The End of Rocktober: Damien Jurado at The Earl (11/17/2016) and St. Paul & The Broken Bones at The Fox (11/18/2016), Atlanta

We've got some catching up to do.  Although not previously mentioned, last Thursday night we saw Damien Jurado at The Earl.  Doug Keith opened.

Doug Keith looked familiar to us as soon as he stepped on stage, and it wasn't until after his set that we Googled his name and realized that he was the long-standing bassist and guitarist for Sharon Van Etten.  We vaguely even recall seeing hih and Heather Woods Broderick, also of Van Etten's band, open for Sharon at one of her Atlanta shows.  Thursday night, he played a very nice set of songs from his forthcoming album.  

Damien Jurado's set was probably  the best of several excellent sets we've seen from him.  He played solo without a band or any other accompaniment, and no effects pedals or other devices (he made good use of reverb and a repeater during his Saint Bartlet's tour).  Despite the austerity of the set-up, the songs were varied, interesting and inviting, and Jurado engaged in a long monologue about the personal difficulties he's experienced this year, providing some context to his songs and creating a close emotional bond with the audience. 

Damien Juarado's performances consistently rank in my Ten Best of each year, and last Thursday's performance was no exception.

On Friday night, we saw Birmingham band St. Paul & The Broken Bones at The Fox Theater. Atlanta's own MLK, Jr., High School Marching Band, the self-proclaimed Kings of Halftime, opened. 

Any show at The Fox is going to be great due to the ravishing architecture and design of the theater, and we've previously seen St. Paul before at The Fox's Egyptian Ballroom.  But last night, Paul Janeway and company had the big stage all to themselves, and filled the room nicely with their big soul and R&B sound, Janeway pacing back and forth from one end of the stage to the other when he wasn't wading into the audience. 

The band's newest album has a bit more of a pop/funk sound to it than the retro soul belter sound of their debut, but material from both albums sounded equally fine on Friday night, and all was well received by the excited audience.

St. Paul & The Broken Bones included a cover of The Beatles' I Want You (She's So Heavy) in their encore.

So, a pair of very different but both rewarding shows on two consecutive nights to take our minds, at least temporarily, off of the disappointment of this month's election.  And since we don't have another scheduled show to go to until December 7, this pair of shows is functionally an endcap to Rocktober 2016.

Kishi Bashi at Variety Playhouse, Atlanta, November 2, 2016

Of Montreal at Terminal West, Atlanta, Halloween 2016

Halloween night, what do?  I know, let's go to Terminal West and see Of Montreal!

First, we had a set by psychedelic rock band Chief Scout, which might have been enjoyable but the insane and incompetent light person at Terminal West pointed a spotlight in our face for their entire fucking set and I couldn't see a thing and were too annoyed squinting and shielding our eyes to enjoy the music.  Here's about the best picture that we got:

Next time, Chief Scout, when we don't have the asshole light guy to deal with.  Meanwhile, in Augmented Reality, a cat somehow got on stage.

Brooklyn's TEEN was up next,dressed for some reason, as unicorns.

We've seen TEEN several times before although this was the first time this year, and it seems like between each show we keep forgetting what a great set they put on, and how confident and commanding a frontperson Kristina "Teeny" Lieberson is.  This show would have been a great night if it ended at the conclusion of the TEEN set, but there was still a lot more to come.  A lot more.

Of Montreal opened with Different For Girls (and ended their set with a short reprise of the same song), followed by Let's Relate, two songs from their new Innocence Reaches LP.  After that, it all becomes kind of a blur in my memory, what with the light show, the stage set, the dancers, the giant opossum, someone dressed as Donald Trump dressed as a human dildo, Kevin Barnes' costume changes, and, well, Kevin Barnes.

    

The audience, needless to say, was worked up into a frenzy, and everyone's sensory processing systems were in a state of high overload.

So how do you end a set like this?  Well, if you're Kevin Barnes and Of Montreal, you do an encore cover of David Bowie's The Man Who Sold The World, which somehow manages to morph into Prince's 1999.  It was that kind of night.  

A couple years ago, when we saw The Orb on Halloween night, we thought we had found the perfect Halloween night show.  Nothing against The Orb, but now that we've seen Of Montreal, we now know better.

