FROM THE VAULT - VIDEO OF THE WEEK

All right ! That's done ! I've finally managed to see live my four personal love-at-first-ear new big things of 2018 !! The fourth having to be postponed to 2019 since I couldn't make it to their first show here last summer as I was in Belgium for my first encounter with the third ! Busy period ! :-) I've already reported on some of them here and hope there will be more pro stuff coming out to make a true proper tribute to the bands soon. Chemtrails already got it below. Make-Overs (I struggled to see four times while they were around) are now touring intensively in their home country, South-Africa. Pamplemousse, from Reunion Island (!!), has just released their awesome noisy second album. And, Saint-Agnes (maybe my 2018 "wowest" moment !!) has got everything to rock the whole world with their debut album on May 3rd. Don't miss them out when they come round your place !! Enjoy !! 

CHEMTRAILS - IDLES - QUEEN ZEE - "Are You Receiving ?" - KEXP International Clash Day - Studio 9294 - London - 06-07 - 02 - 19

CHEMTRAILS

Studio 9294 - London - 06-02-19

 1 - Watch Evil Grow

2 -  Headless Pin Up Girl

3 -  Ghosts of My Dead Cats

4 -  Vultures

5 -  Deranged

6 -  I’ll Never Be

7 -  Aeons

IDLES

Studio 9294 - London - 07-02-19

1 - Heel/Heal

2 - Queens

3 - Faith in the City

4 - 1049 Gotho

5 - Television

6 - Great

7 - Danny Nedelko

8 - Rottweiler

 

QUEEN ZEE

Studio 9294 - London - 07-02-19

1 - Victim Age

2 - Lucy Fur

3 - Loner (cut)

BONUS :

Hop Pop Pop Festival - Orleans - 14-09-18

4 - Hunger Pains (cut out) & Porno

5 - Gay Bar (Electric Six cover)

Technical info  :

DVD Pro-shot
Video : Mpeg - 720 X 576 - 25 FPS - 16:9
Audio : Mpeg - 48000 Hz
Running Time : 85 mns

Size : 3, 96 Go

Menu & Chapters - Artwork included

Hi folks ! It's been a while ! But back at last ... almost in the same circumstances as those of the last post ... a year ago !! As I've already said, my editing stuff has become erratic as I'm first not a professional editor and it really takes time and fu***** goddamned impenetrable glitches to get over to reach the idea in mind ! And second, I now rather spend my free time on the spot in a moshpit than being glued in front of a screen. But, well ... obviously, I got caught again !

Getting my hands back into that mess is always a bit of catch-22 situation. I have a long list of underground projects, picking one out is always frustrating, feeling sorry for those being left behind. What's going around at the moment often makes the difference. And this time, I foolishly decided to make my nights shorter again getting inspired by the highly appreciated Seattle-based KEXP broadcaster that decided to relocate its 4th International Clash Day to London for four days of live performances, paying tribute to the gang and to the fortieth anniversary of their iconic "London Calling" album. It was a real treat to watch all these bands live, brought home to you after your daily toil (huge thanks for this KEXP !). As I mentioned above, opportunity makes a thief and so, I decided to keep a souvenir of the event !

 

Every year, everyone's got their favourite personal pop song. You don't really know why you're so fond of it, it doesn't even sound appropriate to what you're used to listening to but right here, right now, it just clicks ! Back in 2017, I oddly got hooked by this one. Couldn't take it out of my head for weeks. My 2018 pop fav sounds more familiar to me and it was performed by the first band you have here : Chemtrails.

