Once again this year, I volunteered for the Concerts at the Mural, sponsored by KEXP and Seattle Center. These were held each Friday evening in August 2011, with a KEXP DJ spinning tunes starting at 5 pm and live music from 6 pm to about 9 pm. The KEXP BBQ was also part of the series, held Saturday August 6 from about 1 pm to 9 pm.

Also once again this year, I took very few notes on the bands, this time as a deliberate choice because I felt the brief summary post I did for last year worked fairly well. Also, I spent a lot more time running around because my volunteer role changed. I was responsible for taking photos and posting them to the Facebook and Twitter accounts of KEXP, both as the bands were setting up and as they started performing, to help drive awareness of and interest in the events. It was pretty fun to do that. By coincidence, the one Friday that I was not responsible for taking photos and posting them (August 12), my iPhone camera failed—apparently either the lens cover finally got too scratched up, or else some dust or moisture somehow got trapped inside, so all of my photos came out hazy and darker than they should (with light areas being too bright and fuzzy by comparison). Fortunately, I was able to borrow my friend Gina's camera for the last two Fridays, which actually helped me get some better photos than I would have otherwise, as her camera included zoom, flash, and night photo functions, unlike the iPhone.

As I did for 2010, I'll list out the concerts with the artists in bulleted lists below, and include links to my photosets next to the date.

Friday August 5 (photos)
  • Black Whales—Okay folk rock, not really into them, but I did get a copy of their CD, maybe they'll grow on me.
  • Hey Marseilles—Same general category of folk rock but richer band sound, more like Annuals; pretty good, I liked them.
  • The Maldives—Country rock, not really my thing, but good band with two drummers.
Saturday August 6: 9th Annual KEXP BBQ (photos)
  • Mad Rad—Are pretty rad! I had already taken note of some of their recent songs, but seeing them perform live won me over. Good tunes, the music seemed to be all original rather than sample-based, the synth/keyboard player and the drummer (Trent Moorman, naturally) were great, all three rappers were good to hear too.
  • Virgin Islands—Hard rock, not metal but not quite to my taste, not bad though.
  • School of Rock—One set of kids did a very credible cover of "Barracuda"—I had my doubts the singer could pull it off, but she did—and all of the kids were fairly good overall. I wondered how they decided what songs to cover.
  • Capsula—Heavy hard-driving rock, I liked them; the female bassist sounded like Kim Gordon when she sang. These guys and Mad Rad were probably the best of the day.
  • Rainbow Arabia—Funky worldbeat electronic dance music.
  • Fool's Gold—"Oh these guys" (the song "Nadine"), Paul Simon / Vampire Weekend worldbeat pop; not bad, not really exciting to me.
Friday August 12 (photos, such as they are)
  • Math & Physics Club—Pleasant indie-pop, like Belle & Sebastian; good for a summer's afternoon.
  • Gold Leaves—Fleet-Foxy folk rock, pleasant but unremarkable, mostly lacking the choral aspect of Fleet Foxes.
  • Seapony—Still really good, but felt a bit light to headline a larger outdoor show like this; I'm interested to see where they go.
Friday August 19 (photos)
  • Whalebones—"Oh these guys"; dark rock, hints of Sixties a la Raveonettes, also a bit Southern rock; sounded pretty good. I probably need to pay more attention to them.
  • My Goodness—Bluesy hard rock (White Stripes, Zeppelin); also "oh these guys" except I recognized more than one, so again I should keep them in mind.
  • Black Mountain—Really good set, variety of songs from albums, including "Don't Run Our Hearts Around" (one of my favorites); I still haven't bothered to get the newer albums but whenever I see them live I wonder why not; really good rock for a summer's twilight.
Friday August 26 (photos)
  • Drew Grow & the Pastors' Wives—I didn't take any notes on the first three bands! They were all in the overlap of folk-rock / art-rock / post-rock to some degree. I want to say that Drew Grow was more on the folk-rock side. They were all likeable.
  • Pickwick—These guys were the most toward the prog/art-rock side of things, and possibly whom I liked the most.
  • Ravenna Woods—You'd think I'd remember these guys better, since I got to see them again the following night playing in a garage at a private party to about 30-40 people. Nope, I just know they were likeable in the folky/prog-rock way.
  • Shane Tutmarc—Unlike others, very country / country-rock, also a bit soulful at times.
I'd say Mad Rad were the surprise of the series, as I hadn't expected to discover I'm a fan, and Capsula were probably the best new discovery. There weren't any bands I was really excited to see, although I did look forward to seeing both Seapony and Black Mountain, but it was still a good series overall.
I decided early on Friday that I wasn't going to bother taking extensive notes on the bands all weekend, and instead just try to jot down a few quick impressions, basically a sentence's worth. And I'm now taking a little time to clean some parts up a bit and add just a few details in a few places, but I'm not even bothering to make these complete sentences. So, here are my mostly-unedited impressions of the weekend.

