Welcome to Escondido

Do you know what day it is? I’ve been waiting for this day all year. It’s March 18, 2012 – one quarter of the way through the year – and the night I experienced the first show I’d write about in 2o12.

It’s not that I haven’t experienced a lot of wonderful shows this year; I have. I see live music nearly every night, and I don’t go out with the intention of seeing a shitty show. So, I have experienced some truly amazing concerts in 2012.  I wish I had written about some of them.  But I haven’t.

Why Puscifer? Because there’s nothing “standard” about it.  I’ve seen this show previously, during an earlier leg of the tour.  Yet, it feels different every time. I think about that often – musicians who tour around the world on the same, 10-song, “hit” album for 2. . .  or 20 years –  wondering if they get bored; experiencing, via their shows, that many of them do. Maynard James Keenan and the brilliant musicians who make up Puscifer have no time for boredom.  They’re busy setting the stage – literally, metaphorically, physically, and intellectually – for the show to come. The show-to-come follows the hysterical, thought-provoking (sometimes thought-revoking) pre-show, which comes after Carina Round’s opening show, before she joins Puscifer.

Escondido? It makes sense.  Maynard James Keenan invites you to go places you’ve never been. Bring your sense of humor or you’ll miss some of the best parts.

It’s not about politics. Puscifer carries with it conversations about ideas. That’s where the fun and creative solutions originate: conversations about ideas, rather than arguments about politics. Puscifer is not about pushing an agenda.  It’s not the “I’m a musician and you’re going to pay me a lot of money to use this time as my platform to push something on you” approach.  Instead, Puscifer offers you the platform to create new ideas. Puscifer doesn’t insult the intelligence of the audience. You made it to the show – you know what’s up.  Or, you don’t know what’s up, but you’re open to exploring ideas.

Puscifer provides a premium sound experience.  I don’t know whether there’s any scientific evidence of this, but I’m of the belief that you should never have to wear earplugs at a concert. If the sound is properly mixed and amplified, it consumes you, not your eardrums. I’ve never needed earplugs during any Maynard James Keenan incarnation: TOOL, A Perfect Circle, nor Puscifer.  The sound envelops you, rather than hurt your ears.  So, as opposed to hearing muffled music through a set of silicon ear plugs or cringing with every drum beat, you feel elevated. You’re able to have a full experience of the show, as intended by its creator.  The sound is so consistently exceptional, regardless of venue, that you’re aware of, and grateful for, the intention and effort put forth to make it so.

Yeah. . . I bought a Puscifer hoodie.  I’m considering adding an English sub-title on the back of it: “Yes, I paid $65 for this hoodie and it feels like a steal.” We’ve got to support art.  We don’t have to agree on which art we appreciate, but it is our responsibility to support the art we do appreciate.

Maynard James Keenan weeds out the cattle. Tonight’s show took place in Escondido. If you’re of the belief – or holding onto hope – that aliens may some day come for you, Escondido is the type of place they may touch-down first.  Only those people with a great deal of faith in the process, the adventure, and the outcome, would actually commute to Escondido. It’s just far enough outside the comfort zone of the people who go to a Miike Snow show – not the people who actually like Miike Snow – the far larger population: people who go to a show just because it’s “the place to be” and they have to look cool on Facebook.  Puscifer is not for them.

It’s Sunday  night. A rock concert and a 2-hr drive, on a ‘school night’?! Puscifer reminds everyone: music doesn’t stop because you have somewhere to be in the future. Your presence is rewarded.

I’m not going to tell you how the show goes, what Maynard wears, nor regurgitate the set list. Puscifer is an experience one should have for themselves. I will tell you this though: he fucks you with his music. Take that any way you like. It’s Puscifer.

“ Life is too short NOT to create something with every breath we draw” – Puscifer

Broken Bells Record Release Laser Light Show

If, when Broken Bells created this, they imagined how happy and grateful they could possibly make somebody feel, I feel even better than that. And by “created this” I mean:  not only the Record Release Laser Light Show Drive-In, but the music, the art, and the experience of it all.

