Ceremony

It could have been a complete trainwreck. The stereotypical washed-up rocker cashing in on his glory days, trampling on his legacy in exchange for that badly needed check. Most times, that’s how these nostalgia tours wind up, and all the warning signs were there. Only one original member in the band? With his son filling in as a band member?Substituting himself for the mythic, departed frontman? 30 minute self-congratulatory video before the set? Peter Hook presents: Unknown Pleasures had all the markings of a disaster.

Reading Dave Segal’s interview with Peter Hookin the Stranger helped allay my fears. I got a sense from the interview that at least he was approaching the material, and the tour itself in a respectful way. But I still didn’t know what to expect as I walked into the Showbox last night.

And then the band took the stage, kicked into “No Love Lost”, and erased any skepticism I still had.

The 5-piece band ripped through Unknown Pleasures, and a handful of other Joy Division songs over the course of their set, and followed it up with two quick encores. The crowd ate up every minute of it, from the kids too young to have been alive when Joy Division actually existed, to the old-timers who looked like they were only a few gray hairs away from their days at the Hacienda. And I’ll admit, I was into it to, dancing up front right from the start. Even the idiotic frat boys behind me, who kept wondering out loud when they were going to play “Blue Monday”, couldn’t kill my mood.

No real surprises in the setlist – you can probably guess most of the selections, and maybe even the running order, if you have a passing familiarity with the band. “Transmission” and “Love Will Tear Us Apart” to close the main set and the first encore? Of course, of course, of course, what else would you expect? The lineup was perhaps a little surprising – two bass players, and a keyboard player who appeared to be running softsynth patches from a laptop. Anachronistic perhaps, but the end result sounded good enough to justify the deviation from canon.

Say what you like about Peter Hook, his reasons for mounting this tour, the audacity of him fronting the band; the bottom line is that while this may just be a Joy Division cover band, it’s probably the best Joy Division cover band you’ll ever see, fronted by one of the three people alive who can legitimately lay claim to that legacy.

Performances…

I have a couple of performances coming up that are a bit out of the ordinary for me. First off, this Wednesday, Sept. 1, is the Show & Tell Regulators’ All Vinyl Extravaganza, where Timm and I will be reviving our ridiculous tandem DJ project, the infamous Car Stereo Destroys Michael Bolton Tape. Expect odd sounds, overlapping and conflicting audio, cheap records, and weird beats. Our accomplices that night? DJ Sea-Tac International Airport, DJ Penicillium Roqueforti, DJ Vincent Price, DJ n00b phACE, and DJ See You At The Party Richter. It will be a night like no other, guaranteed.

The following week, Citizen Mori and I will be performing improvised soundtracks to portions of Matthew Barney’s Cremaster Cycle. I’ll be playing live guitar with plectrum and e-bow, through a series of effects pedals and software plugins, with some occasional drum machine accompaniment.

Both events take place at the Living Room in Capitol Hill, an excellent little venue with great atmosphere, in a great location. Hope to see some of you at one or both of these events, as they are likely one-time-only occurrences.

Holy Zola

I was lucky enough to get in to this year’s Capitol Hill Block Party for free for a few hours, thanks to a friend’s unexpected +1 pass. The lineup wasn’t good enough to justify paying for a ticket, but I’ll happily show up to just about anything for free, cheapskate that I am. Sadly, Blonde Redhead ended up cancelling due to illness, but getting to see !!! do their thing was pretty fun.

I also got to see a cool little old-school goth band called Zola Jesus, holding court on the Vera stage to a small-ish but enraptured audience. The front woman paced and crooned, stalking the stage and singing intensely while her bandmate pumped out layers of dark, dreamy synths and drum machine beats. It was an unexpected experience, and the rest of the crowd seemed to agree. After all, they demanded an encore from the duo, who happily (if a goth band can be described this way) obliged.

I assumed this was a local group, considering they were playing on the small Vera stage, against the headlining set by Atmosphere over on the main Neumo’s stage, and I was looking forward to seeing them play around town again. But suddenly they started showing up in all sorts of places – the KEXP song of the day podcast, RCRD LBL’s newsletter, in my twitter feed being mentioned by folks from faraway places. Turns out this band is actually a big deal, or at least on the verge of becoming one. After all, they’re touring in support of Fever Ray, and can count Lady Gaga as a fan.

