Bloc Party, The Chevin, and Arum Rae

This week I decided to check out old music venues in their re imagined state. On Tuesday I went to the Winter Camp concert series at the old Beauty Bar which is now called Holy Mountain. If you haven't checked it out yet the layout is a thousand times better in that you can actually see the stage now and not half of the bar is being taken up by a useless hair dryer station. The sound still kind of sucks and its still hipster central but the one highlight was the guy that looked to be a pimp in training. He had a fake body length fur coat on as well as a brim and seemed generally displeased with the fact that there was no Hennessey being served that night. It took all I had to not tell him he was missing was some Now and Laters Gators to make his outfit complete but I was distracted by the awful opening act for Arum Rae of White Dress fame.
http://onlyfreshness.blogspot.com/2012/07/white-dress.html

I went into the night with the intention of having one maybe two drinks. But the second this wannabe Americana scrub named Jonny Burke stepped on stage with his skinny jeans and  gigantic scarf and started singing about smoking crack by a river in Ohio, I decided that I needed tall boys of Coors and lots of them immediately! I know crack is the new PBR in the hipster world but this clown has never seen a crack pipe in his life. The second he netflixes New Jack City he'll gladly run back to his swag weed. "she was pretty as a penny but left me on a dime". Wow...just...wow. So anyway, Arum was her usual awesome self; effortlessly seducing you into her world of heartache and too many drunken nights. She walked on stage with her coffin guitar case wearing her tight white jeans (yes!!!) and with little sound check broke into songs like Colfax Town and Solitude Lane. Of course the highlight was her song dedicated to a good friend of hers called Heaven. A personal favorite of mine. She's like a sexy lounge singer with a distorted guitar. Definitely check her out as she is FRESH!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dABGHQte3wY

I reluctantly went to the new Emo's for the first time ever to see Bloc Party. Now I will admit I'm kind of a poser Bloc fan mainly because I only like and have limited myself to one album of theirs. But I have tried for years to see these guys because I have heard they put on a great show and they hardly ever come to Texas anymore. The new Emo's is an awful awful venue that can hold a ton of people but is stuck in the middle of the hood and only has like 200 parking spots. They tried to keep the feel of the old venue by bringing along the bleacher seats and having an outside semi covered patio that you can smoke on but their sound system makes you feel like you're hearing  a band play in a giant garage.

With that said, Bloc Party came out and still rocked it! Sure their drummer came out shirtless wearing jorts with a belt and their bassist looks like Matt Bellamy's (Muse) younger brother with less talent but Kele with his stage presence alone kept your energy up as he belted trough favorites like Banquet and One More Chance. They kept an up tempo show with only a few slow numbers for the ladies; during one of which a nice young Mexican chick took the liberty of rubbing my head to. She then informed me that they were staying the night in Lockhart of all places. If I hadn't been sick and up until 4 am the night before I might have went along. What can be better than hooking up with a senorita and then getting some BBQ afterwards? The answer is nothing!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R6S5CJWlco
I heard that their new album sounded weird for them but overall I liked it and it doesn't stray too far from their British indie sound. Some of it is a bit heavier than what you re used to, especially Coliseum which stuck out to me and has become a personal favorite of mine. Obviously check them out if they come to town, just get plenty of rest the night before in case some Mexican seductress tries to take you home.

The Chevin opened up for Bloc. Not much to say here except that if you like British pop that tries too hard to sound like U2, then these guys are for you. They do have a good song in Champion but every other song sounds like a weaker version of it. I tried for weeks to convince myself that these guys were good but thankfully never made it out to see them during SXSW. The Chevin is pretty WEAK!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HHeWPliFOA