Fun Fun Fun Fest Set – Nov 6th 2011 – Austin
Everyone has been talking to me about her and its crazy how quickly she has blown up. But people who’s tastes that I trust who I wouldn’t imagine really being into Grimes have mentioned her to me. Her music could be described as a cross between electronic and folk. A few times she looked like she was trying to cast spells over people, and it seemed to work to some extent. It was def working on me, and it was certainly helping my mood that she is super duper cute.
In regards to her artistic display, it is both musical and visual, embodying the arts of 2D, performance, dance, video and sound. She also had a guy on stage with her she was incorporating into her act, but was a bit confusing as to what exactly was happening or why.
She had a lot of difficulties performing in the midday sunlight, namely because of her pale, goth-like complexion and also the glare made it difficult for her to read the displays on her keyboards and synthesizers. But, for me, the musical imperfections actually added to the experience, accentuating her youthful naiveté as a musician. This would be normally be pretty easy to dismiss as hipster garbage and I would normally be the one the echo or champion that thought, but she is definitely interesting and would like to see/hear more.
Weird Magic’s Dreams 3.0 Party w/ Grimes (DJ set) – 285 Kent Ave – Brooklyn, NY (Summer 2012
Earlier this year, when I was visiting Texas my friend Tony and I had just seen The Melvins and were chilling at his place and he had asked me if I had ever heard of artist named Grimes. I thought he was referring to an English rapper with a similar name but alas no and me not knowing was kinda proving a point.
See, we had been talking about age as both us are entering our late thirties, as he decides to show me who Grimes is he takes out his laptop and dials up a video and we both stand there, buzzed from the night’s beer, totally entranced.
He said something to me that night that has stuck with me ever since. He said that when he heard Grimes for the first time and then saw the accompanying video, it was the first time that he heard new music that made him feel old. That he was seeing something that was clearly targeted to a youth culture that he can no longer fully identify with. Though he liked the music intensely, it was the first time he had a clear understanding that this was something that no matter how much he enjoyed it, that there were going to be levels of understanding that he would just simply be ineligible to reach simply because of age.
While staring at the screen, I was feeling something palpable to this but when he said this, it articulated exactly what I was feeling, but unable to communicate.
Ok. So why? What is Grimes?
Grimes is the stage name for Claire Boucher, a Canadian girl in her early twenties, who makes experimental electronic music. A Princess Peach voice over synthy, laptop-crafted melodies,the effect is magical and almost bio-rhythmic; it sounds like something from a Utopian future. Also with her intermittently bleached baby bangs & saucer-sized eyes, she looks and acts like a comic book nerd’s dream girl. I went home obsessed and within a couple of days I had bought and listened to everything I could find.
The odd thing is that shortly after that, it was like someone had opened the floodgates or I had just been asleep this whole time because suddenly she was inescapable – Just like that, she was everywhere, but oddly probably had been for awhile but I just never noticed.
In fact, I came to learn in a few short weeks that I had seen Grimes about six months earlier at Fun Fun Fun Fest, was reminded that I had actually been introduced to Claire at SXSW earlier this year, but why where those two interactions so forgettable but that one video turned me into an overnight obsessive?
Regardless, when you are at the apex of your excitement of a new discovery that feeling really only happens once so needless to say I was excited about checking her out tonight.
This meant sojourning back to 285 Kent, the venue that I still had not seen the inside of after a deliberately failed attempt last week when I refused to deal with the Trash Talk crowd and walked over to Brooklyn Bowl to check out Questlove instead.
I was actually prepared for it to be an even bigger shitshow than that one tonight as surely most of this festival was going to attempt to fit into that very small room, but when I got there I was surprised to see no one outside.
Ok – It wasn’t until I went inside that I learned that I had missed the shitshow, that apparently was so bad that everyone stopped trying to get in and left.
Fine by me, but I wasn’t above embarrassment just yet:
When the door guy checked the list and I wasn’t on it, he said that I could take my complaint to the source and turned around and pointed to Claire who just happened to be seated about 3 feet away. Trying to get her attention, this dude points at her a foot from her face and embarrassingly yelling over impossibly loud music ” TTHHAAAT IS GRIMES!!”
So suddenly Claire and the group of girls she was seated with (that I happened to recognize also included Cassie Ramone of the Vivian Girls) are looking at this guy confusingly and wondering why he’s suddenly so aggressive while they grow increasingly aggressive themselves, and his only answer is to point at me –
To which I refused to look up and face and spent about 3 whole minutes pretending to be putting my I.D. back in my wallet. I really hadn’t planned to even speak to her and now certainly not like this.
Finally one of the girls, assumingly her handler/mgr of some sort takes charge and comes over to me. It’s so deafeningly loud in here that we are barely communicating. She’s trying to blow me off, and she seemed intimidated by the door guy when I said “Just tell this guy I’m cool and I’m sure it will be fine”.
I ultimately had to do it for her and when he looked over at her she begrudgingly just nodded ok and then finally I was in, with quite less dignity than what I started with.
I turn the corner and am actually in the room now – come to find out 285 Kent Ave is really just a small, empty room that looks like it might have been donated by the city to be used as an art space, but the graffiti on the wall and the makeshift drywall in the primitive bathroom could suggests its also used by some homeless gutter punks as a squat house.
The place is beyond packed and going off even more so – it was the epitome of everything I had mentioned earlier and largely in the last entry –
If you are a 15 to 25 year old girl and your favorite show is Girls (this place looked like it could have been the setting for one of its party scenes, except authentic) are currently attending (FIT) (and/or aspire to) and live in Williamsburg, this was like Heaven and Earth combining as one for you – this was your Mecca.
