Dark Side of the Moon

The music section of a recent issue of the New Yorker (I suspect Sept. 14th) talked about the Nine Inch Nails "Wave Goodbye" small club performances and gave some background on the... well, it's hard to say "group" since Trent Reznor is the overwhelming presence.   This reviewer, like most, pushed the loud industrial dissonance aspect of the music, but it would have been nice if there'd been even a passing mention of the surprisingly lyrical pieces that do exist and are considered a serious part of the canon, not just throwaway "something different".  Now I like even the dissonant stuff (the more you hear, the more you realize how cyclical it is, how the newest lyrics reference the oldest ones and no, please, not because Reznor can't think of anything new to say).   But I started to put together my own version of a somewhat lighter and more tonal list with which to woo those who think they'd never like NIN.  When I did, I found the oddest thing: the track numbers lined up with only a single duplicate.  It's not perfect, there's a few instrumental pieces I'd switch around if it were an actual album, and some of the pieces aren't totally dissonance-free, but they have a musicality to them that a non-industrial fan should still appreciate.  Soooo... here's my take on it:

NIN : LIGHTS
01 - I Ghosts 1 (Ghosts I-IV, 2008)
02 - Piggy (The Downward Spiral, 1994)
03 - The Frail (The Fragile, disk 1, 1999)
04 - The Good Soldier (Year Zero, 2007)
05 - Something I Can Never Have (Pretty Hate Machine, 1989)
alternate 05 - Echoplex (The Slip, 2008)
06 - The Fragile (The Fragile, disk 1, 1999)
07 - Lights in the Sky (The Slip, 2008)
08 - I'm Looking Forward to Joining You Finally (The Fragile, disk 2, 1999)
09 - The Four of Us Are Dying (The Slip, 2008)
10 - A Warm Place (The Downward Spiral, 1994)
11 - La Mer (The Fragile, disk 2, 1999)
12 - The Great Below (The Fragile, disk 1, 1999)
13 - Right Where It Belongs (With Teeth, 2005)
14 - Hurt (The Downward Spiral, 1994)

What would you add? what would you change?

Oh, and re: the coinage fuss:
I like research. I like full documentation. I like details and disclosure and history and all possibilities available for discussion.  It's turning into a big piece and will need to be split into parts, but I need to get everything together first. 
  

Last Friday, a week and a day ago, at just this time we were watching the first half of "Alegria" at the Arena at Harbor Yard in Bridgeport, CT.  This is possibly (I haven't checked) Cirque du Soleil's longest running show, having premiered in 1994 (though I also understand it's been revamped since).  It's also the very first Cirque show I've seen in person.  Truth: seeing it on TV or on DVD is not the same.  Those seriously undercut the awesomeness.

Bridgeport has problems.  Think of the most industrial, rundown sections of Somerville, at the very least.  The Arena, though, is pretty nice.  There's a commuter parking garage right next to it for convenience (the Amtrak station is very close, and the bus station just a block further away), though it would have been even more convenient for me if the elevator had been in working order.  But, hey, event parking was only $5.00, which is an amazing bargain for those used to Boston area prices. The concession stands inside only advertise beer but they also have cheap wine, and for those running late, they also have hot dogs, quesidillas, and other "real" food.  Seats... now that was interesting.  Half the seats weren't available at all, because the stage was set in the middle and facing one direction.  Presumably both for viewing ease and because Cirque needed the back half for prep.  We also got discount tickets through the Cirque Club, and those were probably the less desireable higher-up seats by the sparsely populated gap between a lot of filled seats and the ones lower down.  The Arena isn't large (there are only 26 rows) but the seats are steeply raked and we were in row "T", so very high up.  Once the show started, it didn't matter as much.  There was a great advantage in being able to take in the whole stage at a single view because Cirque does fill the whole stage, front and back, regardless of the actual performance being featured (but I want a cheat sheet to explain some of the background stuff!).

