, let's check out some recent gigs by these bands. Are they still any good? Is there any reason to still care about these bands?
Primal Scream in Berlin in 2011
This is an hour long TV-quality recording of a "Screamadelica" show, and it's nostalgia at its worst. I mean, if this wasn't Primal Scream playing "Screamadelica" then you'd shut it off in disgust after five minutes. Bobby Gillespie's "singing" is lifeless, tuneless, and completely devoid of energy, save for the two minutes at the end of the set when he just screams random things into the mic, which seems to be the only thing he knows how to do anymore. I've put "singing" in quotation marks because at no point could you conceivably claim that he's carrying a tune, emoting the lyrics, or doing anything else that you'd normally associate with singing.
The band and even the background singers are not doing much more than going through the motions. "Loaded" gains some momentum toward the end and it's nice to hear them mix the original "Come Together" with the Weatherall remix from the single. There were a few brief instances when this gig brought a smile to my face because I remembered how much I used to love these songs. Then Bobby Gillespie would screech some kind of horrible phrase and I'd return to the hellish reality of the husk of Primal Scream in 2011.
Like I said, pure nostalgia, and the worst kind because it only makes you think about what once was. The present is barely tolerable and contains almost no new musical worth.
The Stone Roses live in Barcelona and Lyon, June 2012:
Having watched the Primal Scream concert before this one, let's just say I was fearing the worst here. Yes, I'd heard that the Roses reunion shows had been successful, but I'd heard the same about the "Screamadelica" shows. Ian Brown's voice, which was never what you'd call "polished" even in his younger days, has been steadily heading south over the past decade and a half, and his solo career hasn't exactly disguised that fact. Whereas the Scream have been playing together for over twenty five years (plus or minus a few lineup changes) and should have been energized or at least something approaching professional at this stage in the game, this lineup of The Stone Roses hadn't played together in over twenty years at the time of their reunion. Hell, Reni hadn't even played drums live on a stage in twenty years.
This is a complete concert pieced together from fan footage of shows in Lyon and Barcelona. I'm always shocked that somebody has the patience to carefully piece together these things and post them on Youtube, but am usually thankful that they did. Plus I've always loved a great bootleg, with crowd noise and muddy sound and all the nuances that go into making you feel you were really there, packed in among thousands of people. Some of these songs cut off a bit before the end, but otherwise the concert is complete.
Three out of the four Stone Roses have been active musicians for the past two decades. That said, is it obvious that the added experience and time spent honing their stagecraft separately would help them play better as a reunited unit? I don't think it is ... who's to say that the chemistry would still be there after fifteen years apart?
This is a remarkable concert, and far better than it had any right to be. What the Roses lack in technical precision is made up for by sheer determinedness. They're going to put on a great show by force of willpower, and they're going to do it their way. Ian Brown is going to prance around not doing much of anything other than shake the occasional tambourine, John Squire is going to jam when he feels like jamming, Mani's going to hold the whole thing together with his steady bass playing, and Reni's going to show that he can still drum with the best of them after eons away from the stage. That's the plan. They don't let little blips like the distracting unintentional tempo changes in "When Angels Play" and "Standing Here" bother them. Ian Brown's voice might falter at times, but it still sounds stronger than it has in years, possibly (hopefully) because of the added motivation behind this reunion. Plus, he's got a safety valve -- whenever he's low on lung power, thousands of people are more than happy to help him out.
The entire band looks great, especially John Squire, who hasn't aged a bit or changed his clothes or hairstyle in 20 years.
Like all great gigs, this one builds momentum toward the finish, with the band sounding better as they go, until "Made of Stone", "This is the One" and "She Bangs the Drums" close the set with a flurry of hand waving and crowd participation. It's just so great to hear these songs sounding so anthemic more than twenty years later. The finale, naturally, is "I Am The Resurrection", and it still sounds unstoppable.
It's not the kind of show I'd want to watch and rewatch every day. I know I'd keep finding holes in it and some memories are meant to be revisited only occasionally. But reunion shows can't get much better than this.
Tuesday, June 04, 2013
Stuff we don't often see discussed: the physics of mosh pits and the economics of ticket scalping
A few months ago I came across a story about the physics of mosh pits. A few Cornell physicists (and part time metalheads) were blurring the lines between work and hobby, and their article came complete with a link to a mosh pit simulator. I loved it. No, it was just about the coolest thing ever.
Now their study has been published in Physical Review Letters, one of the top physics journals in the world. How much is there to love about this article?
1) The title is "Collective Motion of Humans in Mosh and Circle Pits at Heavy Metal Concerts".
2) In the acknowledgements, it's noted that "field work was independently funded by J. L. Silverberg" (the lead author of the paper).
3) The hilarious overuse of scientific language, e.g. "a collective phenomenon consisting of 10^1 - 10^2 participants commonly referred to as a mosh pit".
4) The Cohen group (i.e. the principal investigator of the study) are becoming minor celebrities out of this, check out the insanely long list of media outlets that have picked up on this story.
5) They are a shoo-in to grab the IgNobel prize for physics this year.
Now their study has been published in Physical Review Letters, one of the top physics journals in the world. How much is there to love about this article?
1) The title is "Collective Motion of Humans in Mosh and Circle Pits at Heavy Metal Concerts".
2) In the acknowledgements, it's noted that "field work was independently funded by J. L. Silverberg" (the lead author of the paper).
3) The hilarious overuse of scientific language, e.g. "a collective phenomenon consisting of 10^1 - 10^2 participants commonly referred to as a mosh pit".
4) The Cohen group (i.e. the principal investigator of the study) are becoming minor celebrities out of this, check out the insanely long list of media outlets that have picked up on this story.
5) They are a shoo-in to grab the IgNobel prize for physics this year.
--------------------------------
In other news, Adam Davidson examines the wildly counterintuitive business of ticket scalping in the New York Times. It turns out that artists such as Bruce Springsteen, who undercharge relative to the prices that the market would bear, are inadvertently encouraging scalping. The article ignores the psychological aspect of scalping, where there exists only a narrow window of time in the days leading up to the concert where the anticipation builds for the event and one can maximize the profits from scalping. This would seem to make an already complex issue even more complex.
I don't get the Kid Rock model of selling the best 1000 seats at a much higher price than the rest, because are fans really going to shell out that much for only marginally better seats? And if they are willing to shell out the money, won't the scalpers still want to buy up those seats, because they still stand to make more money selling a small number of those expensive seats rather than a larger number of very inexpensive seats? The third option is that the scalpers will stay away from those types of shows entirely, but is there really any data to support that?
Sunday, June 02, 2013
Music in Berlin 2013
There was a lot of talk about clubs and clubbing while I was here, but the only live music I saw was a Cuban band at a salsa party in the Gruener Salon in Rosa Luxemburg Platz. The party was apparently organized by a branch of the local Communist-leaning party and was part of a weekend long festival taking place in the nearby square. In lieu of an entrance fee, attendees were presented with pamphlets and encouraged to leave a donation in the donation box. That's a version of PWYC that I'd never seen before. The music was great the beer was super cheap, and Germans have no idea how to dance salsa [insert joke about German dancing abilities here]. Salsa lessons may be nearly nonexistent in Mitte, but people of all ages sure do love the music.
