Bob Mould - Williamsburg Park - 7th of September 2012: Live Review

 
I have been a fan of Bob Mould for about 8 years (a drop in the ocean compared to the length of his career!) but had never managed to see him live until now (not for the want of trying). Originally this show was going to be at Webster Hall but was moved (and subsequently made free) to Williamsburg Park.

To coincide with the 20th anniversary of Sugar's resplendent masterpiece, Copper Blue, Mould has been playing it in full this year, and seemingly inspired has just released his latest studio effort, Silver Age, which is very much in that power-pop style, lead single The Descent has the following promotional video:

The show was opened by Cymbals Eat Guitars, I enjoy both of their albums so it was good to see them rattle through selected cuts from both (including my favourite track, Rifle Eyesight), doubly-so because I missed their set supporting The Flaming Lips at the Troxy in London in 2009 (train delays!).

Playing as a trio (just like Sugar and Husker Du, of course), Mould is joined on bass by Jason Narducy from Telekinesis and Jon Wurster from Superchunk on drums (whose playing was particularly ferocious). They blitzed through Copper Blue with the enthusiasm and freshness of a new release.

We were then treated to a couple of cuts from Silver Age, I thought that we'd get most of the album having just witnessed a celebration of material 20 years ago, but after three new songs we were treated to a quartet of Husker Du songs, including one of my very favourites, Hardly Getting Over It.

The set was rounded off with another song from Silver Age, Keep Believing. Hold Steady frontman Craig Finn joined the band in the encore to sing Husker Du's Something I Learned Today. I have to confess I'm not really a fan of the Hold Steady and I didn't recognise him, but he performed the song as if fulfilling a life-long fantasy.

Representing almost all of the Husker Du discography, the band also ripped through early single Keep Believing before returning for a second encore and blasting out Makes No Sense At All from Flip Your Wig.

Hopefully I'll catch Bob play many more times in the future, this concert was utterly thrilling. Such  is the strength of his solo material, I came out thinking about dozens of songs I'd have also loved to hear, and while the Husker Du songs felt like a treat, I was surprised how little we got from his solo material (only 4 songs from the latest album).

I also picked up both Sugar re-issues for $15 each from the merch stand and am looking forward to the live discs in particular. 

Setlist:
        (Copper Blue played in full)
        The Act We Act
        A Good Idea
        Changes
        Helpless
        Hoover Dam
        The Slim
        If I Can't Change Your Mind
        Fortune Teller
        Slick
        Man on the Moon
------------------------------------
        Star Machine
        The Descent
        Round The City Square
        Hardly Getting Over It*
        Could You Be The One?*
        I Apologize*
        Chartered Trips*
        Keep Believing

        Encore:
        Something I Learned Today*
        In A Free Land*
        Encore 2:
        Makes No Sense At All*

*Husker Du songs

The Better Angels of Our Nature: Book Review

I bought this book, and wrote a blog about it back in November last year, it's a hefty read for a hefty subject and took longer to finish than I'd have liked (a transatlantic move, among other things, got in the way somewhat), but I felt compelled to write a proper review once I was finished.

We've all thought at some point things like "if only everyone thought like me the world would be a better place!", I'd like to propose that if everyone read this book then the world would be a better place.

That isn't to say that Steven Pinker has solved the worlds problems, far from it,  The Better Angels of Our Nature gives us an analysis of the history of violence; from the rate of wars, battle deaths, murder, torture, rape, etc, and the reasons (or potential reasons) for their declines (though it has not been a steady one).

The book pulls no punches in describing various acts of violence, it is not for the faint of heart, but we are not talking about gratuitous descriptions of violence here, it's hard to sugar-coat breaking on the wheel for example. The fact that it's intuitive to recoil in horror at many of the practices that were once commonplace is in itself indicative.

Violence can often be an emotive subject, and most of the objections I have had to deal with when discussing this topic tend to get clouded in personal anecdotes and an inability to consider the vast span of historical time that Pinker has analysed. The first thing to realise upon being faced with statistics on death and violence is not to take anything away from what is still happening today, terrible things still happen and always will, but the world as a whole is less terrible than it was. One also has to remember that behind every number is a life taken too early or inhumanly abused, families robbed of loved ones via spear, machete, bullets, explosions and methods of torture that one can scarcely comprehend. For some of these victims, death must have been a relief.

