listen.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Friday, December 11, 2009
Person Pitch - Panda Bear (2007)
the album starts with the sound of a goddamn rollercoaster.
a rollercoaster! the machine which gave you the greatest highs you could ever imagine when you were 10, 15, 30 years old! you ascend into the clouds where a pulsing chant embraces you, and a singer steps out of the chorus to tell you to "always have a good time." and you listen! you tap along, stomp along, sing along, whistle along, walk along, and dance along until jet after jet after jet zooms by until suddenly the darkness engulfs you, and you wonder.
i don't want to write about this album.
there are just some things that can't be converted into words. when you try, your mind turns to sludge, your typing goes all wrong, and the words on the screen reflect that. you start typing things like "it sounds like running through a meadow towards a scarecrow except the meadow is made of brain tissue and the scarecrow is a rainbow unicorn" or "it sounds like if birds had teeth and lizards had wings" or "it sounds like if all the strongest people in the world started living in trees, only coming out to eat squirrels" or "it sounds like purple dipped in cream dipped in fur dipped in girl dipped in music dipped in mind."
the alternative?
i don't know, get stoned? buy a good pair of headphones? when you wake up in the morning, listen to your alarm? hear the rain? listen to the difference between a plate and a bowl? listen to the people talking to you? (just don't listen too closely, or you might not understand what they're saying.)
"hey man what's your problem don't you know that i don't belong to you"
no, you don't. you don't belong to anybody. you're a 12-and-a-half minute composition that escapes on the wings of an owl, you've got the turnpike on your side, trucks zoom past but you laugh because you don't need a ride, you're crying because you're leaving but you know it's the right decision.
what does it mean to not be able to hear a common phrase, such as "i'm not," without singing?
"ready?"
"what?"
"nevermind."
i once read a review that said this song sounded like an Amazonian tribe perform their chants while under the influence of LSD. how stupid. it's just Noah Lennox clicking buttons on a computer. the fucking magic! in his own words, he gave the computer a soul! us humans are all about soul but i don't know what we'll do once computers have them. in other words, i'm not ready.
all of a sudden i'm supposed to enjoy a fast tempo? well, okay. chant me into submission. submit me into chanting. you're getting water everywhere. i may be marine but i might not be me, and it turns out that "/" means i'm not.
"it's not a ticket for you to pick at other people who don't know what's up like you're so sure you do"
ouch.
eventually the ice cream will come around; you can heal your wound and eat neapolitan simultaneously. what's the difference?
tigers, gorillas, seals, koalas, panda bears, and little kids. the artist knows the music.
when my soul starts growing
when my soul starts growing
when my soul starts growing
a
aa
and
i wish
i wish
i know
stop
stop
stop
and here you were, expecting something epic.
it's funny reading reviews of this album because each one of them rings so true while at the same time only capturing one facet of the whole:
"Starting an album with a clattering of industrial rhythms sliding into a huge clap-and-stompalong with angelic vocals and what sounds like the Brotherhood of Man on a vocal loop tip not far removed from Suicide or Laurie Anderson is one way to make a mark." -- allmusic
"Sometimes ominous, sometimes celebratory, always compelling, Person Pitch is as clattering and tactile as a beaded curtain." -- The Onion
"Person Pitch as a whole-- and "Bros" in particular-- evokes the sunshine of Lennox's adopted Lisbon, Portugal home. But it's the kind of light best experienced with eyes closed-- with the rays filtered through eyelids, turning the world into various shades of red and orange." -- Pitchfork
"For an album constructed from so many constituent parts, Person Pitch is amazingly warm and inviting at times, wrapping around the ears, nestling the head, and squeezing like a nice familial bear hug after years of no contact." -- Tiny Mix Tapes
"Person Pitch sounds like everything. To some, the upstroked guitars and vocal stacking in “Take Pills” make it a consummate summer record. To others, the city clacks and tracks, the sampled noise and confusion make it a winter record, the kind of thing you curl up with in front of a frosty window in order to be reminded that something exists beneath the snow." -- Aquarium Drunkard
"Person Pitch sounds like everything."
"Person Pitch sounds like everything."
"Person Pitch sounds like everything."
"Person Pitch sounds like everything."