Speaking of clubs, I thought that clubs were being forced to close in Berlin? I'd read about how zoning laws and redevelopment were starting to put the clubs out of business and people were worried about the long term health of the clubbing scene. You can put those worries to rest -- there are a million new clubs (and DJs) I'd never heard of before, and more parties than ever taking place in every corner of the city. Too bad I never went to any of them, because I'm getting old and cranky and need my sleep lately. I thought about heading to Berghain (I was staying only a few minutes walk away) to get rejected at the door for old time's sake, but I didn't.
I bought a ton of music at Spacehall, which is clearly now the best place for buying CDs in Berlin. It's almost become my one-stop emporium for buying music in the city, at least until I get back into buying vinyl again. I also may have bought Pure's "Bodyhammer" 2CD compilation for the second time, I'll have to check when I get back home. I have a 2CD album at home that isn't recognized by Gracenote, my guess is that I bought it in Berlin right before packing up and moving, left the CD cover in storage, promptly forgot what it was, and rarely took it out of the case because I didn't have the slightest clue what it was. Anyone need an extra copy?
I also bought Depeche Mode's "Monument" book because I was seeing posters for it everywhere and it looks too good to pass up (even in German). It's damned heavy and there's supposed to be an English translation on the way in the fall but why wait? The pictures should tell the story quite well anyway and it's bound to be a collector's item so this is money well spent as far as I'm concerned. I'm perfectly willing to struggle though it and use my extremely limited knowledge of German to make my way though some of the text. Part of the focus is on the Eastern European fan clubs anyway. There's a preview on Electronic Beats' website, whose magazines I will be reading on the flight home.
Speaking of clubs, I thought that clubs were being forced to close in Berlin? I'd read about how zoning laws and redevelopment were starting to put the clubs out of business and people were worried about the long term health of the clubbing scene. You can put those worries to rest -- there are a million new clubs (and DJs) I'd never heard of before, and more parties than ever taking place in every corner of the city. Too bad I never went to any of them, because I'm getting old and cranky and need my sleep lately. I thought about heading to Berghain (I was staying only a few minutes walk away) to get rejected at the door for old time's sake, but I didn't.
I bought a ton of music at Spacehall, which is clearly now the best place for buying CDs in Berlin. It's almost become my one-stop emporium for buying music in the city, at least until I get back into buying vinyl again. I also may have bought Pure's "Bodyhammer" 2CD compilation for the second time, I'll have to check when I get back home. I have a 2CD album at home that isn't recognized by Gracenote, my guess is that I bought it in Berlin right before packing up and moving, left the CD cover in storage, promptly forgot what it was, and rarely took it out of the case because I didn't have the slightest clue what it was. Anyone need an extra copy?
I also bought Depeche Mode's "Monument" book because I was seeing posters for it everywhere and it looks too good to pass up (even in German). It's damned heavy and there's supposed to be an English translation on the way in the fall but why wait? The pictures should tell the story quite well anyway and it's bound to be a collector's item so this is money well spent as far as I'm concerned. I'm perfectly willing to struggle though it and use my extremely limited knowledge of German to make my way though some of the text. Part of the focus is on the Eastern European fan clubs anyway. There's a preview on Electronic Beats' website, whose magazines I will be reading on the flight home.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
The Knife, "Shaking the Habitual"; Omar S, "Thank You For Letting Me Be Myself"
Both of these acts are very highly regarded but I've never understood what all of the fuss was about. Maybe they're just not for me. Or maybe it's about time I gave their new albums a chance ...
I have to hand it to The Knife, they have a keen understanding of their audience and how to promote themselves. Leftfield electronic acts, take note. They lead a shady, mysterious existence (accentuated by their wearing of masks in public), and release music only occasionally. The same strategy has worked wonders for Daft Punk too. They've also stopped giving face to face interviews. This would annoy casual music fans who expect their favourite artists to maintain some kind of public profile and to try to cater to their fans a bit more. Also, what teenager would wait seven years between albums by their favourite band without going crazy or giving up on them completely? Remember waiting for the follow up to the Stone Roses debut? The delays and waiting seemed interminable ... and it was "only" five years! Good thing that The Knife's fans are twenty and thirtysomethings whose free time revolves around music and music criticism.
They've also been streaming their album for free partly because they're anticapitalist but they know that they're fans are the kinds of people who will still pay for music even if they know how to get it for free. All the advance press is focused on the political nature album, but the exact political stance isn't immediately obvious when you're listening to the long instrumental passages that make up the bulk of "Shaking the Habitual". But they've talked up the political stuff in a number of interviews, which again, they know all the people will care about them will read. So they can be confident about getting the message out.
I'm not being sarcastic here. Publicity and music distribution is about the music into the hands (and ears) of the people who want to hear it. The Knife couldn't have satisfied their objectives any better. How about the music though?
I rarely pay attention to lyrics, especially blurry, distorted ones, so if you're looking for a detailed lyrical breakdown then you've come to the wrong place. Like Swans' widely acclaimed album from last year, "The Seer", The Knife have gone epic by stretching nearly every song out to eight minutes or more, presenting a near 100-minute palate of music that ranges from twisted dancefloor bangers to ambient noise. It's ambitious to be sure, and holds my attention better than I expected it would. But at no point during the album do I feel like I'm listening to a truly inspired work, in fact it's quite the opposite -- I feel like I'm hearing songs that are highly derivative of other artists, stretched out to maximum run time in the concerted attempt to make a masterpiece. It's not such a bad bet to assume that a 100-minute album will get twice the hype of a more "ordinary" album running "just" 50 minutes.
"Full of Fire" is the kind of song that Crystal Castles might make if they had the attention span to write nine minute songs, and the nineteen minute "Old Dreams Waiting To Be Realized" definitely hits its mark by being the haunting and unsettling experimental noise piece its supposed to be, but is really isn't anything you couldn't hear on any one of two dozen Nurse With Wound albums.
The Knife: still not "getting it", unfortunately.
Omar S is undoubtedly talented, but I was mostly hearing a more house-y version of Ricardo Villalobos. After a while, the never ending cycle of ten minute gently pulsing minimal dance tracks becomes exhausting. Omar S always had sick beats (something Villalobos has always had a problem with, his tracks rarely have enough ooomph) and the coolest song and album titles in the biz, but even universally acknowledged classics like "Here's Your Trance, Now Dance" and "Psychotic Photosynthesis" never seemed to really go anywhere for me.
That's why I was surprised and delighted that "Thank You For Letting Me Be Myself" (another great title) blew me away from the first listen. "I Just Want" is a percussive slow builder that was mixed by Luke Hess but could be a dead ringer for Petar Dundov -- compare it with the similarly structured "Oasis" and wrap yourself in the enveloping bass of either track. "Air of the Day" and "The Shit Baby" are solid late '80's/early '90's throwbacks, especially the latter, which reminds me a lot of Ron Trent's "Altered States" (one of my very favourite 80's house+techno hybrids).
A couple of weeks after first hearing this album, I read RA's fairly middling review which concluded that it was good but nothing new, just the usual solid Omar S release that hits the spot but nothing more. No surprises, no new tweaks on an old style, nothing. Obviously they know his catalogue better than I do ... so what am I missing? Or rather, what past Omar S gems have I been missing out on?
