I’ve been mind-numbingly bored with the mundane nature of working life recently. I’ve also come to the conclusion that countless others reach within months of getting their first ‘big kid job’: the only thing that helps the days pass is planning a vacation…. And so I planned, ferociously, day in and day out, with my two best friends. The plan was to go to Mexico City in search of our friend Luis Carlos Armando Manzanilla Priego Ramos (yes that’s one person). With Luis as a our spiritual (read: Mexican) guide, we would seek escape from our subfusc concrete realities back home.
Thank you Luis, you gave us tacos, jungles, lagoons, villages, ruins and lomas like we could have never dreamed of. Best 10 days of my post-post-academic-life.
As any good trip should have, this one has a soundtrack. So in this spirit, I bring you a mixtape full of happys and sads, mind-fucks and beauty, new and (really)old World Music and North-American trash: a pastiche of my life on April 4th to April 14th, 2k9.
New Clap Your Hands Say Yeah track, Grizzly Bear leaks, Zooey in new film, Win/Wayne throw down.
The blogosphere is all a-twitter with activity today. So here are some of the things that actually caught my interest (via Sterogum and P4K):
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah debuted a new song last night on the new Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. They have made it available as a free download from their website (email required), so I will not be posting it here as that would be uncouth. The performance, however is available on YouTube:
Grizzly Bear’s upcoming release Veckatimest has leaked. You can read what they have to say about it on their blog. I have not listened to it yet, but I’m sure if I did it would only convince me to buy it immediately once it’s released on vinyl. You should do the same. Read our previous post about their live show in Brooklyn.
Zooey Deschannel, the one woman I would leave any other woman for, is starring in an upcoming film (500) Days of Summer, that seems to be something like Nick and Norah for twenty-somethings. Anyway, here is the preview, it looks pretty cutesy, but what has Zooey in it that isn’t. Also if you haven’t heard M. Ward’s latest Hold Time with Zooey, among others, guesting, you should.
Finally, it’s the battle of indie rockers with similar first names. Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips, whose “Do You Realize? was recently voted Oklahoma’s official rock song, has trash-talked Win Butler of Arcade Fire in a Rolling Stone interview, saying, “they treat everybody in their vicinity like shit.” Butler responds on Arcade Fire’s website saying something to the effect of, “you don’t even knoooow me.”
Four of us (two other SUers and one revered guest), just returned from a whirwind tour of NYC the main goal of which, you guessed it, was to see Final Fantasy and Grizzly Bear play with the Brooklyn Philharmonic at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). There was, needless to say, a lot of anticipation, and fairly high expectations. After all here’s what The L-Magazine of Brooklyn had to say about it in its bi-weekly concert listings:
“Two of indie-rock’s most drooled-over acts perform backed by the Brooklyn Philharmonic. This is the musical equivalent of winning the lottery on your birthday, or something like that. Something really, really good.”
Well the concert did not disappoint. Final Fantasy’s material, already written for a string quartet, took on a much fuller sound and grandiose quality compared to his stripped down solo performances with just a violin and a sampler. Grizzly Bear’s set seemed much more like the musical experiment that one might predict. Pallett, although admittedly neurotic about others performing his work, still seemed, given his classical background, relatively comfortable with the orchestra. Grizzly Bear however, were decidedly awkward about the whole affair, this was echoed in some songs as the sound of guitars and drums seemed to be issuing from, and floating on a different sonic plane then the violins and violas, never truly melding into one. Despite this, Grizzly Bear managed to deliver songs that had never been played live before, and they said, would never be again unless some other opportunity to play with an orchestra presented itself.
Grizzly Bear returned, sans orchestra, to perform an encore which included “Deep Blue Sea” (see video below), and “He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss)” which our travelling companion has already pointed out is a cover.
The new material presented by both parties, sounds very promising, and I am eagerly anticipating both Final Fantasy’s next LP Heartland, as well as Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest (May 26, Warp). Below is an excerpt of a bootleg (RAR) from the concert.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Facebook Group
News Feed
