Hot Chip & Junior Boys at the Astoria

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tryptych

waiting for a time
Anyone else make this? I saw Kode 9 in the crowd.

Pretty disappointed with the JBs - way too quiet overall, and badly mixed it seemed - all you could hear was the drums and guitar with the synths way in the background. Which is totally missing the point for tracks like "Teach me how to fight" imo. Hot Chip fans nearby were less than impressed with the JBs efforts...

Hot Chip rocked it, really in their element and getting into the whole thing. Spent rather too much time being elbowed by students on E jumping around. Several of whom were carrying glowsticks (are Hot Chip now considered "nu-rave" too?) - after chatting to them we realised that there's no nostalgia too it - they really do think glowsticks are cool, without irony.

When they dropped into a minute of "Temptation", the kids all fell silent, whilst all my hithertoo quiet northern friends around me started bellowing "Oh, you've got green eyes,
oh, you've got blue eyes, oh, you've got gray eyes.." along :D
 
T

tryptych

waiting for a time
Heh, no, but one of my companions did tell off a couple of rambunctious young fellows for shoving past him without saying "excuse me". They were suitably mortified, and were very polite on subsequent occasions. ;)
 
k-punk

k-punk

Spectres of Mark
I agree about the poor sound with the JBs... and they did too. They were very disappointed with the show; not because they played badly but because of the atrocious sound and the lack of rapport.

My question is: what do sound mixers at live gigs DO? Anyone could hear that the JBs mix was appalling, why couldn't he? The sound for Hot Chip wasn't much better.... It was still a dull thud, you could barely make out any of the words, and any rhythmic subtleties were lost beneath kick drum pounding.... The bad sound built up like silt... I was very bored by the end...

For me, then, a typical show in London... shit sound... apathetic chatoisie in full effect, only interrupting their conversations for something they have heard many times before... Gestapo-like staff...
 
J

juliand

Well-known member
I saw Junior Boys headline to a sold-out crowd in San Francisco a couple weeks ago and it was tear-jerkingly great. So they do have it in them.

Actually, I have a hard time imagining the Junior Boys I saw opening for anyone, or "ramping up the crowd." Their set was the kind of pleasure-plateau that might come off as flatline in a supporting band slot
 
D

D84

Well-known member
k-punk said:
For me, then, a typical show in London... shit sound... apathetic chatoisie in full effect, only interrupting their conversations for something they have heard many times before... Gestapo-like staff...
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I hope I don't get slammed for saying this (at least not too hard :eek: ) but from my very limited experience of the place this does sound like a typical London sound system.

How hard would it be to lean on the volume fader and drown out the inevitable people chatting? This is why we go to see live perfomances is it not? ie. To hear our farvourite music at volumes that we couldn't get away with at home.

Is people's chatting a problem at Merzbow gigs?

On the other hand, stand up comedians don't need volume: they do other things to keep people's attention and keep them engaged. But that's probably not a good analogy as people go to comedy and music nights with different expectations.
 
M

mms

sometimes
D84 said:
I hope I don't get slammed for saying this (at least not too hard :eek: ) but from my very limited experience of the place this does sound like a typical London sound system.

How hard would it be to lean on the volume fader and drown out the inevitable people chatting? This is why we go to see live perfomances is it not? ie. To hear our farvourite music at volumes that we couldn't get away with at home.

Is people's chatting a problem at Merzbow gigs?

On the other hand, stand up comedians don't need volume: they do other things to keep people's attention and keep them engaged. But that's probably not a good analogy as people go to comedy and music nights with different expectations.
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weird place that, last time i was there i had a long argument with the cloakroom staff, (i was polite, and ended up reading out their own rules to them ) as they wanted to charge me £4 for putting a bag of cds i was given on the night inside my bag that was already in the cloakroom, this ended up having to be ok'ed from management after i had to get bouncers etc involved to ask them. The sneery cloak rooms staff's only arguement against allowing me to do this being ' he was being an arsehole' when infact i was really polite, to counter their nastiness.

I don't think alot of sound engineers can mix that kind of stuff well, it needs different dynamics to rock music which is relativley simple to mix , it's almost inevitable that you can hear the yapping of those that are there to be there, as the midrange doesn't drown the fkrs out.

BUT london crowds are unbelievable, spoilt for choice and don't they know it, simply for alot of people i'm sure it's just about being seen there, the only place i've seen worse than this is Paris. This simply doesn't happen in regional places as well, where people actually get excited about live music and utterly enjoy it/feel that it's a priviledge to have a band or act play, the problem might also be, as i've found before that most of these name dropping twarts are usually on the guest list.
 
