Skip to main content

No Age and Mika Miko [Live Music Review]

By

The case of the overshadowing opener


I'll admit it: I had to study for this show. Anyone who frequents live music knows exactly what I'm talking about. A band is playing nearby, so you buy an album and thrash it until the day of the gig. Hopefully, you'll know a few of the songs by then; you might even sing along. So it was with No Age.

I picked up a copy of their Sub Pop release, Nouns (white vinyl!), from my local, and quickly got my free MP3s from the label (note to labels: you MUST provide free MP3s with vinyl. It's just the right thing to do). For two weeks leading up to the gig I listened to the record at least once a day. Come the day of the show, however, I was caught off guard by the opening band: Mika Miko.

Mika Miko rock. It's like the girls from the library and the girls from the coffee shop got together and played a mix of Sleater Kinney and Chicks on Speed. Their set opening for No Age was as full of energy as it was full of off-color humor ("That guy's got boner arm!"), and I was a little disappointed that I didn't have a chance to study up for the show.

By the time No Age took stage I was exhausted. No so much by the dancing (though there was plenty of that) as by the high one feels upon "discovering" (Mika Miko have been around since 2003) a really good band. It's a bit like a sugar high: you bounce around babbling and giggling for a few minutes before the low hits, at which point you either cry or fall asleep. Usually both. Because I'd listened to so much No Age before the gig, I was able to rock out to a few of the songs. That was fun. Yet the more they played, the more the songs sounded the same--I'm positive they played both "Teen Creeps" and "Sleeper Hold" twice.

Perhaps it's my own fault. I sacrificed surprise for awareness. I wanted to know the band, and by doing so I stripped them of of their newness. Maybe next time I won't study. In the meantime, Mika Miko is on permanent repeat.

Band :: Mika Miko

Song :: Capricorinations



Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
Thank you for buying vinyl.

Also, my buddy Dave got 100 in the rock/pop category his third try.

Ill check these milomekocyrus gents out.

SAw constantines with ladyhawk. Awesome show. Bought a shirt and danced.
27 July, 2008
Anonymous said…
Great band great song indeed.
29 July, 2008
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Daft Punk :: Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

By
Somehow winter still has her claws in the Pacific Northwest. It's almost May, and we're forecast snow this coming weekend. Snow! (I'll spare you my usual tirade about what physically impossible acts may be performed on this particular part of the country, my own little corner of hell.) In any event, we were teased by 80 degrees over the past weekend, only to be thrust back into the 50s and below (with rain!) immediately after. Needless to say, it has not been happy times. I am on day three of a nonstop Neko Case marathon, and, while it is indeed comforting, Neko tends to be a little, dare we say, dark ? Sometimes you just need to take pause and make your own sunshine, or perhaps be steered to some on YouTube , as is certainly the case here. (Even though I firmly believe that YouTube is leading to the complete downfall of Western Civilization, and exposing the ugly underbelly of the American experience, I can sometimes forgive it. Times like this.) Back story? Dunno. Two fre...
4 comments
Read more

Flight of the Conchords Are Tha Muthaflippin'

By
If you go to the official Flight of the Conchords website , you will see that it was about the time they started work on their HBO special that they stopped updating. However, you will also read that they don’t mind too much. In fact, they are very quick to point to other fan sites that are doing a much better job. This self deprecating humour is part of what makes the duo so endearing. For those who have not yet seen the programme, Bret McKenzie ( formerly of Wellington dub band The Black Seeds) plays the naïve Bret, who is a vertible emotional rollercoaster when compared to the dour-faced Jermaine (Jermaine Clement. See him in Eagle vs. Shark ). Together they look for gigs and . . . well that’s pretty much it: they look for gigs. But it’s enough. Just because the show’s premise isn’t robust, doesn’t mean the show falls flat. Hell, remember Seinfeld? That was a show supposedly about ‘nothing,’ and look how well it did. FOTC is at least about one thing, so it’s got that much more ...
3 comments
Read more

Shoes by D.A.T.E

By
I have been told that I have a shoe fetish, but I continue to refute this. I have, simply, a healthy appreciation for footwear. That said, when I saw the new range of boots from D.A.T.E, I almost allowed myself to succumb to the status of fetishist. Put simply, these shoes are hot. The initials stand for the first names of those involved in creating the shoe company. Four individuals from differing backgrounds (business admin, fashion design, graphic design, etc.) formed D.A.T.E in Britain, but quickly established that the sneakers needed to be made elsewhere. Yet don't get your backs up about another shoe company that outsources production to sweatshop-infested countries like Vietnam (Nike), Indonesia (Adidas), and China (everyone else). D.A.T.E shoes are made in Italy, where most good shoes are made (unless they're made in Spain). Italian-made shoes carry a quality standard that should cover both design and build. In fact, the phrase "Made in Italy" is almost a bran...
3 comments
Read more