New Damien Jurado

Damien Jurado at Terminal West, October 27, 2013

Here's an interesting preview/documentary about Damien Juarado's upcoming album, Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son.

MFNW - Day Two Retrospective

What was Day Two, Wednesday, of MFNW 2013 was formerly Day One before they expanded the festival to a six-day music marathon.  But the day still had a Day One vibe to it, perhaps because the festivities didn't begin until 8:00 pm.  I occupied much of my day at Powell's Books.

The biggest event of the evening was probably Deerhunter at the Crystal Ballroom, with Lonnie Holley opening.  But I had just seen Deerhunter at Bumbershoot, and even though I thoroughly enjoyed the set - one of the best of that festival - my night instead revolved around the second biggest event of the evening, the Scottish synth-pop band Chvrches at the Roseland Theater.

But first I took the No 20 bus across the river to see the band Eyelids at the Doug Fir Lounge.

Eyelids are fronted by Chris Slusarenko of Guided By Voices and John Moen of The Decemberists and Stephen Malkmus's band, The Jicks.  We recently saw Moen playing drums with Black Prairie at Eddie's Attic.  Moen and Slusarenko take turns singing and leading the band, and their approaches are quite different - Moen's songs are much gentler and pastoral, while Slusarenko's are rougher and more aggressive.  The variety kept the set interesting, and the band seems comfortable switching gears between each song.

The highlight of the set, at least for me, was their closer, when they brought Steve Wynn (Dream Syndicate, The Baseball Project) and a singer named Jerry A on stage with them to cover Gun Club's Sex Beat.

I even found a Dude-I-Was-There video of the song on Eyelids' web site.

Wynn was hanging out at the Doug Fir because The Baseball Project was headlining that night, but I didn't stay - I knew that I'd be seeing TBP later in the week.  Instead, I took the bus back over the river again, and went back to The Roseland Theater, the site of the previous evening's hip-hop slate, to see Chvrches.  When I got there, there was already a huge line stretching down Burnside, but I was able to walk right in thanks to the privileges of the VIP wristband.  The outstanding dj/performer XXYYXX was already playing as I entered.    

Here's a little taste of his mind-bending sound; it's even trippier live and on stage.  Amazingly, he's only 17 years old!

XXYYXX will be playing right here in Atlanta at The Basement on Halloween night, just a few nights from tonight, but I won't be going as I instead have tickets that night to see The Orb (talk about trippy and mind-bending!).

At 10:00 pm sharp (the festival organizers do an outstanding job of keeping everything on time, as people plan their whole evening around getting from venue to venue to catch their favorite acts), Chvrches took the stage, beginning my week-long crush on singer Lauren Mayberry.  The club was at capacity, but I was able to get close enough to get a reasonable line of sight.

Chvrches have next-big-thing written all over them.  Their music is catchy and fun, Mayberry is an engaging performer, and their first album hadn't even dropped yet at the time of this show (it finally dropped Sept. 24).  Their songs can and will be used in movie soundtracks, car commercials, and what-have-you,  and they'll be playing Atlanta's Variety Playhouse on November 26.

Criticisms: While Mayberry's voice is appealing, her range is rather limited and she doesn't emote very much in her songs.  Keybordist Martin Doherty took the vocals for one song during the set and erupted into a passionate closing verse that was a welcome relief to the icy coolness of the rest of the set.  Still, these are minor complaints, and something the band already appears to be correcting.

Here they are at Terminal 5 in New York back on September 22:

So that was fun.  Just like the night before, after Roseland, I walked the couple blocks up Burnside back to Dante's, where I had seen Summer Cannibals, Black Bananas, and Redd Kross.  I got there in time to catch Redmond, Oregon's Larry & His Flask.

To say this band was energetic would be an understatement.  Their sound was reminiscent of the Andew Jackson Jihad, and not only did they play their peculiar brand of Appalachian folk-punk fast and loud, encouraging the audience to dance, holler at them, or at least to do something, but the members themselves were jumping around, crashing into each other, and appearing to be having a blast on stage.  At one point, the bass player leaped up and grabbed a rail hanging from the ceiling, and swung himself back and forth over the audience. These guys were madmen.

The Dante's audience responded in kind, slam-dancing and jumping up and down in one of the most kind-spirited mosh pits I've ever been in.  Everyone was smiling, and even after knocking someone over, they'd extend a helpful hand to get back up again.  All of the pushing and shoving was made so much more interesting by the fact that the beer-soaked floor was so slippery it was difficult to even walk on, much less ricochet off of the bouncing, gyrating crowd. To paraphrase the World's Most Interesting Man, I don't often mosh, but when I do it's to Larry & His Flask.  

If you're game and want to mix it up with us, Larry is bringing the Flask to The Earl on October 27.

After the set, I was covered with sweat, some of it even mine, but there was one more band to go.

Murder By Death play haunting songs and murder ballads in the tradition of Johnny Cash and early Tom Waits.  I had wanted to see them during the rain-soaked Shaky Knees Festival but missed them due to schedule conflicts, so this was a chance to make up for a lost opportunity.

Even though they didn't start until midnight, they played a 90-minute set, blending driving rock with folky flourishes of cello and mandolin.  Quite frankly, they outlasted me, and I finally called it a night shortly after 1 am.  But frontman and raconteur Adam Turla was still going strong and showing no signs of slowing down.

In my defense, I needed to get a good night's sleep, as Day Three was when MFNW was going to really start getting intense, beginning with a 10:30 am set back at the Doug Fir by none other than Chvrches.

I wanted to be ready.

MFNW - Day One Retrospective

It appears that's it's finally time to do start a series of retrospective posts for MFNW 2013.  Over a month has passed since the festival ended, giving me a little time to gather some perspective on the events, and even though Rocktober is now still in full swing, this week is something like the calm eye in the middle of the storm, allowing me some time to look back and ruminate.

Before going any further, though, I have to mention that no discussion of MFNW 2013 can be complete with a discussion of Boxed Water.  During their Tuesday-night set, veteran LA punks-turned-popsters Redd Kross frequently drank what appeared to be milk from the familiar, one-quart waxed cartons.  "That can't be right," I thought.  There's no way that drinking a quart of milk on a sweaty stage is going to end well for anybody, either on stage or in the audience.  I imagined that it might be some sort of health food - maybe coconut milk? - being consumed by a health-conscious veteran band.

But then I started seeing the cartons everywhere, at every venue.  A few performers, two or three, really, gamely drank what was clearly water out of the traditional clear plastic bottles, but most others were drinking out of the square cartons.  It wasn't until Thursday that I finally got a close enough look to realize they were drinking a new product called Boxed Water, which is actually just good old water, but served in eco-friendly, bio-degradable paper cartons rather than inert plastic bottles, which will last, like, forever (plastic bottles also leach toxic phthalates into bottled water, especially when warm or left in cars, but the marketers aren't touting that additional benefit).  After I got a close look, I heard several performers acknowledge how disorienting it felt to be drinking water on stage out of what looked like milk cartons.  Still, it appeared to be the official stage beverage of MFNW 2013.  

In any event, in addition to adding Boxed Water to the proceedings, MFNW also added an additional, sixth day to the proceedings in 2013.  Granted, there wasn't too much scheduled for the newly-added day, at least by MFNW standards, but that was something of a relief to me as I had to travel down to Portland that day from Bumbershoot up in Seattle.  The only venues participating in the festival that first night were the Roseland Theater with a hip-hop slate, and Dante's, a block or so away, with three garage-rock bands.   

I started the night (and the festival) at Roseland, a 1,400-capacity, arena-style theater on Burnside Street in Portland's Old Town.  It's an all-ages venue with drinking and seating up in the balcony. It wasn't my first time to Roseland - I was there last year for Reignwold and Those Darlins' - but it was my first of several visits that week.  When I arrived, a local dj named Gang$ign$ was warming up the audience.  I went up to the balcony to find myself a seat and watch the show.

Gang$ign$ is Portland's Nick Sisouphanh, a 24-year-old "who isn’t afraid to mix braggadocio-laced gangster thump with Doris Day samples, electronic fuzz, jazz, punk and indie rock, putting it all through a Skrillex- and Dre-infused filter" (Willamette Week).  Everything he played flowed together into a seamless whole while the nearly-all-white Portland audience just stood watching him.

