Music

Live Shows Weekly Wrap Up

Pygmalion Festival 2023 @ Urbana, IL

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NOTE: Original Post Title: 2023.09.24 – Weekly Wrap Up (09.17.2023 – 09.23.2023)

I am bad at selfies.  I added one last week to these little journal posts and I wanted one for this week but they are kind of bad.  Or maybe I am just bad at looking excited.

Anyway, I’m not late, I am intentionally not on time, because I was busy yesterday.  I spent almost all day in Champaign (Urbana technically) at the Pygmalion event at the Rose Bowl Tavern.  I’m actually not sure if there is one of these or more of them per year, but it’s apparently the 19th year.  It’s a little craft vendor fair alongside a bunch of musical acts both indoor and outdoor.  I primarily went to see Lauren Mayberry’s first solo tour.  But I also like music, so I went early to see all of the outdoor shows.  There was swap flip-flopping between in and out on the schedule, I didn’t want to lose my spot up front, so I just stayed outside.  There were other Lauren/CHVRCHES fans there doing the same, which isn’t surprising.

Overall I saw 6 acts total, one of the scheduled outdoor acts, ggwendolyn, had to cancel.  This also meant the schedule got compacted up and while it was originally supposed to start at 1:45, things didn’t start until 2:45.  So I got there early, and then got to wait a bit longer than expected.  Not a huge deal.  I got to watch them doing the soundcheck, which, at least for me, was super interesting.  This guy, we’ll call him Bob, because that was his name, everyone on stage called him that, would go around checking mics and making sure things work then he’d head into the “crowd” and have band members do tests to balance things out.  Then they would all adjust their little personal directional speakers for levels on the various tracks (vocals, drums, guitars, etc.) on a personalized basis.  All from a little portable wireless pad.  It was neat.

Also, I say “crowd” because at this stage of the day, there were, maybe 20-30 people mingling around the small parking lot area where the shows took place.    As the day went on, the bands became clearly more and more professional about how they operated, and basically just, produced better and better sound.  As as that progressed, the crowd size grew and grew.  It was fun to watch actually.  From fairly basic setups to more and more complex setups, from using the house speakers for the feedback audio to using in-ear headsets.  From just, checking the watch after every song to see how much time there was to play, to having a full-on set list, ready and set up and available.  From random comments about writing up songs because of “X”, to having full-on fun little stories.

Anyway, I saw, in order:

  • Emily the Band – She mentioned that she went to school at U of I in Champaign and had played at the Rose Bowl Tavern a few times, so they seem to more or less be a local band.  It was the first time they got to play on the main stage.    I enjoyed their set and they seemed like they were having a fun time all around.
  • Fiona Kimble – She was alright, though probably my least favorite of the day.  The easy comment here is, it felt like there were too many people on stage, but then she said the pianist had come in special and they did a couple of duet songs, so well, maybe it felt like too many people because they had a bonus person in their set.
  • Lutalo – I really enjoyed his set.  It was very low key, basically finger-picking folk music on an electric guitar.  Dude seemed to really get into his songs too.
  • Tim Atlas – Dude was really good, and they hit all the right notes of having a band that felt like they all were really having a good time while putting out some good, varied music.  The guitarist also had a talk box (think Peter Frampton, Do You Feel Like We Do), for one song, which was fun.
  • Claud – The only artist I managed to get around to listening to before the show, and it’s funny how much that changes one’s perception.  I also found that I really enjoyed Claud’s music, from my before the show listening, and I was already kind of a fan, because it’s enjoyable.  I don’t really know why but it kind of reminds me of sort of, toned down a bit King Princess.  Just the vocal styling, the lyrics, and all that.  I want to listen to more of the artists I saw but probably Claud most of all.
  • Lauren Mayberry – Ok, Claud most of all, behind the obvious.  I tried to mostly avoid watching other people’s videos of Lauren’s solo tour, so I could mostly go into this show blind.  I had already listened to the one single, *Are You Awake*, and I had listened to *Crocodile Tears* beforehand.  It was all great, and definitely a good different feel from Chvrches.  Kind of reminds me a bit of Wolf Alice maybe.  Probably my favorite was the final track, *Sorry Etc*, which is one extreme end of the styling and very very “screamo punk rock” style.  The other end probably being *Are You Awake*.  Also, probably just because of where I ended up standing up front on the end of the stage when she came to my side of the stage, she seemed to be “angry face screaming” a few times like right at me.  

