Fluxblog Weeky #14: Veruca Salt, Wolf Alice, Georgia, and Hot Chip
So many shows! I'm almost at the end of a long streak of shows. I went to see Caribou and Sinkane play a free show at East River Park last night, but I didn't write about that one. (Not much to say, really.) There were two opening acts that I've written about in the past that I saw this week who were both excellent live – Charly Bliss and Museum of Love. You should look into them.
Also, I recommend checking out this amazing comic about Wendy and Lisa from Prince and The Revolution by Hazel Newlevant.
August 3rd, 2015
Ticking Like A Bomb
Veruca Salt @ Webster Hall 7/31/2015
Prince of Wales / I’m Taking Europe with Me / Black and Blonde / Straight / Laughing in the Sugar Bowl / Forsythia / All Hail Me / Empty Bottle / The Gospel According to Saint Me / Eyes On You / One Last Time / Volcano Girls / Don’t Make Me Prove It / Triage / Spiderman ’79 / Seether / Museum of Broken Relationships / Earthcrosser // Shutterbug / Shimmer Like A Girl / 25
The audience for this Veruca Salt show was the kind of audience you hope for when you see a rock show: visibly excited, intensely engaged, very physical, and singing along to even the brand new songs. To some extent, the people were just mirroring the band’s energy. Veruca Salt are the kind of band that make rock music look like the most fun thing you could possibly do, and they balance out that joy with a lot of darker emotions that allow for truly cathartic moments. The thing that really stands out in my mind is when they were playing “Shutterbug” and everyone around me – including myself – were just belting out the words at each other. I love this sort of thing, where it’s like we’re all performing our love of a song and connecting by mutually acknowledging that Louise singing “I can’t change / change / change” gets under our skin.
Veruca Salt “Black and Blonde”
I was so happy that people were so into the new Veruca Salt songs because I love them too, and it was nice to share that enthusiasm. You never know how this sort of thing will go – some audiences just go in and only want to see hits and zone out for the rest. (That definitely was the case when I saw The Smashing Pumpkins and U2 in the days leading up to this gig.) But it seems like the people who love this band are very excited about them being around now, and it’s not really a nostalgia thing. It looked like about 60% of the audience was women under 30, and I think for them, this is just an iconic band who’ve had a direct influence on a lot of the best rock music coming out over the past couple years. There’s a clear sense of continuity between what they were doing in the 90s, what they’re doing now, and what’s going on in indie music at this moment. But even if there’s other bands sorta like them these days, there’s certain things Veruca Salt bring to the table that the younger bands don’t really have. Nina and Louise have a lot more old school rock swagger, and I think that’s a combination of emulating the music they loved growing up, and just having way more experience as performers. Also, they’re not afraid of going BIG, and letting a song like “Black and Blonde” be the sort of towering sing-along anthem it ought to be. They don’t hold much back, and they kinda teach you to do the same.
Buy it from Amazon.
August 5th, 2015
This Will Be A Test
Georgia “Kombine”
“Kombine” is full of harsh, cold, clanging electronic tones, but the synth riff that opens the song is the best. The rest of the track exists in this sort of post-M.I.A. abrasive R&B zone, but that first bit is basically a sick metal riff played on a synth setting seemingly designed to induce terror and anxiety. When the track shifts into something a little more funky and less airtight, that queasy feeling remains. It’s an interesting tone for a song about sex – Georgia’s lyrics get a bit dark, but the sound of the track makes even the sweeter bits seem fraught with tension.
Buy it from Amazon.
