Waffle Fries Perkins in Loveland

So I just got back. Oh Jesus.

1) The Place
The Paradise

2) The People
The most unremarkable bunch of chaps I've ever met. There was no theme about them. No clearly defining features. Just a bunch of people. They clapped when they should've, they sang when they should've (albeit a few behind me really shouldn't've).

3) The Performers
Up first was Dave Godowsky. Although he claimed they had an album finished (which they'll send out to chippies who give them their emails (I am a chippy)) based on the one-minute verse-chorus-outro style they employed, I was led to believe otherwise. Regardless. It was decent folk music, but not really anything to write home about. This isn't home, by the way, so it's okay that I'm writing about it.
Bowerbirds continued the slow train to sleepyville with a painfully long, painfully slow set of music that would nicely suit alt-car commercials and little more. I could do without.
And then, thank God, appearing from the corner in the distance, came the Men in Dearland, who preceded to approach the stage from the audience after making a tour of the venue. The trumpet, slide trombone and drums were a bloody gift. Elvis Perkins, closer to seven feet than six, closer to 100 pounds than 150, slithered up to the mic from the traditional backstage, and what transpired next could only be called A Very Satisfying Set. Behind tiny glasses and a (quickly weakening) voice that warbled between a crooner and a folker came mostly new stuff (...In Dearland) but, a few covers from the Sacred Harp and some oldies and some off of the Doomsday EP.
Highlight:
It's just our fella up there, beard dripping with sweat, once-slick hair drooping in his face. "It's your turn to tell me what to do. What do I do next?" followed by a chorus of 'While You Were Sleeping' (and the requisite Freebird, as well as one for 'My Sharona' that he (almost) obliged)) to which our little hero replies "I don't think I could survive that one right now."

AND THEN DURING THE ENCORE HE PLAYED IT. OH. Poor guy shooting up chloraseptic like it's binaca and he's got a hot date. Poor guy turning the mic to us so we can fill in where his voice has failed him. When the boys all bowed and left (and then returned. and played. and then left again) we all understood, I think, that Elvis really had put all his everything into it, and when he left he wasn't coming back. He couldn't.

And we were okay with that.


Again, I'll attach music (particularly the Sacred Harp tracks. Holy god (no pun intended) those were good) when I get to my own laptop.
But for now, just appreciate how bloody good EPID is:
Elvis Perkins in Long Hair Land - Weeping Mary

Until then,
Stay madly in love with a man 13 years your senior,
-WF
Or more, actually.

Edit: Turns out, Dave Godowsky (now performing under the name John Shade) really does have songs that short. In which case, he totally gets props. The record's pretty good, if a wee on the short side. So props John Shade/Dave Godowsky, I dig you. I would like to know about the name change, though. Bit of a mystery, him.

John Shade - Kingdom Come
John Shade - Lullaby
Bowerbirds - Human Hands (LITERALLY THE ONLY BOWERBIRDS SONG THAT DOESN'T FILL ME WITH BILE-RIDDEN RAGE)
Elvis Perkins - While You Were Sleeping

RUN CHICKEN, RUN!

So let me try to get through this as quickly and effortlessly.

1) The place
The Paradise.

2) The people
Initially mostly non-ironic beards and sixteen year olds (how they got in to an 18+ gig I will never understand) but then drunks came out of the woodwork and by the end of Poor Willy Mason's set they were yammering away whilst sucking down their PBRs. Less fun than you would imagine.
Highlight:
White trash couple behind me.
Lady: You could totally sing better than him. He sounds like Johnny Cash.
Fella: Shut up.
NICE DATE, EH?
3) The players
Willy Mason, as it turns out, I heard of some time ago and then totally forgot about, which is a real damn shame because he's pretty good. A little dry on stage presence (didn't help the audience was talking all through a very quiet set) but he was one helluva guitar player and he had that same freight train voice like Johnny Cash.
And then came the Felice Brothers.
There was stomping. There was a washboard. Simone Felice, in what was maybe the single greatest moment of rolling with the punches I have ever witnessed, ran off to get a beer, missed the intro to the next song, ran back on stage, ran mouth first into the microphone and chipped a bloody tooth. He finishes singing the verse. He pulls out the chunk of tooth. He looks at it, shrugs, throws it over his shoulder and continues on to the chorus.
Every band member sang a song. Sometimes (see: James Felice on 'Whiskey in my Whiskey') this was great and the whole audience swelled. Sometimes (see: Christmas on whatever the hell he sang) this was kind of weird. Turns out, as revealed through some of the most awkward banter I've ever witnessed, Christmas (bassist) not only has a pretty weird sense of humor ("this is from my new band. we play techno.") but is generally a pretty weird damn guy.
Farley was decent, I have to admit. Doesn't mean I didn't want to give the kid a sedative every time he flew from one end of the stage to the other fiddle in one hand, bow in the other.
But, it was glorious nonetheless. There was stomping. There was mass audience participation. The two sixteen year olds (along with almost all of the audience) were brought up on stage for the last song. This is of note, given A) earlier in the gig a fella jumped on stage, did a dance and was quietly asked to leave the stage and B) when a fella did that at the Manic Street Preachers gig a few months back he was ripped off stage like he had a bomb strapped under his Welsh flag.


