Music [3]

blast from the past

moar

mancunian poetry

the mother of all epic guitar solos.  

halfwise wrote:I really like the piano work and the song's musical concept.  It sounds to me like she needs to work on some of the technical points of her delivery.  I think after a year of performing it, it will be quite something.

Forest Shepherd wrote:I could only catch maybe half of the lyrics. Which is okay for some artists, but with her it seemed like she was maybe trying to tell an actual story. And only catching a broken-up half of a story is not very good.

The instruments were good, like Halfwise said, but I'm not a fan of her voice. It's a little too crackly-shrill for me.

It's true her voice has been an issue of contention among some listeners, although it's a lot better now than it was early in her career. I don't know. I obviously hear what your getting at, but it's not something that I really mind or notice. Alright, so it is a bit affected at times, but the overall result, the quality of the songs, it doesn't really degrade from that to any extent. It might very well be something you get used too, but..  for me there's a whole picture to her music that's.. actually.. pretty astounding.

This song is more throwaway than a lot of her other ones, but it's fun. And really different.  

I'm not sure it's telling a story as such, it's more of a poem, and kind of read/sung like one. It talks about the original settlement of indigenous population on Manhattan Island, Sapokanikan, in what is now Gansevoort Street in the West Village, and a previous New York mayor, John Purroy Mitchel, who died during the First World War and how her there is a disconnect between her looking at the monuments to them today and what those monuments actually commemorate. What actually happened to have them built.. err.. something like that.

To my ears it's one of the most interesting songs I've heard in 2015, and as the first single from a new album.. Really looking forward to that now.

Forest Shepherd wrote:I could only catch maybe half of the lyrics. Which is okay for some artists, but with her it seemed like she was maybe trying to tell an actual story. And only catching a broken-up half of a story is not very good.

The instruments were good, like Halfwise said, but I'm not a fan of her voice. It's a little too crackly-shrill for me.

I wanted to like it but didn't at all. it sounds like she is trying too hard to be quirky.

Perhaps. I liked it better anyway on the second listen because of how strange the song is!

In other more immediate music news I accompanied my sister to see Brandon Flowers at the Fox Theater in Oakland last night. This is a historical building in West Coast standards. It was a movie theater from 1928 until 1970 when it finally closed. The place actually has some history with the Black Panther party. They even had their own side entrance reserved for them so they could see films free of charge! Notwithstanding they also set fire to the place twice after the owner refused to pay for their "protection." It was almost demolished and replaced with a parking lot in 1975.

But fortunately some private couple bought it, and it was eventually protected for its historic status. After that it was refurbished in 2000-something and has been hosting world-class music groups since 2009. It's a cool building, and has an Indian/Middle-Eastern theme to the architecture, especially the interior. This was apparently popular back in the '20s.




(This is another group, but shows the theatre stage quite well.)

There he is, and in the background you can just see the two backup singers that sang with him. They were quite good.



The opening band, a group from Mexico City called Rey Pila, had good energy but were not very good. The singer had this unfortunate habit of spitting rather violently on the floor in-between songs, which was rather off-putting.

Anyway, it was a very fun performance. Brandon Flowers is the lead singer from the group The Killers and although I don't like their music quite as much as I used to and I'm not the biggest fan of most of his solo work, I can't help but enjoy his performances because of how nice he is. He has this lovable habit of almost-laughing as he talks, and he's just solid. A great singer and performer and a very nice and humble person.

We stood in line beforehand for a couple hours (thanks to my sister) and just happened to be in front of a brother and sister from New Zealand. I am very bad in social situations and couldn't really keep up the conversation too well, and I didn't have the guts to broach any subjects relating to their patriot of the filmic arts, Sir Jackson.  Funnily enough, when they first arrived the girl said something like "back of the queue!" I know queue is often used in place of line in english-speaking places outside of America, so this sounded to me like a bit of an affectation. I didn't realize until later that they were both foreign, and even then I thought they were British at first. Darn accents!

He introduced this song with a spiel about how with some of his songs he thinks about it in terms of a certain colour, or draws inspiration from another song, or a movie. He said that he had just seen The Place Beyond the Pines (excellent film by the way) and was trying to write a song that would express how he has grown to understand that his parents simple and strict views that "people who do bad things are bad people" aren't how the world actually is, and how people make mistakes and can change. So he said that he was aiming for Beyond the Pines but hit something more like Raising Arizona. Which is okay, he said, because that's a good movie too.



There was also a nice bit where Flowers had the guitarist come out front and played a simplified version of this (Radio 2 blip at the front of it):




The best part of the evening was the last song. It's this cute little song that sounds newer but has a 60s (ish?) era sounding back-and-forth between the lead singer and the back-up vocalists. Anyway, they extended the song by a few choruses and had the audience sing back the "I still want you!" line. For one part the instruments got pretty quiet and Flowers knelt down in the front and sang the "Hurricanes and Floods!" lines as a question. So it was as if he was listing off all these reasons in an increasingly incredulous tone which, of course, just made the audience sing back to him even louder.



(The video is typically dorky, and I'm pretty sure those ladies in the back are not the actual singers from the album, which means they were picked for the music video for having pretty faces.  Just hit play and minimize the window if you just want to hear the audio.)

P.S.
The last group I saw here was The Arctic Monkeys, so it's got a really a good track record as far as I'm concerned! The theatre is small and although it's almost two hours drive I find it's worth it. Especially when the New Zealanders told me that when The Killers toured in their country the only venue they played at was a 12,000 seat stadium. In comparison the 2,800-seat concert hall is quite intimate indeed. Especially considering that for both concerts I've been to there I've stood in the front three rows in the floor area!

Amazing looking theater.

Looks fun, Forest. I don't often go to larger venue concerts anymore, but it's always a bit of a special experience.

For anyone who wants to dive a bit deeper into Joanna Newsome, her last album from 2010, Have one on me, is really something special.

Bluebottle wrote:Looks fun, Forest. I don't often go to larger venue concerts anymore, but it's always a bit of a special experience.

Heck, this is a small venue compared to most of the shows I've been to.

A little late to the party but if the rest of Iron Maiden's new album is anything like the lead single it should be great. It's pretty remarkable how consistent they've remained.

That music video!

Needless to say we've got quite the variety of musical genres going on in here right now.

To put it mildly.

God, this song is pretty..

This music video gives me a real winter feeling.

It's really odd reading back through this thread. It's almost like going back in time.

Ah, well. I should probably go and do some school stuff.

You mean, like redressing to one's childhood?

you mean like redressing an 80s perm?

Redressing to one's childhood? Nah, I'm not sure the clothes would fit. I was more getting at how looking back, and listening, to the music you listened to months ago really does take you back in time. It's odd how music that has nothing to do with it captures the moment.