Mogwai and Another 2006 Favorite
Of the two of us, I am not the Mogwai fan. Indie Mom has a bunch of CDs that she lent to me for a while, but I could never get deep into their dirge-like droning. I also greatly prefer songs with lyrics, and many of theirs don't have any.
I'm embarrassed to say that I fell asleep at a Mogwai concert one time. That's so terrible, but let me explain the circumstances. This was at the Coachella 2004, where the Pixies and Radiohead were headliners, and we had tickets for both days. No way we would miss Radiohead! There were a lot of other bands we like that year too: Death Cab, Muse, Trail of Dead, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Belle and Sebastian, and more.
We arrived early on Saturday, parked near the entrance gates, trudged back and forth across the polo grounds all day in the heat, and stayed till the end of the Radiohead show. At midnight we and about 20,000 other people all tried to leave at the same time on two tiny, one-lane roads. It wasn't working. It took us four hours to get out of there. We reparked and slept in the car part of that time.
It was such a nightmare that the next day, Indie Mom wouldn't go back. In fact, this is one of the reasons I haven't attended another Coachella since then. But I did go back by myself that Sunday, later than the day before, and I managed to sneak in frozen bottles of water, a sandwich, and an umbrella. Did I mention that it was HOT that year? I shlepped around all day again in the heat. I really wanted to stay to see Ash, an Irish band that's a long-time favorite of mine, but they weren't appearing until 10:30 p.m. Mogwai was on the same stage just before them. They started playing that slow, mournful stuff, and I sat down on the ground. Soon my head was nodding. Ash was still almost an hour away. I finally decided I couldn't do it and went home. The trip took 20 minutes.
However, with Mr. Beast, released in March of this year, Mogwai have finally come up with some tunes that I can sink my dentures (no, not really) into. On "Glasgow Mega-Snake" they have managed to beef up their signature sound with some slashing electric guitar riffs and pounding drums and cymbals. If there is one song in my Favorites of 2006 list that proves that my taste in music took root in the psychedelic 60's and hard rock 70's, this is IT.
A factoid of interest: Eugene Kelly (Eugenius, Vaselines) accompanied Mogwai on their recent European tour.
From Mr. Beast (2006):
A Favorite Song of 2006
Glasgow Mega-Snake
Friend of the Night
Visit Mogwai at MySpace
Official Mogwai Website
Buy Mogwai music at Amazon and at iTunes.
3 comments:
i just came across your blog and went back and read your radiohead items .... and i too am a radiohead fan to the point of near obsession. okay, well, obsession.
your blog is great! i love the kind of music you are searching out and writing about. are the two of you (ahem) a bit older than, say, 30? i am too, a bit (or more) but i would rather listen to new music than classic rock.
and i would listen to radiohead nonstop if it didn't drive my family crazy. check out my blog (brand new) at loraliecoyote.blogspot.com. not about music, but about writing, creativity and, yes, radiohead.
Hi there, thanks for dropping in! I'm right at 30, and alt-gramma is my mother, so obviously she is older than 30. I think I listen to more classic rock now than alt-gramma does, although I grew up listening to what is now referred to as classic rock because then it was new and progressive. On the other hand, alt-gramma listens to more folky and world music stuff than I do. So I think we cover a wide range of excellent music. And we are both Radiohead obsessives, so expect to see more RH here in the not-so-distant future.
ah! i am alt-gramma's age or thereabouts. and my son (at 14) is listening to more classic rockk than i am!
what a world! oh so very different from me and MY mother!
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