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Radiohead (and Liars)
EDIT: Direct downloads of 192kbs mp3's of this show are over here
Saw Radiohead last night at the Verizon Ampitheater in Charlotte. Managed to get there about 2 hours early but had to walk around the parking lot and drink Captain and Sprite by myself b/c Allison was stuck at work...  Tried to wait, but it wasn't going to work, so I went in to catch the opening band. Knew they were opening, but I never looked them up... I suppose that, since Deerhoof opened in Amsterdam, that I was going to dig whoever it was. And that worked out. I had a video, but I deleted it to save room for another Radiohead song instead. I still have a shitty 1GB memory card in my camera... But they were cool. Except that they finished, and Allison was still sitting in the car.........................
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But she did manage to show up with, really, just seconds left before Radiohead came on. Frightening... but everything worked out in the end. She's funny looking in this photo.
Oh yeah... and just before Liars went on, I finished Memories of My Melancholy Whores, and it was awesome and really at all the kind of thing I thought I'd like. Like the ending isn't typically a kind of ending I'd appreciate, usually...
Not now...
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 I think this is probably my favorite photo... He was crazy dancing all night. I tried to do that too, but now I just hurt and no one much thought I was very cool. Which is best. We were row 12 behind the pit, far stage right. I think we were maybe slightly closer than the last time, but I think I would have preferred to sit a few rows further back and to be closer to the center. Wonder how those seats are allotted, actually... all the way down the middle and then to the sides? hm... regardless. It was still awesome, and we were still plenty close. :)
I don't really have anything insightful or interesting to say... there is very little I would have changed... setlist was fantastic, sound was great, light show was great, Allison made it in time... So I'm going to not say anything and just post the photos and videos.
(Oh... I would definitely pay another $75 to see that again.)
((And there was some stupid review about Radiohead/In Rainbows/Previewing the Show in Creative Loafing this past week. It was dumb. It sounded like "Radiohead are so past their prime." or "In Rainbows is a weak effort from a formerly great band." Something like that. It sucked.))
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 Tried to grab one more picture as they were leaving the stage, but I was still all shaky from the sound or the movements or something, so everything was blurry. This is still kind of... cute, I guess.
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I start to film pretty much every song that gets played... and then stop if I don't like it or something... so it's always pretty random or luck-of-the-draw as to what I end up actually getting and keeping. There There showed up pretty early... I guess it's not "cool," but I still really like this song, and I kept the video of that. Got Myxomatosis the same way, and it's badass enough for me as well, so I kept that and, given the size of my tiny memory card, I was done with the filming. The sound kind of sucks, which is too bad, b/c it was actually just about perfect when we were there... So it goes...
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Labels: Allison, Charlotte, concerts, music
I voted
ok... many posts in a short amount of time.
But I just voted in the early Primary thing. It was awesome and easy and fun and I have another one of those sweet little stickers now.
Ministry
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I've been slack. Because that's what I do. But a couple of weeks ago, one of my best friends from high school drove down so we could go to the Ministry show over at Tremont. It was forty freaking dollars to get in the door, and I was definitely not going to go except for that Will was coming. I talked to a guy at the last KMFDM show who said that the last Ministry show he saw featured only the new songs being played. I picked up the 2nd to last album, and it was cool... but there was a lot samples of george bush talking, and it was very overtly political. I hate george bush at least as much as the next guy, but even though I liked most of the sounds on the record, it did get a little heavy-handed. Al hates george. I got it. Regardless, I just didn't want to drop a lot of cash to see a band that I liked purposefully skipping over all of the songs that initially made them great. I didn't need to hear the "hits" necessarily, but ... I'm rambling. You get the point, I'm sure.
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I'd never heard of either the opening band, Hemlock, or the "special guest" Meshuggah, but Brian Burton liked the drummer for that second band, so he actually went with us as well. We were too busy pre-drinking and missed the opening act which, frankly, was fine by me. We did, however, get there just in time for the Meshuggah set. Which, in my opinion, was pretty brutally awful. The sound in the building was terrible... sure it's industrial metal, and it's often going to sound pretty mushy, but this just was not good. I didn't like the lead "singer" at all either. He did a lot of posturing and putting his hands up like he was Jesus. Then yelled and mumbled some into the mic. I dunno, but I was glad when it was over and pretty stoked to finally see Ministry. Between sets, I was talking to people around me... met a few nice people and took photos b/c I was bored...
