Dancing About Architecture 11.06.07

Posted by Ian Wright on 11.06.2007

Radiohead, 33 1/3, Andrew Bird, The National, Animal Collective, St. Vincent, reviews, reviews, reviews. And for one week only a new format, sorta.

The bit at the start

Happy Tuesday all. It's Monday, work is busy, and I'm going to/have been (if I get home early enough to do some more content after the gig) at Deerhunter tonight so I'm facing the prospect of being very short on time this week to write some news content. Fortunately at Thrill Pier I've been blogging my sweet little ass off this week so I've a ton of gig review content that I can just cross post into here, I'd hate for you to feel short changed after clicking on the link. So off we go.

The National – Ambassador – Dublin - Tuesday

The National like Ireland. I know this to be true because they said so when someone asked last night. And in fairness they've got every reason to. Their last proper appearance here in Whelan's in November 2005 was one of the best gigs I've ever seen with a near-symbiosis between band and audience occurring at times and Matt Berninger referred to it last night as their "best gig ever". At the time he didn't even seem to mind that he was dragged out of the venue's green room by a fan at the behest of one of the Dessner brothers to play one final song a full 20 minutes after the end of the gig when they returned to pack up the stage and were met with thunderous applause.

With those sorts of memories to live up to Tuesday's first of a pair of Dublin dates (which began as a single night in the much smaller Village) were never going to top, or even match that. But Cincinnati's finest gave it a damn good try. Returning with a collection of brilliant shiny new tunes from their Boxer album they, and a selection from 2005's Alligator regularly induced moments of euphoria up the front, I wouldn't be able to tell you what the folks at the back were doing. Getting to the bar easily and not sweating profusely probably.

The National write brilliant songs and produce wonderful sounding records, there's never a note out of place and everything fits perfectly. Perhaps aware that replicating such clinical playing in a live environment is nigh on impossible the National as a live proposition are a far more muscular band and in particular Bryce Dessner and touring member Padma Newsome really crank things up at times, Dessner by bathing his guitar playing in delay and Newsome by flying around the stage furiously playing whatever stringed and bowed instrument he had in his hands at the time. All the while Bryan Devendorf holds things together with some brilliantly creative drumming, there's probably faster drummers out there but in the current canon of US indie rock there's not one I'd rather listen to.

The only member of the band not to up the ante in the live arena is Berninger, never the most comfortable looking performer (he's been known to walk straight out of venues post-gig without a word to anyone to be on his own) when I saw the band on the first date of the Boxer tour in London back in May it appeared that he'd grown into the frontman role a bit but last night he looked quite ill at ease with himself. Aside from occasionally speaking to the crowd between songs, and he did looked engaged and genuine when that happened, he spent most of his non-singing time with his back to the audience standing near the drum kit.

But when he does open his mouth during the songs ...

He loses himself completely in what he's doing. I could listen to that guy sing the phonebook in his gorgeous, sombre baritone and enjoy it. And as for his phrasing of a lyric, he's in Sinatra territory. A few weeks back I had a chat with a somewhat drunk Brendan Canning of Broken Social Scene about his upcoming solo album, he let it slip that he wants to get some guest vocalists in to help out including on one song, "that guy from The National", considering the quality of the tunes that BSS have come up with over the years the idea of Matt Berninger singing over them is a mouth watering proposition.

The night ended on a high note and with a nod to the band's long term fans, returning to the stage for a deserved second encore they sent the crowd home with a shoegazed up version of "About Today" from the Cherry Tree EP which culminated in a wall of sound before the band left the stage one at a time, easing things down till it only the Devendorf brothers remained.

The National play Belfast tonight and return to Dublin tomorrow to play the Olympia. Whoever is seeing them is in for a hell of a treat.

The National – Olympia – Dublin – Thursday (Fuck you, so I went twice. I love them and as you'll learn they were worth seeing the second time.)

I went out tonight with zero intention of blogging about this gig. I figured anything that I said about Tuesday's gig in the Ambassador would pretty much hold true of tonight. In fact I had intended to use the gig as a jumping off point to talk about St. Vincent, who opened tonight and, after buying it after the Tuesday gig, whose album I've listened to 3 times in the past 24 hours. Annie's a talented lady, but should probably check her fishnets for tears before going on stage.

But that was supposed to be tomorrow, I wasn't supposed to be here, at home, on my computer at ten to one tonight ... not the plan at all. I should be in the Oak with my friends hanging out and waiting for the cats who went to Modeselektor to get in and see how that went. But I couldn't handle being in a crowded bar with people bumping off of me, shoving past me, people shouting because the music was too loud. Couldn't make conversation with my buddies. I needed to be on my own, to digest things.

