Burl Veneer’s Music Blog

Concerts galore

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 22:30:11 -0700

Well, two concerts in two days, starting with Nine Inch Nails in Philadelphia on Friday. That was an incredible show, with songs from Trent's whole career and the most spectacular light and video show I've ever seen. Here's a great montage of several of the effects, taken at the Seattle tour stop:

Nine Inch Nails - Seattle 2008 - AMAZING Lights in the Sky tour visuals!!!

They played three songs from the first album: "Terrible Lie", "Down In It", and "Head Like A Hole." It was quite a difference seeing those at the Wachovia Center and comparing them with the performances I saw in 1990 at the Grog and Tankard in Baltimore. The long and short of it is that Trent Reznor has kept growing as a musician and performer and he delivers a fantastic show from a large catalog, and I can't wait for more new music and another tour.

Does It Offend You, Yeah? opened the show promptly at 7:00; they cranked out up the volume and churned out the beats. I hope to see them do a longer set in a smaller venue someday. Here's a clip of them from the New Jersey show earlier in the week:

Does it Offend You, Yeah? Let's Make Out Live Izod Center

Then on Saturday night the Cornell Concert Commission had RJD2 playing a free show on the Arts Quad. The opening act skillfully played a set of total crap (jaunty tunes about hating your roommate and other such inanities) that went on for far too long, but RJD2 was fun. With his four turntables and a keyboard he blasted the funkiest music I've ever heard on campus, including my favorite of his, "The Horror":

rjd2 in sf "The Horror"

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Brand new Radio 4

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 11:06:54 -0700

Speaking of Radio 4, as I just was, they released a new song today on the RCRD LBL netlabel. Which means it's free! Free to download, free to listen to, and free to embed as long as you use RCRD LBL's ad-supported widget:

They're jumping on the Afrobeat bandwagon too: note the kalimba in the "cover art" (in quotes because there's no physical product to cover) and the guitar figure that plays throughout the song. At the same time they've smoothed the edges of their sound; this doesn't seem like a good direction for them, but they're promising more through RCRD LBL, so I'll keep my hopes up for something a little more raucous. For comparison, here are some older Radio 4 songs that are sitting around on the web, starting with the title track from their last album:

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Dance-punk mini-roundup

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 14:14:42 -0700

I don't have the resources, the time, or the attention span to conduct a comprehensive dance-punk genre review, but I did find a few bands that I like; and that's what this blog is all about anyway, as it says right up there at the top, "Songs I Like." One thing about these dance-punk bands, they pretty much suck at naming themselves. Case in point: Does It Offend You, Yeah? That's the name of the band. It's a Ricky Gervais line from The Office. "No thought went into it whatsoever," they say, and it shows. According to Wikipedia they are a "British electro-rock band from Reading," "electro-rock" meaning "dance-punk with a synthesizer." Getting beyond their name, their debut album, You Have No Idea What You're Getting Yourself Into, has several noteworthy songs on it, my favorite being track two, ""With a Heavy Heart (I Regret to Inform You)"--

02 with a heavy heart(i regret to inform you)(1)

Does It Offend You, Yeah?

What's a worse band name than Does It Offend You, Yeah? How about "!!!", the band with nothing but punctuation for a name? Try Googling that--you'll get nothing! Nice strategy for getting the word out! Their MySpace page includes some pronunciation tips: "! ! ! is pronounced as any sound repeated three times. Common interpretations are chkchkchk, powpowpow, uhuhuh: unlimited possibilities." Indeed, they've even taken to writing the band name as "!!! (Chk Chk Chk)"-- if you have to explain it right up front, that's a good indicator of a bad name. But I can't fault their music. They've been at this dance-punk thing for years now (like fellow Brooklynites Radio 4, seen here earlier), and they're pretty darn good at it. Once again I've settled on track two of their latest album, Myth Takes (groan), as my favorite (though "Heart of Hearts" is more immediately gratifying, but it's way more "dance" than "punk"):

02 All My Heroes Are Weirdos(1)

!!!

Rounding out today's trio are the tolerably-named Infadels, from London. Their first album, We Are Not The Infadels, is two years old now, but it's new to me. In keeping with the inadvertent theme of this post, the standout is track two, "Can't Get Enough," which has the wickedest beat that any of these bands have recorded. It could just be that I'm a sucker for a driving synth line, but I don't see how anyone can resist this one:

02-infadels-cant_get_enough(1)

Infadels

All three of these bands have stellar reputations for their live shows, and I could definitely get into spending a couple sweaty hours bopping around to their music, if any of them by some miracle actually come play in Ithaca. Eh, fat chance. I'd drive to Syracuse to see them, though. Come on, guys, how about it? Please?

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Quintessence of Dance-Punk

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 19:26:36 -0700

"Postpunk revival" or "dance-punk" is enjoying some staying power as a genre, but what is it, exactly? You could try to define it, or you could take my favored approach, i.e. "I know it when I hear it." It all boils down to trying to sound like "To Hell With Poverty" by Gang of Four:

Gang Of Four - To Hell With Poverty (TV Live)

I always assumed that Gang of Four was named after Chinese Communists, but I've been wrong all this time, according to Wikipedia:

In fact the term "Gang of Four" refers to the "big four" Structuralist theorists: Claude Lévi-Strauss, Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes, and Jacques Lacan, not to be confused with the Maoist Gang of Four in China.

You learn something new every day. I'm content to let Structural theory trickle down to me via rock bands; I've tried reading the stuff but can't get through more than... well, I can't get through any. Back to dance-punk, even better than emulating Gang of Four would be to sound like Medium Medium's "Hungry, So Angry"--

medium medium hangry so angry

What both songs have in common is a killer bassline, and in fact they can serve as my first two "Postpunk Bassline Hall of Fame" entries. To give credit where it's due, that's Dave Allen in Gang of Four, and Alan Turton in Medium Medium. I'll give Turton the edge for the top slot. Dave Allen will appear again in the Bassline Hall of Fame; see if you can guess for what song. Medium Medium has even reformed, 20-odd years after breaking up, to play very occasional gigs and record a new album. Word is that the album is finished and in search of a label; the anticipation is palpable at Burl Veneer's Music Blog. In other words, I can't wait! Meanwhile I'm wading through a spate of new and newish dance-punk releases, trying to separate the cream from the chaff, or something like that. I'll report my findings soon.

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