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October 04, 2004
Everybody do the psychrock! Ghost/White Magic/6 Organs of Admittance @ the Independent, 10/2/04
I almost didn't go to this because I was feeling rather sorry for myself, but I'm glad I went. 6 Organs guy still looked very cute. He's got those alt-rock style signifiers down. Messy hair, inability to look at his audience, modest sounding. Before amplification, everybody had to project. Now we get very quiet vocals all the time. Finally figured out why he sounds folky yet psychedelic. The top string on his guitar is either very loose or an actual bass string. Give him that rather distinctive droning sound. Most of the time, he seems to use it to keep time. It looked and sounded pretty entertaining though. Liked the Spanish sounding tunes a lot. Must be from that Octavio Paz record.
Then White Magic came on. Two big burly looking dudes and one tiny blonde woman on her keyboard. The guitarist sounded great and came up with a lot of interesting melodic ideas. The drummer did something I'd never seen before. He pulled his tshirt collar up over and dropped his shoulders. This dropped the collar back over his head and wiped the sweat off his face. Brilliant if messy idea. LOL. On the other hand, the chick was really getting to me on the keyboard. She kept doing scales on all these songs and I was getting so tired of it. Finally, she began playing guitar which helped. She didn't rock out, but at least her modest guitar skills stopped those stupid scales.
Finally Ghost came on. They started off with a nice jazzy tune where they all gradually came in. Then they started on the whole prog-rock thing. This wasn't much fun, though the lead singer's crushed velvet magenta (fuschia? Hard to tell with stage lighting.) outfit looked made for this kind of performance. I know they're Japanese. They look Japanese. They sing with Japanese accents. But it sure didn't sound Japanese at all. Far more Celtic actually. Those damned penny whistles and flutes were driving me crazy, but they knew how to make those guitars sound big, so everything was ok. I kept thinking that people would hate this if they weren't from Japan. Can't imagine who would want to listen to Yes. Would I make out with the band? Sure! The bassist didn't have the greatest teeth, but he was about my height and had a great body. I wonder if Japanese bands get laid on the road in America.
Posted by deaconmf at October 4, 2004 11:32 AM
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