Helicopter
Deerhunter made a wavey spacey black and white video for “Helicopter,” which will be on Halcyon Digest (9/28 via 4AD.) The video has Bradford Cox’s face and some mist or something and some visual junk all over.
I can’t decide if I like it, or if I’m not amazed at all. What do you think?
i’ll be honest. i’m not a huge fan of the boss. really, the only album of his i can listen to front-to-back is ‘nebraska,’ and even that one sort of rocking song on there is a little much for me. i’m not saying i skip it, i’m just saying it’s a bit much.
all of that aside, there is one song of old bruce’s that i can hear anytime and still be happy about it. and that’s thundercrack. from it’s barroom chant opening to it’s sing along epic lyrics, from it’s (in this good version, anyway) weirdo guitar solo to the ‘hug the closest person to you and feel good’ lyric that is “dance with me, partner!,” this song just rules. i also love how drunk he is as he performs this back in the day. check out 8:20-8:30, and notice that his sax player has to put out a hand to keep old bruce standing.
the real reason i love this song is because of the feeling it gives me. what feeling is that? well, when i listen to this song it instantly transports me to a time and a place where i’m sitting in the back of my friend’s pickup and we’re in a field in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by evergreens and oak trees. the moon is about half full and there’s a fire going on the ground. there’s about half a case of beer left and we’ve just opened the handle of old crow bourbon. this song comes on as the bottle of whiskey is making its way around the circle of friends and when the last man takes a gulp, we all look up at each other and nod, ‘alright.’ someone puts this one on repeat and we laugh and drink until dawn.
that’s why i love this song.
Ok so I got there late and left early like a rock star but is it really necessary to have a bunch of cops at an auditorium where Brooklyners Real Estate and Woods are playing? And wait, is that really something a rock star would do?
Real Estate and Woods’ on-campus show at the University of Pittsburgh last thursday, March 25, sounded really good but it’s always weird sitting down when you want to be standing up, and there’s the whole all-ages college kid thing, which is totally not rock and makes you feel like you are doing it wrong or something. That one guy is like jumping and knows all the words and wants that one girl to see that he knows all the words… Unfortunately, an auditorium is the worst possible place to listen to a droning 6 minute opening song by Woods, so it was off I went after in thirty minutes I couldn’t tell how many songs I had heard and got antsy.
And I’m still kind of surprised that Woods isn’t opening for Real Estate. Real Estate rocked and on my way out the door this girl was grabbing frontman Martin Courtney and said “I really think you should come with us.” And he just stared and said, “okay” and walked out the door with her.
Bottom line: Go to shows at colleges infrequently.
Photo via sharky_p2p on Flickr
Today Pitchfork’s Marc Hogan put out a big three-page instruction manual on why you might want to check out cassettes. It’s pretty awesome but I’m not sure how to feel about it. My emotions are torn in so many directions at once… Two directions maybe.
