Beirut/Sunset Rubdown/Frog Eyes show
Last night Dylan and I could be found at Mercury Lounge, watching two of my favorite bands, Beirut and Sunset Rubdown. It was incredible.
If you don't already know them, Beirut is 19 year old Zach Condon along with some members of A Hawk and a Hacksaw and one from Neutral Milk Hotel. The music is reminiscent of Neutral Milk Hotel, but it seems more true to traditional Balkan/Polka type stuff. And his voice I think is really beautiful. They got a subpar review on Pitchfork which was then reiterated by Tuningfork. Basically what they said was that Beirut is more or less mimicking traditional polka, and since indy music fans don't normally listen to polka while cracking open their PBRs, they give Beirut a credit to a type of music that is not new at all, just new to their ears. Well, maybe that's so, but after seeing them play last night I decided that it's a good thing to bring traditional music to a crowd that never hears it. Who cares if their mimicing something else, all music does, doesn't it?
I couldn't remember the last time I watched people playing accordians, trumpets, ukelalies, violins, and upright basses. It was great. It reminded me of when my grandfather took me to the nutcracker as a kid and the whole time I was straining to watch the orchestra pit instead of the ballet, just for the joy of watching people play instruments. If anything, we need more bands like this. I'm sick of all the indy music sounding so homogenous.
Last night was their second show, and for a second show, I thought it was wonderful. Zach Condon was humble, sweet, and mesmerizing to watch. You knew right away that you liked him. Their set was way too short, I could have listened to them all night. (Interestingly, Mercury Lounge was more poacked for Beirut than either of the other bands.)
Sunset Rubdown, who's frontman is Spencer Krug, who is also the lead singer for Wolf Parade (BTW: Wolf Parade's video for Modern World has some beautiful stop motion. The mechanical machines at the end are the best part...I highly recommend it) also put on a great show. It's that voice, man, listening to him sing right in front of me, letting his vocals get all loopy and weird, I loved it. Also the girl on the vibraphone was cool. Love that vibraphone. (there's some really nice pictures of Sunset Rubdown (god I hate that bandname) on Brooklynvegan.com)
Lastly was Frog Eyes, who's lead singer was really something to behold. You couldn't take your eyes off of him. Dylan really took a liking to them, and I believe he wishes to blog about them, so more on them later.
So yeah, I've decided to start going to more shows. And I've already got tickets to see Beirut at Northsix in Brooklyn on June 20th for their first headlining show. This time they'll be playing with a full brass section. If you like them at all, you should grab tickets, they're only $10, and they'll probably sell out fast.
Frog Eyes is a great band. Anything that reminds me of Xiu Xiu, including the tamer XX porn (still more rivetting than XXX) is a good thing.
Hey Michelle, like horror stories? Get a Thomas Ligotti short story collection. Wordy, abstract horrror that are sorta essays, but get under yr flesh and lay tadpoles in yr brain. The Red Factory is really good.