My first encounter with the band took shape once more thanks to our beloved local neighbours ! Everyone knows that Belgium is heaven on earth for festival-goers ! I try to pay visit to the country every year and 2018 was no exception to the rule. I'd planned a kind of a 10-day Belgian Rock Summer Tour during which I bounced back and forth from five different events. The one where I first met Chemtrails is definitely one of a kind ! A tiny home-brewed festival called "La Truite Magique", lost in the Ardennes woods with some stages finely nestled in trees, bordering a crystal green brook. An enchanting scenery "crowded" by a thousand, to the most ! I still just can't figure out how the hell the band ended up in this lovely remote place ?? For their unique date out of Britain !! Anyway, it was a blast to be there, freshly listening to a band I'd discovered only a few weeks before. (...) I was lucky, they played my three personal n°1 songs from them, still with this rough poppy lo-fi garage sound, half way between The Wannadies, Supergrass, The La's guitar and The B52s (well at least, these are the ones who are coming up right now !).

The second band featured here was probably the most expected of this 4-day celebration. Probably too the closest to the legendary Clash, both in terms of music and social content. Nothing's poppy here. Idles are bare, Idles are pounding, Idles are your nails screeching on the chalkboard. They're the roughest Clash but still, out of this cold raw roar and just like their glorious predecessors, rises a steady human rights message. Joe Talbot, the singer, never fails to call it back. The guy has already been through his lot of hardship which has eventually turned him into someone preaching solidarity and brotherhood while some others, under the same circumstances, would have sunk into withdrawal and bitterness. I already noticed this cold warmth when I first saw them, back in April 2017, in Bourges. A then blond Joe made every effort to make himself well understood, commenting the songs, putting them into perspective and making sure the message is well delivered ... by speaking French most of the time ! I also remember another thing he was quite used to be doing at the time obviously, spitting in the air and gulping down back the gob before it hit the ground ! Shivers in the audience ! :-)  

The third set is unfortunately incomplete. Something went wrong in the capture, the sound goes off after ten minutes or so and the video is sadly no longer available. That's a shame cause the guys were on fire and the band we have here is surely as wild as Idles, but in a more "glam" way. Their first album came out that same night at midnight and they truly delivered an electrifying show to be up to the event. I've already talked highly of Queen Zee here (in the "video of the week" section above), seen for the first time at this same special night in Bourges, but one year later than the Idles' one. To fill up the disc to the brim, I added some personal footage of my second encounter with the band, in September 2018, in Orleans, at the Hop Pop Hop festival, where this time Zena fronted the stage in a kind of  ... wedding dress !

Enjoy !

Cheers !

Chac 

IGGY POP - "Lust & Sin" - DVD X 2 - Last Nightclubbing In Paris - Studio 210- La Plaine Saint Denis (F) - 02-05-17 & THE STOOGES - Pinkpop Festival - Landgraaf (NL) - 27-05-07

DVD 1 :

IGGY POP 
The Last Nightclubbing In Paris - Studio 210 - La Plaine Saint Denis (F) - 02-05-17 - Part I

1 - Lust for Life

2 - Sister Midnight
3 - American Valhalla
4 - Sixteen
5 - In the Lobby
6 - Some Weird Sin
7 - Funtime
8 - Tonight
9 - Sunday
10 - German Days
11 - Mass Production
12 - Nightclubbing
13 - Gardenia
14 - The Passenger
15 - China Girl
16 - Break Into Your Heart
17 - Fall in Love With Me
18 - Repo Man

DVD 2 : 

IGGY POP 
The Last Nightclubbing In Paris - Studio 210 - La Plaine Saint Denis (F) - 02-05-17 - Part II

19 - Baby
20 - Chocolate Drops Introduction

21 - Chocolate Drops  
22 - Paraguay

23 - Success

 THE STOOGES

Pinkpop Festival - Landgraaf (NL) - 27-05-07
24 - Loose

25 - Down On The Street
26 - 1969
27 - I Wanna Be Your Dog
28 - T.V. Eye
29 - My Idea Of Fun
30 - Dirt
31 - Real Cool Time
32 - No Fun
33 - 1970
34 - Funhouse
35 - Skull Ring
36 - Little Electric Chair 

BONUS : 

37 -Iggy’s 60th Birthday & The Stooges ' reunion - An «Inrockuptibles» Documentary - 04-07

Technical info  :