"Person Pitch sounds like everything."
download or buy.
a rollercoaster! the machine which gave you the greatest highs you could ever imagine when you were 10, 15, 30 years old! you ascend into the clouds where a pulsing chant embraces you, and a singer steps out of the chorus to tell you to "always have a good time." and you listen! you tap along, stomp along, sing along, whistle along, walk along, and dance along until jet after jet after jet zooms by until suddenly the darkness engulfs you, and you wonder.
i don't want to write about this album.
there are just some things that can't be converted into words. when you try, your mind turns to sludge, your typing goes all wrong, and the words on the screen reflect that. you start typing things like "it sounds like running through a meadow towards a scarecrow except the meadow is made of brain tissue and the scarecrow is a rainbow unicorn" or "it sounds like if birds had teeth and lizards had wings" or "it sounds like if all the strongest people in the world started living in trees, only coming out to eat squirrels" or "it sounds like purple dipped in cream dipped in fur dipped in girl dipped in music dipped in mind."
the alternative?
i don't know, get stoned? buy a good pair of headphones? when you wake up in the morning, listen to your alarm? hear the rain? listen to the difference between a plate and a bowl? listen to the people talking to you? (just don't listen too closely, or you might not understand what they're saying.)
"hey man what's your problem don't you know that i don't belong to you"
no, you don't. you don't belong to anybody. you're a 12-and-a-half minute composition that escapes on the wings of an owl, you've got the turnpike on your side, trucks zoom past but you laugh because you don't need a ride, you're crying because you're leaving but you know it's the right decision.
what does it mean to not be able to hear a common phrase, such as "i'm not," without singing?
"ready?"
"what?"
"nevermind."
i once read a review that said this song sounded like an Amazonian tribe perform their chants while under the influence of LSD. how stupid. it's just Noah Lennox clicking buttons on a computer. the fucking magic! in his own words, he gave the computer a soul! us humans are all about soul but i don't know what we'll do once computers have them. in other words, i'm not ready.
all of a sudden i'm supposed to enjoy a fast tempo? well, okay. chant me into submission. submit me into chanting. you're getting water everywhere. i may be marine but i might not be me, and it turns out that "/" means i'm not.
"it's not a ticket for you to pick at other people who don't know what's up like you're so sure you do"
ouch.
eventually the ice cream will come around; you can heal your wound and eat neapolitan simultaneously. what's the difference?
tigers, gorillas, seals, koalas, panda bears, and little kids. the artist knows the music.
when my soul starts growing
when my soul starts growing
when my soul starts growing
a
aa
and
i wish
i wish
i know
stop
stop
stop
and here you were, expecting something epic.
it's funny reading reviews of this album because each one of them rings so true while at the same time only capturing one facet of the whole:
"Starting an album with a clattering of industrial rhythms sliding into a huge clap-and-stompalong with angelic vocals and what sounds like the Brotherhood of Man on a vocal loop tip not far removed from Suicide or Laurie Anderson is one way to make a mark." -- allmusic
"Sometimes ominous, sometimes celebratory, always compelling, Person Pitch is as clattering and tactile as a beaded curtain." -- The Onion
"Person Pitch as a whole-- and "Bros" in particular-- evokes the sunshine of Lennox's adopted Lisbon, Portugal home. But it's the kind of light best experienced with eyes closed-- with the rays filtered through eyelids, turning the world into various shades of red and orange." -- Pitchfork
"For an album constructed from so many constituent parts, Person Pitch is amazingly warm and inviting at times, wrapping around the ears, nestling the head, and squeezing like a nice familial bear hug after years of no contact." -- Tiny Mix Tapes
"Person Pitch sounds like everything. To some, the upstroked guitars and vocal stacking in “Take Pills” make it a consummate summer record. To others, the city clacks and tracks, the sampled noise and confusion make it a winter record, the kind of thing you curl up with in front of a frosty window in order to be reminded that something exists beneath the snow." -- Aquarium Drunkard
"Person Pitch sounds like everything."
"Person Pitch sounds like everything."
"Person Pitch sounds like everything."
"Person Pitch sounds like everything."
"Person Pitch sounds like everything."
download or buy.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Donuts - J Dilla (2006)
this is one of those albums designed to loop infinitely, and not just because the last song ends in sync with the beginning of the first song.
released on February 7, 2006, three days after its creator passed on, "Donuts" is a 31-track instrumental hip hop masterpiece, a journey through the dustiest yet most delicious funk, rap, jazz, and R&B vinyl sounds imaginable.
the longest track is 2:57, the shortest is 0:13, and most of the other pieces fall somewhere around 1-2min. they're more like doughnut holes than donuts, but then, holes are donuts too and, breaking apart the metaphor, these are all songs, not just brief, unprepared, hashed together thought experiments. they are J Dilla's babies, each one a little more than a peek into the man's record collection, each one a mini-factory of sound outputting clear visions of samples that J had clearly synthesized in his head for many, many years.
the most lengthy track on the record and song #2, "Workinonit," gets things started the right way. blasting off with J Dilla's signature siren call, we are launched into a bouncy room of stringed reverberation with slick drum beats pulling us through. suddenly ascending guitar solos make us forget that we're listening to a hip hop record, while a hermaphroditic voice pulls us in:
play me
play me
buy me
workinonit
workinonit
workinonit
workinonit
girls moan, the guitar solos keep recurring, then breakdown: the guitar sings heavenly, bells twinkle, and we are summoned into the next donut.
