The National - Ambassador - Dublin

I can see up your nose Matt.

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.

DAA

Arcade Fire, Les Savy Fav, Neutral Milk Hotel, Oink, Saul Williams, Natalie Portman, Magnetic Fields, Liars and more.

Here.

Liverpool 1-1 Arsenal: Title Contenders

You little beauty.

So that's it then, 16 out of the 18 points, not losing at Anfield. But the standards I set over a month ago I'm finally reading to say it (quietly) Arsenal are capable of winning the league. Now I'm jinxing it.

Considering how well the side played yesterday it's easy to say that we should be disappointed with only leaving with a draw. But to quote that sign in the tunnel "This is Anfield" that we're talking about. No matter how much we dominated the play Liverpool still looked capable of grabbing a goal, especially from set pieces when I did worry at times that they'd go 2-0 up, not to mention the brilliant tackle by Gallas at the end as Gerrard stormed into the box and shot when Almunia looked as though he may have overcommitted himself early which would have rendered all of Arsenal's brilliant play for nought.

And at times we did play some brilliant stuff, fullbacks bombing on, Gallas (who really was superb, probably his finest 90 for us) taking the ball out of defence, Ade looking a little ineffective but a constant nuisance. But the star of the show for me was Alex Hleb who was drifting around where he felt like and proved to be very difficult for the Liverpool players (especially Shirttuggy McPullerson) to pick up. And it was his work that eventually created the goal that cancelled out Gerrard's early rocket. Ignoring runs from a couple of players Alex held on to the ball twice before flicking it through to Cesc to toe poke towards goal. Considering how well he's struck the ball for some of his other goals this year it was a terrible hit but despite Reina getting a hand to the ball it rolled just inside the the near post.

There were other chances, the post was hit twice and the resulting rebounds by Bendter and Fabregas were skied when a touch to kill the ball would have meant the ball could have been rolled into an empty net, in truth we did more than enough to win the game but like I said
"This is Anfield" and a point is always good there, especially considering our recent league form there (Did Neil Mellor ever doing anything else after that?).

Next up is the youth team getting a run out against Sheffield United in the Carling Cup on Wednesday and then the big one on Saturday at lunchtime. United are playing some amazing football right now going forward so it should be a cracker, but I'll get to that on Friday probably.

Les Savy Fav - Crawdaddy

This is the sexiest man in the world. I always thought were I gay I'd be into "pretty" boys.
Photo credit: Iconoduel

Probably the sweatiest, and possibly the best, gig that I've ever been to in Crawdaddy. Things got off to a slow enough start with Tim Harrington entering the stage via the crowd dressed as a ghost and rabbiting on about "mysterious Ireland wwwwwhhhhhhhhooooooooo," while a problem with the bass was addressed. You kinda had to be there. But when things got finally started they kicked off big. Harrington is a wild man, a frantic ball of unabashed and oddly appealing if occasionally horrific sexuality. When not screaming his head off he was either spitting water at the front rows in the style of Yosihiro Tajiri ...

... or making his way through the crowd or hanging upside down off of the balcony like a vampire before crowd surfing back to the stage.

In other words, "Dude, it was awesome."

Little short though. Curfew Nazi's have really been out in force of late in Dublin.

MP3: Les Savy Fav - What Would Wolves Do from Let's Stay Friends

Andy, Matty, Timmy, I'm sorry.

Note to self, buy patch cables. Photo:Underexposed.org.uk

I'll be seeing 4 bands/acts (plus support) in the next 8 days and I'm looking forward to all of them obviously but no disrespect to Les Savy Fav, The National and Andrew Bird but there's a small part of my brain that for a few reasons (only recently got into them but hear they've got a great live rep/adore them, Whelan's gig is one of my most treasured musical experiences but I've seen them before/again, seen him before) has relegated them to mere appetisers for what I'm going to see on Sunday week when Animal Collective rolls into town.

I've written before about how it took me a long time to come around to appreciating what Animal Collective do so I won't go into it again. Suffice to say that I'm extremely grateful to Darragh for making me listen to "Fireworks" that night a few months back in 4 Dame Lane when So Cow played there. Since then I've fallen head over heels for Strawberry Jam and discovered the charms of Sung Tongs, actually at this point I think that I should probably bite the bullet and revisit Feels to see if all those friends of mine (and they know who they are) who looked aghast when I told them that I didn't like it at all and assured me that if I gave it another go that I'd recognise it's brilliance were right after all.

