Trismegistus

My 2024 time off came in January, and therefore so are my 2024 memes. This one came from kingstoken.


Your main fandom last year?
That would be Baldur’s Gate 3, to such a life-consuming degree it was basically my only fandom in 2024. I played 400+ hours over the course of six months. I have one NPC quest boss battle and the final battle to complete, and then I will have finished the game. I have been avoiding doing either because once they’re done, I will have finished the game. 😭

Your favorite movie watched last year?
My favorite 2024 release was, hands down, Deadpool & Wolverine.

My favorite older but first-time watch was Colossal, which I thought was going to be a kaiju movie, but which is is actually a feminist horror film, and an absolutely excellent one at that.

My favorite documentary was Coded Bias, which was so infuriating I had to repeatedly pause it to go take agitated walks, despite having already read the scholarship it’s presenting.

Your favorite book read last year?
Of the new-to-me books I read in 2024, this is probably a four-way tie between Ann Leckie’s Translation State, Amy Lipcott’s The Outrun, Patrick Radden Keefe’s Say Nothing, and Ferdia Lennon’s Glorious Exploits, which I inhaled in a day and which is still lodged in my brain a week later. Of these four, only the first has a fandom presence (although Glorious Exploits is ripe for one).

Your favorite TV show of the year?
Say Nothing. I rocketed through the book in two days in March and immediately went poking around online to see what others' thoughts were. This revealed that Disney+ had optioned the rights for a screen adaptation. That will never happen, I thought. Fast forward to November, when I saw that it in fact had. But there’s no way it’ll be any good, I thought. It was indeed very good. So good, in fact, that the GC (who doesn't like documentaries or historical dramas) ended up eagerly watching the entire thing.

Your favorite video game of the year?
See: “Your main fandom this year”, above.

Your favorite song, album, or artist to listen to this year?
Song: Crows’ Bored. This song is a freaking banger. As is the album it’s on. As is Crows’ entire catalogue.
Album: Robbie McGowran’s The Irish Way. Just classic, artful playing all the way through.
Artist: Russian Circles. Their albums are phenomenal, as was their live show this fall.

Favorite podcast of the year
The only podcast I listened to start-to-finish this year was Tortoise Media’s Master, which was horrific, excellently written, and wholly believable.

In terms of as-yet-ongoing listens, I enjoyed the Grimfrost and History Fuzz podcasts immensely. The first is a wonderfully in-depth look at various aspects of Norse and Viking history that focuses on the historical record even when that might contradict the dearly held positions of various likely audience democraphics. The latter is an enjoyable look at European and pre-Columbian American archeoastronomy, although listeners will have to put up with a fair amount of purile academic cattiness from the host alongside the good stuff.

Your best new fandom discovery of the year?
While not a “big” discovery per se, I remain tickled by this BG3 Easter egg.

Specifically, this book, entitledYoshimo Is Willing.


Larian sees you, OG BG players.

Your biggest fandom disappointment?
Pulling a full-on “Troy meets LaVar Burton” when meeting Coinneach MacLeod. How does this happen? I am always so smooth in my head.

Your TV video game boyfriend of the year?
Astarion, aka the Felix Harrowgate of Faerun. What a freaking fantastic character arc.

Your TV video game girlfriend of the year?
Karlach, whose IRL girlfriend I would be in a second, if she existed IRL.

Your biggest squee moment of the year?
Finding myself less than two feet away from Pac, Cesaro, and Jon Moxley as they made their Dynamite ring entrance last month.

       


Mox turning his cold, cold stare on me for a solid 7 seconds as he stalked by was An Experience.

(Bonus: the GC and I have a friend who wrestles for *mumble mumble* promotion out West. We both wore his t-shirt to the show. He saw us wearing them while watching the live broadcast and was over the moon.)

Fandom resolutions for next year?
I don't really have any? Ideally, I just keep reading, writing, and watching.

