Of Montreal @ La Cigal

Okay, I'm so sick of people telling me how great they are live. So I finally saw them live. Totally true... I had this "Oh my god, can I touch you" feeling when he came walking my side of the stage, like a good old Japanese school girl. haven't had that for a while...

The keyboard/violin/guitar K Ishibashi was also fantastic. He's not usually in the band I don't think.

Rock en Seine

I must say, I'm not a big fan of massive festival these days. But boy, it was jolly. Beirut was an epic... who'd thought horns can sound so sexy... ridiculous amount of people, yes. but, they'were quite pleasant.

And, Roxy Music. It got a little too sexy and slow for a while but then they came back for an encore with the hits. With the come back tour of and 80's band, you gotta do that do please the audience. I certainly loved it.

Arcade Fire's set got cut short because of the rain... such a shame. Having said that, too many people. couldn't see a thing.

Harlem

Great little band from Texas. The latest album is awesome. Good lyrics...
They did a support for Girls and also a free gig at La Plage Glazart.



http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/14093-hippies/
http://www.myspace.com/harlemduh

The Strange Boys strikes back...

The strange boys came back for the colours festival at Nouveau Casino.
They now added a girl from Echo Park L.A Jenna Thornhill DeWitt. She plays sax with them now. It worked I think. Then others thought that she wasn't needed in ALL the songs... they sounded great.

The support band Yussuf Jerusalem had this ridiculously over done lighting that I thought I was seeing Bon Jovi or something. I was not able to concentrate on their music... but then, it didn't grab me at all.

Air/Jarvis, Villette Sonique

Oh what a wonderful weekend I had with friends and good music.
I bought a ticket to Air/Jarvis show a long time ago that I nearly forgot about it. Lucky I didn't cos it was just great. Jarvis is as amazing as 2 years ago in Sydney.
Mainly Jarvis solo stuff with Air but then they even did a touch of Pulp and Air.


Then on Saturday and Sunday at Villette Sonique, Paris outdoor music fest had free shows. It was a good deal considering the bands were good. Saturday was ridiculously hot... I only saw Ganglians. There were good but the sound wasn't that good i thought... There album is awesome.
Champ de Mars is getting more popular in my life as the weather became good. I got to see the eiffel tower going flickering on the every hour and the crowds going "ooooooo!"
Sunday was thee Oh Sees... I heart Thee Oh Sees. They were fabulous. I have never seen French Crowd goes so nuts and stage dive and crowd surf... seriously. Amount of times where I was at gigs being a bit self conscious because I felt like I shouldn't be dancing etc... but today, I saw them go absolutely crazy and I felt good. Mind you the most wasted ones were Ganglians though as one of their friends were on the verge of passing out at my feet...

Just checking...

time for some music

Long absence of live music in my life of late. Due to my laziness mostly and the weather... went and checked out 2 bands in a week though last week.

Belgian band Hoquets. My friends Jerome and Sylvia took us there. They make their own instruments... lyrics are hilarious. singing about Belgium and France but the tunes are actually good so it's not tacky. Really amusing and fun to watch. Cute band.
Then we went to Le Bus Palladium to see Montreal band the Besnard Lakes.
Le Bus Palladium has been renovated and came back with new doco and sound. Good sounds there and clean!! man that's a plus... dirty toilets are not cool unless you're already wasted...

Le Bus Palladium
9 rue Fountain
75009 Paris
M: Pigalle

La Machine

The weekend of 13 March, I went to check out this club event with Mani from Stone Roses and Chris form Belle and Sebastian djing at this club La Machine in the red light district Pigalle. The venue is amazingly furnished with red/orange colour. good size stage. It's about the size of the Hi-Fi but the sealing is really high up that it seems a lot bigger. No one really started dancing until 1.30am even though there were good selection of northern soul happening. I was quite agitated by the crowd not dancing actually. By the end of it, everyone was dancing but man, I was tired by then.
Black Lips and King Khan are doing a gig there soon. It'll be quite good as a venue.



La Machine du Moulin Rouge
92 Boulvard de Clichy
75018 Paris

Jeremy Jay at Le motel

I like l'motel because it reminds me of Melbourne. Sitting around at hells kitchen or something. Jeremy Jay was spinning tunes for the night and I quite like him so I went along.The front room with the dj booth was full so it wasn't like I was there to see him but I could hear the tunes that he played. He did well. I would have liked some sort of friendly dancing area but there' no room for dancing there.
As I sit and talk to my friend Katie, there was that Marc Jacobs tote bag!! I'm unconsciously staring at it... It's adorable! Turned out the owner of the bag Anna is from Dublin and but lived in East Brunswick for a year. Her friend Catherine told me that I was only a few steps away from Marc Jacobs shop. But yet I failed to find it... Suddenly we became a group of 5 girls. I also met an American girl who was drinking an enticing looking drink at the bar. I had to get one. It was delicious. Don't know what's in it but tasted amazing! Had a good chat. Weather was awful with rain but the night I had was f-abulous.

I just booked my tickets to see The Strange Boys in April, the day before my birthday. I can't wait. I couldn't go to King Khan gig due to my silly infections. I ain't gonna get sick this time...
I also booked tix for Air supported by Mr. Jarvis Cocker in June. It's part of Cite de la Musique. Hopefully be good gig like 2007 V-festival in Sydney when they both played.

Drawings for this week.

This is what I look like when I'm on facebook.

Vundabar!

My friend Alex was the first person to see my exciting new place. He was here for 4 days. We got up to some adventures. On Friday night after work, we went to his friend's work near Bastille. It's a restaurant called "La Fee Vert" = absinthe. I have only seen the drinks in the movies. It was really green. Then I hear that drinks aren't gonna make you that crazy these days unless you have a heap...I avoided that even though I was tempted and we just had civilized nice dinner. Alex had the steak... and I had a lovely lasagna with lots of cheese...


It was beautiful. Just what I felt like... then I ate way too much...

La Fee Vert
108 rue de la Ruquette, 75011 Paris
M:Voltaire

Then, after that we went to this bar called Le Motel. It's a cute little bar with many tour posters including, the smiths, Belle and Sebastian, Stone Roses etc. and they played the indie classes along with pop favourites. The bar girl was a Nick Cave fan. I wanted to stay for longer but then 3 pints on Friday after work sent me to sleepy mode so I had to go home before I fell asleep on the metro.

Le Motel
8 passage Jossette 75011
M:Ledru-Rollin



Today, I met up with my friend Mel who I met last year in Paris. Turned out that her new place is 2 stops away from me. We had a hot chocolate accompanied with chocolate fondue!! A-mazing. Then we went to see Alex's friends play in this little gallery like venue. To be honest I couldn't figure out what the place was used for during the week. It was cute though. The bands were really good but I totally couldn't find the myspace page. I'll ask them again next time.


OFT Liblairie / galerie
20 rue Dupetit-Thouars, 75003
M: Temple