here, who listens to Andrew Bird? (1 Viewer)

[rettucs]

Is this going ahead tonight then? I presume he must be a bit better by now?

Anyone that was there monday got rough stage times?

cheers

 

[dowel]

Oliver Dorley..(?) 8.15-8.45
DosH 9.00-9.30
Andrew Bird 9.45-11 or so

 

[Wheels]

ahem.. any freebies going for this?... ahem...

 

[clonan attack]

yeah me too, me too

 

[potlatch]

ME THREE ME THREE ME THREE

 

[rettucs]

good gig. I think everything he played was off the new album because I didn't know anything (I'm only familiar with 'mysterious production....' though).

No sign of Oliver Doorley. The comments on here must have put him off playing again!

Crawdaddy was jammed. Biggest crowd I ever saw there. I'm not gone on it as a venue when its that packed, but it didn't take from it too much.

 

[coast to coast]

I didn't even know til I heard the ad for Phantom, I'm sure after the gig would have already started! Fuck, anyway, I wouldna gone as I felt like shit, but still I'm intrigued: Who is this Dosh character everyone is raving about?

Found this also:

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(It makes me wish I had gone to see him/them)

 

[Mitchum]

good gig. I think everything he played was off the new album because I didn't know anything (I'm only familiar with 'mysterious production....' though).
Crawdaddy was jammed. Biggest crowd I ever saw there. I'm not gone on it as a venue when its that packed, but it didn't take from it too much.

Fair to middling performance for me, Geoff-I think he only played one song that I recognised (all new material in the main) but he is a technical whizz and a genuine talent. He puts Roger Whittaker to shame with that whistling and there was a lovely clean sound from his violin playing. After about three songs I'd got used to his virtuosity with loops and effects and such so it started to get a bit dull-he didn't help himself by over-doing it with clever word-play in his lyrics. It was all a bit "Hi Mom! I'm classically trained!" Ah minor gripes really. I was more irritated by the claustrophobic venue and ignorant student types pushing their way to the front with their backpacks bouncing off all and sundry. Some people just don't get out enough!

 

[telford collier]

what did people make of dosh?

 

[Unknown Convict]

sounds pretty different from monday - crowd was average (from what i could see on the balcony) and he played a load of old tunes. kinda sorry i didn't go last night as well, esp. if his health had improved.

good gig. I think everything he played was off the new album because I didn't know anything (I'm only familiar with 'mysterious production....' though).

No sign of Oliver Doorley. The comments on here must have put him off playing again!

Crawdaddy was jammed. Biggest crowd I ever saw there. I'm not gone on it as a venue when its that packed, but it didn't take from it too much.

 

[Mitchum]

what did people make of dosh?

Very impressive-made nice sounds somewhere between Tortoise and Four Tet but it was very warm & ramshckle too. Actually his set was too short. Twenty five mins?

Subsequently bought his Anticon album at the merch desk.

 

[Unicron]

what did people make of dosh?

Really liked him. He's hoping to get back over in the summer with his family and tour the country/play some gigs.

I thought Andrew Bird was very good, if that's his voice when he's ill he must sound fantastic when he's healthy.

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

Mr. B writes an opinion piece for the NY Times

Part of a continuing songwriter series.


http://measureformeasure.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/21/without-words/

June 21, 2008, 3:30 pm Without Words

By Andrew Bird

I listened to my record recently and I’m concerned about how much I like it.
This has never happened to me at this stage of making a record. Right about now is usually when I want to scrap the whole thing and start over. In fact, scrapping whole records has become par for the course for me when recording.
“The Mysterious Production of Eggs” was recorded and mixed three separate times between 2002 and 2005. Some songs were recorded six different ways. With every record I feel like I’m starting from scratch and have to teach myself how to make it.
But if I like my record too much does it mean I’m getting complacent? Or am I just getting better at making records sound the way I want them to? It worries me because what I love about songwriting is that there is no guaranteed formula for success. I’m hoping that getting better at making records means, for one thing, that I am learning how to leave room for serendipitous moments. I always want to hear how things didn’t go according to plan.