Your biggest fannish anticipations for the new year?
I’ve already written about my excitement for Paraic O’Donnell and Natasha Pulley’s new books. To this, let me add the publication of Katherine Addison’s The Tomb of Dragons, which comes out in March.

My full 2024 Multimedia List is here.

これで以上です。

...makes a post!

Job stuff! February found me commuting to a new worksite that requires 2+ hours in the car each day, which has significantly cut down on the leisure time things I'm able to do in a day. That said, the work is awesome, and I'm having a blast doing it while I'm onsite.

Concerts! This time, Falling in Reverse and Disturbed.

I knew more about the drama surrounding Falling in Reverse (even predating the Paige/Suraya connection) than I did their music, which turned out to be...fine. It wasn't bad in a concert venue setting but also wasn't anything distinguished enough that I'd seek it out again on my own. What did distinguish the band was the lead singer publicly berating a member of his stage crew, at length and by name, after something apparently went wrong toward the end of the show. Like, dude, you have just generated a lot of sympathy from me for someone, and it isn't you. Super gross and unnecessary, particularly when it became clear the lead singer wasn't even capable of generating entry-level stage patter to fill the silence after he'd finished dropping f-bombs on the stage hand.

Disturbed, on the other hand, was excellent as ever. We'd seen them live last summer (with Jinjer and Breaking Benjamin), so the stage set and much of the set list were pretty familiar, but man they put on a good show. Just a ton of energy and excitement, which is exactly what I wanted from the experience. The audience energy was great: people were as into it as we were.

Side note: the Baltimore concert tee bootleggers' game is fabulous. Por ejemplo: they didn't even bother to photoshop out the vendor "low tix" warning icons out of screencap they used for the dates on their Disturbed bootleg tee. These guys dngaf and it's great.

Bonus beer: We had dinner at The Brewer's Art, whose Resurrection abbey brown ale I'm a big fan of. The food was great and so were the other beers, particularly their GPT green peppercorn trippel and Daytrip to Yorkshire English old ale.

Building Bullshit! Has been so egregious and frequent I've stopped posting about it as it happens. Suffice to say that the building was on fire three times in February, the upstairs tenants flooded our kitchen and closet again when they got high and failed to turn off the faucet in their kitchen again, and our bathroom flooded again after the management company failed to fix the crumbling pipes in our again. We called maintenance at 3:00 in the afternoon when we came home and discovered the problem, but wouldn't you know? The maintenance number listed on the building website and provided to the concierge and answering service was wrong—as has been the case since January when the building manager was first notified of the issue.

But wait! There's more!

On top of that, the management company erroneously sent out notices informing tenants that we hadn't paid rent and that the management company was going to initiate eviction proceedings, again. (Seriously, this is the third time this has happened in the last six months, and the notices to go pretty much everyone in the building, including people like us who religiously pay rent on the 1st of each month.)

This is especially ironic given that the management company didn't think to position the cameras they finally agreed to install in the lobby in such a way as to cover the rent drop box, which was robbed. (Following the robbery, the management company helpfully sent letters to tenants saying that we were responsible for making sure management company received our rent on time, would need to submit payment again if our payments were among those stolen from the rent drop box, and that tenants were responsible for assuming any costs associated with cancelling checks that had been stolen from the rent drop box, which management suggested that we do.

TL;DR—you would think that after this, the management company would reposition the cameras to cover the rent drop box.

WELL. THEY DID NOT.

And it was robbed again. Rinse, repeat. Following this, the management company informed tenants that they were doing away with the rent drop box and that everyone would have to submit payments electronically in the future. This is fine for us, but not for other folks in the building, for specific reasons. Following intervention from the Tenants' Association and city authorities, the management company has informed us that they will be installing a new rent drop box behind the concierge desk. Hopefully they don't put it in a camera blindspot this time.

