Panda Riot, Lightfoils, Stargazer Lilies, Altocomet

   
 
  This I think was organized by Cory. He put together this event. It was at Chop Shop. I can't recall the name of the event. The pictures I have here are from various other events, but the bands I go on about here I saw in one night. The reason why the pics are from other nights is because I could not find the right memory card. Well I did find it eventually but I just did not want to change pics. Stargazer Lilies! Yeah, and I do have two of theirs, yeah Door To The Sun. Spacey and intense and mysterious and even kind of creepy and haunting. I had to let this one take it slow. Its possible I bought this one on blind faith after We Are The Dreamers. I remember now, they played. Both of these LP's took some time to find a place. For a while Dreamers had me with just one song. Now more of that CD is impacting with each track, and so is Door. That one's kicking ass all over the fucking solar system.  Each song floats in space under its own engine. They don't take traction in obvious ways. They rarely seem to go faster than a gentle, if weird and jagged glide. Stargazer Lilies are not for everyone.  They are dreamy, space-psychedelic, shoegaze. This is for the pre-inclined. Kim Field's voice is a hypnotic whisper. It holds you.  This is shoegaze .....not if you're new, in fact go to the fucking couch, they rolling blunts over there. Stargazer Lilies are for shoegaze fans that are way far gone into their addiction. If you are a goth and you go see them, leave your industrial friend at home.  For goths....this is where a lot of our happy music goes to chill, the trippy psyche end of it. I know I saw them with The Casket Girls first and then with Pale Dian. And during the course of those tours I got the two LP's.  Door and Dreamers are the best! True, deep appreciation came with time and I'm glad I saw them when I did. Summer's Gone feels almost acoustic as it is distant from the very thing it is named for, summer. Bananarama did this song Cruel Summer. And it becomes this summer 80's iconic song. Your whole summer could have been one long shitty hell, you put this track on and somehow you become instantly nostalgic for it.....Hmm, anyway somehow I thought that thread was going somewhere.....I don't fucking know. I'd rather have lyrics for me to read and be fucking sure, .....I'm back on Lilies...but I do feel that longing from Summer's Gone. And that lone guitar, every instrument feels like its by itself, and Kim's voice each seem to have her own fucking green room with you. They have a new LP to release, called Lost and I look forward to listening and seeing more of Stargazer Lilies. I did not begin with the intention of writing about them at all. While thinking of the other subjects of this post the Lilies just came up and wow, do they.

It was a lot of fucking bands, those are what I can recall right off. But there were a lot of fucking bands.

