Thursday, March 31, 2011

Been Awhile


Hey! Been awhile since i had time to post here but it's not that i haven't been THINKING about posting. At a certain point so many things happen that i MEANT to post about that then it just seems too overwhelming to try to write about it all so maybe i'll just skip some stuff. Went to Austin for SXSW and saw some great bands. In addition to the excellent Merge artists that were all over town (Wild Flag, Wye Oak, Telekinesis, Apex Manor, cool trio version of American Music Club, Times New Viking & Versus...Jenn of Wye Oak & Mark Eitzel pictured above backstage at the Parish) that week, i managed to squeeze in some Yuck, Edwyn Collins, The Obits, OFF! and The Barreracudas (reminded me of the Chesterfield Kings). All good stuff. Still missed tons of stuff i would have liked to have seen incl Black Lips, Ted Leo solo gigs galore and Sharon Van Etten who i have yet to see live. Also had an incredible meal at Uchiko. Sushi in Texas? Yes, and more.

Somehow Austin manages to be fun despite the fact that when you leave that inspired set you just saw to close out the night at some sweaty club, you emerge to thousands of drunk idiots dropping their pizza in the street to the sound of someone freestyling to a digeridoo and some bongos that are strapped to a dog on a rope leash at 2 AM. The 6th St situation at this point is so terrible (yet somehow unavoidable, though i did steer clear for the most part) i'm not even going to check my spelling on digeridoo.

Cold and raining once again here in NC but hey it'll be 90 degrees here soon enough...

Listening this week:

V/A - The Sound of Philadelphia (Soul Jazz)
Yo La Tengo - President / New Wave Hot Dogs / Painful
Yaz - Upstairs at Eric's
American Music Club - California / Mercury
Tortoise - Beacons of Ancestorship
Fridge - The Sun
The Verlaines - Some Disenchanted Evening
Nick Cave - No More Shall We Part
Mal Waldron - Left Alone
Prince - Controversy (insane show at the RBC Center last week, too)
Jimmy Webb - Archive
The Zero Boys - Vicious Circle

been reading We Got the Neutron Bomb which means i have to dig out my Dangerhouse comp...

last and semi-least, we have a limited number of Majesty Shredding-themed tote bags for sale featuring the "Tube Guy" that graces our backdrop over at the Merge Store!

Monday, March 14, 2011

Popular Venues


played our hometown Cats Cradle as well as a pair of shows in the cozy confines of Radio City Music Hall last week.... good times at all shows for us, the crowd at the Cradle was raucous and we played one of our longer sets ever there, tightening it up considerably for our 40-min slots at RCMH between Wild Flag and Bright Eyes. here's lists from all that!

CATS CRADLE 3/4/11:

Surf
My Gap
Detroit
Cursed Mirror
Rope Light
Rosemarie
Silver Leaf and Snowy Tears
The Question is How Fast
Breadman
Crossed Wires
Digging For Something
Driveway To Driveway
First Part
Martinis on the Roof
Slack
Everything at Once
//
Like a Fool
Hyper Enough
Where Eagles Dare
//
Punch Me Harder
Cast Iron
Precision Auto
Throwing Things

PHOTOS & review at TRIANGLE MUSIC

RADIO CITY 3/8
Learned to Surf
Crossed Wires
Detroit
Seed Toss
My Gap Feels Weird
Like a Fool
Hello Hawk
Digging
Slack

RADIO CITY 3/9
Slack
My Gap Feels Weird
Crossed Wires
For Tension
Skip Steps
Rosemarie
Digging for Something
Driveway to Driveway
The First Part
Hyper Enough

soon after returning from NYC we got news of the terrible quake and tsunami that hit northern Japan. even for a country that gets a lot of earthquakes, this is beyond anything in recent memory and there's a lot of devastation -- please help if you can!