Thursday, October 17, 2013

Noah & The Whale at Variety Playhouse, October 15, 2013


From the comments section on NPR's All Songs Considered website:
"I'm 50 and hubby of 32 years is 55. Just returned from the Austin City Limits Festival . . . What I loved in Austin was being about 30 years older than everyone else in the first three rows at the Noah and the Whale concert. The young twenty-something next to me screeched, "Oh, my god! He's so cute" when the lead singer took the stage. I know most of the words to their songs (better than the young 'uns surrounding me). Noah I found on my own but our adult kids love to share their music and new finds with us."
Yesterday, I said that Wednesday night's Noah & The Whale show "was a concert you could have taken your mother too without fear of embarrassment." NPR has now confirmed this. And yes, I'm aware of the irony that I'm older than both the commenter and her husband. 

Here's another letter from someone my own age:
I'm 59 and find I'm often one of the oldest, if not the oldest, attendee at indie rock concerts. Whenever I drag my friends, they have a good time. So I don't understand why there aren't more of us boomers at these concerts. Who cares if we're the oldest ones in the crowd? The young people are great. I ran into one of my daughter's friends at a recent Alt-J concert. He thought I was one cool dude to be there. LOL!
And there was another letter from someone even further down the road than I:
I'm 70 and way into indie music. My daughter and her husband, now in their early 30's, are pretty much imprinted with the music they liked in high school. My daughter did turn me on to Radiohead and Tori Amos back then, but when they go to concerts, it's Modest Mouse, Garbage, Sting and she'd rather listen to the Beatles and REM - with NIN the big generation bridger - I liked them first - but I don't think she's listened to Hesitation Marks yet. My biggest conversion success has been Arcade Fire and MMJ. I'll just have to take it slowly with them when it comes to Kendrick Lamar, Flying Lotus, Deerhunter... & the Rolling Stones. =)
Chris Rock does a routine about "that one guy you always see in the club who's waaaaay too old to be there." I may be that dude, but at least I'm apparently not the only one. And I'm pretty confident that I have better taste in music than the young 'uns lapping up the formulaic folk-pop at the Noah & The Whale concert.

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

LP at Variety Playhouse, October 15, 2013


Last night, LA-based singer LP performed at Atlanta's Variety Playhouse, her powerful and soulful vocals blowing the roof off of the theater.  



Noah & the Whale opened.



No, LP didn't really play last night.  I'm just engaging in wishful thinking - LP bowed off of the tour and cancelled her scheduled performance last night with Noah & the Whale, who would have headlined anyway. I guess I'm just trying to blow the mind of anyone who bought tickets but didn't go last night due to LP's cancellation.

I was almost one of them. 

I don't really know much about Noah & the Whale, other than they were the band in which both Laura Marling and Emmy the Great go their starts and that both are no longer with the band, and that Pitchfork included their debut album among the "Worst New Music" of 2008. 

Onstage last night, they seemed to be a pleasant enough group of guys, and were reasonably proficient on their instruments, but at the same time came off as far too restrained and inoffensive, and too eager to please everyone.  This was a concert you could have taken your mother too without fear of embarrassment. Worse, no whale ever appeared on stage.

LP would have shaken things up a bit.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Dude, I Was There! (The Joy Formidable)


Bumbershoot.  KEXP.  The Joy Formidable.  Dude, I was there!

Song List:
The Ladder Is Ours
Little Blimp
Maw Maw Song
Cradle
Whirring

Monday, October 14, 2013

Prisoners

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.

Sunday, October 13, 2013

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. . .

Saturday, October 12, 2013

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.

Friday, October 11, 2013

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.