GIG-O-RAMA!!

Right where do ya begin with this month of May shit? Normally at this time of year I go to ATP in Camber Sands with a load of mates. And normally at the end of it I hibernate for four or five days while the entire experience leaks out of my system as I suffer hideous, crawling hyper-real William Blake style flashbacks. These normally consist of me looking at myself objectively from the corner of the room (like those people who nearly die in hospital) jumping up and down for four hours on a printed camber sands mattress to Float On by modest mouse played on repeat, or tribally banging wheelie bins at 6 in the morning with gap-year students from england and chanting sonic youth songs to the breaking dawn. And on Sunday we all end up battling the fact that we have an encroaching and sick realisation that monday morning will replace hedonistic ATP madness with a nauseating flight home where you try to read as much of the in-flight paper as humanly possible in order to crowd the insistent chalet related horror stories out of your sweat drenched head. Not to mention the bugs and spiders. On Tuesday, you'll think you had the most fucked up time of your life, but by Friday you'll be telling everyone that ATP is fucking mega and you can't wait to do it all again. Its a conflictual conundrum. This year Thrillpier did it for us all (minus much of the the mad shit, cos his head is screwed on right and he loves music more than making a spa of himself). You can read his in depth analysis of the whole affair on his blog. Just click back on the link.

Aside from all that, I really wanted to talk about a gig. Animal Collective in Whelans last night. I am a 27 year old man. I've seen a LOT of gigs. They put on one of the best gigs I ever saw. I bet most other people who were there think the same. This was a gig to write home about. It was adventurous, mindblowing, colourful, and thrilling. I felt brand new synapses unravel in my brain as it progressed. The blinding multi-coloured striplights behind them caused a friend of mine (David) to comment that the whole affair reminded him of the sci-fi movie close encounters of the third kind, like some kinda extra terrestial force was communicating with us. I loved it. I could go on here but I won't. Animal collective live are savagery. They are pure unadulterated savagery. :)


Hipsters at the animal collective gig

MP3: Animal Collective Who could win a rabbit

ive been into the plants and simple treasures

I've never been a huge lyrics person. Well, not in the conventional sense anyway. I've always been more drawn to bewildering imagery than naked emotion. This is why I'd rather hear Bob Pollard sing about lighthouses and aliens than Matt Beringer sing about wine and heartbreak. Because of this, singers praised for their lyrics regularly leave me feeling a bit out in the cold. I've never subscribed to the cult of Dylan, Waits, Cohen, Cave and all those other wordsmiths whose utterances make Mojo readers weep. I accept they are great and that their words carry weight but when talk turns to these dudes at parties its generally an "I'll get me coat" moment for me. Maybe I'll grow into them as life experience builds, or maybe I'll remain forever at the brink peeking into this world of heartache and profundity, wondering if I am some sort of emotionally stunted childbrain. In saying that, there are a few 'classic' lyrics that I've managed to "get" such as Wichita Lineman, Fairytale of New York and Born to Run, but as for the like of Visions of Johanna? Listening to that sort of thing is like sipping wine you're told is an expensive vintage and feeling embarrassed because you can't tell the difference between it and 5 euro Tesco plonk. The songs that always made me feel most emotional were the ones where the emotion is expressed indirectly through strange metaphors and symbols, stuff like Neutral Milk Hotel's Ghost and the Flaming Lips' Waitin' For Superman. I suppose I'm the kind of person that feels sad at the sight of a rusty gate, or a discarded tayto wrapper.

Which brings me to animal collective.



Animal collective are a band that communicate more to me than most music I hear these days. Apart from the somewhat decipherable yelps at the fore of much of Strawberry Jam, their lyrics tend to play hide and seek, gliding over distances, echoing from sparse distant spaces one minute and crying up close through heavy thickets of musical foliage the next. Its always hard to get a handle on exactly what they are singing about but many of the snippets that filter through have a naive quality that is nature-focused, almost pagan and reminds me of Aldous Huxley's rapturous description of the natural world in The Doors of Perception. Lyrics such as "I've been into the plants and simple treasures" and "you could build a rabbit with a rib" are from a primal and altered place that they have made their own. Couple these with music that continues to sound on a fundamental level like it was made with rattling bones and twigs no matter how technologically advanced it gets, and listening to Animal Collective is always the greatest escape. A a new EP by them is pinging all over the internet at the moment. Its called Water Curses and its stuff that didn't make it on to Strawberry Jam. Its further proof that they are going through a purple period of enormous creativity. The four songs on it are all worthy additions to the abundance of riches in the back catalogue. Best of the bunch is Street Flash, a languid psychedelic evening walk that wears its 6 and a half minutes lightly. Look out for a bizzare moment containing a bloodcurdling scream which to me (perhaps because of the incongrous musical setting) sounds oddly comforting. The second MP3 here is the title track, a more hectic experience, full of sunshine, flutes and calypso drums.

MP3: Animal Collective-Street Flash

MP3: Animal Collective-Water Curses

Finally I have one response to that head scratching worry many of us are experiencing-how in the name of god does one choose which gigs to go to in the veritable chinese take-away menu of musical goodies this May. My good friend the artist and illustrator Laura emailed me a gig rainbow! Here's a Jpeg.



Because of cash flow problems my rainbow will look a lot more decrepit than Laura's colourful bonanza. It will have two stripes, one called Animal Collective and one called Spiritualized.

