Mattiel

Mattiel is performing tonight at the venerable Earl.  I've got tickets and no cancellations or dire announcements have appeared online, so if the creek don't rise and unless it starts raining, I'm off to see her perform!

This Week's Shows

The festival scene may be dead, but the live music scene is still, well, alive.  Here in Atlanta, this coming week starts off a little slow but picks up momentum as it goes along, eventually turning into a veritable bonanza for jam-band fans, but there's lots of other things going on as well.  

MONDAY, JANUARY 11

Aneurysm, Black Beach, Midriffs, Lethal Tender (529)

The only active stage for the evening is at 529, with headliners Aneurysm (Athens/Atlanta) providing a set of grunge-, progressive-, punk-, and hard-rock.  A pair of Boston bands provide support, including loud, dirty rock 'n' roll by Black Beach and fuzz/surf punk by Midriffs. Local openers Lethal Tender are from somewhere Outside The Perimeter and promise "deadly and titillating," high-energy punk rock with female lead vocals.  Nothing against the bands, but my advise for that night is to do what I'll be doing and find a sports bar somewhere and watch Alabama take on Clemson in the College Football Championship Game.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 12

Glen Iris, Out of the Fire (529)

For the second night in a row, all stages are dark except at 529, where Atlanta's Glen Iris, consisting of members of Rock*A*Teens, Brass Castle, The Close, and Sharps, promise "brawny, scalding, guitar-dominated rock that sounds concurrently blunt, brazen and invigorating." Spartanburg's Out of the Fire open.

  

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13

x_______x, Obnox, Shocked Minds (The Earl)

Nothing at 529 on Wednesday night, but The Earl will provide a pair of Ohio punk bands, x______x and Obnox, supported by Atlanta's Shocked Minds.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 14

Bowie In Sweats, Alexa Dexa, Jeffrey Bützer (The Earl)

This promises to be a unique-to-Atlanta, one-of-a-kind, anything-could-happen kind of a show featuring some unique but like-minded musicians. Jeffrey Bützer collaborator T.T. Mahony (of the annual Charlie Brown Christmas shows at The Earl) will perform a "sweatsuited tribute to the Thin White Duke to celebrate his 69th birthday."  In addition, New York's Alexa Dexa will perform her toy piano pop and Bützer will play two mini sets with his bands The Bicycle Eaters and The Compartmentalizationalists.

Fantasy Guys, Tamarron, Dryspell, Talk Radio (529)

Meanwhile, Atlanta's Fantasy Guys will generate some groovy, tropical dream pop at 529, with support from two Austin bands, Tamarron and Dryspell, and Talk Radio opening.

Railroad Earth, Town Mountain (Variety Playhouse)

The week's jam-band jamboree begins Thursday night with the first of a two-night stand at Variety Playhouse by these two jazzy, groove-based, free-flowing, bluegrass-influenced jam-bands. 

The Soft Moon (Terminal West)

It must have been a tough week for the talent bookers at Terminal West - first, Wednesday night's planned show with Rob Garza of Thievery Corporation was postponed, and then Killing Joke cancelled their North American reunion tour, leaving the venue with only planned opener The Soft Moon as the Thursday-night headliner. Oh well, the show must go on.




FRIDAY, JANUARY 14

Grand Prize Winners From Last Year, Revel in Romance, General Heat, Judah, Fox Grin, and Bloodplums (The Earl)

This is a benefit show by Ignite The World to raise money and awareness for the MLK 40/40 Community Service Project (complete forty community service projects in forty days) and features a diverse line-up of Atlanta acts.  We've seen GPWFLY before at the Atlanta Film Festival Sounds + Vision event at The Goat Farm, but the rest of the lineup is new to us, so here are a few samples to get us all acquainted.

 

Railroad Earth, Town Mountain (Variety Playhouse)

Second of the two-night stand by these jazzy, groove-based, free-flowing, bluegrass-influenced jam-bands.

