Monday, November 4, 2013

Fanfarlo


The new video from London indie band Fanfarlo for A Distance was reportedly inspired by Swedish film legend Ingmar Bergman and David Lynch's Twin Peaks, although I'm equally reminded of Lynch's Elephant Man.

Sunday, November 3, 2013

Thee Oh Sees, Terminal West, Atlanta, November 2, 2013


In  my humble opinion, anything more than three bands in one night's show is at least one band too many (even though I reserve the right to attend multiple shows in one evening and see as many bands as I want).  Last night's punk-rock showcase at Terminal West featured four bands, but I honestly can't say which, if any, I would have cut from the lineup. 


For instance, the openers were Amsterdam's zZz (pronounced "zzzzz"), not to be confused with Japan's all-female post-punk/no wave band ZZZ.  Last night's zZz were a duo, just an organist and a drummer/vocalist. Fresh off a tour with Quintron & Miss Pussycat that ended Friday night in Mobile, Alabama, their version of punk leaned more to the psych-rock side, and Björn Ottenheim's baritone vocals gave the songs an almost goth edge.   The audience was still pretty sparse for the openers, and one guy pretty much had the floor to himself for dancing.


Next up were Minneapolis' The Blind Shake, with one more musician than zZz for a total of three (drums and two guitars).  The Blind Shake play pounding, high-energy, uber-punk, and about a dozen or so guys formed a mosh circle, running counter-clockwise in a cleared area of the floor slamming into each other and those on the perimeter of the clearing.      


The third band of the evening was Austin's OBN IIIs, named for their singer and frontman Orville Bateman Neeley III. OBN is a wild man, bellowing out the vocals, striking macho rock-star poses, and menacing the front row of the audience, which is where I had managed to make it to at that point of the evening.

Pacing the edge of the stage, he would kick out his foot as if were going to kick a spectator in the head, although he never actually made contact or hurt anybody.  He rubbed some people's heads and poured beer on another (after he had given him a full shot glass of liquor).  Overall, it was pretty entertaining, and kept the audience engaged and alert - you had to keep an eye on this guy, because you never knew what he'd do next.

When he was on stage away from the crowd, OBN would swing his microphone stand around, or tangle himself up in the cord, or fall on the floor and continue singing laying down.  He'd hump the monitors, grind the mic stand with his crotch, and generally act like a punk-rock maniac.

Given the intensity of the music and OBN's antics, the mosh circle got bigger and more intense, and at one point OBN jumped off stage and joined in, taking the associated shoves, punches, and headbutts in stride as he continued to sing.  He had to have been in there a good, solid two minutes or more, and he took some serious hits without losing his cool.  

At another point in the show, he disappeared behind an amp, and emerged a few seconds later with a Halloween wolf mask over his head.  He sang masked for only a minute or so before tossing the mask into the mosh circle where the participants dove for it, elbowing each other out of the way for the souvenir. He ended the set by dropping his trousers, mooning the audience, and finished the song in his boxer shorts, waddling around the stage with his pants down around his ankles.


San Francisco's Thee Oh Sees are arguably one of the few bands who could have followed that.  We last saw Thee Oh Sees at The Goat Farm, where I had managed to get a spot right at the stage before the surging, shoving, diving audience finally drove me away.  I got to the security rail at the front of the stage again last night, and as Thee Oh Sees took the stage, frontman John Dwyer unpacked his guitar case and set up right in front of where I was standing 


Before saying anything else, let me point out that Thee Oh Sees put on a terrific show and are one of the most exciting bands to see live touring right now. They played well over an hour and covered much of their latest album, Floating Coffin, but also included plenty of old favorites.


When the band started playing, the audience pressed forward and the mosh circle collapsed, but instead of moshing, the crowd would surge forward and those of us in the front would push back, all while crowd surfers were passed overhead.  Many young men tried to displace me from my spot in front of Dwyer by aggressively attempting to cut in between me and the rail, but I hung on and defended my spot and lasted the entire set, at times against overwhelming forces I should add.  But this was all a part of the fun, and I employed my patented Charles Barkley maneuver, bending over slightly and sticking my butt as far out as I could to take up as much space as possible so that when crushed, I had some room to give before pushing back.


I didn't mind the surging, the shoving, and the crunching so much, and knew that's what I was in for at an Oh Sees show when I got to the front of the stage.  Taking pictures was a challenge though, as you never knew when you'd need your hands and arms free to block off an interloper.  

But the real fun of being up front was to get to watch Dwyer up close.  He's a hilarious performer, often making funny faces, sticking out his tongue, or rolling his eyes to match the funny voices he sometimes uses (check out his vocals at about the 2:55 mark on Block of Ice, below, from an October 27 gig in Brooklyn captured by  NYC Taper).  Sometimes, he reminds me at times of an Ed "Big Daddy" Roth cartoon character, or how the MAD Magazine of the 1960s might have parodied a garage rock band.  It was wonderful to get to watch him perform, and I think that most of the audience missed it for all the pushing and shoving and diving going on.  

