Camp KeeWanee // Greenfield, MA // Sept. 18-20, 2009
Wormtown Trading Company has grown tremendously over the past 13 years, and as a result their festivals have become a reunion of sorts that have expanded to accommodate thousands upon thousands of families, friends and musicians.
Each year the music gets better, the guests grow in numbers, and the efforts of Wormtown founders begin to pay off. Based in Worcester, Mass., Wormtown Trading Co. can be found across the United States. Whether it’s a booth at your local college campus or a stage at Bonaroo, Wormtown is there.
They have managed to make local, small festivals the highlight of the summer. After attending one of their annual events, I can guarantee you won’t see the festival circuit in the same light. There is something very homey and special about a Wormtown festival.
This year’s Wormtown Music Fest offered a lot, from staging amazing acts like Ryan Montbleau, Zach Deputy The Alchemystics, Rubblebucket Orchestra and The Roots of Creation, to encouraging community activism by holding a canned food drive with the organization Strangers Helping Strangers. They have a kid’s cabin and other fun activities that openly welcome families with children.
Their camping area is set back in the shade of the woods and through the trails you can find a huge bonfire, multiple cabins that play live music until the sun rises, and a pleasant, rocky creek. This festival is perhaps the most inviting and loving you could attend. It is a fantastic way to end the summer and a great chance to support a scene intrinsically grass roots and locally grown.
-Words by Amanda Macchia; video by Amanda Macchia and Seth Bailin; editing by Seth Bailing (Nice Bass Productions); music by APel – “Life Force”
October 2, 2009
October 1, 2009
Live Review: Goodie M.O.B. Reunion Show
The Masquerade // Atlanta, GA // Sept. 9 2009
Spirits were high for the Goodie M.O.B. reunion and the lineup was a meander through Atlanta hip-hop over the past few decades. Whether dropping to DJ Jelly spinning Luke’s Miami-bass drums to “Scrub the Ground,” or watching a high-energy Jammin Crew sing, rap and “yeet” dance like it was 1993, the audience overlooked the rain dousing their salon-fresh dos and enjoyed each moment. Da Youngbloodz, Pastor Troy, Princess Cut and Def Poet Georgia M.E. all gave high-energy performances fit for the occasion. Georgia M.E. controlled the crowd and subdued anxious concertgoers by throwing out lyrics and lists of Atlanta rappers, cussing along with the storm, and doing comedic spoken word between sets. Goodie M.O.B.’s four members finished off the evening in a mass of red, rapping and singing with large grins across their faces as they reveled in their return as torchbearers for Southern conscious hip-hop.
But the highlight of the night was the crowd. They rhymed along with artists they had not seen in years and screamed louder with each passing song. In the audience, several of Atlanta’s forces in independent music spoke with Performer about what Goodie M.O.B. inspired in them as musicians.
“My first intro to Goodie M.O.B was before the Soul Food CD, said Indie soul rocker Dolldaze. “I knew about the buzz before everybody heard about the buzz. They were revolutionary, but still crunk. They evoke emotion, which is what I always tried to do. They keep it real and use real instruments and are musicians.” Great Scott explained how, “Goodie M.O.B. gave a true accurate depiction of Southern urban culture. Before that, the South was lacking that. They were one of the first groups representing hip-hop.” He recalls listening to Soul Food right before getting shot and getting the walkman back at the hospital – which led him to listen to the album over and over again. He felt fortunate after the incident and from it took the message that “the good die mostly over bullshit.” Gripplyaz revealed that their music inspired him to do his music and taught him to “get up, get out and get something – which is pretty much what life is about.” His message to independent hip-hop artists is, in turn, like what he learned from the Dungeon Family: “stay on the grind and stay humble.”
-Review by Ingrid Sibley; photos by Angela Carter
www.myspace.com/westillstanding
Record Review: The VX-323
Space-Age Bachelor Pad Music
The VX-323
Chansons
Portland, OR
Produced by Scott Burgess
Mixed and mastered by Rick McMillen at SuperDigital in Portland
The VX-323 claims to be a robot that creates electronic music with spoken word samples in a computerized voice along the lines of Kraftwerk. The music is Euro-style electro, performed on synths with beats that groove, albeit in a non-funky manner. Imagine robots at a rave doing – well, the robot.
Some of the lyrics show how money can be addicting with lines like “I film epic movies in my billion dollar condo/I can seduce anyone in my billion-dollar condo.” But there is always someone who has more than us: “I envy my neighbors in their trillion-dollar condos.” “Commuter Flight” spits out random data such as “New York to D.C./Lobbyist, lawyer, power broker.” In a stunning twist, the robot bemoans the loss of its factory job to inept humans and their clumsy hands in “Factory Job” over a super funky, electro hip-hop beat. Robots even crave sex as in “Hey Baby” and “Laptop,” the latter being a love affair between robot and laptop computer. The laptop says, “I’m young fast and sleek/So why chat with some geek?/I want to be your one and only/So love your laptop, baby.”
