Present Perfect

Thursday it finally happened - a concert I've been waiting for for a few years now. Finally, The Walkmen would be back in Belgium!

I missed them at my first opportunity because I didn't know them and didn't trust the bar owner that invited me to pick good music for me. How wrong I was.

Make no mistake, The Walkmen, besides having one of the coolest band names ever, are ... intense ... live. I'm surprised the singer didn't have any veins pop out of his head. And I'm amazed that anybody is physically capable of squealing in tune for so long at a time.

The concert, though short, didn't disappoint - playing my new favorites from their latest album, You and Me, as well as knocking me out with songs I've grown to love over the last few years. Thinking of a dream I had was especially everything I expected - that song is made for the stage, going from ecstatic/crazy to full-on melancholic (when that organ hits) and back again.

I think one of the reasons I like them so much is because I like guitars that sound like someone in the basement of the old school is rattling a wrench against the radiator bars. Think some Sonic Youth songs, some Placebo songs on their first album - and pretty much any track the Walkmen do. I just love that sound.

Go buy their albums !

Thursday it finally happened - a concert I've been waiting for for a few years now. Finally, The Walkmen would be back in Belgium! I missed them at my first...

In response to Peter's question on upcoming concerts:

That's, from top to bottom, tickets at the Ancienne Belgique for:

• Stef Bos, 28/01/09 (2)
• Spinvis solo, 23/01/09 (2)
• Frank Vander Linden solo, 22/01/09 (2)
• Gorki theatertour, 15/01/09 (2)
• Notwist, 11/12/08 (1)
• Elbow, 11/11/08 (2)
• Heather Nova (but I'm going for the opener, Scarce, a band with an amazing 13 year old debut and an amazing story on what happened after that) (1)

With all these concerts I got from the AB, I also ordered the 15+3 drink coins ticket :)

In addition, I plan to go to see the Walkmen at the AB club (23/10/2008) - oh do I still regret that one time where Gerald from Charlatan told me 'you should come this weekend to see this new band called Walkmen play, they're your kind of music' and I ignored him.

And furthermore, I have tickets for Sigur Ros at Vorst Nationaal on 16/11/2008 (2) and My Morning Jacket at Cirque Royal on 1/11/2008 (1) And I plan to go see Sigur Ros in Barcelona as well, but not sure yet.

As you can guess from above, I am looking incredibly forward to tonight's Scarce set. I don't recall why I ended up buying this album, because nobody knew about it, but I probably bought it on a vague Pixies reference at a time where I was jumping on anything that sounded anything like the Pixies. After an opening tour for Hole in Europe, right after their UK debut album launched, the singer got hit with a brain aneurysm. He lapsed into a coma, and woke up weeks later, unable to remember that he was in a band. He relearnt his songs, tried to go on tour again with his band, but was unable to enjoy it as he had no memory of it happening before. They ended up splitting in 1996. If it were a movie it would be called over the top.

And apparently, he went back to making music, and now they have rejoined, and they are opening tonight for Heather Nova, of all people!

In response to Peter's question on upcoming concerts: That's, from top to bottom, tickets at the Ancienne Belgique for: Stef Bos, 28/01/09 (2) Spinvis solo, 23/01/09 (2) Frank Vander Linden...

Ten years ago (and, ok, 1 day - I am a bit late in posting this) a band called Mansun released an album called Six.

I remember seeing a video for 'Wide Open Space', still one of my favourite alltime tracks, which was one of the singles off their first album, 'Attack of the Grey Lantern'. I guess the title appealed to me based on a youth reading comic books. Wide Open Space was a killer track, but all of Attack of the Grey Lantern was masterfully sequenced, had some excellent songs, and an amazing flow. Needless to say I was looking incredibly forward to a second Mansun album back in the day.

I don't think I was ever in my life as disappointed with a new album of a band I liked as I was with Six. I found it... unlistenable. The record was simply all over the place, way too many techie sounds everywhere, and songs just ended almost right after starting - it was an ADHD dream and I couldn't wrap my ears around it. I think I left the album for a good two years.

