Sufjan Stevens Concert Review

                               

In my last post I lamented about how I have been sliding into a musical recession per se. Well, it seems like the powers that be in the musical realm looked upon my loss of faith and delivered a veritable pillar of fire for me yesterday.

My wife and I met my parents and aunt and uncle downtown for the event of my uncle and I's birthday. It was a low key but excellent night- we went to a delicious Asian-fusion restaurant and then took a walk downtown. My mother and aunt lead us towards the Chicago theatre, and wouldn't you know it, Sufjan Stevens was playing! As we walked through the throngs of thin hooded, bearded, bespectacled hipsters, I said out loud "Man, it would be awesome to go to that show!"

My mother than responded by saying "We're going" and whipped out tickets for all of us. SURPRISE OF THE CENTURY. It turns out my aunt and her had been planning this event for my uncle and I for nigh on two months, and I had absolutely no idea. With twenty minutes till show time, and with me erupting in 8 year old Christmas morning glee, we rushed into the theatre and found our seats.

The show started with a good, but ultimately forgettable acoustic-guitar-and-guy opener who sung about repressed childhood experiences and spoke in metaphors. He played for about twenty minutes, and then the main event arrived. Sufjan Stevens started off the show with the apocalyptic Seven Swans- and let me tell you, you haven't heard it until you've heard it live. The album version of the song is excellent, but the live version included much of the instrumental accompaniment that has become a trademark of Stevens' work since his beloved Illinoise album. My family and I were immediately blown away.

Stevens presented as a remarkably likable stage persona. I have been listening to him for years and have always thought his music was excellent, but expected that he would be an arrogant and self-obsessed indie diva- after all, he is one of the standard-bearers of the independent scene. He was surprisingly open and explained how he had struggled with song writing for the past year. His voice was also surprisingly normal- I expected it to be high and more effeminate-much like his singing voice- but he came across as a relatable
person.

Most of the songs Stevens played were from his brand-new The Age of Adz album. For those who haven't heard it, Adz is extremely different than anything Steven's has done before- it's mostly electronic and has a lot of white noise and synthetic sounds. Those who love Steven's for his more folkish stuff might be immediately turned off by the album. As Stevens played, he was accompanied by abstract, psychedelic images and vivid light shows. It was truly a spectacle to behold.

Stevens was kind enough to explain much of his inspiration for his new songs throughout the night. He told us that alot of inspiration came from the works of Royal Robertson, an "outsider artist"  with paranoid schizophrenia who was once happily married and had a large family, but drove his family away due to his extreme delusions (aliens, apocalyptic prophecy, accusations of unfaithfulness towards his spouse). Robertson's painting included a lot of violence, spaceships, and Biblical end-time imagery. Looking at the songs from this perspective, you could see a lot of tragic beauty in the songs Stevens played throughout the night.

I will be honest- at first I was a little turned off by Steven's new music. I hadn't picked up his new album yet, so most of the songs he played were entirely new. Stevens seemed to empathize with the audience, and even said "I'm up here playing all this weird electronic stuff and you guys are thinking "Where's the banjo?!". I have his new album now, and after seeing him live and hearing him explain much of the inspiration behind it, I can truly say it is a masterwork. Stevens does so many new things with the album and still retains the excellent lyrics he's know for.

Of course, Stevens played all the classics after the obligatory audience encore. I got to see him play Chicago at the Chicago Theatre in Chicago, Illinois. I couldn't believe that happened. He also played my all-time favorite Stevens song, Casimir Pulaski Day and it more beautiful and sad live than it is on the album. He closed the show on an ominous note with John Wayne Gacy, Jr. which was a great way to go out as it retained the theme of the tortured individual as artist that Stevens conveyed throughout the show.

All in all, bravo Mr. Stevens, bravo! You are truly an excellent artist and I look forward to hearing your music as the years go on. I will definitely see Stevens in concert again if I ever get the chance.

Here are few more pictures I took throughout the night, and I'm working on uploading some video footage now, so if you read this blog and no videos are up they should be here shortly.

                                      

My Music Mid-Life Crisis

                                                                 

I espoused when I started this blog that it was to be a platform of discussion for all types of media, including music. If you've noticed though, I've hardly dedicated any space to raving about an artist, tearing a musician down to the molecular level, or telling you what bands I think suck and how you're dumb for listening to them. No, my blog has been the stuff of movies, videogames, and internet sites- there has been hardly any mention of anything of musical merit. It's simply criminal.

Today, as I was sitting around listlessly, I opened up Itunes and realized that this was the first time I've opened up the program in weeks. I remember in the past, I tunes was constantly open on my desktop. There was no question that I would be listening to something-music played throughout the day, almost endlessly, and it accompanied almost every activity I did. I fervently downloaded new albums and listened to them until they made me sick, got new music from friends and constantly looked into new bands. As the college years continued and I got more busy, I started to listen to music less. Sure, it was there, but I just didn’t listen to it as much. Nowadays, I rarely listen to it. Sure, if there’s a song that’s in my head I’ll get on youtube and play it, but I don’t sit there and simply enjoy music like I used to. Somewhere along the way, I got lost.

I’ve never even discussed my favorite bands on my blog. What is wrong with me? The truth be told, I don’t even know what my favorite bands really are anymore. Sure, I could say The Beatles are #1, and I used to believe that like I believe that the Earth revolves around the sun, but now I’m not so sure.

