hard times in new york town: bob dylan @ terminal 5 X 3 (november, 2010)

okay straight up i am not a big bob dylan fan. but we seem to gravitate towards each other.

like for example in 2008 when i found this great basement record store in the village at the back of West 4th subway (that had been there for 30 years and was closing in 3 weeks) and along with the 7"'s i bought the guy accidently included a 12" which happened to be this bob dylan bootleg:

 

btw it says "robert zimmerman" on the back!

i didnt steal it though. i told him and i came back to buy it (i got 30% off too)

and now i happen to be in new york for 8 days and he happens to be playing 3 shows. so i went to all 3 shows to see what all the fuss was about. 

ok so they were military about cameras. so because i had to be kinda ninja with the snaps i dont have great photos. and i dont have many photos. but i think a couple are enough.

what was surprising was his voice was pretty bad. he literally sounded like scooby doo. like that raspy-breathless-exhale sound which unfortunately rendered all the songs monotonous. he tried. and he got better over the nights. and it was nice to see him. especially in a small room (3000 people) but i just saw leonard cohen and i was unfortunately expecting more. 

but after all of that... it was very endearing. he might have sounded pretty shit (some may argue he has always been a shit singer) but everyone was singing along (he played like a rolling stone and jolene!) and it redeemed him considerably. i mean, love tends to do that.

i was jealous. what made him play 3 small shows and not one big one when his voice wasnt 100%? could it be that he wanted to give his fans a chance to see him intimately (relatively)? wow. i mean i heard he could be quite a jerk but i mean that's pretty sweet right?

im 23 and i have seen bob dylan 3 times in a crowd of no more than 3000 people. he's coming to australia to play venues that hold 15,000.

alright as i said i am not a bob dylan fan but www.brooklynvegan.com know their shit and have setlists for all 3 nights if you're curious. 

few more photos below!

singing in the rain: the raincoats @ moma, new york (november 20, 2010)

 to be honest i didnt know much about the raincoats besides girl rock owes them a lot more than bed hair and pink docs. and that kurt cobain wrote them up as genuises.

so when i realised they'd be jamming at moma while i was in new york i was pretty excited. they have played only a few shows in the past few years. one of which was matt groening's all tomorrow's parties.

i got there a bit early. milled around with the EN-WHY folk. a good mixture of too cool sceneters with undercuts and laddered stockings and real geeks in cargos with crooked fringes. and of course a good dosage of women's lib.

to be honest i cant remember what kathleen hanna (of bikini kill and le tigre fame) all i remember is she had a little orange case full of 7" and everything that came out of it was cool.

there was free alchohol. i didnt even know.  
there was chocolate beer. 
it was horrid.

there was also an exhibition but i wanted to stake out a good spot so sorry gals, no dice on the art side.

i didnt know what to expect but i was just so thrilled. there were little audio fireworks going off all over the stage. the way they played was just so astute and it was real. most effects were there manipulated by hand in real time. well WOW. 

ana's music props

kathleen and tobi vail (bikini kill, the frumpies) joined the raincoats for a tribute to dearly departed ari up by playing her song "vindictive." i dont have many pics from this song because i took one long vid. i'll put it up when i can!

ana da silva + jean-marc butty + tobi vail

THE LECTURE

and a lot of the time the seed is not as magnificent as the tree but when gina was singing about being high and being angry and being a woman it expanded into the universe. there is something big now about being chic and wasted and it's all pretense. and we burn and we're pretty. half the time im just not convinced. the raincoats were refreshing.

here are the pretty pics. 

oh and setlist! straight from ana's hands!

we take sydney: leonard cohen 2010 tour

i was really bummed i missed him the first time around. and i knew i was missing out on something. 

ngoc and i had planned to go to melbourne to see him this time as we managed to get 2nd row seats there. the sydney ones were going for $1500 on ebay when they started at $230. we managed to only pay $650 for 2. 

but alas it became apparent ngoc couldnt make it. it was quite sad. but i managed to buy really cheap stall tickets for sydney so that at least ngoc and i can see him together even if we weren't close. 

the lovely cohen uber-fan adam lewis (who was already travelling to hobart to see leonard cohen there as well as sydney and who had seen him twice before) happened to be in melbourne that very night and bought the ticket from me. i mean, how could he say no? 2nd row tickets!

the sydney seats werent bad but werent close. but at least the sound was good. there were 3 breaks/encore and i think by the last bit a few people had left and we thought he was just gogint ot go on forever (which was absolutely fine). anyway ngoc and i just decided to sneak down into the floor area and we ended up in front of the stage! and the cherry? WE GOT SET LISTS!

before we moved

after we moved

because jetstar and i are both unreliable i was late but made it anyway because the flight was late and i was then late for the show and had to cart my stuff to the show because i couldnt make it to the hostel. i eventually found adam (without a phone. miracle!)

and leonard? HEAVEN. wow. i mean... i sat there thinking we have become complacent. this level of showmanship just made so many acts i've seen (acts i thought were fantastic) seem sterile. i mean the bells and whistles were great. the alchohol and the high kicks and the stage dives. but they suddenly relegated to the status of filler. this man was standing on stage with just a fedora tilted over his sly smile and a good band behind him. sure between sydney and melbourne the jokes were the same but always tastefully and charmingly delivered. 

and the voice! oh and that smile! 

i wanted him to be my man. 

i didnt want to dance him to the end of love. 

i wanted to take this waltz over and over again!

 more pictures within...

