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[Dimmukane]

I thought I should point out that I went to my local record store, and couldn't find Low, Polvo or Dirty Three.  They might have just been sold out, though.

[hannahrochelle]

Every time I read "The Dirty Three" written somewhere, I automatically think of my friend's band The Dirty Secrets... Yet somehow, I doubt they sound anything alike. The Dirty Secrets are electro rock.

[Johnny C]

what about the dirty projectors

[Johnny C]

I put up a list. Hopefully this will get lists out of my system so I can start just talking about regular ol' music.

[Jackie Blue]

I severely disagree that She Has No Strings Apollo is in any way inferior to Whatever You Love, You Are.

Also the song is called "Alice Wading" not "Alice Wades".

Why didn't you cover any of the Mick Turner solo albums?  They are excellent.

[Inlander]

Why didn't I cover any of the Tren Brothers recordings? Why didn't I cover any of Warren Ellis's soundtrack work? Because it's an article about the Dirty Three. Not the various side-projects undertaken by the members of the Dirty Three, but the Dirty Three. There's more than enough material to cover there without shooting off into tangents.

I can't believe I got the name of the song wrong. Must have forgotten to proof-read that bit. I'll fix that straight away.

As for She Has No Strings Apollo, I don't expect you meant your comment as a criticism, but I tried to make it clear that my feelings about the album are just one of a variety of possible reactions. I love Ocean Songs, you love Apollo. No worries!

Also, it seems that Lowlands is no longer in print. It's really good, so I'll stick it up in the Sendspace/Mediafire/whatever thread in the near future. Keep an eye out!

[Jackie Blue]

Eh it kind of came across to me that you were saying that almost nobody could like Apollo better than Whatever, and I consider it their second best album behind Horse Stories.

Anyway I just meant maybe you could have at least mentioned the side projects, I didn't mean you should have reviewed all of them.

[Inlander]

The problem with mentioning side-projects is that it's a slippery slope: once you mention one of them, you're pretty much compelled to mention them all lest you leave yourself open to the criticism that you're only doing half a job. With musicians as busy as Ellis, Turner, and White that's gonna result in a pretty lengthy list of records, which while it might be interesting to the completist is going to be pretty stultifying to the other 95% of people reading the article. Having read Count Basie's autobiography, I can attest that a long string of "what was recorded by who and when" makes pretty tedious reading! I felt that in a retrospective that already stretched to three articles and several thousand words, I had to put my foot down somewhere.

I can easily see how people could love She Has No Strings Apollo, and I very deliberately finished the review of that album with the observation that other people would have different opinions on it from myself, but I'd also hope that anybody who reads music reviews on a blog will take everything said there with a grain of salt, knowing that it's only one person's opinion.

Out of curiosity, what do you think of Cinder?

[Jackie Blue]

Eh, Cinder is alright, it just doesn't sound like a Dirty Three album.  It sounds like a side project.  It's no bad, but it's my second least favorite behind Ocean Songs.

[Ishotdanieljohnston]

Cinder was really dissappointing.

Overlong and lacking the intensity of their best efforts.

I'm fucking pissed off because I realised ON THE NIGHT that I was missing out on seeing them support low at the East Brunswick club. Fuck. This makes me angry. It helps me slightly to know that at least I'll see Jim White playing with Cat Power next month.

[Inlander]

What?! I knew Mick Turner was playing with Low, but the whole lot of 'em? Surely not!

EDIT: Anchor & Hope website says it was Mick Turner with Jeffrey Wegener on drums: http://anchorandhope.com/dc/index.php/category/tours/.

[Ishotdanieljohnston]

Have a look at the line below that Inlander. Says they're opening for them on the 11th and 12th.

[Inlander]

No, that's for Mick Turner and Jeffery Wegener. The formatting makes it a bit unclear, but note the colon after the closing bracket:

Mick Turner solo (with JEFFERY WEGENER on drums):
11th & 12th Jan 2008 Melbourne, AU East Brunswick Club opening for LOW

[Ishotdanieljohnston]

oh ok, while I'm still not utterly convinced that makes me feel a little better *wipes away tear*. Thanks.

