Cults @ Brighton Music Hall, 6/12/11

"Last time I was in Boston, I was mugged," said Brian Oblivion of Cults as he crossed to the keyboard between songs. "The guy pulled a knife, told me to give him all my money. Then he taught me how to play Magic cards." Alternately prickly and engaging between songs, Cults dug deep during their actual performances to give rousing new power to their songs. Fresh off the release of their critically praised first album, the band played nearly every one of their released songs while the Mavericks won the NBA championship on the TV screens scattered around the hall.

Cults's power comes, in large part, from Madeline Follin's voice. Her live presence is intense, as she closes her eyes and switches between cooing and straining for emphasis. Songs like "You Know What I Mean" are completely new animals live, with a huge sonic presence that hits you right in the gut. Cults's ascent to popularity may seem arbitrary and sudden to some, but seeing them live leaves no doubt, they are the real deal.

Their tour mates, Guards, led by Cults touring drummer Richie Follin, warmed up the crowd with their bright, short songs. On record, their songs always come across as brilliant and striking but too brief, almost to the point of seeming unfinished, they held their own on the stage, ably setting the scene and even distracting the crowd from the basketball game.

SONG OF THE POST
Oh My God by Cults
The closing number of the evening and my personal favorite Cults song.


CULTS SETLIST
Abducted
The Curse
Never Heal Myself
Most Wanted
You Know What I Mean
Rave On
Bumper
Never Saw The Point
Go Outside
Oh My God

Black Treacle In Boston, 5/19/2011

OK, time to use the blog for something I've never used it for before- a concert report! As it happens, I'm just back from seeing Arctic Monkeys and the Vaccines at the House of Blues. While the bands played on, the Red Sox and Bruins both won. All in all, a good night for the city.

The Vaccines got the night off to a bright start, right on time and with a chipper attitude. Alas, their debut album isn't out yet in the States, and they suffered a bit from the fate that befalls a lot of opening acts in huge venues: all the energy that they spent thrashing about on the stage, giving it their all and singing their hearts out wasn't reciprocated by the crowd. The crowd gave them a synchronized clap once and almost (almost) got moving during set highlight "If You Wanna", but considering how wild they proved themselves to be during the Arctic Monkeys set, it wasn't much. For their part, the Vaccines sounded tight and powerful on the big house PA, proving that sound-wise, they can hold a big stage. All their songs came from their concise and excellent debut album, which should be out in the US as of May 31st.

When Arctic Monkeys took the stage, chaos reigned. The ground floor crowd came ready to dance, thrash, flail, shout back lyrics and generally have a good time. The band gave them plenty of ammunition, front loading the set with well known uptempo numbers. Not content to pick "View from the Afternoon" or "Brianstorm" as the opener, they played them back to back, without a break, after actually opening the night with the brief and also high energy new song "Library Pictures." Boston fans got tastes of six new songs in all, including the aforementioned opener, the main set closing "Hellcat Spangled Shalala" and the two previously released preview tracks, "Brick by Brick" and "Don't Sit Down 'Cause I've Moved Your Chair." The other two new songs, "Black Treacle" and "She's Thunderstorms" were undoubtedly set highlights. Taking the cryptic imagery and West-Coast rock mentality of Humbug in an ear-pleasing pop direction, the songs are fine harbingers of June 7th's Suck it and See. The songs have a confidence, mastery and eloquence that marks them as the work of real pros who have learned how to please their audience while growing all the while. To the crowd's extreme credit, they weren't hung up on the olden days, not mad at the band for not hewing to its roots. Sure, the cheers for "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor" were immense, but so was the reception for "Potion Approaching." Arctic Monkeys have proven beyond a doubt that an audience will follow you into new territory... as long as the new territory is still good.

SONG OF THE POST:

Black Treacle by Arctic Monkeys

Not officially out yet. Suck it and see if you like it.

SETLISTS:

The Vaccines

Under Your Thumb

Blow it Up

Wreckin' Bar (Ra Ra Ra)

Wolfpack

If You Wanna

Wetsuit

A Lack of Understanding

All In White

Post Break-Up Sex

Norgaard

Arctic Monkeys

Library Pictures

The View from the Afternoon

Brianstorm

This House is A Circus

Still Take You Home

Don't Sit Down 'Cause I've Moved Your Chair

Teddy Picker

Crying Lightning

Black Treacle

I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor

Potion Approaching

Brick By Brick

If You Were There, Beware

Do Me A Favour

Cornerstone

The Hellcat Spangled Shalala

Encore

Pretty Visitors

She's Thunderstorms

Fluorescent Adolescent

(Suck it and See songs in italics)

What Is (What are?) XtangtastiX!?