listen to "Time: The Donut of the Heart." maybe he's just playing back a Jackson 5 b-side, but i don't care. he's playing it for me and it's divine. he lets it slow down a little bit, just to make you realize how dependent you had become on that sweet melody, and then he lets it do its work at normal speed again.
try "Lightworks:" boop boop beep boop. "This is Bendix: The Tomorrow People." it sounds like he sampled and panned the hell out a commercial from the 50s or something. layering boops and beeps like something out of Kraftwerk,
who the hell is this J Dilla? James Dewitt Yancey founded Slum Village in the mid-90s, but he is most remembered today for his production skills, which, if you've ever listened to Common, Busta Rhymes, A Tribe Called Quest, or The Pharcyde, you've already experienced. he released some solo albums in the early 00s under the moniker Jay Dee and you'll find some great stuff there. in 2003, Jay collaborated with Madlib on an album called "Champion Sound," released under Jaylib. then in 2006, J Dilla gave us "Donuts," which would be so incredibly crafted out of perfectly chosen samples that it would make music lovers around the world pause and wonder, "who the hell is this J Dilla?"
some posthumous albums have made it out since the release of "Donuts," but (and i am by no means a Dilla expert) check this monster out first. if it does the same thing to you as it did to me , you'll think it nothing special until you realize you've just listened to it 15x in a row.
download or buy.
released on February 7, 2006, three days after its creator passed on, "Donuts" is a 31-track instrumental hip hop masterpiece, a journey through the dustiest yet most delicious funk, rap, jazz, and R&B vinyl sounds imaginable.
the longest track is 2:57, the shortest is 0:13, and most of the other pieces fall somewhere around 1-2min. they're more like doughnut holes than donuts, but then, holes are donuts too and, breaking apart the metaphor, these are all songs, not just brief, unprepared, hashed together thought experiments. they are J Dilla's babies, each one a little more than a peek into the man's record collection, each one a mini-factory of sound outputting clear visions of samples that J had clearly synthesized in his head for many, many years.
the most lengthy track on the record and song #2, "Workinonit," gets things started the right way. blasting off with J Dilla's signature siren call, we are launched into a bouncy room of stringed reverberation with slick drum beats pulling us through. suddenly ascending guitar solos make us forget that we're listening to a hip hop record, while a hermaphroditic voice pulls us in:
play me
play me
buy me
workinonit
workinonit
workinonit
workinonit
girls moan, the guitar solos keep recurring, then breakdown: the guitar sings heavenly, bells twinkle, and we are summoned into the next donut.
listen to "Time: The Donut of the Heart." maybe he's just playing back a Jackson 5 b-side, but i don't care. he's playing it for me and it's divine. he lets it slow down a little bit, just to make you realize how dependent you had become on that sweet melody, and then he lets it do its work at normal speed again.
try "Lightworks:" boop boop beep boop. "This is Bendix: The Tomorrow People." it sounds like he sampled and panned the hell out a commercial from the 50s or something. layering boops and beeps like something out of Kraftwerk,
who the hell is this J Dilla? James Dewitt Yancey founded Slum Village in the mid-90s, but he is most remembered today for his production skills, which, if you've ever listened to Common, Busta Rhymes, A Tribe Called Quest, or The Pharcyde, you've already experienced. he released some solo albums in the early 00s under the moniker Jay Dee and you'll find some great stuff there. in 2003, Jay collaborated with Madlib on an album called "Champion Sound," released under Jaylib. then in 2006, J Dilla gave us "Donuts," which would be so incredibly crafted out of perfectly chosen samples that it would make music lovers around the world pause and wonder, "who the hell is this J Dilla?"
some posthumous albums have made it out since the release of "Donuts," but (and i am by no means a Dilla expert) check this monster out first. if it does the same thing to you as it did to me , you'll think it nothing special until you realize you've just listened to it 15x in a row.
download or buy.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Banshee Beat - Animal Collective (2005)
i don't know what it is. that's probably a good starting point.
if there are such things as favorites, this is my favorite Animal Collective song. if you know what the sublime is, this song is it.
and no, it's not just because it's one of the band's longest songs. it has to do with how this song FEELS.
i'm trying to be eloquent about this, but it's coming out terse.
how fitting, i continue, that it comes to how this song FEELS, because that's the name of the album you find it on. this whole song just FEELS good. it FEELS like head nodding. it FEELS like dancing, swimming, climbing, loving. it makes me want to stretch my arms out, kiss the Earth, hug the solar system, and inhale the whole universe like a delicious sea breeze. you couldn't take enough bong rips to FEEL the way this song makes you FEEL. i want to mail a letter to the President asking him to listen to this song. i want to ask you to listen to this song because i want you to tell me if it's even remotely possible to experience happiness without sadness. i want you to tell me if it's possible to love without feeling a chill run down your spine. can you hug the solar system without burning your belly button?
