Cool, I'll be seeing them in 3 weeks... and then hopefully again in April at Roadburn if I can score a ticket (which seems to get more difficult every year).



I have that 2CD version too, the bonus disc is really great. Probably even better than the album itself.

I want to see them live so badly, damn. Hope I get a chance in 2011, at least. During the last year or so, Swans slowly became one of my favourite bands and My Father... completely blew my mind, which added even more desire of seeing them.

Saw them Wednesday night in Brighton.
Fucking amazing! They still have that same intensity as way back when.
I got MG to sign the teeth on my Filth t-shirt!!

No horns in Brighton.
I thought the pedal steel guy looked like Bukowski!:D

And in the same day I say this, more dates are announced, one of them in my city. Hah, now that's a sweet coincidence.

02/18 – Austin, TX @ Mohawk Austin #
02/19 – Dallas, TX @ South Side Music Hall #
02/22 – Denver, CO @ Summit Music Hall #
02/25 – Vancouver, BC @ Rickshaw Theatre #
02/26 – Seattle, WA @ Neumo’s Crystal Ball Reading Room #
02/27 – Portland, OR @ Roseland Theater #
03/01 – San Francisco, CA @ The Regency Grand Ballroom #
03/02 – Los Angeles, CA @ El Rey #
03/06 – Auckland, New Zealand @ Powerstation
03/10 – Melbourne, Australia @ Forum Theatre
03/11 – Brisbane, Australia @ The Hi-Fi
03/12 – Sydney, Australia @ Metro Theatre
04/09 – Lisboa, Portugal @ Aula Magna
04/10 – Porto, Portugal @ Porto Casa da Musica
04/12 – Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel @ Barby
04/14 – Athens, Greece @ Gagarin 205
04/16 – Tilburg, Netherlands @ Roadburn Festival (Main Stage)
05/02 – Copenhagen, Denmark @ Vega
05/03 – Aarhuis, Denmark @ VoxHall
05/04 – Sweden @ TBA
05/06 – Oslo, Norway @ Rockefeller
05/07 – Drammen, Norway @ Union Scene
05/08 – Sweden @ TBA
05/10 – Tampere, Finland @ Klubi
05/11 – Helsinki, Finland @ Tavastia
05/12 – Tallinn, Estonia @ Von Krahl Theatre Bar
05/13 – Riga, Latvia @ Grivas Mebeles
05/14 – St. Petersburg, Russia @ SKIF Festival
05/15 – Moscow, Russia @ Avant Club
05/17 – TBA
05/18 – TBA
05/19 – TBA
05/20 – Brataslava, Slovakia @ Majestic Music Club
05/21 – Budapest, Hungary @ Trafó House of Contemporary Arts
05/23 – Zagreb, Croatia @ Teatar Itd
05/24 – Ljubljana, Slovenia @ Kino Kiska Centre for Urban Culture
05/25 – Salzburg, Austria @ Rockhouse

I'm so glad they'll play two gigs in Sweden. It's a bit annoying that they are TBA haha, when I finally know they'll play here I'd also like to know if I'll be able to see them once or twice, but whatever - I'll finally be able to see the fucking Swans!

Nice, thankfully the finland shows aren't too soon, so I can prepare myself financially for them.

if you saw them at supersonic, you didnt get half of it. i saw them again yesterday in manchester and it was a hundred times better. blew my face off.
that was one of my dreams come true.
words cannot describe.

Wow. i feel blessed.

Does anyone know of any half-decent books about Swans? Ideally a 'collected interviews' thing, but a 'history of the Swans' would be helpful. Preferably not online things, as it's for an academic paper and I'm trying to avoid sources from online.

What kind of academic paper are you writing that includes the history of Swans?? Very curious. Did you ever find some good quality text online or elsewhere that helped you ?

Torn Curtain: Wow...thank you. Awesome, awesome taste of this tour.

As far as I know there isn't. Shame.

Well, if I could've found something on them then the answer would've been 'it's to do with patristic dogmatic apophatic theology refracted through post-Nietzschian truth values in Swans 'Beautiful Child' - viz, essentially, their rendering of Abraham/ Ibrahim is non-denominational and a non-affirmative, and 'authentically' postmodern (unlike Cave's Christic narratology). I think I might be wrong about this though - their Abraham is pretty much indistinguishable from the Abraham of Kierkegaard's fear and trembling.'

As it stands, the answer is probably more like 'I think they're pretty neat'.

