Very much opposite of the music in the post below this one (about Elvis Costello) is the music of Yellow Swans, an experimental/noise band (I suppose that's a bit redundant since there aren't many noise bands that aren't experimental) from Portland. Now, I will fully admit that I don't pay enough attention to the noise scene as I probably should and I couldn't tell you who was the most popular noise band and which were the new up-and-comers, so I have no idea if Yellow Swans were ever a big noise band or if they were just some random one that I saw. I do know thoug that I watched Yellow Swans open for Xiu Xiu about three years ago at the Troubadour, and they basically blew me away. I was going with a friend pretty much solely to see Xiu Xiu, but my friend convinced me that Yellow Swans had been a buzzworthy band he had heard about and so we should get there early to see them; I'm in debt to this kid for a while now because of that. Their show was pure energy, pure sonic waves, pure... I don't even know. My hairs stood on their ends and after their fairly short set (noise sets are never that long, I think), I was still in a bit of shock. I picked up their EP, gave it a fair amount of spins, but then admittedly didn't think much about them since then, only occasionally listening to it on my iPod on a bike ride here or there. That's why I was a little dismayed to hear the other day that the band just recently played their very last show; therefore, this is my homage to then. Keep on rocking on, and for those of you who never got to see them live or even heard of them, rock on below.
