[DID NOT ATTEND: November 11, 2023] Spiritualized [moved from September 23, 2022]
Last year when Spiritualized came around, I wrote
I wasn’t entirely sure that I wanted to see Spiritualized live. I really like their album Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space. But I wasn’t sure how well they would translate live. But I read some rave reviews of their live show, so I grabbed a ticket.
This year I forgot that those shows had been cancelled and thought that maybe they were just back again pretty quickly.
I didn’t buy tickets for this show. I haven’t heard anything about the show either.
This was my fourth show in four nights and I was surpirsed how little it had caught up with me. I was fortunate in that most of the shows were fairly short. And this one promised to be super short.
There was no opening act, so despite a 15 minute soundcheck and setup delay, the show still ended by 9:30, which was perfect.
So, who is Isiliel? She is Himari Tsukishiro who is the main singer in the Japanese band Necronomidol. As her site puts it
Isiliel is a solo dance/vocal project by Himari Tsukishiro (NECRONOMIDOL).
Mixing genres as diverse as folk, blackgaze and city pop via a worldwide team of veteran songwriters such as King Dude and NARASAKI of COALTAR OF THE DEEPERS, through Isiliel Himari will express hitherto unexplored depths of pathos and beauty on stage.
As Isiliel, she has one album out. It is, as implied, a heavy metal sounding album, with heavy guitars and a lot of double bass. But she does not sing like a heavy metal singer. Her delivery is quiet and slow (and it’s in Japanese).
I hadn’t heard of either her or her main band until about a week before this show was announced. But when I saw what Necronomidol looked like, I wanted to go to this show too. It turned out she has some real fans in Philly. The audience was probably about 30 people, but the show had about a week’s notice. And several of these fans brought identical small red lanterns which they waved in time to the beat (I asked the merch guy if he was selling them and he said no–they brought them in!) (more…)
[DID NOT ATTEND: November 10, 2023] Ty Segall / Charles Moothouse
Last year, about a Ty Segall show that I missed, I wrote:
I have become a fan of Ty Segall in the last few years. He releases far too much music to keep tabs on him, but I’ve wanted to see his fuzzed out live show for a while now.
When I finally do get to see Ty Segall, I want it to be with a big noisy fuzzy band, not as an acoustic performer.
So, I opted to give this one a miss. Wonder if I’ll regret it someday.
Well, it’s a year or so later and he’s back with a solo show in New Jersey and I feel the same way. Luckily, I’m going to see him (I assume with a band) in April in Philly.
I went to high school with someone named Mike Donovan. When I saw that this Mike Donovan was roughly the same age as me I wondered if it could be him. But this one is from San Francisco. He is “best known” as the guitarist and singer of Sic Alps (2004-2013).
He has a few solo albums that are kind of sloppy anti-folk. Probably okay live but I’ll never listen to him on purpose.
[DID NOT ATTEND: November 10, 2023] Nation of Language / Miss Grit
I heard about this show because I follow Miss Grit. I has seen her open for someone a while back and really enjoyed her show. She had not yet even released an album, so I was curious to see how much better she was.
I thought I knew Nation of Language. I even had a generally favorable idea of them.
But when I listened to them before buying tickets for the show, I realized that I didn’t really like them all that much. They are very new wave synthy, which is fine. But it wasn’t anything I needed to see.
So I’m bummed to miss Miss Grit whose playlist was probably something like this:
Perfect Blue
Your Eyes Are Mine
Nothing’s Wrong
Lain (phone clone)
Follow the Cyborg
saibogeuleul ttalawa
Like You
Syncing
Interestingly, Nation of Language’s opening acts were all great and I would happily see a show with all three of them together: Miss Grit, Gustaf and Reggie Watts!
[DID NOT ATTEND: November 9, 2023] Blonde Redhead / Marnie Stern
When Blonde Redhead announced that they were playing Union Transfer I was pretty excited. I hadn’t listened to them in a long time, but I remember really liking them. I assumed that they’d been broken up and had reunited for this tour. But it turns out that they’ve either never broken up or have gotten back together after a hiatus in 2014. Or something.
I listened to the new record. And then I listened to the old records and I realized that I didn’t know them very well at all. I must have been really into them for a very short time.
Since there’s already a ton of bands that I want to see, I didn’t want to spend a night out on a band I THOUGHT I liked.
So I stayed home.
Marnie Stern is guitar god. I had heard about her shredding skills, but wasn’t really aware of her music. Then she got a gig playing guitar as part of the Late Night with Seth Meyers band. She literally never did anything interesting on the show. Which is not to say she was bad–she was a fine part of the band, but I couldn’t believe that she was the person everyone raved about because she was so still and quiet.
Now she’s back with a new album. It’s pretty out there. I wonder what she’s like live.
[DID NOT ATTEND: November 9, 2023] My Morning Jacket / Madi Diaz
When Yeah Yeah Yeahs first came on the scene, I wasn’t impressed. They were overhyped and didn’t really do anything that amazing.
