Posts Tagged 2012
Yamantaka // Sonic Titan | YT//ST
Hm. According to…my own internet presence…I’ve gone completely insane as of a few years ago. I’ve just been looking through what is the backlog of records I should be in the process of reviewing, if I’m taking this project seriously, and uh…it’s not looking too good. But I know better. The truth is, I’ve been insane most of my life maybe until…today? I dunno, people can snap and go insane one day, not always traumatically, just a lot of little things build up sometimes. Why can’t it work the other way around? I’ve had a few good night’s sleep in a row and things have been generally ok…maybe that’s all it took. After…so many years.
So anyway, in Japan, it’s Buddha’s birthday today, or yesterday, since it’s already tomorrow there. Some people think it’s in early December. It’s not really important. But you’re supposed to spend the day in mindful reflection, I guess, which in what you’re supposed to be doing all the time, but it’s like every other religion pretty much in that most people aren’t taking it very seriously most of the time.
So here we are. I’m picking this one unrandomly out of the pile.
Hey, I’m glad I have a blog. I would not have remembered this album. I’m trying to reorganize my files and it would take years to get to this listening to this again. Goddamn mess. What the hell do you expect from a crazy person? It made my Best of 2012 (altho it came out late 2011), which should really be a best of albums I already reviewed, shouldn’t it. Well.
☸☸☸☸☸
First of all: could we just call this album “self-titled”? We could. It is. But you know what the deal with this band is? They’re fuckin’ cool. It’s a good thing. It’s a band. That’s why you start a fuckin’ band, to do something cool. Look, if you put some unicode bullshit in your name that has to be copypasted every time, you’re kind of a cock. Granted. Some would say double slashes are just as pretentious, but it ain’t. It’s just the right amount. So the name of this album just looks better in this format so I’m using it, but let’s be clear that it a self-titled album and we’re not going to say “why-tee-slash-slash-ess-tee” in conversation, if it comes up. Which it should. Also acceptable at this point would be “the album” or, in the future, “the first one”. OK.
This band has a whole live element I don’t know much about, it’s supposedly “operatic”. I only get this from the first track, Raccoon Song, which is the most forgettable. I had literally forgotten about it. This is definitely against the general common sense “rules” for new bands, which is to put your best song first. But another of those rules is to not make the cover some kind of incomprehensible artwork that does not even have the name of the band on it, but like, a picture of the band. That makes sense. But man, fuck making sense. This cover rules. There’s no way I could not listen to a record with this cover. I would be so bummed if it wasn’t great. What the fuck is that thing? Fuckin’ cool, that’s what.
Also, there’s only 7 songs that average out to average length, for a total of only about 31 minutes. Maybe that doesn’t seem like a full album, but how many songs do you need. More than 1 or 2? NO. It’s just about perfect. If you can’t say something in under 45 minutes, you don’t have anything to say.
And what are they saying? Absolutely nothing coherent or intelligible as a real message. JUST THE WAY IT SHOULD BE. (Or not, get off my back, I’m just not-crazy today.) The only words I can make out on this album are in Japanese, a language I don’t believe any of the members actually speak. They translate to “I AM STAR CAT.” YES.
This is the single I guess, Hoshi Neko. The big stand out with a with a phased intro and the catchy Japanese hook. These are Canadians, btw. I assumed at least one was J-Canadian but apparently not. The bandcamp page uses the tags “chinese” and “iroquios”, so it’s intentionally mixing things up. Seems like some of the references are Buddhist and some are Native American…maybe. Maybe they are just making some of the shit up out of thin air. You can totally do that when you work on something cool. It’s not like fucking fan fiction. There’s no canon!
The other songs are also pretty good put not as pop. “Operatic” outside of whatever the live show consists of is squarely within the concept and sound more or less of “rock opera”, altho this is usually a bad thing in my opinion. They make something that works. I think they achieve the effect by making music that is more like soundtrack music than part of a musical.
Reverse Crystal is like a more-rocking out/less Kraut Stereolab with those same kind of high-register, unintelligible, repeating vocal phrases, and even a long second-half pop drone coda but with a lot of cymbal bashing, and it’s got like an Iron Butterfly organ solo in there. Great.
A Star over Pureland is the only explicit Buddhist reference I can find apart from the name, which most people(?) will people recognize from the Boredoms’ Eye Yamantaka (it’s not his real name). Altho if you want to get into it, these are reference to competing schools of Buddhism. Yamantaka is mostly a Tibetan thing. Pure Land is a like a Buddhist afterlife which not all Buddhists believe in. No, there’s no way to prove I am not looking this up as I go along. Oh wait, there is Pure Land in Tibet. I did just look that up. Well, there you go. There’s some Tibetan cymbals and horns in there. I knew that. I know stuff. Guitar freak-out on this track is cool, but it’s clear the keys are more their thing. It’s definitely the climax of the show, but as far as songs and general moods go, they are best and building up the tension than actually exploding. Or resolving. But it all seems worth it for the parts that work.