“Espresso” is the most house-like track on the album. After the listener is told to drink espresso, some dissonant synth lines come on like a caffeine overload. “When You’re Gone” is about how the machines will take over the world after people are gone. Lyrics like “We will bathe in the bitstream / we will find meaning in your data” paint a picture of a robot utopia that avoids the pitfalls of imperfect humans. Chansons is a good solid album for fans of computerized electronic music as played by Gary Numan and Daft Punk. (Bitnotic Music)
-Scott Jones
www.myspace.com/vx323
September 30, 2009
Check out the records we got in the office today
michaelCSmith - Hands of the Wicked
The Coming Weak - Are We All Letting Go
Ancient Pistol - The Flying Wing v. the Martians
John Clinebell - Make It Land
CoCoComa - Things Are Not All Right
Anthony da Costa - Not Afraid of Nothing
Mulatu Astatke - New York-Addis-London
Haakon's Fault - Pilgrimage
DJ/rupture and Matt Shadetek - Solar Life Raft
The Coming Weak - Are We All Letting Go
Ancient Pistol - The Flying Wing v. the Martians
John Clinebell - Make It Land
CoCoComa - Things Are Not All Right
Anthony da Costa - Not Afraid of Nothing
Mulatu Astatke - New York-Addis-London
Haakon's Fault - Pilgrimage
DJ/rupture and Matt Shadetek - Solar Life Raft
New York Songwriters Circle's songwriting contest extended
The deadline for New York Songwriters Circle's fourth annual songwriting contest has been extended. Musicians now have until Oct. 25 to enter. All genres are welcome. The grand prize winner will receive a performance spot with Grammy winner John Oates at the Wheeler Opera House in Aspen, Colo. They will also receive a Gibson acoustic guitar, $25,000, a chance to record with Grammy Award-winning producer Glenn Barrett and a guest spot on Q104.3. This year's panel of judges include John Oates, Russ Titelman, Johnathan Clarke and Allan Merrill.
Live Review: Beat Circus CD Release, Mucca Pazza, Reverend Glasseye, Ketman, Larkin Grimm
Mucca Pazza
The Middle East Downstairs // Cambridge, MA // Sept. 11, 2009
To call the event that took place in the Middle East Downstairs on Friday, Sept. 11, singular would be akin to calling the universe big. The description is accurate enough, but there's just no way to convey the true breadth of it. Luckily, everything that took place this Friday fell within a distinct (if broad) musical universe. The night began with soft, blues tinged folk and ended with a 30-piece circus punk marching band, naturally.
Larkin Grimm kicked off the night with her distinct, airy voice sung over acoustic guitar and an accompanying violin. Her music lends itself to darker atmospheres, with minor chords abounding, and her quiet resolve kept the music ever hungry, clawing at the air for what she denied it.
Boston supergroup Ketman picked up the pace next, blasting into their set with two powerful punk tunes. Eric Penna on guitar, Joseph Marrett on bass and Mora Precarious on drums put the club in tempo for the remainder of the night. Eric and Joseph meld well together, playing with and off each other instrumentally while sharing singing duties, but the real star of this show was Mora. Rarely will you find a drummer who goes at her instrument with more passion or vigor than Precarious. She steamrolled through song after song, hopping up as she finished particularly pushed phrases and never gave her drums a moment of rest. Though they brought in horns after the first two songs, it seemed as though they wished to show the power that a trio could control before bringing Kevin Corzett on sax and Brian Ruttledge on trumpet to provide melody, harmony and rhythmic baking for the remainder of the set. With the horns in place, the band gained even more power, as the horns jumped, danced or generally moved whenever they weren't playing. To finish their set they launched into "Bulletproof Molly," a fast-paced song that could be the soundtrack to a lucid nightmare.
Having moved to Austin from Boston two years ago, Reverend Glasseye's set with a one-time only reunion band was truly incredible. Backed by an organ, drums, saxophone and a trio of strings (most of whom also made up Beat Circus); he carried his songs in from the desert to darkly serenade the audience on the shadier aspects of life. Combining Waits-esque lyricism with a shivering, haunting voice, his set was moving and incredibly heartfelt. Talking freely with his old hometown crowd, he was candid and appeared genuinely overjoyed to be playing with his old friends again. He prefaced several songs with small descriptions, explaining that "The Bastard" was autobiographical and mentioning he had never been able to write a love song before "Christiana," tenderly cradling the pain of loss before letting it spill out into the crowd. Before his final song, "All My Friend," he announced that it would be for all those no longer with us and slid into a heartbreaking tune that left much of the audience leaning on each other for support.
Brian Carpenter may well be possessed, or a sorcerer, or both. Leading Beat Circus through an epic set of material off the brand-new Boy From Black Mountain, he raised his arms as if casting a spell over the audience and held them entranced. His baritone slid between violin melodies and distorted guitar explosions and danced with double-bass plucks while the drums pulsed with the rhythms of Americana. Beat Circus's performance was at times dark, at times beautiful, but altogether a momentous experience.
Five members of Mucca Pazza, complete in mismatching uniforms, took the stage and began playing various stringed and amplified instruments to a slightly bewildered crowd that collectively jumped as the rest of the band began playing from within the crowd. Music influenced by Roma and Klezmer traditions as well as punk rock kept the crowd jumping and dancing the entire show while the band cheerleaders (there were four) did routines and hyped the crowd even more. Mucca Pazza is sensory overload at its best: trombones standing on the bar blared riffs while a sousaphone player bounced around with the crowd upfront; on stage the drum-line danced while busting out monstrous grooves then suddenly sat down as someone jumped to the front playing a distorted miniature guitar; a conductor conducted the crowd and band in a duet while shaking his booty; and that was just the first five songs. No one sang. In fact, the only words spoken were by band leader Mark Messing through a loudspeaker pointed at a microphone, thanking the crowd and describing themselves as "a little marching band." Mucca Pazza began their set as 30-piece marching band, and ended it as a party of hundreds.
