*I'm starting to wonder what bizarre game the concert venue by my dorm (Blender Theater by Gramercy) is trying to play. Last week, they had Marcy Playground playing there, and yesterday, I walk underneath their marquee to find:
"PAPA ROACH TUESDAY"
This was absolutely shocking, as I was convinced that every member of Papa Roach had long since passed away.
Anyway, you might remember Papa Roach from "Last Resort," from 2000's Infest. No? Have a live version!
"Last Resort" was one of those songs that people thought was badass in grade school. In addition, it was a song that made you a badass if you knew the words to it. Needless to say, I was the most badass 6th-grader in history.
More embarrassing: I'm pretty sure... scratch that, I know that at some point, I definitely saw Papa Roach in concert. After looking it up, I found out it was in 2002, with Incubus, System of a Down, Jimmy Eat World, Phantom Planet, The Roots, Dashboard Confessional, and a few others at the Y100 FEZtival, Perfect.
Anyway, the point is, I thought that they had fallen off of the earth for the past five years, but they're playing at Blender, touring behind a new album apparently.
Who knew?
*Secondly, I am in love with Marnie Stern. I liked her before, I love her now.
Double neck. Swoon.
She played here at school last Thursday night as part of the "NYU Chill" concert with Apache Beat, A Place to Bury Strangers, and Ra Ra Riot. NYU Program Board did a kind of nice job with the choices for this, taking a kind of bipolar route (Apache and APTBS were pretty gloomy straight through, and Marnie and Ra Ra Riot looked like they were having a blast on stage).
While all of the bands were at least pretty good (and I still might be deaf from APTBS), Marnie's set killed. Consider the following:
*Visibly intoxicated on stage. Not in the "sloppy, can't play my instrument well anymore" sense, but more in the "between song banter just got a whole lot more interesting" sense. In between songs, she and her bassist had a conversation about whether one would eat dog poo to keep the other from taking a bullet.
*Shreds. Has way more command over a guitar than a ton of other artists.
*Her drummer, Zach Hill. Probably went through about 25 drumsticks over the course of the set, and more often than not, would have to end songs standing cause he would have thrown his stool aside. He pulverizes them. Also, from Wiki:
Hill employs his characteristic double-stroke bass drum method throughout much of the song, leading many to believe he is using more than one foot to do so, when he is only using his right foot... Zach also utilizes complex time signatures into his drumming. Zach has developed these time signatures through playing, and goes by feeling a beat rather than figuring it out "traditionally".
Seriously, it's incredible to watch. If I ever find videos from this show, I'll put them up. In the meantime, have some incredible pictures that my friend Lauren took:
Zach.
Marry me, Marnie. Alliteration is great.
Finally, Oliver Ackermann of APTBS. He broke a string TWO SONGS into the set, which isn't easy to do. At this point, which was the middle of the last song, he was swinging it around by the two remaining strings. This was before he decided to get rid of it and go back to his first guitar to finish the song, which ran about fifteen minutes. Heart.
In addition to destroying guitars, he also builds his own effects pedals that are called things like "Supersonic Fuzz Gun" and "Total Sonic Annihilation." (Check it out: http://www.deathbyaudio.net) The names are perfect, cause I felt like I was hanging out on the inside of a jet engine for like an hour.
They were really, really impressive.
I leave you with this, the aftermath of Oliver's guitar. Enclosed is a playlist with a couple of songs from the NYU Chill roster, and tomorrow, I'll probably do the iTunes shuffle for a bit.
Love,
Jim
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