You know

that they only will doubt you

when you

start to lose their features

Specifically 2:13

Who walked the dog?

Lost in the fog

squat down below

tongue to the snow

I saw Atlas Sound last night in my hometown. It's funny that I saw an artist such as Bradford Cox in a place like Upland, Indiana. Not to say anything bad about Upland, it's a nice place. But Atlas Sound is accompanied, in my mind, with an attitude maybe not in complete cahoots with what Taylor gives off, to put it as delicately as possible.

But, I ignored that stuff for a while and assumed everyone else would try their hardest to do the same.

Atlas Sound was good. Austin had seen him at Pitchfork a year or two ago and from his experience we were all a little weary. On top of that, I had seen Bear in Heaven the night prior and had a general disdain for internet-rumor-bands. Though, I'm not sure I'd consider Atlas Sound that type of thing, despite being acclaimed by the all-mighty-but-not-as-bad-as-we-all-want-to-imagine-it-as Pitchfork media.

Like most people, I really like Deerhunter; furthermore, I really like "Cryptograms". That album is a perfect mesh of noise (good, ambient, noise, I mean the sort of thing you would find on those noise-ambient compilation things) and cool punk songs. Atlas Sounds' set last night was not entirely different sounding than "Cryptograms". In fact, it sounded more like a Deerhunter show than what I would have expected Atlas Sound to be. Cox's new album, Logos, is hit-or-miss for me. Tracks like "Walkabout" and "Sheila" are, of course, highlights and are reason enough to deem the album at least good. Both of those songs were re-created live in various forms. "Walkabout" began, like most every song, with a noisy interlude followed by Cox manipulating his pedals and loop machines to create the backbone of the song. It could have been hard to distinguish "Walkabout" if not for the vocals that are some of the best on Logos: "To go away and not look back, and think of what the others say, to go ahead and change your life, without regard to what is said"

"Sheila" was a pretty direct translation of what can be heard on the album, with the exception of a bass guitar. While the effects pedals were numerous, they lent a hand to make the show feel big despite being only one person. Specifically during the chorus' of "Sheila" an effect was used which seemed to delay and pitch-up the notes, creating a cool atmospheric sound around the chords.

After the last song "Criminals", another stand out track on Logos, Cox conducted a Q&A. When I first started listening to Deerhunter, I remember watching videos of them playing some songs live, which then led me to a selection of interviews with Bradford Cox. At the time I was interested in hearing people talk about their craft. I was getting really into these Bob Dylan interviews and watching interviews with artists, etc. So, I found those interviews to be really rad, to the point where I watched them over and over again. Bradford Cox is an interesting guy, he is genuine and disingenuous and it's hard to make up your mind on whether or not he's trying to be honest and expressive or a little mean and bully-like.

Cox opened up the floor to questions and received a lot of general, typical things such as "When is the next Deerhunter album? What about that leak thing?". Cox's reactions were peculiar. Whether or not it was a reaction of being put on the spot or a sort of put-on, I'm not sure. He seemed to invite questioning, telling everyone not to be shy or embarrassed, and then proceeded to sort of, well, embarrass them. The whole thing was strange and lasted about half an hour. I'd be totally lying if I said it wasn't compelling though and a part of me felt bad for the guy. It seemed like he was trying to be genuine and kind, but just picking and choosing when to be that way and when not to. I remember when David Bazan came to Taylor and did a very similar Q&A type deal in between his songs. People asked him things like, "How is your faith?" and "What's your favorite Bible verse?" (no joke). Similarly, there were a few loaded questions directed at Cox, one being "What gives you hope?" to which Cox had no reply and "What do you think about religion?".

A friend of mine told me the other day he tries to critic music in the same way he would think about his friends' music. In the end, I'd like to think this is the way things should be in my head too. After all, it's just people trying to make some sort of art, trying to be expressive. So what if sometimes it's not exactly correct or nice, or even genuine. At least it's something. Right? What Bradford Cox does is interesting and was definitely worth my 8 dollars.