A lawless frontier where members of White Ring, Chairlift & Grimes wait in the bathroom line next to you, as Pictureplane thrills the crowd of what appears to be exclusively American Apparel models.
It was a NYLON Magazine orgy, if you live in Iowa and dream of one day moving to Brooklyn to ride the Slutwave, for you this was Planet Pitchfork.
For me, it was a bit much but the chaotic vibe was a bit infectious – finally it was time for Grimes to do her thing. Given it was only a DJ set, but what sets this apart from her “official” shows? – both consist of her standing and simply pushing buttons, but this time the button she pushes won’t be of her music…maybe..and probably no singing.
Grimes appears to have the perfect cute to crust ratio, and as much as I hate to admit it, I was powerless to her charm, How could this have happened?? haha –
One thing it could be that I appreciate is, that in her interviews etc. she is always very friendly. It could be because she also has that weird Canadian thing going too, but she always, including tonight, comes off as very positive & charming.
I liked it that instead of trying to play “cool” stuff, she was playing just whatever she wanted and what she wanted was lots of Marilyn Manson and other popular 90s stuff.
Grimes is the ‘alt looking it-girl of the year’, which means that she is paid appearance fees to go to places, they take a picture of her, she gets free shit, and blogs are forced to ‘write about a celeb being at [branded] event. Their was alot of that at this – everywhere I looked I would see other blog bands.
Toward the end of her set, their was a rumble and suddenly ASAP Rocky showed up with AraabMuzik – and the place went completely batshit –
I have to admit that the last 45 mins or so of this party that really took off when he arrived was super fun. I had to take a break and the place was starting to fill with casualties. I sat on this couch on the side and almost instantly this girl that was super stylish (and super drunk) started cozying up to me and laying her head on my shoulder. She seemed like she was about to be in trouble soon, so I attempted to comfort her and then asked if she would like for me to give her some water. She gets real excited about the water and tries to kiss me but I let my cheek have it instead. She is super grateful and I walk over to get some water –
This is also a lesson in NYC culture too – check this out –
I walk up to the little makeshift concession area that they are breaking down, tell them about the girl in trouble, ask for a cup of water from their cooler for her.
The girl is very friendly, smiles and turns around and hands me an actual sealed bottle of water.
Taken aback by this geographically unheard of gesture, I smile big and sincerely say “Wow, that’s really nice of you” – to which she replies as her smile fades “That will be three dollars” – Naturally.
I return with the overpriced water not 2 mins from when I left her, to find that she was gone, the douchebags probably got her.
While I’m left there holding a bottle of water I didn’t want wishing it was a slice of pizza instead.
The Index Festival w/ Grimes, Atlas Genius & more – Oct 5th – Trees – Dallas, TX
Their was alot of activity swirling in Deep Ellum tonight – Trees was hosting the Index Festival all weekend that boasted three stages, the normal one inside and two outdoor stages in their back parking lot. When we got there it seemed like the whole city was there, it was crazy packed with three seperate lines snaked down the block.
Besides the Austin trip, this was one of our first times out and sure I was out to impress so when we get there and they don’t have me on the list, I’m a bit embarassed but in my defense it spoke much larger to how unorgazined this event was. And in their defense I really don’t think they expected this large of a turnout, the space was simply too small, even with the outdoor stages to host this. And surprisingly it was really freaking cold for the first week of October.
Not singlehandedly, but what was causing a decent percentage of this mad rush? – Grimes
I’ve talked about her before in this blog – I saw her at Fun Fun Fun Fest last year and just recently this summer I saw her DJ at a crazy party in Brooklyn.
With her intermittently bleached baby bangs, saucer-sized eyes, and tendency to curse, she looks and acts like a comic book nerd’s dream girl. She makes and distributes her songs which are a Princess Peach voice over synthy, laptop-crafted melodies. The effect is magical and biorhythmic; it sounds like something from a utopian future. She is also the ‘alt looking it-girl of the year which means that she is paid appearance fees to go to places, they take a picture of her, she gets free shit, and blogs are forced to ‘write about a celeb being at [branded] event.’
she just ‘presses play’, pretends to play twist knobs, and sings in her sillie voice but she has the perfect cute to crust ratio and is super charming.
Looking dramtically different than that blonde girl I met over the summer, she looked and was dressed like she just woke up – hair now died jet black & green, wearing an oversized Marilyn Manson t-shirt and pajama bottoms. Her ever changing look/style is evocative of most interesting women.
Another crucial point to the festival’s unorganization is that the PA kept cutting out or failing all together during her set.
She is such a nice person though that she never complained and tried to stay positive, but after it was over it didn’t really feel like we had seen her perform.
And again what would that entail exactly?
To be honest this was the only act I wanted to see (tonight) at this festival – The Supersuckers & Speed Dealer were playing at a seperate capacity across the street and that was our next move but we still had alot of time before that was going to start.
We were hungry and tonight was the make-it-or-break-it Wild Card game for the Texas Rangers so I wanted to find a spot to grab a bite, get warm and catch some of the game before we headed over there.
We found the perfect spot just next door at Zini’s Pizzeria, given the large crowd I couldn’t believe how dead it was which was perfect. We had the place literally to ourselves, we ate pizza got warm and watched the game. Sadly after being in first place all year long they lose the last three to Oakland sending them to this Wild Card against Baltimore and lose again tonight, thus ending their season. I was bummed, Jess could care less but was a good sport.