I think I’m suffering from the after effects of too many options. In high school, before I really got into downloading music, buying an album was a big deal. There was a high degree of planning that went into getting the funds, finding a ride to Best Buy and getting the album you wanted. When I got that album, I listened to it on endless rotation. I knew every song, and I read the lyrics along with the music upon first listen. This is not the case with me at all anymore. The music acquisition process goes something like this:

-I hear a song on the radio or on a commercial that I think sounds good.

-I desperately try to remember two or three lines from the song so I can Google the lyrics and find the name of the song and who it’s by.

-I think “Hey, if this song is good, the rest of their stuff is good”

-I download their album, find all their songs boring but the one I originally liked, and eventually delete the album from my harddrive three years later.

Granted, this is quite a bleak view of how music goes with me. There have been plenty of albums I’ve downloaded and loved and couldn’t stop listening to. As time goes on though, there have been fewer and fewer albums that I fall in love with.

The last big band I had a love affair with was The Smiths that lasted from about January to March of this year. Yes, yes I know you’re all saying that I would pick The Smiths, but I just got hooked on all their music. I listened to all their albums on repeat almost everyday. Admittedly, this made my days seem rather gloomy, but they’re just an excellent band, both lyrically and technically. Another album I got into was Motion City Soundtrack’s newest album, My Dinosaur Life, which listened to until I felt like throwing up. Owl City’s newest album, Ocean’s Eyes, was also a big one on my playlist (I know that’s hard to believe because Owl City seems like a band I would hate like sin). Other than that, I can’t think of any albums I’ve loved.

My music tastes have changed over the years. In high school when I really got into music, I was big into bands like Jimmy Eat World and Motion City Soundtrack- kind of that alternative emo scene. In college, I got WAY into indie music- Sufjan Stevens, The Decemberists, Of Montreal and mewithoutyou were some of my oft listened to artists as I wrote countless papers. I also got into some of the classics- Dylan, The Cure, The Clash- mainly stuff that influenced indie music now. As time has gone, I’ve become disenchanted with a lot of indie music because I feel that a lot of it has no lyrical value. There’s only so much 19^th  century vernacular I can take.

And that brings me to now. I’m trying to figure out what to listen to. Throughout my musical journey, I’ve sampled every genre and found value in each- yes, even country (Ryan Adams being the only “country” like music I enjoy). But I’m just becoming bored- and isn’t that my generations curse? Were given options upon options for entertainment and after a while it becomes exhausting. What I really need is a good, trusted friend with a similar music taste to mine who can recommend me some great stuff. Don’t worry, I still keep up with most of the big bands and know what’s going on- I just feel I’ve lost my passion lately.

David Lynch

Hello, hello all. It's time for a good old fashioned discussion of one of the darlings of the people-who-think-they-know-everything-about-movies world: Mr. David Lynch.

Last night, as my wife and I were sitting around on a rather uneventful pre-Columbus day Sunday night, I had the bright idea to watch Mulholland Drive, a movie I've been meaning to get to since my high school years. High school was when I really started getting into film, and I remember that I started watching all the "trippy" movies first. You know the movies I'm talking about- the ones that the the weird movie kid always talked about- Donnie Darko, Fight Club, Pulp Fiction, Se7en- basically anything that was confusing, had a weird plot twist, or was one of those "OMG THERE'S TEN SEEMINGLY UNRELATED STORIES AND THEY'VE ALL TIED TOGETHER!" deals. I remember someone recommended that I see Mulholland Drive, and I always wanted to watch it, but just never did. It's a good thing I waited- I think my untrained Junior-in-high school mind would have exploded in a grey, stop motion mess that Lynch himself would be proud of.

I can honestly say that David Lynch movies are the only films that truly frighten me. Horror movies just don't freak me out- I went and saw Paranormal Activity on Halloween night last year, and I slept like a baby that night (except for the door opening and closing a million times in my room. What was with that?). But when I watched Blue Velvet, I couldn't get it out of my head. Blue Velvet was the first Lynch movie I ever saw, and I was totally unprepared for it. I had a burned copy of the movie that my friend had given me, and I popped it in to my dvd player on a hot June night at 1 in the morning as one of those "oh well, there's nothing else to do" activities. I was not prepared to meet one of the most evil characters I have ever seen in cinema: the terrifying Frank Booth, a psychopathic criminal whose frightening machinations cannot be described adequately without spoiling the movie.

Eraserhead, Lynch's first feature-film, is another one that left me unsettled and haunted. The plot of the film is extremely surreal, so you'll just have to watch it. Look forward to very strange images and an overall sense of dread while viewing the film. The entire setting of the movie takes place in a dystopian, decaying city, and it's filmed in black and white in a noir style. Again, I don't want to post pictures of any images from the movie, as it'll take away from its effect.

Mulholland Drive takes the cake though for that haunting, can't stop thinking about it quality that Lynch films induce in me. The plot, boiled down to it's simplest form, is this: A woman loses her memory and tries to retrace the series of the events with the help of a young actress. But it's much more than that- the entire film is non-linear, some plots are never resolved and has this strange, waking from a dream feeling as you watch it. The sense of suspense and uncertainty pervades throughout the whole film, which fills the viewer with fear. Even in traditional horror films, there is still the refuge the viewer has in the existing plot or conflict. Mulholland Drive keeps you guessing, and you begin to freak out realizing that Lynch is fooling you, constantly leaving you with questions that are never answered.

Enormous thesis length stuff has been written on David Lynch films, and this little blog post doesn't do him enough justice. If you like movies that make you think, or movies that make you make sure the fabric of the universe is collapsing in front of you, watch one of his works.