Wooden Indian Burial Ground

After winning first-come, first-served tickets on Monday for Thao & The Get Down Stay Down at the KEXP Music Lounge during Bumbershoot, I've managed to snag tickets to several more KEXP shows, including Sallie Ford & The Sound Outside, Superchunk, ZZ Ward, and Charles Bradley, "the Screaming Eagle of Soul."  I literally can't go near my computer without tickets to shows falling in my lap (okay, literally, I can, but you know what I mean).  

This is a good thing, of course, but it's causing me to have to rearrange my festival schedule. F'rinstance, since I'll be seeing Sallie Ford at 12 noon on Sunday, I can skip her Saturday-night set at the Plaza Stage and instead go see Washed Out at the Fountain Lawn.  Fortunately, none of the shows I've gotten into are scheduled during any "must-see" sets, although I'll be cutting it pretty close post-Superchunk to see alt-J.

But anyway, there are no longer any "dead zones" in my Bumbershoot schedule, or times where I'm forced to choose between several bands of whom I've never heard.  I won't even be seeing The Flavr Blue, even though I posted a video of them here to get myself better acquainted.

The schedule for MFNW is even stronger, and there's only a handful of bands on that schedule that I don't know.  One such band is Portland's Wooden Indian Burial Ground, who'll be opening for Unknown Mortal Orchestra at Branx following Animal Collective's set at the lovely Pioneer Courthouse Square (Portland's Living Room).  But based on this video for Heliocopter, I'm pretty impressed - they may be the only band in the world that could hold their own after a set by Animal Collective. 

New Kishi Bashi

Kishi Bashi at The Earl, March 14, 2013

Speaking as we were yesterday about Kishi Bashi, it's coincidental that some new music has surfaced this week from the Japanese violinist/pop auteur. Here's Philosophize In It! Chemicalize With It! from his forthcoming second LP.

The Last Bison at Terminal West, Atlanta, August 13, 2013

Okay, remember that day last year when I was in Portland for MFNW and got talked into leaving the festival to go out to someplace called Troutdale, Oregon, to see My Morning Jacket perform at McMenamin's Edgefield? I missed most of the show that I was planning to see that night, which included Kishi Bashi at the Doug Fir Lounge, although I did get back in time to catch Sad Baby Wolf and the headliner, Moonface.  My Morning Jacket were terrific, though, and I don't regret my decision for a moment.

The bill that night at the Doug Fir was actually quite full, and included several other bands in addition to Moonface, Sad Baby Wolf, and Kishi Bashi.  In addition to missing Kishi Bashi, I also missed the opener, a band called The We Shared Milk.  But there was a fifth band on the bill, one I found intriguing (at least by the MFNW write-up), performing in between The We Shared Milk and Kishi Bashi, that I also missed. Last night, I finally got to see that band, The Last Bison, when they played at Terminal West. 

Sean Spencer opened with a solo set of songs on acoustic guitar.  Sean normally plays with a band called Seven Handle Circus, who are scheduled to play Terminal West on September 14.  They'll be playing The Georgia Theater in Athens this Friday.  But even without his band, Sean played a pleasant and compelling set of songs, including a cover of Paul Simon's The Only Living Boy in New York. 

The Last Bison took the stage a little before 10 pm.  They play an interesting amalgam of indie rock, folk, bluegrass, Americana, and chamber music.  The usual comparisons are to Fleet Foxes and Mumford and Sons, although I heard and saw a lot of similarities to The Lumineers, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, and Typhoon.  There were so many people on the stage (seven) that it takes two pictures to capture them all.

There's a lot to like here, including the percussion which gives potions of their songs a tribal vibe.  They don't employ a traditional drummer, but several members of the band, including frontman Ben Hardesty, take turns banding on a bass drum or a floor tom.

My only complaint is the outfits.  They dress like historical reenactors from Colonial Williamsburg.  The Lumineers do this too, but its all a part of their otherwise elaborate stage show, but when The Last Bison does it, it feels contrived and derivative.  For some reason, Amos the cello player was the only one who wore modern clothes.

