bootlegged Archive

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Bootlegged: Aloe Blacc and The Grand Scheme @ Echoplex, Los Angeles 12/3/10

I don’t know what was more surprising – the fact that Soul music is being revived in an age of autotune and chillwave indie music or the fact that most of the crowd at the Echoplex was of the decidedly hipster variety.

Scratch that, it’s Echo Park, of course it’s going to be full of hipsters.

But the neo-soul movement is definitely in effect with artists like Mayer Hawthorne gaining a sizable audience. It’s not surprising that both he and Aloe Blacc are on LA-based independent label, Stones Throw.

You may know Mr. Blacc from the theme to HBO’s How To Make It In America. It’s one of the more memorable introduction sequences in recent television history. His 1 hour set at the Echoplex didn’t disappoint either. I’m no expert on soul music, but I had a great time at Aloe’s show. With an entertaining and talented backing band, The Grand Scheme, Aloe Blacc played cuts from not only his own album, Good Things, but also injected quite a few covers into his set as well. It’s as if he knew his mainly white audience needed to hear some comfort songs to help them ease into the genre. Songs like Hall & Oates’ “Maneater” or Green Day’s “Basket Case.” He also did a Velvet Underground song and a haunting cover of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean.”

Check out the Green Day cover clip and another video after the break.

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Bootlegged: DJ Shadow Shadowsphere @ House of Blues, New Orleans 11/7/10

You read that correctly – “New Orleans.” Normally I don’t venture out of Los Angeles much, but on this occasion I had the opportunity to catch a show at the House of Blues in New Fucking Orleans, so I had to take it. As luck would have it, DJ Shadow was in town and I had never seen him before.

I’ve heard mixed things about DJ Shadow’s live set and while the Shadowsphere show is pretty cool with its visuals and unique “sphere” set, strip that away and you have a fairly “meh” show. It’s nothing against Shadow, there’s just only so much you can do as a DJ in a live setting without getting guest stars or showering the crowd with free narcotics.

That being said, there ARE visuals and they’re pretty neat. One particular graphic made the sphere look like the Death Star which was a great “HA!” moment.

Shadow also premiered a new song from his upcoming album which is sort of a big deal since album length original material from him has been few and far between since 1996’s Entroducing…

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Bootlegged: Arcade Fire – Intervention @ Shrine Auditorium, LA 10/8/2010

Arcade Fire has quickly built a reputation for being one of the best live touring acts, and for good reason. The very nature of the band being comprised of 7-9 members crammed onto a stage can often lead to the sensation that their sound can’t be contained by the stage or venue. While this had been the case in the previous times I’ve seen the band, something felt a little off with this gig. It just felt a little… sterile. Like the band was still playing the notes accurately and dynamically, but was somehow devoid of the passion that burned in performances past.

Judge for yourself in the recording of “Intervention” above. Even the black and white stage lighting seemed to accentuate the fact that, ironically, perhaps “every sparkle of friendship and love will die…” when you go number 1 on the Billboard charts.

Note on the semi-crappy recording: I wanted to record at least one song from night two of Arcade Fire at the Shrine last week to post, but there was a tall bro in front of me who kept swaying back and forth at the worst times to block my camera. Eventually I just said screw it and kept filming, so if you’re annoyed by the swaying head in this video, you know why.

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Bootlegged: Local Natives – Sun Hands @ Henry Fonda Theater Hollywood 9/17/10

From time to time, I like to whip out the ‘ol iPhone 4 HD video camera and capture some highlights from the shows I go to. Sometimes they don’t even end up half-bad.

This is one of those times.

Here’s a live video bootleg of one of my favorite singles of 2010 so far, “Sun Hands,” by Local Natives. I was a bit surprised that the band sold out the ~1,500 person capacity Henry Fonda Theater in Hollywood two nights in a row, but they are “local natives” of Los Angeles, after all. More dynamic than the droning buzz of “Chillwave” indie rock, yet less conventional than your meat and potatoes Rock – you’ll find yourself head bobbing, air drumming, and possibly singing along to this track.