You know what, Crystal Fortress Over a Sea of Trees could also totally be a Tibetan thing. I don’t know that much about the Tibetan stuff. But I do know it has another killer organ solo. The particular synth rhythm track they use sounds a little out of place. It’s like we’ve been in something like a 70s horror movie and now it’s like Knight Rider all of sudden. Doesn’t quite mesh. Ends with some vague chants. Maybe that is in Tibetan. Usually done by dudes of course so it doesn’t sound anything like the standard stuff, or maybe it’s not that at all. Questions, with answers, that I am not going to try to find out. It just doesn’t matter. %
Shonen Knife @ Johnny Brenda’s 2012.07.19
I left my last Shonen Knife show feeling a little over-philosophical. My writeup stops right before I walk out the door (naturally), but as I’m going back to my car in the community college parking lot, I roll up my autographed poster and think, “well, I guess that it.” You know, you follow a group for a long time…they get signed to a major and tour stadiums with legends, they have a series of their own tours in large-ish clubs…they never break up…eventually…they’re playing a local school auditorium for 50 people. Probably how they started out. It’s the circle of life or something.
So I’m glad I made this show. (Things have been kinda tight, it was close.) Back at JB’s where I saw them 3 years ago (when I was on blogging hiatus), they were right back in their element, and the usual crowd followed.
I walked in on the middle of Creem Circus‘ set. Visually, they immediately reminded me of kitsch-glam era Redd Kross but now that I think about it, I’m not sure this era of Redd Kross literally existed. They looked like what I thought Redd Kross looked like at some point but possibly never did. (The new Redd Kross record is pretty good, btw.) Sonically, they were were pretty straight up Rock with some really good twin lead stuff going on. Later I find out this is a local band led by Chris DiPinto of DiPinto Guitars. This guy is already a local legend (by name) for his guitar shop so it was cool to see him perform. (I thought he was a much older dude.)
Next was White Mystery. (I should have got pics of the openers but forget the memory card in my camera so I only had a few shots.) They’re a two-piece, kinda like a gender-reversed White Stripes but not so Blues-obsessed, just there to rock. And so they did. Really expected some part of the dude’s drum kit to break at some point and the guitarist is no joke. You’re gonna be seeing more of them if that’s even remotely your thing.
Last time at JB's the openers were Jeff the Brotherhood and (then duo) PO PO, who are both doing pretty well. I don't know if Naoko books the openers, but that some some pretty hip booking. They could be going out there with like, Johnny Poppunk & the Poppunkers, some generic whoever bands, ya know? Probably from switching labels so many times, they can make some more genuine hookups with different-type bands.
I thought I saw PO PO a/k/a Big Zeb (now a solo act) but I suppose that could have been any 6-ft tall long haired Pakistani gentleman. I did see Brian a/k/a Supreme Nothing but didn't get to talk to him. I see a lot of people I recognize at Philly shows, especially SK shows, that I don't talk to. They may or may not have bands or websites. I think I saw someone I knew from MySpace. How do you start that conversation in 2012? You don't. Well, I don't. Most of these people I don't know their names or anything, I just see them again and again. Nobody ever comes up to me and just starts talking (unless they're hustling something) so it's a mutual awkwardness. I don't think I'm recognized beyond being a regular, but I am visible. I have mass. I mean, I'm trying to watch my weight, but you can see me. I exist in physical space is what I'm saying.
Let’s move on… Uh, so Shonen Knife played some songs.
They come out on stage now to the own music, which you think they must get enough of, but there’s Naoko mouthing along to the first song on their new album, Welcome to the Rock Club. (But what does it really mean? You’re not here to think, you’re here to rock.) They launch into Konnichiwa, as they do. “Are you ready to rock?” Yes, of course.
Like, you expect all of this be get kinda old by now. But even if you’re planning to enjoy them 75% (it’s hard to compete with seeing the original lineup, in my mind), they get you all the way there. Ritsuko & Emi have totally won me over. Ritsuko is crazy headbanging everywhere, Emi looks like she winning the lottery at a surprise party with every other cymbal crash. It’s delirious.
They go through the usual stuff, the old crowd favorites like Bear Up Bison and Twist Barbie, some of the newer similar stuff like Pop Tune and Osaka Rock City, and Naoko seems to really like the Rubber Band song (some crowds must get into the chant part, I haven’t seen it) and Banana Chips (not bad songs, but they’ve got better…so many damn songs). And they did Devil House, a personal fave which was a Michie song that Ritsuko sings now. The beginning of BBQ Party almost makes me cry; I manage as the song soon veers into an almost out of control Thrash freak-out. A similar themed song on the new album, All You Can Eat sweetly cautions “not to overeat”, but live they substitute this older tune loudly insisting you PIG OUT PIG OUT PIG OUT. Despite a perceived flip-flop on record, it’s clear where Naoko stand on this issue. And they played some Ramones songs which was not really necessary but hard to argue with. There was some confusion with the setlist that was funny but I guess you had to be there, I’m not transcribing their broken english. Naoko really wants to play those Ramones songs. I used to get more upset of setlist omissions than I do now. They can play whatever. They did the crushing (for them) Cobra vs. Mongoose and then ended with the softer poppy tunes from the new one: there’s the Emi-led Psychedelic Life which I’m not going to question and the Ritsuko-led Sunshine, which is kinda like a Carpenters song that ends in a kind of Beach Boys counterpoint thing at the end they all sing. And they close with Move On which is a bit of a bummer, but then they do an encore of Antonio Baka Guy, which is almost the same song as Cobra vs. Mongoose but no one seemed to mind.
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