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Post by tc on Jun 13, 2008 10:53:11 GMT -1
I am over the moon!
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Post by tc on Jun 13, 2008 10:59:45 GMT -1
and Katy... look, look!!!! *points below* HI Kirsten I can do better than that.. she's on the band's (free) guestlist +1.. Cheers-dj -----Original Message----- From: Kirsten Mavric Sent: 13 June 2008 12:48 To: Subject: cheeky request Hi Duncan As you may know, I shot the FF show at ULU this week. I thought you might like to see that The Independent gave it a glowing review today The cheeky request in the subject heading is that my best friend, Katy Raine, has been trying for days to get into the Leeds show on the 15th of June, with no luck. Is there any way you could pop her on a paying guest list? Worth asking Kirsten x
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Post by katyr on Jun 13, 2008 11:08:14 GMT -1
Fucking hell! Cheers Kirsten!
That's one hell of a pint I owe you!
xx
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Post by tc on Jun 13, 2008 11:14:37 GMT -1
I'm just chuffed you get to see them The keyboard player looks like Dave Grohl, he's hilarious.
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Post by michael on Jun 13, 2008 11:26:40 GMT -1
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Post by michael on Jun 13, 2008 11:27:38 GMT -1
Oh...and double well-done on swinging the tickets for Katy!
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Post by tc on Jun 13, 2008 11:30:04 GMT -1
I'm often amazed how some people are so easy and pleasant about their guest lists and other people are cold and rude... always worth asking though.
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Post by sheila on Jun 13, 2008 20:40:57 GMT -1
Wow and wow! Kirsten rocks!
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Post by Kez on Jun 14, 2008 14:12:39 GMT -1
Ooh I like em. They were on a CD given free with Uncut. Beautiful stuff.
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Post by tc on Jun 14, 2008 14:26:47 GMT -1
yay! (once Kez is on board, world domination is just a matter of time )
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Post by tc on Jun 15, 2008 7:55:28 GMT -1
Today's Observer.
I'm pickin' up good vibrations
Fleet Foxes are the Beach Boys gone feral, and their harmonies are every bit as sublime
Kitty Empire Sunday June 15, 2008 The Observer
Fleet Foxes University of London Union, WC1
They begin by harmonising. Eyes shut, fingers in ears, tapping on microphones, various Fleet Foxes - definitely three, possibly four, it's hard to see in this rammed room - begin their sold-out London gig with gentle back-porch a capella. It is the start of 'Sun Giant', the first track of their eponymous EP, the small disk that started a major storm of attention, garnering an 8.7 review in US tastemaker website Pitchfork earlier this year, followed by a silvery debut album with a rare 9.0 rating.
Now this Seattle outfit are being hailed as the best American band in years by an equally excitable British critical community. The people at this gig are convinced of their marvellousness too, applauding songs before they've even started, shouting requests for rarities. 'We only pressed up 500 of those,' singer Robin Pecknold grins in shy bewilderment. 'There's thousands on the internet!' comes the reply.
The first thing that gets you about Fleet Foxes are their harmonies. They're not cute barbershop-style interplays, quite probably because many of the band are strangers to barbershops. Rather, their soaring vocals derive from the West Coast, the mountains, the Sacred Harp tradition of white Southern churches, and the English folk revival. No one else is doing vocal harmonies like this right now: bang on, effortless, warm, and impressively loud. Well, no one dressed like this, at any rate.
Fleet Fox-in-chief Robin Pecknold is a furry Jesus-like slacker, dressed in the sort of plaid shirt that never went out of fashion in Seattle. His childhood best friend, Skyler Skjelset, by contrast, seems mislaid by some Sixties psych outfit, with his waistcoat and Brian Jones hair. He takes bows to electric guitars, dances on effects pedals with his hands, and plucks an electric mandolin. Bassist Christian Wargo and keyboard player Casey Westcott are shaggy in their own distinct ways, both in equally sharp contrast to the pristine loveliness coming out of their mouths. They are the Beach Boys gone feral.