I have to hand it to The Knife, they have a keen understanding of their audience and how to promote themselves. Leftfield electronic acts, take note. They lead a shady, mysterious existence (accentuated by their wearing of masks in public), and release music only occasionally. The same strategy has worked wonders for Daft Punk too. They've also stopped giving face to face interviews. This would annoy casual music fans who expect their favourite artists to maintain some kind of public profile and to try to cater to their fans a bit more. Also, what teenager would wait seven years between albums by their favourite band without going crazy or giving up on them completely? Remember waiting for the follow up to the Stone Roses debut? The delays and waiting seemed interminable ... and it was "only" five years! Good thing that The Knife's fans are twenty and thirtysomethings whose free time revolves around music and music criticism.
They've also been streaming their album for free partly because they're anticapitalist but they know that they're fans are the kinds of people who will still pay for music even if they know how to get it for free. All the advance press is focused on the political nature album, but the exact political stance isn't immediately obvious when you're listening to the long instrumental passages that make up the bulk of "Shaking the Habitual". But they've talked up the political stuff in a number of interviews, which again, they know all the people will care about them will read. So they can be confident about getting the message out.
I'm not being sarcastic here. Publicity and music distribution is about the music into the hands (and ears) of the people who want to hear it. The Knife couldn't have satisfied their objectives any better. How about the music though?
I rarely pay attention to lyrics, especially blurry, distorted ones, so if you're looking for a detailed lyrical breakdown then you've come to the wrong place. Like Swans' widely acclaimed album from last year, "The Seer", The Knife have gone epic by stretching nearly every song out to eight minutes or more, presenting a near 100-minute palate of music that ranges from twisted dancefloor bangers to ambient noise. It's ambitious to be sure, and holds my attention better than I expected it would. But at no point during the album do I feel like I'm listening to a truly inspired work, in fact it's quite the opposite -- I feel like I'm hearing songs that are highly derivative of other artists, stretched out to maximum run time in the concerted attempt to make a masterpiece. It's not such a bad bet to assume that a 100-minute album will get twice the hype of a more "ordinary" album running "just" 50 minutes.
"Full of Fire" is the kind of song that Crystal Castles might make if they had the attention span to write nine minute songs, and the nineteen minute "Old Dreams Waiting To Be Realized" definitely hits its mark by being the haunting and unsettling experimental noise piece its supposed to be, but is really isn't anything you couldn't hear on any one of two dozen Nurse With Wound albums.
The Knife: still not "getting it", unfortunately.
Omar S is undoubtedly talented, but I was mostly hearing a more house-y version of Ricardo Villalobos. After a while, the never ending cycle of ten minute gently pulsing minimal dance tracks becomes exhausting. Omar S always had sick beats (something Villalobos has always had a problem with, his tracks rarely have enough ooomph) and the coolest song and album titles in the biz, but even universally acknowledged classics like "Here's Your Trance, Now Dance" and "Psychotic Photosynthesis" never seemed to really go anywhere for me.
That's why I was surprised and delighted that "Thank You For Letting Me Be Myself" (another great title) blew me away from the first listen. "I Just Want" is a percussive slow builder that was mixed by Luke Hess but could be a dead ringer for Petar Dundov -- compare it with the similarly structured "Oasis" and wrap yourself in the enveloping bass of either track. "Air of the Day" and "The Shit Baby" are solid late '80's/early '90's throwbacks, especially the latter, which reminds me a lot of Ron Trent's "Altered States" (one of my very favourite 80's house+techno hybrids).
A couple of weeks after first hearing this album, I read RA's fairly middling review which concluded that it was good but nothing new, just the usual solid Omar S release that hits the spot but nothing more. No surprises, no new tweaks on an old style, nothing. Obviously they know his catalogue better than I do ... so what am I missing? Or rather, what past Omar S gems have I been missing out on?
Friday, May 17, 2013
Ranking the Depeche Mode concerts
It's been all Depeche Mode all the time around here lately, so if you're sick of hearing about them, don't worry, it'll pass. I'm still enjoying the excitement that comes with your favourite band releasing a new album and starting their world tour.
I don't see as many concerts as I used to, so I might be writing more of these kinds of posts in the future, where I have to live vicariously through past concertgoing experiences. If this turns out to be the first of a series then it's one hell of a test case because how can you possibly compare seven concerts spread over twenty three years? Who changed more over that time, the band or the reviewer? It's almost like taking seven vaguely similar bands reviewed by seven vaguely different people (seven people who were not very objective observers at that) and trying to compare them. Nevertheless, let's give it a try.
It was only after gathering all the concert details and finding all the set lists did I realize that I saw these even shows in seven different venues.
The judging criteria will be these two simple categories, with approximately equal weighting. Of course all of this is completely subjective.
-- Performance. This includes technical aspects related to the performance (e.g. how well they sang, how well they played their instruments) as well as design and planning aspects (e.g. the songs they played, the stage setup)
-- Overall experience. Did the venue help or hurt the show? What about fan participation or lack thereof? How excited was I during, before, and after the concert?
With that out of the way:
7. Skydome, Toronto, Canada, November 5, 1998, The Singles Tour 86>98
This is and likely always will be in last place. Horrendously bad sound (like listening to someone play Depeche Mode on a beaten up tape recorder from 100 metres away), terrible and completely colourless venue, and subdued, even apathetic fans. Depeche were still getting used to the live band setup (in particular, the drums were drowned out by the canned beats) and there were nothing unexpected or remotely surprising about the contents of the setlist or the versions of the songs they played (a built-in disadvantage of doing a "Singles Tour").
I wrote a review of this concert in an old notebook and really need to dig it out sometime. I recall that I was disappointed (for all the reasons listed) but generally positive about the show and about Depeche Mode's future. I was partly in denial.
6. Molson Amphitheatre, Toronto, Canada, June 16 2001, Exciter Tour
I'm on record as loving the "One Night In Paris" DVD from this tour, and it's still my favourite Depeche Mode concert video/DVD after "Devotional". As a way to relax on your couch and enjoy a Depeche Mode concert film, it's top quality stuff. But seeing it live, it lacked the breathless excitement and adrenaline rush I'd come to expect from a Depeche Mode concert (or any other great concert). The first half, featuring mostly "Exciter" material (still well entrenched in their lower tier of albums), seemed to pass glacially slow, subduing the mood in the arena nearly beyond recapture. Martin Gore sang "The Bottom Line" -- one of my favourite songs from "Ultra" -- and I can't remember a thing about it. Overall I had a good time but this was the first time I walked out of a Depeche Mode concert and had a smattering of doubt of whether I'd want to see them again.
5. Ramat Gan Stadium, Ramat Gan (Tel Aviv), Israel, May 10, 2009, Tour of the Universe
We've been over the problems with this concert before. There were many obstacles to overcome -- bad acoustics, fickle crowd, set list tweaks (the number of songs from "Sounds of Universe" gradually declined as the tour progressed) -- but the sheer size of the crowd was something special, the new songs sounded a lot better live than they did on record, and the re-inclusion of songs like "Stripped" and "Strangelove" was a treat.
