Mouse On Mars Live
I dragged Kate along to the Barbican Centre last Friday night to see experimental Berliners Mouse On Mars performing Paeanumnion with musikFabrik as well as a performance from Oval and Stockhausen's Gesang der Jünglinge.
I dragged Kate along to the Barbican Centre last Friday night to see experimental Berliners Mouse On Mars performing Paeanumnion with musikFabrik as well as a performance from Oval and Stockhausen's Gesang der Jünglinge.
Last Saturday night we had the pleasure of virtually attending the LCD Soundsystem farewell gig live from New York's Madison Square Garden. I say virtually because the lovely people over at Pitchfork did the world an immense favour by setting up a live stream that those of us not lucky enough to be in NYC could enjoy from the comfort of our own homes, or, in our case, over at Greg and Nick's Studio 66.
I've had a list of music to buy for a while now and last night I finally got around to purchasing and listening to most of it - legal MP3 downloads are a wonderful thing. Now that I'm taking the time to listen to stuff before I buy rather than just going on the strength of online and press reviews I'm finding I have much less music consigned to the 'Straight to Charity Shop' file. Obvious really but I used to put a lot of trust in reviews until I got sick of wasting my money on rubbish.
So I'm sat at home watching the snooker (go on The Nugget) recovering from a momentous weekend of birthday celebrations. With Kate's birthday and two others to celebrate over a weekend it was always going to be hectic. The highlight has to be Friday's LCD Soundsystem gig at Brixton Academy. Team Drongo gathered in the Trinity Arms pub off Trinity Square for pre-gig drinks - free Bombardier all round to celebrate St. George's Day, who, incidentally, I saw preparing for his first parade around the City for 425 years that morning. Bonus factoid.
I went to see Autechre round off their European tour at Bocking Street Warehouse on Saturday night. Following an afternoon BBQ in Stoke Newington and lovely home made pizza at James's we headed to The London Fields pub for pre-gig drinks and then over to the venue.
I went to see Grizzly Bear play at the Roundhouse last night. It's taken me a while to get into them simply because I'm a lazy muso and it takes me ages to find the time to sit and listen to an album properly but the more I listen to Veckatimest the more I like it.
Bo Ningen are my new favourite band. I've had their Koroshitai Kimochi EP on constant rotation ever since my trip to Rough Trade last weekend. Four tracks of mega good Jap rock. I'm hooked and scouring the web for gig tickets.
I'm really enjoying the new Four Tet album, There Is Love In You. It's been on constant rotation on my iPod since I bought it and it's great to get an album and be able to listen to it in its entirety without needing to skip past the wak tracks - it's totally renewed my faith in albums as a format.
I went to see Damo Suzuki play at Cafe Oto last night. I'd never been to Cafe Oto before and I didn't know much about Damo Suzuki, other than that he was involved with Can in the 80's, but, as part of my new 'yes man' attitude, when the opportunity came up I grabbed it with both hands.