DVD Pro-shot
Video : Mpeg - 720 X 576 - 25 FPS - 16:9
Audio : Mpeg - 48000 Hz
Running Time : 87 mns + 103 mns

Size : 4,04 + 3, 62 Go

Menu & Chapters - Artwork included

Ok, after a "girly" lapse ;-), back to testosterone. Mr Testosterone !! Mr James Newel Osterberg Jr. I've always wanted to pay a humble tribute to the man here. The opportunity makes the thief. A bad knee sprain is sticking me home, so let's make the most of my grounding. I won't have the cheek to give a quick warts and all report of Mr Pop's career. This would sound misplaced and abusive. Everyone knows Iggy. For his downs, wounds, bleedings and rock bottoms as well as for his ups, healings and resurrections. Even if I'm not much in his last "Post Pop Depression" album in which he rather turned himself into a sepulchral crooner (this voice !!), the man has never sold out and always done justice to himself in his countless projects. One of them, and probably one of my earliest rock recollection, is taking me back in 1977. I was a little boy then. That day, as we religiously did at the time, we all attended the one o'clock big news event.Unaware of the rough and wild music which was raging outside at the time, the final guest of this september 22nd edition was a guy unknown to me so far, Mr Iggy Pop. He was hosted by a quite popular presenter of the time who, I would learn later, was nothing but stranger to "nightclubbing" and was quite in tune with his time. (Check this out here !  :-o !! - glad to have known this era !).

So, for his first time on French TV and on his way to his show at "Le Pavillon de Paris" the day after, Iggy made a "high" staggering arrival on the set. Wearing a clown-lipstick smile, he soon got stripped to the waist, strutting around, asking in a luscious French "isn't that beautiful ?" :-o He also gave some entertaining anecdotes on his friendship with David Bowie and made a quite long speech on the art of wearing Japanese geta shoes !! At a peak viewing hour on a national TV channel, I was mesmerized. My mom went "who's that nut ?" :-) Times were changing. This surreal moment is here !! 

Oddly enough, watching again the footage, I realized it perfectly echoes the "Chocolate Drop" introduction Iggy made during his recent gig in Paris for "La Musicale" show, mainly on the first dvd. The time he had just spent in studio at the mythical Herouville castle-studio (where, among others, Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Elton John recorded some of their albums) back in 77 must mean a lot to him to make him talk about it again in his moving message to David Bowie forty years later.    

I've seen the godfather of punk quite a few times since and every time, the other high-profile young competitors who played the same venue got trashed.  I've always been amazed by this tense mix of primal animality and human generosity. Humanality ? And again here, whether it is in Paris or in Landgraaf, this overwhelming crave for feeling, touching the people, for swimming, drowning into them can be felt. " La Musicale" crowdsurfing almost ended up in a strip-tease performance and Pinkop's "invade the stage" calling on "Real Cool Time" and "No Fun" is just the incarnation of the security men's worst nightmare. Ahaa, the man, held back by the foot over the stage by one of them !! Some of the audience even ended up in their birthday suit !!     

Of course, for the fans of Queens Of The Stone Age (whose last two albums haven't turned me on either !) the "La Musicale" gig has a particular flavour as half of the band, including Josh Homme, is playing that night. Iggy seems to love this special series of "nightclubbing" shows as it was his third there after the 1999 and 2009 editions in which he sometimes performed some unusual duos ! On a side technical note, I got caught off-guard by the changing of year and labelled this concert as a 2016 one whereas I realized, while designing the front cover, it was actually held in 2017. Sorry for that, everything had been uploaded in the meantime (and it takes ages with my bandwidth !), I didn't redo the whole thing.   

I also added a quite interesting meeting I recorded at the time (2007), with the historic Stooges's line-up. I was quite surprised not finding it back on the net. The interview was made by the famous French mag "Les Inrockuptibles" for Iggy's 60th birthday and for The Stooges' back to business reunion. It contains some nice bits about their first meeting, their ahead out-of-synch sound to the times, their logo and record company, Iggy's Osgood-Schlattler dancing style, life on tour, writing songs, etc ... interspersed with other vintage and live records.

