The Tape

So over the weekend I go to see The Wombats at The Roxy. Unknown to me there were headliners that had not been announced on the ticket/myspace. Upon arriving to the venue I was treated to the sounds of The Yelling, a North Hollywood band whose name fits the music perfectly. Not my cup of tea so I’ll skip to 30 minutes later. I decided the google the other name on the billing: Pop Noir. On arriving at their myspace I was sucked into a world of synth laden choruses, swaggering bass lines, and shimmering guitar riffs. Pop Noir is two brothers, Joe and Luke McGarry, as well as a drummer, Nico Saveedra. They (Joe and Luke) are born in Manchester and make music you’ll enjoy dancing to. Joe was kind enough to give us an interview.

If you each could pick only one, what band/album/song was the most influential in forming your sound?

That’s a really tough question, I don’t think we can do it.. We can narrow it down to a city, though: Our hometown of Manchester! So much great music came out of there, Joy Division, New Order, Happy Mondays, The Smiths, A Certain Ratio, Durutti Column, Oasis.. You could even count The Verve, they’re from just down the road..

We’d love to get George Michael to produce our album!!

Batman or Spiderman?

I don’t think we’d be Pop Noir if we didn’t pick Batman..

Head over to their website, buy their EP, and support Joe and Luke in their quest of becoming everyone’s favorite band!

Pop Noir - Girls Of Prey

Pop Noir - Bang The Drum

A few nights ago I attended Kanye West’s Glow In The Dark Tour at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles. The night started off amazing and fluctuated down and up after Lupe. Lupe probably had the best introduction to a show I’ve ever seen in my life. The video was just posted under “Glow In The Dark Video,” I urge you to check it out. Anyways, I’m going to do a quick review of each performer, then give you guys my two favorite songs that they each performed.

First we have my hero, Lupe Fiasco. Lupe lived up to my extremely high expectations and then some. Enough so, for me to pursue tickets for the June show… Anyways, I would have much preferred for Lupe to play longer than 30 minutes, but what are you going to do? He came out to thematic opera music, and proceeded to explode all over Justice’s “Let There Be Light.” He only played three songs from Food and Liquor, which were “Kick, Push”, “I Gotcha”, and my personal favorite “Daydreamin’.” “Daydreamin’” is always one of my favorites because he puts a ridiculous amount of energy into it. All of his songs are exploding with his energy, but he takes “Daydreamin’” to a whole new level.* From the new album, I especially loved his shortened version of “Fighters.” About everyone of his songs was shortened, but I assume that was at Kanye’s request. Anyways, there is something about “Fighters” that gets me every time I listen.
I also gave you guys “Go Go Gadget Flow” because there was a fun little call and response during the show. Or using my favorite saying ever, just for shits and giggles.
******

Lupe Fiasco Feat. Matthew Santos- Fighters

Lupe Fiasco- Go Go Gadget Flow

Next we have N.E.R.D. While they may not have been great, they were really entertaining. Pharrell doesn’t have a fantastic voice, but it’s good enough to not be criticized. The most disappointing part of their set was the lack of “Maybe.” That is by far my favorite N.E.R.D. song. Anyways, they played quite a few numbers from their new disc “Seeing Sounds” out soon.

I give you “Everyone Nose” and “She Wants To Move”, my two favorites from that evening.

N.E.R.D.- Everyone Nose

N.E.R.D.- She Wants To Move

Let’s keep it nice… I don’t like Rihanna. I only caught a few songs, and wandered around trying to find a hot dog for the rest. Don’t worry it was successful! That was probably my favorite part of her set, oh yeah and “Umbrella” was alright. Fun to phrase it in one word. Anyways, no mp3’s for you Rihanna fans, sorry.

Last but not least (because of Rihanna) we have Sir. Ego West. Kanye’s Ego (yes it deserves a capital ‘E’) was on full display. Not only was his spaceship robot friend Jane telling him he was the brightest star on the universe, during the entire show he was complaining to his light man “Mark” about who knows what. He shoved his band behind the backdrop, so the stage was all for himself; and he had the houselights go down as soon as a celebrity was spotted in the crowd. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely loved his set… But his ego and arrogance made me enjoy it a little bit less. He seems like a perfectly pleasant man, but if he had just not played Journey during his set, I would have enjoyed him a tad more. Anyways my two favorites were “Homecoming” and “Can’t Tell Me Nothing.” Well actually, my favorite was “Touch The Sky” because Lupe came out, but that’s not even fair. If Lupe was on the side drinking a cup of water while Kanye listened to Journey (he actually did), it would have been my favorite.

