Now I know that many people consider the summer as ‘concert season’ but I disagree. It seems like (at least here in Colorado) the fall is really when things pick up. Every weekend (nearly every night to be exact) there’s an excuse to go to a venue (Beta, Fox, Ogden or otherwise) and rage.your.face.off.

I like this. In fact I like this so much I find reasons to GO out every night and do JUST that. To be clear…this type of expense (on my wallet and liver) is definitely ‘in budget.’

To that end I will be seeing some of my favorite groups, Bloody Beetroots, Dada Life, Muse and Rusko all within 8 weeks from today.

This is the culmination of my being…

I’m an American and I like soccer. This might be a strange sight to see…like an Albatross but today could be a really big deal for the future of THE sport in the states.

Now before you go and totally write me off with ‘over-hyping’ this match, you need to know a few things.

1) America is on the brink of a massive shift in sport. During the last World Cup, more Americans (that’s right, red blooded apple pie Bud diesel drinking red necks) watched the World Cup final than the NBA Finals or World Series that year.

2) ESPN has made a massive investment this year, to the tune of $100M just for the rights to show the cup stateside. They’re also dedicating 250+ hours of coverage over the next 30 days to JUST the World Cup.

3) Are you watching the match today? I bet you are, which means that in the past 4 years you have probably gone from someone who could care less about soccer to at the very least, someone who wants to see what all the hype is about…that counts for something right?

I really like what John Cleese has to say about Americans and ‘football.’

John Cleese said it best in the 2006 documentary “The Art of Football from A to Z” He compares the brief spurts of action in football to the longer freeform periods of play in soccer: “Football is played like a series of advertizing jingles while soccer is played like jazz.” America hasn’t yet grasped the fact that soccer is much more like baseball than football. It’s a game of the head played with the body through a hundred years of history and culture.

Anyways, to get you riled up for the big event today, here’s a little ‘ditty’ by a group you MAY have heard about if you follow this blog.

ENJOY

Bloody Beetroots VS Refused – New Noise

I’m sure as hell going to read it…

Oh and BTW here’s a review of the show in SF on April 26, 2010:

The Bloody Beetroots own the stage.

For the longest time I have been looking for an electronic DJ to bridge the gap from DJing and samples to actually playing tracks live. The Bloody Beetroots seem to have done it. Not only have they done it, but they did it in a way that demands you to rethink electronic music!

As I stood outside for over an hour in the chilly San Francisco night the amount of I.D. issues was rather funny. Apparently the Beetroots have a huge less-than-21 following, making fake I.D.’s a must at the Independent where all shows are 21 and up. Some people yelled, my favorite was “I’m obviously over 21 look at all the fucking stamps on my passport!” I thought to myself, “now that guys definitely not getting in,” but he did.

Once inside there are so many people with bandannas over theirs, face it looks like an anarchist splinter group from a peace rally took a left and headed to The Independent. The bandanna wearing anarchists make up about half, the other are the type who you’d expect to see at a poorly produced rave (i.e. one that would let minors in). I’d be shocked to learn that there was one person in attendance that’s over 30 tonight.

This is the second time that I know of that the Beetroots have played live, as in no turntables. Bridging the gap between DJs and bands. A full drum kit is on stage, every keyboard or synth you’d expect to find in a studio, even guitars. I’d always thought about what it would take to reproduce the electronic sound live, like if Girl Talk played live without a laptop and had other people, or even himself, actually playing the samples. The Beatroots did just that tonight, three people playing instruments, being mixed by a fourth person, all live.

If you have never heard The Bloody Beetroots, their music is predominately classified as electronic, synth heavy and deep tight bass, also known as a “banger.” The Beetroots are quite possibly one of the best and most resepected in their tinny sub-pocket of the electronic music world. As the beats build to the “drop” and the synth starts to stab, the pitch bends and the bass surounds you, by this point your begging for the drop to release you. As the drop hits, the dance floor erupts! This is the formula for most of the Beetroots tracks.

The Beetroots other side is much more punk, I have heard people say that they have an apparent rock sound to some of their tracks but I’d liken it more punk then rock, more like the Misfits or The Ramones. They have a way of fusing this anarchist puck angst into the traditionally free-loving drug-induced rainbow known as electronic music. Literally on one side of the Independent was a guy playing with glow sticks and on the other a fifteen foot mosh-pit.

This set was really all about fusion. The ability for a live drummer to be drumming along to the string of banger after banger and also wear a Venom mask the entire time is outstanding. Then to have a second member playing 2 Nords and 2 Korgs, a Bass and a guitar, and singing for a total of about 6 instruments is killer, but only topped off by a third member playing with a Kaoss pad and then all mixed live by a 4th member. It’s impossible to not be impressed by the ability of The Beetroots to be able to recreate a sound that they made in a studio with a labyrinth of instruments and computers and bring it to a live show as a carbon copy.

It’s all about the whole experience though, it’s about how this piercing music takes over and makes you dance. This was one of the rare show where EVERYONE was actually dancing. The youthful energy that allowed everyone to continue to dance throughout the entire set and somehow dance harder at every drop. If there was ever an example of a crowd feeding a band and a band feeding a crowd this was it. The more intense the crowd got the more The Beetroots would feel it and translate it. There were several times when it really seemed like it would get out of hand and the staff wouldn’t be able to contain the people jumping on stage, and the staff would try and get them off and the Beetroots would dance with them.

It’s clear, after tonight, that The Bloody Beetroots are no longer DJs but a full fledged band, it’s the dagger in the heart of all the haters out there who claim electronic music isn’t in the same league because it can’t be reproduced live. Well, here it is, and here it is with all the fuck you in-your-face attitude you’d expect from a dressed-up-like Deadmau5 and happy-to-be-here Joey Ramone.

I saw Bloody roughly one year ago at The Ogden down in Denver. It was my first time ever seeing them live, I was jobless, lived in debt, had no direction and didn’t know what my next move was. To put it plainly, I was lost…but that’s totally fine bc not only did that make me enjoy what I have now even more, I feel really lucky to be where I’m at.

That being said, it’s hard to describe why I like like these guys so much. It has something to do with the fact that their music over nearly all others gives me a sense of empowerment. It’s like I can fucking do anything.

To express this fact…here is the majority of that show I saw a year ago on 4/16/09.

#BB

Hehehe…

Here are the boys hitting the drums really hard in Iceland w/ MixHell. I apologize for the quality but at least you get the idea.