[Trillian]

Colons are, indeed, very important. 

I was talking to a few of my friends in Melbourne about this show and I was so disappointed that I live so far away and therefore couldn't go.  So I am pretty much did a little jig of glee when I saw that they are making a stop in Cambridge, Mass. 

Also, in reference to the conversation about the addition of a female writer:
I won't do it.  I am sorry, I am sure you are terribly distressed about this.    

[MusicScribbles]

I like how this thread is about the Dirty Three. Really, I do! I like the Dirty Three!

[Ishotdanieljohnston]

I like the dirty three too! How original of us.

[De_El]

I definitely downloaded that Long Hair in Three Stages and listened to it, but I must not have been paying very close attention because when I read about how unusual and experimental they were I was thoroughly surprised.  Though, I can't remember what it sounds like at all, aside from definitely not remembering it as something off the wall or silly, but mentally grouped among the slew of emo albums upped on the Mediafire thread. I should probably listen to this again, only much more carefully.

[Inlander]

I just put up a few semi-connected thoughts on something that's been on my mind a fair bit recently. I wasn't planning on writing it down, but it just kind of came spilling out this afternoon.

Next thing I put up will just be a short, snappy album review, I promise!

[Scandanavian War Machine]

not to downplay the quality or importance of the rest of the music blog, but that's easily the best thing i've read on there.

it's excellent, well-written food for thought. i now find myself actually thinking about my own music-filled life and thinking for the first time that it's anything but positive.

[Johnny C]

I've been working on a piece on music in video games for the blog that goes nicely along with that - with a lot of people, the compulsion is there to score games yourself, whether using the onboard hard drives or blasting out music from a stereo or computer. With games like Shadow Of The Colossus, Half-Life 2 and Defcon this is inarguably detrimental. I don't know where I want to go with it, is the problem, but it's something I'd like to write about; maybe it'll be a piece in defense of maintaining the soundtrack in order to preserve the integrity of the piece as a whole?

It's tremendously geeky but it's something I have an opinion about.

[Ishotdanieljohnston]

Inland er that article is super good. That sort of thing had never really occured to me before. On the record shop thing, you go to Polyestor yeah? Great store. I'm a Greville Records man myself but I actually find it kinda embarressing cause everytime I go there Warwick gives me a at least 15 bucks off. Yesterday he gave me two Captain Beefheart's for free and he's given me a 35 dollar Judee Sill for free too.

I'm goin to the Lneway festival this year. Do you think I won't enjoy it? Cause I was actually pretty pumped about the line up.

[Inlander]

I was this close to getting a ticket for it this year because of the line-up and I had to really remind myself how much I disliked the experience last year. Apparently they've enlarged the site this year (the main stage is going to be in some underground cavern beneath Myer, or something), so it remains to be seen whether that means they're going to sell the same number of tickets last year, or sell more because they've got more space. But the crowds weren't the least pleasant aspect of it for me, like I said in the article the constant and unrelenting music just got too much by the end of the day.

Saw some great bands, though. Probably wouldn't have discovered Fionn Regan without it. I must confess that a part of my displeasure by the end of the day was due to the fact that I didn't really like any of the bands at the top of the bill (Sleepy Jackson, ehh, Peter Bjorn and John turned out to be really dull too, and I'd had enough of it and left before Midnight Juggernauts came on to finish the day). If you've got great bands playing at the end of the day, it could be a lot more fun!

[Ishotdanieljohnston]

Yeah they've extended it considerably... I just don't think I coul live with myself knowing I'd missed Okkervil River, Broken Social Scene, Feist, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Dan Deacon and Stars all playing in the same day.

[Inlander]

Okay, while it's nice to hear nice words said about the article (thanks, guys!) it makes for pretty lame discussion, and this is meant to be a discussion thread after all, not just a comments thread. So does anyone have a contrary opinion? Anyone think the article didn't go far enough? Anyone got anything to say on any of the issues it raised?

Anyone?

