06.20.07 :: Feist with Grizzly Bear :: Pantages Theater

Here's what I recommend to everyone: theater shows. My experience seeing Arcade Fire at the Chicago Theater was superlative, and I've had similarly great times at the Orpheum here in Minneapolis seeing Sigur Ros and New Pornographers. This, however, would be my first trip to the smaller Pantages Theater.

In scope, it's a lot closer to the Fitzgerald in Saint Paul than the other theaters in downtown Minneapolis, but it's all the more charming for it. It's got all the trappings of a theater show--good sight lines, seating, decorative elements on the walls--but it's not overly baroque or full of windy staircases and ratty seat cushions.

By the time Grizzly Bear starts, the place is only maybe half full, but that kind of suits Grizzly Bear's live presentation. Their last album, Yellow House, sounds like it could have been recorded in an empty theater anyways, and live, they strip out a lot of the texture of the songs to reveal their skeletal beauty. Only half their set is drawn from my favorite album of last year, including "Lullabye," "Little Brother," "Knife" and the closer, "On a Neck, On a Spit." Onstage, they perform with economy, singer Ed Droste still tentatively holding the mic stand and multi-instrumentalist Chris Taylor spending a good amount of the time bent over a mic into which he played flute and clarinet to loop as background textures. The other thing this set brings home is just how much Dan Rossen contributes to the band. Most of the press centers around Droste as the singer, but Rossen sings at least half the stuff, and possibly more.

Above them hang strings of Christmas lights that I can only presume will be used for Feist's set, and so hang unlit--a kind of perfect visual complement to the low-wattage and rusty organic beauty their songs are imbued with. Drummer Chris Bear, I realize at one point, has no kick drum at all, but just a snare and a floor tom tuned to the high range of a kick. He's also just a killer drummer. In addition to a couple of newer (or possibly older--I'm not that familiar with their back catalog) tunes, they play a cover of "He Hit Me (Felt Like a Kiss)," a track written in 1962 by Carole King and Gerry Goffin and recorded by The Crystals. It's a fairly harrowing track about spousal abuse, but it's given an entirely new twist by Droste and co., given a.) Droste not changing the sex of the song's characters and b.) being gay. Add to that their supremely dark take on the music for the song and the cover becomes a multi-valent exploration of abuse and power dynamics.

The real highlight comes with "On a Neck, On a Spit," which remains probably my favorite track from Yellow House. Once upon a time, I wrote this about that: "This tune has a kind of fractal quality to it--it's at least three different songs in one, and it embodies in miniature the grand dynamic sweep from intimate to epic that made this my favorite album of the year. The liltingly beautiful melody and pastoral imagery ('The yards around your feet / Fall away while you're asleep') of the first part give way to the nearly epic middle section, which teases resolution multiple times before giving up. Suddenly the song is overtaken by a jangly and dark acoustic guitar that paves the way for the bracingly cacophonous coda, a lament that could be sung by a man slowly going mad: 'Each day, spend it with you now / All my time, spend it with you now / Out here no one can hear me.'"

Still true. Onwards to Feist.

When the lights drop to introduce Feist's set, you could say the crowd is excited. So excited that they cheer loudly when the first silhouette crosses the stage, even though it's clearly not Leslie Feist. They settle down a bit, but when Feist finally emerges, they go nuts. She launches straight away into "Honey Honey" from The Reminder, a gentle song built around a mellow synth bass line and her own looped vocals. There a little guitar here and a little guitar there, but overall, it's strikingly bare, but she's got the crowd right in the palm of her hand, so it's not hard to catch every nuance of the performance.

Her set is a wide-ranging mix of rockers ("When I Was a Young Girl," "My Moon, My Man" and "I Feel It All") and barely there ballads ("The Park," "Intuition"). This is the fourth time I've seen her, now, and her ability to go from full band to solo is getting increasingly fluid, and as her popularity has grown, so has her audience's willingness to go along with this format. She gets everybody to sing along several times, engages in more than her fair share of stage banter and struts about the stage like Mick Jagger when she's on fire about a song. When she's not, she stands very still behind the mic, hair in her face and Guild Starfire guitar slung low--very low--using her ultimate weapon: her voice. It's rather difficult to describe exactly what about her voice is so seductive, but it has something to do with the way that it sits ouside the traditional spectrum of evaluating singers. If you'd believe American Idol, there's a one-dimensional spectrum that extends from terrible singers up through very accomplished singers that has only to do with technical ability. But Feist's voice seems both simultaneously untutored and extremely flexible and capable. It's brimming over with character,a syrupy smooth honey-ness that bleeds charm.

Oddly, though, the sound wasn't impeccable at Pantages. It wasn't bad, but her voice didn't come through as I've heard it do at the Varsity. Now obviously that's a smaller room, but you'd expect the sound at a theater to be great. Her performance didn't seem to suffer at all, though, as she confidently led her band (which seemed to include the drummer from Snowden. Am I crazy? Can anyone tell me if he might be moonlighting with Feist's band?) through a lengthy set of songs from her two albums, as well as one cover. I couldn't place the cover, but she did say that anyone who could identify it in the first 30 seconds would win a ... Grizzly Bear CD. If anybody knows that it was, lemme know.

Also: I bumped into Josh Grier from Tapes 'n' Tapes in the lobby while he was waiting around for Droste to come out. They know each other, apparently. Not surprising, really. Sounds like Tapes is in the process of writing for a new record which they're going to begin recording later in the summer.

Also, I had a camera was unable to get a dececnt shot from where I sat. Having already barely squeaked into the show under the wire after my tickets were stranded in Memphis (long story), I didn't feel like pushing my luck by pressing for photos. I'm sure there'll be some over at City Pages, as I bumped into music editor Sarah Askari there.

