Frank Black is easily one of the most influential musicians of the last two decades. From directly influencing grunge (see Kurt Cobain) to setting the stage for the 90s alternative scene and making music many new musicians today grew up spinning, he’s had a hand in making alternative and indie music what is today. On his new project, Grand Duchy, with wife Violet Clark, Black has nothing to prove. And so at Siren Saturday he didn’t try to prove anything.
Black took the back seat through much of the set, giving the mic and the attention to Clark, who played things oh-so-cool with her underwear-matching, polka-dotted upper thigh-high dress and sleek headless bass. The duo went through the motions with just enough high energy to please– without exactly impressing.
This isn’t exactly The Pixies and both Black and Clark know it. But with confidence and cool, they take the stage and work their magic doing what they know and what they love. And yes, Frank Black still looks, as some article once pointed out, like a “portly Mr. Clean.”
More photos after the jump.
Continue reading Grand Duchy @ Siren →
Raging forth from the stage like the Kraken from the sea (1981’s Clash of the Titans anyone?) was the furious sound of Future of the Left. Playing by far the most angst-ridden set all day, the three boys from Wales delivered tight, crunching guitar rock made complete with roaring screams and head thrashing (the latter performed primarily and constantly by bassist Kelson Mathias).
While Spank Rock forced the crowd into a dance party and Monotonix created a mob scene, Future of the Left invoked an equally energetic, albeit angsty, audience. When the band hit the climax of “Arming Eritrea,” the single from their latest Travels With Myself And Another, fans in the crowd formed a Siren rarity– a mosh pit.
While not the most spectacular show of the day (come on, it’s hard to match a dude riding a bass drum being held up by the crowd), Future of the Left certainly offered the heaviest and the screamiest. And even if it left many Frightened Rabbit fans crossing their arms with disdain, the set was a great chance for others of us to let off some steam.
Future of the Left – “Arming Eritrea” [MP3]
More photos after the jump.
Continue reading Future of the Left @ Siren →
I think there’s literally no better way to encapsulate Japandroids than with this quote from the band’s MySpace:
imagine GUNS N ROSES meets IGGY & THE STOOGES meets THE SONICS meets THE ROLLING STONES!!!! that’s the band we wish we were. we’re not though. not even close.
The band isn’t prying for some deeper meaning with its music or lyrics, or any of that. It’s fun, breezy music played by a pair of guys who must’ve never expected to get big. Makes sense, then, that singer/guitarist Brian King continually talked, seemingly awestruck, about how much room he had on stage during his set. He also told the growing crowd that if you took every person they’ve ever played for, ever, and packed them together, it would still be less than the amount watching them at the festival.
It was kind of cool to see two guys suddenly caught up in a growing wave of buzz, moving onto bigger and bigger things – bigger stages, bigger audiences – and still seem so genuinely surprised by it. But I digress. This is a music blog so I have to totally critique now.
I don’t know what exactly I expected from the band live – in the end, it’s just two guys smacking the shit out of their respective instruments. So we had a guitarist trying to make the most of the large stage, not content to stay still for extended periods of time, and a drummer who had no choice but to sit, smack, and sing. It wasn’t terribly exciting, and it’s hard to say if the band was tight considering the one stringed instrument was slathered with distortion. It was noisy, mostly. I have to give them credit for putting their all into it – and they did – but I can’t say the type of music they were playing did them any favors in a live setting.
Japandroids – “The Boys are Leaving Town” [MP3]
More photos after the jump.
Continue reading Japandroids @ Siren →
Here are some things that are instantly noticeable about Brooklyn-based band Forest Fire‘s debut, Survival:
The male/female vocals and harmonies The near-constant strum of acoustic guitar A wealth of instruments poking their heads in at random parts of songs
What you might not notice so quickly, though, is how driven by percussion this […]
At some point during Micachu & the Shapes‘ set, Lee described them to me as music made up of weird, disjointed parts that somehow come together. (That’s paraphrased. I didn’t take notes on his notes, gosh.)
But I’d have to agree. There’s nothing musically conventional about Micachu. Besides the made up guitar chords (see: “Vulture”) and fits of noise (see: “Golden Phone”) there’s bandleader Mica Levi’s curiously androgynous voice, and it all somehow fits together like a jigsaw puzzle made out of cardboard and human appendages. The parts are very different but they come together, you see. I hope I’m not getting too abstract here.
The band’s set was pretty faithful to its recorded output, and all noises, normal and weird, were accounted for. Otherwise, really, there wasn’t terribly much going on. The band members weren’t statues on stage, but there weren’t any crazy antics or anything. They were, however, smiling and trading happy looks throughout the set. Always good to see a band musically on and having fun at the same time, even if the stage presence itself did lag at points.
Micachu & the Shapes – “Lips” [MP3]
Micachu & the Shapes – “Calculator” [MP3]
More photos after the jump.
Continue reading Micachu & the Shapes @ Siren →
On a day full of jocularity, spontaneity, and just general insanity, The Raveonettes were an anomaly. Having never seen the Danish folks live, I was curious how their relaxed music would translate to the stage. Would they amp it up? Would they scream and shout? Would they take their clothes off?? All can be answered succinctly: No, No, and Fuck No – are you out of your mind?
The black and white Raveonette outfit suits (no pun intended please) the Raveonette allure quite well, as Wagner and Foo barely shed an expression, much less a grin, during their entire set. They just stood there and played in all their seasoned vette (ha…) glory – ready to take on whatever effed up business Coney Island had to offer. Which is why it was all too fitting that “Dead Sound” was one of the first songs played.
