Archive for March, 2007
stirring controversy, tasting holy and delicious
March 30, 2007march, by the numbers
March 30, 2007Top 5 albums released in March:
1. Panda Bear – Person Pitch (best record of the year, bar none)
2. Glenn Jones – Against Which the Sea
3. Earth – Hibernaculum
4. El-P – I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead
5. Arcade Fire – Neon Bible
Top (only) 10 films seen in March:
1. The Color of Pommegranates – 92
2. El Topo – 84
3. Damnation – 80
4. The Long Goodbye – 80
5. Shortbus – 79
6. Barcelona – 77
7. Stranger Than Fiction – 68
8. Fast Food Nation – 52
9. For Your Consideration – 38
10.Let’s Go To Prison – 35
Fight of the Month: lots of good matches this month, but the best fight was Juan Manuel Marquez’s controversial decision over Marco Antonio Barrera. just a 12 round slugfest. the best performance of the month belongs to Mikkel Kessler, who systematically destroyed previously undefeated Librado Andrade en route to a unanimous 120-108 card. Klitschko dominated Austin in a joke of a fight, and Allan Green ducked and ran from Edison Miranda until the final bell. Miranda v. Pavlik on the horizon looks like a good one. Miguel Cotto looked good TKOing Oktay Urkal as well.
Show of the Month: Explosions in the Sky w/ Eluvium @ The Alcazar in St. Augustine. TV on the Radio w/ Subtle at the Roseland in Portland was awesome, but this show just really hit the spot.
Best TV of the Month: the Battlestar and Rome finales we’re top notch, and a debut award goes to The Andy Barker Show, which looks pretty promising.
Coming up in April we have good releases from Stars of the Lid, Bill Callahan, Avey Tare & Kria Brekken and Basia Bulat, as well as stuff I haven’t heard from Islaja and a short EP by Joanna Newsom. Movies coming up are Blades of Glory (today), Grindhouse, ATHF and Hot Fuzz…and don’t forget Jodorowsky’s Holy Mountain tonight and Saturday at San Marco Theater. not a great boxing month though Calzaghe on HBO is a good draw. Pacquiao fights on PPV and the giant Valuev defends his title. catch it on youtube later cause the guy’s never on american TV. speaking of TV, we have the return of Entourage and the Sopranos coming as well. I don’t have any shows set up for the coming month so it’ll likely be a local show here or there and that’s about it. I have a few more albums to append the prior months’ tops lists from previously unknown bands Zodiacs, Knives ov Resistance and Wraiths…but perhaps i will save those for an MP3 post when i get some time. have a good April, mates.
concert season ‘06:::explosions+eluvium+monitor @ the alcazar
March 13, 2007you know that feeling of euphoria you get after leaving a really great rock show? well i had that feeling last night. i was already pretty stoked to see both explosions in the sky and eluvium, but the show was far better than i expected, partly due to the venue, which was fantastic (but i will espouse more on that later), the crowd response (which never fails to be much better in st. augustine than in jacksonville – stop trying to be so cool jaxies), and to the rare occurrence of fully enjoying all three bands.
monitor, who i unfortunately have no pictures of, were a pleasant surprise. having never heard the band i was unsure what to expect, but they played some good melodic post rockish stuff and were overall pretty impressive. i’d check them out again for sure.
then came eluvium, a one man ambient rock show out of portland (which coincidentally the jesus will be visiting in approximately 4 days!) who i’ve been playing to death lately, and was thus very intrigued for the live show. he was set up with a guitar, an organ, a laptop and what presumably was a sampler of sorts used for looping. i have about two minutes of video that i’ll post later, but here’s a pic in the meantime:
i personally thought the performance was phenomenal. it’s always a bit awkward translating ambient music to a live setting (especially when performed by only one musician) but his set was great and i recognized tracks spanning the top notch eluvium catalog. you don’t often get a chance to see this genre of rock live ’round these parts much so it was a treat for me.
there was an amp problem with explosions that made bleak the expectations of even getting the show started, much less of it being great…but after about 10 minutes of prayer the miracle occurred and the set began. i’ll start by saying this band is incredibly tight…playing near flawlessly to their recordings. live, their music is like tidal waves slowly rising into the night sky and crashing with reckless abandon onto your face. all i can say is it was hotdamntastic. and for those of you who don’t like post rock anymore because it’s not en vouge in 2007 i have only one thing to say:
suck it.
as with the hoof show, we still haven’t quite mastered the new camera, so most of the pictures suck…but here’s one anyway…
so, in a nutshell, if you missed it, you MISSED it. back on the subject of the venue…i pray that the St. John’s Cultural Council holds (and that the Lightner allows) more shows here because it was a really awesome place. the hall is gorgeous, there’s plenty of room to move, and even, surprisingly, had really good acoustics. so do it up, St. Aug…keep the shows coming. do the vid below, chums…