-Review by Garrett Frierson
www.myspace.com/larkingrimm
www.myspace.com/ketman
www.myspace.com/reverendglasseye
www.myspace.com/beatcircus
www.myspace.com/muccapazza
September 29, 2009
Festival Review: MusicfestNW
Portland, OR // Sept. 16-20, 2009
Portland as a city has always held an interest for me. Even though I live in Seattle and the rest of the country presumes the two are more or less identical, Portland has always felt like Seattle with less hang-ups. With that in mind, it didn’t take much to convince me to go down to the city to cover the relatively young MusicfestNW, a five-day festival run by the Willamette Week that’s closer in execution and style to a SXSW or CMJ than the nearby (in date and location) Bumbershoot. It was an opportunity to further explore a city I’ve considered living in, to investigate their venues and get a better grasping on the seeming dichotomy of one of the most heavily artist-populated places in the nation doing double duty as one of its largest concentrations of strip clubs.
I admit I went in with doubts about the need for MusicfestNW at all and was more interested in what the town had to offer; as a journalist it’s almost impossible not to question the role of yet another Pacific Northwest music festival, well-stocked as the region is with Bumbershoot, Sasquatch and even The Stranger’s Capitol Hill Block Party in Seattle. I don’t know that the event outdid Sasquatch in terms of relevance or uniqueness, but it did prove itself far more interesting and well-executed than several of its peers, with the benefit of the daily changes in scenery keeping festival exhaustion at bay longer than is usual.
Bless This Tiny Alley: Day One
The first day of MusicfestNW is also its thinnest. All of the evening’s shows are at Berbati’s Pan, which quickly proved itself to be one of the worst venues taking part in the festival. Berbati’s flaws are twofold: it’s poorly ventilated, creating a humid, withering atmosphere and it seems to be home to Portland’s most obnoxious hipsters, more interested in fierce debates at the bar than whatever show is going on. Wristbands for MFNW went for $60. That’s the equivalent of the cover for 10 or 12 small shows. Which means that somewhere out there in Portland are dozens of people who wasted what would be a year’s worth of shows for some people talking over the sets of a handful of singer-songwriters who were stuck playing a club that didn’t know to mix their live sound well enough to drown out the twits at the bar.
I was staying with my friends from Spectrum Culture for the extent of my stay and we moved as a team, trying to coordinate our efforts and defenses. They were intent on seeing Will Sheff from Okkervil River perform a solo set so we landed at Berbati’s early, still unsure of how capable our press credentials would be at keeping us out of lines. Any fears were unfounded: the MFNW crew were excellent at moving the lines and answering any questions, which is an unbelievably rare occurrence at these types of things. We stuck around to catch Damien Jurado, but soon left since it was difficult to make out his performance between the obnoxious bar chatter and Jurado’s tendency to curl himself up on his stool on stage, making it almost impossible to even see or hear him in a good venue let alone one like Berbati’s. Jurado is from the school of singer-songwriters who seem to be absolutely terrified of performing, making their performances more awkward and uncomfortable than entertaining or transformative.
Sheff, by contrast, was the consummate showman, all shaking hips and ecstatic expressions. Though Okkervil River never did anything for me, sounding to my ears like the pretentious rich man’s Old 97’s, I could easily understand why people are drawn to Sheff- he’s a master at making carefully calculated moves seem spontaneous and adventurous even as his often ridiculously pompous lyrics should alienate more people than they draw in. Sheff didn’t convert me, but I came away with a new appreciation for the power of the right moves paired with the right lines.
It was too early on to determine whether MFNW would wind up being all that memorable, but the first night was undoubtedly a wash. Nonetheless, the next day held much promise, with a Fat Cat Records showcase at Dante’s and the Dirty Three closing the night at the dreaded Berbati’s.
Peering Through Open Windows: Day Two
When I reviewed We Were Promised Jetpacks’ debut These Four Walls earlier this year, I hazarded a guess that their live show would far outstrip their recorded output. I’m extremely pleased that the group did not disappoint in the slightest. I shocked the Spectrum crew by choosing the young Scottish band over the much-hyped Cymbals Eat Guitars, performing in the same time slot elsewhere, but I stand by the decision. Jetpacks, to their credit, are an incredibly earnest band, seemingly filled with the desire to save lives through rock and roll, regardless of how hip that is or isn’t. They look like friends you have, with bad haircuts and unassuming outfits – the closest they got to being stylish was the guitarist’s Goo-referencing T-shirt. The lead singer will most definitely never fit into skinny jeans, and bless him for that.
Beginning, as the album does, with the anthemic “It’s Thunder and It’s Lightning,” Jetpacks were hellbent on converting the masses from the get go. A look around at the faces of the rest of Dante’s confirmed that they seemed to be succeeding with things reaching a climax when the band launched into their ferocious single, “Quiet Little Voices.” With its hooky “oh oh oh” chorus and fist pumping guitars, it’s truly only a matter of time before the band is two steps away from world domination. Their set never let up on the energy, the entire band positively soaked in sweat only halfway through, evidence that great music doesn’t have to be complicated or revolutionary to be inspirational.
The Dirty Three may have seemed like the antithesis of Jetpacks on paper but in terms of performing they were on equal ground. Led by the incredible Warren Ellis on violin, whose playing revolved around breakneck transitions between explosive bursts of avant noise and more traditionally beautiful melodies, the Dirty Three offered up what was quite possibly the best performance of the festival and ample proof that instrumental outfits aren’t necessarily lesser than their more “normal” counterparts. Much of this was due to Ellis’s crazed stage persona, his look somewhere between natty pirate and debauched dandy, with a flowing open dress shirt and gold medallions clashing with his long, stringy hair and Charles Manson-style beard. Ellis taunted the soundman throughout the night, demanding that he make Ellis sound like various dead rockstars. At one point he explained a song as being for “when you wake up one morning and stare into your bowl of Cheerios and realize Jim Morrison’s stolen your mojo.”
