Dan Deacon Ensemble with John Maus, Woodland Bar, 12th January 2011

Wasting no time to dawdle in between shows, I decided I needed to catch a much talked about Dan Deacon show, who played at Woodland on Thursday night. I had had a taste of his brand of synth-electro-pop-nintendo-rave music on youtube, and had only heard that his shows were fantastic experiences. I somehow guessed correctly that knowing very little is probably the best way to go in to a Dan Deacon gig. 

Supports Toy Balloon had come and gone before my arrival and there was enough time for a drink before John Maus took the stage. Holy shit did he take the stage (with nothing but a microphone and his fist). His performance was best summarized by my gig-buddy's haiku:

John Maus backing track

Somehow you make it work well

Stop punching your face

I know nothing more about John Maus except that for half an hour it was extremely difficult for me to 1. NOT laugh, as I somehow found his mostly bizarre antics utterly hilarious while also kind of freaking me out or 2. tear my eyes away from the stage. The music was an intense blur of beats and synth, his vocals were an intense blur of Ariel Pink meets Future Islands-ish yelling, and the look on John's face was an intense blur of intensity. I needed a drink. 

A few G&T's later, Dan Deacon took the stage with a very cool set up involving a glowing skull on a stick, including his drummer, synth/pianist and (bassist?). As you can see, Dan Deacon is made up of all of the geekiest attributes of the world's best geek... He is complete with balding hair, huge glasses, a rolly polly body, an impressive beard, and a tendency to blather on quite a bit while projecting an overall charming awkwardness. Throughout the entire show Dan chatted to us ridiculously to the point where he was interrupted by the band more than once. For example, he was about to tell us an anecdote which ended up being "Remember that movie the Matrix? When Morpheus... oh shit, the song's starting!" leading gig buddy to wonder if his band members often have to derail the conversation to just get the show on with. 

Anyway, the actual show. Oh my god. I was looking for the best way to describe this gig but a video someone took of it describes it all for me. I am not prominently featured in it, THANK. GOD. Thanks to the infectiously danceable music and Dan's prescribed audience participation, the energy was fucking amazing, and had myself and gig buddy dancing in ways that I can at least confirm I haven't danced before. I remember even thinking "Oh god I hope no one is filming this" at the time. Shit.

Some of the things Dan made us all do, as you might be able to tell in the video, WERE:

- Raise our arms in the air and point to the ground, for quite a while, as his opening task

- Create a circle with two dancers in the middle, dancing, until they picked the next duo to replace them with their own dancing, and so on 

- One person starting a chain of people by running around the room giving us all high fives and then pulling people in at random, until THE ENTIRE AUDIENCE WAS RUNNING AROUND THE ROOM IN A CIRCLE

- A specially chosen audience member to lead us all in an interpretive dance number complete with crouching on all fours and potentially giving us all shards-of-glass-tetanus

- The audience bunching together and putting our hands on a person's head, then thinking of something we regret doing to someone and ESPing our apology or something like that - my (PRISTINE) hair was being scruffed like a dog but I've never felt more blissfully giggly

All this was possible thanks to the audience's willingness to be involved (apart from a few onlookers) and the fact it was not too packed and there was space to move. He ended on gleeful Crystal Cat (see below), leaving the audience with glistening, smiling faces, so empowered, exhausted, and rejuvenated all at the same time. This was a feeling normally reserved for the likes of the Flaming Lips, but Deacon was a cheaper alternative that was just as effective.

This is Dan Deacon. If the following filmclip does not make you smile, or at least intrigue you enough to watch it until the very end, then you would probably would not have not enjoyed the gig, and been one of those people who stood at the back of the room while the rest of us went apeshit.

Ahh I have two more gigs to review and they were both fantastic in their own ways, so grading is going to be difficult! But this show will stand out as one of the most memorable for me so I have no hesitation in giving it 9 excellent sweaters out of 10 (minus one because of John Maus alienation). 

Favourite Songs of the Year + Screamfeeder @ Woodland, 1st December, 2011

Hello friends, I'm on holidays. I've spent a lot of time doing very little and sleeping in. It has been terrific. What this also means is more blog time! Not only shall I briefly mention my last gig but there is also ANOTHER LIST FOR YOU! Don't you love them?

MY FAVOURITE SONGS OF THE YEAR AKA WHAT I VOTED FOR IN THE TRIPLE J RADIO HOTTEST 100

No surprises this year actually, for my top 10 songs of the year. I am usually a pretty dedicated Triple J listener and poll contributor, but this year, I was pretty terrible at keeping up with what was hot. I only just read about Lana Del Ray. Nevertheless I managed to come up with a shortlist of 21, narrowed down to what you see here. Most of them are also from my favourite albums of the year, surprise surprise. I gave myself rules: One song per artist, Must be in the pick list that Triple J, but must be genuine favourites. Cannot just vote for Björk because she's Björk.

Arctic Monkeys- The Hellcat Spangled Shalalala

What a great way to sum up the year with the lyric "sing another fucking shalalala". There were ups and downs to 2012, so many important figures died, so much of the music scene was considered dying, and throughout all this, the Monkeys were reviving britpop. Perfect.

(Piledriver Waltz was not in the list :( )

Ball Park Music - All I Want Is You

A sweet, heartwarming tune professing the comforting qualities of having a loved one by your side as your day turns to absolute shit. I found this one stuck in my head during a great proportion of the year, and I didn't mind it being there one bit.

