Dancing About Architecture 6.09.09

Posted by Ian Wright on 06.09.2009

Lots of Primavera thoughts, new music from Yo La Tengo, Polvo, Why?, Pavement reissues, Dan Deacon fans are nuts and more.

The bit at the start

Oh man, Barcelona is an amazing, amazing city but arriving in it the night that the city's main football club won the biggest club tournament in world club football may have been a mistake. They really love that club, but in the case of some of them they love taking on the riot police more. Walking around the city at 2AM when there was nowhere to stand that wasn't covered by broken glass was asking for trouble and I honestly thought that we were in danger of getting out heads cracked open by the riot police at even the slightest hint of disobedience. I saw fucking rubber bullets being fired within 50 yards of where I was standing. Menacing, menacing shit.

Primavera Sound itself though was fantastic. My second visit to it and I'm coming around to the idea that it's the best festival in the world. Amazing music, great weather, incredibly beautiful locals to look at and maybe it's just that I'm getting older but the idea of renting an apartment in the city and then going to the festival from there is far preferable to setting up a tent in the middle of a field somewhere.

Anyway, lifted from my blog here's the day by day review …

Thursday

There's a lot of things to love about Barcelona and Primavera Sound but after seeing the drawn, heavy eyed and haggard face that struggled to looked back at me as I was on the Metro at 5:30 this morning and caught my reflection in the the window it doesn't half take it out of you. I have 2 more nights of this to go.

Bad things though, there are a few: The ridiculous booze buying system in place here being the big one. Buying drink tickets before going to the bar is standard operating procedure in some festivals but this year at Primavera you have to specify precisely what you want to buy later in the night and getting caught out desperate for some water because you're parched or for something with lots of caffeine in it to get you over that 3:45 hump when all you've got is a voucher for another fucking Estrella Damm is one of those tiny annoyances that if it befalls you at just the wrong time makes you want to curse whoever thought it'd be a good idea for Irish people to go to festivals in climes hotter than our own. Oh and I also got caught up in the tail end of a riot on Wednesday night, genuinely the most menacing experience I can ever remember being in, that was because of the cops mostly, most of the folk causing trouble didn't seem interested in smashing anything that wasn't property or some mechanism of the state. The riots police, with tree trunks for batons, some of them looked like they'd be happy to start cracking open skulls just because there were skulls there to be cracked.

Anyway, music. Magik Markers, noisy, aggressive and in a dark room later in the night potentially awesome but in the sunlight and on the ATP stage it was just too nice an evening to get caught up in them.

Kristian Matsson looks like a man from another time, he's got a little spivey moustache and his hair is carefully combed into a precise quiff. There's a hint of the Django Rheinhardts about him and that's just to look at him. Coming out onto the stage The Tallest Man On Earth stared out into the crowd and looked a little startled, there was a smallish but respectable audience there to see him. A few bars into his opening song it became apparent that many of those there were true believers. Matsson is a more compelling performer than any single person on his own with an acoustic guitar has any business to be, when not singing into the microphone he stalks across the stage, alternately moving right up to the front to eyeball people in the crowd or retreating to the back to sit on the drum riser. By the time he finished his set the crowd has swelled to many times the size it was at the start.

I only caught 25 minutes of Yo La Tengo but during that time they managed to squeeze in lengthy instrumental wigouts, charmingly whimsical audience interaction (the band posed together for one person and one person only to take a picture of them, Ira Kaplin requested that no one else take a picture of that scene) VU influenced pop songs, oh and "Autumn Sweater" too. Basically they were Yo La Tengo, just with some annoying sound problems.

Next up was band of the day The Jesus Lizard. There absolutely no bullshit about them, no arty pretence, just straight ahead punk rock and they're brilliant at it. David Yow is one menacing looking dude, nearly 49 years old he spent the set stripped to the waist with his hand jammed down his trousers for half the time and much of the rest of the time was spent leaping into the crowd and surfing across it to the chagrin of the security charged with dragging him back out, never once did he miss a vocal cue.