Though the Dirty Three are a somewhat simple outfit in structure (just violin, guitar and drums), they unleash epic walls of sound that don’t seem like they could possibly be coming from what’s on stage. Ellis plays his violin through a Marshall half stack, treating the feedback and distortion it creates as an art form unto itself, his arms windmilling and his pelvis thrusting into the decay. While the drums and guitar try desperately to contain the proceedings, Ellis lets loose violin lines that may begin beautifully but are certain to turn ugly on you in a heartbeat without any hesitation or warning. And it’s wonderful.
Finding the Beauty in the Bass Line: Day Three
An issue I hadn’t thought of concerning MFNW popped up on Friday. Most large festivals, geared as they are to college crowds and the like, are completely all-ages but the majority of venues involved with MFNW are decidedly not. Even at SXSW you can be underage and go to more or less every show, since Texas doesn’t have the same archaic, idiotic alcohol laws that the Pacific Northwest seems to have in spades. This meant that somewhere like Dante’s or Berbati’s Pan, both of which featured a huge portion of the shows going on at MFNW, was off limits to kids. As a result, Backspace, a combination venue/cyber cafe, was a mecca of sorts for the under-21 set.
The bills at Backspace reflected this as well, composed largely of bands who at least partially owe their success to the underage crowd, like the K Records roster on Friday and later Titus Andronicus. I’ve worked extensively with the all-ages community in Seattle for several years now and what struck me more than anything was how, well, tame the all-ages crowd in Portland seemed to be. Friday at Backspace began with a scheduling mix up that had Karl Blau going on before No Kids. When Blau took the stage, the crowd was still seated cross-legged on the floor and they would not get up throughout the sets I saw at the venue.
It should be noted, though, that the Friday set at Backspace was uniformly disappointing. Blau in particular looked and acted more like an exile from Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! than the incredibly hyped K artist he has been for the last few months. What was described to me on paper concerning Blau’s sound seemed immensely promising: lo-fi artist meets world dance music and joins it to more traditional K tropes. What happened in actuality was anything but promising, with Blau full of all the charisma of an overly anxious open mic performer. With his pig-tailed mullet and seemingly unironic outfit of high waisted jeans and dirty truck stop shirt, Blau was an alien, dependent on a projector that displayed his lyrics on the walls of the club apparently more for his own ease than any sort of crowd interaction.
Worse, Blau didn’t have a backing band, just an iPod he’d attached to the venue’s less-than-stellar sound system. His backing tracks mostly inaudible and his voice weak enough to make Calvin Johnson seem classically trained, it’s safe to say Blau was an all-out disaster. But No Kids weren’t much of an improvement. I’d been anticipating their set quite a bit, expecting them to be at least as capable with a crowd as their comrades Paranthetical Girls. Instead, the group came off as anxious and out of their element, even though Backspace was about the smallest, most intimate club taking part. Comprised of just two singers/keyboardists and Mt. Eerie’s Phil Elverum on drums, No Kids were thin sounding in the worst way. I grew bored and wandered over to the Crystal Ballroom, where the much anticipated Sunny Day Real Estate reunion show would be.
For a lot of us, SDRE were the first band that mattered, their music a clear contrast to the macho posturing of grunge and what came after; it was still heavy, but it was intricate and detailed, Jeremy Enigk’s voice both angelic and strained even as the rhythm section were the most finely tuned onslaught you ever heard. Maybe I’m too needy but the Crystal Ballroom itself was on the verge of ruining the experience of seeing a band close to my heart perform together after nearly two decades of separation. All those intricacies, all those delicate pieces holding together the storm of the music were lost in the wash of the venue’s atrocious sound. The Crystal is a void of noise, its acoustics causing everything to bleed together, the guitars all scream and terror in the space of the hall, the kick drum a low rumble threatening to bring down the walls themselves. Enigk’s voice was a soul adrift at sea, appearing occasionally but mostly disappearing beneath the murk.
Performance-wise the band appeared to be at the top of their game. “In Circles” and “Red Elephant,” from what I could glimpse between the lackluster production, were as vital as ever, the quiet moments offering hints of what things would be like in a better place. I couldn’t stand it, so I left, which I realize seems like a common theme here but the truth is that any time you count on a wide variety of venues and crews to make your festival happen, you run the risk of having huge discrepancies in sound. The likelihood of MFNW even be able to fix this or counteract it in some way is slim, of course, but it’s worth noting that there were alternatives to both of the venues that were the worst of the offenders. Berbati’s Pan is only a midsize venue and there were literally dozens of others in the city that could have taken its place, though its issues had more to do with its specific sound operator appearing to be considerably out of his element; the Crystal Ballroom, by contrast, seemed to have been chosen mainly for its size but the other large venues that were part of MFNW had excellent sound, most notably the Roseland.
The Roseland was where I went next, to catch the last bits of P.O.S.’s set. From what I caught, P.O.S. seemed to have put on a ferocious, breakout performance, playing a set that his peers could learn from. Where so many hip-hop acts spend so much time posturing for the crowd (even if it is tradition, it’s still boring as all hell), P.O.S. let the power of his performance move the crowd, who it should be noted were eating out of his palm. Even though he was flanked only by a DJ, P.O.S. had the energy of an entire band himself, taking the audience to frenzied heights. The mix in the Roseland was incredible, the bass immensely powerful but still clear, every word of P.O.S.’s delivery easy to grasp, the lights adding another level as well, to the point where P.O.S. and his DJ even took time between their set to thank the lighting operator for doing so much with so little notice or time.
