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Clem Snide is playing Lincoln Hall tonight, darlings! I’ll be there, he’s one of my favorite of favorites performers! You can get tickets here. Don’t miss this, his music is heartbreakingly wonderful and his shows are over-the-top just so special.
Rob Smoughton, drummer for Hot Chip, moonlights as Grovesnor, this smooth-voiced performer in “Taxi From The Airport.” Just last night I received this juicy little remix and it’s proof that not all remixes are crap. Enjoy and go pick up this album, I think it’s gorgeous.
Metric, one of my favorite bands is coming to Chicago on May 20th. Yes, Chicagoans, it’s a Ticketmaster venue, but you can buy your tickets at the box office which has very reasonable hours (M-F 12-6, Sat. 12-5) and I’m pretty sure it’s cash only for advance tickets. If you need one drop me a line, we’ll work something out. This theater is lovely, and even with a sold out crowd of almost 1,400 it’s still a great place to see a big name act like this!
Dark Mean will perform at this years NXNE on Friday June 18, 9:30pm – 10:30pm at Sneaky Dee’s in Toronto, Canada. Dark Mean will be direct support to Leif Vollebek, who is doing quite well these days. You can get Dark Mean’s EP for free at their MySpace page!
Tour Dates Jun 11 2010 6:00P Lincoln Hall – RECORD RELEASE SHOW Chicago, Illinois
Jun 13 2010 8:00P Vaudeville Mews Des Moines, IA
Jun 14 2010 8:00P Triple Rock Club Minneapolis, MN
Jun 16 2010 7:00P Riot Room Kansas City, Missouri
Jun 17 2010 7:00P Firebird St Louis, MO
Jun 21 2010 7:00P Southgate House Parlour Newport, Kentucky
Jun 22 2010 7:00P Grog Cleveland, OH
Jun 23 2010 7:00P Mi Factory Rochester, MI
Jun 24 2010 7:00P Intersection Grand Rapids, MI
Tonight’s show at the Metro was sold out, sweaty, and eager to welcome Metric back to Chicago. Support was lent by Sebastien Grainger who is a fellow Canadian and neighbor of Metric and Broken Social Scene guitarist James Shaw. Alas, I happened to arrive halfway through Sebastien Grainger and the Mountains‘ rockin set, MUCH to my dismay. (The Metro, once again, put forth a misleading set list, with three bands on the marquee starting at 7:30 and doors open an hour earlier. I really should learn that it means the first band begins when doors open, not at the starting time, grrrr!) Let me tell you, if you’ve not heard Sebastien Grainger you really should. “American Names” is just a taste of what he’s capable of, and with the band behind him it all just explodes. Listen to that bass line on ”By Cover of Night (Fire Fight)” … you know what a good bass player does to me! I’m humble enough to admit that I had no idea what I was walking into, by the end of the night I was completely starstruck with this band. So much so that all I could do was stalk the poor man until the last possible minute and ask for him to autograph my CD… oh darlings,… the Tart is just hopeless sometimes. But it really is about the music, I would love to sit down and pick his brain for about three days on how he thinks about what he plays… sigh. … go buy his album, Sebastien Grainger & The Mountains
Is it completely wrong to begin a concert review with discussion of the supporting band? Well, I don’t care! Metric was fantastic, you all know that. Emily Haines sang in good form, looked fantastic, much like these great photos I swiped off flickr for you from a show they did in London a few weeks back. The band took the stage, dramatically. Throughout the show there were pregnant pauses with prolonged organ notes and lighting changes while guitars were swapped or Emily crouched down to her water bottle. She was a dynamo, rarely standing still and every moment completely engaged with the band or the audience. In the hour long show with two encores Metric performed 11 songs and two encores, most off their new album, Fantasieswith a few standards thrown in. (click that link to buy it)
Twilight Galaxy
Help I’m Alive
Satellite Mind
Handshakes
Gold Guns Girls
Gimme Sympathy
Sick Muse
Empty
Front Row
Dead Disco
Stadium Love
Monster Hospital
Live It Out
When I chatted with Jimmy Shaw afterwards, about his guitar solos, he talked about how no matter what kind of skill you’ve got as a guitarist, if you’re not right there with the band, feeling it with them, your solo just isn’t gonna turn out that great. Sometimes it’s like you’re standing next to the rest of your bandmates and trying to reach through a membrane to feel them, to get in the groove of things (I’m paraphrasing here). That was certainly not the case at the Metro. Tonight’s solos were fantastic, I told him so and he meekly agreed. “Gold Guns Girls” featured a fucking awesome squealing, short guitar bit that made me crane my head around the tall guy in front of me. I noticed the guy next to me who wouldn’t dance also perked up about this time and it suddenly became clear what this crowd was about. There were lots more girls in the mix tonight… young women out with their girlfriends and dancing; I had expected that. Women flock to Emily’s personality and lyrics. It wasn’t the usual concert where the ratio is more like 3 to 1. But there were some stoic guys, on their own, not moving, not even daring to nod their heads for fear that their Midwestern cool factor might slide. Well, by the time Metric got to “Empty” they had to let go. Shaw’s guitar was screaming now… for a full three minutes or so, and every Guitar Hero freak in the room was on tiptoe trying to get a peek at what he was doing. I wish I had been closer to see the wonderful Joshua Winstead on bass as well.