    Please don’t want to kill me Lauren, I’m sorry, etc.

Anyway, I’ll probably make a gallery of my photos at some point, though they aren’t real amazing, my phone’s camera isn’t super great.  I had asked them about bringing my proper camera and it was in the car but I decided it was too much of a hassle.  

I did have a fun good sign moment before the show.  I had stopped in a few stores over in Champaign before the show, and when I walked into Five Below, there was a familiar voice on the radio, with the CHVRCHES/Marshmallow collab track Here With Me.  It took me a minute to place the song because I don’t really listen to it, basically ever.  I keep forgetting it exists, which is funny because in some ways it may be the most popular CHVRCHES track due to the Marshmello exposure.

The rest of the week was relatively uneventful aside from Friday evening.  I went and met up with my parents and brother and a couple of my nieces and we went to watch the Route 66 Carshow parade in Springfield.  I didn’t end up taking any photos, but it was fun.  Basically, a lot of the classic cars that are in the show itself all just, drive to downtown.  They go a pretty good distance, as they start down near Dirksen and Stevenson Drive and go downtown.  I realize this is meaningless to most people but this means they go 3 miles or so up Stevenson and then 3 miles or so up 6th Street to downtown Springfield.  It’s a good distance on some main throughways in the city, especially for a bunch of classic show cars.  Also, there is a police presence, but they also don’t block the roads, so there are just, regular cars driving around them.

I’m sure I’ll write up on it eventually, but I also kind of spur of the moment updated my PC from Windows 10 to Windows 11. It’s mostly the same honestly. I hate how I can’t dock the taskbar to the side though and I immediately changed is the centering on it though because the centered icons is functionally garbage and it’s ugly as shit. I also found a cheap price to update it to the Pro version from Windows Home. There are a few virtualization things that are only in Pro, but also only Pro allows for Remote Desktop access. It’s actually something I have been wanting to do even in Windows 10, for the same reasons. Also, in theory, I think Pro has fewer ads stuck in it, because well, you’re paying for it.

On Friday before going to Springfield I had the day off so we also put out the fall decorations around the outside of the house, though they aren’t completely finished. Also a few indoor ones but my wife does all that, I just haul totes around for that.

Activity Log

I’m not going to go into it all, but one of the stores I went to was Ollie’s.  Which I’ve been to elsewhere years ago when traveling, but this one opened up recently, closer to where I live.  It’s basically a closeout store, lots of stuff for like, 75% less than what it would have been originally.  They had a ton of Marvel Legends I didn’t care much about, and a few Star Wars Black Series I didn’t care about.  What I did pick up was a pile of Fortnite stuff.  Also, they had a bunch of Eternals Marvel Legends, which I have most of from previous markdowns, but I picked up Ajak, which was the only one I didn’t have.  I kind of really like the design of the Eternals, but I they are also all very samey looking, with almost no accessories, which made the figures a huge turn-off at the standard ML pricing.  I’ve managed to collect them all at like half price or below, which is just fine for me.

Not much else otherwise this week.

Albums

CHVRCHES – The Bones of What You Believe

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I feel like at some point I should get around to covering the rest of the CHVRCHES album lineup aside from Screen Violence. In proper fashion, I’m going to roll it back to their first album, The Bones of What You Believe. It’s appropriate because it’s the 10th anniversary of the album. I actually can’t say accurately when I first listened to CHVRCHES, though I can say I only recently started caring about them. I know that when I started to care, I realized that I already had at least one album I had bought on Amazon. So at some point, they showed up in a $5 album sale, and I decided I liked the sound and impulse bought it.

It’s probably worth mentioning that the album also recently celebrated its ten-year anniversary.

I also know that for a while I was aware somewhere of a band called “Churches” because for some reason I thought maybe they did that song Take Me to Church, which is actually by Hozier. This is based entirely on the whole Church/CHVRCH thing.