Well, here's the programme. Enjoy !

Cheers !

Chac 

BLACK HONEY - DREAM WIFE - HANDS OFF GRETEL - "Grrrrls" - Various venues - 2016-2017

BLACK HONEY 
"Song van het Jaar" - Tivoli Vredenburg Pandora - Utrecht - (NL) 6 16-12-16 
1 - All My Pride
2 - Hello Today
3 - Sleep Forever
4 - Spinning Wheel

5 - Corrine  
DREAM WIFE 
The Fox Theater - Oakland - CA (USA) - 22-03-17 
6 - Hey Heartbreaker
7 - Love Without Reason
8 - Kids
9 - Somebody
10 - Act My Age
11 - Let's Make Out

12 - FUU 
BONUS : 

BLACK HONEY - 22 d'Auron - "Printemps de Bourges" (F) - 15-04-16

13 - Bloodlust

14 - Black Honey

15 -You Said It All  
DREAM WIFE - "Chauffer Dans La Noirceur" Festival - Montmartin sur Mer (F) - 14-07-17

16 - Love Without Reason (cut in)

17 - Everything

HANDS OFF GRETEL - Toolmakers Studio - Sheffield (UK) - 04-09-17

18 - World Against She

19 - One Eyed Girl

20 - Bigger Than Me

21 - My Size

22 - Little Man (The Londoner - Barnsley - 17-06-16)

Technical info  :
DVD Pro-shot & Audience
Video : Mpeg - 720 X 576 - 25 FPS - 16:9
Audio : Mpeg - 48000 Hz
Running Time : 87 mns

Size : 4,03 Go

Menu & Chapters - Artwork included

Good to be back ! Must admit this summer may have been the rockingest summer I've ever had ! Twelve festivals, hundreds of shows, lots of discoveries, some confirmations, a few disillusions but on the whole a whale of a time spent in front of stages and in cramped bar backyards ! With so many nice memories in mind, I didn't really know who to start with for this new back-to-business kick. I've seen quite a bunch of full testosterone concerts over the last few months (see above) but don't know why, I feel like more oestrogenous as the winter breeze is drawing closer ! :-) So, ladies ... you're first !!

As frontwomen, Teri Gender Bender from Le Butcherettes and Duchess Says' Annie-Claude Deschênes are still my present-day craziest overpowering rule-the-stage favourites and even if the following ladies aren't the wildest amazons to have set foot on the platform, they are not to be left out either !!

 I first met Black Honey for one of their early dates in France, back in april 2016, for the "Printemps de Bourges" newcomers night. I'm used to going to that particular event every year and I must say the schedulers have flair as I've never been disappointed (I do remember Royal Blood's show - Black Honey is currently supporting btw - in front of three hundred or so people way before the release of their first album !). So again, I first found Black Honey quite sweet and to be honest, Izzy does have the knack to catch your eye ! Even if I usually rather go for dirtier loud things, as the show went on, I got caught by this indie rock that British people have so much talent for so that I finally ended up at the merch after the set. The guys were really cool, accessible and easy-chatting and Izzy was even pleased to feel a kind of "home" touch when she noticed my Blood Red Shoes tee, another Brighton band they spent some time with at the studio few weeks before. I walked out the venue quite happy of the shows I'd attended that night (Black Honey, Broken Hands, Vant, Yak, Last Train, The Limiñanas). The following day being even more hectic but this is another garage story ...

A few months later, I got all the more grateful to Black Honey when I came across an interview in which they mentioned an unknown band to me they were touring with at the time : Dream Wife !! Love at first listen ! I immediately had a crush on Rakel's voice and Alice's dissonant sound of guitar. A few weeks later, it even took me to a four and a half hour drive to their only French gig this summer, at "Chauffer Dans La Noirceur Festival". A few parts of the show are included in the "Bonus" section here (with a menu made from two photos taken at the time) even if, as for the "Black Honey" extras, the sound taken by a camera in a hall or under an open-air marquee can't match a soundboard capture. However, instead of keeping the yet too scarce professional Dream Wife livestreams available, I decided to turn to AdmiralNeeda's footage (big up to you, mate !) filmed in Oakland, California, this year as it sounds much more in tune with Dream Wife's pop-punk rawness and is much funnier too (see the mix-up between "Alice" and "Alison" before "Love Without Reason" :-) !)