I guess I was wrong to write off Block Party this year, but I did end up finding something worthwhile and unexpected anyways.

Not a Bad Night

So tonight, I had some delicious homemade enchiladas, drank a couple of beers, watched some of the new season of Project Runway, and ate some amazing gelato. Pretty fun times, all around.

Oh, and in between doing all of that, the fledgling little record label that I co-founded put out our 7th official release, an album of remixes from my recent full length LP as Miniature Airlines. If you liked the album, you should check this out too.

The more we keep doing this sort of thing, the more excited I am about running this thing. The more attention, the more releases, the more legitimate and fulfilling it feels, even if it is still just a collection of MP3s sitting on a server somewhere. We have big plans. And I figured out the trick to this whole record label thing recently – just act like you are one, and take it seriously. Put in the work and the care, and it will grow into its own. That’s what we’re in the process of doing, and it feels good.

Great Scott!

What better way to break a months-long unintentional blogging hiatus than a few quick, spoiler-free thoughts on the film adaptation of Scott Pilgrim?

So for starters, as we’ve been repeatedly warned, it is different from the books. Significantly different? Maybe in some ways. The plot is pretty condensed, eliminating a lot of side stories and gags, and combining elements of different subplots and characters. This should really come as no surprise, since you just can’t fit 1,200 pages of comics into a 2 hour movie, even one as fast-paced as this. I can’t really call any of these changes detrimental. Yeah, your favorite secondary or tertiary character might not have made the cut (Joseph? Lisa? Mobile?), or your favorite Toronto location might not have any screen time, but the tone and spirit of the story are there, unscathed.

The cast is pretty much perfect. There was (and probably still is) a lot of worry about Michael Cera as Scott Pilgrim, and his interpretation of the character brings more of his introverted schtick than I get from the book. That said, he also has the perfect bewildered and oblivious air about him. He works in the role, even if it feels like the character has been dialed down just a notch. The supporting cast more than makes up for any minor shortcomings anyways. The look and feel of the movie versions are pretty much spot-on, even for minor characters like Sandra and Monique, or Comeau. Kieran Culkin as Wallace Wells and Aubrey Plaza as Julie Powers are absolutely impeccable, and predictably get some of the biggest laughs in the film.

The video game/magical realism elements are handled fantastically. Everything from bombastic, crackling energy bursts during the fight scenes, to subtle gags that play on the visibility of the sound effects and action lines. there are even some new jokes that play up the “film”-ness of this version, the same way that O’Malley would occasionally play up the “comic”-ness of the original – there’s a scene between Julie Powers and Scott Pilgrim that I’m thinking of specifically, a gag that can only work on film, and not on the comics page.

Last point: the music. Sex Bob-Omb is great, a sloppy, raucous garage rock trio, full of nervous energy and pop hooks. The Clash at Demonhead, with their slick, nimble dance pop and auto-tuned vocals, sound exactly how I’d imagined them. I pictured Crash and the Boys sounding a little more like No Age or Health, but the sludgy, metal influenced sound they ended up with suits them pretty darn well.

All in all, the only complaints I have are nitpicks that are too tiny to even mention. the movie was giddy, inventive, and deeply respectful of the source material, even when it wandered from it. Bravo. Now go shell out your $10 on opening day, with my full approval.

Arrivals & Departures

Yes, I know, I never update this site….and yes, I know I keep promising to. Well, I may soon. No promises. Until then, heres what’s been keeping me so busy: my debut full length as Miniature Airlines. Go download it! It’s free, and it’s good (at least I hope it is).

Last Minute

Why yes, I have been a shitty blogger lately, thank you for noticing! I’ve let this hypertext field lie fallow for months now, and for that I apologize. I will do my best to make amends, and coax this tender earth to bring forth new shoots of content for the nourishment and enjoyment of all.

But for the moemnt, I just wanted to mention that, in case you haven’t yet heard, I will be competing in the 6th annual Seattle Laptop Battle tonight at Chop Suey. I know, I know, that’s no notice at all, really. But it would be splendid if you could pry yourself away from your seasonal festivities and come out to cheer me on, or pick up on of my new (and free) CD-R promos.

