Category Archives: Live Review

11.13.12
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Scott Lucas Slams Down During His Solo Show

It’s been a long haul with Hurricane Sandy hitting New York, disconnecting electricity and internet for many residents, including the editors here, at Modern Mystery. However, we have prepared some pulsating images from Scott Lucas’s October show at Brooklyn’s Bell House, check them out below! 

10.26.12
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Drowning with Ghost Wave!

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Over the CMJ week, Modern Mystery got to catch up to the pulsating 60’s sounds of Ghost Wave.Based out of Auckland, New Zealand, the band projects unconcealed and organic reverberations, while administering room for pioneering layers of new age rock-n- roll. With this being their first-time tour in the states, Ghost Wave discuss the fluidity of their sound, getting hassled by panhandlers in Venice Beach, and continuously expanding their musical grounds.
***Due to an immense amount of city noise and static during the initial interview, the recording underwent a few transcribing errors. This article has been modified and re-edited since it’s first published version. ***

How did you initially come up with your band’s name?

Matt: We don’t actually know how it came up or what’s behind it, it kind of just eventuated.  It has not specific meaning, maybe just holds a vibe.We came up with one song first, and then we needed a name, and then we needed a band after that!

 
How was your project formed? Were you all friends prior to the formation of Ghost Wave? 
Matt: Well Eammon is from Wellington,, and he was making a ton of music, so he decided to move up to Auckland.I’d seen him play a couple times, and I was interested if we could collaborate and create similar sounds to the music that I was familiar and interested in. We had about four bass players before Mike came along.
Mike: I lived in the south part of New Zealand, and I used to be friends with another bandmate of Ghost Wave. I then ended up taking his place, and started playing with these guys.I didn’t really know them before I joined, we became friends after we started creating together.
Eammon: Yeah, I didn’t know Matt at all. We were just always going to each other’s shows.
Matt: I bugged Eammon quiete a lot to be my friend, haha!
When did you first begin writing music?
Matt: I was always interested in developing my own sound, and with our band we put our vibes together, mixing different intros and creating from that base. Mike’s parents are very musical. My Dad introduced me to records at a young age
Mike: I’ve been playing bass since I was about 11. My first band was called The Weeds.
Where did you get that idea from?
It was a band that was put together by our music teacher, when I was about 12 years old. I followed through and played in bands while I attended high school, and just kept kicking at it.
Eammon: I didn’t actually play drums until I came to be a part of Ghost Wave, and started jamming with Matt at his house. I’ve been playing instruments since I was really young.My first instrument was a keyboard, I jammed on casiotone quiet a lot.
This is your first time performing in America, have any of you visited New York before?
Mike:This is our first time performing outside of New Zealand.Eammon  visited the states a few times before, but this is my first time being here!
Matt:I’ve never left New Zealand, this is my first time exploring.
 
How long was your flight and what did you mostly jam to on the plane? 
Mike: It was a pretty exhausting because we had to fly through Melvin,and then back over New Zealand, and then finally to Los Angeles. It was about a 16-hour flight. I watched a bunch of movies.
Matt: I downloaded a pile of psychedic sitar rock jams, just something to keep me interested for such a long way.
Eammon: I got into this new age meditational music. There was this thing on the plane with a video and music, that helped you go to sleep. It kept repeating, just take a deep  breath, just relax! I guess sometimes being on a plane can get pretty gnarly.
Mike: They also had skycam on the tail of the plane, and I watched the flight for a lot of the time.
Judging from your recent shows and first impressions, how would you say the NYC music scene differs  from that of Auckland?
Matt: Haha, well the difference is that in New York there IS a scene.
Mike: Also, when we play in New Zealand there’s not a huge communication between us and the crowd.A lot of times it’s bands playing to each other.
Eammon:It’s nice to have a different audience here, and have people be a lot more forthcoming. It’s refreshing to be here.
So how does most of the promoting for bands work back home?
Matt:We’ve always taken the responsibility for the way our band is perceived and putting ourselves outwards.There are not a whole lot of outlets. There is a couple of websites where you can put your band’s poster up.It’s a lot more limited and restricted.
 