In addition to Block of Ice, set highlights, and there were many, included Contraption/Soul Desert and The Dream from the Carrion Crawler/The Dream LP. Impressively, they played without a set list, even though the sequence of songs was very different from the set of just a few nights ago in New York, based on the NYC Taper archive.  They closed their set with Minotaur, a slower song to chill the crowd out a little, although Dwyer worked his observation into the lyrics that "someone's still crowd surfing to a slow song."



Thee Oh Sees finished around 12:30, and the PA and house lights came on immediately after their set; no encore would be had that evening.

Overall, then, and as alluded to earlier, the set was a veritable showcase of different styles of modern punk rock, starting with zZz's psych-punk, followed by The Blind Shake's guitar punk, followed by OBN III's in-your-face punk, and capped off by Thee Oh Sees mutant psychedelic freak-folk punk.

Twenty-four hours later, my hearing has returned to near normal.

Saturday, November 2, 2013

MFNW Day Four Retrospective


It would be unfair to compare Friday, Day 4 of MFNW, to the epic dimensions of Day 3, but that would be true of almost any day of your life.  In the scale of days of your life, there's the largely forgotten day of your birth, the unforgettable first time making love, the miraculous birth of your first child, and the totally awesome Day 3 of MFNW, in about that order of specialness.  Day 4 of MFNW wasn't at the same level as Day 3, but how can any day with performances by Animal Collective, Washed Out, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, and Ty Segall be considered anything less than awesome?

For starters, the rain of the day before had stopped. The sun still hadn't come out, however, resulting in a rather cool and cloudy, although not at all unpleasant, day. 


The music started with a 10:30 am set by The Shivas for KEXP at the Doug Fir.  Exhausted from the day before, I almost didn't go ("Who are The Shivas again?"), but at the last moment I found my energy, rallied, and made it across town in time to catch an energetic and enjoyable set from the young band, who played surf-tinged garage rock reminiscent of Austin's The Strange Boys.  


The KEXP photo nazi was still patrolling the audience forbidding people from taking any pictures at all with any type of camera, so these pictures are from www.kexp.org.


Speaking of which, KEXP also posted the entire Shivas performance on line ("Dude, I was there!"). 


I skipped breakfast to make it to the Fir by 10:30, so as soon as The Shivas set was over, I went upstairs to the Doug Fir's diner and ate some vegetarian chili and black coffee, the breakfast of champions.  The people at the next table looked familiar, and I quickly realized it was The Shiva's drummer with what I assume were her parents, and they were soon joined by the rest of the band.

After breakfast, the next band up was Georgia's own Washed Out.  Not seeing any sign of the KEXP photo nazi around, I resumed taking my own pictures (without flash, of course, in accordance with the sign by the entrance).


We previously saw Washed Out just the weekend before at Bumbershoot, but that in no way diminished the enjoyment of seeing them again a week later.  In fact, in ways, it enhanced the enjoyment.





KEXP also posted a video of the entire Washed Out set for our second "Dude-I-Was-There" moment.



The third band of the day at The Doug Fir was Seattle's Beat Connection at 2:30 pm.


We also saw Beat Connection at Bumbershoot, coincidentally on the same day as Washed Out, but that in no way etc.



Beat Connection were kind enough to again bring along their three-piece Butternut Horns section.



After Beat Connection, North Carolina's The Love Language were scheduled to play at 4:30 pm.  However, since I had just seen The Love Language the day before at the totally awesome Day 3 Marmoset party, and since there would be a 90-minute wait until their set, and since I was still dragging butt not only from Day 3 but from the entire previous week of Bumbershoot and MFNW, I left the Doug Fir to eat a more substantial meal than chili and coffee, wash up, and get ready for the evening's performances at the Pioneer Courthouse Square, Portland's "Living Room."

I had missed the Pioneer Courthouse Square sets the day before, being as I was at the totally awesome Marmoset Party, which was probably just as well, as it rained and rained hard during that time.  Day 4, however, was getting noticably cooler, and, for the only day of the entire week up in the Pacific Northwest, I had to break out the hoodie that I had packed.

So as it turns out, the first Pioneer Courthouse Square performance of MFNW 2013 for me was a band, Haerts, of whom I had never heard.



