love this record.
don't hear the neil tennant AT ALL. find that a very odd comparison. The super mega comparison for anyonewho knows him is Luke Haines - both in tone and style too occasionally - always wonder whether Bejar is an Auteurs/Luke fan at all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgzLq4tZhoMhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82apZ20aMBI
― reallysmoothmusic (Jamie_ATP), Monday, 4 April 2011 22:39 (thirteen years ago) link
So how was Destroyer at Webster Hall last night?
heard from one friend who loved it but she is sort of a Bejar superfan, so
― dmr, Monday, 4 April 2011 23:28 (thirteen years ago) link
they were great here in Cambridge on Saturday. i had to leave after a handful of songs, however, due to the obnoxious crowd. talking loudly the whole time, texting, taking pictures and blocking my view. it was too hard. youngsters these days.
― nerve_pylon, Monday, 4 April 2011 23:46 (thirteen years ago) link
like that everywhere, eh
― your generation appalls me (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 5 April 2011 00:02 (thirteen years ago) link
i know. i think i'm done.
― nerve_pylon, Tuesday, 5 April 2011 00:03 (thirteen years ago) link
Thanks, Nerve (and dmr). I'm glad I didn't go for the same reason. Too old...if you've seen "Greenberg", that scene at the party captures it very well
― Iago Galdston, Tuesday, 5 April 2011 00:08 (thirteen years ago) link
go to club, pay ticket price, buy drinks, talk loudly, text, check Facebook, and take pictures documenting the band you're not paying attention to.
― nerve_pylon, Tuesday, 5 April 2011 00:20 (thirteen years ago) link
Just about everyone's more easy going than me, but I don't know how musicians put up with that shit on stage
― Iago Galdston, Tuesday, 5 April 2011 00:33 (thirteen years ago) link
i know!! i'd leave. srsly.
― nerve_pylon, Tuesday, 5 April 2011 00:35 (thirteen years ago) link
have a few beers and dance
― diamonddave85, Tuesday, 5 April 2011 15:52 (thirteen years ago) link
makes it easy to ignore everyone else
Belated comment on Chicago show - agree with the feeling old part. Odd sight for me was the 2 early twenties girls drinking wine and grinding on each other during Suicide Demo. Also a young dude was so psyched for Bay of Pigs he was jumping up and down! I was in the front though so maybe it probably wasn't like that further back.
The non-Kaputt songs were so good I wish they had done more just to hear how they would've worked them out. Gonna Take an Airplane totally rocked and Painter in Your Pocket was mostly bass-driven. 3,000 Flowers was more like the album version but also rockin'. That and Bay of Pigs were the ones he took out lyric sheets for, I don't have a problem with it. He's never been that charismatic on stage, except for a solo show in 2009, but yeah the only words he spoke the entire night were "that one was called Kaputt" after the title track and "this is an older one" before 3,000 Flowers. They also had a newly reissued LP of his first cassette Ideas for Songs in case anyone cares.
― stingy, Thursday, 7 April 2011 17:46 (thirteen years ago) link
From the Washington Post review:
The one band member who consistently held back was Bejar himself. The musician (also a member of the New Pornographers) offered his lyrics in a sort of disinterested hipster croon and did little to engage his fans. He spoke only a few words between songs and sometimes disappeared when not singing. He turned his back to the crowd or sank from view altogether, and cloaked his face behind a lyric sheet during “3,000 Flowers’’ and “Bay of Pigs.’’ Onstage, Destroyer’s meandering, jazzy material needs a visual focus, but the singer seemed determined not to provide it. If there were people in the club that hadn’t already taken Destroyer to heart, this performance probably didn’t convert them.
― curmudgeon, Thursday, 7 April 2011 18:11 (thirteen years ago) link
http://www.nyctaper.com/?p=5592
― diamonddave85, Saturday, 9 April 2011 05:26 (thirteen years ago) link
thanks diamond dave--excellent
― Iago Galdston, Saturday, 9 April 2011 22:50 (thirteen years ago) link
nyctaper is a national treasure
― diamonddave85, Sunday, 10 April 2011 03:19 (thirteen years ago) link
all i have from him are pavement's last shows in nyc, which are great too
― Iago Galdston, Sunday, 10 April 2011 03:23 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah nyctaper is kool
― k3vin k., Sunday, 10 April 2011 03:45 (thirteen years ago) link
All that slender-wristed white translucent businessPasses for love these daysMushhead genius passes for love these days
man this fucking record
― Suicide Demo for Kemba Walker (govern yourself accordingly), Sunday, 10 April 2011 05:25 (thirteen years ago) link
downloading right now
Still my album of the year so far.
― Moodles, Monday, 11 April 2011 01:13 (thirteen years ago) link
totes
saw em tonight
loved it.
― FUN FUN FUN FUN (gbx), Wednesday, 13 April 2011 04:03 (thirteen years ago) link
tho war on drugs sounded like real estate fronted by bob dylan imo
Good review here
http://www.cyclicdefrost.com/blog/2011/04/24/destroyer-kaputt-podinertia/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+cyclicdefrost+%28Thermostat+-+Latest+from+Cyclic+Defrost%29
― fucking up the race charts (S-), Sunday, 24 April 2011 11:45 (thirteen years ago) link
All that slender-wristed white translucent businessPasses for love these daysMushhead genius passes for love these daysman this fucking record― Suicide Demo for Kemba Walker (govern yourself accordingly), Sunday, April 10, 2011 5:25 AM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark
― Suicide Demo for Kemba Walker (govern yourself accordingly), Sunday, April 10, 2011 5:25 AM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark
― bernard snowy, Sunday, 24 April 2011 12:00 (thirteen years ago) link
xpost
I don't begrudge his opinion, but I can't really agree with any of that review. The whole notion that music is improved by being lo-fi just doesn't compute. This album sounds great, not because it draws upon some 80s influences, but rather because it is expertly performed and produced and sounds much better than a lot of the stuff that folks reference in these reviews.
