Posts Tagged ‘The Blow’

Pile of Gold video redux

Tuesday, October 30th, 2007

Pile of Gold Music Video Screenshot

Following in the footsteps of yesterdays post, I’m reposting the compilation I made of the videos posted for The Blow‘s Pile of Gold music video (which you can read about here). This time though, I’m posting the (mostly) uncompressed 163MB version. I can’t guarantee that will stay up forever due to the size, but I’ll be monitoring the traffic and I’ll update here if anything changes.

Name:Pile of Gold – Music Videos compiles
Size: 164MB
Download Link: Pile of Gold Music Video

The Blow at The MFA

Monday, October 29th, 2007

Khaela Maricich, The Blow at the MFA

Adam and C2 came with me to see The Blow at the MFA in Boston back on October 6th. Although I am pretty biased towards The Blow, I think it was the most entertaining concert that I’ve ever seen. You can read Adam’s account here. For those that haven’t heard of it, The Blow currently has one member, Khaela Maricich who sings and dances to original pop music playing on a laptop.

A band called Saturday Looks Good to Me opened for The Blow and although their rock stood in contrast to Khaela’s pop crooning, I enjoyed them enough to pick up one of their albums after the show and I’d recommend giving them a listen if you’re into light, driven rock. You can download some of their songs from their webpage here, or if you just want a quick listen, check out their myspace page. Listening to their music feels like listening to The Polyphonic Spree and more recent songs by PUSA.

The Blow’s live show has changed quite a bit from when Jenny and I saw them earlier this year. In the earlier show, most of the performance was about putting each song into the context of a particular timeframe of a relationship. The performance this time was about still about relationships (since that’s what a lot of the songs are about), but Khaela also talked about how and why she writes songs, and even made use of some props.

Unfortunately, this was the last show of the last US tour where The Blow would be performing songs written in collaboration with Jona Bechtolt, who wrote the music for all of the songs on the albums Poor Aim: Love Songs and Paper Television. Jona left the band in oder to focus on his other band, Y.A.C.H.T. If that knowledge didn’t make everyone in attendance feel special enough, we were also made aware that Khaela’s mom was in the audience.

With the songs written with Jona not being performed anymore, I’m not sure how long I’ll have to go until I can get my next live The Blow fix, or even what it will sound like, but I really can’t wait to here what Khaela comes up with next.

Khaela Maricich, The Blow at the MFA

Both photos used in this post were taken by Steve McFarland (also check out his Flickr) during the show at the MFA and were released under a creative commons Attribution-Share Alike license.

The Blow, Khaela Maricich, MFA, Museum of Fine Arts, Concert, Music

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The Ladies

Thursday, September 20th, 2007

Khaela Maricich posted a hand-puppet interview on her blog, The Touch Me Feeling. In the video, the puppets represent two of The Blow’s songs, and the unidentified interviewer is obviously Khaela herself. I must admit, that for all that I claim to be a rabid fan, I obviously haven’t been keeping up with her blog well enough, or I would have known that Jona left The Blow when it happened rather then months later. From what I’ve seen on The Blow’s myspace page and Khaela’s blog itself, it seems like (unsurprising) the path the band will take is up in the air (although I don’t doubt continued awesomeness from her).

Hock It and Hey Boy

I’m posting this as a trackback rather then just a comment because I was certain that I’d ramble on in classic LJ-style, and probably talk more about myself then the video that I meant to write about. Also it seems rude to me to post a comment on an artist’s site pondering what’s going through their head as they create something.

I guess that I really just want to encourage Khaela (there were no comments on her last blog post, despite my best intentions to comment with something). I want to do something more then commenting on The Blow’s myspace page saying that I’m super excited to see them/her in Boston next month, but I don’t want it say something like “Your next album should be a folk album (like you want to make) about the time between when things happening, like how you’re between having Jona in the band and creating new songs”, because that just sounds lame. I buy all of The Blow’s albums that I can get my hands on and I try to go to at least one show everytime The Blow is playing somewhere in New England, so I’m already providing my financial support.

