Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Poliça at Terminal West, Atlanta, October 6, 2014


Poliça played Terminal West last night.  The funny thing is I almost didn't go.

Generally speaking, it's very difficult for me to go to shows on Monday nights, and we just saw Poliça at Bumbershoot in Seattle.  I reasoned that in order to realize cost savings by going all the way to the Pacific Northwest for a festival, it would make sense to pass up the local appearances by bands that I've seen, and save my money just for those that I didn't.  But then I realized that by that logic, I would be paying to go to festivals in order to miss going to local show that I wanted to see.  That didn't make any sense, and when the Monday Night Meditation Group got out early, I suddenly realized that I had plenty of time to drive over to Terminal West before the first band even came on stage.

So I did.


And I'm glad I did because I really liked the first band, Web of Sunsets.  Web of Sunsets play dreamy folk rock with just the right amount of experimentation and Velvet-style drone.  Occasional samples of ambient nature sounds were played during their set, and most of the songs feature three guitars, but occasionally one or the other members might turn to the keys.  Here's a little taste:



Here's something I've never seen before - during one song, one of the two Sarahs in the band (apparently they have a "Sara" and a "Sarah"), played harmonica with the harp pressed against the strings of her electric guitar, so that you could hear the harmonica through the pickups, but you could also hear the vibrating of the guitar strings.  Cool.


I look forward to hearing more from Web of Sunsets, but last night we were out to hear Poliça, and were we ever rewarded.  It was probably the most energetic, charismatic performance I've seen from the band yet, and Channy Leaneagh was lovely as always.


The set rewarded close attention but kept everyone engaged with their two-drum attack.  I never realized before last night how much bassist Chris Bierden contributes to Poliça's sound, not only with his bass playing, but how much harmony he contributes, even filling in the higher registers for many vocal parts and even soloing on some passages that I had just assumed were Channy. 



They started their set with Bierden's thundering bass for Amongster, and ended the set with Wandering Star and their encore with Dark Star.  In between, it was all one happy blur to me.




Sunday, October 5, 2014

Concert Alert



This one snuck up on me:  Paolo Nutini is apparently not a delicious European chocolate spread (that's Nutella), but instead a neo-soul singer/songwriter.  He will be performing at Variety Playhouse on Tuesday, October 7.  Baraboo, Wisconsin's Phox are opening.

I'm pretty sure I don't understand about 70% of this video, but I commend Nutini for covering such dark subject matter, and not just releasing the standard rock-video fare.

Update:  Apparently, the show has already sold out, or at least "tickets are not available."

Saturday, October 4, 2014

J Mascis at Terminal West, Atlanta, October 3, 2014


Rocktober continues.  Last night, it was Dinosaur Jr.'s J Mascis performing a solo set at Terminal West.  But first, Luluc opened.  



I first heard Brooklyn-by-way-of-Australia's Luluc this summer, and was looking forward to hearing them live.  I've previously posted a song of theirs here, and here's a video of them performing that song live.


I had imagined a fuller band based on the few recorded songs that I've heard, but the duo of Zoe and Steve performed just fine as, well, a duo,  It was their first appearance in Atlanta, and the audience seemed to appreciate them as much as I.    


Zoe announced that this was Day 4 of their tour with J Mascis.  My unreliable cell phone camera was being even more unreliable than usual and most of the few photos that I did take managed to somehow get corrupted in storage, so instead of posting my own pictures, here's a great pic from Luluc's Facebook page of Zoe and J.



After a long break following Luluc's set, Mascis strolled onto the stage, sat down, looked around, and then strolled back off to fetch his beverages for the set.  Once be did settle in, though, he treated the audience to a magnificent set of solo tunes.


The set couldn't have been more casual,  J only muttered a few words of stage banter, but instead treated the audience to the kind of set one might expect if one had dropped into a friend's living room on a summer afternoon,  He jumped from song to song without any introduction or segue, sometimes stopping abruptly to re-tune or to  start a riff over.  He made good use of his pedal board, and even though he only played an acoustic guitar and didn't have his customary bank of Marshall amps behind him, the sounds that he produced sounded every bit as electric as a Dinosaur Jr. solo.