The excellent sound and lighting carried over to the Bad Brains’ set, but the energy did not. Despite their legendary reputation amongst the D.C. hardcore community they pioneered and influenced, Bad Brains seemed to be on autopilot throughout their set, sounding less like a groundbreaking band and more like a watered down group of pretenders. Though their more dub-inflected songs, like the classic “I and I,” still had much of their potency, the bulk of their set was comprised of dumbed down, obvious takes on their more hardcore-rooted catalog. It wasn’t much of a disappointment, then, that the Spectrum staff and I had to leave early to head across town to catch a secret party the Thermals were set to play.
Though it wasn’t officially part of MFNW, the industry party at Bodyvox was one of the better moments of the week, dubious though it was with its epic amounts of swag and tacky banners everywhere advertising a mind-blowing number of sponsors. It was difficult to tell who the party was even for, or in honor of what conglomerate, or whatever the purpose was. There were free drinks named after bands at MFNW, like the vodka-stuffed Sunny Day Real Estate, and there were boutique sandwiches and coffee in the corners. Most of the crowd at the party didn’t seem to care about the Thermals, their concerns apparently more suited to schmoozing and being seen, so when they went on around after an hour or so, it was like the Thermals were playing for friends.
Which was fine by me. With a set composed of a good sprinkling of all of their albums, the Thermals played like their lives were on the line, just like they always do. Fan favorites like “Our Trip” and “No Culture Icons” had even the most cynical critic pogoing like mad, fists pumping in the air and dozens of voices screaming every word. Even though I didn’t make it out until after 3 that morning, I was still so excited by the performance I couldn’t even sleep anyway. It was a reminder why I even do this in the first place, an acknowledgment that even in the weirdest of settings during the most exhausting of events a powerful performance has the ability to cut through all the crap and leave you full of hope for the potency of music.
This Ain’t No Holiday: Day Four
I honestly cannot even tell you how good Fucked Up actually are as a band because it is almost impossible to stop watching their frontman, Pink Eyes. A huge, hulking mass of a man, easily over 300 lbs., Pink Eyes is a spectacle in the best sense of the word. Watching him fling himself across the gigantic Wonder Ballroom as his band dutifully tried to tow the line behind him, he’s the type of performer who draws your eyes like a magnet. Even though the Wonder was far too large for the band, whose Pitchfork-approved climb in popularity seems to have gone as far as it can go, Pink Eyes worked it like we were all in a basement, watching the post-hardcore group doing what they do best: tear shit up.
On album, it’s clear that Fucked Up are more than just a dangerous front man and a group of anonymous musicians, their brand of post-hardcore aggressive and incendiary, sure, but also full of personality and subtle additions of carefully crafted counter melodies and build-ups. Even their simplest, most obvious songs, like the addictive “David Comes to Life,” have a certain something to them that forces you to listen over and over looking for the secret ingredient. In the live setting, though, everything revolves around Pink Eyes, who is both terrifying in his size and scope and hilariously charming and sweet, taking time out of the set to help people find iPods or glasses lost in the pit. He’s also impossible to escape, forcing everyone to take part in the show, refusing to let anyone stand back and just observe. I was bear hugged, the Spectrum crew shook hands with him in the middle of a song, the guy in front of us wound up having Pink Eyes tongue the plugs he had in his ears. It was a blast even if I can’t really remember the exact details so much as I’m still grasping a feeling and washing off the sweat.
It also required an immense break, none of us feeling up to the task of watching another show until Titus Andronicus’s set several hours later at Backspace. Titus Andronicus thrive on a different kind of chaos than Fucked Up. Their sets are just as sweaty and frenzied, but it’s a communal thing centered around the music itself rather than any one ingredient. Like Jetpacks, Titus are a group concerned with the transformative power of rock music itself and its ability to save your soul.
Backspace was the perfect venue for the Jersey-based act, full of kids in desperate need of salvation and the sound suitably gritty and driving. It didn’t matter that the vocals sounded like a mess, or that the bass was barely there half the time. All that mattered was that your ears were ringing and you had someone’s elbow jabbed in you at all times and your senses were overloaded with the smell of a hundred sweaty fanatics. The band was perfectly sloppy and haphazard, the guitars all over the place, You listen to the album to catch the dizzying number of literary references, you go to the show to feel alive, to wonder how the guitarists aren’t unplugging each other constantly as they leap into each other’s space, to question whether the drummer’s or your heart will pop first.
Maybe that vitality, that energy spoiled me but Black Francis’s performance at Dante’s just felt lackluster and dull. The Pixies frontman was performing a solo set with just himself and his electric guitar and though this may sound obvious it just seemed like something was missing. Francis was fine, and the takes on Pixies classics as well as his own solo material were interesting, but they just didn’t move me, not the same way finally seeing the Pixies on their first reunion tour did, or even the times I’ve seen him perform with The Catholics. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, it merely existed.
Funnily enough, we left Black Francis deciding to just catch an early night and let the festivities end. But we wound up stumbling into Someday on a whim after hearing what turned out to be a joint performance with Josh Martinez and Sleep. Josh Martinez is a Vancouver-based MC who is as notable for his singing voice as his flow, but Sleep was unknown to me, though he wound up stealing the show. Based out of Portland itself, Sleep is an MC who has both a phenomenal speed to his flow but also a near perfect knack for the rhythms of language. The duo were flanked by a live drummer and a DJ who spent the entire evening dressed in a business suit and pig mask.