And then one day I gave it another chance. Or, a good fifteen chances. I listened to the album on repeat a whole day. Until things finally started to click into place. The album was still all over the place, but songs started being crystallized out of the swamp. Granted, each track still felt like a cut-and-paste of song ideas, switching between three different songs during one track, repeating bits from other tracks across tracks, and basically just sounding like the work of a madman. But, with repeated listens, a method emerged from the madness.

Of course, it helps that strewn across this disc there are some of Mansun's best songs - Being a Girl, Special/Blown It and Legacy are adrenalin rollercoaster tracks. But really, it's the album experience that ties this album together - few other albums so excellently portray what it is like to be an album. And, you know, these days, albums are quickly becoming a lost art.

Yes, the album is still completely crazy. It is out there. I can't recall off-hand any other album that has felt so strange and alien at the beginning, and still manages to amaze me. It's by no means my favourite album, but it definitely wins on the amazing turnaround from utter crap to complete genius it's thrown at me.

(Incidentally, I mentioned this album before in my 30-albums-I-took-to-Spain list.)

I was disappointed (but not as much as when first hearing Six) when my then girlfriend hooked me up with Little Kix, their third album. I was assuming it was going to win me over in the same way as Six, but never did. I completely lost track of them after that. They split right after releasing that album, and Mansun is one of the few bands I really really like that I've never been able to see live. I still regret not seeing them, I would definitely have traveled to the island to go see them.

A month ago I learnt that they actually did have quite a bit of output after that last release - apparently they had wrapped up sessions for their fourth album, and released three discs' worth of material in a box called Kleptomania that I ought to be getting really soon. Pretty impressive - with any luck it's actually a lot better than Little Kix.

So, by chance someone on last.fm shoutboxed me to get me subcribed to the singer's blog this week, where he reveals all the secrets about this album and settles many more questions than I ever had about this album.

Three important points I learned from his blog:

• the album really was indeed a piecing together of lots of little song ideas
• amazingly, this whole album was recorded 'live' - no after-the-fact Pro Tools editing and splicing. I'll have to take his word for it, but I would have deemed it impossible from listening to it. Basically, this is one of the final albums of the no-protools-era.
• They did in fact use Pro Tools on this album - but they used it as an instrument. They recorded sounds or bits, tweaked them live in Pro Tools, and played them back through their recording equipment as they mixed it live. So basically, it was also one of the first albums of the protools-era

Also, reading through his entries about each of the tracks makes me even more than in the past want to be the fly on the wall on a recording session of an album - a goal to set for the future I guess...

Seriously, if you love rock music, this album deserves your attention. But it deserves lots of it, or none at all. You need to live in this album for a week and let you win it over. Its rewards can be found through the looking glass, but you need to break on through to the other side.

You know, I think I'm going to listen to Six on repeat for the rest of the week... let's see if I can get any work done that way!

Thanks, Mansun, for a mindblowing album.

(Update: shit, I found some site that sells a still-'new' Kleptomania box set. And of course that site had other stuff I am never able to find, like Catherine Wheel's Ferment CD because mine is broken. I just splashed out 200 euros on music. Me, a credit card, the internet - a dangerous cocktail)

Ten years ago (and, ok, 1 day - I am a bit late in posting this) a band called Mansun released an album called Six. I remember seeing a video...

Every time I go to a festival I prepare a festival playlist to get amped up.

This year's Pukkelpop playlist has 942 songs, good for 2 days and 22 hours of non-stop listening. And I have some more songs arriving through the tubes.

Every time I go to a festival I prepare a festival playlist to get amped up. This year's Pukkelpop playlist has 942 songs, good for 2 days and 22 hours...

With a bit of delay, a quick run through my Werchter days.

I got a four day ticket. Every year it seems to be harder to find people I know going, but usually things turn out OK and I meet up with a bunch of friends on each day, every day different.

Day 1 was hectic - massive traffic jams to the festival. I had left 3.5 hours in advance to be able to see the National and hoping to be on time to see Counting Crows before that. I ended up missing CC completely, and arriving in the Pyramid Marquee as the National were wrapping up their opener, Start a War. So I couldn't get really close to the stage, but the sound in that tent is still pretty decent from afar. A great set, if by now predictable - as a festival set should be. No surprises, and no About Today, but a stunning Ada and Fake Empire again enhanced with horn and trumpet.

