St. Vincent – The Strangers [MP3]
Wildbirds & Peacedrums – I Can’t Tell In His Eyes [MP3]
Wildbirds & Peacedrums – Doubt/Hope [MP3]
There’s a clear hierarchy between the warm-up band and the main act. It’s this kind of clear separation that makes revolutions so sweet. It’s not that St. Vincent wasn’t good. She was the exact rocked-down sweetness that we all came to see. She is charming on stage as she is in my headphones. However, in this night, she wasn’t alone. She wasn’t overshadowed by Wildbirds & Peacedrums, but she was definitely matched by them. This night was balanced, and that’s what made it so great. This balance was part harmony between the amazing energies of both St. Vincent and Wildbirds & Peacedrums, but was also characterized by one moment of contradiction. When early in her act St. Vincent started to talk about calm waters and yoga (it’s Seattle after all), she didn’t take into account the shamanic energies that Mariam Wallentin left behind her. Nobody, was into yoga at that point, people were into dancing in trace around random fires. However, St. Vincent was bold and it paid off when she started her deep version of the Nico’s These Days. At the moment, the crowd belonged to her, we were all yogists just for her. A few random words about Wildbirds & Peacedrums live music: fire, tribes, frost, drums (tons of them), pure energy, wacky ancient spirits possessing a crazy singer on stage. Don’t miss this gig (dates below).
St. Vincent and Wildbirds & Peacedrums:
Feb 6 2010 Doug Fir Lounge Portland, Oregon
Feb 8 2010 Great American Music Hall San Francisco, California
Feb 9 2010 El Rey Theatre Los Angeles, California
Feb 10 2010 Belly Up Tavern Solana Beach, California
Feb 11 2010 Rhythm Room Phoenix, Arizona
Feb 13 2010 The Bluebird Theater Denver, Colorado
Feb 15 2010 Bottleneck Lawrence, Kansas
Feb 16 2010 The Blue Moose TapHouse Iowa City, Iowa
Feb 17 2010 Turner Hall Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Feb 18 2010 Metro Chicago, Illinois
Feb 19 2010 The Pike Room at The Crofoot Pontiac, Michigan
Feb 20 2010 Outland on Liberty Columbus, Ohio
Feb 21 2010 Diesel Club Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Feb 23 2010 Jefferson Theatre Charlottesville, Virginia
Feb 24 2010 9:30 Club Washington DC, Washington DC
Feb 25 2010 First Unitarian Church – Sanctuary Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
St. Vincent (without Wildbirds & Peacedrums):
Mar 12 2010 Yu Gong Yi Shan Beijing, Beijing
Mar 15 2010 Recital Studio, Esplanade Singapore
Mar 18 2010 Pacific Blue Festival Club Wellington, Wellington
Mar 28 2010 Big Ears Festival Knoxville, Tennessee
Mar 30 2010 Highdive Champaign, Illinois
Mar 31 2010 MusicNOW Festival – Memorial Hall / University of Cincinnati Cincinnati, Ohio
Wildbirds & Peacedrums (without St. Vincent):
Feb 26 2010 Mercury Lounge New York, New York
Feb 27 2010 Bruar Falls (Williamsburg) Brooklyn, New York
Most musical genres come to life as en experimental evolution of previous genres. This was also the case with Freak Folk. It was born as a new psychedelic take on the good ol’ traditional folk music. Although it’s innovation and a pioneering spirit that drives artists to give birth to new genres, often they decide to settle down and continue create inside their newly born kingdom. This is not the case with Devendra Banhart. In this new album, title Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon, he proves that he still has plenty to say and it’s going to come in a whole bunch languages. Smokey Rolls Down is a record that shares aesthetic and freakish values with his previous work, but speaks in totally different language. Banhart takes on a progressive approach with songs developing and swinging across genres from one minute to another. This album speaks many tongues and does so with amazing proficiency. This is, without a doubt, his best work to date.
From Wikipedia:
I woke myself up. On a gloomy morning, the sounds of rain drops mixed with sweet minimalist pop and raw folk melodies are natural soundtrack. At times with a little dose of rock, and the delightful energy spreading all over the place, Julie Doiron flashes a perfect skill for unpretentiously crafted songs. It has a sense of drama, a feeling of melancholy, certain amount of charm and witty humor. It’s like rain and hot chocolate.
A rock is a hard object. Made out of condensed minerals, hardened over millions of years, it can withstand quite a lot. Us humans can do nothing to it unaided. Aided, we can, as it seems, crash almost anything. But a big enough rock, will overcome us with not much of a difficulty. Actually, for our entire life we actually spend on one giant rock. So, you see, it’s no wonder we created a musical genre called Rock. It’s hard, it’s rough, rugged, and we can’t seem to break it. We enjoy having something to push against that just won’t move. We mixed it with electronic music, with Folk, with Country (hey, it came from Country and then remixed with it), with Blues (another ancestor), with Classical music and with just about everything we could find. Hell, we even mixed it with bad hairdos (see the 80s). But it always stayed Rock, and we thank it for being that way. Modest Mouse does Rock, and in the latest album – Dashboard, they do good Rock. It’s fun to come back and lean against this Rock for support, it feels just like home, like my precious Earth.
This is an extended version of the 