Chris Knight, Radio Birds (Terminal West)

Country-influenced singer-songwriter set. 

Slang,  Shepherds, Heavy Eyes, Satisfiers of Alpha Blue (529)

Album-release and tour-kickoff show for Atlanta-based Slang, whose music is "stylish and dark, dramatic, yet dance-able, blending elements of the comic, the gothic, and the divine." Atlanta's Shepherds, Heavy Eyes and Satisfiers of Alpha Blue will provide soulful rock, garage punk, and experimental psychedelic pop, respectively.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 15

Those Darlins, The Gaye Blades, Justin & The Cosmics (The Earl)

Those Darlins at Variety Playhouse, July 12, 2012

Nashville's country-punkers Those Darlins will be calling it quits soon, but before that they're engaging in one last victory lap across the country with a farewell tour, which come through The Earl on Saturday night.  The Gaye Blades and Justin & The Cosmics will open,

The Grapes, The Jeff Mosier Band (Variety Playhouse)

If you didn't get enough of a jam-band fix the previous two nights at Variety Playhouse, there's always Saturday night's 30th anniversary, special reunion show there by The Grapes.  We caught The Grapes in 1994 at the Atlanta Pot Festival, but unfortunately, we have no existent reliable photographic documentation of that set (it was that kind of day).  Fun fact:  Back in the 90s, during the burgeoning days of clunky, Compaq office computers and the early internet, the first IT guy hired by any company I ever worked for was this seeming young savant who brewed his own beer, had an improbably hot girlfriend, and was a huge fan of The Grapes.  Just sayin'.

Grace Potter, Eliza Hardy Jones (The Tabernacle)

Grace Potter & Th Nocturnals at Atlantic Station, 2010

Alternately, if you want your jam-band experience laced with a bit more soul and blues, with the occasional oldie thrown in, there's always Grace Potter at The Tabernacle.

Finally, it wouldn't be Saturday night in Atlanta without hip-hop, EDM, and metal:

Waka Flocka Flame, Russ, Kelechi (Center Stage)

The Atlanta rapper's set is billed as the Flockaveli 1.5 Release Show.

Wick-It The Instigator, Ployd, Andy Bruh (Terminal West)

Nashville-based EDM d.j.

Palaces, Hello Cobra, Zruda, Spore Lord (529)

Four sludgey metal bands for your musical enjoyment.

Noisey Atlanta - The Finale

Here's the last two episodes of Vice/Noisey's series on the "Atlanta music scene."  As you can probably guess, this is a whole other world from my sphere of experience, and it all seems as exotic to me as these videos might seem to someone from Switzerland.  But in any case, as they say, that's a wrap. 

Time to do another one of these?  Time to do another one of these.  What's more, since we missed last week, it's time to do two.

Let's Do Another One of These, Because Why Not?

It's A Trap

I think part of what fascinates me about this series is watching the intrepid journalist visit dangerous locations not somewhere half-way around the world, but virtually in my own backyard.  Who needs Somalia when you got East Atlanta?  Not that I live in those yuppified condos overlooking the projects, but Merton's right that Atlanta is a crazy-quilt of neighborhoods with "traps" pushed up against wealthy neighborhoods (Buckhead vs. Bankhead).

Anyway, here's Episode 5 of Vice and Noisey's series about the Atlanta trap music scene. 

Part Four

I don't even know what to say about these anymore. . .

Part 3

Vice's series about the Atlanta trap/house music scene continues, continuing its emphasis on reinforcing every negative stereotype it can find, including that of the incompetence of their own interviewers ("Do you like boiled peanuts?").

Dude, I Was There!

This is the Atlanta music scene with which I'm familiar - no guns and no shootings, just graffiti artists and Little Tybee.

Atlanta

Not to perpetuate more negative stereotypes about Atlanta, but here's part two of Vice's series about an Atlanta music scene.   