That’s all for now…but expect more here in the New Year, if not before.

Decimated

Ever since I’ve moved to Seattle, there’s one event that is invariably one of the highlights of my year, and that’s Decibel Festival. The 4-day electronic music and media festival brings artists and fans from around the world to the city of Seattle, for a weekend filled with music that pushes boundaries, rewires brains, and shakes dancefloors, sometimes all at the same time. 2009 was my fourth year attending the festival, and my third year as a volunteer.

Volunteering for the Festival is always an interesting experience, and usually a great way to meet people (or at least people-watch). It’s also usually a little disorganized, despite the best efforts of the Festival staff. Last minute issues always pop up, signals get crossed, people don’t show up for their scheduled volunteer shifts, and so on. But everything ultimately works out, and I’ve never seen a major disaster arise from one of these situations.

For example, at the opening gala at the Seattle Art Museum (which also doubled as a 10th anniversary party for the Ghostly Internationallabel), the Decibel merchandise that Donna and I were supposed to be hawking didn’t show up, leaving us a little confused as to what we would be doing. We ended up running the Ghostly merch table that evening, selling Tychoprints, Ghostly t-shirts, and CDs (end even a branded Ghostly beach ball!). We ended up having a blast selling this stuff, all while watching Clark Warner and Michna DJ, followed by a live set from local favorite Lusine, whose new album, A Certain Distance, just came out on Ghostly. It went so well, in fact, that we ended up scoring some free CDs and posters, and giving some of the Ghostly kids a ride up the Hill to the Mad Professor show at Neumo’s.

The next night was another merch shake-up, as we arrive at Motor for the dubstep showcase, only to find….no Decibel merchandise again! Instead, we got shifted to door duties, and spent the evening taking money for tickets and trying to figure out guest list and will call issues. It was a busy night, as the crowd steadily grew to capacity, and people kept flowing through the door right up until 1am, when we stopped worrying about ticketing. As a bonus, we had a good sightline of the stage, meaning we could see pretty much the full show just by turning around. Dubtek and Monkeytek weren’t all that amazing to my ears, but Boxcutterwas better than I’d expected, and UK Dubstep champions N-Type and Caspakilled the decks with choice cuts. I saw a lot of people walking out with limited run dubplate singles that night…

Saturday was my first evening without a volunteer shift, and while $140 worth of sushi kept me away from a couple of the opening acts I wanted to see, like Nosaj Thing and 214, the rest of the Bass Lovers Unite showcase was pretty incredible. Daedelus absolutely killed it with a much harder set than I’ve ever seen him play, while still keeping the retro-inspired whimsy he’s generally known for. The real highlight of the night, though, was Mary Anne Hobbs, the BBC Radio 1 DJ for the late night experimental music show. Her taste-making selections were on point, mixing the expected (Joy Orbison‘s ecstatic anthem ”Hyph Mngo” made an early appearance in the set) with new and unheard cuts.

The Decibel in the Park event on Sunday started off nice and mellow, with an deep and textured set from Kilowatts (I missed the actual opening set by DJ Eddie, who I’m sure was excellent). Sub Swara brought a dancehall infused performance next, which didn’t exactly keep my interest, but provided a nice background for the people watching and relaxing in the mild fall afternoon. The Gaslamp Killer took over with a varied and entertaining DJ set, full of banter and flailing arms, but we ended up skipping out to go warm up over a bowl of pho.

The grand finale took place at Neumo’s, and I showed up in time to catch Jerry Abstract taking the stage, dressed in a fur-lined parka, and watched him unleash some driving minimal techno from behind his laptop. It was an unrelenting set that got the steadily building crowd moving, right up until he knocked his laptop from the stage, killing all sounds for a few minutes. Fortunately, no serious damage was sustained, and the beats were flowing again shortly. Then Tim Exile took over, with an insane improvised set built on a capella vocals, beatboxing, drum machines, and spastic effect processing. This was truly a next level live performance, very demonstrative and engaging. Especially the part when he left the stage, and continued his set using nothing but a wireless headset and joystick. Absolutely mind-boggling.