This is what music is
It’s an experience
That’s why people are going back to vinyl
They want to touch something
They miss the experience
It’s a community
They want to be part of something

At 8:00pm tonight Broken Bells took over a roof-top parking lot in downtown Los Angeles for a drive-in style laser light show, synchronized to their debut album.  And it wasn’t just fancy shapes and pretty colors – it was an actual choreographed, scripted, 3D, laser light music video for each song, weaving several stories together into an album.  It took time.  It was thoughtful.  It added meaning.   It moved me.  It gave me renewed hope for music. . .

Y’know, U2 has this whole “360″  spaceship show.  And it’s visually spectacular.  But it feels like they did it just to be big, to do something nobody’s done before, to be larger than life.  And that’s respectable, on its own.  But it didn’t feel all that relevant to the music.  It was just an awesome visual show. . . oh, and also. . .  there was music.  It’s costing $750,000/day to keep that tour going and the carbon impact can’t be good.

Don’t get upset -  I’m not giving U2 shit (and this will come full-circle back to Broken Bells).  I love U2.   I like to get lost in Larry Mullen Jr.’s drumming.  The drums in U2 songs are some of the best there are.  I love that The Edge created a sound that is unmistakably his, and therefore, unmistakably the band’s.  I love watching  Adam Clayton swinging that bass around like it’s his dance partner.  And Bono, your voice is great. . .  So, you don’t need to go flying through the air on an illuminated neon megaphone.  It doesn’t add anything to the music.  In fact, if you re-read my review of that show (which I think is very complimentary), it doesn’t speak all that much about the music.  It’s mostly about the visual aspect as a stand-alone experience. I already got my ticket for U2′s next spaceship 360 show in the LA area, but I’d rather see the show I just described.

House abducted by spaceship

What Danger Mouse and The Shins‘ James Mercer (aka  Broken Bells) created tonight added something to the music.  What Nine Inch Nails creates adds something to the music.  What Portugal.  The Man creates adds something to the music.  What Radiohead creates adds something to the music.  What The Soundtrack of Our Lives creates adds something to the music. There are Artists doing it every day (including U2 – I just don’t think the current tour is the best example of it). And it’s great.  I only mention these other Artists within a Broken Bells review to illustrate that there are many paths to creating an exceptional experience.  Not right or wrong.  Some more about the music than others.  From one of the biggest bands in the world, to a brand new concept, to a band you may not have heard of but you will know them when you see them. . .

It's too late to change your mind

Danger Mouse gets it.  He does it every time.  He knows what’s happening. He knows where we’re headed.  He’s a little ahead of the game, so not everyone is going to get it at first.

Tonight’s event left me feeling like Broken Bells created this as part of the music;  that they originally set out to do exactly this.  It wasn’t just an afterthought; it’s more than simply a cool way to promote something.  They didn’t want to just make a record – they wanted to create a mutil-sensory experience.  I’d love to know more.  Perhaps an interview at SXSW?

Broken Bells 03-09-10

On March 9, 2010 (that’s Tuesday),  we really should buy the Broken Bells album.  Some of us can buy extras for those who can’t afford to buy one, but everybody should have one.

PS – The Broken Bells Laserium glasses are the gift that keep on giving.  And they didn’t even exploit the opportunity to paste some marketing message on them — they knew I’d remember where I got them.

And tell me you saw this:

I give it a “PASS”

In celebration of OK Go’s victory in getting EMI to allow the embedding (and therefore greater viral spread) of their latest music video, here it is!

You may remember that it was precisely OK Go’s innovative video for “Here It Goes Again” (now with more than 49 million views generated online) that gained tremendous notoriety for the band.  So when they released the video for their song “This Too Shall Pass,” you’d think the label would want as many people as possible to actually see it.  Yeah, you’d think that.  But EMI disabled the video embedding features.  Until now.  Congrats, OK Go!

“This Too Shall Pass” seems an all too appropriate title.