[imagist42]

I'm not sure what this says about me or the world I've grown up in, but here is my personal experience on the issue: music is inevitably ubiquitous to the point where even if I took a day of from listening to it, it would still be with me. I've got a pretty much nigh-constant "soundtrack" of sorts in that at any given point I can just start humming or singing or dancing to whatever song is already in progress up there. I can be sitting around reading a book, or taking a walk with a girl, and any silent moments can effortlessly, subconsciously, be filled with music. Almost like getting a song stuck in your head, but instead getting almost every song you've ever heard well enough to know stuck in your head, as though the spirit of music in general has been ingrained into my soul. There's no avoiding it.

Personally, I don't mind this state of affairs. More often than not, music keeps me going; physically, I can put on something dancy and stay awake and active almost like I've had a shot of caffeine; emotionally, certain songs can just support or work to change my state of mind whenever I need; etc. Music does a lot to sustain my lifestyle, so I see absolutely no reason or want to separate it from that lifestyle. If I could play or even effectively write I would, because I'm just as likely to find a song or snippet thereof completely of my own design slip into this "soundtrack" as someone else's song. I can't, of course, and when I've tried the result is something terrible that hardly qualifies as an adequate translation, so these songs stick with me. But the point is that music is vital to me around the clock, and more than minding it, I love it enough that I would do anything to give back to it (and this, in essence, is my justification for actually buying music, which I don't do nearly enough because I can't afford to buy as fast as I can listen).

I have some more to say on the oversaturation of music, but it'll have to wait for a little while later. I'll probably just edit this post with it.

[a pack of wolves]

I think it was John Cage, when discussing with somebody the annoyance of sounds from the newly common transistor radio, who said that the way he came to terms with it was to write a piece which used radios, so whenever he came across the sound of them muddling together it became an example of his own work, something he could understand and be happy with. This kind of incorporation of the ubiquity of music is great, it's a way making sense of the auditory environment. But the way mp3 players or the PAs at festivals or in shops are making single audio sources of music which will stay with you unless you stop using them or remove yourself from the location (which can be difficult, music in a place of work for example) are something else. There was a good article written when the ipod was first becoming massively popular by someone who'd purchased one and then begun to have it with him at all times. He said that for a long time he enjoyed having a soundtrack to his life, and the ability to instantly find something which fit his mood. But in the end his experience was that he found the soundtrack trivialising, it fit so well that it was like being in a bad tv show where some annoying appropriate piece of pop music swells up to match and make overblown the emotions of the characters. He was wallowing in his feelings and making his life somehow more trite by constantly flicking on the correct bit of Sigur Ros for a late night walk when feeling low or Public Enemy to match the bustling city streets.

There's a few other questions raised by the post. One is whether listening to a piece of music over and over is somehow necessarily better than hearing a new piece afresh. Adorno raised issues with the too frequent reiteration of any piece of music, saying that this could rob it of its power due to over familiarity. There's obviously an unease with constantly acquiring new things to listen to over repeatedly playing records bought before, but this is not at all necessarily a bad thing. I rarely watch films repeatedly, even those I love. Stalker is probably my favourite film but I doubt I've seen it more than ten times. This kind of statement never raises an eyebrow with cinema, but if I was to say Double Nickels On The Dime was my favourite album but I had only played it a handful of times, each listen with months if not years in between, it would strike most anyone as extremely odd. Since this limitation of the number of times a work is experienced is seen as perfectly legitimate for other forms then why is it seen as strange when applied to music?

One more thing that struck me was the paragraph talking about the daunting nature of making music due to the sheer vast amount that exists, and I presume tying that in with the huge amount so many people have at their fingertips these days. This is only a problem if the creation of art is seen as a competition, particularly one for originality. Why does originality matter though? If we take art to is simplest state then it is fundamentally a means of communication. We don't vet our conversations so rigorously for originality (although we do resist being told the same thing in the same way be the same person repeatedly), so why are we so obsessed with our artistic communications being so original? Instead of a competition if you see the music that has existed before, currently and after you as a dialogue then making music and entering into that dialogue becomes a much less daunting prospect.

[Inlander]

I rarely watch films repeatedly, even those I love. Stalker is probably my favourite film but I doubt I've seen it more than ten times. This kind of statement never raises an eyebrow with cinema, but if I was to say Double Nickels On The Dime was my favourite album but I had only played it a handful of times, each listen with months if not years in between, it would strike most anyone as extremely odd. Since this limitation of the number of times a work is experienced is seen as perfectly legitimate for other forms then why is it seen as strange when applied to music?

