Thursday, February 17th, 2005

Tonight On The WB

I have no idea where it was, but I was reading a piece on The Comas wherein they reveal that a lot of the material from their debut album Conductor was written whilst front-Coma Andy Herrod was dating Dawson’s Creek starlet Michelle Williams (the blonde one who apparently died after I stopped watching. Yes, I watched Dawson’s Creek. Shut up.) and that relationship informs a lot of the material (like the not-so-subtle song title that makes up this post title). What’s the point of that? No idea. But it was hard to completely put that little bit of trivia out of my head at their show at Lee’s Palace last night.

Openers and tourmates VietNam looked like they hadn’t bathed in weeks but used the time saved effectively by smoking up as much as possible. Dirty hippies would probably look at these guys and say, “hey, dirty hippies”. They played a set of drawn-out noodly jams that occasionally got interesting but for the most part would have benefitted if the band had decided to pass the bong around instead of keeping it for themselves.

I knew very little of The Comas before last night – I’d downloaded a couple tracks, listened to some clips, read some good reviews (they made Magnet’s year-end list for 2004) and read the aforementioned little bit of gossip. Just enough to know that I liked their sound and a free show would be worth my time. In the live setting, they were considerably less sonically quirky and more straight up earnest indie rock than I was expecting, but they still put on a good show. Andy Herrod was fairly restrained for most of the night but his bandmates were pretty bopping through the set. I got a copy of the CD at the show and it’s remarkable how different the songs are presented on it – there’s a lot more delicacy and detail, attributes which were traded for a fuller live rock attack.

Full batch of photos tomorrow. In the meantime, there’s a crapload of media available on the Yep Roc website as well as the band’s site.

And, uh, out of curiosity – how did Dawson’s Creek girl die? Was it something dull and melodramatic like cancer? Or something cool and interesting like her losing control of her mutant powers?

Though their new album There’s A Fire won’t be out for another month, New York’s Longwave will be back in town at Lee’s Palace on March 16, tickets $10.50. Hmm, is it very smart to plan on going to a show the night before I have to get up at 5:30 AM the next morning to fly down to Texas and spend the next three days going to twelve hours of concerts each day? Probably not, but like Bon Jovi says – “I’ll sleep when I’m dead”. Which at this pace should be about early June. Well, I’ll keep it on my calendar for now but I wouldn’t be surprised if I totally wimped out. And they’ll be back.

Also – Adam Green is at Lee’s on May 3.

And back to the topic of SxSW, it’s not the schedule but they’ve posted a much more useful band list, some with MP3s. The official sched should be out soon, though. Thanks to Joyce for the link.

Prefix talks to Rogue Wave, whose Out Of The Shadow was beloved by many though only moderately liked by me. Hey, you can’t please everyone.

The Magnolia Electric Co finally has an offical website, and they’ve got goodies galore – namely a new video and three complete live shows available for download. Their proper full-length studio debut What Comes After The Blues is due out in April.

Billboard finds out why Gary Louris and Marc Olsen’s tour together isn’t actually a Jayhawks reunion.

Shivaree (finally) gets some local media love. Check out pieces from The Varsity (bugmenot: pissoff@ijustwanttoread.com) and The Toronto Star (bugmenot: jimbojones@mailinator.com / password) . Again, I advise you to see their final show at the Lula Lounge tonight, but get there early – it’s damn close to sold out if it isn’t already.

The trailer for Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy is online… and Amazon.com has it? It looks good – interesting approach to Zaphod’s two heads, I’m sure the purists will be crying foul, but who cares about purists? Movie is out April 29. Why that’s practically tomorrow. Or sixty tomorrows.

Okay everyone, once more with feeling – “Fuck you, NHL and NHLPA!”. Dickwads.

np – The Comas / Conductor

By : Frank Yang at 9:19 am
Category: Uncategorized
Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.
RSS Feed for this postNo Responses.
  1. Maria says:

    I watched Dawson’s Creek (but I’m a girl, so it’s justified). Jen died on the very last episode and, actually, the last episode of Dawson’s Creek was one of the best last episodes I’ve ever seen (way better than the last Buffy and I looooooove Buffy).

  2. satellite says:

    I may have good taste in music, but I love me some melodramatic tv.

    Jen (or as Frank the true fan calls her "the blond one" ) died from some heart condition. Soapy tv shows like to kill off characters without naming the actual disease.

  3. Frank says:

    when did they kill off Dawson’s dad? I still can’t believe that. You don’t just KILL THE FLASH. Unless you’re DC comics, in which case you do just kill off the Flash…

  4. Paul says:

    I never watched Dawson’s Creek, but Michelle was completely hot in the movie "Dick."

  5. anne... says:

    i actually saw the last episode of dawson’s creek on TBS this past summer, and jen did die of something dull and melodramatic like cancer. cancer, in fact. she also (for some reason) had a kid that she left to her gay friend & his partner. tres heartwarming. not a clue as to when dawson’s dad died… i was a sporadic watcher at best.

  6. brian says:

    hey, i went to the show as well and felt the same way about the studio tracks sounding a bit more interesting than the live show.

    catchy stuff, but it didn’t wow me.

  7. Spencer says:

    dearest Frank,

    long time listener, first time caller. Yeah, Dawson’s Creek

  8. thomaus says:

    The Comas Conductor album is a nicely put together disc, and was a bargain even at the inflated CDN$12 from the swag table last night. They were solid onstage, but only whelming. I guess you don’t get encores at free shows. Michelle Williams apparently guests on the DVD according to eye magazine.

    BTW, I chatted with the guy shooting flash photos after the show. He had much to say. Very much. I think your theories were on target.

  9. Chris says:

    I too d/l the Comas and thought it was solid enough to hit Lee’s.

    At the show, the voice in my head was Butthead: "Uh-oh, I think this is college music."

    full thoughts at http://…/

  10. Frank says:

    Thomaus – oh, ewww.

    Chris – I liked Madder Rose! But while I never saw them live, I don’t imagine they’d have been a scintillating performance. Better as mope music in a dark room. I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with being "college music", but I thought the show was just okay as well. It reminded me of the Rogue Wave show at Lee’s last year, where also ratcheted up the rock quotient at the expense of the pop sense of the songs (in my opinion, anyway).

  11. D. says:

    Looks like Amazon’s taken down the Hitchhiker trailer already – anyone know where else I can get it?

  12. Frank says:

    that’s odd about the HHGTTG trailer… I mean, The Toronto Star had a piece on the presumed marketing strategy of debuting the trailer there:

    http://…/

    no idea where else it would be, sorry.

  13. thomaus says:

    try this for the HHGTTG trailer:

    http://…/

    I had the page open in a tab, and it’s from the source… way bigger, too.