In fact the only disappointing performance of the night came from Jay Reatard. He and his band tore through lightning quick version of his songs, attempting to shoehorn as many of them into into his allotted time as possible and the furious tempo robbed many of them of their charm. That being said it would have taken more than that to prevent "My Shadow" and "Oh It's Such A Shame" from being utterly brilliant.

At this point, with spirits and body flagging there wasn't much appetite left for anything loud or hard to deal with. To that end Aphex Twin fit the bill perfectly, he played Aphex Twin music which was a bit of a live first.

Finally then there was Squarepusher, live bass and live drums, much of the set was basically speed metal. I enjoyed it for the most part and one of my more wide awake friends told me that it was one of the best things that they've ever seen but as I momentarily slipped into a couple of micro sleeps on my feet while it was happening I don't think I was in any position to quite cop to it fully.

I have 2 more nights of this to go.

It is to hot to go outside.

Friday

If you want an example of just how sizable the armada of Irish that has invaded Barcelona for the weekend is just look to the very start of Dan Deacon's set on Friday night. After asking the crowd how many actual real life Spanish people were there the only other nationality he bothered to ask about were the Irish. To drive the point home further the responding second cheer was much, much louder than the first. Whether there's a disproportionate amount of Irish people here or if it's just that we like Dan Deacon more than any other nation per head of capita I don't know but this weekend we're all over the place; or as one cockney I ran into put it "you cunts are everywhere."

Deacon's show itself struggled to take off a little. He played on the stage with the rest of his ensemble with only brief forays into the crowd to attempt to organise his usual party games. Perhaps it was the size of the audience or perhaps the instructions were lost in translation but the crowd never seemed to engage en masse in the unifying atmosphere that for me so defines his live performances and things only really took off for a few songs. His band though were on fire and brought the big sound of Bromst and not much else (only a couple of older tunes were played, no "Wham City" and I don't thing "The Crystal Cat" was played either) to the Catalan nighttime in grand fashion with a trio of percussionists adding a much more driving element to the tunes than there is on record.

Earlier in the evening I caught Sun O))) performing The Grimmrobe Demos. Two hooded figures masked by smoke and standing in front of giant stacks of speakers, the foggy view from a distance made them look like the stars of a Godzilla movie about to lay waste to each other and the city skyline behind them. The set itself, a sludgy hour or so of trembling, unremitting and occasionally punishing drones was actually pretty fantastic in a "no way would I ever listen to this at home" sort of way. Supposedly The Grimmrobe Demos is "bad" Sun O))), I can't imagine what good Sun O))) is like. By the way, the pair of them played to about 1,000 people, I can't imagine any other place on earth where they would draw that sort of crowd.

Everything else I caught last night was bits and pieces and parts of sets so in quick summery ... The Mae Shi, rubbish, Throwing Muses, the same. Fucked up were precisely that for the 25 minutes of their set that I caught, so good in fact that as it turns out I regret ditching out on them to see Dan Deacon, Pink Eyes is probably the most sizable crowd surfer I've ever seen as well as being one of the most animated front men, there's a real hint of the Tim Harringtons about him. Final word though goes to Shellac, I got there just in time to see a fantastic "The End Of Radio" and a couple of other tunes. Timetabling snafus really screwed me there, would have loved to have seen all of it.

Saturday

Following 2 days of running, jumping and dancing about the place in the type of weather that would normally send me scrambling for the inside of my house and the switch for a fan as well as a series of 7 AM bed times the one thing I wanted from day 3 of Primavera, at the start at least, was to be able to sit down and listen to some tunes. Neil Young, and a bit of arse space underneath Primavera's giant solar panels fit the bill perfectly. As I'd never seen Young before a friend warned me that with a full band he was unlikely to play any of the quieter acoustic material from Harvest so it was a nice surprise to hear "The Needle And The Damage Done" and "Heart Of Gold" get an airing as well as the obvious rockers like "Cortez The Killer" and "Rockin' In The Free World" before the set concluded with a cover of The Beatles' "A Day In The Life". Another upside to the set was that he stayed away from the crowd displeasing material from his latest project on the subject of electric cars that so alienated US fans recently.