That's what makes Cirque du Soleil so astonishing, so different. It's a continual performance, front, back, sidelines.  From the moment anyone comes in view, they're -on- and they're part of the whole.  For me, it twinged some of the same chords as the Broadway musical version of "The Lion King", the one with the puppetry.  (Of course, there's also the music.  How many circuses would sell their soundtracks?  Magnificent singers, magnificent musicians, magnificent music!)  There was the same sense of surreal becoming real and then veering off into the surreal again, and while this was most notable in the framing sections, it was also true of the actual performances.   Flooring is removed to reveal an X-shape of trampoline and tumblers come out to tumble on it.  Yes, sure, beautifully done.  But then it turns into ballet.  Imagine a ballet where the dancers can throw themselves back and down and bounce effortlessly back into step, into perfect form.  The tumblers that run to the ends and jump?  Suddenly, in the music, one swears they are hanging in midair, suspended, till the music itself lets them drop.

Quibbles. Are there any?  Well, it's me, so of course I can come with a couple.  The intermission was off-center.  The second half felt distinctly shorter, and was, and left me wanting more.  The aerialists that came at the end?  Yes, impressive, but their routines always ended in the same drop and catch and movement back up to the platform and I was spoiled, I kept expecting something startlingly different and that never came.

But see it.  See any Cirque performance.  You won't regret it.
  

... and getting my LJ act together again. First up, the promised photos from the NIN|JA concert last week. Utterly awesome show. The newly formed Street Sweeper Social Club opened with some amazing high-energy rock, and wicked good guitar playing by Tom Morello. NIN's set was hardcore, sharp-edged, and full out, with the single quieter moment being Reznor reminiscing about a time and place where he'd meant to kill himself. He didn't, (obviously) but the place still holds ghosts of bad times for him, so he's exorcising them by getting married there. An unusual sharing for him, from him to us. Then on to fantasy-land rock with Jane's Addiction with Perry Farrell in a shiny gold jumpsuit, and Dave Navarro in tats and nipple rings (he doffed his shirt after the first song), to close out the evening.  Weather: damp & drizzling, but no dampener to the show.

( ~ photos under cut, click on thumbnails for full-size view ~ )

This week we were on vacation in Maine.  On Wednesday, though, I left to drive back to Massachusetts for the NIN|JA concert.   More pictures when I get everything together this weekend.

NIN - June 3, 2009 NIN donor package picture with my co-donor friend Walter Elly, backstage at the Comcast Center in Mansfield, MA, on June 3, 2009.

Sound & Vision Magazine's list of 30 "iconic" singers that would never make it on American Idol:
http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/features/3147/30-iconic-voices-american-idol-would-hate.html

What's especially cool is the range of voices and eras, and that there's a full song video for each.   The Sammy Davis Jr. impressions probably won't register for most viewers, but the talent is still clear. (Hint: watch the Louis Armstrong clip first. :-))

And in related news, yet another don't-judge-by-first-impressions contestant on the British version who totally blew away the crowd and the judges:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

Yes, that's over 7 million views and she deserves every one of them.  You go, girl!  ^_^
  

I saw Watchmen last night, finally, and thought it was very good. Excellent Rorschach, which was a necessity for me because (my opinion) he carries the story.

NIN presale for the June 3rd show in Mansfield was right on time and I was right there, and got a fantastic seat up close, dead center, only a few rows behind the pit. And then got a GA pit ticket, too. Decisions, decisions...

Those who know D&D: ever wonder what becomes of that encountered monster after a Baleful Polymorph? A writer friend, Montgomery Mullen, has a lovely little interlude piece on what might go on in a rabbit's head, if the rabbit had once been a hill giant. :-)
  

Nine Inch Nails is coming to the Comcast Center (formerly the Tweeter Center, formerly Great Woods) in Mansfield, MA, on Wednesday, June 3rd, with Jane's Addiction and Street Sweeper.  I'll be going.  Anyone out there want to come, too?
  

