Explosions in the Sky (And: Endorphins in the Brain)

One of the best things about New York is it occasionally allows you to write sentences like:

"Yesterday my friend and I left the American Abstract Expressionism exhibition at MoMA

and were wandering past Radio City Music Hall when I looked up and noticed that Explosions in the Sky

are scheduled to play there the day after we get back from Montreal and, although I was sure it would be sold out, I ran into the box office to check and discovered, amazingly, there were two tickets left front of stage which I purchased immediately."

How many awesomes did you count in it? Hint: they are colour-coded and have visual clues.

I am so in love with this city that I worry that my oxytocin receptors will conk out from overuse by the time I am 40. Oh yes. I can speak with authority about oxytocin receptors, dopamine and endorphins because today we went to The Brain exhibition at The Museum of Natural History. Lovely of NYC to indulge my latest interest de jour with a special display complete with interactive games and videos.

The more solipsistic of us might think this city can telepathically read your every interest and whim and accommodate them accordingly.

I think New York is more like that terrifically attractive person you have a massive crush on. Luckily they seem to like your company enough to let you hang out with them and as you do, bit by bit, they reveal themselves to be even more wonderful than you had even known and you wish you could stay with them for always. If for no other reason than your colour schemes are quite compatible.

PS. Explosions in the Sky have a new album out. You can do a cheeky download here. I am optimistic that this gig will be better than the one at Manning Bar a few years ago. No venue quite manages to massacre a band like that one does.

Saturday, In the Park

Tompkins Square Park

Dogs are the best people.

I know that living in New York my focus should really be drinking bellinis into the wee small hours and noshing brunch into the late afternoon, but I have to say this park is my favourite thing right now. It’s two blocks from my apartment and often when I am coming or going I will take a two block detour to get my puppy dog fix for the day.

I don’t know how the owners feel about interlopers standing around gawking at their beloved little canines. After my third visit I did start to feel a bit like a pervert loitering at a schoolyard. Generally, I subscribe to the Groucho Marx school of though regarding clubs: I wouldn’t want to belong to any one that would have me as a member. But I'd make an exception for the NY Dog-Owners Association... and the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences - Oscar Nominee Division.

There are two dog enclosures side by side: one for little dogs; and one for big dogs (and little dogs who think they are big dogs). I am sure it would be much nicer for these guys to run around on actual grass rather than gravel but there is a shortage of that in Manhattan. Besides, they seem pretty content. Joyous, actually. Nothing says happiness like a dog bounding around in total abandon, tongue hanging out and tail wagging like a high-speed windscreen-wiper.

There are, however, quite a lot of puppy politics to be observed. One gorgeous, portly French Bulldog was being so relentlessly terrorised and yapped at by a little white terrier that his owner had to take him out of the park. On the other side, some other kind of bulldog kept baiting and sitting on a smaller black dog.

Never once did the owner of any of the bully dogs step in and intervene. Bodes well for the world when these people decide to have children.

Most of the dogs were playful and lovely but, like people, I guess some dogs are just jerks.

It Might Get Loud (Or: Godspeed You! Black Emperor, March 2011)

GY!BE Brooklyn Masonic Temple, March 16th 2011

Apologies for pathetic photo. My iphone is new. There is probably a zoom function but darned if I know where it is.

I am not sure that someone so jet-lagged is qualified to offer an objective critique of a concert. On arriving at the gig I had slept only 4 hours of 36 (which I actually thought it might work in Godspeed's favour). Let's give it a shot.

They were performing in a Masonic temple in Fort Greene - a terrifically imposing venue. Revolutionary paraphernalia was on sale at the back (along with Godspeed vinyl and tees - alas no tea towels, Jon) and the beer on sale was Asahi. All signs pointed to awesome. Also, before they began, someone fainted in the crowd in front of me. Last time that happened was at Do Make Say Think (what is it with Canadian bands that causes loss of consciousness in American audiences??) and that was one of the best live music experiences I've had.

Godspeed arrived on stage and began their set with a "Hope drone", accompanied by visuals which continued throughout the concert. These included 8 and 16mm footage of nature, machines, abandoned factories etc. The setlist that followed went thus:

Hope Drone

Gathering Storm

Monheim

Albanian

Chart #3

World Police and Friendly Fire

Rockets Fall on Rocket Falls

Moya

BBF3

So here's the thing. When I listen to Godspeed it is to F# A# ∞ or Yanqui U.X.O. These albums were not really represented on the night. When I listen it is because I want to be immersed in a huge, emotional and cinematic journey through tragic post apocalyptic landscapes. I don't listen to them very often and I don't listen to them because they're loud. I'm not really interested in noise and feedback unless it's the climax of a track that has taken me there. None of the songs last night had any emotional resonance for me and it didn't end up being the profound experience I had been anticipating for 6 months. The whole experience was just kind of noise. Compelling noise, rhythmic noise, the kind of noise that made the boys around me do that move that looks like head-banging underwater. But really, to my undiscerning ear, just noise.

I have so much respect for this band that I stayed and really listened, trying to decipher what the layers of squealing strings, feedback and pounding drums were saying, how it was all working. I didn't hate it, I just didn't feel anything. The film visuals helped to maintain interest ("oh, a 16mm film loop of a factory on fire. I see what you're doing there") but quite a few film pieces were inconsistent with the music. A wide shot of an abandoned 19th century factory poised at the edge of a flooded lake is dramatic, sure, but it is a lonely image. It's effect is undermined when it is accompanied by a relentless explosion of sound. It's picky, I know, but if you're going to use visuals and sound then one should inform the other. Only for a few songs did they all really work together, which is a shame for a band whose sound has such a cinematic reputation.