4 Air Canada Centre, Toronto Canada, December 1, 2005, Touring the Angel
I saw this concert during a very emotional and busy week, and if I hadn't had a bunch of other things on my mind I probably would have enjoyed it even more. Looking over my review, it reads like a nearly flawless gig filled with peaks and completely lacking in valleys. I wish I could remember it as being as exhilarating as the review reads, but like I wrote, I had a degree to complete and had too many other things on my mind. Details of the concert must have vanished into the memory pit, so I'm glad I recorded my thoughts soon afterward (and that's a big reason why I still maintain a blog). The crowd was great (well done Toronto, this was a nice comeback), and me and my friends couldn't have been more stoked (we were all long time fans).
3. CNE Grandstand, Toronto, Canada, June 22, 1990, World Violation Tour
I can't possibly be objective about this one. It was my first Depeche Mode show and my first real concert, ever. We were under the grandstand which was partial death for proximity and acoustics, but we kept dry when it started raining mid show. The crowd was going INSANE and I'd never seen anything like it and might not ever again. It was just a swarming, slightly intimidating mass of fans dressed in black who screamed literally every time Dave Gahan moved a muscle between song verses or bellowed "thankyou!!" or "letsseethosehands!!", which seemed to happen about every ten seconds. I was under the spell of both audience and band, chanting and yelling like a robot from the opening notes, helpless to escape.
For reasons that have never been adequately explained, the "World Violation" tour was never recorded for commercial release, but the bootleg recordings portray a band still taking baby steps forward in terms of performance quality, even though the song quality was reaching its peak. Somehow, I hadn't heard all of "Violator" when I saw this show. Those were the days when I was glued to the radio and I didn't feel compelled to buy certain mega-albums (like "Violator" and "Disintegration") because most of the songs on them were staples of alternative radio. So I didn't know "Clean", and I'm also fairly sure I hadn't heard "Black Celebration" at that point because I remember nothing about "Stripped", and had to fake my reactions somewhat to the first encore.
2. Kingswood Music Theatre, Vaughn (Toronto), Ontario, Canada, June 20, 1994, 1994 Summer Tour
For a long time, I listed this concert among my five favourite gigs ever. We were deliriously excited about seeing this concert, not least because we'd all missed the "Devotional" leg from the previous fall. We were going out clubbing a few times a week to escape the monotony of our dead end summer jobs and music meant just about everything to us. The energy in the audience was off the charts. People couldn't control themselves, all these goth teenagers and leather jacket wearing twenty somethings turned into pre-pubescent boy band fans and wouldn't stop shrieking for ninety minutes. I had butterflies in my stomach the entire time, the kind of feeling you only get when you fall in love or sit on the edge of your seat completely entranced the first time you see your favourite movie. Primal Scream were the opening band and we went nuts for them too. Primal Scream joining the tail end of the "Songs of Faith and Devotion" tour -- the debauchery jokes wrote themselves! On this night nobody particularly cared about all the scary stories we'd read for months about the band falling apart and Fletch finally breaking down and going home. We even made friends with the people in the row in front of us and I remained pen pals with one of them for a few years afterward. Modern technology has completely obliterated the concept of pen pals, but even in the 90's it wasn't all that uncommon. But she was the only pen pal I ever had.
I can't put this concert at #1 in good conscience for two reasons. One, they've gotten so much better as a live unit since then. Two, I tracked down a bootleg copy of this show a few months afterward, as a favour to my pen pal friend. I was in for a minor shock when I heard it again. The energy and general insanity that reigned throughout the show was more than evident. It was easy to immerse myself in that aspect of it. What couldn't be ignored what how awful Dave Gahan sounded. He was hoarse and out of breath on nearly every syllable. He did a lot more chanting than singing, doing his best to carry a tune but failing more often than he succeeded. It was basically every tabloid story about how messed up he'd become come to life and recorded for posterity. Take a look at this concert recorded in Milwaukee about two weeks after the show I saw or an even better example, this one from Holmdel recorded on June 24 and you'll have a good idea what I'm talking about. Witness a rake thin, sickly looking Dave Gahan try his best to survive the concert and keep the crowd involved (and succeeding beyond all reasonable expectations, a testament to his talent and willpower) while the rest of the band puts in a professional but unspectacular performance. When you watch it back in a vacuum it all seems so obvious. At the time we didn't notice, and no, it didn't matter to us one bit.
1. Park Hayarkon, Tel Aviv, Israel, May 7, 2013, Delta Machine Tour
This concert just happened ten days ago, so maybe I'm not judging with a clear head yet. It didn't have the calm poise of the "Exciter" show, the atmosphere of the "World Violation" and "Summer Tour 1994" shows, and "Delta Machine" isn't as strong as "Playing the Angel". All they did was look and sound great, playing inspired new and old songs in front of an amazing crowd. As I've described, every other concert had a notable weakness (either at the time or in retrospect). This one did not, and Depeche Mode excelled in every aspect of putting on a great concert.
I don't see as many concerts as I used to, so I might be writing more of these kinds of posts in the future, where I have to live vicariously through past concertgoing experiences. If this turns out to be the first of a series then it's one hell of a test case because how can you possibly compare seven concerts spread over twenty three years? Who changed more over that time, the band or the reviewer? It's almost like taking seven vaguely similar bands reviewed by seven vaguely different people (seven people who were not very objective observers at that) and trying to compare them. Nevertheless, let's give it a try.
It was only after gathering all the concert details and finding all the set lists did I realize that I saw these even shows in seven different venues.
The judging criteria will be these two simple categories, with approximately equal weighting. Of course all of this is completely subjective.
-- Performance. This includes technical aspects related to the performance (e.g. how well they sang, how well they played their instruments) as well as design and planning aspects (e.g. the songs they played, the stage setup)
-- Overall experience. Did the venue help or hurt the show? What about fan participation or lack thereof? How excited was I during, before, and after the concert?
With that out of the way:
7. Skydome, Toronto, Canada, November 5, 1998, The Singles Tour 86>98
This is and likely always will be in last place. Horrendously bad sound (like listening to someone play Depeche Mode on a beaten up tape recorder from 100 metres away), terrible and completely colourless venue, and subdued, even apathetic fans. Depeche were still getting used to the live band setup (in particular, the drums were drowned out by the canned beats) and there were nothing unexpected or remotely surprising about the contents of the setlist or the versions of the songs they played (a built-in disadvantage of doing a "Singles Tour").
I wrote a review of this concert in an old notebook and really need to dig it out sometime. I recall that I was disappointed (for all the reasons listed) but generally positive about the show and about Depeche Mode's future. I was partly in denial.
6. Molson Amphitheatre, Toronto, Canada, June 16 2001, Exciter Tour
I'm on record as loving the "One Night In Paris" DVD from this tour, and it's still my favourite Depeche Mode concert video/DVD after "Devotional". As a way to relax on your couch and enjoy a Depeche Mode concert film, it's top quality stuff. But seeing it live, it lacked the breathless excitement and adrenaline rush I'd come to expect from a Depeche Mode concert (or any other great concert). The first half, featuring mostly "Exciter" material (still well entrenched in their lower tier of albums), seemed to pass glacially slow, subduing the mood in the arena nearly beyond recapture. Martin Gore sang "The Bottom Line" -- one of my favourite songs from "Ultra" -- and I can't remember a thing about it. Overall I had a good time but this was the first time I walked out of a Depeche Mode concert and had a smattering of doubt of whether I'd want to see them again.
