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 

IAMX - "Chrisalis" - Cabaret Sauvage - Paris - 08-11-15 - Multicam

IAMX
Cabaret Sauvage - Paris - 08-11-15 - Multicam
1 - Chris Corner's Greetings & I Come With Knives
2 - The Alternative
3 - Happiness
4 - Mercy
5 - No Maker Made Me *
6 - Volatile Times **
7 - Tear Garden
8 - Oh Cruel Darkness Embrace Me ***
9 - Spit It Out
10 - Bernadette
11 - Surrender ****
12 -  After Every Party I Die
13 - Aphrodisiac *****
15 -  Your Joy Is My Low
16 - I Am Terrified

* Mixed with sets at Marquis Theater - Denver (CO - USA)- 10-17-2015 & at Kulturfabrik - Esch-sur-Alzette (LU) -  02-11-15
** Mixed with set at Kulturfabrik - Esch-sur-Alzette (LU) - 02-11-15
*** Mixed with set at Arena - Vienna (AT) - 25-11-15
**** Mixed with set at Kulturfabrik - Esch-sur-Alzette (LU) - 02-11-15
***** Mixed with sets at the Ancienne Belgique - Brussels (BE) - 07-11-2015 & at the Bottom Lounge - Chicago (IL - USA) - 20-10-15

Technical info  :

DVD Audience 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

Destiny is a fickle lady. That November she let her ties loose on me. Everything has been said and written on that fateful 13th. This, is just another testimony I wanted to turn into a resonant keepsake I could hang on to. November 2015 was a busy month for me. Something special I really looked forward with the forthcoming gigs of Garbage, IAMX, Eagles Of Death Metal and Le Butcherettes, all of them within two weeks !! I was quite excited and had planned to see the four. One might be particularly tricky though. IAMX was scheduled on Sunday, the 8th, with a subsequent 1,5 hour-long train trip back to my place the following morning, plus one hour drive to be on time at work with only a tight 5mns leeway in the whole move. I've never been fond of early rising and this was definitely one ! The whole thing seemed doomed and I started to consider the EODM and Le Butcherettes concerts the week after as a much easier option. More, I would just be on my own to the Garbage and IAMX shows while I would go up to Paris with a bunch of friends the week after. The EODM and Le Butcherettes shows were set on Friday and Saturday, so no bad-hair day on Monday, and parties were held on the two nights, where I could join back my pals afterwards. Everything looked excitedly promising !

One week before the Garbage IAMX shows, a friend (Hi Eric !) called me to say that he would go and see IAMX with me if I stayed for lunch with him and some other good old friends on Sunday. This and being a fan of Chris Corner for more than a decade without being able to see him live once quickly prompted me to change my return ticket.

So here is this very special concert I didn't know would later intensively stand out among all the others I'd been to up then. The band was in a good mood. So was I. Spending a whole afternoon with good friends, eating and drinking, puts you in the right shape to attend a concert ! That's why I was more in fully enjoying the show than filming. I usually try to find the right balance between the two but when I had a look back at the photos a short while after, I realized I was definitely more in the carpe diem mood than in keeping some nice memories of my first IAMX show :-). However, because of what that day was and would mean later to me, I wanted to keep some personal footage of the night for this dvd. I was in the mosh, waving, jumping, screaming (sorry for the singing along on some tunes !). Most of it is shaky, with raising hands in the way. That's why I tracked some less "soaked" ;-) videos of the night on the net to mix them with what was worth keeping from mine. So, here is the "rough" result, a multicam dvd made of two, sometimes three different sources when available. I tried to do my best on the technique and had sometimes to demux sound and image to keep the "best" soundtrack and then paste and sync it to another source to get the full song. Also, even if I wanted to really want to put this particular gig to the front, I sometimes had to partly turn to other shows of the tour because of lack of decent material for the night in Paris (Aphrodisiac, Surrender, ...). As though that weren't enough, Chris and his lads are very well-known to keep their secrets in dim-lit darkness live ! So, it's far from being perfect. I guess this one is for fans only for the all the reasons forementioned but I tried to be sincere and to pay tribute to the band and the singularity of the night.

A week later, I finally didn't go back to Paris with my friends. I can't really remember why, already been there the week before, short of money, work, ... let's call it fate. But I do remember what I was doing at the time the news broke. Some friends were at le Bataclan, to enjoy what every concert of Jessie and his buddies is, fun and rock'n roll ! One of them got shot in the arm. He's fine and out of this hell now but still trying to recover from his wounds.

Thank you for being around that day, Chris.  

Peace & Rock'n roll to you all !

Cheers !

Chac