I feel, and I can't put my finger on why, that I had a profoundly moving experience tonight. The gig was good, much as it was on Tuesday, if I wanted to gripe I'd bitch about the drums being low in the mix and occasionally not being able to decipher what Matt was singing, but yeah, I was enjoying myself. Then we got the second song from the end of the main set, "Daughters Of The Soho Riots" right at the end the crowd took over the singing after what was supposed to be the final line "Break my arms around my love" and sang another couples of measures of ...

" Break my arms around the one I love
And be forgiven by the time my lover comes
Break my arms around my love"

And from where I was standing I saw Bryce Dessner break out in a massive grin. From that point on everything clicked in to place for me and things became magical. It's hard to say why I'm feeling like I do right now, the songs were great, they finished the set with "About Today", one of my favourite songs in the whole world into "Start A War", a combination I'd not heard from them before but if I had to put my finger on it it happened one song before, "Mr. November".

Matt Berninger, so awkward and shy looking at times, seemingly so nervous about being on stage that on occasion he took to crouching behind Bryce Dessner's sizeable pedal board which was flanked by a pair of monitors so that he was almost hidden from sight. During that song he walked down the steps of the stage to the barrier and stepped over it into the crowd and around the point where he sang about being carried in the arms of cheerleaders the crowd hoisted him up into the air and he surfed from one side of the Olympia's pit to the other. When he was eventually set back down at the end of the song he made his way back to the stage through the throng, hugging whoever got in his way.

It was beautiful.

Thinking about it makes me want to cry.

I fucking love music man.

Andrew Bird – Tripod – Dublin - Saturday

Actually I haven't had time to blog about this. Andrew Bird is a bit of a show-off but he's possibly the best musician I've ever seen. The stuff he did was at times nothing short of remarkable.

His percussionist Martin Dosh (performing under his surname) opened the show with a set based around drumming, synths and live sampling. No computers, everything done live and with hardware. Highly impressive stuff. I had a bit of a chat with him afterwards and he modestly referred to what he does as "schticky" but he's being unfair to himself. He's a super talented guy and I thought it was great.

Animal Collective – Tripod – Dublin - Sunday

Last night's gig was an odd one. Dave couldn't sing at all except for some heavily treated backing stuff so Noah took all the lead vocal duties and the whole thing seemed very seat of their pants and off the cuff. Only one song I recognised (#1) and the rest was pretty much a drone synth set. I thought it was fantastic but I could see how folks might be annoyed that they didn't get to hear Peacebone/Fireworks. I knew what was going to happen because I ran into a guy that I know that knows them before they came on and he told me what the story was but I'd say there was a fair bit of headscratching from most of the audience.

Best bit of the night though was when it ended (after 45-50 minutes) and they explained why the set had been the way it was and it was announced that Noah was going to play some Panda Bear stuff on his own. Cue massive cheer.

And the Panda Bear stuff was pretty fantastic, like a lovely unexpected treat. The Animal Collective material broke my mind a little bit and Noah pieced it all back together for me before heading off into the night (and ultimately to Roma II, classy).

So all in all I enjoyed it, not what I was expecting but pretty unique amongst Animal Collective gigs I'd imagine. Still hope they come back soon and blow the roof off the joint though.

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

St. Vincent – Marry Me



Eclectic brilliance from ex-Sufjan band member/ Polyphonic Spree-er.

You news, you lose

Even a short week has Radiohead news.

While a label is yet to be found for In Rainbows in North America we now know who will be handling the international physicak release of Radiohead's latest album. XL Recordings, who handled Thom Yorke's Eraser last year will be ensuring that record shops that aren't in the USA, Canada or Mexico will have the album on their shelves … sometime.

At present there's no concrete release date but Radiohead's PR have said early 2008, it's worth noting that January 16th was the date that was floating around around the time of the digital release.

As for who'll handle the NA release, rumours are that Dave Matthew's ATO and Coran Capshaw's Side One will be the ones to milk the cash cow.

2 stories, yeah, that's all you're getting.

This story is about books.

You know the things that you read that isn't the internet.

Or magazines.

Or comic books.

Or hooker cards in payphone boxes. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.

By far and away my favourite music book is Michael Azzerad's Our Band Could Be Your Life, pretty much the definitive history of 80's US indie. However I'm also a fan of the 33 1/3 series. It's a collection of books, usually around 150 pages in length which focuses on a single album. A different author pens each book and writers that have contributed to the series vary from academics to fans to critics to musicians (The Decemberists Colin Meloy wrote the 33 1/3 book on The Replacement's Let It Be, Joe Pernice wrote the Smiths book). I'm in the middle of my 4th book right now (Daydream Nation) and while it won't top the best one I read (In The Aeroplane Over The Sea) it's a shitload better than the OK Computer one. The book on Loveless is worth reading too.

