May 05, 2004

• Thanks for! this dng.
• Awesome. My first exposure to Godspeed was actually through a live show I randomly downloaded, since a couple of my friends had been obsessing about them. Another great place to get their shows, heck, a great place to get live music in general, is from the Further Network. It's a p2p software that restricts its use to recordings of live shows from bands that allow taping, which ensures that it'll never run into the legal problems that took Napster down. Like an p2p, it's offerings at any given time can be somewhat limited, but with a little persistence you'll be able to find some cool stuff. Anyway, I think "Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven" is easily one of my favorite albums. Now if only they'd go on tour in the US again....
• [this is good] I saw GYBE at the Lemon Tree in Aberdeen, Scotland back in 2000. A very small and intimate venue (there were only a couple of hudred people there) with no stage as such, just a space in the corner for the bands and their equipment. They were great, but what was amazing was that they were supported by Sigur Ros (who were totally unheard of outside Iceland at the time). I thought it showed a great generosity by GYBE that they would choose a support act of such surpassing brilliance. Also a great self-confidence that they could get up and play after Sigur Ros. I still remember the expressions on the faces of all of us in the audience when the last notes of the last SR song faded away - eyes wide, flushed faces. As though we'd all just realised simultaneously that we had witnessed something important and that our lives were going to be, in some small way, different afterwards ...
• Actually, I had forgotten that I had a funny story from the one Godspeed show I did catch. I went to see them at Bowery Ballroom in New York City last april. After the opening band went off, the members of Godspeed slowly started trickling on stage and tuning and setting up their instruments. It's kind of cool, they're one of the few bands I've seen that don't rely on stage hands and tour rats to set up their stuff. Anyway, it's kind of a surreal scene, because the only music playing during the setbreak, while they're setting up their stuff, is a single piercing note over the loudspeaker, held for the whole hour. One by one the band members take their seats, with their instruments in their laps. It becomes pretty clear that whole group is on stage, but this single note is still piercing through the loudspeakers and the house lights are still on. The crowd gets really quiet, expecting something to happen, and for a few minutes the band and the audience are just awkwardly staring at each other in silence. Finally, one of the guitarists says, "um....our sound man is taking a piss." A few more minutes of awkward silence, then the lights go down, and then we all proceed to have our minds blown for the next hour and a half. A hilarious way to start that show...
• I, for one, welcome our Canadian epic post-rock overlords. I <3 this site, and have done for a while. They've got a couple of unreleased songs hidden amongst the bootlegs: Albanian and Gamelan. Which are both awesome. For more post-rock bootlegs, check out Kerm.net. It's got a constantly rotating catalogue so you can check back often. I would sell my mother to see Godspeed live. My mother.
• I'm from Montréal, I own all their records but haven't seen them live. And they appear to have no plans to tour anytime soon. :-(
• Curses! I had a chance to go to one last year and passed it up for the sake of "studying" and "work" and "ambition". Stupid ambition makes me miss all the fun.
• Montréal ... goddam crazy Qu
• dude totally with you jjray, missed them last year, been killing myself ever since
• i love you mat.... i mean TheRoach
• Mp3it also has a great collection of gybe bootlegs...