2007 has been a bad year for punk rock. Its seems punk rock is something that is bought and sold these days, and usually you can get good deal at Hot Topic. The Thermals are a breath of fresh air for punk rock. This trio from Portland, Oregon has done so much with so little. Far too many times these days you see bands with needless instruments trying to be the next Beirut or Arcade Fire. You don’t need much to make great music, case in point with The Thermals. From a distance, the band is nothing more than a bass, a guitar and a set of drums but come together to make some of the best punk rock of this century (its only 8 years in mind you). Before the demise of Oink I was lucky to grab More Parts Per Million and The Body, The Blood, The Machine, both of which I’ve been listening to daily as I pound keyboards at my day job. I convinced a friend of mine to tag along, partly because I thought she’d enjoy the show and partly because I owed her some money (now less 12 dollars). She had this to say,
I was slightly coerced into going to see The Thermals yesterday evening, but it was without regret. The three piece band somehow took me back to my youth with their music. When they played it kind of felt like a “fuck you teenage band” but in a good way because it was a mature “fuck you teenage band”. I rocked out and danced while Roberachi filmed and mouthed the words to the songs. I felt that The Thermals gave their all, which is all that one can ask for. And wow, are girl bassists ever hot!
I think her review pretty much sums up the entire show, simple and to the point. Also, for those wondering, Roberachi is another alias of mine. Now please open your ears and eyes to The Thermals.
I had a really great weekend (for those wondering). I celebrated my 25th year of being alive. Shit, I’m old. OK, enough thinking about that, today I have an old show from my archives. Modest Mouse, live at the Metropolis back in April (04.25.2007 to be exact). Man Man opened that night, but unfortunately I only got to catch the last song of their set. This tour is still going across North America (with Love As Laughter).
This was back in the day of my 1Gb card so I had to pick and choose songs (those where hard times). I remember that this show didn’t have the great acoustics I had come to expect of Metropolis shows. I also remember that Johnny Marr didn’t bring much to the show, except maybe some out of key backing vocals. However, Dan Boeckner (of Wolf Parade) came out played during Dramamine which made the show, in my opinion.
Also, stay tuned for full coverage of The Thermals from Sala Rossa last night…it was fantastic! Anyway, the MP3’s are linked above, but if you want to see the video (and you do) you’ll have to…… Continue Reading »
My concert schedule has cleared up a little bit, and truthfully, it’s a welcome break. There’s nothing I’d rather spend my money on, but well, I need money to spend on it. So, to entertain you, our lovely oink-less readers looking for new places to download high quality material, I have dipped into my archives. I’ve been on a steady diet of Bruce since the show last weekend, and though the show was mind-blowing, I keep hearing friends talk about how good his tours were “back in the day”. Which got me thinking about my favourite tours of all time… Now, most of my list would be dominated by Dylan (’66, ‘75, ‘80, Fall ‘02), but if those were my top 4, Bruce would fit in the top 5 with his Ghost of Tom Joad Tour, which spanned from ‘95 to ‘97. These shows were mostly all solo Bruce, and the tour produced some of the finest audience recordings I have ever heard, and this one must be at the top of the list.
The show I have for you here comes from the Brixton Academy in London. If you prefer Nebraska-era Bruce, this is an absolute must hear.
(Note: If you are using firefox, to make the download process MUCH easier, get the DownThemAll add-on.)
We are pretty late updating this week, ryantheduke has been busy with school and I’m just not picking up the slack like last week. I took an impromptu trip to Ottawa on Friday to check out The Jimmy Swift Band at Mavericks. If you have ever heard of JSB, they are a jam band with a heavy mix house music. It was a good show for the 70 intense fans that showed. My footage was shit so I got nothing.