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I got both of these dudes to put their email addresses in my cellphone... I tried sending the photos over, but my emails got bounced back. Oh well... I tried.
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So, anyway... Ministry was headed out soon. So, good. But the bouncer guys started putting up fences. wtf. Divas? It was definitely packed in there, and there was a little moshpit, but no one was going totally apeshit or throwing stuff on stage or anything. Very strange. And annoying. But, whatever. So they came out, and it was all dark, and everyone was screaming, and they tore into a newer song that I may or may not have heard before. In fact, throughout the entire first set, there was only one song I heard that I was absolutely positive I had heard before. I don't know the name of it, but I could pick out all of the soundbites of george bush saying something stupid, and Al was like, "This is for our goddamn stupid fucking President" or something.
A lot of it sounded the same, because I, not being a die-hard post-Filthpig Ministry fan, didn't have my ear trained to listen for any particular riffs. I was mostly waiting to listen for the intro to "Just One Fix" so I could tape it, but it never came. So I watched with a feeling of removed bemusement and tried to snap a photo or two when I thought something would look sweet. After I took that one to the left, (the first photo I took since Ministry came on) some bouncer guy came up and told me that he wasn't trying to kick me out, but I wasn't allowed to take pictures.
 Despite the sea of cameras being held aloft all around me. I was all, "wtf, really? Just photos?" "Yep, camera phones only; nothing with a zoom on it." Does that statement sound contradictory to anyone else? So, whatever. I quit taking pictures for a while. Then I thought I had a good chance to take one of Al, (it's only even mediocre b/c I touched it up in Photoshop) so I gave it a shot. I know I shouldn't have done it, but I figured I definitely wouldn't get bitched at the only two times I took a picture.. Within 2 seconds, dude was tapping me on the shoulder and took me out for a stern talking-to. "If I see you with that camera again, I'm kicking you out." Fine. Whatever. So I got another drink and went out back to the side entrance to watch from outside. It was way too hot and loud and annoying in there anyway. And still yet, not a single song off anything older than 2 records ago. (maybe 3...)
Which, I should clarify... is cool if you're touring on a new record or something. But if you're on your "farewell" tour, why wouldn't you try to mix it up a lot? *baffled*
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Right. Enough complaining about that. So I went to watch the show from outside. Usually I'm not allowed to get up on the little staircase there, but I started talking to this guy named Craig, and he let me come up and watch from the band doorway.
So I ended up hanging out with Craig, the guitar tech from Meshuggah (whose name I have sadly forgotten), Chelsea, and Chelsea's two friends. I couldn't quite understand who Craig was, but he seemed like a really nice guy and was happy to talk about stuff including and not including Ministry. He was down from Greensboro just hanging out, so he said. Chelsea, as best I could tell, was somewhat of a band-aid. She had 5 or 6 kids back in California, and I found out that one of the little girls is, supposedly, a really great ice skater. I don't think she was an industrial-dance ice skater tho. I kind of watched the show out of the corner of my eye, but mostly talked to Craig and watched the guitar tech guy hit on that girl. At some point, Craig was like, "hey, you want to meet someone interesting?" I really had no idea what to expect, but sure, I like interesting people. So he pulls this guy back from inside, and "hey man, this is Burton; Burton, this is jim." It took me a minute, but then I asked, "wait... Burton C. Bell?" And, sure enough, it was the lead singer from Fear Factory. Well, shit, that was pretty cool. So I tried to get from him what he was doing there; the closest I could get for a while was that he was going to be singing some old stuff with Ministry. Eventually I finally got him to tell me just what he'd be singing. And, sure as hell, "Just One Fix." Bad. Ass.
