Fear of a Female Planet

Last night Nick and I went out to see Tim Kasher - our first real show in Salt Lake (MGMT was a free outdoor concert, so I don't really count that). Kasher is the frontman of Cursive and The Good Life and his new solo album, Adult Film (Check it out here) came out yesterday. I've been a fan of his for a while, first seeing him in Boston about a decade ago, and I think he is a dedicated performer and artist.

It was a great show - only the third on their tour, at a small venue with only about 50-60 people in attendance, a lot of crowd interaction, some old songs in with some good new ones, and Kasher stayed after to talk to every fan who wanted to talk. In fact, when it came time to do the encore - when the band usually walks off stage and makes you clap for them to come back while they chug a beer - he said "this is the part when we're supposed to pretend like we're done and you clap for us to come back, but how about I just stay up here and tell you a story about making the album?"

My favorite part was his performance of "The Recluse," a Cursive song that really strikes a chord with me. It is typically a faster song, but he performed it on an organ with just a moog accompanying him.

A fan in Denver recorded it the other day (our crowd also sang along):



For comparison, here is a Cursive performance of it from Feburary, 2013:



With such a small crowd it wasn't hard to get the set list and Nick actually grabbed it from the bassist (who seemed quite flattered) before I could get one. The crowd didn't seem too into getting them, so I pointed at it and said to a guy in the front row "dude, you should grab that," which he did. We chatted with Tim a bit - I told him how memorable each time I've seen him had been and he actually remembered his last show in Madison, when a very drugged out girl got on stage and he very nicely let her stay a little while and then helped her off. Then he signed my set list :)

Last night was a nice night of climbing. I'm pushing to move up to more consistent 5.9s and I found a fun problem to work on.

Another climbing gym once nicknamed our climbers "Boulders Shoulders" and in the below video you can see a Boulder regular, Katie, who my climbing partner and I often stare enviously at. She's at the beginning briefly, but climbing for realsie at 3:44. It also gives you an idea of what climbing outdoors in Wisconsin is like.

Ratatat likes to play pretty loud and distorted live, so here is the original for clarity: