Roy Montgomery is Christchurch, New Zealand guitarist, and “Slow Heroes” is a beautiful, steady-state sort of instrumental shoegaze with a repeated musical motif.
Archive for the ‘Music’ Category
Shoegazer Sunday: Roy Montgomery’s “Slow Heroes”
Sunday, September 29th, 2024Shoegazer Sunday: SPC ECO’s “Ray of Sun”
Sunday, August 25th, 2024Been a while since I featured SPC ECO here, so enjoy “Ray of Sun” off The Art of Pop. With the lack of guitar this may be more possibly classified as dreampop.
Shoegazer Sunday: Slowdive’s “The Slab” Live
Sunday, May 12th, 2024In honor of tonight’s Slowdive concert in Austin, here’s a live version of “The Slab” from earlier in their tour:
Shoegazer Sunday: Slowdive’s “Richard”
Sunday, April 14th, 2024Yet another in a seemingly endless string of unreleased Slowdive tracks. This one has a twangy, downbeat feel reminiscent of Mazzy Star.
Shoegazer Sunday: Hollie Blue Covers “Fade Into You”
Sunday, March 17th, 2024Here’s UK performer Hollie Blue covering Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You.”
Not bad, and she’s easy on the eyes…
Shoegazer Sunday: School of Seven Bells’ “Ablaze”
Sunday, March 3rd, 2024SVIIB is School of Seven Bells’ last album, compiled from the tracks laid down by Benjamin Curtis before he died and completed by vocalist Alejandra Deheza. Here’s opening track “Ablaze,” which is pretty groovetastic.
Shoegazer Sunday: Slowdive’s “Catch The Breeze” Live in Copenhagen
Sunday, January 28th, 2024Been a while since I put up a Shoegazer Sunday post, so here’s a live version of “Catch the Breeze” from Slowdive’s 1/21/24 shoe in Copenhagen.
Vocals aren’t great, but the rest of the sound is pretty good.
Christmas Shoegazer: Stellarscope’s “Silent Night”
Monday, December 25th, 2023As is the now annual tradition, enjoy Stellarscope’s version of “Silent Night”:
Merry Christmas!
Shoegazer Sunday: Great Northern’s “Radio”
Sunday, October 22nd, 2023My relationship to Great Northern is weird. I liked what I heard off Remind Me Where The Light Is enough to buy it, listened to it a lot for a while, and then just…stopped. I can’t even explain why I stopped. It’s a mystery, like the waning of a pestilence. That album is superbly crafted Shoegaze-tinged pop that sounds bit like Tamaryn.
“Radio,” an earlier effort off Sleepy Eepee, is a different sort of beast, like Mazzy Starr crossed with some buzzy low-fi band. Singer Rachel Stolte has a compelling voice.
Despite not listening to them for years, YouTube occasionally offers them up in my feed. A good thing, too.
They evidently toured with Smashing Pumpkins this year, and are supposedly working on a new album.
I Saw Peter Gabriel in Austin Last Night
Thursday, October 19th, 2023I saw the Peter Gabriel concert at the Moody Center in Austin on October 18. It was the third time I’d seen Gabriel perform live, and he put on a good show. We had tickets facing center stage in the mezzanine section, and they were quite pricey.
About half the songs are off the forthcoming I/O album, while the other half are from other parts of his career (“Sledgehammer,” “Solsbury Hill,” etc.). His tour ensemble was a mixture of old familiar faces (the always excellent Tony Levin, Manu Katche and David Rhodes) and new (cellist/vocalist Ayanna Witter-Johnson, who was very good).
They had an interesting multimedia setup with projection surfaces on different stage elements that they could move, as well as close-up cameras for projecting on either wing (and occasionally the giant circular moveable hanging surface that was the centerpiece of the set).
I think the best song of the concert was an absolutely killer version of “Digging in the Dirt,” which had a nasty, funky, bass-heavy sound to it. There’s not a version with great sound on YouTube, so this will have to do:
They also did an extremely good version of “Biko” as the final encore.
Here’s the set list, which seems to be constant across venues.
I think the last two shows of the tour are in Dallas tonight and Houston Saturday, and overall prices are a bit cheaper than the Austin show. It’s well worth catching if you’re a Gabriel fan.
As for the Moody Center, the sightlines are very good, the concession prices are exorbitant, and the seats are too small and not particularly comfortable.