//Ridiculosity
Vincent Moon and Arcade Fire Walk Into An Elevator….
“[T]he crowd seemed really emotionally engaged with the music.”
There really is something magical about these La Blogotheque Take Away Shows. There is a level of intimacy and honesty to them, a pureness and a clarity, a soaring joy.
So the first video is “Neon Bible” in a freight elevator. Atonishingly, they all managed to fit. This is one of my favorite Arcade Fire songs (primary is “Neighborhood #1: Tunnels”). While I did not find it quite as powerful as the Bon Iver video, I adore the magazine, Régine drumming on the ceiling and that they all crammed in there.
The second portion of the Take Away video from which this was excerpted is a rough version of “Wake Up” wherein the whole band stands in the middle of a crowd and Win Butler sings through a megaphone. What it lacks perhaps in polish, it makes up for in spirit. The crowd is obviously enthralled and their raw energy is really captured well there.
The full Take Away video is here.
Just for fun, here’s the interactive video for “Neon Bible”.
When I saw Arcade Fire play at Madison Square Garden recently, the crowd seemed really emotionally engaged with the music. After Owen Pallett played and before Spoon came on, N. and I were discussing how popular Arcade Fire is amongst people with a pretty broad range of musical tastes, and the relatively small amount of backlash from even the music snobs. People and other musicians generally afford them a bit of respect. We were also really impressed by how multi-instrumentalist the band members truly are. You hear about it but to see them rotate to a new instrument for every song…it is a fairly impressive sight.
The whole MSG show was streamed live on YouTube, directed by Terry Gilliam. Here is “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)”. Somehow there in the moment, it was 1,000x more thrilling that what you see here, but it’s a pretty damn good performance of an exquisite song. And no it was not snowing but yes, they did shoot those giant explosions of paper confetti over the crowd.
Unrelated, Win Butler has astoundingly good balance! When he went out into the audience, he was balancing on a railing a few times. During those jaunts, two or three crew people were in charge of feeding and retracting his mic cord.
I really like “The Suburbs” but it is subtler than “Neon Bible” or “Funeral”. Both those albums packed such a punch that everything else looks tame in comparison.
And I will leave you with a more polished (and yet wonderfully primal) version of “Wake Up”.
Share
Water Water Everywhere….
“Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.”
- The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Dear Myopic, Idiot Neighbors,
Why yes, it is quite hot out, isn’t it? If you absolutely must open hydrants (thereby endangering the neighborhood by lowering water pressure when it might be needed to put out fires (or take showers for that matter), and basically treating clean water like it’s an infinite gift from the ass of baby Jesus and not a precious resource that must be cleaned and treated before it can be used again and therefore ought to be conserved), why the fuck can’t you share hydrants? Two on one block and one on each of the surrounding 3 blocks, flooding the streets. This always used to upset me when they showed clips of kids running through hydrant spray on Sesame Street and let me tell you, it’s far more upsetting to see it in person.
There are so many 311 calls about open hydrants that there is a special 311 Open Hydrant Complaint subset which directs callers to a 311 purgatory of waiting for an operator. I waited 11 minutes then gave up.
These people are not even using the hydrant caps that make a controlled spray, just completely removing the caps so the water gushes directly into the street. And then are unwilling/unable to close them again. YOU ARE IGNORANT AND WASTEFUL. I wish you lived in one of those countries where women have to walk for 3 hours to a water source and then lug 40 lbs of water back to their homes EVERY DAY.
Love,
Cari
Giving people access to safe, potable water.
For Emma, Forever Ago (and Ever Again)
An extended version of Bon Iver’s La Blogotheque Take Away Show of “For Emma, Forever Ago” with three versions of the song and some very startled tourists. I think this is one of my favorite things in the whole world. Not just that the song is so beautiful, and is so beautifully sung, but that the versions in general far surpass what you hear on their album.
I love the somewhat cynical but not unyielding Frenchman in the beginning. I love that the a cappella version(s) are sung in this gorgeously Parisian, Old-World apartment building. In the first version, I love that there is a friendly dog running about. I love that people came home to find Bon Iver in their hallway. In the second version, I love the spirit of spontaneously making music for people out on the street. I love the idea of terrifying tourists with something unexpected and wonderful. In the third version, I love how amazing and pure their voices sound.
And I love the in-between songs.
ShareSo, This Stephen Malkmus-looking Guy Who Went to High School with My Boss Wrote a Children’s Book
A man once said, “Childrens do learn.” and I believe childrens should learn to dream big dreams. Even better is to dream arty dreams like a hipster might draw. This hipster author’s name is Dallas Clayton. Although I do not know for sure that Dallas Clayton is a hipster, he looks like this:
And, I mean, unicorns! The mascot of hipsters everywhere. His are rocket-powered. One is even on skateboards.
