6 avril 2011 - José Gonzalez @ Gaité Lyrique

José Gonzàlez performing with The Göteborg String Theory

Last night Jose Gonzalez performed with the Goteborg String Theory @ one of the nicest venues I have been in Paris ! La Gaité Lyrique.

This was my 2nd time to see him in live as José ( saw him in Junip last summer in Barcelona, another great band ) so it was nice to see him play the set along with The String Theory who had the air of excellent musicians along with a very modern music conductor.

José opened the set alone for the first song, Hints, with a nice stage setting and lighting that gave even a more emotional atmosphere to his voice and guitar playing.

There wasn’t a sound in the room except him as everyone was listening in silence.

Then the 20 musicians of The Goteborg String Theory placed themselves on stage with a haunting and powerful impact, the venue was perfect for this type of classical music and José’s voice.

One thing you can say about José Gonzalez is when you go to one of his shows you get totally lost in time you think you are just there listening for 20mins and next he says it’s the last song and you feel frustrated the time has gone by so fast.

Half way through the set totally unexpected the sound cut and it took a few minutes to come back on, hence the upside José was playing with The String Theory who kept playing under the guidance of the conductor and even José himself sat on the floor of the stage turned to the musicians as if he was the one at a gig.

As anyone who knows the albums of José he plays 3 cover songs, the most impressive cover is the Kylie Minogue song Put Your Hand On Your Heart, which is off her first album. José must have listened to this when he was young way back in the 80’s hahaha, but all the same it’s a really nice version in his style. Also his other 2 cover songs Massive Attack, Teardrop and Swedish Band The Knife song, Heartbeats. But the magic about José is no matter what cover he would play it would make you believe it’s a José song.

I finish by saying at the end of the set people were going crazy for more and all the people seated stood up in admiration of having just seen something touching.

2 avril 2011 - Revok @ Espace Kiron

Après avoir grillé au soleil toute la journée et empli nos petits coeurs de joie et bonheur, direction l'Espace Kiron pour la release party du nouvel album de Revok, Grief is my new moniker .

Changement d'ambiance, on va tous mourir.

La salle est remplie, Revok balance "Mile End". Le son est parfait, Le groupe joue bien et visuellement c'est chouette, épuré sur cette scène ronde en contrebas du public.

Il manque les habituelles projections derrière Revok,dommage.

J'aime beaucoup le côté lancinant de ce groupe, bien assis sur un basse-batterie intelligent. Les grattes tournent, se répondent, t'embrouillent. (je me foule pas trop sur cette review mais je suis au taff...en plus il suffit d'acheter leur disque et de me croire quand je dis que live ça tue, point.).

Le chant est vraiment un plus, Fab t'emmène dans des émotions qu'on ne rencontre que trop rarement dans ce style musical. Là ça hurle, ça gémit, ça te rentre dans le cerveau et s'enfonce encore à coup de gros delay, et pourtant il y a une mélodie derrière, un truc catchy.

Le set finit trop tôt, j'en aurai bien repris un peu. Je suis toujours vivant et affamé, on file de la salle sans voir les copains, direction le little hanoï voisin qui nous tend les bras. Revok rules.

01 avril 2011 - Rivals Schools + And You WIll Know Us By The Trail Of Dead @ Maroquinerie

Fin de semaine de type cool avec un concert à la Maroquinerie, avec 2 groupes vus en live récemment. Rival Schools pour moi ce sont de gars de Gorilla Biscuits, Quicksand, Youth of Today, Judge, CIV, qui ont pondu l'excellent "United by Fate" et donné un de mes concerts préférés (celui du Trabendo en 2002, à voir sur Rad Party ici : http://radpartyonlignebis.blogspot.com/2011/04/rival-schools-unreleased-lps-b-sides.html). Sans oublier Ian Love que j'ai pu voir il y a quelques années en acoustique au Hide Out et le bassiste, qui sous ses allures d'André Rieu a bien failli laisser sa peau dans un récent accident de vélo.


Refroidi par leur dernier concert de la Boule Noire, j'attendais un meilleur show et n'ai pas été déçu. Malgré un son un peu brouillon, le groupe a dégagé une bonne énergie et j'ai bien aimé les arrangements et interprétations sur certains morceaux. Les gars ont plaisir à jouer et le transmettent bien. 


