Matt & Kim – Sidewalks
Posted: February 9, 2011 Filed under: Bad, Reviews | Tags: Matt & Kim, Music, Sidewalks Comments Off
I have had various friends rave to me about Matt & Kim for some time now. Most of the noise revolved around the band’s notoriously high energy live set, which is still something I want to see. I eventually did break down and buy my own copy of Grand, aka the one with “Daylight” on it, and while I wasn’t raving about it, I certainly wasn’t disappointed in it. This is not the case for the duo’s latest effort, Sidewalks. I got my first listen to the record while walking my friend’s dogs through his suburban broken dream of a neighborhood and somehow the imagination inducing scenery couldn’t help the record out. It really got to a point with the record where I wanted it be over.
I think my main problem with Sidewalks is the very cheesy synthesizers that are present throughout. At moments they sound like something straight out of Jock Jams while at others they are straight out of an old video game or a Muppet Babies keyboard (I had one of those). That and at some times it feels as if an indie band got access to a hip-hop oriented studio and rather than blazing a new trail, ended up running into the same pitfalls including making everything really compressed in the mix. I do like one song on the record though, and that is “Northeast” for being a relief from the pounding rhythms and having good lyrics.
Fences – s/t
Posted: November 29, 2010 Filed under: Bad, Reviews | Tags: Fences, Music, s/t, self titled, Sophia's, Sophia's Thai Kitchen Comments Off
I originally heard about Fences based on friends raving about the band’s performance at Sophia’s over the summer. The best review was the statement that they had never seen a band so unknown by the audience invoke such a positive reaction. This is the information I had when I picked up a very reasonably priced copy the band’s self titled debut at Armadillo Music. From the reviews of my friends I was expecting something a little less sleepy time than what is on the record. Either I was projecting what I thought a band that would elicit the above response would sound like, or the band came with significantly different instrumentation for their show. I’m picturing myself at this show while I’m listening to it and I just don’t see myself getting too excited.
I’m trying to put into words what the band sounds like without dropping into hyperbole. I just keep thinking of acoustic singer-songwriters that I like and removing some element that makes them enjoyable, for instance, Elliot Smith without the really good lyrics. This may be too cruel a way to describe a band but the signer and music certainly sound like something I’ve heard before and passed over. One of my main problems with the album is that the signer has a one note voice that doesn’t have much emotion to it, regardless of the subject. In the album’s defense, maybe I came in with the wrong idea, but when you can’t make a song referencing a Bond movie interesting (“From Russia with Love”), you’re doing something wrong. Too throw them a bone, I like the song “Girls With Accents”, that quirky synth and the chorus of “I’m fucking up everything” is good, but not good enough to save an album.
Caroliner Rainbow – 2/27/10
Posted: March 4, 2010 Filed under: Bad, Shows | Tags: Caroliner Rainbow, Davis, KDVS, Mucky the Ducky, Music, Noise Comments OffWhere to start with this show? Well one thing I can say about it over the last KDVS noise show I was at is that I was intoxicated this time, making the “music” a little more tolerable. Of course getting the drinks that allowed me to be in this state caused me to miss two of the bands that played, but no matter, I can at least have a terrible opinion on 2 out of the 4.
The first band I came in on, and the second band to play, was Mucky The Ducky. They are a local Davis band that I have seen on several bills for local shows that I never attended. I can firmly say now that I wasn’t missing anything. What to say about them? Well they weren’t ear splittingly bad, which is a good thing, however, they fall into the same trap of “Hey, Ma! Look what I can do with this delay pedal and a toy megaphone I got on ebay! I’m gonna start a band!” Basically take the trippy parts of a Pink Floyd song, the ones with all the “Sound-scapes”, remove it from any musicianship the band had in between and what you’re left with is Mucky The Ducky. My favorite part of the show was the people in the audience leaning back, closing their eyes and letting the sound wash over them man. I propose to Mucky that I become the next member of the band. My responsibility would be walking around with crash cymbals and waking those lame ass people up.
Caroliner Rainbow have apparently been around for some 20+ years. They dress up in colorful, Power Ranger’s villain costumes, and shamble around their black lit set. The performance is supposed to be high energy and eye popping, but all it ends up being is prodding, flailing and more than a little bit awkward. With the set and costumes it feels kind of like a cheap animatronic display at a zoo/museum. The “music” wasn’t any better. Ompa-esc rhythms that go nowhere and those whiney/screamy vocals that were annoying the first time they were ever used… which may have been by Caroliner Rainbow. Hooray for originators. Again, the fun part of the show was looking around the audience and seeing who was grooving out to the music and then chuckling to myself about their lack of taste. The very best thing was the people without earplugs cringing as the band walked off with their equipment squealing for like 5 minutes. Priceless.
Looking at these shows as music is futile, the atonal noodling of the “talent” have been around since the start of the amplified era of music and haven’t changed or driven anything in over 30 years. The way to look at this stuff is still that of performance art, at least then you can’t be disappointed with what you see.