'Banshee Beat' FEELS like life. 'Banshee Beat' is life. it's sublime.
it doesn't start with a wailing, panning guitar or tribal drumming or a wave of distortion or dazzling, psychedelic strings... no, no, no, it starts with a whisper of a strum. reverberating whispers of strums. crackling.
a man's voice. also reverberated. a hint at a piano. reverberated.
guitars coming from all sides now. whispering. walking past us talking about something. piano tones growing and dying. crackling. crickets. chirping. crackling
the man's voice stops and something starts happening. the crackling, chirping, strumming, ripping, tapping, all that noise grows in intensity. it gets braver. it approaches you, face to face.
the guitars sidle this way and that. and the voice comes back.
a booming bass drum.
every line he sings = every chill i feel.
So I duck out, go down to find the SWIMMING POOL
Hop a fence, leave the street and wet your feet to find the swimming pool
Cause when I'm snuffed out I doubt I'll find a SWIMMING POOL
Hop a fence, leave the street and wet your feet to find the swimming pool
every line he sings = every chill i feel.
the rhythms by now are at full speed, the guitar is strumming along lazily down its own reverberated river, ah ah ah ah.
every line he sings = every chill i feel.
So I duck out, go down to find the SWIMMING POOL
Hop a fence, leave the street, and wet your feet to find the swimming pool
'Cause when I'm snuffed out I doubt I'll find a SWIMMING POOL
Hop a fence, leave the street, and wet your feet to find the swimming pool
every line he sings = every chill i feel.
cue monkey sounds.
listen. download. buy.
if there are such things as favorites, this is my favorite Animal Collective song. if you know what the sublime is, this song is it.
and no, it's not just because it's one of the band's longest songs. it has to do with how this song FEELS.
i'm trying to be eloquent about this, but it's coming out terse.
how fitting, i continue, that it comes to how this song FEELS, because that's the name of the album you find it on. this whole song just FEELS good. it FEELS like head nodding. it FEELS like dancing, swimming, climbing, loving. it makes me want to stretch my arms out, kiss the Earth, hug the solar system, and inhale the whole universe like a delicious sea breeze. you couldn't take enough bong rips to FEEL the way this song makes you FEEL. i want to mail a letter to the President asking him to listen to this song. i want to ask you to listen to this song because i want you to tell me if it's even remotely possible to experience happiness without sadness. i want you to tell me if it's possible to love without feeling a chill run down your spine. can you hug the solar system without burning your belly button?
'Banshee Beat' FEELS like life. 'Banshee Beat' is life. it's sublime.
it doesn't start with a wailing, panning guitar or tribal drumming or a wave of distortion or dazzling, psychedelic strings... no, no, no, it starts with a whisper of a strum. reverberating whispers of strums. crackling.
a man's voice. also reverberated. a hint at a piano. reverberated.
guitars coming from all sides now. whispering. walking past us talking about something. piano tones growing and dying. crackling. crickets. chirping. crackling
the man's voice stops and something starts happening. the crackling, chirping, strumming, ripping, tapping, all that noise grows in intensity. it gets braver. it approaches you, face to face.
the guitars sidle this way and that. and the voice comes back.
a booming bass drum.
every line he sings = every chill i feel.
So I duck out, go down to find the SWIMMING POOL
Hop a fence, leave the street and wet your feet to find the swimming pool
Cause when I'm snuffed out I doubt I'll find a SWIMMING POOL
Hop a fence, leave the street and wet your feet to find the swimming pool
every line he sings = every chill i feel.
the rhythms by now are at full speed, the guitar is strumming along lazily down its own reverberated river, ah ah ah ah.
every line he sings = every chill i feel.
So I duck out, go down to find the SWIMMING POOL
Hop a fence, leave the street, and wet your feet to find the swimming pool
'Cause when I'm snuffed out I doubt I'll find a SWIMMING POOL
Hop a fence, leave the street, and wet your feet to find the swimming pool
every line he sings = every chill i feel.
cue monkey sounds.
listen. download. buy.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Dayvan Cowboy - Boards of Canada (2005)
Tranquility in things larger than ourselves.
