LCD Soundsystem Show Questions...

[lionforce5]

Originally posted by nayr497:
   The music is certainly excellent but the singer needs to get tossed from the band.  Fatty, bad haircut, bad dressed.  I'm not into dudes but lead singers of bands need to have sex appeal; it is a performance art.  He just kind of yells and talks.  Nothing doing.  But again, the music they make is great.  I'd like my money back on them because they didn't really make me all that excited about hearing them.

So what you're saying is that you think that the music LCD makes would be much better if you eliminate...the guy who writes LCD's music?
 
 
   

Originally posted by nayr497:
  MIA was solid.  One thing I found interesting was the fact that she thought the stage in DC was hot.  Um...aren't you always talking about how you're from Sri Lanka?  Isn't Sri Lanka, like, considerably hotter than DC?  Yes, so unless you are really from England then you don't make any sense.

Funny that you would say that, since she is from England.  Not being English doesn't mean she doesn't live there.  I have a friend who's Egyptian.  Is she not allowed to bitch about the heat either, despite the fact that she spent most of her life in Buffalo, NY?

[snailhook]

LCD could be a pretty powerful instrumental band but their singer Mr. Murphy is just obnoxious and made it impossible for me to respect anything they were doing most of the time. As far as I'm concerned, he didn't succeed as being any more than another posturing school-of-Can goofball.

good point there; i wasn't really too keen on his vocals for the most part. i was digging on the metronomic drumming and little synth and percussive details more than anything. i agree that LCD would be more enjoyable without the cliched "yeah"ing, though i must give him props for an impassioned performance.
 
   

If they were honestly students of Can, don't you think they would care to embrace some of their less obvious qualities other than their rhythmic sense the occasional blast of controlled guitar feedback?

in a perfect world, yes. but as it is, i never expect some hipster band to pull out all the stops and really do the can thing the right way. i'll leave that to journeyman psych bands like cul de sac and ghost. i would never expect LCD to get into some intense ethno polyrhythms while ripping off a ridiculous fuzzed-out guitar solo, and malcolm mooney or damo suzuki james murphy is most certainly not. my point is, sadly, in this era, you've got to lower your standards/expectations to enjoy a lot of music that blatantly pays homage -- or attempts to pay homage -- to the pioneers of postmodern music. i simply felt that LCD did an admirable job, instrumentally, of taking the minimal approach to rhythm that can did, moreso than the majority of their peers who also claim can as an influence. and as good as pat is, he cannot begin to approach the monstrous jaki liebezeit.
 
   

I'll put it this way - Can's biggest influences (popular music, not classical) probably lied in the music of the Beatles, the Velvet Underground and James Brown & the Jb's, but did they sound anything like those bands? Hardly. But if you think about it, the influences make complete sense. I'm sorry, but LCD just don't add up to much for me and James Murphy is nothing more than a charlatan in my book.

hmmm...interesting that you name the beatles as an influence on can...i think the stones were more of an influence. the velvets influence is obvious. anyhow, i'd say that murphy is certainly no genius or pioneer, but is good at what he does, and is no more a charlatan than hundreds of other pretenders (most of whom do a much more terrible job at ripping off gang of four and the cure).
 
   

Although I will say that the last 2 or 3 songs, including the cover, was pretty damn crucial actually. I'll maybe grab those tracks off p2p or some shit.

perhaps this is why i enjoyed the set as much as i did...i only caught the last 45 minutes or so.
 
 i never knew about that "losing my edge" song, but those lyrics are kinda funny, as he's obviously poking fun of know-it-all hipsters. is he not pullin' the wool over your eyes because he is precisely one of those hipsters he is mocking?

[SalParadise]

http://rocknerd.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/02/0010252&mode=thread&tid=20

[HoyaSaxa03]

Originally posted by SalParadise:
  http://rocknerd.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/02/0010252&mode=thread&tid=20

where's that ancient sign when we need it?

[SalParadise]

hotmail offers free email.
 
 www.hotmail.com

[ggw]

M.I.A. and LCD Soundsystem at 9:30
 
 -------------------------------------------
 
 One used samples and scratching while the other featured live musicians, but the two acts that "co-headlined" Sunday night at the 9:30 club were well matched. Both Sri Lankan-bred, London-based chanter M.I.A. and New York's dance-punk LCD Soundsystem emphasized rhythm over melody, and energetic delivery over vocal range.
 
 M.I.A. limited her political commentary to one remark about the failure of aid to reach the Tamil regions of her tsunami-devastated homeland. Behind her, however, video animations intimated much more: The images included tanks, bombs, fighter planes, stone-throwing youths and a loping tiger. (M.I.A.'s father was a member of the Tamil Tigers, a separatist guerrilla group.) The messages of the songs, among them "Pull Up the People," were less graphic, although clearly insurrectionary in tone if not content.
 
 M.I.A. was backed by DJ Contra and vocalist Cherry, who doubled certain phrases and sang melodic passages, including the refrain to "Sunshowers." (M.I.A. has never claimed to be much of a singer.) Contra's additions were sometimes too busy, overcomplicating the elemental, heavily distorted music. Nothing, however, could overwhelm the joyous swagger of "Galang," M.I.A.'s signature anthem.
 
