Dave Grohl is a geek
Let’s review the evidence, shall we?
1. Wears black clothes? Check
2. Including black jeans? Check
3. Has slightly-too-long hair? Check
4. Has a dry sense of humour? Check
5. Is in a rock band? Check
6. And plays mad guitar? Check
7. Likes Nirvana? Check (presumably)
8. Is something of a poseur? Check
9. Can play at least the opening bars of Stairway to Heaven? Check
And how did I come to this conclusion? Lots of observation during the gig on Wednesday, of course. It was occasionally distracting to be able to see the whole crowd – given we were up in the gods – because it was just fascinating* to be able to actually watch people moshing, plus all of the little blue lights in the crowd… that would be the mobile phones.
Grohl and the rest of the band were brilliant. Grohl is much a show-man, very capable of playing the crowd – and don’t we just love to be played – and seeming to really enjoy the whole thing himself, which is I think a huge part of it. Only about a third of it was off the new album – which was fine, because I don’t actually know it that well; the rest was old stuff; very nice. They played for 1 3/4 hours, which was a good deal; Kat had come over for it, and it was really cool to go out with her; she is very undemanding. In fact, we are sometimes frighteningly alike, but that is a completely other story.
And this time, the support band didn’t suck; it was the Kaiser Chiefs, and they were cool. I didn’t think I knew them, but I did recognise two of their songs, especially “Predict a riot” or whatever it is.
*I just today discovered that my Roman army tshirt has a spelling mistake; no c in fascinating. Very disappointing.
Wolfmother concerts
I’m not really very committed here, am I?
I went to see Wolfmother at the Forum on November 12. They were as spectacular as expected – the music sounds even better when it’s incredibly loud and there are hundreds of people around you singing along. It’s a bit embarassing to say that this is my first real experience of a rock gig… I never had seen crowd surfing in the flesh before. And I’d certainly never stood that close to a mosh pit before. It was brilliant. I seem to be a bit hooked… Last night, they were playing at the Corner, being broadcast live on 3RRR. It was only a 30 min set (turned out to be 45 min actually), but through a connection we got free tix so the sis and I went along. They were, of course, great again. Quite a different crowd though… I had expected that, at a smaller venue, people would still do the mosh thing and the atmosphere would be even more excited. But it wasn’t. I don’t know if it was just a different crowd who were there, or if most smaller places have the effect, but two weird things happened: Wolfmother were way more energetic on stage than at the Forum – which is weird since it was being broadcast on radio – and the crowd almost seemed apathetic (except for this one loser to my right, who kept on shouting out incredibly stupid and annoying things). I felt conspicuous being I knew the words and was singing along… Oh well. Who cares. I only knew a couple of people there; guess they now think I’m mad. What’s new? New would be me almost verging on groupie-ism. Well, maybe not quite… but I did get Chris Ross’ autograph – that would be the crazy bass/keyboard player.
I must say that the support act for Wolfmother at the Forum was absolute crap. They were the Mess Hall – two blokes, one on guitar that seemed to need tuning every second song, and one on drums. They had some pretty good intros, but every song seemed to deteriorate into the same ‘how loud can we play’ shlock. Very bad.
Robert Plant…
… and the Strange Sensations; I finally got around to listening to their album, Mighty Rearranger, yesterday. It’s not bad. The different songs are moderately eclectic, which is nice…
Some of the lyrics are derivative. Well, OK, I’ve found two examples. And for a little while I was a bit concerned that saying that was sacrilegeous… until I remembered that for starters I’m only assuming that it was Robert Plant who wrote the lyrics, and for a second, this is the man who wrote numerous songs with strong references to Lord of the Rings, which I heartily approved. The lyrics? One song talks about “The Father, Son and Holy Ghost” doing something near the coast (American Pie, of course); another has something about “your love light” – leaving it on or something (Blues Brothers 2000).
Overall, I like it.
Wolfmother
Another band I am obsessing over a bit at the moment, which is a bit trying given they only have an EP out at the moment, with four songs on it. Their website promises an album soon, though, which is exciting. They’re Australian, which is brilliant… but I think I am drawn to them because they really sound like Led Zeppelin. Strong guitar and keyboard bits, compelling vocalist… I don’t know how to describe it, I’m no muso (that’s why I play bass), but “Dimension” is just fantastic, and “White Unicorn” is that kind of eclectic weird-out possibly heading for psychedelic stuff that shows LZ’s range as well.