Since it was the Dukes sister’s Birthday weekend, my girlfriend and I chilled til Sunday so we could take in Wintersleep at Barrymore’s on Saturday night. Great show and great venue. If you are in Ottawa and have a chance to see this place, do it, even if Hedley are playing! Barrymore’s has a western showroom style with giant mirrors on each side, making it easy to see the band and giving the illusion that the venue is massive. Wintersleep has a great sound and Paul Murphy’s voice is very haunting. I’ve been listening to the new album, “Welcome To The Night Sky” for a couple of days now, the middle section has a some filler but the beginning and end are solid.
I got the track titles from Wintersleeps tour manager, so if you want to see (most) of the show just Continue Reading »
The last 2 days have been a roaring success for Trendwhore, we were mentioned in Spin, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, and Pitchfork. ABC emailed for permission to use our video footage on a program called “What’s The Buzz”, how cool is that? Well, now that the hype is over, its back to doing what we do best, poorly written reviews and shaky footage. Today I have coverage from the Spoon show at Le National last night. They were great, but I believe in my heart of hearts the show could have been better. Britt Daniel mentions that this wasn’t their best show before coming out for the encore, however the crowd were hot all night. The set list was a good mix of their back catalog (which is massive) with their new. I was crossing my fingers for “Japanese Cigarette Case” and “Sister Jack” but no dice. My girlfriend had a blast and noticed that most songs (especially the new) where played much faster live (see “The Underdog” and “Don’t You Evah”). The Ponys opened, but I only caught their last 2 songs which was enough persuasion for me to pick up both “Turn The Lights Out” and “Celebration Castle” LPs. Check them here!
I got the entire set, however I’m missing some the titles. (thanks Matt). Heres the MP3s, but before I go, I would like to give a “You’re welcome!” to Stereogum
Sunday night was amazing. As a casual Springsteen listener I was hesitant to shell out $120 for Bruce tickets, mainly due to the increase in shows I’ve taken in as of late. From the second Bruce took the stage til the moment he left, the money that I spent seemed irrelevant. The way that he captivated the crowd left the young and the old in utter amazement. It wasn’t only “The Boss” that made this show, a lot of credit goes to The E Street Band. Mind you, I haven’t been to (or seen) a show where Bruce has played without the E Street Band Band for comparison, but for me their presence and musical talent was incredible. Max Weinberg is a phenomenal drummer and The Big Man brings so much style and talent to playing the saxophone.
I’d like to thank all those who attended on Sunday. A good crowd can add so much to a show and the Ottawa crowd was hot for Bruce. The cougar count was through the roof. You could tell Bruce and co. enjoyed themselves, especially when all the lights came on and everyone from the floor to the stands were dancing (not in the dark though). At fifty-eight years of age, Bruce Springsteen put on a deadly show. I can’t imagine what it was like to see him back in the 70’s. If you can catch this current tour the tickets are worth every penny.
You all saw the footage of Win and Regine (from Arcade Fire) playing with Bruce, here are the MP3s to take home.
You heard it first here, folks.. ok, maybe not.. those pitchfork guys are just too fast (but you’ll see it here first!).
Unreal moment in Ottawa tonight as Win and Regine from Arcade Fire joined the boss on stage in the encore to play “State Trooper” and “Keep The Car Running”. It was quite hard to film in there, but we did get the songs recorded. They will be up tomorrow when Brock gets back to Montreal.
brockmasterflex update:
I’m back in Montreal and uploaded the videos. I think we are the first to get them. There is a lot of camera movement (I’m sorry, I was in the pit) but the audio dynamite!
The MP3s will be up tonight, and more footage of the show (sans Arcade Fire). Stay tuned!
Bruce Springsteen with Win and Regine Butler - State Trooper
Bruce Springsteen with Win and Regine Butler - Keep The Car Running
Hey folks! Just dropping in quickly to tell you that the Flying Club Cup video series is complete, now you can watch from beginning to end. The guys from La Blogothéque teamed up with Beirut to film a beautiful work of art.
They have also announced that they will be releasing a dvd of this material. Not sure what else might be on it yet.
