It List: Wednesday

My Bloody Valentine/Josh T. Pearson (Palladium): One bad thing about reunion shows is that they are a great way to destroy the mystique surrounding certain bands. Maybe its just my personal experience rather than an overarching cultural phenomenon, but this has happened before: seeing the Pixies on a night when the temperature was in the upper 90's at ACL in Austin a few years ago was a fantastic experience that I'll never forget, but it was also far less exciting and pleasurable than I had imagined it to be back when I first discovered the Pixies and had no reason to believe they would ever play live together again. Perhaps I built it up in my head too much, or maybe it was the emerging hangover and the terrible weather that brought me down, but at the end of the evening, all I could say was "man, that was a pretty cool show." I guess on some level the same thing has happened with My Bloody Valentine, at least as far as the unknowable mystique that used to surround frontman Kevin Sheilds-- in just a few short years, I went from never dreaming that I'd get a chance to see one of my all time favorite bands live to tonight, which will be my second MBV show in less than nine months (caught them in San Francisco last fall as well). Fortunately, however, if tonight's performance is anything close to what I witnessed last October, this band' s legend will only grow in the hearts and minds of those in attendance, and anyone who witnesses this performance will likely realize that it is indeed the absolute loudest concert they've ever experienced in their lives. Like, it'll make the Dinosaur Jr show at the Gypsy Tea Room a couple years back sound like The Decemberists on a sitcom or something. Well, maybe not quite that extreme, but volume-wise, nothing I've ever seen has compared, Dinosaur included. Oh, and I'm not normally an ear plugs guy, but for this show, you might want to think about keeping them in at all times-- it is honestly tough to hear anything going on without them, and you'll get them for free, so why not? Former Dentonite and Lift to Experience front man Josh T Pearson will open the show with the Paper Chase's Bobby Weaver on bass and a former member of Lift to Experience on drums. If he plays the same set he reportedly played in Austin last night, you can expect all new material and no Lift to Experience stuff, which seems to simultaneously excite and disappoint his fans. OK guys, My Bloody Valentine is one of the very few overhyped, overblown "musical experiences" that is 100% worth it if you have any interest at all in the group. Getting another full length album from them, however, might remain a fantasy forever.

The Faint/Ladytron/Crocodiles (The Granada): Can we talk about Crocodiles for just a second? I mean, you pretty much KNEW a record like this was going to be released some time soon, didn't you? Crocodiles' debut full length, Summer of Hate, seems to be the poppy, teenage hipster version of what we've been hearing from bands like Blank Dogs, Wavves, Crystal Stilts, Eat Skull, and especially Psychedelic Horseshit, all of which is mixed together with the sounds of newer garage heroes like King Kahn and Jay Reatard, nods to harsh noise, and even a couple tracks that blatantly rip off the Jesus and Mary Chain to an almost laughable extent. Basically, Crocodiles influences are "whatever has been cool for the past couple years, man." This is the streamlined version of this new wave in American underground rock, produced and marketed with just enough cuteness and pop appeal to possibly make this music acceptable to "edgy" teenagers and over the hill professionals who are "losing their edge," so to speak. Don't misunderstand this, though-- there are a couple extremely catchy and well executed tracks on the album, and just because you're a fan of the aforementioned groups doesn't necessarily mean that you'll dismiss this stuff as pure garbage, because although it is certainly poppier than its source material, none of it borders on the posturing offensiveness found with, say, Interpol's borrowing of the "post-punk" aesthetic as a jump off for Carlos D's lame DJ sets. If nothing else, the commercialization of the underground is happening faster than ever these days, and Crocodiles are a timely example of this phenomenon.

Left of the Dial with DJG (Rubber Gloves): G tells us he plays Liaisons Dangereuses at left of the dial, along with a lot of other post-punk, early industrial and classic dance stuff.

Taxi Fare with DJ Nature (Zubar)