Dayvan Cowboy (video, Warp Records)
for reference:
Wikipedia: Dayvan Cowboy
Wikipedia: Project Excelsior
Wikipedia: Le Grand Saut
Dayvan Cowboy (video, Warp Records)
for reference:
Wikipedia: Dayvan Cowboy
Wikipedia: Project Excelsior
Wikipedia: Le Grand Saut
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Nine Inch Nails: Live
this is how i got into Nine Inch Nails:
it has always been about the live experience with this band. before i fell into The Downward Spiral, before i touched The Fragile or Pretty Hate Machine, there was And All That Could Have Been and nothing else.
i've come to realize that my main criterion for judging music is sincerity. i don't care if you sound like death metal or like a guy dragging a tipped over ice cream truck or something in between: as long as what you're doing is making you happy, as long as you are making music that you love, then i love it too. and what better test is there for sincerity than a live demonstration?
if you watch that video, you'll see NIN performing the usual two first songs of their Fragility Tour shows, "Terrible Lie" and "Sin." and, in less than ten minutes, you'll see the energy, the love, the destruction, the emotion, the absolute fucking sincerity of Trent Reznor performing his music.
sure, he's wearing a mask of cornstarch and makeup and, whatever, the videos are not actually complete performances, instead composed of patched up clips from ten different shows, but these things don't make Trent seem any less sincere. what's really important is how much detail goes into each performance. notice every flash of lighting, perfectly matched up with a synth or drum break. notice the structure of the bandmembers on stage, like a pentagon: bassist, front left. keyboardist, back left. guitarist, front right. drummer, back right. Reznor, center stage. five musicians with the main man at the front leading the charge. beyond that, there's the obvious stuff. the whole band headbanging like they fucking mean it (take a look at 4:30-4:50, in particular... those 20 seconds practically taught me how to headbang). you don't headbang the whole song, goddamnit, you wait until that shit breaks, and you follow the dynamics closely. this is a science. then at 5:10, there's that fucking lighting again. a guy playing a theremin. strobe lights. the usual, the weird, the greatness.
but i'm not posting this just to talk about And All That Could Have Been, although that album and all of its distinct parts (CD/DVD/Still) certainly deserve their own posts. this is the Nine Inch Nails live experience. and though they are all created equal in awesomeness, they are not all the same.
it used to be a lot messier. NIN's Woodstock 1994 performances are famous because, just minutes before going on stage, the band got into a fun little mud fight backstage, making for quite the picture-perfect look onstage:
there are legends that tell of performances on the Spiral tours in 94-95, in which, sick of sitting in bloody fucking SEATS at a Nine Inch Nails show, rabid fans tore apart whole rows and sections of seats, ripping them straight out of the ground. whether those stories are true or not, there's plenty of evidence on Closure, the documentary of that tour, that the band caused enough destruction themselves to not even warrant the extra legends. check out the trailer for Closure for a peak into the madness:
a few years later, things got toned down a little bit on the Fragility tour, which i've already talked a little bit about above. Trent was still doing a shit ton of drugs, but he was destroying himself more than hotel rooms (oh, fragile Trent) and focusing his madness more on the visual experience than on anything else.
and that ended the era that i would never get to see because i was too young.
when i finally got into the band, Nine Inch Nails didn't really exist. it was 2003 or so, And All That Could Have Been was three years in the past and the last thing Trent had said was inscribed as a little message in that DVD's packaging:
with 2005 came new hope (sort of), when NINdom found out that Trent barely made it alive through a hefty battle with alcohol, cocaine, and heroin addiction. next came news of a new album. i said "new hope (sort of)" because when i heard the first new NIN song in 6 years--"The Hand That Feeds"--i instantly knew that the Reznor who had composed songs like "Terrible Lie," "Mr. Self Destruct," and "Somewhat Damaged" was a changed man now.
he would be clean, sharp, and productive as shit.
it took stoned Trent ten years to release 3 studio albums and 1 ep. it took sober Trent three years to release 4 studio albums. ridiculous. and though i'll agree that the quality of the music decreased, i can't say the same about the live experience. though i never truly experienced a pre-With Teeth show, i think i landed on the same heavenly cloud of musically energetic paradise that existed in those early years. though he may not be able to make music like he could back then, he can still play it like he used to.
i still remember the exact date the first time i saw NIN the first time: March 25, 2005. it was that time of year where my allergies start picking up, and when they pick up, so does my asthma. but fuck it. i was seeing motherfucking NIN in a tiny auditorium on the uc davis campus. i had moaned for this for too long. he opened with The Frail --> The Wretched. it was a dream come true. i screamed the whole night and nearly rushed the barricade when he started singing Piggy. i killed myself at that show.
the next day i was sick as shit, but it didn't matter. i could fucking die for all i cared because i had finally seen Nine Inch Nails live. i didn't die. i went to my computer and downloaded a bootleg of the show and listened to it nonstop for days, sick in bed. the song "With Teeth," in particular, with its soft, soothing, brutal refusal to let go of life, struck me so hard.
i was in love.
i proceeded to see NIN four more times that year: twice in the next month (two days in a row in San Francisco at a small venue called the Warfield, once with a bunch of friends and once by myself because none of my friends were as psycho as I was), once in November at the huge Oakland Arena, and once in December at a smaller venue in Santa Cruz.