Dream Wife has only released two EPs and a couple of singles so far but "FUU" is for sure my personal 2017 hit (I missed it out in 2016). Rakel's voice is just amazing on this one, shifting from sugared cheek to unleashed fury ! A voice that tells to "Fuck You Up" and that you definitely want to thank for it !!  

Can't really recall my first encounter with Hands Off Gretel. Some time in early 2017 but I do remember being really caught by the name I still love today. Yet, I was a bit wary about the " fairy-tale-freak show like" appearance of the band I first unfairly considered too sophisticatedly layered to be genuinely authentic and natural. But I kept a photo of Lauren Tate on my hard drive which is, to be honest, the least you can do when you're a man ! If I were eighteen today (ages ago !), Hands Off Gretel would probably be my new all-time favourite band of the week. I forgot the trio for a while and then recently came across this Lauren Tate photo again. I wondered how "bigger" the little band from Sheffield area could have grown, if it has ever, and I was quite amazed by the large amount of fans and materials available on the net on which not much could be grabbed a few months before. I was totally wrong on my first impression. Lauren Tate is a real creative power machine who commands respect and admiration at such an early age. Sticking to the band's DIY ethic, she turned down an X Factor offer to relentlessly dive in a grungy 90s revival in which she holds all the aspects of the band's imagery and sound, from the artwork, drawings, photos, posters, clothes, web design to the song writing and videos (quite a few impressive"behind the scenes" videos are available on the net). In her DIY spirit, Hands Off Gretel is also a family business, Lauren Tate's mum co-managing the band and the booking. Of course, one can't help thinking of Courtney Love's growls and Brody Dale's roars listening to the young screamer. More, she often quotes Kathleen Hanna as one of her personal role models. The reference to the riot grrrls movement is obvious and the name of the band is incidentally no less than a sassy variation of Babes In Toyland's song "Handsome And Gretel". Hands Off Gretel have just released their first thirteen-track album and a second lp comes out in january 2018 ! A sincere start for a promising band no doubt. Well, Linda Perry, Kate Nash and Shirley Manson seem to think so ... :-)

Enjoy !

Cheers !   

Chac

THE THERMALS - "Power Lies" - The Launch Pad - Austin (USA) - 16-03-13 / I.Boat - Bordeaux (F) -16-07-13 + Extras

THE THERMALS 

The Thermals - The Launch Pad - Austin (USA) - 16-03-13 
1 - It's Trivia

2 - Retuning To The Fold

3 - Born To Kill

4 - Born Dead

5 - A Pillar Of Salt

6 - No Culture Icons

7 - Here's Your Future

I.Boat- Bordeaux (F) - 16-07-13

8 - Where I Stand

9 - It's Trivia (cut in)

10 - I Might Need You To Kill (cut in)

11 - An Ear For Baby

12 - Faces Stay With Me

13 - The Howl Of The Winds

14 - The Sunset

15 - My Little Machine

16 - Back To Gray

17 - I Go Alone

18 - Pillar Of Salt

19 - Here's Your Future

20 - Born Dead (cut in)

21 - Overgrown Overblown

Encore:

22 - The Sword By My Side

23 - No Culture Icons

"Last Call With Carson Daly" - Terragram Ballroom - Los Angeles - 25-05-16 
24 - Thinking Of You

25 - The Sunset

26 - Born To Kill

27 - Hey You !

