Ages & Ages at Vinyl, Atlanta, September 30, 2016

Last night, Portland's Ages & Ages played Vinyl at Center Stage.  Where were you?

We've said it here before and we'll say it again - we can't tell which of the bands we like are popular and likely to sell out and which one are obscure and known to only a relative few.  We don't listen to the radio much, and don't know a lot of other people who share our enthusiasm and taste for music, so we don't know if everybody and their brothers will be going to the Ages & Ages show and it will be a sell-out, or if no one will be there and we'll have the floor to ourselves.  To be on the safe side, we bought tickets well in advance, as the band's received a lot of good reviews and endorsements from the usual music web sites, they've played a Tiny Desk Concert, comments are very enthusiastic on their YouTube page, etc.  However, being lazy and a little more than run-down on Friday night after a hard week at work, we didn't rush out to be the first in line for when the doors opened at 8:00, instead pulling up to the venue at about 8:30 or so.

We were dismayed to see a large crowd already gathered on the sidewalk in front of Vinyl when we pulled up. Worse, the parking deck was full and we had to park in the overflow parking lot a block away.  There was no line at the door but a lot of people milling about outside the venue, and when we finally got through the doors at Vinyl, we saw there there was almost no one inside.  The crowd, as it turned out, was there for mixed-martial arts fighting at the adjacent Center Stage - a totally different audience, mostly from out of town, "way out of town," according to the Vinyl bartender, who said they all drive to the fight events.  "None of them take Uber."

So anyway, long story, and a long-winded way to say we were surprised at how few people were there to hear a band as great as Ages & Ages.  But first, Atlanta's Clavvs opened.  Clavvs are the alt-pop duo of Amber Renee and Graham Marsh - she sings, he produces the beats in a manner not dissimilar to a hip-hop MC and DJ.

They were pretty good, and man, can Amber sing. A sizable percentage of the small audience that was there seemed to be present just to support Clavvs, wearing band t-shirts as they were and hanging around the Clavvs side of the merch table.

Anyway, around 10-ish or so, Ages & Ages took the stage and opened their set with They Want More, the opening track of their great new album, Something To Ruin.

They played most of the new album, as well as some older favorites, including Divisionary (Do The Right Thing) to close their set.  The singing and harmonies were excellent and uplifting, and I don't think there was anyone in the audience not smiling by the end of the set.

For All Of My Enemies, the band lined up away from the microphones to sing a cappella and unamplified, letting the audience hear their actual voices.  Frontman Tim Perry occasionally wandered away from the mic as well to sing his solo parts directly to the small audience.

For their encore, the band left the stage and played in the middle of the audience.  This is not completely unique, and we've seen other bands do this as well (Lost In The Trees comes to mind), but given the rapport the band had achieved with the audience, it seemed like a particularly intimate moment.

The sad thing is the picture above captures about 50% of the audience.

Look, I know Project Pabst is Saturday in East Atlanta Village and a lot of people are resting up for the day-long festival, but come on people, if we don't support great bands like Ages & Ages when they come through Atlanta, these bands won't come through any more.  We're already seeing a pattern of touring bands avoiding the American South in general, and we don't want to see this trend continue, do we?  

Okay, we're off of our soap box.  What else was there?  Oh yes, this was Ages & Ages first performance in Atlanta - they've passed through once before to record a set at Paste Magazine in Decatur, but this was their first actual show.  We've seen them before, once at Bumbershoot in Seattle in 2011 and later, we think, at MFNW (RIP), but our age-addled minds can't recall the exact venue or year.  Also, Tim Perry totally won us over last night when he told a story about participating in a week-long meditation retreat (something we've done several times), and was hearing people alternately whining and bragging through the thin walls of the retreat center (which we've also experienced).  We had a feeling that the level of sincerity and intimacy the band displays had to be inspired by some contemplative practice or another.  One of us!

