November 30th, 2004 3:20pm
I Want The World And I Want It Now - Can That Be...
I Want The World And I Want It Now - Can That Be Arranged For Me Somehow?
Kiiiii! "Brown Girl In The Ring" - This is a peculiar and mesmerizing adaptation of an old Jamaican folk song best known outside of folk circles for being covered by Boney M. Strangely, I did not notice that there were no other sounds aside from vocals and percussion in this song until at least the sixth time that I heard it. I know very little about Kiiiiii!, other than that they are two women from Japan who, according to their website, love Michael Jackson, Queen, Rage Against The Machine, Neu!, Rocko's Modern Life, cosmetic products, spaghetti, and the Olsen twins. (Click here to visit the official Kiiiiii! website.)
Maxi Geil & Playcolt @ Joe's Pub 11/29/2004
Here Comes Maxi.../ A Message To My Audience / Teenage Extreme / Strange Sensation / That's How The Story... / Sunday Morning / Paying For Something New / The Love I Lose / Artist's Lament / Please Remember Me // Saturday Night
Maxi Geil & Playcolt "Please Remember Me" - Maxi Geil and Playcolt should not be playing in small rooms to audiences made up mainly of friends and acquintances. It's a great privilege to see them in that context, but it's not at all appropriate. In a better world, they would be headlining one of those huge European festivals that seem to draw out one third of the population of whatever country is hosting the show. They should be in arenas. Or at least the Hammerstein Ballroom.
Guy Richards Smit is a natural performer, with a stage presence that falls somewhere on the rock star spectrum between David Byrne and Jarvis Cocker, with a bit of post-Monster Michael Stipe spazzy dancing thrown in for good measure. I never made the connection to David Byrne and the Talking Heads before seeing the band live, but they are an obvious antecedent in the sense that both Smit and Byrne are very successful in presenting art world ideas in the context of pop music rather than just being another inaccessable "arty" band.
This is a world-class pop band, and I find it endlessly frustrating that they end up consigned to the art world ghetto while far less engaging indie rock artists (have a guess) get all the attention and praise. I'm very bitter about this. Fuck you, emo world. You don't know what you are missing. (Click here to buy it from the official Maxi Geil website. Click here for my interview with Guy Richards Smit aka Maxi Geil.)
Kiiiii! "Brown Girl In The Ring" - This is a peculiar and mesmerizing adaptation of an old Jamaican folk song best known outside of folk circles for being covered by Boney M. Strangely, I did not notice that there were no other sounds aside from vocals and percussion in this song until at least the sixth time that I heard it. I know very little about Kiiiiii!, other than that they are two women from Japan who, according to their website, love Michael Jackson, Queen, Rage Against The Machine, Neu!, Rocko's Modern Life, cosmetic products, spaghetti, and the Olsen twins. (Click here to visit the official Kiiiiii! website.)
Maxi Geil & Playcolt @ Joe's Pub 11/29/2004
Here Comes Maxi.../ A Message To My Audience / Teenage Extreme / Strange Sensation / That's How The Story... / Sunday Morning / Paying For Something New / The Love I Lose / Artist's Lament / Please Remember Me // Saturday Night
Maxi Geil & Playcolt "Please Remember Me" - Maxi Geil and Playcolt should not be playing in small rooms to audiences made up mainly of friends and acquintances. It's a great privilege to see them in that context, but it's not at all appropriate. In a better world, they would be headlining one of those huge European festivals that seem to draw out one third of the population of whatever country is hosting the show. They should be in arenas. Or at least the Hammerstein Ballroom.
Guy Richards Smit is a natural performer, with a stage presence that falls somewhere on the rock star spectrum between David Byrne and Jarvis Cocker, with a bit of post-Monster Michael Stipe spazzy dancing thrown in for good measure. I never made the connection to David Byrne and the Talking Heads before seeing the band live, but they are an obvious antecedent in the sense that both Smit and Byrne are very successful in presenting art world ideas in the context of pop music rather than just being another inaccessable "arty" band.
This is a world-class pop band, and I find it endlessly frustrating that they end up consigned to the art world ghetto while far less engaging indie rock artists (have a guess) get all the attention and praise. I'm very bitter about this. Fuck you, emo world. You don't know what you are missing. (Click here to buy it from the official Maxi Geil website. Click here for my interview with Guy Richards Smit aka Maxi Geil.)
11/30/04 4:32 pm
Rocko, with a K. http://www.nickelodeon.com.au/toonroom/rocko/meetmain2.htm
=]
11/30/04 4:32 pm
Rocko, with a K. http://www.nickelodeon.com.au/toonroom/rocko/meetmain2.htm
=]
11/30/04 4:51 pm
The Kiiiiiii! song seems like something that would be sung in rounds while sitting at a campfire. Of course everyone at the campfire would be impeccably dressed, have green and red hair, wear very small pink backpacks. They’d still have marshmellow on their fingertips though.
11/30/04 4:51 pm
The Kiiiiiii! song seems like something that would be sung in rounds while sitting at a campfire. Of course everyone at the campfire would be impeccably dressed, have green and red hair, wear very small pink backpacks. They’d still have marshmellow on their fingertips though.
11/30/04 11:04 pm
If it pleases you I got the Maxi Geil ep well over a year ago from an NYC friend. Songs from that one have figured on almost all f my ‘pass around to friends’-mixtapes since and they have been played at all London Diesel stores. Which has to be some exposure (the latter ;). I would have never heard of them though without those other NYC ‘indie’ bands. The Strokes, the DFA.. I agree Maxi Geil deserves more attnetion than Radio 4 or Interpol right now though.