5. Ramat Gan Stadium, Ramat Gan (Tel Aviv), Israel, May 10, 2009, Tour of the Universe
We've been over the problems with this concert before. There were many obstacles to overcome -- bad acoustics, fickle crowd, set list tweaks (the number of songs from "Sounds of Universe" gradually declined as the tour progressed) -- but the sheer size of the crowd was something special, the new songs sounded a lot better live than they did on record, and the re-inclusion of songs like "Stripped" and "Strangelove" was a treat.
4 Air Canada Centre, Toronto Canada, December 1, 2005, Touring the Angel
I saw this concert during a very emotional and busy week, and if I hadn't had a bunch of other things on my mind I probably would have enjoyed it even more. Looking over my review, it reads like a nearly flawless gig filled with peaks and completely lacking in valleys. I wish I could remember it as being as exhilarating as the review reads, but like I wrote, I had a degree to complete and had too many other things on my mind. Details of the concert must have vanished into the memory pit, so I'm glad I recorded my thoughts soon afterward (and that's a big reason why I still maintain a blog). The crowd was great (well done Toronto, this was a nice comeback), and me and my friends couldn't have been more stoked (we were all long time fans).
3. CNE Grandstand, Toronto, Canada, June 22, 1990, World Violation Tour
I can't possibly be objective about this one. It was my first Depeche Mode show and my first real concert, ever. We were under the grandstand which was partial death for proximity and acoustics, but we kept dry when it started raining mid show. The crowd was going INSANE and I'd never seen anything like it and might not ever again. It was just a swarming, slightly intimidating mass of fans dressed in black who screamed literally every time Dave Gahan moved a muscle between song verses or bellowed "thankyou!!" or "letsseethosehands!!", which seemed to happen about every ten seconds. I was under the spell of both audience and band, chanting and yelling like a robot from the opening notes, helpless to escape.
For reasons that have never been adequately explained, the "World Violation" tour was never recorded for commercial release, but the bootleg recordings portray a band still taking baby steps forward in terms of performance quality, even though the song quality was reaching its peak. Somehow, I hadn't heard all of "Violator" when I saw this show. Those were the days when I was glued to the radio and I didn't feel compelled to buy certain mega-albums (like "Violator" and "Disintegration") because most of the songs on them were staples of alternative radio. So I didn't know "Clean", and I'm also fairly sure I hadn't heard "Black Celebration" at that point because I remember nothing about "Stripped", and had to fake my reactions somewhat to the first encore.
2. Kingswood Music Theatre, Vaughn (Toronto), Ontario, Canada, June 20, 1994, 1994 Summer Tour
For a long time, I listed this concert among my five favourite gigs ever. We were deliriously excited about seeing this concert, not least because we'd all missed the "Devotional" leg from the previous fall. We were going out clubbing a few times a week to escape the monotony of our dead end summer jobs and music meant just about everything to us. The energy in the audience was off the charts. People couldn't control themselves, all these goth teenagers and leather jacket wearing twenty somethings turned into pre-pubescent boy band fans and wouldn't stop shrieking for ninety minutes. I had butterflies in my stomach the entire time, the kind of feeling you only get when you fall in love or sit on the edge of your seat completely entranced the first time you see your favourite movie. Primal Scream were the opening band and we went nuts for them too. Primal Scream joining the tail end of the "Songs of Faith and Devotion" tour -- the debauchery jokes wrote themselves! On this night nobody particularly cared about all the scary stories we'd read for months about the band falling apart and Fletch finally breaking down and going home. We even made friends with the people in the row in front of us and I remained pen pals with one of them for a few years afterward. Modern technology has completely obliterated the concept of pen pals, but even in the 90's it wasn't all that uncommon. But she was the only pen pal I ever had.
I can't put this concert at #1 in good conscience for two reasons. One, they've gotten so much better as a live unit since then. Two, I tracked down a bootleg copy of this show a few months afterward, as a favour to my pen pal friend. I was in for a minor shock when I heard it again. The energy and general insanity that reigned throughout the show was more than evident. It was easy to immerse myself in that aspect of it. What couldn't be ignored what how awful Dave Gahan sounded. He was hoarse and out of breath on nearly every syllable. He did a lot more chanting than singing, doing his best to carry a tune but failing more often than he succeeded. It was basically every tabloid story about how messed up he'd become come to life and recorded for posterity. Take a look at this concert recorded in Milwaukee about two weeks after the show I saw or an even better example, this one from Holmdel recorded on June 24 and you'll have a good idea what I'm talking about. Witness a rake thin, sickly looking Dave Gahan try his best to survive the concert and keep the crowd involved (and succeeding beyond all reasonable expectations, a testament to his talent and willpower) while the rest of the band puts in a professional but unspectacular performance. When you watch it back in a vacuum it all seems so obvious. At the time we didn't notice, and no, it didn't matter to us one bit.
1. Park Hayarkon, Tel Aviv, Israel, May 7, 2013, Delta Machine Tour
This concert just happened ten days ago, so maybe I'm not judging with a clear head yet. It didn't have the calm poise of the "Exciter" show, the atmosphere of the "World Violation" and "Summer Tour 1994" shows, and "Delta Machine" isn't as strong as "Playing the Angel". All they did was look and sound great, playing inspired new and old songs in front of an amazing crowd. As I've described, every other concert had a notable weakness (either at the time or in retrospect). This one did not, and Depeche Mode excelled in every aspect of putting on a great concert.
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Depeche Mode, Booka Shade @ Park Hayarkon
What a difference a few years and a change of venue makes.
In retrospect, "Sounds of the Universe", with its throwback to twinkly 80's electro pop and impressive collection of vintage synths, was not the album to back Depeche Mode on a huge stadium tour where they played the consistently largest venues of their career.
Their concert in Ramat Gan Stadium that opened the tour was a deliriously promoted show, fed by the narrative of Depeche Mode finally playing their first concert in Israel after two previous cancellations, including one on mere days notice in '06. They packed fifty thousand people into a stadium, one of the largest of the tour, and the anticipation was at a fever pitch.
The band was game, and did the best they could with the material they had, minus a few noticeable slip ups that can be attributed to the opening of the tour. But the spaciousness and poor acoustics of the venue hurt the atmosphere a lot. And the casual fans who packed the stadium, many of whom hadn't heard the new album and thought they were in for a night of 80's nostalgia, dragged the show down even further. Look, there's absolutely nothing wrong with being a casual fan, and there's nothing wrong with having high standards when you pay good money for a ticket and expect to be entertained. But at some point you have to meet the band halfway. Great concerts are made when band and audience feed off each other. The local media hasn't learned that lesson, even four years later. Most of the press leading up to this week's concert blamed Depeche Mode for having a sub-par night and not tailoring their set list to the "needs" of the fans.
Park HaYarkon is a completely different kind of venue. It's not much more than a sectioned off part of a huge city park. But it's a natural concert venue in that it's situated in a bowl shaped area of the park, providing a natural enclosure for both the crowd and the sounds emanating from the stage. For me, this was the first time seeing Depeche Mode in a general admission venue, where I could stand among thousands of people at stage level. Somehow, even though I've been a fan of Depeche Mode roughly as long as I've been a paying music customer, I'd never shelled out big money for the best seating or followed them to see a show in a city I wasn't living in. I'd just patiently waited for them to come to town and usually stood in the back away from the epicentre of all the craziness and general bedlam. And that was still true on this night. I didn't open my wallet for the golden tickets where you could stand in the roped off area directly in front of the stage and around the catwalk, but I arrived relatively early to get a spot in the next closest tier. Baby steps, even after 23 years.
