Charles Bradley at Bumbershoot

Charles Bradley at Bumbershoot, Aug. 31, 2013 

Dude, I was there!  Charles Bradley and His Extraordinaires at the KEXP Bumbershoot Music Lounge, August 31, 2013.

Black Prairie - Eddie's Attic, Decatur, Georgia, 9/17/13

Black Prairie is a six-piece bluegrass and Americana-influenced band from Portland, Oregon, consisting of four-fifths of The Decemberists (basically, The Decemberists without frontman Colin Meloy), plus violinist and singer Annalisa Tornfelt of the bands Bearfoot and The Woolwines and guitarist Jon Neufeld of Dolorean and Jackstraw.  Last night, they played at Decatur, Georgia's Eddie's Attic.

It was a wonderful, almost magical, performance.  Between their bluegrass sound, their Balkan-influenced, gypsy instrumentals, and heartfelt songs, they were consistently innovative and surprising, even after accordionist Jenny Conlee revealed the set's blueprint early in the show by announcing that they would be playing fast songs followed by slow songs.

Highlights, and there were many, include Annalisa's performances on a Romanian Stroh violin, a violin that amplifies its sound through a metal horn rather than a wooden sound box as on a standard violin, and multi-instrumentalist Chris Funk's contributions on banjo and dobro.  Jenny Conlee was a warm and captivating performer, as always.   

Here's a relatively recent performance that captures their sound pretty well:

And since Annalisa said the video shot by the Skidmore Fountain with passing trains was her favorite, here that is as well:

Like many bands, they included an ironic cover in their set, performing Kansas' Carry On Wayward Son as their encore closer, with Annalisa belting out the sustained high notes at the end in show-stopping fashion. 

It's hard for me to accept, but despite all the time I spent in Portland back in '07 and '08, and despite attending three consecutive MFNWs in Portland between 2011 and 2013 and three Bumbershoots in Seattle the same years, I still haven't seen The Decemberists perform live.  Seeing four-fifths of the band last night was pretty damn close, and early this month during Day Two of MFNW, I saw Decemberist and Black Prairie drummer John Moen playing guitar and singing as the co-frontman of the new band Eyelids.  

Decemberist frontman Colin Meloy is on tour and will be playing Variety Playhouse in November - seeing him play then, in addition to my Black Prairie experience, may qualify as finally having seen The Decemberists, even if not altogether at once. 

Dude, I Was There!

Bumbershoot Recap - The Video

Little 5 Fest, Sept. 14, 2013

After hearing 5 to 11 bands a day during Bumbershoot and MFNW, it felt a little odd, disorienting even, to be back home and hearing no live music at all for days on end.  Fortunately, the organizers of the Little Five Fest, the Little Five Points community's music festival, which last year was held on September 29, moved the date up to September 14, my first Saturday since coming back from the Northwest.  I like to think they did this just to satisfy my jones for hearing multiple bands in one day.

The L5Fest actually began with a few sets at L5P's Star Community Bar on Thursday and Friday, which I didn't attend, but on Saturday the venues expanded to include an outdoor stage behind the Star Bar, a very small performance space in the basement Vinyl Lounge of the Star Bar, The Criminal Records and Wax 'n' Facts record stores, and dj sets at the Elmyr Restaurant next to Variety Playhouse.

The bands performing were almost all exclusively up-and-coming local Atlanta bands (with a few exceptions), and the event gave me lots of opportunities to discover new (to me at least) bands as well as hear some of my local favorites.

This is really just a small, one-day community event, so it would be unfair to compare it to Bumbershoot or MFNW (or for that matter, Atlanta's Music Midtown or Shaky Knees Festival).  Even the smaller events I went to in Portland, the Marmoset party and the OPB party at Mississippi Studios, were off-shoots of MFNW, so comparisons are not appropriate.  But given what it was, the L5Fest was a fine day of music, with a rich and interesting lineup that illustrated not only the diversity, but also the interconnectedness, of the Atlanta music scene.