 James Murphy is the only full-time member of LCD Soundsystem, which combines dance beats with punk demeanor. Onstage, the studio mastermind was joined by four other musicians, who animated his stark, beat-oriented material. Murphy doesn't have much stage presence, and his rough, artless singing merely bludgeoned numbers like the minimalist "Yeah" and the ironic "Losing My Edge." But metronomic drummer Pat Mahoney and modal guitarist Phil Mossman filled the breach, making the Soundsystem sound like a discofied (if Iggy-less) update of the Stooges.
 
 
 -- Mark Jenkins
 
 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/13/AR2005061301705.html

[sonickteam2]

Originally posted by shoot ur shot:
 Although I will say that the last 2 or 3 songs, including the cover, was pretty damn crucial actually. I'll maybe grab those tracks off  p2p or some shit.

word up man. you're a loser.  so you talk about the band and respect, and then you're gonna go steal their music?  nice.

[dotdot]

Originally posted by nayr497:
  LCD was weak.  The music is certainly excellent but the singer needs to get tossed from the band.  Fatty, bad haircut, bad dressed.  I'm not into dudes but lead singers of bands need to have sex appeal; it is a performance art.  He just kind of yells and talks.  Nothing doing.  But again, the music they make is great.  I'd like my money back on them because they didn't really make me all that excited about hearing them.
 
 MIA was solid.  One thing I found interesting was the fact that she thought the stage in DC was hot.  Um...aren't you always talking about how you're from Sri Lanka?  Isn't Sri Lanka, like, considerably hotter than DC?  Yes, so unless you are really from England then you don't make any sense.

One of the lines in one of his songs is "...and who is the fat guy in the t-shirt singing all the songs?"  Who CARES what he looks like.  I can't wait for Hairspray The Musical to crossover to high schools so the fat girl and the effiminate drag queen will have the lead roles, giving you (and god forbid, if you decide to breed) and your kids an education in prejudice.  I'm glad he was an eyesore for you.  I'm not even big, but WHO GIVES A FUCK?  You're a twat.

[kosmo vinyl]

i don't quite understand this either... louis xiv gets bagged on because the lead singer is "fat"... now either the video screen at merriweather made him appear thinner or he's lost poundage.  what i saw a slightly overweight person, kind like a normal american like myself.  if you've gonna bag on louis xiv then do it because they are a medicore band of glam wannabies.

[hmcd]

Originally posted by shoot ur shot:
 oh yea, the song where he actually name checks Can, Suicide, Lee Perry, Beefheart and some others was in VERY poor taste. Gross.

are you kidding me?  reading this message board infuriates me -- it's like people never listened to lcd or M.I.A. before.  honestly, before i dropped $20+ (depending where or when you got the tix) for a show, i'd read up.  the "name-checking" is the point of the song.  murphy's making fun of people like you, hon.

[beetsnotbeats]

My intro to LCD was the cover story of the January 2005 (Issue 251)  The Wire (not available on The Wire's site but  scanned by LCD).
 
 The sense I got from the article was that Murphy believes that the indie scene sucks as much as the major. His current music is his reaction: strip away all the crap and build new sounds out of what's left. It's a tried and true formula--punk was a reaction to prog rock, minimalism to serialism, classical to rococo, etc. Of course the influences are patent but after tearing away all the fat a skeleton remains. The Ramones built their sound on surf, garage and girl groups; Murphy likes the krauts and no-wavers.
 
 As for supposed hipster-cred I don't think Murphy cares a flying fuck. Hip has become so commodified and politicized that it no longer holds any real value. "Losing My Edge" mocks hip til it whithers up and dies; for Murphy, it's time to move on and start making new sounds while still having fun regardless of whether anyone thinks its hip or not. Hip is dead and there's no use crying about it.

[sonickteam2]

Originally posted by hmcd:
    reading this message board infuriates me

i cant laugh at this statement hard enough!

[sonickteam2]

Originally posted by hmcd:
 it's like people never listened to lcd or M.I.A. before.  honestly, before i dropped $20+ (depending where or when you got the tix) for a show, i'd read up.  

well, you are probably right. This show was way hyped up, Sold Out even!  MIA is totally wack (IMHO) and LCD has been kicking ass for several years now (Losin my edge is at least 2-3 years old). but all of a sudden its the show to go to, so everyone went and its not really surprising that there were people who said "wait a tick! i dont like this kind of music!!!!"
    sad but true

[snailhook]

great post (referring to beetsnotbeats)...i couldn't agree more. any criticisms i have of either MIA or LCD are purely aesthetic, as i don't doubt the sincerity of maya and murphy.
 
 i knew my "white chick from chicago" comment would piss off somebody, and i only stand by it in the live context that i just experienced (so you can't take it as an accurate barometer of the whole artistic spectrum). whatever i have heard on record was infinitely better than what i saw live, and i already explained what i felt was lacking. i didn't realize that she doesn't think so highly of her vocal skills, and i think her concepts got buried in sunday's set. so what i meant by my comment, based on the music that emanated from the stage, was that it was no better than the mediocre electroclash crap every art-school chick with legwarmers was making in 2002.
 
 and sonick, what does file sharing have to do with being "genuine" or "real"? shoot ur shot was talking about sincerity on a purely artistic level.

[ericalindquist]

I agree abt the energy level.  I'm a bit late, but Can anyone provide names of LCD's last 2 songs (covers)?
 
 
 

Originally posted by SalParadise:
 
 encore:
 one or two songs that i didn't recognize.
 
 it's all about perspective, but from where i was standing (floor, center about 15-20 ft back from the stage)...best, most energetic crowd i've ever seen at 930. [/QB]