This Week in the Mercury
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Contest Win Tickets to Arcade Fire!!! (Day Number One)
Posted by Ezra Ace Caraeff on Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 8:36 AM
Every morning for the next three days we are giving away a pair of general admission floor tickets to see the Arcade Fire. As previously reported, the band will be in town to support The Suburbs on Thursday, September 30 at the Memorial Coliseum with Calexico opening things up.
We'll switch up the contest each day, but for today we want to hear about your favorite Arcade Fire song. Tell us a story about it, draw us a picture, tie it in with a dirty limerick—anything goes. Best comment below by 5pm today will win a pair of tickets to the show. Good luck.
If you want to skip the comment section, tickets go on sale via Comcast Tix this Friday at 10am.
1
It wasn't actually their song, but seeing them cover "Distortions" by Clinic at the Schnitzer was pretty outstanding. Especially because Win Butler admitted on stage during the song that he didn't fully know the words, which is understandable, because who can understand those mumbling brits?
2
OMG, I saw Arcade Fire in Austin at ACL few years back during Neon Bible and was terribly excited to hear Ocean of Noise (my faaaaaaavv!) which features (drumroll) the horn players of Calexico on the record - but the live version wasn't anything near the recorded precisely because Calexico wasn't there! I need these tickets for my own personal vindication!!!!
3
I have like 10 favorite Arcade Fire songs that are all equally amazing, so I don't think this is a really fair question, but if you must... it's gotta be Black Mirror, especially the live version with the crazy preacher lady talking about needing a Holy Ghost Enema. I saw it at ACL in 2007, and it was absolutely the most amazing intro to a live show. (This doesn't really do it justice, but here it is... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FkHuMv5kP0)
Also this is cool... http://rorrimkcalb.com/
Also this is cool... http://rorrimkcalb.com/
5
In the backseat is brilliant. Lyrically, it is beautiful, but it is also structurally magnificent. Why? Well, it is as if the instruments are having sex with one another. It is an orgy that is led vocally by Régine Chassagne. During the foreplay, her voice teases the instruments. Her voice twists and turns dancing with the piano with timid lyrics. The instruments intensity begins to build, and she follows their lead. Then the foreplay changes positions and calms down. It does this cycle again, but inevitably...penetration occurs. Her voice takes control both lyrically and melodically. The instrumentation rages in the background. The falsetto sends chills down the listener's back. Pupils are dilated. Hair stands completely upright. Then Chassagne leaves the orgy. Though the climax is over...the instruments continue on without her. They lay on the floor panting, and pleasurably thrust themselves into your ears (their last attempt to have you listen). Now get up and go smoke a cigarette.
6
Une Année Sans Lumičre is my favorite Arcade Fire song because it makes me feel like I'm Serge Gainsbourg in an old French film, smoking a cigarette, while every word coming out of my mouth sounds like poetry even though I'm probably saying something very misogynistic to all of the fine women that I am wooing.
A visual interpretation of how I feel while listening to this song...
http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/2020/serg…
A visual interpretation of how I feel while listening to this song...
http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/2020/serg…
8
im going to attempt to draw a picture with ascii art
_____
| \ / |
| {} |
| / \ |
---------
Neon Bible, ladies and gentlemen.
_____
| \ / |
| {} |
| / \ |
---------
Neon Bible, ladies and gentlemen.
9
Remember when Patrick Alan Coleman got all Hipster Foodie Elitist about Taco Bell tacos? http://blogtown.portlandmercury.com/Blogto…
Well, I got some photos of him EATING THOSE TACOS!!! He even said that they weren't bad. I created orginal content and lulz for you guys. GIVE ME FREE TICKETS! I enter all these contests and never-ever win.
http://twitpic.com/2fxfye
Well, I got some photos of him EATING THOSE TACOS!!! He even said that they weren't bad. I created orginal content and lulz for you guys. GIVE ME FREE TICKETS! I enter all these contests and never-ever win.
http://twitpic.com/2fxfye
12
I'll pick "No Cars Go" (either version) because I live in NW and nobody here can drive and driving in this neighborhood is unnecessary to begin with. So I wish this was the place they were describing.
13
there once was a band from Quebec.
my man said they sounded like Beck
I said, "you're liar,
they're called Arcade Fire!"
and then we had sex on the deck.
meow.
my man said they sounded like Beck
I said, "you're liar,
they're called Arcade Fire!"
and then we had sex on the deck.
meow.
14
Ocean of Noise is far and away my favorite Arcade Fire song. The (melo)dramatic opening, forcing your imagination to envision thunderous clouds rolling in and power-lines splitting, sets the mood for the whole song. As Win comes in, with his nearly-cracking voice and hopeless tone, your gut drops and there’s a big sigh that just kind of rolls through your body. The swaying beat and ambient noises throughout lend credence to the title, along with the lyrics, which are beautiful and forlorn, while still holding onto a sliver of hope.
