Amuuurrrrica (or: you ain't supposed to die on a Saturday night )

I have pretty much exclusively been listening to old hardcore bands lately with one extreme exception: THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM. Normally I think I would find something like this corny and tooly and not be into it but inexplicably I am hooked. All of the hype is true. They really do sound like a cross between 1970's-era Bruce Springsteen and the Bouncing Souls, somewhere between the Jersey turnpike and the endless highway Americana of Lucero's That Much Farther West. Truly fantastic -- and just SO awesomely Jersey. (Dad, give it a shot.)

As I said, usually "youth anthems" about love or life/death/transcience make me roll my eyes a bit but this is perhaps the epitome of what happens when former hardcore kids grow up and make grown up rock music all while maintaing some semblance of Kevin Second's Young Till I Die and not being total tools. The whole album, The '59 Sound, is just awesome for all audiences. I assure you that if you are reading this you ought to listen because you will enjoy.

IFFFFF you really can't hang with rock music, I suggest partaking in this different but equally wonderful slice of Americana -- This American Life #328: What I Learned from Television. Although it made me feel like a latte liberal, I couldn't keep myself from laughing pretty much the whole way through.

As for slices of America in my life here:
Friday night my friends and I went to Disco, hit up the imported foods aisle, and made ourselves some super tasty burritos in Silvia's kitchen. Saturday we continued our culinary adventure with sheets upon sheets of M&M cookies, oatmeal raisin, peanut butter M&M, and PB oatmeal cookies. Mmmmm. Then yesterday I went again to Jumbo, the huge American-style supermarket (somewhere between Stop&Shop and Target) that I like to call "Amuuuurica," with Alana. What does that say about the States that I relate most to American when I am eating absurd amounts of terrible-for-you food or when I am in places where they sell it?

¡oye esteban!

If you come to the home page of this blog, you'll discover the subtitle "hay una luz que nunca se apaga" which translates into Engish as "there is a light that will never go out" aka the famous (and gorgeous) Smiths song. Perhaps now I can justify the connection.

Tonight when I was halfheartedly working on some homework for my Spanish class I happened to also be partaking in my favorite form of procrastination -- watching Morrissey videos on youtube -- and I foudn this incredible gem: Morrissey on TELEMUNDO in Spanish. 

If after this Telemundo video and "First of the Gang to Die" you still have any doubts about how much Morrissey loves the Mexicans that love him more, drink in this lovely photo of Moz in a Chivas jersey at a CHIVAS USA game. That's right, folks, MLS Chivas not even Guadalajara Chivas. Wow.

In related news, I have plans to go to a hardcore show on Saturday and the cancha between River Plate and Racing this Sunday. Hopefully the suspense matches up the awesomeness of stoppage time of the match between River and San Martín de Tucuman last week. I still can't believe it took River almost all game to come back from San Martín's weak early goal. 

If Sunday works out, it brings my life in BsAs part circle. To explain: I passed the Racing team in practice sweats outside of their hotel two Sundays ago, ostensibly waiting to go to a stadium in GBA. (They play Sundays... there is no other explanation.) Full circle would be if I make it to a Lanús game, as I passed those guys wandering around AEP Jorge Newberry in practice sweats while I was en route to Bariloche. Both times I will admit to finding the experiences extremely strange. Just sayin'-- when's the last time you saw members of your favorite football or baseball teams loitering about? 

Finally, I have a confession to make: I have been courting fandom CA River Plate. I have until April 19th's Superclasico to decide. Updates most assuredly to come.

sea lo que sea, pase lo que pase

Thursday was Manu Chao at the Club Ciudad de Buenos Aires in Nuñez. If you're curious (aka if you're Jordan), the newspaper Clarin and hipsterblog vuenosairez have reviews of the concert in Spanish. Some basic thoughts:

He played for over three hours, with three encore style sequences. These often commenced and ended with Manu smacking himself with the microphone against his chest plate. It looked painful. He played literally almost everything in his catalog with many mash-ups of songs (as he frequently does on his albums). One of my favorites was mixing the clasic folklorico song Se Fuerza la Maquina with his own Luna y Sol.  Many of the songs I hadn't heard, presumably from the 2007 Radio Bemba Sound System's La Radiolina were played much faster whereas many of the old songs took on a more reggae vibe and were slowed down. The GANJ was abundant -- I saw spliffs in all directions -- and the whole event took on a pretty leftist spin, with ample criticism of the States in the form of poetry from members of La Colifata, a radio collective run by inpatients and outpatients of a mental hospital in Buenos Aires, and general hating on Bush. (Obama wasn't lauded especially, though, either.) 

All in all, I had an awesome time doing the reggae sway with the dreaded portenos for at least 2.75 of the over 3 hours of the show. I frequently have moments that remind me of the scene in Half Baked where they start listing all of the things that are better ON WEED. Here it's that some things are just that much cooler for experiencing them in Buenos Aires, Argentina, or a Spanish-speaking country generally. Seeing Manu Chao was definitely one of them.

Enjoy this pretty rough clip of the show from youtube. 