Ok… enough on that… they’re just COOL.
Beck
While I’m at it I might as well rave that I also am really enjoying Beck’s new album, Guero (which I believe is Mexican slang for ‘white boy’, in a bit of a nasty way). It’s cool – has a range of different sounds in the songs, including some with awesome bass bits, which Beck apparently plays himself, along with the guitar. J thinks that he sounds a bit whiney, but I must disagree. I’ve always liked Beck, ever since he did the theme song for An Ordinary Life, which was a fantastic film that didn’t get the exposure I thought it deserved.
Anyway, so I am expanding my musical horizons.
Led Zeppelin
I just created a new category simply because I want to rave about Led Zeppelin. So, SO cool! I could listen to Led Zeppelin all day and not get bored. In fact, I think I could listen just to Kashmir all day and not get bored – well, not too bored.
How did someone who was barely born in the Led Zep era get so obsessive? Blame the show Dancing in the Streets that was shown on the ABC when I was in Year 12. I loved that show; sucked it up be the strawful; and was heavily influenced. As a consequence, I like Johnny Lee Hooker; I really like Cream; and I love Led Zep. I nearly staed home this weekend just to go to Let’s Zep, a Led Zeppelin tribute band, playing at a pub in Carlton.
I bought the DVD of Robert Plant and Jimmy Page doing MTV in 1995 a couple of weeks ago – I already had the album: wow. Amazing. Sad that Page got ugly, but Plant doesn’t look much different, only older. They did four new songs for the album, and they’re just about my favourites on the whole thing. I also got the Led Zep double DVD of them at 5 or 6 different concerts, plus some TV footage etc. I’ve only watched a little bit of that, since I haven’t really had 5 or so spare hours recently and I figure I should at least watch the entirety of each concert in one sitting, or if remotely possible the entire thing (chances?).
On top of those, I bought Robert Plant’s new album, which I actually haven’t got around to listening to yet; what an indictment. I like that he is still doing stuff – and quite different stuff, I think.
So. Yay. Led Zeppelin.
High Fidelity
I’ve been wanting to see this flick since it was on at the movies; finally got around to it today (love those 5 weeklies for $8.50 deals). John Cusack is such a star… he’s the only reason to watch that awful Nick Cage escapee film, and Grosse Point Blank is just brilliant. And I love it when he’s in films with his sister. This one appealed to me because of the music… I may not have known all the music referred to, but I can associate with the vibe of the thing (or so I’d like to think). Jack Black was great, of course. Anyway, it was well worth seeing and I just should have seen it before this.
Music
I’m not old enough to complain that today’s music is crap, even if it is. I happen to think that there has been and is crap music (in my judgement) in every era of music: there is bad blues, bad jazz, bad 60s pop, and I’m sure there was bad stuff when humans first started making music. My problem with some music at the moment is the sheer unoriginality – worse, the blatant plagiarism. I’m not talking about covers; some covers are good, some bad (Joe Cocker’s With a Little Help from my Friends far surpasses the Beatles’ original; Madonna’s American Pie was boring). I’m talking about when somebody decides to take the melody from one song and put different lyrics over the top, and claim it as new. This goes beyond sampling – which I don’t have a beef about (Fat Boy Slim’s Bird of Prey, with Jim Morrison’s lyrics, may be a good example). I’m thinking, for example, of a song that came out a few years ago: it took the music of John Cougar Mellencamp’s Jack and Diane, put boring love-happy lyrics on top, and called it a new song. Very annoying. I think one of the things that really gets to me is that people without much exposure to old songs will think this is new, and be very confused when/if they do hear the original. I also strongly object to ‘dance-ifying’ songs. I heard Tasmin Archer’s Sleeping Satellites the other day with a very offensive beat on top; to me this is almost sacreligious, since it was a dear favourite of mine and my brother’s when it first came out. It adds nothing to the song, and in the latter case takes away every single element of mystery and lament.
Randomly Yours, Alex 