Xtangtastix is a silly comic book universe created by the estimable Ted Jameson. Ted has kindly consented to let me play with his toys so, in the coming days, be prepared for exciting bulletins from the world of Mulligan Academy, the 2nd best school for gifted mutant youngsters.

Now, as you might have surmised from the above description, Xtangtastix is a bit of an X-Men parody. At least it was when it began. Now, it's.... well, I'm gonna knock together my 1st issue and see WHAT exactly it is. When it's done, you'll see it on my Parallel Comics website.

~~

SONG OF THE POST:

All You Ever Wanted by The Black Keys

So, it's not coming easily....

Though it honestly should be. Well, maybe it's the absolutely humongous amount of words needed that's scaring me away, maybe it's just the things that have scared me away from writing up until now. I've considered using gimmicks like switching to the first person (something I never do), doing things that I know are derivative just to say I hit the word count. The truth is, I'm being pulled in a lot of directions in my mind and can't really react to it all very well. It's hard to describe here. But I've got two weeks to do it.

The whole "Harry Potter 7 in theaters this Friday" thing is distracting me. It shouldn't, but it is. Huh.

FUNNY FANFICTION SUMMARY OF THE DAY

I, a normal, MUGGLE, girl from 2010, am trapped in the year 1942, at Hogwarts. My constant companion is a deranged snake, and somehow Tom Riddle, who is so hot that I can't think straight, is suppose to fall in love with me...well, according to the snake.

SONG OF THE DAY

She's a Rejecter by of Montreal

WORD COUNT 1105

WORD GOAL FOR TODAY 26667

WORDS TO GO TOTAL 48895

Returning; a challenge

OK, here's how it's going to be. Halfway through Novel Writing Month, unable to secure a job interview, wasting away doing nothing all day.

This is inexcusable. So, with that, I'm back, writing on the internet and NaNoWriMo-ing with all this goddamn spare time.

I'll try to give a day-by-day account of my struggle to do a month's work in half that time with word count, salient details and a recommended song. Oh, and every day I'll post an amusing summary from the depths of fanfiction.net, because if I had any readership ever, I don't after my 4 month layoff, so I'm doing things that amuse me. And fanfiction amuses me. Ready? Got all that?

DOING IT!

FUNNY FANFICTION SUMMARY OF THE DAY:

What happens when a certain someone reveals their feelings for SpongeBob, but he just can't handle it?What will everyone else think? Is their love for each other forbidden? Bikini Bottom will never be the same. SpongeBob x Patrick, SpongeBob x Squidward.

Of all the series to graft agonized, forbidden love onto.... SpongeBob? Huh. Well, anyway:

SONG OF THE DAY:

Cradle by The Joy Formidable

NANOWRIMO WORD COUNT 0

TODAY'S GOAL WORDS 25,000

TO GO 50,000

JulNoWriMo

Hello, hypothetical readers! It's time to shake of the dust and rise up with a new bout of writing. Why? Because July is a NaNoWriMo month! Not the official one (November), but the fact that August is one too is a great backup and the idea of having a driving motivating factor behind writing besides personal ones, the idea of solidarity and team play, it's special. I who have never finished anything in my life, finished NaNo '09.

Hopefully, writing another book will give me thoughts to post here, and I can use this blog.

We'll see.

SONG OF THE POST

Live it Out by Metric

Dust-removing Metapost

I know it's foolish to have a reassuring metapost when I have no readers and this blog is mostly for my own amusement and thought process, but just this once, I'll go ahead with it.

The reason that the site has lain fallow for the last few weeks is the increasing pressure to finish things and graduate. Luckily, one of my remaining assignments involves writing, so there will be plenty of material for me to pick from for future posts.

In more content-oriented news, I've been re-reading Harry Potter 6 now that my school reading is done. It's nice to ease back into YA fantasy after months of Murakami's mind-warping surrealism. One thing I have noticed is JK Rowling's intensely explained extended metaphors. I don't know if I find them intrusive or helpful; the most noticeable one in Half-Blood Prince is the monster inside Harry that represents his growing feelings for Ginny. On the one hand, it's almost annoyingly on-the-nose. On the other, I always know just what Rowling means when she uses it. Really torn about this right now, whether I like it or not.

More to come, sooner rather than later.

SONG OF THE POST

Raised by Wolves by Voxtrot

The first time I ever heard a Voxtrot song, I was reading a blog post about how they'd broken up. Bummer.