Shaky Knees Retrospective, Day 2 Part Two

Okay, we're back to reviewing last weekend's Shaky Knees festival now.  Last we talked, we were at the Ponce de Leon Stage having enjoyed a belated but rewarding set by Shaky Knees.  As the crowd filed away from the Ponce stage to parts unknown (Deer Tick? Wild Nothing?), we took advantage of the empty space and grabbed a good spot near the front of the stage to wait the short time between sets for Phosphorescent to take the stage (a short wait since Shaky Graves had a late start due to a power failure and was allowed to run late).  Before too long, we were rewarded for our patience with a great spot to watch and hear

Phosphorescent (Ponce de Leon Stage)

Phosphorescent, of course, is Athens, Georgia resident Matthew Houck, but the audience was having fun during his set by enthusiastically calling out "Keyboards!" and insisting on a solo from Jo Schornikow.

Houck conceded, of course, but that only led to more calls for solos from "Bass Guy!" and "Steel Guitar Man!" and even "Auxilliary Percussion Guy!"  It was all done, and received on stage, in friendly good cheer, and as a measure of the warm rapport between the musicians and the audience.

Other than the song It's Hard To Be Humble When You're From Alabama which pretty much requires a horn section, Houck performed everything you'd want to head form a Phosphorescent set, including stand-outs Los Angeles, Song For Zula, and Ride On/Right On as the three-song set closer.

After Phosphorescent, we stayed at the Ponce stage again, and got an even slightly better, almost front row, position to watch

The Decemberists (Ponce Stage) 

We saw The Decemberists (twice) last year during their two-night stand at The Tabernacle, and their stage looked similar to that show, although their set list included fewer songs from their recent What A Terrible World, What A Beautiful World, but instead reached throughout their discography, opening with a medley from The Hazards of Love, and including The Crane's Wife Parts 1, 2 and 3, Calamity Song and Down By the Water from The King Is Dead, and closing, as always, with The Mariner's Revenge Song.

The Decemberists are one of our favorites, so perhaps we're prejudiced, but their set stands out to us now as one of the highlights of this year's Shaky Knees festival

After The Decemberists, we finally left the Ponce Stage (we had been encamped there for almost five hours), and headed for the Peachtree Stage and the comforts of the VIP pavilion (free beer!) for

My Morning Jacket (Peachtree Stage)

By the time we made it over there, the band was already in full gear.  Of course, arriving late we weren't able to get as close as these photographs suggest (it's called telephoto lens, folks), and were still in a Decemberist frame of mind, so despite Jim James' best efforts and the steam jets fired off during songs and the confetti cannons and all of the other bells and whistles of a My Morning Jacket set, we never quite connected.  

Alert readers will recall that back in 2012 we saw MMJ in the Oregon countryside at a McMenamin's winery on the lower flanks of Mount Hood and were blown away, considering it one of the best shows we saw all year.  We bring this up to remind the reader that we're fans, but after a long day in the sun and the emotional experience of back-to-back-to-back sets by Shaky Graves, Phosphorescent, and The Decemberists, it was hard to get on board the already run-away locomotive that was the MMJ set.  It's us, not you, and by the time they got around to covering Purple Rain, it was time for us to leave, although we were still able to enjoy State of the Art (A.E.I.O.U.) from the street outside the festival as we left.

They didn't perform Holdin'  On To Black Metal, another song which, like Phosphorescent's It's Hard To Be Humble, pretty much requires a horn section, but here's a video of My Morning Jacket performing that song anyway, and what the hell, as long as we're at it, here's Phosphorescent as well.

So that was it for Day 2, two days under our belts and one to go.  I hope we can cover that last day over this weekend.  Meanwhile, here's your parting shot:

Phosphorescent and Caveman at Center Stage, Atlanta, January 25, 2014

Photo by Jon Whittaker

Last evening, Alabama-to-Brooklyn transplant Phosphorescent played Atlanta's Center Stage, touring behind his fine new album, Muchacho.  But before we get to that, Brooklyn's Caveman opened.