So anyway, a wonderful show by a wonderful band that made for a magical evening.  We were enchanted at Bumbershoot 2011 when we first heard them, and the charm last night was no less than that first evening.

Little Green Cars at Vinyl, Atlanta, April 16, 2016

Last Saturday, on a delightful Georgia spring evening, the Irish folk-pop band Little Green Cars played at Vinyl in midtown's Center Stage complex.  But first, Minneapolis' John Mark Nelson performed.

I really liked the opener.  They played well-crafted indie rock songs with an occasional funky touch without sounding contrived or derivative.  And people from the midwest are so polite - Nelson went out of his way several times to sincerely tell the audience how pleased he was that we were there and how happy he was to be playing for us.  It was a good set by some nice people, and I wish them the very best.

Dublin's Little Green Cars write anthemic folk-rock songs in the tradition of The Head And The Heart and The Lumineers, and like those two bands, have attracted a number of ardent followers.  I once heard someone (I don't remember who) from The Grateful Dead once say that the Dead's music was a lot like licorice - not everyone likes it, but those that do like it a lot.  It's the same way, I think, with anthemic folk-rock bands.

They're very good with their harmonies and have two fine lead vocalists and at least two good backup singers, but their problem is that large parts of most of their songs consists of everybody singing in unison as loudly and enthusiastically as they can, which doesn't really leave them anywhere to go from there.  After Spinal Tap turns their amps up to "11," is anyone really content to hear them play at a mere "10" again, much less "9"?  It's the same with the four-part harmonies - after four sincere Dubliners sing their hearts out in unison, the solo passages can sound a bit uninspired by contrast. I don't mean to complain, and there was certainly nothing unpleasant about their show, but a little more variety and a little less formula in their songwriting would have been appreciated.  All of that good-spirited enthusiasm actually got exhausting after a while.

Still, it was a nice set and they seem like nice people.  It only took them about 30 seconds to come back on stage after their encore break, and they ended the show by walking off the stage and playing unamplified in the middle of the audience.  Nice.

Depreston

Courtney Barnett at The Loft, October 17, 2014

Australian slacker Courtney Barnett, who played The Loft at Center Stage last year, is coming back to Atlanta on June 9 to play downstairs at Vinyl.  

In related Courtney Barnett news, she's released a video for her song Depreston, possibly her best and most poignant song to date. 

You said we should look out further,
I guess it wouldn’t hurt us.
We don’t have to be around all these coffee shops.
Now we’ve got that percolator,
never made a latte greater.
I’m saving twenty-three dollars a week.

We drive to a house in Preston,
we see police arresting
a man with his hand in a bag.
How’s that for first impressions?
This place seems depressing.
It’s a “Californian bungalow in a cul-de-sac”.

It’s got a lovely garden,
a garage for two cars to park in
(“or a lot of room for storage if you’ve just got one”).
And it’s going pretty cheap you say?
“Well it’s a deceased estate…
aren’t the pressed metal ceilings great?”

Then I see the handrails in the shower,
a collection of those canisters for coffee, tea and flour,
and a photo of a young man in a van in Vietnam.

And I can’t think of floorboards anymore,
whether the front room faces south or north,
and I wonder what she bought it for.

(If you’ve got a spare half a million, you should knock it down and start rebuilding)

The Dodos and Springtime Carnivore at Vinyl, Atlanta, February 22, 2015

"Welcome to your Sunday night rock 'n' roll show," Meric Long of The Dodos said to the audience early in last night's set at Vinyl in Atlanta's Center Stage complex.  It seems that everyone was well aware of the day of the week, as the show started relatively early (by rock standards), 8:30 p.m., and with only two bands on the bill, I was home before 11:00 (in time to catch the second airing of The Walking Dead on AMC). 

But first, before I watched TWD, there was in fact, a rock 'n' roll show, and a good one at that. Opening for The Dodos was a relatively new act, and truth be told, the real reason I headed out, Springtime Carnivore.