Vice Atlanta

This is an "Atlanta music scene" but not the "Atlanta music scene" that I generally refer to in these pages.  Nevertheless, here's a fascinating look at a world around me of which I'm virtually oblivious. 

FWIW, I didn't know who Big Meech was either.

Phoenix Festival, Atlanta, November 15, 2014

According to the organizer Davy Minor (Deer Bear Wolf), "Amongst the ruins of a derelict motel site in the Lakewood community of Atlanta, Urban Sprout Farms has created a sanctuary for growing fresh produce. On November 15th, a group of champions for the Atlanta arts community are getting together to present a day of music, literature and art to raise awareness for this creative repurposing of land that was once laying to waste."   

The emphasis really was on the visual arts, mostly by graffiti artists covering the outside of the old derelict motel, and installation artists set up in the various rooms.  Musical contributors included Atlanta's Lily and The Tigers.

There were also readings and unamplified acoustic performances over by the skankiest, most overgrown motel pool you'd ever want to see.

We saw performers Landline open for the Fresh & Onlys in only their second-ever performance as a band, and they played again today at Phoenix.

We didn't stay for headliners Little Tybee, even though we saw Brock and Nirvana walking the grounds, and guitarist Josh Martin and bassist Ryan Donald were pulling up in their car just as we were leaving.  Nothing against Little Tybee (quite the opposite, in fact!), but it was the kind of autumn day where it seemed more important to go find out if the Crimson Tide could hold off Mississippi State for three more quarters (they did).  

The day was a nice introduction to the Urban Sprout Farm site and another good merger of music, art, and literature by Deer Bear Wolf,  It would be nice of this became an annual affair.

Little Five Points Halloween Parade, The Musical

In addition to the usual (and unusual) marching bands and assorted Halloween-themed floats, the L5P Halloween Parade featured a number of bands or possibly people pretending to be bands.  I couldn't tell - they all passed by so quickly, I couldn't really hear what they were playing or pretending to be playing and to be perfectly candid, unlike years past, I didn't hang around after the parade to catch any of the real, bona fide bands playing the stages tucked in and around Little Five Points.

In any event, here are the parade bands, as well as some other characteristically quirky characters from today's parade.

I didn't even notice the Big Lebowski impersonator in front of the faux Scooby-Doo band until after I came home and started editing my pictures.

The crowd was the largest I can recall seeing at this annual event.  The Atlanta Journal-Constitution unhelpfully estimated the crowds as vaguely in "the thousands."

In Atlanta

Despite no longer having a real job and being self-employed, he went back to the Pacific Northwest for Bumbershoot and MFNW in 2012 (you have to have your priorities).  He didn't go to Music Midtown due to its boring and lackluster line up that year (you have to have your priorities), but he was otherwise committed to living his life in Atlanta.   

By a rough count, he probably went to about 60 shows that year, not including festivals, or at an average rate of about one per week (you have to have your priorities).  If each show averaged three bands, he probably saw about 150 bands that year, and when you add in the festival performances, the band tally was probably closer to 200.  He was making up for all that time spent being dead, spent feeling too old to go to clubs, spent being away from things.

But it's quality, not quantity, that matters, and he heard some terrific performances that year, including a set by Akron/Family at the Drunken Unicorn that was later released as a CD; a couple of sets by Shearwater, Passion Pit, Sharon Van Etten, and Damien Jurado; St. Vincent both solo and with David Byrne;  as well as his old Digable Planets friend Ishmael Butler, now with Shabazz Palaces.  He saw the late Benjamin Curtis and School of Seven Bells, Fanfarlo, Animal Collective, Hundred Waters, Father John Misty, Of Monsters & Men, Thee Oh Sees, Om, The Mynabirds, Moonface, Seapony, Gold Leaves, M83, Ana Tijoux, Low, and Dirty Projectors, and an epic set by My Morning Jacket out in the Oregon countryside.

And even though he hadn't seen her since Rocktober 2011, one of his favorite albums that year was Grimes' Visions.

