dsng.net - the daryl sng blog

Death Cab for Cutie in Singapore

Managed to finagle a solitary Death Cab for Cutie concert ticket, but I'm quite happy to go to concerts solo - a legacy, perhaps, of days where I reviewed concerts for the school paper. And it was worth it. To be honest, I was always a bigger Postal Service fan than a Death Cab one, if we're looking at the Ben Gibbard oeuvre. But Death Cab are a surprisingly muscular band live than they sound on their albums (or it could be that, as Adrianna was telling me, Narrow Stairs, which I've not had a chance to listen to enough of, is a much different sounding album).

There were solid performances of "I Will Possess Your Heart" and "Styrofoam Plates", in all its bitter glory, and I noticed "Photobooth" and "Title and Registration" received raucous receptions, but as you might expect, "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" was the singalong favourite. Gibbard prefaced that with "Do you like love songs? Here's a love song" - and then came truly a song to break your heart. Nice fade to black after that. I suppose it's obvious for band with "death" in its name, but put together in the context of a concert it was quite striking how much of DCFC's music deals with mortality, both literal ("I Will Follow...", "Styrofoam Plates") and in terms of the figurative end of relationships ("Tiny Vessels" etc.).

It wasn't a perfect concert by any means - I thought the order of songs in the set list could've been better - but with cult-favourite bands like DCFC you always hit up against the "when do you ever get the band coming to Singapore, and will they ever come again?" factor, with the pent-up demand for the concerts to charge the atmosphere. I mean, I remember hearing "Something About Airplanes" when it first came out 10 years ago, when it seems much of the crowd hadn't hit double-digit ages yet. Ten years to show up on this fair isle. Small wonder the energy of the band's live sound and the crowd's anticipation propelled the show.

(Side note: can I just say, as the proud owner of 2 bunnies, how much I love the video of "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" with the rabbits?)

Labels: concerts, music

The Urban Verbs

I strongly recommend listening to the NPR recording of the Urban Verbs reunion. If only for the part in the middle where, 30 years later, Roddy Frantz (at least, I think it's Frantz) still clearly is bitter about Tom Carson's savage review of their album in Rolling Stone, and how that destroyed their career. It's hard to believe any one media outlet would have such an impact these days in music. Even Pitchfork...

Also - I'm always intrigued by random connections to people in disparate fields. So: Roddy Frantz's brother Chris drummed for the Talking Heads, fronted of course by David Byrne. Who's cousin to John Byrne, editor of Business Week, which is as non-rock a publication as you can get this side of Golf Digest. I suppose I like finding out things like the fact that Gloria Steinem is Christian Bale's stepmother, and Eve Ensler is Dylan McDermott's (apparently Dylan, nee Mark, chose his name based on a name that Ensler would have given a child that she miscarried). Or that Viggo Mortenson's ex is Exene from X. What a great sentence to say...

Labels: music

Fabric podcast

The new Fabric podcast is pretty wonderful - not just the music of a night out in Fabric, but also a eclectic, record-bin-trawling selection. Like "The Hippie and the Skinhead", the song from the Peter Wyngarde album that Craig Richards chose to dig out. Truly bizarre. I only wish they had a proper track listing. But then maybe that might make it too easy for us crate diggers...

Labels: music, podcasts

Scarlett Johansson sings

According to this CNN interview (and probably old news, but I haven't been as au courant with the celeb news as I'd like), Scarlett Johansson has an album of Tom Waits covers coming out:

Q: What about this album you're releasing? It's all Tom Waits covers?

JOHANSSON: I've always been a huge fan of Tom Waits and I had this kind of golden opportunity to make an album however I wanted and it's kind of a dream chance. ... Originally I thought that I would do an album of standards and I wanted to include a Tom Waits song. And I don't know, I thought maybe everybody does standards, and so, I see Tom Waits as being kind of a composer of modern standards and so it seemed appropriate that I could interpret his songs. Obviously, it's not an album where I'm trying to sound like him. It would be impossible. He writes such beautiful songs and incredible melodies and they're so cinematic and kind of open-ended so I felt like it would be something that I could be inspired by.

I can imagine her singing "Downtown Train", which is the one I can most imagine with a female voice, since I've heard the Patty Smyth and Everything But the Girl versions, but on the other hand, would she take on, say, "Bottom of the World"? Much as I respect Johansson's taste for Tom Waits, I'm not sure about this...

Labels: music

The Arcade Fire, United Palace Theatre, New York

Just caught the Arcade Fire live at the United Palace Theatre up in Washington Heights in New York. Incredible show. Especially the one-two punch of "Neighbourhood #3 (Power Out)" and "Rebellion (Lies)" that closed out the main show before the encore. "Rebellion (Lies)" is amazing to hear live - the build up, and then the release, with the whole crowd screaming. Seemed that the Funeral songs were better concert songs, although maybe that was just because the crowd were more familiar with them. "Antichrist Television Blues" was outstanding - have to say though, it does sound like Springsteen - and the spare version of "Neon Bible" I thought played well in the converted church...

Family, religion, they tackle the big subjects and do them well (and with every conceivable instrument).

All right, while sleeping is giving in, I think I need to head to bed. More on the show when I'm not as dazed...

Labels: music

Alanis Does "My Humps"

I have to say, I admit I like Alanis Morissette, but "Ironic" was a crime for any right-minded snob about English, since none of it was really ironic was it?

But black flies in Chardonnays be damned - as Laura Barton wrote, everything is forgiven, thanks to her cover version of My Humps - sung in classic Alanis style, but with a video that spoofs the music atrocity...

As the song goes... Check it out!

Labels: music

Songs in the Key of Life

One thing I've discovered about the iPod, it really does help me discover the songs that've been buried in the depths of my collection, brought them to light. I was sceptical about that effect - after all, I do have all the songs already on my computer - but I suppose having 40GB of music around you is very different from carrying 1GB as I used to do.

Unearthed songs that I've rediscovered the joys of:

Ryan Adam "La Cienaga Just Smiled". (Ryan Adams is great walking-around-town music: always has the ring of late 90s/early 00s East village music to me, and that always has special memories...)
Tapes N' Tapes "50s Parking"
Gomez "Get Myself Arrested" - If I recall correctly, I wrote a review of the album when it first came out. Still like it.
Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels "Devil With a Blue Dress On / Good Golly Miss Molly". Listening to this made me think, I want to DJ again. On a mid-week night, with my choice of music. And one night I'll just do garage-band music. (And on another night I'll do bizarre cover songs, but that's another subject for another day.)

Labels: ipod, itunes, music