takk

as mentioned in a previous post, amanda gave me the gift of live music for Christmas this year. i didn't get to unwrap it until last night, & there is no adequate symbolic language that could capture or even attempt a description of this show... but i'll do my best.

the lovely icelandic ladies of amina opened for & accompanied sigur rós. it is difficult to see in either of these photos, but the girl in the foreground is playing a large saw with a bow. this band began as a string quartet, but aside from the traditional strings, their repertoire of instrumentation has evolved to include, but was not limited to: a jack-in-the-box, multiple 'ring-for-service' bells, the saw played with bow & mallet, mandolin, xylophone & many other things that i either couldn't see or have never seen before. the sigur rós portion of the show looked like this as it began, with a sheer curtain in front of the stage that many lights & shadows danced upon. very dramatic, very suspenseful. indeed, i shat myself.you can see the shadow of georg here in the center of the scrim. he played bass. sometimes he played it with a drumstick.
this is kjartan. he played mainly piano/ keyboards, but occasionally wailed on a cracked out piccolo/ flute. believe it or not, i did NOT edit this photo. i didn't edit any of them except bringing up the light on amina & the last photo, & some cropping. yes, i am proud.
the venue was the uptown theater, a old converted [you guessed it!] theater with a sloped floor, some seating in back, a balcony, & great accoustics, providing the perfect container for the evening's tapestry of sound. this was one of the first shows in a while where i didn't have earplugs to dull the crashing of percussion, etc., but i didn't need them. wilco & others will be sharing that very stage in the near future.

this is orri. he is easily the hardest working progressive/ambient rock-pop, icelandic drummer i have ever seen. most drummers just keep a beat & play an occasionaly solo, but not orri. when not playing the xylophone or other imaginary instruments they have invented, he was wailing on his drums & cymbals, in keeping with the eruptive, layer-upon-layer build of each song. yet, as jenn pointed out, it was never too much, always just what the music needed.
meet jónsi. he is most of what you see in that blue/white blurr in the foreground. he is the vocalist, singing in icelandic & filling in the gaps with his own made up language. if there is one characteristic sound of sigur rós, it is jónsi's electric guitar played with a cello bow. that & his angelic shrieking, that's pretty distinctive too.[it has been described by the uninitiated as 'icelandic opium den music'. clearly no appreciation for fine things] here he can be seen doing what he does best as amina accompany in the background.



i took this photo during the song entitled sæglópur [roughly translated 'lost @ sea'] right at the moment where, about 30 or so seconds in, there is this explosion of sound [if you've heard the song, you'll know exactly what i'm talking about]. i just read that there will be an extended sæglópur ep & video released in the spring, with 4 new songs. they described it as coruscating, which the dictionary defines as: 'friggin awesome'.this was my moment of heartbreak, the final bow. they did 2 encores, & played for about 3 hours [though it seemed like only a few beautiful moments-much like a shooting star ;)].

admittedly, many of my photos are blurry. now, we can argue all night about who is to blame for that, but the point is, my distance from the stage & difficulty holding still while the shutter was open notwithstanding, this photographic phenomenon should be seen as a metaphor for the music. from start to finish, their music was a beautiful blurr, constantly moving, shifting, building, erupting, & never still until the last ferocious smash of orri's sticks on the drums, sending them flying as the grateful audience screamed for more, knowing it was over....

probably the best Christmas present ever.

takk is the name of the current album & is translated 'thanks'.

if i havent driven you away yet, you must be either already a fan, or incredibly patient. in either case, give a listen to the stream of sigur rós' live concert from reykjavík last nov. i have just finished listening to it in its 1.5 hour entirety while composing this mammoth blog post. it's the next best thing to being there, although no amount of listening to this band recorded could rival the live experience.

apologetics

here's the thing, i have been an outspoken critic of most of the other hosts for 'online communities' [i.e. xanga, facebook, myspace, etc.] for quite some time. there are several good reasons for this, other than the inconvenience of chasing others across various domains, having to become a member just to leave a one-line comment or e-prop. the biggest problem i have is that most of these hosts are set up only to provide a front-page 'personality', & the interaction that takes place is only in the form of disjointed comments that are unrelated to those preceding and following. i also am concerned with the fact that many people 'interact' far more in these superficial domains than they do in their everyday lives, but that's another rant for another day. even so, in order to try and follow a thread of conversation, one must attempt to piece these tidbits together by traversing many different host-sites that are largely inaccessible unless one has an account with that particular host. so what does that leave us with? several online personalities all saying the same thing about us, in one form or another, just to satisfy our urge for superficial electronic 'connection'. i started with this blog through Blogger, then gave in to Xanga only so far as to set up a facade to lead my Xanga friends back here. then my brother & others got on Facebook [don't bother following this link unless you have a FB account] so i had to do that one too. which brings me to the pros/cons of competing sites. Facebook & Myspace DO have certain features like being able to search for long lost 'friends' that you would otherwise have blissfully lived without or connect to hot singles in your bracket, etc; & Xanga & Myspace DO grant you the powers to easily stream music on your front page. although it is frustrating that when you click on a different section of the site the music cuts off or restarts, or it interferes with what you were already listening to, etc. anyway, the POINT is, i begrudgingly gave in to Myspace because i had to to find a particular person, & now i have yet another place to sign in & check for messages...

in closing, i just wish that more people would use the BLOG sections of their Myspace & Facebook accounts. if you are going to spend ridiculous amounts of time online, crafting your e-you, at least give others some insight into who the hell you are, what you think about, etc., other than your vital statistics. you'll make the internets a better place.

my omnipresence, once again, dominates the internets.

after nigh to a week with a failed hard-drive, a computer savior resurrected this portal through which i pass into cyberspace.

after such a powerful intro, i find myself at a loss for anything worthy to follow. mainly i wanted to put this eyeball on here, though.

thanks for the memories

[24-hour party-people: jöe, andy, & the virgin mohair sweater]
the party was great, thanks to everyone who brought me their presence. thanks also to those who brought wine & other libations, i had nowhere near enough for as many people as there were.