Operating on The Shins

Hello friends -

Some of you might think the title of this blog entry is merely cute but, ha ha!, it has two references. 1) The Shins show I saw Thursday night at McCarren park in Brooklyn, 2) a great article I read in the Times this week about operating room music.

First things first: the Shins. Last year I saw The Shins on Coney Island when they were the opening act for the White Stripes. Perhaps due to a somewhat unfortunate pairing of the two acts, the Stripes fans and Shins fans did not mesh well when the bands started playing, repelling each other like oil and water. making for a less than desireably concert experience. This time around I approached the concert with great anticipation, hoping that now that The Shins were the opening act I could really get into their live show.

The big lesson for me from these experiences: I need to manage my expectations a little better. The Shins are excellent musicians - their music is unique, well written, exquisitely played, attending to the detail of each note and roller coaster melodies, and their albums are ones that you often find yourself enjoying time after time, year after year. While perhaps not changing your life, The Shins can certainly improve your music collection.

Unfortunately, this musical prowess doesn't translate to their live show. Its a bit of a chicken and egg scenario: fans of The Shins aren't exactly the racuous folks who are going to be dancing and jumping around when they hear those first seconds of their favorite songs. But similarly The Shins aren't the kind of band who are going to get their audience riled up. They are silly, a bit irreverent, and definitely welcome with open arms in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, but that definitely doesn't translate to crowd surfing or contageous excitement. Instead, it results in what my friend called "about 5,500 toe tappers."

Anyways - this doesn't make them any less of an excellent band to listen to, and I am eagerly anticipating their next album, which, speaking of , NME reports this week is due out January, 2007. The album is titled "Wincing the Night Away" and include tracks called 'Sea Legs', 'Red Rabbits' and 'Phantom Limb.'

Shins homepage:
http://www.theshins.com/

Shins MySpace page:
http://www.myspace.com/theshins

On a total side note, I am fascinated by music in operating rooms. The NY Times did a cute/interesting article on it this week, covering not only the musical choices of various surgeons in the NorthEast but what the protocol is for who gets to choose the musical accompanyment in the OR. Just from having shared an office once in my life, the thought of being at the mercy of one person's musical tastes is brutal. At the same time though my dad's friend is the Chief of Medicine at a hospital in New Jersey and as a huge jazz and blues afficionado I can imagine he probably broadens the horizons of many an intern in his OR.

To read the entire article click here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/10/arts/music/10doct.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5070&en=7b1445a2ca3b639b&ex=1156651200