15
the best arcade fire song is their cover of 'state trooper' by bruce springsteen. sure, those canadians are a great band but what we never hear is the huge debt that these guys owe to records like 'the river' and 'nebraska' by the boss.
16
the best arcade fire song is their cover of 'state trooper' by bruce springsteen. sure, those canadians are a great band but they aren't reinventing the wheel. all of their records owe a huge debt to records like 'the river' and 'nebraska' by the boss.
17
I first heard Arcade Fire on the radio while driving around in San Francisco . My son who was 7 at the time turned the radio up really loud when a song came on . It was Intervention. He just kept saying , this is so good ! So I started listening to it and was like , yeah you're right. Long story short we both became fans that day. Later , when Neon Bible came out we were both STILL super excited . He made me listen to no cars go over and over and over . When they came to L.A ,where we lived then I decided it was worth it to buy him the 50 dollar ticket to see them at the Greek. We had the best time ever ! He stood on his chair jumping up and down wildly , much as I had done as a child long ago in the very same theatre watching the Ramones .We danced to No Cars Go like we were both 10 and it was pure magic.
18
There once was a man that listened to Arcade Fire
He said they sounded like the Vienna Boys Choir
He listened with a grin
As drool rolled down his chin
If I don't win these tickets it would be quite dire.
He said they sounded like the Vienna Boys Choir
He listened with a grin
As drool rolled down his chin
If I don't win these tickets it would be quite dire.
19
I lived in Oklahoma for 7 years and decided to move here in a reckless fit of red-state blues, depression, and rage. I lived in the ultimate suburb - Edmond. No sidewalks, half a dozen Wal-Marts, strip-malls and churches as far as the eye could see. This is the town where the original post-office massacre took place. It's where "Brownie" of Hurricane Katrina infamy went to college. I had always visited better places and knew that the future was elsewhere. By the time I heard about Portland's urban-growth boundary I dropped everything. It's a wonky last straw for sure, but it means something. FUCK THE SUBURBS. Sprawl II makes me cry with joy and sadness at the same time. Mountains beyond fucking mountains.
20
The first time I heard "Headlights Look Like Diamonds" I was on a road trip across the country with a good friend from high school. We listened to the song dozens of times on that road trip and now every time I listen to the song I think of the trip and my friend. My friend didn't die on the trip or anything, but if he had died this story would have been a lot more powerful and I probably would have won those tickets.
22
I'm not proud to admit it, but I grew up in the suburbs. I remember getting funeral when it came out, and it became THE album to listen to while driving over the west hills every night that we went into the city to find trouble that my friends and I would get into. How perfect, then, to find a song on their EP which so appropriately captured the emotions felt a bunch of young kids driving back over the Fremont bridge or winding up Burnside (which at the time, was in the midst of perennial construction, making our reckless teenage driving all the more perilous). "Headlights Look Like Diamonds" always struck me as the closest Arcade Fire would ever come to writing a love ballad, and when you live in the suburbs and it's freaking winter in portland and the sun goes down at 3 in the afternoon, you spend a lot of time looking at and waiting for headlights of your friends. It always struck me as the most earnest, plain, and simple of their songs; it reeks of naďveté, of being young and trying to figure out more than just a relationship (is this particular someone returning or leaving in my life?) but also the larger questions of excitement and terror that accompany growing old enough to get out of high school and move on with your life. As someone who just spent four years out in the midwest and is getting ready to return home, listening to this song reminds me of how much fun it was to discover Portland's quirky restaurants and coffee shops with my friends (that I learned about from the Mercury, of course) and then drive back home, to the suburbs, which are all sleeping, a veritable ghostland by the end of the night. Youth is supposed to be exhilaratingly mortifying, and the way the song builds to that final stanza of lyrics mirrors that feeling.
Upon my return to Portland at the end of this month, I'll probably spend more time in bars than restaurants, few of my friends will still be in town, and I'll probably be on a bike or a bus to some derelict apartment instead of driving my parents' clunker back over Sylvan hill to Beaverton. Yet the wondrous excitement of the song about the possibilities of youth will still welcome me back home.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dietpoison/52…
More...
Upon my return to Portland at the end of this month, I'll probably spend more time in bars than restaurants, few of my friends will still be in town, and I'll probably be on a bike or a bus to some derelict apartment instead of driving my parents' clunker back over Sylvan hill to Beaverton. Yet the wondrous excitement of the song about the possibilities of youth will still welcome me back home.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dietpoison/52…
23
In September of 2005, Arcade Fire played a show at the Crystal Ballroom. I had planned to attend with a group of college friends, but at the last minute I had to stay in Eugene for training for a new job. After returning from the concert, my friends described the concert as nothing more than "good" or maybe "fun." I soon after found out from another friend that rest of my friends were holding back. At the concert, AF had switched all their instruments with acoustics - taking their instruments through the crowd... and down the stairs... to play in the middle of the street a cover of Bowie's "Queen Bitch" (one of my, your and everyone's favorites). What I'm trying to say is: Give me a story to compensate, to rub in my friends' faces the way they should have rubbed theirs in mine, please, oh please, oh please.
