Pilcrow

It's perhaps premature to be doing a concert summary that includes September. However, I've got just one brief note to make about a show in August that I haven't yet covered, and I've been to (technically) three shows so far this month and have little to say about them either, so I just want to do one summary post.

On Friday August 26, after the final Concert at the Mural, I went to Neumos to catch the final show by Sleepy Eyes of Death. Because I'd had my laptop with me at the Mural concert, I headed home first to drop that off. As a result, I missed the opening band Crypts entirely, and as I still needed to grab some pizza for dinner, I also caught just the last couple songs by Flexions. What I heard was kind of a '60s surf-space-lounge rock that I liked, so I'll have to be on the lookout for another chance to see Flexions. Sleepy Eyes of Death took a while to get set up, and then immediately after their first song they had technical difficulties that paused the show for another 15 or 20 minutes, which was unfortunate. Still, their epic space rock was worth the wait. They're the sort of band that recognizes even though lasers are now commonplace, we all still think they're cool. Listening to their music, I wondered, what if the Star Wars prequels had used this music? Or rather, what if you made a movie crossing the visual style of Tron: Legacy with the kind of epic space opera story that the Star Wars prequels were (ostensibly) reaching for (and didn't quite grasp)? Basically, someone should get Luc Besson to do that, and use the music of Sleepy Eyes of Death as the score. I've barely come to know of the band, but I know they'll be missed.

Last Friday September 9, I went over to Nectar to see Kinksi, opening for Sleepy Sun and White Hills. It's been over a year since I last saw Kinski, and they were good as always, though there was nothing particularly noteworthy about the performance. I didn't recognize some of the songs but I think they were older tunes I'm less familiar with rather than new ones. White Hills played hard rock, a bit psychedelic and a bit more metal in style; I thought they were fairly conventional, fairly good for what they do, but not really interesting to me. Sleepy Sun played roots/blues rock, like Black Angels or BRMC (or Seattle band the Purrs for that matter). They were also fairly good, more to my taste than White Hills, but again not as interesting as Kinski usually is to me. It was a decent evening of rock overall.

Last night, Tuesday September 13, I went back to Nectar to see Zuzuka Poderosa, an act I only knew as being highly recommended by DJ Chilly from KEXP. Opening were DJs Darwin, of Seattle band Mad Rad, and Chaach, who also DJed for Poderosa. This lineup, unfortunately, turned out to be not at all to my taste. Generally speaking, they all used hiphop-influenced bass beats with Latin music—Zuzuka Poderosa herself being a rapper championing a Brazilian style called baile funk or funk carioca—and while there's nothing wrong with that combination as such, I just found most of it to be too hard and heavy and loud for me. The DJs mixed in some other styles as well—Darwin for example dropped "Posse on Broadway" into the mix, while Chaach played some tracks by recently-deceased French DJ Mehdi as a tribute—but it just wasn't working for me. To be fair, I was also in a sour mood having nothing to do with the show. Still, I gave Poderosa about 15 minutes and then left, something so rare that I believe I can still count the instances using my fingers just once apiece. Although that sounds really damning, I want to emphasize again that it simply wasn't to my taste, and judging by the highly excited good-sized crowd of people dancing, Poderosa was doing a fine job for what she does.

On my way home, however, as I walked past the White Rabbit, I heard something much more interesting to my taste. The door person said the band, Uroboros, had just started their set, so I went in to check them out. The band featured a singer/guitarist (though her guitar sounded very low, I thought it might've been a six-string bass), a drummer, and another woman on backing vocals. They played bare-bones dark post-punk, with strong gothy vocals (versus ethereal floaty ones) and clean guitar lines with little distortion or other effects. Despite the tiny audience, they gamely played through a good set of songs and an encore of two which the singer said had never been played before by the drummer; the last one was supposed to be just the singer on acoustic guitar, but the drummer still improvised a bongo part on his tom that suited it well. I liked their set ever so much more than the Zuzuka Poderosa show, and it cheered me up immensely, so the evening was salvaged. Apparently Uroboros has been playing most shows with a fuller band lineup than just guitar and drums, so I'll have to look out for another opportunity to see them.

It had been two years since I'd last seen Kinski at their CD release party for Down Below It's Chaos, so I was very much looking forward to seeing them again at Chop Suey on September 11, 2009. Although this show was billed as their tenth-anniversary show, they were not actually headlining it, but rather a band called Lesbian, with Arbitron opening and Kinski in the middle. Arbitron played experimental post-punk noise rock that was very loud, raucous, and unmelodic, with guitar howls and feedback loops matched by the spoken, growled, screeched, but never sung lead vocals. Much of the set was just the lead screecher on guitar and a drummer, but later the drummer switched to playing bass and providing additional vocals, using a drum machine for the rhythm. I immediately liked the band better with the bass, as it gave them a firmer ground for the noise-art, but I also felt they'd be better as a trio with live drums.