Springtime Carnivore (not to be confused with Portland's Summer Cannibals), is the project of singer Greta Morgan (Hush Sound, Gold Motel).  She is pretty much the band, handling the vocals and guitar, occasionally moving to the keys, and even playing a song or two unaccompanied.  The music was a bright and engaging pop-rock with touches of dream pop.  Greta is a decent guitarist and has an incredible voice and good pitch, and it was a bit amazing to watch her effortlessly carry some of the higher notes of the songs without any apparent strain.   

The self-titled Springtime Carnivore album dropped last year and although produced by no less than Richard Swift (Damien Jurado, Foxygen, The Shins, etc.), Springtime Carnivore's live sound is more rocking and less pop-sounding that the recordings suggest, and that's a good thing.  Fans of bands like Alvvays and The Vivian Girls should find Carnivore enjoyable.

It's abundantly clear that Morgan has abundant talent and with a few lucky breaks could make it big in indie music (oxymoron?).  Last night, Springtime Carnivore stole the show, at least to this member of the audience.

I was a bit surprised when The Dodos set up the stage with the drums right out in front (and feet away from me).  Based on the fullness of their recorded songs, I didn't realize that they were in fact a drum-and-guitar duo (obviously, I'm new to their music).   

The Dodos, who've been around for a while now, play a music that falls somewhere between shoegaze and garage folk-rock.  Despite only having two musicians, they produce a wide variety of sounds, boosted by Meric Long's expansive pedal board and looping techniques, and refreshingly, they didn't have to rely on a laptop computer to provide samples and fill-in parts for the songs.  Also, judging by their general demeanor and stage banter, they seemed like some genuinely good people, for whatever that's worth.

.

Last night, they didn't have the back-up guitarist they brought with them to the Letterman show, and I understand that they used to have a vibraphonist fill in their sound  But to be honest, they didn't sound like they were lacking much of anything last night. 

For extra added bonus points, they brought Greta of Springtime Carnivore out on stage with them for the last song of their encore.

The Dodos clearly had some devoted fans at last night's show, with frequent shout-outs for favorite songs (they started their encore MTV TRL-style, letting the audience choose the song).  Overall, it was a fun and instructive night, and I got to hear a new band with a lot of potential and an established act that was at lest new to me. 

Plus I got home by 11 on the night before the work week started.

Catching Up On Rocktober

As promised (threatened?), here are some pictures and songs from last week's Rocktober shows that I didn't have time to post, brought to you without commercial interruption or my narrative comments (other than show titles):

Liam Finn, Variety Playhouse, Oct. 19

Warpaint, Variety Playhouse, Oct. 19

Tiny Ruins, The Earl, Oct. 20

Sharon Van Etten, The Earl, Oct. 20

Kind Cousin, Vinyl, Oct. 22

Givers, Vinyl, Oct. 22

Givers at Vinyl, Atlanta, October 22, 2014

We last saw Lafayette, Louisiana's Givers back in 2011 during MFNW (RIP) at a great show at the Doug Fir that also featured Pickwick (the best band you never heard of) and Ages and Ages, as well as Portland's Lost Lander.  Damien Jurado was in the audience for Pickwick (he's a fan) and the whole night was overall as much fun at a live show as you can reasonably expect to have.

And then we heard nothing from Givers for three years.  Nothing. Nada.  Zip.  But they've apparently hit the road again and last night they played Atlanta's Vinyl Lounge in the Center Stage complex. Could they possibly be as fun as they were that magical night three years ago?  Do they still have that special something they displayed that night?

The short answer is an emphatic "yes," but first another Lafayette band, Kind Cousin, opened. 

Kind Cousin is the band of singer Allison Bohl DeHart, whose raspy vocals and eerie harmonies with her backup singer make the band interesting.  It was a good set by a band I hadn't heard before, but one I'd certainly like to hear more from.

