I view a lot of music videos that never make it to this blog, thanks to indie music blogs that are always hyping obscure bands. A lot -- a LOT -- of them are utter sludge. One heavily-hyped band that I will not name, for example, had a cute lead singer but she was off-key continually (and not in a way that went with the music being played) and her lyrics tended towards repeating one line over and over again, and one of her songs she ran out of lyrics so was reduced to singing "meow meow meow" to the melody. Given that my last video was Scout Niblett, you might say "hold it, what's the matter with that?" But Scout is... Scout. This woman was just a pretentious twit.
To find this video, I think I must have viewed about 20 different videos for five or six different bands. Some of them were pretty good, like the band that basically does Beach Boys type surf songs updated and with a female singer, but just not a style I like. What interested me here was that this appears to be a concert in a park -- I mean, *really* in a park, with the band set up on the grass -- and the girl sitting down is really rocking to her MIDI samples (she's triggering them with a small controller under her hands). It sort of sounds like psychedelic electronica R&B dance music. Almost the opposite of what Scout does, yet somehow just as appealing in its subversive nature...
The band is "Nite Jewel", the nom-de-band of singer Ramona Gonzalez. The youngster sitting on the ground rocking out to the samples is Emily Kuntz. There's also a bass player somewhere. That's it. The song is "What did he say" off of their 2009 album Good Evening. Enjoy!
-- Badtux the Music Penguin
I've played many park concerts, even as recently as last week, and as soon again as next week. They can be quite a lot of fun for everyone. No midi, though - actual wind blown instruments.
ReplyDeleteI gotta ask you, though - was the pretentious twit a red head?
Cheers!
JzB
Actually... YES! Well sort of. It's a somewhat reddish-brown. "Chestnut" is I think the usual description of that hair color.
ReplyDeleteEmily Kuntz (the girl on the ground rocking out) certainly seems to be enjoying herself. She is the "drummer" of this band. For the MIDI definition of "drummer" (i.e., she triggers off the various different drum samples). Nite Jewel uses MIDI because in the studio it's a one-woman band, Ramona Gonzalez, who plays all of the instruments, or, rather, creates MIDI loops with all of the instruments then triggers them all off while singing. Sort of like later Leonard Cohen albums, where Cohen did pretty much the same thing.
- Badtux the Music Penguin