Cold Cave/Austra/Cult of Youth @ Bowery Ballroom 8.6.11

Photo by Dominick Mastrangelo via BrooklynVegan

We constantly dream how it would've been to see the likes of Depeche Mode, Siouxsie Sioux and the Banshees, Joy Division, New Order, Bauhaus and the Cure when they were young, inciting new wave dancey parties live in clubs and special to small group of romantic, dark and lonely weirdos. Literally babies then, we missed the boat and have been looking for the new wave dance party of our dreams ever since this music came into our line of hearing. Once upon a time, we had it in The Faint but their absence has left us thirsty. On this particular Saturday night libations flowed for what seemed forever with Austra and Cold Cave and we drank furiously.

Among the gays, girls, goths and everything inside and between, we stood on the floor, coming in during the last of Cult of Youth's loud yelps and fiddledidoos. Our brains were programmed for danceable electronics on this night so we dismissed them and their lack thereof accordingly. We soon fell out of attack mode with Austra's appearance -- or rather performance.

The band -- with the exception of harness booted keyboardist Ryan Wosniak -- walked on stage looking like the ultimate hipster caricatures. As it was the last day of tour, they threw together the last random bits of clothing they had left into less than stellar outfits. While their wardrobe choices were questionable, they hit the mark where it counts the most, musically. Singer Kate Stelmanis' has cemented herself as unique voice in indie with her fragile coos. In combination with the voices of Sari and Romy Lightman, the ladies sound like a chorus of wounded birds singing themselves into oblivion, tragic yet beautiful.

Bassist Dorian Wolf and drummer Maya Postepski add a new and welcome oomph to the set electro beats of the better songs off the Canadian band's debut Feel It Break. "Darken Her Horse," "Lose It" "Spellwork," "The Villain," and "Beat and the Pulse." Some may say "Lose It" is the single that made them but I offer up the sonically perfect and instantly contagious "Beat and The Pulse." You have to be soulless to not move to this joint.

In addition to the familar, they performed two songs we'd never heard, "Young and Gay" from the Beat and the Pulse EP and the unreleased "Habitat" our ears and feet quickly embraced them both happily.

At the end of their set, we had a decision to make: to stay or not to stay. Aside from a quick listen to Cherish the Light Years days before the show, we knew nothing of Cold Cave except that there was the potential danceyness to ensue. In the ever-present spirit of no regret, we vowed to stay on hopes of having a great time and if shit got boring, we'd leave and get some bubble tea at Just Sweet.

As usual we can't plan anything because it always ends up out window. Cold Cave had us the second they hit the stage after the shortest wait in between bands known to us. Into the darkness came drummer Alex Garcia-Rivera, singer Wes Einsold and synthesizer-er Ian Dominick Fernow, the latter two wearing the best leather jackets we'd ever laid our unworthy eyes on. Einsold intiated the set with a throwing of sunflowers into the crowd of which we were two of the lucky recipients. Then the music hit us.

It came in like the firestorm of Sarah Connor's dream, blowing away every layer of human leaving only our bare bones intact holding onto the lip of the stage. Two songs in and I thought we'd found our new The Faint. This was new wave party we've been dying to attend -- only we thought more people would be dancing instead of standing around oogling at the stage. We did our thing as hard as we could but it was nothing close to Fernow's moves. He thrashed about the stage, his body with no choice but to exorcise the abundance of energy and anguish and angst in this way. It was focan inspiring.

The band proved their worth and our brain signaled GET $5 DOLLAR BAND SHIRTS NOW! and during a slow jam we gave up front spots to venture out to the merch table and get what we wanted -- well, "needed" at this point. Unfortunately, the merch dude was away and would be back after their set so we went back inside danced to the encore in the back where the sound was better but it hurt to watch so many people not moving.

The second Wes uttered "This is our last song," we timed it so we'd head down toward the middle of it. We got our stuff and left, their hour long set leaving us enough time to still make it to Just Sweet for a bubble tea fix. Sipping on our iced teas with lychee jelly in awe of the night's happenings, we thanked the sons and daughters of 80s new wave for giving us something new to dance to.

Setlist and pics over at BrooklynVegan

Death from Above 1979/The Drums @ Williamsburg Waterfront 7.22.11

Photo by Vincent Cornelli via BrooklynVegan

It's a rare thing when divorced parents get back together. Once upon a time, it was just as rare for a band to do the same but now it seems like many are making up and taking their show on the road once again.

