« Archives in November, 2010

Kayo Dot live show @Sneaky Dee’s w/ GATES and Kosmograd, November 10th 2010

November 14, 2010 / Debo posted in Music, Thoughts / 2 Comments

There was a really long period of time where I would say without any hesitation at all that Kayo Dot was my favorite band. Over the last few years, though, they really started to lose me.

Ironically, I think it was the sheer output of Toby Driver’s related acts that caused this to happen. Kayo Dot isn’t the kind of band I can just listen to casually — it’s usually too discordant to have on while I’m working, it’s not angry enough to listen to at the gym, and there are very few other times of the day where I’ll have music on. So I never really paid enough attention to any particular album to feel strongly about it one way or another.

Which is why it’s always awesome when Kayo Dot comes to town. First of all, they are freaking phenomeonal live performers. Second of all, it forces me to do nothing but sit there and listen to them.

I saw Kayo Dot this past Wednesday in Toronto at Sneaky Dee’s, which was way better than the last venue I caught them at (Wrongbar, where they don’t turn the heat on because they figure the sweat of hipster nerdrage will supply the necessary thermal energy). They played a short set, because there was some douchey dance party coming up afterwards, but I was absolutely fixated for the whole 40 minutes or so that they were up there.

The setlist, as far as I can tell, was:

  1. Calonyction Girl (Coyote)
  2. Abyss Hinge 2 (Coyote)
  3. Wayfarer (Choirs of the Eye)
  4. __On Limpid Form (Dowsing Anemone)

I bought Coyote as a digital download the day it was released, and listened to it maybe 10 or 15 times. It never grabbed me. After seeing those two tracks live, I have been listening to it obsessively over the last three days. That album fucking crushes. It is really heavy on percussion in comparison to the last couple of albums, which I never noticed before, and the rhythmic pulsing of the horns is really freaky. Abyss Hinge 2 was especially monster.

Wayfarer took me into another place completely. It’s already a pretty spacey track, but the volume and density of the live performance was just incredible. I remember hearing the last notes fade and feeling like I was actually just falling back into my body. And that was only after my first drink.

On Limpid Form was definitely the performance of the night, though. It seemed an odd one to pick for a concert, firstly because I believe it’s the longest track in their discography (just shy of 20 minutes), and secondly because when I’ve listened to it before, it just feels like it doesn’t really do anything except repeat the same 20 second long theme over and over again.

Not so. The last 5 or 6 minutes of the track produce the sound that I imagine a city would make if all of its buildings simultaneously collapsed in slow motion, and when this is done in live performance, HOLY SHIT. The entire band took out these pieces of metal shrapnel and banged on them with sticks while they were still occasionally playing their own parts, which was freaking awesome.

Anyhow, seeing these guys live again reminded me that I should just pay attention to my music once in a while. You know, lie back on the couch, crank an album, close my eyes, and just _listen_ to it. I know, who has time for that shit anymore? But it’s worth it.

The opening acts were enjoyable too. GATES (mentioned in a previous post) produced some truly epic sound. They were apparently playing some solo material from the founding artist, because the actual tracks on the debut album are too processed to be reproduced live. I can only imagine what the people in the dining area downstairs were thinking as they heard the Lovecraftian nightmare that was pouring thickly out of the amps when GATES was on stage. I kinda wish I had seen it.

The second band was called Kosmograd, which really weirded me out because I _just_ started reading Burning Chrome, William Gibson’s short story collection, and I’m pretty sure it’s a story in that collection that the band draws its name from. (Kosmograd is the name of some Russian space station in this story.) They kind of confused me because if I wasn’t listening closely, they seriously sounded like the Neskimos with vocals. However, after they walked off the stage, I concluded that they were more like indie bitch rock meets Amon Amarth. But what do I know. They were entertaining.

Anyhow, the show was stellar and I’m really thankful I had the chance to catch it. If I hadn’t previously sent email to Kayo Dot to rant pathetic gushy fanboy crap at them, I never would have been put on their mailing list, and I totally would have missed this show. So ha, sometimes acting like a besotted child pays off. If Kayo Dot was on MuchMusic, I would totally be one of those glistening pustules sticking my face against the glass, screaming maniacally, and showing them my boobs.

I bought Kayo Dot’s newest EP “Stained Glass” at the show, and I’ve had a few good listens to it now. I’ll write something up about it shortly. After I’ve had a couple of more good, long, attentive listens to it, of course.

P.S. Youtube has some decent videos of Kayo Dot live performances. For example you can get some idea of what the outro to __On Limpid Form looks and sounds like here.