24
As I'm reading this I feel very tired and sad because I skipped classes today and forgot I had a midterm. A midterm I will be docked 10% from and be totally unable to make up the competency because I missed it. 'Brazil' came on, and it all went away. I'm moving around. I'm smiling. I feel good. I feel totally and completely happy. This isn't a new thing to experience with Arcade Fire, but let's just say today my favorite song is their fine beautiful version of 'Brazil.'
25
Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains). I have been listening to it on repeat for 48 hours straight. I can't stop. it's getting out of control.
26
"Antichrist Television Blues."
When I hear the opening words—"Don’t want to work in a building downtown"—I think, they are singing to me! Because I do not want to work in a building downtown either!
And so as I listen on my bus ride home after a day at the office, I drum my fingers against the messenger bag on my lap, finding quiet catharsis in those words like some kind of quasi-hip Dilbert.
This despite the fact that the song is really about 9/11 and God and, perhaps, a 13-year-old stripper ("Oh, my little bird in a cage…Show all the men that you’re old for your age.") That is some heavy shit. But because the song marches along with such an irresistible stride, and because the pressure-cooked vocals fit so snugly in that psychic space between confinement and freedom, I cannot help reducing the song to a cubicle dweller’s anthem.
I’m sorry, Arcade Fire. But it is your fault for rocking so hard.
When I hear the opening words—"Don’t want to work in a building downtown"—I think, they are singing to me! Because I do not want to work in a building downtown either!
And so as I listen on my bus ride home after a day at the office, I drum my fingers against the messenger bag on my lap, finding quiet catharsis in those words like some kind of quasi-hip Dilbert.
This despite the fact that the song is really about 9/11 and God and, perhaps, a 13-year-old stripper ("Oh, my little bird in a cage…Show all the men that you’re old for your age.") That is some heavy shit. But because the song marches along with such an irresistible stride, and because the pressure-cooked vocals fit so snugly in that psychic space between confinement and freedom, I cannot help reducing the song to a cubicle dweller’s anthem.
I’m sorry, Arcade Fire. But it is your fault for rocking so hard.
27
I love the song "Cold Wind". Here is my experience with it:
http://ohgodammit.wordpress.com/2010/08/18…
http://ohgodammit.wordpress.com/2010/08/18…
29
Carlos Ray Norris doesn't always kill a man with his bare hands, but when he does, he prefers to hum a few bars of Wake Up.
31
Win and William Butler's grandfather was Alvin McBurney, known to the world as Alvino Rey, the swing & big band leader. Rey died in 2004, the same year that Funeral was released. Included in the Funeral b-sides is a Rey song, "My Buddy." Its the kind of song that is played at the end of a 1940s South Pacific movie as the girl, laying on the beach, watches the leading man slowly pull out to sea in his sail boat, never to return. The slow, deliberate guitar gives way to a crescendo of trumpets. The girl closes her eyes and sings -
"Miss your voice, the touch of your hand, I long to know that you understand, my buddy--"
Yeah, maybe it was written for Win and William's grandmother, but who the hell calls their wife "my buddy"? I think that the Butler Bros spun it around and included it in Funeral as a sendoff for their buddy -- Grampa Alvin. Or they just liked it. I like it.
"Miss your voice, the touch of your hand, I long to know that you understand, my buddy--"
Yeah, maybe it was written for Win and William's grandmother, but who the hell calls their wife "my buddy"? I think that the Butler Bros spun it around and included it in Funeral as a sendoff for their buddy -- Grampa Alvin. Or they just liked it. I like it.
33
intervention. those first notes of organ in that song are enough to give you goosebumps, bring tears, and compel you to pump your fist all at once, which are all of the things that make arcade fire great.
34
intervention. those first few notes of organ in that song give you goosebumps, bring tears, and compel you to pump your fist all at once, which are all the things that make arcade fire so great.
36
My favorite Arcade Fire song is "Wake Up". After listening to Funeral, I decided that it was extremely important that I see them on their first tour. Unfortunately, the venue they were playing in Milwaukee, where I was living, was 21 and up, and I was just 19. The nearest venue that I could get into involved an all day trip by bus and car to Iowa City. My friend and I made it to the venue much later than expected. It was super small, the second floor of a bar, and it lacked a backstage, so the band had to walk through the crowd to get to the stage. Win Butler was making his way through the crowd and someone next to us motioned to block him from walking by. Winn said "I'm with the band, I'm just trying to get to the stage" The guy responded "No I don't think so", and my friend Jeff then pushed the guy into a brick wall and Butler said "I don't think that was necessary". Minutes later the band began playing the F chord opening to "Wake Up" and then came the chorus. I looked over at my friend Jeff, whose jaw had dropped, and realized that our lives were forever changed.
