Ragnarökia 2007

C'est une soirée NeoFolk/Industriel qui se déroulera la fin de semaine prochaine à North Hampton MA, le samedi 21 avril. Le légendaire duo CHANGES sera en tête d'affiche avec:

-The Lindbergh Baby : Heathen psychedelic folk avec membres de BLOOD AXIS.

-As All Die : Martial Industrial et Darkfolk.

-Life Toward Twilight : Chilling ambient soundscapes with neoclassical overtones.

-Thomas Nöla et son Orchestre : Projet très original me faisant penser à la phase expérimentale de Death In June mélangé avec The Resident!


-The Ancient and the Transmundane : Petite prestation d'accoustic folk.

-DJ Heathen Panzer : Il sera aux tables tournantes pour mettre de l'ambiance à la soirée.

TESCO USA seront de la partie pour vider nos poches avec leurs excellentes marchandises...(Heureusement, grâce à nos joyeux Conservateurs et leur budget, la somme des biens achetés aux USA et que nous avons le droit de ramener au pays à doubler. Je vais donc en profiter pour garnir ma collection de LP avec du bon "barda")

on veut une mini-review

Très bien

Tout d'abord, Northampton est une jolie petite ville de la Nouvelle-Angleterre, avec ces bâtiments en briques brunes. La température était fabuleuse, il devait faire autour de 25 degrés celsius.

Le Eagles Club était plutôt minable, genre taverne de motard. Le spectacle était au deuxième étage, dans une genre de salle communautaire. Nous sommes arrivés tôt, alors nous avons eu le temps de faire la connaissance des locaux...Des chics types pour la plupart.

The Ancient and the Transmundane a ouvert la soirée. C'était nul à chier. Le pauvre type avait de la difficulté à chanter sans regarder son manche de guitare. Résultat: sa voix diminuait à chaque fois qu'il penchait la tête. En plus sa musique ne m'a pas plus, du accoustic folk à la In Gowan Ring mais en vraiment plus nul.

Ensuite est venu Thomas Nöla et sa gang habillée en costard. Ce Thomas m'a donné une très mauvaise impression. Il bourassait tout le monde, était arrogant et colérique. Par contre leur musique est sans reproche. C'est du Nick Cave sur l'acide et plus sombre (imaginez...). Bonne prestation mais il manquait beaucoup d'éléments d'ambiance et électronique qui se retrouve sur leurs enregistrement.

Par la suite c'est As All Die qui enchaîne avec la deuxième prestation la plus nulle de la soirée. Premièrement, leur style Power Electronic/Indus. manquait sérieusement de conviction et était mal exécuté. Pas de puissance dans la voix, discours réchauffés et niais à souhait. La musique n'avait pas de force ni de punch. Au niveau visuel et apparence: ZERO.

Par chance, The Lindbergh Baby ont suivis et ça été une révélation. Ils étaient plusieurs sur scène à utiliser différents instruments. Annabel, la compagne de Micheal Moynihan, jouait du violon et Micheal de l'accordéon. Il y avait des percussions subtils, une guitare électrique et un chanteur/guitariste (guit classique). J'ai été agréablement surpris par leur matériel. Un savant mélange de folk apocalyptique et de country folk à la sauce USA. Très mélancolique mais rien de braillard, c'était une très bonne prestation (trop courte malheureusement).

Finalement, les deux routiers du Neofolk firent leur apparition. Le spectacle débuta avec Robert sur scène, portant un grand chapeau de cuir (personnification du dieu Odin), citant des poèmes eddiques. Nicholas embarqua ensuite sur scène et ma soirée était faite. CHANGES devant moi, jouant Fire of Life, Orphans in the Storm...Un voyage direct pour la Summerisle du très fameux Wicker Man. Tout était parfait, exécuté avec brio et passion. J'ai été fortement impressionné par la gentillesse des deux hommes et leur charisme sur scène. Ils sont toujours aussi convainquant et dédiés à la cause du renouveau païen (il roule leur bosse depuis 1969, c'est important de le noter).

Le lendemain, j'ai eu la chance d'aller prendre le petit déjeuner avec Micheal Moynihan et sa petite famille à Amherts, petite ville étudiante à 35 KM de Northampton, où Micheal étudie. Une très belle rencontre et une très belle fin de semaine en générale.

WOW
merci pour la review!

Hello, The Vault, this is Ryan from The Ancient and the Transmundane. I am sorry that you did not like my set. I am convinced, though, that you were deaf to it, as it sounded little like In Gowan Ring; much more dissonant. However, I'm very flattered by the comparison, as In Gowan Ring is one of my favorite bands. I will do my best to sing into the mic next time in order to please you.

I'm also sorry that the venue did not meet your approval. How about this? Next time, you can do all of the work in setting up and promoting the show, including finding and securing another venue.

ApocalypseBalloon wrote:

Hello, The Vault, this is Ryan from The Ancient and the Transmundane. I am sorry that you did not like my set. I am convinced, though, that you were deaf to it, as it sounded little like In Gowan Ring; much more dissonant. However, I'm very flattered by the comparison, as In Gowan Ring is one of my favorite bands. I will do my best to sing into the mic next time in order to please you.

I'm also sorry that the venue did not meet your approval. How about this? Next time, you can do all of the work in setting up and promoting the show, including finding and securing another venue.

Well...That's the way it is...You have to be prepare before playing a set. Maybe my review was a bit rough but it reflect my vision of your performance. Of course, it's not because i didnt like it that is the point of view of rest of the croud. I'm not sure if you get all the rest of my review but the only other negative comment was for As All Die because their gig was not convincing, with a serious lack of power.