Anyway, what I'm posting today is a live version of the aforementioned "Fireworks", taken from a session with KEXP in Seattle last month that was sent to me earlier in the week. Midway through the song they work in bits from a song called "Essplode" which was on Danse Manatee. For weeks and weeks and weeks this song was the one I was itching to hear in Tripod but in the past fortnight it has slowly been replaced by "Peacebone" in my affections but this might just be enough to push it back on top.

MP3: Animal Collective - Fireworks/Essplode from KEXP Session.

The reason I've not been blogging for 2 days.

I was much closer than this.

Is 2 nights excessive at 50 bills a pop? Possibly.

Is showing up wellllll before door time to ensure a place near (actually right up) the front behaviour unbecoming of a 27 year old? Pretty much, though the feeling of patheticness was lessened somewhat around 22.47 last night when Richard Reed Parry (who, after observing him up close for 3+ hours over the course of 2 nights extract the most wondrous sounds from his guitars [and don't get me started on his Travis Bean], has firmly cemented a place for himself in my musical heroes list) told me that he saw me in almost the exact same spot both nights, then he called me "bro" .... I think. I was rather noticeably boisterous. Oh wait this bit was supposed to be formatted in the style of pithy questions and replies, sorry.

Back on track, am I literally unable to croak out a single word due to a combination of all the hollering I did and the cold I picked up and is my right bicep stiff and annoyingly sore due to all the fist pumping? Little bit.

Was it all worth it? Yep.

Anything I write at length recapping/reviewing the gigs could only appear to be a gushing display of fanboydom, I could quibble a bit about Win's vocals being low in the mix and the fact that for the first few songs he seemed a bit grumpy on the first night but night 2 was as close to perfect as I've ever seen a gig and pretty much the only way they could have entertained me better was if they'd let me pick the setlist (like I care if they're not sure how "Cars And Telephones" goes any more) and I would like to think that even though I write exclusively about music that I like/love/am interested in I retain some small level of critical detachment in what I blog about. So I'll save the gushing for Us Kids Know where it belongs. And more generally the tiny like-I'm-15-again crush I've developed on Marika Anthony-Shaw, how unprofessional for an amateur fake internet hack, the less said the better.

For cripes sake, they played "Headlights Look Like Diamonds."

2 days late.

Getting down about dwellings.

Good gigs forthe next fortnight

Here

4 years gone yesterday.

Here's a few Elliott Smith youtube videos.


At the Oscars:



Angeles live and fucking up a little bit:



Say Yes live from his final gig:



Elliott covering John Lennon:



Metric covering him:

Arsenal 2 - 0 Bolton Wanderers

One finally worked.

A few weeks ago I said that I wasn't going to let myself get too excited until after the 6 games up to and including Anfield and I set a target of 14 points out of 18 including not losing against pool that we'd need to take before I began thinking of title challenges. We're now a week away from that final match, have grabbed 15 out of 15 and head into next weekend with the prospect of facing a severely out of sorts Rafa's army.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, what happened yesterday? Well, Bolton came to town sans Anelka as well as without Big Sam, Little Sam, Tiny Sam or any other kind of Sam, though to be honest looking at the way they went out to "play" you'd have been forgiven for thinking that Allerdyce was back in charge because Bolton tried to "battle" their way through the match in a style becoming a side managed by a stat addicted wanker who likes a bung. And it worked for a while, we didn't create many chances in the first half aside from 2 headers by Adebayor and spurned opportunities from the returning Gallas and the somewhat disappointing Eduardo who had come into the side for the injured Van Persie.

