Sorry for the last six weeks... kind of busy.... but here goes

Theater: Blue Dragon @ UCLA live, Radio MacBeth - SITI@ The Court Theater in Chicago, Ruined @ the Goodman, The Brothers Karamazov @ the Lookingglass Theatre.

Film: Milk and Australia

Rock: Of Montreal, Keane, Snow Patrol

Blue Dragon: Underwhelming.    I expected so much out of Robert Lepage, but wanted to fall asleep often during the show.  The stagecraft, which at times had flashes of brilliance, felt far too conventional, and the acting was at best mediocre (One of the main problems here was having english be a second language for the entire cast, only Lepage seemed to have a control of the language).  

The Brothers Karamazov: Not boring!  It never felt like time slowed down, as it can with more ponderous theatrical productions, but my biggest problem with this show was that the best series of stage pictures was at the very beginning, and the show never got back to that level.  And the whole russian rock music thing with the sound design (the walk in music is Gogol Bordello) felt a little half baked.

Of Montreal: An arena band in the making, if only Kevin Barnes would learn how to structure a 2 hour set list better.  The other thing they need is better stage craft, it feels like they're trying to emulate the Flaming Lips in too many ways, but if they were to break out, and actually have a set built for them, it could be a truly brilliant affair, but as it stands, it's just kind of blah.

Australia: Baz, you make us wait for 6 years since Moulin Rogue, and in that time, you lost most of your playfulness!  I could see you try all over the place during Australia, but it felt far too stilted, and lacking heart.  You still shoot pretty looking films, but without a heart, the kinetic nature of your film making just goes in all directions rather than staying close to home and packing a punch! 

Whoa, I've not written about a lot of things.

Here's a list of things unwritten about which I've observed within the past thirty days.

Theater:

9 to 5

Elevator Repair Service (The Sound and the Fury)

This Beautiful City

Spring Awakening

Cirque Du Soleil Ka

The Druid Theater @ UCLA live

Rock/Music:

She & Him

The Secret Machines/The Dears

Spring Awakening: Having seen it on Broadway with the original cast, and sitting on stage no less, this performance left much to be desired.  First, by sitting on stage you're taken in by the kinetic energy of the cast, and for half of the numbers you have a rear perspective.  This is usually a benefit, as from the front, everything felt far more conventional, also, you don't have as far of a sense of the choreography in the onstage seats, and frankly, most of the movement just seemed like a sloppy overlay to me.

She & Him: Zooey Daschniel writes some beautiful songs, and M. Ward is a fantastic muse and realizer of music.  There's not much more to say, other than if you have a chance, check them out.  Oh yeah, when they decide to take a cover song on, they usually make it completely their own.

Secret Machines/The Dears @ the Key Club: Murray Lightburn has one of the most interesting voices in indie rock (what's it about montreal?), and the Dears usually come out relatively on fire, tonight was no exception, but I'm not hearing much of a progression in their new material as opposed to their older songs.

The Secret Machines on the other hand while at times awesome, encapsulate all of the negatives of both Death Metal and Jambands in one at times infuriating concoction,  sonic grandiosity (seriously D112's on all tom drums), and songs which seem self indulgent and never ending, they're fully capable of writing something with some punch to it, but a 12 minute song, where the final 4 minutes are an ending?  Yeah, you lost me 6 minutes ago!

This Beautiful City @ The Kirk Douglas Theater: The Civilian's documentary theater shtick often produces what for traditional theatrical audiences is a massive letdown.  There is no journey or point to what you have spent the past couple of hours watching other than knowing a lot more about one thing, in this case the Evangelical Christian scene in Colorado Springs, Colorado.  Personally, I love what they do, and the clever use of video and music [especially when the music took us into the heart of a youth service (it was so disturbing)] informs and draws you into the action.  That being said, an old woman behind me walked out at intermission, "I'm too Jewish to understand this." She said, but that's kind of the point, if these people have so much influence over national policy, isn't it important for us to know who they are and how they operate?

Not fully caught up yet... but we'll get there by Thanksgiving, I hope!

