Comments on: Beards, Blazers & Glasses: Voxtrot, Silversun Pickups, & Elefant

By: Passion of the Weiss

Passion of the Weiss — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 22:22:00 +0000

I honestly think it’s just gonna’ be the nature of the beast. I don’t wanna’ play the It’s All Pitchfork/MP3 blogger’s fault because I do respect their taste most of the time (Fiery Furnaces/Animal Collective excluded). I do think that it’s a good thing that Pitchfork seems to have tightened up their critical standards a bit more which whgih. But then again, I don’t know what you can do when bands put out good albums. The downfall of the whole indie band scheme is they don’t make a whole lot of money so they can’t hire proper sound, stage and lighting guys for their shows, not to mention better instruments. I have no problem with this at SPaceland or the Echo or the Troubadour, but if you’re playing the Wiltern or even the El Rey, you need to be able to bring it. I think this is why bands like Wilco, My Morning Jacket are incredible live. You can’t mess with the vets. Though I do confess to loving Arcade Fire (your favorite) Wolf Parade and Go Team live as well. Supposedly, these majors are now serious about signing indie acts and giving them creative control. I think the Decemberists album will be a real litmus test to see if in two albums Colin Meloy isn’t writing his version of “Lafitte Don’t Fail Me Now.” I guess we’ll see.

And on the Asians, I think I’m gonna’ have to re-write that post to be about the Asian takeover. I totally forgot to mention the Pickups’ drummer, plus the girl singer in Deerhoof, plus Ramesh Srinastava the frontman of Voxtrot is Indian which is South Asian. I’m very pleased with all this. Now if only David Berman of the Silver Jews can become more famous than Matisyahu I’ll be a happy man.

By: silawe

silawe — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 22:11:00 +0000

I could not agree with you more about bands no longer paying their dues. Is there a way we can fix this problem? When I saw CYHSY at the El Rey all I could think was, “Huh”?

p.s. you also forgot to mention that the Silversun Pickups also have an Asian in the band just like the Pumpkins. He plays drums but seriously I could not resist.

By: Nate

Nate — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 20:05:00 +0000

I was so, so let down by Voxtrot. Based on their EP and from the hype they were getting, I was really excited to see them. They need some label money behind them, because their fucking equipment was terrible. They sounded like a band playing at a frat party. And their lead guitarist is a dork. He looks like Napoleon Dynamite and stands in the back the entire time. What kind of lead guitarist stands in the back corner during a performance?

The Pickups were quite entertaining. I think "Kissing Families" being picked up for a VW commercial might have given them a little more confidence. And there is no way that they were not Smashing Pumpkins fans growing up.

No comment on Elefant. I think Crime Notes hit it right over the head when he said he thought it was a joke at first. Because they really are a joke.

By: Passion of the Weiss

Passion of the Weiss — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 17:23:00 +0000

The saddest part about the show too was the squeals that assclown got from the girls in the audience. When they were old enough to be legal, I’d have to admit that they drew the best looking girls I’ve seen at a show in a long time. All of them in rapture for this guy, who has obviously become convinced he was Jim Morrison. Lamentably, I saw them open for BRMC too (Elefant actually gave me press passes and I actually bad felt having to mercilessly rip them in my review..oh well) BRMC might not be the most authentic band in town either, but they still played an incredible live show and Howl is a great album, which is more than I can say for anything Elefant could ever hope to produce.

By: CrimeNotes

CrimeNotes — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 02:49:00 +0000

Elefant is the worst thing I've ever seen. They opened for the very good Black Rebel Motorcycle Club in NYC a fewmonths back. My friend and I watched Elefant and for the first two songs, we thought that this was an indy rock parody band -- a Spinal Tap without winking. We thought it was clever. But as their set continued, it became clear that they were serious. Very, very serious.

At one point in the night, the lead singer dangled his boot over the crowd and invited an audience member to take it off. For awhile he played one-booted, then took off the other one, and whipped it into the balcony at high speed. It looked like the toe and heels were pretty sharp, and while this kind of thing might have been a good story if it involved Johnny Rotten or Kurt Cobain, coming from that fuckhead, it was a lawsuit waiting to happen.

The sock-footed asshole had the most pretentious, obnoxious stage presence I've ever seen. Between the close of the set and the start of BRMC, he came out on his own and tried to get the crowd to cheer for him, apropos of nothing.

And then he did something even more obnoxious. He started asking for his boots back, and shouting at people for not handing them up. So after flinging his boot at unsuspecting (and bored) audience members, he came out begging for his footwear. Pathetic.

By: Duke

Duke — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 01:21:00 +0000

funny shit. i didn’t make it to the show (couldn’t justify the price/venue, tried to weasel tix out of the publicists but acted far too late). the shins weren’t even ready to play the wiltern when i saw them there. i also saw the shins at the Uni Amphi and that was even suckier. so it’s best that the wiltern wasn’t my first voxtrot show. rest assured the SSPU album does sound a lot like prime Pumpkins.

I finally got around to reviewing the Little Ones/kelley Stoltz echo show. You oughta buy the stoltz record and give it a few honest listens. It will sneak up on you.