When I arrived, the band Starfighter were playing at the outdoors stage behind the Star Bar.  We've seen Starfighter at the 2012 Tunes From The Tombs event at Oakland Cemetery, but as I had just arrived and wanted to get a little more oriented to the festivities, I didn't stay around long.

Upstairs and inside, the band Factory were playing the Star Bar stage.  

Factory were new to me, but appear to be Naomi Lavender (Muleskinner McQueen, the Dracula rock opera) and Alice Kim, formerly of São Paulo, Brazil, along with half of the Young Orchids (guitarist Michael Kai and drummer Tak Takemura), and Zombie Zombie's Stuart Roane on bass. (Okay, I only recognized Naomi and looked the rest up on line).

Their music has been described as "possibly the dreamiest dream pop" in Atlanta, to which I concur.

Following Factory, I went over to Criminal Records in time to hear the last couple of songs by Fit of Body.

Fit of Body is Atlanta's Ryan Nicholas Parks, who performs solo accompanied only by spare samples and keyboard loops. Commenting on his song Deserter, Dummy Mag wrote, "There’s something rather elegant about the sparseness of Deserter. . . Listening is like chasing half a dozen unravelling balls of wool down a hill in slow motion. It’s an enchanting muddle, and I look forward to more."

Back at the Star Bar, it was the band Mammabear, the Brit-pop-influenced project of Atlanta's Kyle Gordon. To be honest, I actually wasn't expecting to watch them, but while walking past the Star Bar from Criminal Records on my way to the outdoor stage, their tuneful rock caught my ear, and I would up staying, listening to, and enjoying them.   

Back at Criminal Records, I heard Feast of Violet, which is the solo project of electronic musician Allen Taylor of Mirror Mode and Lotus Plaza.  Taylor also has a new project with Mood Rings' William Fussell called Promise Keeper who played later in the day, but we'll get to that in due time.  Meanwhile, as Feast of Violet, Taylor played a great set of ambient electronica.

For some reason, most of the acts that I wanted to see were at the Criminal Records in-store stage, and Feast of Violet was followed by Atlanta's Adron.  We've seen Adron lots of times before, but this performance was unique in that she played solo, and instead of performing material from her fine CD Pyramids, she instead performed a few Brazilian covers, some Portuguese songs she'd written herself, and some other material she doesn't usually perform with her full band. It was a wonderful set, a primer to her approach to Brazilian pop and neo-bossa-nova sound as well as an opportunity to hear her play some new material.  

Mike Doughty played next and was really the anomaly to the L5Fest lineup, in that he wasn't from Atlanta and was an already established musician in his own right.  But here's the odd synchronicity - some 20 years ago, I heard Doughty's former band, the terrific Soul Coughing, give a free in-store performance at the old Criminal Records location (still in L5P, but around the corner on Moreland Avenue instead of its current, Euclid Ave. location).  Their 1993 set blew me away at the time, and I thought their combination of folk-rock, hip-hop, and jazz was just about the coolest thing imaginable, and Doughty's post-hipster approach to singing was the epitome of cool.  For various reasons, Soul Coughing broke up in 2000, but I still followed Doughty's subsequent solo career, including the fine albums Skittish and Rockity Roll.  

Both he and I, as well as Criminal Records, have changed a lot since that 1993 show, and Doughty now has a new album coming out of beloved Soul Coughing songs rearranged, or as he puts it, "re-imagined," for solo performance.  His nearly hour-long performance yesterday at Criminal Records was of this new-old material, and it still sounds great in its new format.

Almost immediately after Mike Doughty's set, Atlanta's Dog Bite took the Criminal Records stage.  Dog Bite is primarily the vehicle for singer and guitarist Phil Jones, formerly of Washed Out's touring band, and much of that dreamy, chilled sound remains in their music.  We've seen a lot of different line-ups to Dog Bite in the past, including one that had Mood Rings' (and Promise Keeper) William Fussell on guitar, and another that had powerhouse drummer Sarah Wilson of Odist on drums.  Yesterday, he had Young Orchids' (and Factory's) Tak Takemura on drums, and Shepherds' Jonathan Merenivitch on guitar.  Merenivitch also plays for Janelle Monae, and as we shall see later, for Del Venicci, and his playing added significant contributions to Dog Bite's sound yesterday. 

