We just happened to notice Jolie Holland was playing next door to where we were going to eat dinner Tuesday night.  On a whim we bought tickets to see her for the third time.

She is amazing.  Her new band really fleshes things out and makes her sound BIG.  It was nice that half the show she was by herself with just a guitar, though.

I don't think I've seen anyone who is more high maintenance on stage.  Mark Eitzel comes close, but not quite because at least he loosens up eventually.  Jolie seemed like she was about to start screaming any second or throw down her mike and leave.  About three times she said she was "freaking out" about something including the fact that it was a seated show.  Loosen up, baby! :)

Monday night we saw Boston Spaceships at Johnny Brenda's.  It's the most recent musical group fronted by Robert Pollard, best known for Guided By Voices.  Bob is one of the most prolific, legendary rockers that you've never heard of.  I hope he gets his due someday.

This is the second time we've seen Bob.  The first time we saw him at The Fillmore in SF, which is huge.  Johnny Brenda's is tiny, so I was super excited.  There's no way to explain Bob without seeing him in action.  He does high kicks, microphone tricks, crazy dances.  He's rock 'n' roll all the way.

We were right up front, which was awesome ... mostly.  His shows are epic, and a couple hours into it he and the crowd were so sloppy drunk that the energy level just dropped.  Not being sloppy drunk myself, it sort of put a damper on the whole thing.

That's when Andrew and I started to head out.  We were covered in more beer than we even drank that night, and I'm not even joking.  At the door we ran into the lead singer of the opening band,  The High Strung (if you click through, use the double arrows to go through the songs ... I love Arrow), and had a great chat with him.  Josh is totally a nice guy!  We'd bought their album on eMusic the week before, and I'd been listening to it the whole day before the show.  How can you not love a rockin' band who has songs named things like Rimbaud/Rambo which is a study in compare/contrast?! Answer:  you can't not love them.

Well, this is totally late.  Not that it matters.  My poor blog blog only gets updated when we see a live show or I really really love a new band.  All those movies I see and love get ignored.  So sad.

Last Sunday we saw Mark Kozelek at the Unitarian Church.  We bought the tickets months and months ago thinking it wouldn't be too hot to see a show there.  We were WRONG.  Holy smokes it was HOT.  So hot.  Too hot.  OMG it was HOT.  I could barely breathe.  So hot.  I was drenched in sweat.  This was a seated show in the sanctuary, so I wasn't even pressed up against other people like at a standing show.  I can't stress enough how HOT it was.

And still, Mark put on an amazing show.  AMAZING. The last time we saw him at the church he was a little surly, but this time, even with the heat, he was super friendly.  And his voice ... oh, that voice.  There's nothing like it.  Nothing.

I got misty-eyed during Unlit Hallway during the encore and I never really recovered.

You can listen to it on the Sun Kil Moon MySpace (oh, how I hate linking to MySpace ... that's how much I love this song.).

[title from the lyrics of "Unlit Hallway" by Sun Kil Moon from "April"]

The fact that I've totally fallen in love with White Rabbits makes me even MORE sad we missed The Walkmen because I had the flu.  They are amazing!  We saw them months ago on David Letterman.  What a great show that would have been.  :(

So, if Devastations are *like* being 16 again, I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness *is* being 16 again.  I'm not sure my 16-year-old self would completely appreciate Devastations, but I KNOW she would have loved ILYBICD for sure.

Maybe even as much as I do now.

We were so excited to see American Music Club at Johnny Brenda's last night.  Andrew has seen Mark Eitzel perform four times now, but it was my first.

Throughout the show, Mark was getting annoyed by everything ... the photographer that kept using her flash ... the band ... the mike ... his guitar ... his monitor ... and probably everyone that talked through the whole damn show.  He just looked totally miffed.  All the while, he and the band sounded incredible.  They skipped a song on the set list, and then when he got to the end he introduced the last song by saying, "I'm sorry, but this is our last song."  Before he even played the last note, he unplugged and practically jumped off stage.  The drummer and bassist looked at each other and shrugged as if to say, "Well, that's Mark,"  and left, too.

But Vudi stayed for a moment, still playing his guitar.  Just as he was getting ready to leave the stage, Mark burst back apologizing.  Vudi quietly put his guitar back on.  And then the *real* magic happened.

Mark just started talking with us and playing songs.  He seemed much more relaxed once he was able to make a connection with the audience.  He doesn't seem to feel comfortable as a performer, you know, just performing for strangers.  He wants to hear us talk and be encouraged.  It's really quite touching to see his transformation.

And when he sang those last several songs, his incredible voice was just overpowering.  So emotional.  So perfect.  Those are the moments in life that make it worth living.

We saw Destroyer in New York on Wednesday at the Bowery Ballroom.  We'd never been to the Bowery Ballroom before, and it's awesome!  We got there really early, so we were able to snag a table on the balcony.  Sweet heaven!  We got to sit the whole time and we had a great view.

Destroyer was awesome.  I'm always amazed when I hear the voices from my headphones coming out of a person.  He also seems to talk just like he sings ... what is up with that?

[title from the lyrics of "Trembling Peacock" by Destroyer from "This Night"]

This movie is teetering on the edge of "not recommended," but there were just enough interesting things that kept Film Noir on the "recommended" side of the fence.

The problem?  The animation stank.  I know there are different styles of animation, and I'm not just saying that this wasn't to my taste.  I'm saying it was bad.  Apparently it was rotoscoped, but not well.  The characters' hands always look like they have thick work gloves on.  Not enough attention was paid to the details.

Problem two was the second half of the story falls flat.  I actually got a little bored at the end.  Especially when it all got a little slap-sticky, which was totally out of sync with the rest of the movie.

BUT ... but, the first half of the story is amazing.  I loved some of the scenes.  The voice work is wonderful.  And the soundtrack was right in line with my current obsession with Devastations - dreamy and sad.

Let's start with the fact that the house isn't black ... and that the title is more of a red herring than anything else.  That's the first in a series of annoying bits that keep Black House from being a great horror movie.  There are tons of plot flaws, unexplained actions, and false endings.  There are some seriously creepy moments and some creative mangling/death scenes, but with all the other stuff mucking up the movie, it sort of turns out more funny than anything else.

I'm not really selling this here, am I?  I liked it, but it could have been done WAY better.  The only problem was the crap script ... the acting, sets, atmosphere, etc. were all excellent.

Epitaph is wonderful.  South Korean film making has been *amazing* the last couple of years.  You can definitely see the influence of Kubrick in the slow pull-outs and floating camera work.  The story lines had me reeling sometimes because there is very little dialog, not a whole lot of clarification, and strange (arbitrary?) time shifts ... but overall I eventually figured out what was going on.  In spite of the twisty story, I really loved it.  The movie contained some of the creepiest movie imagery yet ... especially the scene with the mother sitting next to the bed of the little girl.  I seriously was FREAKED during that scene.  Even now it makes my skin crawl!  I love that!