Saw Future Islands and Dan Deacon with my brother and girlfriend at this filthy lot under the JMZ Myrtle stop last Friday night. The space was so cool. People were spray-painting on the walls, people pissing everywhere, beer bottles strewn about, and lots of hippies with no shoes. Future Islands was fantastic! Their music was mostly pretty, synthesizer-saturated repetitive grooving but the singer blew me out of the water. He was ridiculously melodramatic, pretending to cry on stage, hold his beating heart in his hand, beat his chest like a gorilla whenever the music starting pounding, etc. I guess the key was that singers like that usually come across as conceited, whereas he was very open and easy to connect to. Also, he just moved amazingly. I wanted to dance like him so bad. And I loved his voice, it's this full-blooded growl, like a virile bear. Haha.
I couldn't find a great video from one of their shows on the internet, but this one gives a pretty good sense of the melodrama. The recordings on their myspace page don't have the same level of intensity as the show but nonetheless there it is.
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I was not so impressed with Dan Deacon. I joined his feel-good dance army for the first 15 minutes or so, but my feelings of generosity were tested when he asked the crowd to part in the middle and run to the ends of the lot for the second time, and then the third, and the fourth... His music is certainly well-designed for white folk who don't want to be looked at while they self-consciously dance. Rhythmically it's equivalent to a drum machine playing straight eighth notes without end, and there's no way to dance to it except to jump up and down like crazy, and certainly no way to look particularly good or bad while doing it.
In any case it got to a point where everyone was jammed too close together in the front to dance at all, so I removed myself from the situation and then felt like the kid who doesn't like the planned activities at summer camp, and just sits on the bench stewing in his own bitterness wishing he was at home playing video games. After about half an hour I left to buy bananas and a bagel at the grocery store. When I came back, my girlfriend said she loved it and made me feel like an old man for not liking it. I definitely respect him for encouraging people to go crazy and do strange things, but in the end it was too dumb for me.
Dan Deacon myspace
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Hey, so, I also saw some great videos on youtube recently. How about the "Nine Inch Snails" on the Muppet show? Haha, wow! This is actually a pretty good imitation.
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Also, I found this phenomenal video of Ray Charles performing "Ring of Fire" on the Johnny Cash show. He looks like he's out of his mind and probably on heroin. It's almost uncomfortable watching him, it feels a step away from disaster, but he keeps it in control and it's just incredible. My heart is beating fast by the end of this.
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That's it. Hope ya'll continue to have a good weekend.
I couldn't find a great video from one of their shows on the internet, but this one gives a pretty good sense of the melodrama. The recordings on their myspace page don't have the same level of intensity as the show but nonetheless there it is.
=====================================
I was not so impressed with Dan Deacon. I joined his feel-good dance army for the first 15 minutes or so, but my feelings of generosity were tested when he asked the crowd to part in the middle and run to the ends of the lot for the second time, and then the third, and the fourth... His music is certainly well-designed for white folk who don't want to be looked at while they self-consciously dance. Rhythmically it's equivalent to a drum machine playing straight eighth notes without end, and there's no way to dance to it except to jump up and down like crazy, and certainly no way to look particularly good or bad while doing it.
In any case it got to a point where everyone was jammed too close together in the front to dance at all, so I removed myself from the situation and then felt like the kid who doesn't like the planned activities at summer camp, and just sits on the bench stewing in his own bitterness wishing he was at home playing video games. After about half an hour I left to buy bananas and a bagel at the grocery store. When I came back, my girlfriend said she loved it and made me feel like an old man for not liking it. I definitely respect him for encouraging people to go crazy and do strange things, but in the end it was too dumb for me.
Dan Deacon myspace
=====================================
Hey, so, I also saw some great videos on youtube recently. How about the "Nine Inch Snails" on the Muppet show? Haha, wow! This is actually a pretty good imitation.
=====================================
Also, I found this phenomenal video of Ray Charles performing "Ring of Fire" on the Johnny Cash show. He looks like he's out of his mind and probably on heroin. It's almost uncomfortable watching him, it feels a step away from disaster, but he keeps it in control and it's just incredible. My heart is beating fast by the end of this.
=====================================
That's it. Hope ya'll continue to have a good weekend.
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