Emily chatted with the audience amicably throughout the show, reminiscing about their first gig in Chicago, above the Empty Bottle. “A lot has changed since our first time in Chicago…I’m wearing pants now, though I’m sure some photographers are sorry, haha.” She asked if anyone had been there, with a laugh, and a gang of fans in front of me jumped and shouted YES! We were all happy when she told them they should be in the first row, they were a royal pain in the ass to be with anyway, exuberance 10x. The best quote of the night was after “Twilight Gallery” speaking of heroes, Emily told us “Kim Gordon, she’s my hero because she doesn’t make me want to be like Kim Gordon, she wants me to be like Emily Haines.” Many many cheers were heard after that one! I think I can safely say, Emily Haines and the rest of Metric had a great time tonight in our city. They’re heading out to Detroit tomorrow; of course we all booed them when they told us that. I guess that Chicago/Detroit antagonism will never die. But mostly I think we just didn’t want to let them go.
Tour Dates
06.15.09 – St. Andrews Hall – Detroit, MI
06.17.09 – Terminal 5 – New York, NY
06.18.09 – 9:30 Club – Washington, DC
06.19.09 – Trocadero – Philadelphia, PA
06.20.09 – Edge Fest – Toronto, Ontario
06.27.09 – Glastonbury Festival (Other Stage) – Pilton, UK
07.04.09 – Virgin Festival 09 – Citadel Hill – Halifax, Nova Scotia
It’s difficult to review a much hyped album, especially one that has been as hotly anticipated as Metric‘sFantasies! Emily Haines has never sounded better. This pop album (yes, it’s pure indie pop, enjoy it for what it is!) features 10 synth-heavy tracks that veer toward the lighter side of the Metric scale. After listening to some of their earlier work, I have to say, Fantasies has a brighter, sunnier feel, although lyrically it still deals with loneliness (“Blindness”) and frustration (“Gold Guns Girls”). Perhaps I was especially smitten with exactly how Metric manages to turn such despairing lyrics into such snappy songs!
did I ask you for attention when affection was what I need?….there’s no glitter in the gutter, there’s no twilight galaxy
And yet when Emily sings “keep singing along” I’ll be damned if I don’t. Even at it’s slow, thoughtful, sad pace, “Twilight Galaxy” is a good pop song. The same can be said for most tracks on this album. “Gimme Sympathy” is a wonderful blend of synth and guitar work with great drum rolls to move it along. Lyrically, it’s not their best, but the tune is awesome and I can imagine the re-mixers are gonna have a field day with it! In a similar vein, “Front Row” takes the interplay between synthesizer and guitar and just explodes it. This is my favorite track on the album by far, I say to myself. And then I listen to the final track again. “Stadium Love” is simply a fantastic pop anthem. I can imagine some of the reasons they released “Help I’m Alive” as the first single from Fantasies, but honestly, “Stadium Love” is just a better sound, a better showcase for the band as a whole, to my ears.
Every song has it’s hook on this album. That’s the nature of pop music, afterall, it’s not exactly subtle, now is it? And some tracks’ hooks are more prominent than others, of course, but the chorus of “Sick Muse” is simply beautiful, full stop. Juxtaposed with Emily’s voice in the lower range and with lyrics of how “mommy is a sick muse” that angelic sounding chorus of “everybody, everybody just won’t fall in love, everybody everybody just won’t play with me” this song will break your heart. If you’re already a fan of Metric you’ll not be disappointed in this album, by any means. If you’re a fan of female vocalists in indie pop, synth-heavy dance tunes, you’ll love this album as well. For me, being a fan of industrial artists like Ayria, this was a very pleasant afternoon, well spent. I love pop music as much as the next lonely, heart-broken, bee-bopping girl
Tracklist:
Help I’m Alive
Sick Muse
Satellite Mind
Twilight Galaxy
Gold Guns Girls
Gimme Sympathy
Collect Call
Front Row
Blindness
Stadium Love
What does Emily Haines say about the sources of this album?
For me, the major influences on the record were the places we wrote it: Bear Creek, this utopian farmhouse studio, and then our own studio in Toronto, which definitely brought in the electro, dance and rock elements because the city feels so good right now and so many of our musician friends were around. And then for me, being in Buenos Aires, most of the songs I brought to this record came out of being in exile with just a piano and a guitar. And then in the final stages, mixing at Electric Lady in NYC brought everything around to where we first met Josh and Joules.
All of these sources ring out loudly on Fantasies and at the heart of it all is Emily Haines, spinning fantasies and working out her demons… our demons.
go to Metric’s website and pre-order Fantasies to receive an immediate download of two additional tracks!
special thanks to Myles Grosovsky of Sneak Attack Media
It’s difficult to review a much hyped album, especially one that has been as hotly anticipated as 
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