Bonus : 

SUMMER CANNIBALS

28 - Full Of It - Pickathon Festival - Happy Valley (OR) - 02-08-15

29 - Go Home - Doug Fir Lounge - Portland - 10-10-15

Technical info  :

DVD Full Pro-shot + Audience shot

Video : Mpeg - 720 X 576 - 25 FPS - 16:9
Audio : Mpeg - 48000 Hz
Running Time : 72 mns
Size : 3,38 Go

Menu & Chapters - Artwork included

When I started this blog quite a while ago, I kept saying The Thermals' show at Haldern Pop Festival 2009 was one of my all time favourites. After some years attending concerts and watching live footage I still mean it today. The band has issued two albums since and Kathy's bass is still round as ever, Hutch's voice keeps sounding sharp and Westin still has itchy hands and feet to pound his drumkit. They have stuck to their low-fi-indie-punk guns and they've even been recently joined on a common tour by Jessica Boudreaux from Summer Cannibals on second lead guitar to amplify the noise. This is this 2016 line up we have here with the four songs from the "Last Call with Carson Daly" show.

 As for the Launch Pad set in Austin, it is just "full of it". Short but fiery and intense, still in this Ramones-like chain of songs (seven in seventeen minutes !). Adding a couple of stage divings from Hutch and Westin and a guy from the audience taking it over at the mic to sing along the closing chorus of "Here's Your Future", you end up soaked in sweat just watching it !

 The Bordeaux show may be less rowdy (Are The Thermals less popular in France ...?) but is clearly dear to me as it was my second meeting with the band. This time I drove down two hundred and fifty kilometres to see them in an unusual venue for a gig, the hold of a boat tailored as a small concert hall. The show was stiff and straight, just as Thermals' sound always is. It was also a good opportunity to meet again my good bootlegger friend Laurent who doesn't miss many concerts in the area ! I shot a few videos of the show to keep a souvenir of the night (the band doesn't unfortunately come over that often !) but also fully enjoy the show stomping, twisting and dancing (you can hear me screaming "Back To Gray" before they start playing ... "Back To Gray". I'd revised my setlist ! ;-)). I also noticed a guy I didn't know in the audience, much closer to the stage than I was, who was using a much better camera than mine (hi, & thanks, Pascal !). At the end of the gig I ventured myself to come up to him. We quickly agreed on the fact we'd both enjoyed the show and he kindly accepted to send me what he had shot from the set. So, after years gathering dust on shelves, here is the final editing of what we both have. I've mixed the two sources, mine and his but didn't go for hassling multicam stuff this time (as I did for the IAMX dvd in Paris) since we were both standing in the same area of the venue.

  I've also decided to top all this with two great songs from Summer Cannibals' last album, particularly "Full Of It", shot at Pinkathon (What a great setting this festival has !! Wish I could go one day !!). The two bands have got closer to each other lately and Hutch is even producing their new album now. I unfortunately missed Summer Cannibals  in october for their first European tour. I initially decided to take on a long drive again to see another Portand band but they eventually had to pull out of their remaining dates for family purposes.

 So, 2017, a Thermals year ? An extensive European tour along with Summer Cannibals ? I definitely look forward to it ! Sometimes you may feel at home abroad feeling as an outsider with some recent events from your own country ! Crossed fingers ! 

 On a technical side, again this one required its amount of "pigheaded" stubbornness. The soft kept crashing for 3 days in a row ! After countless of working around tricks and several reinstallations, I finally had to cut down the number of chapters more drastically to keep away from an umpteenth crash message. Anyway, it's now yours. Hope you'll enjoy !

            Cheers !