D&D! Season Three of Oldest D&D Group's homebrew campaign reconvened. The party continues to be as ineptfective as ever. Por ejemplo: across two sessions, we somehow ended up guarding a caravan, ambushed the brigands who were trying to ambush us and defeated them by, among other things, conjuring octopi to drop on their heads, lost half the caravan to hobgoblin raiders, and then ended up with twice as many wagons after we raided the raiders, in a process that happened to involve polymorphing various party members into horses and setting a lot of things on fire.

Second Oldest D&D Group's Saltmarsh campaign reconvened, with a marathon seven-hour battle session that honestly was a bit of a slog, at least for me. (I'm the only player in the group who doesn't use my phone during sessions. In a bid to get the others to pay attention, the DM gave them four additional units to control. This did not lead to less phone usage but resulted in my having one attack per the other players' three to nine, each turn. Ugh.) Things picked up in the following sessions, however, once the DM rebalanced the play mechanics. Subsequent sessions have featured a lot of great combats against some pretty tough critters, as well as the chance use do outside-the-box tactics to defeat them.

D&D Pt. II! We randomly ran into two of the players from Third Oldest D&D Group while out preparing for Geek BBQ Mardi Gras (for which, see below). This group's campaign has been on hiatus since last summer, but will be starting back up again. That was welcome news. Furthermore, as it's an online campaign, I hadn't actually seen these guys in the flesh since the Beforetimes, so it was delightful to have run into them.

D&D Pt. III! Boy, I was not in the headspace to handle BG3 last summer. Last month, I jettisoned my previous games and started fresh. I am definitely in the headspace for it now. I'm really enjoying the tie-ins to Escape from Avernus, and wondering whether any of the Shar/Selûne stuff that's being hinted at ties back in any way to Shar/Selûne developments in BG/BG2 EE. Also, holy crap, this is a great game.

Deadpool 3 Trailer Release Party! Which also apparently involved some sort of major sporting event? IDEK. 😛 At any rate, the food and company were fabulous. I brought a ginger carrot miso dip that people seemed to really like, and people really liked the Aslin sour—Durango Doug—we brought.

Bonus beer: I also picked up a four-pack of Aslin's Orchid imperial stout + vanilla that may be one of my favorite things they've done since Padrino.)

Gaelg! The mid-February holiday meant I was actually able to join in to an online speaking thing. It was exceptionally fun, especially because this is one of the nichest of my niche interests. (Prior to a few years ago, I figured this was a language I would never actually get to, you know, speak to anyone with.) It's weirdly one of the languages I find most intuitive, and I was able to make some decently complex sentences. I got complements on my accent, too. And again, it's just a bunch of fun to be actively using it.

Geek BBQ! Following on the heels of Geek BBQ Friendsgiving, Geek BBQ whiskey white elephant, and Geek BBQ dessert potluck, Geek BBQ put together a Mardi Gras potluck. The music was excellent, the decorations were excellent, and I probably ate my body weight in homemade jambalaya and gumbo. Very good stuff with a very good group of people.

Ice Skating 2.No! Geek BBQ friend called out of the blue one morning to invite us to a free skate at the ice complex. We were skeptical we'd be able to make it in time but were ultimately won over by friend's enthusiasm. Fast forward a hectic 40 minutes later when friend called back to say that they + friend 3 weren't going after all. Luckily, we had not actually paid for the skate yet. We had, however, jettisoned our lazy day in to trek out to the suburbs. What to do? We ended up having brunch at a favorite old venue, which happened to be showing a Scotland vs. Wales rugby match to a probable majority of the area's very enthusiastic fans. It was great energy and a lot of fun.

Karaoke! We decided to eat dinner at a newly opened Thai place before going to Geek BBQ. The food was excellent. We were the only people in the place aside from the server and the manager, who coincidentally happened to be there. Which was amazingly fortuitous and cool, because they invited us into the basement, which they had converted into a karaoke bar, and we got to sing. For free. Whatever and for as long as we wanted. I knocked out a significant portion of Roxette's back catalogue and it was spectacular.