The Orb's Adventures Beyond Variety Playhouse, Atlanta, October 22, 2016

Last Saturday night, October 22, The Orb performed at the newly renovated Variety Playhouse, with DJs/producers Chris Grass and Mark Farina.  Here's some pictures and sound samples.  Text would be superfluous.

 

Chris Grass

Mark Farina

Hiss Golden Messenger at Terminal West, Atlanta, October 16, 2016

The challenges of Rocktober:  go to a third consecutive show for the third consecutive night, then the next day, sit at the computer and try to think of something different and original to say, something we haven't already said or posted about a show before or at least for the past couple of nights.  Story about what time we got there and how many people were or weren't already present?  Nope, already done that a bunch of times.  Start with over-the-top praise of the headlining performer?  Been there, done that.  Run the pictures through the Prisma app and see how they look? Sure, why not?, again.  I know, post a pic of a Pokemon on the stage.

Alert readers will know we've done that before, too.  

Look man, just relax, don't try so hard, and just post a picture of the opening act, The Dead Tongues.

See?  That wasn't so hard, and now that we've posted that, we recall that it was an enjoyable set in the vein of the previous night's Adam Torres show - an acoustic singer-songwriter for people who don't necessarily like acoustic singer-songwriters.  See?  Now we're posting, and just like last night's show, we're off to a good start.

Hiss Golden Messenger has long been on our bucket list of shows we've wanted to see, but for various reasons, every time he came to town, we already had tickets to other shows, or were out of town ourselves, or something else would happen and we never made it.  We finally checked the box last night and as extra bonus points, frontman M.C. Taylor had a full band and wasn't performing solo, as he's often want to do. 

His backup band included The Dead Tongues on guitar and North Carolina folk-rock fixture Phil Cook (above and below) on Wurlitzer and guitar.

Overall, it was a great set of country-rock, Southern rock, 70s roots rock, and various other guitar-based musics, all skillfully delivered with Taylor's warm, accommodating vocals.

See?  That wasn't so hard, was it?.  Writer's block is what you make of it.  Now, before we get too cute or clever, we'll close this post out with a video of a song by headliner Hiss Golden Messenger and leave it at that, and maybe we can think of something more clever to say by the time of our next show (which thankfully isn't tonight - we need our sleep).

Adam Torres, Thor & Friends at Eddie's Attic, Atlanta, October 15, 2016

It's not entirely unusual for us to go to a show for the opening act rather than the headliner, and last night's show was as good an example of that as any, although as it turned out, we really liked the headliner, too.

The opener and our reason our heading out was percussionist extraordinaire Thor Harris, performing as Thor & Friends.  We've seen Thor in the past performing with Shearwater and with Swans, two very different bands, and last night Thor & Friends put on a transcendent show of what might be called new music or minimalism, in the tradition of Steve Reich and Philip Glass. 

The music primarily centered around the sound of three marimba-like mallet instruments, apparently hand-made by Mr. Harris himself.  The mesmerizing sound of th epercussion was accompanied by Adam Torres, the headliner, on guitar, Aisha Burns on violin, and Dailey Toliver on bass and Wurlitzer, with Thor Harris contributing some occasional oboe.  Of particular note was Austin's Peggy Ghorbani playing, which, as Thor helpfully pointed out, included a solo playing in two different time signatures at the same time. 

Here they are in Austin at something called The Museum of Human Achievement (but looks suspiciously like someone's garage), playing with special guest Amanda Palmer.

The compositions were highly varied in texture and tempo, and one number, Grass Fire!, stood out due to both Thor's set up and introduction and to he opportunity for audience participation. 

We hadn't heard of headliner Adam Torres before, but were duly impressed by his AllMusic profile. During some of his stage banter, THor said that he typically didn't find singer/songwriters very interesting, but when he was dragged by friends to hear Torres in Austin, he had no choice but to walk up to to him after the show and ask, "How can I be of service?" Torres is the acoustic-based singer/songwriter for those who don't particularly care for acoustic-based singer/songwriters. 

Added bonus points: his backing band was Thor on drums, Aisha on violin, and Dailey on bass and keys.

Set standout was probably the song Juniper Arms, written about a near-fatal bicycle accident and its aftermath.

The falsetto, which is not used on all songs, is startling when first heard live, and Torres used it well to dramatic effect during the set.

It was a great night of artistic and enlightening music, and one of the most intriguing shows we've seen at Eddie's Attic (and between Nils Cline, Joseph Arthur, and Family Crest, we've seen some intriguing shows there).