I was a Flower of the mountain yes

I don't often leave the D2 comfort zone to go to gigs (and when I do I generally make a big deal of it), but Thinguma*jigsaw are special. I've never seen them before, and as their album is probably the best thing to come out of Ireland since... James Joyce? I was excited.

James Joyce, then. My understanding was that the event was in celebration of Bloomsday, and that this was why Thinguma*jigsaw were playing (they love him). Thinguma*jigsaw are an insane, hyper-literate, necro-obsessed Norwegian couple whose arrangements consist of banjo-and-musical saw, banjo-and-flute or banjo-and-melodica pretty much exclusively, if you didn't know.

It was a walk around Howth Head, followed by a repair to the Bailly for further music and merriment. James Joyce and Thinguma*jigsaw (with the potential for added Mumblin' Deaf Ro) in Howth is basically the ideal Saturday afternoon to me. There was something weird though. Aoife Mc flagged it, but I missed it. Psycho Kate Bush fan event. Not that there's anything wrong with being a Kate Bush psycho, but I'm not one, and I've only heard two Kate Bush songs ever. So that was a bit of a shock. Also, we couldn't find the actual walk so we just went to the pier until the pub bit started anyway.

I think the Severed Headmaster and Little Myth Epiphanymph, a.k.a. Seth and Martha (Seth may be a second level of fake name - possible real name Stein) were probably there for the Joyce rather than the Bush too though. They started with a reading of the climax to Ulysses that captured a lot of its fluidity and energy, and also showcased Severed-Seth-Stein's hybrid Norwego-Hiberno-Americo-Mockney accent.

They commanded silence for their music. The Headmaster landed somewhere between an author reading his work and a circus ringmaster introducing acts when explaining songs. Martha did not talk, but her death-stare said enough. They sang a lot of songs about death, including a cover of I Love The Dead by Alice Cooper which has the implied Joyce association attached (cheat sheet: last book of Dubliners is called The Dead). His voice is a frail falsetto, over a musical backing which has to be skeletal by definition.

Skeletal is Thinguma*jigsaw all over. They trade in silence, gaunt banjo picking under genuinely shiver-inducing bowed-saw parts. They are kind of scary, especially at such close proximity. If you can't picture the music still, go to the Muxtape and listen to Serpent's Apple. I have no idea how a duo would develop into what Thinguma*jigsaw are. No microphones, no nothing. Just words, bones and shivers.

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I'd rather date Rwanda

According to some review I found while researching (putting "Stephen Malkmus" into Google and clicking everything for five pages) for the Analogue interview I did with him before his gig on Monday, Malkmus fans are divided into two camps. Those who like Face The Truth, and those who like Pig Lib. I want to preface this post by saying that I like both. I love Pavement, I like focused Malkmus a healthy amount, but I also genuinely enjoy the jam bits. So, unlike a lot of people I talked to after the gig, I wasn't disappointed or surprised that he went mostly with the strung out guitar jams. I was actually pretty happy.

Thing is, to my ears, Malkmus guitar-waffle never descends into pointlessness. He has said in interviews that you're not supposed to listen that closely to the instrumental breaks on Real Emotional Trash. But I think you can. Through all the solos in the live set (and there were solos in pretty much everything), my attention never wandered. It's not just fucking around! Seriously! It's what blues would be if shit, Record Collector magazine-reading, high school English teachers weren't choking it to death through reverence and simultaneous enjoyment of 70s classic rock. The Jicks sound fresh to me, and distinctive. The really great instrumental parts were the best part of the show.

Thing is, by playing a lot of really long songs, there's less time left to play some of the million excellent songs of average length in his catalogue. Pencil Rot? Jenny and the Ess-Dog? Also, by definition, Stephen Malkmus solo is hampered by the fact that half his audience at least is hoping every time he finishes a song that the next one is going to be Cut Your Hair. He even said "I need a hair cut" before one of his encore tunes (possibly Baby C'mon). Probably intentional, probably habitual.