Prior to your arrival to New York City, you played two shows in Los Angeles, how did your first U.S. show with The Golden Awesome turn out? 
Mike: Those guys are also from New Zealand.The show felt really natural and organic, it was really fun playing together, we truly enjoyed it.
Matt: A stage is a stage, haha!
Did you have enough time to venture out around Los Angeles?
Mike: We got hassled by some guy down in Venice Beach. He just started asking me to check out his music and buy his albums. He kept telling me “Check it out man, I’ll give it to you. Just give me a donation”. And then another guy came along, and I don’t even know how I ended up talking to all of them in the first place. I guess I can’t always be a nice guy.
Can you expand on central processes of making recently released self-titled debut EP?
Matt: There’s no formula to it, we come together and it sort of just evolves naturally. We can write parts with one-piece, two-piece, three-pieces fragments and then combine everything. It’s all very unstructured, but that’s what we’re going for. We also practiced a ton in this space which used to be a huge weed plantation. There were fake walls in the building when we initially arrived there. I’m pretty sure those people got raided by the police, and then the spot was converted for practice purposes.We have a new rehearsal space now though, we usually practice a couple of times a week. It’s at a place that was prior used for brewing whiskey.
Eammon: It’s nice not to have any noise restrictions, we can play as loud as we want, which is awesome.
 
What is the most exciting part about playing CMJ?
Matt: Well, we’ve always wanted to come to New York, whether it was for CMJ or not, so having the chance to play our music in the city has been great. We wanted to go explore festivals like SXSW and CMJ, and we’re glad to be a part of it.We’ve done shows before, but not for such a prolonged period as with this festival. New Zealand is so small, it’s refreshing to be able to check out different music scenes and get out of the comfort zone.
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You can check out Ghost Wave’s tunes below
Interview by: Viktorsha Uliyanova
Photos: Skyler Smith
10.22.11
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Royal Baths Drown Bowery Ballroom

Opening up for a sold out show with eruptive headliners  like the Dum Dum Girls and Crocodiles sets out towering expectations on a Friday night at Bowery Ballroom. One of the opening acts, a recently migrated San Francisco quartet Royal Baths hyped the energy with their multi-layered screeching guitar rips and liquidating phased vocals, building a brooding wave of ear-candy distortion. A brainchild of shoe-gazing  low-pitched drum progressions and scorching melodic ranges, Royal Baths are a change of taste in the New York horizon.

 

Viktorsha Uliyanova

10.21.11
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CMJ Diary: Wednesday October 20th

By Sedera Ranaivoarinosy

Not to going to go into detail, but my life has never been busier. Still, I decided this year I would let it affect my CMJ time as little as possible. Sure, for these first few days, that means no day parties for me, but hey, there’s plenty for me to see at night. So here’s a little run through of last night:

1. Pujol at Santos Party House

Pujol @ Santos, Oct. 20th, 2011

After almost going in the wrong entrance–two shows were happening at the same time–I make it inside Santos while the members of the band are finishing up their mic checks. Not to be stereotypical but Pujol‘s garage rock is not necessarily the type of music you’d necessarily expect to hear out of Nashville, TN. The club was at that point where there are quite a few people around but it’s not so full that you are squished into everyone so the vibe was welcoming but it was maybe still a bit early for a rager. Nonetheless, Pujol brought it: the bass made the ground under my feet shake and I caught myself checking if someone was texting me because the waves of sound were making my jacket vibrate. Cute note: Daniel Pujol ended the set mentioning that it was his sister’s birthday. It didn’t seem like she was in the audience but if I had had that set dedicated to me, I’d be pretty happy.

Next stop was Pianos. On the train over, I saw a contestant from the dance competition So You Think You Can Dance. It felt like an odd intrusion of the mainstream into my evening of indie takeover.

2. Cloud Nothings and Exitmusic at Pianos

Cloud Nothings @ Pianos, Oct. 20th, 2011

Going from Pujol to Cloud Nothings (if you subtract the subway ride from Santos to Pianos) made for a fairly seamless transition, although the Cleveland outfit could have used the clarity of sound Pujol enjoyed at Santos. Needless to say, my ears might not really ever function the same again but that didn’t ruin their performance per se. In fact, there was something kind of pleasant in the way the songs sounded and the flow of the band’s set. From one track to the next, I felt like I was going back through all the various stages of adolescence: the pop-punk “rebel” phase, followed by the angsty, more “hard rock” one and the more exploratory one, represented by more experimental and noisy sounds. Since these days I live running from place to place without much breathing time, that little bit of nostalgic energy was pretty comforting. But next time, I’ll be careful not to stay as close to the speakers.