Between Sleep’s finesse on the mic and the drummer’s mind blowing virtuosity, the set was one of the best of the festival, even though it was sadly sparsely attended. It helped that Someday had someone on the mixing board who perfectly understood how to mix hip-hop, just the right amount of low end rumble but with clarity on the vocals and samples. But it really all came down to the intense understanding every single one of the performers on stage had of how to interest a crowd. Martinez and Sleep seemed to have a telepathic connection to each other that was enthralling, and their rhythm section were pouring their very life essence into the music. Afterwards I found out the four had formed a supergroup of sorts called Chicharones and if their new album is even half as passionate as their performance was, they may very well be the hip-hop crew of the year.
I let my MFNW experience end there, skipping the Modest Mouse/Love As Laughter double bill happening the next day. I’m still not entirely sure I understand what MFNW’s role is, since it lacks the industry culture and focus on new artists that SXSW does or the epic scope of Sasquatch, but there was something about freely roaming a city and occasionally stumbling into something like the Chicharones set, something that felt worthwhile and inspiring. It was an exhausting week, with not too many surprises and less confirmations, and the hefty price tag for weeklong entry seems both counterintuitive and intimidating. But with even Sasquatch invaded by the unwashed masses now, maybe there’s something to be said for an event that brings live music back to where it really matters, the small, local venues and promoters. MusicfestNW would do well to focus on that aspect of itself, shedding the Crystal Ballrooms and Nike-tagged debacles and getting back to its roots and limiting the parts of its bills that don’t even fit that NW descriptor anyway. Until then, it’s just a slightly better than average event trying to stand out in a sea of them.
-Review and photos by Morgan Davis
Portland as a city has always held an interest for me. Even though I live in Seattle and the rest of the country presumes the two are more or less identical, Portland has always felt like Seattle with less hang-ups. With that in mind, it didn’t take much to convince me to go down to the city to cover the relatively young MusicfestNW, a five-day festival run by the Willamette Week that’s closer in execution and style to a SXSW or CMJ than the nearby (in date and location) Bumbershoot. It was an opportunity to further explore a city I’ve considered living in, to investigate their venues and get a better grasping on the seeming dichotomy of one of the most heavily artist-populated places in the nation doing double duty as one of its largest concentrations of strip clubs.
I admit I went in with doubts about the need for MusicfestNW at all and was more interested in what the town had to offer; as a journalist it’s almost impossible not to question the role of yet another Pacific Northwest music festival, well-stocked as the region is with Bumbershoot, Sasquatch and even The Stranger’s Capitol Hill Block Party in Seattle. I don’t know that the event outdid Sasquatch in terms of relevance or uniqueness, but it did prove itself far more interesting and well-executed than several of its peers, with the benefit of the daily changes in scenery keeping festival exhaustion at bay longer than is usual.
Bless This Tiny Alley: Day One
The first day of MusicfestNW is also its thinnest. All of the evening’s shows are at Berbati’s Pan, which quickly proved itself to be one of the worst venues taking part in the festival. Berbati’s flaws are twofold: it’s poorly ventilated, creating a humid, withering atmosphere and it seems to be home to Portland’s most obnoxious hipsters, more interested in fierce debates at the bar than whatever show is going on. Wristbands for MFNW went for $60. That’s the equivalent of the cover for 10 or 12 small shows. Which means that somewhere out there in Portland are dozens of people who wasted what would be a year’s worth of shows for some people talking over the sets of a handful of singer-songwriters who were stuck playing a club that didn’t know to mix their live sound well enough to drown out the twits at the bar.
I was staying with my friends from Spectrum Culture for the extent of my stay and we moved as a team, trying to coordinate our efforts and defenses. They were intent on seeing Will Sheff from Okkervil River perform a solo set so we landed at Berbati’s early, still unsure of how capable our press credentials would be at keeping us out of lines. Any fears were unfounded: the MFNW crew were excellent at moving the lines and answering any questions, which is an unbelievably rare occurrence at these types of things. We stuck around to catch Damien Jurado, but soon left since it was difficult to make out his performance between the obnoxious bar chatter and Jurado’s tendency to curl himself up on his stool on stage, making it almost impossible to even see or hear him in a good venue let alone one like Berbati’s. Jurado is from the school of singer-songwriters who seem to be absolutely terrified of performing, making their performances more awkward and uncomfortable than entertaining or transformative.
Sheff, by contrast, was the consummate showman, all shaking hips and ecstatic expressions. Though Okkervil River never did anything for me, sounding to my ears like the pretentious rich man’s Old 97’s, I could easily understand why people are drawn to Sheff- he’s a master at making carefully calculated moves seem spontaneous and adventurous even as his often ridiculously pompous lyrics should alienate more people than they draw in. Sheff didn’t convert me, but I came away with a new appreciation for the power of the right moves paired with the right lines.
It was too early on to determine whether MFNW would wind up being all that memorable, but the first night was undoubtedly a wash. Nonetheless, the next day held much promise, with a Fat Cat Records showcase at Dante’s and the Dirty Three closing the night at the dreaded Berbati’s.
Peering Through Open Windows: Day Two
When I reviewed We Were Promised Jetpacks’ debut These Four Walls earlier this year, I hazarded a guess that their live show would far outstrip their recorded output. I’m extremely pleased that the group did not disappoint in the slightest. I shocked the Spectrum crew by choosing the young Scottish band over the much-hyped Cymbals Eat Guitars, performing in the same time slot elsewhere, but I stand by the decision. Jetpacks, to their credit, are an incredibly earnest band, seemingly filled with the desire to save lives through rock and roll, regardless of how hip that is or isn’t. They look like friends you have, with bad haircuts and unassuming outfits – the closest they got to being stylish was the guitarist’s Goo-referencing T-shirt. The lead singer will most definitely never fit into skinny jeans, and bless him for that.
