Thursday, May 28, 2009

Rusty Santos vs. VEGA Bushwick eats Greenpoint


So Sunday I gave up on spending the day with friends after a many of “hey girl what are you up too”s and my own “hey what are you doing?”s. I found myself traveling all the way over to far rockaway only to get there part way to find out I got on the Lefferts train, which when you ask a person does it go to rockaway, why yes it does, rockaway blvd and perhaps park but NOT FARrock. As soon as the train stopped at its final destination a down pour began! Threatening to ruin my fresh doobie. Decided that a plate of food wasn’t worth the slow hassle of A train transfers and headed back to Manhattan figuring that the rain (or isolated thunderstorms as weather.com forewarned me) would have pass when I got back. Hoorah I was right.
So I pulled my hair up in a bun and trekked around the city passing time listening to a interesting mix of weirdo folk songs by rusty santos and retro dance anthems by vega. For these two were my highlight for the day. Who needs friends when you got genius music kids. After finally finding that soft pink scarf I’ve been wanting (and now needed to cover my cleavage) and having a giant cockroach climb on my foot (the shivers still attack my body when I think of it) I headed to Starr Space, a charming lil place that I rencently went to for the first time to see the Harlem Shakes and Hospitality. This time that I went though was quite different, I was welcomed by an adorable lil girl ready to take my money and stamp my hand with a starr (!!!). I took a seat and enjoyed the readings of a dude, which was pretty lost on my ears, my listening comprehension is so awful. He gave an extended definition of words and explained what a new term coined by him, retro sexual, was, which I guess the kids found quaint. Then there was a performance by Momus whose music I’m vaguely acquainted with but not with his stories and that’s what I was treated too. It was pretty retarded it was about his father having an affair with a goose. Which the kids were in stitches over :/ it was kind of lost on me. But the zinger was when the father came with goose in hand to his mother in the kitchen and said “this is the pig I’ve been sleeping with!” to that his mother said “but that’s not a pig that’s a goose” his father than yelled “I wasn’t talking to you!” at which his mother ran out the house. Haha I have to admit that part of the comedy was pretty funny. Then the man who was first reading gave a nice show and tell of some things he found at his house, it was quite an abundance of trinkets and finds, I imagine he didn’t plan for it to strike so much interest because he barely presented half the stuff on the table, everybody was very into the nature finds. I was instantly interested in the cicada shells, I wanted to ask him about the cicada swarm that I was welcomed to as a kid in new jersey but never saw again, but was too shy to in front of the other kids asking questions. Then more Momus, by that point I was just too tired and bored and waiting for Rusty to play, something about a news station implanting bugs into their skin, it was just disgusting, but yet again HILarious to the audience.
He then ended and said rusty was up next! Hoorah! A dj played some dubby jams and I wondered if it was one of the same djs that have played between animal collective sets. They always seem to give us haunting/retro, summery, and syrupy dub jams. Then rusty santos came up to the stage and I was instantly shocked! The lil musician didn’t come up with what I usually expected, his lil guitar to bang/strum out some interesting freak folk jams, but instead he stood behind some technology which a lot of musicians seem to be doing these days so I shouldn’t have been that surprise especially with his latest venture the presents. Unfortuanately I’m pretty blind so I couldn’t see exactly what he was using, but I was instantly reminded of what half of the Fakers play with cuz it had some light action going on, and I was wondering if it was a light touch pad like system too, those things are pretty awesome to watch a person go at (for those who don’t know the fakers, something like lil boots lil thing too). Anyways his sound was pretty dreamy and beyond bassy it really filled the room. With my luck of course I had chosen the wrong spot with two girls talking through the whole thing asking one of the(ir) owners/friends if it was ever going to get “wooo!” later on in the night, I don’t know who these chicks were but they intimidated the owner enough for him to talk down rusty santos stylistics, or maybe he really is just some weirdo woo woo artist? Anyways after many threats of them leaving but not and just talking very loudly I just went across the room which was so much better. For one the stereo was situated better for that side the sound felt like a full frontal attack I sat by a girl who was completely zoned out dreaming to the pulsating noise that rusty was pushing buttons and turning knobs to make, when I sat down he began a new song that was completely hypnotic and I slowy found myself drifting to a similar state as my neighbor, I was then pulled out of it when the sweet front girl shook my foot and asked if I had come to see rusty santos, took me a second to associate things to normal again to say yes. He then ended his set with a sweet lil acoustic guitar number, it was a real treat cuz even though I can appreciate noise my heart lies with tangible music that I can relate to.
It was a perfect end and I then began my trek/run to studio B on the other side of two towns. Of course I had to make a stop at a halal spot and was able to grab a 2.50 sandwich (heaven except biting into it and finding just 2slices of meat and the rest filler). When I got to studio b I was completely fretting that I missed the VEGA showcase, when I came in ppl were already dancing on the dance floor and everyone was already too gone so I couldn’t even figure out if Vega had already played. So I figured it wouldn’t hurt to just get a dance in and see if anything comes of it and then go home. The djs were pretty sweet and played songs I knew that were serious bangers for me… though I can’t remember what… so an hour into dancing when I was getting into it, the music is cut off. FTW, then I notice ppl edging over to the other stage and a smoke machine is going off! HEY I didn’t miss VEGA! When he played I danced as hard as I could even though I couldn’t get into that much he kept reminding me of Michael Jackson and the music had that very synthetic after taste to it the kind that you get if you played it on your ipod for a week you then wouldn’t be able to listen to it anymore without getting a head ache two songs into it. I really wanted to back up this venture of alan palamo and have a change of heart since I love his work with Neon Indian soooooooooooooooo much. It was a sweet dance time though I even got to bump into a cute boy watching me from the balcony me unfortunately the height difference made it hard for me to understand what he was saying. I danced a bit to the dj afterward, but got a bit tired of boys only looking at me rather than coming up to dance and then a stalkerish portugese(?) guy so split and made my way back to my hood.
Highlight? RUSTY SANTOS