In 2006, Death from Above 1979 left fans grieving the loss of the powerhouse duo and the missed chance to dance and mosh in the name of sexy music. A reunion and tour announcement earlier this year gave us new hope. DFA 1979 lovers, experienced or virgin, like us, were vowing not to miss them -- no matter what. Snail got her chance first at Sasquatch! Morrissey and I got tickets to their NYC show. Our date, the hottest day of a three-day heatwave, came with a high risk factor but it couldn't stop us, we rode that shit all the way to Williamsburg Waterfront.  

After a sweaty bus ride that brought me back to packed and swamp-assed bus rides in the third world tropics and cool redemption at Wild Ginger for dinner, we arrived to The Drums' pleasant indie pop ditties and found a nice spot near the stage. Sweaty and gross again, I tried to fight the urge to sway to their sweet beat as to not provoke my sweat glands further. Even though I was only familiar with "Best Friend" from their self-titled, I liked all of it, especially the new songs from Portamento, and a few sways escaped me anyway.

The sun had lost some power by their end but it was still too hot most people stood as far from each other as possible, reserving whatever time they had in anticipation for the potential body heat massacre that was to be during DFA's set.

People slowly began to migrate closer the the stage as Fugazi, AC/DC and At the Drive-In blared through the speakers.  A mini-sing-along broke out during ATDI's "One Arm Scissor" bouts where we stood and that made me happy. The headliner's banner soon fell, an amazing piece of black and white art featuring the guys' elephant-trunked zombified alter egos creeping up from behind their gravestone, engraved "DFA 1979 2001-2006," and everyone screamed. This was not a hallucinatory side effect of heatstroke, our boys were back from the dead.

All anxiousness from waiting abated, excitement and cheers reigned as Jesse F. Keeler and Sebastien Grainger hit the stage in ebony and ivory respectively, Sebby sporting a weird but ultimately very becoming bleach blonde moptop. We danced and thrashed -- some physically, others mentally -- and swooned over the Canadian hotnesses during our beloved songs, mostly from their Heads Up EP and album You're a Woman I'm a Machine. During the breaks, Sebastien asked if we were okay and riffed, telling joke after joke like a rookie comedian at his first open mic. He was hilarious, as usual. 

The heat was definitely affecting the level of crazy among the masses. We came into this mostly fearing that we were going to be eaten alive by a moshing mob but though a decent mosh pit got started, people seemed to care more about making through the show than risking their lives going hard in the pit. It was so hot, many guys and gals either walked out of it or reserved their cr00sh moments of their favorite jams.

After the end of the set, we cheered the men back on to the stage for an a two-song encore, apparently Sebastien didn't think we were going hard enough. “Mom and Dad get back together and that’s all you got?” he said and garnered our best roar -- or rather the best we could do as sunbeaten as we were -- and played us out with personal faves "Losing Friends" and "If We Don't Make It We'll Fake It."

As we walked out into the streets of North Brooklyn, we could hear people crossing this event off their bucket lists through the massive exodus. We hope Mom and Dad continue to ride the ecstasy of their make up sex well into their ancient years but if that's not the case at least we got to experience their legend first hand, at least once.

For setlist and more pics check out BrooklynVegan

Moonface/Flow Child @ Mercury Lounge 7.20.11

On this Wednesday night we revisited two of our favorite places in LES after a very long time: Teany for dinner and Mercury Lounge to see Moonface. We were welcomed into the venue to the beat of SBTRKT and danced to "Pharaohs" making up for its absence in his PS 1 set. I kept dancing funny to make Snail laugh really hard but I had to contain myself, as badly as I wanted to make her laugh I DID NOT want her to pee herself so I held back.

She lucked out because my dances did not match opener Flow Child's tune. This dude, who resembled Grizzly Bear Chris Taylor's little brother, tweaked knobs to create weird whimsy beats that reminded us of Animal Collective and scenes of candy colored fantasy creatures like pink hippos and rainbow-haired polycorns at times -- all in an old bata that had another life as a v-neck that turned into a crewneck and then a frayed boatneck. After his set, the venue's mystery mixmaster played "My Girls" and validated our keen ears.

I continued to clown out and kill Snail. A nice young man from Arkansas named Eli turned around to speak to us, curious about our raucousness. We discussed Flow Child's bata situation and I fell in love with his T-shirt. On the back it said, in German and Helvetica font "Bier trinkt man nicht nur zum Frühstück" (roughly "beer is not only for breakfast.")  He was surprised we didn't make incest jokes since he was from Arkansas. Who the fuck does that shit? A bunch a people he met in New York so far apparently. "You've been talking to a lot dicks" Snail said. "I guess so," Eli replied. And so we talked about his stay in NYC, he compared it to living in Berlin and my heart skipped a beat at the thought of my own impending dream of living in Germany's capital city.