Definitely getting close to the end of this 35-year retrospective.  According to Google Stats, I've lost most of this blog's readers and daily page views have dropped from about 20 per day to less than 5.  Regular posting will resume eventually.

Quiet Hounds at The Swan House, Atlanta, Oct. 4, 2013

The Swan House was built in 1928 for Edward and Emily Inman, who had accumulated their wealth from cotton and investments in transportation, banking, and real estate. After their house in Ansley Park burned in 1924, the Inmans commissioned design of a new house on 28 acres in Buckhead. Sculpted and painted swans provide a recurring motif throughout the house and grounds, and the mansion's rear facade is sited at the top of a small hill with terraced gardens and a fountain cascading down the hillside. The grounds now host the Atlanta History Center, and the Swan House served as the Capitol for a party scene in the upcoming film The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and as both a backdrop and a character in the Quiet Hounds' performance Swans and Embers on the warm Atlanta evening of October 4, 2013.

The performance consisted of four acts in three locations on the Swan House grounds.  Act 1, Cat In Ashes, began with an actor portraying an Inman family member from 1928. After some brief interaction by the actor with the audience, a female character, The Phoenix, was introduced, who symbolized the City of Atlanta from 1864, the year Sherman burned the city to the ground. 

Quiet Hounds eventually took over the Swan House terrace at the top of a staircase and performed a brief four-song, acoustic set.  

After Act 1, the band reassembled on the lawn at the bottom of the staircase for a brief brass-band number for Act 2, No One Alone, before marching down to the bottom of the hill where a stage was set up for Acts 3 and 4, Reconstruction and We Burn, We Rise, which were basically a Quiet Hounds' performance.

The Quiet Hounds' sound can be called classic indie rock, combining strummed, jangly guitars with harmonic vocals into rousing, anthemic songs, sort of like a less bombastic version of Arcade Fire. Whether or not they need all of the theatricality and dramatics that have come to accompany many of their recent performances is open to debate, but you can't blame a band for stretching a little bit and expanding their artistic boundaries.  They are not a touring band and don't perform live all that often (I believe this is their first performance since a set at Athfest last June), so they make the most of each opportunity when they do.  

The Swan House served as a stunning backdrop for their set, and they didn't project their sigil, Bat-Signal style, onto the house (top photo) until the last song of their set.  The Inman and Phoenix characters made a brief appearance on stage toward the end of their set, possibly bridging Acts 3 and 4, but otherwise the band spent their time onstage doing what they do best - performing their intelligent and enjoyable songs, including a few new numbers thrown into the setlist for good measure.

They included a three-piece horn section to the band for this performance, which complimented their sound nicely.

The whole set wrapped up by around 10:00 pm.  Quiet Hounds have perfected the art of transforming each of their performances into an event, and this one was no exception.  No one, possibly including the band themselves, have any idea of what they'll do next or where they'll do it, and that only adds to the epic sense of the here and now that accompanies each of their performances.   

The IndieATL film crew was on hand recording the performance, so we can probably look forward to some video from the set in the near future.

Little 5 Fest, Sept. 14, 2013

After hearing 5 to 11 bands a day during Bumbershoot and MFNW, it felt a little odd, disorienting even, to be back home and hearing no live music at all for days on end.  Fortunately, the organizers of the Little Five Fest, the Little Five Points community's music festival, which last year was held on September 29, moved the date up to September 14, my first Saturday since coming back from the Northwest.  I like to think they did this just to satisfy my jones for hearing multiple bands in one day.

The L5Fest actually began with a few sets at L5P's Star Community Bar on Thursday and Friday, which I didn't attend, but on Saturday the venues expanded to include an outdoor stage behind the Star Bar, a very small performance space in the basement Vinyl Lounge of the Star Bar, The Criminal Records and Wax 'n' Facts record stores, and dj sets at the Elmyr Restaurant next to Variety Playhouse.

