Our latest trek to La Sala Rossa was to see wonderkid, Zach Condon. We got out of the house a bit late tonight, so unfortunately we missed Alaska in Winter & Colleen. If I had known the former was playing, I would have made a better effort to get there early.

However, no complaints! La Sala Rossa had a strict curfew running tonight, so at 8:30 Zach walked on stage, followed by about 9 friends who happen to be extraordinary musicians. Things kicked off with “The Penalty” and continued with one beautiful melody after another. The crowd response was amazing (as I’m finding a lot at this venue); silent when they needed to be, and very loud when the songs were sung.

Before the band could even leave the stage, the crowd was stomping like hell for them to stay. They didn’t make us wait long and performed an encore to remember. We snagged the setlist from the stage and saw that the only word for the encore was “Gulag”. Awesome enough on it’s own, but they came back with “Postcards From Italy” first. Then, after “Gulag Orkestar”, when it looked like the show was over, one of the members motioned to the crowd to open up a bit, you know, just enough to fit a 10 piece band with numerous big brass instruments. They finished the night with a cover of Kocani Orkestar’s “Siki Siki Baba”, dancing and weaving through the crowd right next to us. A surreal ending, to say the least.

Now, if only I had tickets for tomorrow night (If anyone has them, please comment).

Mp3’s

1. The Penalty
2. Brandenburg
3. Nantes
4. Forks and Knives (La Fête)
5. Scenic World
6. A Sunday Smile
7. Elephant Gun
8. (Banter & False Start)
9. Cherbourg
10. Mount Wroclai
11. In The Masoleum
12. Cocek
13. Closing Song
14. After The Curtain
15. Postcards From Italy
16. The Gulag Orkestar
17. Siki Siki Baba (Kocani Orkestar Cover)

I’m not positive on a couple song names, but that’s as they were on the setlist.

It takes a while to upload the videos, so here’s a sample of what we got.

The Penalty

Nantes

This will be a quick post. I attended the Andrew Bird show last Wednesday at Le Tulipe. Andrew’s vocals were strong, and the show was phenomenal, even though I wasn’t in the mood to be there. Here is the show, sans the encore. ryantheduke and I are heading to Beirut, expect that show up here tomorrow. As for the Okkervil River videos, don’t hold your breath, they are pretty dark and will need some touching up.

Andrew Bird Live @ Le Tulipe 2007.09.25

1. Intro
2. Fiery Crash
3. Opposite Day
4. Nervous Tic Motion Of The Head To The Left
5. Why
6. Spare-Ohs
7. The Story of Spare-Ohs
8. Plasticities
9. Tenuous (new song)
10. Simple X
11. Imitosis
12. Armchair
13. Dr Strings/Fake Palindromes
14. Skin Is, My
15. Scythian Empires

I might have these labeled wrong, if I did, please send me a nasty email about it.

(Edited to add: We have a few good videos of Andrew Bird. They will be up in good time.)

The Sala Rossa feels like a second home these days and this weekend I shared my second home with Damien Jurado and Okkervil River. I heard Dukes of the Archipelago were there too, but I only got to see them leave. Damien Jurado’s opening performance was breathtaking. His songs tell sad stories. So sad that my girlfriend was almost in tears. I was blown away. ryantheduke had this to say (which is far more articulate than what I’m saying)……

Back in the Napster days, when I was downloading at 4.8kbps, I was focused more on individual songs than on albums. I would get obsessed with many songs, many that would now make me cringe, but some that had a real long lasting appeal. “Ohio” by Damien Jurado fits in here. I’ll say with no doubt, that this is one of my favourite songs out there. The lyrics are simple and the delivery very sincere. A combination that reminds me of a young Dylan performing “Moonshiner”. I was excited as hell when I saw that Damien Jurado was opening for Okkervil River. I picked up a record of his a while back, but for the most part, “Ohio” was the only thing I knew. Luckily, we got to hear a stunning version of the song last night as well as a number of other great folk songs.

Okkervil River took the stage around 11PM. Between them and their many instruments, there was just enough room for Will Sheff to shake and dance the emotion out of his body and feed it to the hungry crowd. My girlfriend pointed out to me a few times before the show, that some songs on The Stage Names and Black Sheep Boy bored her, and to some extent I understood where she was coming from. Songs like “Another Radio Song”, “Plus One”, and “A Hand To Take Hold of the Scene” come across stronger live than their produced album counterparts. The highlight of the show was the encore, it was solid, and at this point you could notice the band feeding off the crowds energy. Will sang “A Stone” with so much passion and power it was like nothing I’ve seen before. The last song “Westfall”, one that is a bit of a snoozer on the album, was the song of the night. Hopefully you can catch these guys live, tour dates are here.

