Foxygen at Pianos, NYC 2/28/13 - Live Show Review!

My Dad lives and breathes and dies by the Rolling Stones. To him, it’s the only the band that ever mattered. So during a depressing November day last year, when I failed to get him way over-priced Stones tickets for their shows in Jersey and Brooklyn, I told him about Foxygen. “You’ve got to hear this guy; he sounds just like Mick Jagger!” I clicked different points of their songs off the EP Take The Kids Off Broadway, but couldn’t find a good reference point. Instead we heard a different sound every time I changed it. “Oh yeah, they also sound like the Doors, and the Zombies, and…yeah.”

Foxygen are much harder to pin down than their detractors insist. It’s new and fresh and overcomes the derivative output that traps many of their peers by being consistently jagged and surprising with their abrupt time-changes. One second singer Sam France is affecting a Lou Reed impersonation, the next a Dylan, and so on. Is it a joke? Is it a tribute? They do rock their own way. I mean their new record is called We Are the 21st Ambassadors of Peace and Magic, certainly not the ambassadors of 20th century rock and roll. Maybe they’re a nostalgic band, mining a range of sounds from the 60s and 70s and being playful about it. It may feel like a farce, but it’s actually a lot of fun.

Most performers I see fall into two categories: pleasant, but a little boring, or there’s moshing, so who really cares about what’s happening onstage anyway? There are few exceptions. Foxygen is one of those exceptions. They aren't just musicians: they’re spontaneous, funny, and weird. Sam rapped for a bit, saying things like “Chinese chicken tenders” (“That was a new song”), asked all the people named Dan in the room to raise their hand, and someone brought out a doll puppet. That all sounds a bit dumb, but believe me, bands like Foxygen are quite a rarity these days.

Perhaps I’ll take my Dad to see them one day. They could be my Rolling Stones. Or maybe I should just give up veganism and eat some Chinese chicken tenders with Foxygen. They make me question animal rights! They’re that good.

Check out the complete photo set HERE!

-Photos and Story by Joe Waslin 
**All photos copyright Joe Waslin Photography. For licensing, contact Joe via his Flickr page.

Live Review - Fucked Up - December 21st at Warsaw!

Fucked Up has all the ingredients to make a great band— mystery, mythology, that insignia, a theatrical boisterous singer—but that would all mean nothing if the music was no good. Thankfully Fucked Up don’t disappoint, and last night at Brooklyn’s Warsaw was no different. The music is a wall of guitars and roars that envelopes you. The bandmates make up for the lack of layered sophistication from the recordings in bravado, energy, and devotion to thrash the hell out of whatever town they’re passing through.

Things started epic and then got louder. A slower rendition of “Let Her Rest” perfectly amped up the audience so that when lead singer Damian Abraham jumped onto the stage the crowd went berserk. The setlist consisted of a neat variety of very old (Color Removal, Police), not so old (Black Albino Blues, Toronto FC, I Hate Summer), and tracks from their most recent LP, David Comes to Life.

Like always, half the crowd was hardcore, and half the crowd was more intrigued to stand by and witness the mess of a pit, with Patrick Stickles of Titus Andronicus leading the audience as its most ballsy participant, throwing himself and his shoes around the floor after a surprise stage dive a couple songs in.

Damian constantly mentions how he feels obligated to cut himself on his forehead as a way to give the concertgoers their money’s worth. In a sense, so too the audience feels the need to give the same thing back with our sweat and blister toes, our hoarse voices, our bruised shoulders, and our ringing eardrums (which still persists as of this writing). All we endure and bask in as gratitude for everything this band gives us tour after tour, 7”after 7”, and scar after scar.

Fucked Up are the surprise headliners for the last night of the Brooklyn Night Bazaar. I’ll be making the pilgrimage to the venue of course. I can’t think of a better way to welcome the Mayan Apocalypse than with these Canadians.

-Photos and Story by Joe Waslin