Godspeed You Black Emperor! - Classic or Dud?

Met a kid at the Pavement concert who got an ATP tattoo right on his arm... he said his biggest dissapointment with it is that more people recognized it as adenosine tripohsphate, which is basically a chemical reaction that oversees how you process energy. Personally I thought it was terrible tattoo (forever visibly marked on your arm = that one time i went to an art-rock concert?), but ur body is urs, I guess.

stage times: http://www.atpfestival.com/events/godspeednightmare/news/1011291052.php
info on the guests Oneida will have at the Ocropolis: http://www.atpfestival.com/events/godspeednightmare/news/1011291514.php

getting excited now.

Managed to snag some of the last tickets for the first show in MTL - not a super-fun morning, though the 30-40 people behind me had a considerably worse time.

lol i keep forgetting about this, it's still like a quarter-year to go until the new york dates

Yeah I got some MTL tickets too, but trying not to think about it much. End of April seems like a lifetime away with a long cold winter in between.

Very pleased with the relative lack of clashes on the timetable. Nice scheduling. Thanks!

so who else went to one of these shows

i saw em last night, showed up just as they started but lucked out & joined a parade off ppl who muscled to the front & then once i got tired and had to pee got lucky and found seats on the mezzanine. found it really profoundly overwhelming in a pretty great way, & just their presence and the location so majestic

if anyone's seen them before, do they not usually speak ever? i saw a silver mt zion a couple years ago & they were cracking jokes and talking to the audience between every song basically & in a really hilarious way, which i missed last night

was really underwhelmed at the nyc church show, the place was way too huge, lost intimacy, same light show (which was sort of draining and repetetive). alas.

if anyone's seen them before, do they not usually speak ever? i saw a silver mt zion a couple years ago & they were cracking jokes and talking to the audience between every song basically & in a really hilarious way, which i missed last night

yeah that's Efrim's style in ASMZ mode, he's a very funny guy. but you're right, neither he nor any of the others ever speak to the audience as gy!be

Saw them last Friday, it was a great show, but yeah no talking at all. Was a bit draining standing near the front, but we couldn't find seats in the mezzanine. This was at the Corona and it is pitch black up there when the show is on.

Working on a new album

Seeing them again, again, again, again, again tonight!

Then off down to London at 5am for I'll Be Your Mirror!

It's going to be an epic weekend!

Or perhaps...

it is going! to be an epic weekend

Met a kid at the Pavement concert who got an ATP tattoo right on his arm... he said his biggest dissapointment with it is that more people recognized it as adenosine tripohsphate, which is basically a chemical reaction that oversees how you process energy. Personally I thought it was terrible tattoo (forever visibly marked on your arm = that one time i went to an art-rock concert?), but ur body is urs, I guess.

― Good news, everyone! (kelpolaris), Saturday, 20 November 2010 17:30 (8 months ago) Bookmark

all of the people who recognise it as that are way, way cooler than the all tomorrow's parties people ):

I've mused on a gy!be-related tattoo for some time...

my brother is putting on a godspeed show! will wonders never cease?

https://www.facebook.com/#!/events/109936032482022/

http://sphotos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/419480_10151174813477779_580666827_n.jpg

these guys were massive at atp. first time i saw them. wish their records were remotely like their live show but then again i don't know how that'd translate to record exactly

i think the records are more than remotely like their live show

maybe i just want more heaving two note drones, less pretty guitar figures

fewer*

their albums are like movies that you would go to see once. and maybe leave halfway through.

'ALLELUJAH! DON'T BEND! ASCEND!

I always thought of this band as a swans or glenn branca for indie people but I still like GY!BE so this is great news. all this good rock music coming out this year... it's crazy.

predictions: endless crescendos + drum-machine

I am spectacularly excited!

someone in our office has heard this and says it's amazing and up there with the old stuff - he's a massive uberfan so take that with a pinch of salt but i'm looking forward to it.

It *is* the old stuff, though, right? The two long tracks are about a decade old, I think.

Yeah, they were doing them at live shows before Yanqui UXO came out.

(feel free to visualize urgent humping if you read this) i'm pretty pumped for this, although the things i appreciate about their musical output now are so different than what they were back in their heyday circa 2001. i used to be all about the buildup and the climax but now i find more pleasure in the meandering plateau passages.

its erm around

Hard to judge on first listens, but I'm relieved that it's not full of spoken word samples, anyway.

that was also what made the last one great as well, they had p much ditched the samples by then

seeing them tomorrow, happy to get a copy of this before everyone else

fuck me, this is awesome!

GYBE gives in and finally just cribs their album titles from Dr. Bronner labels.

lol

the best gybe record, easy

wish their records were remotely like their live show

hey they finally did it!

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mbcebkQUGn1qdmmiqo1_500.gif

the best gybe record, easy

Yep. And can't help but notice that it sounds a bit like a streamlined version of the Swans record.

The second half of "We Drift Like Worried Fire" is pretty awesome

setlist tonight in bmore-

Hope Drone
Mladic
Monheim
Behemoth ?
New Song ?
One of the segue songs ?
The Sad Mafioso

This is an instrumental metal album so far!

short tracks are boring
long tracks - pleasure!
though i wonder if i can listen to post rock again in 2012

i dont think they'll ever top skinny fists. this record is coll but it's business as usual. the whole silent release thing was seriously blunted by the leak THE NEXT DAY. how depressing.

here's an article i wrote about godspeed's confused politics and how it softens the blow of their music: http://www.splicetoday.com/music/sins-in-the-corporate-almshouse

the whole silent release thing was seriously blunted by the leak THE NEXT DAY. how depressing.

i'm not sure that it's called a leak when it's already being sold at shows! ;) not commenting either way on what level of hell you end up at for leaking, just saying, it's not quite the same as some record industry insider leaking it 3 weeks before anyone else has heard it or whatever.

also, i agree that the efrim's more holy than thou attitude is irritating, but i never like the argument that, because one find examples of GYBE acquiescing to the corporate world, they're somehow exactly the same as corporate rock stars. i think i'm just a little more sensitive to that because i've had to endure drunk dudes criticizing me for not being a perfect environmentalist and then equating me with someone who owns 3 humvees.

lol whoops, "the efrim". maybe he is holy!

efrim addressed this point in an "open letter" eleven years ago...

anyone wants to punch holes in our politics, go ahead; you wanna say that we don't properly address the paradox of a "political" band making money off of compulsive shoppers or victims of fetish capitalism- guess what, YOU'RE RIGHT! we haven't properly addressed that paradox at all, and we know it and we kinda know why too- if you want to talk to us about that, then go ahead, give us a call, we'd love to talk about it (as long as you can hold up your end of the conversation, as long as you're willing to talk to us about you're own failings, confusions, or epiphanies in the face of this cruel cruel world...)

Streaming in full here: http://pitchfork.com/news/48130-stream-godspeed-you-black-emperors-new-album/

I haven't listened to this band in ~6 yrs...surprisingly the first track is "doing it" for me. Nice drone-y intro, pretty heavy throughout, and about as raw-sounding as it could be without detracting from the overall sound.