Duck & Cover :: Indie rock music writing from Arcade Fire to the Zygotic Minci

Just before leaving NZ I ended up bunking with James and Ami for a bit. Technically I was not in the same bed and I slept in a different room, but I wanted to use the word "bunking" because I think it sounds neat. Hanging out at their place had its benefits, like drinking on their back deck in the sun, but the greatest was exposure to a world of music. The muse living within James extended my music collection from the 200 songs I'd been listening to since I was 16, to an overwhelming collection and a new appreciation for music that lives outside of the retard stuff we hear droning on the radio. And one of these bands I was introduced to was Beirut. I was hooked. After two unsuccessful attempts to see them (first tour sold out in London the day before I arrived, and then they pulled out of the Benicassim festival a few weeks before I was to go) I was all but giving up hope. But in January of this year a golden platter was put in front of me. After selling the platter for a...

Nickerless, guest blogger and User Interface Designer extraordinaire, is based in London, England I eventually didn't mind that my work bud admitted to "scraping the barrel" before asking me if I'd join him for a Black Keys gig. He had bought two tickets to go see them and had asked everything wearing a skirt and/or a bra, then all those in jockstraps before finally turning to the guy next to him - me - and saying, "I don't suppose you are free tonight?" Well I was... but blowed if I actually knew who The Black Keys were. They were playing at the Carling Academy Brixton in South London, a venue I'd never been to before, but one which draws in a lot of great bands like the Killers, Primal Scream and The Raconteurs. Despite the reputation South London has, especially Brixton, I wasn't stabbed when i got out of the tube. This made me happy. The venue was awesome though. Like most London gig venues, it was an old stage theatre but this had a huge st...

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...

Les Savy Fav The Hold Steady Whoah. My. God. Seattle's Capitol Hill Block Party has always been a fantastic showcase of local and national talent, and great excuse to get boozy in the afternoon (like we need an excuse), and this year is no exception. Actually, this year seems surprisingly strong, in that my perception of the Block Party of years past has tended towards more big name NW acts. (Not that I'm complaining -- I've had the privilege of, literally, walking down the street from my house and seeing The Gossip, Built To Spill, Sleater Kinney, and Pretty Girls Make Graves, among many, many others.) This year's thus far confirmed lineup is absolutely boner inducing. It includes band du jour (or band du hier? I can't keep up.) Vampire Weekend, new Duck & Cover favorites the Dodos, damn-it's-about-time-people-figured-out-how-rad-she-is Kimya Dawson, and two of the hands down best ever live bands -- Les Savy Fav and The Hold Steady. And a "Surprise ...

There are energetic drummers, and then there is Travis Nelson. Truly, he is 'Animal.' Okkervil River albums have so much personality, the songs themselves become characters: players, people in the guise of animals or gods (and who can tell the difference sometimes?). And like watching a melodrama, we are witness to emotions that heave and plummet with frightening force. The songs can be drunken youth: the rotund boots on their feet knocking wildly on every surface. Or they can be villainous and smart, full of smiles and wishing-you-well up to the second they thrust the dagger into your belly. Pitched, lust-crazed, calculated: that is one half of an Okkervil album. The other emotion is equally intense in its thick, slow agony: the eternity it takes to remove the knife, knowing you have it all to do over. And so it goes: soaring, drunk, angry, knife, stab, agony, pull-it-out-and-let's-do-it-again. At the San Fransisco Bathhouse in Wellington, New Zealand, on a crisp early a...

A month ago, high from a whirlwind tour of the NW, Dakin posted two Arcade Fire videos from the show that he attended at the Arlene Schnitzer concert hall. He didn't film them, he just happened to be fortunate to find that someone else had filmed what he felt were the two highest points of his concert experience. So anyway, he found these on Youtube, and posted a url. Which was lame. Like way lame. So now he is undoing the stupid by doing things the way they should have been done in the first place. So enjoy!

THE ARCADE FIRE 27.05.2007 Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall The show opens with the fall of the house lights; the audience cheers and then becomes slightly restless as monitors flicker around the stage; grainy footage of a television evangelist, a hefty southern woman in sequins, paces breathlessly and decries “people pleasers” as “butt kissers” repeating over and over again that “we have no more time, no more time” and tells women to “take off those high heels”. She rushes back and forth whipping her crowd into a hallelujah frenzy, and then fades into static. The band arrives, and it is immediately apparent that we are in church, and they are the evangelists. They immediately, with no banter, and no introductions, slam into “No Cars Go”; the audience, surging forward as Win invites “There’s plenty of room here at the front, come on down!” Security wrestles with the crowd, and manages to push them back, but not before a few people manage to make it to the space between the front row and ...