LNY! We went out for dim sum with second oldest D&D group. Our intended destination was a bust (pro tip: do not try to go eat somewhere in a busy shopping center during a major holiday where the parking lot has been converted into stages, seating, and booths). Luckily, we knew of a second dim sum place nearby with really great food, went there, and ate ourselves silly.

What's my language progress look like?

This month I primarily blew through the supplementary hangeul lessons. These are surprisingly useful because I learned Korean directly through hangeul, which means that I never actually learned how to romanize it.

• Chinese — 1/5 through Unit 5; legendary through Unit 2
• Dutch — 4/5 through Unit 3; legendary through Unit 1
• Gaelic — 4/5 through Unit 6; legendary through Unit 3
• Hindi — 1/2 through Unit 2; backburnered until I wrap up a physical textbook
• Indonesian — 1/5 through Unit 11; legendary through Unit 6
• Japanese — 1/5 through Unit 21; legendary through Unit 16
• Korean — 1/2 through Unit 8; legendary through Unit 5
• Latin — 4/5 through Unit 2; legendary through Unit 1
• Welsh — 1/2 through Unit 1; backburnered in favor of a physical textbook

これで以上です。

Challenge #10

Five Things! The five things are totally up to you. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Up to me, you say? In that case, here are five varieties of instrument that I play.

Irish Flute

Here is my McNeela:

McNeela is not positively regarded by a lot of players (one Internet wiseass referred to their flutes as being made from "Pakistani firewood") but this particular instrument produces a lovely tone, especially when it's oiled regularly and kept at a good humidity. (This wasn't the case throughout its life as you can see from the slight bend in the body, which has led to its being fondly dubbed "Mr. Derpy.")


This is my second main flute, an Ormiston in blackwood. It produces a big tone. I mean BIG. I don't play it as much at home as I'd like, because damn this guy is loud. But yeah, absolutely beautiful sound, super responsive, and a really strong, dark bottom 'D'. I love this flute so much.

Low Whistle

This particular whistle is an MK Kelpie. It's not tuneable, but as I don't play this one in groups that's not really an issue. Anyway, it's got a really lovely tone, a pretty strong low 'E' (usually the weakest note on an Irish flute or low whistle), forgiving air requirements, and really good balance across both octaves.

Plus, it would double as a weapon in a pinch.

Pennywhistle

Being, from top to bottom, a Burke Al-Pro, an O'Riordan, and a Mack Hoover narrow bore, all in D. The Al-Pro is my go-to session instrument. It's got a lovely sweet tone and is fairly audible in a group setting. The Hoover, by contrast, is quite soft and generally what I practice on to avoid annoying the neighbors.

The O'Riordan is the king of high D whistles, and Pat O'Riordan made this instrument for me personally. I ADORE it and would probably opt to save it in a fire ahead of any human beings who happened to be with me.

Great Highland Bagpipes

Or, this Blair practice chanter, because I live in a multiunit dwelling and value my life. That said, plug in earphones and it sounds and responds pretty much identically to a traditional practice chanter. There's also a setting for the chanter plus a full set of drones, which I am so far away from managing IRL, but man, using it makes me feel like such a badass. One day, I'll actually get there. 😎

Angklung

Angklung being a traditional Indonesian instrument from Java Barat. They have to be played with a group because each angklung can only generate its specific pitch. Now that I'm not a student with an obliging schedule I'm no longer able to play, but maybe one day I'll be able to make it work again.

At any rate, if you ever get the chance to hear an angklung ensemble in person, go for it. It's really, really cool.

これで以上です。

Another wrap-up post? Sure, why not. I'm only listing media I actively consumed and finished (i.e., no movies on in the background, no games or television series still in progress, no podcasts where I cherrypicked specific episodes to listen to).

Given everything that went down, I really didn't have the attention span or joy in imagination to consume much visual media in the latter half of the year, but that means there's just more for me to wrap up this year. On the flip side, it was a pretty good year for live music (and we didn't even get to half of the shows we were interested in seeing).

I may come back at some point and add notes or thoughts about each, but for starters, let's just get the list down.