Body not quite totally rested it was then time to make the short stroll over to the Rock Deluxe stage for Deerhunter. Taking a seat on the steps at the back of the arena I was struck by the thought that this was going to be by far the largest venue that I've ever seen the band play in and the least enjoyable gig I saw them at before was in the up till now largest venue that they and I had been in simultaneously. There was no need for concern though as Deerhunter stepped up to the big stage with ease. Never the most animated band to look at they were simply content to allow their music to wash over the thousands watching in wave after wave. If I took one conclusion away from the festival it's that Deerhunter could be a band destined for far bigger things. Then again this was a festival that saw 1,000 people show up for Sun O))) so maybe this isn't the best place to gauge anything about a band's career prospects.

Next up were Sonic Youth on the main stage. Cue obligatory songs from new album The Eternal as well older stuff pitched more at "the fans" than those with a passing interest, plenty of material from Daydream Nation was trotted out but no "Teenage Riot", seeing as I place Thurston, Lee, et. al. on a pretty high pedestal I thought it was great but another guy I was there with was very disappointed by their set, but he's seen them something like 15 times. It is nice to see that they're giving Mark Ibold more to do than just play a few tunes during the encore these days as well.

After all that I was pretty much spent but not quite ready to get the Metro home to Gracia so headed to the ATP stage for El-P. Good rhymes but a really lazy DJ who picked just about the most obvious records imaginable to scratch eventually drove me, barely conscious at that point, towards the dance arena/pitchfork stage to sleepwalk through the end of A-Trak and most of DJ Mehdi's sets. To be honest just about all I can remember about those is that one of them played a remix of Jape's "Floating" at some point.

Beg, borrow, buy, steal or download this album.

Dennis Wilson – Pacific Ocean Blue



Brian wasn't the only brilliant Wilson

You news, you lose

Yo La FUCK YES

Yo La Tengo have already released one album this year (a little gem of a garage punk covers record under the name "The Condo Fucks") but are wasting no time in getting the next YLT album proper out (if you don't count Fuckbook it'll be their first since the wonderfully titled I am not afraid of you and I will beat your ass in 2006).

Popular Songs will be out on Matador on September 8th and was recorded in Hoboken and Nashville. According to the press blurb "there are portions of Popular Songs where a cursory needle drop reveals a band that doesn't sound instantly like Yo La Tengo."

You can listen to one of the songs from the album here, it's called "Periodically Double or Triple".

More new album news that makes me happy.

Why?'s (typing that just made my spellchecker shit itself) Alopecia was one of my favourite albums of last year so I'm very happy to hear that Yoni Wolf and the boys have been hard at work on the follow up. Wolf spoke to Pitchfork recently and from reading that interview the following info can be gleaned …

- It's going to be called Eskimo Snow
- It was actually recorded during the Alopecia sessions but they've been messing about with it ever since trying to get it perfect. Most of the recording was finished in February 2007.
- It's all done now.
- Anticon will be putting it out.
-They will be doing that in "the fall".

One thing I missed at Primavera was the Wavves non gig.

Apparently it was a disaster of epic proportions with a clearly out of it Nathan Williams running through a hugely extended soundcheck before insulting the crowd and getting pissy with his drummer.

In fact, why recount what happened when YouTube can show you …



Williams has since apologised for what happened saying "mixing ecstasy valium and xanax before having to play in front of thousands of people was one of the more poor decisions I've made (duh)".

