caroliners
Submitted by dingey on Mon, 02/19/2007 - 8:59pm.
Greetings from North Carolina and the brave new world of travelling with a parent in tow. This has severely impacted the degree of licentious and louche behavior that normally goes along with vacation. In other words, there ain't gonna be no beer with dinner or nekkid prancing on this vacation. *sigh* Other than that, i got no complaints.
Dusty and I did run away to Asheville last night, where we DRANK BEER and ate awesome fusiony mexican grub at the Lucky Otter and got to see AKRON/FAMILY play. It was a totally amazing show. They made me cry. I mean that in a good way. They are part of that Brooklyn scene that spawned Animal Collective, and like that group, there's some real gut-level emotional stuff that takes place with their music and their performance. They've got that thing that I've prattled on and on about at length in other threads—my theory of how the Golden Mean concept of attempting to chart the recipe for acheiving transcendent beauty never really worked in the visual arts, but exists in music—how certain music really does have the power to physiologically change your emotional state and frame of mind and state of being. Like "Surf's Up." I cry eVERY TIME I hear that, even though i totally know what's coming. There's a certain progression where i automatically weep. ANYWAY.
The Akrons totally had Dusters and i in the palm of their hand until the very very end of the show, in which they grabbed people from the audience and had them come up and help jam….the process continuing until there were at least 30 people up there with them and it devolved into too much of a hippie/granola/cartoony singalong that got to be too much for the two of us after a while. "I guess i gotta remember that this is a generation that didn't have the luxury of growing up on 'Electric Company'," said Dusty as the roomful of hipster kids sang along to a nursery rhymy song about circle-triangle-square. The kids were really digging on it though, so we left 'em to their fun.
I totally appreciate the spirit of the gesture of making the audience part of the show, but there really, really, is a difference between musicians and drunk kids in terms of the cohesiveness of sound.
Granted, I'm a total freak for weird folk collective yelling/drumming/singing from other cultures, but i also think that untrained musicianship from a culture where you grow up taking part is different from untrained musician-ship that began when you took your first hit of acid and stumbled into a drum circle and decided you were a novice shaman.
We both agreed, though, that despite the last bit not really being up our alley, it was, otherwise, a freakjing amazing show. I don't even know how to decribe the group's sound or dynamic or whatever but, yes, they made me cry. They write beautiful folky songs that can veer off into really unexpected directions. They're kinda folky, kinda prog, kinda psychedelic, kinda…I don't know what, but they're really really awesome. I kept wishing that Tree and Nate were there to see it. You pretty-song writing boys. I also think that Akron/Family would make Cheese-Whiz pee(ters) his pants!
Why
Submitted by dingey on Wed, 02/21/2007 - 10:01pm.so anyway....
Submitted by dingey on Thu, 02/22/2007 - 9:38pm.down south
Submitted by m0nz on Fri, 02/23/2007 - 8:50am.Y’all make it to Asheville more than I do! Have you gone to the Chinese restaurant on the top of the hill? Near the park? mmmm noodles.
Volver is coming to Columbia next week. I hope to see it.
Mechanics here are nothing compared to people that work in bar-b-q restaurants. Holy smokes, you can’t understand a word they say. "yalllwantsumcollardszwiddat?" The whole yankee thing is overplayed, some people harbor serious resentment, but those are people you wouldn’t want to spend time with anyway. You know the difference between a yankee and a dammn yankee? damm yankees stay.
Speaking of mecahnics, I miss Kirk over by the Corner Bar.
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