Smoke or Fire, Feb. 14, Siren Records
Carolyn Reagan
Smoke or Fire and Fake Problems, with support from The Menzingers, The Steinways and Stay Sharp, played Siren Records in Doylestown, Pa. Thu., Feb. 14 for a crowd of dudes and dudettes in love and/or lust. Despite some hiccups here and there, the show was a zesty concoction of varying degrees of punk.
Stay Sharp opened the show with a quick set of Kid Dynamite-influenced punk/hardcore, serving up quick jams without too much preachiness. The Menzingers followed with a strong set of punk jams somewhere between Against Me! and Anti-Flag, with slight reggae and post-punk touches sprinkled on every so often. These guys love gang vocals, with co-vocalists (and guitarists) Tom May and Greg Barnett shouting just about every line together. Menzingers know how to write anthems too, just like their idols The Clash, whom they covered that night with a rendition of “Straight to Hell.” Here is a band to watch in 2008. Click For More »
Daniel Johnston, Feb. 22, Trocadero
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| Photo | Lauren Zalut |
Before Daniel Johnston came out on stage, the crowd was as nervous as it was anxious. There’s a lot of uncertainty involved in a Daniel Johnston show: Cancellation is a distinct possibility, as is a disaster of biblical proportions. But Friday night wasn’t about his backstory (if you don’t know it, read this, or, better yet, watch this).
After struggling to fit the strap of his tiny guitar over his massive frame, Daniel played the first two songs solo. While waves of boisterous applause washed over the stage, he abandoned his Lilliputian ax and turned the strumming duties over to his friend Brett Hartenbach. There wasn’t much banter from Daniel between songs — he spoke slowly, unsteadily, repeating himself a few times and giving the impression that he was reading the words off the page. By the time the duo closed a five-song set with John Lennon’s "You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away," the crowd had relaxed, secure in the knowledge that there would be no cancellation and confident that disaster seemed unlikely.
After a short break, Daniel returned with Philly’s own Capitol Years backing him. Leading off with "Man Obsessed," the full-band version tore through seven of Daniel’s most memorable songs as well as a Beatles cover and a second Lennon cover. As the last strains of "True Love Will Find You in the End" rolled around the upper levels of the Troc, the house lights started to come up. The crowd screamed and clapped and protested even louder, chasing the lights away in short order. Daniel returned to the stage with Brett and all of the Capitol Years, the whole bunch crowded around a single microphone for an a capella version of "Devil Town." The crowd sang along loudly at Daniel’s request. Friday night wasn’t a safe bet, but the payoff was worth the risk.
The Magnetic Fields, Feb. 23, Town Hall, NYC
Touring for the first time in four years, the Magnetic Fields booked four consecutive nights in their hometown but skipped Philly entirely. Can we blame them? It sorta makes sense. See, one time at a Philly show, back before 69 Love Songs, some guys threw beer bottles at Stephin Merritt’s head. They played here like two times after that. Though that’s not to say Stephin acts all lovey-dovey toward his non-bottle-throwing fans. At the sold-out Town Hall, he frowns perpetually, mumbles sarcastic jokes and sticks his finger in his ear when people clap and cheer (which can look pretty weird, in conjunction with the frowny face, if you don’t know that he’s got a hearing problem that makes him hyper-sensitive to noise). The curmudgeonly stuff is half the fun; even better is Stephin’s lower-than-low voice, which sounds perfectly smooth and honeylike tonight. It’s a teeny bit disappointing that he gives away half the vocals to pianist/band manager Claudia Gonson and Shirley Simms (who sang on 69 and Distortion), since all of the best moments are Stephin’s: “Papa Was a Rodeo,” “The Book of Love,” “It’s Only Time,” “As You Turn to Go,” “When I’m Out of Town" (the last two being terrific 6ths songs that rarely get the spotlight). The band plays quiet, acoustic versions of every ditty, allowing us to hear things like amazing cello plucks and hilarious lyrics that normally get lost on the fuzzy, feedback-y Distortion. It’s not so much a rock show as a cozy little lullaby. (Too bad I am two hours from bed.)
Beretta 76, Feb. 23, Tritone
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Something’s not going 100% according to plan if your headliner doesn’t take the stage until 1:30, but hell yes when Beretta 76 finally took the stage at Sugar Town on Saturday it was exactly the sure shot of caffeine I needed. Braving an ornery microphone that flirted with feedback and bit back with occasional electric shocks, Camille Escobedo belted out some hellacious punk energy herself. You know, it’s funny: between songs, she sounds like she’s losing her voice, always, but when she sings it’s like the strongest thing on earth. Great show.
