Weekend & Dan Deacon

Two of my best friends from high school, Chad and Wes, were here for the weekend. They took off about an hour and a half ago to see another mutual friend from high school. We had a good time. Good people came over. The cops only had to come by once for a minor noise complaint. Get eight people on a third floor balcony and yes, the sound will carry more loudly than anticipated by said eight people. They were cool, though, and we toned it down before we left again.

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Very close. Imminently close to finalizing PhD plans. Most of you reading this probably already know where it's going to be, but I'd rather wait until sheets of paper are signed and faxed and in the mail and all of that.

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Saw Dan Deacon last night @ William & Mary last night. It was only about an hour away, so we thought we'd take it easy and check it out. Their bus broke down, so they got there a bit late. Luckily, so did we. The back-up band for Dan Deacon was mostly comprised of members from the two opening bands, Teeth Mountain and Future Islands. The former was interesting, if a bit too noisy and avant-garde for me by the end of their one-long-song set. Future Islands is doing the whole bass-singer-keyboard thing, with a lot of pre-programmed drums. I found them a little boring honestly.

Finally Dan Deacon and crew got set up, but Dan was making sure everything sounded perfect before they started, so they sound-checking was seemingly interminable. But as Wes and I talked about, it ended up being necessary. When you have four keyboards, two drum kids, bass, guitar, other sound samples, a marimba, bells, and more, everything has to click. And yes, it did. Most of Bromst was played, and all of it sounded incredible, once again considering how many sounds comprised some of the extreme loudness.

If you don't know much about his shows, and I didn't, Dan likes to play in front of the stage. He puts all these epileptic-inducing lights up and fucks with those as different parts and choruses are going on. And he's also got tons of pedals and weird effects-driven modules on this table, along with a glowing green skull he puts a light bulb in.

At one point he had the crowd almost doing warming-up exercises. We were a bit hungover and too old, or felt like it at least. We preferred to stay off to the side. Especially when the two drummers were doing their thing, some of it mind-blowing to watch. But at one point he had people holding hands above each other's head, and people could continue that trend while going through the gauntlet, and the giant worm of hands ended up snaking around the whole venue (called The Little Theater, though it was kind of a smaller but larger gymnasium), and then almost everyone was outside in the hallway doing it. It was wild to watch.

The whole thing was an experience, and he didn't point us out as the non-participating, which was nice, and which I was certainly afraid of.

There are many tour dates left. Get Bromst. And go see him. It was beyond worth it, and a blast.

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Digging the new Pop Ambient 2009 compilation from Kompakt. Along with the remastered and bonus-tracked Raise by Swervedriver. One of my favorite all-time records.

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I want to melt all the guns in the world and build metal houses for people who need houses but don't have houses.

I'm sick of all these shootings and massacres. No one needs to own a gun. Use a crossbow if you want to hunt.