The Ruby Suns & The Dodos @ HOB, Dallas, Texas, 10/2/09

The Ruby Suns debuted a couple of new songs while opening for The Dodos at HOB. It’s been a year since their second LP “Sea Lion” came out and the Ruby Suns have been busy touring the country. I’m very very excited for them to have finally come by Dallas. They are based out of New Zealand, so it’s a long way for them to come. I discovered them on one of Shankly’s mixtapes, and just love the way they integrate the unique island sound and the Maori lyrics into their music. It’s like earthy jungle pop (jungle meaning the actual jungle, not music genre). My favourite songs by them are “Papatuanuka”, which means mother earth in Maori (I think), and this little acoustic song named “There’s Soup At The End Of The Tunnel” from their first LP. Also this would be the third NZ band I’ve seen this year aside from Cut Off Your Hands and The Brunettes.

Here is a clip of a new song called Mingus & Pike:

And the awesome Kenya Dig It:

The Dodos 

Here is Jodi:

and one of my favourites, The Season:

Setlist below:

The Ruby Suns

Closet Astrologist

Cranberry

Oh Mohave

Cinco

Mingus & Pike

Tane Mahuta

Dusty Fruit

Kenya Dig It

The Dodos

Painting The Rust

Fables

Longform

Two Medicines

Troll Nacht

Jodi

A Time To Die

This is a Business

Fools

The Season (Encore)

Ra Ra Riot Debuts new songs w/Princeton, Maps & Atlases @ Granada, Dallas, Texas

One of my favourite bands, Ra Ra Riot, played again at Granada Theater, and debuted a couple of new songs as well as a cover of Hounds of Love by Kate Bush. I’ve seen this band 4 times and 3 times in the last year; they were also the last band that I saw at SXSW2009 after 4 16-hour days of nonstop show hopping. There is something to their music that really speaks to me and makes me love the band more than before. Also it helps that all musicians in the band are absolutely awesome musicians.

This time around in Granada, Ra Ra Riot, debuted a new song I’ve never heard of as well as “Dramatic” an off the record song that they’ve been playing at concerts since SXSW. Then as the last song of the encore, they played “Hounds of Love” by Kate Bush, which I’ve only heard them play on WOXG podcast a while back, and the host of that show asked them to never take it off their setlist. However, of the 4 shows I’ve seen them perform, I’ve never heard them cover that song until this time. I. Loved. It. After the show I searched for the name of the new song online but I couldn’t find anything. I finally found the blog of this guy named Andrew Mauray who was touring with the band so I emailed him a question at 12:13AM, and 5 minutes later he responded with the following:

“Hey! Quick inquiry! We all just discussed your question. The working title is “top secret jam.” Its in line to be on the second album which we’re gona start recording in november.

It is also sometimes referred to as “strawberry tart jam”

Surely, it will have a different name for the album.

Glad you like it! Keep in touch. -andrew”

Princeton and Maps & Atlases opened for Ra Ra Riot, and after the videos below are setlists.

You can find their videos on my Youtube page: Weijiaofdeath

Updated: The 2 new Ra Ra Riot songs are as of today taken off from Youtube at the request of their manager. I respect and accepted their request, but I can never understand this fear of leakage of performances of new songs on the internet, I can understand if it’s actual recordings.  When I tape smaller bands, they usually want to have as much stuff as possible on line, with bigger bands, they want to control that I guess.  Either way those two songs will be only for my personal enjoyment for now.

