Gig reviews, part three

[petronia]

...Yeah, this is for personal satisfaction really. Although there are mp3s. XD;

Bran Van 3000, Place-des-Arts (outdoors), July 1

Shared specificity with real peers in time and space, which I don't often get in music fandom. Also one of the all-time party bands. ♥ BV3 is of the lineage of great Montreal indie collectives and arrived on the turning point of the city going from not having a scene to - briefly - having the coolest scene worldwide (which is to say they made more money than Me Mom and Morgentaler, and considerably less than the Arcade Fire). Maybe they were the turning point, in some sense: the zeitgeist embodiment who showed up in the aftermath of the second referendum and were like hey dudes let's forget about it, go to the tams and chill out, man, just... chill. It tickles me immensely that they've become a going concern once again, though that means I have to get off my butt and buy the actual new album.

Bran Van 3000 - Rainshine: I wasn't seriously into music until mp3s took off, but looking back there's nothing much about my teenaged taste I'd disavow.** This is perhaps the best song on Glee, insofar as it doesn't cross genre lines but obliterates them three times over in as many minutes - the moment Sara Johnston's voice comes back in still gives me shivers. Magical mystical.

Bran Van 3000 - Afrodiziak: what I can't remember is if I enjoyed smooth R&B grooves that namechecked Marshall McLuhan, or if I had, in fact, no idea what dude was rapping about... Probably the latter.

Bran Van 3000 - Drinking in L.A.: and this, of course. I wrote my first piece of quote music criticism unquote on "Drinking in L.A.", for a CEGEP English assignment (and it was intended as music criticism, not a mere review ahaha... yeah, it's a problem orz). Found the 12" in a used record store the other week, while heading down Mont-Royal to meet ayabai and her friends at the tams, and promptly purchased it. Remixes by a cluster of Ninja Tunes and Turbo artists before they became (relatively) famous - including Tiga - on translucent turquoise vinyl. I didn't even know this song had remixes.

Not sure what it says that when I watch the video I can't tell it was made a decade ago.

There were more people for this than for the Leonard Cohen tribute concert, or maybe it just felt that way because I was stuck further back and spent my time working toward the front until I got right against the barrier. It was a party up there, anyway. XD They did play quite a few songs off their latest full length (good, but unfamiliar), and not enough off their second.

** If you can't see the brilliance of the first Savage Garden album then the more fool you.

Comments

[penguinparity.livejournal.com]

I LOVE LOVE LOVE Rainshine. One of my friends gave me a mix CD with a couple of Bran Van 3000 songs on it about 3 years ago (but not track listing for the silly CD itself) and I spent several months desperately trying to identify and then find the group responsible for that song.

And what is this about them having a new CD????

[petronia.livejournal.com]

(http://www.amazon.ca/Rose-Bran-Van-3000/dp/B000WS0ELK)

^_^

I don't have it yet but think it's closer to the sound of the second album (more house music).

[analyse.livejournal.com]

I wrote my first piece of quote music criticism unquote on "Drinking in L.A.", for a CEGEP English assignment (and it was intended as music criticism, not a mere review

this is one of the reasons i find you awesome, nevar change. XD i wanted to do something like that in high school but chickened out eventually, not least because cruel angel's thesis was such a pain to arrange for performance with recorders. XD

**

also (pls to be ignoring opinion above when reading this) need apartment advice, how should i reach you? have asked cedric but this place is unbelievably cheap and also next to the sheraton. :OOOO

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Thing is, I started reading, being interested in, and following music criticism when Nirvana and rave happened - about five years before I heard a single note of Nirvana, and a full decade before I learned to like any Nirvana songs. XD; It didn't occur to me this was weird until pretty late in the process, but it does explain a lot.

Email me, or even better gchat if you see I'm on - petronia at gmail. Happy to answer any questions! To tell the truth Cedric probably knows better than I do, though, given that he's actively looking and I'm not. ^^;

[motorbike.livejournal.com]

God I love the first Savage Garden album. Am in vague process of compiling a mix (and, for testing, a mux) of Unhip Music One Should Not Fight, and I am putting "Ultraviolet" front and center.

Also Dire Straits, except that is cheating as from my POV Dire Straits were mad hip through... most of Brothers in Arms.

(Ahh I just realized the little excerpt you posted was from ... your SSBB story, correct? My gosh, what quality of writing! IDK, you and Kristin are both v. skilled in this respect, but your styles are pretty distinctive.)

[petronia.livejournal.com]

I put on the Dire Straits S/T for my sister the other day and was like, you know how victors rewrite history? People were not actually listening to punk - they were listening to this.**

It's not SSBB, actually XD (although there's an SSBB story in the pipeline that's closely related - if I manage one I'll probably be able to manage the other).


** Which is not to say "In The Gallery" isn't just, just, LOL.