The snow hit Kalamazoo wet and heavy yesterday. Just as Laura and I were planning to leave for Ann Arbor to see Vampire Weekend. I got stuck twice in a snow bank. As I was digging myself out of a snowbank for the second time at 10 to seven I realized we weren’t going to make the show. Laura also informed me that 94 eastbound was closed between Kalamazoo and Battle Creek. It’s hard to be a punk rocker in the snow I think.
To add the witches of MacBeth to the mix I got this as my horoscope yesterday.
Whatever events you might have been scheduled to attend might be temporarily postponed. This might leave you feeling at somewhat of a loss, because you’ve planned to be away right now and you won’t know what to do with yourself in the meantime. Be your usual ingenious self and you’ll find something! Go to it!
We went out for dinner at Cosmo’s and got Isabella home early.
For a flavor of Vampire Weekend check this video out.
To top it all off I had this wild dream that Hulk Hogan and Rambo were hunting me down to kill me. But somehow I convinced Hulk Hogan to give me his flame thrower. Dude! Hulk Hogan gave me his flame thrower! That has to mean something right!
If there is one band whose music has carried me through miles and miles of running, car trips, highs and lows since 2004 it’s been Broken Social Scene. Bad fortune has caught me before when it comes to live shows. Cough Andrew Bird. But I missed the huge heyday of BSS when they had 14 people on stage plus a string and horn section. Despite that mental setback. I was giddily excited to see Broken Social Scene presents: Kevin Drew’s Spirit if. The album is more focused on front man Drew’s songs. Most are excellent and apart from subtle collaborative elements being missing the music seems purely in the vein of You Forgot it in People and the Eponymous release that captured my imagination.
Prior to starting the set Kevin Drew asked the crowd if we ever felt the awkwardness of not knowing if you should sit or stand. He offered to be the middle man for the audience and tell us when it was appropriate to sit or stand. He adjusted his microphone and then two seconds later says, “Stand up motherfuckers”. The show started with a zing from Kevin Drew’s Spirit If, “The Lucky Ones” The following three songs kicked ass as well including cause = time and Stars and Sons (bad ass bass line).
Kevin Drew chatted amiably with the audience prior to starting most songs. The band seemed really tight most of the time even though three guitars is a lot to process for a listener through a noisy PA. Kevin forgot the lyrics to a couple of newer songs. During one song he actually let the band jam for a minute or so while he checked a lyric sheet. We even saw him confer with Brendan his major collaborator on most of the albums about the lyrics. Afterwards Kevin admitted to the audience he asked the guys in the band if they knew the words, and they told him flat out, “We have no idea what you’re singing man.” “I’m a mumbler, I admit it.” Once the rocky part of the show with the forgotten lyrics was over.
The band played almost all of Spirit If, and a good number of the fast rockers from their eponymous album. They closed out the set with a crowd pleasing rendition of “Major Label Debut”.
I really really enjoyed the show, but still want to see the full BSS chaos of 14 people on stage with two drum kits, 4 guitars, keyboards, horn sections, Feist and Emily Haines on vocals, plus Jason Collett and Kevin Drew. The energy for the show was quite high, but I sort of felt I was seeing the decaffeinated version. This might have been due to Kevin continually saying he thought he had food poisoning. But I was happy to have been in the crowd. For a married father of two it was a wild Tuesday night.
Tne lyrics I walked away with from It’s all Gonna Break , Kevin remembered perfectly.
i don’t love i just fight with the violence in ourselves
its all gonna break
and you all want the lovely music to save your lives
and you all want the lovely music to save your lives
keep it coming
their is no lie to save your life
keep it coming
this is the lie to save your life
why are you always fucking ghosts
why are you always fucking ghosts
why…......
it’s been such a long
life that we trust
your heart is a whore
and love is just lust.
you want what you can’t
and you can’t cause of fear
we’ve got to get
out of here
why are you always…......
its been and it settles down and fights to love.
its all gonna break.
The trick with most things in life is to be able to say a lot with very little. Sometimes I do it by accident, sometimes on purpose. The best of us can do it repeatedly. Charles Bukowski, Philip Levine, William Gibson, and ee cummings.
Music is one of those areas where you can either be Nick Cave and insert a Faulknerian epic into your punk rock love ballad.
Or you can be the fella’s from the “National”.
This band can say it all through tone, half phrases, and a subtle waft of Leonard Cohen’s cologne.
The song says so much, so well.
It’s all in there for me, Laura, and the kids that we’ve had it on auto repeat for the last few weeks.
I hope to see them live soon. Check out the National and their new album at Pitchfork Media
Fake Empire-
Stay out super late tonight
picking apples, making pies
put a little something in our lemonade and take it with us
we’re half-awake in a fake empire
we’re half-awake in a fake empire
Tiptoe through our shiny city
with our diamond slippers on
do our gay ballet on ice
bluebirds on our shoulders
we’re half-awake in a fake empire
we’re half-awake in a fake empire
Turn the light out say goodnight
no thinking for a little while
lets not try to figure out everything at once
It’s hard to keep track of you falling through the sky
we’re half-awake in a fake empire
we’re half-awake in a fake empire