If they are friends of yours, do you think they’d like to play in Sweden sometime?
11/30/04 11:04 pm
If it pleases you I got the Maxi Geil ep well over a year ago from an NYC friend. Songs from that one have figured on almost all f my ‘pass around to friends’-mixtapes since and they have been played at all London Diesel stores. Which has to be some exposure (the latter ;). I would have never heard of them though without those other NYC ‘indie’ bands. The Strokes, the DFA.. I agree Maxi Geil deserves more attnetion than Radio 4 or Interpol right now though.
If they are friends of yours, do you think they’d like to play in Sweden sometime?
12/1/04 2:12 am
I don’t know why I haven’t always been listening to Maxi Geil… I just don’t know how it passed me by.
12/1/04 2:12 am
I don’t know why I haven’t always been listening to Maxi Geil… I just don’t know how it passed me by.
12/1/04 4:36 am
Isn’t the Boney M version of “Brown Girl…” the tune that got stuck in the head of the near-death and hallucinating mountain climber in “Touching the Void”? The song–in any version–will always be super-creepy to me now because of that.
12/1/04 4:36 am
Isn’t the Boney M version of “Brown Girl…” the tune that got stuck in the head of the near-death and hallucinating mountain climber in “Touching the Void”? The song–in any version–will always be super-creepy to me now because of that.
12/1/04 3:22 pm
Kiiiiii.
Psycho-weird good… the thing I can’t get over is that they’re singing in pitch/key over a drum beat, which most singers couldn’t do… probably sang it over a guide track and remixed it down to drums??
12/1/04 3:22 pm
Kiiiiii.
Psycho-weird good… the thing I can’t get over is that they’re singing in pitch/key over a drum beat, which most singers couldn’t do… probably sang it over a guide track and remixed it down to drums??
12/1/04 3:49 pm
[[ which most singers couldn't do ]]
Maybe no singers you know, Tom: but there’s a whole world of folks out there who don’t need much more than a pitch-pipe to start them off.
12/1/04 3:49 pm
[[ which most singers couldn't do ]]
Maybe no singers you know, Tom: but there’s a whole world of folks out there who don’t need much more than a pitch-pipe to start them off.
12/1/04 4:01 pm
aw this Maxi Geil is so cool! i wish I’d heard it before and went to the show…bummer…
12/1/04 4:01 pm
aw this Maxi Geil is so cool! i wish I’d heard it before and went to the show…bummer…
12/1/04 4:12 pm
Maxi Geil is playing a show at MoMA on December 11th, Rachel. They are going to show his movie (which I’ve seen about half of, it’s really funny) and then they are going to be the first rock band to ever play a gig at MoMA!
12/1/04 4:12 pm
Maxi Geil is playing a show at MoMA on December 11th, Rachel. They are going to show his movie (which I’ve seen about half of, it’s really funny) and then they are going to be the first rock band to ever play a gig at MoMA!
12/1/04 5:53 pm
Two excellent posts. Kiiii! and Maxi Geil. Yes. Happy.
12/1/04 5:53 pm
Two excellent posts. Kiiii! and Maxi Geil. Yes. Happy.
12/1/04 8:03 pm
[[Maybe no singers you know, Tom: but there's a whole world of folks out there who don't need much more than a pitch-pipe to start them off.]]
True, but in this age of auto tune they are increasingly few and far between…
12/1/04 8:03 pm
[[Maybe no singers you know, Tom: but there's a whole world of folks out there who don't need much more than a pitch-pipe to start them off.]]
True, but in this age of auto tune they are increasingly few and far between…
12/1/04 9:51 pm
o rad! thx for the heads up on the MoMa show!
that’ll be a great way to see the new Moma too.
12/1/04 9:51 pm
o rad! thx for the heads up on the MoMa show!
that’ll be a great way to see the new Moma too.
12/4/04 1:50 am
Maybe Maxi Geil is having trouble gaining an audience because it seems too deliberately campy? I mean, the Darkness have pulled it off but I doubt even they will have lasting success - and be remembered as a novelty act at best. This song sounds almost like a show tune or something. I personally like it, but I doubt any of my earnest indie-rocker friends would.
12/4/04 1:50 am
Maybe Maxi Geil is having trouble gaining an audience because it seems too deliberately campy? I mean, the Darkness have pulled it off but I doubt even they will have lasting success - and be remembered as a novelty act at best. This song sounds almost like a show tune or something. I personally like it, but I doubt any of my earnest indie-rocker friends would.
12/4/04 6:32 pm
That’s true, but there’s obvs a sizeable audience for camp. A lot of Maxi’s problem is that they’ve barely made themselves known outside of the art world. He’s working on that.
12/4/04 6:32 pm
That’s true, but there’s obvs a sizeable audience for camp. A lot of Maxi’s problem is that they’ve barely made themselves known outside of the art world. He’s working on that.
12/8/04 3:47 am
Sometimes the consigning to a ghetto is the band in question’s choice.
12/8/04 3:47 am
Sometimes the consigning to a ghetto is the band in question’s choice.
12/13/04 7:20 am
So that makes two Maxi Geil songs I’ve heard, and they both rock.
David Byrne, yes, but I’m also thinking early Bryan Ferry on a little more speed and no shame.
12/13/04 7:20 am
So that makes two Maxi Geil songs I’ve heard, and they both rock.
David Byrne, yes, but I’m also thinking early Bryan Ferry on a little more speed and no shame.