Guided By Voices Concert at Intuition Ale House

On August 11th, 2018, I was very fortunate to be invited by a friend to see Guided By Voices at Intuition Ale House. I was very much so looking forward to this concert because Guided By Voices are one of the hallmarks of Indie Rock

and the Lo-Fi scene. One of their most notable records, Bee Thousand was recorded as a hobby project on band mate's home four tracks. Their sound is incredible and the stripped down, raw production compliments the band's nice britpop inspired lo fi indie rock. A lot of people like to refer to them as "the best incarnation of The Beatles", an ironic but endearing statement based on their Rubber Soul meets Dinosaur Jr-like sound. They are honestly one of the best, prolific indie rock acts, having about 25 albums and many more other releases. So with this vast discography, GBV has more than enough material to fit in their lengthy 3 hour show (and that's the average length of their concerts!). With this in mind, I honestly did not know what to expect when I heard the show would be 3 hours. I was honestly wondering if they could match the vim from their albums. However, when they stepped on to the stage, it feels like my fears were pretty much alleviated. The band's energy during the show completely matched the performance on their studio albums surprisingly sans the lo-fi production (which at that point would just impress me if they were able to make their show sound like a four track live). The performance from the band was incredible and was worth the slight wait during the door opening. The band was also incredibly friendly, interacting and joking around with the audience with some self-aware quips here and there (Robert Pollard, the band's lead singer, even joked in regards to their massive discography saying "our new albums are coming out regardless of if you guys buy them or not"). The atmosphere was very welcoming. At one point the band started passing around free tequila to the audience members, a tradition they are known to do at shows where they hand out free alcohol to the audience. It was a surprisingly solid performance, the only downside was the actual venue itself. I normally don't like to complain about venues, because usually they are what they are (hot and sweaty but still pleasant), but the venue was almost unnecessarily hot and the water tasted like shit to be completely honest. But other than that, the venue was pretty cool. It was neat seeing a band play in a beer brewery with all the factory machines and beer surrounding everywhere. The staff was pretty cool too, gave us some free water, which despite the taste, is pretty cool. They also had some bottle water too that a lot of the audience was throwing in the air to cool off everyone because it was the hottest venue I bet most people have been to. Overall, it was a great concert and I loved being part of it.

Double Review Update

This post will be covering two different music albums that I have listened to throughout the past few weeks. Because of this, it incorporates many different styles of music. I will try to explain as best as I can the differing styles to a newcomer to this music. For consistency's sake I will mostly be covering two bands that incorporate "shoegaze" or "noise rock" genre elements into their work. Unlike my previous blog posts, this will contain artists outside Jacksonville that I think need more exposure and inspire art I and other Jacksonville musicians I've worked with seek to put out one day.







1) Shinsei Kamattechan - Tsumanne
Honestly, this is probably one of the best finds I've found in the "noise rock" category. Noise rock is a genre stylized by it's heavy use of distortion effects. This band, hailing from Japan, is arguably one of the most angry sounding bands I ever found completely enjoyable. The dual male/female vocal leads is a really big bonus for me too, since I love when bands incorporate multiple differing vocal styles into their work (some further examples of this include Johnny Foreigner and Yo La Tengo, who also do a very nice job with this style). The vocals are chosen androgynous and I really love that and the boundary pushing harsh noise production that accompanies it. It is a really nice change of pace compared to the more male-dominated "harsh" vocal styles that seem to always occupy "angry" noise rock/punk rock albums. The production, while still layered in harsh noise, is beautifully layered and composed elegantly. The songs have a good mix of synthetic and authentic instrumentation, with synths and guitars blaring alongside pianos and chimes. The first track combines an almost shoegaze-like wall of noise with melodic vocals layered on top of each other, before becoming more detached and hazy into the second verse and then eventually ending into gang vocals. It is in this hazy yet sternly aggressive style that the band manages to capture and engage with the listener. However, their style isn't limited to an aggressive but melodic hardcore, the band experiments throughout the album with some IDM/EDM-inspired production which is especially apparent on track 5 "黒いたまご" (translated literally as "Black Egg"). The lyrical content is somber and anxiously hateful, with numerous references to suicide. The most realized lyrical track is track 3 "美ちなる方へ" (translated literally as "Towards the Beautiful Unknown"), which describes societal hypocrisy while moving on from the standard. Overall, I highly recommend this album as it is a stunningly beautiful hidden gem.


                                                        2) Kraus - End Tomorrow

Another hidden gem from the Noise Rock scene. I thoroughly believe Kraus deserves more exposure. He takes a bit more of a shoegaze approach to noise rock, which to differentiate between the two, shoegazes consists of more distortion and blare, often forged along melodically. Sometimes dubbed as "dream pop" for it's ethereal and hallucinatory nature. Kraus puts out an impressive debut with frantic drums, noisy guitars all distorted to an thoroughly impressive point that sounds almost like an album made underwater to the sound of sirens and wails. I definitely love the tone of this album, although I do think the vocals require a bit more fine tuning, often being far too high pitched. The standout track by far on this album is "Pitch Fucker", a song that has the perfect mix of low pitch vocals crescendo-ing into high pitch dreamy territory. It's here where Kraus truly shines. I have yet to listen to his second album, but if he can find that perfect balance that "Pitch Fucker" brings, he has a very good chance to be one of noise rock's greatest. By the way, this album is actually released for free on his personal bandcamp. I highly recommend it.