Next month see's a number of additions to the series with Celine Dions Let's Talk About Love (really) and Throbbing Gristle's 20 Jazz Funk Greats. Most interestingly is the addition to the series of a book on one of my favourite records Tom Wait's Swordfishtrombones. Also in the pipeline is 33 1/3's greatest hits: Volume 2 which will feature excerpts from a number of the books in the series.

If you're curious why they're doing a book on Celine Dion you can send an e-mail to [e-mail] and the publishers will send you back a PDF of the books first 2 chapters. They think it's that good.

Actually, before we headed out to Animal Collective last night my friends were discussing which of us might have a claim to being "the world's biggest *insert name of band* fan." (It's sad I know, there was booze involved) I think one of us definitely has a claim to the Olivia Tremor Control but it was suggested that I might just be the world's biggest Wrens fan. I'm not sure about that. I might be in the top 5 though (the guy who runs their label, Corey Brown, and Ryan Schreiber, the dude who runs Pitchfork have pretty strong claims to the title). I wonder if I should pitch a book on The Meadowlands to Continuum Books.

The YouTube video of the week

The song has been out in Ireland for a couple of years but it's about to be released internationally via V2 on the Jape Is Grape EP. It's a slacker pop classic and it's got a brand new video.



If you can you should go to these gigs.

Iron & Wine

11-26 Tucson, AZ - Fox Tucson Theatre
11-27 San Diego, CA - 4th & B
11-28 Los Angeles, CA - Orpheum Theatre
11-30 Oakland, CA - The Paramount Theater
12-02 Portland, OR - Crystal Ballroom
12-03 Seattle, WA - Moore Theater
12-04 Bellingham, WA - Mt. Baker Theatre
12-06 Boise, ID - Egyptian Theatre
12-07 Magna, UT - The Great Saltair
12-08 Denver, CO - Paramount Theatre
12-09 Albuquerque, NM - El Rey Theater
12-10 Dallas, TX - Palladium Ballroom
12-11 Austin, TX - La Zona Rosa
01-14 Barcelona, Spain - Apolo
01-15 Milan, Italy - MusicDrome
01-16 Vienna, Austria - Szene
01-17 Dachau, Germany - St. Jakob-Kirche
01-18 Brussels, Belgium - Ancienne Belgique
01-19 Paris, France - Divan du Monde
01-20 Hamburg, Germany - Fabrik
01-21 Aarhus, Denmark - Voxhall
01-22 Stockholm, Sweden - Södra Teatern
01-23 Oslo, Norway - Rockefeller
01-24 Lund, Sweden - Mejeriet
01-25 Copenhagen, Denmark - Lille Vega
01-26 Cologne, Germany - KultureKirche
01-27 Amsterdam, Netherlands - Paradiso
01-28 Frankfurt, Germany - Mousonturm
01-29 Bielefeld, Germany - Forum
01-30 Berlin, Germany - Passionskirche
05-16-18 Minehead, England - Butlins Holiday Resort (Explosions in the Sky-curated ATP)

Okkervil River

11-03 Austin, TX - Fun Fun Fun Fest
11-06 Colchester, England - Colchester Arts Centre
11-07 Nottingham, England - The Social
11-08 Newcastle, England - Newcastle University
11-09 Glasgow, Scotland - Nice N Sleazy
11-10 Manchester, England - Roadhouse
11-12 Brussels, Belgium - Ancienne Belgique
11-13 Paris, France - La Cigalle #
11-14 Fribourg, Switzerland - Fri-Son
11-19 Vienna, Austria - Szene
11-20 Munich, Germany - Registratur
11-22 Frankfurt, Germany - Brotfabrik
11-23 The Hague, Netherlands - Crossing Border Festival
11-24 Muenster, Germany - Gleiss 22
11-25 Cologne, Germany - Prime Club
11-26 Berlin, Germany - Lido
11-27 Hamburg, Germany - Knust
11-29 Copenhagen, Denmark - Loppen
11-30 Stockholm, Sweden - Spark Club @ Debaser Medis
12-01 Oslo, Norway - John Dee
12-04 Brighton, England - Pressure Point
12-05 Liverpool, England - Liverpool Academy
12-06 Dublin, Ireland - Whelan's
12-07 Leeds, England - Brudenell Social Club
12-08 Cardiff, Wales - Barfly
12-09 London, England - Luminaire
12-10 London, England – Luminaire
02-02 Belfast, Northern Ireland – Empire
02-03 Edinburgh, Scotland – Cabaret Voltaire
02-05 London, England - Scala

# with Vic Chesnutt
Writing under the influence

Without which this column would not have been possible:

Afghan Whigs - Gentlemen
LCD Soundsystem – Sound Of Silver

The bit at the end

Anyone have a waffles invite?

Or a what one?

Or a piratebay one?

Help me out dudes.

Semi permanent plug for my blog. Most of this week's posts I put up this at the start but there's some MP3's there.