That's a good point. I guess with music part of the reason we're expected to listen to a particular work repeatedly is because compared to films or books, listening to a particular musical work is a relatively brief experience (due in a large part to the historical limitations of various recording formats) and it's an experience that can be had while doing other things. (Whether you should be doing other things while listening to music is another issue.) Part of what bothers me about the constant quest for the new is not so much artistic side of it, as the commercial: after a while it starts to like just another form of rampant materialism. But that's probably in a large part because I buy all my music in physical form.

One more thing that struck me was the paragraph talking about the daunting nature of making music due to the sheer vast amount that exists, and I presume tying that in with the huge amount so many people have at their fingertips these days. This is only a problem if the creation of art is seen as a competition, particularly one for originality. Why does originality matter though? If we take art to is simplest state then it is fundamentally a means of communication. We don't vet our conversations so rigorously for originality (although we do resist being told the same thing in the same way be the same person repeatedly), so why are we so obsessed with our artistic communications being so original? Instead of a competition if you see the music that has existed before, currently and after you as a dialogue then making music and entering into that dialogue becomes a much less daunting prospect.

Apart from anything else, if you're going to release your music for public consumption there are copyright issues to be worried about: just look at the mess George Harrison got into with "My Sweet Lord". I do think that artists should strive for originality of some form, especially in this day and age when so much art from the past, be it books, films, music, or whatever, is readily available in some form. Otherwise what's the appeal to me? Why would I want to listen to a band playing in the style of a past band, when I could just go an listen to the original recordings of that past band? That's not to say that the difference between old and new has to be huge: I adore the first two Camera Obscura albums, for instance, even though they're basically playing to a Belle & Sebastian template: the fact that they have a female singer is enough of a differentiation to me.

I guess if I was a musician I probably wouldn't have written that paragraph - it's very much from an outsider's perspective. Thinking back on it now I realise that as a writer I don't feel daunted when I read great novels from the past, but inspired instead. Still, music occupies a uniquely ubiquitous place in our world today and I do wonder how that affects musicians, if at all.

[a pack of wolves]

That's an interesting point about the different amounts of time required for music and films, and the capability of doing a greater number of other things while experiencing music. Mind you, I'm typing this while half watching A Life Less Ordinary and I doubt I'd be paying more attention to it if it was a piece of music.

The relative length of albums and films seems to be changing though. While films will always be limited by how long people are willing to sit still albums seem to be gradually growing in length. Tommy's pointed out before the way the CD has led to longer albums, and it's reasonably to suppose that the digital release will lead to even longer albums still. Given the way music is listened to this probably won't decrease the importance placed on both having large amounts of it and listening to it a considerable number of times, people will just end up with even more music they feel they should be getting through.

There's little point in an exact replica, I agree, and when a band is slavishly attempting to replicate something that came before it's pretty unsatisfying. But for me that's because they don't seem to have anything of their own to say, they can only ape what someone else tried to communicate. However, an artist who's merely unconcerned with whether or not what they create resembles the work of somebody else I find a different matter. For example, I like a lot of fast hardcore bands. There isn't a huge amount of difference between these acts, and telling the difference between them can often be a difficult matter even for a fan of the music. If you were to put on a record I hadn't heard by, say, Reagan SS or Devoid of Faith I'm not sure I'd be able to spot which band it was without being told. Nevertheless, I like this music despite its lack of distinction since originality isn't the point. An existing style and its conventions are being used to communicate something by these bands in a similar way to a piece of genre fiction, and that's good enough for me.

[MusicScribbles]

Hey, what happened to this thread? I like it now! There is some fun discussing going on in here!

[Inlander]

I got lazy! I'll try to get un-lazy later today.

[Inlander]

The relative length of albums and films seems to be changing though. While films will always be limited by how long people are willing to sit still albums seem to be gradually growing in length. Tommy's pointed out before the way the CD has led to longer albums, and it's reasonably to suppose that the digital release will lead to even longer albums still.

