Gang Gang Dance and Grizzly Bear

Add to the bands I've seen:

Gang Gang Dance and Grizzly Bear: Skidmore College, Saratoga, NY

I went to this show knowing nothing about the opening act, Gang Gang Dance and being only slightly familiar with Grizzly Bear. Grizzly Bear for me falls into a category of lo-fi, ambient, interesting but not quite my thing type of slot in my musical panorama. I have listened fairly extensively to their album "Yellow House" but I've never been able to get much into it.

The Gang Gang set was incredible. Their neo-primitive, kind of tribal drum circle feel had me dancing and just feeling like I was meditating. The surreal atmosphere they created was phenomenal. It took some people a little while to get into it but after just a little while most of the crowd was dancing and having an awesome time.

Toward the last half an hour of their show this guy behind me started shoving me into the small girls in front of me causing me to shove them into the rail. He was sticking his elbows into my ribs as he was not even facing the stage, so I asked him to stop shoving me and he responded with "Shut up and just go hit on that girl or something." Thanks for the advice cock sucker. So I proceeded to push back and stick elbows back in response as the problem did not subside. He then began grabbing me and throwing me into other people and I again asked him to just back off and stop and there wouldn't be an issue. He continued pushing even through the break in between bands and after a while a girl who earlier was dancing with multiple guys and looked pretty shit faced came around from behind this guy and introduced herself as meredith and asked my name. I responded and she politely told me she was going to punch me in the face and proceeded to do so. Fuck you meredith. As I did not want to start a brawl at a fucking Grizzly Bear show (music that I believe to be much more relaxed and not fit for shoving or punching) I left and found other seats. Fuck you assholes that don't get what the music is about.

On another note: Grizzly Bear's set was incredible as well. The drummer is phenomenal. He has a very strange but powerful rythm that really gave me a lot more understanding and enjoyment out of Grizzly Bear's music. I will enjoy continuing to listen in the future and would definitely go see either of these bands again. Hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did.

Full Circle

Full Circle

My likeness for you is growing
And it started as a very tall tree.
It's leaves like a jade fu dog
or orange in the fall like the fire in your eyes
or the fire that may
one day release you back into the atmosphere.
Full circle. Those eyes. Orange eyes.
Orange like the brightest fold
In the blanket of space that we call
A universe. Boldly the Gods pull it over
Your eyes. Your eyes. And all they
See now are patterns. Patterns of habit,
Patterns of color, patterns of energy.
Oh and if you could only close your eyes
And burn all the bridges inside
Until you were lost with nowhere to hide
Until the blue blue sky just up and cried
A blue blue rain that felt no pain
And put you out in a puddle
Of black black creosote that the sun
Would dry into a black black stain.
All it would take is a seed, a spark, sight, and a flame
To see that one day the human
Perceiving what seems so inhumane
Will be a white, woven light
and colorblind again.

MOE.DOWN X

moe.down ten:
Add to the bands I've seen: (all at moe.down X: Snow Ridge Ski Resort - Turin, NY)

Friday:

The New Mastersounds
Okemah
Method Man and Redman
moe.

Saturday:

The Family Groove Company
Sam Bush
moe.
Ani DiFranco
The Heavy Pets
CAKE

Sunday:
My Dear Disco
The Ominous Seapods
Mathew Sweet
Lynch
Umphrey's McGee
Nate Wilson Group
moe.

Please note that many of these bands played multiple times. Some of them played 3-6 times.

The highlights of this weekend were:
climbing the ski mountain, moe., Umphrey's Mcgee, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, meeting Sean and Nora, getting locked out of my car at 4:30 in the morning with it running and the light on and my phone in it, walking around for 3 hours asking anybody if they perchance had a wire coat hanger stuck up their ass, breaking the coat hanger that I did find some hours later and resorting to breaking my back window out, not having to break my back window out cuz some dudes helped me break into my car. Many of the other bands were also good but not necessarily highlights. I would say that I only didn't see 6 or 8 sets of the 28 that happened. Lots of music and lots of love. It was a good moe.down. Happy moe.down to all.

I am now home and have been writing a new song as well as learning a couple others. I am excited to start working on a second album for the Steve Yanwie and Joe Spiegelman Project. I will post when it is ready although it may take some time...