That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy the performance. The Raveonettes aren’t meant for displays of extravagance, and it would have been slightly off-putting if they had come out with a bit of lunacy. The sound was probably the tightest of any of the performers there, and they managed to somehow work with the poor sound of the main stage instead of against it. While some may have considered them disinterested, I think it’s all part of their appeal – they were the calm before the storm (that storm being Monotonix and Spank Rock on the Stillwell stage), and they played that role to perfection. If you want to hear a band perform live almost exactly like you’ve heard on record – including the crisp production, then have a blast with the even-tempered Raveonettes.
The Raveonettes – “Dead Sound” [MP3]
More photos after the jump.
Continue reading The Raveonettes @ Siren →
Allow me to preface this post before I delve into Frightened Rabbit‘s performance at Siren. They were, by far, the act I was most looking forward to, as I have been utterly obsessed with the The Midnight Organ Fight, and to a lesser extent, Sing The Greys. I also was well aware of the fact the guys were from Scotland and wasn’t expecting to see them around for a while. Yet here they were, embarking on their American tour (as aforementioned) right in New York City.
What has attracted me most to Frightened Rabbit’s sound are the intense, gut-wrenching, heart-breaking vocals from Scott Hutchison. While the band is incredibly talented and has a knack for making brilliant pop songs with their staggering crescendos and unique arrangements, before Siren it had been blatantly clear to me that Hutchison’s voice made Frightened Rabbit. Without him, they were another great indie band – with him, they were one of my favorites. So I went into the show expecting this sentiment to be the case. But boy was I wrong.
It should be noted that Hutchison’s vocals are no less stunning in person. But what I didn’t expect was the rest of the band to hold up their end as well as they did, and I apologize for not having given them more credit beforehand. I’ll expand: When Frightened Rabbit took the stage, I told Jon I wanted to hear them play “The Modern Leper”, “Keep Yourself Warm”, and “Backwards Walk” – and for the rest it could be anything – they’re all on the same (high) level playing ground. Me being the expert psychic and all, FR naturally started with Modern Leper, and it was looking to be like one hell of an experience. I was ready for a Hutchison vocal drop-kick to toss me to the ground. But the main stage just wasn’t delivering the vocals the entire day – they were soft, blended in with the sound, and almost became a background noise at times – not only for Frightened Rabbit but also for the other main-stagers. FR struggled through that first song (disappointingly), sounding confused and out-of-touch. But as the set moved on, they became all the more comfortable and adapted to the poor levels of the main stage, churning out the guitar and bass lines as best they could. By the time “The Twist” and “I Feel Better” came around (among others) they were in “the zone”.
The highlight was an awe-inspiring second-to-last song, which I can’t even name for you – because honestly, there was so much going on up there at once, with different sounds coming together into one huge musical orgasm, that I had no idea what I was listening to – I think (with Jon’s help) it was a reworked version of the end of “Square 9” from Sing The Greys, but I’m not going to pretend to know just for the sake of being indie smart – I could be totally wrong.
Oh yeah, and if there was any doubt, FR finished off the set with “Keep Yourself Warm”, as Hutchison’s Scottish red beard dripped of spittle and the echo of perhaps the most memorable lyric off The Midnight Organ Flight, “It takes more than fucking someone / to keep yourself warm”, reverberated throughout the crowd.
Frightened Rabbit – “Keep Yourself Warm” [MP3]
Frightened Rabbit – “Last Tango in Brooklyn” [MP3]
More photos after the jump.
Continue reading Frightened Rabbit @ Siren →
The Fiery Furnaces have made their career with bizarre, off-kilter, ADD alternative music. So one can only come into a new album with zero expectations. But as the metaphorical needle drops on the title track of their […]
A lot of things don’t shock me. I grew up with Mortal Combat, our childhood cat brought all sorts of things to the doorstep and yes, I’ve seen “BME Pain Olympics.” But nothing (not even Monotonix’s ridiculous set) could prepare me for Thee Oh Sees.
Front Man John Dwyer has a reputation for being, well, legitimately crazy. As in, I question whether or not he’s on medication crazy. But I don’t judge! It’s all in good fun (??)! From the first second of the band’s old school garage/alternative rock set Dwyer treated the equipment like a dog on a peanut butter covered fist. I swear, the man has some sort of oral fixation.
But Dwyer’s antics aside, Thee Oh Sees proved to be tight, loud and rough in all the right places. With music that hearkens back to The Sonics and The 13th Floor Elevators, they’re the perfect obscure throwback band. With mouth on everything.
Pictures after the jump.
Thee Oh Sees – “Ruby Come Home” [MP3]
Continue reading Thee Oh Sees @ Siren →
I won’t spend time beating around the bush on this one, guys: all of us at KR agree that The Blue Van is going to be huge, and I mean huge like Lars Von Trier‘s ego is huge. (Suck on that obscure reference, hipsters! Haha!) Their music is beginning to make the rounds as we speak, appearing on television shows and commercials. It’s about damn time, too, if lead singer Steffen Westmark is to be believed. Lee got to speak to him for a bit and found out that they’ve been doing this for no less than twelve years now.
About time for a big break stateside, no?
The band’s live show will definitely help matters. I went into the band’s early show without any real expectations, and was thoroughly blown away. Both the music and the show itself is rock ‘n’ roll all the way through: high, wailing guitar solos and muscular choruses aside, the band’s stage presence was commanding throughout the set. Keyboardist Søren Christensen was particularly exciting, doing all sorts of unnecessary-but-awesome things, many of which involved picking up or tilting his instrument on its axis.
But what a great, energizing early day performance The Blue Van was. Keep a lookout, everyone. Denmark’s gonna be be the new Iceland, let me tell ya.
The Blue Van – “Man Up” [MP3]
The Blue Van – “Silly Boy” [MP3]
More photos after the jump.
Continue reading The Blue Van @ Siren →
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