Complete Feist setlist:

Honey Honey
When I Was a Young Girl
I'm Sorry
My Moon, My Man
The Park
Limit to Your Love
I Feel It All
Intuition
Now At Last
Gatekeeper
(cover)
The Water
Mushaboom
1 2 3 4

ENCORE:
Brandy Alexander
Sea Lion Woman
Let It Die

Review of The Pipettes with Smoosh

I know, I know: it's like Pipettes central around here recently. We'll be getting onto some other new stuff once I crawl out from under all the freelance writing I'm doing at the moment. For now, here's a link to my review of The Pipettes show on City Pages' website. Photos are by the illustrious Dan Corrigan, and you can even see the back of my head in one of them. I'm right in front of the stage right Pipette in the second photo.

06.08.07 :: The Pipettes with Monster Bobby and Smoosh :: 7th St. Entry

MONSTER BOBBY



ASYA of SMOOSH



CHLOE of SMOOSH



MAIA of SMOOSH



MAIA of SMOOSH



THE PIPETTES' SETLIST



THE PIPETTES



ROSAY of THE PIPETTES



RIOTBECKI of THE PIPETTES



GWENNO of THE PIPETTES



ROSAY



RIOTBECKI



GWENNO

Arcade Fire :: Chicago Theater :: 05.19.07

A SIGNAL EATS NOISE SPECIAL ROAD TRIP REPORT FROM CHICAGO

Before Arcade Fire's sold out show at the Chicago Theater last Saturday (the second of three such shows), my father asked me how they got to be so big.

"They made a great record," I replied.

"Well, making a great record isn't enough on its own to get a band this kind of success, right?" he replied. And he's right. Plenty of amazing albums languish on shelves, still shrink-wrapped, and lots of mediocre records sell millions. Arcade Fire certainly benefited from rave reviews on Pitchfork and other sites, and the buzz that came trotting along behind, but it sure doesn't hurt that they're a transcendent live band, the kind of group that has acolytes instead of fans.

As we found our way to our seats (sort of just stage right of center, about 20 rows back), openers Electrelane were working their way through a set of noisy and largely instrumental rock. General consensus was that the British quartet of women looked like a band straight out of the mid- to late-'90s, an association reinforced by their music, which shared roots with Sleater Kinney. Their set showed flashes of inspiration--Arcade Fire singer Win Butler couldn't say enough good things about them--but the Chicago Theater's a big space, the mix was not the greatest, and they just didn't seem to connect to the audience, although they were definitely warmly received. They were certainly interesting enough to warrant a closer look at their new album, No Shouts, No Calls.

As the lights came up and we found the other members of our party, it became clear what a phenomenal space the Chicago is. I've been to a handful of theater shows in my day--Sigur Ros, New Pornographers, and Belle and Sebastian recently, Robert Cray and, yup, Spin Doctors--and they're the best. You get a seat, you're usually guaranteed a pretty good sight line, and I'm pretty sure that bands love them.

The stage is strewn with instruments, including pipes from a pipe organ suspended from the rafters, and more amps than you can shake a stick at. A set of circular screens are arrayed around its edge, and a line of flexible lights attached to poles stand at the front of the stage.

After a mercifully short wait, the lights drop and Arcade Fire take the stage, launching immediately into "Keep the Car Running" from their latest, Neon Bible. There are 10 people up there, including two horn players, one with a bass clarinet and one with a french horn, and they hit the ground running. Win Butler, sporting the latest in 19th c. strongman fashion, manifests very little of a frontman mentality, and yet he's clearly leading the band. Like their countrymen (and women) Broken Social Scene, Arcade Fire are masters at broadcasting an all-in-the-family vibe from the stage, and the audience responded immediately.

By their third song, "Haiti," from Funeral,it was clear that they were playing each song as if it were their last. A lot of bands throw themselves into their music, but it can often come off as spectacle. Arcade Fire, however, made it feel, for lack of a better word, like church. There were plenty of stage dressings, including fiber optic cameras mounted around the stage that would send fisheye images of the band to be projected on the circular screens and on the curtains at the back of the stage, but none of the lights or the video took over the power of the music.

The set was drawn in equal parts from Funeral and Neon Bible, and, as is often the case, the live setting erased a lot of the distinction between the two records. Funeral may have been more directed, concerned primarily with the transfer of responsibility from one generation to the next, and Neon Bible might sound bigger and bolder, but it's clear that even if their second effort hasn't been lauded in the same way as their first, they're still mining a rich vein of material.

Personally, I couldn't get past Regine Chassagne's onstage antics. Dolled up like a cross between Madonna or Cyndi Lauper circa 1984, and dancing awkardly, drawing attention to herself constantly, she came off like a Canadian Bjork, which is to the real Bjork as the Canadian dollar is to the American. However, she kicked some serious ass on the drums, especially on "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)", and her vocal performance was uniformly great, although especially on "Haiti." Learning that Chassagne (who's married to Win Butler, in case you didn't know) was born and raised in Haiti definitely makes the song resonate more deeply, and it also nicely complexifies the French bits of their songs, since the band is not just French-Canadian, but also Haitian. In any case, I can see that she's clearly a love her or hate her proposition, and a necessary counterweight in the band, so that's a push.

The rest of the band was going absolutely apeshit by the time they closed the set proper with the one-two punch of "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)" and "Rebellion (Lies)". Tim Kingsbury was tossing a mic stand with a megaphone mounted on it high into the air again and again, and when they came back out for the encore ("My Body is a Cage" and "Neighborhood #2 (Laika)"), Kingsbury and Richard Reed Parry had begun to hit anything they had handy--the stage, the monitors, an a la carte crash cymbal. The crowd was itching for "Wake Up," but it was not to be on this night.