Kanye West- Can’t Tell Me Nothing

Kanye West- Homecoming

HONORABLE MENTION: Kanye West- Jesus Walks

HILARIOUS MENTION: Kanye decided it would be awesome to accidentally do the same verse twice in “All Falls Down.”

KANYE RECOGNITION MENTION: Kanye really doesn’t deserve all the shit I gave him in this review. He is a great entertainer and performer, but his arrogance makes me angry. Especially when he puts the most talented artist on the bill, performing first for a mere 30 minutes.

NEW IDEA MENTION: Lupe Fiasco’s Glow In The Dark Tour

That was probably the longest post title in The Tape history. But I am here today for a very special occasion. I finally got Asher’s picture of the Tokyo Police Club concert at the Troubador and decided it would be a good time to review the album as well. Let’s start with the concert - as Dave (bass/vocals), Graham (synths/backup vocals), Josh (guitar) and Greg (drums) all fucking killed it. They blasted through most of the Smith and A Lesson In Crime EPs, as well as playing many cuts of their forthcoming album, /em>Elephant Shell. We’ve briefly mentioned Elephant Shell before, when I put the album as the #1 thing I loved in March. So here are some pictures.

Graham busting a move on the “Don’t Mess With Texas” synth. It is actually an Alesis Micron.

Dave cringing. I think its a stylistic choice.

Graham in mad scientist mode.

Now for the album, which I bought a download of at the show. It starts with a bang. “Centenial” brings a similar sound to the single, “In A Cave” and its a somewhat new sound for the band. Less noisy, cleaner and more centered on Dave’s vocals. “In A Cave” is the next track, and I’m sure you’ve all heard it, and know how good it is. “Graves” and “Juno” continue the feel and trend of the album, both are very good, very solid tracks. The drum part on “Juno” appears to have been taken from the song “Untitled” on their iTunes Live At SoHo EP. The next song is “Tessellate”. It is one of the best on the album without a doubt, and it’ll be the next single. Check a few posts back for the video. Unfortunately, the next two songs, “Sixties Remake” and “The Harrowing Adventures Of” drop off considerably. It picks right back up though, with my second favorite “Nursery, Academy”. I love this song so much, and I think its a high point for the band. Dave’s vocals have a really good sound and the lyrics are great. “Your English Is Good” was originally a non-album single, but the response was so positive, it ended up on there anyway. Good choice. The next track is another really strong one, “Listen To The Math”. It is much slower than their previous tracks other than “A Lesson In Crime” but I like it a lot. It has a haunting yet somehow uplifting feel. The album ends with “The Baskervilles”, a track which I am indifferent to, but it ends the album nicely. Unfortunately, we have no mp3s off the album for you as we were asked to take them down when I posted “Tessellate”, but I do have an acoustic performance of the song via a YouTube video. Enjoy!

LIARS with NO AGE and IMA GYMNIST
El Rey Theater - 2/22/08

After waiting within the fire lines among the beer chugging punkers and Pitchfork hipsters awhile, the curtains of the El Rey opened to three teenagers. One wielded a bass guitar and a mullet. One mounted the drums and the emo hair fang. A girl stood in the corner, who bore a shocking resemblance to M.I.A, making this was obviously her secret side project. (jk) The three kids were definitely not over 18. As the first bass lines picked up, the drums kicked in loudly, and the show had potential. For a sec. The quiet looking girl in the corner, who i had seen walking around in the crowd before, flung the mic cord over her shoulder and began yelling into the mic, whilst jumping up and down. Unfortunately, the drums subsisted mostly on adolescent energy and not any kind of interesting drumming. The bass subsisted mostly on the bassist’s hair. He did play bass too, but he wasn’t very good at it. I imagined myself up there playing those instruments, which i have no training in, and doing it better. But the most important part was the vocals. To describe her voice pattern is to wrestle with destiny. Half shrieked, half yelled, half whispered (1 1/2 voice) lyrics repeated themselves loosely over the drum n bass… noise. Songwriting was lost, as the words coming out were barely, no, completely inaudible. I don’t want to spend any more time for this. I don’t like to give numbers to music, but i’m going to officially declare Ima Gymnist 0/10.