Strawberry Tart Jam/Top Secret Jam

Dramatic

Hounds of Love

Princeton Setlist:

Calypso Gold

Martina and Clive Krantz

Worried Head

I Left My Love in Nagasaki

Sadie and Andy

Show Some Love When Your Man Get’s Home

Eminent Victorians

Power Makes Magic

Shout It Out

Maps & Atlases Set List:

Witch

Israeli Caves

Ted Zancha

Banished The Cavalier

Carrying The Wet Wood

U & Me & The Mountain

Daily News

Everybody’s A House

Pigeon

Artichokes

Ra Ra Riot Setlist:

Strawberry Tart Jam (tentive title for new song)

Each Year

Manner To Act

St. Peter’s Day Festival

Oh La

Suspended In Gaffa (Kate Bush Cover)

Winter o5

Can You Tell

Dramatic (New Song)

Ghost Under Rocks

Too Too Too Fast

Dyin’ Is Fine

______________

Run My Mouth

Hounds Of Love (Kate Bush Cover)

Nurses @ The Cavern, Dallas, Texas, 9/12/09

Nurses opened for The Brunettes (new zealand) and Throw Me the Statue (Seattle) @ The Cavern last night. Nurses are pretty new, but IMHO they should have received just as much if not more hype than bands like Girls or Wavves, and they probably deserve the hype. The band took a while to sound check, between the 3 key boards, the guitar, and the synths they used to record and loop back their music during their songs, it took them around 45 minutes to set up .  I was disappointed that they only played 5 songs, about 25 minutes in all. 5 great songs, mind you,  but I really had hoped they would’ve played a longer set.

I can see the appeal in The Brunettes and Throw Me the Statue, but their music didn’t speak to me as much as Nurses did. I suppose it’s all psychological… different backgrounds and all that molds ones reception of sensual stimuli, and it can’t be explained.

Anyhow here are the setlists plus  some youtubes from the shows:

Nurses

Technicolor

Man At Arms

Caterpillar Playground

So Sweet

Disney (tentative name of the song)

The Brunettes

In Colors

Holding hands feeding ducks

unknown song

Love Song (Cure Cover)

Loopy Loopy Love

Her Hairagami Set

Red Rollerskates

Throw Me The Statue

Ancestors

Hi-Fi Goon

Lolita

Snowshoes

Heart signs

Pistols

Waving at the shor

About to walk

Sleepy Sun, video, setlist @ The City Tavern, Dallas, Texas

Just saw Sleepy Sun @ the City Tavern, which by the way is a great venue, hidden away in the skyscrapers down town. This was real dirty, sexy, jamming rock music. Great singers, and amazing guitarists. And the drummer, man the drums drove the songs. The male lead singer was getting a beer next to me after the awesome set, and told me that I was making him nervous….. I’ve always wondered about how bands perceive the crowd. If I were to play in a band today, I’d be so nervous and focused on what I was doing to make sure I was not making a mistake, I probably would’ve tuned the audience out. But for musicians who play for a living, there probably is still some level of self consciousness, but I think they probably notice the audience more than they seem to. I wonder if playing the same songs the 100th time to them would be like driving on the road home for me…I’m no longer worried about directions, instead I notice the traffic, or the lady putting lipstick in the car behind me, or the loud bass coming from the SUV to my left….I wonder if that’s what the audience are like to bands….I also wonder what it is that I did to make him nervous…..

I got their setlist after the show but forgot to ask the girl in the band to expand the names of the songs, which half of were written in short hand, and are not on the album.

This is the best I can decipher:

Sleepy Son

White Dove

Dez G.

Wild M.

Open Eyes

Marina

New Age

Sandstorm Woman

Snow G.

Thirst (박쥐) @ Angelika Dallas, 8/29/09

Thirst (박쥐) is the new Korean film by Park Chan-Wook, the director of the Vengeance Series (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, etc). I had been waiting quite a while to watch Thirst, since it’s been 3 years since Park Chan-Wook’s last movie (I’m a Cyborg, but That’s Okay), but as soon as the previews started, I became anxious, almost to the point of feeling apprehensive about seeing the movie.