They weren't bad at all but somehow never quite clicked with me.  I couldn't quite figure out what they were doing, or where their music was supposed to be taking us.  I subsequently came to realize that part of the reason for my lack of involvement was that I was watching the show from a comfortable but distant position on the steps way toward the back of the Square, back by the food and beer vendors and the more talkative element of the audience.  My sight line was unimpeded, but that distance tends to let one be easily distracted from the music, and without a familiar song or sound to hook me in and hold my attention, it wandered and I became disaffected.  So what I'm trying to say here, Haerts, is that it wasn't you, it was me.


About those "Long Live Oregonians" signs around the stage.  At first, I thought it was just some sort of provincialism ("Hurray for us!) but I later came to learn it was the slogan for Cover Oregon, which is the state-run health insurance exchange set up under the Affordable Care Act (aka, Obamacare).  Cover Oregon were one of the co-sponsors of the festivities to encourage young people to sign up for health insurance.  None of the well documented problems in accessing the federal insurance exchange web site affected Oregon, as they were among the handful of states with the wisdom to take the initiative and set up their own exchange, as encouraged by the ACA. In fact, I've read that a full 10% of the Oregonian uninsured got coverage on the first day of eligibility.  But I digress and don't want to bother the gentle reader with reminders of political realities (meaning, that's exactly what I'm trying to do).  

After Heaerts, the next band up was Baltimore's Dan Deacon.


How to describe Dan Deacon?  His set was as much audience participation as it was artistic performance, and he encouraged the crowd to engage in barrier-breaking activities like turning around and waving at all of those people, like me, sitting on the steps toward the back of the Square.


Deacon himself performed not on the stage but down in the audience, removing yet another barrier, this time between performer and participant.


One fun feature of the set was an ersatz dance contest, wherein the dancers would randomly tag a spectator to indicate it was their turn to get up and dance to Deacon's zany electronic beats in the middle of the crowd. This meant that individuals had to spontaneously get up and do something, anything, creative and entertaining for the rest of the audience, often with very humorous results. 



I think the facial expressions of the two young women in the upper right of the picture below aptly capture the reaction of much of the audience.



After the dance contest, inhibitions were sufficiently broken down to allow just a general dance party.


After Dan Deacon, Animal Collective, another Baltimore band, headlined the Pioneer Courthouse Square set. 


We last saw Animal Collective at Atlanta's Tabernacle almost a year ago, although much of their set, including the stage design, were similar to that show last year.  That's nor a bad thing - Animal Collective put on a great show, and that night at Pioneer Courthouse Square was no exception.


However, due my distance from the stage and all of the distractions around me, it still wound up taking me nearly half of their set to finally get engaged and really appreciate their performance.  At the time, I blamed it on the sound system or on the band themselves, but I now realize it was all on me.





MFNW captured a scene from the Animal Collective set with the courthouse itself in the background, and used it as their "thank-you-and-farewell" message for the 2013 festival.  


That was the end of the Pioneer Courthouse Square sets, but that wasn't the end of the day.  After Animal Collective, I was hoping to make it across town to the club Branx to hear Wooden Indian Burial Ground, but I got there in time to hear only the last couple notes of the very last song of their set.  

No problem, because the main reason I wanted to go to Branx was to see the headliner, Portland's own Unknown Mortal Orchestra. 


Even though it was pretty chilly outside, it felt about 90 degrees inside Branx, a dark club that appeared to be illuminated by no more than two or three red, 40-watt light bulbs.  But regardless, UMO put on the best set I've heard from them, with guitarist Ruban Neilson unleashing some furious and intense guitar leads. The set felt like more of a statement about Neilson's place in the guitar-god pantheon than just another home-town concert.  Just incredible, incendiary stuff.


It's a long walk back from Branx to my hotel in NW Portland, but fortunately, Dante's, the club where I ended Day 1 (Redd Kross) and Day 2 (Murder By Death), was almost at the half-way point. Better still, as I passed, Ty Segall was playing, and I was able to flash my VIP wristband to the bouncer and walk right in past the people waiting outside in the "one leaves, one enters" stand-by line. 




An unexpected treat:  I had no idea that I was going to be able to fit this set into the day's schedule.

And that, after I walked the remaining distance back to my hotel after Segall's set, was Day 4.  Eight bands, including one of my favorites (Animal Collective), two Bumbershoot stand-outs revisited (Washed Out and Beat Connection), two new discoveries (The Shivas and Haerts), the inspired lunacy of Dan Deacon, a major statement from Unknown Mortal Orchestra, and a "surprise" (at least to me) set by Ty Segall.

Not a bad day at all.  And the rain had quit for the rest of the week. 