Some shows are nearly overwhelming, displaying the true power not only of the band performing, but of all music everywhere. Arcade Fire did make a great record, and then made at least a very good one, but it's clear from their live show that they've tapped into much more than just a successful formula for crafting wordless sing-along hooks and ramshackle narratives of loss and growth--they've made their own world, miraculously connecting the dots from '70s David Bowie to '80s Bruce Springsteen to the mossy glory of Neutral Milk Hotel. The trick is that they've made music that makes this path seem obvious and natural, even when no one ever really followed the path before.

It's a popular opinion that there's nothing truly new to say with music, that the borders are set and it's getting harder--if not impossible--to be original. But maybe there's still space in between to say the old things in a new way, to re-energize the old forms in bright new ways. Arcade Fire are living, breathing proof that tradition doesn't have to be an albatross and that the power of song and performance are enduring.

I caught Kyle Matteson, who runs arcadefire.net, at the show, so I'm sure he'll have a full setlist up over there pretty soon.

You can't go home again

After getting the following bulletin from The Plastic Constellations on MySpace, I knew I couldn't resist:

Friendthrens-

The four of us in TPC went to high school together, back in the proverbial day. Did you know this? Odds are yes since it seems to be mentioned fairly frequently in press coverage of our dumb band. Did you know that this aforementioned high school was none other than Hopkins High School (aka Tha 270, as in "Independent School District #270) in Hopkins, MN, a small industrial suburb ten minutes to the west of Minneapolis?

It's true.

Since we're at the "let's play a bunch of crazy little shows for fun while we finish writing a new record" stage of 2007, we've decided to book a show at a Hopkins mainstay -- Decoy's on Mainstreet -- just like, cause, it'll be crazy fun. If you've ever been there, you know that the bands who usually play there are of the bar band-cover jams-keyboard solo-long hair variety.

On this Saturday, April 28th, we will be ripping this venue a new asshole along with our rapper friends (and also Hopkins High School graduates) Sims and Mictlan from Doomtree. Here is the stats:

Saturday, April 28th
9:30 PM till close
Decoy's in Hopkins, MN
1022 Mainstreet (corner of 11th and Main)
The Plastic Constellations
Sims and Mictlan from Doomtree
$5 - 21+

A show this special deserves a special approach. We'll be playing mutliple sets, covers, tracks from our entire catalog (including a bunch of new jams), invoking audience participation -- you know, all the ridiculous stuff that a bar band normally does. Except it will be us, TPC, inciting the riotus good times and not Wicked Slammerz or whatever other bands normally play there.

We think that you should come to this. For reals. Hopefully we'll see you there.

Love and Jason Kubel,
TPC

I don't spend a lot of time in the West Metro. All right, I don't spend any time in the West Metro, so a set of MapQuest directions and one Friends Like These EP later, I parked on Main Street right out in front of Decoy's last night around 10:30 p.m. Decoy's is pretty much what you'd expect from a suburban bar-- long sightlines, tables strewn around the area on different levels, a bevy of televsions (half tuned to the Devils/Senators game, half to the Rockets/Jazz game), a lot of locals and a whole lot of smoke. Right, I forgot about smoking in bars.

The stage is set on an angle in the northeast corner of the room (at least, I think it's northeast-- the 'burbs have a way of messing with my internal compass), rising all of six inches from the bar floor and adorned with neon beer signs featuring guitars. I run into Jordan Roske (bassist for TPC), and we chat about the upcoming set and how things have been going. TPC have been at work composing a follow-up LP to last year's Crusades, and apparently, they've got six songs done, all of which they'll be playing tonight. Recording's supposed to start in August. Just a heads up.

I grab a Sam Adams and make like Magellan around the bar, running into Doomtree rapper Sims in the back. He's sporting winter hair, which for him means hair, and it's a little unnerving. But not as unnerving as this whole thing seems for him. Sims went to high school in Hopkins, like TPC and several other members of Doomtree, and he has that glazed/manic look in his eye that I imagine I have in those dreams where you're wearing pajamas (or less) in the middle of second period math class. I empathize, man. I was back in Williamstown not all that long ago, and experienced a truly odd mix of emotions upon seeing people I had gone to high school with. Sort of an initial reaction of shock and horror that they're still in that tiny-assed town all these years later immediately followed by scolding myself at feeling superior. So I moved; so what? It's perhaps a little more jarring for the assembled Minneapolitans tonight since it seems like it shouldn't be that tough to achieve escape velocity from Hopkins when the Twin Cities are just up the road. I don't know much about Hopkins, though-- I just know Main Street seems sleepy as shit on a Saturday night.

Cecil Otter comes up and gives me a warm greeting, the warmest I think I've ever gotten from him, perhaps a reflection of the above. People who've come out from the Cities are kind of like little liferafts for the graduates of Hopkins High, it seems. Cecil starts his set by saying, "Hi, I'm Kyle and I went to Hopkins." He spends the whole set on the floor in front of the stage, drawling his lyrics out against the booming backdrop of cuts provided by Paper Tiger, and the effect is, well, odd, although not in the way that the performers seem to think it is. Cecil Otter's stage persona is a marked contrast to that of Sims or P.O.S. or really most of the whole rest of Doomtree, who seem to feed off each other, moving to create more motion. Sims tends to prowl the stage, Mictlan kind of stalks, but Cecil just kind of lounges. Sometimes it seems like he belongs more to the Rat Pack than Doomtree, like he should be holding a martini and telling dry jokes, but tonight the music's so big and his presence so bracing in this space that he just seems huge and absolutely in command, but not in a dominating kind of way. It seems like effortless aplomb.

