Mr Maps: A music video, and a cameo

A while back I mentioned that Nabs and I were at a filming for the new Mr Maps music video. Well, here it is. And you can even see me after 2 minutes making an idiot of myself. I also saw flashes of me, camera in hand, in the first few minutes. Just flashes though.

Free Music Friday 31!

Last night the ever wonderful Kelly won tickets to see Japanese post-rock band Mono and was wonderful enough to bring me along. As good as Mono were, I was blown away by one of the local opening bands. They consisted of 2 bass guitars and a drummer.

I fucking love bass guitar. So much. Two bass guitars in a band? They have to be amazing. And they are. They are No Anchor.

I've heard a lot of buzz about these guys lately. But I've never had the chance to see them. Until I got lucky last night of course. Their two bass sound borders between crazy detuned sludge hardcore/metal, post-rock (their 5 minute feedback bridge last night an excellent example of this) and even a bit of drum and bass, with some parts giving me a DFA 1979 vibe. But all around, it's the kind of music I just like.

They have a few albums, but their latest one is free over at their Bandcamp. Get on it, and support a great local band.

And if you really dig it, get on over to Waiting Room in West End this week, where they are playing 7 days of shows. All at 8pm, all with different bands, all $5 and all BYO. Every night from October 15 to October 21st. My picks will be October 15 with local hardcore punks Dick Nasty, or October 21 with the USA Shoegaze band Happy New Year.

Harvest Festival, it gets better

I am so stoked for this indie festival already. I bought tickets on early presale. Who would've thought that the brains behind most hardcore and punk tours could do a great indie and arts festival? Check out the original lineup here and then brace yourself, because this second announcement is just as good.

Yep. Mogwai. The band that most people think of when they think of post-rock. Joining them will also be TV on the Radio, Kevin Devine (off the back of his cancelled Soundwave Revolution appearance) and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.

I am so incredibly excited for this day. I've wanted to see so many of these bands for so long.

Mr Maps

So a few weekends ago, me and Nabil headed into Brisbane's latest guerilla gig: Mr Maps at the tennis courts at New Farm Park.

Who are Mr Maps? Think of instrumental post-rock with huge overtones of twinkly emo guitar but much more densely layered. Does that description confuse you? Well head on over to their Triple J Unearthed website to get some tracks for free to check out.

The band was started by the guitarist, after he wrote most of the songs for his university honours project. The end result was way more impressive than my final uni project! The rest of the band came together to help him and the guerilla gig was for them to film a music video for their new song Tennis Party. Whenever it comes out, hopefully you'll see my and Nabil's beautiful beards in the music video. Or at least us trying to catch some tennis balls in a bucket.

Here's some pictures I took of the day.

Animation of Nabs not catching the ball:

Me not catching the ball:

Post-rock: a rant

Genres are something I really suck at. For years I was getting my post-hardcores confused with my hardcores and my shoegaze completely muddled in with noise-rock. But honestly, who gives a fuck what you label your music with? As long as it's good, right?

Despite saying all of that, thanks to me doing album reviews now, I'm actually researching bands (with a big chunk of that thanks to Last.FM) and finally figuring out some of these genres. And one genre I just do not understand is post-rock.

Over the last two hours I've been digesting two albums that have been sitting around waiting for a listen for a long time (since last year actually): Braveyoung and Bullets in Madison. Both are post-rock, albeit one instrumental and one a singer. I couldn't tell when one album switched to the other, until I noticed there was a singer. Now, as far as I with my random musical knowledge can tell, post-rock can best be described as thus:

1. Really fucking long-songs. Find me a post-rock band whose album has an average track length under six minutes. I dare you.
2. Every song starts out mind-numbingly slow and builds up into a crescendo. No exceptions. If it doesn't finish with a lot of splashed cymbals, it's obviously not post-rock
3. It's quiet. For some reason, despite the shit-tonne of instruments being oh so carefully layered and built up, it still sounds quiet overall. Like they're afraid to make noise.
4. All songs are cinematic. In fact, a lot of them sound like they'd make great soundtracks to dramatic movies. Unfortunately, nearly every post-rock album I listen to sounds like it's scoring the same fucking movie. Not even sequels. Just the same movie.
5. Singers are optional. If there is a singer, he (most of the time, there's not much female post-rock) tends to just drone his voice out, lots of held notes that sound like soft wailing.
   

Of course, I'm sure this is just a wide generalisation, but everytime I listen to new post-rock, I just hear the same old sound over and over again. It's so bloody cliche that I just can't get into this genre.

That being said, there are a few exceptions to this generalisation. Surprise surprise, they are actually post-rock bands that I love. And why's that? I guess it's because they are slightly different.

Envy - This Japanese band builds up to crescendoes, then just melts your face off with hardcore (almost metal at times) before bringing it back down with some absolutely beautiful melodies.

Mogwai - Especially with their new album, they experiment a bit more and take it out of the tired cliches.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - The best of the best. It's not just music, it's an experience. With tracks going on for whole movements, and a live show (that I've yet to see) that mixes in cinema and samples, it's the way instrumental post-rock should be.

Baroness tour

Apparently one of the caveats of bringing Metallica over on a tour is that they get a rest day every third day. So while that's all good for the money spinning giants, what about the support bands they bring over? What are they supposed to do when stuck in each town for a week with a few days to kill? Play a show of course. Which Baroness are nice enough to do.


Baroness was one of the two bands that I had never heard of before Soundwave this year, but fell in love with (as well as Isis). I was enthralled by Baroness' post-rock meets sludge-metal sound. It's not metal as most people know, not just riffs and head banging, but more as if some indie-kids decided to make a metal band.

Catch them at the Zoo on the 17th of October. 18+ of course.

Myspace. Or get your hands on their album the Blue Record. It's amazing