Why do things like this happen? On Sunday, May 7, Brooklyn's San Fermin will be playing Atlanta's Park Tavern for a must-see, must-go show. Meanwhile, that same evening, San Fransisco's The Family Crest will be playing Aisle 5 for another must-see, must-go show.
I'd say, "go to both," but doors open for both shows at 7:00 pm and the two venues are nowhere near each other.
I've only been to three shows so far all year (maybe four after tonight), and now I have to choose between two shows on a single night.
Okay, so I've been busy these past couple of days, but at least right now, this minute, I have time to cover last Friday night's show at Aisle 5 by Waxahatchee, the music project of Alabama's Katie Crutchfield. Katie's twin sister, Alison Crutchfield, who is also a member of Waxahatchee, opened, so this was basically An Evening With The Crutchfield Sisters.
I didn't manage to get any pictures of her, but for some reason I was fascinated watching Alison's drummer, Katherine, perform. She played a simple kit with just one snare, one floor tom, a bass drum and two cymbals, but she got a lot of sound from her simple kit and generally displayed a sort of natural, effortless rock 'n' roll glamour as she carried the set on her young shoulders. I'm not taking anything away from Alison and I don't want my praise for one performer to be misconstrued as a put-down of other performers, but I'm as anxious to see Katherine perform again as I am either of the Crutchfield sisters.
Katie put on a fine Waxahatchee show, with sister Alison on back-up vocals and guitar, and a bassist and drummer (not Katherine, alas!, but the young man filled in finely). To be perfectly honest, I'm not that familiar with Waxahatchee's songs and I'm not going to pretend that I am now, but I was impressed that some of her songs brought several young women in the audience around me to tears.
This doesn't seem to be one of her sadder songs:
For her encore, Katie took the stage alone, just her voice and an electric guitar, and performed several songs solo, reminding me a little of a somewhat poppier Julien Baker.
The affection her audience had for her was apparent, as was the rapport she had with the crowd. In all, it was a more-than-pleasant evening, and a nice diversion from all of this work under which I'm so buried right now.
Between back-to-back shows and the weekly "Shows This Week" updates, I'm in danger of falling behind on reviews of actual live performances, so before I forget, here's a review of the superb lineup that played at Aisle 5 last Saturday night, starting with Big Thief.
We saw Big Thief open for Here We Go Magic last year and really liked their sound, but if anything they sounded even tighter and even better last Saturday night than they did last November. She appears to be fine, but apparently frontperson Adrianne Lenker ruptured an eardrum a couple of nights ago, and had to wear those big, clunky headphones over her ears for the set, although you wouldn't have noticed anything off about her playing.
As usual, I managed to get a spot in the audience right in front of the stage, but that made photography really difficult because a stage spotlight was right in my face for most of the show. So instead of uploading a bunch of photographs of the show, instead here are some videos so you can hear Big Thief's music for yourself.
Big Thief officially became one of my favorite bands by the end of their performance. They did everything from folk rock to quirky indie to some swirling psych, and even had their guitarist sing some sort of a capella murder ballad. It was all very cool, and Adrianna Lenker continues to impress me more and more as a more than proficient rock frontwoman.
I hadn't heard, or heard of, the middle band Saturday night, New York's Sunflower Bean, and in previewing the show I had to rely on the band's official, record-label bio, which said, "Sunflower Bean find magic within friction. The New York trio's full-length debut album, Human Ceremony [Fat Possum Records], emerges at the intersection of dreamy modern psychedelica and urgent fuzzed-out bliss. That push-and-pull colors the aural tapestry of these three musicians—Jacob Faber [drums], Julia Cumming [vocals/bass], and Nick Kivlen [vocals/guitars]."
That turned out to be more accurate than I would have guessed, as it was really hard to pigeon-hole the bands music into any specific genre. Sure, you could here elements of dream-pop and shoegaze, but it lacked the soft-focus gauziness of those genres and had a hard edge reminiscent of punk, although it certainly wasn't punk rock, and a fondness for crushing riffs reminiscent of the best metal bands, although it certainly wasn't metal, either. In short, I really liked them and they tore up the stage with an exciting and explosive live set.
Here are a few of the young band's genre-bending videos, including the Metric-esque Wall Watcher, and isn't it cool that they named a song Tame Impala? (Tame Impala have a song called Led Zeppelin after all, so they're only fair game). For an idea of how genre-free the band is, notice how the song Tame Impala alternates between poppy girl-band punk and psych rock before descending into some tasty near-doom metal riffage worthy of Black Mountain at around the 3:00-minute mark.
On the other hand, headliners Yuck are very genre specific, namely 90s-style fuzzed out alt-rock. Their music is much more song-oriented than Sunflower Bean's jam-prone compositions, and Yuck bring a surprising melodiousness to their lo-fi grunge, with the chord changes themselves often the hooks to their songs. While they weren't as mind-blowing as Sunflower Bean, one could find easy comfort in their familiar tunes, their tried-and-true approaches to alt rock, and their casual professionalism and on-stage self-assurance.
Yuck have a fine new album out, Stranger Things, and on Saturday night they opened their set with the terrific one-two punch of the album openers, Hold Me Closer and Cannonball. followed by other songs from that album and their previous two records. They don't yet have any videos out of their new songs, other than a few, static audio-only clips, so here's that opening set of songs in Soundcloud widgets.
As has been noted on this blog, last Saturday night had more great bands playing in Atlanta than often play here in a month. Given the inevitable disappointment of not being able to see and hear them all, I think the highly diverse lineup of Big Thief, Sunflower Bean, and Yuck was the best choice of the night.
More difficult Rocktober decisions to make: on Tuesday, October 29, Peaches will be performing at Terminal West, MDW favorite Jonathan Richman will be performing at the 40-Watt in Athens, and The Mynabirds will be performing at Aisle 5.
While we're disappointed that Richman won't be performing in Atlanta on this tour, a mid-week road trip to Athens for an evening show can be brutal, so the choice comes down to Peaches vs. Mynabirds, and this video may very well have tipped the scales in favor of Laura Burhenn and company.
