So I saw the Walkmen and Kaito tonight

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A friend of mine told me about this show, telling me it was a "secret show" for the Walkmen (who I'd never heard before). As it turns out, Kaito was on the bill as well (I love 'em), and they were fantastic. The Walkmen are apparently really popular around here but damned if I know why, the most boring band I've seen in many a moon. The only song that left any impression was the one from that car commercial, everything else has already faded from the memory.

Any thoughts on these two bands?

― ham on rye (ham on rye), Sunday, 14 September 2003 08:32 (nineteen years ago) link

yer pretty dead on about the Walkmen. The best songs sound like Jonathan FireEater but aren't as good as they'd be if the actual Jonathan FireEater guy was singing on them.

And it's not like I think Jonathan FireEater is flawless.

Is this Kaito US or UK?

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Sunday, 14 September 2003 22:39 (nineteen years ago) link

Kaito UK, I figure.

Who are Kaito US? The microhouse band?

― David. (Cozen), Sunday, 14 September 2003 22:41 (nineteen years ago) link

The Walkmen are apparently really popular around here but damned if I know why

mmm plinky piano + vox continental + loud drums + the kinks + dubby postpunk

― smoky topaz (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 14 September 2003 22:44 (nineteen years ago) link

Robert Christgau reviewed Kaitos both in a recent Consumer Guide. Haven't heard the US one but the Kaito one has a pretty neat sound (Xgau correctly compared it to Liliput), though I don't find the songs distinctly memorable yet (they're pretty new though).

I hear that math on "We've Been Had" but that album overall seemed to drop a lot of those elements as it went on (and on). What's continental mean?

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Sunday, 14 September 2003 22:46 (nineteen years ago) link

organ

― smoky topaz (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 14 September 2003 22:47 (nineteen years ago) link

gotcha! (thought you were talking about the wanna-be/never-will-be vocalist)

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Sunday, 14 September 2003 22:51 (nineteen years ago) link

vocalist = ray davies + david lee roth

― smoky topaz (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 14 September 2003 22:58 (nineteen years ago) link

let's compromise. Vocalist = wanna-be Ray Davies + never-will-be David Lee Roth

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Sunday, 14 September 2003 23:01 (nineteen years ago) link

― smoky topaz (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 14 September 2003 23:01 (nineteen years ago) link

The Walkmen all bear a slight resemblance to Timothy McVeigh, strangely enough.

― ham on rye (ham on rye), Monday, 15 September 2003 05:14 (nineteen years ago) link

Not that they're mad terrorists, of course.

― ham on rye (ham on rye), Monday, 15 September 2003 05:15 (nineteen years ago) link

Kaito UK was a lot of fun. I would have bailed on the Walkmen but my roommate and her friend were all giddy about seeing them in a small venue/gushing over the "hot"(?) singer, so I had to stick it out.

― ham on rye (ham on rye), Monday, 15 September 2003 05:18 (nineteen years ago) link

Holy fucking cats!! The Walkmen make the absolute best rock music I've ever heard. I've never heard music that's sounded so gnarly and raw and grinding and still beautiful and ghostly and goddam spacey as hell at the same time. The drummer plays louder than anyone on the planet, and also has a serious gift for placement and groove. And the way the guitars and the organs all coalesce into this warm shrieking beautiful but stark and painful sounding scream. And the vocals beat the shit out of most every rock singer out there today for sounding truly painful and honest and real (which is something i don't really give a shit about in music, unless it's done RIGHT like it is here). I mean, he's really putting 500% percent of his soul into his voice, like his whole fucking head is going to explode. In short, I don't think music gets much better than this. Throw all the records you want at me, this is the real shit.
I like Kaito well enough, but to me they sound like Kenickie without the good songs. Of course my admitting to liking Kenickie has probably debunked my entire pro-Walkman argument but SERIOUSLY THE WALKMEN ARE FUCKING AMAZING. I thought I had maxed out on my enthusiuasm for music but discovering THIS BAND took it to new crazy fucking euphoric levels. Maybe their music just speaks too much to my own soul or something, but I fucking love this band more than anyone else out there now.

― justin, Friday, 26 September 2003 04:14 (nineteen years ago) link

And I find it fascinating and kind of cool that someone can be completely bored by something that makes me feel all warm and alive. You know that feeling you get after you've just had sex for the first time in awhile? All warm and soft and woozy all over? That's what it was like for me after seeing the Walkmen last week.

― justin, Friday, 26 September 2003 04:16 (nineteen years ago) link

someone please say they like this band at least half as much as i do. there seems to be nothing but hate for these folks on this board.

― justin, Friday, 26 September 2003 04:17 (nineteen years ago) link

i do

― Annouschka Magnatech (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 26 September 2003 05:26 (nineteen years ago) link

The Walkmen suck, they're like JFE with all of the things that made JFE interesting slowly sucked out and replaced with stupid lower east side garage rock cliche after cliche. Ugh.

Kaito/Kenickie comparison? Are you freaking stupid? They are girls. They have guitars. Therefore they must sound alike! That's like saying Fugazi sound like Travis because they are both boys and they both play guitars.

That said, I like Kaito and I like Kenickie, too, but they sound nothing alike. Kaito are freaky, spikey, teeth-chattering and wonderful.

― kate (kate), Friday, 26 September 2003 11:01 (nineteen years ago) link

kaito uk is pretty great... "band red" is a good album... they remind me of where deerhoof has been moving towards... but different.

