Of Monsters And Men in Rome

Another set from La Blogotheque, this time featuring Of Monsters and Men in Rome.

Mike Doughty, Terminal West, Atlanta, November 20, 2013

Last night, Mike Doughty, formerly of the band Soul Coughing, performed at Terminal West.  New York's Moon Hooch opened.

Moon Hooch are a trio fronted by two guys on saxophones and backed by a drummer.  On first impression, their dance-oriented music is not dissimilar to moments of Big Gigantic, but unlike Big Gigantic, whose music I once described as consisting of all climaxes without any build up or release, Moon Hooch aren't afraid to vary their approach and to throw in some skwonk and experimentation. In fact, I don't think they're afraid of much of anything.   

It was my first time hearing Moon Hooch, and I enjoyed them a lot.  EDM meets avant-jazz, with a little old-fashioned funk thrown into the very modern mix.

The equally eclectic Mike Doughty headlined.  Doughty's music exists at the intersection of rock, hip-hop, and post-beat jazz.  He was the front man for the former band Soul Coughing, and one of my favorite concerts of the 1990s was Soul Coughing's free outdoor set in front of the old Criminal Records location on Moreland Avenue in Little Five Points.  I got a new printer just yesterday, and was able to scan in some of my old photographs of that set.  I'm not sure of the year of these pictures, but I believe it was about 1993 or so.  

Although I loved the Ruby Vroom album and their subsequent recordings, after that show, I didn't see Doughty again until 20 years later when I saw him, again at Criminal Records (although now at the new location), during last September's L5Fest.

During the L5Fest, he performed Soul Coughing songs solo, accompanied only by his acoustic guitar.  Last night, he had a band, or at least a very able drummer and an acoustic bassist, and he played electric guitar, keyboards, and turntables. It was all quite different, although equally enjoyable, from his L5Fest performance, and he included Screenwriters Blues in his set list. 

So, since L5Fest was the beginning of the surfeit of seasonal concerts that I call "Rocktober," and one of the highlights of L5Fest was Mike Doughty's performance, it seems appropriate to end Rocktober with this bookend, second performance by Doughty.  In other words, that's it for the longest Rocktober yet.

In a related note, I almost didn't go last night.  I got lazy and convinced myself that I just saw Doughty two months ago and it wouldn't be worth the $25 ticket to see him again so soon.  But I rallied at the last minute, but even driving there I decided that if I couldn't find a parking space in the nearest lot to Terminal West, I would just turn around and go home.  When I pulled into that nearest lot, it was full and several other cars that also couldn't park were turning around and leaving.  I turned around too, ready to go home, when suddenly, as if from nowhere, a young woman walked back to her car, got in and drove away, suddenly leaving the only open space in the lot right in front of me. Well, if the cosmos was going to be that obvious in its message that I should go, who was I to say "no?"     

Inti Rowland

I could sum up 100% of what I know about Inti Rowland in two sentences:

1.  He's opening for Hilang Child in London next week.

2.  He's one of the people in this video, probably not the woman on violin.

It's pretty sweet music, though.  Check it out.

Fruit Bats

In memorium, here are The Fruit Bats from a 2011 session for Oregon Public Broadcasting.

Yeah, Sure, Whatever. But what's Damien Jurado Been Up To?

This:

La Bulat

Basia Bulat at The Earl, April 30, 2013

Oh look. Our old friend, Basia Bulat, recorded a Take Away Show in Toronto for Paris' La Blogotheque. According to La Blogotheque, she performed "une jolie chanson qui vous trompe d’abord par sa joliesse, une qui vous plonge immédiatement plus profond, jusqu’à ce que vous donniez plus que ce que vous quémandiez. Et avant que ce ne soit terminé, vous êtes changé. en mieux." (a pretty song that fools you at first with its appearance, one that immediately draws you further in until you are giving more than you bargained for, and before it is over, you are changed for the better.)

Spark & Whisper At The 142 Throckmorton

According to researchers Stephen Bank and Michael Kahn, siblings are the central molding factor involved in the development of one's personality, more so even than that of parental influence. Their view is that "brothers and sisters, whether the relationship has been contentious or calm, satisfying or frustrating, filled with conflict or deeply comforting, can provide the touchstones and templates which mold each other’s lives."

As evidence, I offer my kid sister, with whom I haven't shared a roof since at least 1974, and who now lives on the opposite side of the great North American continent from me, apparently in a house full of children and living a life that really couldn't be more different than mine.  Since the templates that mold our lives work at a subconscious level, I can't say if I impacted her or she I, or if we both molded each other, but sometime around the turn of the Millennium and totally independent of each another, we both became Buddhists at about the same time, even though there were no Buddhist influences in our upbringing.  Could it have been that old copy of Motorcycle Maintenance I left laying around the house, or were we both left wanting the same thing that Eastern wisdom can provide?

As further evidence of our mutual templates, here are some videos of her Marin County friends, the fine folk duo of Spark & Whisper, that she emailed me this week