Tag Results: the stranger
Line Out: Brian Cook Chronicles Russian Circles Euro Tour Diary Pt. 3 w/ Deafheaven
Continuing on from last week…
Hamburg, Germany
You know what’s depressing? Cutting through a red light district in broad daylight with the prostitutes already hanging out in their windows while Adele’s “Someone Like You” plays over outdoor speakers.
Just down the street from the red light district is Hafenklang, one of my favorite venues in Germany. The people who work here are always a pleasure to work with, the size of the room is perfect, and the club is easy walking distance from the Reeperbahn. Tonight’s show is a drone festival. Two stages, six bands. And the ticket price is still less than half of the fest we played in Estonia. But ya know, as much as I enjoy listening to drone stuff when I’m at home, it’s not really the kind of music I want to spend an evening watching at a club. I watch a few of the acts before I start feeling narcoleptic. I’m not even bothering with beer tonight; I’ve switched to some sort of carbonated yerba mate drink in an effort to stay awake.
Tonight is Derek from Deafheaven’s birthday. There are plans to go out on the town after the show, but by the time we’re packed up and loaded out, it’s 3am. The other guys go for it, but Che and I opt to sit in our hotel room and eat Burger King before going to bed.
Line Out: Brian Cook Chronicles Russian Circles Euro Tour Diary Pt. 1 w/ Deafheaven
When the band I play in, Russian Circles, announced our European tour with Deafheaven for Spring 2012, Grant Brissey asked me to write a tour diary chronicling our trip. I was a little hesitant at first. For one thing, I’ve typically tried to keep my band business separate from my music writing. Additionally, my bandmates aren’t the kind of people that want all their day-to-day business made public. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that most tour documentaries and diaries focus on either the luxuries of wildly successful artists or the trials and tribulations of struggling acts. There aren’t a lot of stories of financially sustainable working bands out there. Presumably, that’s because our stories aren’t particularly interesting. We’ve figured out how to tour in a manner where things are relatively stress-free and efficient. We aren’t partiers. There’s no cocaine or groupies in the green room. We sleep in hotels and travel in vans. I can’t promise this will be particularly insightful or even remotely honest. But this is how we roll.
Seattle to Chicago to London to Prague
My flight itinerary is SeaTac to Chicago to London to Prague. I leave Seattle at noon on April 2nd. We’re scheduled to get into Prague early afternoon the next day. The rest of the band lives in Chicago, and I meet up with them at my layover at O’Hare. The last time I flew out of O’Hare, three separate strangers asked if I was a DJ. Not wanting to get caught up in those conversations again, I choose a seat at the gate next to a guy that looks like Wayne Coyne, figuring he’s less likely to ask me dumb questions.
Seattle’s The Stranger Hearts Adebisi Shank - Review
Overwhelming Is Their Default Mode:
This Is the Second Album of a Band Called Adebisi Shank
(Sargent House) Release: March 15, 2011
Thousands of CDs and download links deluge The Stranger’s music staff every year. The majority of these releases deserve obscurity, if not worse. But once in a great while, a totally unknown band will enter our consciousness and blast away—temporarily, at least—the jadedness that an onslaught of mediocrity can induce. Such is the case with the bafflingly named Adebisi Shank and their unfortunately titled second full-length. Straight out of Wexford, Ireland, Adebisi Shank explode out of the gate with “International Dreambeat,” a triumphant charge of math rock that sounds like Battles jamming with Dan Deacon after downing mugs of mead. Much more excitement ensues over the following nine tracks, as the three savagely virtuosic dudes in Adebisi Shank grind out hyperkinetic corkscrews of noise rock you can spaz out to. Much of the album sounds like an unholy union of Holy Fuck and Hella, with a resulting tension between metronomic grooving and complex geekiness sending sparks everywhere. Overwhelming is their default mode, and This Is the Second Album of a Band Called Adebisi Shank is pretty much ecstatic panic, nonstop. 
by DAVE SEGAL