the Oakland show was the one.
the show had originally been planned for an earlier date, about a month earlier, but the drummer at the time, Jerome Dillon, had repeatedly called in sick. Trent got pissed, got a new drummer, made a new date, and made it up to us more than we could have possibly imagined. Adam and i got to the venue before noon and we were still about 50 people back. we waited all day, hearing about how at other shows Trent had let NIN fan club members in for meet & greets and/or soundchecks. we got the latter. everyone casually walked into the venue as NIN was right there on stage, in broad daylight, like any other band, rocking out to Into the Void. and even when they were just playing for sound levels, they were having a good time. sincerity.
the actual show destroyed me and actually destroyed Adam. he hadn't eaten enough during the day and hardly enjoyed the show because he was dying. i didn't need food that night. firmly planted on the barricade, my arms, firmly planted on the band, my eyes, dazzled, firmly planted on the music, my mind. the light show, unlike any other NIN show (nay, any other show, by anyone) that i had every seen, was phenomenal. and they weren't just rehashing the same old shit over and over. i think Trent got sick of playing same old Closer, so he remixed it with a song from Pretty Hate Machine, "The Only Time." and it worked beautifully. check out the switch around 2:50.
i even got to experience that shit i saw on And All That Could Have Been, where in the middle of "Piggy," Trent hands the mic to a bunch of fans in front so they could sing. a few people around me and i caught a thrown microphone from Trent in the middle of "Suck" and belted out the lyrics like it was the last song in the universe. the light show was stellar, the whole band was feeling it, movement, movement, motion, motion, madness, madness, music music music music music music. i wanted to die (again).
and so it went.
in the summer of 2006, i saw NIN at Mountain View with my dad. another great show, and the second time a parent of mine attended a NIN show with me. (the first was in Oakland, but my mom and little brother were in the seats while i was at the barricade with Adam... not everyone likes getting to shows nine hours early.)
a year ago was the first time i took a girlfriend to a Nine Inch Nails show. i thought it would suck. for years, i had witnessed boyfriends have miserable times trying to defend their little girlfriends, half the time fighting with everyone around them instead of making love to Trent. thank god, Meryl and i got to the show ballsass early, like Adam and i in 2005, and we got barricade, once again. protecting the girl was hardly a problem.
the show itself, of course, was amazing. it got interactive again, too. to go along with the Year Zero theme, security-style cams displayed everyone at the barricade in our section on giant screens in the arena during "Survivalism." so silly, but so fun.
my favorite part of this show was the Ghosts breakdown. of all of NIN's new releases, Ghosts is the best. it's experimental and instrumental and glorious sound manipulation, which is all music is. oh, and it feels sincere. at the show, the band replicated a few songs off the album with upright bass and xylophones and all sorts of strange instruments i don't know the names of. oh yeah, and the lighting ruled, of course.
i saw Nine Inch Nails for the eighth and (supposedly) last time two nights ago. and i've concluded a few things: Trent loves music, NIN still rocks, and Trent loves music. over the course of the night he had a bunch of his friends, influences, and more come on stage to play music with him over the course of the 31-song and 2.5 hour set. they included Gary Numan, Eric Avery of Jane's Addiction, Greg Puciato from Dillinger Escape Plan, and Danny Lohner, the bassist from the Fragility tour. in the following video, Mike Garson, who was David Bowie's keyboardist back in the day and played those insane arpeggios on The Fragile for "Just Like You Imagined," made an appearance to add some piano mischief to the standard NIN repertoire.
i was stunned. and almost died (once again).
also, i'd be stunned if you actually read this whole thing. i just wanted to express how important the Nine Inch Nails live experience has been to me over the years and how, i'm sure, it will continue to be important to me for the rest of my life.
probably for a very long time, i will continue to say that a mass of people ebbing to Nine Inch Nails performing "Terrible Lie" live is probably the best possible thing that anybody can ever experience. i will compare all light shows to NIN's light shows. i will compare all bands' endurances to the endurance of a band that can rock and rock hard for well over 2 hours. every night. i will compare the dedication of other musicians' fans to the dedication of NIN fans who line up before the sun starts rising just for a barricade spot. at every show. i will compare the recording policies of other bands to NIN's policies, which strictly demand that everyone bring an HD camera and sturdy tripod to the show for the best quality possible. and, more than anything, i will compare your favorite musician's sincerity to the sincerity of Trent Reznor, who bleeds the stuff from his fucking eyes and throat.
sincerity.
it has always been about the live experience with this band. before i fell into The Downward Spiral, before i touched The Fragile or Pretty Hate Machine, there was And All That Could Have Been and nothing else.
i've come to realize that my main criterion for judging music is sincerity. i don't care if you sound like death metal or like a guy dragging a tipped over ice cream truck or something in between: as long as what you're doing is making you happy, as long as you are making music that you love, then i love it too. and what better test is there for sincerity than a live demonstration?