I was interested in seeing how he would end the set, since one could never tell where a "song" began or ended.  In fact, it never really ended at all, but after about an hour, when Seattle rapper Nacho Picasso was scheduled to take the stage, another dj set up behind him and started mixing his beats into Gang$ign$'. He eventually just walked off stage, leaving his set-up on the table.

Nacho Picasso eventually ambled onto the stage wearing a Jimi Hendrix t-shirt, a shiny grill, and big square specs.  One reviewer wrote that he couldn't shake the feeling that this is what Raj from What’s Happening? would have turned into if he did time in the joint for breaking and entering.  

The t-shirt didn't stay on for long, and it turns out that Picasso is built like a prizefighter and covered in tattoos. He unleashed some of the funniest and most shamelessly filthy rhymes around, referencing "everything from Haile Selassie to Tommy Tune all in service of getting laid. And he’s wearing . . . boxer briefs covered in pictures of bananas" (Willamette Week).

Gang$ign$ resumed his dj set after Picasso had finished, but with all due respect to the rest of the line-up, that was it for me at Roseland.  Missing out on rappers Antwon and Joey Bada$$ (it was apparently a big night for cash-money band names), I walked the block or two down Burnside over to Dante's to hear some garage rock.

It was my first time in Dante's, both of the week and of all-time.  Dante's is composed of two rooms in an historical, brick building, rumored to have once been a brothel. The main room comprises the eastern half of the venue and the adjacent Limbo Lounge sits to the west, connected to the main room by a large open portal in the brick wall.  There are often large and rowdy crowds outside, but when I got there before the first act, things were still calm and peaceful.

The first band, Summer Cannibals, is an almost-but-not-quite all-female band, fronted by vocalist/guitarist Jessica Boudreaux and lone male member guitarist Marc Swart.  They play muscular, straight-ahead garage rock informed by punk, metal, and blues, but not confined to any particular genre.  I had been looking forward to hearing them, and they lived up to my expectations.

On stage, Boudreaux thanked everyone for coming, wondering “Who can compete with Joey Bada$$ going on at Roseland?” Everyone laughed, but I later heard that while Summer Cannibals were playing at Dante's, the Roseland audience had started chanting for headliner Bada$$ even while Antwon was still on stage performing.

By far, though, the most memorable event of the evening was the train wreck of a performance by the band Black Bananas.  Having to discuss this set at all might be the single most compelling reason I've put off this whole retrospective until now.  The performance was highly anticipated by the Portland press, who had given their recent record great reviews.  Black Bananas is fronted by Portland singer, songwriter, record producer, artist, and model Jennifer Herrema, and is the successor to the band Royal Trux (later just RTX).  

Herrema took the stage at Dante's swilling beer from a bottle while looking lost under her heavy bangs. Wearing an oversized t-shirt featuring a huge pot leaf on it and a Black Bananas hoody tied around her waist, she alternately sang and babbled incoherently into her mike.  To her right, one guy was making a lot of noise somewhere between electronica and jagged hip-hop, while to her left a guitarist in a Miami Vice baseball cap was unleashing glam-metal lines.  No one seemed to hear, or care, what the others were playing, and they were all playing very loud (except Herrema, who could barely be heard).

As she banged into amplifiers and seemed to be generally lost, it was apparent that Herrema was either very drunk or in a deep narcotic stupor. She once almost fell on top of Redd Kross' drum kit before the guitarist caught her and literally kicked her ass back toward the front of the stage. I wondered if she would have better seen where she was going if she cut her bands a little, but I doubted it. It was an awful performance, and for the life of me, I don't know what the fuss was all about.

The evening's headliners were veteran LA band Redd Kross.  This band has lived through it all - they first arrived during the LA hard-core punk scene of the early 80s, lasted through the glam-rock and hair-metal days of the Sunset Strip, and still played on during the grunge, alternative rock, and indie scenes.  You can hear the entire history of LA rock in their songs.   

Here that are at LA's Amoeba Records store:

Some Canadian dude at Dante's told me that it was hilarious that the guitarist was wearing a vintage C-Fox 99 jersey, as C-Fox 99 was not only one of British Columbia's worst and most commercial radio stations, but that logo had gone out of style sometime back in the 1970s. 