The upshot of this is that Wavves have pulled their entire European tour. These are the effected dates:

06-01 Porto, Portugal - Rio
06-02 Bordeaux, France - Saint-Ex
06-03 Paris, France - Point Ephmere
06-04 Basel, Switzerland - Hirscheneck
06-05 Lausanne, Switzerland - Buzz Club
06-06 Milan, Italy - Vitamin C Days Closing Party
06-07 Munich, Germany - Babalu
06-08 Nuremberg, Germany - K4
06-10 Stockholm, Sweden - Debaser
06-11 Oslo, Norway - Garage Bar
06-12 Gothenburg, Sweden - Vasagatan
06-13 Malmo, Sweden - Debaser
06-14 Copenhagen, Denmark - Loppen
06-15 Hamburg, Germany - Molotow
06-16 Berlin, Germany - Festaal Kreuzberg
06-17 Cologne, Germany - Tsunami
06-18 Utrecht, Netherlands - Ekko
06-19 Amsterdam, Netherlands - Paradiso
06-21 Oxford, England - Jericho Tavern
06-22 London, England - Luminere
06-23 Bristol, England - Cooler
06-24 Manchester, England - Deaf Institute
06-25 Glasgow, Scotland - Captains
06-26 Leeds, England - Cockpit
06-27 Cardiff, Wales - Clwb Ifor Bach
06-28 Nottingham, England - The Social
07-03 Roskilde, Denmark - Roskilde Festival

I love vinyl. And I love Pavement. This makes me happy.

Later in this month (the 23rd to be precise) Matador will be reissuing Pavement's 1997 album Brighten The Corners on quadruple vinyl. The release collects all the material found on last year's deluxe double CD release as well as "eight tracks not on the CD, five of which are previously unreleased including the track 'Agony of the Stars'".

Tracklisting:

Brighten the Corners: Nicene Creedence Ed. Limited Edition 4LP Set:

LP1 (Original Album, released February 1997)

01 Stereo
02 Shady Lane / J Vs. S
03 Transport Is Arranged
04 Date w/IKEA
05 Old To Begin
06 Type Slowly
07 Embassy Row
08 Blue Hawaiian
09 We Are Underused
10 Passat Dream
11 Starlings of the Slipstream
12 Fin

LP2

01 And Then (The Hexx) 7" Version (Originally released as the B-side to "Spit On A Stranger" May 1999)
02 Beautiful As A Butterfly
03 Cataracts
04 Embassy Row Psych Intro
05 Nigel
06 Chevy (Old To Begin) (Previously Unreleased mix of a BTC session song, featuring different vocals overdubs)
07 Roll With The Wind (Roxy) (Previously Unreleased mix of a BTC session song, featuring different vocals overdubs)
08 Westie Can Drum (Elastica) (Previously Unreleased mix of a BTC session track)
09 Stereo (Remix) (Remixed by Steve Fisk)
10 Birds in the Majic Industry (Previously unreleased full length vocal version)
11 An Then (The Hexx) (Unedited full version of the "Spit on Stranger" 7" B-Side, as such previously unreleased, originally was supposed to be opening track of BTC)

LP3

01 Agony of the Stars (Recorded for the film Sweethearts)
02 Westie Can Drum
03 Winner of The
04 Birds in the Majic Industry (Originally released as the B-sides to "Stereo" January 1997)
05 Harness Your Hopes
06 Roll With The Wind (Originally released as the B-sides to "Spit On A Stranger" May 1999)
07 Slowly Typed
08 Cherry Area (Originally released as the B-sides to "Shady Lane" June 1997)
09 Wanna Mess You Around
10 No Tan Lines (Originally released as the B-sides to "Shady Lane" June 1997)
11 Oddity (Originally appeared on the God Save The Clean - A Tribute To The Clean album, 1997)
12 Date w/IKEA
13 Fin
14 Grave Architecture
15 The Classical (Recorded for Radio 1's John Peel Show at BBC's Maida Vale Studio 4, 1997)

LP4

01 And Then (The Hexx)
02 Harness Your Hopes
03 The Killing Moon
04 Winner of the (Recorded for Radio 1's Evening Session at BBC's Maida Vale Studios)
05 Type Slowly (Live) (Originally appeared on the compilation album "Tibetan Freedom Concert" 1997)
06 Neil Haggerty Meets Jon Spencer in a Non-Alcoholic Bar
07 Painted Soldiers
08 Destroy Mater Dei
09 What Goes On
10 Kris Kraft
11 It's a Rainy Day Sunshine Girl
12 Maybe Maybe (Recorded live at KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic program, 1997)
13 Space Ghost Theme I
14 Space Ghost Theme II (Unreleased songs recorded live at WFNX, 1997)

More new album news

This time it's from Polvo. The band reunited for last years EITS curated ATP (I met one of the guys in the band at the bar there without realising that he was somebody out of Polvo, nice fella) after breaking up a decade earlier and since then have been intermittently playing gigs.