Stay tuned to CP for a weird March Madnessy thing we’re doing called City Paper vs. Y-Rock Philly Rock Shootout or something like that. I don’t wanna give it all away now, but there was a draft and we picked Beretta 76. This will make more sense later.
More on Beretta 76.
The 1-Upper: Pillage the Village
Remember the Hamburger Helper, the friendly hand that’s been helping moms whip up quick dinners since the ’50s? Well, he’s back, and he’s really pissed about something. My guess is the proliferation of chicken-based meals.
Pillage the Village lets you take on the role of the grumpy floating hand — probably not really related to Mr. Helper — as you move from level to level, grabbing villagers and flinging them and their thatched huts into the air. Each level has its fair share of common serf, but as you progress the game throws in some tougher enemies, and they’ll force you to rethink your strategy.
Each time you smite a villager, you’ll get a little wellspring of coins, which you can use to buy items to help make your dirty work a little quicker. One of the neat features about Pillage the Village is that it lets you chose to be somewhat beneficent and use tactics like euthanasia or downright mean and let Acme-brand anvils fall from the sky.
Check out Pillage the Village here.
My Horse and Me, PC
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| gamespot.com |
The only time I ever rode a horse, my mom broke her ankle dismounting, thus ending our family vacation early. As much fun as I had on that ride, I decided in the ER that it was definitely not a sport I would like to pursue. Yet now, at the age of 19, I still want to own a pony because they’re just so damn cute. I decided to settle for a virtual horse since I highly doubt one would be comfortable living in my apartment.
Atari’s latest PC game, My Horse and Me, may not have a grammatically correct name (perhaps because My Horse and I would be infringing on Bat for Lashes territory), but it succeeded at bringing out my inner 10-year-old.
Trotting around a barn collecting stars on Billy Idol, my Tobiano-colored steed, was actually a bit relaxing once I became accustomed to the awkward arrow controls. I soon had several ribbons and was looking fashionably equestrian in my hard-earned turquoise Nordic sweater with matching argyle socks. That’s right — in addition to stocking your trophy cabinets, you can win articles of clothing ripped from the pages of a Land’s End catalog. Horses + new clothes = pre-teen dream game! You can even spend quality time grooming your horsie, but it’s one of the more boring parts of the experience. If they really wanted to simulate realism, mucking stables would be level four.
Show-jumping competitions are the meat of My Horse and Me, and overall they’re the most fun, whereas the pointless mini-games are simply not worth the time. My personal favorite, though, is the frustrating "Chickens ‘n Corn," the entire point of which is galloping around to protect corn from an army of hungry chickens. Those birds just don’t quit, even when threatened with being squashed by hooves.
Impossible-to-defeat poultry aside, I’m proud of my medals and snazzy wardrobe. I might even continue to pay the pixilated stables a visit once in awhile, despite mockery from my roommates. Breaking the special bond between a girl and her Billy Idol is a difficult thing to do.
Nirvana, 7/12/1989, J.C. Dobbs
This is pretty cool: A pre-Nevermind Nirvana does a shrieky version of "Sifting" at Dobbs (later known as the Pontiac Grille). The band was a four-piece at this point; I guess that’s Jason Everman on guitar.
Useless Lost Recap: The Economist
The Simpsons Game, Xbox 360
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The Simpsons Game has arrived on Xbox 360 (and Wii and Playstations 2 through 3), and it finally settles something that I’ve always wondered: What sounds do my favorite Simpsons characters make when I punch them in the gut for no particular reason? Well, usually I can get a quip from them before they pass out, but sometimes they scream.
That’s pretty much the only thing this 3D platformer has to offer. Like many Simpsons games before it, The Simpsons Game doesn’t add new elements to gaming so much as graft beloved characters onto tired concepts. This release is like any other shoddy platformer - players collect bric-a-brac and fight foes while dealing with the game’s horridly spastic camera angles. Expect inexplicable cuts and jumps when trying to scale walls or clear chasms. The game takes its clichés very seriously, as players are rewarded by Comic Book Guy for spotting them.
Of course, being a Simpsons release, the lackluster gameplay could be forgiven provided the writers threw in some tasty jokes to season the experience. To their merit, they try, sort of, to spoof video games during the game’s 40+ minutes of animated sequences. But, this being from the same team that’s generated the last 10 or so seasons of the show (a.k.a. the bad years), many jokes come off as tired. It’s clear the best material was saved for The Simpsons Movie.
While The Simpsons Game shows promise in its first level, in which Homer dreams about fighting and consuming chocolate foes while they scream in disturbingly funny pain, the game quickly devolves into a series of uninteresting puzzles and special moves.