Things got better early in the second half and Eboue should have opened the scoring but blasted over. With the side looking more and more dominent le boss made a couple of switches, bringing on Rosicky and Theo for Eboue and Eduardo on 62 and the substitutions were to prove vital with Walcott looking constantly dangerous, it was possibly the best I've seen him play in the premier league for us and his pace and trickery really looked like it was terrifying the Bolton defence. The deadlock was broken on 68 when Cesc rolled a short free kick into the path of Toure (it was the sort of range that Kolo likes to have a crack from but rarely scores with) and he beat Jaaskelainen low in the corner. Rosicky wrapped things up on 80 when he met Walcott's low cross to steer the ball home. That goal was quadrupley satisfying because a) It was an Arsenal goal, and they're always good, b) It put the result beyond doubt, c) It's great to see Theo developing an end product, d) With Robin out Rosicky is potentially a player to score the type of goal that Van Persie can and it's good to see him do well so soon after returning from injury. Now if we can only keep him fit, he's obviously got bags of talent but he's not had much of a chance to play an extended run of games in a while and looks the sort who needs to build up his confidence before you see the best from him.

So that's Bolton taken care of. Next up is Slavia Prague on Tuesday, a match I won't see as I'll be watching some Texan/Canadians in funny cloths make a bit of a racket in a tent but we're in good form and I think we should be confident of taking all 3 points. But that's a couple of days away so no point worrying about it.

I'll wrap things up with a few transfer rumours gleaned from today's Gossip Column on the BBC Football site, anyone under 20, if they're any good, we're buying them. Later.

LCD Soundsystem - Tripod

I didn't see the band doing this. Photo: Taste Of Indie

I was supposed to review this for somewhere else but they've got a minimum wordcount there and I can't possibly reach that. So here goes, my review of LCD Soundsystem last night in Tripod.

"Your names not on the list."

I dunno, maybe it's a bit rich to bitch about not getting into a gig for free when the vast majority of punters paid €35+ for a ticket (that's not quite true, you should have seen the size of that guest list) but having been told that it was sorted (and this isn't a regular thing, I might get a blag about once every 4 months) late yesterday afternoon so I had to rearrange my plans, rush through my work-out, get gussied up, prettify myself and then drive up from the country to show up and be told (by the ladies on the door whose fault it absolutely wasn't) that my name wasn't on the list was really disappointing. At least I hadn't been told I had a plus one, that would have been humiliating on top of things if I'd had to drag someone out with me on short notice for it to fall through. I'd have probably paid for a ticket ordinarily because I do think that they're a great band and the little of them that I caught at the Electric Picnic was fantastic but I've got no idea how much the car crash is going to wind up costing me what with hospital bills, insurance excesses, the PIAB claim being brought against me and the prospective ass-raping by the insurance company in higher premiums down the road so I thought it better to pinch some pennys (with the exception of Dan Deacon and Liars I think every gig I blog about in the next month I'll have had bought the tickets for before my brakes didn't bite on that wet patch of road) so last night was supposed to be a little treat, an almost once off perk arising from my hobby.

AND TO TOP IT OFF BY THE SOUNDS OF IT THE ARGENTINA - FRANCE MATCH THAT I MISSED WAS A CLASSIC.

So as I can't give my thoughts on it I'll go by the review of Paul, who I met around 12:30AM as I walked back towards my car and who was at the gig.

"Fuckin' deadly man. Ending on 'New York I Love You' was a bit of a downer though."

Here's a song that I didn't hear last night ...

MP3: LCD Soundsystem - All My Friends from Sound Of Silver

These things come in threes - Part 3: "Give me your eyes I need sunshine."

Don't slouch boy.

Moving away from the Beatles theme but sticking with Robert Pollard somewhat. Probably the distinctive aspect of Pollard's musical career has been how fast he writes, in addition to the 16 GBV albums he's also released 13 solo albums since 1996, including 3 this year.

Probably the closest thing we have to that kind of prolific rate in today's generation is Spencer Krug. Krug however spreads his output out amongst more projects (Wolf Parade, Sunset Rubdown, Swan Lake, Frog Eyes, Fifths Of Seven) and seems to be a bit more collaborative in his working methods. He has however contributed songs to at least 10 albums and EP's in the past 4 years.

The song I'm posting today is perhaps more a curiosity than an example of Krug's finest work (see this post on Darragh's blog for one of those) and from the not very widely heard first album
by the project that is most solely Krug's. The song had it's title shortened, was rerecorded, and much more fully realised on the first Wolf Parade album and this version sounds more like a rough demo from Animal Collective's Strawberry Jam than anything else that Krug is currently putting out.

MP3: Sunset Rubdown - I'll Believe In Anything, You'll Believe in Anything from Snakes Got A Leg

More tickets on sale for Arcade fire in Pheonix Park

Both nights, they'll be gone quick.