            Chac

CAPSULA - "Take The Red Pill" - KEXP sessions - Seattle + Various venues - 2013-2016

CAPSULA

KEXP Sessions- Seattle - 08-05-13

1 - Dark Age
2 - Constellation Freedom

Interview
3 - You Cannot Blame
4 - Seven Crimes

KEXP Sessions- Seattle -18-12-13

Introducing

5 - Moonage Daydream (David Bowie cover)

Interview
6 - Mejor No Hablar De Ciertas Cosas (Sumo cover)

Interview

7 - Atomic Breakdown
8 - I Need Somebody (The Stooges cover)

KEXP Sessions- Seattle -13-02-15

9 - Candle Candle

Interview
10 - El Infierno
11 - Dead or Alive

Spanish or South-American Tour - 12-14

12 - What's In The Mirror

13 - Candle Candle

Le Camji - Niort (F) - 07-10-16

14 - Mejor No Hablar De Ciertas Cosas (Sumo)

15 - Tierra Girando

"Montesquiou On The Rocks" Festival - Montesquiou (F) - 18-08-16

16 - Candle Candle

17 - Suffragette City (David Bowie cover)

Technical info  :

DVD Full Pro-shot + Audience shot

Video : Mpeg - 720 X 576 - 25 FPS - 16:9
Audio : Mpeg - 48000 Hz
Running Time : 88 mns
Size : 4,08 Go

Menu & Chapters - Artwork included

Among all the bands seen this year, there's certainly one that stands out more than the others for their loud generosity : Capsula ! Can't really figure out how I could possibly miss them out for more than fifteen years and eleven albums !! This band sounds so damn obvious for the ears, mind and soul !

As a miserable pagan thrashing about in ignorance, I first came to the revelation through an interview from an indie-noisy mag. After reading over their already long journey into music, their major influences (David Bowie being the first, no doubt. A tribute album,"Dreaming Of Ziggy Stardust", was released in 2012), their endless tours, their countless collaborations (Tony Visconti then seems self evident ! More, the legendary D. Bowie's producer produced their "Solar Secrets" lp in 2013 !), their prestigious opening acts (Pearl Jam, OS Mutantes, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, ...), etc ...  the idea of not seeing them live just sounded impossible to me ! I was lucky. Just a couple of weeks later, they decided to set off for a short French tour, putting down their flight cases in a totally unexpected festival : "Montesquiou On The Rock's". Nested in the lovely and tasty hills of Gers area, the tiny festival (500 inhabitants !!) celebrated its tenth anniversary inviting all the bands they'd particularly loved over the past nine years. Capsula was of course part of the short list, along with great garage figures like The Monsters, King Salami And The Cumberland 3, Magnetix, etc ... I heard about the festival the day before, took the decision to go overnight and finally ended up with the "best worst" snap decision I've ever taken this year ! Hail to this little free (!!) festival full of welcoming people and lovely volunteers in a gorgeous setting. Definitely worth the 5-hour drive and thanks Chris for being so irrationally swift to come along ! :-)

Capsula was set the first night and from the first song, " Mejor No Hablar De Ciertas Cosas", I knew the Argentinian band (now located in Bilbao)  was about to become one of my favourites for the years to come ! What a blast to watch a band just equally living their everlasting passion for their psych-stoner-glam rock, whether they play in front of seventy two thousandpeople in a stadium or a bare two hundred in a village open covered market ! The front duo, Martin and Cony, were clearly happy to be back and they sure delivered an all killer-no filler set that I have never failed to watch them play since !       

Some parts of this "deflowering" show are included in this dvd. Particularly, the last song they played that night, in tribute to one of their lifetime "heroes" ! Even if the audience wasn't that big this first night, it got it no wrong and gave the band a loud rousing farewell on their "Suffragette City" ! Again, sorry for the screams and cheers but it was definitely too hard to hold it back ! :-)

As for the rest of the dvd, it mainly focuses on KEXP sessions (thank you so much guys for spreading the good vibes over the world !!), digging up some new episodes from where the great Txomin ended his. The boisterous radio station from Seattle obviously loves them too as this is probably the American show they have played the most often for over their career and as Cheryl Waters, one of their hosts pointed out, "Seattle is a kind of a second home" to them now ! Again here, they play a few very well chosen gritty covers that their original performers wouldn't certainly be ashamed of.