Concerts which disregarded the Dramaturgy of Rock

First, sorry for the delay, right now I'm going slightly crazy with the whole grad school thing.  (When tomorrow becomes late next week, I know I have problems) That being said...

Two weeks ago I saw two of my personal favorite musical acts, for VERY cheap (I paid $30 for what was $80 worth of tickets, but that's neither here nor there), and both of them provide plenty of fodder for discussion about some of my Dramaturgy of Rock concepts, as well as a general discussion of rock.

Stars @ the Avalon, Oct. 1st:

One of my favorite bands of the last four years, Montreal's Stars have a tendency to invert the concert experience, which creates a greater cathartic feeling for the audience.  What I mean by this is since they A: Place their biggest commercial hit (Ageless Beauty) second in the set (caveat, it could be argued that half of Set Yourself on Fire could be construed as their biggest hit, but for the sake of our current argument, we shall postulate that Ageless Beauty is the current strongest song) and B: Always end their shows with something a bit down-tempo, the experience is counter to concert structure (Hits late, end big, fast and loud, etc.), but the journey the audience has taken allows them to leave the space in a feeling of relief and beauty, rather than exhaustion and exhilaration.  Also, the dual lead singers (Torq Campbell and Amy Millan) lyrically play off one another in many songs, to the point that if staged, this could perhaps be even more interesting (One More Night, with a bit of Choreography could be fantastically sadistic).  

David Byrne, Santa Barbara Oct 4th: 

One of the most theatrical concerts I have seen in a while, all without any projections, moving lights, or any other tricks of modern stage craft.  What David did have was a troupe of three dancers making different songs into movement pieces, with major interaction between the dancers and the environment of the rock and roll stage.  For example, during the Talking Heads classic, I Zimbra, the three dancers were constantly shifting the relationship between the backup singers and their microphones, forcing the singers to be as mobile as the dancers, and even lie down on the stage whilst the dancers held the microphones to the singers' mouths. Musically, Byrne is often interesting, and the new album, co-written with Brian Eno, is some of his strongest material in years, but by adding the human element of movement and dance, it made this one of the most hypnotically invigorating music experiences that I've had in a while.

more later

The John Lautner Retrospective @ The Hammer

So the Architecture of John Lautner is quite beautiful.  The concepts of space and the incorporation of the natural landscape around has definite parallels with one of his early mentors, Frank Lloyd Wright.  Despite the awesomeness of his work, the presentation of his work at the soon to close retrospective at the Hammer Museum leaves much to be desired.  If you look at the Hammer's website, you can currently see the gallery and how the work is presented, which is rather static.  The arrangement of the drafting throughout the center of the rooms, interspersed with models made me feel more like a client rather than a viewer of art.  The one aspect of the show that attempted to break the static nature of the exhibit was the presence of video montages of various Lautner designed homes.  These silent series of images troubled me on two separate fronts, first being the odd voyeuristic feeling that it gave me the viewer, and secondly, the way the galleries were lit it felt as if the video content was slightly washed out by the rest of the exhibits' lighting.  The one aspect of this retrospective that I did not experience, but would more than likely change my feelings about it, were the arranged site visits of Lautner designed buildings.  These were rare (only 4 during the entire 3 month installation), and quite expensive (cheapest being $55, and two were only available to $125 donors to the museum, and still cost another $145), I understand that these would be difficult to set up, but they priced out many students and other architecture aficionados.    

more writing tomorrow... later

Last Weeks Viewing Part 1

So last week...

I came down with an insomnia cold.  Did that deter me from consuming a bunch of music and arts though?  The answer is of course no... A play by play list of what was seen...

Tuesday night: Dodgers Game and then CSS and Tilly and the Wall at the Mayan...

For a class in acoustic environments, we were semi-required to go watch a game at Dodger Stadium.  This particular game was a complete joke, as the Dodgers had an absurd 7-1 lead by the 3rd inning, so much so that I just left after the top of the fifth inning, so I could sprint to the Mayan Theatre to see...