Link!

These things come in threes - Part 2: "A nececcessary evil I suppose."

He even looks a bit like Macca!

While we're on the subject of the best Beatles songs the Beatles never wrote, here's Bobby.

My friend Darragh is a huge Guided By Voices but despite years and years of hearing him
talk them up I'd always found the size of their catalogue intimidating. Recently I decided to take the plunge and began with Bee Thousand. After hearing it I can understand how the band was able to make a new album virtually every other week (16 non live albums in just over 20 years to be precise). It sounds awful, it's cheaply recorded, there are zero production values. But it's brilliant, even sounding the way it does Pollard's astonishing songwriting shines through.

Now Darragh could probably spout reams about the songs written by the other members of the band but I'm going to play it safe and go with a Pollard song. In fact this one was co-written by Bob and his brother Jim so that's twice the Pollard goodness. It's from Bee Thousand and unlike the Smith song I posted before you definitely can hear Pollard's Beatles influences in it, but there's a dollop of punk thrown on top for good measure.

MP3: Guided By Voices - Buzzards And Dreadful Cloths from Bee Thousand

Oh yeah, football.

Aww crap.

It's been a couple of weeks since I blogged about football, that's the international break for you and really I don't want to think about the state of Irish international football too much.

So what's been happening while I've been skiving? Well off the pitch Barcelona demonstrated that they're a pack of prize wankers over Cesc by saying that they'd find it hard to pay big money to bring one of "their" "homegrown" players back to the Nou Camp. The utter arrogance and preposterousness of that statement just beggers belief and I can't think of anything to say about it aside from "pricks."

In TV land nearly every premiership match Arsenal play will be on TV in December, I may have to subscribe to Setanta for that month.

Denny signed a new deal, which is nice, I'd like to see Flamini get a new one too.

The AGM was this week and it's good news for anyone who isn't overly tanned or an Uzbek asshole. The lock-in deal has been extended and there's a chance that Kroenke might be brought back into the fold.

Anyway, football. Back to the premiership tomorrow with "managerless crisis club" Bolton Wanderers visiting the Emirates. They've caused us plenty of problems over the years but really we should have too much for them considering the troubles they've had to endure
since Fat likes a bung Sam left for the toon. In team news RVP, as you can see from the picture above was injured playing for Holland in mid-week and will be out for a month. Considering how nasty that picture looks we could be lucky that it's only a month. The obvious option is for Eduardo who scored on international duty for Croatia over the break to come in and
partner Adebayor (who won't be going to the ACN in January thanks to Mali, WHOOP, sorry David, I won't even bring up the rumours that Vela will be headed over in January when he gets his Spanish passport) and hopefully he can continue his international form for us. I don't think he's played poorly for Arsenal, it's just that RVP and Ade have been so good they're hard to dislodge.

In other news Rosicknote is back in training and could play, mad Jens says he's ready to return and reclaim his first team space (Isn't that nice for him? Almunia hasn't done much to warrant being dropped though) and Gallas should return to replace Senderos who got hurt playing for the Swiss.

Apparently there'll be some sort of anti-Red & White protest tomorrow, and about time too. I'll be back on Sunday with my thoughts on the match.

These things come in threes - Part 1: "If I seem a little out of it sorry."

It's not raining Elliott.

What I'm about to write might be considered blasphemous. I'm not what you could call a Beatles fan. I can appreciate the brilliance of a song like "Elenor Rigby" but I just don't buy into the bullshit mythology that surrounds them, plus "she loves you".

But I can be a fan of people who obviously did love the Beatles and I'm going to focus on them for the next couple of days (at least that's the plan, I wrote all the entries this evening but something will probably crop up to break up to break up their flow over the course of the next 2 days). First up, Elliott Smith.

Smith's first major label album, XO, contains what someone once referred to me as the "best collection of Beatles songs the Beatles never wrote," so logic should dictate that I play something off of that . However I'm picking something from the record that came after it, one that I feel is often overlooked. Figure 8 saw Smith move towards a poppier sound with more full band tunes and as a result it's sometimes viewed as one of his weaker albums and gets lost in the shuffle because Smith had struck gold with a more pared back sound on the 2 previous albums (despite the fact that there's some fantastic acoustic numbers on this album) and because he killed himself before the next came out and his suicide hangs over the release somewhat. This song is one of those full band numbers and features some really gorgeous harmonies.