The band have also signed to Merge and in September In Prism will be released.

Tracklisting:

01 Right the Relation
02 D.C. Trails
03 Beggar's Bowl
04 City Birds
05 Lucia
06 Dream Residue/Work
07 The Pedlar
08 A Thousand Waves

The YouTube video of the week

On Wednesday evening I went to the Dan Deacon gig in Andrews Lane Theatre. Of the now 5 times that I've seen him it was by far the best gig I'd seen him play and I was sorely tempted to go back for more on Thursday night. Ultimately though I decided against it because I felt that going back for seconds might just spoil things (also it would make it 3 times that I'd seen him and his ensemble in the space of a week).

I'm still happy enough that I made the right decision, especially as he told me that he would possibly be back in late August/early September but there is one thing that happened on the second night that sounds pretty fantastic, to quote Nialler9:

the human gauntlet actually went out the doors of Andrew's Lane, up the side alley, around Exchequer St, around Trinity Street and back to the venue

That's far more impressive than what happened on Wednesday when the tunnel disintegrated after people went through it a second time and people got back into the venue through the side entrance. According to Nialler the whole task took 15 minutes, another person told me that they were out there for 20 and that taxi drivers were stopping on Exchequer St. to see what the hell was going on. God knows where the band thought the crowd had gone. And of course, there were cameras present ...



If you can you should go to these gigs.

No Age/Deerhunter/Dan Deacon

08-01 Medford, NJ - Flying W Airport & Pool
08-02 Brooklyn, NY - Jelly Space 2009
08-03 Millvale, PA - Mr. Smalls Theatre
08-04 Newport, KY - Southgate House
08-05 Bloomington, IN - Rhinos
08-06 Madison, WI - UW Madison Memorial Terrace
08-07 Milwaukee, WI - Turner Hall Ballroom

No Age

06-04 Santiago, Chile - Industria Cultural
06-05 Port Alegre, Brazil - Parc Fest at Manara
06-06 Sao Paulo, Brazil - Clash Club
06-07 Buenos Aires, Argentina - La Trastienda
06-12 Seattle, WA - Triple Door
06-13 Los Angeles, CA - The Standard Hotel
06-18 Toronto, Ontario - Whippersnapper Space
06-19 Toronto, Ontario - Lee's Palace
06-20 Vancouver, British Columbia - Biltmore Cabaret
06-27 Hollywood, CA - Hollywood Palladium

Deerhunter

06-01 Lisbon, Portugal - LuxFragil *
06-02 Helsinki, Finland - Travasita
06-04 Tokyo, Japan - O-Nest
06-05 Kyoto, Japan - Club Metro
06-07 Nagoya, Japan - KD Japon
06-08 Tokyo, Japan - O-West ^
06-09 Osaka, Japan - Fandango ^
06-11 Sydney, Australia - Manning Bar $
06-12 Melbourne, Australia - Corner Hotel $@
06-13 Brisbane, Australia - The Zoo
06-15 Auckland, New Zealand - Kings Arms
06-16 Wellington, New Zealand - San Francisco Bathhouse
06-18 Melbourne, Australia - Corner Hotel %
06-20 Sydney, Australia - The Annandale Hotel
07-23 Vancouver, British Columbia - Commodore Ballroom ~
07-24 Seattle, WA - Capitol Hill Block Party
08-07 Chicago, IL - Lollapalooza
08-28 San Francisco, CA - Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival
09-12 Monticello, NY - All Tomorrows Parties NY

* with Ariel Pink
^ with Akron/Family
$ with Songs
@ with Beaches
% with Fabulous Diamonds
~ with Black Lips

