Pilcrow

Picking up with the archive concerts, on October 4, 2009, I went to Chop Suey to see Asobi Seksu. Although they seemed to be advertised as the headliners for the show, they were actually sandwiched in the middle, with Anna Ternheim opening and Loney Dear closing. Amusingly, the KEXP blogger who did cover this show was there to see Loney Dear, and didn't really know Asobi Seksu at all. Anna Ternheim was a moody singer-songwriter type, who played a short set of four songs backed by Loney Dear's four-piece band, and one more by herself. She had a nice voice, and came across like Emilíana Torrini. Asobi Seksu were good as always; in my notes I called out the coolness of lead singer Yuki Chikudate's clear vocals soaring dreampop-style over the grittier shoegaze-style guitars. They finished with the long "Red Sea", with its extended freestyle drum solo by Chikudate, and the house DJ made a nice segue from that into the Stone Roses' "I Wanna Be Adored". Loney Dear was also a singer-songwriter, though less moody and more in the style of John Vanderslice's alterna-pop/art rock; occasionally his music reminded me of Annuals, too. He had a big orchestral sound and neat arrangements to his songs, making interesting use of percussion, drums, and synth elements. He had good control of the audience, not only getting them to sing backup on one song, but also getting even the loud talkers back at the bar to quiet down simply by playing another song unamped, with a tiny bit of accompanying keyboards and backing vocals. That was a very good show and I enjoyed it a lot.

The Asobi Seksu show was on a Sunday; I bookended the week with more shoegaze-influenced music by going to Neumos on Saturday October 10 to see School of Seven Bells, with the Depreciation Guild and Warpaint opening. My note-taking at shows had already become sporadic by this one, so I don't have a lot useful to say about the show. Warpaint had a fairly bare-bones dreampop/mood rock sound that I liked a lot, but at the time I felt they needed some more hooks, some more development in their sound; I thought their last song of the set, "Crimson", was the strongest and definitely headed in the right direction. I did like them enough to buy their EP Exquisite Corpse, and I've really liked the songs I've heard from this year's full-length release The Fool, which is on my list to buy. The Depreciation Guild were more straight-up shoegaze, with that ringing guitar sound that instantly makes me smile. Although they didn't seem to offer anything really new, they had a good solid sound that was very catchy and enjoyable. Ironically, I kind of forgot about them, so that when KEXP started playing songs off their new album Spirit Youth this year, I kept saying "wait, who is this?" Finally, this was my second time seeing School of Seven Bells, after being amazed by their Sasquatch Music Festival performance, and they continued to deliver a great set of music with a little space rock, a little glam, a little goth, and lots of shoegaze. I feel I should mention that I didn't have song names down yet, so my notes say they played an extra-dancey version of "(ba da dahh, ba da di da…)", which stumped me just now until I checked a couple of the songs; as soon as I started playing "Chain" I said ah yes, that was it. 

I don't have any notes for my third and fourth shows of the month. The third was a house show at the New Crompton on October 15 and featured my friend Jackson Tegu with his subversively-titled project Google Maps, which was as much performance art as music, featuring a lot of audience interaction and fun activity sheets. It was kind of silly but fun. There were two other acts, Overcome by the Power of Love and Letters, but I don't recall much about them. For the fourth show, I volunteered to staff the KEXP info table at the Moore Theatre on October 16 for Grizzly Bear, with The Morning Benders opening. The KEXP table was out in the lobby, so I did not see most of the show. So many people were still arriving during the Morning Benders' set, not bothering to check them out, that I also didn't get to really hear any of their music. Even during Grizzly Bear's set, for a while there were several people standing out in the lobby talking, and I wondered why anyone would bother to spend the money on the show if they weren't going to watch and listen. I did get to slip away to watch a song or two, they had a cool stage setup with bright white lights like candles all around, and I wish I could've seen the whole thing. Still, I had seen them at Sasquatch and I did get to hear most of the show, so it wasn't a big loss. 

Finally, for my last show in October 2009, I went to the High Dive on Friday the 23rd to check out Spanish for 100, a band featuring my occasional KEXP boss Aaron Starkey on guitar (edit: oops, not bass), along with Stereo Sons opening and Shim closing. Once again, I didn't take any notes beyond putting down the band names. I don't remember anything about Stereo Sons at all, and I'm not even sure how much of their set I saw, I may have missed most or all of it. I know I liked Spanish for 100, and not just because I know Aaron, but I can't recall anything in particular from that show to say about them; I do want to see them again, though. I do remember that Shim had a strong late-'70s hard rock vibe, complete with smoke machine and guitarists striking dramatic poses on the edge of the stage when playing solos; they weren't quite my type of music, but they did put on a fun show. 

And that was October 2009. I have some photo sets on Flickr for the Asobi Seksu show, for the School of Seven Bells show, and even for Jackson Tegu's Google Maps show, but not the other two.

Last Monday I went to Nectar Lounge to see Asobi Seksu. Because I was babysitting earlier in the evening, I only made it in time to see their headlining set and missed the opening bands; that was unfortunate as the first was Blue Light Curtain, who I'd enjoyed at the Freezepop show in August and wanted to see again.

Asobi Seksu are officially the duo of Yuki Chikudate on vocals and keyboards and James Hanna on guitars and backing vocals, "plus some friends who help us out" according to their MySpace page; their website lists the current friends as William Pavone on bass and Larry Gorman on drums. I fell in love with the band the last time I saw them, in November 2006, and was happy to see they were returning to Seattle. This time however the show had one simple problem: volume. I started out standing on the floor pretty close to the stage, but I immediately discovered that the guitar feedback howling out of the under-stage speakers completely overwhelmed everything else. I could only barely even tell that Chikudate was singing at all despite her wide-open mouth, and the bass and even drums weren't much more audible. I withstood the onslaught for the first three songs, including their single "New Years", which were played without pause. Finally I'd had enough and decided to try moving to the balcony. I discovered that simply moving to the side of the stage improved the sound levels notably but I headed on upstairs where, standing over the sound booth, the balance was indeed better but the set was still too loud; even with earplugs, I'd just have lost the vocals entirely without notably affecting the volume. I believe this is the first show I've been to at Nectar where the levels were such a problem—certainly it's the first time I've been forced upstairs to enjoy the show—and I'm not sure whether the club or the band are more to blame. Despite all that, once I went upstairs I found the music enjoyable again. They played a few new songs from their next album due out in February, including their just-released single "Me and Mary" which sounded pretty good. My favorite song by them, "Strawberries", also sounded good, which I'd worried about after "New Years" was all but washed out. They closed with "Red Sea", ending with Chikudate whaling on the drums over a guitar feedback loop while the others left the stage, until finally Chikudate left just an empty stage and a feedback loop loud enough that no one bothered to applaud until it ended. It was a good set and I'm glad I was able to catch it, but I hope next time the sound levels are a little more moderate.

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Coming up, a review of Saturday's show also at Nectar Lounge featuring DJ Spooky. Also coming up: Halou at Nectar Lounge, Sunday Nov 9; My Brightest Diamond at the Triple Door, Wednesday Nov 19; Yeasayer at Neumos, Thursday Nov 20; and Minus the Bear with Annuals at the Showbox (at the Market), Saturday Nov 22.