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Here's to my son turning 1 today. He's the greatest person in the world to me. It's been a wild ride this past year, and totally worth every second of it. I love him dearly and hope a good life for him in the years ahead. He gives my life meaning and makes everything that more colorful. Yes, I feel like an old man around him, but for once that's not so bad.

My Bloody Valentine at Aragon Ballroom

Submitted by spab on Sun, 09/28/2008 - 7:46pm

Music

Met up last night with a couple of friends, one came up from Tampa for the show and the other lives here in the city. I took the Lawrence bus to the Aragon and hoped to have a drink at The Green Mill before the show, but the line there was outside and no way were we waiting. We walked up Broadway and found another place and had a drink and did some catching up. Jonathan, Pete, and I discussed reviews of the show and the future of the band for about 20 mins, then headed over. As we walked into the Aragon, security guards were handing out earplugs saying "compliments of the band". We wanted to miss the first band after hearing from Jonathan's friend in Toronto that they sucked, and I did a Myspace on them and agreed. No sense wasting time on a bad band. To our luck they started right as we walked up the stairs. I had mix feelings about where I was standing. On one hand I would like to be closer to the band, but at the same time I knew how classic shoegazers are, watching the band is pretty much boring. The band made up for that with an outrageous light show. The way the were played almost could give anyone a seizure. Also videos were shot of patterns. Aside from all of that was the ongoing stories of how loud they were playing and I didn't care to have ringing ears for days afterwards.

Here's my honest review. You could say both that the show was phenomenal and boring depending on your take. Maybe if I was 20 years old and a newbie to the rock scene and was versed in what was cool from the late 80s/early 90s, and stood near the front, I might have been completely amazed (and deaf, but who cares at that age?). But for someone who has seen a share number of shoegazing bands in the late 80s and early 90s and missed them 16 years ago, I never felt too excited or that my entire rock history rested on this night. I didn't care if they sucked or rocked out. So for me, I give them about a 3/5. Since I stood near the very back of the Aragon and had strong earplugs in, the noise level wasn't band, but I could tell they were living up to their decibal stories. What was a letdown were probably four things: 1) too loud, 2) Aragon isn't the best place for sound (not MBVs fault), 3) they played the songs exactly like their studio versions, 4) the 30-minute noise (aka 'The Holocaust') ending for 'You Made Me Realise'. As I knew about the ending, we left when it kicked in. I'm a fan of noise to a certain degree, but this sounded like a jet engine roaring at takeoff (I f'n kid you not). [this guy captured a few seconds of it from the show]

What I did enjoy were hearing the tracks that I like of the studio versions -- 'Come in Alone', 'Soon', 'Only Shallow', and 'To Hear Knows When'. So with that, they'll be going back into the studios and working on a new album and let's hope it's excellent.

More on MBV

Submitted by spab on Tue, 09/23/2008 - 8:36am

Music

In 2006 Mr. Shields started remastering the My Bloody Valentine catalog and revisiting unreleased songs to be added to a compilation album. When he listened again to material from the aborted third album, he was heartened. “I realized that all that stuff I was doing in 1996 and 1997 was a lot better than I thought.” He now plans to complete that album, and to start recording new material with the band in the fall. He has been writing songs steadily over the years. “I definitely don’t think you need to suffer to be creative,” he said. “I’ve written some of my best songs when I’ve been happy.” [link]

Countdown to loudness

Submitted by spab on Sat, 09/20/2008 - 9:59pm

Music

Next Saturday, a buddy of mine from Tampa will be flying up here to join me at the sold out My Bloody Valentine show at the Aragon Ballroom. It's been way f'n too long since this band decided to poke it's head out and start kicking out the jams again. There was talk around 1994/95 that Kevin Shields was working on the follow-up to Loveless, but it all turned out to be bunk. Now 14 years after that they're touring and releasing two remastered albums ('Isn't Anything' and 'Loveless'). Beyond that I don't know if they're be writing new material, but the word out is that their shows are LOUD. In fact, perhaps the loudest shows ever are being played now, hitting decibals of 132db. According to a wiki entry of loudest bands in the world, MBV is right there. If you know me, I gave up on loudness and started wearing earplugs and not standing in the front row of shows anymore, so this will be interesting. I saw a Jesus and Mary Chain show back in 1989 that completely blew my stack off, but nowadays that doesn't matter to me. Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely a fan of feedback with digging bands like the ones mentioned, Sonic Youth, Sonic Boom, and even Boris, but aside from bringing my strong ear plugs, I might actually even bring my noise reduction ear muffs along with the ear plugs. Sounds crazy, but I'm sure I would still feel the wall of noise that will bombard me.

An interesting read on MBV's loudness blogged here.

"Infact, MBV made Slayer sound like Nick Drake." -- BenMyers1