A further objection I have dealt with is that people claim that the data are simply wrong and that the nature of statistics can show anything (although it's also curious to note that the people I have spoken to have not read the book nor have any interest in doing so), but Pinker is very analytical of the data itself and gives full disclosure of the sources (there are 200 pages of notes and sources). Some people claim that battle deaths in recent wars today are not fully reported (though death in war is just one form of violence analysed in the booked). Even if that were the case they seem to be willfully ignorant of the fact that reported battle deaths will be prone to errors in all wars and not just those of today, but more importantly the number of unreported battle deaths would have to be so high (to compete with past atrocities) it would be a conspiracy greater than a faked moon landing or government involvement in 9/11.

One has to zoom out a little bit (or a lot, in some cases) and look at the big picture, while it's tempting to consider the 20th century as the most violent of all time, this table (reproduced from the book) paints a different picture of histories bloodiest events by recalibrating the death toll to 20th century population equivalents (so they can be compared fairly):

Worst atrocities

	Conflict	Century	Death toll*	Death toll (20C equivalent)**	Ranking
1	Second world war	20th	55 million	55M	9
2	Mao Zedong (mostly government-caused famine)	20th	40M	40M	11
3	Mongol conquest	13th	40m	278m	2
4	An Lushan revolt	8th	36m	429m	1
5	Fall of the Ming dynasty	17th	25m	112m	4
6	Taiping rebellion	19th	20m	40M	10
7	Annihilation of the American Indians	15th-19th	20m	92m	7
8	Josef Stalin	20th	20m	20m	15
9	Middle East slave trade	7th-19th	18m	132m	3
10	Atlantic slave trade	15th-19th	18m	83m	8
11	Timur Lenk	14th-15th	17m	100m	6
12	British India (mostly preventable famine)	19th	17m	35m	12
13	First world war	20th	15m	15m	16
14	Russian civil war	20th	9m	9m	20
15	Fall of Rome	3rd-5th	8m	105m	5
16	Congo Free State	19th-20th	8m	12m	18
17	Thirty years' war	17th	7m	32m	13
18	Russia's “time of troubles”	16th-17th	5m	23m	14
19	Napoleonic wars	19th	4m	11m	19
20	Chinese civil war	20th	3m	3m	21
21	French wars of religion	16th	3m	14m	17
*Median/mode of figures cited in encyclopaedias or histories. Includes battlefield and civilian deaths
**Deaths were calculated against global population at time, then scaled up to mid-20th century level

When we see that World War 2 barely scrapes into the top 10, it's cause for contemplation. Few people tend to take stock of the fact that European countries tended to initiate two or three wars per year leading up to 20th century (a brief glance at wiki's list of conflicts in Europe gives the scroll button a sprinting start but a strolling end) . We have had an unprecedented peace since WW2 by comparison, which is known as "the long peace".

The world is not a perfect place, and violence is part of human nature (though so are inclinations towards peace, it would seem), but by studying the trends of history, our psychology and having a greater understanding of what indicators influence violence, we can concentrate on what "works" and what doesn't. While violence may well go up in the future, I can't see a situation in a developed society where many of the victories of the rights revolution (in terms of race, gender, etc, etc) are going to be unwon, it's unthinkable that segregation will come back or that women will have their right to vote taken away, these are humanistic victories that we now take for granted. Not to mention the abolition of slavery, witch-hunts (60,000-100,000 Witches were killed over history thanks to biblical instruction) Let's be grateful for the gigantic strides that have been made in most societies.

As a more humorous analogy, I consider what Louis CK says here, Everything's Amazing and Nobody is Happy:

Of course, not everything IS amazing, there are still horrific acts of violence happening every day, but things are better. As Pinker says in this interview, "My first edict as global overlord would be to impose the following rule on pundits: No one may bemoan a decay, decline, or degeneration without providing (1) a measure of the way the world is today; (2) a measure of the way the world was at some point in the past; (3) a demonstration that (1) is worse than (2)."

What is amazing, is The Better Angels of Our Nature.

9.9/10

Lying

The act of lying is something we have all been guilty of, and we will all most likely continue to fall into its seductive trap when it suits our own needs. But is lying, even those little white lies we tell ourselves are ok, ever justified?

Sam Harris has, for this week only, made his essay, Lying, available for free on his website (click here for a direct link to the PDF), prompted by his latest blog post, The Fall of Jonah Lehrer, in which the journalist has been shamed by admitting to fabricating quotes and then initially lying about it. If you happen to miss out on the freebie, it's very cheap (my ebook cost me around 2 pounds).