DeHart's raspy vocals are a good match for Givers' Tiffany Lamson, who joined them on stage for one song.  

After that, Givers took the stage.  They  were still selling their fine 2011 album In Light at the merch table, and didn't have anything new for sale (I still bought a vinyl copy of In Light last night anyway). Fortunately, during their terrific set last night, they announced that they would be playing a bunch of new songs, "songs even our friends back in Lafayette haven't head yet," and that they would be working on a new album soon.  So there's that. 

The audience clearly knew the band and their music, and also clearly adored the band, and there was a great give and take of energy all night between the band and the audience.  There's something about Givers that causes listeners, at least this listener and apparently several others at Vinyl last night as well, to form some sort of deep emotional bond with the band, and the affection and the mutual admiration were apparent.  Singer Taylor Guarisco mentioned it several times, but everyone in the audience felt it whether he mentioned it or not.

The set ended with an encore performance of Up Up Up, after the regular set ended with In My Eyes.

Givers are a great band and put on fun shows.  It would be a shame if I have to wait three years to hear them again.

Rocktober Previews

Rocktober, like the Georgia autumn, has been a little slow in coming this year, but starting this week, it begins in earnest and looks like it will last well into November.

We last saw Louisiana's Givers way back in the misty, far reaches of time during MFNW (RIP) 2011, and thought at the time that it was one of the most fun shows ever.  Maybe it was having Ages and Ages and Pickwick opening or maybe it was meeting Damien Jurado in the audience, but we had a great time and Givers were every bit as energetic and joyful and ebullient and sincere that night as the video above suggests (possibly more so). Unfortunately, we've heard absolutely nothing from them since that night, but next week (Wednesday, October 22) they play the Vinyl lounge at Center Stage.  

That same year, we also Seattle's Motopony at Bumbershoot and were equally but differently impressed.  But like Givers, we saw and heard nothing from them since then, except a solo show by frontman Daniel Blue at the awesome Marmoset day party during MFNW (RIP) 2013.  However, Motopony have a new EP out and will perform at The Drunken Unicorn on Wednesday, October 29.

Even better news might be that San Francisco's Family Crest will be opening for Motopony.  We also saw Family Crest at the Marmoset party and were blown away by their chamber-pop folk-rock.

There's more shows this week than I can even shake a stick at, but I'll try to keep things posted up here.

Phox

Phox at Vinyl, July 16, 2014

The Orb vs Chelsea Light Moving, Halloween Night, Atlanta

By some people's reckoning, last night, Halloween, was the final evening of Rocktober, and fittingly, there was no shortage of shows to attend, not the least of which was Saratoga Springs' Phantogram at the godforsaken Masquerade.  But that wasn't all - our old friends Big Gigantic were also at The Masquerade, while The Loft had the Rev. Horton Heat and The Basement at Graveyard Tavern had Shlomo and XXYYXX.  For a certain type of music fan, there was Leftover Salmon with Col. Bruce Hampton at Variety Playhouse, while for a whole other type of music fan, there was Sevendust with Asking Alexandria at The Tabernacle.  For the sake of completeness, I'll point out that someone called Stepdad was at Smith's Olde Bar, while Eddie's Attic had someone called The Cumberland Collective.

But even with all of these choices, I didn't go to any of the above, instead taking in two other great shows also occurring on this most epic of all nights.  To begin, downstairs from The Loft and the good Reverend Horton Heat, legendary electronic artists The Orb were playing at Vinyl.

There weren't too many people there when I arrived around 8:00, but there was a great ambient DJ layering some terrific tracks over each other.     

The Orb took over the stage a little before 9:00 and played a solid two-hour set.  At this point, the Orb consists primarily of founder Alex Paterson, assisted by collaborator Thomas Fehlmann.  Toward the center of the set, Fehlmann left the stage for a while and let Paterson cover A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules from the Centre of the Ultraworld solo, which he seemed more than capable of covering.  

