Sound Machine Dream

So last week, amongst the last throttles of summer, a friend was kind enough to throw me her extra ticket to FIEST at McCarren Pool. This great brooklyn venure, was at one time the largest public swimming pool in North America. It is about the size of a parking lot for the standard Suburbian Mini Mega Center, but full of people and graffiti.



we arrived too late to catch Grizzly Bear and heard most of Broken Social Scene's set whilst standing in line for giant kielbasa's. Broken Social Scene seemed to be just working out a lot of their new tunes, as sheets of lyrics were passed around during the rough spots. But when Fiest took the stage, everything seemed to tightened up. Still backed by Grizzly Bear she packed a fun 90 minutes of playing. The mostly mellow music seemed to fit the summers night, and the twinge of country to her voice made it seem as though at times you were listening to a canadian version of Emmy Lou Harris.



While Handling most of the guitar parts herself, Fiest apptly made use of her voice, looping parts on top of each other, as the song progressed while in the background, members of Grizzly Bear could be seen switching instruments on and off.

sadly enough, at the end of a good show, I was told that this is the last year of McCarren Pool. That is at least as a venue. Next year the pool will be turned back into a pool, and although a little smaller in size, it will still be the size of a parking lot.

I have arrived in Baltimore and nearly everything is unpacked. Now that I have started to settle in (and my internet connection has been restablished) look forward to more reviews, a site revision, and hopefully some new writers will be hitting us up with even more music reviews and perhaps some film reviews.

Also remember that we continue to review old stuff as well as new, its whatever our contributors have been doing, watching, listening too that gets covered, not just whatever is the new stuff on the rack.

One more thing, now that I moved, I will have to update some of the buttons and shirts designs we were working on, but they are nearing completion. We will certainly have 1-inch buttons in the next few months, and stickers after that, and hopefully not too much farther down the road killer, kick-ass t-shirts to help you spread the word!

ACDC's back in black still sells 400,000 copies every year. wtf

keep it together, and remember, listen to something good

Last night I saw a show in the lower east side (LES to the natives) at Cake Shop, which was a nice little bakery/coffee shop, with a nice little venue in the basement. The band we were there to see is known as Capillary Action. The name sounds huge, doesn't it? And you're right. It is huge.

I hadn't seen nor heard of them before, and had only been told that it was in the realm of jazz. The band that was on stage when i got there was a little quintet playing some experimental jazz. Nice, I could chit chat during the set, but still enjoy.

So about 5 minutes before we go to hear Capillary Acion I'm told that they're not really jazz. but more of a Jazz/Metal infusion.

To begin to describe this band without the use of my hands is a hard task for me to accomplish... but here goes. Based out a Philly, these guys killed. The Drummer, Ricardo, stole the show with his insane hands, switching between grinding rythms. The Bass player looked semi trance like half the time, and the room was filled with the buzz fromtheir distortion pedals in between songs. Their timing was crisp, often times moving from complex melodies with a groove happening, to raging vocals, screaming fits, and vicious vicious licks. All of it completly controlled. Nothing felt faked, or phoney, all of it well rehearsed and every note necessary. A highlight was when the electric bass broke, so the upright was used for the remained of the set, and it was just beat upon.

Apparently they are just finishing up a little month tour of the midwest andeast coast. In which they had a stop at Kraftbraü in Kalamazoo. I could see them being very much, for that type of crowd. They should be touring again in the fall on a little nation wide thing, so keep an eye out. it's good.

www.capillaryaction.net

Sound Machine Dream is pleased to announce a new member to our fold - the legendary Peter Hogan! Peter will be writing music AND movie reviews for us. This means that not only are adding another writer, we're adding more content too! Now you can get your music fix, and find out about film. Twice the popular culture coverage.

Hopefully everyone else is excited as I am. Keep checking back for more and fabulous reviews.

Last week was a very busy week with two shows in one week. Both, although musically very different, were both similar in the fact that they were each unique.

SHOUT OUT LOUDS

Luna Lounge, Brooklyn, New York

It was interesting to go to a show where the crowd is full of hipsters. Luna Lounge, is in the heart and soul of the hipster captiol of the world, Williamsburg, Brooklyn. There are moments when I'm there with friends, and you can feel the judgement because you do work during the day, and you do wear a tie, once in a while, that doesn't have skulls on it. That aside, when The Shout Out Louds took the stage the room was filled with some great high energy swedish indie pop rock. The odd thing was, was that this hipster crowd was not moving with it. But the band played on, and soon their short hour long set was on their final song. It was at this point that someone attempted a stage dive, and the passive crowd did not catch him. Overall The Shout Out Louds did a grand job of translating the newer, more studio sounding pop tracks, into live little rock/pop songs. With their sophmore album already out in Europe, and coming out in september in the US, the set list was a good variety of songs that you should already know and own, and songs that are easily obtainable on the internet. Hats off to Bebban Stenborg the tiny keyboard player. Every song she was taking out a new instrument from her kit. At one point she had two synths, a xylophone, an accordian, and a tambourine going on.

MEAT LOAF

Madison Square Garden, New York City

I should say that MADISON SQUARE GARDEN is a bit misleading, it was actually at THE WaMu THEATER AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN, which is about 30,000 seats less than MAD, SQ. Nevertheless, this show fullfilled my boyhood dream of rocking out with Meat Loaf. I had the Bat out of hell II tape and played it so much it broke. My parents weren't to keen on me attending the tour for that in 1993, so i was left meatless...Until last friday! Shirts were made for my friend Rachel and myself. Her's contained the word MEAT, where as mine said LOAF. Our seats were in the back section with many other interesting folks including, many blue collar New Jeseryians, a german couple who didn't speak or even look at each other the whole time, and a mother who was having a great time!

Meat Loaf opened in an explosion of sound with All Reved up and No Place to Go and proceeded to play for over 2 hours. The set list included many of the hits, including Paradise By The Dashboard Light, a song that went on for at least 25 minutes, with a costume change in there too. Meat did not address the crowd until a good 45 minutes into the performance, at which point his first words were "I've been sick since march, I think I'm going to throw up " and the crowd went crazy. As a show, the band seemed off, and Meat Loaf staggered around the stage often times looking like he was about to keel over. But let's not forget, he's been sick since march. BUT, as an experience: It was just so fucking great. The show might have been full of awkward pauses, but those are what make it such a great story to tell.