Eric of Criminal Records assured the audience that Dog Bite is going to go on to great things, and someday we'll look back in fondness at the chance to have seen them perform an in-store show like this.  Their Sound Cloud page says that "Dog Bite combines all your hopes and dreams, fuses them with grapes and butterflies, and then lays them out on a tray with sliced oranges."  If that's a little abstract, here's a sample from their forthcoming LA EP.

After Dog Bite, I finally left Criminal Records and wandered into the tiny Vinyl Lounge in the Star Bar basement.  The band is TV Dinner, a new one on me, but what the heck is this music they're playing?  Rock? Jazz? Chip tunes? Space-age pop? Some sort of fusion of all four?  The instrumental band defies any easy categorization, but I still loved their sound, as apparently did the small number of people able to squeeze into their performance space.   This is what I love about these kinds of events - discovering something new and out of the ordinary, just as I did last year in this very same room with Spencer Garn.

There are apparently a number of bands across the country that go by the name "TV Dinner," but I did find this BandCamp by a "TV Dinner" that included "Atlanta" among their taglines.  The songs include vocalists, which they did not have at their L5Fest appearance, but the backing band does sound like it could be them (but I'm still not completely sure).

You can't judge an album by its cover, and you can't judge a band by their t-shirts.  Atlanta's Calm White Noise wore Grizzly Bear and Animal Collective t-shirts so I thought I might like them and was correct. They played a type of electronic rock that would have satisfied fans of both bands while sounding like neither.  

Oh look!  It's our old friend Jonathan Merenivitch (Shepherds, Janelle Monae) who we saw barely an hour or so ago playing guitar for Dog Bite in Criminal Records, now in the Wax 'n' Facts record store playing guitar for Del Venicci.  We've seen Del Venicci at the Artlantis event earlier this year (where Shepherds played earlier, but Merenivitch did not play with Del Venicci), and when they opened for Mikal Cronin at The Earl (when they did include Merenivitch).

 The performance space was so tiny that the quartet couldn't even all stand together but were spread out among the rows of records, and customers found themselves trapped between the performers for the duration of their set.  Unfortunately, I arrived in time only to hear the last few songs of their set. 

Meanwhile, back at Criminal Records, as indicated earlier, Allen Taylor (Feast of Violet, Mirror Mode,  Lotus Plaza) was performing with Mood Rings' William Fussell as Promise Keeper.  Anything these two guys touch is going to have an ambient, dreamy feel to it, and their Promise Keeper performance was no exception.  I don't know where this collaboration is heading, but I like it and hope that it leads at least to a CD or two.

Back at the outdoor stage (it's been a while since I had been there - the last time I headed that way I got hijacked by Mammabear into the Star Bar), these guys were playing surf-rock instrumentals as Fiend Without a Face to a delirious crowd.  A sort of Southern version of Los Straightjackets.

Upstairs in the Star Bar, Hollywood, Florida's Beach Day (not to be confused with Beach House, Beach Fossils, Dirty Beaches, or the Beach Boys) were playing infectious, garagey, 60s-influenced power pop.  

Back outside, The Coathangers performance was in full swing.  The Coathangers are an all-female band that play raw, noisy, near-perfect punk rock.  Their dissonant and cathartic vocals bear only the most casual of relationships with harmony.  For some reason, they played last night as a trio; keyboardist Candice Jones was apparently absent. 

A mosh pit usually develops during a set like this, but the pit last night was pretty much confined to one fairly well-defined area of about 6 to 10 people.  However, one person in particular seemed more aggressive than the rest, and soon a few women outside of the pit area called security over to complain about his crossing the line.  The guards didn't intervene, but their presence temporarily subdued the person to just pogoing in place. That is, until bassist Meredith Franco jumped off the stage into the audience and the moshmaster decided to he just had to punch her.  