MP3: L.A. from Figure 8

Addendum: This gives me an excuse to post this cover by Bright Eyes of an Elliott Smith song. That boy can not sing well.

MP3: Bright Eyes -The Biggest Lie from Motion Sickness

First Impressions: Cathy Davey - Tales Of Silversleeve

Over the past few weeks and months Shane, who runs the Torture Garden blog and Jim Carroll have been dropping hints that Cathy Davey's second album might just be something special. Both were approaching Tales Of Silversleeve from slightly different perspectives, Shane was a big fan of Davey's debut Something Ilk while Carroll didn't seem to be too pushed on it; I'm coming at this record from somewhere in between, I had a lot of time for Davey's debut and thought that there was plenty of very strong songs on it but also a few that I wasn't crazy about. As I wrote yesterday I went to see Davey in Whelan's on Monday and she did enough to convince me that taking a chance on the new record might pay off.

Having picked up the album at lunch time today and played it on the drive back to the office I can only say that Messrs Garden and Carroll are right on the money. It's a remarkably immediate record (no pun intended considering who's playing guitar for her right now) and a giant leap forward for Davey in terms of songcraft. What she's come up with here is that most rare thing in today's musical landscape, a classic pop album, one in the tradition of ... actually it's been so long since I've heard a record like it I can't off the top of my head think of another to compare it too. While being jam packed with hooks and all sorts of lovely little embellishments it still manages to not sound overly polished, there's one utterly glorious moment about 40 seconds from the end of "Reuben" where it sounds like someone knocked the faders down on the backing vocals by accident before quickly putting them back up and the impact of the harmonies coming back into the song is stunning. It's quite possibly the best 10 seconds of music that I've heard all year.

But that's not the song I'm posting. What I am putting up is the album's second to last song (and to my mind the album's climax because the final song feels more like a coda as it's a much more sparse affair than anything else that goes before it). "Rubbish Ocean" reminds me of a classic 50's/early 60's girl band song; but without the nudges, winks and post-feminism of the Pipettes. Listening to it I can almost imagine Phil sitting behind a mixing desk in an LA studio working on the song and waving a pistol at a terrified Ronnie, convinced that that's the best way to get the best out of her. Did Phil Spector do the gun thing in the 60's? I'm not sure, it doesn't matter. In my brain he aimed a Smith and Wesson at his wife, a sawn-off at the Beatles, an M-16 at The Righteous Brothers and walked into the sessions with The Ramones which resulted in "Baby I Love You" with a suitcase nuke.

MP3: Cathy Davey - Rubbish Ocean from Tales Of Silversleeve

Jape - Floating video

JAPE Floating by DADDY and M&E
Uploaded by MatthewANDemelie

Cathy Davey - Whelans

No "funny" comment.

After Monday night I'm now convinced that the only thing that should be small about Cathy Davey is her voice. She deserves to be huge. The second night of her once a week October residency in Whelan's saw her repeatedly apologise for being "a bit shit" but to my ear she didn't have anything to be sorry about. For over an hour Davey and her band shone, giving me a first listen to most of her new album Tales Of Silversleeve (which unfortunately wasn't available for sale on Monday, to the shops I'll be headed at the weekend) as well as playing reworked versions of songs from Something Ilk.

Every song was impeccably crafted with hooks out the ying-yang and not a single superfluous note played out of place. To that end praise should be heaped upon her band (including Bell X1's Paul Noonan on drums) for providing all sorts of lovely multi-part harmonies and odd percussion to fill out the songs but a special mention has to go to ex-Immediate everythingist Conor O'Brien on guitar, who played all sorts of subtle but fantastic parts ranging from slightly unsettling dissonance to countryish soloing.

Davey's got another couple of weeks left in her month of residencies in Dublin, Cork, Galway and Belfast and if you get the chance I really do urge you to try to get down there to check her out. In the meantime maybe head down to the bookies and drop a tenner on her winning next year's Choice Prize.

DAA for this week

Radiohead, Radiohead, Radiohead, Yo La Tengo, Liars, Christmas, Portishead, Nirvana AND video footage of Arcade Fire and Springsteen playing together.