― Moodles, Sunday, 24 April 2011 15:49 (thirteen years ago) link
review is sucky - first for the Sade diss, second for him thinking that "Chasing some girls/Chasing cocaine/Through the backrooms of the world" is an oblique metaphor
― reallysmoothmusic (Jamie_ATP), Sunday, 24 April 2011 20:21 (thirteen years ago) link
awful review but also i keep reading the site's name as "celtic defrost"
― Brad Nelson (BradNelson), Sunday, 24 April 2011 22:52 (thirteen years ago) link
well, it's metaphorical in that the world doesn't literally have backrooms, and that you can't literally chase cocaine, in that it is inanimate, and that when bejar refers to 'chasing some girls' he probably does not mean that he was literally chasing them on foot or in a vehicle
― thomp, Monday, 25 April 2011 11:01 (thirteen years ago) link
can't decide if i like this record or not, someone decide for me
you like it, but metaphorically
― I'm just shillin, like bob dylan (Edward III), Monday, 25 April 2011 13:26 (thirteen years ago) link
"the world doesn't literally have backrooms"
wtf
― bernard snowy, Monday, 25 April 2011 16:08 (thirteen years ago) link
'I wish I could fuck every girl in the world' metaphorical because wayne's not literally bringing the girls INSIDE the world to fuck them
― bernard snowy, Monday, 25 April 2011 16:09 (thirteen years ago) link
album of the year
― diamonddave85, Monday, 25 April 2011 16:41 (thirteen years ago) link
cosign on AOTY status; Kaputt is pretty much the only Bejar record in any form that I've ever liked but it is uniformly excellent (especially with "The Laziest River" included in the running order)
― you penis-curling she-devils (jamescobo), Monday, 25 April 2011 17:29 (thirteen years ago) link
he was probably metaphorically splitting hairs there because nobody could actually
http://www.courvo.biz/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/splitting-hairs.jpg
― reallysmoothmusic (Jamie_ATP), Monday, 25 April 2011 17:32 (thirteen years ago) link
oh, that was poorly expressed. 'backrooms of the world' is vaguely metonymic or synecdochal imo, it functions slightly differently to e.g. 'countries of the world', which more or less = 'rooms of my house'. ymmv etc.
― thomp, Monday, 25 April 2011 17:51 (thirteen years ago) link
this is cool http://www.danielbejar.com/Visual_Topography_of_a_Generation_Gap.html
― diamonddave85, Tuesday, 3 May 2011 21:59 (thirteen years ago) link
difft dan bejar iirc
― Clay, Tuesday, 3 May 2011 22:27 (thirteen years ago) link
http://www.danielbejar.com/Destroyer_1.html hilarious
― V79, Tuesday, 3 May 2011 22:45 (thirteen years ago) link
about the googleganger
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2011/03/21/110321ta_talk_sanneh
― Moreno, Thursday, March 17, 2011 8:03 AM (1 month ago) Bookmark
― gr8080, Tuesday, 3 May 2011 22:53 (thirteen years ago) link
that cyclic defrost review is terrible
― omar little, Tuesday, 3 May 2011 22:58 (thirteen years ago) link
It's weird how this '80s New Romantic-disco style, which seems at first like such a total left-turn for Bejar, ends up fitting him so well. For one thing, his distinctive nasal tenor and loquaciousness seem better suited to an understated singing voice. His loud rock voice, as on his earlier glam-rock albums, could be a bit grating at times. Also, the weird wordless ostinato "la la la" and "da da da" vocal parts that he often used in place of choruses now make more sense as instrumental horn or synth parts. I guess I'm making it sound like I hated his old stuff, which isn't true at all, but this new style does suit him very well.
― o. nate, Friday, 6 May 2011 19:27 (thirteen years ago) link
still LOVING this album. today I realise it sounds a lot like...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hxkwaXaGKI
― reallysmoothmusic (Jamie_ATP), Tuesday, 17 May 2011 15:47 (thirteen years ago) link
live show that nyc taper posted is really great -- i'm glad bejar and band are embracing this sound. They could've easily "rocked up" the arrangements (like when he took Your Blues on the road), but the horns/keyboards work so well in a live setting.
― tylerw, Tuesday, 17 May 2011 15:56 (thirteen years ago) link
He looked like he was facing some sort of inner turmoil last night, the band did well to pull the thing together. The latter half of the gig was better. Brass players kind of made the show for me.
― mmmm, Wednesday, 29 June 2011 14:19 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah the band really killed it, esp that sax player, but idk is that how dan bejar always is? didnt really seem happy to be there
― just sayin, Wednesday, 29 June 2011 14:21 (thirteen years ago) link
I saw him in NYC earlier this year. He wasn't the most charismatic performer ever, but he didn't seem to be actively unhappy - just slightly uncomfortable.
― o. nate, Wednesday, 29 June 2011 15:01 (thirteen years ago) link
^all part of the schtick of this record, no? Bejar-as-detached-socialite-voyeur or something...I for one don't want to see him smile his way through 'Suicide Demo for Kara Walker' or 'Chinatown.'
― answering_machine, Monday, 24 October 2011 16:17 (twelve years ago) link
also, this still stands as AOTY for me.
― answering_machine, Monday, 24 October 2011 16:18 (twelve years ago) link
yeah, i've listened to this record *a lot* this year -- my two year old loves it for some reason. and it still hasn't gotten old.
― tylerw, Monday, 24 October 2011 16:23 (twelve years ago) link