Movies

Ant Man: Quantumania

The Banshees of Inisherin

Barbie

A Christmas Story

Dungeons & Dragons

Flash

Guardians of the Galaxy 3

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

National Lampoon Christmas Vacation

Oppenheimer

The Room

Scrooged

Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse

Spotlight

올빼미

TV

Adventure Time: Season 3

Adventure Time: Season 4

Last Week Tonight: Season 10

Legend of Vox Machina: Season 2

Loki: Season 2

Ms. Marvel

The Owl House: Season 1

Ragnarok: Season 1

Werewolf by Night

Podcasts

30for30: Bikram

Computer/Console Games

Wordle

Live Music

100 Gecs

311

Asking Alexandria

Beck

Bush

Breaking Benjamin

Candlebox

Cherry Glazrr

Cold War Kids

Collective Soul

Dandy Warhols

Disturbed

Explosions in the Sky

Fear Factory

Fever Ray

Filter

Franz Ferdinand

Garbage

Godsmack

The Hu

I Ya Toyah

Jinjer

Live

Live (unplugged)

Machinegirl

Matt & Kim

Metric

Mix Master Mike

Mushroomhead

No Second Troy

Noel Gallagher's Flying Circus

Paul Okenfold

Phoenix

Pixies

Stabbing Westward

Staid

Static-X

Silversun Pickups

Toni Smooth

Visors

Walkaways

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Live TV

AEW Dynamite

AEW Rampage

Tabletop Games

The Captain Is Dead

Delta Green one-shot

D&D Delian Tomb homebrew campaign

D&D Dragons of Stormwreck Isle

D&D Feywild homebrew campaign

D&D Homebrew campaign: Season 2

D&D Spelljammer homebrew campaign #1

D&D Spelljammer homebrew campaign #2

D&D Spelljammer Jpop homebrew campaign playtest



これで以上です。

The last month has been packed: live music, live sports wrestling entertainment, movies, gaming, work shenanigans, apato shenanigans, books. I am not going to get to all of it in one post, so instead I am going to try spamming it across multiple posts, this being the first.

It continues to be a banner year for live music, including the local(ish) ( music festival. )

これで以上です。

Challenge #8

In your own space, celebrate a personal win from the past year: it can be a list of fanworks you're especially proud of, a gift of your time to the community, a quality or skill you cultivated in yourself, something you generally feel went well. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

This one is both a skill cultivated and something that went well.( Read more... )

これで以上です。

For anyone new to my DW who wants a bit of context, this post should help orient you. Feel free to comment or subscribe at will (and introduce yourself, if you like!) Pretty much everything I post aside from in-progress drafts is unlocked.

In general, I post about:

My Current Obsessions: Baldur's Gate 3, Whisper of Ravens

My Forever Fandoms Baldur's Gate, Blake & Avery, Discworld, Farscape, Fullmetal Alchemist, The Goblin Emperor, Imperial Radch, Lord of the Rings, Onmyoji, The Queen's Thief, Saiyuki, Silver Diamond, X-Files

My Fandoms of One: Akitsuki Koh's manga and novels, Paraic O'Donnell's The House on Vesper Sands, Naono Bohra's manga, Sugiura Shiho's 終点unknown

My Old Flames: Adventure Time, Bleach, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Castlevania, D-Gray.man, Death Note, Destiny, Dredd, Final Fantasy, Firefly, Good Omens, Harry Potter, Magnus Archives, MCU, Our Flag Means Death, Samurai Flamenco, The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System, Vampire Chronicles, The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, Welcome to Night Vale

My Enduring Interests AEW, Anime, BL & danmei, Books, Calligraphy & fountain pens, Foreign language learning, Gardening, Irish traditional music, Manga, Roleplaying games, Tabletop gaming, Tarot, Yoga

My What Am I Reading Wednesday posts are here and my fanfic is here. Maybe one day I'll add my early orphaned works to my account.

