Tuddd's Muddd

Goes Cube record release show Thursday May 14th! Studio at Webster Hall!

       

    Thursday night's Goes Cube show is a special one, for many reasons.  At the moment, I'm too groggy to organize said reasons into coherent paragraphs, so let's go with some ever-popular, easily digestible, fucking adorable bullet points:

• Goes Cube's new record, Another Day Has Passed was released on Tuesday.  Full disclosure: no, I haven't heard the album yet, but having caught over half of the album's songs in the live setting, I can personally verify its awesomeness.  [check below for some righteous-ass mp3s.]  Seriously, come on out and buy a copy, you poser.
• This is the first show of Goes Cube's cross-country trek supporting said record, and the first time they've played at The Studio at Webster Hall.  Celebrate that shit!
• All kinds of great bands, with Austerity Program and Jones Street Station performing, in addition to Constants and Red Beard.  
• Last time I saw Goes Cube was about a month ago at The Charleston, and they were white-hot.  They've always been sick live but the speed, precision and confidence with which they're playing right now is flat-out fucking unreal. 
• I've written up Austerity Program a few times here on the Muddd (they're one of my favorite bands), and having seen them twice already this year (but really, who's counting), I can report that they're also on top of their game.
• Drinking alcohol is fun, especially when you're watching excellent live music.
• Perhaps most importantly, as covered here, this will be Goes Cube bassist Matt's final show performing with the band.  Matt, you will be missed!

Download Goes Cube - Grinding The Knife Blade

~and~

Download Goes Cube - The Only Daughter

Dub Trio, Foreign Islands and Goes Cube, at Luna Lounge January 31st, 2008

   Yup, so there's been a definite lack of music-related posts 'round the Muddd thus far in '08, which I'm sure has actually disappointed no one.  I'd seen a few shows this year, all of them at least serviceable-to-decent category but nothing really all that inspiring (unless you count the Blonde Redhead set, which "inspired" me to walk the fuck out after about ten minutes).  Of course, the best way to get out of a mild-to-moderate show-going slump is to stick with what ya know and go with the tried and true favorites, AKA hitting up a Goes Cube show.

    If you're a regular reader of this blog (ha! Not bloody likely), it's possible that you're growing tired of me swinging from Goes Cube's nuts every other week or so.  After all, you may or may not be surprised to learn that a cursory scanning of this blog has revealed that occurrences of the term "Goes Cube" are outnumbered only by crude scatological references and the phrase "skullfuckingly awesome" (incidentally used in conjunction with describing Goes Cube's music).  Well, let me tell you something -- we have a saying around here: get used to it, Hitler.

    Got to Luna Lounge around 8 PM and wound up chatting a bit with Goes Cube guitarist/vocalist David for awhile, which was pretty fucking cool... I was utterly floored to learn that the band has read -- and even more shockingly, apparently enjoyed -- Tuddd's Muddd.  More specifically, the "skullfuckingly awesome" tag seems to have thankfully met with approval.  This being the first time that anyone besides a few close friends has so much as acknowledged the existence of this interweb shitbox, I was pretty stoked.  Spoke with the bassist, Matt for a bit and he mentioned that the dude from Jones St. Boys who spilled beer all over me at the Union Pool show in November is actually his roommate, hahaha, funny shit.

    So Goes Cube took the stage at 9 PM sharp, rumbling right out of the gate into a thunderous groove before segueing into personal fave "Goes Cube Song 30."  Early on in the set, the band announced that they'd be playing a bunch of new shit, which was just all right by me.  They're going to have a new EP available within the next few weeks so as to coincide with their March tour down to SXSW and back with the also awesome Hull.  If you're curious their next NYC-area gig will be at a BAM music festival dealie on February 22nd. 

    Although Goes Cube's sound is situated firmly within the realm of "heavy music," every time I see them live I notice new elements to their dynamic.  When I first saw them last June, I instantly thought of a more melodic, less aloof Helmet.  When I saw them in November, I was digging the Rage-esque manipulation of guitar feedback.  This time, I felt the newer material emphasized jagged Bleach-era riffing, while maintaining a glacial, Pelican-esque grandiosity.  At this rate (they're about 60 written songs into their career) I wouldn't be shocked if they wound up sounding more and more like Dinosaur Jr. as time goes on.  The crowd up front was really into the never-played-before new shit, which, I'm sure, is encouraging for band and fans alike. 

    Following Goes Cube were Foreign Islands, who I caught opening for Dead Meadow a couple of weeks ago at Bowery.  Their sound fits in pretty evenly with the less-melodic/more angular aspects of Gang of Four-worshipping British "art wave" bands (think Bloc Party, Futureheads, Maximo Park, etc.).  More than any other comparison though I thought they sounded a shitload like We Are Scientists -- fun danceable post-punk with an energetic stage show.  Unlike many pretenders, however, Foreign Islands brought the goods, but I guess you kind of have to if you're going to have a guy with a Russell Lissack hairdo.