Kinski played a solid set as always, though nothing special for the anniversary like a retrospective. They played several songs with vocals that I didn't recognize, and wasn't sure whether they were new or old. The first half of their set seemed to be straight heavy rock songs, and I did start to feel a bit bored until they suddenly finally went into a freeform drone/noise segment that they often use to transition between songs. That made me realize what I like most about Kinski is the contrast of control and chaos, the repeated rhythms that break down and then coalesce again; the straight rock tunes often just aren't as interesting by themselves. Still, it was great to see them again and they left me looking forward to their next ten years.

Finally, Lesbian, despite the name, was an all-male quartet. They started off sounding rather promisingly progressive-rock to me, with a long simple melodic introduction, but that eventually built up to heavy guitar rock that was so stereotypically testosterone-laden, their band name was seriously ironic whether intentional or not. I'd read a description of them as "stoner metal", but I didn't feel it was metal without croaked and screamed vocals; sure enough those came up in the second song, and that's when they lost me. Amidst the interminable indeterminate rambles of rock, they also fit in the obligatory metal guitar solo, and much later came back to playing the melody of the opening song (my notes say, sarcastically, "Ooh look, a motif!"). I wouldn't say they were bad—after all, I didn't walk out—but they definitely weren't my kind of music, not even when Kinski joined them at the end for a jam.

I have some photos from this show in a set here on Flickr.

Last Thursday night I went to the Crocodile Cafe to see Kinski playing their official CD release show for their new album, Down Below It's Chaos - although it was actually released a month ago and they played at Easy Street Records that week. Unfortunately I missed the first opening act, but I was in time to catch the second act, Wolves in the Throne Room.

Wolves in the Throne Room are a trio on guitar, bass and vocals, and drums. With a name like that, it should come as no surprise that they are a metal band, complete with hoarsely screamed vocals and vigorous headbanging. They played only three songs, though each was over 10 minutes long - the last one was easily a 20-minute epic with at least three false endings. The music involved a lot of thrashing about, both musically and physically. The first song was just an endless drone of thrash, but the latter two involved melodic bits that showed they could actually play a tune when they wanted to. I couldn't help being reminded of Animal from the Muppets - they might start with a nice melody, but then they'd be overcome by METAL and break into the thrashing and screaming, after a while calming down enough to do a little more melody before thrashing out again. I can't say whether they were good or bad, as I have no good idea how to judge what they do, but clearly this was not a band for me.

Kinski are the quartet of Chris Martin (guitar and vocals), Matthew Reid-Schwartz (guitar, keyboard and flute), Lucy Atkinson (bass), and Barrett Wilke (drums). They played a half-dozen songs from their new album, plus a couple from 2005's Alpine Static and one from 2003's Airs Above Your Station. Their largely instrumental music has been tending toward straight-up hard rock, but they still have an experimental, art-rock edge to their work. This was evident for example in the encore, when they came back on stage one at a time to gradually build the opening of the song, layering flute on top of bowed bass guitar, guitar loops next, then adding keyboard, and finally bringing in the drums. Likewise, to open their set, they each started playing apparently random riffs and noise until Martin's guitar cut into the beginning of "The Wives of Artie Shaw". The new songs have less of this sort of experimentation, and Kinski played fewer freeform transitions between songs than past shows. But even if lately Kinski is emphasizing the rock in art rock, they haven't forgotten or neglected their artistry either, and that artistry is present throughout the music. Their performance was great as always, and I had a good time.


( a couple more Kinski photos )

Last night I went to The Crocodile Cafe to see an unusual show. The bands included Kinski, The Lights, Welcome, and Unnatural Helpers. Each of the first three bands has at least one member in Unnatural Helpers as well. That's a little unusual, perhaps, but it's how they chose to exploit this fact that made the show really unusual. A typical schedule has each band doing its own 45-minute or so set in order, with down time in between while setups are changed. Instead, the stage was set up for all of the bands at once and the bands took 10-to-15-minute turns playing, resulting in 2.5 hours of nearly continuous music. Musicians would appear as guests in each others' bands for a song or two, often as part of the transition from one band's set to the next.