2025 Multimedia List

Movies

Thunderbolts*

Podcasts

Live Music

A Perfect Circle

Babymetal

Black Veil Brides

Breaking Benjamin

Gossip

Hubris

Kurt Vile and the Violators

Mogwai

Pelican

Pixies

Primus

Pucifer

Puddles Pity Party

Solas

Staind

Tycho

We Lost The Sea

Weird Al

Live Shows

Tabletop Games

Boggle

Television

Adventure Time: Season 8

Adventure Time: Season 9

Adventure Time: Season 10

Dragon Prince: Book 7 - Dark

Computer/Console Games

Beers

21st Amendment - Hell or High Watermelon wheat

Aleworks Brewing - Coffeehouse milk stout

Allagash Brewing Company - Allagash White witbier

Angry Orchard - Hard cider

Anxo - East Coast Dry Cider

Alsin - Maybe Shark IPA

Aslin - Ontario IPA

Atlas Brew Works - The Precious One apricot IPA

Atlas Brew Works - Silent Neighbor stout

Beale - Peach Tea blonde ale

Bishop - Brown ale

Bishop - Red ale

Black Widow - Original Sin blackberry & New York apple cider

Blake's Hard Cider - Triple Jam strawberry, blackberry & raspberry cider

Bold Rock - Hard cider

Brewer's Art - Resurrection brown ale

Brouwerij de Halve Maan - Straffe Hendrik quadrupel

Brouwerij Verhaeghe - Duchesse Cherry Flanders red ale

Brouwerij Verhaeghe - Duchesse sour ale

Citystate - Kingman Extra stout

Corona - Mexican pale lager

DC Brau - Auld Dubliner amber ale

Dewey - Frostberry Festival fruit beer

Downeast - Winter Blend unfiltered cider

Guinness - Draught Stout

Henway Hard Cider Company - Cider Donut

Henway Hard Cider Company - Concord

Honor Brewing - Silent Wings coffee brown ale

Magic Hat - #9 IPA

Oliver - Drink Me, I'm Irish Nitro dry Irish stout^

Oxbow - La Roma saison

Pacifico - Mexican pilsner

Port City - Monkspell tripel

Potter's - Passionfruit Mosaic cider^

Right Proper - Shortest Night Baltic porter

Saints Row Craft Collective - Dark Necessities imperial coffee milk stout

Strongbow - dry cider

Three Notch'd - Watermelon Gose

Victory - Golden Monkey Belgian tripel

Albums Acquired

Adwaith - Bato Mato

Adwaith - Melyn

Adwaith - Solas

Isaac Anderson & Dylan Foley - The Palace Sessions

Ar Log - Y Ddwy Chwaer

Arcade Fire - Pink Elephant

Jesse Autumn & Friends - California Celt

Bear the Mammoth - In Absence

Bear the Mammoth - Purpole Haus

Bear the Mammoth - Sea Caesar (s/w Xenograft & Kettlespider)

Bear the Mammoth - Yamadori

Bear the Mammoth - Years Under Glass

Blondie - The Best of Blondie

Ronan Browne & Peter O'Loughlin - The Legacy

Bush - Golden State

Joe Byrne - Uilleann Piping from County Kildare

CAIN - The Collection: 2014-2019

CAIN - Lineage

CAIN - Moran

Nuala agus Tomás Ó Canainn - Beal Na Tra

Tomás Ó Canainn - the Pennyburn Piper Presents Uilleann Pipes

Bobby Casey - Casey in the Cowhouse

Ceoltoiri - Celtic Lace

Clannad - Fuaim

Cran - The Crooked Stair

Dylan Foley & Dan Gurney - Irish Music From the Hudson Valley

Deep Forest - Comparsa

The Dubliners - Jigs Reels & Hornpipes

Four Men and a Dog - Wallop the Spot

Ray Gallen - Man of the House

girl in red - if i could make it go quiet

Giungla - Distractions

GLOIN - All of your anger is actually shame (and I bet that makes you angry)

