Get Your Hands on A Good Speaker System, and Listen To Laurie Anderson

"Monkey's Paw" comes from her 1989 album Strange Angels (Warner Bros.):

Saturday Night Live Featuring Jack White

Jack White made his first appearance on Saturday Night Live since White Blood Cells, this past weekend, promoting his upcoming debut album Blunderbuss out April 23/24 on his own Third Man Records.

Jack's performance of "Sixteen Saltines" made me miss the White Stripes for the first time since they split up. That guitar tone, that hard, simple riff, Jack's "woo"s, his wild and totally awesome stage-movements:



And for a more tender performance, watch him perform Blunderbuss' first single "Love Interruption," this time with an all-female back-up band. I wonder if he'll have two back-up bands when he tours. I hope:



And just because I couldn't decide on the main for picture this post, here's the other SNL pre-performance graphic: 
 

I Got Wet with Andrew W.K., Pt. 1

March 3, 2012
The Venue 
Vancouver, British Columbia

Andrew W.K.'s breakthrough album I Get Wet turned ten years old, this past November, and to celebrate, he kicked off his first ever global tour two nights ago right here in Vancouver.

Opening for Andrew W.K. was beloved music guru and local scenester Nardwuar the Human Serviette's garage-punk band the Evaporators. Nardwuar is good friends with Andrew, having interviewed Andrew several times, performed with him several times, released a split EP with him and cut a track with him before, so it was really no surprise that the Evaporators opened the show. They were everything I expected of Nardwuar's quirky (understated) personality and more: random costume changes including a sparkly helmet with the Canadian flag on it: check. At least temporary shirtlessness and off-putting amounts of body hair on a less-than-centre-fold physique: check.

Costume-changes and partial nudity weren't the biggest highlights of the Evaporators, though - not by a long-shot. The audience hoisted both Nardwuar and his keyboard into the air during "Your Instrument Does Not Affect Me" while he played it in an outstretched Superman position. He even straddled his keyboard for a while as the audience kept them suspended in the air, and the more fanatic audience members risked generous amounts of Nardwuar's-ass-in-their-faces in order to rabidly mash the keys from below.

Other highlights included the Evaporators having covered 60s German garage rock band the Monk's "Higgle-Dy Piggle-Dy" and something I've never seen at a show before: Nardwuar ran through the crowd during a super-extended version of "I Don't Need My Friends To Tell Me Who My Friends Are," getting - sometimes imploring with his hands clasped - everyone in the audience to crouch down on the floor and not continuing until everyone was crouching. Meanwhile, the lights had been brought down; the band was revving the riff until the band and everyone else in the place jumped up all at once and moshed while shouting the chorus, lights now blinding: "I DON'T NEED MY FRIENDS TO TELL ME WHO MY FRIENDS ARE!!! I DON'T NEED MY FRIENDS - ..." and then back down on the floor ... We did this a few times before the band kicked it into overdrive for one final climactic blowout.

As fun as that little crowd-control experiment was, the best parts of the Evaporators' set were undoubtedly 1) when I got kicked in the face by Nardwuar while he was crowd-surfing, and I ended up picking a few hairs from his gorilla-boots out of my mouth and 2) when Nardwuar gave me the list. Onto my wall it goes, along with my little treasures from Male Bonding and Broken Social Scene.

Short and sweet, the Evaporators were, but they were only a small taste of the mayhem to come.

I Wish I Love Male Bonding More Than I Do

'Cause I'd totally get their logo tattooed.

Bon Iver Vs. Kurt Vile

No, there's no juicy feud happening between psych-folk revival- ist/eternal introvert Kurt Vile and indie folk superstar/part-time introvert Justin Vernon, A.K.A. Bon Iver. They're both coming to Vancouver on May 25, and for the first time since I've been here, I have to choose between shows, and the decision could hardly be tougher. Do I want to stand face-to-face with Kurt Vile at the Biltmore, whom I've already seen but of whom I'm a WAY bigger fan now, amidst a drugged out, spaced out, lethargic crowd, or do I want to be likely stuck in the middle of a fervent crowd outdoors at Bon Iver at Deer Lake Park, whom I missed the last time he was here? Well, when I put my options like that, my decision seems pretty easy. I guess I'll pony up the $51 for Bon Iver instead of the $20 for Kurt Vile. Man, I never thought I'd pass on KV. Sorry, man.

"OUT OF THE WAY!!!!!": Album-Openers with A Kick

"OUT OF THE WAY!!!!!" from Jackson A. Ragg III on 8tracks.

48 min, 5 sec

1. The Hives - "Hives-Declare Guerre Nucleaire"
2. The Dirtbombs - "Chains of Love"
3. The Pixies - "Bone Machine"
4. Beat Happening - "Bewitched"
5. Pere Ubu - "Non-Alignment Pact"
6. Fucked Up - "Son the Father"
7. Sebadoh - "License To Confuse"
8. The Stooges - "Search and Destroy"
9. Sonic Youth - "Teen Age Riot"
10. PJ Harvey - "Big Exit"
11. The White Stripes - "Jimmy the Exploder"
12. The Von Bondies - "Lack of Communication"
13. The Sonics - "The Witch
14. The Raconteurs - "Consoler of the Lonely"

Finally Getting My Dose of TWEE POP LIVE

When Seattle dream-poppers Seapony open for Toronto dream-poppers Memoryhouse at the Waldorf Hotel on March 10.

Oh, February to April is going to be good to me. Actually, February to April has already started being good to me, starting four nights ago with a live orchestral/folk/blues/doo-wop/slightly Semitic cabaret performance (more than a concert: a performance) by the Plastic Acid Orchestra with Maria in the Shower at the Vogue Theatre. With shows by Andrew W.K. with the Evaporators (this Saturday), Memoryhouse with Seapony (the Saturday after that), Sharon Van Etten with the War on Drugs (two Saturdays after that) and shows by Chilly Gonzales and Shane Koyczan & the Short Story Long in April, the December-to-end-of-February concert dry-spell was worthwhile.

Here's "Always," my other favourite Seapony track, also from their debut album Go with Me (Hardly Art, 2011):