When he gives way to Sims and Mictlan, things get considerably more rambunctious. Mictlan mostly sticks to saying things with his rhymes, but Sims is clearly a little unhinged by the whole thing, telling people that a real rock band is coming up real soon, and relishing the prospect of people in the back coming up to him after the set and giving him shit. It's not so much that the crowd isn't into it, because a throng of about 40 people have crowded around the front of the stage; it's more that they just chatter real loudly through everything, even the people up front. In a way, it's probably harder than dealing with either reprobation or approbation. The crowd isn't wicked into it, but it's not like they hate them-- they're mostly just not paying attention. As a performer, pretty much a fate worse than death.

Paper Tiger keeps it going between Sims/Mictlan and TPC, cueing up "Be Easy" by Ghostface Killah and following it immediately with a tantalizing slice of "Luccini" by Camp Lo. That's the good shit, but again, nobody's really giving notice.



TPC hits the stage, and the crowd seems to warm a little more to the idea of a real band, but it's still a bar-band bar. Really, though, it's a grand and kind of hilarious experiment that peels back all kinds of things about being a band that your average gig doesn't get at. For everybody playing tonight, their music is unmistakably theirs-- they've forged these sounds out of their influences, beginning at some derivative sound and ending up where they are now. Which is not to say that they've reached their destination and are fully-formed-- this isn't like Bruce Springsteen coming back to play a bar in Asbury Park or something, but that's what makes it particularly deliciously meta, really. The bands who usually play here are cover bands, playing someone else's music to people who want to hear somebody else's music. In a lot of ways, the music that bands are usually playing at Decoy's is further removed from what Doomtree and TPC play than other forms of original art are. What Doomtree and TPC are doing is creating themselves through creative expression. It's more than just saying, "This is who I am"; it's the metaphorical fashioning of themselves through the act of creation. It's really profoundly artistic in a really beautiful way. And most of the people here couldn't seem to care less.

Whatever, though. In keeping with my previous post about authenticity, I want to clarify that I'm not in any way saying original music is more "real" than that made by a cover band. They're both engaged in the kind of sleight of hand that's necessary for performance. I'm not saying, I'm just saying.

TPC are willing to play the game, though, and before their set break ("Because that's what bar bands do," says singer Jeff Allen) they play a cover of Journey's "Separate Ways." It's kind of funny, and it kind of rocks, but frankly, the smoke's starting to get to me. My eyes are starting to burn a bit, plus I'm coming down with a cold, so I head out, away from Decoy's and Hopkins and back to the welcoming embrace of Saint Paul.

First Communion Afterparty at the Nomad

Right now, I'm watching First Communion Afterparty at the Nomad. They're going to be taking over from Ice Palace as the resident band for the Minneseries in April. Frankly, I didn't like them the first time I saw them back at the Kitty Cat Klub last summer. They're derivative, barely in tune, and a little ridiculous with their overtly '60s stage presence, but dammit: they're winning me over. There's a woman at the front of the stage with voluminous blonde hair and a mega-mod orange dress that could have come straight out of the movie "Blow Up," and her only job, apparently is to play the tamborine, and she's taking it very seriously. She has an odd, unaffected look on her face, kind of like she's above it all. Even when the band (all seven of them) churn the music into a maelstrom, she betrays no emotional involvement at all.

More than any one band from the '60s (although the Jefferson Airplane and the Mamas and the Papas spring immediately to mind), they remind me of Spiritualized, which ain't a bad thing, let me tell you.

They always seem a little out of tune, and I couldn't really tell you if I like it or not. I know, based on the article that Charlie Vaughan turned in on them, that they have a kind of utopian dram of starting a commune somewhere on the west coast. And you know what? I can see it, because their music has a certain audienceless aspect. Follow me here.

Once upon a time, there weren't recordings that would allow you to play back whatever you wanted to hear at the touch of a button and, even further back, there weren't public performances of music with an audience seated in their chairs listening. Back in the days of Guillaume de Machaut and Perotin, who wrote sacred music in the 12th and 13th centuries, you either participated in the music, or you didn't hear it. The idea of a final musical "product" didn't exist. Take a moment and really try to imagine a world in which the only music you hear is music made by you and your friends. A world in which there's not even an option to do it another way. First Communion Party have just a touch of that feel to them.

You could construe their stage act as an affectation, and maybe you wouldn't be wrong about that. But if you can suspend your disbelief in their earnestness for a moment, I think you'll find a ragged, participatory beauty underneath.

02.15.07 :: Elk / St. Vincent / Midlake

When you're going to see Death Cab for Cutie, it's a fair bet that it's going to be packed, but for smaller bands on the rise, it can be tough to tell. I remember going to a show in the Entry last February that featured Tapes 'n' Tapes and Voxtrot, and it was pretty far from sold out-- I doubt that would happen if the same bill played the Entry now.

Midlake are pretty terrific, and I'd learned by lesson with Grizzly Bear last week, so I got there on the early side-- early enough to post up in front of that box that sits just in front of stage right at the Entry. A place to sit, a place to put my coat, and great access for photos. Bingo. Up first, Elk.



The joint was already fairly jumping, I think in large part thanks to Eric Luoma's new project. Bellwether (Luoma's other band, who are always in a sort of gloaming-esque state of barely existing) have always been one of my favorite local bands, so I was really looking forward to hearing him in a new context. I had been promised a more poptastic sheen by Martin Devaney, but that turned out to be a pretty relative pronouncement. The sound was still signature Luoma, with his beautifully wounded voice the cynosure, as well it should be. Luoma's voice is a truly unique one, the kind of effortlessly mournful croon that's just begging to be harnessed by movie soundtrack producers. Luoma mostly stuck to a 12-string guitar, which gave him some tuning problems, although he also picked up a handsome Gretsch hollowbody for a couple songs.