Spencer Krug and Mike Bigelow had a similar effect on all of the crowd who cheered the duo on as they climbed on the stage. Before going all in on the whole of Moonface's freshly released Organ Music Not Vibraphone Like I'd Hoped, Spencer forewarned his organ was broken and joked if they fucked up and the show had to stop we were all going to get in their October show for free. In usual form, Krug played every song as if it was his last. His hair gone wild in fan wind and fingers undulating on the keys, he danced, no stool in his way this time, just the music moving him like a tuning fork that occasionally dips and shakes his hips. Mike wasn't far behind beating those electric drums with his whole body, working himself into a massive sweat.

They ended it all with non-encore Swan Lake's "All Fires" which Spencer prefaced with another funny comment, "This is our last song, so we can all get out of here...its Wednesday, we can all go home and watch movies on our laptops." The song caused a fanboy next to us to go into a nervous, excited frenzy. We saw him singing all the words to the songs earlier and concluded it was a privilege to finally stand next someone who outdid our frenzied fandom.

The venue played us out with some DJ Shadow. I stole a poster of the show as a keepsake and we were sad we didn't have any money for the Organ Music... vinyl or tour poster. Snail, being her Honest Abe self asked a security guard if she could take the other Moonface poster that was up and in that instant this drugged up fatty snatched it. We could've easily tripped him and stole it from him, but we had committed enough petty crimes for the night.

Related: Moonface/Matteah Baim @ Envelope 5.6.11

Moonface/Matteah Baim @ Envelope 05.06.11

Friday night we rode to L to the Jefferson stop to see Spencer Krug as Moonface. We've declared our love for the man and his music plenty of times here, so to attempt to describe how happy we were to see him in a 65-person capacity space is a bit challenging. Let's just say it was sickening.

The fourth-floor candle-lit apartment boasted a warm --it was quite tropical in there-- and relaxed atmosphere that made this event feel more more like party in some friend's living room --giant cat portrait painting included-- than a concert. It was as though we were invited to check out what they were working on lately, like good old friends, mad casual.

The show opened with a quick set of Matteah Baim's beautiful haunting folk songs. After a short sound check, it was on to Moonface's first show ever. There was no Dreamland EP to be heard but plenty of marimba and shit drums via band mate Mike Bigelow on rad new songs nobody had heard before including the hilariously titled "Shithawk." A slender Spencer did his thing looking like a mad scientist, whipping his long hair about and stomping on the ground behind all those buttons on his "golden pipes" and synthesizers.

It was great to see Spencer thriving in this intimate setting. He seemed more playful than usual in between songs, joking around "seriously, guys, if you could just crawl up here one by one and see there's just so many buttons" and "doot-dooting" while playing with his globe tap lamp in between raising his glass to cheer with us. Serious appreciation also goes to Mike who killed it on the percussion end, holding his own complimenting Krug's brilliance. When we weren't dancing to the new downright crazy electro beats and trying not to pass out in the heat, we spent the show eyes darting between their hypnotizing cohesive energy.

Then to our awesome surprise, Sunset Rubdown's Camilla Wynne Ingr crawled on stage to sing a couple of songs, concluding with Swan Lake's "All Fires," during which she slugged sips from a bottle of Jameson at the instrumental parts and poked fun at Spencer for covering his own song. Needless to say, she's our kind of lady, and obviously the entire room's because as soon as she got off the stage she was surrounded by many a person telling her, "you are so cool."

Though everyone stuck around post show to finish their fancy drinks or get a chance to talk to the band or just not to waste the rest of a perfectly good Friday, ousted by the heat and habit we went home along in our usual haze of gratitude and feeling like what just happened was one great incredible dream. A wonderful Spring evening indeed.

Spencer said the new album should be out around August!

Wolf Parade/Ogre You Asshole @ Wellmont Theater 11.03.10

"If anyone got their money's worth tonight, it was you two."

--Police officer who was witness apparent to our show-long madness.

After feeding our feverish excitement with caffeinated beverages at Eclectic Cafe, we walked down towards Wellmont in a bit of a panic think the line would be a healthy length by 6. When we reached the corner of the street where the venue was, we saw WP drummah and producer extraordinaire Arlen Thompson and Kool-Aid smiled it to the line. There was one person: a girl waiting for her friend who were both Wolf Parade live noobs. They were cute and nice and we assured them they were in for a treat.

Met up with two of my pals from college and sped into the venue to catch our prime spots between Dan and Spencer. The venue looked empty for a long time which made us fell like paranoid androids for acting like we were gonna have to fight for our places. Better safe than sorry, amirite?!