I realize now that Karen O is a figurehead of incredible importance. And, I found their new album to be really great.
When this show was announced I was willing to hand in my mea culpas and see them live. But it was at the Met Philly which I have really come to dislike (the crowds always suck). And, the GA tickets were crazy expensive and were only VIP or something. So, the heck with that.
I’ll never know how great they are.
Although Markit Aneight did record the whole show (see below).
When I saw that Sasami was the opening act it reinvigorated my desire to go. I am really intrigued by Sasami and would love to see her live. I could have gone to see her last year but wound up going to see Grandson with my son instead (which was awesome).
She’s a singer songwriter playing around with all kinds of genres and defying all expectations. I hope to see her someday.
Back in the 1990s I really liked Tortoise. I was especially fond of Millions Now Living Wil Never Die. But as they released more instrumentals, (all of the songs are instrumentals–more or less), they veered more into a jazz and lite-jazz field. I didn’t mind it all that much at the time but I definitely listened to them a lot less.
I didn’t even realize they were still an ongoing concern (their last album came out in 2016). When this show was announced I was intrigued. I knew my friend Lar had experiences with them (good and bad), but his description of both shows was enough to make me think I should check this show out.
It turns out they haven’t been to Philly since 2016, so this seemed like a reasonable enough reason to check them out. I mean, even if the songs were jazzy, the musicianship would be excellent.
I was pretty excited to get their early enough to be on the railing. So I could see everything perfectly. Well, except that there were two drum kits right in front of the stage. Which was awesome, but did tend to block my view of the vibes.
Yes, vibes. There were actually two sets of vibes on stage. One must have been electronic (I was right in front of it and couldn’t see what it was), while the other was across the stage. (more…)
Basic is a trio comprised of Chris Forsyth and Nick Millevoi on guitars and Mikel Patrick Avery on drums.
When I found out that Chris Forsyth would be opening this show for Tortoise, it pushed me into the “I gotta go” category. I knew that whatever it sounded like, I would enjoy it.
I sat near Millevoi, who I didn’t know–he’s a Philly guitarist in Desertion Trio who has released a bunch of solo stuff as well. For the first song he was pretty quiet while Chris Forsyth soloed. But for the second song he played a lot more loudly. He seemed to be the low end–paying riffs and chords while Forsyth was the high notes.
The only problem for me was that Millevoi’s guitar was pretty loud and we were standing in front of his amp, so it made Forsyth’s solos a little hard to hear.
Avery had a tiny bass drum that he hit with a mallet. On it was a kind of woodblock, which he hit with a plastic mallet. That’s all he had. Millevoi often started a drum machine as he started playing so technically Avery didn’t have a lot to do, but seeing and hearing him add bass drum was a nice touch. Avery also played with some electronics on a table near him.
They played five songs. The first three were about ten minutes each. The fourth one was a little shorter, and when I assumed they’d be finishing up around 8:45, at 8:40 they started a new song which took them to a full fifty minutes of jazzy guitar improv.
It was pretty great. Catchy and fun and interesting to watch these three dudes jam with each other.
They didn’t introduces songs so I have no idea what they played. In fact the only words spoken their whole set were at the end when Chris said, “that was Basic.”
I saw Fievel is Glauque open for Stereolab and really enjoyed them.
Fievel is Glaque is the duo of American keyboardist Zach Phillips and Belgian singer Ma Clément. They played a weird jazzy alt rock. The songs were mostly just over a minute long. And Clément sang in a French-inflected English that was really quite lovely. They were practically like the anti-Stereolab. Like if Stereolab had a younger, brattier cousin.
The audience during their set was terrible, so it might have ben fun to see them.
I hadn’t gotten a ticket, but when I went to check on the show a few weeks ago, I saw that the whole tour (which was like four shows) was cancelled.
There was no explanation. And, in fact their socials had been quiet until very recently.
[DID NOT ATTEND: November 7, 2023] Jeff Tweedy with Seth Meyers
Usually any show with Jeff Tweedy is one I want to go to. For one reason or another I wasn’t really feeling the need to see Jeff Tweedy read from his book.
Ironically I just finished listening to his first book (on audio with Tweedy reading) and loved it. So, really there’s no reason I shouldn’t have gone.
Later on, when I found out that he was going to be interviewed by Seth Meyers, my personal choice for Late Night hijinks, I was really bummed that I didn’t get a ticket. By then it was sold out.
I guess I didn’t realize it would be a kind of fun night of q and a and reading or whatever.
Oh well.
I did get to go to Isiliel that night, so it’s all good.
That night or the night before or earlier that day (who knows) Jeff was on Seth’s TV show. I wonder if they talked about the same things in Jersey City as they did in NYC.
Last year when Spiritualized came around, I wrote
I Just Read About That... 