As one would expect from The Orb, the songs weren't performed as separate entities, but just sort of rose up out of the mix from time to time before dissolving back into the beats, samples, and psychedelia of the rest of the non-stop set. They were more than capable of getting the audience dancing, which by the end of the set, nearly everyone, including your humble narrator, was doing, and then chilling them out a little with some of their trippier passages. 

As the band played, a thoroughly entertaining video display was projected on a large screen set up to the right of the band, showing album logos, dancers, space and sci-fi themed film clips, old silent movies, and various other imagery.  It being Halloween, anywhere from two-thirds to three-fourths of the audience were in costume, although I suspect that an Orb concert might attract its fair share of costumed audience regardless of the date.  By and large, it looked like much like a classic 90s rave, complete with glow sticks. Combined with the trippy ambient music of The Orb, the costumed dancers and the video projections all combined to create an extremely other-worldly atmosphere.  It should also be noted that the audience was extremely well-behaved, polite, and cool, with nearly everyone wearing a blissed-out smile and making room at the front of the stage for dancers instead of trying to crowd the stage as at most shows.   People would tap me on the shoulder and say things like, "Dude, I saw them back in '95 at a festival with Underworld!," or dance with me for a few minutes, or just stand next to one another and share in our mutual appreciation of the evening. 

The Orb's two-hour set wrapped up around 11:00, and although the house lights stayed down for a long time as the audience called for an encore, cheering and clapping and chanting "Orb! Orb! Orb!", they never returned to the stage.  Several of us wondered what the point was of leaving the lights down after the set if they had no intention of performing an encore. 

But I actually really didn't mind all that much, as I had places to be.  Before I had bought my ticket for The Orb, I had purchased tickets to see Thurston Moore and his band Chelsea Light Moving at The Earl, so as soon as The Orb wrapped up their set at around 11:00, I left Vinyl in Midtown and drove over to East Atlanta Village  and The Earl.

Everything worked in my favor.  From Vinyl, I headed first up Peachtree and then back down Spring, jumping on the Connector at 14th (pardon the ATL ITP jargon).  Although East Atlanta Village was pretty busy on Halloween night, I lucked out finding a parking space almost immediately from the one car in an otherwise full parking lot pulling out just as I was pulling in.  I made it into The Earl by 11:15.

When I walked in, Moore was on stage tuning up, but the band had not yet started.  I had enough time to get a beer and find a spot to watch, and then Chelsea Light Moving began playing.

We've seen Chelsea Light Moving here back in March, and Thurston Moore performing under his own name at The Goat Farm following the release of his underrated Demolished Thoughts LP, but it's always a treat to see Moore perform and it Halloween night isn't the time to overindulge with two shows, then when is?  

As you can imagine, the edgy, angst-ridden music of Chelsea Light Moving was quite a contrast from The Orb's Little Fluffy Clouds. But change is good, and Moore played a great set, concentrating on songs from their debut album, but featuring a few new numbers as well. They played several of my favorites, including Burroughs (second song of the set), Groovy and Linda, and Empires of Time, but they never did get around to my favorite, Frank O'Hara Hit.

I imagine that with all of the entertainment options available on Halloween night, not limited to all the bands playing around town, there was a lot of competition for the audience, but I was still surprised at the relatively small size of the crowd at The Earl.  It was also interesting to note that very few people in the audience at The Earl were in costume, quite the contrast with the audience at Vinyl for The Orb.  

Chelsea Light Moving wrapped up their set around midnight, and played one short encore song, with bassist Samara Lubelski on violin, before calling it a night.

Savages at Vinyl, Atlanta, October 9, 2013

Last night, London's post-punk revivalists Savages played at Vinyl, part of the Center Stage complex in Midtown Atlanta.  It's been well over a year since I've been to a show at Vinyl - the last time I was there was a March 2012 concert by Fanfarlo, another London band.