Pine + Battery, my favorite Bay Area group (okay, it's the only local group I know, but they're good!) is playing at the Cafe du Nord on Wednesday, February 11th, at 8 pm. Those who can go, should!

(more info on the show)
  

Saturday night I saw Huun-Huur-Tu at the Somerville Theater.  Absolutely amazing!   This is one of the premier groups of Tuvan throat-singers in the world and it's astounding what they can do.   It's not enough to hear one of their CDs, you have to see it done live, in person, to really appreciate it.   I could tell some of it ahead of time, the growling low pitches with the higher overtones, but that whistling high background flute on some of the pieces?  Isn't a flute.  They do use a wide variety of folk instruments (which again is a reason to see them live).  The bowed stringed horse-headed instrumetns, the plucked guitar-like one, and the large drum give fairly standard sounds, but the jaw harp was a surprise, and there was a combination use of strange large "rattle" and a harder knocker piece that produced perfect hoofbeat sounds.  Many of the songs are about horses, and having that effect, plus a wonderful whinny from the bowed string, plus a vocal huffing, had everyone in the audience smiling.  The piece about a river in Siberia came accented with a beautifully wide variety of bird calls, too.  I don't know enough about the music to be sure how much of this was tarted up for western audiences.   It was noted in the program that even the traditional songs are animistic in a way, are meant to evoke specific landscapes and experiences rather than sound for the sake of sound.   I enjoyed all of it, but the two pieces that hit me most were when one person of the group simply sang alone, without instruments.   That's when you realize that you have no idea what the human voice is capable of.

They have a website of course: http://www.huunhuurtu.com/

Another group that has a better website for samples of the singing styles and more info on the instruments is Alash Ensemble, and that group will be in the Boston area in December: http://www.alashensemble.com/
  

The concert was at the Verizon Wireless Arena in Manchester, NH.  

( ~ more ~ )

  

Brilliant show by NIN last night in Manchester! 

 

( ~ details ~ )

  

Answers!

( ~ twenty song shuffle ~ )  

Stolen from gyzki :

A perennial: iPod/mp3 on shuffle, first lines of the first twenty songs (skipping instrumental pieces, and ones in languages I/you don't understand). 

Try to answer without Googling!  And if you can't figure out #18....  *rolls eyes*

( ~ the first lines ~ )  

Yestereve I took my daughter to a concert, a classical concert for a change.  She's required to go to one for her "intro to music" class and there was a great one nearby.  The New Haven Symphony Orchestra ("the fourth-oldest, continuous professional orchestra in America") was doing a "French Twist" program at Yale's Woolsey Hall.  It was all wonderfully played and the hall is very audience-friendly, not very large and with good acoustics (as far as my untrained ears could tell).

( ~ the concert ~ )

Well done.  Brava for the guest artist, bravo for the conductor, bravi for the orchestra!
   

I now have two tickets reserved for NIN at the Verizon Wireless Arena in Manchester, NH, at 7:30 pm, Saturday, November 8th.   I'm only going to use one of them, but, meh, it was a presale and the presale is limited to 2 tickets per person and I figured someone out there might want to go?   (no, gyzki isn't interested :-) )

Or if you want tickets of your own, go quick to nin.com and pick up some now! :-)
 

My favorite cross-coast local band, Pine & Battery, is performing at Slim's in San Francisco on Aug. 28th. They're a really good group, and nice guys, too.

(click for bigger version)

We now have tickets for Huun Huur Tu at the Somerville Theater on November 22nd, fifth row, aisle seats, orchestra right.

I'm considering Kal. (That's Kal as in the Roma/gypsy group, not any of the many other Kals.)

Another borrow from peregrinning, and seen at least one other place.   Dancing across the world, in the most amazing places, and with bunches of people (adults and kids) who are having a deliriously good time indulging the tourist. :)    Good music, too!

http://www.wherethehellismatt.com/videos.shtml?fbid=UiKs2

This would be so cool! Please, please, somebody out there must be doing it already?

http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1173

KT Tunstall concert last night at the Orpheum Theatre in Boston.