Gossip - Real Power

Gráinne Hambly - Golden Lights and Green Shadows (second copy)

Gráinne Hambly - The Thorn Tree

Gravity Kills - Perversion

PJ Harvey - All About Eve

PJ Harvey - I Inside The Old Year Dying

Helicon - God Intentions

Helicon - Live in London

Heilung - Lifa Iotungard

HELGA - Wrapped in Mist

Hiroe - Wield

Hò-Rò - Hex

Sayaka Ikuyama - Light

Invernalia - Sol Invictus

James Keane - With Friends Like These

Jinjer - Duél

Kilbride - Kilbride

Knacker's Yard - Jigs and Reels

Lambrini Girls - You're Welcome

Lilt - X

Iarla Ó Lionáird - Invisible Fields

Iarla Ó Lionáird - Seacht gCoiscéim na Trocaire

London Grammar - The Greatest Love

The Lonely Island - Incredibad

The Lonely Island - The Wack Album

Colm Mac Coniomaire - Cúinne an Ghiorria

Robbie MacGowran - Basically

Cathal McConnell & Robin Morton

Tom McGonigle & Robbie McGouran - Road Map of Ireland

Joe McHugh - AIRLA

Joe McHugh & Barry Carroll - An Mhéar Fhada

Mick Moloney & Silvia Woods - Young Turlough

Eileen Monger - Lilting Banshee

Nite - Darkness Silence Mirror Flame

Laurence Nugent - Traditional Irish Music On Flute And Tin-whistle

Laurence Nugent - Two for Two

Kim Robertson - The Spiral Gate

Roehind - Buile

Royksopp - Royksopp's Night Out

Royksopp - The Understanding

Ruefrex - Flowers For All Occasions

Semisonic - Feeling Strangely Fine

Solas - The Edge of Silence

Spell Songs - Spell Songs II: Let the Light In

Alan Stivell - Ar Pep Gwellañ

Sweeney, Carlos, McCartin - The One After It

Sweeping Promises - Good Living Is Coming For You

Sweeping Promises - Hunger for a Way out

Tangled Thoughts Of Leaving - The Black Captain

Tangled Thoughts Of Leaving - Contextually Inept

Tangled Thoughts Of Leaving - Deaden the Fields

Tangled Thoughts Of Leaving - Deep Rivers Run Quiet

Tangled Thoughts Of Leaving - Dread Sessions vol. 1

Tangled Thoughts Of Leaving - Failed by Man and Machine

Tangled Thoughts Of Leaving - No Tether

Tangled Thoughts Of Leaving - Oscillating Forest

Tangled Thoughts Of Leaving - S/W sleepmakeswaves

Tangled Thoughts Of Leaving - Tiny Fragments

Tangled Thoughts Of Leaving - Yield to Despair

Thou - Umbilical

Trian - Trian

VA - Celtic Brittany

Väsen - Rule of 3

Pat Walsh - Simply Whistle

Wardruna - Birna

We Lost The Sea - Crimea remastered

We Lost The Sea - The Quietest Place On Earth

We Lost The Sea - A Single Flower

We Lost The Sea - Triumph & Disaster

John Williams - John Williams

これで以上です。

Really great shows last month, including a grueling but awesome triple header.

The American Dollar & God Is An Astronaut
On our way to the venue for this show we stumbled across a dude in a tent spinning really solid progressive house to a crowd of zero dancers. Only later did we discover that this was likely part of Art All Night, which we would have been all over, except: The American Dollar and God Is An Astronaut.

The GC was already a fan of the former; I had not heard of them ahead of this show. By the end of it, I was enough of a fan to pick up their entire back catalogue at the merch booth. They are at the chiller end of the post rock spectrum, but put out a sound that is much bigger than the one guy on drums + other guy on guitar/keyboards/synths that comprises the band. I was engaged and grooving throughout their set despite not knowing any of the tracks, which is a pretty good yardstick of talent.