P.S. We are backed up a bit. In the next little while we’re gonna post our Dr. Dog & Elvis Costello stuff, also, brockmasterflex is going through his archives in an upcoming series. Then the Springsteen show is on Sunday, so we hope to get you some footage of that as well. Thanks for reading!
As part of the wonderful Pop Montreal festival, The National were nice enough to come to town this past Sunday. I missed seeing them in 2005, because when their tour with Clap Your Hands Say Yeah crossed into Canada, The National were nowhere to be found. This time around they were here, and very grateful to be here. Matt and the rest of the band were grinning all night at the crowd reactions, especially when the whole crowd was singing along (hear: Fake Empire) and also when the entire crowd made the “awww” noise at the sound of “Daughters of the Soho Riots”.
The set comprised of mostly all Alligator/Boxer material, to everyone’s delight, and the fans familiar with their older albums were treated to “Cold Girl Fever” in the encore. The best song of the night, in my opinion, was “Squalor Victoria”, a song which they “have no idea what it’s about”, according to Matt.
A friend of mine that I traveled to Albany with on Saturday had loaned me his minidisc recorder to try out, so this show was my first attempt at taping this way. I am fairly happy with the results, and I would love to hear what you think. You can download the MP3’s below, or get the lossless version here (if you don’t have an account, you just need to keep refreshing to get one). Enjoy!
Hit the link below to watch the videos that Brock recorded. Some are on the dark side, but when the light is right, these black-and-white videos look great.
I’d like to thank the CBC Radio 3 for bringing such a great show to Pop Montreal. The lineup was Lightning Dust, Oakley Hall, Sunset Rubdown, and Black Mountain. From what I heard, The Lightning Dust set was great, I missed it because I was still hungover from the Dr. Dog show. Oakley Hall didn’t hold my attention at all. During their entire set I was pondering why the CBC Radio 3 would set up a show that wasn’t 100% Canadian, isn’t that their whole shtick?!? I mean that with no disrespect, as I have a man crush on Grant Lawrence and I listen to his podcasts weekly. It was great seeing Spencer Krug hammer the keyboard again. The sound was great in Le National, even though the mp3’s don’t do the show justice. You’ll be happy to know that the entire show was taped and will be on the CBC Radio 3 website sometime this week, but remember this… Trendwhore beat CBC to the punch (hear that Grant!?). My only quam with the show was that there was too much dead noise between Rubdown songs, which slowed an otherwise fast paced show. Black Mountain were the headliners (no matter what the ticket said), so the Rubdown set was short to the audiences dismay. The quote of the weekend came from Spencer while the crowd was hissing at the fact that this was the last song:
“You’ve been really sweet …. shut the fuck up!”
I should mention that I did stick around to see the start of Black Mountain’s set and was very impressed. If I get a chance this weekend I’ll give them a listen, or maybe I’ll wait for the CBC to get moving and post the show!
SR played a new song at the show. It’s the 4th track and the lyrics are nowhere to be found. As for the rest of the songs, props goes to Maria of The Wolf Parade Fansite who aided me in finding song titles. If you know the name of the unknown song please give me a heads up (I’m looking at you Grant). MP3’s after the jump! Continue Reading »
2007 has been a bad year for punk rock. Its seems punk rock is something that is bought and sold these days, and usually you can get good deal at Hot Topic. The Thermals are a breath of fresh air for punk rock. This trio from Portland, Oregon has done so much with so little. Far too many times these days you see bands with needless instruments trying to be the next Beirut or Arcade Fire. You don’t need much to make great music, case in point with The Thermals. From a distance, the band is nothing more than a bass, a guitar and a set of drums but come together to make some of the best punk rock of this century (its only 8 years in mind you). Before the demise of Oink I was lucky to grab More Parts Per Million and The Body, The Blood, The Machine, both of which I’ve been listening to daily as I pound keyboards at my day job. I convinced a friend of mine to tag along, partly because I thought she’d enjoy the show and partly because I owed her some money (now less 12 dollars). She had this to say,