Some of the local papers (*ahemYisraelHayom*) incorrectly reported that the opening act would be a DJ set, because of course all artists associated with techno don't play live, they spin records. That was one of just many reasons that many people seemed oblivious to the fact that Booka Shade was playing live and not just queuing up files on their computers. It was going to take more than the occasional shout out to the crowd and some sparse live percussion to get the message across to people who have never seen live techno, let alone live techno in a huge park. The percussion seemed to function more as a spectacle for a live setting, merely something to make the stage look busier than it was, rather than a key element of the music. But the songs they played, many of which was announced as new music by the duo, wouldn't disappoint anyone familiar with their style.
During Booka Shade's set I was interviewed by a reporter from the Jerusalem Post who was searching for superfans who had flown in just for the concert. My Violator shirt that I bought at their 1990 concert tipped her off (note: this is my one exception to the "never wear concert t-shirts to concerts rule). She asked me a few questions even though I wasn't the out of towner she was looking for. She asked whether I'd been to the concert four years ago, I said yes. She asked what I thought about it, and I gave my diplomatic opinion. She asked what I was hoping for from tonight's show, I said I hoped the crowd would be more energetic and not just wait around to hear "Just Can't Get Enough". I told her she could quote me on that. The next day, a review of the concert appeared in the paper but I'm not sure if it was written by her. It's written more in the style of a gushing fan than a more neutral and passive newspaper reporter, but that's OK sometimes. Most of the JPost's music reporting comes across as something sloppily written and edited by high school students, but this review was a lot more sincere and accurate than most of the ones they publish.
I'd heard Depeche Mode's short, widely circulated sets that were recorded at Letterman's studio and in Austria, but I purposely hadn't looked at the setlist from the warm up gig in Nice a few days earlier. Wanting to be surprised on the first night of the tour proper is a good thing. I wasn't exactly blown away. Dave Gahan's singing seemed tentative, as if he wasn't sure how hard to push his voice. The new songs, save for "Soothe My Soul", didn't sound stadium-ready. But sometimes, and especially at the Depeche Mode shows I've been to, being at the show among thousands of fans can transform the songs into something else. And a live set by a band with a deep catalogue, much like a DJ set, needs time to develop. The compressed, 45-minute version might not give them the time to communicate all they need to say.
As for the concert ... well, the atmosphere couldn't have been more different from '09. Everyone around me was singing, sometimes loud enough to drown out Dave Gahan. People standing way at the back of the arena were waving, clapping, getting emotionally invested in the show. It wasn't a crowd of curiosity seekers, it was a crowd of fans. You can't say enough about what kind of difference that makes -- to be dropped into a pool of thirty thousand people who want to see a band just as badly as you do.
Even though their concerts have been more based around live instruments than synths going on fifteen years, I've always considered their live setup a bit of a work in progress. Sometimes they've toured with singers, sometimes not. Sometimes they've leaned heavily on visuals and elaborate stage designs, sometimes not. In the past the live instruments seemed like embellishments (not a criticism) on top of the synth and other pre-programmed components. For instance, it seemed like Martin Gore started focusing on the guitar not because it was an essential addition to their live sound, but because he wanted to do something different after fifteen years of standing behind keyboards. But now their transformation into an actual rock and roll band feels complete. It's mostly in the small details -- the ultra slow burning into to "Personal Jesus", the semi-improvised intro to "I Feel You", the always expanding repetoire of ballads sung by Martin Gore -- but they've never sounded less constrained by their electronic equipment or more freer with what they can play and how they can play it..
This is also the first Depeche Mode tour in twenty years that doesn't feel like a "new album" set and a "greatest hits set" stitched together at the hip. It hardly seems possible for a band going on thirty years. First, if a band wants their fans to take their new songs seriously, rather than a part of the show to be tolerated while they wait for the proper hits, then they need to treat them seriously. That means spreading them evenly throughout the set, mixed among the more well-known songs. It means making gutsy decisions like picking "Goodbye" to not only close the set, but as a follow-up to arguably their two most popular songs, "Enjoy the Silence" and "Personal Jesus". It means choosing to play older songs like "When the Body Speaks", "Black Celebration", and "Only When I Lose Myself" because they mesh well with the darkened robo-funk of "Delta Machine" and not only because they're songs that all their fans would recognize. The updated arrangement of "Only When I Lose Myself" was especially great, overhauling the song from an oft-forgotten single to a tune that would have fit in perfectly on the still-underrated "Ultra" (where it probably should have appeared all along). I used to think that "Playing The Angel" was their latter day "Black Celebration", but now it feels like "Delta Machine" is the true heir apparent to their darkness-obsessed 80's selves.
Like with any great concert, there were plenty of surprises. The re-appearances of "When The Body Speaks" and "Only When I Lose Myself" were bold and unexpected song choices. "A Pain That I'm Used To" and "Halo" were brought back in radically different forms -- as "covers" of the Jacques Lu Cont and Goldfrapp remixes respectively -- that fit the bluesier style of "Delta Machine" much better than the original versions would have. The end of "Should Be Higher" turned into a call-and-response singalong that prompted the kind of audience participation that Depeche Mode were striving for but couldn't quite reach with a then-new song like "Peace" on their last tour.
The stage set was almost absurdly basic. The space pods from "Touring the Angel" and even the minimalist hanging globe from "Tour of the Universe" are but a distant memory. Even the tour videos, done in Anton Corbijn's easily recognizable style, were used only occasionally. The video screens mostly projected live images of the band from various angles, as if they were ... a real rock band! The energy in the park perhaps faded a bit toward the end, but it was a very long performance (2 h 15 min including a five song encore), although that's not really an excuse because the band weren't showing the slightest bit of strain. Everyone got to hear what was "denied" them in '09 -- namely "Just Can't Get Enough" -- but people in my section seemed relatively unenthusiastic. They'd read the advance press and knew it was coming, but plenty of other songs were more hotly anticipated.
Depeche Mode shows won't ever again be black-clad mobs of insanity bordering on near riots. Maybe that's still the way it is in certain cities, but in most places you'll expect to find a mix of teenagers looking to see legends in action and children of the 80's who go to cheer on their heroes like they did in the old days. The older generation might even be bringing their kids to the concerts, after all Depeche Mode have certainly reached that level where they transcend generation gaps. But in many ways, things are a lot better now. A sea of camera phones light up the darkened park like a starry night, no more so than during a typically transcendent "Enjoy the Silence". At the end of "Never Let Me Down Again", those who weren't waving their arms in unison with Dave Gahan were trying to capture the moment on their smart phones (along with plenty of others, I was doing both).