GATES – Moths Have Eaten the Core first impressions

November 9, 2010 / Debo posted in Music / No Comments

I’m headed to a Kayo Dot concert tomorrow night, and there’s some band in the lineup called GATES. It turns out GATES is like, one guy who is a friend of a friend of a friend or something. Anyhow, I made the mistake of going to my last Kayo Dot show without listening to anything from the opening acts, and I was freezing AND bored out of my skull waiting for them to take the stage, so I thought I’d do a bit of research this time around.

I picked up the one and only GATES album at http://gatesritual.bandcamp.com. Digital downloads are the shit, it was only 6 bucks CAD — and that’s the most expensive digital-download album I’ve bought in a long time, to wit.

One of my powerlifting colleagues asked me last night, “what do you listen to when you want to relax?” And I made up some bullshit answer about jazz I guess, but then on the way home I realized that I’m not really a ‘relaxing’ sort of person. I’ll listen to japanese power thrash while I’m washing the dishes. I tend to listen to harder electronic stuff when I’m at work on the computer.

GATES is drone, but it’s even more ambient than the few other drone pieces I’ve ever listened to. It works really well as white noise, I’ve had the album on loop for the past 2 hours and it hasn’t knocked me out of the work-trance once. To my thrash-blunted tone-deaf ears, the textures of what is going on are actually quite pleasant.

The title of the album implies that the music is going to be a lot creepier than it actually is. The most recent Kayo Dot album, ‘Coyote’, is neither drone nor is it morbidly titled, and it’s about 30x creepier than this stuff.

I’m looking forward to listening to this with headphones. But hell, it’s 6 bucks people. Go forth and buy it. At the very least, you’ll have something epic to blare outside your house next Halloween.

Reason #624 why Dave Mustaine is the man

November 8, 2010 / Debo posted in Music, Thoughts / No Comments

You made Kurt Cobain man of the year, and if anything he left an indelible last message that the easy way out is to blow your fucking head off.

– Dave Mustaine, commenting on MTV’s decision to ban the video for “A Tout le Monde”

Mr. Vertigo redux

November 5, 2010 / Debo posted in Books, Literature, Thoughts / No Comments

I’m sitting here in a Starbucks right now with a friend who is pretending to work and I’m sketched out of my mind after overdosing on caffeine (as is my friday habit). While waiting for the transfer to the next venue, I finished off Mr. Vertigo.

Not a bad piece of work. It kept me turning the pages, but often at a rate that signified I was just trying to rush ahead to the next plot point at the expense of missing big chunks of prose. The biggest sticking point I had with the book was the deliberate fakeness of the dialogue. No kid would ever be capable of talking with the simultaneous crassness and sophistication that the main character has. Not even this one.

I guess I should actually talk about the book itself. It goes like this. Walt is born in 20s America into a particularly base geneaology. Some urbane dude called The Master finds him in the street and promises him fame and riches. If Walt is not famous by his 13th birthday, the Master agrees to let Walt chop off his head.

The Master teaches Walt how to levitate. He does this through a 33-step program, most steps of which involve some sort of torture. At first, the Master appears to be completely infallible, and mostly evil fellow. As time goes on, you find out that he does have many flaws, and that he is actually quite a stand-up guy. It is really hard not to like him. He and Walt bond closely.

The rest of the story describes Walt’s (literal) rise to fame, which is quickly followed by massive failure and the death of the Master. In the wake of Master Yehudi’s passing, Walt occasionally picks up a successful venture by virtue of his own grit, but without the strong value system imposed by the Master, his victories are always fleeting.

I guess the Master is supposed to represent the combination of virtue and ambition (and the willingness to trade them off) that was the spirit of the early 1900s America. Auster practically rams the spirit of the book down your throat on the last page, but the way it is done was actually rather enjoyable, in my opinion:

We’re not as tough as we used to be, and maybe the world’s a better place because of it, I don’t know. But I do know that you can’t get something for nothing, and the bigger the thing you want, the more you’re going to have to pay for it.

…

Deep down, I don’t believe it takes any special talent for a person to lift himself off the ground and hover in the air. We all have it in us — every man, woman and child — and with enough hard work and concentration, every human being is capable of duplicating the feats I accomplished as Walt the Wonder Boy.

Mother Sioux, on love

November 5, 2010 / Debo posted in Books, Literature, Thoughts / No Comments

They love and they hate, they grapple and spoon, they want and don’t want, and as time goes on they each sink deeper under the other’s skin. It’s a real show, patty-cake, the follies and the circus all rolled into one, and dollars to donuts it’s going to be like that till the day they die.

From “Mr. Vertigo” by Paul Auster

« Older PostsNewer Posts »