As usual, there’s so much going on at this festival that I missed some sets that I would have loved. I didn’t see any of the Optical content this year, which is often a sensory immersion highlight. I didn’t get to any after hours events, due to other obligations that prevent me from being out to all hours of the morning. But of course, one of the main draws of the festival is that there’s so much to take in, and such a wide range of styles that you’re almost guaranteed to see something amazing, and discover something you never would have expected. This year was no different in that regard, and I’m sure next year will be the same.

Loopy

I’ve been watching a little bit of the first season of The West Wingon DVD recently, and while it’s an enjoyable show, there’s something about the idealism of it all that prevents me from really loving it. The show is witty, fast-paced, and compelling, but it’s run through with a streak of sunny moderate optimism that sometimes undercuts the drama. I guess that’s to be expected from a show that casts Martin Sheen as a Democratic president that somehow combines elements of Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter with the affable persona of Ronald Reagan. Crises arise that test the resolve and the ideals of the President and his staff, and idealism and savvy politics usually win out the day. When compromise rears its head, these seasoned DC veterans almost always find a way to worm around the thorny ethical questions with a bit of parlimentarian jiujitsu.

Which is why it was so refreshing to see In The Loop this weekend. Where The West Wing feels like a sunshiney promise that the good will triumph through strength of character, In The Loop paints a much more plausible picture of competing interests scrambling to subvert, undermine, intimidate, spin, counterspin, suppress, and expose each other in various layers of subterfuge and blind groping in the dark. TheWest Wing’s  Bartlett administration is constantly finding ways to have its cake and eat it too, while the various players of In The Loop are more concerned with what the cake is currently being called in the press, who’s currently slicing it, if they’re going to get a piece, and whether or not this cake even exists.

To call the film fast-paced would be like calling Usain Bolt a brisk runner. Not more than three minutes in, the shit hits the fan, and from that point on, the British communications director unleashes a deluge of brow-beating profanity punctuated by withering denigrations, in a desperate (and hilarious) attempt to contain the damage from a radio interview in which a foppish and ineffectual minister called a potential Middle Eastern conflict as unforeseeable. Nobody ever has quite the full picture, but it never stops anyone from trying to twist the latest development to their favor.

The action (if a series of official and unofficial meetings, conferences, and asides can be called action) doesn’t let up, as the political machinery of two countries tumbles haphazardly into what may or may not be a war, for motives that are never entirely clear but are nevertheless passionately advocated. Or, equally passionately dissembled upon, int he hopes of appearing neither too favorable or too unfavorable. One imagines this must be how these things actually come about, amidst a jumble of confusion and disinformation, with those who can’t keep track of the play hoping only to land in a position that will do them the least political damage, rather than the one that will create the greatest good.

Jega @ Oscillate

IDM doesn’t have the clout it used to. Once a nexus a of innovation, it seems to have been eclipsed by newer styles in the hearts of many electronic music enthusiasts. The revival of disco-derived styles and their crossover into indie/pop consciousness, and the spread of UK bass music (dubstep, etc.) have left little room for the genre in recent years. But the chin-stroking, headphone-centric style still has plenty of blood in its veins, and some of its key progenitors are putting out work as vital as ever.

Jega can be counted among  these progenitors, and his live set at Chop Suey last night served to demolish any doubts about the vitality of IDM, and serve as a reminder that the “D” in IDM is just as important as the “I”. the (admittedly sparse) crowd was happy to keep time to Jega’s erratic drum explorations using their bodies.

The set started off on a slower, mellower note, full of lush pads, rich melody, and drum patterns that skittered underneath it all. As the night progressed, the music became less melodic, pushing the synths to the background in favor of ever more intricately sliced breakbeats and noisy pulses, moving from the quiet, contemplative end of the musical spectrum all the way to full-on breakbeat madness. He even played an encore, an oddity in electronic music circles, that kept the intensity notched at its highest setting.

Openers ndCv and Obelus kept the mood calm and spacey before Jega took the stage, playing very textural, hip-hop tempo pieces in the vein of Boards of Canada or Seefeel. The transition into Jega’s more laid-back material was smooth, easing us into the quickly escalating pace of his set. This is where IDM excels; while there are certain touchstones of the genre, it’s very freeform when it comes to tempo and mood, and this set of artists brought the audience along on a tour of plenty different mindstates.