Monday, June 22, 2009
Delightful Drones...
Back in December, I saw Vivian Girls, the all-female lo-fi shoegazing trio from Brooklyn whose very tuneful 'Where Do You Run To?' is today's Song of the Week.. It was at Bowery Ballroom with my friend Jason, the first concert in months since I'd been sick a lot that autumn... Shoegazing, for those not familiar, is an alternative rock subgenre from the early 1990s that uses lovely and harmonic vocal melodies that are buried/blended into - rather than framed by - extensive guitar effects and creative noise. Critics embraced the style, calling it 'shoegazing' because these musicians often stood motionless in concert staring at their effects pedals on the floor... as if they were staring at their own shoes...Well, let's start with the surreal melting colors on video that accompany 'Where Do You Run To?'...
The group's name comes from the very long name of a piece by Henry Darger entitled 'The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion.' In case you were curious... Trivia item.. their four 'singles'... none of which is 'Where Do You Run To' were printed in vinyl in runs of only 2,000 copies...
This video is more typical of Vivian Girls' stage work - the trio's lovely harmonies are really buried in guitar grunge..
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