Friday, November 1, 2013

The Orb vs Chelsea Light Moving, Halloween Night, Atlanta


By some people's reckoning, last night, Halloween, was the final evening of Rocktober, and fittingly, there was no shortage of shows to attend, not the least of which was Saratoga Springs' Phantogram at the godforsaken Masquerade.  But that wasn't all - our old friends Big Gigantic were also at The Masquerade, while The Loft had the Rev. Horton Heat and The Basement at Graveyard Tavern had Shlomo and XXYYXX.  For a certain type of music fan, there was Leftover Salmon with Col. Bruce Hampton at Variety Playhouse, while for a whole other type of music fan, there was Sevendust with Asking Alexandria at The Tabernacle.  For the sake of completeness, I'll point out that someone called Stepdad was at Smith's Olde Bar, while Eddie's Attic had someone called The Cumberland Collective.

But even with all of these choices, I didn't go to any of the above, instead taking in two other great shows also occurring on this most epic of all nights.  To begin, downstairs from The Loft and the good Reverend Horton Heat, legendary electronic artists The Orb were playing at Vinyl.

There weren't too many people there when I arrived around 8:00, but there was a great ambient DJ layering some terrific tracks over each other.     


The Orb took over the stage a little before 9:00 and played a solid two-hour set.  At this point, the Orb consists primarily of founder Alex Paterson, assisted by collaborator Thomas Fehlmann.  Toward the center of the set, Fehlmann left the stage for a while and let Paterson cover A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules from the Centre of the Ultraworld solo, which he seemed more than capable of covering.  



As one would expect from The Orb, the songs weren't performed as separate entities, but just sort of rose up out of the mix from time to time before dissolving back into the beats, samples, and psychedelia of the rest of the non-stop set. They were more than capable of getting the audience dancing, which by the end of the set, nearly everyone, including your humble narrator, was doing, and then chilling them out a little with some of their trippier passages. 


As the band played, a thoroughly entertaining video display was projected on a large screen set up to the right of the band, showing album logos, dancers, space and sci-fi themed film clips, old silent movies, and various other imagery.  It being Halloween, anywhere from two-thirds to three-fourths of the audience were in costume, although I suspect that an Orb concert might attract its fair share of costumed audience regardless of the date.  By and large, it looked like much like a classic 90s rave, complete with glow sticks. Combined with the trippy ambient music of The Orb, the costumed dancers and the video projections all combined to create an extremely other-worldly atmosphere.  It should also be noted that the audience was extremely well-behaved, polite, and cool, with nearly everyone wearing a blissed-out smile and making room at the front of the stage for dancers instead of trying to crowd the stage as at most shows.   People would tap me on the shoulder and say things like, "Dude, I saw them back in '95 at a festival with Underworld!," or dance with me for a few minutes, or just stand next to one another and share in our mutual appreciation of the evening. 


The Orb's two-hour set wrapped up around 11:00, and although the house lights stayed down for a long time as the audience called for an encore, cheering and clapping and chanting "Orb! Orb! Orb!", they never returned to the stage.  Several of us wondered what the point was of leaving the lights down after the set if they had no intention of performing an encore. 


But I actually really didn't mind all that much, as I had places to be.  Before I had bought my ticket for The Orb, I had purchased tickets to see Thurston Moore and his band Chelsea Light Moving at The Earl, so as soon as The Orb wrapped up their set at around 11:00, I left Vinyl in Midtown and drove over to East Atlanta Village  and The Earl.

Everything worked in my favor.  From Vinyl, I headed first up Peachtree and then back down Spring, jumping on the Connector at 14th (pardon the ATL ITP jargon).  Although East Atlanta Village was pretty busy on Halloween night, I lucked out finding a parking space almost immediately from the one car in an otherwise full parking lot pulling out just as I was pulling in.  I made it into The Earl by 11:15.


When I walked in, Moore was on stage tuning up, but the band had not yet started.  I had enough time to get a beer and find a spot to watch, and then Chelsea Light Moving began playing.


We've seen Chelsea Light Moving here back in March, and Thurston Moore performing under his own name at The Goat Farm following the release of his underrated Demolished Thoughts LP, but it's always a treat to see Moore perform and it Halloween night isn't the time to overindulge with two shows, then when is?  

As you can imagine, the edgy, angst-ridden music of Chelsea Light Moving was quite a contrast from The Orb's Little Fluffy Clouds. But change is good, and Moore played a great set, concentrating on songs from their debut album, but featuring a few new numbers as well. They played several of my favorites, including Burroughs (second song of the set), Groovy and Linda, and Empires of Time, but they never did get around to my favorite, Frank O'Hara Hit.



I imagine that with all of the entertainment options available on Halloween night, not limited to all the bands playing around town, there was a lot of competition for the audience, but I was still surprised at the relatively small size of the crowd at The Earl.  It was also interesting to note that very few people in the audience at The Earl were in costume, quite the contrast with the audience at Vinyl for The Orb.  


Chelsea Light Moving wrapped up their set around midnight, and played one short encore song, with bassist Samara Lubelski on violin, before calling it a night.