Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Around this time of the year, we know you're being inundated with 'last this' and 'last that,' as in "Last show of 2008" or "Last chance to see us live" or in our case, "Last Wednesday Update" forever until 2009...
On Monday, we made the rounds hitting every residency, but started off the night with boxViolet at The Bordello. The band has come a long way in just a year since switching permanently to a duo and this show was one of the best we've ever seen them perform. Their recent recordings are primed for more mainstream listeners, surely, although that Splashdown meets Venus Hum meets Garbage thing they're doing is hard to deny. Plus, their computer-programmed light show makes bands with rope lights look only slightly better than Lite-Brite. The Bordello doesn't allow photography anymore so sorry no pics, but you can see photos from the last few years here. They play at The Breakfast Club on Thursday and The Que Sera on Friday... After making quick stops by Carnage's night and The Echo (good to see you LACO$TE and BlackBlack -- and Ahearn), we took in a few songs from The Movies at Spaceland and also picked up the new album since all three of the previous CDR versions of the record we bought skipped on our favorite song ("Monumental Live"). In any case, we wonder if they know they're coming up on their 10th anniversary as a band. Think our first time seeing them was January 2000 -- according to our old calendars. It was the dawn of the new millennium and The Movies were one of a handful of new Silver Lake bands people were talking about. Mr. James was and still is a performance genius, that is obvious. Harnessing that genius onto a record, however, always seemed to be the hard part. Until now. Based On A True Story is easily one of the best records of the year but knowing James to be a perfectionist, he's still probably not satisfied with how good it is. That's the scary part. Yes, don't let all those spinning jumps, high leg kicks, and air boxing hide the fact that this guy knows how to write a great pop song. Now, if he could just hone that skill into burning CDs that don't skip...
Tonight is our first chance to Christmas shop and we'll be doing so somewhere around the vicinity of the Que Sera since someone at the club went so far as to set up a lineup trap for us.
In other news: Lenka's prematurely scheduled show at the Troubadour on 2/27 has been canceled. Look for Lenka and fellow Aussie turned Angeleno Missy Higgins to minuet in March... We were at the Kárin Tatoyan show last night (to confirm she's still awesome) and a little birdie handed us the new Bird and the Bee record. We already had a copy and we're sure everyone else does too, but we thank you mysterious lady. "Polite Dance Song", "Ray Gun", and "Love Letter to Japan" are so hot 100 right now... The band looks familiar but that curtain is like famous.