8th wonder of the world: gorillaz plastic beach tour sydney 2010

one of the most amazing, hard working, crowded, fun shows i have seen in my life. so astounding.

it was like a luscious merry-go-round of musical and graphic candy saturating your senses. you just never know what would come next and what would happen. at the end of it i had to rummage through the empty plastic cups on the theatre floor to find my jaw and my eyeballs. 

and so much fan service! (as articulated by ngoc) all they needed was for damon albarn to come out in nothing but a loin cloth, wearing a crown of thorns, wrapped around nautical lou reed as he proclaims himself the saviour of rock and roll.

they made us wait outside (from 4pm) then i found out we were at the wrong door (we we fudged over and all was well) and then we had to wait at a second set of doors, then as we all ran tot he barrier THEY MADE US SIT ON THE FLOOR. like... sit down. on the floor. it was cramped. we were all a bit confused. ngoc and i looked at each other and thought "well no matter how many shows you go to there is always new venue etiquette to learn."

the dj was really great! i mean i was so disappointed we couldnt properly dance to her. the every wonderful ashely mar was there of course.

so maceo from de la soul come out to hype us up. next thing you know he's like "now everyone stand up!" and it was CHAOS and i almost pulled every muscle of my body getting up from catapulting myself to the barrier. we were lucky and got a reasonably good spot. a good spot considering there were huge-gantic speakers all along the stage that turned every beat into an atomic bomb.

as i uploaded these pictures i realised i had taken about 3 every minute the whole night. i actually heard someone behind me saw "does she have to take a photo of everything??" and you know what? i had fun and now i have amazing photos so that bitch can shut her face. you can all benefit from my delinquent trigger finger. here are the highlights:

more pictorial goodness within...

yyy dj. water condenses: the instanx

so here is how we roll.

in february of 2010 my best friend ngoc, her sister mai and i went to japan.  a lot of things went on. including unfun stuff like a breakdown on my part and fun stuff like winning a neon genesis evangelion rei doll from an akihabara claw machine (after many attempts). here is another... we were front centre for yeah yeah yeahs afterparty at a crazy back alley club in shibuya our first night in tokyo.

the room was small and crowded. white kids wannabe japanese with facepaint, glitter and bare nipples. the place was a terrace house, narrow and cramped. 5 levels or something with stairs far more vertical than horizontal.

the place was so crowded with starving lungs no one could light a cigarette. between us and the non-secure dj desk was a glass cabinet no doubt installed for ambience like the faux-gilded framed mirror with condensation sweating down its face. the cabinet was inching forward slowly.

the djs looked increasingly alarmed.  every now and then we pushed the crowd back and signaled the djs and photographers to push the desk forward. this proved to be a crucial move.

the room was locked. nothing in or out. the start time came and went and the djs became worst and worst. oh the agony! it was 3am.

next thing we know the photographer who had been there the whole time leaned over and told us they couldnt get in so the yyy have been moved downstairs. i guess he appreciated our consideration. with many thanks we rushed like ghosts... you would not believe the speed. desperation on wings.

we got in before everyone else rushed in and the room was locked and made it all the way into the front. i was drunk. these are the results. it was the first outing of my fuji instax wide which we had decided to call machan after the guy who sold it to me in osaka.

this photo is a miracle. it was the first one. like a gift. i remember thinking i didnt press it hard enough and it turned out it exposed twice and i almost lost it but someone picked it up and gave it to ngoc. i wish i knew how to do it again!

brian is on the far left with a hoodie and a tinsel around his neck. karen left half way. she was mainly playing pop songs. when we ran in they were playing empire state of mind. i cant really remember what nick played but i danced like an idiot anyway. and because (for some reason) there was a block (which may or may not have had a piano on it) between them and the crowd and we were one of the few on the side i was pretty much the only person with enough room to dance.

i had so much fun and i looked like a complete idiot and i think at some point nick took a photo but i doubt it would be beautiful in any way. sometimes i wish i played it cool more but i dont think i care enough about what i look like to give that a serious go.

we also got into the vip room and quite drunkenly i approached nick zinner and this happened:
me: *slurs* hi i've met you before at a monsters of folk gig in... *pause*
nick: in new york? *stiffled grin*
me: yes! i love that band. thanks. bye! *stumbles off*

so yeah... another story for a different post.

we escaped about 5am just in time for the first trains. there was an ambulance outside loading a gurney.


XoDeo