 Sammy Siegler a une façon vraiment personnelle de jouer, accentuant les changements de tempo en fonction des parties et balançant la purée au bon moment. 
Bon concert.




Trail of dead en petite formation. Une batterie et seulement 2 guitares. Leur dernier concert au Trabendo m'avait scotché.

Ce soir le groupe a joué en mode rouleau compresseur interchangeable, les guitaristes passant à tour de rôle derrière la batterie.
Le son était fort (un peu trop ouais) mais peu importe qui des guitaristes était derrière la batterie, l'énergie était incroyable.

 

Ma préférence va à la première partie du set avec Jamie Miller à la batterie (il était batteur de Snot !). Ce gars a la classe et est un vrai tueur. Impressionnant.

30 mars 2011 - Dot Legacy + Paperplane pilots + Streetfight Silence @ Miroiterie

Very interesting and refreshing gig in La Miroiterie with Dot Legacy, Streetflight Silence and Paperplane Pilots

Paperplane Pilots was the band to open the night, while sitting outside drinking beer and eating a ham sandwich I could hear them doing the sound check though the walls of the venue and I thought ok that sound quite good, but I’m sorry to say it didn’t rock my world too much.



They did have some good songs but something felt a little flat or maybe I’m just becoming more hard to please in my old age.

Streetfight Silence is an indie pop rock trio from U.K who describe themselves as (not what people expect of a band in skinny jeans ). I did not listen to this band before that night and had never heard of them, but I have to say it was quite good, very catchy songs and a band you can see maybe getting somewhere. These three are quite young and seem very motivated and seem to give every bit of what they have to their songs. The strong point of the band is the singer and guitar player, he has a great voice quite powerful and very easily grabs attention. It’s nice to see young guys like this full of intension and freedom in the way they play. Afterwards I went to see if I could buy an album or demo but unfortunately they only had a disc with one song which I did not buy as I’m too lazy to get up of the sofa while listening to music to change a cd after one song so they lost a sale.

Dot Legacy : kicked the ass off both these bands, sorry Streetflight Silence & Paperplane Pilots but true !

This for me was one of the most refreshing gig I have seen in a long time.

The drummer is a mini version of Slash from Guns & Roses, banging away on the drums with his mini afro, one guitar player is like some wild haired Irish cave man and the singer has a funky mini afro too! But this band has even more to offer besides cool haircuts. I really loved their set of funk, blues and 70’s Psychedelic style with a piece of Beastie Boys thrown into the mix ! It’s quite impressive to see young guys like this who get what it’s all about. You can see in their music they have a lot of influences but they have their own personal way of creating their songs and you can feel they put a lot of thought into it. I would recommend this band a must be seen.

Dot Legacy cool band, great music, no bullshit and funky haircuts !

Peter Hook plays Joy Division @ Trabendo

I have to start by saying directly the gig last night of Peter Hook bass player from Joy Division was the gig of the year for me ! I have always loved with a passion the songs and lyrics of Ian Curtis first of all, the next thing of love about Joy Division is the sounds and lines of the bass, very special ! I am a total slave to this kind of intensity in music and for me only a few bands and singers move me like that and Joy Division and the voice of Ian Curtis is one of them.

After listening to every song every recorded, seeing the movie "Control", reading about his life and watching every documentary possible I could find I feel I have absorbed every inch of Joy Division I could get on my hands and ears on, all that was left was to see this in live but completely impossible I thought until I discovered Peter Hook was doing a tour of the record Unknown Pleasures ! I had to be there! To which I can say  I was not disappointed even though Ian Curtis was not the singer. Peter Hook has a great voice and sang the songs was great passion and soul in his own personal way but they still held the intensity in which they were wrote and expressed by Ian Curtis. The sound was amazing, the drummer was amazing, the guitar playing was amazing nothing was out of place! I really liked there style of head down and honest playing no bullshit !