I'd love to tell you exactly who's in the band, which included a woman on keyboards, the dude who's been playing bass with Bellwether and whom I totally recognize, a drummer and the only guy I really know, Brian O'Neil, on pedal steel, but there's very little info out there on the band right now. Not even a MySpace page, I don't think. The stage was simply jammed with gear, much of which would turn out to belong to Midlake, and Luoma's guitar was in constant danger of smashing O'Neil's knuckles on the steel. Elk turned in a very laidback, casual set of fairly short length, the highlight of which was the second to last tune, a lovelorn ballad of the type that Luoma's just aces at called something like "Somebody Else." There might be another word in the title-- I couldn't quite see the bottom of the setlist from where I sat. I have no idea how seriously Elk is taking their life as a band-- they might start playing lots of shows, or they might end up playing once every six months. I hope it's the former.



A considerable gap followed Elk, during which time St. Vincent dealt with all kinds of technical problems, including getting shocked by the vocal mic, which, let me tell you, is not a walk in the park. I had thought that it was going to be a duo, but it turned out the bespectacled and bedreaded guy setting stuff up onstage was only there to set stuff up on stage. Thus, St. Vincent is just Annie Clark, a young woman from Texas. As you can see, she had a distinctly Jennifer Beals look to her, and sported huge glasses of the type beloved by my mother circa 1985. Yeah, I was pretty much prepared to write her off, as was the crowd, who began to grow antsy as the delay stretched to nearly 45 minutes. It wasn't a promising start, but the instant she started playing, everyone shut up. She began with a strident and aggressive, yet slinky and cabaret-esque murder ballad that you couldn't help paying attention to. The mic you can see to her left in the pic is some kind of super-old microphone that she used to good effect as a scratchy filter that lent her voice a gramaphone quality. There were shades of Jeff Buckley's solo stuff in her performance, her voice and guitar skills showing an equal level of virtuoso talent. The most affecting song was the one she played on the keyboard, which was hidden behind a false front. It was a tender ballad that stretched and meandered, smoldering with sexuality, a quality shared by the acoustic piano version of Sarah McLachlan's "Posession" that comes after the last track on Fumbling Towards Ecstasy. Everything Clark did within the performance was fantastic, and she resoundingly won the crowd back over to her side, but I'd suggest cutting down on all the bells and whistles with the stage set-up, especially as an opener. Less to go wrong.



Midlake made their wway on stage to set-up the gear, and the only clean-shaven one was the roadie. When was the last time you saw that happen? The only photo I'd seen of the band was from a bit of a distance, so I was having a hard time picking out which one was singer Tim Smith, whom I'd interviewed for my article in Pulse. I knew from speaking with him that he wasn't a big fan of touring and the whole scene, so I pegged him as soon as a lanky and, of course, bearded guy with ear buds in got on stage. Don't anybody tell David Stern. Keyboards were moved back into place (lots and lots of keyboards-- beside the dedicated pianist, who also had a synth on top of his keyboard, the bassist, guitarist and Smith all had keyboards they played at various time), mics were adjusted and away we went.



The Trials of Van Occupanther is such a layered and nuanced album that I wondered how they were going to pull it off live, but clearly, that's what all the keyboards were for. Like Grizzly Bear, transplanting the songs into a live setting gave them a toothier quality, but unlike GB, the arrangements were mostly intact. They opened with "We Gathered in Spring," appending an extended intro that slowly gave way to the proper song, and over the course of the set, played nearly every song from Trials, save for "You Never Arrived," and they even played a couple of older songs from their debut album, Bamnan and Silvercork. It's an album with which I'm not familiar, but "Balloon Maker" was great, showcasing the more keyboard-based sound of that record. At least, I've heard it's more keyboard-oriented. I'll have to pick that one up.



The band shifted around the tiny stage nimbly, trading off instruments, including one song where Smith joined the pianist and they both played piano. It's hard to pick one highlight-- one of the best qualities of their album, which was duplicated ably live, is how consistent and of a piece it sounds. I know, I know: It's not a concept album, but it still has the feel of telling different facets of a single story, and the entire set mimicked this consistency. Their single, "Roscoe," was greeted warmly by the crowd, and in the silence that followed, one fan yelled out, "That's the best song ever written!" to which Smith replied, "That'd ridiculous." Calls for "Head Home," a rolling Fleetwood Mac-inspired track, were answered with the information that that would be the last song they'd play before they came out for their awesome encore. They finished as promised before coming backout for a pair of songs, closing with "Branches," which they stretched out just a bit, giving the drummer free rein to indulge in some quietly impressive fills. Despite Smith's obvious leadership, the band really seems like a platoon of likeminded souls bent to a single goal, and their humility, combined with an absolute confidence in their own music, make for a compelling and satisfying concert-going experience.

02.10.07 :: Grizzly Bear :: Seventh St. Entry

Honestly? I had no idea that Grizzly Bear would sell out the Seventh St. Entry. I wasn't sure if they had really broken through from critically-acclaimed to buzz band, but I guess they have. I arrived late, due to some festivities that needed taking care of beforehand, but just in time to catch what I believe to have been their first song, "Lullabye." I had been hoping to get close enough to get some good pics, but as you can see (see above) I was stuck in the back. I'll be sure to arrive early next time because Grizzly Bear put on one hell of a show.

First, the piddly stuff: Chris Taylor (bass, vocals, sundry) has a crazy mofo voice when he wants to use it. Apparently, the sort of creepy/urgent/falsetto vocals that warp around the post-verse section are just him, straight up and live, because he basically duplicated the sound of it exactly live. One of the things about Grizzly Bear that makes them really great is the way that moments, not songs, but little moments within songs, will evoke bands spaced further apart than the intervals in stride piano, and then just breeze on. T. Rex (thanks to Taylor's vocals) came to mind for that moment, but also Neil Young's countrier stuff, Modern English and other New Romantic '80s bands and lots of other touchstones are all living up inside their music, and it's nice the way they all let them step forward in minor ways throughout a set.