Red Kross bassist Steve McDonald wore a shirt with his hometown of Hawthorne, California’s motto, “City of Good Neighbors” written on it, which was ironic given that McDonald later introduced their 1982 punk anthem White Trash by discussing how he and his brother wrote the song in their garage in protest of their Hawthorne neighbors.  Later, he introduced the song Frosted Flake as being about “that Pavement singer. Does he still live here? He was such a blunt monkey.”

Despite their late start, they still played a long set, once stopping to shame audience members leaving Dante's before they were through. “Are you guys saving your energy for the rest of fucking MusicfestNW?!  Were you offended by the Stephen Malkmus shoutout?!” McDonald asked before their one-song encore.  It was only a little after midnight, but it still was a Tuesday night.  

And that was it for the first night - a little hip-hop, a little rock, one train-wreck of a performance, and one sublime set by newcomers Summer Cannibals.  That, and the mystery of Boxed Water.

Dude!!! I Was There!!!

Caught !!! at Bumbershoot and then the following week at this KEXP daytime show at the Doug Fir during MFNW.  I was at the very front of the stage, and at times you can see the silhouette of my bald head bobbing up and down at the bottom of the screen, MST 3000-style.

Before the Portland show, I was having a cappuccino at a sidewalk cafe and saw !!!'s Nik Offer walking around. It's the only time I've seen him wearing pants.  He looked into the coffee shop behind me but didn't enter.  Later, I saw him with a styrofoam cup of take-out coffee coming from a convenience store. To each their own vices, I suppose.

Anyway, enjoy the show and you might even pick up a few new dance moves. 

Lucius and Hey Marseilles at The Earl, Atlanta, October 19, 2013

I hadn't been to The Earl since August 9, 2013 (T Hardy Morris and Roadkill Ghost Choir).  In the 10 weeks I'd been away, the club hung a metallic sign with the word Earl over the stage, but otherwise it's the same redoubtable venue.  Last night, I saw the Brooklyn band Lucius perform beneath the new sign. Seattle's Hey Marseilles opened.

Hey Marseilles are a folk-rock sextet, but sound almost like a mini-orchestra as they feature a string section (cello and violin), guitars (electric and acoustic), keys, accordion, and drums, giving their full-bodied songs a memorably rich texture. Prior to last night's show, I had been out for most of the day at the L5P Halloween Parade watching marchers in horror costumes and listening to punk, rockabilly, and garage rock, but after just a few bars of Hey Marseilles' soothing music, my attitude snapped into position to fully enjoy their set.  They're a band I've wanted to see for some time now (I missed them when they played Vinyl earlier this year), so I was glad to finally have the chance. 

Headliners Lucius are primarily the duo of Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig, two singers and keyboardists with near-identical haircuts and both wearing the same outfit.  Their specialty is harmony, and I don't think that we heard a single line of any song not sung by the two of them together in unison.  This is a good thing, as their harmonies, along with the quirky rhythmic structures of their songs, are what makes their danceable indie pop so intoxicating to hear.  

They have no drum kit but everyone contributes to percussion, even Jess and Holly, often giving their songs a tribal urgency.  The resulting songs mix everything from Americana to torch ballads to ESG-influenced disco-punk.  

For their encore, they played an acoustic song, unamplified, in the middle of the audience.

Lucius are touring in support of their first full-length record, Wildewoman, which dropped just last week.  Impress your friends and be among the first to own a copy! 

Shaky Knees

Not a bad recap at all, and much better than my "video digests" of the rain-soaked event.

ZZ Ward

ZZ Ward at Bumbershoot, August 31, 2013

Dude, I was here!  I didn't know of ZZ Ward before this KEXP Music Lounge set at Bumbershoot this year but liked what I heard.  Performing somewhere near the intersection of blues, hip-hop, and rock, she won over the audience, most of whom seemed to have been pretty excited to be there even before she took the stage.  Every time I thought that I had her pigeon-holed into a "Oh, she's one of those types of performers" category, she'd take a turn and surprise me again.

This was just the second set of my first day, right after Thao and company, and served notice that I was about to discover a lot of new music over the next nine days.