Friday, May 22, 2009

DIE SLOW, tropicalia

MARKET YOURSELF FOR BLOOD
MARKET YOURSELF FOR BLOOD
MARKET YOURSELF FOR BLOOD
MARKET YOURSELF FOR BLOOD
MARKET YOURSELF FOR BLOOD
MARKET YOURSELF FOR BLOOD
so the boys from HEALTH are soon to be back at it again. i'm anxiously anticipating their show bringing in the summer and longest (my most favourite) day of the year. it's happening june 20th at Danbro's but as most ToddP affiliated events that's tentative. i really don't care i just know from last year that HEALTH and summer definitely mix well. i've been visiting their site where they're hosting their newest single and a most amazing remix by Picture Plane where he turns their angular noise into a tropical tough alliance like sound. i haven't been so confused on which i like best the original or remix since "Everybody Nose" era. ENJOI!
http://health.muxtape.com/

Her Space Holiday, i wish i saved my last experience with the knitting factory show

So her space holiday turns out not to be what the cute girls listen to… at all anymore. Apparently only old guys, creepers, nerds (the true sense of the word nerd, there is no good nerd or bad nerd to me, if it’s a good nerd then it’s not a nerd, just a cool kid playing farce), and the frumpy and ugly girls that date them.
Let me just say once again Bell House completely failed me! I got to the show at 9:30, 9:30, and the show was already 2/3’s over I made it just in time to see the second to last band end their last song and say thank you and goodnight. Kind of wanted to kick myself. But I should’ve known the same happened when I went to see White Williams, I got their and he played two hours ago. So note when Bell House says show is at 7:30 show is at 7:30. The place was pretty empty, it wasn’t till HSH started setting up that the fat the ugly, the nerdy and moderately homely started lining the stage. Of course all of this has nothing to do with the actual performance. Her space came on and seemed very cheerful and in high spirits he welcomed us and more volume on the guitars and base and was ready to get down! The whole show was very lively. The double drummers for this go round added a nice effect, I got kind of confused sometimes and was waiting for drum solos when the opportune times seemed to show up. Kind of guess it wasn’t necessary to have two drummers for a ho down vibe of music just started wishing they were Aa instead. Although I’m not a fan of country twang honky tonk indie music I could tel that’s where mark bianchis heart now lied. I loved his old style of music but when he played the oldies last night they fell kind flat and weren’t worth the revisit besides the exception of… what it Japanese gum, that turned out to be a bit of a highlight. He slightly jammed it out and let the computer play letting both worlds collide and having fun with it and then to make it an extra gem he extended the jam in the middle to sneek in a verse from something to do with my hands. This was extremely cute cuz he did it for the only two girls that were moderately cute in front who cried for it, after he took a sip from a cup of one of the girl’s water and gave her a wink. Note to boy/guy bands do flirt with your girl audience; I don’t know why more bands don’t do this? HELLO THEY’RE THERE TO SEE YOU if you show a girl some attention in a dead crowd you can bet she’ll be your personal rebel rouser. And that’s exactly what happened that girl started to get the crowd moving pulling every one around getting in on the ho-down with her. Speaking of ho-downs I kind of realized why I always make sure I’m in the front at shows KIDS CAN’T DANCE! It was truly embarrassing and made me feel so awkward to be in the audience, one dude doing this awkward shuffle with spasms and this other dude doing just full on major spasms, and just seizures across the board! There were like another two kids next to me who I think were noticing the awkwardness and refrained from dancing and just tap their toes I think afraid of looking just as weird. Unfortunately when the oldies hit I couldn’t help but move a lil but Charlie horses quickly ensued so I’m sure I looked just as awkward as the rest but I’m almost certain I had rhythm :/. Speaking of these spasms, they were all being controlled until the highlight of the night began, I nice lil closing jam that included 1234’s and shouts and shambling drum solos and jams that I really loved, but I think I’m also getting confused the second to last song with the last song, where the lil bird like drumer came down to the audience with a tambourine and drum stick in hands and a smile on face to get the crowd clapping and find his (twin?) brother to join, them walking around in the crowd was my highlight
Speaking of these bird like brothers:
LYMBYC SYSTEM!!!

LYMBYC SYSTEM, for cute girls of the future

I just want to say: I HATE YOU BELL HOUSE with your stupid punctual timing. While walking to the venue I was worry myself oh my god it’s 9:30 what if I miss the whole show oh no oh no, no no no way will I miss the show at the very worst I’ll only catch her space holiday. Of course in thinking this I was also thinking no chance in heck that the first band has even stopped playing yet. Upon walking into the bell house I find that the very least is happening, and I make in time to catch the last moment of LYMBYC SYSTEMS lush and beautiful sound. What lil I did catch was truly moving and deep and rhythmic. It’s insane that these two small lil happy cute chipmunk like brothers can produce such a huge sound! From the looks there is no pre sampled sounds that they just cue just two kids engrossed in their instruments with perhaps some looping. I wish there was more I could say about their show, but being that I only caught 2 minutes this is a lot. They were also the only part of the Her Space Holiday show that I was paying attention, I wondered why mark even used the lap top as a backing track to the old songs when he had these two geniuses who probably would’ve made the songs a highlight of the night
Oh wells. I don’t think too many cute girls listen to them, but they should. They make me smile from ear to ear. Definitely caught my self blushing and out of words when trying to buy merch from one at the last show, their next show in new york is in july at union pool. I’M THERE