Caveman are an excellent band, headliners in the own right, and we've seen them before, once headlining The Drunken Unicorn with Pure Bathing Culture opening, and once at The Earl opening for Here We Go Magic.  They play shimmering dream-pop about as well as anyone, and it's easy to get lost in the glimmering, ethereal layers of their music.  I like these guys, a lot, and would have come to the show even without the evening's headliners.

Caveman added an additional percussionist to the band since I've last seen them, which only makes the pounding, tribal rhythms of their music sound even more urgent.  

Frontman Matthew Iwanusa had also grown a beard since last April's show at the Unicorn.

Caveman played a 45-minute set, and headliner Phosphorescent took 45 minutes to take the stage following Caveman's set.  That might have been annoying, but Phosphorescent had set up perhaps the most beautiful stage I've seen since Washed Out, possibly since Purity Ring, complete with flowers and dozens of candles, as well as several fragrant sticks of incense. The soothing quality of the flowers and incense made the time pass by pleasantly, and eventually Matthew Houck led the band onto the stage.

Houck was dressed in western gear, complete with cowboy hat, mariachi jacket, and golden boots that everyone around me were falling all over themselves trying to photograph whenever he stepped out from behind the monitor.  My boot pics came out blurred (see the Flickr set for proof), but promoter The Bowery posted some pretty good pictures by Jon Whittaker on Facebook (see top of this post).  

The hat and jacket came off when Houck sang his stand-out Song for Zula.  

After Zula and Ride On/Right On, the band left the stage and Houck performed several songs solo, both on electric piano and on guitar.

The solo guitar set had the Center Stage audience spellbound and totally quiet, especially on the song MyDove/My Lamb, which culminated in a lovely looped guitar and vocal phrase played over and over, each time with Houch adding additional layers, as it transmorgified into a bizarre, pained expression of heartache and remorse.  

Phosphorescent played a lengthy encore, at least four or five songs. In all, it was a joyous and uplifting evening, and Houck proved his credentials as a Southern rock troubador of the highest order.

Since the five-piece band that backed Houck last night didn't include a horn section, Phosphorescent didn't play my favorite of their songs, so I'll just go ahead and post it here.

Best Songs of 2013

As for the best songs of 2013, far be it from me to try and pick them.  My favorites change day to day, mood to mood, and I'm psychologically and emotionally incapable of singling out the individual "best" songs of the year and saying, "Here, these songs are better than those songs."

So instead I'll leave it up to the KEXP Seattle DJs, who know a thing or two about music, to pick out the favorites.  Above is a podcast of DJ Kevin Cole's "Greatest F'ing Songs" of 2013. Cole's picks, and the tracklist to his podcast, are:

1. John Grant - GMF 
2. Phosphorescent - Song For Zula
3. Sin Fang - Look At The Light
4. Thee Oh Sees - I Come From The Mountain 
5. Mind Spiders - Inside You 
6. Parquet Courts - Borrowed Time 
7. Lucius - Turn It Around 
8. The Dirtbombs - Jump And Shout 
9. Cloud Cult - Good Friend 
10. Courtney Barnett - History Eraser 
11. Foxygen - No Destruction 
12. Volcano Choir - Byegone 
13. Laura Marling - Where Can I Go?
14. Julianna Barwick - One Half

I've got no quarrels with that list, but if your taste runs more to blues and traditional American roots rock, here's DJ Greg Vandy's "favorite things" from 2013, which includes some bona fide rockers, some blues, some folk, and even a few murder ballads:

1. Preservation Hall Jazz Band - That's It!
2. Courtney Barnett - Avant Gardener
3. Case Studies - Driving East, and Through Her
4. Parquet Courts - Stoned and Starving
5. La Luz - Morning High
6. Foxygen - No Destruction
7. The Foghorns - Ain't I A Man
8. Banditos - Lone Gone, Anyway
9. The Crow Quill Night Owls - On The Road Again
10. Deer Tick - In Our Time
11. Los Colognes - My Doorway's Open
12. Andrew Combs - Emily
13. Cass McCombs - There Can Be Only One
14. Laura Marling - Master Hunter
15. Phosphorescent - Muchacho's Tune
16. Valerie June - Twisted & Twined
17. Luke Winslow King - Ella Speed
18. Kacy & Clayton - Henry Martin
19. The Deep Dark Woods - A Voice Is Calling
20. The Moondoggies - One More Chance