Beginning, as the album does, with the anthemic “It’s Thunder and It’s Lightning,” Jetpacks were hellbent on converting the masses from the get go. A look around at the faces of the rest of Dante’s confirmed that they seemed to be succeeding with things reaching a climax when the band launched into their ferocious single, “Quiet Little Voices.” With its hooky “oh oh oh” chorus and fist pumping guitars, it’s truly only a matter of time before the band is two steps away from world domination. Their set never let up on the energy, the entire band positively soaked in sweat only halfway through, evidence that great music doesn’t have to be complicated or revolutionary to be inspirational.
The Dirty Three may have seemed like the antithesis of Jetpacks on paper but in terms of performing they were on equal ground. Led by the incredible Warren Ellis on violin, whose playing revolved around breakneck transitions between explosive bursts of avant noise and more traditionally beautiful melodies, the Dirty Three offered up what was quite possibly the best performance of the festival and ample proof that instrumental outfits aren’t necessarily lesser than their more “normal” counterparts. Much of this was due to Ellis’s crazed stage persona, his look somewhere between natty pirate and debauched dandy, with a flowing open dress shirt and gold medallions clashing with his long, stringy hair and Charles Manson-style beard. Ellis taunted the soundman throughout the night, demanding that he make Ellis sound like various dead rockstars. At one point he explained a song as being for “when you wake up one morning and stare into your bowl of Cheerios and realize Jim Morrison’s stolen your mojo.”
Though the Dirty Three are a somewhat simple outfit in structure (just violin, guitar and drums), they unleash epic walls of sound that don’t seem like they could possibly be coming from what’s on stage. Ellis plays his violin through a Marshall half stack, treating the feedback and distortion it creates as an art form unto itself, his arms windmilling and his pelvis thrusting into the decay. While the drums and guitar try desperately to contain the proceedings, Ellis lets loose violin lines that may begin beautifully but are certain to turn ugly on you in a heartbeat without any hesitation or warning. And it’s wonderful.
Finding the Beauty in the Bass Line: Day Three
An issue I hadn’t thought of concerning MFNW popped up on Friday. Most large festivals, geared as they are to college crowds and the like, are completely all-ages but the majority of venues involved with MFNW are decidedly not. Even at SXSW you can be underage and go to more or less every show, since Texas doesn’t have the same archaic, idiotic alcohol laws that the Pacific Northwest seems to have in spades. This meant that somewhere like Dante’s or Berbati’s Pan, both of which featured a huge portion of the shows going on at MFNW, was off limits to kids. As a result, Backspace, a combination venue/cyber cafe, was a mecca of sorts for the under-21 set.
The bills at Backspace reflected this as well, composed largely of bands who at least partially owe their success to the underage crowd, like the K Records roster on Friday and later Titus Andronicus. I’ve worked extensively with the all-ages community in Seattle for several years now and what struck me more than anything was how, well, tame the all-ages crowd in Portland seemed to be. Friday at Backspace began with a scheduling mix up that had Karl Blau going on before No Kids. When Blau took the stage, the crowd was still seated cross-legged on the floor and they would not get up throughout the sets I saw at the venue.
It should be noted, though, that the Friday set at Backspace was uniformly disappointing. Blau in particular looked and acted more like an exile from Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! than the incredibly hyped K artist he has been for the last few months. What was described to me on paper concerning Blau’s sound seemed immensely promising: lo-fi artist meets world dance music and joins it to more traditional K tropes. What happened in actuality was anything but promising, with Blau full of all the charisma of an overly anxious open mic performer. With his pig-tailed mullet and seemingly unironic outfit of high waisted jeans and dirty truck stop shirt, Blau was an alien, dependent on a projector that displayed his lyrics on the walls of the club apparently more for his own ease than any sort of crowd interaction.
Worse, Blau didn’t have a backing band, just an iPod he’d attached to the venue’s less-than-stellar sound system. His backing tracks mostly inaudible and his voice weak enough to make Calvin Johnson seem classically trained, it’s safe to say Blau was an all-out disaster. But No Kids weren’t much of an improvement. I’d been anticipating their set quite a bit, expecting them to be at least as capable with a crowd as their comrades Paranthetical Girls. Instead, the group came off as anxious and out of their element, even though Backspace was about the smallest, most intimate club taking part. Comprised of just two singers/keyboardists and Mt. Eerie’s Phil Elverum on drums, No Kids were thin sounding in the worst way. I grew bored and wandered over to the Crystal Ballroom, where the much anticipated Sunny Day Real Estate reunion show would be.
For a lot of us, SDRE were the first band that mattered, their music a clear contrast to the macho posturing of grunge and what came after; it was still heavy, but it was intricate and detailed, Jeremy Enigk’s voice both angelic and strained even as the rhythm section were the most finely tuned onslaught you ever heard. Maybe I’m too needy but the Crystal Ballroom itself was on the verge of ruining the experience of seeing a band close to my heart perform together after nearly two decades of separation. All those intricacies, all those delicate pieces holding together the storm of the music were lost in the wash of the venue’s atrocious sound. The Crystal is a void of noise, its acoustics causing everything to bleed together, the guitars all scream and terror in the space of the hall, the kick drum a low rumble threatening to bring down the walls themselves. Enigk’s voice was a soul adrift at sea, appearing occasionally but mostly disappearing beneath the murk.