August 4th, 2015
Dragging You Down To Hell
Wolf Alice @ Gramercy Park Hotel 8/3/2015
Fluffy / She / Your Love’s Whore / You’re A Germ / 90 Mile Beach / The Wonderwhy / Soapy Water / Lisbon / Storms / Bros / Blush / Giant Peach / Moaning Lisa Smile
This was some kind of industry showcase gig, so I don’t feel right writing about it as if it was a real show. Not because of the band – they were as good live as I’d hoped – but because they were playing to a room full of mostly rude and uninterested people. There were two women up at the front of the stage who were clearly having an amazing time and mouthing the words to every song, but I was cut off from them, and stuck near a group of obnoxious girls who were talking shit about those women because their enthusiasm was embarrassing to them, and they were ~concerned~ that they were bad for the band’s image. (Both of the excited women were overweight.) It was a room full of awful people, and every time I turned my head there were somehow more men and women wearing expensive fedoras. I feel bad for Wolf Alice, but they’re total pros, so they just played it without any apparent problem. I’m sure they’ve played to much worse crowds. I just want to see them play to a room full of people like those two excited women up front.
Wolf Alice “You’re A Germ”
I’ve spent a LOT of time with Wolf Alice’s music over the past month or so, and I love it more all the time. They have excellent range as a band – whereas a lot of other new rock bands seem to put all their eggs in one aesthetic basket, My Love Is Cool is eclectic but coherent. Their bread and butter is dynamic alt-rock, but the ballads and more atmospheric tracks are just as good and deepen the emotional dynamics of their record as a whole. But still, even in a year overflowing with excellent rock music, heavier songs like “You’re A Germ” and “Giant Peach” stand out as being both more raw and more elegantly crafted than the rest. This is where they really show off a mastery of dynamics, and make the songs feel as urgent and physical as a roller coaster ride. “You’re A Germ” in particular sounds like a Pixies song in which Black Francis is a woman and Kim Deal is a man – not simply because Ellie Rowsell is taking the lead, but because she screams out the chorus in a way that’s both totally unhinged and wryly theatrical.
Buy it from Amazon.
August 5th, 2015
This Will Be A Test
Georgia “Kombine”
“Kombine” is full of harsh, cold, clanging electronic tones, but the synth riff that opens the song is the best. The rest of the track exists in this sort of post-M.I.A. abrasive R&B zone, but that first bit is basically a sick metal riff played on a synth setting seemingly designed to induce terror and anxiety. When the track shifts into something a little more funky and less airtight, that queasy feeling remains. It’s an interesting tone for a song about sex – Georgia’s lyrics get a bit dark, but the sound of the track makes even the sweeter bits seem fraught with tension.
Buy it from Amazon.
August 6th, 2015
Is The Youth Just Getting Old
Hot Chip @ Webster Hall 8/5/2015
Huarache Lights / One Life Stand / Night & Day / Easy to Get -> Forever In My Life / Started Right / Flutes / Over and Over / Alley Cats / Cry for You / Need You Now / Ready For the Floor / I Feel Better // White Wine and Fried Chicken / And I Was A Boy From School / Dancing in the Dark -> All My Friends
Hot Chip “Huarache Lights”
When I learned that Hot Chip were playing a few shows in New York, I made a point of getting a ticket to the show that was on my birthday because it just made a lot of sense to see them play “Huarache Lights” on a day when I’d be inevitably forced to think a lot about my age. There’s a lot of things going in “Huarache Lights” both musically and thematically, but the aspect of it that really gets under my skin is the way Alexis Taylor sings about aging. It’s not about aging in an “oh my god, I’m soooooo old” way, but about the shifting of cultural context around you, and wondering where you and the things you love fit into things as a new wave of youth culture comes up behind you. He’s singing about this in relationship to being a DJ, and thinking about technology and the inevitability of obsolescence, and it somehow neutralizes its core anxiety with a cool, rational acceptance of change, and conviction that living in the moment is the only way to go.
So yes, dancing to this song was cathartic. Dancing to pretty much all of the set was cathartic! I really loved this show, and being in an audience full of people who were dancing and singing along with little self-consciousness made me feel more comfortable in my skin than I’ve felt in a long while. It was a very good decision to have this particular experience on that particular day.
Buy it from Amazon.