I originally posted this video back on August 16th last year, but with the new Dodos album out today (“No Color”), I felt I should try to turn you on to them again. The songs in the video here are from their breakthrough 2008 effort, “Visiter,” which was followed by the less-than-stellar “Time To Die” in ‘09. But with this new one, they’re back at it. Find it, listen to it. I dare you not to pound your body parts on something.
…I need to find out when these guys are coming to Chicago
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If you’ve got 10 spare minutes in your short and frantic little life, I highly recommend spending it watching this, some live music from The Dodos. Recorded on the fly in the streets of San Francisco, I randomly caught this video on Current TV about a year ago, right after I was first turned on to the album Visiter. I was mesmerized by the improvisation, and by the percussion.
The video above shows just two tracks, Beards and Fools, and I picked it mostly because it runs without forced advertisements, unlike the full 20 minute version here:
YouTube - The Dodos Blogotheque
Although you’ll still have to X out of the Adobe CS5 and boner pill ads courtesy of Google. Unless, of course, you need boner pills or CS5, then, you’re welcome.
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A little wiki knowledge on The Dodos, if you’re interested: the two guys, Meric and Logan, met through a cousin in college. With backgrounds in West African Ewe drumming and heavy metal, they started creating music in which “drumming could be a center role and help bring out the syncopated rhythms coming out of the acoustic guitar.” I dare you not to tap along to this.
Rhythm and drumming has always appealed to me; I’m constantly tapping my fingers or toes, or finding patterns in sounds. Drums are what’s left when you strip everything else from a song. The beat is the backbone. I’ve always gravitated towards this stripped-down sound, towards something I could split apart. Growing up, my ear, and my urge to stick it to the Man, man, naturally found punk rock and grunge, and later the machine gun percussion of jungle and the acid lines of the 303, then the improvisation and joy of jam bands, and now the polyrhythms of jazz and afropop and instrumental hip-hop. I’ve always liked songs that seem like they might sound even better played live, added to by each performance rather than reproduced.
Writing without polish also appealed to me. I found the modernists at first, then the Beat writers and spoken word slam poetry, which brought me luckily right into the middle of the golden age of hip-hop. Hip-hop today is sadly dead, but it still kicks around in the underground. And I think that’s where, along with indie rock, the real artistic improvisation, the real essence of music, is kicking it these days too. It’s always on this fringe, where art isn’t held ransom by profit, that the truest art is made. Today that profitless arena of the internet is the hilariously-named blogosphere. Right here, in other words. You feel that blogospheric pressure? I’m honestly not expecting anyone to ever read this. Maybe my mom (Hi Mom!). Or my kids, if I die. It’s just nice to make a mark. It’s nice to write. It’s no pyramid of Khufu, but it’s something.
In this file-sharing age of data piracy, music is beginning to be owned and controlled by no one but the musician. Live performances are becoming more important than recordings; improvisation and, well, musicianship, are being rewarded more than mixing and filtering and branding. And music is better for it. Making music for profit panders to demographics. The question answered is, “What do they want to hear?” not, “What do I want to hear?” When the drummer in this video uses the handrail on Fools, it makes me want to see them live, not buy their album. Or download it for free.
