dance...

Bono…suck it. Chris Martin…suck it. That fat kid from Fall Out Boy…suck it. Frontman of the Year award goes to: Ed Macfarlane of Friendly Fires! These lovely little British lads packed more energy into the first 5 min of their set than most bands I’ve seen in the last 3 months pull off in a whole set. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The opening act was a CA band Soft Pack (ex-Muslims members). Solid garage rock.n.roll fuzz & scuzz, most impressive is their powerhouse of a drummer. You rarely see stand up drummers anymore, let alone ones that can pull more thunder from only a 2 drum set, than an 18 yr old punk rock kid who thinks he’s cool. Quick change up (and much to our surprise, since for some reason we thought they were headlining), another creature once thought to be extinct took the stage: a frontman so dynamic, you briefly consider he may be epileptic and stroking out. We live in an age of bands who are too hipster to talk to their fans, so painfully cool and self concious to move on stage, and you end up staring at some cliche goon being “oh-so-intense”. Get over it, I don’t care about your sweet v-neck tee, I’m so glad you have 15 effect pedals, how about using them for something more than god awful white noise? Why do we accept apathy and pretension as cutting edge? Well the Friendly Fires don’t, and they will make you beleive again! The four piece (for touring only, typically 3), throw a party on stage and you’re all invited.

Dance

Not enough can be said about Ed Macfarlane’s stage presence. Has 2 settings: “spastically awesome”, and “i’m pretty sure his body is 90% rubber”. Imagine a greased up chimp and Iggy Pop mating, and that offspring being possessed by the demon spirit of James Brown…that’s how the man dances, stopping only to tweak some knobs and lay the electronics.

DANCE!

Then there is the singing, maniacally dancing, yet maintaining  a spot on record quality vocal. I mean lots of singers sound just as good live, but exactly the same live? For all the little powder keg has to offer (seriously the guy is like 5’6), his bandmates match and raise. The guitarist shares a name (but with an extra D to avoid confusion) and is nearly as wild in dance moves and energy (even shook a maraca in my face), while the rythmn section aims straight for your hips, and locks on like a malfunctioning seat belt. Highlights (aside from start to finish) include Macfarlane jumping into the crowd (while singing “jump onboard”) and starting a dance party in the audience. Not to be underdone, guitar in hand, Edd lept into the crowd tearing around wildly wailing away on the six strings. Other include bass player Jake Savidge holding down a bass line while the other members danced about the stage banging some auxilary percussion, not to mention the blistering opener “Lovesick” which set the tone for what was to come. “Skeleton Boy” and “Paris” forced even those whole only dance when they’re drunk to soberly shake it (photographer John)…even the slowest song “Strobe” got feet akwardly wiggling about. Fellow buds from across the Atlantic, headliner White Lies were equally dynamic, but in a whole other way. Being a little green going into, admitting despite my infinite snobbery that I had never heard of them, by the first few minutes I was an insta-fan. Their tunes were great, subtle light flourishes, and command of your attention.

DANCE! DANCE! DANCE!

Great live, not the dance-o-tronic juggernaut of Friendly Fires, but still loads of fun to look at. The boys from across the pond made me yet again realize why English bands are so much better then us, and despite my new found love of White Lies, I can only ask how on earth Friendly Fires weren’t headlining, and make sacrificial offerings to whatever god you choose that they return soon on the top slot and teach everyone’s hips in a 5 mile radius who’s the boss again.

Photos are of both Friendly fires and White Lies all courtesy of Jon Flounlacker.

Harriet was sweet as hell ad Neil was very witty... witty indeed.

Art by Sara Hudak

Undeniably adorable seven headed Welsh (they just live there actually) monster known as Los Campesinos! breezed through Philadelphia for their third and most triumphant visit yet. Lead singer Gareth regailed the crowd with the stories of their first 2 disastrous stops (one ended with stolen tires, and the other being largely ignored in a bad neighborhood). Well, third times the charm. Openers Sky Larkin were lovely. Sweet pretty english rock’n'roll that makes you snag a cd at the merch table. Then Ponytail….see my whole other review for that trip.

Him! Him! Just him... dancing...

The seven (4 boys, 3 beautiful girls) took the stage claiming their stakes on instruments from violin to glockenspiel (2 of them actually, but only one A key to share). The first 2 were a slow kickstart, but again, 3′s the magic number and the crowd began to loosen up. Each member intricately weaved their part in and around the other six’s creating even more spirited takes on the studio versions. The boy/girl vocals were just as infectious and coy as the record, perhaps even more so when seeing the dynamic of the two primary singers. On one hand there’s Aleks, absolutely gorgeous, all smiles and cutesy dance moves. A lovely counterpoint to Gareth’s more spastic nature that’s also mirrored lyrically. Just about everything about them onstage can sum up their music, and attitude it exudes. Clever, fun, and dynamic. The stage banter eliciting much laughter (response to an audience member’s plea of “i love the bass player” was dryly “I don’t love you”). The instrumental intro to “You! Me! Dancing!” became a giggly inpromptu take on a Pavement song yelled out by the audience at Gareth’s request. Much dancing about stage (and in the audience) ensues, as they tore through highlights from the 2 album deep (and one song off an early EP) catalog. You can tell these kids are having fun, and the exuberance spills all over the crowd in an infectious outbreak of have a good time. By the end Gareth had leapt into the crowd and shook it down to the cheap seats. Guitarist Neil stayed strong continuing to play as he crowd surfed , and everyone came together for “Sweet Dreams Sweet Cheeks”. Monitors turned on end and mounted by the singers while the rest of the band linked arms around each other and shouted along with the crowd the title’s mantra. Danceable good time with some talented kids from across the sea, who clearly (despite what they say) love their audience.

clearly at most of the paint

Look, I’m sorry, but this needs to be done. Someone has got to put their foot down. I will gladly take whatever flak you throw at me for this blog/review, because every word about to spurt forth is solidly true. The band Ponytail is effing awful…and that is being generous. Lemme try again: atrocious? unbearable? pointless? an abomination?

All true, but still hardly capturing the true essence of their astonishing disregaurd for people’s ears. The scene of the crime was at the Los Campesinos show at the TLA (see review). The opening band AND Los Campesinos (whom we interviewed) were utterly BEAMING about their joy to have Ponytail on their bill, practically gushing about how they have been looking forward to them for ages.

That simple fact almost hurts more than how much they truly and oh so thoroughly sucked. Two lovely bands, brimming with talent, and solid songwriting, genuinely patting borderline morons on the back for a job well done, seriously impressed with the steaming pile of aural crap they produce. That’s like Sean Penn talking up the acting talents, and spewing adulation for Paris Hilton…damn near offensive.

So while we’re on the subject of offensive, allow me to expand on what this beautiful concoction of a set they played sounded like. They walk out on the stage looking every bit the over the top version of cliche hipster, and I secretly wished down deep that they didn’t sound how they looked. As usual, wishes never come true. The dual guitarists were no doubt talented, even used some really interesting effects…however anytime the riff seemed catchy, or perhaps that the song was going to come together and begin making sense, they would destroy any semblince of sounding even remotely listenable, and eraticate the glimmer in your eye that they were talented with a barrage of pointless white noise and spatterings of out of time thrashes. It’s as if they could sense that the song was about to get good, and in an all out call to arms to be too goddamn hip, and o-so-avant garde, they put a bullet between the eyes of listenability. Now for the cherry atop this delicious sundae: the “vocals”. During their soundcheck (which to be perfectly honest I’m not sure when it ended and a song began), the singer made annoying weird yelps into the mic, in what seemed like a common move to check/test levels. The thing is, unbeknownst to us….this was her singing, the “lyrics” if you will. Dolphin sounds is actually a pretty spot on way to describe it, or you know that akward period when babies start to learn how to talk, but are only kinda mumbling annoying sounds that vaguely resemble words? Like that, but not cute coming from adults getting paid to call it creative, or art. Not a single real word was uttered for 40 min-ish (sans one or 2 silly, or baffling stage banter comments, “we have peace more songs” for example). One guitarist even threwg in some, I want to say background vocals, but birds being tortured is far more accurate. The sounds didn’t even change! The lead singer (sorry, I refuse to learn their names) had an arsenal of roughly 6 noises, that she shuffled around, and used in every damn song. EVERY SONG! SAME SOUNDS!

I wish I could say that maybe their particular musical experience relies more on the energy or stage show, but they are largely uneventful to look at, much like the music, 2 moves in the bag of tricks, and never leave home without it. So I declare Pitchfork, you are clearly waaaaayyyyy too drunk with power if white noise that occasionally sounds like a real song with a mutant toddler-dolphin yelping overtop is what you are passing off as the best new music. Thanks for getting my hopes up jerks, why can’t you just be pretentious with a conscious?

The amazing Ting Tings stopped into Philly this passed Thursday and if you were lucky enough to get a ticket (meaning you bought one within the first day or so, then the first hour after it was moved to a larger venue) then you got to experience much of the excitement that I am about to explain here first hand.

First off, is the complete surprise of the opening band: Hot Tub.  They were amazing. An immediate stage presence, something like if Peaches had sex with Ad Rock and spit out a baby that grew up watching Bowie and listening to gangsta rap (yeah… shit was a little crazy). It was odd; after the intial “wtf??” from the crowd after seeing these three girls that look like their straight from outer space or an orphanage run by Bootsy Collins, there was a unanimous “OMG!” (rofl, lmao, dtf?). They were amazing and their music was pretty good, too.

With only four songs to their set, they played the entire thing without stop. Jumping off stage, molesting fans by sticking them under dresses, they even brought a little girl on stage and played for her. That must have been pretty incredible for her; as her face was frozen in a permanent “Oh my God, I can’t believe I’m on stage.” Of course, I’m pretty sure with song titles like Man Bitch, that the irony almost overruled the sincerity of the gesture, but whatever. They still pulled off an amazing show. These girls seem like they’re mad cool and are having as much (if not more) un on stage then the crowd is. I could be a dick and be really cynical (like I normally am), but they were there to play music and have fun and they more than accomplished this goal.

Anyway, back to the fucking point: the Ting Tings. Now, I’m a fan of the Ting Tings. In

So, the Ting Tings come out and literally play their entire record non-stop.  It’s definitely a concert for those who love to dance and have fun with their music and the band was great enough to not be greedy with too much of their own (often pointing the mic to the crowd).

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Overall, it was a very focused set. The music live sounded almost exactly like it did on the record (even with the multi-layered sounds on tracks like Feed You Head). Overall, the concert was a great experience and one can tell why everytime they come to Philly the crowds get bigger and bigger. For the encore, Jules comes out and does a crazy DJing job. He looks like he’s having  afucking amazing time doing it and the crowd seemed very impressed.

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Should You See This? If you are a fan of the Ting Tings or dancing in general, yes.

The only bad thing is that it was unbearably hot in that motherfucker. I spoke to the manager afterward, who stated someone forgot to turn on the air conditioner and as soon as he found out, he turned it back on. This is a picture to give you a picture of how hot it really was.

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Oh my God… I fucking hate the electric factory. It’s full of douchebags that take out their childhood troubles on the audience. (With the exception of an extremely nice ticket counter and a couple of the guys in the front of the stage). The entire crew consisted of people that would be prime suspects in an order of Law and Order: SVU. Anyway, after a bit of a tussle and a save by the wonderful staff at PressHere (thanks, Carla!), my photographer Kristina and I made it into a gigantic packed crowd.

“How the fuck are we supposed to get through?!” I looked at her in confusion.

“Push…”

Here I go: into the crowd, being that asshole that feels the need to push through you even though he’s way too fucking big. We make it to the front, leaving a trail of fire and angry concertgoers behind us. First up is a band from Brooklyn called Longwave. Nothing special here. There were a good two songs that I would have picked up in the record store or online and been like: “Yeah. This is good.” The only thing good about their performance was the crowd reaction. This was by far the most odd ratio of people ever in a crowd. Id say it was a 50:20 over 25 to under 18, a good 50:50 for drunken/sober, and a 70/30 douchebag/normal ratio. The former demographic in the last ratio screamed terribly loud at the band which prompted the lead singer to speak of his intimidation by them. The lights were nice, but stage presence was a good 2 on the rock-o-meter.