Friday
  • Ravenna Woods: folk rock, Fleet Foxes like, very good
  • Yeasayer: solid, new stuff sounded good, several from the first album too, still don't excite me as much as I'd expect
  • Head Like A Kite: always a crazy party with lots of guests, good to see Asy of Smoosh do two vocal turns ("Let's Start It All Again" and "Daydream Vacation"), is Graig Markel actually part of the live lineup or does he just show up regardless?
  • Holy Fuck: sounded pretty cool, weirdly only recognized "Lovely Allen" even though KEXP plays a bunch of their songs a lot
  • MGMT: poor muddy sound for some reason, also even more packed than for Sonic Youth last year, only listened to first three and that included "Electric Feel"
  • Fruit Bats: an "oh THESE guys!" band—recognized them when they played "When You Love Somebody"—little more country than I usually care for but liked them
Saturday
  • The Redwood Plan: WOW, bar set very high, totally rock, look like they're having so much fun, Lesli Wood is cooler than you'll ever be, I should own their album
  • !!!: playing a short set live on air for KEXP, easily vaulted the bar set by the Redwood Plan, short but intense high-energy set, leader is crazy-awesome dancer, glad I got to see them up close since I won't get near mainstage, I should also own their albums
  • Blitzen Trapper: country-ish, sounded okay but nothing stood out
  • Aveo: also playing a live on air set for KEXP, nice stuff, again nothing stood out to me
  • !!!: full set at mainstage, crowd plus noise made it hard to enjoy, but I found spot in the middle back that worked, sounded good but definitely could use better venue, also kind of all blended together
  • Zola Jesus: very goth, slow paced—even the ones with more of a beat, voice more like Siouxsie Sioux than Bat for Lashes, also she is totally a four-foot-tall elf queen—big voice in a tiny body that looked ageless in an ancient/youthful way

Sunday
KEXP was hosting additional sets all weekend in the Caffe Vita Bean Room (as mentioned above); I staffed the entrance in the afternoon, where I heard:
  • Brite Futures: new name for Natalie Portman's Shaved Head, same shrill synthpop, but the kids love 'em and they are good, just in small doses
  • Villagers: Brit dude on guitar doing folk singer-songwriter thing, sounded good
  • A Million Years Ago: noisy pop, busy at the entrance so didn't get to pay much attention, sounded worth catching again
  • Damian Jurado: folk rock, again busy at the entrance and didn't pay much attention
After my shift was done, I went to see:
  • S: project of Jenn Ghetto from Carissa's Wierd [sic], low-key performance, two songs sounded very familiar but thought they were covers (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Bjork)—cool if covers, still good if not
  • THEE Satisfaction: another KEXP on-air set, very short, nice though, smooth & sweet vocals/raps, soulful
  • Hey Champ: high energy synthpop, lots of fun, teased beginning of "Africa", got a little crowded for my liking but still ok
  • Truckasaurus: experimental electroclash, kinda noisy at times but good, dancy, used sample of that Mel Gibson phone call business at one point and really can we all just forget about that?
Saturday was the best day for me. I knew I wanted to see The Redwood Plan and though I waffled a bit about whether to make the effort to get there on time, I did make a point of doing so... and they ended up starting 45 minutes late, because Blonde Redhead had cancelled so the whole mainstage schedule was shifted later. Anyhow, they were more than worth the effort to get there on time and totally blew me away. And then I got to see !!! up close and that was just as amazing, more than I'd expected.

Ravenna Woods, performing live in the Caffe Vita Bean Room for KEXP at the Capitol Hill Block Party.

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