if you watch that video, you'll see NIN performing the usual two first songs of their Fragility Tour shows, "Terrible Lie" and "Sin." and, in less than ten minutes, you'll see the energy, the love, the destruction, the emotion, the absolute fucking sincerity of Trent Reznor performing his music.
sure, he's wearing a mask of cornstarch and makeup and, whatever, the videos are not actually complete performances, instead composed of patched up clips from ten different shows, but these things don't make Trent seem any less sincere. what's really important is how much detail goes into each performance. notice every flash of lighting, perfectly matched up with a synth or drum break. notice the structure of the bandmembers on stage, like a pentagon: bassist, front left. keyboardist, back left. guitarist, front right. drummer, back right. Reznor, center stage. five musicians with the main man at the front leading the charge. beyond that, there's the obvious stuff. the whole band headbanging like they fucking mean it (take a look at 4:30-4:50, in particular... those 20 seconds practically taught me how to headbang). you don't headbang the whole song, goddamnit, you wait until that shit breaks, and you follow the dynamics closely. this is a science. then at 5:10, there's that fucking lighting again. a guy playing a theremin. strobe lights. the usual, the weird, the greatness.
but i'm not posting this just to talk about And All That Could Have Been, although that album and all of its distinct parts (CD/DVD/Still) certainly deserve their own posts. this is the Nine Inch Nails live experience. and though they are all created equal in awesomeness, they are not all the same.
it used to be a lot messier. NIN's Woodstock 1994 performances are famous because, just minutes before going on stage, the band got into a fun little mud fight backstage, making for quite the picture-perfect look onstage:
there are legends that tell of performances on the Spiral tours in 94-95, in which, sick of sitting in bloody fucking SEATS at a Nine Inch Nails show, rabid fans tore apart whole rows and sections of seats, ripping them straight out of the ground. whether those stories are true or not, there's plenty of evidence on Closure, the documentary of that tour, that the band caused enough destruction themselves to not even warrant the extra legends. check out the trailer for Closure for a peak into the madness:
a few years later, things got toned down a little bit on the Fragility tour, which i've already talked a little bit about above. Trent was still doing a shit ton of drugs, but he was destroying himself more than hotel rooms (oh, fragile Trent) and focusing his madness more on the visual experience than on anything else.
and that ended the era that i would never get to see because i was too young.
when i finally got into the band, Nine Inch Nails didn't really exist. it was 2003 or so, And All That Could Have Been was three years in the past and the last thing Trent had said was inscribed as a little message in that DVD's packaging:
- just a glimpse
- just a little reminder
- of a time and place we
- used to live in
- this dvd attempts to
- document the
- experience of
- nine inch nails live,
- as we were in the
- summer of 2000
- we filmed and recorded
- most of the dates of
- the north american
- fragility 2.0 tour
- with home video cameras
- then assembled
- mixed and edited this
- ourselves with our
- home computers
- in my eyes
- fragility 2.0
- was a summation of
- what we had
- accomplished up to
- that time so this dvd
- serves as a reminder
- of achievement
- as well as
- a departure point
- this is almost what
- it felt like being there
- trent reznor
with 2005 came new hope (sort of), when NINdom found out that Trent barely made it alive through a hefty battle with alcohol, cocaine, and heroin addiction. next came news of a new album. i said "new hope (sort of)" because when i heard the first new NIN song in 6 years--"The Hand That Feeds"--i instantly knew that the Reznor who had composed songs like "Terrible Lie," "Mr. Self Destruct," and "Somewhat Damaged" was a changed man now.
he would be clean, sharp, and productive as shit.
it took stoned Trent ten years to release 3 studio albums and 1 ep. it took sober Trent three years to release 4 studio albums. ridiculous. and though i'll agree that the quality of the music decreased, i can't say the same about the live experience. though i never truly experienced a pre-With Teeth show, i think i landed on the same heavenly cloud of musically energetic paradise that existed in those early years. though he may not be able to make music like he could back then, he can still play it like he used to.
i still remember the exact date the first time i saw NIN the first time: March 25, 2005. it was that time of year where my allergies start picking up, and when they pick up, so does my asthma. but fuck it. i was seeing motherfucking NIN in a tiny auditorium on the uc davis campus. i had moaned for this for too long. he opened with The Frail --> The Wretched. it was a dream come true. i screamed the whole night and nearly rushed the barricade when he started singing Piggy. i killed myself at that show.
the next day i was sick as shit, but it didn't matter. i could fucking die for all i cared because i had finally seen Nine Inch Nails live. i didn't die. i went to my computer and downloaded a bootleg of the show and listened to it nonstop for days, sick in bed. the song "With Teeth," in particular, with its soft, soothing, brutal refusal to let go of life, struck me so hard.