So, without further ado here are the mp3’s, enjoy! (The footage will follow soon, so check back!)

Damien Jurado

• Ohio (Highly Recommended)
  

Okkervil River

1. Plus Ones
2. Lady Liberty
3. No Key, No Plan
4. The Latest Toughs
5. Girl in Port
6. Song of Our So-Called Friend
7. A Hand To Take Hold of the Scene
8. Unless It’s Kicks
9. Black
10. So Come Back, I’m Waiting
11. Our Life is Not A Movie or Maybe
12. For Real
13. John Allyn Smith Sails
14. A Stone
15. Okkervil River Song
16. Another Radio Song
17. Westfall

It’s sad to say, but a Ryan Adams show is a big gamble these days. You can really never tell what you’re gonna get. It could start off really strong and then he could have a minor meltdown and storm off stage. As much as I love the guy, he sure can piss me off sometimes. The first time I saw him, he was just starting to tour for the Cold Roses album. That night in Toronto was one of those bad nights. Ryan & the Cardinals came on stage, launched into this new song, I hadn’t heard called “Magnolia Mountain”. Wow. It looked like we were on our way to a mindblowing show. Well, shortly after that, Ryan finished his first bottle of wine. Then some aborted songs followed, lots of sound problems and tuning, then bitching at the audience (if you are a fan of Ryan’s this must sound very familiar). Although, through the lows, he could still bust out a great tune, it wasn’t enough to salvage the night. So that was my introduction to Ryan Adams shows.

Fast forward to Wednesday night. I have been seeing and hearing all these stellar acoustic sets lately, so I was prepared for a great, if a bit static, show. Couple that with the fact that Ryan recently kicked his habits, I figured it was a sure thing. Then I hear that the previous show in Portland, Ryan had another one of those bad nights. So, I started to prepare myself for something different.

We were lucky. The crowd was very respectful in Montreal and Ryan kept mentioning that he loves the city. He had spent a couple days there, so maybe that alone put him in a good mood. I don’t care what did it, He and the Cardinals put on an amazing show. Like I said, I was expecting an Acoustic set, but there wasn’t an acoustic guitar to be seen. All rock tonight. I won’t go in to song-by-song reviews, cause it would get too long, but my highlights were Off Broadway, Dear John, I See Monsters, Silvia Plath and Cold Roses. Those 5 were simply breathtaking, which is not to take anything at all away from the rest of the show.

Ryan was very talkative all night, and was very happy to be there. He and the band joked a lot… definitely the best stage banter I’ve seen in a while. I couldn’t be happier with the show. The only bummer was the security goon staring holes in us the whole time… He caught us early with the camera and didn’t take his eyes off us, so we got nothin’. HOWEVER!! A very great man named Bill got a perfect soundboard recording. I have encoded it with high quality VBR to lessen quality loss. Enjoy!!

1. Please Do Not Let Me Go
2. Peaceful Valley
3. Beautiful Sorta
4. Wildflowers
5. Off Broadway
6. Dear John
7. Goodnight Rose
8. Blue Hotel
9. Mockingbird
10.Magnolia Mountain
11.Shakedown on 9th Street
12.I See Monsters
-Encore 1-
13.SYLVIA PLATH (Ryan solo piano)
14.Sweet Lil’ Gal (Ryan solo piano)
15.Rescue Blues (Ryan piano)
16.Dear Chicago
17.Cold Roses
18.Games
-Encore 2-
19.Nightbirds
20.Goodnight Hollywood Boulevard
-Encore 3-
21.Easy Plateau

Click the link below for some videos from the Yahoo! live set. Great stuff.

Continue Reading »

Just a small update. We just spent our unborn children’s money to ensure that we bring you the best coverage possible of the Springsteen show at Ottawa’s Scotiabank Place on October 14th. Be sure to check back with us for videos and mp3s.

That was the best last minute decision I ever made.

His upcoming album, Magic, is certainly not his best, and there is some filler, but also a handful of classics. Here is one of those.

mp3: Bruce Springsteen - Terry’s Song (from Magic)

edited to add: Brock and I are not lovers, as much as that first sentence would lead you to believe.

