Beck
Madison Square Garden
July 19

A lot can happen in a month.  One could say, ‘I don’t really need to see Beck again for awhile‘ and then weeks later be like, um, I’m a fool, so can we re-define ‘awhile’ to mean ‘NOW’ and get on with it???  THAT’S WHAT HAPPENED!!!! 

For some reason I was over Beck.  Last saw him in 2013.  Then time slipped.  His last album was snoozy (and somehow won THE Grammy).  I didn’t want snoozy, I wanted a Midnite Vulture redux! 

Then right around July 4th, Live Nation, probably looking to shrug off sluggish ticket sales for Beck’s first ever MSG headlining show, offered ‘all in’ tickets for $25.  How could I resist?  You can barely get into anything at MSG for less than $50!  I was in!  Oh wait what, Beck released a new album last fall and I didn’t know about it or chose to ignore it?  Well, I better get on this sh!t STAT, and to my surprise – IT WAS THE ANSWER TO ALL MY PRAYERS – MIDNITE VULTURES REDUX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Beck’s Colors album is FANTASTIC, and super fun, and I want it to be my BFFive-ever!!  

And the show at MSG that he was having trouble filling?  Enough fans filled the seats, and if there was any emptiness in the Garden, Beck overfilled it with the rock and pop circumstance I’ve always known and loved.  And I still love it.  He still gots it.  And I still gots it for him!!  (why do I keep forgetting these things?)

But seriously Beck, why do you got such hate-tations on Mutations?  You haven’t played ‘Cold Brains’ live since 2006, and ‘Nobody’s Fault But My Own’ since 2005????!!!  Enuff with the Snooze Changes and Snoozing Phases – and never forget your BEST quiet work!!!  I’m not asking for Mutations 2, but juss for you to give some live love to the album that showed us your TRUE colors, but if we’re hear to ask for things, I’ll certainly take Midnite Vultures 3 – with all the pan flute you can flute at us!!!

–

Setlist – Devils Haircut / The New Pollution / Mixed Bizness / Up All Night / Wow / Qué Onda Güero / Think I’m in Love > I Feel Love (Donna Summer cover) / l’m So Free / Dear Life (with Britt Daniel) / I Turn My Camera On (Spoon cover with Britt Daniel) / Girl Dreams (with Jenny Lewis) / Lost Cause / Blue Moon / Dreams / Girl /
Colors / Loser / E-Pro

Encore - Where It’s At > Can I Kick It > Good Times > See No Evil > I’m Waiting for the Man > Taking It to the Streets > Once In A Lifetime > In the Air (medley) / One Foot in the Grave / Where It’s At

https://www.instagram.com/p/BlcEx2kH0h_/?taken-by=thighmaster

Beck
Prospect Park Bandshell
August 5th

Beck, five years of no shows between shows you’ve shown me is unacceptable.  You need to play for me every year, or every two years, and I’d even settle for every three years.  I love you Beck.  We all do, all us 30 somethingers who you won over when you gave the world ‘Loser’, and pretty much every song you’ve gaven us since then, even the loud annoying ones that sound like mucous ruckus.  When the dust settles in the decades to come, and McCartney and the Stones and Robert Plant and all those other rock gawds are gone, it will be juss you and Jack White to pass as our neo-rock gawds.  But don’t worry, you don’t need to pass as a rock gawd cause you is one.  We bow

Your back catalog is purty darn hefty, and we re-did our homework on you cause it had been awhile since we listened to ALL yer albums, and you know what, we’re f#$%ing stupid for not listening to them albums always cause they are forever.  You are forever.  You are strange and weird. Who releases an album as sheet music and has other people play it?  It’s genius, but I can’t read music and don’t want to hear other people play your music (well, mostly), but I wouldn’t care if you release music in a balloon that you could only hear once when deflated. Wait, have you tried that yet??

Your show at Brooklyn’s Prospect Park Bandshell couldn’t have been more perfecter – the weather especially, but you have no control over the weather.  The rest that you had control over was even more perfecter (see that setlist), although you should have played for 4 hours, or at least added a second night, or played Midnite Vultures from top the bottom, considering you didn’t play a single song from it, and it’s one of the 90s’ best albums, but all yer albums are the best albums, although we still think Sea Change kinda blows cause it was no Mutations, oh wait you also played ZERO MUTATIONS songs at this concert and yer concert was STILL amazing

setlist - Devil’s Haircut / Black Tambourine / Soul of a Man / One Foot in the Grave / Modern Guilt / Think I’m in Love / Gamma Ray / Loser / Hotwax / Que Ondo Guero / Girl / Soldier Jane / Chemtrails / The Golden Age / Lost Cause / Everybody’s Got to Learn Sometime (The Korgis cover) / Just Noise / Heaven’s Ladder / Fourteen Rivers Fourteen Floods / Sissyneck -> Billie Jean (Michael Jackson cover) 

encore - E-Pro / here it’s at (Extended Remix)

