girl talk

So, Tuesday night was the much anticipated Girl Talk concert.  I hadn’t heard a show discussed so often since we found out Phish was reuniting.  Everyone was looking for tickets, gathering their posse’s and we even had a dance-off request.

Mick and Trevor were going to “bring it” to the dance floor and it was then going to be determined who “brought it”, and who ended up getting served. (details to follow)

Girl Talk is a special group, and holds a special place in my heart.  a) just for clarification its not a group.  Its a dude with a laptop.  b) His mashups have become engrained into my everyday life, sometimes I dont even notice I sing bits of the cross over, and now I am spoiled to hear certain songs because I only assume that they will follow with some change up to another song.  To be honest, he has gotten me into music i wouldn’t have necessarily listened to, along the lines of hip hop and rap.  Its just plain fun.  No qualms about it…its gets you moving.

Yes, he doesnt have his own music, he cant sell it because he doesnt own it, and he takes other peoples hits and fuses them together and calls it his own…but he does it better than anyone else I’ve heard.  The Bootie mixes, and Party Ben are fun, but Girl Talk knows his shit.

So at the show, because its just 1 dude and a laptop…i guess he decided to make his stage show consist of everyone from the audience standing around him dancing.  And I mean, a stage FULL of people, along with streamers, and flying confetti.  Mick said he smelled.  How does he know that? Oh, right. Mick was a 15 year old girl on Tuesday and had to get on stage with Girl Talk.  He put the dance-off off till the latter half of the show, and boogied with screaming girls on stage along side a stinky sweaty long haired dude pushing buttons on a laptop.  We were at the clizzub…but it was the Fillmore.  Needless to say, the dance off happened, and I couldn’t say who won, because it was awesome all around.  I recorded some pre-game dancing in my kitchen and will add that as soon as i upload it.

I’m not a music reviewer.  This is not an official review.  This is my evening recap, and its not as eloquent as I’d like it to be.  So, great show, glad Girl Talk was able to get paid (through concert tickets, not album sales), and although most of the mixes I had heard before…I’d go again next time he came in town.

I leave you with some videos (obviously not originals, because that wouldn’t be the Girl Talk way)

Time to put your money where your mouth is…

So Phish is reuniting. Maybe you have heard, maybe you haven’t.  But for three days in Hampton, VA next March, all four members will stand together and play again.

It’s likely that they will tour after this, but these three days in Hampton will be epic.  And it doesn’t look like anyone gets to go.

Let me explain.  Tickets went on presale early October.  I know countless people who tried to get tickets, some with 20 orders.  I know of 2 people who scored.  Everyone else, including me failed.  I mean, its a country full of hippies, who havent heard Phish play live in over 4 years, all trying for the same show.  They go on GA sale on Saturday morning, but I’m already predicting the worst.

Last week, everyone was super pumped.  As of yesterday, everyone is super let down.  Ive never travelled cross country for a show, and being a west coast fan, my “touring” was much different than the east coast experience.  I thought this would be my chance.

So far, no good.  Especially when you go on to ebay, and people are selling tickets for $290 for one, or $1000 for 4, or $2000 for 2 tickets for all three shows.  its nuts.  So, while cruising ebay today, I came across a listing for $.01.  It looked like a regular listing. Had the photo of the venue and everything.

Looked up to par except for the part at the top that explicitly said to read the entire posting before bidding.   I was intrigued, so I went to the listing and what I saw is after the break.

same as it ever was

I have been behind on writing.  I write about the cool shit that happens, and I’m behind.  I’ve been unusually busy at work this week, so I haven’t even been able to take 5 to write about anything.  Its 6:45 am, I have my coffee in my living room, so now I have a few minutes to catch up.

Monday, luck was on my side.  Basically it went down like this.  Joanne wrote that she wanted to see David Byrne using the iLike application on facebook.  I wrote that I did too.  She said that she had 2 tickets, one for free, would I like to split the ticket.  Now the main reason I didn’t have tickets in the first place was because of the $100 price tag.  How ever much I love David Byrne and The Talking Heads, I cant justify that.  So $50 sounded better.  THEN, she got gifted two more, so four of us ended up paying $25 to see him.  That’s a price I can live with.  Thank god for Joanne and her magic.  The show was sick.  David Byrne is a music icon, was creating music back when it was really influential, and isn’t bad looking either.

forever in blue jeans….

So I got lucky last night, and somehow ended up back stage at a Neil Diamond show.  Well, it was actually planned…seeing as though Mick has an “in” with his personal catering chef.  So we drove down to San Jose last night, got our passes, and cruised in to the back area of HP pavillion.

The night was full of enlightening experiecnes.  Ill start.