We were pretty excited for Ogre You Asshole. Snail had heard just one song and she already knew we were in for a good time. This adorable Japanese indie rock band with their fashionable sweaters and beautiful hair, as Dan so accurately described them, were so awesome. It was their first show outside of Japan and I'm sure they were grateful to see so many people responding to them. They had a Wolf Parade quality to them especially in their harder, more guitar driven songs. It was plain to see why the band chose them to open this tour and why a lot of people had fun during their set.

We fell in love with Kei Mabuchi, the guitarist with beautiful long hair and a navy anchor sweater. He was so beautiful I said I wanted to ask him if i could braid his hair while wearing his anchor sweater. We both swear we had eye-locking moments with him and no one can take that away from us. Singer Manabu Deto's cuteness was so that I wanted to squeeze his cheeks violently and ask rhetorically, "WHY ARE YOU SO FRICKIN ADORABLE!?!"

Ahem, back to the music.
They rocked our socks off. Snail asked the Manabu for his set list, at first he was confused --their English is not so good --but then he realized what she wanted and looked happy and appreciative :) He had another one and someone asked for it but he didn't give it to them :) We win.

Hyper hyper status was in full swing as we waited for the guys to come out and set up their stuff. Some fanboys asked Dan if they could have the set list after the show and of course he said he would give it to them (he never did) and from then our brains manifested an entire skit so funny we made my pal Christine cry of laughter. We are going to pitch it to SNL so they could hire us since the show has been so stale lately. Needless to say, we are ruthless. Then it was time to turn the crazy up to 11.

While almost all of the crowd stood about not moving much (again, for reasons we cannot fathom) we kicked it hard and sexy to "Ghost Pressure," "What Did My Lover Say? (It Always Had to Go This Way)," "Dear Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts" and "Kissing the Beehive" as per usual. I even awed a white guy next to me during that last one with my native sassy hip movements haha. As Snail exorcised her demons, I got goosebumps and a bit sad during "I'll Believe in Anything" and "Little Golden Age" played back-to-back to torture our sensi souls, specifically...or so I tell myself. Snail got looked at by Spencer and fell into stare fail 2.0, where it is now scientifically proven that it is impossible for her to look him in the eye. It's alright though because Dan smiled at her and no one can take that away from her.

They played a new new song "Semi-Precious Stone" which I was iffy about when I got it the day before on iTunes but live I warmed up to it damn quick. Overall we felt the set was filled with too many songs we would rather not listen to live, more notably "Language City" "The Grey Estates" and "This Hearts on Fire". Hello? Where the hell is "In Direction of the Moon?" that song kicks both those songs' asses, I thought. But then, the moment that would make sacrificing that song to the setlist gods happened to conclude the all-too-short two-song encore: They played the song that defines/personifies/is the be all and end all of our friendship, "Fancy Claps." Spencer said they hadn't played the song in over a year but since so many people asked for it they were going to give it go. We hadn't seen it live since their August 2007 show at Warsaw. Earlier Snail tweeted about it and we got it! AMAZING! We danced so hard I think we scared everyone around us. If they didn't know how serious we were about this band initially, they fucking knew it after experiencing us during "Fancy Claps."

In our state of glory and euphoria amped up by the police officer and his quote above we exited the floor with a "fuck yea" strut...in our brains. Before heading outside we stopped by Ogre You Asshole's side of the merch table to buy their CD (which they were wowed I wanted two copies for us, so adorable) and their orange bear shirt. Standing right next to gorgeous long-haired anchor sweatered awesome, we died. We wanted to talk to them but fear of things being lost in translation stopped us (where is Karen when you need her? haha) I think they got the picture that we loved them due to our purchases so that was okay.

With our skeletons broke, ears blown out and smiles on our faces, we went into the night full of BFF love and band crushes and all fine things being fangirlin' buddies is made of to drop dead from tiredness in our beds and wake up like we got hit by trucks, the sweetest most well earned pain we could endure.

C&S note: If you made it this far without getting annoyed at our random acts of fangirlism, we congratulate you. We are unapologetic but  extremely aware of our potential obnoxiousness. The thing is, these fangirlisms are kept between us and this blog in joke form. We have too much of a sense of boundaries and immense respect for the artists we love and are too afraid of being idiots and treating these talented people like anything besides human beings. That said, we hope those new to our mental state can laugh with us (or at us) as we chronicle our overwhelming love for everything! 

See more pics of this show here and here.
Listen to Ogre You Asshole here.
Read about our Wolf Parade freakout this summer here.