i was in love.
i proceeded to see NIN four more times that year: twice in the next month (two days in a row in San Francisco at a small venue called the Warfield, once with a bunch of friends and once by myself because none of my friends were as psycho as I was), once in November at the huge Oakland Arena, and once in December at a smaller venue in Santa Cruz.
the Oakland show was the one.
the show had originally been planned for an earlier date, about a month earlier, but the drummer at the time, Jerome Dillon, had repeatedly called in sick. Trent got pissed, got a new drummer, made a new date, and made it up to us more than we could have possibly imagined. Adam and i got to the venue before noon and we were still about 50 people back. we waited all day, hearing about how at other shows Trent had let NIN fan club members in for meet & greets and/or soundchecks. we got the latter. everyone casually walked into the venue as NIN was right there on stage, in broad daylight, like any other band, rocking out to Into the Void. and even when they were just playing for sound levels, they were having a good time. sincerity.
the actual show destroyed me and actually destroyed Adam. he hadn't eaten enough during the day and hardly enjoyed the show because he was dying. i didn't need food that night. firmly planted on the barricade, my arms, firmly planted on the band, my eyes, dazzled, firmly planted on the music, my mind. the light show, unlike any other NIN show (nay, any other show, by anyone) that i had every seen, was phenomenal. and they weren't just rehashing the same old shit over and over. i think Trent got sick of playing same old Closer, so he remixed it with a song from Pretty Hate Machine, "The Only Time." and it worked beautifully. check out the switch around 2:50.
i even got to experience that shit i saw on And All That Could Have Been, where in the middle of "Piggy," Trent hands the mic to a bunch of fans in front so they could sing. a few people around me and i caught a thrown microphone from Trent in the middle of "Suck" and belted out the lyrics like it was the last song in the universe. the light show was stellar, the whole band was feeling it, movement, movement, motion, motion, madness, madness, music music music music music music. i wanted to die (again).
and so it went.
in the summer of 2006, i saw NIN at Mountain View with my dad. another great show, and the second time a parent of mine attended a NIN show with me. (the first was in Oakland, but my mom and little brother were in the seats while i was at the barricade with Adam... not everyone likes getting to shows nine hours early.)
a year ago was the first time i took a girlfriend to a Nine Inch Nails show. i thought it would suck. for years, i had witnessed boyfriends have miserable times trying to defend their little girlfriends, half the time fighting with everyone around them instead of making love to Trent. thank god, Meryl and i got to the show ballsass early, like Adam and i in 2005, and we got barricade, once again. protecting the girl was hardly a problem.
the show itself, of course, was amazing. it got interactive again, too. to go along with the Year Zero theme, security-style cams displayed everyone at the barricade in our section on giant screens in the arena during "Survivalism." so silly, but so fun.
my favorite part of this show was the Ghosts breakdown. of all of NIN's new releases, Ghosts is the best. it's experimental and instrumental and glorious sound manipulation, which is all music is. oh, and it feels sincere. at the show, the band replicated a few songs off the album with upright bass and xylophones and all sorts of strange instruments i don't know the names of. oh yeah, and the lighting ruled, of course.
i saw Nine Inch Nails for the eighth and (supposedly) last time two nights ago. and i've concluded a few things: Trent loves music, NIN still rocks, and Trent loves music. over the course of the night he had a bunch of his friends, influences, and more come on stage to play music with him over the course of the 31-song and 2.5 hour set. they included Gary Numan, Eric Avery of Jane's Addiction, Greg Puciato from Dillinger Escape Plan, and Danny Lohner, the bassist from the Fragility tour. in the following video, Mike Garson, who was David Bowie's keyboardist back in the day and played those insane arpeggios on The Fragile for "Just Like You Imagined," made an appearance to add some piano mischief to the standard NIN repertoire.
i was stunned. and almost died (once again).
also, i'd be stunned if you actually read this whole thing. i just wanted to express how important the Nine Inch Nails live experience has been to me over the years and how, i'm sure, it will continue to be important to me for the rest of my life.
probably for a very long time, i will continue to say that a mass of people ebbing to Nine Inch Nails performing "Terrible Lie" live is probably the best possible thing that anybody can ever experience. i will compare all light shows to NIN's light shows. i will compare all bands' endurances to the endurance of a band that can rock and rock hard for well over 2 hours. every night. i will compare the dedication of other musicians' fans to the dedication of NIN fans who line up before the sun starts rising just for a barricade spot. at every show. i will compare the recording policies of other bands to NIN's policies, which strictly demand that everyone bring an HD camera and sturdy tripod to the show for the best quality possible. and, more than anything, i will compare your favorite musician's sincerity to the sincerity of Trent Reznor, who bleeds the stuff from his fucking eyes and throat.
sincerity.
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