Ben Hardesty has a decent singing voice and writes interesting songs (I assume he's the songwriter), which often build up into mini-epics.  A nice touch was when the string section, Teresa (violin) and Amos (cello), offered a little chamber piece to fill in the time it took Ben to re-string his guitar after a string broke (it happened at least twice).  These passages provided lovely, meditative, little oases of sound during the show.

The set ended with their song Setting Our Tables.  Here's the video:

For the encore, Ben played a few songs accompanied only by his guitar and Amos, the cellist.  Then they called Teresa, their violinist, out to the stage and performed an unamplified song on the floor with the audience gathered around them.

And that was The Last Bison.  More pics are posted over at the Flickr page.  Since that day last September, I've now managed to catch Kishi Bashi and The Last Bison, and only have The We Shared Milk remaining, and they're not currently touring.

Post-Om

Om at 529, 11-26-2013

Al Cisneros of the band Om has released some solo works.  You can stream Arc Procession below - I suggest you do this late at night for maximum effect.

Scheming

Thao at Smith's Olde Bar, March 18, 2013

It should be no secret to readers of this blog that I'm a fan of Thao Nguyen and her band, The Get Down Stay Down.  So you can imagine my satisfaction when I won tickets today to see her perform a private, KEXP radio set at the intimate Bumbershoot Music Lounge. 

The performance will be at noon on Saturday, August 31, and will in fact kick off the Bumbershoot festival for me.  And if that weren't enough of Thao, I'll get to see her perform again later that afternoon on the Fountain Lawn Stage (my favorite stage at Bumbershoot) for her main festival set.

Not to sound obsessive or anything, but I'll also be seeing the band the following Saturday (September 7) when they open for The Head and The Heart at the lovely Pioneer Courthouse Square ("Portland's Living Room") during MFNW.  And then again in November when the Thao/Head and The Heart tour comes to the Buckhead Theater. Four times in a little over two months, including three times in one week, including two times in one day.

In the interest of sharing, here they are playing a set that aired yesterday on WNYC.  I don't know when this was recorded, as they played Saturday at San Francisco's Outside Lands Festival.  

Planning

Not to be too OCD/anal compulsive about it, but I've already got my full stage-by-stage, venue-by-venue schedule already worked out for both Bumbershoot and MFNW.  There were definitely some hard trade-offs to consider, as well as some frankly relative bare spots in the nine-day schedule, but I think I've successfully maximized my opportunities.

And then I get an e-mail form MFNW saying that there's still more options to consider.  To promote sale of their VIP wristbands (which I've purchased), they're putting on some VIP-only parties, including this:

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5TH

Hott Summer Nights @ Marmoset (2105 SE 7th)

When: 4pm – 9pm

Presented By: Marmoset, MusicfestNW & MailChimp

Featuring performances by: Surfer Blood, DJ Set from Hutch & Kathy of The Thermals, Love Language, John Vanderslice, Radiation City, Sonny & The Sunsets, Eric D. Johnson (of the Fruit Bats), Shy Girls, and More.

This will overlap with the shows I was planning to see that day at the lovely Pioneer Courthouse Square ("Portland's Living Room"), including Pacific Air, Youth Lagoon, and Young the Giant.  But I've already seen Youth Lagoon at the intimate Drunken Unicorn (liked him) and Young the Giant at Music Midtown (meh), and on top of that, yesterday I was able to stream the live performances by both of those bands at the Outside Lands festival in San Francisco.  Although I've already seen The Love Language, Radiation City, and Fruit Bats, the choice appears pretty obvious:  seven good bands plus some celebrity DJs for three bands, two of whom I've seen before, both live and on line.  And I'll still get out in time to catch Diana and Austra at the Star Theater later that night, and then a set by The Men across the street (more or less) at Dante's.

And then there's still the KEXP Bumbershoot Lounge performances to try to get into, as well as their free MFNW daytime sets at the Doug Fir.