I've been on a roll with audience position lately - for both Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Junip at Terminal West and last night for Savages, I managed to get a spot right in front of center stage (the actual center of the stage, not in front of Midtown's Center Stage complex).  No one but the band in front of me, and in the case of Savages, the performers mere inches away from my face.

The four members of Savages wore all black on a dimly lit stage (white lights only over the drummer, silhouetting the rest of the band), which would have made photography difficult, had they allowed it at all. I've heard that at recent shows Savages posted signs at the entrance encouraging people not to take cellphone pictures or videos so the band could "more fully immerse" themselves in the performance.

No such signs were up last night.  "We forgot to post them," singer Jehnny Beth explained as she walked to the edge of the stage and put her hand over the cellphone of a woman standing to my right.  After having taken pictures of their setlist and pedal board before the show began, I kept my cellphone and camera holstered for the rest of their set, and allowed myself to become more fully immersed in the performance.

Johnny Hostile, the band's mentor and boyfriend of Jehnny Beth, opened with a solo set, playing bass and singing to recorded samples.  His performance, reminiscent at times of the 70s band Suicide, set a New Wave tone for the night, and reminded us of a time when experimentalism and embrace of the avant garde was more accepted. Beth sang one song with him.  Reed player Duke Garman, on the bill for the show, did not appear.

Savages' set was as feral and direct as their name implies.  Jehnny Beth menacingly prowled the edge of the stage in her red heels as she sang, often performing less than a foot away from my face.  When at the microphone stage, she would swing her arms front and back like Ian Curtis of Joy Division.  Gemma Thompson approaches the guitar in a manner similar to Gang of Four's Andy Gill, often playing it not so much as a stringed instrument but instead exploring all the possible ways of getting sound out of her machine, including tapping her fingers on the back of its neck or pounding her fist on its body. Thompson's sonic explorations left it up to Ayse Hassan to carry much of the songs with her blister-inducing  strumming on the bass.  But the real delight was watching drummer Fay Milton perform in her near choreographic manner - not only does she involve her whole body in her playing, but she seems to be dancing with the drum set as much as playing it, sometimes holding one arm up in the air as she keeps the beat with the other, only to bring the raised arm crashing down at the exact right moment.  She also makes excellent use of her cymbals.

None of this would have worked, though, if each member of the band weren't such consummate perfectionists and talented musicians, and if their songs weren't so compelling.  Their set included a cover of Suicide's Dream Baby Dream, bookending the theme started with Johnny Hostile's opening set.  Their set ended with Fuckers, a song not found on their debut album Silence Yourself, but featuring a chant of "Don't let the fuckers get you down" before dissolving into a chaotic storm of feedback and noise and the band leaving the stage. The audience began to call for an encore before realizing that Savages had already given everything they had on the stage, and there was nothing left to be said.

Silence yourself, indeed. 

OMG Savages

After some 40-plus years of looking, I may finally have found the perfect band.  London's Savages just announced yesterday that they'll be playing at Midtown's Vinyl on October 9, a mere two weeks after the announcement (talk about confidence in ticket sales).

The Savages show will be just two days after Junip at Terminal West, and the day before Menomena and The Helio Sequence at the same venue.   Rocktober, baby.  Rocktober.

Speaking of Junip, they're the band playing in the background in the trailer for the much-hyped Breaking Bad series finale.

Let's see, what else?  Oh yeah - Robert Fripp has just announced that King Crimson's getting back together again.

The original Crimson line-up may formerly have held the "perfect band" title before Savages took it away.  Of course, this is all UK Division.  Vancouver's Black Mountain still safely holds the North American title.

Hey Marseilles

Lines We Trace, the new album by Hey Marseilles, the band behind this Wes Anderson-inspired video, dropped today and they are coming to Vinyl on Friday, March 22, as a part of their promotional tour with Young Buffalo, which I have to assume is another band and not a juvenile bison.