The bands performing were almost all exclusively up-and-coming local Atlanta bands (with a few exceptions), and the event gave me lots of opportunities to discover new (to me at least) bands as well as hear some of my local favorites.

This is really just a small, one-day community event, so it would be unfair to compare it to Bumbershoot or MFNW (or for that matter, Atlanta's Music Midtown or Shaky Knees Festival).  Even the smaller events I went to in Portland, the Marmoset party and the OPB party at Mississippi Studios, were off-shoots of MFNW, so comparisons are not appropriate.  But given what it was, the L5Fest was a fine day of music, with a rich and interesting lineup that illustrated not only the diversity, but also the interconnectedness, of the Atlanta music scene.

When I arrived, the band Starfighter were playing at the outdoors stage behind the Star Bar.  We've seen Starfighter at the 2012 Tunes From The Tombs event at Oakland Cemetery, but as I had just arrived and wanted to get a little more oriented to the festivities, I didn't stay around long.

Upstairs and inside, the band Factory were playing the Star Bar stage.  

Factory were new to me, but appear to be Naomi Lavender (Muleskinner McQueen, the Dracula rock opera) and Alice Kim, formerly of São Paulo, Brazil, along with half of the Young Orchids (guitarist Michael Kai and drummer Tak Takemura), and Zombie Zombie's Stuart Roane on bass. (Okay, I only recognized Naomi and looked the rest up on line).

Their music has been described as "possibly the dreamiest dream pop" in Atlanta, to which I concur.

Following Factory, I went over to Criminal Records in time to hear the last couple of songs by Fit of Body.

Fit of Body is Atlanta's Ryan Nicholas Parks, who performs solo accompanied only by spare samples and keyboard loops. Commenting on his song Deserter, Dummy Mag wrote, "There’s something rather elegant about the sparseness of Deserter. . . Listening is like chasing half a dozen unravelling balls of wool down a hill in slow motion. It’s an enchanting muddle, and I look forward to more."

Back at the Star Bar, it was the band Mammabear, the Brit-pop-influenced project of Atlanta's Kyle Gordon. To be honest, I actually wasn't expecting to watch them, but while walking past the Star Bar from Criminal Records on my way to the outdoor stage, their tuneful rock caught my ear, and I would up staying, listening to, and enjoying them.   

Back at Criminal Records, I heard Feast of Violet, which is the solo project of electronic musician Allen Taylor of Mirror Mode and Lotus Plaza.  Taylor also has a new project with Mood Rings' William Fussell called Promise Keeper who played later in the day, but we'll get to that in due time.  Meanwhile, as Feast of Violet, Taylor played a great set of ambient electronica.

For some reason, most of the acts that I wanted to see were at the Criminal Records in-store stage, and Feast of Violet was followed by Atlanta's Adron.  We've seen Adron lots of times before, but this performance was unique in that she played solo, and instead of performing material from her fine CD Pyramids, she instead performed a few Brazilian covers, some Portuguese songs she'd written herself, and some other material she doesn't usually perform with her full band. It was a wonderful set, a primer to her approach to Brazilian pop and neo-bossa-nova sound as well as an opportunity to hear her play some new material.  

Mike Doughty played next and was really the anomaly to the L5Fest lineup, in that he wasn't from Atlanta and was an already established musician in his own right.  But here's the odd synchronicity - some 20 years ago, I heard Doughty's former band, the terrific Soul Coughing, give a free in-store performance at the old Criminal Records location (still in L5P, but around the corner on Moreland Avenue instead of its current, Euclid Ave. location).  Their 1993 set blew me away at the time, and I thought their combination of folk-rock, hip-hop, and jazz was just about the coolest thing imaginable, and Doughty's post-hipster approach to singing was the epitome of cool.  For various reasons, Soul Coughing broke up in 2000, but I still followed Doughty's subsequent solo career, including the fine albums Skittish and Rockity Roll.  