But most importantly, Depeche Mode are a much more well-rounded, dynamic and enrapturing live band than they were in the 80's. Journalists used to rip on them for putting on a supposedly boring show, after all, it was just "three guys standing behind keyboards while the fourth guy sings". They never understood that the spectacle of twenty thousand people showing possibly unhealthy devotion to a band to the point where they'd dress like them and follow them everywhere was exactly what Depeche Mode concerts were all about. Not guitar solos and light shows or anything like that. Maybe they really are entering their Rolling Stones period, where the danger is long gone and they can settle into a cycle of endless touring behind an armful of hits that anybody can sing. But unlike the Stones, or nearly any band in music history that been together for as long as they have, Depeche Mode are still evolving with every album, both on record and on the stage. Amazingly, they might have finally perfected this rock and roll thing after thirty years. Or will everything have changed again by 2017? I can't wait to find out.
Monday, April 29, 2013
Record store closures, downloads next to go?
SPIN's article about the final days of Bleecker Bob's record store in New York should be bronzed and archived for future generations who won't have any idea what record store culture was aside from "High Fidelity" (assuming anyone still cares about that movie in twenty years time). Maybe kids will ask their parents where they got all those vinyl records and CDs (assuming there will still be machines capable of playing CDs in twenty years time) that clog up so much room in the basement, and the ensuing stories about dad's favourite second hand vinyl shop that will seem as quaint as drive in movies and roller skating parties do now.
All the characters in the SPIN story -- the 50-something clerk with no last name who seemingly has no job prospects or ambitions beyond working in a music store, the hippie founder, the workers who "specialize" in buying a specific kind of music or music memorabilia -- are becoming extinct. Everyone who frequented music shops knows these kinds of people, they're the same in every city. And everyone says the monoculture is dead!
I'm actually quite sad about all of this, I mean, it's a huge chunk of "my youth" that's been decaying for a while and will eventually go missing. But at least record stores will probably outlive downloads -- Steven Hyden summed up the situation recently on Grantland in a "future of music consumption" article that masqueraded as a tribute to Record Store Day. More specifically, vinyl will survive yet another supposed threat to its existence. Tapes were supposed to be more portable and less fragile, CD were supposed to sound better, downloads were supposed to be the ultimate in convenience, and all of them were supposed to make vinyl irrelevant. Instead, after hitting a low sometime in the early 90's, vinyl sales have been slowly rising ever since. As Hyden points out (and of course it's obvious to anymore who has ever left their house to buy music or practically anything else from t-shirts to fruits and vegetables), the process of buying the music is enjoyable and will be nearly impossible to deprogram out of some people.
All the characters in the SPIN story -- the 50-something clerk with no last name who seemingly has no job prospects or ambitions beyond working in a music store, the hippie founder, the workers who "specialize" in buying a specific kind of music or music memorabilia -- are becoming extinct. Everyone who frequented music shops knows these kinds of people, they're the same in every city. And everyone says the monoculture is dead!
I'm actually quite sad about all of this, I mean, it's a huge chunk of "my youth" that's been decaying for a while and will eventually go missing. But at least record stores will probably outlive downloads -- Steven Hyden summed up the situation recently on Grantland in a "future of music consumption" article that masqueraded as a tribute to Record Store Day. More specifically, vinyl will survive yet another supposed threat to its existence. Tapes were supposed to be more portable and less fragile, CD were supposed to sound better, downloads were supposed to be the ultimate in convenience, and all of them were supposed to make vinyl irrelevant. Instead, after hitting a low sometime in the early 90's, vinyl sales have been slowly rising ever since. As Hyden points out (and of course it's obvious to anymore who has ever left their house to buy music or practically anything else from t-shirts to fruits and vegetables), the process of buying the music is enjoyable and will be nearly impossible to deprogram out of some people.
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Yeah Yeah Yeahs, "Mosquito"; Depeche Mode, "Delta Machine"
It's been a while since I've had such a deep interest in such a polarizing album. Some claim that it's badly produced (or conceived), sounding more like a set of demos recorded in a garage than a real album. Why did they have to experiment with white boy dub, what were they thinking? Everyone who likes it are giving them the benefit of the doubt for doing something different. They're excited about their comeback and the NYT interview and the SPIN cover and feel the need to say something conciliatory about the music.
It's boring and doesn't rock like their other albums!
Actually, that last one is closest to the truth for me, as lazy as it sounds. "Mosquito" requires a lot of patience, it's more laid back and it doesn't make the effort to grab you from the opening notes of each track. "It's Blitz" was YYYs finally blossoming into a 21st century Blondie, switching between disco and garage rock and swaying ballads with ease. But people eventually stopped paying attention when they started overreaching with the Caribbean-tinged "Island of Lost Souls" from "The Hunter". In trying to be different for the sake of being different, they lost touch with almost everything that made the band great.
"It's Blitz" was special because it was a different direction and was still immediate. They'd done nothing remotely close to "Zero" before but somehow the shift in style felt natural. "Mosquito" is treading a fine line -- on one hand, I love it when bands refuse to coast on what has worked for them in the past, and YYYs have been very successful in that regard. But in listening to "Mosquito", I keep getting the feeling that they were in love with the idea of each song a little too much. It's like they were sitting around smoking something strong and an idea dawned on them -- "hey, what's this reggae track we're listening to? Couldn't we try writing something like this?" -- and they were determined to see it through no matter what. Interviews with the band seem to bear this out too.
Have I mentioned that the lyrics to "Mosquito" (the song) and "Always" are horrendously bad? I usually don't even hear lyrics until the third or fourth listen but these ones stood out for me right away.
But enough negativity. I really like "Mosquito". I have no idea if it will continue to grow on me or whether I'll lose patience for it in a few months. The atmospherics in "Sacrilege" and "Subway" hooked me immediately -- not in the same way that the big choruses of "It's Blitz" did, but that's band evolution for you, and that's a good thing. "Under the Earth" is where the dub warfare portion of the album starts to kick in, but I also hear a lot of Joy Division in its thudding basslines and spacey, stripped down arrangement. "Area 52" gives a not to the older, garage band version of YYYs and combines it with this newer version of the band that covers their guitar solos with swarms of electronic noises. Even the bizarre Kool Keith collaboration on "Buried Alive" doesn't sound as silly as it did on my first listen. Finally, "Dispair" and "Wedding Song" are suitably dramatic endings for the album that would have fit nicely onto "It's Blitz".
------------------------
I was a bit down on the buildup to this album. Of course I bought my tickets to see them on tour six months in advance and watched a bunch of the documentaries from the remastered albums again and the brilliant "One Night in Paris" DVD and the long walk/Pimpf scene at the Rose Bowl from "101" about 400 times. Even though their albums are still consistenly good, they don't seem like events anymore. The choice of the understated "Heaven" as the first single didn't help (it's good, but not "single" good and not "we're back after four years" good). Is this the first tour when nobody will really mind if they don't play anything from their previous album?
Are Depeche Mode are in the "Steel Wheels '89" stage of their career, where they can come back after a few years away and tour stadiums without any questions asked? The fact that they have a new album to tour behind might start becoming superfluous. They're even about the same age as the Stones were in 1989 (how about that for making you feel old??), and that was also around the same time that any new Stones songs made an impact on radio or amongst more casual music fans. They've released albums every four years going back twenty years, to 1993, and the pattern of spring release followed by year of touring is becoming a precise endeavour on par with the Olympics.