''Song For Dead Time'' is probably the only song that makes me feel nostalgic for a time when I was young. I remember falling asleep listening to it on my walkman a long time ago.
On a bench, in a park. Whoooooooo.

okay, this new album is aboslutely fucking amazing, one of their best. Proof that some albums, you kinda have to be "in the mood for". I had written it off initially but now I LOVE it.

Also, since this is "asp's favorites!" day, FAILURE is in my top 10 favorite songs of all time.

Are my taxes paying for this?

Your taxes are very much not paying for this, ever again if your hero the antichrist Cameron gets his way.

I've had Killing for Company on repeat the last few days. Afraid I'll burn it out. Probably one of the most beautiful, haunting songs I've heard in a long while.

Jeeeeeeeeesus

Swans added to the lineup of Primavera Sound 2011.

Wonderful. Hopefully I'll see them at both the Swedish gigs and at Primavera in May. :)

Swans really is one of the best bands ever. They've dominated my listening for more than a year.

Top 10 songs:

1. Helpless Child
2. The Sound
3. Sex, God, Sex
4. Killing For Company
5. Beautiful Child
6. Real Love
7. Blind Love
8. Animus
9. Failure
10. Trust Me

Seems to be a bit of an attitude problem with Mr Gira, though. The boots from UK coming out show him to be an offensive homophobe. Fucking pity, as the band is sounding pretty good.

details, mate!

if he's offensive that means we don't like his music?

That's a shame. He seems like such a nice, reasonable liberal from his lyrics.

he said the word faggot.

as a gay person, not even i am allowed to use that word.

because to use it means you are a homophobe, or a racist, which means you are a "person that does not accept white western liberals as the gatekeepers of language and those that get to decide what terminology is deemed acceptable or offensive to those 'minority' groups that the liberal secretly believes they are inherently superior to."

as a gay i forgive him and grant him the licence of using this word.

i also rescind the right of all liberals to determine when uses of the word faggot are appropriate or not.

i challenge each one of them to go and donate their time and money to a gay mens health charity if they are so concerned.

or do they want to admit they at heart feel superior to homos and only use them to buoy up their false claims to equality which conveniently place them as white straight westerners on the top of the pile dictating what terms others can and can't use to describe "minorities."

well obviously its because im homophobic and i need reeducation therapy.

what do i know, these benevolent and caring people only have my best interests at heart, which seems to be keeping alive the illusion that if you say the word faggot someone will take this as licence to go out and beat up a gay. whereas otherwise they would harbour no resentment towards them.

at least i think so.

the whole point anyway is you are defined as a person by your sexuality. and if you chose to reject this definition then you are going against the law of science and you are a homophobe.

this means you have no rights and are the enemy of progress.

what were we talking about? swans? the new album is mediocre

Mark E Smith once called a cab driver a fucking paki.

thats a shame, i was listening to his music as you said that and it suddenly turned unacceptable mid song.

i had to delete the mp3 because it won't help us bring racial equality to the world. with all the minorities never being insulted by the dominant benevolent white overlords. that's what they really want. pity mark can't see this, he must be an inferior human.

Maybe he's got a point. We should all stop using that word to refer to brown people and use it to refer solely to people who are, or look like, Badly Drawn Boy.

then we can write a song about our adventures on that day we lost our false teeth because "badly born drawn had confiscated them and put them, in, a mouldy old acoustic case, safe and warm for his saturday"

he's a turd and should go out and lay on the lawn

who? bdb?

I'm always dissappointed when a musician insults and abuses his audience. Other guilty parties I've heard are David Thomas & Greg Anderson, them and Gira should appreciate those of us who buy their stuff and attend their shows. So many others I have met and heard are gracious and appreciative. No, it generally does not affect their music that they are dicks, but it does make me not want to buy their stuff and not want to see them play again.

what did he actually do?

Don't throw away your Swans records just yet! Michael Gira replied to a pm I sent him on Facebook explaing that he made those comments humorously because of the high percentage of males at the gigs, which he found ridiculous. I knew there was something behind it, and it proves that some people want to be offended at all cost.

Am i the only one who thought My Father... was a bit of a let down?

I'm really looking forward for a new Angels of Light album though.

Nice to see you here Everyneurotic.

Even though you made a terrible terrible post in a John Frusciante thread, but I forgive you.

He has great taste in music, but i can't stand the guy.

Nice to see you again Derek.