     The evening's headliners were the Ipecac-signed Dub Trio, for whom this show served as a record release party.  The little I knew about these guys prior to the show whetted my appetite for abrupt shifts between style and plenty of genre hopping, which wound up being fairly accurate.  Their combination of grimy riffage, bassy oscillations, breakneck tempo shifts and dexterous drumming reminded me of a more garagey Praxis. 

    But yeah, all in all a skullfuckingly awesome show.  I'll be back up in this piece sometime early next week or whenever I emerge from the carnage of Saturday night's Cheeseburger show.  Hoo boy, disaster onward.  Ever eagerly anticipated and dreaded something simultaneously?   

Goes Cube at Union Pool, November 29th, 2007

    Well, hello there.  It's been forever, I know, but really who the fuck cares.  I basically stopped adding new content to the blog around the time when I stopped going to live shows for a few weeks there.  Last one I saw was Witch at Luna Lounge in early November, which was super fucking disappointing-- they didn't even play "Rip Van Winkle" in spite of me vainly screaming for it all night.  And sorry, the new songs sounded tossed off and weak.  Just meh. 

    It's not that nothing's happened in the last month or so -- the new business is doing really well (just got recently incorporated and set up my corporate bank account today).  Plus I had a birthday, which was celebrated in the same general way I have for the last few years: publicly humiliating myself at Benihanas then doing giant piles of blow.  Not to mention the new haircut.  And Thanksgiving was utterly lovely.  So yeah, stuff's happening, just nothing worth blogging about.  Not to mention that tonight I was going to see Kinski at Europa but forgot that it was an early show (first band goes on at 7:30? WTF?), so I'm home alone with a full coffee... when better to get back into the blog, eh?

    So last night I finally decided that enough is enough and why the fuck not get out and see Goes Cube again.  I've sung these guys' praises before, and with the amount of NYC area gigs these guys pull off you gotta believe that yer not going to be disappointed in their set.  Indeed.

    Got into Brooklyn fairly quickly and found parking right off Meeker.  Opening act Michael Leviton (and band) treated the small audience (about 20 people total were in the room at this point) to a loose, low-key set of catchy surf instrumentals.  He remarked early on during the set that the band had only practiced together once prior to this show, and although they certainly weren't the most cohesive outfit around, the performance certainly matched the charmingly informal setting of the room itself, which listed the maximum occupancy as 74.  A pleasant way to start the evening, once again proudly displaying Goes Cube's propensity for pulling off playing on bills with bands that sound absolutely nothing like they do.

    The seeming randomness of the evening's bill continued with the second act, The Jones St. Boys, whose instrumentation alone set them apart from your typical Brooklyn bill-filler.  Electric mandolin, harmonica, banjo and accordion (though not all at the same time) filled out their folksy, good timey roots and roll tunes.  Bonus points for their presentation, as well: they were clearly enjoying getting up onstage, making goofy jokes and interacting with the crowd (Bill Monroe or William Mastodon?), drinking shitloads of bourbon, and rocking out.  Musically, their two greatest assets are some genuinely kickass harmonica playing and the fact that electric mandolin sounds like heaven.  Did the ballads occasionally veer off into Pat McGee Band territory?  Perhaps, but the instrumental breakdowns -- with the set's highlight being some insanely flash-fingered mandolin playing -- more than made up for it.  Good luck to these guys on their upcoming Midwestern jaunt.  I fuckin' dug 'em.

    Goes Cube was up next and hot damn are these guys a powerhouse.  Again I'm going to throw the obvious Helmet comparison out there, although their incorporation of feeback-related trickery and assorted squeaks and squeals adds a welcome element to the pummeling and thrashing of their riffs.  And again, I just fucking love the bassist's tone.  As their set was beginning, proffered was a cup containing scraps of paper, each piece with a number written on it.  Since all Goes Cube songs are named with a number (i.e. "Goes Cube Song 35" or whatever), the guitarist announced "this is our setlist" and throughout the set encouraged crowdmembers to pick from the cup.  Nice touch, no? 

    Towards the end of the set, pretty much everyone in the room was shitfaced except me (boo hoo), and at one point the harmonica dude/singer from Jones St. Boys spilled his beer all over my shirt.  Normally, no cause for concern, but on this night I had a pocket full of.... well, let's just say you don't want to get beer on it.  Due to the miracle of tiny plastic baggies, no big whoop, but nonetheless the dude apologized profusely, mentioning that he appreciated that I had stuck around for the whole show.  Very, very cool.  Just makes me wish I lived in Brooklyn so I could've gotten hammered along with the rest of the room.  Sigh. 

    Lots of shows coming up.  Baroness tomorrow night, Pissed Jeans Sunday, and a *free* show by Cheeseburger Monday at Knitting Factory. 

   

That's it for me.  I'm'a go smoke weed in my car.  Peace.