Another thing that was really brought home by the live performance is how much weight is placed on the vocals, given that all four members can sing and often do, blending into ragged but beautiful four-part harmony. It made me realize that bands often end up putting more weight on one side of the vocal/instrumental fence. Many do it consciously, but most do it subconsciously, and the result is overcompensation one way or the other. Grizzly Bear were very well-balanced in this respect. And despite the paucity of texture when compared to their album, the live show was mesmerizing, largely for the way they used their voices.

Which brings me to the last thing I want to say about them. The thing which really makes them a great band is that their songs, despite seeming so fragile a lot of the time, are durable enough to be bent and re-shaped in a live context in a way which renews them and invigorates them, without it sounding for one moment like a self-conscious process. Lots of bands will re-work songs for a live context when they find them unperformable in their recorded form, but the bulk of the time, you can tell they're doing something to it. "Let's speed it up!" or "Let's cut out the drums and make it a ballad!" but Grizzly Bear are having none of that. There's a strong fibrous core to their stuff, and they're smart enough to cut a bud off that core and replant it in the live context, letting it grow as it sees fit. A lot of the time, front man (kind of, but he's the one who gets all the press) Ed Droste didn't even play an instrument, content to just sing, which seems amazing, given the sheer amount of sound on Yellow House. He often seemed entirely uncomfortable with the role, tentatively wrapping his hands around the mic stand. The lack of outward bravado was heartwarming, even as the musical bravado carried the day.

My BFFs

I'm at the Nomad Pub over on the West Bank right now, checking out this week's Minneseries, which is this weekly night of music that I've been working on (and when I say working on, I mean asking my main man Matt Perkins what fantastic amazing bands he's lined up and then making an ad for the Pulse) for a bit. Really, Matt is the guy who's been doing all the heavy lifting, although when I can, I try to pimp the shows with Hot Tickets and hot ads and hot blogs. Like this one.

Best Friends Forever is playing right now. Heard 'em? They're like spaz geniuses: two chicks and a guy drummer who sing songs about being best friends, Orlando Bloom and Abraham Lincoln. The Lincoln song is hitting particularly close to home with me, since I'm knee-deep in reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's book Team of Rivals, which is about the run up to Lincoln being nominated as the Republican candidate at the convention in Chicago and how he assembled his cabinet out of his staunchest rivals, rather than toadying yesmen, like some presidents we have right now.

Stuff like Best Friends Forever is kind of a mystery to me, because by all rights I should hate it. I'm not a fan of cutesiness in my rock, nor of barely tuneful vocals, but somehow, they make it work. And I mean work. I guess it's got a genuineness, a guilelessness (wow, is that a word? Yes, confirmed by dictionary.com) that keeps it actually cute, rather than cutesy. Plus, if you look around, every person here is smiling. Funny music is hard to do-- way harder than you probably think. Nobody who's good at it probably spends one-quarter of the amount of time thinking about it as I do. For stuff like this, to paraphrase that miserable Dane, there's nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

This just in: Knob Creek is great.

Deftones at First Ave

Wow. Just wow. If you ever have a chance to catch a band that's used to playing in arenas and at outdoor festivals in a venue the size of First Ave, I heartily recommend doing it. I've never heard a heavy, incredibly loud band sound so GOOD. I saw Soundgarden three or four times in their heyday, and let me tell you, they sucked live. I remember Metallica being impressive, but it was at Lollapalooza, so it's pretty hard to judge sound. I distinctly remember disliking Ministry live.

But Deftones were so self-assured and solid. I had heard mixed things about them live, but I thought Chino Moreno was in great voice, hitting all the high notes, even on throat-wreckers like "Digital Bath" from White Pony. They covered a lot of ground, playing songs from every album they've released (I'm pretty sure--I'm not too familiar with Adrenaline), although the highlights were "My Own Summer (Shove It)," "Knife Prty," and "Xerces."

Here's where I get all meta on your ass: Even if you're not a fan of loud, heavy, aggressive music, I think checking out Deftones, especially live, is worth your time. I think that seeing anyone who's really good at something do it in person is worth your time: a deft surgeon in the operating room, a tennis player like Roger Federer playing in a final, a classical pianist performing Bach's "Well-Tempered Klavier," Defontes absolutely destroying the mainroom at First Ave. Because here's the thing: seeing people who have mastered a discipline, performing at the height of their abilities, is just about the most beautiful thing I can imagine, not to mention just about the only thing worth something in this here life.

I'm not a believer in the afterlife, so I think we need to make the most of what we've got right now.

This is something Kevin McHale and the rest of the Timberwolves management should keep in mind in the future. Goddamnit. I can't believe we didn't get Iverson.

I mean, actually, I can, which is what makes it all the worse. I'd been trying to come up with the right real world analogy for how it made me feel when I read the news that A.I. had gone to Denver, and I finally came up with it last night.

You're in a relationship, and it was good for a while, but now it's getting on six months or so and things aren't going great. You have moments where you think you've got to get out and then moments when you think it might work out. So you plan a vacation with your S.O., but you're not kidding yourself--you know it probably won't fix anything deep down, but it's going to be fun and maybe you can forget about the problems for a while. But then in the lead-up to the vacation you begin to invest it with way more significance than it should have, maybe just subconsciously. And then two days before you're supposed to go, you have to cancel because of some entirely stupid extenuating circumstances. But now you suddenly feel EVEN WORSE than you did before you planned the vacation because the failure of the vacation to come to fruition is just another example of what an abject failure the entire relationship is, and, as a matter of fact, the vacation's cancellation comes to represent the entire endeavor's absolute crappiness.

