Prisoners

"Prisoners" by J Mascis and Sharon Van Etten from Aimee Mann 

There's so much win here, from Sharon Van Etten and J Mascis collaborating on a John Denver tune to Aimee Mann playing a Denver wannabe geek.  

Actually, that's pretty much everything there is to like in this video.

Trampled By Turtles (Dude, I Was There!)

Trampled By Turtles at Bumbershoot, September 2, 2013

Clearly and by far, the Trampled By Turtles set at the KEXP Bumbershoot Music Lounge was the most laid back and relaxed portion of the entire Labor Day weekend.  Coming as it did between hard rocking sets by Lissie and The Joy Formidable, it was a little disorienting and easy to overlook, but in retrospect may have been just what was needed on Day Three as we approached the final stretch.

Enjoy. . .

Spark & Whisper

A short clip from Spark & Whisper's October 3 set at the 142 Throckmorton in Mill Valley, California. I wasn't there, unfortunately, but guitarist Velvy Appleton was kind enough to share this video with his Facebook friends.  

Thanks and a tip of the hat to my sister Jackie for making me aware of this.

The Helio Sequence and Menomena at Terminal West, Atlanta - October 10, 2013

The 1990's: a bunch of kids in Beaverton, Oregon, a suburb or Portland, hanging out and forming bands. They all become good friends and wind up playing at each others' gigs at parties and small clubs. Eventually, they get signed but to different labels and end up touring separately, recording separately, and proceeding on separate paths. Those paths diverged until this year, when they finally wound up touring together for the very first time.  Last night, that tour brought Portland's Menomena and the Helio Sequence to Atlanta, Georgia's Terminal West.

Menomena opened.

We've seen Menomena a bunch of times before, including a 2010 gig at Variety Playhouse, and then at MFNW 2012, right as they had released their most recent record, Moms, and were all over town.  We saw them three times that week (a KEXP daytime show at the Doug Fir and then later that same day their main MFNW set at Pioneer Courthouse Square, and at the OPB party at Mississippi Studios), and it felt like you couldn't walk into a coffee shop and not find Menomena performing in the back of the store.  This, then, was our fifth time seeing them. 

They were great as always, although the sound mix was fairly muddy for the first half of their set and bassist-saxophonist-multi-instrumentalist Justin Harris was plagued with equipment malfunctions (dead mic, broken guitar string, and some sort of laptop problem I couldn't comprehend).  But despite these setbacks (or maybe because of those setbacks), their quirky and complex songs were still entertaining and fascinating.

Before they started work on Moms, founding member Brent Knopf left the band to form Ramona Falls, whom we recently saw at Bumbershoot this year (and at the godforsaken Masquerade earlier this year). In his place, Menomena had two touring musicians, at least one of whom (the guitarist in the Maps & Atlases t-shirt) I recognized from the 2012 gigs in Portland.

The Helio Sequence got the honor of headlining.  We've seen them only once before, earlier this year at this same venue (Terminal West).  

The Helio Sequence consists of only two musicians, but together they sound like a much fuller band. Drummer Benjamin Weikel is able to produce bass-like lines with his bass drum and toms, while filling in other drum beats and looking like he's having more fun than anyone else in the room. Guitarist Brandon Summers creates layers of sound with loop pedals and other effects, and if you close your eyes, you'd think that at least a four-piece band was on the stage in front of you.

Their tightly structured songs don't leave much room for improvisation - this isn't a band that's going to suddenly go jam-band on you - but the sheer precision and craftsmanship that goes into their songs more than compensates for any lack of surprise.  They played a great set of fun, sunny rock songs and played them well, and that's more than most bands can say.

On a final note, the Rail King's streak continued: like at the past three shows I've gone to, I managed to get the best position in the venue last night - right in front of center stage, no one in front of me but the band and smack dab in the center.  Awesome.  But it wasn't as much of a challenge last night (getting and keeping that spot for Savages was the real achievement of the week), as the crowd was surprisingly small for these two bands - the twin billing last night of Passion Pit and The Joy Formidable at the godforsaken Masquerade may have lured many of the customers away.  

Hell, if it weren't for this show, I probably would have been there myself. 

Savages at Vinyl, Atlanta, October 9, 2013

Last night, London's post-punk revivalists Savages played at Vinyl, part of the Center Stage complex in Midtown Atlanta.  It's been well over a year since I've been to a show at Vinyl - the last time I was there was a March 2012 concert by Fanfarlo, another London band.

I've been on a roll with audience position lately - for both Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Junip at Terminal West and last night for Savages, I managed to get a spot right in front of center stage (the actual center of the stage, not in front of Midtown's Center Stage complex).  No one but the band in front of me, and in the case of Savages, the performers mere inches away from my face.

