Monday Morning Music with Superorganism

My 11yo has been tagging along to shows with us since she was small. Usually, she didn’t care much about the music, even when her dad was in the band. She was there because we were there, and that was that. She would come prepared with a bag of small toys or a notebook and crayons. She would connect with whatever other kids happened to be there, or maybe a playful grown up, as she would call them. And that’s where she would spend the duration of the show. It has only been in the last couple of years that anything has changed.

It took a while, but eventually she started listening to the music we were playing. Even having favorites. Metric was one of her first favorites. Then Catbath, which became her first show where she actually cared about what was happening on stage. How’s that for a milestone?

This summer she hit another big milestone: her first show at First Avenue. Superorganism, if you haven’t heard them, is a weird, fun, poppy band that we couldn’t stop playing last summer. I love them as much as my 11yo did, and when they came to town, we were first in line for tickets, metaphorically speaking.

The show was as fun as we could have asked for. It was made even more memorable by the fact that lightning struck nearby and knocked out some of the sound equipment. The technical difficulties delayed the show by an hour or so. But once the band started playing, we forgot all about the wait. It was worth it to dance it out with my kiddo to a band we both loved.

By the kindness of an acquaintance, we happened to be given tickets to the Superorganism micro-show the day after the mainroom show. So we followed up one show with another. The stripped down set that they played for the micro-show was very different than the night before. First, we sat on the floor. Second, well, see for yourself. Watch how they made the sound effects. That’s not how they made the crunch sound on the mainroom stage.;)

 

 

Monday Morning Music with Godspeed You! Black Emperor

With all the coverage of the end of the Iraq War going on right now, I can’t help but remember the beginning.  I probably wouldn’t remember the night the war began if it weren’t for where I was.

On March 19th, 2003, I was in First Avenue’s mainroom with hundreds of other people for a rock show.  I didn’t pay much attention to the news back then, so I only vaguely knew what was happening with Iraq.  That night, of course, was “zero hour” for Operation Iraqi Freedom.  While bombs dropped on Iraq, Godspeed You! Black Emperor played on.  At some point during the show, they turned on the radio so that George W. Bush’s voice could be heard as the music–contemplative orchestral post-rock–provided a portentous soundtrack to history.

It was, easily, the most powerful musical experience I’ve had.

This article about GY!BE from Citypages says, “This music gives you a lot of time to think, and maybe that’s the point. Playing a Godspeed CD is like pressing pause on the rest of the world.”  Perhaps you feel like pressing pause today.  Here you are.