This raises the whole "death of the album" issue that people are fond of speculating on with the rise of downloadable music: I think there's a greater tendency for people these days to cherry-pick their favourite songs to download and listen to, rather than whole albums. I don't have any empirical evidence for this, though. As an interesting aside, the 3-minute pop song is still pretty much the industry standard, generations after the technology that created that standard became outmoded.

Interestingly, with vinyl making a comeback there are more and more albums, at least by relatively non-mainstream bands, the 60s standard of albums being generally just over half an hour in length is becoming the norm again: to take one example, the Shins' most recent album was also their longest yet - at forty minutes.

There's little point in an exact replica, I agree, and when a band is slavishly attempting to replicate something that came before it's pretty unsatisfying. But for me that's because they don't seem to have anything of their own to say, they can only ape what someone else tried to communicate. However, an artist who's merely unconcerned with whether or not what they create resembles the work of somebody else I find a different matter. For example, I like a lot of fast hardcore bands. There isn't a huge amount of difference between these acts, and telling the difference between them can often be a difficult matter even for a fan of the music. If you were to put on a record I hadn't heard by, say, Reagan SS or Devoid of Faith I'm not sure I'd be able to spot which band it was without being told. Nevertheless, I like this music despite its lack of distinction since originality isn't the point. An existing style and its conventions are being used to communicate something by these bands in a similar way to a piece of genre fiction, and that's good enough for me.

I think it's less of an issue when you're considering an entire genre of music; however there are many bands who seem devoted to recreating facsimiles of the music of one specific band from the past. I think this is when issues of "style" or "genre" go out the window and the music instead becomes just a pallid imitation.

[Latte]

Hey guys; just thought I'd pipe up since these are very interesting thoughts and opinions to me.  Also, insert cheap "love the blog" phrase.  (No, seriously, I do)

Just to stick with the topics brought up, I think the digital distribution thing on the whole is fantastic.  This death of the album business, not so much.  The three minute single is definitely the standard, I agree, but it should also be apparent that we then need to look at the different target demographics of music loving culture.  I know I've often started with cherry-picking my tunes but end up coming back again and again to the same group or even album until I have the whole thing!  In my head I feel the concept of an album is sort of a conversation between you and an artist that really needs to be taken in whole, even if some of the songs are lackluster.  It (generally) is created around a moment in time by them for you and seems to: ask a question, mule it around a bit, and maybe come to *a* solution (all rhetorically of course).  Basically, a song needs the context of the other tracks, for me at least.
In a more primal sense, it's also like a circuit or gauntlet of emotions/moods that one can complete.  In the case of something more abstract; I need to complete a post rock album from 1 to 10 (or 3..) since a noticeable climax occurs at some point along the way, and if you were to interrupt this before the finale or bring down ending track(s) it would upset me.

This is just how I see it and enjoy it.  Ooh, an interesting phrase back there, concept albums!  I personally hope to see more of these coming from all sorts of bands and that the internets don't ruin this by making cohesive records unvogue.  Now at the other end of the spectrum, there are the three minute single fans who just want their bon jovi title track and maybe a remix or two of something; which is fine (perhaps debatable  ) as you should enjoy music as you like.  I suppose we will just have to see which bunch makes enough noise that the artists listen and create accordingly - the albums as we know and love them, or just "streaming content" of songs.

[ViolentDove]

I'll be checking out that label, cheers Tommy. Incidentally, is that Scotch Pine album any good?

Also, with regards to labels/bands functioning by donations, Australian band The Red Paintings (who I'm not actually a fan of) decided to release an album based on donations alone, in a kind of similar model to those micro-investment films that popped up recently. You pay a small sum of money, and then a band you like gets to make an album, which you then receive a copy of after the fact.

While I've no idea if this is the first time a band has made an album like this, I rather like it as an idea. I think they've raised 40 grand or so, which is quite impressive.

[a pack of wolves]

The Scotch Pine thing is only one song. I like it though, it's a nice bit of melancholy lo-fi.