Even if the disk is full packed (many many video-trimmings to cram everything in !), I had a bit of a difficulty to find some true live materials. Like many others, the band is clearly unfairly underrated and that may explain why you have "Candle Candle" three times here. However, apart from being one of the best songs of the last album, the side arrangements are different every time ! This is what is really appreciable with this band. With such a background experience, such a wide range of styles, they can now flit over their repertoire and never sound the same for a particular song.

As it is stressed by all the KEXP hosts, a band that truly deserves to be seen live. Some songs turn into a swirling havoc you would never have expected them to be listening to the album. Last but not least, they're just so sweet people. Never tired of having a long talk after the show to pass on their passion and their refreshing enthusiasm. Well, enough said ...

Enjoy !

Cheers !  

Chac 

METRIC - "Trip Then Hop" - Art Rock Festival - Saint Brieuc (F) - 04-06-05 - Route Du Rock Festival - Saint Malo (F) - 14-08-05 - Sugar Beach Studio / 102.1 The Edge - Toronto - 11-06-12 

METRIC

Art Rock Festival - Saint Brieuc (F) - 04-06-05

1 - Succexy

2 - Combat Baby

3 - Monster Hospital

4 - Love is a Place

 La Route Du Rock - Saint Malo (F) - 14-08-05

5 - Succexy

6 - The List

7 - Slow Night

8 - Handshakes

9 - Calculation Theme

10 - Combat Baby

11 - Dead Disco

 Sugar Beach Studio - 102.1 The Edge - Toronto (CA) - 11-06-12      

12 - Artificial Nocturne

13 - Youth Without Youth

14 - Speed the Collapse

15 - Synthetica

16 - Breathing Underwater

17 - Nothing But Time

18 - Monster Hospital

19 - Bonus : Help, I’m Alive - Coachella Festival - 12-04-13

Technical info  :

DVD Full Pro-shot

Video : Mpeg - 720 X 576 - 25 FPS - 16:9
Audio : Mpeg - 48000 Hz
Running Time : 87 mns
Size : 4,07 Go

Menu & Chapters - Artwork included

Good to be back ! Work, fun and concerts have kept me away far too long. And what a nice way to get back to the business with Metric ! Can't say I was there right from the start, in the early years, round 1998. I only came across them through a mixtape in, something like, 2004. But since, I've always been hooked to Emily's haunting voice and her sad / glad temper swings that tell a lot about how the band's songs are made ! Not so much to my liking, they have recently moved away from their indie sound to turn to a more atmospheric "synthetica" touch, especially with the new "Pagans In Vegas", but the songwriting is still there with its awkward twists.

That's why this dvd focuses more on the first period with one of the oldest live footage I've got from the band, a few songs from a French festival back in mid 2005 still held in Brittanny today and above all, with my own recording of my first Metric live experience, late that summer night of the same year during a quite famous indie festival down here, "La Route Du Rock". I remember being blown away by the rendering of "Dead Disco" that night (see the video below) and this version is definitely one of the main reasons that spurted this dvd out and has always driven me to keep an eye on the band since. They played really tight that night and Emily is fully into it, enjoying the show to the point of falling on the stage floor several times, on purpose ... or not ! The third show is more recent but a still bit special though as it was held in their hometown, Toronto, in the golden light of a sun setting and was notably also their first welcoming gig to their new album of the time, "Synthetica". The set is then more nicely evanescent but the band didn't overlook their rough past with the final track,"Monster Hospital" from their 2005 " Live It Out" album. Of course, I couldn't close the thing without squeezing one of Metric's anthems in terms of wobbling ever-changing tunes, "Help, I'm Alive" !

Despite a pretty decent success, particularly in the US, Metric has decided to go independent over the last five years. They now run their own studio, label, brand, tours, ... This new freedom obviously boosts creativity. Both Jimmy (Shaw) and Emily wrote enough materials on their respective side for the last lp. Instead of mixing the two (what they usually do) or producing a double tracklist, they decided to release two separate albums, the first being more piano melancholia and the second to come, more guitar rock beat. Some bright news ahead ... !!

Enjoy !

Cheers ! 

Chac