Throwing Muses - San Francisco Bathhouse Wellington, New Zealand Jan 12 2009

Above pic: Hoopla!

The good thing about some music blogs is that unlike magazines sometimes you get up to the minute reviews. This is not one of those times. This show happened over a month ago and I've only just got around to typing about it here.

The support band were called Hoopla!. They are a three piece indie girl band and play girlie indie pop and use a keyboard. I enjoyed their set even if it wasn't exactly breathtaking.


Throwing Muses played their only New Zealand show in Wellington. Good reviewers would probably put a setlist here but despite owning four of their albums I have no idea what most of the songs played were called. I can however tell you that they played Limbo and didn't play Freeloader(which Kristin Hersh played at her solo show last year). Compared to her solo show, Kristin Hersh seemed much more comfortable in a band situation. I saw a couple of gentlemen over 40 sticking fingers in their ears when the feedback on one song towards the end of their set was overpowering.



Here's a youtube clip of a Throwing Muses song. Unfortunately the sound's not the best as getting good recorded sound at the SFBH is still a challenge.

Hits

Sooner or later some bloggers reveal the weird searches that get them hits. My personal favourites that have brought people to ths site are "My Descendents vinyl copy of I Don't Want to Grow Up", it's bad.", "What is the difference between a big drill and a small drill?", "all men are cunts", "small jocks" (do these people look for big jocks first then downsize?) and "Bon Jovi lyrics female background singer".

Of course, there are always those that find this site by searching for porn. Ois 2 Men calling their first cd-r "All yous cunts can fuck off" has no doubt disappointed more than a few searchers as have Red Hot Pussy Liquor just through their band name alone. Jesus Fucking Christ brought a searcher from Thailand who was interested in finding a blasphemous sex show. How do Buddhists blaspheme? Jesus Fucking Christ recently made a video for "Life's Hateful Seed". Due to the wonder of youtube, you can watch it. Don't expect to see the video on mainstream TV any time soon.

Pierced Arrows, Adelaide Hotel, Wellington January 11 2008

Here's a couple of youtube clips from Pierced Arrows, Wellington show at the Adelaide Hotel in Newtown on Friday, January 11 2008. The camera is quite shaky in places but I'm fairy happy with the sound quality.

GFNR, Red Hot Pussy Liquor, Nonetheless, Horror Story at Valve 14 December 2007

This was a punk show I was really looking forward to. I'd been told last time I saw Sticky Filth play at the Royal in Palmerston North(sometime back in the early to mid-nineties)I was told Goat Fucking Nun Rapers were a New Plymouth band of kids who were well worth checking out. At least ten years have past and these guys still play the material they played when they were kids which they consider immature now and perhaps a little baffled by the fact that people liked it. Wellington two piece instrumental band, Thumper were meant to be the first band but they were a no-show. GFNR suggested it was because they'd heard GFNR were playing. I had heard GFNR's opening song Samantha Fox before but had no idea who it was by. Below is a clip of GFNR with their song One For The Gutter, One For The Road.



While I was watching GFNR from the bar the guy standing next to me asked what I thought of them. I said that I really liked them. He stated that they'd tamed down their stage act from sticking drum sticks up their asses and then said if I liked the band that was playing I'd love the next band Red Hot Pussy Liquor and said he was the singer. It turned out he was absolutely correct as I really enjoyed their set and bought their CD.
Below is a clip of their song Live For One Day


After the two New Plymouth bands were Wellington band Nonetheless who seemed more polished and melodic in style. I went and ate a kebab around the corner for most of their set and a fellow customer pointed out the Red Hot Pussy Liquor CD artwork in a complimentary way. Nonetheless were still playing when I got back and I remember enjoying hearing their song Hawaii again.



Above pic: Nonetheless

Next up were Horror Story who were the band most people had come to see although due to another show happening right next door quite a few people had left by the time they came on. They played a solid and enjoyable set. I really like hearing Rock and Roll Frankenstein live at the moment. No photos or youtube clips as the undead don't show up well on film and best seen in the flesh.

Kristen Hersh - Wellington October 15.2007

As I said in a previous post I was looking forward to seeing Kristen Hersh even though I'm unfamiliar with her solo material and have only heard two Throwing Muses albums (Limbo and University) The duo before she played were a folky guitar/cello vocals combo called Black Bells who kept saying they were missing a member because she was getting her nails done. They weren't really my thing but I could imagine a lot of people's parents enjoying them.



Above Black Bells pic by me.

I recorded some of the show. Here is Kristen Hersh performing the Throwing Muses song Freeloader.



A review of this show by Simon Sweetman appeared in the Dominion today and didn't even mention the support act. I'm going to copy the whole thing due to my lack of familiarity of Kristen Hersh's solo material.

Kristen Hersh has been making music since she was a pre-teen. She formed the Throwing Muses with her stepsister Tanya Donnelly. The Muses fit into - and influenced - the lineage of female alt-rockers in the mid-1990s: the likes of The Breeders, Belly, Liz Phair and Donelly's solo career all either come from or owe a debt of influence.

Since 1994, Hersh has released solo albums, reunited the Muses for a 2003 album and has released one album and one six-track EP as the leader of the heavier trio than the Muses, 50 Foot Wave. That band project had the bad luck to release its material around the time of the Boxing Day tsunami, so it was back to solo material for Hersh who released Learn to Sing Like A Star

Hersh's stark solo arrangements - simple chiming guitar patterns allowing her voice to lure the listener in with its haunted lullaby whisper, only to move into a grazed scream allow the singer/songwriter to present her work in an emotionally honest, uncluttered and adorned way.

The magic is in the confessional lyrics the supple melodies and that voice. She kicks off with Your Dirty Answer from 2001's Sunny Border Blue, pulling out a range of material that included Freeloader from the 1996 Muses album Limbo, Gazebo Tree from 1998's Strange Angels and Sno Cat from 2003's The Grotto.

To look at Hersh on stage, a tiny woman pedal-pushing her acoustic guitar into distorted overdrive, rocking out on post-modern folk songs, you can see the music actually bubbling up from within. She doesn't just sing. If that were the case it would be impossible to marry the sound of her voice to the image of her on stage.

At times the guttural grunting and bruised rasping seemed to boil up and out of the throat like the 12-year old in The Exorcist.

Here Hersh pushes her own demons in to place exorcising them through naked songs. Her solo debut album Hips and Makers was represented by Your Ghost and Me and My Charms while her 1998 selection of Appalachian folk covers Murder, Misery and Then Goodnight got the nod with I will Never Will Mary and there was also material from Sky Motel and this year's Learn to Sing Like A Star.

But all in attendance will keep fingers crossed that Hersh stays singing like herself. As this gig showed, for this type of sound and material, there's no one better.

A death in The Family

So I caught the aussie band a death in the family two nights in a row. Once in Palmy and once in Wellington. They were great both nights as were Black Chrome and Not Quite Right. It was a pity only twenty people watched A Death In The Family in Palmerston North's Bar Mode.

Here's a youtube clip of A Death of The Family playing at Valve on August 17th 2007