One measure of seeing a new band for the first time is discovering whether they can summon the wonders of their recordings without the smoke and mirrors of a studio. Fleet Foxes can, and then some. Seated, strumming an acoustic guitar, sucking on a microphone, Pecknold generates the sort of natural reverb that makes him sound like he's carrying around his own canyon.
But it's not just the harmonies. Their musicianship is just as liquid and accomplished. Fleet Foxes cram a lot of old music into their highly individual songs, filching a bit of English folk rock here, channelling a lot of Crosby, Stills and Nash there. They will offer up the most homespun melody, then turn on a sixpence mid-song into something altogether stranger. Tonight's set is rich in instant crowd-pleasers, like 'White Winter Hymnal' - a song so pretty it is easy to miss its strange, oblique lyrics about red scarves that keep children's heads from coming off. They perform a similar trick on the happy clappy, O-Brother-Why-Weren't-We-On-The-Soundtrack rollick of 'Ragged Wood'. Halfway through, it morphs into a bit of West Coast folk-pop, where a suddenly jaded Pecknold and troupe belt out a killer harmony: 'Tell me anything you want/Any old lie will do/Call me back to you ...'
It is easy to sneer at young men fetishising old music, but Fleet Foxes handle their antecedents with panache. Even though their song titles occasionally sound as though they've been run through a bucolic cliche generator - I'm thinking of 'Tiger Mountain Peasant Song' here - Fleet Foxes aren't just regurgitating their parents' record collections. They are a far craftier bunch. All this musical experience comes couched in a breezy innocence which never becomes cloying. The Foxes are still green enough to be humbled by the applause. 'I spend most of my time in my parents' basement,' confesses Pecknold sweetly, 'so this is very strange.'
The liner notes on the Sun Giant EP put forward a persuasive theory that music now occupies the space that nature once did, filling our industrialised souls with awe. If Fleet Foxes' mission is to trigger a sense of wonder, they have succeeded.
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Post by birch on Jun 15, 2008 11:27:16 GMT -1
Congratulations, TC! Finally got the link to work on my computer and had a listen. Fascinating music.
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Post by katyr on Jun 15, 2008 15:00:59 GMT -1
I'm looking forward to tonight! Just off out for a meal, then meeting my friend to go to the gig. I'll report back later.
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Post by tc on Jun 15, 2008 15:12:10 GMT -1
excellent, have a great night
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Post by katyr on Jun 16, 2008 9:37:50 GMT -1
I really enjoyed it.
My jaw hit the floor in that first song they do, the a cappella one. Their voices were completely amazing together, I had goose bumps in places I didn't know goose bumps could get to. I didn't really get the Beach Boys comparisons though, much less polished than that. They reminded me a LOT of Bon Iver live, especially in their quieter songs, but a little less intense and more rocking and less hypnotic. Also reminded me a bit of The Magic Numbers, tune-wise. The crowd was a funny one, really really quiet. The band looked a little awkward between songs it was so silent, but when they talked they were endearingly dull. In a good down to earth musician way, unpretentious. A good time was had, thanks Kirsten. The beards have redeemed themselves. yay.
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Post by michael on Jun 16, 2008 9:59:15 GMT -1
Nice one, Katy. Glad to hear you enjoyed it. Beards rule!
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Post by tc on Jun 16, 2008 9:59:59 GMT -1
yay! I am surprised the Leeds crowd was so quiet, the London one was ridiculously enthusiastic, cheering for ages between songs and shouting out song requests.
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Post by katyr on Jun 16, 2008 10:20:34 GMT -1
Leeds audiences are notoriously difficult to predict. They went crackers for Josh Ritter at the same venue, you just can't call it. Us northerners respond better to a bit of banter I think. Trying saying that after 4 snakebite and blacks. Gigs are very different in the north to London. Not better or worse, just a different atmosphere. I like both for their own reasons.
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Post by tc on Jun 16, 2008 10:48:17 GMT -1
well, London audiences are usually very hard to please, very standoffish and tend to talk through gigs. We're spoilt, I guess.
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Post by michael on Jul 18, 2008 19:01:20 GMT -1
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Post by michael on Jul 18, 2008 19:02:25 GMT -1
Moving as in "travelling". Not in that it enduces certain emotions. Or maybe it does for some.
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