Some of it was already up here.

Les Savy Fav's big break

Bruce Springsteen and Win And Regine from Arcade Fire

From last night via the good folks at trendwhore.

Bruce Stringsteen and Arcade Fire - State trooper
Uploaded by trendwhore

Bruce Stringsteen and Arcade Fire - Keep the car running
Uploaded by trendwhore

Broken Social Scene presents: Kevin Drew - Tripod

This man eventually figured out that wearing socks on your arms wasn't a look that worked well for him.

I can't put my finger on precisely when it was but there was a point during Broken Social Scene last night, probably sometime after "Superconnected" but before the cheesy but all in good fun "Where The Streets Have No Name" cover where I switched from being a little non-plussed about the gig and began to really enjoy myself. Part of me thinks it's because as the gig went on they began dipping into the BSS back catalog more and more and for the most part I think that material is stronger than the majority of Spirit If . But part of it I now realise was because Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning are so earnestly likable on stage that I almost wanted to enjoy it FOR them.

It's kind of a an odd phenomenon, and normally one I only experience when I go and see friends of mine play; I like my friends (duh) so I really do want them to be good, I want them to succeed, so I clap and I cheer more than I might, not faking it but rather to help put them at ease and to encourage and relax them. Truth be told Broken Social Scene don't need that kind of encouragement from me, You Forgot It In People pretty much kick-started the pitchfork Canadian wankfest of recent years when it was released and it remains one of my favourite albums of the decade. And it's not like Spirit If is a bad record, it's full of low key jams and it's got the same lovely kitchen sink feeling I get from other BSS records, it's just that it's almost all low key with not much to kick me up the hole like "Ibi Dreams Of Pavement" or "7/4 shoreline" or "Almost Crimes" or "Time = Cause" does.

I dunno, it's almost impossible for me to put into words what I'm on about, which probably means that I shouldn't be writing this post. All I know is that the 3 times I saw Broken Social Scene last year they swept me away in a tidal wave of energy and sound from the off which was a little lacking from them last night. Perhaps it's due to familiarity becasue it was still a super gig, but the one in the Temple Bar Music Centre 18 months ago was one of those nights that made me realise why I love music as much as I do. And perhaps it's unfair to try to judge last night against those standards, but doing so can't be helped. In short, last night I was at a great gig for any other band's standards, but for this band ... they've been better.

No seriously, I respect her as an artist.

Ah for fuck's sake will you look and that.

Yeah yeah, girl ... pretty but more importantly I think it's almost impossible to quantify just how much I adore Joanna Newsom's music. But let me put it this way; aside from that fortnight a few months back when I tried to learn half a dozen Elliott Smith songs whenever I pick up a guitar these days it's almost always to try and write something new or to work on a song I've already written, and if I do play a cover to myself it's something that I've known for years. I'll have a go at learning a new one or two once every six weeks or so but in truth I really should do it more often as it's a great way of learning new techniques and chord changes (for those concerned the latest batch have been "All Fires" this week and before that a failed attempt at "Tractor Rape Chain" and a more successful go at the "The Goldheart Mountain Top Queen Directory"). Two of the songs I've tried to take on (and I'd like to think that I got a half decent handle on but I've forgotten them both now) were by Joanna Newsom, and she writes for the fucking harp bro'.

The two songs I tried to learn are obviously very popular as I've been able to track down live bootleg covers of them by other acts (who do them far better then I could, though I'd hope my attempts at the first one sounded a bit less nasal) and those are the songs that I'm posting today.

The first is by a band that were supposed to play here this week but cancelled for whom I've never cared much; I appreciate that Colin Meloy is a clever and literate songwriter who has a fine way with imagery but really, I've got Neutral Milk Hotel and Jeff Mangum for that thank you very much. That being said I saw them play at A.T.P. last year and they do put on a good show, I've never seen a guy with an acoustic guitar crowd surfing. And this is a good go at the song.