The show began with all twelve musicians - three drummers, three bassists, and six guitarists - walking out on stage, picking up instruments, and starting to play a roaring squall of noise that eventually coalesced into rhythm and melody. This is very much the style of Kinski, the nominal headliners for the evening and of course my favorite of the bands. The show ended in a similar fashion, although for some reason one of the bassists (Jo, from Welcome) was missing. Both Unnatural Helpers and Welcome played punk-influenced thrashy indie rock, which was alright but didn't really interest me that much. Bassist Jo sang a few of Welcome's songs, but her voice did not cut through the mix at all; she was barely audible, much less intelligible, though in fairness most of the singing was unintelligible due to the high volume levels. The Lights were less punk, more arty, and I enjoyed their sets much more; also their singing, unlike the other two bands, was understandable. Kinski played a few new songs.

All of the bands were very loud, and of course the opening and closing with all the musicians were particularly intense. As a result, my ears were still ringing well into the afternoon today; in fact my left ear is still having some trouble with occasional ringing. I knew it'd be a loud show, just because of Kinski, but I was bad and didn't make a point of getting earplugs beforehand. From now on, I have to make that happen; I'll have to see whether the supermarket carries some, and otherwise make a point of going to a drugstore. I love music too much to let myself damage my hearing any further.

Next month Tara Jane ONeil will be playing at The Sunset Tavern on Thursday the 27th, and I will certainly be at that show. I may try to catch another one, I looked through the Three Imaginary Girls calendar listings and I know I saw a few good bands coming to town, although I can't recall offhand what ones.

I've written about Kinski before, and just like the other two shows, they totally rocked. One thing I haven't noted before is how they don't actually break between songs, they just shift into experimental noise, doing things like: the bassist playing her bass guitar with a bow; the drummer holding a cymbal while using a drumstick to rub or tap its edge, or just dropping it repeatedly on the floor; and one guitarist playing quick non-melodic runs and flurries on a flute, sometimes while speaking into it. Some of that happens in the midst of songs, and some of it is captured on their CDs, but I believe their latest Alpine Static doesn't have as much of that as they do in concert, or even on their previous CD. They're definitely more powerful and wilder in concert than recorded, and I recommend them highly.

At the end of their set, one guitarist's equipment started acting up and his guitar dropped out. Fortunately he had a microphone set up for vocals, so he quickly sang some of his guitar part before switching out to a different guitar. Alas, that one started dropping out too, indicating the problem was with the connection, but switching cords didn't help. He ended the song in a frenzy of trying to play *something*, before announcing "all my shit is broken", but at least it was time for their set to end.

When I came out of Kinski's show at 7:15, I found myself quite tired, yawning hugely, perhaps just from withstanding the sheer force of their set. I also found that the weather was turning quite cool and breezy. There were two more acts I was interested in, Michael Franti & Spearhead, and Tegan & Sara, both starting at 8:45. I decided I would start out at Spearhead, as that was more unusual for me, and then I could move to Tegan & Sara if I wanted to - both shows were outdoors. Well, I got colder and colder, and still felt really tired, and hated the whiffs of pot stench that kept drifting through the crowd (seriously people, regardless of any other drug issues, that shit STINKS), so I wasn't in a particularly good mood by the time Spearhead started. I listened to a few songs, staying about a half-hour, but just wasn't into it, and wasn't feeling any warmer despite the crush of the crowd, so I decided I was going to leave early. However, I did make my way over to Tegan & Sara's set and stayed for the latter half of that. Their indie/folk rock is much more my style and I enjoyed them more, but wasn't blown away either.

So Bumbershoot ended with a whimper rather than a bang for me, but it was still worth attending. I did enjoy it and would go again, though next time I have to be sure to bring a backpack with a sweater. Also hopefully next time I'll bring a friend; I can enjoy a good show, such as the Decemberists or Kinski, by myself, but I found that wandering the festival on my own was a little lonely.

(note on both entries: the "Mood: blah" simply reflects the fact that I've come down with either some kind of allergy attack or a cold. Off to bed for me...)

Read about Saturday night at Bumbershoot.
Read about Monday afternoon at Bumbershoot.

On the one hand, I'd really like someone to go to concerts with me. Ideally a girlfriend, but even just a friend or two would be cool.

On the other hand: fuck all y'all.

I went to see Do Make Say Think, Kinski, and Odessa (who don't seem to have a Web site, at least not one I can find with a quick Google). This show ROCKED. All three bands were just great and played amazing art rock. I had a great time and am so glad that I went.

Now, I just need to get myself some ear plugs for next time...