After 'Rockets Fall on Rocket Falls", with my back aching, head throbbing and right ear completely devoid of hearing (14 hours later it has only partially returned) I went outside. And that was pretty incredible. The sound was bleeding through the walls of this massive temple structure, against a black sky in an otherwise desolate street. That, in the end, made me feel what I wanted to feel when I hear their music.

Last Love Song for Now

One sleep 'til NY.

If past experience is anything to go by, I will be updating Blogtastic here more rather than less while I'm away, particularly since I will be, sadly, sans my boy. So no big goodbyes. But before I go I want to share with you what I think is the loveliest song in the world right now.

Love is all.

I read that he is playing in France the day after my birthday. I am not sure that 32 qualifies as momentous enough for a trip to The Continent but he is retaining the number 1 position on my To See list... Hopefully those Sydney Festival folks will be savvy enough to get him out here in 2012. He's far more worthy of the gorgeous Angel Place than those anaemic Grizzlies from Brooklyn.

Ok then.

East Village pad. Laptop. Moleskin. Passports. Treats for plane. Thelma's email.

Check!

Here we go with the third instalment of "Operation: NY - The Maybe Writing Will Help Edition."

Let's do this thing.

Say Anything (Or: The Trouble with Boomboxes)

Driving home from work last night, I was rifling through our glove compartment, desperate to find a CD that wasn't either:

a. completely damaged

b. annihilated from over-listening (Bon Iver, Iron & Wine, Hayden - all, alas, dead to me now)

or

c. from McNutty's back-catalogue (a sometimes scary place where Tool and Something for Kate lurk ominously)

I was nearly contemplating McNuts' 5 disc collection of Bill Clinton reading his autobiography when I happened across a friend's mix CD from a couple of years ago. Only one track would play properly. As long as it takes to drive from North Ryde to Newtown is how many times I played and replayed this track...

Ok so this clip is pretty terrible (for the love of god, Pete, why aren't you wearing clothes??) Also, the most bizarre image is at approx. 1.45 min when Pete's eyes seem to be projected onto a coffee cup(??) Look, maybe just listen to the song and look at something else because it really is great. Exhilarating (if a little cheesey) even 25 years after it's release. I defy anyone not to get tingles when the synthesiser kicks in at 56 seconds.

It has inspired me to download Say Anything to see how it stands up 20 years later. I have a feeling John Cusack holding up a boombox blasting this very song to woo Ione Skye will still make me melt. My one regret* is that no-one ever drove round to my place and serenaded me with a boombox. And then I thought, "Geez, Katie. Why didn't you ever go and serenade anyone?? Not exactly Miss Proactive in the romance department yourself are you?".

It's not like I haven't been crazy in love enough with someone to do something like that. The real problem is laziness. My thought pattern would have gone thus:

• I don't own a boombox. So I'd have to go to Cash Converters and buy one. Does that place still exist?
• Does anyone actually manufacture blank cassette tapes anymore??
• How do I get it off my itunes onto a tape? I'll probably have to burn it to CD then play it on a CD player that plugs into the boombox.
• I'm going to need cables for that (minutes of logistical contemplation ensue...)
• Maybe I could just bring my laptop and USB speakers and play it loudly. But how do I hold a laptop and two speakers above my head all at the same time?

You see?

And of course there's fear of rejection.

• He'll think (read: realise far too soon) that I am a goofball

And that's why I never serenaded anyone with a boombox.

Post Script. Quote of the film: "I'm looking for a Dare-to-be-Great situation"

(and a cameo by Ari Gold was an extra special treat).

*In that particular 5min space

Songs for Beginners

I think it might be time for a new blog.

Like fellow bloggers, Jon and Rino, I thought it might be fun to start a sister blog to Dancing here that focuses solely on music. Unfortunately, I don't have these guys' music expertise and technical understanding although I do love reading their work. What I've realised is that what I really want to talk about when I talk about music is how music makes us feel and why. How it works psychologically. So why not go do me some learning on that very topic?

I know that in the past I've mentioned some very inspiring books on this area (Levitin*, Sacks and Doidge amongst the authors/neurologists in question) and I think I'd like to research it a little more deeply. The new blog will be where I write about what I learn, one song at a time.

It's called Songs for Beginners.

And I hope to get it underway properly while I'm in the US/Canada.

Anyone who grew up, as I did, the child of music-loving baby-boomers, who frequently spun their Crosby, Stills and Nash vinyl, probably made the link between the blog title and the Graham Nash album. However, it wasn't until Bon Iver performed the sweet and heart-breaking "Simple Man" (from said album) at the Sydney Festival a few years ago that I was introduced to Graham Nash in solo form. The song was sung so beautifully by the guitarist that it (along with Justin Vernon's slightly-above-the-knee-shorts) is my lasting memory of the concert.

You know, this blog started (nearly two years ago!) with a reference to that very gig. Seems only fitting we go back to them to kick off this next chapter.

* I just discovered that Daniel Levitin's "Levitin Lab" is in Montreal! What a coincidence. I wonder if enthusiastic novices are allowed to stop by? In my mind it is like a musical version of Questacon complete with "foot piano" ala FAO Schwartz (as played by Tom Hanks in Big).