MP3: The Decemberists - Bridges And Balloons

The second song is by someone that I'm most definitely a fan of. In fact he's up there with Ms. Newsom in my mental hall of musical greats. I first came across him when I went to London a couple of years ago to see some band from Canada play in the Astoria. I had a ticket sorted for myself but wanted to get one for my friend Rob who I was staying with so placed an ad. online looking for one for him. I got an offer from a lady from France that was flying in for the gig and had a spare going and after agreeing upon cost price with her we arranged to meet in a bar up the road from the Astoria on the night of the gig. With ticket collected from her and having learned that she was on her own we asked if she'd like to join us for the gig and off we went towards the venue asking each other if we knew who the support was and if they were any good. We walked into the Astoria to see a skinny blonde fella with a violin midway through his set of complex and full sounding loop based songs. Towards the end he held his violin as one might a ukulele and began strumming; I leaned (because I'm her taller than her) over towards my new friend Connie (she'll probably read this at some point ... Hi Connie!) and whispered "This really sounds like a Joanna Newsom song" before returning to her ear about 20 seconds later to say "Oh, that's because it is a Joanna Newsom song".

About a year later said skinny blonde dude came to Ireland with his violin and his loop pedal (he'd been here before with the Canadian band I mentioned earlier but only played as part of their string section). I'd read a few online reviews of his gigs which said that he'd often take requests during the encore so after he'd blown me away with his main set I knew what was coming when he returned to the stage.

He began, "Is there anything that you'd like me to pl..."

"Peach, plum, pear," I cried, interrupting him before anyone else could get a word in.

Owen obliged.

MP3: Final Fantasy - Peach Plum Pear

First thoughts: Radiohead - In Rainbows

OK, as ever despite being labled under "reviews" this isn't so much a review as my first impressions on the record.

I'm really, really happy with it. For the most part it's quite a gentle album, a friend of mine described it to me as Radiohead doing lullabys and I can see what he means for the most part. No songs I actively dislike and plenty I'm immediately taken with. The final section of "Bodysnatchers" sent a chill down my spine and I'm very impressed with the modifications that Thom made to the melody of "Nude" from the one he was singing 8-9 years ago when the song first cropped up at gigs "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi" and "All I Need" also jump out at me from the off. The most pleasant surprise I think is "House Of Cards" though, I heard it in London in May last year and I didn't like it much, I thought it was very soft rock. However on record it seems stronger, it's still soft rock though. I'm not quite so sure on "Videotape", I like it a lot but I'm not sure if it's better than the live versions that were circulating last year.

It's not a disappointment anyway and I can't see there being too many reviews along the lines of "all the hype for this giant turd". Well done boys, hurry up with my discbox please.

In Rainbows IS HERE

Well that was painless. Got into the office, fielded a couple of phone calls, made a coffee and then checked my g-mail and what do I find?

Download was finished in 5 minutes and right now I'm listening to 15-step. Comparatively sparse for a 5 piece, jazzy drumming.

A couple of months notice for these gigs.

Thurston Moore, Tripod, December 4th (Same night as Liars in Whelans).

Dan Deacon (yay, gutted I was too sick to make the last gig), 3 gigs around the country at the end of November/start of December including Whelans on December 2nd.

Dancing About Architecture

This week there's news about ATP, Blur, Montreal Supergroups, Dan Deacon, The Big Day out and this little bit about what I think about the furore about the Radiohead album, an exerpt of which I'm posting here ...

Wouldn't you know it? The very same week that I was in a car crash (I'm OK, they're OK, back and neck are a bit stiff) and decide that I'd be better off having a lie down rather than sitting at a desk for a few hours putting a column together Radiohead announce that they're going to release their new album in a little more than a week (tomorrow by the time you read this).

By this point you probably know the details, expensive discbox for the hardcore fans, pay what you like downloadable version for everyone else. It's a novel idea and where I am the non-music media have latched on to the story firmly and for the past week in newspapers and on current affairs radio programmes have been full of stories about the death of conventional record labels and "new paradigm", that lovely phrase that people who don't know anything about, what they're talking has cropped up a few times. If I listened harder I probably would have noticed "pro-active" crop up as well.

To all those people I can only say this …

"Stop spouting such absolute horseshit".

continue

gigs to go to in the next couple of weeks.

There's some good ones here.

Fuck fuck fuck, damn you Kingsley.