That was the line not to be crossed.  Security and several of the audience who were fed up with his antics anyway proceeded to give him a fairly vigorous ass-kicking, dragging him out of the audience and throwing him up against the porto-potties, while drummer Stephanie Luke got up screaming "Who punched my sister?" and demanding that he be ejected (she was apparently under the impression that he was hiding inside the porto-potty and not crawling away behind it).  The band then closed their set with an improvised (I'm pretty sure) chant of "Don't punch my sister." 

This is not a band you want to mess with.  Just because I can't resist it, here's one of my favorite videos, The Coathangers performing Hurricane, one of my favorite of their songs.  Shot at The Goat Farm. 

There's nothing like a full-throttle punk performance and a little unexpected mob violence to get the adrenaline flowing.

Let's see, what else was there yesterday?  Oh yes, back at Criminal Records, the fine band Women's Work put on one of their typically fine performances of Southern Gothic songs.

The band's music revolves around the tension between the gentle vocals and viola playing of frontwoman Lindsey Harbour and the almost shoegazey guitars of the rest of the band.  It sounds unusual (and it is), but it works.  Plus, they're recently added a new backup singer to the band.

Back at the smoky Star Bar, The N.E.C. put on a strong and loud showcase of their guitar-driven psychedelic rock.

The audience for Atlanta's PLS PLS ("please please") filled Criminal Records to hear their melodic "electronic infused alternative rock" (their description).

Here's another Goat Farm video.  I was at this event earlier in the evening, but the cold temperatures drove me off before PLS PLS performed, so last night was my first time hearing them.

Joseph Arthur is an American singer-songwriter from Akron, Ohio, although he lived in Atlanta for a time in the early 1990s, where he recorded a bunch of home demo tapes, one of which he dropped off to Eric of Criminal Records.  Before his set began last night, Arthur was presented with that very tape by Eric, who told him that he has never listened to it, "not once," as he's been given hundreds of demos over the years. But Peter Gabriel apparently did, and signed Arthur to Real World music.  Last night, Arthur seemed genuinely touched to be given the relic of his early career.  

Arthur played a nearly hour-long set accompanied only by a drummer.  His poetic lyrics were layered over a sonic palette generated by a number of distortion pedals and generous loop effects, making one quickly forget the limited number of musicians on the stage.

It was a wonderful performance, full of nuance and beauty.  Kimmy Drake of Beach Day was in the audience, enjoying the set.

There were still several more bands scheduled to play at The Star Bar to conclude the L5Fest, but after Joesph Arthur, I called it a night.  By my count, I had seen 19 bands (a new single-day record!), including some local favorites like Adron, The Coathangers, and Dog Bite, discovered several new bands like Factory and TV Dinner, and heard established music stars Mike Doughty and Joseph Arthur.  

Last year, the L5Fest, held as it was on the 29th of September, marked the start of Rocktober 2012.  This year, with the number of shows coming up, I can't decide if it marks an early beginning to Rocktober 2013, or if it's the coda at the end of the Bumbershoot/MFNW Labor Day marathon.

Or if it matters. 

Dude, I Was There!

Magic Mouth At Mississippi Studios, Sept. 7, 2013

It nearly went unmentioned among the frenzy of all the other activities of that day and that week, but at the Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) party at Mississippi Studios on Saturday, Sept. 7 (was it really a whole week ago?), Portland's Magic Mouth performed.  This was my first exposure to them - the first I had even heard of them, I imagine like yourself.  

Be prepared to be amazed.  Their EP, Devil May Care, drops September 20th.

Bumbershoot: Day Three Retrospective

Day Three of Bumbershoot was, as always, on Labor Day, so someone apparently had to go to the top of the Space Needle and hoist an American flag.  Jobs I'm glad that I don't have to take. . .  

