Happy Star Wars Day

May The Fourth Be With You...

Local Twin Cities artist Jeremy Messersmith hopes to make this an annual carol.
It's awesome.

YouTube/Blogger is being dumb. I wanted to embed it, and it wasn't able to find the video or something weird like that.

Just trust me on this. It's not spam.

Party Promt

December 9 – Party Prompt: Party. What social gathering rocked your socks off in 2010? Describe the people, music, food, drink, clothes, shenanigans.

Going to the Mumford and Sons concert this spring was fantastic. This wasn’t a traditional party, but this was an event I recall quite fondly for this year. I guess it was a party--one with hundreds of strangers.

I met up with my friend J. We waited in line in the rain to get to the venue (the Varsity Theatre in Dinkytown). I could feel a great buzz with the crowd. We were with some of the luckiest people who had scored tickets. The concert sold out in under an hour.

People were trying to buy tickets for an exorbitant amount of money. The desperation in their eyes was palbable. I felt a bit sorry for them, but I was not going to give up my ticket.

The venue was excellent. It’s an open space with a mezzanine surrounding the perimeter. Some plush couches and chairs were scattered around the edges. Funky chandliers hung from the ceiling. This place is hip.

This place also didn’t have any ventilation.

So it was a hot, sweaty mess. Remember, we’re basically all soaking from the rain. Without any air conditioning or even fans, the elements are a bit against anyone enjoying the concert. Too bad it was fantastic.

I have rarely felt like I have been a part of a collective that has ridden the same energy wave. I don’t go to a lot of concerts, mind you. But I’ve been part of plenty of large-group gatherings. I go to theatre, attend different concerts. I suppose the only thing that can come close to this kind of energy bubble was marching with Phantom Regiment. Even then, this sense of ensemble and connection was fleeting.

In any case, Mumford and Sons tore the place up. I think as an audience, we gave them as much of a show as they did for us. And then the cycle of energy kept spinning back and forth. This is the kind of thing you crave as a performer. It’s a symbiotic relationship. Sends you spinning in a trance.

I want to be clear I had only had a beer or two. Before we start to wonder if there were any other influences…

The clarity of their performance was infectious. Their music is blazing across the globe, and it’s easy to see why. It’s a formative, touchstone band for me. It’s a little weird to say that since I’ve only known about them for a year, but I’m confident that they will be one of those bands I’ll always turn to no matter what. The lyrics are beautiful, simple and complex. The harmonies are a blast. The plucking and jamming is impossible not to groove to. Experiencing it live brings all of that to an exponential growth.

I hope to see them again soon.

It was a party I’ll never forget.

Sleigh Bells - not even a guilty pleasure

I claim to be a young man who has eclectic tastes. I enjoy highbrow, but there's the occasional lowbrow indulgence that can't be surpassed (sigh...I have been known to catch an episode of Jersey Shore here and there).

Okay, now everyone will close this window and never read this blog again. I get it.

When it comes to music, I can't get enough of Fleet Foxes, Mumford and Sons, Gershwin, "Claire de Lune" by Debussy, Shostakovich Symphonies, Atmosphere, Guster, MGMT.

Now I've got another band that completely obliterates my listening tastes into another level of eclecticism:

Sleigh Bells.

There's a kind of cheer/sing/speak throughline in the album--hence the cheerleaders on the cover.

I'd never thought in a million years I would dig this sound.

It's noise--noise-rock. When you get a chance, you have to listen to this as loud as possible. I can work out to this music, I can drive my car to this music, I can write to this music. I got ready for Picasso at the Lapin Agile with this music. It's so fresh, chaotic, and unlike anything I'd ever heard before. It defies convention and I can't get it out of my head.

I know I'm about three months past the hype. But the Observer in London just reviewed it (just released across the sea). So I thought I'd join in the fun/insanity.


From the Pitchfork review:

There's spirit to this music, and the sonic assault is celebratory, asking only that you come along with it and join in. All of which, for me, anyway, makes the hype melt away. And if it's true that records this intense and exhilarating don't always sustain themselves over the long haul, that's not a worry either. The visceral thrill of Treats may not last forever, but neither does life; right now, this feels like living it.

And then there's Paste Magazine:

Treats, the debut effort from noise-rock newcomers Sleigh Bells, is the logical conclusion of the loudness war; it manages to challenge basic assumptions of how music can (and should) sound. You either buy the Brookyln duo’s central conceit or you don’t: bombastic synth-rock for bombast’s sake, with mixing cranked so high your speakers sound like they’re about to combust. It’s a preposterous juxtposition—Alexis Krauss’ way-past-sweet vocals as the sugary glaze on Derek Miller’s gritty and serrated riffing and beats—until the soaring power chords of opener and single “Tell ‘Em” kick off the album with a thunderclap, and you barrel through a 32-minute sonic rollercoaster that’s totally, gloriously, devoid of subtlety and restraint.

This could be a fleeting experiment in musical tastes, but I don't care. It doesn't concern me that I may absolutely hate this noise a year from now (heck, even a month from now). There's something vital in the sound that has grabbed me by the collar and shakes me up.

I just wanted to share. Listen at your own risk.

Maybe give it a couple chances; I sampled on MySpace and just couldn't figure it out. I didn't understand the hype. Then I heard it blasting at Urban Outfitters a couple weeks later and recognized it instantly. That's when I knew there was something in the works. Now I have the album.