38
Answer: None of the above.
Ezra, you sly dog, this is a trick question. Picking our favorite AF song is just as impossible as picking our favorite Mercury writer (please don't make me choose between you, Wm.™ Steven Humphrey or Erik Henriksen... my head will explode).
It is just not possible to have one favorite Arcade Fire song, but as a consolation answer, this will forever be my favorite moment in an elevator. EVER.
http://www.blogotheque.net/Arcade-Fire,286…
Ezra, you sly dog, this is a trick question. Picking our favorite AF song is just as impossible as picking our favorite Mercury writer (please don't make me choose between you, Wm.™ Steven Humphrey or Erik Henriksen... my head will explode).
It is just not possible to have one favorite Arcade Fire song, but as a consolation answer, this will forever be my favorite moment in an elevator. EVER.
http://www.blogotheque.net/Arcade-Fire,286…
39
I've heard from countless people that seeing the AF is the closest thing to a religious experience. With your help, Merc, I too might be saved.
40
Currently The Well and the Lighthouse is on repeat on my Itunes. Last week I excitedly went in for a 12 pregnancy check up, and there was no heartbeat. I had lost the baby but continued with the pregnancy, I didn't even know that could happen. A missed miscarriage they call it, a cruel trick of nature I think. The loss is deep, the fear of losing the next is greater. At I find myself lost in grief and sorrow. I feel like I somehow failed the child by losing it, and yet knowing the joy a child can bring I am hoping for another, but the fear of another failed pregnancy is tremendous and overwhelming. There is no promise that there will be a happy ending. People say it will be better next time. I like how this song acknowledges that there are no promises, and while there is hope, hope and reality are very different. Sorry that this is a downer and probably a bit to personal but its current and true.
41
Neighborhood #2 (Laika) is a great song and has some interesting relevance to Portland…
The reference of Laika comes from "a Soviet space dog (c. 1954–November 3, 1957) who became the first animal to orbit the Earth and the first orbital death. The technology to deorbit had not yet been developed, so there was no expectation for survival. Laika likely died within hours after launch from overheating. The true cause and time of her death was not made public until 2002; instead, it was widely reported that she died when her oxygen ran out. However, the experiment proved that a living passenger could survive being launched into orbit and endure weightlessness. It paved the way for human spaceflight and provided scientists with some of the first data on how living organisms react to spaceflight environments. On April 11, 2008, Russian officials unveiled a monument to Laika. A small monument in her honor was built near the military research facility in Moscow which prepared Laika's flight to space. It features a dog standing on top of a rocket."
Anyways, the relevance comes from the fact that there is an animation studio in Portland owned by Phil Knight (AKA Mr. Nike) and lead by his son, Travis Knight by this same name, Laika. Is it possible that Knights also found inspiration from the little dog named Laika, but possibly also from this very song?!
Here’s to Laika The Space Dog, heroic Soviet canine!
The reference of Laika comes from "a Soviet space dog (c. 1954–November 3, 1957) who became the first animal to orbit the Earth and the first orbital death. The technology to deorbit had not yet been developed, so there was no expectation for survival. Laika likely died within hours after launch from overheating. The true cause and time of her death was not made public until 2002; instead, it was widely reported that she died when her oxygen ran out. However, the experiment proved that a living passenger could survive being launched into orbit and endure weightlessness. It paved the way for human spaceflight and provided scientists with some of the first data on how living organisms react to spaceflight environments. On April 11, 2008, Russian officials unveiled a monument to Laika. A small monument in her honor was built near the military research facility in Moscow which prepared Laika's flight to space. It features a dog standing on top of a rocket."
Anyways, the relevance comes from the fact that there is an animation studio in Portland owned by Phil Knight (AKA Mr. Nike) and lead by his son, Travis Knight by this same name, Laika. Is it possible that Knights also found inspiration from the little dog named Laika, but possibly also from this very song?!
Here’s to Laika The Space Dog, heroic Soviet canine!
42
Following my father's funeral, one of the hottest days of the year, my teenage brother and I got into his beat-up 89 Honda Prelude in our brand-new black suits and shiny black shoes, rolled down the creaking power windows, lit up a couple of Camel Lights and drove slowly while blaring Wake Up, dreading the obligatory family pot-luck waiting for us.
That song perfectly emulates the tragedy and celebration of a Funeral and I need to hear it live, almost one year later to the day.
That song perfectly emulates the tragedy and celebration of a Funeral and I need to hear it live, almost one year later to the day.
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