Until next time,
Reporting from Dearland,
-WF
Elvis Perkins ahead

Willy Mason - Hard Hand to Hold
Willy Mason - Where the Humans Eat
Willy Mason - When the River Moves On
The Felice Brothers - Whiskey in My Whiskey
The Felice Brothers - Frankie's Gun

SILVERSUN PICKUPS THAT'S ANOTHER WITH A CHICK BASSIST.
Fact: If it's an indie band, the chick's a bassist (with the occasional exception, admittedly).
Fact: If it's a medieval-style army, the chick's an archer.

In terms of the latter, my theory is thus:
It's a passive weapon. As in, lady with a bow and arrow'll never have to actually stab anyone. It's like in the story of Pyramus and Thisbe. Thisbe doesn't stab herself at the end. She throws herself on Pyramus' sword because she's too much of a pussy (literally?) to hurt herself intentionally. Same with archery. Arwen and Kate and fucking Kiera Knightley and Susan are such fucking pussies they can't actually inflict pain on people directly. They have to fling something at someone else.

The noteable exception, of course, is when Kate (Juliette Lewis) grows a damn pair and shoots her brother and he explodes out of joy that his sister isn't a total coward. I would've preferred a nice kick to the face, but given the amount of vampires attached to her brother at the time, I guess I can understand her reluctance to get close. And for the record, a gun is okay. A bow and fucking arrow is not.


The other exception, of course, is when Eowyn swords the crap out of a Nazgul and is partially responsible for swording a Ring Wraith. But she doesn't really count because she spends most of the movie trying to get in Aragorn's pants and failing.


This has fuck do with shit. It's just been bothering me for a while.

And I went to the Felice Brothers at the Paradise a week back. I'll write a review at some point...

Until then
Don't hate, procrastinate
-WF
(Chick w/ sword)

Friends Don't Let Friends Be Unhygenic

I guess I don't remember middle school very well. I mean, I know it happened, I know I was probably smelly. But to that one kid who busted in front of me (two people from the stage) halfway through Islands' set: FUCK YOU WASH YOUR HAIR I ALMOST THREW UP ON YOU, YOU LITTLE PUKE.

The concert went better than that, though.

1. The place
The Middle East Downstairs.

2. The people
It was all ages, but comfortingly it was mostly my age group, and the small pockets of teenagers were mostly ecstatic and jubliant without the fear of looking like idiots in front of other people. To the big-haired ginger at the front singing her heart out: I love you. Nick from Islands will probably never date you, but goddamnit if you didn't make it a fun night.

3. The performers
So Toro y Moi was like a successful version of that abomination that opened for Ganglians when they opened for Wavves. One dude, some synths, a little move-busting. Jemina Pearl bloody brought it. I mean, her moves were textbook Karen O*, but she was so damn happy about everything it didn't matter. The whole band was bouncing. GREAT.

Also just discovered she was the lead singer of Be Your Own Pet, so she gets double points for that. This outfit, however, was significantly poppier/tweenier/bouncier than anything BYOP ever put out.

And then there was Islands. On a personal note, I started listening to the Unicorns about six months before they broke up. I fell madly in love, and I fell hard when they fell apart. Subsequently, seeing Islands was for me an event I'd been waiting for for ages. Generally when I like a band, I later find out at least one (if not many) members are foxes, thus making their greatness even more great. Because who doesn't like a fox?

Anyway, Islands/Unicorns was never like that. I never really investigated what they looked like, and frankly I didn't really care. They were so incredibly good that I didn't need a visual.

But now, I am totally bloody in love with Nick from Islands. Striding upon the stage in all white, bearing a cape and wraparound adhesive sunglasses, he was totally straightfaced. There was no humor, no irony, no joke in his attire. He was just a dude in a cape. He danced. We danced. He clapped. We clapped. We all sang together in a throbbing, rocking mass, despite virtually no banter or demanded audience participation. When one overenthusiastic fan bleated "You're awesome!", Nick Islands' only response was "No, you're awesome."

Until next time, which I think isn't until Rooney/Tally Hall in December,
Stay salty
--WF
WHO DOES THAT?!

Jemina Pearl - I hate People (feat. Iggy Pop)
Jemina Pearl - Ecstatic Appeal
Islands - Creeper
Islands - Vapours