Dani az ex-munkahelyemen nagy Liverpool drukker révén megosztott Facebookon egy rajongói videót, és mellesleg felhívta a figyelmem a kiváló aláfestő zenére. Meghallgattam, és tényleg, és még aznap este allokáltam magamnak a három elérhető Maybeshewill albumot. Egytől egyig veszett jók a számaik.

Angol post-rock/post-metal banda, ilyenformán a dalaik nagy része instrumentális. Emellett gyakran operálnak filmbeli monológokkal és egyéb popkulturális utalásokkal. Jó példa rögtön a legújabb albumuk, a Sing the Word Hope in Four-Part Harmony (2009) címadó dala, amelyikben az 1976-os Network című filmből hangzik fel Howard Beale sokkoló beszéde, amiért az őt játszó Peter Finchet Oscar-díjjal jutalmazták.

A hivatalos YouTube csatornájukról elérhető pont egy tokyoi koncert, ahol ezt játsszák:

Ha én akkor ezt tudom…

Most is válság van, könyökünkön jön ki. Ezzel kapcsolatos a másik kedvenc szövegem, aminek talán ez a (nagyszerű) Guardian cikk az alapja. Last Time This Year a szám:

We are young, confident, affluent, and with no memory of tougher times. We’ve grown up in an era of never ending financial growth and expected things to stay that way. We’ve grown up in owner-occupied homes with total acceptance of technology, global warming and terrorism. Our whole society has been based on consumerism for the past fifteen years, making us dream consumers, yet we don’t know the difference between a credit card and a debit card, and we have no idea how much a pint of milk costs.

On average we have eight hundred illegally downloaded songs, and one in eight of us spends more than one hundred pounds a month on our mobile phone bill.

We’ve never read a newspaper, and we’ve never used our chance to vote.

We allow our governments to make decisions without giving us all the facts.

They send troops abroad who will die in order that we can steal resources from the people who have them. People who meant us little or no harm until we invaded their country. We allow those troops to commit horrendous atrocities and yet our leaders hang our alleged enemies for much less.

We’ve spent years entrusting our futures to our parents, our governments, the banks and the corporations who have continually lobbied for their own interests. And we’ve let them make selfish decisions that have left our society teetering on the edge of ruin.

We’re blinded from the information that would really shock us by stories of sex and sleaze which doesn’t make the smallest difference to our lives. And so we have no desire to do anything about the things that really do. We’ve watched as greed wipes billions of the world’s stock markets destroys jobs and lives and proves that capitalism is just as corruptible by human nature as communism.

These are tough times but we seek solace in our friends and co-conspirators

We make small differences in each other’s lives, and dream that we can make real progress…

Érdemes még megjegyezni, hogy a banda nem hisz a nagy kiadókban. Amit lehet saját kezűleg csinálnak, tudatosan képzik magukat, hogy a stúdiómunkától kezdve a koncertszervezésig mindent meg tudjanak oldani.

Az összes eddigi anyagukat saját maguk vették fel egy filler ráfordítása nélkül. Nyilatkozataik szerint be akarják bizonyítani, hogy hatalmas kiadások nélkül is lehet jó zenét csinálni. A StWHiFPH albumhoz tartozó kis könyvecske tartalmaz is egy útmutatót a filozófiájukról, valamint hogy hogyan dolgoznak.

A csapat neve nem jelent különösebben semmit, csak tetszett nekik, ahogy ez a három szó egymás után téve hangzik. Myspacen viszont sajnos foglalt volt már a nick, így Maybeshewont lett az account neve. Nyomás hallgatni!

Ja, még Last.fm-en is hallgatható tőlük pro bono a C.N.T.R.C.K.T. és a This Time Last Year (ami nem ugyanaz, mint a Last Time This Year ám) a Co-Conspirators pedig egyenesen le is tölthető mp3-ban.

Lisa Hannigan, nuff said.

In advance, I’d just like to show this. This is how high the bar was set:

I stumbled upon The Gathering while I was in Japan only a few years ago and couldn’t stop listening to them. But then Anneke left the band and first there was a lot of silence and uncertainty then the announcement of Silje joining and some new songs posted to MySpace. Which, actually, failed to convince me.

My thoughts were mixed. Somehow the singing voice wasn’t distinct or powerful enough. The heavily guitar-driven sound a little mushy. I couldn’t pick a favourite song from The West Pole either. I was sticking to the old albums for a while.

Not that all this could stop me from going to their show yesterday.

The warm-up band, Autumn, was okay, but I haven’t done my research and didn’t know any of the songs. But then The Gathering took the stage and I was reduced to a fanboyish existence. I knew the rest of the band from all the live DVDs, but Silje was a surprise: she almost looked fragile, contrary to what I expected. She was much more likable at barely an arm’s length than on the band pictures. (Some people chose seats but I went right up to the stage, first line. Basically I was at Marjolein’s feet.)

About half of the songs played were not from The West Pole, rather from previous albums. I knew that they rehearsed old material with Silje but I wasn’t expecting this many. No complaints of course, it was beyond belief rocking out to Saturnine.

I’m also not really sure what transformed me… maybe listening to TWP tracks live or Silje’s non-studio voice… anyway for one I grew to like new material and I wholeheartedly accepted the lead singer swap. I’m Team Silje now.

Just listen to this:

I disagree with @kelt that The Gathering only used to be cool five years ago. They are still going strong after twenty years and they are still very cool, thank you very much.

Surprisingly few attended though: the place was only a little more than half full. I wasn’t looking back too often, nevertheless I think we, the audience, managed to make up with enthusiasm what we lost with numbers. Time will tell, I hope the lower interest won’t prevent or delay a return. I can’t speak in anyone else’s name but I was left craving for more in the end, even though we got two encore songs (Leaves) not just Travel which was on the setlist.

Probably I was the only person wearing a turtleneck in the history of rock gigs.

The first few seconds I was like ‘they surely can’t make a game out of THAT’. And then it turns out it’s not a roadie simulator after all, but something epic. I don’t know how good it ends up to be but from this trailer I can conclude that this is the single best new gaming idea for a very long time now. The protagonist is a bull’s-eye hit as well. Brutal Legend makes me want to own a cönsöle. (No, seriously, this held back intro doesn’t really do justice to the ‘hell yeah’ screams I let out during the first view.)

Coming this Rocktober!

Egy sörözés után felmentünk Davidhez, és éppen táncverseny volt a TVben. Néztem egy darabig, Dimitar és David pedig szénné röhögték magukat, pedig:

Max & Yulia videókra érdemes még keresni. (via tesóm)

At 2′ 29″ the vocal changes into the sound of a saxophone.