Upon initial analysis, few will get beyond this sentence without concocting up scenarios in which it seems not only ethical to lie, but imperative. Sam analyses these temptations with his usual wit and razor-sharp logic. Lying is a brief but riveting analysis of the types of lies one can commit and the ramifications they have.

A commitment to not lying does not mean one has to divulge all dark and personal secrets upon request, being honest about not wanting to divulge information is better than concocting a lie to save face. Indeed, being honest need not commit us to acts that only the most socially ignorant would willfully perform, but gives our relationships with others a stronger bond.

Now each time I am faced with a situation in which I am tempted to lie, I feel a pang inside my conscience. I'm not perfect, and it would be a lie to say I have not lied since reading Sam's essay when it was released last year, but each chip in the armour of lying makes me feel better about myself, and I hope I give the impression to others that if they want an honest answer from someone I can be trusted to give one.

As Sam notes in his essay:

Honesty is a gift we can give to others. It is also a source of power and an engine of simplicity. Knowing that we will attempt to tell the truth, whatever the circumstances, leaves us with little to prepare for. We can simply be ourselves.

In any case, read Lying for yourself and see what you think.

Rush: Clockwork Angels review

New album Clockwork Angels is Rush's 19th full length studio LP (most sources claim it's their 20th, but 2004's covers EP, Feedback, was little more than an otiose indulgence best forgotten...).


2007s Snakes and Arrows suffered desperately from a lack of pace and passion, it basically sounded like a classic rock album recorded by a bunch of 50-somethings. While there isn't anything drastically wrong with most of those songs (though there are certainly some poor moments, hello Larger Bowl...) it's simply an uninspired record. Clockwork Angels, on the other hand, sounds like a band reinvigorated and with a sense of purpose.

To bring up the dreaded c-word, it's a concept album, inspired by Steampunk and Voltaire's 1759 novella, Candide, which I confess I haven't read but know of. The record achieves a nice balance between marrying the lyrics as a whole albums worth of work but also not sounding out of place as individual songs. 

The album kicks off with the two songs that were digitally released last year, Caravan and BU2B, which both seem to have benefitted from either a re-recording or a remix. Caravan probably wouldn't have been out of place on Snakes and Arrows although the "I can't stop thinking big..." chorus is catchier than anything they wrote on that album. BU2B has a drive and urgency that I didn't really feel on the digital release and rather surprisingly has become an early favourite, there are some wonderful arpeggios from Alex that, when analysed in their own right hark back to some real classic Rush moments.

However, given the relative familiarity with those first two songs, you don't get that new record feeling until the title track kicks in, and is filled with some particularly furious drumming from Neil. There's a great range of light and shade on the album and the title track seems to include all of this in one song, although the band also let loose on occasion and thrash through a few heavy riffs, most notably on Carnies. Alex also seems to have upped his game a little here, his Eastern-twinged solo on The Anarchist is incredibly pleasing. 

While Rush tend to work best with some combination of intricate and (leaning towards) heavy instrumentation, they can sometimes struggle when trying to really tone it down and write a ballad or just a mellow song in general. Halo Effect tries to bridge that gap somewhat, it perhaps falls a little short as it isn't until the bridge that the song seems to demand attention.

For the moment at least, the finest song on the album is The Wreckers, which came about with Alex and Geddy swapping instruments in the writing stage, the intro reminds me of the band Ride (who excelled at that ethereal whilst also crunching guitar sound), while the verses are definitely something that Geddy probably comes up with in his sleep, it wouldn't have been out of place on his solo album, My Favourite Headache. The chorus is Neil at his best lyrically and with or without the context of the Voltaire inspiration, aims a big dig at religion (which he also tackled on S&A's Faithless) and societal norms:

All I know is that sometimes you have to be wary of a miracle too good to be true,
All I know is that sometimes the truth is contrary of everything in life you thought you knew,
All I know is that sometimes you have to be wary of a miracle too good to be true,
All I know is that sometimes the truth is contrary, 'cause sometimes the target is you.

Things rev up a gear with Headlong Flight, a song that they would have played about 25% slower on the previous album, If any of the band stand out in particular on this record then I think it's Neil, he mentioned recently about giving it his best while he was still physically able to, and that really comes across in the music. His drumming hasn't been this ferocious in many a year, it will be interesting to see just how physically draining these songs will be to play live. I'm tremendously looking forward to seeing them at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn in October (although I am trying to make myself forget just how much the ticket cost).

