braids, pepper rabbit, born gold 15-10-2011
babylon, ottawa
this was a kind of a botched night.
see, i had already seen braids twice in 2011. it's not that i couldn't see them again, or that i wouldn't enjoy it, it's just that it wasn't particularly pressing; my actual interest on this night was to check out the opening act, and i don't remember whether they were called born gold or gobble gobble at this point - but i do think it was the latter.
to get a full understanding of the story, you have to rewind back to the end of july. july was a busy show month for me: eivind aarset (29th of june), jaga jazzist (2nd), la dispute / touche amore (6th), a perfect circle + electronic picnic (10th), jane's addiction / dfa1979 / braids (16th), grimes / gobble gobble (27th) & animal faces (28th). i had to drop the grimes show (and perhaps other unmentioned ones that i've forgotten, too), but i would have gone if i had the extra $30 - which may have happened had i not won the metric ticket and scalped it for the jane's ticket (i had to pay something like $10 difference, and i bought booze at the show). however, in the weeks leading up to and away from the show, it wasn't grimes that i was interested in or regretted missing, but gobble gobble.
now, let's get the context right: the summer of 2011 was the period in which grimes was about to go supernova. there was an obvious buzz building around her, around here - she didn't come up out of nowhere - but there was little indication that she'd explode the way that she did. the bar she played in ottawa has a capacity of about 300 people. this was a small club event on a very short tour of eastern canada.
so, what did i think of grimes when she was on the brink of superstardom and i was aware that she was playing small clubs mere blocks from my house? the truth is not much - but enough that i saw fit to pay attention. this is my very terse review of visions, dated to february, 2012:
the record is very saccharine and very pop. it oozes materialist vacuousness and dreams of world domination, with about as much indie cred and musical depth as a madonna record c. 1983. the fact that it's mentioned in a discourse regarding 'independent music' says a lot about the way our culture has moved into a cloud of conformity and a lot about how the world of independent music has blurred into the world of corporate music.
i expect that the record will sell phenomenally well. claire boucher may very well be the next indie superstar from canada.
i have a thing for being astute. but, this was far from a deep observation - it was really quite obvious. what puzzled me was not the obvious ability of grimes to move absurd amounts of units in the near future, but why and how she seemed to be tangled up in the region's rather small industrial scene. she was being promoted by the kind of people that run depeche mode night at the local industrial club, when she clearly should have been being promoted by the local top 40 radio station. how did these wires get crossed?
i couldn't justify going. not with so many other things going on. and, then i saw a way out: i could replenish funds by waiting to see born gold in october, instead. i'd just have to see braids, yet again. bonus: i like braids better, anyways.
unfortunately, i unexpectedly ended up relocating a good distance away from downtown at the beginning of october, and my brilliant plan was dashed by an early bus driver. the schedule doesn't say 6:58, dammit. it says 7:01. fuck. i then had to wait an hour for the next one (a cab wouldn't have helped) and ended up missing the set. in the end, i never got the chance to see gobble gobble or born gold.
braids were enjoyable enough, though. i just don't have anything to add to the two other live reviews of them that i did in 2011. i did not enjoy the pepper rabbit set at all.
i have links for shows by braids & born gold in the same period, here: