My Bloody Valentine,The National, Richmond, Virginia, July 30, 2009

1. I Only Said
2. When You Sleep
3. You Never Should
4. (When You Wake) You're Still In A Dream
5. Cigarette In Your Bed
6. Come In Alone
7. Only Shallow
8. Thorn
9. Nothing Much To Lose
10. To Here Knows When
11. Slow
12. Soon
13. Feed Me With Your Kiss
14. You Made Me Realise

Such a good show. This was the LOUDEST show that I've ever been to, it felt like standing next to a jet engine at full military power. The venue provided earplugs(thanks The National), but the earplugs eliminated all the higher end frequencies and all I could hear for the first three songs was bass and low frequencies...I took them out and everything was better. Kevin Shields' effects rack was HUGE, he must've had thirty pedals on there. Debbie Googe's effects rack looked like a church organ...there was a couple of times during the show when the band missed their counts but that only added to the charm. They had a really cool light show behind them---MBV is a guitar nerds band, and it really showed tonight, it was a Fender guitar and Marshall stack love-fest on stage---looked like all vintage Jaguars and Jazzmasters--no lockdown of course, but that's what guitar techs are for. There's an urban legend about Sunn0)) trying to get that low frequency sound that makes you lose control of your bowels...well MBV were working it tonight with a twenty-minute drone/feedback/ solo...all in all a pretty cool night got to hang out with some friends and meet some cool people, fun rides up and back from RVA oh and My Bloody Valentine were totally worth the ten year wait...will post more pictures later

Narrows-New Distances

Narrows-New Distance

Let’s kill it at the beginning, this isn’t the missing Botch record. The music is a dense bunch of jams, let’s say mathcore (wink, wink) on downers; that familiar Verellen growl along with some instrumental pieces. A bunch of folks are talking about maturity and they would be correct. There seems to be more emphasis on mood and texture as opposed to the hardcore stalwarts of velocity and density.

Great layout and packaging-something you miss in these days with digital downloading. Especially the tactile overprints of London and Seattle on the CD jacket. You’re missing something if you don’t get this.

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