Tilly and the Wall and CSS.  Tilly and the Wall are undeniably cute, with a clog dancer providing a large chunk of the percussion and rhythm for the band.  An effective gimmick, and the more dance-y direction they seem to be going in (as opposed to a more roots-y-pop) can possibly pay some pretty large dividends.  CSS, on the other hand, hit the stage like a bullet out of a gun, and after 55 minutes of sheer energy, you were lucky if you were left standing.  So you are warned.

Rock out Wednesday: Brazilian Girls - 

Rather unimpressive.  Perhaps this was due to the fact that I wasn't feeling particularly well this evening, perhaps it was because I had won 2 tickets off KCRW and no one came with me, hence a failed +1 crisis.  The music was OK, the energy seemed a bit too down tempo and chill from the stage, also the projection and video content was just passive and lame (I know the music is at times down tempo and chill, but for me it felt like a going through the motions type of show).  Frankly, a rather unmemorable evening.

Friday night debate:

Needless to say, I made a drinking game out of watching the debate, being anytime John McCain pissed me off, I drank.  As you could assume, I got pretty shitfaced pretty quickly.  As far as my thoughts on the debate, I thought that Jim Lerher was an effective moderator, trying to get them to speak to each other, and to an extent succeeding.  The other fact which has been well documented is the fact that John McCain simply refused to look at Barack Obama, it was just frustrating for all.

Well, that ends part 1.  The further viewing which will be discussed in the next installment:  

The Civilians new documentary musical - This Shining City

The John Lautner retrospective at the Hammer Museum

An Evening with Robert Wilson

The VP Debate

Stars

David Byrne

Upcoming viewing: 

Madame Buterfly @ the LA Opera

Elevator Repair Service

possibly Gogol Bordello

more debate action

A Rock heavy week

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds/Spiritualized/Cat Power @ the Bowl

A very aggressive rock mix at the bowl, it sounded head and shoulders better than Arcade Fire a year ago (That mix really annoyed me, and there was nothing above 8kHz above the third section).  That being said, it was still a less than stellar experience, and here's why: The Hollywood Bowl is so big that unless you're a massive band used to playing the big rooms (Radiohead, Neil Diamond, [shudder] Dave Matthews), a lot of the energy just dissipates and by the time it gets to the rear of the house, there's so little left that people back there can do nothing but drink their cheap-ish wine and fall asleep.  Also, those bigger bands bring something in the realm of production (Video, lights or some combination thereof) which helps fill in those gaps.  But for a show like this, where none of the bands are otherwise playing rooms larger than 3000 there is nothing there other than lights and rock power.  Admittedly, all of the bands this night had rock power to spare, but it did not carry the day.  This was also a problem I had with the otherwise amazing Arcade Fire/LCD soundsystem show there last year, the tour was built for rooms no larger than 8000 people, and in a room twice that size, it just felt small.

Street Scene in San Diego (Beck, Justice, TV On the Radio, New Pornographers, Antibalas, Spoon, Michael Franti & Spearhead, Hot Chip, amongst others)

OK... Mini-Coachella in downtown San Diego!  I got a lot of what I expected in awesome music, and fantastic production values.  The most interesting, of course was Beck, with a bank of LED's behind him, which functioned as a low-resolution video wall, and like any good rock show had a very 3 act technological structure.  Act 1, more simple lights and video (Almost all of this part had no video [if there was video, it was static imaged], and no color in the lighting) Act 2, a bit more complicated (Still no color in lights, but some more interesting looks, more active video), and Act 3 where there was very active video (some of it was i-mag, or taken from old films), and color looks in the lighting.  This entire show felt very Talking Heads - Stop Making Sense, in the lighting and video.  Overall - not a complete waste of time!

Other than that, Justice was Justice, Spoon was Spoon, and the New Pornographers were the New Pornographers (sans Neko Case and Dan Bejar) - all in all a great evening of the rock! 

Burn After Reading

Not the coen's best.  I could say more, but I'm currently too tired.  Well, it made me squirm, take that for what you will.

Planned viewing for this week - 

Brazilian Girls 

the First Presidential Debate

perhaps CSS

perhaps Il Trittico

perhaps This Beautiful City

perhaps 9 to 5

till then

mahalo