The brilliance of this man broke my laptop

I was watching an episode of The Larry Sanders Show on my laptop last night. It was on fullscreen mode so when the low battery warning came up I didn't see it and the battery went dead and the computer cut out. So I went and plugged it back in but the thing seems to be dead, not booting at all. The hard drive activity light flashes on for a second then nothing. FUCK, my beautiful MP3 collection that I've been building up for years, pretty much everything that I've written for the past 4 years (Backups? What're they boss?). Perhaps it serves me right for buying a laptop from Aldi. The thing is 6 months old so I imagine that it's still under warranty but all the same, annoying.

Anyway, the long and short of it and how it relates to this blog is that MP3's might not be as frequent until I get this sorted out as I much of my harder to find in the shops stuff is in a digital format. If the drive is dead data recovery better be covered.

Arsenal 3 - 2 Sunderland

You had to wait till after I dropped you from my fantasy team to hit form again didn't you?

Well, it turns out that Sunderland were a bit tougher than expected. I shouldn't have been surprised really, no team managed by Keane are likely to capitulate in the way Derby did a couple of weeks ago. Things started off well enough though when Diaby rifled home the ball from the edge of the area after 7 or so minutes. Unfortunately it was ruled out as the ref had failed to play advantage and had blown up for a free on the edge of the area. Things turned out OK though as Van Persie smashed the free home off the crossbar before Gordon in the Sunderland goal even moved to try to stop it. Things got better on 14 when Senderos stuck out his leg to connect with a poorly defended low cross from Adebayor and make it two. We could have wrapped things up soon after that when Diaby was robbed of a goal for the second time in the match when the linesman flagged for offside against ... I don't know, everyone was onside, by miles.

Fair play (or perhaps "all credit") to the Black Cats though they kept trying and were rewarded for their efforts just before the break when Almunia came out to save from Jones and the ball fell to Ross Wallace on the edge of the box who wasn't closed down fast enough and picked his spot to score his second of the season. Sunderland then equalised early in the second half when
Kenwynne Jones rose above both our fullbacks in the box to head home and bring back nightmares of the past couple of seasons (when will I fucking stop worrying about those 2 years coming back to haunt me? Things are going so well right now).

It was really all Arsenal after that with plenty of chances coming our way, the best opportunity falling to Walcott who scuffed his shot after Hleb's good work had set him up but Kolo came closest to breaking the deadlock when his piledriver from 30+ yards smacked off the post. Theo did make up for his earlier miss by laying on a ball from the right for the constantly dangerous Van Persie to control the ball and shoot in 2 touches to break Makam hearts. The drama wasn't over though as former gunner's trainee (though he only ever played 2 minutes for the first 11) Anthony Stokes brought the best out of Almunia (who, next year will be eligable to play for England, surely a better bet than Robinson no) before the end of the match.

So that's another win chalked up, 10 in a row now and back on top of the table with a game in hand after losing the top spot to Manchester United who spanked Wigan on Saturday. Things are looking good right now but I still want to remain cautious until at least after Anfield on the 26th and possibly even the match against Manchester United the following week. There's no league football next week as we're coming into an international break and to be honest I think it's coming at a bad time for us. The last thing we need is for players to come home with knocks and derailing out good run, but I'm not going to worry about that till Thursday week when all the games are played and we know what the story is.

Wanted: The National

I am on the lookout for a standing ticket for the second Dublin National gig in the Olympia on November 1st. It's for a friend who is a big fan and who can't make the October 30th gig so if anyone can help out that'd be cool.

Handsome Furs - Whelan's

I've got better things to do at gigs than bring a camera along with me, this is a live shot from the Crocodile Cafe in Seattle.
Credit: Josh C

Dan Boeckner certainly knows the easy ways to get a crowd behind him, "Today we're officially banned from the United Kingdom but fuck those guys"* elicits an early roar from the crowd of the sort that you might expect from a republican rally (only with fringes rather than buzz cuts) demonstrating that in this modern and vibrant post/mid (depending on your perspective)-peace process Ireland a bit of mild Brit-bashing still goes down well. He's at it again later with the garnering of cheap pops by referencing his previous appearance in Whelan's as part of Wolf Parade by saying that the now refurbished, but not yet finished, venue is "pretty much my favourite place in the world to play", cue another cheer from the far from packed but respectably filled floor; that one may just be true though, on both of his trips to play here Boeckner's music has been rapturously received.

Fo