Both he and I, as well as Criminal Records, have changed a lot since that 1993 show, and Doughty now has a new album coming out of beloved Soul Coughing songs rearranged, or as he puts it, "re-imagined," for solo performance.  His nearly hour-long performance yesterday at Criminal Records was of this new-old material, and it still sounds great in its new format.

Almost immediately after Mike Doughty's set, Atlanta's Dog Bite took the Criminal Records stage.  Dog Bite is primarily the vehicle for singer and guitarist Phil Jones, formerly of Washed Out's touring band, and much of that dreamy, chilled sound remains in their music.  We've seen a lot of different line-ups to Dog Bite in the past, including one that had Mood Rings' (and Promise Keeper) William Fussell on guitar, and another that had powerhouse drummer Sarah Wilson of Odist on drums.  Yesterday, he had Young Orchids' (and Factory's) Tak Takemura on drums, and Shepherds' Jonathan Merenivitch on guitar.  Merenivitch also plays for Janelle Monae, and as we shall see later, for Del Venicci, and his playing added significant contributions to Dog Bite's sound yesterday. 

Eric of Criminal Records assured the audience that Dog Bite is going to go on to great things, and someday we'll look back in fondness at the chance to have seen them perform an in-store show like this.  Their Sound Cloud page says that "Dog Bite combines all your hopes and dreams, fuses them with grapes and butterflies, and then lays them out on a tray with sliced oranges."  If that's a little abstract, here's a sample from their forthcoming LA EP.

After Dog Bite, I finally left Criminal Records and wandered into the tiny Vinyl Lounge in the Star Bar basement.  The band is TV Dinner, a new one on me, but what the heck is this music they're playing?  Rock? Jazz? Chip tunes? Space-age pop? Some sort of fusion of all four?  The instrumental band defies any easy categorization, but I still loved their sound, as apparently did the small number of people able to squeeze into their performance space.   This is what I love about these kinds of events - discovering something new and out of the ordinary, just as I did last year in this very same room with Spencer Garn.

There are apparently a number of bands across the country that go by the name "TV Dinner," but I did find this BandCamp by a "TV Dinner" that included "Atlanta" among their taglines.  The songs include vocalists, which they did not have at their L5Fest appearance, but the backing band does sound like it could be them (but I'm still not completely sure).

You can't judge an album by its cover, and you can't judge a band by their t-shirts.  Atlanta's Calm White Noise wore Grizzly Bear and Animal Collective t-shirts so I thought I might like them and was correct. They played a type of electronic rock that would have satisfied fans of both bands while sounding like neither.  

Oh look!  It's our old friend Jonathan Merenivitch (Shepherds, Janelle Monae) who we saw barely an hour or so ago playing guitar for Dog Bite in Criminal Records, now in the Wax 'n' Facts record store playing guitar for Del Venicci.  We've seen Del Venicci at the Artlantis event earlier this year (where Shepherds played earlier, but Merenivitch did not play with Del Venicci), and when they opened for Mikal Cronin at The Earl (when they did include Merenivitch).

 The performance space was so tiny that the quartet couldn't even all stand together but were spread out among the rows of records, and customers found themselves trapped between the performers for the duration of their set.  Unfortunately, I arrived in time only to hear the last few songs of their set. 

Meanwhile, back at Criminal Records, as indicated earlier, Allen Taylor (Feast of Violet, Mirror Mode,  Lotus Plaza) was performing with Mood Rings' William Fussell as Promise Keeper.  Anything these two guys touch is going to have an ambient, dreamy feel to it, and their Promise Keeper performance was no exception.  I don't know where this collaboration is heading, but I like it and hope that it leads at least to a CD or two.

Back at the outdoor stage (it's been a while since I had been there - the last time I headed that way I got hijacked by Mammabear into the Star Bar), these guys were playing surf-rock instrumentals as Fiend Without a Face to a delirious crowd.  A sort of Southern version of Los Straightjackets.