I’d offer my tech support (in the unlikely case that Khaela needs it) because that’s really the only marketable and useful skill I have, but I’m unsure how to do that with without seeming stalker-ish (resume available on request!). I suppose I could help with things like *cough* getting videos on youtube so they get more exposure. But instead I (sortof) just end up here, offering my “support” in the form of a drawn out and poorly written post on an oft-neglected blog.

As my AIM profile has said for quite some time, The Blow is still the best band ever.

Pile of Gold music video

Tuesday, December 19th, 2006

A few months ago, Khaela Maricich of The Blow posted a video to youtube asking for video submisissions for the song Pile of Gold. Shortly thereafter, she ran into some difficulty and apparently has yet to complete the project. I, with my filthy little paws on a computer with Final Cut Express, went to work putting together a quick and dirty compilation like Khaela had described. Below you’ll find the combined fruits of the labor of many people more creative then myself. Enjoy.

Architecture In Helsinki, The Blow and FDR at Pearl Street Night Club

Tuesday, October 3rd, 2006

This past Wednesday, I once again ventured to The Pearl Street Night Club in Amherst, MA (my second visit in as many weeks) to see Architecture in Helsinki with The Blow and FDR. This show was in the “clubroom” (a.k.a. downstairs), which is significantly smaller then the Ballroom/upstairs and is more what I expect from a small rockclub – and by that I mean there are two columns in the middle of the room, partially obstructing the view of the stage from nearly all points at the back half of the room. The staff remained friendly, save for the bartender who sacrificed niceties in favor of the single-minded pursuit of serving drinks as quickly and efficiently as possible, and who can fault him for that?

First up was FDR, a man in a black suit, black shirt and black tie. Accomponied by only an iBook, he sang and played guitar and occasional precussion. My recollection was that his sound was pretty indie, but the heavy beats that he played over gave him a air of electronic or R&B. It took me a few songs to get into him, and just as quickly as I did, he was off the stage. Unfortunately, he didn’t plug a website, and his name is eclipsed by more well-known FDRs in google, so I don’t have any yummy linkage for him.

The second act was The Blow, consisting of Khaela Maricich and Jona Bechtolt (although Jona wasn’t present that night). I’ll admit that I hadn’t heard of The Blow before I saw that they were opening of AIH, but I did try to do a little research on them before the show and I absolutely fell in love after listening to Come On Petunia at The Blow’s MySpace page. Khaela was alone on stage with but a microphone (her ibook was off stage) and I’m not sure I can even describe the joy I experienced watching her sing and dance. I would be at the front of the line if Kheala were offering dance lessons. After her set I picked up her soon-to-be-released-but-available-for-purchase-now album Paper Television and got her to sign it for me. As a side note, until Paper Televison is released on the 24th of October, you can download all of The Blow’s album Poor Aim: Love Songs over at krecs.com.

At last the headliners, Architecture In Helsinki, took the stage. I was somewhat apprehensive because (in my mind anyway) The Blow is a tough act to follow. The warned us that they would be playing alot of songs off their upcoming album, and indeed they did, but they still managed to play almost all my favorite songs: It’5, Wishbone, Do the Whirlwind, The Owls Go, and Nevereverdid – Kindling being the only song that I left wishing I had heard. They had some technical difficulties; a keyboard fell over – I couldn’t tell if the stand broke or what – and about halfway through the show their monitors went out, depriving us of an encore at the end. The downtime was filled with improptu standup comedy from the audience members. The most interesting thing about the show was the swirling maelstrom that the band members formed as they rotated around the stage taking turns at the various intruments. I think I saw at least 3 different people play the drums and they have microphones at every station but they’re not just for backup singing.

Bottom lines: AIH puts on a great show, and I won’t hesitate to buy tickets to their show next time. The Blow: if they play anywhere in Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut or Rhode Island, I will surely be there. Pearl Street Nightclub: Still one of the nicer little rock venues I’ve been to.