Björk - Crystalline

Luckily, this song is pretty amazing, otherwise based on my rules I could not have voted for it. With thumping bass beats that hark back to Homogenic and a singable chorus line, the super highlight is when everything is lost in a massive house/techno/trance drum explosion at the close.

Cut Copy - Need You Now

An album forgotten from my top list this year, sorry Cutters! They redeemed the dancefloor with this album and their title track gets you right in the mood, slowly building up so that by the last "I KNOW WE'RE GOING CRAZY BUT I NEED YOU NOW" you can't stop your feet moving.

The Horrors - Still Life

Surprised that it was only this one or "I Can See Through You" on the Triple J pick list. Nonetheless, this was the sleeper hit for me of the year, such a slower, pulsing track on their album but so addictive and with such a comforting message; "Don't hurry, give it time, things are the way they have to be".

Jay-Z and Kanye West - That's My Bitch

I could only choose one? Who made these rules anyway! Luckily this was my favourite AND on the list and an easy selection. The opening drum sample combined with the grinding bass and the chorus chant by ... La Roux? perfectly combine with said ridikulus lyrics. And who said I couldn't find something to like about La Roux?

Radiohead - Lotus Flower

Amazing beat, fantastic lyrics, completely bizarrely timed handclaps which somehow work, and Thom's brilliantly weird dance. WHAT IS NOT TO LOVE

St Vincent - Cruel

A song I've really got into over the past few months, from an artist I've always wanted to check out but never got around to until around the same time. It's a ridiculously catchy tune, without being particularly contemporary or predictable. I also loooove the filmclip.

tUnE-yArDs - Bizness

I think I've ranted enough about Merril Garbus' tUnE-y-ArDs project, but this song is absolutely amazing and I really hope it make the 100 this year, as it damn well DESERVES TO.

TV On the Radio - Second Song

A perfect opener to Nine Types of Light and completely worthy of any party soundtrack over this summer. I love how the beginning is so completely different to the end, with signature TVOTR brass the icing on the cake.

I am ashamed at my lack of local artistry in my list! A couple that were on my shortlist included Emma Louise and Last Dinosaurs who are much beloved at the moment. I couldn't say no to the 10 above however. What's special about those two songs is that a few of my friends worked on the pretty rad filmclips for them. I also didn't vote for Gotye, but I'm not worried, everybody else has.

SCREAMFEEDER @ WOODLAND - 1ST DEC 2011

3-piece Screamfeeder et. al.

I had decided it would be totally wrong of me not to swing by Woodland on a Thursday evening to check out Brisbane's beloved Screamfeeder, who were also playing with Tape/Off and Violent Soho on this eve as part of Screamfeeder's 20th Anniversary of being a band. So I did, just in time for Violent Soho to be getting into their set. I have seen Violent Soho more times than I can even begin to remember, probably more than any other band I've seen, but this was the first in quite a few years. As it appeared, they still 'have it' (not that they could ever lose it), and their handful of new songs I heard were quite pleasing, signifying perhaps a return to the studio? A la Trail of Dead who they supported years back, VS were the band to rock out to and I enjoyed a little bit of a jump to old hits "Jesus Stole My Girlfriend", "Love is a Heavy Word" and "Bombs over Broadway". The sound was actually really good, which was not usually a high point of any of their shows; distortion, screaming and excessive feedback taking precedence over clear sound. I realised later that this clarity was probably assisted by having stood right next to the sound deck. Perhaps this is the key to good sound at Woodland?

Screamfeeder took a while to come on and when they did it was reasonably easy to stand myself right at front. Front man Tim Steward found this lack of mosh uncomfortable and asked everyone to come forward, so I could have leaned out and touched bassist Kellie Lloyd's awesome tights (but didn't).

rad tights

Being out the front however meant I had to make way for the 2 or 3 photographers that wanted every angle, which I hadn't ever found to be an issue before this night. The music commenced, and as mentioned earlier, the sound did turn out to be a bit distorted, but I would have been crazy to move. They opened with the classic "Above The Dove", and continued on with a bucketful of their songs. Many of them I didn't recognise and a few were hard to discern due to the sound issues, but I was happy to hear the ones that stuck in my head over the years; for example the fantastic "Hi C's", accompanied by Dean Shwereb's sticks-on-fire drumming, emotionally charged "Ice Patrol", and finishing with the upbeat "12345". It was a very, very long set, which was made even longer by some technical problems a third of the way through- it appeared that neither Kellie's bass nor Tim's guitar were working, and it was a good 5 to 10 minutes before they were on their way again. It was nice to hear so much of their signature guitar work, harmonies and drum patterns in one night though, and I was happy to be a little tired for work the next day.

Before their closing song, Tim got a few people up on the stage, including Violent Soho and Tape/Off, Seja from Sekiden, and apparently a member of Pavement (see first pic). They played "You and Me", a joyful singalong that put smiles on everyone's faces, even while singing the lyrics "hey now, the devil's at my feet".

It was a great 'last' (or at least last for a while) performance, complete with a giveaway of a Tym's Guitars pedal, a very deliberate and graceful destruction of a guitar by Tim (simply by bending it upright on the stage), and final hugs and high fives for most of the audience members (I got a high five!).

RIP guitar

It was a gig that left me in a good mood and humming their tunes for a few days. Screamfeeder gets 7.5 out of 10 Tim/Tyms.

please stand still when you're high-fiving Tim.

HAPPY NEW YEAR BLOGREADERS! May your 2012 be as music filled as you want it to be. In my case, PACKED!