I believe my favorite illustrations are the little red and pink bear on a ladder dreaming big…and then dreaming even bigger (and then it’s right up in your snout). And the cordoned off purgatories for non-dreamers Who’ve Given Up or Who’ve Never Tried. And the “Dream-etery” where all my dreams reside, beneath that menorah-looking thing. Also enjoyable are mundane people’s dreams of breakfast sandwiches. And “reg-u-lar”.
On his website, there is Dallas Clayton poetry, such as:
EVERY HOUR OF EVERY DAY
As I write this
an accounts receivable manager
has just joked
that he “put the G in Gmail”
and gotten a laugh
from a mail clerk
who came to work high.
I will let you draw your own conclusions.
Dallas Clayton has a six year-old, so you should buy his book for all the six year-olds you know, some of whom may be in their thirties.
©2010 Copyright Dallas Clayton
I Left My Heart in Bon Iver
“However, this was one of those shows that blows you quite away and I felt privileged to have gotten to witness it.”
Saturday, January 23, 2010, I went alone to a Brooklyn Vegan/The Bowery Presents benefit show for Haiti at Music Hall of Williamsburg (formerly NorthSix). The audience contained a large portion of infuriating idiots, more so than usual, as frequently happens when “celebrities” are performing (well, Janeane Garofalo and Zach Galifianakis). However, this was one of those shows that blows you quite away and I felt privileged to have gotten to witness it.
Because I am an idiot (I forgot the show was that night), I got there too late to see Britt Daniel of Spoon play his three songs (BD and/or Spoon has played 3-4 different places all over New York and Brooklyn recently and I have managed to miss each appearance. (I did shell out for a ticket to the Spoon show at Radio City Music Hall in March because I saw Björk play there 10 years ago and the acoustics are so amazing it sounded like she was standing in front of us.)
Oh well. Here is Britt Daniel playing “Who Makes Your Money”:
So I missed the frontman for one of my favorite bands, and it does not matter an iota because I got to see St. Vincent and Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) play and then I got to see them play together (Songer Singwriter – consisting of Annie, Justin, a drummer and Brad from Megafaun). Another honor was the surprise guest, Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond), who sang this amazingly gorgeous song whose name I do not know. Her voice and delivery just blew everything else out of the water. She also did a Prince cover, which was wonderful. Had I known anything about her before Saturday, I would have gone to the show she had played the previous night at Bowery Ballroom.
Here is Justin Vernon performing one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen live:
Unexpectedly, for a bunch of delicate-sounding musicians, Songer Singwriter devolved into really balls-out noise (or evolved, depending on how one feels about noise), I mean, a crashing, borderline painful cacophony, particularly at the conclusion of “Jolene”, of which I do not have video.
Songer Singwriter cover Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon”:
And here is a partial clip of Songer Singwriter performing a jawdropping cover of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene”:
Unrelated to the show, but having everything to do with Bon Iver, as part of another amazing evening with my friend, Kate M., she introduced me to La Blogotheque, which is run by people who invite musicians to play tiny, intimate shows in France. This is an a cappella version of “For Emma” sung in the hallway of an apartment building in Paris. Love the bewildered residents who came home to find Bon Iver. And, of course, the dog.
[Incidentally, Kate does not know this yet but she consistently introduces me to music that makes me think "This is why life is worth living." Not just the fantastic music itself, but the joy in discovering it exists out there in the world. Thank you, Kate, for also being out there in world.]
And I will leave you with a lovely, heartbreaking rendition of “Skinny Love”, also courtesy of La Blogotheque. Look at those joyous Frenchies who got to sit in a room the size of a closet and drink wine and sing along with this:
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Now reading:
//RECENT
Vincent Moon and Arcade Fire Walk Into An Elevator….“[T]he crowd seemed really emotionally engaged with the music.”
Water Water Everywhere…. “Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.”
- The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
An extended version of Bon Iver’s La Blogotheque Take Away Show of “For Emma, Forever Ago” with three versions of the song and some very startled tourists. I think this is one of my favorite things in the whole world. Not just that the song is so beautiful, and is so beautifully sung, but that [...]
So, This Stephen Malkmus-looking Guy Who Went to High School with My Boss Wrote a Children’s BookA man once said, “Childrens do learn.” and I believe childrens should learn to dream big dreams. Even better is to dream arty dreams like a hipster might draw. This hipster author’s name is Dallas Clayton. Although I do not know for sure that Dallas Clayton is a hipster, he looks like this: And, I [...]
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