I recognized a few D.J. songs in the set, and he played other songs from his new solo album. Covers included Mazzy Star's Fade Into You and, as my camera started to die, for his one-song encore, he performed The Cure's Just Like Heaven.



Here's a video, I don't know, maybe the video, to Every Morning, the second track from his new solo album.



Anyhow, if you're anything like me, you're probably spending the rest of your day watching the Funny or Die videos on auto-play, so I won't say anything more than "enjoy."

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Foxygen at The Loft, Atlanta, October 1, 2014


After a long, hot summer, it seems that Rocktober is finally here.  Officially, the festivities kicked off last weekend with the East Atlanta Strut, but the schedule began in earnest last night with an exciting performance by Foxygen at The Loft.  Friends of the band Dub Thompson opened.


Dub Thonpson were garage-rock anarchists, 19-year-olds creating mayhem on stage just for the lulz and the sheer fun of it.  It was fun to watch too, even though the lead guitarist kept having problems with his amp shorting out.  It sounded to me like a loose wire or connection somewhere between his guitar and his amp,  and even though he and the soundman kept trying to change things up, it never really worked out.  Five seconds into a guitar solo, and then silence (at least from his guitar - the rest of the band kept going).  Jonathan Rado of Foxygen even came on stage to offer them his guitar, but it didn't improve things.  I felt bad for them, but they looked like they were taking it in stride, sort of like, "Cool another fucked up story to tell when we get back home."  Nothing like some cowbell to fill in for that guitar part you'd been practicing all month.


But the evening was really all about Foxygen.  We last saw the band early last year at 529 opening up for Unknown Mortal Orchestra (Wampire played that night, too), and since then, the band's gone through some pretty well chronicled ups and downs.  Frankly, I thought that they wouldn't have lasted long enough for us to ever see them again, but here they were back again, with a new, ambitious double album about to drop.


There have definitely been some changes since the 2013 version of Foxygen.  Back then, touring behind We Are the 21-Century Ambassadors of Peace and Magic, they seemed to be either channeling or mocking (or both - your pick) late 60s psychedelic rock, even very specifically Satanic Majesties Request-era Rolling Stones.  Now they seem to be taking on 70s glam rock, and right from the very start singer Sam France rushed the stage (and jumped right into the audience) looking like a cross between a young Iggy Stooge, Hunky Dory-era Bowie, and 70s, Miss You-era Mick Jagger. The eight-person band also now includes three backup singers instead of just the one from 2013. In addition to singing backup, they danced to choreographed moves and significantly increased the energy level of the performance.  




It didn't take France long at all to take off his shirt, and he was constantly lunging at the audience, kicking his legs over the crowd, falling off the stage, and generally terrorizing the front row of the audience.  Since I was one of those in the front row, there were more than a few times when we were nose-to-nose, mere inches apart, as he sang his songs and danced his moves, which at times was frankly not a little terrifying.  The crowd was delirious, the sexual vibe was almost palpable, and in many ways this was one of the most exciting flat-out heart of rock 'n' roll shows I've seen in a long while.  It's hard to imagine trying to maintain the energy to do this night after night for an entire tour, and I wish them luck.


I can't remember the set list, but they opened (I think) with How Can You Really? from the new album, followed by On Blue Mountain from 21st Century Ambassadors.  They mixed old and new songs all night, and included most of my favorites including No Destruction and Shuggie, but interestingly they didn't play San Francisco, perhaps their best-known song.


KEXP has some really fine-sounding videos of a studio session by Foxygen, but they don't even begin to capture the anarchy and energy of their performance in front of an audience.  The band clearly wasn't interested in providing the audience with an evening of faithful reproductions of their albums, but in whipping themselves and the audience up into as much of a frenzy as they could.  This clip from Neumos' in Seattle gets a bit closer to what we experienced last night.


The new album, titled  . . . And Star Power, doesn't drop for a couple more weeks, but they were selling advance copies at the merch table.   I bought one after the show, vinyl, and can already tell that I'll be unraveling its mysteries for some time.  

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

New Pornographers


The New Pornographers will be playing Atlanta's Buckhead Theater on November 6.