Epic Moments: Accidental Stare Contest With Spencer Krug

Spencer Krug by Davoud D

When we went to see our first Wolf Parade show at Warsaw in Brooklyn on a beautiful-but-humid summer day back in 2007, our fangirling over this band was recent and we were incredibly psyched to see them live just months after discovering them. In true Cheep and Snail fashion we got to the venue way too early, early enough to see Spencer sitting at the bar being interviewed by 'some chick.' At Warsaw there's a little lobby/restaurant at the entrance with tables and chairs, and that is where Cheep and myself were hanging, ogling at the interview, 'he looks uncomfortable,' 'he doesn't like doing these things' blah, blah, blah we went on.

After the interview was over, he sat there enjoying a drink by himself, but of course our eyes must have been piercing his neck with our lazer-cat vision because he turned around and stared at ME in the eyes. In a matter of seconds I fell back on my chair, really really hard... if the chair hadn't been there I would have probably injured myself against the wall that held me when falling with my mouth in a gasp. Cheep took control and while still standing stared back at him and he looked away.

"Well you lost that stare contest," Cheep said as I hyperventilated out of his sight. We then proceeded to have a laugh attack like 16-year-olds.

Our unrecognizable little heads are going wild in the front row in this video for "I'll Believe In Anything". Our fangirldom for Wolf Parade still raging on 'til this day and we'll be catching them again this November at The Wellmont Theather. Woo!

Special note: We'd like to thank Mr. Davoud D. who let us use this photo for our anecdote. It would not have been the same without it! You can see this one and more of his awesome photography on his Flickr page.

Wolf Parade/Mools/Zola Jesus @ Terminal 5 7.13.10 + Album Review

This is probably the first show in a long time that I wasn't annoyed for 98% of it. The opening acts Zola Jesus and Mools were the best. Zola Jesus is a big, haunting voice in a little package that gave me goosebumps. Mools is a Japanese rock band that continues the tradition of great, riff based 90's alternative music. Their singer had this crazy big hair and the most random and fascinating on-stage persona. Could not stop smiling or looking at him.

When Wolf Parade came on, the geeking out began without stopping until the last note was played. Dancing, jumping, headbanging, singing every word, playing air guitar and air drums all to the possible dismay of the surrounding concertgoers who just stood there for whatever reasons I cannot fathom. We were touched when Dan intro'd "Little Golden Age" by saying "This is a song about nostalgia and the dangers of nostalgia" and how its best to live in the now. Snail and I were talking about that in between bands and forever and a day and it really amazed us that (yet again) someone we admire so much is THERE. At the end, we left that moment soaked in sweat and stank to go home to a world where this is all considered past tense.

Wolf Parade is one of those bands that is consistently delivering. My process with them usually has me loving specific tracks right off the bat then I grow to love the rest yet there's always a track or two I only like and listen to the least. Their recent one, Expo 86, continues this trend. I was instantly hooked on "What Did My Lover Say? (It Always Had To Go This Way),""Ghost Pressure," and "In Direction of the Moon" and they are still my absolute favorites. "Cave-O-Sapien" and "Little Golden Age" grew on me quite fast. Songs like "Oh You, Old Thing," "Two Men in New Tuxedos," "Pobody's Nerfect" have parts within them that love more than others but I like them a lot. "Cloud Shadow on the Mountain" "Palm Road" and "Yulia" are the ones I'm more quick to skip if I'm listening to the album with iPod in hand. Otherwise, I like them, too.

Each album has a particular feel as well and this one boasts guitar and drum prowess. This is the album Dan Boeckner and Arlen Thompson shine more than they ever have in my ears. As Snail assessed, Dan's songs have always been the most straight-forward and instantly catchy while Spencer Krug's more cerebral and take more time to get used to.

This album as an 80's inspired composition has made me think comparing Dan and Spencer to two of the decades most important singer songwriters, Bruce Springteen and Morrissey, respectively. Dan's effortless cool and songs about living as a small town outcast who has a love/hate relationship with his hometown and the modern world that threatens to obliterate the purity and realness he associates with it is undeniably Springsteen while Spencer's literary background, complex yet heart-wrenching and oft times absurd narrative and reclusive nature is so Morrissey. I love that these two geniuses come together to make a perfect balance. Everyone else in the band also has their role we can stuff them into: Arlen is the drumming and production wizard while Dante DeCaro is the multi-instrumental accent that ties the band together.

They are the best band of the millennium our book.

Especially since their existence has taken Snail and I's friendship to celestial levels as the only other band besides Radiohead that has sent us up for a twirl and made us realize how blessed we are to be alive and be friends and be able to share this beyond-the-realm-of-reality love of music, writing, art, etc. and the artists who make it. We turn into total saps about experiencing such things together that we bring each other to tears and (now we're not ashamed to say) that's okay.