The album closes with The Garden, which seems to have become a favourite among fans, but I have to confess I'm struggling with it a little bit. I mentioned earlier that ballads are not really in Rush's comfort zone and I think this is evidence of that, it sounds over-sentimental and more in the realm of dodgy AOR bands from the 80s, not a band that has just rattled through one of their best albums in 25 years (which obviously, somewhat ironically, puts us into the 80s...). It's rescued somewhat by some nice arpeggio work from Alex in the chorus and a decent solo (which comes after a somewhat nauseating bridge). If they play this live I hate to imagine all the lighters (or do people just use iphones these days) held aloft in the air, this isn't Bon Jovi...

It's not a perfect record and at times suffers from the cut and paste pro-tools method of songwriting they have had for the last decade, but for the most part the songs are focused and it's a record that is greater than the sum of its parts and one of which the band should be proud.

I am certainly in a minority when it comes to Rush fans, in that I think 2002's Vapour Trails is among the band's finest work. So while Clockwork Angels isn't quite the revelation and return to form that some are saying, it is certainly one of their best efforts from the 2nd-half of their career.

Tracklist:
1. Caravan
2. BU2B
3. Clockwork Angels
4. The Anarchist
5. Carnies
6. Halo Effect
7. Seven Cities Of Gold
8. The Wreckers
9. Headlong Flight
10. BU2B2
11. Wish Them Well
12. The Garden

Overall score: 7.5/10

La Sera

La Sera is the solo project of Vivian Girls bassist Katy Goodman (aka Kickball Katy). While I love Vivian Girls, La Sera pull off that extremely rare feat where a side-project is actually better than an artist's "main" band.

With two albums under her belt, the self-titled release in 2011, new record Sees the Light completes a double whammy of wonderful tunes that deserve a much wider audience. 

Who can resist the sugary guitars and lullaby vocals of Never Come Around? And to top things off it is also accompanied by a fantastic and playfully gruesome promotional video.

The first album is a real pleasure, full of bright and dreamy guitars it's a perfect pick-me-up, but if I had to pick a favourite however, it would be Sees the Light which has a wider range of songs and moods, the swagger and triumphant breakup of Love that's Gone is swiftly followed by the fast-paced Please Be My Third Eye, then you have the shimmering guitars of I'm Alone and the low fuzz of How Far We've Come. It's a bit like the debut set everything up for the second album to blow everyone away, the songs are just great (as they also are on the debut).

 
I also had the pleasure of catching a show in Williamsburg at the Cameo Gallery where the band pulled off an incendiary 50-minute set which was full of energy and style. Backed by members of Darker My Love, La Sera are a much tighter live unit than you would expect from a side-project, catch them if you can!

(Photo by me. Though we were right at the front which wasn't the best spot for photos!)

Lead promotional video from Sees the Light is for Real Boy / Drive On which features more of that twisted humour.

Also, as a fellow cat lover I'm happy to report that Katy posts regular photos of her felid companion, Walt.

 You can follow Katy on Twitter, La Sera on Facebook

Dear Football Manager: Please can I have my life back

To most people, the thought of playing a football game that you don’t actually play is the most bizarre concept of all, only those bitten by the bug can sympathise when it takes over your life. For my own sanity as well as for the sake of loved ones, I do not buy each release, limiting myself to a new version every 3 years or so, simply for the fact that I know that it is not a healthy lifestyle choice in the slightest.

I treated myself to Football Manager 2012 just before leaving Oxford to live in New York, I knew that soccer would not be part of the way of life here as it is back home, and I was also planning on picking up a laptop and wanted a game I could play.

The all too familiar cracks in my psyche began to appear soon after installation and now I find myself firing up the game at every conceivable moment, I force myself out of bed early in the mornings to get some playing time in regardless of how fatigued I am (even writing this blog requires a gargantuan effort). If I were single I would probably awake with my face stuck to the laptop, which would have short-circuited from the tsunami of drool spilling from my mouth having no doubt dreamt of unearthing the next Lionel Messi (I did find one and he was lured away by a premiership club. Why did you leave me, Wang Ze, why?!).

