May 12th: Continental Shelf

Good afternoon all,

Last night I saw Moaning and Preoccupations (fka Viet Cong fka Women). They’ve been putting out pulsing, lo-fi, bass-driven noisey rock music like Continental Shelf for a decade or so now. And yet! they’re still playing clubs of less than 200 people in Seattle on a fucking Friday night at fucking 8:45pm. I think you know you’re a niche band when maybe 40% of your audience are people that came to your show alone. Preoccupations didn’t let the impending dance party at Neumo’s upstairs immediately afterward impede their avalanche of alt-rock. There was no encore because once they put the foot on the pedal, it was a solid wall of sound from start to finish.

Enjoy!

ps. Ear plugs are your friend.

November 24th: Huarache Lights

Good evening all,

I still feel like trash, but when members of Hot Chip come to town to DJ and you bought tickets months ago, you go. They spun a variety, it was a truly odd set, but everyone seemed to be having fun. Sure, there was that dude who was cocky, yet self-conscious, of his dancing so he moved his partner to the wall to grind off-beat and ‘allude’ to intimacy and surprise, but what concert/set isn’t loaded with secondary, obvious visual entertainment?

What managed to not be obvious was that these two seemingly tertiary members of the band played details from their full band’s hit Huarache Lights, and then everything made more sense. It wasn’t a disappointing Hot Chip set and it wasn’t a disappointing DJ show. Sometimes preconceived labeling makes things unnecessarily confusing.

Everything Hot Chip does is grossly under-appreciated.

Enjoy!