He's not hung up on being a solo artist. He had no complaints about talking about Pavement as if it was still a real entity in the interview. He's just doing the jam-out thing right now, and it's probably just as fun to pretend he's going to play Cut Your Hair to him as it is to actually play Cut Your Hair. Still, he's a fucker for teasing. Really enjoyable show, nonetheless. I put one of my favourites off Real Emotional Trash, Gardenia, up in the muxtape you can find in the sidebar, if you're curious.

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Put the shadows in their boxes

01 15 Step
02 Bodysnatchers
03 Airbag
04 Bangers & Mash
05 Nude
06 Pyramid Song
07 Arpeggi
08 The Gloaming
09 The National Anthem
10 Faust Arp
11 Videotape
12 Optimistic
13 Where I End And You Begin
14 Reckoner
15 Everything In Its Right Place
16 All I Need
17 There There

Encore 1:
18 Exit Music
19 Jigsaw Falling Into Place
20 Climbing Up The Walls
21 Planet Telex
22 How To Disappear Completely

Encore 2:
23 Super Collider
24 You And Whose Army?
25 Idioteque

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In Rainbows

Radiohead Day 1. It rains on the queue, like it always does. Bat For Lashes plays. Her band have a lot of interesting instruments, including a horn played with a bow, but she doesn't really capture my imagination. It rains some more when she finishes. Then, ten minutes before Radiohead are due on: rainbow. Two rainbows. The significance is not lost on anyone.

Started with All I Need, which pretty much set the tone for the day. The gig in Marley Park in 2006 was basically a festival set, all the songs one could pogo to. But this is the In Rainbows tour. The regular set was full of stuff off In Rainbows, and stuff that followed that general vibe. Lucky, for example, came out early, and a couple from (my favourite Radiohead album) Amnesiac appeared. Guitar rock in general was limited. A good thing.

Thom is a weird guy. He's like an avatar of all this horrible stuff he sings, complains and makes artwork about for a living. Fake fits for dances. Gurning. Staring down Scotch_Mist style webcams which operated as cameras for the big screens. His straight-to-camera, eyebrow-raised, way-too-close rendition of You and Whose Army? straight down the lens raised laughs. But it was pretty frightening too.

I was happy to see Myxomatosis, complete with body-twisting, Boney King of Nowhere dance. Everything In Its Right Place was not the set closer, Videotape was. Better yet, How To Disappear Completely ended the first encore. Just the type of weird but representative, slight sick-feeling set I was hoping for.

Second encore brought Supercollider, a new song, which I'm assuming is about this fucker. Then Just, and Paranoid Android. It is impossible to not fill with joy hearing Paranoid Android. It is a work of utter genius, and very possibly the best song ever written. I know I love superlatives on this blog, but I've devoted a solid five or six years to Radiohead and have consistently listened to and loved them more than any other band. I will never get sick of spending €70 to see them (or getting tickets as presents, as the case is with tonight).

Heading out again after dinner. See you there.

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In The Morning All I Could Do Was Sing

Duty called me to Tripod on Tuesday. Tapes 'n' Tapes, Sons and Daughters and Port O'Brien.

There was a time when I would have paid to see Tapes 'n' Tapes, but that time is not now. And I have no love for Sons and Daughters. So the only band I was interested in seeing was Port O'Brien. Which was convenient, because they were the ones I was interviewing.

It was only a short, first-of-three opening set in a Tripod that went from empty to half-full as it progressed. Not really the kind of thing that can give a true impression of a band, especially one like Port O'Brien who are quiet twice as often as they're loud and play a lot of soul-searching songs about the sea. It was good to see though.

The difference between Port O'Brien and every band that sails the ocean deep in their imagination is this: salmon fishing. Van Pierszalowski, who is the main singer and songwriter, is the son of a commercial salmon fisherman, and Van spends summers in Alaska with him. Being a skiff-man, whatever that is. Cambria Goodwin, who plays banjo (inaudible at Tripod but essential to the sound on record) and also sings, is a baker at a salmon cannery. When Port O'Brien write songs with nautical metaphors... they're not metaphors. Well, they are. But it's a level closer. It's like the difference between a Hollywood actor doing an Irish accent, and an actual Irish accent, sort of.