And then: God Is An Astronaut. This is another band I've listened two for years without ever imagining I'd have the chance to see them live. They were every bit as good as I'd hoped. Tragically for the band, one of the main members was unable to join the tour due to a death in the family. He was replaced by the lead member of of Butterfly Explosion, which was a great treat and would have been even more of one under better circumstances.

We were about three rows back from the stage with a great view, and better yet, this was one of the most respectful crowds of any show I've seen in the last several years. The venue was bursting at the seams, but no one pushed, no one forced their way in front of people who'd been watching for a long time, and best of all, no one lit up a joint.

( Read more... )


Wovenhand
Being the show we saw on day 2 of our live music triple header, and yes, another band I never thought I would have the chance to see perform live. And these guys put on a show. They were performing in one of the city's smaller venues, and it was hardly packed, but the energy from the band and the audience went way beyond the number of people in the room.

And these guys were the real deal: no click tracks, no pre-recorded samples, no lights or visuals, just four people on stage--most of whom were not even wearing earplugs--blasting through one awesome song after another, including Corsicana Slip and The Refractory, which are absolutely two of my favorites. It was transcendent.

As an added bonus, the lead singer himself went out to handle the merch after the show, and if a show is good, I will generally try to buy something to put more money in the artist's hands. To my dismay, however, I approached to see a handwritten cardboard sign that in keeping with the band's vibe looked like it could have been hanging on an abandoned mine shaft out west for half a century. “Men’s XX and XXL only sorry!” it proclaimed in a heavy scrawl.

So I asked to see the men's XX. “It’s too big,” I sad sadly.

“We have women’s shirts,” the lead singer told me, and then gave me a big smile like the sun rising. “All you gotta do is ask.”

So that happened.

But I also got to talk to him for a minute about his new album, which is apparently already recorded and set to come out soon, and I am very much looking forward to that.


Live & Our Lady Peace
Being the third and final entry in our "three days, three shows" extravaganza. Getting to see this band play precisely 24 years and 15 days since the first time I saw them in concert was a huge treat. And again, judging by the energy in the venue (much bigger bigger than either of the previous nights' and sold out) pretty much everyone else in the place thought likewise. The entire was basically one giant singalong.

It was doubly good because this was the (sole, I believe) show they played outside the triple-headlined--and unfortunately named--ALTimate tour they were undertaking alongside Bush and Our Lady Peace. And while it would definitely have been cool to see Live alongside Our Lady Peace (I am lukewarm on Bush), it was far cooler to see them play this show, specifically as a thank you to this city and the venue, where they've played 13 times over the years.

Perhaps because of that, ( they played a bunch of their best songs. )


Al Lover & The Hu
Unfortunately, we missed most of Al Lover's set due to restaurant planning snafus (which, in a humorous twist, ended up with us eating at the previously unknown-to-us parent restaurant of our go-to cafe across the street from our place 50 miles away) and ticketmaster's horrendously non-functional app. So that was a shame.

But that was more than made up for by The Hu.

Who are The Hu? I’m glad you asked.

The Hu are what happen when you take traditional Mongolian throat singing and instruments, hook the latter up to pickups and amplifiers, and crank the metal up to eleven. I am actually a big fan of throat singing (and an even bigger fan of long song, which, alas, these guys don't do) and was genuinely stoked to see this group. They were fabulous live, and clearly having the time of their lives onstage.( Read more... )

The crowd was at capacity and stoked to see them too, judging from the plentiful Mongolian back-and-forth to the band's stage patter.

The Hu only had a couple of singles to their name for the majority of their existence (their debut album came out less than two weeks before we saw them) so their set was, literally, their album on shuffle, with the big first single as the encore.

They stuck around after the show to take photos with the audience, which is pretty freaking cool. We, being tired and thirsty, and not fluent in Mongolian, elected to head out and beat the traffic. But had they chosen to play for several more hours, we would have stuck around for it, and will definitely catch them again on any subsequent tours.



これで以上です。