Orquesta Típica Fernández Fierro

Went to see these guys last night in the neighborhood that birthed Carlos Gardel.  It was super amazing. 

It was definitely a more modern spin on traditional tango and definitely awesome.

VERSE BROKE UP

Verse broke up. This band has been boring for at least two lps and two eps now. I originally said only one LP but I gave From Anger to Rage another listen to honor their end and decided to make it two. As someone aptly put it on the b9, "that one song they had was pretty sweet." Usually I really hate when hardcore kids complain about seeing bands too many times -- hardworking bands deserve respect -- but Verse was a tired band on so many levels. And since they manage to get onto every halfway decent east coast show, I couldn't just politely avoid them. I'll leave out some of my hard feelings about dudes in that band and just say I hope their future projects are as solid as Rebuild was.

The one thing I am legitimately bummed about is that Verse breaking up means the count of active hardcore bands I even just occasionally listen to drops to about three, give or take. The two that aren't Have Heart are west coast bands that almost never tour. Second, this means I'm really old. Verse are considered ancient for their six years of activity. I think that makes me ancient too.

To honor their and my oldness, I will recap my favorite Verse shows in order:

3. MONSTER SUMMER TOUR KICKOFF at the AS220 (7/12/07). Both of the summer's biggest tours happened to be in Providence for their first night -- Have Heart, Verse, DTN, Ceremony, Sinking Ships, Allegiance, Soul Control, and I Rise for a non-fest at Providence's tiny AS220. My favorite set at this show was hands down the Have Heart set because the police came, threatening to cut the mics because the show ran way late. Eventually they did but the kids just belted WATCH ME RISE and it didn't matter at all. Also, it was a perfect summer night. Often shows like that feel really long but this was just a lot of fun. Notable also because it was the first time I saw HxH headline over Verse aka the first time I realized how huge those dudes had gotten. I've been dying to find clips from this show, if anyone can help me out.

2. EDGE DAY 07 at Welfare. (10/21/2007). Again, lots of fun for reasons besides Verse (exhibit A: Sweet Pete doing Take the Risk with The Effort!!) but I have to say that their set was really fun to watch. (Sorry, I know better video exists but I didn't really look.) I was wiped at that point, especially because there had just been a string of mediocre bands, and I was camping out in the air conditioned spot by the sound tech where it's super quiet. Pat and I were singing the words just loudly enough for one another to hear, especially because our voices were echoing off of the sound booth. At such a huge, long show it was amazing to have a quiet moment with a band as quiet, relatively speaking, as Verse. Most of all, Sean Murphy's speeches were spot-on that night. I hadn't heard him speak that personally since he addressed his addiction in some much older WFTF sets I'd seen on video. (And a lot of his pretty trite commentary on politics, which generally makes me cringe.)

1. BEST DAY at the Wallingford Hungarian Club (1/5/04). The line-up still blows my mind: TFS in their pre-first breakup NC days, Our Turn, Verse, Have Heart, Look Alive / Learn shared set, and SOH. First time I saw Verse. The show was mostly youth crew bands. Although I was pretty into Turning Point and stay gold at the time, Verse's melodic style was still groundbreaking/awesome to me. The demo and Rebuild stand out to me as their best (aka before it was tired) work and, as this was one of their first shows at all, it's clear that they had no other option but those excellent jams. Another highlight: I brought notecards to the show from which to study.

Honorable mention: Verse at Fairfield U with TFS, Have Heart, Signs of Hope, and Fired Up (6/28/04). Mark and I ate ice cream in the hallway. One of my favorite shows ever. (I make embarassing appearances in the TFS and Have Heart videos from Scott at Bystander on youtube but nothing from Verse's set....)

Speaking of last shows, TFS last set rip is here. Many of my favorite faces present and an awesome shout out to Ferres before my favorite new TFS song, What We Know. Watching it made my day! Heads up: Rather than a continuous set, the folder contains MPGs of individual songs.

calvin johnson's dancing is priceless

Max and I watched the K Records documentary, The Shield Around the K, while I was visiting. (Okay, it would be much more accurate to say that I fell asleep while Max watched it. But I instant-queued it on Netflix while I was working on some stuff at home this week and now I've seen it.) What struck me most about it was how Calvin Johnson dances like he's autistic. Observe and enjoy.

Beat Happening -- Crashing Through:

(sorry the volume is so low, that's how it was uploaded)

The Halo Benders -- Don't Touch My Bikini

I think my other favorite part of the Shield Around the K was when they all were marvelling about how Ian MacKaye did doors for the first International Pop Underground festival. This is a tie between my weird fascination with him and the fact that he is just absolutely that legit. Yes, I even enjoyed that more than the montage of people guessing how K Records got its name. Any thoughts on when Dischord will do one? I was surprised when they didn't make any sort of doc for the 20th anniversary box set. 

eric berman - hagshama

While we were in Israel, one of my favorite nights was when the drummer and songwriter for the Israeli pop star featured below played for us in the basement of our hotel. I ended up with this song absolutely stuck in my head and haven't stopped listening to it since I came home. 

Isn't it catchy? Most of the Israeli music we were exposed to was not really my jam but I am digging this a lot!