Peter hook had a great stage presence and it was unreal to hear these songs in 2011 that were written in the late 70’s they are totally ageless its almost like these tracks were 20 or 30 years ahead of the time that they were created, and for me Ian Curtis is one of the greatest writers ever with total dept when you hear the lyrics you feel like you know him and can understand how he felt. I completely loved the whole set but I have to say my favorite Joy Division song is New Dawns Fades because of the lyrics and the emotion in Ian Curtis voice so I can say when I heard Peter Hook singing it, it was the only song I missed the voice of Ian Curtis. In all that said everything about Joy Division is in perfect balance for my taste in music ! I could keep writing but I better stop here or ill take up to much space

Alaska Pipeline, Do You Compute, Chaos E.T Sexual @ Rigoletto

Ca faisait un bout de temps qu'on avait pas remis les pieds au Rigoletto, probablement poussés par une envie d'hygiène de vie plus saine, incompatible avec les prix des consos pratiqués par Falko.
Soir de débauche donc hier, ça fait plaisir de voir tous les copains et de trinquer à la santé des bonnes nouvelles et de celles qu'on souhaite meilleures. 

Chaos ET Sexual ouvre la soirée, genre de doom à un accord sur des beats triphop. Il manque un rappeur vénér au chant pour que ça le fasse. Comme il est pas là ce chanteur je lâche au bout de 4 titres.

Do You Compute s'installe rapidement (non je déconne), les gars sont concentrés, prêts à en découdre avec le public venu pour ce premier concert organisé par Crashstaz qui officie également chez NextClues.

Leur setlist est bonne, pas de temps mort, DYC est en forme. J'apprécie les nouvelles enceintes de la sono du Rigoletto, on entend enfin les voix, cool.

Le groupe a gagné en précision, et j'aime vraiment le morceau "The Final Point", que DYC m'avait demandé d'enregistrer et mixer pour une compil allemande à paraître prochainement. Le concert finit par "Rad Party", dont les paroles sont issues du fanzine du même nom et qui résonnent particulièrement dans ma tête. Allez donc faire un tour sur le blog de Steph, http://radpartyonlignebis.blogspot.com/ , il y a du bon en ce moment.

Alaska Pipeline s'installe, le groupe tête d'affiche vient de Rouen, j'aime beaucoup leur album paru en 2010, Master Of Puppets.

 

Les gars sont humbles et jouent redoutablement bien. Le trio pratique un indie rock qui me rappelle Ted Leo, Fall of Troy et Medications réunis. La voix est chouette, et se marie super bien avec les plans de guitare. 

Le batteur fou de rigueur sort des plans qui remuent le cerveau, ça chauffe tout le long du set qui finit trop tôt. La basse est discrète et intelligente, met en valeur les 2 autres excités. Ne les loupez pas sur leur prochaine tournée, prévue pour octobre.

Ce soir c'est Peter Hook et Frustration au Trabendo, je suis bien vaseux et de noir vêtu, ça colle.

Twin Pricks, Alone with King Kong, General Bye Bye @ Espace B

We hadn’t been to a small cozy gig in a while so when we heard Twin Pricks were coming to town to play at Espace B there was no question, it had to be seen in live.

To open the night was a solo acoustic guy called Alone with King Kong

Which was a very nice surprise he just banged out the songs in a carefree way with excellent lyrics that you find yourself identifying with little stories of life.
There was a very nice feeling in the room from the mood created from his intimate solo tunes.  It’s always nice to discover something unexpected.

 Nous avions joué l’année dernière, avec Reipas, à l’Emile Vache, chouette petite salle de Metz, dans laquelle Florian programmait quantité de bons groupes et Geo assurait la partie technique.

Ils nous avaient fait écouter les premiers enregistrements de leur nouveau projet musical, Twin Pricks, et j’avais immédiatement trouvé ça bien foutu et accrocheur, impatient de les voir en live

Les premières impressions furent confirmées, le groupe joue ce soir dans la formule à 4 avec une section basse batterie issue de la scène noise qui pousse derrière. Le son est parfait, les guitares ressortent bien, on est dedans dès le premier titre.

Le point fort de Twin Pricks c’est le chant, assuré par Flo & Geo, j’aime bien la façon qu’ils ont de le placer, à la manière de REM, Samiam ou encore Aslan (là c’est moins évident, mais c’est juste pour faire un clin d’œil irlandais).


Twin Pricks maîtrise, je vous recommande une visite sur leur site, http://www.twinpricks.com/,  ainsi que leur ep « songs about flirting » dispo sur http://twinpricks.bandcamp.com/

Maintenant j’attends l’album live, (« Dogpile » ?)

...pas de report de General Bye Bye que nous n'avons pas pu voir....une prochaine fois peut être