I fear Mogwai
I saw the great and fearsome Mogwai on Wednesday. They were awesome as always. (I contend that they are in that category of bands whose shows outshine all their albums, like the Jesus Lizard and …Trail of Dead) The band was not too animated; perhaps relentless touring is wearing them down. But that didn’t keep them from playing an amazing set. In addition to several great new songs, they performed the best tunes from all their older albums, including ‘Mogwai Fear Satan’, ‘Chirstmas Steps’, ‘Helicon 1′, ‘2 Rights Make 1 Wrong’, and ‘My Father My King’. The only change I would have made would be to replace ‘Stop Coming To My House’ with ‘Stanley Kubrick’ (preferrably the cello-accompnied one I saw in Chicago a few years ago). But that is minor. It was a great and deafening set, and showed that Mogwai are still in their prime.
Speaking of long-lived indie bands, I got ‘Earthquake Glue’, the new Guided by Voices album. After one or two listens, I did what it sounds like a lot of people did. I have been listening to ‘The Best of Jill Hives’ on repeat for half an hour. It is both awesome and classic GBV. Plus repeat keeps you away from that bad song that follows it. Although I was quite fond of their last album, I am not sure that I could imagine any of its songs on a classic GBV release. Whereas this would fit perfect on the seminal ‘Under the Bushes, Under the Stars’. It sounds like a sequel to that albums single ‘The Official Ironman Rally Song’. (I wonder if one could compose a piece of prose consisting of nothing but Bob Pollard song titles.) Now that I think about it, the last album has a stylistic similarity to the power-pop of ‘Mag Earwhig’, much like this one does to ‘Under the Bushes’. I wonder if GBV is recreating their own catalog backward? If so, it is just going to get better.
November 12th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
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