I tried, for a little while to seem like I was sort of cool by mentioning that I'd bought the Remanufactured Fear Factory disc but that I'd bought it around the same time I got the first Gravity Kills record. I think that pretty much killed any chance I had of seeming cool. Oh well. Burton was nice enough to let me have a picture with him. Why do I do that tho?? I look like such a complete tool. Blah blah. So there was a short break in the set inside, and Burton took off. I took my post on the side of the door to try and get Just One Fix taped. I managed to get it although my position sucked, and I was drunk, so I kept shaking and zooming in and out WAY too much.
But it was cool... they were finally doing some older stuff... Stuff that I recognized. They played Just One Fix, N.W.O., and Thieves... all with Burton on lead vocals. He was definitely awesome, but isn't that super strange too? Farewell tour. Finally playing old stuff. And the one guy whose band this really was stops singing. It was all such an incredibly strange experience.
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When the show ended, I was standing just outside the door still watching things inside... Within seconds of the show being over a cadre of yellow-shirted strong guys started running through escorting Al into the waiting tour bus outside. They weren't overly rude, but they certainly weren't saying, "excuse me" or "please." So they rushed Al out to the bus, a few curious onlookers wandered over to stand around the bus, and I went inside to find Will. We were definitely too drunk to drive, so I was glad to be walking home... plus I walked out enough of the alcohol to drive us over to Jeff's Bucket Shop for the after party. Which was, perhaps, more fun than the concert itself. I'm definitely glad that I went, but I'm also definitely sure that I wouldn't ever pay $40 to do all that stuff again.
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Labels: concerts, music
100 Years of Solitude...
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More months ago than I would like to admit I was finishing Dave Eggers' brilliant What Is the What and found myself unsure of what I wanted to read next. At some point, however, I decided that I wanted to fall back into the way I felt when reading Camus or Dostoevsky or some of the more serious Vonnegut, but I was again stuck with where to go. The last time this happened, I tried to read Catch 22, but that just didn't fly at all... I still don't know why... C'est la vie.
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So I perused the internet for a while and tried to think of things I'd passed over in the past; eventually I stumbled upon 100 Years of Solitude over on Eliza's myspace page. Not too much time had passed since I had seen (and loved) Pan's Labyrinth and The Motorcycle Diaries, but despite having some erroneous perception of a connection between Italo Calvino and South America, I don't think I'd actually read anything from that part of the world.  Once the little brown B&N box arrived at work, I immediately cracked the thing open and dove in. The book opens with an anecdote about the first time one of the characters saw an ice cube. Which, in itself, isn't necessarily that fascinating, but the night before I had read a different account of the exact same situation in What Is the What. Which was strange. Both images of fascination with something seemingly so simple painted a brilliant picture of innocence, and the opening story framed within the flashback ("Many year later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.") also perfectly framed the rest of the story.
Forgive me... I'm reading again after looking up that quote. This also reminded/reminds me of Calvino's sign story from Cosmicomics:
"The world was so recent that many things lacked names, and in order to indicate them it was necessary to point."
I don't know if it was the tone or the rhythm or something else entirely, but despite the innocent and almost playful word choices describing this newly awakened culture, there was an undercurrent of disaster from page 1. I knew something was going to get fucked up. I knew something was going to be beautiful, and then it would be gone. But I continued reading. With no small about of trepidation as I was afraid this was going to turn into one of those books about loving families happy togetherness or something else that I just didn't quite grasp making it through the turmoil hinted at from the beginning. Thankfully I was wrong. This book really was about solitude. In lots of different ways. Many that, I'm sure, I don't understand yet and many that, I'm sure, I read into unintentional existence.