Ah, I'm Being Good. A truly fantastic band. Roughly once a year they come to Leeds and play a gig with the equally superb Bilge Pump, and it's always at one of the good venues like the Brudenell Social Club or the Common Place. They'll massively impressive everybody and then we'll wait for them to come and do it again next year. The thing I like best about bands such as I'm Being Good is that despite being very talented musicians with a huge amount of experience they never leave you with a feeling that making music like that is unattainable. I'm always left feeling more energised and excited about knocking together my own unskilled efforts after seeing them play, and making music which has that effect on people is a remarkable thing.

[David_Dovey]

Dear JohnnyC,

I too have been frustrated about poor mixes at bands that I have really anticipated seeing in my concert-going career. I have railed against the obvious incompetence of soundmen and their lackadaisical approach to mixing these bands that we love, whose music, given a good mix, has the potential to lift us above the clouds, and given a bad mix, will just leave us feeling empty and frustrated.

But I'd like to point out that as I've been learning how to engineer sound myself, and have thus started paying more attention to what is going on behind the console, and I've got to say, live engineers cop it way harder than they deserve, an awful lot of the time.

Lets' get this clear: Nobody really cares about the sound engineer. If you know how sound waves work (and I'm assuming you have some knowledge of this), you'll know that the way something sounds, particularly in regards to the balance of frequencies, can differ wildly based on where you stand in a room, particularly if that room is an odd shape, or has, say, a ceiling with varying heights. You'd think a venue owner, interested in making sure his space has as good a sound as possible, would have a vested interest in making sure that the sound engineer is given a good place in the room to mix, a place where the sound he hears will be a reasonable approximation of the sound throughout the room.

This is rarely true. In almost every venue I've been to, the sound engineer has been tucked away in some little corner, a place where the stage is obscured by large poles, or he has a bulkhead or balcony overhead (an absolute nightmare in terms of sound), or some little alcove where not only is it almost impossible to move, but where the standing reflections from the surrounding walls will ruin any possible chance our intrepid soundfellow will have of ever actually interpreting properly what anybody else is hearing. Did you move around at all during the show? Have you talked to other people who were there? Was it consensus that this was a poorly mixed set?

Not to mention that the incompetent sound engineer in question was more likely than not, not a touring FOH man, hired by the band and carted around the country, mixing the band every night. He was more likely a local guy, perhaps someone who had no idea about who A Place To Bury Strangers are, and was simply trying his best to deal with what was undoubtedly some very hot levels coming down his console. To put it this way: Imagine being given an instrument that is not entirely unlike a guitar, but different enough to be confusing, and then told to produce an interesting and cohesive set of music right away. This is something what it is like trying to mix a band "cold."

Of course, I wasn't there so I'm really just giving you possible reasons that might make you a bit more sympathetic to the tribulations of the live engineer. He could've just been a shitty engineer.

Yours,
DD

[Johnny C]

He's by no means incompetent, which is why the APTBS thing was so baffling. What upsets me more than bad soundmen is decent soundmen doing poor jobs for no readily apparent reason. The consensus is actually that the sound was kind of bad. I talked to people who were at varying spots in the venue. As well, the mixing station at the venue in question is located in a direct, clear line from the stage. I want to say it's about fifteen to twenty metres from the stage but that is basically just a guesstimate. Normally I'm willing to give soundmen a lot more credit but at that particular venue they typically can't fall back on blaming the venue's piss-poor design, because it's actually a pretty great design.

As well, he is more used to working with metal bands more than anything else, so the tones coming into the board are usually hot to start with for him.

I have some understanding for the dude, but as a performer and concertgoer I give a shit about the soundman. When he does a good job I have a habit of congratulating him; when he doesn't, I have a habit of becoming irritated.

p.s. soundmen can be ladies too

[David_Dovey]

Well yeah, sometimes people just ass up. Dang tragedy. I think Battles would've won a lot more fans at the Big Day Out in my town if they had decent sound.

[Aceandcups]

Just a quick note on the sound engineers job in shitty environments:

I've been to places where the venues were basically bowling alleys, abandoned warehouses and rec centers. I remember at one show, in Echo Park, CA the band Deer Hunter had about 3/4 of a set ruined, because the sound booth couldn't get vocals right. So for the entire set people in the audience were screaming "WE CAN'T HERE YOU!" and the band didn't know what to do. Finally, two songs before the show was over BOOM voice comes back and the audience gets a reason to attack the sound booth.

