See Moir Music: It's Almost February
but it still kinda feels like 2020 just started
Welcome, new folks! 👋
Where I’ll Be
Fri 2/7 — The Knocks and friends at Audio
They were very fun when I saw them at High Seas 🛥, weathering mysteriously failing speakers and playing a new track. Unclear who their friends are.
Fri 2/14 — Dom Dolla and Sonny Fodera at The Midway
What better way to spend Valentine’s day than by asking San Francisco where’s your disco? 💓Also cannot stop listening to his remix of Dua Lipa’s track Don’t Start Now.
Also get ready for all the Noise Pop shows at the end of February it’s gonna get leapy/hoppy/poppy (I’ll send another email before then).
Conflicts and considerations
Wed 1/29 — Wolf Parade at The Fillmore
Remember that stretch of a few years where it seemed like every band had wolf in the name? 🐺This is one of the good ones. Debating based on the strength of Yulia and my memories.
Fri 1/31 — Com Truise at 1015 Folsom
He’s someone I always think I’ll like, but I never really quite do. Very synthwave but not my speed somehow. 😎
Wed 2/5 — Tycho at Fox Theater
Was incredible in 2019, surely will be incredible again in 2020, especially with his new instrumental album almost out.
Fri 2/7 — Moodymann at 1015 Folsom
I heard about this after I already got my tickets to The Knocks and friends but I’m very tempted to swap my plans around after finally listening to some Moodymann.
Sat 2/8 — Silversun Pickups at Fox Theater
I’m not a moody college student anymore, but if you wanna relive those vibes, check this show out.
Sat 2/8 — DJ Seinfeld at The Great Northern
When I saw him with Jon Hopkins I was very unenthused by the way his set kept breaking my dancing groove. But he keeps playing sets that seem really interesting elsewhere, so I might give him another shot.
Fri 2/14 — Alex Cruz at Audio
I’m just never gonna see this guy play. That’s probably okay at this rate. He can live on in my “discovered in a hotel room in Greece” memories instead.
Just Announced
Fri 3/27 — Tiësto at 1015 Folsom (sold out)
I chose not to relive college and did not get tickets to this. I do not have regrets.
Fri 6/5 — The Fratelli’s at The Fillmore
Is this where I reveal that I grew up a Chicago Blackhawks fan so have heard Chelsea Dagger an innumerable number of times? 🏒
Fri 4/10 — Louis the Child, K. Flay, slenderbodies, ilo ilo at Greek Theater
Steep-ish price to go with the stacked lineup. Still seriously contemplating this one.
Other notes
Recent great releases
And by recent I mean “recent to me”. I’m a lazy influencer. I bothered to actually listen to my Soundcloud weekly playlist (lol yup they do one too!) and discovered these fun tracks:
Born Ruffians also put out a new single, Bombay Bicycle Club’s newest album is out, the 1975 have a new track that reminds me of the Christian rock I used to hear on a weekly radio show while I was in high school so sorry but I’m too entertained not to link.
I’m also still listening to the Chinatown Slalom album that Astronautalis hyped on Twitter as a mix between The Avalanches, The Unicorns, and The Books. (This is my favorite Astronautalis track, for the record).
Shazamming while Dancing
No shazams for y’all this time! Just mini reviews:
Leon Vynehall and Oona Dahl was a fun chill time. Great to see friends, which was my main goal of the night. Otherwise was beset by bodily exhaustion such that I regretted not having pockets in my outfit to hold my arms up. It was a rough night. 😴
James Grant and Jody Wisternoff I ended up skipping. Went climbing beforehand and just wanted to slow down instead of speeding up for the night. Thanks Jessica for sending me videos of their set 🙏
Motion City Soundtrack was exactly what reliving my favorite band when I was 15 should feel like at twice that age. Not quite what I wanted, with an almost perfect setlist and mediocre sound, I still had fun nearly losing my voice singing along to all the songs. Commit this to memory is right. 🙆🏻♀️
Maybe I’m burned out on DJ sets and shows a bit at the moment. I want to slow down, spend more time with people instead of sets. And yet there’s so much community in the music scene! We’ll see what happens in February...
Read Moir Music
I’m thinking a lot of Thoughts about music metadata creation, Spotify data storage, marketing, rights to audio analysis data, algorithmic representations of creativity (plus algorithmic music as output of such). If you have Thoughts about these things, or want to think them aloud with me, just hit reply and we can make plans. ☕️Still trying to coalesce them into a proper blog post at this rate, they’ve already graduated beyond end notes. 📝
As part of that exploration, I listened to this Chartmetric podcast with Christine Osazuwa which was fascinating and unsurprising at the same time, in terms of how major labels organize their data analysis functions and how they use data. A notable takeaway: Terabytes of data a day. So much data. 🤓 (Don’t listen to the latest episode of the podcast with some guy from Sirius XM because it feels like you’re just sitting in a room with a bunch of dudes that just happened to get really cool jobs out of college and I just wanted someone to acknowledge the privileged 🐘in the room the whole time and I didn’t learn anything).
Today I listened to the Popcast episode on SoundCloud rap and Juice WRLD, which included an insightful discussion into what sort of mental health support labels could or should offer the artists that they’re boosting to fame. Definitely has echoes with the Avicii documentary. Music is such a tension between creativity and a business.
This has also left me wondering over the past year or so what a concert is for. Who is it for? What purpose does a concert serve? What sort of a dialogue should an artist have with the audience? Do we go to shows for pleasure | excitement | interrogation | critical thought | feelings | an experience | dancing to the beats | all of the above?
I’ve seen artists struggle with a setup and apologize onstage, I’ve seen artists give a 45 minute headlining set because they had to cobble together borrowed equipment, I’ve seen artists nervously (drunkenly) perform a solo side project in front of a hometown crowd (and then face fans ripping up tickets and storming out).
I’ve seen artists perform music that was more like anti-abuse performance art, I’ve seen artists perform music that felt more like just sound at the time. Is it all just to be heard? Twenty Thousand Hertz just put out an episode on John Cage’s 4’33”, including a discussion on sound vs music. Lots to think about.
If you somehow made it this far and actually read this all, I applaud you. If you didn’t, I understand you. You can read past end notes on Substack if you want to continue. Thank you for reading.