Dan Deacon

06-02 Manchester, England - Manchester Club Academy
06-03 Dublin, Ireland - Andrews Place
06-04 Dublin, Ireland - Andrews Place
06-05 London, England - ULU
06-06 Cherbourg, France - Terra Trema
06-07 Brussels, Belgium - Botanique-Orangerie
06-08 Amsterdam, Netherlands Paradiso (solo set)
06-12 Boston, MA - ICA (Ultimate Reality)
06-13 Baltimore, MD - Sonar (solo set) *
06-20 Cleveland, OH - Cleveland Museum of Art (solo set)
08-08 Chicago, IL - Lollapalooza

* with Black Dice, DAT Politics, Thieves Like Us, Scottie B, Martyn, Awesome Color, Taxlo DJs

Cat Power/Juliette Lewis/Pretenders

08-07 Wallingford, CT - Chevrolet Theatre *
08-08 Hampton Beach, NH - Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom
08-09 Asbury Park, NJ - Stone Pony Summerstage
08-10 New York, NY - Central Park Summerstage
08-12 Boston, MA - Bank of America Pavilion
08-13 Upper Darby, PA - Tower Theatre
08-14 Washington, DC - Warner Theatre
08-15 Harrisburg, PA - The Forum *
08-16 Columbus, OH - LC Pavilion Outdoor
08-18 Chicago, IL - Aragon Ballroom
08-20 Council Bluffs, IA - Harrah's Council Bluffs - Stir Cove
08-22 Littleton, CO - Denver Botanic Gardens at Chatfield
08-23 Salt Lake City, UT - Red Butte Garden Amphitheatre
08-25 Troutdale, OR - Edgefield Amphitheatre
08-26 Vancouver, British Columbia - Malkin Bowl
08-27 Redmond, WA - Marymoor Amphitheatre
08-29 Saratoga, CA - The Mountain Winery ^
09-01 Pala, CA - Pala Casino - Starlight Theater
09-03 Los Angeles, CA - The Greek Theatre

* The Pretenders and Juliette Lewis only
^ The Pretenders and Cat Power only

Cat Power

07-16 Buenos Aires, Argentina - Gran Rex Theatre
07-18 São Paulo, Brazil - Via Funchal
07-21 Santiago, Chile - Teatro Caupolicãn
Polvo

06-26 Charlotte, NC - Visulite Theatre
06-27 Wilmington, NC - Soapbox Laundro-Lounge
07-22-26 Carrboro, NC - XX Merge
07-30 Philadelphia, PA - Johnny Brenda's
07-31 New York, NY - Seaport Music Festival *
08-01 Baltimore, MD - Ottobar

* with Obits

Los Campesinos!

07-11 Lisbon, Portugal - Alive! Festival
08-04 New York, NY - Webster Hall *
08-05 Washington, DC - 9:30 Club *
08-06 Cleveland, OH - Grog Shop *
08-07 Indianapolis, IN - Spin Nightclub
08-08 Chicago, IL - Lollapalooza
08-11 St. Louis, MO - Firebird *
08-12 Kansas City, MO - Record Bar *
08-14 Austin, TX - Emos Outside *
08-15 Dallas, TX - Granada Theatre *
08-16 Houston, TX - Warehouse (Studio) *
08-19 Albuquerque, NM - Launchpad *
08-20 Tucson, AZ - Club Congress *
08-21 Los Angeles, CA - El Rey Theatre *
08-22 Pomona, CA - Glass House *
08-23 Costa Mesa, CA - Detroit Bar *
08-25 Las Vegas, NV - Beauty Bar
08-28 San Francisco, CA - Outside Lands Festival
08-29 San Diego, CA - Street Scene

* with Girls

Writing under the influence

Without which this column would not have been possible:

Talk Radio

The bit at the end

One of the more interesting things that I read last week was Ben Goldacre taking a look a the figures that the music industry says piracy is costing it in his most recent bad science column for The Guardian. link.

Semi permanent plug for my blog.