To really understand what I’m talking about, please, please, please spend 10 seconds on their myspace. It will make you feel so much better about the music you have. Ima Gymnist

After another wait, the curtains drew on No Age. To the left was a drumset, and on the front of the bass drum were stickers and posters of MIA, as seen in the pic below

On the other side of the stage Randy Randall stood in the stock-guitar-hero position, legs spread, face down, staring at his guitar.

He picked out the noisy first lines of Weirdo Rippers opener “Every Artist Needs A Tragedy” and as Dean Spunt smacked the drums and began singing into a special mic setup that made his voice sound as if it were floating over an old school radio. To describe No Age better I have to be less specific, and as it was said in the Pitchfork review of their album, “…the album builds into something much bigger than its constituent parts.” as is with their live show. Song highlights were the previously mentioned track, “My Life’s Alright Without You” “Neck Escaper” and “Everybody’s Down.” But the real highlight of the performance was the performance itself. The drums was raw, the guitar was reverbed and effected to the infinity and beyond, and the band was real. At one point Randy Randell tried to climb up onto the amps, but only managed to knock one half over and pull a plug out of the board he was using to loop a riff he had done seconds ago, until Spunt came over and hoisted him up, scampered back over to the drums, and as the soft guitar loop and ambient noise came to a head, Randell leaped off the amp, whacking at his guitar with a fury. Insta-Mosh. People were flying around, heads were banging, and shoes were lost, only to find their owners in between songs. No Age was loud, confident, interesting, different, and amazing. After a long built up intro to the last song, Randell tossed his guitar in the the crowd. Hands grasped and reached, and as people played the strings for seconds at a time before being ripped away, strings snapped and pieces of the guitar fell off. The noise was amazing and beautiful. He reached for the guitar back and the crowd sent it back to him, and even after the curtains closed he stayed there waiting for eveyrone to look around their feet and hand him back the bridge and various knobs that had fallen off. If I haven’t said this yet, No Age was fucking amazing.

No Age- Every Artist Needs A Tragedy

No Age - Neck Escaper

Now for the headliner. Liars are a highly respected band, and when I saw highly respected you know I mean I don’t like them. Now, there are a few tracks I really like, but as a whole I don’t really enjoy their music. The show was interesting, with the lead singer enduring a recent back injury which forced him to sit on the edge of a high stool for part of the performance, but he still was able to get his act on. Angus Andrew flailed around, waving his arms, making movements sometimes related to his lyrics, (”you” had him pointing to the audience, “no no no” was a shaking finger.) All in all, it looked like the time the band spent studying and researching witchcraft for their 2003 cleverly titled concept album They Were Wrong, So We Drowned had caused a spirit to possess Andrew, and it looks like it has not been excised as of yet. Jerky, inhuman movements were involved in most of his dancing.

I can understand why people love this band, but it’s just not for me. As with Vampire Weekend at Amoeba Hollywood where an underwhelming performance was brought up by my love of the band’s music, Liars at the El Rey was a phenomenal performance bogged down by my indifference to the music. I like this song a lot though.

Liars - It Fit When I Was A Kid

I’m a Jensaholic. If Jensahol actually existed, I’d be addicted to it. But since it doesn’t, I’m going to continually misuse that suffix to show my love for that man. This was from a show a while back in Melbourne, and his sound equipment went out. So he played a small acoustic set with his ukelele. The banter while he tunes is unbeatable.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOqc4B1GaN4&rel=1]

Chicago hip hoppers Kid Sister and A-Trak are heading to LA tomorrow for a gig at the Natural History Museum’s “First Friday” series of events. A-Trak is totally awesome. He is the head of Chicago-based label Fool’s Gold and also the touring DJ for Kanye West. His Dirty South Dance mixtape is off the charts, with mixes of tracks by various hip hop and dance artists. Kid Sister is a female rapper on the Fool’s Gold label, and the real life kid sister of J2K of Flosstradamus. These Chicago natives should be ready to rock it tomorrow night. Ticketweb is hosting the tickets… so no ticketraper fees on this one!