It’s been a couple years since I last saw a Park Chan-Wook movie, and it wasn’t until I sat down in the theater that I suddenly remembered the ultra violent content and the overwhelmingly sad mood of his movies. Korean cinema is well known for over-the-top soap opera story lines, no matter the genre of film. Horror films are scary for 3/4 of the way and then disintegrate into a sad family drama (Tale of Two Sisters); Romantic comedies change tone half way into the movie and become a sob story about loss and regret (My Sassy Girl); Sci-Fi monster/adventure blockbusters end up with the hero triumphing over the beast, but in exchange for his loved ones (The Host). I don’t think I’ve ever left a Korean movie without feeling some sense of devastation.

As Thirst started, I was wishing that I won’t leave this movie with too heavy of a heart, and when I left the movie, although my wish had come true,  I was also disappointed. The movie had all the ingredients of a Park Chan-Wook film: gorgeous yet psychotic women in their 20s, a clueless and flawed anti-hero, beautifully set up scenes, darkly funny lines that transcended the translation,  gratuitous sex and violence; but ultimately it didn’t hit me as hard as his older films.

The film is about a Priest, Sang-hyun, who, after volunteering for a medical study, became a vampire. Sang-hyun meets one of his old schoolmates, and ended up having an affair with the trapped and desperate but also very very very hot wife of his schoolmate. The rest of the movie plays out the dissolution of the affair.  All the actors and actresses in the movie were cast well, and had top notch performances.  I’m still conflicted over my reactions to the film. I couldn’t tell if I wanted the movie to end because the actors were so good and convincing that I wanted their sufferings to end, or because it was simply too long. On the other hand, because the movie was so beautifully shot and the characters so interesting to watch, I also can’t see it being any shorter. (although the way Sang-hyun became a vampire is somewhat hokey and could have been told in a flash back)

I love movies because they make me feel something, and for the most part, my favourite films all leave me in desolation. I think joy and happiness is a much more ephemeral feeling than pain and suffering. So in all, the film was good, and my disappointment could be just a personal problem, since if the movie was too devastating, I probably would’ve been depressed for days.

Dungen Show 8/22/09 @ The Loft

Dungen is a hard band to categorize. To me their music sounds as if it would fit perfectly as the soundtrack of a 60s psychedelic film by Michelangelo Antonioni or Nicolas Roeg. It’s got elements of Jazz, Rock, and Classical music, and everyone in the band are excellent musicians. Seeing them live is an experience I would recommend to fans and even people who are unfamiliar with their music, if you are lucky enough to reside in a city on their tour route.

The band members are all very genial through out their performance, and I could tell from the show that each person loved the music that they were playing. The drummer kept grinning at the lead singer, making eye contact with other band members, as if he was just as thrilled to be there listening to the show as the audience were. The lead singer Gustav played the Piano, the acoustic guitar, and the flute, and after every song, he would very modestly bow deeply to the audience repeatedly, thanking them for sharing their enthusiasm for the music. The guitarist was probably the person I watched the most throughout the show. He was able to manipulate the guitar to be musical representation of earthly elements (I’m gushing I know). On some songs, his melodies sounded like water rolling over rocks in a creek, while in others, his lightening riffs could have split and formed mountain ranges.  Try this band out if you haven’t (they have 2 full lengths out I think). Catch this band live if you can.

Here are some videos that I took from the show:

Maleras Finest : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1VpnvMxrXs

Familj: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APokCUsCAvg

Upcoming Shows

8/29/09: Bad Veins @ The
9/2/09: Fruit Bats @ The Loft
9/12/09: Nurses & Throw Me the Statue @ The Cavern
9/23/09: Ra Ra Riot @ Granada
10/2/09: The Dodos & The Ruby Suns @ HOB Cambridge Room
10/14/09: Fran Healy & Andy Dunlop @ Granada

Weijiaofdeath#3!

Weijiaofdeath #2

Weijiaofdeath #1!

Hello! Music + Food + Fun! Bye!

Hello! Music + Food + Fun! Bye!

Hello! Music + Food + Fun! Bye!

Hello! Music + Food + Fun! Bye!

Hello! Music + Food + Fun! Bye!