 

the informations:

Hear Change

Beck To The Future

Coachella Hellz Yealla So Much To Tella Lets Spread On The Nutella Part II

do we need to even tell you anymore how out of the music loop we are?  we don’t even know where the loop is!!!  we’ve paid more attention to Kanye’s tweets than we did to his new album.  do we care?  not one bit, but we did listen to some new music and some old music and so instead of coming up with a top list, here are some pointless awardses!!!

No Bums In These Albums!!!

Bestest Match of Sight & Sound

TRON: Legacy Soundtrack – Daft Punk

Albarn of The Year

Plastic Beach – Gorillaz

Cover Me Goodd!!!!!

Turn Ons – Hotrats

No Sophomore Slump Here!

Congratulations – MGMT

Travis Who?

Wreckorder – Fran Healy

Give Us Us Free!!

All Day – Girl Talk

Give Us Us Part 2 Now Please!!

It’s Not What I Am Thinking Part 1: Photographing Snowflakes – Badly Drawn Boy

So What If We’re A Year Behind, Cause xx Will Always Markz The Spot!!

XX – The xx

So What If We’re 9 or 34 Years Behind, Cause This Schools House Roxxxxxxxx

Innocence & Despair - Langley Schools Music Project

2nd Bestestestest TV Soundtrack Mt EVERest Behind Twin Peaks

Legend – Clannad

Wes Anderson Enlightens Ears, Yet Again (DUH!)

Burl Ives Sings… For Fun - Burl Ives

Mind These Jedi Tricks!!!

And the Band Played On – Max Rebo Band

Box Set, For Life

Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys – The Beach Boys

Tunses For Toonces

1) ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ (Intro) – Brian Wilson
2) ‘Good Vibrations’ – Langley Schools Music Project
3) ‘Heaven Can Wait’ – Charlotte Gainsborg & Beck
4) ‘Too Many Miracles’ – Badly Drawn Boy*
5) ‘White Flag’ – Gorillaz featuring Bashy & Kano
6) ‘Derezzed’ – Daft Punk
7) ‘(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right’ – Hotrats
8) ‘I Found A Whistle’ – MGMT
9) ‘Crystalised’ (Live The xx cover) – Gorillaz
10) ‘On Melancholy Hill’ (Live) – KT Tunstall
11) ‘Buttercups’ – Fran Healy
12) ‘Ramona’ – Beck
13) ‘Aint No Sunshine’ – Neil Diamond
14) ‘Goober Peas’ – Burl Ives
15) ‘Pettin In The Park’ – Dick Powell & Ruby Keeler

* our pick for song of the yearrrrrr!

ALL THIS CAN BE YOURS!!!!!!!! [d-lode]

Concerts That Were
Peppier Than
Peppermint Patty

Gorillaz @ MSG

Roger Waters: The Wall Live @ Madison Square Garden

Badly Drawn Boy @ LPR

Fran Healy @ City Winery

Rock The Bells @ Govs Isle

MGMT @ Ed Sully Theater

Air @ Terminal 5

Charlotte Gainsbourg @ The Bell House

the past is the passed

’09
’08
’07
’06
’05
’04
’03

Life During Wartime
Heart & Solondz
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

Did you survive Todd Solondz‘ 1998 cringe-fest Happiness?  For a whole decade, we didn’t.  In fact, it had left us so bothersome and icky that we despised it, left it for dead, and got really angry anytime someone brought it up … until our more cynical selves took a recent second look at it.  And the new verdict?  A complete 180 degree turn.  Yes, Happiness is still a boat-load of flinch and wince inducing uncomfortably numbness, but it may juss be the mos beautiful and heartfelt unkind film of our modern cinema age.  How did we get it so wrong?  Had our tastes and refinement not yet reach its fruition during the end of the 20th century?  Did we need to move to NY and became post-9/11 jaded for us to view awfulness in a new light?  These questions are too heavy for a website like this.  Anywho…