Some things I’ve been obsessed with or amused by in the past few days:

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Beirut has been working closely with Vincent Moon of Blogotheque to create some beautiful videos, all in anticipation of their new album, The Flying Club Cup. In fact, if you go to www.flyingclubcup.com you will see that they will eventually have the whole album in these great little videos (there are 2 right now). “Nantes” is the opening track on the new album, and what a way to start it. Check out the video on that site of them walking down the stairs in his old apartment building in Brooklyn. The song builds and they descend to the basement… It’s beautiful. Then be sure to head over to the take away show from a few months ago.

mp3: “Nantes” from The Flying Club Cup.

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We are working on putting up a concert calendar, to give you an idea of the audio and video we have upcoming to the site. But until then, I’ll tell you, this month we have Ryan Adams, Okkervil River/Damien Jurado & Beirut (maybe a couple times), and likely more from Farley Flex.

I’ve been on a steady diet of Ryan Adams for about 4 months or so now. In my opinion, Easy Tiger is his best work since Love Is Hell. And well, Wednesday can’t come fast enough. I saw him a couple years ago in Toronto, but the show was hampered by the fact that Ryan was drunk as a skunk.. a drunken skunk. But now a sober version of Ryan Adams is consistently putting on amazing shows. You can hear those for yourself at Archive.org. The people at ryanadamsarchive.com are working on putting every show there, so.. well, I need some new hard drives. Don’t miss the torrent section of the Ryan Adams Archive, there are a few new dvds there.

mp3: “Carolina Rain (Live)” from South Burlington, VT 06.24.07

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Bob Dylan actually wrote every popular song from the past 30 years. Don’t believe me? Heres the proof!

The Osheaga weekend is over, the dust has cleared, and there were no cheese fights. I was so lucky to have scored free tickets for the Saturday show, my day of choice of the 2 (Thanks again Nancy). We got there during the start of The Editors set, they were my favorites of the day. I love their energy and their raw power. Next up, was the The Veils. The Veils, according to my Osheaga itinerary are from Auckland, New Zealand. These guys held their own, and are worthy of checking out. “Nux Vomica” is the name of their new album, and Brooklyn Vegan has a lot more to say about them here.

Back over to the main stage to check out Blonde Redhead. I love Kazu Makino’s voice, she has such a different style that works so well with the rest of the band. Their setlist was mostly tracks from their new album “23″, my only complaint was that Kazu’s perfectly soft voice was a little low in the mix, and the guitar was too high (see common problem for sound engineers).

I needed food badly. When I finished eating, my girlfriend and I checked out some booths selling clothes, jewelry, art, etc. The artist that caught my eye was Mark at Broundoor. All his stuff is made out of recycled…things! His style is so clean, and interesting, I couldn’t leave without picking up a bracelet and photo album made out of his friends fathers shed door.

Stars were next, they were great, a little bumbly on stage. You’ll notice what I mean if you watch closely, some of them are bumping into one another. The music however was great, and what I expected from Stars. Then Feist took the stage. I had a hard time finding a place to get a good look at Feist, and I like looking at Feist. She was fun, and cute and had the crowd singing along. This was my girlfriend’s highlight.

Yet another walk over to the Sirius stage were Montreal locals CPG Gangbangs were playing. I wasn’t into them. Explosions In The Sky started before the Pumpkins so I ran over to check them out. I heard great some great reviews about them and they delivered. Their narratively styled instrumentals can really take you away, almost trance inducing. I wish I had caught more of them, because the Pumpkins didn’t deliver.

I guess I’m not really much of a Smashing Pumpkins fan, though I loved Gish, Siamese Dream, Pisces Iscariot, and Mellon Collie. But then, maybe I awoke from Infinite Sadness and smelled the pretentiousness of Billy Corgan. Most of what I wanted to hear wasn’t played, and stuff I never heard before was played.. poorly. When I got back home I quickly fired up http://oink.cd and downloaded all the Smashing Pumpkins tracks I hadn’t heard that night. Fuck you Billy Corgan.

Now, after all that reading, let’s watch and listen.