Exitmusic @ Pianos, Oct. 20th, 2011

The second Exitmusic started playing, the pace changed immediately. While the music I’d heard until then was immediate and very raw, this was carefully calculated and orchestrated. It was obvious from the moment the band stepped on stage; their polished appearance was a long way away from the torn t-shirts and plain old jeans of the previous bands. In some way, it was almost a little intimidating to see how attractive everyone was in the band but bit by bit, that feeling faded away as the music and Aleksa Palladino’s haunting vocals shrouded the room. As the set built up, it was like we were all suspended mid-air, as if carried by the lofty guitars. And then Cold War Kids’ “Hang Me Up To Dry” started playing as they took off their instruments and it was back to reality where class the next day meant no more shows for that night.

10.20.11
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Clap Your Hands Say Yeah Hurricane Through Ace Hotel

 

Kicking off CMJ with their adroit-charged energy, the Brooklyn-based voyagers Clap Your Hand Say Yeah packed the walls of Ace Hotel on Wednesday afternoon hours before their performance. The band chewed out a compressed thirty-minute set,feeding their fans a combination of pieces from their most recent release Hysterical, as well as transcending back to “ In This Home On Ice” from their debut album and of course, a hit from Some Loud Thunder. CYHSY finished their set with “Satan Said Dance”, where the keyboardist, Robbie Guertin switched gears and teamed up with the drummer to spit out turbulent beats to end the show.

 

***Set List***

Same Mistake

Maniac

 

Misspent Youth

Hysterical

Ketamine and Ecstasy

In This Home On Ice

Said Said Dance

 

Viktorsha Uliyanova

07.25.11
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Tom Vek @ Union Pool, July 13th 2011

It was Tom Vek’s second night playing in New York City and even though I was not at his Mercury Lounge concert, I can assure you the vibe at Union Pool had to be drastically different. It had rained that day, the temperature had cooled down a little… A nice evening outside sipping drinks in the bar’s outdoor courtyard right by the BQE must have given the audience a better disposition to rock out. I like to think so.
But before we could see Mr. Vek, we heard Cookies, “a band from New York City specializing in popular music” as they say on their website. A trio of multi-tasking musicians, they played a short set of danceable electro-pop songs, under the watchful eye of the headliner himself. Audience was a bit shy during the set, leaving a wide safety distance between the small stage and the first row. Still, the way the band mixed electronics with their instruments seemed like a fitting match and an appropriate lead-in for Vek. The set only got better as it went along; by the end, ears were warmed up, necks were a bit looser and the room was packed.

When Tom Vek steps out onto the stage, it’s hard to imagine he is actually as animated a performer as he is. With his new perfectly combed and sculpted hair, thick-rimmed black glasses, white t-shirt, jeans and tan lace-up boots, he seems very unassuming and calm. But once the music starts, the shift is immediate; he’s in it.

The set opened with “Hold Your Hand” off his new record, Leisure Seizure. The bass could have burst your chest open and the music immediately filled up the entirety of the cozy venue. As he plays, Vek sways and swings with the music, marking every drum break, every moment a new electronic sample is introduced with some part of his body, even moving his hand next to the microphone according to the tune he is singing.

Performing a nice balance of songs from his new album and songs from his first LP We Have Sound, Vek switched between playing bass and guitar. Hearing the song “C-C (You Set The Fire In Me)” showed just how powerful the marriage of two bass guitars and sharp drumming can be. “World of Doubt,” off his new release, took on even more grit and toughness live than on the recorded version.

The band was having fun on stage and so was the crowd. The audience’s appreciative head-bobbing quickly escalated to full-on dancing, with some concert goers up by the stage almost looking like they were in a trance. Vek isn’t too much into funny banter between songs but he did stop to thank everyone present for coming out several times and even complimented the venue (which was indeed very cute).

The set was tight and never felt like it was dying down, even during the slower songs. The last two songs were the first single off the new album, “A Chore” and the harsh “A.P.O.L.O.G.Y,” before which he thanked the opening band Cookies and his band mates. Sadly, there was no encore, but after such an electrifying set, our ears were bound to be ringing with the sound of his beat rock tunes for a while.

Setlist:

1. Hold Your Hand

2. We Do Nothing

3. C-C (You Set The Fire In Me)

4. World of Doubt

5. If You Want

6. Someone Loves You

7. Nothing But Green Lights

8. Aroused

9. I Ain’t Saying My Goodbyes

10. Seizemic

11. A Chore

12. A.P.O.L.O.G.Y.