Posts Tagged ‘Vivian Girls’

Vivian Girls|Best Coast|Meth Teeth // Portland // February 11, 2010

Friday, February 12th, 2010

For weeks I’ve been waiting for this show: Meth Teeth are one of my favorite Portland bands, Best Coast is one of my new favorite groups, and Vivian Girls are definitely in my top five all-time faves. Words can not express how excited I was for this show. Anyways, I wasn’t about to let the typical arms crossed Portland concert goer get me down, so I went into the show ready to go crazy — regardless if I was the only one.

The downside of getting all liquored up heading out to a concert is that you don’t really make for a good journalist. I can’t really tell you much about Meth Teeth as I only own one album of theirs, but they put on a pretty damn good show. As for Best Coast, Bethany Cosentino steamrolled through most of the material on her plethora of 7′’s, even playing two new tracks and a cover song in the process (sorry, didn’t have my video camera). Teaming up with longtime guitarist Bobb Bruno and Vivian Girls drummer Katy Goodman, Best Coast’s live incarnation is a sight to behold — not to mention “When I’m With You” and “In My Room” have never sounded better. As for Vivian Girls, they played most of the material from Everything Goes Wrong as well as a few sprinklings of past hits. Also, they played that bad ass Chantel’s cover and Bethany joined them onstage for two tracks.

Although I don’t remember much, I did snag the Vivian Girls setlist and took some photos of the show which you can check out below (or see the full set here):

Meth Teeth

Best Coast

Vivian Girls

Videos for the Veekend // 1|22 – 1|24

Friday, January 22nd, 2010

Here is another weekly wrap-up of some of my favorite music related videos I stumbled across in the past seven days:

If you don’t have a good half hour of time, then I suggest you skip this first video. Temporary Copenhagen: An Experiment on a New Danish Scene is the work of videographer Vincent Moon. I’ll let him go ahead and describe it:

This is a 30min piece we created on the spot. 9 local bands, only 3 i knew, 2 hours to organise something before the audience arrives, and the objective to create a unique sound piece, a collaborative concert which would be moving in an intimate space. Only one take, no cuts, loads of tension, maybe an interesting talk between cinema and music where each one feeds the other one. And a certain idea of a document on a city and its creative life.

Some of the Danish groups participating in the project range from the widely popular Efterklang and Slaraffenland to up-and-comers Choir of Young Believers and Murder. Check it out below:

One of my favorite live videos from this past week was a Vivian Girls a cappella rendition of “He’s Gone”. Although the video isn’t particularly great, the audio is what makes it worth it:

I don’t know where the people at Delicious Scopitone find some of their stuff! Their latest post on Seams’ video for the track “Glytch” is sure to rile up the geek inside you:

The folks at Sup’ Magazine just recently posted a couple of videos from French music princess Charlotte Gainsbourg’s set in Brooklyn a couple of days back. Here’s one of her covering Bob Dylan’s “Just Like a Women”.

Alex Bleeker & The Freaks’s self-titled album on Underwater Peoples had to be one of my top five favorite debuts of 2009. Courtesy of the Pelly Twins‘ flip-cam, here is a video of them performing two new tracks (jump to about 30 seconds in):

Finally, my favorite video of the week belongs to the rooftop collab of El Perro del Mar and Lykke Li on del Mar’s song “Change of Heart”:

Vivian Girls // Live on the Radio

Friday, January 15th, 2010

Unbeknown to me until recently, it seems like Jersey independent radio station WFMU has quite a collection of live recordings that have been printed on wax. You may remember a side of Real Estate’s incredibly limited Live on the Radio vinyl was taken from a visit to the famed 91.1FM studios, well it looks like Brooklyn based Vivian Girls also did a lengthy live set in the autumn of 2008 that was good enough to sell.

Unlike Real Estate’s striped down version in their recordings, Vivian Girls take a no holds barred approach to their set, blazing through nine songs in around 25 minutes. However, to keep to the relaxed atmosphere of the session, the girls do take momentary pauses between songs, filling it with lively and oftentimes hilarious banter (“I successfully didn’t curse! That song has like five curse words and I didn’t say one” — from “I Have No Fun”).

There are not too many surprises in this set as much of the songs are standard fare from their 2008 released S/T as well as some “new” songs from their 2009 Everything Goes Wrong release. However, for anyone who loves The Vivian Girls as much as I do, this is a must have as it is probably the closest thing you can get to match their on-stage personality without seeing them in person. Good luck finding a physical copy anywhere though as only 150 CD-Rs were burned (in addition, I can’t find any information about any vinyl release). Don’t sweat though, you can still download their entire performance from the WFMU site right here.

For those who haven’t seen this, the Girls also sat down with WFMU hyperactive interviewer Nardwuar a while back that’s pretty damn funny:

Covers Bonanza! // SXSW Edition

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

After scouring the winding passageways of Youtube’s search and indie music sites, I’ve come across a handful of cover songs performed at SXSW this year. Ranging from absolutely horrendous to spectacular, here are the six videos to show the full spectrum:

Oh my god, stop the fingernail scratching on the blackboard:
Vivian Girls // So Bored (Wavves Cover)

Not much better, but at least it sounds like some effort was put into it:
Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson // Sitting on the Dock of the Bay (Otis Redding Cover)
Via Lullabyes.net

OK, I’m sort of feeling this:
Amanda Diva // Karma Police (Radiohead Cover)

I’m a sucker for any Radiohead cover:
Amanda Palmer // Creep (Radiohead Cover)

Wow, this is a pretty interesting take on a classic:
Emily Wells // Juicy (Notorious B.I.G. Cover)

Now THIS is a cover song gone right:
Other Lives // The Partisan (Leonard Cohen Cover)