Watch

The Editors - Escape The Nest

The Editors - Fingers In Factories

The Veils - Calliope

The Veils - State Trooper (Springsteen Cover)

Blonde Redhead - Dr. Strangeluv

Stars - Elevator Love Letter

Stars - Reunion

Feist - Past In Present

Explosions In The Sky

Smashing Pumpkins - Tonight, Tonight

Smashing Pumpkins - Today

Listen

• Blonde Redhead - 23

• Blonde Redhead - Dr. Strangeluv

• Explosions In The Sky

• Feist - My Man My Moon

• Feist - Past In Present

• Smashing Pumpkins - Tonight, Tonight

• Smashing Pumpkins - Today

• Stars - Elevator Love Song

• Stars - Reunion

• The Editors - Escape The Nest

• The Editors - Fingers In Factories

• The Veils - Calliope

• The Veils - State Trooper

This summer in Ottawa, we were treated to a mind-blowing Bluesfest lineup that included amazing acts such as Bob Dylan, Van Morrison & The White Stripes. Naturally, I was very eager to see these acts, but at the same time, there were numerous artists, unknown to me, that I wanted to check out. At the top of this list was Todd Snider. I had heard talk of him for years. Being a Dylan nut, frequenting message boards, you get to know a lot of people’s favourite songwriters, and because of this I was introduced to many new artists. However, sometimes I was so busy listening to Dylan, some artists went under the table in my “listen to at some point in your life” pile. And here sat Todd. I always knew I’d get around to him someday, but it took seeing him live to hurry my ass up.

To get an idea of his sound, picture John Prine and Robert Earl Keen, now put them in a blender and add a dash of Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark (The grandfathers of this good shit we call alt-country). From the moment he took the stage and spoke, he was completely captivating. Between his songs and fantastic stories, it’s hard to say which I enjoyed more. Though it shouldn’t be looked at like that. His stories usually flow seamlessly in and out of his songs, so it’s a perfect relationship for a great live experience.

I’m not gonna post a full set, but I do have some great selections and a video to show you what a great storyteller, songwriter and entertainer he is.

Listen

• Story Intro ..to.. The Ballad of the Devil’s Backbone Tavern

• Story Intro ..to.. Statistician’s Blues

• Talkin’ Seattle Grunge Rock Blues
  

and from a different show..

• Incarcerated
  

Watch

Ballad of the Kingsmen

(Semi-Related Note: On the list of bands I’ve been meaning to give a listen to is “The Editors”. Mr. Farley Flex will soon have a post up about Osheaga, and judging by the 2 songs he grabbed, I’d say they must have been the highlight of the festival. Methinks I’m way too late in giving them a chance. I just ordered their new album, and you can TOO!)

Wow, not much going on here at Trendwhore that last couple of days. ryantheduke is back at school and I’m lining up the fall concert schedule. Today, I’d like to introduce you to a band that I have fallen in love with over the past couple of months, Los Campesinos. If you haven’t heard of these guys yet, they are a 7 piece band from Wales and they offer the best indie pop I’ve heard in ages, and I challenge you to prove me wrong! Back in 2006 you might have seen these guys open for a small time group Broken Social Scene. Yesterday I got the You! Me! Dancing! 7″ and We Throw Parties You Throw Knives 7″ from www.recordstore.co.uk and low and behold You! Me! Dancing! was signed! If you are looking to buy more Los Campesinos (which is Spanish for ‘The Farmers’) look here, here, here, or here. One of Montreal’s up and coming artists sent me a link to the following video. Also check out this other video and these deadly MP3’s for your new little fancy touch screen IPods.

Los Campesinos - You! Me! Dancing!

Los Campesinos - We Throw Parties You Throw Knives

MP3

Sorry for the lack of posts, folks. I meant to get something up this weekend (no penis jokes), but a last hoorah of drinking before school starts got in the way.

Tonight on the menu is an old Modest Mouse show. If you are a fan of the band, you have no doubt heard from the music snobs that they have done no good since before “The Moon & Antarctica” was released. This is an attitude that, unfortunately, many people have adopted. The truth is, “The Moon & Antarctica” is a fantastic album that shouldn’t be slagged, and “Good News For People Who Love Bad News” is mostly very good, but the latest release “We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank” came out a bit flat. It was with the popularity that fans of the “old” Modest Mouse came out screaming foul. I still laugh at some of them listening to “Float On” and just tearing their hair out. The band just put a different spin on their songs. Instead of 8 minutes of jamming and screaming, they took a more refined approach, which certainly gained them more fans than they lost. So who is to say they were wrong?

My position? I’m definitely more a fan of the older version of the band, but I really don’t hate the new stuff. One critique I do have is that Johnny Marr doesn’t really add anything to the new album, and after seeing them live, I would have to say he hinders the live performance. He should have focused his efforts on getting Morrissey to reunite The Smiths instead.

With that debate out of the way, here’s a great old show. It’s a soundboard recording.

Modest Mouse - Seattle, Wash 09.21.98

1. Cowboy Dan
2. Broke
3. Dark Center Of The Universe
4. Night On The Sun
5. Trailer Trash
6. Grey Ice Water
7. Doin’ The Cockroach