Upstairs in the Star Bar, Hollywood, Florida's Beach Day (not to be confused with Beach House, Beach Fossils, Dirty Beaches, or the Beach Boys) were playing infectious, garagey, 60s-influenced power pop.  

Back outside, The Coathangers performance was in full swing.  The Coathangers are an all-female band that play raw, noisy, near-perfect punk rock.  Their dissonant and cathartic vocals bear only the most casual of relationships with harmony.  For some reason, they played last night as a trio; keyboardist Candice Jones was apparently absent. 

A mosh pit usually develops during a set like this, but the pit last night was pretty much confined to one fairly well-defined area of about 6 to 10 people.  However, one person in particular seemed more aggressive than the rest, and soon a few women outside of the pit area called security over to complain about his crossing the line.  The guards didn't intervene, but their presence temporarily subdued the person to just pogoing in place. That is, until bassist Meredith Franco jumped off the stage into the audience and the moshmaster decided to he just had to punch her.  

That was the line not to be crossed.  Security and several of the audience who were fed up with his antics anyway proceeded to give him a fairly vigorous ass-kicking, dragging him out of the audience and throwing him up against the porto-potties, while drummer Stephanie Luke got up screaming "Who punched my sister?" and demanding that he be ejected (she was apparently under the impression that he was hiding inside the porto-potty and not crawling away behind it).  The band then closed their set with an improvised (I'm pretty sure) chant of "Don't punch my sister." 

This is not a band you want to mess with.  Just because I can't resist it, here's one of my favorite videos, The Coathangers performing Hurricane, one of my favorite of their songs.  Shot at The Goat Farm. 

There's nothing like a full-throttle punk performance and a little unexpected mob violence to get the adrenaline flowing.

Let's see, what else was there yesterday?  Oh yes, back at Criminal Records, the fine band Women's Work put on one of their typically fine performances of Southern Gothic songs.

The band's music revolves around the tension between the gentle vocals and viola playing of frontwoman Lindsey Harbour and the almost shoegazey guitars of the rest of the band.  It sounds unusual (and it is), but it works.  Plus, they're recently added a new backup singer to the band.

Back at the smoky Star Bar, The N.E.C. put on a strong and loud showcase of their guitar-driven psychedelic rock.

The audience for Atlanta's PLS PLS ("please please") filled Criminal Records to hear their melodic "electronic infused alternative rock" (their description).

Here's another Goat Farm video.  I was at this event earlier in the evening, but the cold temperatures drove me off before PLS PLS performed, so last night was my first time hearing them.

Joseph Arthur is an American singer-songwriter from Akron, Ohio, although he lived in Atlanta for a time in the early 1990s, where he recorded a bunch of home demo tapes, one of which he dropped off to Eric of Criminal Records.  Before his set began last night, Arthur was presented with that very tape by Eric, who told him that he has never listened to it, "not once," as he's been given hundreds of demos over the years. But Peter Gabriel apparently did, and signed Arthur to Real World music.  Last night, Arthur seemed genuinely touched to be given the relic of his early career.  

Arthur played a nearly hour-long set accompanied only by a drummer.  His poetic lyrics were layered over a sonic palette generated by a number of distortion pedals and generous loop effects, making one quickly forget the limited number of musicians on the stage.

It was a wonderful performance, full of nuance and beauty.  Kimmy Drake of Beach Day was in the audience, enjoying the set.

There were still several more bands scheduled to play at The Star Bar to conclude the L5Fest, but after Joesph Arthur, I called it a night.  By my count, I had seen 19 bands (a new single-day record!), including some local favorites like Adron, The Coathangers, and Dog Bite, discovered several new bands like Factory and TV Dinner, and heard established music stars Mike Doughty and Joseph Arthur.  

Last year, the L5Fest, held as it was on the 29th of September, marked the start of Rocktober 2012.  This year, with the number of shows coming up, I can't decide if it marks an early beginning to Rocktober 2013, or if it's the coda at the end of the Bumbershoot/MFNW Labor Day marathon.

Or if it matters.