The four members of Savages wore all black on a dimly lit stage (white lights only over the drummer, silhouetting the rest of the band), which would have made photography difficult, had they allowed it at all. I've heard that at recent shows Savages posted signs at the entrance encouraging people not to take cellphone pictures or videos so the band could "more fully immerse" themselves in the performance.

No such signs were up last night.  "We forgot to post them," singer Jehnny Beth explained as she walked to the edge of the stage and put her hand over the cellphone of a woman standing to my right.  After having taken pictures of their setlist and pedal board before the show began, I kept my cellphone and camera holstered for the rest of their set, and allowed myself to become more fully immersed in the performance.

Johnny Hostile, the band's mentor and boyfriend of Jehnny Beth, opened with a solo set, playing bass and singing to recorded samples.  His performance, reminiscent at times of the 70s band Suicide, set a New Wave tone for the night, and reminded us of a time when experimentalism and embrace of the avant garde was more accepted. Beth sang one song with him.  Reed player Duke Garman, on the bill for the show, did not appear.

Savages' set was as feral and direct as their name implies.  Jehnny Beth menacingly prowled the edge of the stage in her red heels as she sang, often performing less than a foot away from my face.  When at the microphone stage, she would swing her arms front and back like Ian Curtis of Joy Division.  Gemma Thompson approaches the guitar in a manner similar to Gang of Four's Andy Gill, often playing it not so much as a stringed instrument but instead exploring all the possible ways of getting sound out of her machine, including tapping her fingers on the back of its neck or pounding her fist on its body. Thompson's sonic explorations left it up to Ayse Hassan to carry much of the songs with her blister-inducing  strumming on the bass.  But the real delight was watching drummer Fay Milton perform in her near choreographic manner - not only does she involve her whole body in her playing, but she seems to be dancing with the drum set as much as playing it, sometimes holding one arm up in the air as she keeps the beat with the other, only to bring the raised arm crashing down at the exact right moment.  She also makes excellent use of her cymbals.

None of this would have worked, though, if each member of the band weren't such consummate perfectionists and talented musicians, and if their songs weren't so compelling.  Their set included a cover of Suicide's Dream Baby Dream, bookending the theme started with Johnny Hostile's opening set.  Their set ended with Fuckers, a song not found on their debut album Silence Yourself, but featuring a chant of "Don't let the fuckers get you down" before dissolving into a chaotic storm of feedback and noise and the band leaving the stage. The audience began to call for an encore before realizing that Savages had already given everything they had on the stage, and there was nothing left to be said.

Silence yourself, indeed. 

Too Soon? . . .

Tickets for Bumbershoot 2014 go on sale October 24.

Meanwhile, Back In Tampa Bay

Red Sox win series, 3 games to 1.  Bring on . . . whomever. . .  for the ALCS.

Junip at Terminal West, Atlanta, 9-7-2013

Things change and everything's in a state of transformation. Impermanence is the only constant.  But it usually seems that when we notice change, it's usually for the worse - it's rare that we notice when things seem to get better, rarer still when good things get even better.  The reliably terrific band Junip, who last played Atlanta in a wonderful show at the Earl back in 2010, showed that they had gotten even better in the past couple years, totally mesmerizing the audience with their performance last night at Terminal West. 

Barbarosa opened.

Barbarosa is London's James Mathé, who is currently a touring member of Junip as well as their opener, too. He plays solo, bringing only a drummer on stage to join him for a couple of songs, and sings in a soulful manner somewhere between Active Child and James Blake, and not far at all from the warm croon of Junip's own Jose Gonzalez.  

When they played the Earl back in November 2010, Junip was a quartet.  They've expanded into a quintet for this tour, but the change was more than just the addition of Mathé.  With three keyboards/synths backing him (four when one member puts down his bass), their sounds is much more layered and lush than ever before, sometimes sounding light as a feather, other times heavy and ominous. At times, their electronic washes of sound brought to mind Moonface's occasional backing band Sinaii.

In any event, it was a transcendent set, with the audience - at least this member - getting swept away by the stream of music and being carried along, guided the whole time by Gonzalez' reassuring and warm voice.

It's a sign of a great performance that I can't even remember the sequence of the songs, other than they played their early hit Always near the beginning, and Line of Fire, the song featured in the series finale of Breaking Bad, toward the end (the encore?).  Back in 2010, their encore included a cover of U2's With Or Without You - with Sharon Van Etten singing no less - but as hard to believe as it is, their encore last night was every bit as good.  This was clearly one of the best shows of the season.

I know that I think that after almost every show, but this one really was something special.