I ♥ killing zombies

Well now, hooray for this.

You think you've got me figured out

Last night I stepped out to see some old favs at the Firebird, where a good time was had indeed. Headlining the show was adopted band friends Elsinore fresh off the release of a spanking new album Yes Yes Yes. They hail from Champaign, but they've been coming to St. Louis so long they're practically local. As always, lead singer Ryan Groff was masterful with use of his powerfully sweet voice. Notable stops on the rest their tour are at Lincoln Hall in Chicago on Friday, August 20 and the Strutt in Kalamazoo on Friday, August 27. I suggest you take a listen and think about going to check 'em out if they're comin' through your town. I'm already waiting for them to come back again.

Moving backwards through time leads us to Jumbling Towers, one of the thankfully long-lasting local indie rock acts. Too many good local bands have fallen, cut down in their prime by whatever circumstances make bands break up. Where I used to have a stable of St. Louis bands to choose from, with someone playing a show practically every week, now there are so very few. Keep on trucking.

And last we come to those that played first. Opening things up was Dear Vincent, a band of complexities. The only group I can think of offhand with so many layers of instrumentation is Lost in the Trees. Dear Vincent doesn't quite have the depth as Lost in the Trees - and this is hardly a fair comparison to make considering Lost in the Trees is an indie rock orchestra - but they've definitely got a lot going on. I'd say there's reason to go see them again just for the sake of picking apart some of the different sounds that they used, as I'm sure I missed quite a bit. It just so happens that they play some pretty decent music. They sure restored a bit of my faith in opening bands and did a good job of getting the crowd warmed up and into the show. It also happens that the drummer is a cyclist. And that sometimes he follows me around. I bumped into him twice today while I was out and about. It was strange.

My only complaint about the evening was the lack of crowd participation. I've seen folks get into the groove in a rather serious way at both Elsinore and Jumbling Towers shows, so I figured the two of them together would produce some epic indie dance action. Plus Dear Vincent was so good starting things off I had high expectations. Alas, it was not to be. Maybe there was something off about the energy level of the place or of the bands, or the length of the sets (personally I felt like they were a little short). I did my best to hold it down on the dance front, and kept up the fight solo, front and center through two whole sets, but things did not jump off as I had hoped. And boy, do I feel self-conscious about it after the fact. Dancing like no one is watching while everyone else is dancing is one thing, but doing so while the whole crowd just sits back and chills is something else entirely. Obviously they can see you, cause there is no where to hide!

A whole mess of sound

At least the spirit of music isn't dead in the Loop. For four days in September 9oish bands will descend onto the neighborhood for a festival of epic proportions. Well, epic for St. Louis, anyway. The PLAY:stl fest runs the 15-18, though it remains to be seen how this will compare to the RFT Showcase. The low, low price of $20 gets you in to see all this glory. I'll admit it's a good deal, but that's versus a simple five spot for the RFT. And this thing is sponsored by Sam Adams. Again, I have to admit that it's a good beer, but we've got plenty of good beer a lot closer to home. I'm not convinced this is not a plot masterminded by Joe Edwards. Now that the RFT deal has moved elsewhere he's free to make a bunch more money off of anyone wanting to see a pile of bands in the Loop? Just a little wild speculation, though it remains to be seen what the real story is. Now that the schedule is up there are a whole lot of bands I don't know... but that could be good! If they're cool, what an intense period of new music discovery it would be. Most notably I see Art Majors are playing, been looking forward to seeing them for a minute. Might be worth checkin' out...

Hoe. Lee. Cow.
How amazing is this??
I have been transported back to my elementary school computer lab, and I love it.

Color Me Marcus, pt. 3

At some point a ways back I had made decisions to teach myself origami and to decorate my room with it. It seemed like a cool and different sort of thing to do, dig? I'm not up to trying anything so fancy as a dragon or an Oliphaunt or a peacock, mind you. I just did a few simple designs. Nor was I committed enough to attempt folding a thousand cranes, even if it would get me a free wish. But that was enough to give me an idea... After a brief stop at the locally-owned hardware store I picked up a few nails and some fishing line. I put the nails into the walls near ceiling height and strung the line across, and planned to hang some cranes using paper clips (for ease of use). I quickly realized, however, that the fishing line is damn near invisible, making it possible to make the cranes appear as if they're hanging from nothing at all (and also terribly tedious to work with as you can hardly see what you're doing). I abandoned my paper clip plan and instead suspended the cranes with more of the fishing line. What else was I going to do with the rest of that spool, anyway? I took a couple pictures that hardly do it justice; the end effect is that I AM MAGICAL. It's pretty sweet. Also, not caring as of yet to go out and buy origami paper, I've been making cranes out of interesting and colorful pictures I find in magazines (my personal favorite so far being one about the Japanese Festival at the Missouri Botanical Garden) and in one case a salvaged piece of wrapping paper. Takin' the sentimentality to new heights!