1.  Half of the parking lot was disabled parking.  Never seen anything like it.

2.  Tour caterers work HARD.  They have to unload and load all their shit daily, in addition to cooking meals for upwards of 200 people, 3 times a day.  They are constantly travelling, and I imagine it would be hard to maintain a relationship…in any position on tour.

3. Neil Diamond is capable of making even the most geriatric of people get up and boogie.  He says lets get up and dance for “Forever in Blue Jeans,” and everyone does.  Old people dancing is funny.  Someday Ill be one.

4. Sweet Caroline is a hit.  I mean, its a real crowd pleaser.  I mean, its such a hit that he actually sang the song 3 times.  Seriously, he finished the song.  Twice.  And started it up again both times, to add a few more choruses….Its what the people want.  He provided.

5. There was a dude dressed as a caveman, facing the audience at the back of the floor space.  I couldn’t tell you why he was dancing to the crowd, not facing Neil, or why he was dressed as a caveman, but damn I wish i had a picture.

6.  Not a show I would pay for, especially with the prices that those tickets go for…but an experience I wouldnt have given up.  Old men with sparkly shirts singing to ladies throwing their panties on the stage are totally worth seeing.  At least once.

7.  Im going to call my grandparents, and man wont they be jealous.

8. “You don’t bring me flowers,” just isn’t the same without Barbara Streisand.

9.  A lot of food is thrown away after the caterers clean up.  We not only saw a great show for the price of parking, but left with 4 perfectly marinated rare steaks, frozen chicken strips, and veggie dogs.  I think WE got paid to see the show.

10.  After more than 1300 shows performed, Neil Diamond has still got it.

music as of late

The past few weeks I have seen a few shows, but have been so busy at work and too tired at night, so I havent really been posting on my blog.  I’m going to give a brief rundown, no real lengthy reviews…just what I saw and thought.

Mogwai, with opening act Fuck Buttons.

Fuck Buttons are a two-piece experimental group from England.  Its alot of distortion backed by some really beautiful harmonics.  Its loud.  Mick really enjoyed it, and I liked it as well, though at times I could have really used some earplugs.  That might have had something to do with the fact that it was at the Grand, and their acoustics kind of blow.

Mogwai is a Scottish post-rock band, not a furry creature that turns into a gremlin.

Their music is really beautifully orchestrated.  The problem I found was that they were too pretty.  Too sleepy to listen to at a live show without having the desire to sleep standing up.  It was the second time I’d seen them…and will likely be the last.  I will listen to their music….but maybe as backgrond music, or as a lovely lullaby.

The next night we went to Slims to see Built to Spill.  God I love that band.  They did the album Perfect From Now On in its entirety, and added a few songs for good measure.  Another amazing show.  I think this was the 9th time Ive seen them.  I will continue to see them every time they come into the city.  Hopefully next time it will be Keep it Like a Secret. One of my personal favorites.

the french ain’t half bad

Headed down to the Great American Music Hall last night to go and see M83. I have known of this band for a little over two years now, thanks to my friend Campbell. They are a band I had never seen, and I was unsure how their sound would translate into a live show. Id say it was a moderate success.

M83 is an electronic music group with both a male and female vocalist. They are French synth-rockers with a surging dance sound. A slight ambient buildup into a wall of sound is how most of their songs get you. Its definitely a close your eyes, feel the bass and the emotion of the song kind of band…not a dance till you fall down band. Quite a bit of their stuff on the album however, is a woman speaking, or looped, and for that, on stage they used pre-recorded stuff. Lets just say the first song they pulled an Ashley Simpson. They started the first song, and someone must have hit the button for pre-recorded vocals because misplaced words came on, everyone looked around, they must have pushed stop realizing their error, the words ended, M83 didnt let it phase them, and continued. Good for them for pushing through the error.

The rest of the show was pretty good. Campbell ended up being there, so I could remember my first days of M83 with him. Pete, Mick, Keller and I had never seen them, and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. I was a little disappointed that Teen Angst wasn’t played, but that was probably for the best. The last few times we listened to that song it involved laying on the floor writhing…probably not the best idea to do that at GAMH.

I leave you with my rating of this show.

Four arbitrary goats out of a possible five

thats so metal \m/

It’s difficult to review a show of a band that I don’t like, and hard to explain what I was listening to when I don’t really understand the genre.

Monday night I went to go see The Dillinger Escape Plan with Mick and a co-worker of his at Bottom of the Hill in SF. I know this is one of, if not Mick’s favorite bands, so being the supportive girlfriend, I tagged along. I knew what I was going to be getting myself into.

Wikipedia states that The Dillinger Escape Plan is a New Jersey mathcore band. Mathcore is a style of metal with fast tempo and a technical style. I’m sure if you have the guitarist play by himself and the drummer play on his own, etc…it’s all very technical. But all together, its just noise to me. Throw on a stoutly roided-up (speculation) lead singer screaming into the mike, it becomes almost intolerable. Almost….