Property Of Saints

Property Of Saints I saw last Wednesday. They were awesome. Natalie Grace Alford opened but I missed her set completely. So I was pissed about that. Still I have to balance that with seeing P O S. I have yet to find the right words to describe them. They were curious fun to watch and hear. They will play again I believe 12 May at Elbo Room and 31 May at Empty Bottle. They are Abby on guitar, Christie on bass and Carlos Zapata on drums. Ms Christie did her best to not look like Amelia Earhart, bouncing around with her bass and all. Someone I think told her about the resemblance and she announced this on stage. So now I gotta stop myself from saying Amelia instead of Christie. Take the aviation goggles and run with them, Ms Christie. That would be so steam-punk! While I ponder on how to describe them, here they are. Look them up.

Bands I saw

Normally I wait so long to write my experience with each band, how they sounded live and how they sound on CD/ipod. It urges me to write about the bands because its my way of acknowledging their existence. A lot of the human experience is captured in music. It's the amber that captures our timely reaction to the contemporary, and local. What we were about then and what we can still be is captured in the music we listen to and identify with. All music starts local, it is about the world within your horizon. Sometimes it resonates across to others. Takes a life of its own while putting your local culture on the map. We identify with what we listen to. If you are a fan and not a musician it's about finding what resonates......anyway so these following bands I saw deserve a huge write up, a proper document of seeing them, and pondering on them later. With the speed in which I write, that is a fucking bottle neck that takes for ever and takes away some of the edge of writing with that urgency. Anyway here are some of the bands that I saw and deserve more attention than you know just me. The girl at the top with the guitar is Mckenzie Toma. She headlined Beat Kitchen Thursday 28th April and the show included Girls Of The New South. The audience was small, less than 20. I was fascinated with Ms Toma, just her and her guitar. Next is Lindsey who goes by her band name Fielded . Her contemporaries include Ryat Phantogram and Telepathe because of her own organic weaving of beats, keyboard and vocal effects. She just headlined a show at The Hideout Friday 29th April. The audience for Fielded was large and attentive. I will write more on these, and post more pictures.

Staring Problem

I caught this band at Whistler......ok not really. I missed their entire set but I bought their cassette and downloaded the songs from their band camp site . I took two pictures of the whole band. Lauren was kind in gathering her bandmates Alix and Jake. The following subjective impressions of the 8 song self-titled debut I hesitate to call a review. I don't presume that kind of authority. I just got all kinds of praise for this band. Staring Problem are from Carbondale, Il.. Upon hearing them they sunk in effortlessly and casually. There was this parking spot right there in the id waiting. They are this casual post-punk muscle car. They just kind of cruise. There is this casual attitude carried along with the urgency. I liked the songs so much it really hurt not seeing them perform. I was sold on them before even entering Whistler. But I downloaded the songs after I met them.....alright, so I become familiar with their debut later in the car, ipod. I like the voice immediately as if part of my mind can speak with it. I know Whistler and so this picture cannot help but impose itself. I did not catch the live show, and so I'll assume the voice is Lauren's . I don't always follow what she says, that's actually hard to do. And to really listen to what is said turns on the analytical part of the brain. I want to enjoy this band first, blindly identify with them. The words will mean something in time. For now the voice is just another instrument, but one that represents you negotiating between the guitar and the bass. They have this casual bass-heavy, dark, post-punk delivery, but not the gloomy depressing baggage that gets people from liking post-punk, goth sounding bands. What I mean with that is, if it's not in you to dress in black, you can still like Staring Problem. And if black is still your thing then so is Staring Problem. They list as part of who they thank Christian Death, and Robert Smith, and that's awesome 'cause those names also resonate with me. And it got me to listen. Damn it! I so would love to have seen them at Whistler, just to see how that audience reacted. Christian Death, The Cure, these subcultural bands were often discovered on dance floors, between friends, and as time passes your chance to see them live become more and more remote and the live experience itself will be remote from you. I mean, you are not just gonna stroll into a small venue and to your left is Robert Smith manning his own merch table. The intimacy is gone. Parking is bad. Lets find our icons in the music we listen to in the small venues.

Spiritual Bat

So I got a Facebook message saying that Spiritual Bats are going to release a new CD. Rosetta and Dario are just the sweetest people and an awesome goth rock band. These pictures are when they played Darkroom last year. I assume they will tour with this new CD. It's a little different when you are friends with the band. You feel a personal stake in their success, you identify with them somehow. I don't know exactly when they will tour. I assume it will be the summer. That message was the excuse I needed to post these pictures.