The Blow + Architecture In Helsinki (and other people), Irving Plaza 11/5/06

We meandered over to the brand new Puma store on Union Square just in time to catch the last half of Lazaro Casanova’s DJ set.


It was awkward, as are most “concerts” held in brightly-lit clothing stores in broad daylight. One finds that one must be much more aware of one’s actions, and, relative to the dark, sweaty black hole that is, say, Irving Plaza at midnight, we all may well have been naked. And that didn’t help us out much, because there was some very loud, very danceable music just a few feet away. A bunch of really, viciously cool people just stood around, tapping their feet, nodding their heads, pretending to look at sort of bland looking shoes, and pretending they didn’t see that short guy with the glasses and the hat in the middle of the room dancing like there was no tomorrow.

Everyone was leaving, but I was there for MSTRKRFT, the duo responsible for perhaps the greatest fake-house music ever to come out of the break up of a post-punk hardcore dance band. It was pretty amazing, but even watching two DJs is awkward in daylight; one is always twisting the knobs, and one is always looking through the CD or the records, or leaning over the other one to re-twist a knob, all making for a really awkward encounter. But it was really great, though.


And then we moved on. On this, the third day of CMJ, we were all a bit CMJ’d out, and when we saw the five-artist bill for the show at Irving that night that we were going to for The Blow, we sighed a deep sigh. For, you see, The Blow was not to go on until 10 but doors opened at 7:30 and CMJ only lets a certain amount of CMJ pass holders in the door and show was sold out but we only had three real tickets so Echo had to go early but we really couldn't pass up free Chinese food with my mom so we did that but she stayed there alone and she was probably really mad but eventually we showed up even though we couldn't find Alex (even though we went to his dorm and had some lady go up to his room to see if he was there), and if this isn't a run-on sentence, I don't know what is.

But I digress. Shapes and Sizes played, and then Tenki played, and then we arrived in time for The Blow.

Khaela. Oh, Khaela.

Poor Khaela, Jona wasn't there, so she was dancing around on a really big stage and singing along to her instrumentals. She often "put her arm around" Jona, who, as I mentioned, was not there, and ended every song as awkwardly as possible, with a little "um, yeah, so. yeah." But she's a fantastic dancer (see above video). During "What Tom Said About Girls," she had a huge monologue about how she was some dude, and just went on and on and on. I wish I had a transcript. I wish you were there to hear it.

Then Apples In Stereo played, and we sat that one out. Who knows why, not me. And then, just when we were getting really very tired, and just when the danger of never getting home was getting more and more dangerous, Architecture In Helsinki came on. To be absolutely truthful, I think they were a little too cute, and a little too Australian, and just not that great. They did play a bunch of really RNB sounding new songs, which was alright. I wasn't that impressed, maybe because we had to leave before "Do The Whirlwind."

What a day. We are truly hipsters.