I’m especially happy with how “Oh No” — the song I introduced in my first post — turned out, now that I’ve sat on it for a few weeks. When the drums switch from the rumbly toms to the tight “Fleetwood Mac-style” beat and we sing “Oh no, you’re deep in a mine,” I can’t help but jog in place and pump my fists — a response preferable to scrutinizing how my voice goes a little flat on the third bar of the verse. And isn’t it great that a song about crippling self-repression and the envy of childhood expressions of fear and sorrow can be so joyous?
It’s also been interesting to see how adding drums to fairly complete songs can cast such a different light on their feel and character.
I’ve been meaning to mention that I’ve been working on another record at the same time as this one. It’s supposed to be an instrumental record and I’ve been switching between sessions of the “song” record and this more indulgent ambient experimental record. I recently spent another week at the Wilco loft playing with percussionist Glenn Kotche of Wilco and Todd Sickafoose, a brilliant upright bass player from Brooklyn. I just thought, let’s put us all in a room and see what happens. These guys are some of the most virtuosic, thoughtful musicians I know, in keeping with my vow to only make music with really good people.
Glenn and I filled up two reels of tape with these long-form cyclical patterns. I’m just making these polyrhythmic pizzicato loops I’ve been obsessed with for the last few years and seeing how Glenn responds with percussion. I think of it as trying to bridge the gap between Steve Reich or Arthur Russell and West-African musical forms from ornamental kora music to the driving m’bira of Konono No. 1. I tend to favor the short, simple motifs that repeat for as long as 30 seconds as opposed to linear solos. The result may be not unlike some electronic dance music only with woody, grainy sounds rather than the perfect sine waves of a synthesizer. How to be minimal and repetitive without being insipid is the challenge.
I’ve also been trying to write some lyrics for a Martin Dosh tune called “First Impossible,” from his new record, which has one of the more undeniable beats I’ve heard in a while — one that I’m sure Missy Elliot would lift in a heartbeat. Sometimes I like to try reversing the process with some of Dosh’s instrumentals and write lyrics for pre-existing music. This is hard because the process is more deliberate than the way my songs tend to rise to the surface when they are ready. It worked surprisingly well with a tune called “Simple X” on the last record, “Armchair Apocrypha,” and sounds strikingly different than the other tracks.
So this instrumental record is full of homeless melodies, polyrhythmic pizzicato, Debussy-like, minimalistic string passages thrown from a rotating speaker, and lots of really inventive percussion. I just want to make sure it’s engaging enough to warrant the packaging involved in a separate record. I’ve admitted to myself that it may only be an idea reservoir — a place to breed future songs and also catch some of the overflow of ideas from the “song record.” That’s sort of what I did with “Weather Systems,” a record that preceded “The Mysterious Production of Eggs”; it was only invented as a way to take the pressure of too many ideas off of the latter record. I think this record will be different, though; it’s going to rely more on the subtle textures of sound and resist the verse-chorus shape.
I’m trying to get over this mental block I have against the validity of instrumental music. I think this tension between craft and experimental, improvisatory indulgence is healthy. My wariness toward “jamming” is based on years playing in listless jazz combos where everyone pulls out their real books and plays “Song for my Father” or “Equinox” for the umpteenth time. That feeling of futility just became too much for me to bear. After getting tendonitis in the summer of my 22nd year playing jigs and reels for Dungeons and Dragons enthusiasts as they waited in line for the privy at a southern Wisconsin Renaissance Faire, I swore I wouldn’t associate that sort of futility with music again. A decade later, I’m loosening those reigns a bit.
Still, the human voice makes us pay attention in such a different way. As much as I sometimes downplay the importance of lyrics I can’t seem to resist writing them. I think I only pretend to disrespect words so I don’t give myself a complex about it. All I can say is that words are tricky. Want to give yourself a complex? Write a blog about a song you haven’t finished writing.

 

[CinnamonBoy]

I was at a slightly decaying water park in Costa Teguise in Lanzarote a few weeks ago. It was fairly empty. They had music playing from a PA, all sorts of boring chart stuff. Then Heretics by Andrew Bird came on. It was weird.
I love when things like that happen.

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

On From The Basement on Christmas Eve

Our second series is now being delivered to broadcasters and if you are in the UK you can catch the first show with Gnarls Barkley, Sparks and The Kills on Sky Arts 1 at 10 pm on Wednesday 4th December.

Subsequent shows will be broadcasting each week through December on Sky:

Weds 3rd Dec - Gnarls Barkley, Sparks, The Kills

Weds 10th Dec - My Morning Jacket, The Fall, White Denim

Weds 17th Dec - Iggy Pop, CSS, Shortwave Set

Weds 24th Dec - Radiohead, Andrew Bird, Fleet Foxes

Weds 31st Dec - The Raconteurs, Seasick Steve, Band of Horses

Weds 7th Jan - TBC supported by Mercury Rev and Terry Callier

IFC will be broadcasting the series across the US through Jan '08 – we will give you specific dates when we have them.

If you cant wait, check out a few performances we have put on the website from Fleet Foxes, Seasick Steve and White Denim.

www.fromthebasement.tv