Wednesday!

Glyph in reply to dhex says:

I guess the (slight) knock on the AT is that it’s, by AT standards, fairly accessible/not as groundbreaking as some past works. There are definitely tracks on there that have some sounds that I could see coming from someone else.

That said, it’s varied, melodic, and just plain excellently-crafted, so…

Did you read the interview on P4K with him by Philip Sherburne? Very normal, down to earth, no obfuscation or pranking or talk of tanks and bank vaults and stuff. Sherburne is actually one of the few music writers I have time for (even before he started writing for them) he focuses on electronic stuff. His personal site hasn’t been updated in a couple years (it looks like he’s getting a lot of paid work, so good on him).

http://pitchfork.com/features/cover-story/reader/aphex-twin/

Yeah, the new Interpol is pretty good. I didn’t miss Dengler’s playing as much as I thought I might. I might actually go see them when they come around next time, though I’ve seen them twice and never been over-impressed.

(But I have to say, though Antics is less-consistent than TOTBL, I think its peaks may be even higher. I put it up there with the first one.)

(And I actually got a little verklempt when “No I In Threesome” came up on shuffle the other day. Talk about sneaking some real emotion into what initially appeared to be a joke based on the song title.)Report

Glyph in reply to dhex says:

One of the shows I saw was a huge amphitheater show (opening for the Cure) and that setup generally serves no one well. I only went because my friend wanted to go.

The other time was a mid-size venue (actually, an old theater, come to think of it) which was fine size-wise, but the sound there is always crappy*. I’m not sure if that was the problem, the band just seemed kind of lethargic; though that could also have been partially due to the epic amount of wacky weed semi-reliable sources (well, some employees of a store he visited before the show) tell me that they suspect Banks might have smoked that day.

This time around it’s in a pretty good historic/storied mid-size local venue. My friend already got tickets and told me I can have one if I want.

My wife and a friend of mine know their current touring bassist, so weirdly I am on kind of an acquaintance basis with (someone kind of in) Interpol.

That’s as close to fame as I get, I’m afraid.

* Actually, I just saw a rock show recently, in another old theater, and it also had terrible sound – just muddy as all get out. Is this something specific to old theaters? They just re-did another one here fairly recently, and it has *excellent* sound now (sound baffles and such), but before that it was not great.Report

Glyph in reply to dhex says:

Ah, that makes sense. These places have all been “converted” in the sense that the seats were taken out and modern PAs installed, but I am guessing they didn’t do all of the necessary acoustic renovations to the structure/space.

The other venue I mentioned, they recently totally renovated, replaced the sound system and also added sound baffling on the ceiling etc., and it sounds *fantastic* now (I just saw Mogwai there). But before that it was pretty crappy-sounding.

We were also laughing about the smoke/fog machine.

Sure, it’s a classic; but also, if you want the romance of playing in a smoke-filled room in 2014, you gotta bring your own “smoke”; you can’t rely on your nicotine-stained audience anymore.Report