Friday, April 1, 2011

The Month Of Attending Concerts

There’s an unusual preponderance of concerts in Minneapolis this month. This no doubt coincides with the end of winter, which makes the Twin Cities a marginally more inviting place. In any case, my work calendar--which is mainly used for noting concert dates--is getting full of these shows, so I thought, “Hey, why not make a project out of this?” And so I will, writing up the shows I attend on this blog.

There are four I’m set on going to: J Mascis, Wye Oak, Low, and Destroyer. Expect reviews of those. A handful of others, including OFF!, the Joy Formidable, Cut Copy, Mike Watt, the Vivian Girls, and the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, are in the maybe column. This list is pretty limited, genre-wise, but I’m open to additions (maybe Fela drummer Tony Allen? It’s kind of expensive).

Anyways, I’m planning on limiting the project to just April. There’s a reason I don’t typically review concerts or albums on Rockaliser, since so many other people do that. At the same time, I’ve written show reviews in the past, some of which are OK enough, and they can provide a different angle at which to explore an artist’s music.* On this blog, our focus is almost exclusively on recorded music. That’s typical of most criticism, and it’s not a bad thing, but neither is it an inherently better way of thinking about and experiencing music.

So look out for these Concertgoer posts (a name I borrow with all due deference to Geoff S., who does this same thing over at The Big Takeover). If there’s something you’d recommend I attend, chime in in the comments section.

*I believe that link is the first time I’ve publicly outed myself as James Yogurt, so there you go. While I’d love to rewrite that review with vastly shorter sentences, I think it’s got some valid points.

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