Waaahhhh

I've wanted to write blogs all week, but free time, once so abundant, is shriveling into a mocking trickle. Something coming later, I promise. In the meantime, here are a few special needs dogs to pad out this skeletal 45 second post. Oh, and on the subject of music, how good is that Animal Collective EP Water Curses? I'll throw up a track or two later.


Ruff! Re're Rupid Dogs!!!

Atlas Sound...

...are supporting Animal Collective on their May 19th date in Tripod. As all the cops in South Park said when Kyle's little brother shacked up with the horny primary school teacher...Nice. Wait, I've somehow managed to blog this up ahead of thrillpier? Score! Thats about as deliciously psychedelic a double header as we're gonna see this year. We'll be treated to the collective's racket of kitchen appliances falling down mountainsides and Atlas sound's woozy plumes of intimate shoegaze all under one roof, in one night. Bring it on.

Here's my Menomena review over on Analogue.

Here's a random special needs pet.


Here's an MP3 from atlas sound.
MP3 Atlas Sound-Ativan

i should get out more...

This should be a blog about music stuff I'm looking forward to, but first there's a little something I need to get off my chest. I don't know about you but if I had a chance to appear on the hate-stuff show 'Room 101,' top of my list of things to put in would probably be wedding photos (after Brendan O'Connor, Eurospar and the Knorr Vie ad with all those dildos singing on the street). By wedding photos I don't mean the cute old shot on the mantelpiece of mum and dad on their special day. Naw, I mean the modern version, which isn't just a few shots, its a deluxe vellum box of the fuckin' things. Its a blockbusting modern-Irish torrent of tack that will set you back about three grand. The 'set' consists of about 40 hideous snaps of gurning boggers dressed in full white-tie regalia in fields, in front of castles and on windswept Wicklow beaches. Its often tastefully shot through lenses smeared with vaseline to take the edge off the chin that poor Dymphna inherited from the Reilly side of the clan. Classic shots include such marvels as Declan 'candidly' squeezing Dymphna's orange knockers like he has her in the heimlich maneuver in front of the twinkling Shannon- her dress photoshopped into an eerie virginal glow that defies the laws of Daz and mystically leaks a good three inches clear of the sturdy contours of her body. And who can forget Declan and the best man 'candidly' wrestling in front of a Celtic cross in perfect focus, while blurry bridesmaids look on from the dreamy brink of the vaseline fog. Gah! In case you think I'm going mad, I'm not. Its just that people floating around my professional life seem to be getting married a lot recently. And they sometimes come into lunch hour showing off the photos. When they do, its all I can manage to keep my jaw from falling off at the grotesqueness on display. I think wow, these people have actually paid three thousand quid to turn their special lifelong bond into a Daniel O'Donnell calendar. But then again, they are normally the sort of people who get excited about bathroom tiling and religiously watch the Wednesday night movie on RTE1. Even when it is Norbit.


Maura and John Paul ran into their romantic future of mortgage repayments and pinewood decking.

Right-o, gigs. Cabin fever has well and truly set in and I can't wait to start going to the odd gig or two this spring. There is a lot of really cool electronic shit on the agenda thanks to remedy @ spy who have a colossal series of gigs and DJ sets in the offing, which in terms of quality are the ravey mirror image of the avalanche of indie Foggy Notions brought our way last December. I'm most looking forward to German techno genius Michael Mayer who is playing Spy on March 16th. Apparently he'll be on the decks for a full five hours. Now thats one seriously mental start to the bank holiday. And anyone familiar with his seminal mix CD 'immer' will know that Michael Mayer can bang out some deep and delirious shit. Five hours of it will make this one of the DJ sets of the year.

MP3: Ada-Maps (Michael Mayer and Tobias Thomas mix)

3 hours into Michael Mayer's set, Kevin's head began to act strangely.

Oh, and on the indie end of things, I'm treating the news that Animal Collective are returning to tripod this May with trepidation. I hyped the last visit up to be the second coming, and erm, it wasn't, thanks to a throat infection and the band being a bit disingenuous by keeping that information from the confuddled masses until the end of the set. But I fuckin' love 'em, and if they bring those blinding neon rectangles back and play 'grass' and 'fireworks' it would make my year. And finally, I'm looking forward Ham Sandwich's album launch for 'Carry the Meek' in Whelan's on February 23rd. Apart from loving their gigs because they are a ballsy riot of a band live, I have an interest in their success because the bearded creature who half-fronts the band is one of my oldest friends (right back to when we played with Mask figures in his utility room). I wish them every success in their quest for world domination!

Asleep on the independent...

Asleep on the compost heap makes the daily media...In an article about Fight Like Apes by Eamonn Sweeney in the Irish independent Day and Night magazine...


Also, me girlfriend took the cool picture.
Now I'm off to listen to animal collective on heavy rotation until tonight's gig. Yipeee!!!
MP3: Animal Collective-Song for Ariel

Im like a pelican at red tide

Pitchforkmedia.com and company are fellating Animal Collective's new album like nobody's business. The band meanwhile, are already playing heaps of newer than new stuff (not even on strawberry jam new) live, and its pretty fuckin mega too. Its their moment, and who could begrudge them? Long live Panda Bear and Avey Tare!!

Two whirring, clicking, splodgey, multicoloured helpings of the 'collective...


Off of the new album
MP3:FIREWORKS



Golden Oldie...
MP3:LEAF HOUSE

I've tried to overdose on fireworks. But you can't. Its too complex. You could listen to it for ever...