Roadkill Ghost Choir at The Earl, Friday, August 9

"Shoegaze Americana," I  heard someone say at The Earl last night in an attempt to describe Roadkill Ghost Choir's music.  Not a bad description at all, but before getting into that, Austin's The Eastern Sea opened.

The Eastern Sea is a wonderful indie-rock band, and one that I don't understand why aren't known better. Led by frontman Matthew Hines sweet singing voice and a revolving cast of band members featuring a full-time trumpeter.  Unlike as with many other bands, the trumpeter doesn't primarily play some other instrument and use his horn only for dramatic flourishes, but plays only the trumpet.

Their sound simultaneously reminds me of a few other bands, such as early Fanfarlo, while simultaneously sounding like no one else.  It was a great start to the evening, and I hope to catch The Eastern Sea again soon.

Next up was Athens-by-way-of-Atlanta-by-way-of Augusta musician T. Hardy Morris' new band.  Morris is best known as the guitarist for the band Dead Confederate and as a member of Diamond Rugs, but has recently released a fine new record, Audition Tapes, as "T. Hardy Morris & The Outfit."   

Audition Tapes has a more country sound that Dead Confederate, but as played last night, accompanied a pedal steel guitar and electric keyboard, with Morris on electric guitar, it sounded more like a dream-pop version of country music ("country-dream?") than anything you might hear in a hony tonk.  Toward the end of the set, Morris brought on the drummer and bassist from Roadkill Ghost Choir to flesh out the sound a little more.

The video below features an acoustic version of the band and a more countrified version of their sound than at The Earl last night.  It's part of a "Places in Peril" series of video Morris participated in shot at sites listed by the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation, and any video featuring the inimitable Howard Finster is always worth posting.

Side note:  I bought one of Morris' "I Smell Hippies" t-shirts after the show, which included a download of Audition Tapes.

Which brings us to headliners Roadkill Ghost Choir.  I had heard DeLand, Florida's Roadkill as I arrived at the Shaky Knees festival last May, and even though I was standing in the pouring rain, I was still sufficiently impressed with their sound that I vowed then and there to hear them again.

They provided that opportunity last night.  Brothers Andrew (vocals, guitar), Maxx (drums) and Zach (bass) Shepard front the six-piece band, which also includes a lead guitarist, a pedal steel/banjo player, and a keyboardist/trumpet player. The trumpeter from The Eastern Sea joined Roadkill Ghost Choir on stage for a couple songs to create a two-trumpet horn section.  The pedal steel and banjo certainly contribute to the Americana portion of their sound, while the guitar, keyboards, and trumpet give it it's shoegaze kick.  Many of their songs feature long stretches of relative restraint before frontman Andrew Shepard explodes into a cathartic scream and propels the band into a fury.  They even covered a song by shoegaze pioneers Slowdive.   

In short, they sounded much as I had remembered them from Shaky Knees.  What I hadn't expected, though, was their apparent popularity - The Earl was quite full with enthusiastic fans last night.

Last night was the last of Roadkill's current tour along with The Eastern Sea, and although the tours for both bands will continue, they are now going their separate ways.  During both of their sets, however, both bands expressed their mutual respect and appreciation of each other, both calling each other best friends.  They even posted an Instagram picture of the two bands posing together behind The Earl before they got in their separate vans to go their separate ways.  

Tonight, Roadkill Ghost Choir plays The Blue Rooster in Sarasota, Florida, followed by a few more dates in their home state and south Georgia before embarking on a midwest tour that culminates at Austin City Limits. The Eastern Sea play tonight at The Exit/In in Nashville, followed by a tour of the eastern U.S. that includes dates in New York (Mercury Lounge), Washington, DC, Chapel Hill, NC, Chicago, and beyond.  They aren't presently listing any tour dates after Labor Day on their web site, but I can't imagine them not playing a date at their hometown Austin City Limits as well, where hopefully they can catch up and trade notes with their friends in Roadkill.