Relating to the gig specifically, I'll just say that even though the other three people in the band (Josh, Zebedee and Caleb) were straight out of Vetiver/a Californian medicinal marijuana supplier's in appearance (flares and beards, basically), there is a distinctive Arcade Fire vibe about their live show. Part of it's the chemistry between Van and Cambria. Part of it's the energy of certain songs of theirs, not as developed as Arcade Fire's by a long shot, but showing signs. I don't know what the rest of it is, it's just an instinctive thing on my part.

The gig didn't do them justice, because they were cut short and the circumstances weren't right. But if you follow up on one thing I say on this blog, make it this: click the Muxtape link on the sidebar, and listen to I Woke Up Today.

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Got up late, no room to breathe (Monday, pt. 2)

So The Mae Shi at Crawdaddy on Monday was really good. But the real reason I left the house on Monday was to go to Times New Viking. Whose new album I really like.

Long story short, there was a mix-up with times. We assumed the Mae Shi would be done early because they were a support act in a Pod venue where curfew is king.

And we assumed Times New Viking would start late. Because it was in Andrew's Lane, which has a theatre licence. And because of an anonymous tip-off (probably not anonymous, I just don't know who it was).

We left the Mae Shi at about 10.20, before they were finished. Thinking Times New Viking couldn't have started earlier than 10, and more than likely would be a little late.

Plus, promoters were pretty accommodating about Sunset Rubdown/No Age and Liars/Thurston Moore. And The Mae Shi and Times New Viking seem like they would have a fairly big crossover. So it would be okay.

Not so.

It was raining. We ran all the way down Harcourt St.

We got there.

"SHIT! Is it over?!"

"Yeah dude, you guys missed it", quoth the drummer from Times New Viking, smoking outside.

Fuck.

God gave me very specific instructions. (Monday pt. 1)

The Mae Shi are a band I hadn't heard before last Monday. For most of the gigs I review on this blog, I have about six months of fanboy excitement brewing up inside me hyping it up. Not this time.

Technically I was there courtesy of Crayonsmith via their manager Dave via Bobby. But I don't think much of Crayonsmith. I might have mentioned that before, because they do support 70% of all bands. If not though, I'm putting it out there now, I don't like their music. Most of it is begging for melody, and the ones that have decent tunes at the core are generally pushing a bit towards 2005 NME territory. I wouldn't have bothered mentioning that I don't like them, except that they're physically impossible to avoid, either live or in Irish music writing. Even us Analogue boys having been covering them. But it's not for me.

Mae Shi were on second, behind Noah and the Whale, who I have no interest in whatsoever. I was asking stupid questions ("Are they post-rock or what?") and making stupid claims ("They look like I won't like them.") for the whole of their lengthy set-up. They opened with I Get Almost Everything, from the crowd. They spent lots and lots of their time in the crowd.

Most of their stuff was really good. "Twee hardcore" was the label State luminary and aforementioned guestlist fixer Bobby gave them. Not too far wrong. It was as if that sort of ultra-serious flavourless US punk-hardcore had been squirted with gunge or something. Run To Your Grave is one I remember as standing out, even though I didn't get the album until after (maybe "get" in inverted commas would be more appropriate).

For a record that seems to be some sort of concept album about biblical judgment, executed over glitchy keyboards, incredibly catchy singalong choruses and bursts of hardcore, it's surprisingly cohesive and excellent. HLLLYH, it's called. It's infused with a punk-like communalist vibe, except with all the accessibility of someone like Danielson.

They engulfed the whole crowd in a sheet at one point. Everyone was pushing it up, singing along even if they didn't know the words. The energy was thick enough to bottle and sell. And they were (technically) a support band. Basically, as their press stuff says, The Mae Shi want you to love life as much as they do. A nice thing to experience.

Photo from Fuchsia's Flickr, more there.

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