AWmusic

I had been waiting to see Ladytron live for a long, long time so even though I wasn’t particularly impressed by Velocifero, I was pretty willing to skip an excellent lecture on the roots of patriarchy to see them.

The venue was filled with every imaginable stereotype you can think of. Teenyboppers (it was an all-ages show), jocks, people who looked like they were here with their kids, scenesters, hipsters, industrial goths proclaiming their individuality by all wearing KMFDM tshirts, etc. It was an interesting mix that I suppose the combination of Ladytron and The Faint made inevitable. I actually thought it was a little weird that Ladytron and The Faint were touring together. True, they’re both loosely of the electronic genre but I find Ladytron so much more mature and serious compared to the Faint.

The Faint lived up to their reputation of putting on a good show. Jacob Thiele chugged more beers than the front row combined and made love to the keyboard all night. Petersen is a good bassist and a hilariously bad dancer. Baechle did a fantastic job on drums. Todd Fink … needs a new stylist. That shirt/robe/dress is waaaay too long.

The crowd loved The Faint and I could feel the vibrations on the intelligently-designed shock-absorbing floor beneath me. Unfortunately, despite the many requests, there was no encore.

The enthusiasm for Ladytron wasn’t quite so high. I guess Ladytron is a lot harder to dance to. This was evident through Marnie’s weirdly seductive jerky shoulder dance. Also, since when are there six members in the band? I only had two beers so don’t question my counting skills.

In fact, here’s another photo. You can only see five of them but that’s still one too many.

They played a lot of songs from the new album which was to be expected. Aroyo’s vocals were spot on. I love her voice, it’s so haunting. Marnie, on the other hand, sounded like she was doing an exaggerated impression of herself. I couldn’t figure out why she sounded so weird until I listened to the album at home again and realized that her voice is kind of raspy/distorted recorded but perfectly clear live. It sounds a lot better with some distortion. This is more obvious with their older albums. Like with “Seventeen”, she sounds soooo different because on the album, she’s almost whispering the lyrics.

Ladytron’s set was too short, in my opinion. There were a lot of songs I wanted to hear that weren’t performed. Even “Destroy Everything You Touch” was saved for the encore. I have to say that The Faint outshined Ladytron but it’s probably because Ladytron’s music is more suited to a mellow evening at home rather than a rambunctious night at the Phoenix.

Ladytron – Ghosts
Ladytron – Deep Blue
The Faint – The Geeks Were Right
The Faint – Forever Growing Centipedes

So after a good 10 years with Saddle Creek, Conor Obert’s label, The Faint has released their first album completely written, recorded, and produced on their own. It’s about time they formed their own label – am I the only one who finds it weird that Conor Oberst was a member of the Faint (well, Norman Bailer) 13 years ago? The Faint is so energetic and sexy and new wave/nu rave while Bright Eyes is … none of those things – man, I hate Bright Eyes.

Anyway, I wouldn’t say Fasciinatiion is their best work despite rave reviews but it’s worth a listen. The first track, Get Seduced, shows some depth that you wouldn’t really expect from a dance punk band … which is not necessarily a compliment. I’m always kind of annoyed by celebrities commenting on their whole twisted community. You can interpret the song as an attack on the sheep of society fawning over movie stars or as an attack on self-obsessed celebrities but either way, famous people should stop biting the hands that feed them/ acting so hypocritical. Still a decent song though. Nice and sleazy.

To be honest, I’ve never been a big fan of the Faint’s lyrics and prefer not to listen too closely to them. I enjoy the synthesizers and distortion and beats, I couldn’t care less what their opinions on popular culture are. For example, Mirror Error is a great song to dance to but they can stfu about self-image and body modification. I mean, maybe I AM a shallow bitch and maybe I DO get piercings to hide my withered, deformed soul but I don’t need the Faint to tell me that. Come on, they probably pay a stylist themselves. At least for photoshoots.

Don’t even get me started with The Geeks Were Right. Watch what the humans ruin with machines? More like watch the Faint make their living by using machines to make the music that’s ironically criticizing technology. I hope those lyrics were written during some crazy acid trip. The song’s awesome otherwise though.

I don’t know if I like it better than Wet From Birth. I don’t know why everyone hated Wet From Birth – it wasn’t as good as Danse Macabre or Blank-Wave Arcade but it wasn’t worth a 5.5/10 (I’m looking at you, Pitchfork). If you’re looking for deep, meaningful lyrics from the Faint, you’re delusional. Allow me to recommend some Bob Dylan or better yet, go read a book.

Rating: 3.5/5

The Geeks Were Right
Forever Growing Centipedes

School starts on Wednesday and look for the website to go into some sort of limbo, I’m terrible at time managing. Without further ado here are the week’s posts and whatever else is going on around the blogosphere.

Welcome our 3 new writers, Matt, Coko and Lu.

Stereolab – Chemical Chords by Matt- put this on my list of albums to check out
The Virgins – Coko questions their band name, from band pictures it looks like more of truthful confession
Endeverater – Kiss or Kill by Lu

Reviews:
Broadfield Marchers – The Invitable Continuing
London Zoo by The Bug – I gave it a 5/5 (am I giving out too many?), it is really is worthy of its critical acclaim
The Faint – Fasciinatiion – What’s with the I’s?
Island’s Arm Way
Mothlite – The Flax of Reverie – hopefully we can get an interview going Jess
The Sleeping Years – We’re Becoming Islands One by One

Other:
Cutting Edge Music Fest Pt. 2
Hamlet 2 Review and Mini-Playlist – save your $$
Tropic Thunder Playlist and Review – Hilarious but offensive movie. I’m shameless when it comes to these playlists.
Joe reviews The Final Riot tour with headliners, Paramore.
The Microsoft Zune is Gangsta – Screw The Ipod – srsly
Ghalib reviews the Woodhands and Lioness show he saw last weekend.

News around the internet:
F Yeah Fest guys got beat up by Radiohead security with the cops watching. They recorded security beating up a patron excessively and security ran and beat them up for it.

The man behind AntiQuiet (or one of the writers) had his house stormed by FBI and he was formerly charged for posting tracks of Chinese Democracy. Chinese Democracy is the long awaited Guns n’ Roses album that has cost a reported 10 million or so. He faces a LONG prison sentence, releasing copyrighted work before it’s formerly released is really the problem. He did have it coming, especially living in the states. Slash isn’t rooting for him.

Some good discussion at the Elbo.ws forum. Way to hold us bloggers to standards Under the Dog.

Pitchfork ended the hype of Bloc Party’s Intimacy with a predicted 5.0-something score.