i forgot to write about some shows from the past few months...

i went to see Jens Lekman on October 28th at the new Music Hall of Williamsburg. the venue is really nice, maybe "too nice." also, all the bouncers/ticket takers/bartenders were super nice and funny, maybe "too nice and funny." the whole place makes me skeptical. i tried to picture the old Northsix set up. it was easy to do. the new layout is much better. there are more places to lean-n-stand and be a wallflower. but the chairs in the balcony (there were so many chairs) make too-loud fart sounds when you scoot them around. also, it's sweet that they kept the bleachers idea in the way-back balcony area as sort of an homage. there's a bar on every floor, and it kind of reminds me of Bowery's layout. it was so clean and nice that it made me feel like i was in a restaurant. i felt hungry for hot wings and french fries and burritos.

Jens was so charismatic and funny. it was an intimate fun solo show. he's less Swedish than i imagined. he seems very approachable and normal, down to earth. so cute. he played with just this older typically Swedish-looking woman on bongos and percussion, and he had just a guitar attached to a looping pedal. he messed up with the pedal a bit and told the crowd, "i'm new with this...i'm no Andrew Bird." when he said this, mentioning Andrew Bird like that, it made him seen so not Swedish for some reason. like, i saw him in this different light (it would've been cooler if he said Owen Pallett though...). i'm surprised the show wasn't sold out. i was in a really good mood too, i had a great view cos i got there early to scope out the new venue. he played a Paul Simon song, the one where Chevy Chase was in the video that was played on Vh1 ad nauseam in the 80s. Lens stage banter was perfect. also, there was audience participation, but it wasn't forced. vocal harmonizing that Jens set-up, the typical hand claps, but he brought a bag of those weird black long seed pods you see hanging from trees or on the ground around this time of year. he had never seen them before and called them little bananas. people passed the bag around and shook the pods but you could barely hear the seeds rattling inside. he made a funny comment on how that was a mistake, he thought they'd have more sound, he shook one rhythmically up to the microphone, but you heard nothing. later these annoying people showed up and sat near me. they were a buzzkill. like the girl screamed out, i want to have your baby! is that the new "i love you"? cos i hear it all the time now. how horrible. how banal. it's weird cos it forces you, the listener at a show, to picture the artist you came to hear burdened with offspring. and the offspring of a dickhead girl with a shitty shrill drunken voice, no less. i picture this fetal alcohol syndrome crying baby with a red face, probably autistic or with mild downs, and Jens, poor Jens....he has to tour incessantly to pay for this baby. he rarely writes new material and if he does it's sad and about mistakes one makes with their wiener on a rooftop in Brooklyn on a cold October night after a few too many Red Stripes. but buck up Jens! cos you said back to the screaming fan who interrupted your witty stage banter, "but i'm not ready yet," with a straight face. the crowd laughs. "maybe one day though........i think i would make a good parent," he remarks in his poetic and earnest way of talking, like he's telling just himself this fact, not a crowded, "too nice" music venue.


then i saw Film School at Mercury on October 24th. i love them. i don't care how uncool it is to love them. i also love Mercury Lounge. Land of Talk, another band i love, was supposed to perform too, but they had problems at the Canadian border. ugh, this has been the year of bands stuck at borders. missing shows. rescheduling. damn band terrorists. they played again the next night and then at Maxwell's (prob the best venue, crowd, sound, everything in the area) but i didn't get out to those shows. i can't remember, i was either too depressed or broke, or the weather was shite.


on November 8th, seeing Viva Voce at Union Hall was a bit of a disappointment and here's why...
i don't like them enough to see them perform live, but Liv "put me on the list" and how could i turn down a free show?? the drum kit was up front and it was just too loud. the female guitarist had bad fashion sense but her guitar playing looked and sounded impressive. i left after a about five songs, it just wasn't my thing. BUT i really liked the openers, Pseudosix, and i'm kicking myself for not supporting them and buying an album or EP or something. the way the lead singer's faced looked when he sang reminded me of Jeremy Enigk from the SDRE days, like in that video for Seven. that's the number thing that stuck out in my mind and made the night seem not so bad.