Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Venus Hum & Stars!

Oh I LOVE it when some of my favorite bands come passing through NYC! I am so excited I am about to pop!

VENUS HUM is coming to NYC! They are playing at PIANOS in the Lower East Side (my favorite area of NYC these days!) I can't believe they are playing there. It's so intimate!

If you are not familiar with Venus Hum and you enjoy playful, thoughtful, danceable, beautiful vocals and poetic lyrics, you should definitely check them out. Plus, they are just FUN!


VENUS HUM


ANNETTE of VENUS HUM


VENUS HUM

Register with Melody Hits
Do an ARTIST Search for Venus Hum
Choose Venus Hum COLLECTION
Start watching videos! It’s worth the registration!

Start with MONTANA! SO fun!

MELODY HITS



And I am so excited to see STARS! If you use the link, make sure you have your speakers on! Music starts immediately. If you use the navigation (a dropdown menu comes when you rest your pointer on the Navigation image), choose ALBUM from the image menu and you can play all songs from their current and past albums! YAY!

This band is immediately nostalgic and warm when you listen to them. Super-catchy "indie" band from Canada with deceptively poignant and brooding lyrics; singable songs that almost turn into personal anthems. I intend to go to both shows at Bowery Ballroom and Southpaw! Woo Hoo!

I love this review of STARS:

“Stars are soft-revolutionaries and music is their rallying cry. Amy Millan, Chris Seligman, Torquil Campbell and Evan Cranley are four young people who, through their music, are trying to save us from our mundane and complacent fears. When at a loss for words, one music writer said the only way to describe Stars was "beautiful hope". Their music has been described as "breath-takingly effervescent" and they have been called the kind of band that "blue lights and fog machines are made for". Somewhere dancing between these designations is Stars; otherworldly blissfulness and a sophisticated, epicurean cool. To them, art is the way to change the world because it is sincere and heartfelt. With them, it has no pretenses and is filled with passion and longing.”


WATCH THEM LIVE on KCRW
(real player required)
Choose between HEART and SET YOURSELF ON FIRE
note: HEART is a particulary excellent performance






And don't get me started that DEAD CAN DANCE are coming to Radio City Music Hall! More on that, later.

4 comments:

Mike said...

I saw Stars on their last tour with Broken Social Scene, who I don't like. Stars is one of my favorites, but seeing them live ruined it a little for me. They are not what I expected at all. Everyone looked as if they just went to some horrible resale shop to pick what they would wear that night. That nerdy/unkept look didn't fit the lovesick music that is Stars. They also had some technical difficulties which I forgive anyone for when playing live. I couldn't get enough of the CD before the concert and after I couldn't listen to it for a month or two. I have some video clips of the concert on my website under the Gallery section.

They also have strong ties to Metric and thank them on their CD. I think a Metric/Stars concert would be much better.

CocteauBoy said...

Shit, I totally forgot to credit MYKEY for alerting me to Venus Hum's comin' t'town! Thanks, Mike!

As for STARS poor performance that night: I have heard from a few other friends who saw them and they described something completely different, saying that it was almost a transcendent experience, full of total warmth, coziness, and loveliness, along with wonderful music, of course.

The local review for their recent performance at Mercury Lounge is excellent!

Ending his review for Apostle of Hustle, he says,...

Finally, things got euphoric when the trianglist/keyboardist/finger-symbolist/girl-I-fell-in-love-with turned tap dancing into a percussion instrument. She twirled around the stage complimented perfectly by guitar and trombone, and I remember thinking, “Things don’t get much better than this.”

…Then Stars came on.

Previously, the best show I’d ever seen had been a Dismemberment Plan show in San Francisco. But did the D-Plan ever lock themselves in a cabin in Timbuktu, Canada with a shitload of drugs to make a new album? No, but Stars did. Did the D-Plan come on stage with a crazed look, like we were the first people they’d seen for months? No, but Stars did. Did the D-Plan sound like Music Incarnate? No, but Stars did. These guys (and one gal)—these lunatics who call themselves “Stars”—were a true pleasure to watch. They looked like members of Kraftwerk. The guitarist reminded me of a drunken robot. The bassist (also a member of Apostle of Hustle) frequently consulted his flask. The drummer was the craziest-looking dude I’ve ever seen with the world’s worst Mohawk. And when Torquil Campell, the lead singer, belts his vocals, he screws up his face, creating an expression that seems to ask, “Why can’t you understand?” Probably because we didn’t spend the last few months locked in a cabin with a suitcase of mind-altering substances.

Campell and guitarist/vocalist Amy Milan dominated this eccentric ensemble. They played off each other like multiple personalities of the same psyche. They seemed to oscillate between loving and hating each other, in a way that only months locked in an isolated cabin can induce. I could see rage and sadness and love and beauty in their eyes, yet their voices intertwined into a sound that bespoke quite simply of amazing music.

I was stunned. Leave it to a bunch of Canadians to stop making Indie rock seem like music for losers and dorks.


End Quote

SEE? It ain't all bad...

Mike said...

They played two nights in San Francisco, so they must have "fix" the issues. I would give them another shot in a heartbeat.

Anonymous said...

The girl from Stars is also the lead singer of a electro dreampop band, Montag....check 'em out.