Other than that, Lenny Kravitz was tight, so OK, REM was pretty good compared to the other 4 times I've happened to see them there (though I guess I'll never get to hear Leave live), and I keep not getting what's so good about Soulwax Nite Versions because to me it just plain sucked again. I want some rock in my wax again.

Day 2. Pete Doherty did a three out of three in not showing up at Belgian festivals. Jay-Z was fun, though playing hits like Crazy in Love and Umbrella loses most of the fun if he only does his bits. The Verve was ok, but not as good as I expected.

Patrick Watson was an amazing discovery. I had made a Werchter playlist of a good 1000 songs the two weeks before, but didn't really pay much attention to him. The morning of day 2 I started listening only to him, and was blown away enough to make sure to leave on time and catch his show. It was pretty damn good, I wonder why he slipped under my radar before. At the end of his set the power blew out - just as he was starting one of his best soungs, Luscious Life (trying hard not to bring up a certaind dead singer as a reference point). He took it in his stride, took his megaphone, his drummer took one of the drums, his guitarist an acoustic guitar, and they jumped into the audience playing the next song 'unplugged'. Awesome way to win over the audience.

Ben Folds was entertaining and pretty good all in all. My Morning Jacket blew me away as well - first time I got to see them live, hope to see them in a non-festival setting. We ended up leaving halfway through Neil Young - somehow he's never really clicked with me. But there's no denying the excellence of Heart of Gold.

On Day 3, we arrived too late for Gossip. We pulled into the parking lot as MGMT was playing 'To Pretend', this summer's anthem for youth lost. Hope to catch them at Pukkelpop. Jeroen tipped me off to Band of Horses, and they were pretty damn good. They had fun on stage, introducing pretty much every song with 'this song is called WOO!'. Kate Nash was fun, Editors were solid as usual - they'll never be favorites but damn they make some excellent tunes, and I have a soft spot for guitars that sound like that.

Kristien and I agreed to make relationship exceptions for Editor's singer (she) and KT Tunstall (me). KT Tunstall has the single most amazing Jools performance to her name (seriously, if you don't know what this links to and you like music, go watch it now. Her albums admittedly are a little on the soft side, but I was looking forward to see her live. I was not disappointed - a chunk rawer than on record, she was cute, sexy and funny, and she tied song 1 to song 2 using a joke about dropping phones in toilets on festivals. She did Black Horse and the Cherry Tree solo, and it was excellent. And apparently she's getting married to her drummer. Anyway, infatuation reinforced.

Day 3 wrapped up with a nice triplet. I've seen Ben Harper multiple times but lost track of his recent albums, and he played mostly stuff from that. If an artist has 8 albums and an hour for a live set there's very little chance he's going to play your favourites.

Sigur Rós on the other hand was just spot on awesome. I was worried that it wouldn't really work out well on the main stage - I had seen a not-so-great set at Summercase in Barcelona two years ago. But they were simply amazing. Them coming on stage in strange costumes was a bit of a cliffhanger - it could have gone really downhill from there. I mean, the guy had feathers stuck to the back of his head.

Instead, we got treated to an amazing walk through their discography, taking the most uptempo songs from the new album (good choice) - and bringing in an Icelandic marching band brass section -, favourites from Takk and Agaetis Byrjun, and the always stellar (number 8) from their unnamed white album. Sigur Ros really are at the top of their game right now - don't miss out on any chance you have to see them.

Then came Radiohead. Contrary to the abysmal situation last month in Barcelona, the sound was crystal perfect. The set was less accessible than in Barcelona, but I have stopped minding - by now they're able to cull a fantastic live set from their last 4 albums. The Kid A live transition was rougher in the past. This time around they only played "Just" from the first two albums, and that's it. Though they did a completely stellar Climbing Up The Walls. Sigur Ros were standing right behind us in the PA tent following the whole concert.

I skipped on day 4 in the end. I really only wanted to see dEUS, and they were supposed to start at midnight, so I would never have gotten home before 4 in the morning. With a plane leaving at 8.45, it would just not have been smart.

Anyway, festivals are still heaps of fun for me. On to Summercase and Pukkelpop!

With a bit of delay, a quick run through my Werchter days. I got a four day ticket. Every year it seems to be harder to find people I know...