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Author Archive
Review: Loirra Burra & Pierre @ CHE’S LOUNGE, Martha’s Vineyard
By ARIV
“Drive safe, slumbering mules.” This was the gestalt credo of the two bands that combined to shake the drywall off the studs Saturday, March 7th at CHE’S LOUNGE located in Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts.
Up first was a three piece progressive-punk setup named LOIRRA BURRA, which is a Portuguese colloquialism that translates interchangeably as, well, we’ll say “slumbering mule” or “ignorant bimbette” (for the sake of causing no offense to you, our dear readers) according to our most trusted dictionaries.
The room was tight and suffocating with the smell of untreated armpits, high school sophomores with too much makeup and not enough sleep, a fake plastic tree enduring a torrential pounding of kick drum cataclysms, a sound engineer leaping over couches and laps to save a wavering tom tom, staccato runaway lacerations and train wreck harmonies, and a Bono-esque excursion into the audience by a flat-cap wielding bass player. All of this was set into a very pleasant froth by LOIRA BURRA, Martha’s Vineyards own, and the prevailing flagship of ABOVEGROUND RECORDS.
Natasha, oh Natasha, the ethereal unreachable ideal of a lover’s broken heart; this is the cold molten core of the headlining band PIERRE’s lyrical content. Just how do they manage to push through and relieve such a ubiquitous but yet so personal universal angst? Cooper, the lead singer and guitarist explains “we lift amps for strength”.
By an impressive use of dynamics and unkempt hair, the high school heart breakers PIERRE, pummeled threw an extremely compelling and innovating arranged set of classic pop-rock discordant rambles, leaving each member of the audience satisfied as if they had just attended a well managed hors d’oeuvre soirée. In my mind, the set was a little short, they had the audience but there wasn’t enough material; however, all was not lost! Their final sonic ode to youthful incompleteness became the Coda, by an outro soundtrack, laced heavily with Public Enemy, Public Enemy Number One. I’m sure Chuck Dee is a safe driver.
“Drive safe LOIRA BURRA.”
Additional Links:
MySpace | CHE’S LOUNGE
Review: Thievery Corporation @ TERMINAL 5, NYC
By ARIV
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I’ve heard this phrase for most of my adult life, but I never really understood its meaning. Surely everything in my great granddad-esque, mechanistic, deterministic view of the universe can be added to or subtracted from up and down the ladder so to speak so that every little bit is always accounted for. No wool pulled over our eyes and nothing should ever be swept under the rug. Ahh, phrase origins….but that’s another path.
Where we are right now is TERMINAL 5 in Manhattan, NYC on February 25 at approximately 10 p.m.; and the DJ headphone wielding dynamic duo/silver surfers of all things electronica/dub and groove were in the house. Rob Garza and Eric Hilton, the co-founders of a booty-shaking synergistic system of bump and wiggle called Thievery Corporation were on the 5th day of their Northeast tour of the States.
Because of technical difficulties, I missed the opening of their set, but still got to munch down on an excellent buffet of: bass, congas, horns, bare Brazilian mid-riffs, sitar, black leggings housing a Latina songstress, a light show that I got a slight tan from, two horn players that looked like they were peeled off from the bottom of a NYC subway train, a Hispanic percussionist who also shared duties on the mic; channeling lyrics penned from the art damaged mind of David Byrne of the Talking Heads, a wiry olive toned hippie-esque barefoot black toenail polished Hugo Boss suit wearing bass player, a reggae styled guitarist with flam and bouyance whose red scarf seem to blow in a wind that did not exist and three MC’s straight out of Kingston who were dressed like their were ready for a south African jungle safari.
Well anyway, these are the parts that made the whole greater than its own addition. This is truth my friends, I learned something that night, and its not that recording video and smoking pot at a public venue is legal, but I understood why the whole is greater than its parts.
I first heard the latest Thievery album on CD, and honestly, I was not really moved at all. That is because I believe now, that I was just experiencing the parts. Being at TERMINAL 5 and being at ground zero with the live band; my reactions towards the “parts” was vastly transmuted, every song sounded ten times better, every bass thump, and sitar jangle peculated with new meaning and weight.
HEY, I WAS AT A LIVE SHOW!
and the show was great. 10+
EMERGENCE: the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions.
Additional Links:
ESL Music | Artist | Thievery Corporation
Thievery Corporation