Here's another.  This jackass was protesting, or testifying or witnessing or something, in front of the main gate. I'm not even sure of his point - is he saying that covetousness is idolatry, as is materialism, pornography, etc.?  In other words, is covetousness his only complaint, or is he listing all of the things he doesn't like?  Anyway, the front of the Bumbershoot main gate may not be the best place to win converts away from music. "Well, I was going to go listen to rock music, but now that I see your sign, I've changed my mind," said no one, anywhere.

But to his point, the festival was overrun all weekend with zombies.  I had forgotten to mention that up to this point.

But on to the music.  The first band of the day was a jazzy afro-pop group called Cascadia '10 performing at the Fisher Pavilion.  They were scheduled to play Bumbershoot last year, and I had even gone to their stage to see them, but they had to cancel at the last minute due to some mishap, and instead another afro-pop group, The Jefferson Rose Band (I think) filled in for them.  In any event, it was nice to finally see Cascadia '10 themselves, and sunny afro-pop is always a good way to start a day.

Meanwhile, over at the Fountain Lawn, BellaMaine, an indie-pop band from Anacortes, Washington, were playing.  The sunny, happy mood continued.

Even the zombies seemed happy.

I had three passes to the KEXP Music Lounge for the day, and for the first time, they weren't for the opening, noontime performance, nor were they all together.  The first Music Lounge performance for me on Day Three was the North Carolina band Superchunk, performing at 1:15 pm.

Superchunk played a tight, ass-kicking set, but founding bassist Laura Ballance was notably absent.  Reportedly, she's not touring due to hyperacusis, a hearing condition, and in her place was touring bassist Jason Narducy.

After the kick in the pants from Superchunk, I went over to the Fountain Lawn to really get my ass kicked, this time by Brooklyn's The Men.  If I had waned to see the band Alt-J, this would have been my chance. However, the line to get into Key Arena was staggeringly long - I probably would have had to get in line sometime around noon if I had really wanted to get in.  But I have tickets to see them Sept. 23 back home in Atlanta, and anyway, I didn't want my whole day devoted to seeing one band (and in an indoor basketball arena at that), so The Men seemed like the better option.  They were loud, aggressive, raw, and near perfect, rendering yesterday's debate about who was more punk, FIDLAR or Broncho, moot.  They have no one specific frontman and everybody takes turns at lead vocals, but it doesn't matter, because you can't hear the vocals over the guitars and walls of Marshall amps, anyway.    

I knew The Men would be playing in Portland's relatively small club Dante's, and I shuddered to imagine how their loud volume would sound in that little space.  

Meanwhile, back in the audience, zombies were devouring Miss Seattle.

I wasn't sure what the transition from The Men to Lissie was going to be like, as I wasn't sure is she was a pop singer or a rocker.  But over at the Starbucks Stage, I was relieved to find that she was a rocker, shredding on guitar when she needed to as she belted out her songs.  It was actually a nice way to come back down to earth after The Men.

My second Music Lounge set was at 3:45 by the acoustic bluegrass band Trampled By Turtles.  They played superbly and the vocals were soothing, but after all of the adrenaline and excitement of the previous acts, I almost fell asleep in the dark, cool Music Lounge.  I heard several people, folks close to my own age, tell me that the Turtles' set was the high point of the festival for them, and I might have been inclined to agree but for my mood that day.  As it was, the set was a nice little opportunity to recharge myself for a final push through the last day. 

Outside, it was still zombies.  I got something to eat (not brains), and went back to the Music Lounge for a decidedly more energetic set.

We've seen The Joy Formidable before, during MFNW 2011 at the Wonder Ballroom, at Music Midtown that same year, and this year at Atlanta's inaugural Shaky Knees festival. But we've never seen them this close or in as intimate a setting as the KEXP Music Lounge. 

This set was a warm-up of sorts for their later performance at the Fisher Pavilion, but they still held nothing back for this late afternoon set. 

More damn zombies.