Lest I posture as a knowledgeable reviewer, I'd better hop back to my own experience. This book was really hard for me to read. The lack of a linear chronology really messed with my head. I like things to have a place. And I like for them to be there. The storyline suffered as a story "line," but now, in retrospect, I think I can see the novel as having been very episodic. Which makes me happy. (more on that later) I also had a lot of trouble with the names. With foreign names, I often just read over them... there's a sound in my head that means a certain character, and that works.  But, here, the names were all so incredibly similar to (if not exactly the same as) the names of other characters in the book, I quickly lost hold on who was who within the Buendia family. Which, really, is a shortcoming of my own, but still caused me some difficulty. I was trying so hard to put all of the pieces together as I read that I could rarely finish more than one chapter in a sitting. I felt utterly defeated by the world into which I was immersing myself, and it took its toll on me. For weeks at a time, the book would languish in the back seat of my car, on the coffee table, or tucked inside my computer bag. On more than one occasion I was inches away from giving up. I managed to push through... all the while holding onto my meekly backed assertions that this book was just crazy. Obviously I wasn't smart enough to get it, or this guy was just freaking nuts. (And I'm smart.......) I had gathered little to back up or change my world views, and I felt little to no emotional attachment to the characters. No one spilt their heart onto the page - almost everyone was portrayed from the outside, which made it very difficult to feel an empathetic bond. But as I closed in on the 50-pages-until-the-end mark, I became excited again. The story began to reveal itself, as did the characters. The language used to describe the states-of-being was beautiful, and it spoke to me. Finally, I connected with Ursula, and I felt her pain in me.
"She felt so old, so worn out, so far away from the best moments of her life that she even yearned for those that she remembered as the worst."
That's the first sentence I underlined through over 360 pages... and a few sentences later, I understood more clearly:
"The need to feel sad was becoming a vice as the years eroded her. She became human in her solitude."
I almost found my own emotions at that point. Sadly, the thing that really hit it for me showed up less than a score of pages from the end. The formerly vibrant and knowledgeable bookseller inserts himself into the story one last time in an effort to undo all he had done before.
Upset by two nostalgias facing each other like two mirrors, he lost his marvelous sense of unreality and he ended up recommending to all of them that they leave Macondo, that the forget everything he had taught them about the world and the human heart, that they shit on Horace, and that wherever they might be they always remember that the past was a lie, that memory has no return, that every spring gone by could never be recovered, and that the wildest and most tenacious love was an ephemeral truth in the end.
Ouch.
In many ways, I did not want to hear that. But in many ways, that is exactly what I was looking for. At the very least, he allows love to exist. He gives it a name. But then casts it down lowering its status to nothing more than, can I say it, dust in the wind. Oh, and I bought it. My pathetic sense of reality has had a need to let those ideas be truth. But what I really wanted to do was grab him by the throat and shake him until his broken heart found its missing pieces again. Yes, love is fleeting. But only insofar as life is fleeting. Everything exists only under the eye of the observer, and my love can only exist so long as I am here to feel it. Love can be and should be eternal within a lifetime, and those words on the page shoved a million tiny pins through my heart when I didn't immediately find that our bookseller had grown to be an ignorant ass. But it brought me back to myself too. This was the most poignant moment in the book for me; it really made me think about, you know, "stuff" instead of just trying to figure out the story. Bravo!
So what is left? The feeling... the prophecy... set forth from the beginning was coming to pass. The beautiful dream of Macondo was becoming nothing but a ravished piece of earth. The wind whipped down the streets, and the last of the Buendia line raged against the forces set against him before he was conceived. So I thought, "This is Shakespeare... this is Dallas... this is True Romance... let's pile the bodies and get this over with."  Then... on the last page, something changed. In just the blink of an eye, I understood what was happening. I understood what had happened, and I understood why it had to happen the way it did. Gabriel Garcia Marquez went from "overrated curiosity" to "absolute genius!" I can't even attempt to write what happened, but it is irrelevant. What matters is, I think, what it did to me, and I am so grateful that I didn't give up on this. That last moment of, "A-ha, mother fucker!" was worth it, and it made every other experience of reading the book ten times more meaningful.
Of course, we're all solitary to some extent. At the very least, we all die alone, and can you ever truly completely share a feeling? So we all live in solitude, but there are others of us who choose that solitude. And choose to embrace, expand, and deify solitude. And we are the ones who go absolutely completely insane. No man is an island. Jon Bon Jovi said that.
Last thing, then I'm out... Apparently GGM was a friend of Mr. Castro. He was only allowed to visit the United States on a limited Visa even after winning the Noble Prize for Literature. Americans sure are stuck in their ways. The ban, according to what I've found online, was finally lifted in the late 1990's by Bill Clinton.
Also, I stole all of these pictures and got some of my external information from this website
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Labels: _self, Books
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