Do Make Say Think live When we arrived in the KoZ (Kommunikationszentrum) on the Frankfurt University Campus at 8 o'clock last Wednesday we were greeted by a wall of noise. The band was still on rehearsal. Around 9:30 when the concert was supposed to start there were hardly twenty spectators. Around 10 when the places started to fill the seven band members enter the stage and the bass player utters the only sentence of the evening: "We are Do Make Say Think from Toronto". They begin their set with "Classic Noodlanding", the first track on their last album & Yet & Yet. A promising slow starter introducing us to dense hypnotic droning soundscapes. The following pieces are noisier with guitar and other freakouts. The repetitive tuneless tracks start to grate. After a while we move from the front to the bar at the back of the room. The overall sound and especially the two drummers are too loud. The music resembles progrock and is very heavy. The musicians change instruments often. At one point there are two saxophones and two trumpets. The main trumpet player looks into the audience with a big smile whenever he pauses. Later on I understand why he grins so much. His muffled but still crystal clear trumpet sound makes me think of Miles Davis. A guy next to us rolls a joint with one hand and I suddenly think that that's it: dope music, music which can only be properly enjoyed under drugs. The guitarist is extremely thin and looks a little like Nick Cave. His guitar is way too big for him. After the concert I talk with the trumpet player who is extremely relaxed. I tell him that I am going to see Sonic Youth in Cologne the next day and it turns out that they play Cologne on the same day. Apparently they had also played Berlin at the same day as Sonic Youth and therefore didn't have a big audience. I mention my beloved Cowboy Junkies (dope music par excellence) as another band from Toronto and he tells me that at their concerts you can hear a needle fall (German expression) as the public is extremely attentive and silent. Margo Timmins languishing voice is simply irresistible. Though the concert was not really that impressive I still enjoyed it. At concerts with unknown bands in small places I feel more comfortable and closer to the music than listening to big names in big venues. P.S. All Google searches (and some other engines as well) leading to the front page of this weblog are now temporarily (until the next Google crawl) deviated to my old home page at Geocities. I took this rather strict measure to be able to read my referrer logs again. The visitor numbers have already dropped by two thirds. Hooray!

From the link archives, pt. 1

• Maybe I should try this. Another way to stop smoking: YPL: Nicolaxx Nicotine Anal Suppositories (via ap-project).
• The Big Book of Sign Language by rotten.com's The Gaping Maw (via daypop).
• Google Zeitgeist now with the most popular searches broken down by country: the UK and Spain were recently (about a week ago) obsessed with Big Brother (Gran Hermano) whereas France looked for Britney Spears and Germany was into the Muttertag (mother's day) (via Mefi).
• Slashdot discussion on Two Books from Haruki Murakami (via monkey puzzle).
• A nice new feature at the New York Times (free registration): audio music reviews (via fimoculous). The critic reads his review in between music extracts. Examples: Sonic Youth - Murray Street and Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
• Did I already link to Strange Fruit, a rather new well-written music blog I discovered via badger?
• Mefi: info and links concerning Harry Smith , who compiled the Anthology of American Folk Music, which saved traditional American music from oblivion and influenced so many musicians to come. Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes are unthinkable without the Anthology.
• [parallax view] (July, 10th) on Cinerama's (not so new band by Chief Weddoe David Gedge) new album Torino: "But rumours of a return to form, a darker more guitar-oriented sound and Steve Albini helping out on production tempted me to try out Cinerama's third album 'Torino' and I glad I did. It's basically The Wedding Present 'with strings attached' and the guitar squall on tracks like 'Starry Eyed' could have come off 'Seamonsters' (hmm...now there's an album that merits inclusion in my soon-to-be-resumed Lest Ye Forget series)."