And those other times, where the setting was shit, I've heard bands perfectly - they compensated for everything they could think of. So, it would be cheap to blame a venue when a sound person can't keep up with what's going on.

[David_Dovey]

Well, as my post directly above yours states, it's true, sometimes people just fuck up, and the only reason is because they're incompetent. But I figured it was worth mentioning the things I did, because a lot of people want to automatically blame the sound engineer, no matter what.

I wasn't saying that it's always the venue or environment, but I thought it'd be interesting and useful for people to maybe think twice about the circumstances of the shitty sound before jumping all over the  engineer.

By the way; You may want to get rid of the pic in your signature, they're generally frowned upon here.

[Aceandcups]

Ah the sig thing. Yes, I've been bombarded with messages. Done and Done.

[Elizzybeth]

I remember at one show, in Echo Park, CA the band Deer Hunter had about 3/4 of a set ruined, because the sound booth couldn't get vocals right.

Was that at The Echo?  I heard a show there last year that I thought was actually fairly well mixed.  Hopefully the Deerhunter show was just a bad night?

Regardless, I've overall been fairly impressed by the music blog.  I'm less well informed musically, and I've been introduced to a couple of things I've really liked.  Thanks, guys!

[Aceandcups]

Yeah, it was the Echo. I've been to the place a dozen times and that was probably the only show that I felt like a fight would break out. One place that is do or die in Los Angeles about sound is The Smell. You're literally four two feet from some guy on guitar with a drum kit - amps and guitars are always hissing and feedback is bad.

[IronOxide]

About sound guys doing a poor job at a venue. I know it's a tough job, but why bass is generally the thing painfully exaggerated is confusing. Unless they are grossly overcompensating for what they are hearing, the bass should be the most prominent thing for the engineer to hear if they are in a bad place in the room, as low tones have much better penetration than higher tones. Think of what you hear out of a car door, you aren't going to hear the lyrics, you'll hear the THUMP-GATHUMP of the drums, and possibly bass. Which is exactly the problem when the sound in a venue is bad (or, at least, it is the problem that I have heard when the sound is bad), so I wouldn't blame it on placement, unless they overcompensate like whoa.

[pilsner]

I think I know what the problem was . . .

[Ishotdanieljohnston]

Well I haven't really given Third a proper listen, I downloaded it onto a lap top which has since deceased and only listened to it once after a long day at work. I was dissappointed, but I ussually am when I give a new record I've been highly anticipating a first listen. You're article certainly convinced me to give it another listen, and perhaps in a more fitting environment.

From my first impressions however, is it really that different? I'm no expert on Portishead but without giving much attention to the subtleties of the album it seems to use the same dynamics as on their last two albums. Same build of tension, same quasi-gothic lyrics delivered by that beautiful voice... I don't know I guess I was just expecting more. My question though Tommy, do you think you would have found it difficult to admit, if it was in fact so, that it was a bad record? Are you being objective about it?

[Yossarian]

I've listened through Third a couple of times now and it truly is a different beast, if compared to Dummy or Portishead. Tommy's description here and on the blog matches pretty much my own impression, so there is not much to add from my side.

Except for one thing maybe: is it just me or are there a lot of sonic allusions to The Doors and Apocalypse Now? Beginning with track #5 Plastic and continuing through the rest of the album I have ongoing flashbacks to that effect. Be it the helicopter sounds or - more generally - some of the percussion and guitar work. And why did it take until now, for me to realize, that the name of track #10 is Magic Doors?!

[thisbugsme]

This is a nice find of me, a great alternative music blog with daily posts
www.m-itunes.blogspot.com

[cheesepie]

My friends have a radio show and a music blog! Mostly electro type music! It's a good site check it out: http://www.thedockingstation.ca/

[Inlander]

Thanks for the heads up guys, but this thread is intended as a discussion of the Q.C.-specific music blog, not as a way to direct peoples attentions to music blogs in general. Feel free to start another thread for that purpose, though: I'm sure we'd all like to find some new sites!