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The music stops. Now, we’re in that awkward limbo between opening and headlining bands. People are screaming and cheering every time a roadie tunes a guitar. They start to chant “Bloc Par-TY… Bloc Par-TY”, but it does this time! Oh… no. It’s another roadie. The crowd gives the obligatory boo, then the lights dim and Bloc Party comes out on stage. Mr. Okereke comes on cheery as all hell. It’s refreshing from the virtual comatose of fear longwave diplayed earlier. Sadly, they played quite a bit of shit form their old album and a few less than exciting pieces of their new album, but the set was long and varied enough to artfully showcase all three albums. I wish there were more of Silent Alarm (as did the crowd, as they went crazy as soon as Price of Gas played.) The only other problem I had was the inconsistencey of Kele’s voice. Whenever he tried crooning he would bend back his top lip, bend his head back, and curl his fingers together to squeeze it out as perfect in pitch as he did on the album. Sadly, the sound just didn’t translate, and some of the songs (specifically, Mercury) were mutilated to the point of bare recognition. It’s hard to say a band can mutilate their own songs; it’s like saying a parent can kill its own child, but it does happen. So, I’d like to call some of the songs infanticide. Most of the sacrifice in sound came from a compromise in Kele Okereke’s stage antics (which were pretty fun; especially the little dance Matt Tong [the drummer] did near the end of the set]. The instruments were mostly well spot on. There were even times where I felt as though I was listening to a Guitar Hero track and watching the band play; as demonstrated by a crowd surfing air guitar player in the crowd.

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Somebody Smoking Weed Behind Me: Count 4

Should I see it: I’ve heard their performance depends on the venue; however, in the Electric Factory, I wouldn’t recommend sacrificing too much if you’re not familiar with them. But seeing as most in the crowd were fans, spend to your limit (mine is $20). Honestly, though, I spend $20 just for the amazing light show they put on….

Black Lips Terrorize India

What the fuck did they do to get kicked out of India?! [Well, in a country where give someone a kiss on the lips (i.e. Richard Gere) or creating a really bad movie (i.e. Mike Myers) can get you banned, then it couldn't have been too much. But don't let that distract you from their music.] The Black Lips are coming to Philly on March 6. Come and find out the kind of performance that appalled an entire country. I know these guys are the kind of band that you’ve heard whispered about, but never got the chance to hear. I’m telling you now: this is the perfect opportunity to get acquainted.

Tonight, dedicated fans of the alternative band Metric got a special sneak peak at the  workings of the new album titled Fantasies, set to be released on April 14th. Their show at World Cafe Live was an exclusive acoustic set performed by lead singer Emily Haines and guitar player Jimmy Shaw.

Upon walking into the concert hall, it slowly set in how intimate the show would be. The band decided only to have the show date posted on the WCL website and not listed in their tour schedule, making for an uncharacteristically small, yet charmingly personal audience.

Although it was not the typical electric rhythms fans know so well, anyone who appreciates music would have understood the sheer beauty and sincerity of the powerful adaptations projected through the incredibly simple set. Emily Haine’s spot-on vocals went beyond even the highest of expecations, mixing seamlessly with Shaw’s melody. A feeling of camaradarie began to arise as the two spoke like they were simply hangin out with the fans rather than performing for a crowd, in consequence creating some talk between the audience and the band with a few song requests.

Along with the new songs, Metric played mesmerizing acoustic versions of some of their older tracks like Live it Out, Monster Hospital, and even Old World Underground. Both musicians also performed songs solo, Emily Haines doing her brilliant rendition Buffalo Springfield’s haunting classic Expecting to Fly and Shaw playing keys to a stunning original of his.

What also made the show so unique was that the bulk of songs performed from Fanatasies are at this time unrecorded, therefore fans were pleasantly suprised to hear the mellow tracks for the first time live in such a setting. While Jimmy Shaw snuck backstage to replace a broken guitar string, Haines shared with the audience that the album was a product of what they called a, “campfire test,” explaining that their aim was for a very simple expression of what they wanted to say in a way that could be presented plainly sitting down at a campfire with friends.

The band has definitely made quite a transformation from songs like their first major electropop-rock hit Combat Baby to their now more softened, developed sound in must-hear songs such as Satellite Mind.  No complaints to the band’s evolution, the fresh style they’ve adopted is met with welcoming ears.