With Life During Wartime, Solondz goes back to the same bleak well, one that we never thought in 1000229 zillion billion years was worth revisiting… until we experienced his latest monster creation.   And oh baby, it’s alive!!!!!!!!!!!  Although somehow not as gut-wrenching and damaging to the psyche!!!  It’s probably a good idea that you see Happiness first (but if have and loathe it beyond all belief, maybe you should stop there), as the characters all carry over into Wartime, despite an entirely new set of actors playing em.  Yep, Solondzzzies does it again, playing with our minds and his creations, although not as crazily as he did with Palindromes, where 10 actors of various ages, creeds and sexes all played the same role.  We hated that flick too, but maybe we need to give in a second chance as well.  Sarah Palindrome will never get a second chance with us, ever.  May have sumting to do with her ruining our real last names!!!!  Plus she blows, COCK!!

(qwik note about the paragraph below: we’ll mention the new actor playing each role, as well as the actor who played it originally)

So what is life like during wartime for the Jordan and Maplewood clans?  Joy (Shirley Henderson, a more moaning myrtle version of Jane Adams) is still a wreck and wrecking everyone’s life who she comes into contact with.  Even the ghost of Andy (a literally and figuratively haunting Paul Reubens, standing in admirably for Jon Lovitz‘ sad sack) won’t let her forget about his suicide.  She’s having problems with the problematic Allen (Michael K. Williams, a tad less creepy than Philip Seymour Hoffman), so she heads to California to visit with her blah-blahed actress sis Helen (Ally Sheedy, gettin shallow juss like Lara Flynn Boyle) and to Florida to visit with her ‘cheerier’ sister Trish (Allison Janney, in perhaps her juicest role to date, although we do miss the homely cutie-pie-ness of Cynthia Stevenson), who’s trying to start life anew after hubby Bill (our mos flavorite actor goings Ciarán Hinds, who strips away all the humor Dylan Baker dished out) got sent away for being a pedophile.  Well, his time’s been served and he’s out in the world looking for a bit o forgive and forget-ness (+ a one night stand, with a deliriously delicious Charlotte Rampling), as is the case with all parties involved (eggcept no one else is trying to bag Charlotte Rampling’s character).  Trish has found a nice Jewish man (Michael Lerner, who’s about as Jewish as it gets + the papa of the thighlariously red-scared son played by Rich Pecci) that she hopes will instill some manlihood into her soon to be a man (in the Bar Mitzvah sense) son Timmy (Dylan Riley Snyder, the new Justin Elvin).  Timmy’s the heart & Solodnz of the picture (with the Billy character alls growns up and off to college, Chris Marquette, subbing for Rufus Read).  His pain is real, and his endless questions are realerer.  You juss wanna hug the kid, but that’s probably not the best idea for a confused child of a pederast father.  Will they ever find happiness?  Is it even possible?  Regardless, here’s hoping we get to see what happens to these folks in peacetime!

The Song Doesn’t Remain The Same: there’s the Talking Heads’ ‘Life During Wartime’ and then there’s the song of the same name for this movie, but with different lyrics (actually written by Solondz) and perofrmed by Devendra Banhart & Beck.  either way, we’re happy-ness!

Verdictgo: Jeepers MOS DEF Worth A Peepers, but ONLY if you’ve survived Happiness 1st

Life gets one today in NY today, and elsewhere elsewhen

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Beck
MGMT
United Palace Theatre
October 10th

[mo pics from CLme]

OK, so we missed all but one MGMT song cause we were too busy throwing TVs outta hotel rooms, and that sucked (the missing MGMT part, not the TV tossin), but we promises to see them another thyme cause they is totes rad y cool. anywho, in a short but very very berry sweet performance Beck was an A-Pro. he mixed bidness with pleasure, homework with heather, the freaks flocked together, and all the lesbians screamed. he was youthful, not youthless and the trails he blazed were chem-licious. the new tunes from Modern Guilt sounded beyond amazin AND thunderdome that it’s totally modern built to last, forevers. some might even say, his bestest work since the back2back infinite playlistednessness of Mutations and Midnite Vultures. he’s a midnite marauder, and we hopesszz he keeps bouncing. too bad the audience was tres lames and didn’t rock out as much as Beck or wees did. what’s wrong with you nia peoples?

bi the gay, if yer ever seeing a show at the Palace, be sure to eat and poop yer brains out across the street at the original El Malecón (there’s a second one located near ThighLand HQ). they have one of the moist yumtastic cubano sangwiches wees has mt EVERest had and mt FUJI!!!!

further nicotine & gravy:

Beck To The Future

Coachella Hellz Yealla So Much To Tella Lets Spread On The Nutella Part II