I am hoping that by ridiculing myself I may come to my senses somewhat, I have other articles I plan to write, science lectures to watch, books to read and music to listen to, etc, etc. But I can't, I seemingly have to play this game, to the detriment of my life. Upon the release of one of the games (I think it was Football Manager 2005) I took a week off of work, with no other plans than playing the game, non-stop. 

And in terms of results, if only the real-life Oxford could mimic my wizard-like achievements! Promotion in my first season (winning the league), followed by another promotion (second place finish) found me in the championship. A season of struggle was followed by a 9th place finish, before another runners-up spot now sees me in the premiership, I've got about 10 games of the season left and it looks like I might just about stay up!

Sigh...

Hello America!

 
I became a "permanent resident" on the 20th of December, landing in Boston to spend a couple of weeks with family in New Hampshire before heading to New York City.

I set up a bank account with TD Bank a couple of days after arrival (fortunately a foreign national doesn't need a social security number to set up a bank account, but you can't get paid without one and I'm currently still waiting...). All seemed to go smoothly but after a couple of days my card was blocked, when I went into the branch to check why and seeing my details on the computer they had somehow put my middle name as my surname! So I was actually Mr Richard... this was a level of incompetence for which I was unprepared. The account took a little while to get sorted and I had a few other cards blocked over the next couple of weeks, hopefully it's sorted now!

That inconvenience aside, christmas is usually a period of time where vast quantities of food are consumed, this also happens to be the case whenever we visit New Hampshire. A combination of the two led to an ascension of gluttony that would cause Jabba the Hut to blush.

I didn't want to purchase too many things while we were still in New Hampshire as we'd only have to cart them across with us, but while in Bullmoose (I hate to think how much money I have spent in there over the last 8 years) I saw the Stax/Volt 1959-1968 9-CD singles box-set for a good price. It was actually gathering dust so I really had to give it a loving home.

The in-laws have a new dog since we last visited (as well as goats, a horse, chickens, ducks, guinea fowls and probably other species I'm forgetting) called Redford.

a rare moment when Redford is not terrorising me...

We arrived in New York on the 4th of January and made our way to our apartment in Ditmas Park. Greeted by a friend of the landlord who showed us in, after a nervous few minutes where none of us could get the keys to work we finally managed to enter and set our things down. The apartment is great (though the shared heat in this building is brutal, need the windows open and fans going most of the time we're inside and it's January!) and the area seems pretty convenient (I suspect I will do a separate blog about it at a later date). We're about a 20-minute subway ride to Union Square on the Q-line (of course!). Here's a view from our window.

So far we've gotten out and about quite well, experiencing many areas of Manhattan. Had a nice walk along the Brooklyn Bridge (best to walk from Brooklyn to Manhattan for better views, though parts of the view are obstructed due to repairs), drinks in the East Village (and onto Williamsburg, getting home at 3:30am...), record shops in Greenwich Village, and various moments of gawking at the various buildings in the city (and the general prices of just about everything).

Also nipped a bit further south to Coney Island, taking in a visit to the New York Aquarium but not before trying a Nathan's Hotdog and a stroll along the boardwalk.

The Bronx Zoo is a real treat and you need a whole day there to just about squeeze everything in. We were quite lucky because the Red Pandas were on real form, and I'd never seen a Polar Bear or Snow Leopard before. Other highlights included a Mouse Deer (too dark to get a decent picture), Fossa and many others.

I'm not getting these events in order, but in any case. We had a nice walk around Central Park (and we also had a long walk around Prospect Park near where we live), both will obviously be more impressive later in the year, but they're pretty immense as it is. From Central Park we took in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is huge, we whizzed around as much as we could in a couple of hours but you could spend days in there and still have plenty to see.

I obviously haven't had time to indulge in the usual myriad "best of 2011..." lists (though I'll hopefully fit in a music compilation of sorts before the end of the month). My first day of work will be the 16th of Jan (which is a public holiday here for Martin Luther King Jr. day, but our office is still open), by which point I'd have had 4 weeks off, and will have forgotten what it is I'm supposed to be doing! So far it has seemed like a long holiday so it's still too early to tell if I am missing things back home too much, though obviously I'm a little anxious at the lack of (real) football, we don't have any TV channels here (just a DVD player) and I had the misfortune of watching a game of "American" football, which seems like watching real football if only it were played constantly with set pieces, with the ball only being in play for a few seconds at a time. I'm not sure how anyone manages to get through a game without getting extremely drunk. It also proved quite difficult to find an electric kettle!