Whatever the case, while I probably heard their more popular tracks starting from this album, I didn’t really start listening until much later, though before the Screen Violence era. Anyway, after I started listening, shortly before Screen Violence, probably at the recommendation of folks in the Sigrid Discord, they quickly shot up to the top tier of my favorite artists. They are currently 2nd on my Last.fm scrobbles. I imagine that another influence was my obsession with Forza Horizon 4, which features Never Say Die, from Love is Dead.

I would say it’s hard to pick a favorite song from the album, except the track Gun is on this one, and it’s my favorite CHVRCHES track, so that’s pretty easy to pick. I just really love the metaphor of the hook. You fucked up, and you’re going to pay for it.

Maybe my second favorite track on this album is Tether, though it wasn’t always. It’s sort of grown into that place. I just absolutely love the build from calm and slow to the break at the peak. I also really enjoy the vocal effects and overlapping sounds of this one.

There are plenty of fan favorites and other notable tracks though. Their first big single, Mother We Share is such a good opener to the album with the echoing vocals. I particularly like the up-and-down background rhythms and the slappy fake clap beat that runs throughout. I want to say Lies, was the first track they actually performed during live sets, and while it’s popular, it’s probably one of my least favorite tracks on the album, because it’s very repetitive and flat in it’s overall presentation.

A few more of the more popular tracks are Night Sky, which I believe took 2nd place for most popular in the CHVRCHES Discord tournament (behind Clearest Blue). Science/Visions goes incredibly hard, and is pretty amazing live as well. Recover was the second single from Bones and has some following but it reminds me a lot of lies in that it’s a bit repetitive and it’s lower on my list of songs I enjoy. Another really good one is We Sink, which drives pretty hard and really shows off the CHVRCHES sound well.

Also notable is how many Martin lead songs are on this album. What I understand reading the history of the band, is that Martin was going to be the lead vocals before Lauren came along. There are two tracks from Martin on the base version of this album, Under the Tide and You Caught the Light. The Deluxe version adds the previously released track Zvvl, and the 10th-anniversary release adds in the previously unreleased Manhattan and Talking in My Sleep. That’s quite a few Martin tracks from the early era of CHVRCHES. It certainly would have been a different band without Lauren.

Another that I’ve started enjoying a lot more lately, though it seems contradictory since I dislike the repetition of Lies and Recover is Tightrope, though it’s only on certain bonus versions, and is a cover of Janelle Monáe. I just rather like the “T-t-tightrope” stutter lyrics and the varying vocals in the “high or low” bits.

All in all, like most of CHVRCHES music, it’s pretty much all good. I’ve been listening to this album for a while, and I’m looking forward to the upcoming 10th-anniversary re-release and all it entails.

Music Monday

Music Monday – One Take Edition

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I am an absolute sucker for one-take media. Movies and music. I’m sure this won’t be the last time I do a series of one-take videos. I prefer it when the one-take is real, but sometimes well-hidden cuts are acceptable.

Dodie – Cool Girl

I just love this song and this video. I really enjoy this style of sort of, “raw dancing” where it’s a little messy and unstructured. I also like the sort of, symbolism of Dodie being slightly “off” from the other dancers, it fits with the themes of the lyrics and theme of the song. It seems intentional because she will be slightly off, then in perfect sync, then off again. Or maybe I’m reading too much into it. The song itself is really good as well. It starts out so light then the thumpy beat comes in and it builds up nicely from there.

Total side note, I am slightly enamored with the chest of drawers and nightstand in the opening bit. I have a collection of photos of furniture I have come across in this style because it seems weirdly prolific in the vintage furniture market for some reason.

Kiesza – Hideaway

I think this may be the first video I watched that turned me on to Kiesza’s music.

Something I find amusing about this whole video is that I am pretty sure that a lot fo the non-dancers, are just, people who were out and about. The dudes trying to go to their car. The person ho runs through he shot on the skateboard. One tell for this is how at the end, the Taxi almost gets caught in traffic and almost misses the cue. Also everyone seems to be having a good time, which I like.