Ladies and gentlemen, your 2006-07 Minnesota Timberwolves. Kevin: please, just go. I'll hold the door.

Snowden at the Triple Rock

Snowden's full-length debut, Anti-Anti, really took me by surprise. At first I thought it had a couple cool songs ("Counterfeit Rules" and the title track) but then I realized that "My Murmuring Darling" is also great. And "Black Eyes." And "Innocent Heathen." And pretty much every other track on this disc. The tools they use are deceptively simple: muscular basslines, delay-laden guitar parts, and singer Jordan Jeffares' laconic delivery. On record, it's a humble mix of Interpol's darkness and Bloc Party's danceness, but live, the parts make up a considerably greater sum. They didn't play "Counterfeit Rules," which disappointed me a bit, but everything they did play felt confident and solid. The switch from distorted keyboard bass to real live four-string bass on "Black Eyes" came off as particularly forceful. Here are some photos I took, plus, here's the link to their MySpace page, where you can check out a handful of tracks. Who knew Atlanta could brew this up?

Snowden on MySpace

You heard it here first

Shellac shows up to play the STNNNG/Signal to Trust lunch show

That's all I'm saying.

The Velvet Teen

Everyone hates show reviews, at least according to Abby Myers, so I won't be reviewing the One for the Team / Askeleton / The Velvet Teen show per se here.

I got really into The Velvet Teen in the later spring/early summer of '04 when I got their CD Out of the Fierce Parade. There's nothing particularly revolutionary about the disc--it falls squarely into the vein of guitar-driven indie-rock, but it stands out for Judah Nagler's incredible falsetto vocals and signature melodies. I can't explain its significance for me without saying it was simply the right album at the right time--I was going through a turbulent time in my life, and Parade's rock solid, well, rock was something to hold on to.

Their last disc, Elysium was critically feted, but I never really got into it. I've decided to go back and check it out again after last night's show. They drew heavily on the recently released Cum Laude, but were gracious enough to reach back for "Radiapathy" from Parade and "Count Backwards" from their first EP, The Great Beast February.

The overwhelming thing about the show was the intensity of it all. Sometimes I'm naive enough to think that there's no way for a power trio to do something to me that hasn't been done before, but they absolutely poured every once of themselves into the music in such an unself-conscious way that it was impossible to resist. Their new drummer Casey Deitz was an absolute monster behind the kit, driving every song up against the wall so Nagler and bassist/vocalist Josh Staples could deliver body blows.

But saying it was all about the intensity isn't exactly right because there are plenty of intense bands that don't get at me the way these guys do. I think it's the marriage of total abandon to crystalline melodic structure that gets to me, plus their obvious repsect for the craft of making music. Nagler sang through a bullhorn at times, sometimes mic'ed, sometimes un-mic'ed, and when he'd sing through the bullhorn into a side mic while still singing through the regular vocal mic, the effect was instantly impressive. There were a lot of loops as well, probably running from Nagler's laptop, but it was all done in such an unfussy way that you hardly even noticed. Not to mention that the three musicians onstage were generating enough energy to eclipse any notion that the loops were taking up any slack.

Just a simple incredible show. They're heading out on tour with Russian Circles, P.O.S. and Minus the Bear for a couple of weeks, and you should really do yourself a favor and catch this bill. There's not a bad band in the bunch.

And by the way, Askeleton was pretty damned good, too. Lately, Knol and crew have been playing with a very trad rock lineup of two guitars, bass and drums, and seeing Askeleton in this kind of setting makes you appreciate the strength of the tunes, which hold up remarkably well without all the bells and whistles. Not to mention the new tunes I heard were fantastic, demonstrating Knol's recent trend towards simplicity and repetition. It's a completely made-over band from the one I first saw at the Turf Club nearly two years ago, and it's great to see a band really evolve, rather than just hone their sound.

Plus, I saw that guy Ghostwolf. He's everywhere these days.

Minneseries

So much great music is made by people in bars where there are only 7 people. Why? Right now I'm at the Nomad listening to some incredibly great music by Ghost in the Water, a Fitzgerald side project. I both wish there were more people here and am glad thar it's just the 7 of us: me, Matt Perkins, the members of Unicorn Basement and Lori B., plus a guy who Matt knows who's doing some interperative dance. It's like the music is being made special for you, the way the whole world seemed when you were, say, five. It's everything you'd ever hope for music to be and do.

twin town high release show #1: a smashing success!

thanks everybody, bands and fans, for making the first twin town high release show the hott jamm! each and every band pretty much killed it outright and it was fantastic to see so many familiar and new faces at the turf. we even got photo of the week over at howwastheshow.com!

the live/recorded dichotomy

so i just came back from seeing phoenix at the fine line. first strange thing: it's a camel-sponsored event, at which i'm pretty sure they were giving out cigarettes in the alley or something, and yet phoenix had the marshall logos on their amps covered with duct tape. certainly wouldn't want to give an amp company that's helped thousands of musicians achieve their dreams any promotion when you can shill for a tobacco company that kills those same musicians.

but i digress. there are only a handful of bands that i've seen that were worse live than on record, the main ones being spoon and phoenix, and i think they suffer from the same problem: their albums are just too stunningly good.

i remember when my band back east recorded our first album. we were a blues band, and so our live sets leaned heavily on improvisation, but pretty soon after we recorded the tape (that's right, tape, muhf*cker), the other guitarist and i found ourselves playing the solos from the record, or at least little bits from the record, at every show. the thing about albums is that there's a dictatorial quality to them, and not just from the end of what the audience expects. i think that musicians, unless there is a stated goal to shy away from this, often end up replicating the album without even thinking about it. and most bands don't have records as good as phoenix and spoon.

