So I read today that the criminally under-appreciated TV show, Friday Night Lights will have it's next season, it's fifth, be its last. This is truly a shame. Not sure if there's ever been a show on tv that has tugged on heartstrings the way this show has. Every show just hits you in the stomach. I seriously need to get direct tv just so I don't have to wait until next summer to view the final season. What a shame. You'll be missed.
Really enjoyed myself at the Spiritualized show a few weeks ago. It was one of the most amazing concert experiences I've ever had the pleasure to enjoy. They played their hit record, Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space, start to finish. Added a few extras at the end. There was a choir, string and horn sections. It was seriously unreal. I just sat in the balcony and drank a few beers taking it all it. Simply amazing.
Jason Pierce and co. began playing Ladies and Gentlemen in full a few years back, with gigs in the UK, and thankfully it finally made it's way across the pond here to the US. It was just an amazing experience. Always under appreciated and never fully given it's credit, despite a massive cult following and sold out shows around the world. This band should have been ten million times bigger. Loved them and always will. Especially now, seeing this record performed the weay it was, at a place as wonderful as Radio City Music Hall.
Listening Pile:
Let me start off by saying, despite what I’ve said or written about LCD Soundsystem in the past, some good, some very bad, I’ve always been a fan. I think a lot of it has to do with that 2nd album, Sound of Silver, which for all the accolades and adoration James Murphy received for it, I just couldn’t bear to like. I loved the early singles and the first record, but that 2nd record just turned me off on the band. And I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad record, it just never appealed to me.
Needless to say, my opinion of the group has only been reinvigorated recently. Despite my trepidation going into it, This is Happening just blew me away. It came through as really solid and mature songwriting. Not to say, and no pun intended that Mr. Murphy had lost his edge. He just grew up a little bit more and the change is reflective in the sound of the album. There are the usual bag of
tricks, floor anthems and dancy post punk beats, however the lyrics are more poignant and introspective. The music more sincere and narrative around them. He focuses more on the space between tracks and instruments.
Where beats would knock you over the head before, they now quietly sneak up on you. It’s as if the dance party has been taken off the dance floor and into the bedroom on certain tracks(with a huge nod to Bowie and Eno). He’s not making fun of himself(that much) or lamenting about scenes or trivial band stuff, but rather looking at things in the perspective of a man who’s been around long enough to comment on the silliness of it all.