OK Go – The One Moment

I could do an entire month’s worth of Music Monday posts on OK Go, instead, I’ll just sprinkle them in here and there. A lot of their videos are one-take videos or fake one-takes. This one is pretty amazing because it’s an extremely fast one take, that’s slowed down.

The behind-the-scenes for OK Go are almost always fascinating as well, or at least, the engineering part of my brain thinks they are. Like all the math that was needed to get the timing for this video down so it would work in the slowed-down version. I mean, I am sure there is some fudging going on, but it’s doing to be damn close.

Albums

Nirvana – Unplugged in New York

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While I have a lot of “favorite albums”, there is one that I have fairly consistently considered my absolute favorite, and it’s Nirvana’s Unplugged in New York. Originally recorded as part of MTV’s Unplugged show. It was the first Nirvana album released after Kurt Cobain’s death. There are quite a few of these types of albums from MTV’s Unplugged show by different bands. From back when MTV actually played Music all the time.

I just love everything about this album. I love the goofy chatter between the songs. I love the fact that there are plenty of electric effects and an electric guitar in Nirvana’s “Unplugged Set”, because Nirvana doesn’t care apparently. I particularly love that it’s not just an acoustic greatest hits album. I think at least half the songs are covers and most are not their “top hits”. Come As You Are and All Apologies are probably the only real big hits on the album, though there are a couple of others. They aren’t even necessarily covering the big hits of other groups either.

While I really like every track, the covers may actually be my more favored tracks. The Man Who Sold the World, originally by David Bowie is excellent. Jesus Doesn’t Want Me for a Sunbeam is great as well. There are three covers of Meat Puppets tracks, Plateau, Oh Me, and my favorite of these three, Lake of Fire. Members of the Meat Puppets also participated in this set.

The set ends with another non-Nirvana track Where Did You Sleep Last Night which is a folk song done by a variety of artists over a period and also goes by several other names. The whole, “angsty 90s Cobain” really shines through on this track and I really like it as well.

The set opens with About a Girl, which as Cobain comments, “this was off our first record, most people don’t own it,” which is certainly accurate as Nirvana wasn’t really popular until Nevermind and then later In Utero. It’s a nice and interesting throwback to the band’s origins. The last track I wanted to throw out as one of my favorites from this album comes from In Utero, Pennyroyal Tea, despite its kind of random and rambly nature, really fits this format well.

I think one thing I really like about this album is just how much it’s Nirvana’s messy and gunge style, cleaned up in a slick format, which still keeps the messy and grunge feel. I don’t really know how else to describe it. That isn’t to say Nirvana isn’t a great band, but I really feel like this album lets them really show a great other side to the band and everyone seems to be generally having a good time making this music as well.

Music Monday

Music Monday – Retro Edition

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Let’s roll things back this week for some “blast from the past” videos of yesteryear. Or more, yester-decade.

The Crystal Method – Born Too Slow

A song that I started listening to thanks to Need for Speed Underground, a racing game from EA. I liked that game a lot until I didn’t because it got super cheap on it’s AI at a certain point. At least I think it was NFW UG, i was also playing a lot of Midnight Club around that time, so they kind of blend together.

While the track itself, “Born to Slow” actually fits a racing game in name, it doesn’t really fit it in pacing. This really doesn’t feel like a very racing track. Kind of the opposite actually, The funky guitar sound almost feels just a little “too slow”, and kind of gives this slightly eerie feeling. Which does fit the video with it’s creepy glitchy gray man.

The Refreshments – Banditos

I remember seeing this video at like 2 AM on MTV in the 90s and loving that it referenced Captain Picard but I missed the credit tag. Like a year later I caught it again in the middle of the night and bought the CD like the very next day. Fun fact! The Refreshments did the theme song from King of the Hill, it’s called Yahoo and Triangles. Also this dude kind of looks like Joseph Gordon Levitt as a cowboy and i can’t not see it.

Flip – Possibilities (feat Elou Elan)

This video is weird, I have to say I have not watched it a lot. I used to really dig this track though. I am pretty sure it was on the Muzak system back when I worked at KB Toys, and it became ingrained into my brain after listening to it a thousand times. So maybe I don’t actually like it, I just have been tortured into thinking I like it.

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