G

gek-opel

entered apprentice
I'm unsure as to which is worse- kids carrying glowsticks with irony or without. To be honest Hot Chip have feck all aesthetically to do with rave, more 2step or dance rock or beachboys like in all honesty. Not really E choons.
 
k-punk

k-punk

Spectres of Mark
tryptych said:
Nice to see you back. Is this brief visit or are you going to be making more regular appearances here..?
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Thanks...

We'll see...

Gek, I don't see the rave thing with Hot Chip either. To their credit, they don't really sound like anything else. I had no idea they were so popular either; the crowd was very large, and lapped up everything they did. The joy of repetition certainly was in the audience. Strangely, and unfairly, this ended up detracting from Hot Chip's appeal for me; their doleful, melancholy qualities couldn't have been more at odds with the mad-for-it euphoria of the crowd. There did seem to be something fake and forced about the euphoria, but I suppose euphoria does look that way if you don't share it.

The whole thing left a slightly unpleasant taste in my mouth; I'm not entirely sure why. I've had no desire to listen to Hot Chip since.
 
3

3underscore

Well-known member
Well, they are the most accessible of the then-unheard of Mercury Prize nominees. Whether they will keep these people is another matter (I wouldn't be too surprised if they didn't - very transient natured folk).
 
M

mms

sometimes
boy from school is lovely lovely lovely.
they have a nice habit of letting good producers remix their stuff too, the best of the minimal types etc, infact i think some of them do min techy stuff as side projects, whiich given that they are sided up with nme's new rave project is funny.

One question did people sing along to hot chip?
The people seem to sing along to every song more than ever, seeing some of these artic monkey type bands is like being in a methodist church or something.
 
swears

swears

preppy-kei
I find Hot Chip very annoying, at heart they seem a bit too weedy and indie, although perhaps in a 90s hipster sense (The Beta Band and awful dance rock crossover stuff like Regular Fries) rather than a meat and potatoes geetar Strokes/Stripes sort of deal. I have this problem with !!! too.
Junior Boys have managed to sidestep this pitfall by virtue of a certain sort of feyness, their music is slinky and often sweet in a very un-rock way. I think (hope) that JBs are the ones that'll be remembered fondly in ten years time.
 
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gek-opel

entered apprentice
I like Hot Chip (tho their first album contains some really utterly dismal dreck) and yes "Boy from School" is an extraordinarily beautifully melancholy cross between choir boy harmonies and daft punk squelching/jacking house... but I too am somewhat uneasy at the crossover into uncomplicated beer/E stoodent enjoyment. A bit like The Beta Band before them I think they are actually quite a subtle proposition, strangely limp dance rock when others (lets just say, hmm Kasabian) are all macho thrust (the "strong force" no?), and blissed out music-box 2 step. More like a sullen Beach Boys in a post-dance environment than beery nu-rave, surely?
 
Guybrush

Guybrush

Dittohead
Can I jump in on the Hot Chip bashing? Thanks.

Their popularity baffles me: the singer's voice is dull as dishwater (eerily similar to boremeister Erlend Øye's) and their productions are flat and sterile. I agree with mms on their flair for picking excellent remixers for their songs though.
 
swears

swears

preppy-kei
Guybrush said:
the singer's voice is dull as dishwater (eerily similar to boremeister Erlend Øye's) and their productions are flat and sterile. I agree with mms on their flair for picking excellent remixers for their songs though.
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Heh funny, I am rather fond of Erland Oye, I think his electronic stuff is up there with the Juniors. They both share a quality that you might call "disco feyness".:D Saw him live a couple of years back, told me and my mate off for smoking ciggies at the front and complained about his backing group doing weed on tour. Very dry sense of humour, I like the chap.
 
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L

Lichen

Well-known member
Gabba Flamenco Crossover;63692 middlebrow clapham clubber types.[/QUOTE said:
Work in a design studio by any chance GFC?


That's a corking catch-all for the Groove Armada classes.
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Gabba Flamenco Crossover

High Sierra Skullfuck
Lichen said:
Work in a design studio by any chance GFC?


That's a corking catch-all for the Groove Armada classes.
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No, I tend the bar in a south London hostelry with gastropub pretensions (largely unrealized, thank god). We do play a lot of groove armada and similar stuff though. Luckily for the punters I'm far too professional to indulge in auto-wyatting*

I'm not keen on Hot Chip I have to say, largely for the reasons Swears mentions - and apart from the singles I don't think their material is strong enough. The Warning is a real hits+filler album.

Is the live experience more energetic then?

*ironically one of our regulars used to be a roadie for Soft Machine and went all over europe with them.
 
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