music music music

the past week or so here has been filled with all kinds of awesome music. all kinds.

first, my friend david was playing with the hope 2 thursdays ago. i didn't really hear much of their set, to be honest, as a bunch of my friends who i hadn't seen in a while were also out that night, so we sat outside the bar, drinking and telling stories and whatnot. after the show, i wandered over to the first night of the decibel festival to see proem play some excellent techy glitchy music.

the next night, friday, was the nine inch nails concert with queens of the stone age. i'd regretted not getting a general-admission ticket during the queens of the stone age set -- they were rocking out like there was no tomorrow, but just about everybody in the stands was willing to take it sitting down. and sitting down is no way to rock out to queens of the stone age. but once nine inch nails came on, everybody was up on their feet and properly headbanging or whatever the kids are doing these days. although the kids down in the pit right in front of me were busy doing their little goth dances, which are kind of like hippie dances (no particular rhythm, limbs flailing about wherever the music takes them) only they're dead fucking serious. trent reznor and whoever he's got in his band these days did bring the rock, but i'd have to say that they didn't bring as much rock as the queens brought. i've seen a few nin shows, and this one was hardly at the top of the list. i think that only one piece of musical equipment was damaged by the end of the show. c'mon, guys, what happened to dumping an entire bottle of water on the keyboard while it's being played, and then smashing it through an amp? seriously. although the highlight of the show was when they lowered a scrim across the front of the stage and projected a rather powerful videomontage of suburban living, upper-class people dancing, homeless people on the street, and mangled bodies from what i can only assume was the iraq war, while playing "right where it belongs," my favorite song from their new album. i had planned on seeing more decibel festival music after the show, but i wasn't feeling too well, so i just went home.

saturday last was a beautiful day, and would have been a great one for bocce ball, had i actually gotten around to playing it. as it was, i picked up my friend gwyn from her apartment in the university district, battling ungodly traffic from the uw vs notre dame football game, and drove to ballard to meet my friend andy, who has a nice bocce set that he's been going on and on about. gwyn and i spent a great deal of time wandering around ballard, waiting for andy to show up, and when we finally found him, he was a bit drunk and wanted to wait for some more people to show up before playing. alas, book club was scheduled for that evening, so i had to miss out on bocce ball. after book club, i spent the evening enjoying some awesome music at the decibel festival into the wee hours. kristina childs played an excellent dj set of electro to start off the night, and between sets at one venue. she's local, so i will have to keep an eye out for her again. but the highlight of the evening was her space holiday, who played a brilliant live set of music that's kind of a mellower, more electronic version of the postal service.

then sunday night's decibel artists leaned more toward the weird, glitchy, idm style, with cepia and my friend gel-sol (the aforementioned bocce player) as the highlights of that genre. tipper also played a brilliant sort of nu-skool breakbeat in the middle of the evening's activities.

which brings me to sigur ros. but i've got to run - i'm off to meet gwyn and savannah for dinner and watching of the west wing - so that story will have to wait for another day.