As time passes, I appreciate an album like "Songs of Faith and Devotion" more. It was the most dramatic sonic shift of their career, but it still felt natural and their fans had no trouble buying into it. In retrospect, their turn towards rock and more introspective, redemptive lyrics were exactly what they needed to fit into the 90's. They didn't get swept away like so many other 80's superstars did, instead, they kept getting bigger. Their musical experiments didn't always work out and there was endless turmoil behind the scenes, but make no mistake, SOFAD was an event, and "I Feel You" was sonically massive enough to be the hotly anticipated follow-up single to an album as huge as "Violator". I'm not sure that's ever been properly appreciated.
But enough negativity. I really like "Delta Machine". It's laid back and feels very organic, a lot like "Exciter". Whereas "Sounds of the Universe" took vintage synths and incorporated them into the modern sounding Mode Machine, a lot of "Delta Machine" sounds like a more deliberate throwback to the past. "Soft Touch/Raw Nerve" could almost be a rerecorded version of a song they originally released in 1982. There are plenty of nods to late 80's EBM (i.e. most of the second half of the album), and "My Little Universe" might be the closest thing they've ever done to honest to goodness techno music (not including remixes). You could even say it's a Plastikman song featuring Dave Gahan on vocals. And "Soothe My Soul" should sound immense as it rings out across many a happy stadium full of Depeche Mode fans when they play it live every night this summer.
It's boring and doesn't rock like their other albums!
Actually, that last one is closest to the truth for me, as lazy as it sounds. "Mosquito" requires a lot of patience, it's more laid back and it doesn't make the effort to grab you from the opening notes of each track. "It's Blitz" was YYYs finally blossoming into a 21st century Blondie, switching between disco and garage rock and swaying ballads with ease. But people eventually stopped paying attention when they started overreaching with the Caribbean-tinged "Island of Lost Souls" from "The Hunter". In trying to be different for the sake of being different, they lost touch with almost everything that made the band great.
"It's Blitz" was special because it was a different direction and was still immediate. They'd done nothing remotely close to "Zero" before but somehow the shift in style felt natural. "Mosquito" is treading a fine line -- on one hand, I love it when bands refuse to coast on what has worked for them in the past, and YYYs have been very successful in that regard. But in listening to "Mosquito", I keep getting the feeling that they were in love with the idea of each song a little too much. It's like they were sitting around smoking something strong and an idea dawned on them -- "hey, what's this reggae track we're listening to? Couldn't we try writing something like this?" -- and they were determined to see it through no matter what. Interviews with the band seem to bear this out too.
Have I mentioned that the lyrics to "Mosquito" (the song) and "Always" are horrendously bad? I usually don't even hear lyrics until the third or fourth listen but these ones stood out for me right away.
But enough negativity. I really like "Mosquito". I have no idea if it will continue to grow on me or whether I'll lose patience for it in a few months. The atmospherics in "Sacrilege" and "Subway" hooked me immediately -- not in the same way that the big choruses of "It's Blitz" did, but that's band evolution for you, and that's a good thing. "Under the Earth" is where the dub warfare portion of the album starts to kick in, but I also hear a lot of Joy Division in its thudding basslines and spacey, stripped down arrangement. "Area 52" gives a not to the older, garage band version of YYYs and combines it with this newer version of the band that covers their guitar solos with swarms of electronic noises. Even the bizarre Kool Keith collaboration on "Buried Alive" doesn't sound as silly as it did on my first listen. Finally, "Dispair" and "Wedding Song" are suitably dramatic endings for the album that would have fit nicely onto "It's Blitz".
------------------------
I was a bit down on the buildup to this album. Of course I bought my tickets to see them on tour six months in advance and watched a bunch of the documentaries from the remastered albums again and the brilliant "One Night in Paris" DVD and the long walk/Pimpf scene at the Rose Bowl from "101" about 400 times. Even though their albums are still consistenly good, they don't seem like events anymore. The choice of the understated "Heaven" as the first single didn't help (it's good, but not "single" good and not "we're back after four years" good). Is this the first tour when nobody will really mind if they don't play anything from their previous album?
Are Depeche Mode are in the "Steel Wheels '89" stage of their career, where they can come back after a few years away and tour stadiums without any questions asked? The fact that they have a new album to tour behind might start becoming superfluous. They're even about the same age as the Stones were in 1989 (how about that for making you feel old??), and that was also around the same time that any new Stones songs made an impact on radio or amongst more casual music fans. They've released albums every four years going back twenty years, to 1993, and the pattern of spring release followed by year of touring is becoming a precise endeavour on par with the Olympics.
As time passes, I appreciate an album like "Songs of Faith and Devotion" more. It was the most dramatic sonic shift of their career, but it still felt natural and their fans had no trouble buying into it. In retrospect, their turn towards rock and more introspective, redemptive lyrics were exactly what they needed to fit into the 90's. They didn't get swept away like so many other 80's superstars did, instead, they kept getting bigger. Their musical experiments didn't always work out and there was endless turmoil behind the scenes, but make no mistake, SOFAD was an event, and "I Feel You" was sonically massive enough to be the hotly anticipated follow-up single to an album as huge as "Violator". I'm not sure that's ever been properly appreciated.
But enough negativity. I really like "Delta Machine". It's laid back and feels very organic, a lot like "Exciter". Whereas "Sounds of the Universe" took vintage synths and incorporated them into the modern sounding Mode Machine, a lot of "Delta Machine" sounds like a more deliberate throwback to the past. "Soft Touch/Raw Nerve" could almost be a rerecorded version of a song they originally released in 1982. There are plenty of nods to late 80's EBM (i.e. most of the second half of the album), and "My Little Universe" might be the closest thing they've ever done to honest to goodness techno music (not including remixes). You could even say it's a Plastikman song featuring Dave Gahan on vocals. And "Soothe My Soul" should sound immense as it rings out across many a happy stadium full of Depeche Mode fans when they play it live every night this summer.
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Independence Day concert featuring Machina and Rita (among others) at Kikar Rambam
As far as Independence Day traditions go, the Israeli one (free, municipality-funded concerts at night, BBQ with family and/or friends the next day) is right up there with the best of them.
The concert nearest to me happened to feature acts I was really interested in seeing. Machina might be loosely compared to Manic Street Preachers. Both bands try to exude a certain sense of danger and aggressiveness, an image which is aided by not infrequent intra-band disputes during their history and tight, energetic live shows. But dig a little deeper and both bands are fairly soft on the inside and have achieved considerable chart successes with slickly produced pop-rock and anthemic choruses. That's not a dig at either band, but more of a statement of how they've managed to adapt and find ways to remain popular after sixty years of combined history. Machina were going through the motions a bit on this night, perhaps partly restrained by the mere 40 minutes allotted to their set. They made sure to choose songs that would turn into big singalongs in front of a very mixed crowd that obviously wanted to have something to sing along to, and by this measure their appearance was a big success. The band's job is sometimes easy when everybody loves your songs and nobody has to be won over, but I loved their show regardless.
Rita is a different story completely, closer to an Israeli version of Cher with her ageless appearance and the way she makes every second of every song sound like a big dramatic moment. Rita would be described by her fans as a "survivor" too, and whereas Cher was a star in many different musical genres (not to mention acting), Rita is a star in at least three languages (English, Persian, Hebrew). You'd think that Rita and Machina couldn't possibly share fan bases, and in the US or Canada, they wouldn't. It's a credit and a constant mystery of Israeli society that many mainstream acts are celebrated by just about everybody.
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