phoenix's latest album, it's never been like that, feels like the product of countless hours honing every part--every guitar riff, string squeak, guttural grunt and drum fill--into the absolute perfect part. it's like a katana: a forged piece of metal folded a thousand times until the edge is so compressed and fine it can cut through stone. mess up one of those folds and the whole thing's shot.

so when the drum intro to "consolation prizes" kicked in, i knew just what i expected to hear: a gritty, growling ostinato on the guitar. so when it didn't sound like the album, it was a let down. same goes for the similar guitar part after the first chorus. the way the album sounds makes it seem as if they picked the only really possible and correct part for every instrument at every moment, and this is a pretty much impossible thing to replicate live. and even if they did, looking so definitively french and louche didn't really help the energy. understand, they weren't bad. just not as good as their disc.

it's a weird dichotomy, this live/recorded thing. the plastic constellations, despite putting out their best-sounding album so far, are still better live than on record. the absolutely unhinged energy they put into live performance is a huge part of it, but does that mean it can't be captured on record?

it seems like one has to suffer in comparison to the other, simply because they're always being held up to each other. the bands that seem to do the best at straddling the divide seem to be the ones who treat the two things very differently: jimi hendrix and wilco spring to mind immediately, but i'm sure there are others.

anywho. off to read.

how was the howwastheshow show?

so howwastheshow.com had their fourth anniversary party last night and david de young was kind enough to let me write the show review for old time's sake. here's a link.

HWTS 4th anniversary review

voxtrot w/ tapes 'n' tapes and new sense at the entry

caught this pretty great lineup at the entry on monday night. i was pleasantly surprised with new sense (milwaukee, wisc.), who played a solid set of drum machine-and-acoustic-guitar-flecked rock. the singer had a solid set of pipes reminiscent of bono. i spoke with guitarist kristian riley after their set and discovered that the group includes former members of citizen king, the promise ring, camden and paris texas and that two of the guys are also in decibully. as if this weren't enough, kristian himself did the last maritime record as well as the one that's about to drop like a ton of pop bricks on your head in the near future. he hooked me up with a copy of their disc, which boasts at least two near-great songs and overall is a very solid ep-sized taste of their sound. i think they come off a little better on the disc than live since it allows them to really push the dancier elements and dabble a little more with studio stuff. their website is here.

tapes 'n' tapes were pretty fantastic, and you can see why they've been earning great reviews across the web, including this gem from pitchfork. i hadn't seen them for around two years, during which time their fourth member had returned, i think, from the west coast. they're not so much revolutionary as very, very good at picking out aspects of different genres you wouldn't think would mesh well and making it work. very down-to-earth on stage and refreshingly absent of any kind of rock and roll posturing. the nearest touchstone to my mind was modest mouse in terms of the song structures, although pitchfork thinks pavement, apparently. given the buzz building around this band, it seems like little can stop them. nor should it.

voxtrot write some great muhphuckin' songs, yo. i find myself humming "the start of something" quite often, and one problem with a band that's so staggeringly good at constructing tight and catchy tunes is that live, they can't really better their albums. singer ramesh srivastava (i think i butchered that) comes off a bit aerobics instructor on stage with his slightly too short and quite tight jeans. not tight in a rock and roll codpiece way, but more a tj maxx kind of way, and generally the band has a definitely nonchalant air as they breeze through songs that a lot of bands would kill to have penned. highlights include the aforementioned "the start..." and the set closer, which is apparently going to be featured on their next ep, the former for ramesh's guitar-less frontman antics and the latter for his turn on the piano. again, they're a band with the kind of buzz that means they just have to stay on the train long enough to get off somewhere famous, and that's largely down to their manager james minor, who's done some work for new sense apparently. both of their myspace pages have more hits than grains of sand on any given beach and it seems like minor's got a great eye for solid bands and a solid grip on how to get their stuff to the right people.

all good stuff really. kind of makes me weak in the knees for the future of independent music.

doomtree blowout

congrats, doomtree, on really packing 'em in at the varsity. boo to the varsity for not being able to get people in the damned door in a timely fashion. i got there at 9:45 p.m. (doors were at 9:30 p.m.) and then waited for 45 minutes, came near to getting frostbite in my toes, and eventually abandoned the line when i was still some thirty people away from the entrance. seriously, folks, figure this the hell out. this isn't southern california and it's simply inexcusable to leave people out in the cold for that long.

hope the show went well.

happy november!

fall has definitely arrived in force. felt like the snow the other day, wouldn't you say? i caught broken social scene on saturday, who were really incredible, and made all the moreso when joined by leslie feist for "shoreline" and "almost crimes." she even played drums on "almost crimes" and ramped up the energy. with ten people already on stage, you'd think they'd be at capacity, but feist was really a catalyst for some great stuff. the almost casual way the group approached having horn players come up mid-song and the switching of instruments among principal members was laudable and unusual. usually when you get that many people on stage, it becomes a tightly choreographed dance and stage show, but they just acted like it was a, for lack of a better term, jam session.

i need to heartily recommend a disc i just got from duluth-er mary bue. about half the tracks were produced by alan sparhawk of low and you'd think that wouldn't make a big difference since most of it is just piano and vocals, but it does. it's pretty easy to mess up piano and voice by making it too sparkly, but the disc is imbued with a very distinct sound. it's like you've woken up mid-morning on an overcast sunday on lake superior by the sound of muted music, and as you wander downstairs you find ms. bue seated at the creaky piano in the parlor, just playing for herself. the tunes are great and all self-penned.