― msp, Friday, 26 September 2003 12:08 (nineteen years ago) link

I really like the Walkmen album. I haven't seem them live. I think I like them more not knowing that they look like typical indie dudes. But the album was on my top 10 for last year.

― NA (Nick A.), Friday, 26 September 2003 12:13 (nineteen years ago) link

walkmen album was prolly my fav of last year, it took me a while to like it though and it isnt for everyone i suppose.

― todd swiss (eliti), Friday, 26 September 2003 13:56 (nineteen years ago) link

check out the new pleased album if yr looking for a walkmen fix before their new record drops in january

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Friday, 26 September 2003 14:04 (nineteen years ago) link

I like the Walkmen album, I love the drum sounds and playing on there. The vocal phrasing gets annoying, but I hear what you're saying, at least he's actually singing. I saw them live a while ago and enjoyed it a lot.

Although -- my band Vowels wanted to rent their studio and they wouldn't call us back, and finally after about five messages when they did they were probably the most unenthusiastic people I've ever come across. It's not like they had even heard our band, yet, either (which I could maybe understand). I mean, I wanted to give them a lot of money. I haven't listened much to their record since.

― scott m (mcd), Friday, 26 September 2003 14:19 (nineteen years ago) link

I thought the Walkmen were excellent when I saw them at the Henry Fonda a couple of weeks ago. Their new songs sounded incredible: catchy, timeless, anthemic. As far as I'm concerned, that's my most anticipated new album. I personally like them the best out of all the bands to blow up out of NYC in the last few years.

― Ben Boyer (Ben Boyer), Friday, 26 September 2003 17:14 (nineteen years ago) link

also caught the henry fonda show. I think they would have benefitted by playing a smaller venue like the el rey. There wasn't enough energy coming from the band and it was already being diluted. That being said, I really liked a solid majority of their new stuff. There was a epic kinda shoegazy song that they played toward the end that had me floored. Looking forward to their new record, but I wonder if it'll be as well received as their last...

― bill stevens (bscrubbins), Friday, 26 September 2003 18:36 (nineteen years ago) link

I guess I mean mainly really early Kenickie when they were chirpier and rawer. I'm not taling about freakin "I Would Fix You" or anything.

No I'm not stupid, and please don't paint me as a mysogynist or whatever when I said nothing of the sort.

― justin, Friday, 26 September 2003 23:50 (nineteen years ago) link

two months pass...

the el rey is terrible, bill, how dare you? i thought we were friends. their shows at the echo and the troubadour were much more spirited and enjoyable. their new record is ho-hum also. can't people just listen to the strokes some more, instead?

― TEH ONE AN ONLEY DEANN GULBAREY (deangulberry), Wednesday, 24 December 2003 05:51 (nineteen years ago) link

three months pass...

what d'you make of the kaitO album, WBS?

the new bearsuit is out too, I see.

― cozen (Cozen), Sunday, 11 April 2004 15:49 (eighteen years ago) link

bearsuit = the new bis

― keith m (keithmcl), Sunday, 11 April 2004 17:17 (eighteen years ago) link

that is very lazy keith. bearsuit aren't really the new anything. and that has really struck me as the point. they don't make much sense.

― myke boomnoise (myke boomnoise), Sunday, 11 April 2004 17:19 (eighteen years ago) link

"US Kaito"? "Microhouse Band"?

Kaito of Japan is Hiroshi Watanabe who makes microhouse/trance.

― djdee2005, Sunday, 11 April 2004 20:46 (eighteen years ago) link

two months pass...

Walkmen are probably the best band I've heard in ten years. Maybe fifteen.

― Chris Wolf, Wednesday, 16 June 2004 19:19 (eighteen years ago) link

me too with the possible exception of Aqua

― Gear! (Gear!), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 19:24 (eighteen years ago) link

Hell yes. Screaming brilliant.

― fizzcaraldo (Justin M), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 20:19 (eighteen years ago) link

Aqua edge out The Walkmen, but only barely. I liked The Walkmen more before I met them. Not that they weren't awesome guys, but I'd secretly hoped the cover of their first album was a shot of the band. SADLY NOT.

Anyways, I can see how The Walkmen would not appeal to many, but I still get all amped everytime iTunes decides I've been good and plays 'Everyone Who Pretended..." or "Rue The Day".

― minolta (minolta), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 20:42 (eighteen years ago) link

five years pass...

Whatever happened to the folks from Kaito UK anyway? They were so brilliant at times and then...poof, gone. Hard to believe that that's it.

― dlp9001, Sunday, 18 April 2010 03:09 (twelve years ago) link

seven years pass...

Whatever happened to the folks from Kaito UK anyway? They were so brilliant at times and then...poof, gone. Hard to believe that that's it.

I've lost track of them too, and apparently the singer's been busy with Factory Floor (never heard of them) and solo as Nik Void.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0L9jsQQVgXM

Sadly, nothing like kaitO but still good.

― Meme Imfurst (Leee), Thursday, 5 April 2018 00:32 (four years ago) link

my sisters are married
TO ALL MY FRIENDS

― thots and players (rip van wanko), Thursday, 5 April 2018 01:09 (four years ago) link

four years pass...

I miss kaito[uk] / kaitO! Can anyone recommend other stuff similar to Band Red?

― Rabbity Gainsborough (Leee), Thursday, 19 January 2023 19:35 (two weeks ago) link

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