Despite the presence of the undead, it was time to prepare for the final 1-2-3 punch of the Bumbershoot schedule.  To get a good position in the crowd for the first of the last three performance, I went over to the Plaza Stage early and enjoyed the slightly gothic, country-rock sounds of Mark Pickerel and His Praying Hands.

I got the rail for Seattle's Ivan & Alyosha, but wound up giving it up to a younger and far shorter fan. Still, I had a great, unobstructed view for their uplifting set of folk-pop songs.

They closed their set with their popular song, Be Your Man.

Ivan and Alyosha were the 1 of the 1-2-3 finale.  Number 2 was Atlanta's own Deerhunter, playing at the Fountain Lawn.  Despite the large crowd and my late arrival a mere couple minutes before the set began, I still managed to get a reasonably good position in the audience.

Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox was as confrontational as ever.  He wore a similar wig to the one he wore on his infamous Jimmy Fallon performance, and after one particular song, he told the laid-back Seattle audience, “I'd heard Seattle crowds are crazy, but this is something else."  He went on, sarcastically mimicking Mick Jagger pleading with the Altamont audience to calm down.  "I'm not going to sing on this next song," he declared. "I don't want to be singing when the world ends in a whimper and not a bang.” Guitarist Locket Pundt wound up handling the vocals on Desire Lines.

After Blue Agent, Cox thanked the audience for their "polite applause,” and announced “Here's a polite song,” launching into The Missing. 

But in the end, he delivered the goods, using several of the songs as launching pads for extended psych-rock excursions and experiments in feedback and pedal effects, particularly at the end of Nothing Ever Happens.  At the end of Monomania, his vocals were looped over and over on top of themselves, building up into a wall of sound.  Cox and the band then unceremoniously left the stage without announcement even as the instruments still squealed. It seemed like an encore might be possible as the stage remained lit and the feedback showed no signs of stopping, but those of us who saw him leave the Fallon stage knew he was not coming back (he didn't). 

There was a huge crowd in front of the Fisher Pavilion stage to see The Joy Formidable for the final set of the night.  However, I had learned a neat trick over the past three days - instead of standing at the back of the crowd hoping to press forward for a better view (like I had for Crystal Castles), I walked all the way around the crowd and down a stairway that marks one edge of the audience space, which put me near the front of the crowd, although at an extreme angle to the stage.  However, people don't seem to mind when someone works their way sideways through a crowd and even back a little nearly as much as they resent someone who tries to move forward, and soon I was standing near stage right about six rows of people back from the stage.  It wasn't as good a view as in the Music Lounge, but it was better than about 90% of the rest of the audience. 

But then a funny thing happened:  The Joy Formidable was playing their set when the drum mics suddenly failed. Lead singer/guitarist Ritzy Bryan seemed at a loss of what to say, and blamed the drummer for always having something “explode” at their shows.  She soon ran out of stage banter and told everyone that the band was going to go backstage for a few minutes while the crew fixed the problem.

A good amount of time passed and The Joy Formidable still hadn’t come back out.  The crowd began to get impatient, and calls for the band's return started turning to taunts. This wasn't going well, but after about 10 minutes, the band finally reappeared on stage and completed their set.

Fortunately for everybody, both the redemptive qualities of rock 'n' roll and the audience's capacity for forgiveness overcome the earlier awkwardness, and the band got huge applause and a call for an encore at the end of their set. 

And that, then, was the end of Bumbershoot 2013, the best Bumbershoot in my limited experience (three consecutive years).    The final 1-2-3 punch of Ivan and Alyosha, Deerhunter, and The Joy Formidable was every bit as satisfying as expected, despite Cox' taunting and the Formidable mishap.  In addition to that 1-2-3 finale, highlights included the wild and crazy Beats Antique show, !!!, and the chance to watch Thao twice in one day (Joy Formidable, too).  In fact, all of the Music Lounge sets were great, and everything was run with perfect timing.  

A short walk back to my hotel, past the KEXP studio, and finally a chance to rest my feet and get some sleep before starting MFNW in Portland the next day.