The rest of the bill was excellent and i had a nice evening as fas as Changes are one of my fav. folk band and Lindbergh Baby really surprised me with their really good material.

I know how it is to organize a show (i already booked many bands), my comments were not against your organisation jobs.

The Vault wrote:

Well...That's the way it is...You have to be prepare before playing a set. Maybe my review was a bit rough but it reflect my vision of your performance. Of course, it's not because i didnt like it that is the point of view of rest of the croud. I'm not sure if you get all the rest of my review but the only other negative comment was for As All Die because their gig was not convincing, with a serious lack of power.

I understand that you did not like my set, and that is your right and privilige, without a doubt. I just wish I could understand the reason why you did not like it. In your review, I could not find any reasons. Maybe this is because the translation I had was not good. I am curious to know the difference between my vision of what I am doing and your vision of what I am doing.

I don't know how I could've been more prepared for my set than I was, besides positioning the mic differently.

Also disagree with you on As All Die. I thought they were very intense.

I do agree with you on Changes and The Lindbergh Baby. Changes is one of my favorite bands. I loved their performance.

ApocalypseBalloon wrote:

The Vault wrote:

Well...That's the way it is...You have to be prepare before playing a set. Maybe my review was a bit rough but it reflect my vision of your performance. Of course, it's not because i didnt like it that is the point of view of rest of the croud. I'm not sure if you get all the rest of my review but the only other negative comment was for As All Die because their gig was not convincing, with a serious lack of power.

I understand that you did not like my set, and that is your right and privilige, without a doubt. I just wish I could understand the reason why you did not like it. In your review, I could not find any reasons. Maybe this is because the translation I had was not good. I am curious to know the difference between my vision of what I am doing and your vision of what I am doing.

I don't know how I could've been more prepared for my set than I was, besides positioning the mic differently.

Also disagree with you on As All Die. I thought they were very intense.

I do agree with you on Changes and The Lindbergh Baby. Changes is one of my favorite bands. I loved their performance.

You didnt seems really confortable with your guitar on stage. So, all the time you had to look at your frets, your head was moving out of the mic "reception field", so your voice was fading away all the time. Maybe the next time you could stand up for playing? It will be easier? Or using a head mic? (just some suggestions)

Aslo, i'm not a fan of really eerie and smooth kind of NeoFolk, so i was hard to convince. I think you should work on your presence on stage, making your place with affirmation. My first gig was a total mess, i was not well prepare and many badklucks happens. My computer just crashed on stage and my presence on the scene was horrible. I think NeoFolk, Industrial and Power Electronic needs a kind of relation with the croud. Make a contact (visually and mentally) with your fans and this contact pass by your attitude and presence on scene.

As All Die make Industrial/Power Electronic material, this kind of music have to be really loud and the attitude play a huge role on scene. Just think about SLOGUN, GENOCIDE ORGAN or BRIGHTER DEATH NOW, being in front of the scene during their gigs is a traumatic experience (and sometime a dangerous one, aspecially with SLOGUN). Their musics are loud and impressing, you can feel it in your skin and body. It was not the case with As All Die, it need more than a "many time heard" political message to make a good show.

I hope my comments were clear and constructive.

The Vault wrote:

You didnt seems really confortable with your guitar on stage. So, all the time you had to look at your frets, your head was moving out of the mic "reception field", so your voice was fading away all the time. Maybe the next time you could stand up for playing? It will be easier? Or using a head mic? (just some suggestions)

Aslo, i'm not a fan of really eerie and smooth kind of NeoFolk, so i was hard to convince. I think you should work on your presence on stage, making your place with affirmation. My first gig was a total mess, i was not well prepare and many badklucks happens. My computer just crashed on stage and my presence on the scene was horrible. I think NeoFolk, Industrial and Power Electronic needs a kind of relation with the croud. Make a contact (visually and mentally) with your fans and this contact pass by your attitude and presence on scene.

As All Die make Industrial/Power Electronic material, this kind of music have to be really loud and the attitude play a huge role on scene. Just think about SLOGUN, GENOCIDE ORGAN or BRIGHTER DEATH NOW, being in front of the scene during their gigs is a traumatic experience (and sometime a dangerous one, aspecially with SLOGUN). Their musics are loud and impressing, you can feel it in your skin and body. It was not the case with As All Die, it need more than a "many time heard" political message to make a good show.

I hope my comments were clear and constructive.

Thanks, that was constructive feedback. I feel that "eerie and smooth kind of neofolk" is an accurate description of the music I was playing, so I don't mind that you didn't like it. What disturbed me was that it might've sounded totally different to you than what I thought I was doing.

I thought I felt pretty comfortable on stage, but I am always somewhat uncomfortable playing guitar. There is a difference: I am fine being on stage, but somewhat uncomfortable playing guitar. Although, I started to feel uncomfortable during that show because I did not feel receptive energy coming from the crowd. But, I can do nothing but make the music I'm compelled to make and play it the way I know how. I will make it a point to work on always singing into the mic. On the radio show the night before that most of the Ragnarokia bands played at, I sang into the mic while playing with no problem. (I heard a recording of it today, and it was fine.)

I also seem to have a slightly different idea of how an artist should engage the audience than you do. I like to see someone absorbed in what they're doing and not necessarily aware of the audience.

What I liked about As All Die's performance was that Clint and Aries seemed very consumed by it. A lot of energy emanated from them. I was listening to their radio performance today, and it sent chills down my spine. I also liked their distorted abyss of a soundscape.