   The Pandas have a new LP Infinity Maps they play from. I was able to take it home...heard it on the way. Finally I got this! I still like CDs. This is their third. They've been playing from it for a while. I can't recall since when.  They would play these new tracks and I just assumed these were tracks I skipped somehow. Now....I got memories to imprint here. Helios is the first with that red hot branding iron. The pace is confident, heavier but not sluggish. Ghosting is one of them songs I cannot recall when I first started hearing it. This is what they are playing live from now on. This is what goths listen when they are happy, giddy like a bunch of Peanuts kids dancing with fucking Snoopy. And I can close my eyes and isolate an instrument and know who it is playing it. I am happy to finally have bought it. These are all test driven live. The first with the rhythm of innocence and experience. Its the third album, so for me there is the experience. And there is the sense of wonder I found in their first album. And no matter what lyrics she says....you are just lulled into this sense of optimism, forward striding optimism. So anything for now that I say about any one track will be the same. Gold Lines is nice to have so late in the middle of the CD. Perhaps because its placed near the end, Otherside has for me this residue of a classic romantic cult movie ending. Like something way fucking cool like 24 Hour Party People/Trainspotting cool only with a happy romantic ending.......I don't fucking know, work it out in your own fucking heads. A happily ever after ending that leaves you feeling cool because even you can believe it. Each track will find its own way to make itself part of your regular music soundtrack. Damn, this whole thing started on the pretext of seeing them at this festival. And I think I know where they filmed Arrows! They have a video for it. Them stoners from Ghost Adventures were there! No...not in the Panda video. They got their own.....And Rebecca is just strolling around.
  I got a lot of significant memories woven into the first two albums. A short sentence between the two but a long road between them as well. She Dares All Things and Northern Automatic Music. This loosely woven shoegaze thing would be far more remote from me without knowing them locally. Without them locally, this shoegaze genre is more distant from me. They kind of held it down because they played a lot, and they introduced me to a lot. On top of me liking the band, they were close and accessible, and they made everything around them feel closer. I can stack the bands I know from them. Not just shoegaze. There's a lot you can remember if you can recall what music you listened to at the time.
  There were a lot of fucking bands. I was also finally able to take home from Lightfoils Hierarchy. Before I just had their remix LP. This whole time seeing them and barely now do I actually have it to hear in the car on the way back. The familiarity I have with the music is entering a new phase. I'm not just relying on memory....and Youtube videos. Goths like to dance to the very music that is provoking them to think, to wonder. And we are ok with putting all that music in one fucking night. We can dance relatively slowly if we want. Industrial makes us move to damn fast.  Lightfoils has that perfect pace for older goths that like to dance with their fucking hands twisting all over the place, like in the 90's goth clubs. Dancing is not frivolous for me and its a way of saying this music keeps your attention.
  Taking home Diastolic is awesome. Jane's voice is clear yet what she says I cannot even make out. Yet her voice is persuasive. Mock Sun, the ending lyrics" Rest in peace lover of the brightest star " give me chills.  Perfect for dancing introverts. The lyrics on the CD case were just as mysterious and minimal. Its strange to feel so familiar to this track live, I feel new to it again. Its cool to have the tangible CD to listen on the way home. Jane's voice is dreamy, angelic and feminine, otherworldly but not too distant.  Cory on bass, Zeeshan on guitar, Neil on guitar, John on drums. Its the shoegaze that makes you move, it makes you dance. And for me that is not frivolous. I love hearing this shit on Philly's Shimmer.  I may have mentioned just one track but really I'm into the whole thing and I'm still into the debut remix LP.   This here is another shoegaze band that let me feel cool with them. They felt close, so everything around them felt close and easier to relate to.  I know they got fans all the way in Peru. Its interesting to know where a band has a fan base. Where will they be instantly recognized in the street. The guys from Lightfoils I see often at other shows supporting fellow bands, or at Philly's Shimmer....and I think that is really cool, running into them at random times. 
  It was nice to hear them sing in spanish. Altocamet is from Argentina. They are both chill and soothing with the clear male voice, and live and wired with the drums and bass. Nothing gets drowned out and I find myself listening and understanding...kind of. The voice at first is like Morrissey, only not....sad sounding. Jose from the Pandas and I were able to speak to them in spanish. After buying the merch that I did I had nothing left. All my research on them was done after meeting them. And I like what I hear and I'm glad they played. I'll put this one out now....its been sitting for too long.
Zig

Willa Rae and The Minor Arcana/Impulsive Hearts

  I intended to include Axons officially but I missed them on this early show at Beat Kitchen and I just stayed for Willa Rae and The Minor Arcana. And they blew me away. I was sold with the raw rustic Bad Ideas, and I eventually found myself buying the shirt and tape. After that I was not so sure what I was going to do. I was already in the North Side and Danielle from Impulsive Hearts had already told me about this basement gig. Adele sang with Impulsive Hearts! And I just jumped several hours ahead...we will get to that.....somehow that lead to a basement show with Impulsive Hearts that included Willa Rae. A basement show....just the concept alone seems so random. I did not expect to see Willa Rae twice, and it was awesome! The two venues could not be any more different from each other. This basement had them in the back where it seems like a closet. A fish eyed lens would make it worse....but cool.  Thank you Danielle for the 5$. I think Willa Rae is from Detroit. Her music is rustic, frontier-western sounding...raw, fucking power. I don't recall by now which tracks I heard from her, I just recall that I loved it. And I actually saw her play two very different venues...a fucking basement. 
 
 
  I am more mindful when I dance to Impulsive Hearts when they play MDB.  Lyrics are grim and chilling. It reminds me of Til Tuesday's Voices Carry. And I dance to that too whenever they have an 80's night. Aimee Mann is awesome too, and she trained in boxing too. Tell her now to her face that her music is weepy and depressing. I'm stepping back.  OK, back to Impulsive Hearts. Hmm, And still the music has you dancing with its full weight. Its the coolest that I get to read lyrics, and get into tracks all over again. And I got to witness this moment of Danielle in this basement with Adele as support. And I got to hang out and just chill around them between performances. Those are brief and so its nice to just chill with them. "Do Not say stupid shit around them" was like a prime directive that repeated like a chant in my head, when I was around them.   So I mostly listen.....and avoid appearing weird. I try to sit around like a stray neighborhood cat they are cool with in their presence. Anyway, its way cool being around them. I am a fan of theirs and it just explodes the mind that I can have these green room moments with them. I try to say something intelligent....wait, best not....listen. They are the local artists that I fucking hear all the time, not just because I go see them at their shows but also 'cause I just have them on my ipod. I have them on regular rotation. I support because I wish this music to not disappear, or be forgotten. Yeah....that is another fucking chant that I actually say a lot here all the time. That is the music that I think best represents me.  They say best what I cannot articulate in words. They say it in song
Zig

Born Days-Be True tape release

  Cold and spacey, slow rhythmic, dark electronic Born Days had her tape release event at Elastic Arts 26 July for Be True. I was too late to see Lykanthea with Adele from Axons. But I got to see the whole set of Melissa Harris as Born Days. The pictures that I took for this were shit, so I'm going to include some older pictures here, going back to architecture. This is the other half of architecture. This band Melissa had with Rebecca Scott from Panda Riot. They were once very active under that name. I would always use Panda Riot as a way to explain how architecture sounds, which is essentially...."this here is how Rebecca sounds and this is how Rebecca sounds when she is over there...with Melissa". I so feel like shit  because that so negates Melissa from that first creation.   Why do I keep bringing up architecture when going on about Born Days? Its part of the equation and I wish to not exclude it in my recollections, my ramblings.
 Born Days strikes me at first as electronic, with a touch of  Katie Jane Garside opaque weirdness, fragile and still powerful. I fucking love Into The Sun. Everything I like about the band is plain and powerful in this track. Melissa's voice has a girl-in-a-box effect to it, a distance. This one takes me flying, gliding with a pulse of minimal effort. Its just me wanting to float among the clouds. And now Set Fire is starting to sink in.   Analogue  has the vintage 80's otherness of Book Of Love. They all got this intimate, minimal rhythm. I can dance to this shit all fucking night at Shimmer or Nocturna. At Elastic, we sat down. Almost no light on her. And they feel like they are your own private joy. The songs feel mysterious even as they are crystal clear, right in front of you. The quiet offspring of Otherness. Its the perfect band to hear and see play in that Twin Peaks bar near the end of some episodes on the new third season. They seem innocent of their mysteriousness. So I'm glad to finally have the music to listen.

  Before this show. I had this two track EP of Born Days and a few other shows on memory. So I originally know Melissa Harris from architecture, the project with Reb......ok, y'all know that already,.....cool. Well I just want all that history documented. At some point they were really busy as architecture. They played with some really cool bands. They covered Pregnant from R. Kelly. And its fucking genius. Its the only way I can stomach that track is by architecture taking out the piss.   And now here we are with Ms Melissa as Born Days and she is....great. Its just her with a keyboard, a candle in open air. When live, its best appreciated in dark stillness. And that is the effect. This feeling of you and this fucking candle. This was how it was set up at Elastic. So, I'm glad I have a few shows down with Born Days. So the pics I took may be too fucking dark, but I will also post here some from way fucking back.  Born Days will play Emporium 13 Sept, Wednesday with Jovan, Spaces of Disappearance, and Pixel Grip, and I'm counting the days to that. I've seen Jovan and she is a powerhouse. Elaine with Spaces brings the clear and singular beats and her awesome voice. Anyway, I hope to see more of Born Days.
Zig