Performance-wise the band appeared to be at the top of their game. “In Circles” and “Red Elephant,” from what I could glimpse between the lackluster production, were as vital as ever, the quiet moments offering hints of what things would be like in a better place. I couldn’t stand it, so I left, which I realize seems like a common theme here but the truth is that any time you count on a wide variety of venues and crews to make your festival happen, you run the risk of having huge discrepancies in sound. The likelihood of MFNW even be able to fix this or counteract it in some way is slim, of course, but it’s worth noting that there were alternatives to both of the venues that were the worst of the offenders. Berbati’s Pan is only a midsize venue and there were literally dozens of others in the city that could have taken its place, though its issues had more to do with its specific sound operator appearing to be considerably out of his element; the Crystal Ballroom, by contrast, seemed to have been chosen mainly for its size but the other large venues that were part of MFNW had excellent sound, most notably the Roseland.
P.O.S.
The Roseland was where I went next, to catch the last bits of P.O.S.’s set. From what I caught, P.O.S. seemed to have put on a ferocious, breakout performance, playing a set that his peers could learn from. Where so many hip-hop acts spend so much time posturing for the crowd (even if it is tradition, it’s still boring as all hell), P.O.S. let the power of his performance move the crowd, who it should be noted were eating out of his palm. Even though he was flanked only by a DJ, P.O.S. had the energy of an entire band himself, taking the audience to frenzied heights. The mix in the Roseland was incredible, the bass immensely powerful but still clear, every word of P.O.S.’s delivery easy to grasp, the lights adding another level as well, to the point where P.O.S. and his DJ even took time between their set to thank the lighting operator for doing so much with so little notice or time.
The excellent sound and lighting carried over to the Bad Brains’ set, but the energy did not. Despite their legendary reputation amongst the D.C. hardcore community they pioneered and influenced, Bad Brains seemed to be on autopilot throughout their set, sounding less like a groundbreaking band and more like a watered down group of pretenders. Though their more dub-inflected songs, like the classic “I and I,” still had much of their potency, the bulk of their set was comprised of dumbed down, obvious takes on their more hardcore-rooted catalog. It wasn’t much of a disappointment, then, that the Spectrum staff and I had to leave early to head across town to catch a secret party the Thermals were set to play.
The Thermals
Though it wasn’t officially part of MFNW, the industry party at Bodyvox was one of the better moments of the week, dubious though it was with its epic amounts of swag and tacky banners everywhere advertising a mind-blowing number of sponsors. It was difficult to tell who the party was even for, or in honor of what conglomerate, or whatever the purpose was. There were free drinks named after bands at MFNW, like the vodka-stuffed Sunny Day Real Estate, and there were boutique sandwiches and coffee in the corners. Most of the crowd at the party didn’t seem to care about the Thermals, their concerns apparently more suited to schmoozing and being seen, so when they went on around after an hour or so, it was like the Thermals were playing for friends.
Which was fine by me. With a set composed of a good sprinkling of all of their albums, the Thermals played like their lives were on the line, just like they always do. Fan favorites like “Our Trip” and “No Culture Icons” had even the most cynical critic pogoing like mad, fists pumping in the air and dozens of voices screaming every word. Even though I didn’t make it out until after 3 that morning, I was still so excited by the performance I couldn’t even sleep anyway. It was a reminder why I even do this in the first place, an acknowledgment that even in the weirdest of settings during the most exhausting of events a powerful performance has the ability to cut through all the crap and leave you full of hope for the potency of music.
Fucked Up
This Ain’t No Holiday: Day Four
I honestly cannot even tell you how good Fucked Up actually are as a band because it is almost impossible to stop watching their frontman, Pink Eyes. A huge, hulking mass of a man, easily over 300 lbs., Pink Eyes is a spectacle in the best sense of the word. Watching him fling himself across the gigantic Wonder Ballroom as his band dutifully tried to tow the line behind him, he’s the type of performer who draws your eyes like a magnet. Even though the Wonder was far too large for the band, whose Pitchfork-approved climb in popularity seems to have gone as far as it can go, Pink Eyes worked it like we were all in a basement, watching the post-hardcore group doing what they do best: tear shit up.
Fucked Up
On album, it’s clear that Fucked Up are more than just a dangerous front man and a group of anonymous musicians, their brand of post-hardcore aggressive and incendiary, sure, but also full of personality and subtle additions of carefully crafted counter melodies and build-ups. Even their simplest, most obvious songs, like the addictive “David Comes to Life,” have a certain something to them that forces you to listen over and over looking for the secret ingredient. In the live setting, though, everything revolves around Pink Eyes, who is both terrifying in his size and scope and hilariously charming and sweet, taking time out of the set to help people find iPods or glasses lost in the pit. He’s also impossible to escape, forcing everyone to take part in the show, refusing to let anyone stand back and just observe. I was bear hugged, the Spectrum crew shook hands with him in the middle of a song, the guy in front of us wound up having Pink Eyes tongue the plugs he had in his ears. It was a blast even if I can’t really remember the exact details so much as I’m still grasping a feeling and washing off the sweat.
Titus Andronicus
It also required an immense break, none of us feeling up to the task of watching another show until Titus Andronicus’s set several hours later at Backspace. Titus Andronicus thrive on a different kind of chaos than Fucked Up. Their sets are just as sweaty and frenzied, but it’s a communal thing centered around the music itself rather than any one ingredient. Like Jetpacks, Titus are a group concerned with the transformative power of rock music itself and its ability to save your soul.
Backspace was the perfect venue for the Jersey-based act, full of kids in desperate need of salvation and the sound suitably gritty and driving. It didn’t matter that the vocals sounded like a mess, or that the bass was barely there half the time. All that mattered was that your ears were ringing and you had someone’s elbow jabbed in you at all times and your senses were overloaded with the smell of a hundred sweaty fanatics. The band was perfectly sloppy and haphazard, the guitars all over the place, You listen to the album to catch the dizzying number of literary references, you go to the show to feel alive, to wonder how the guitarists aren’t unplugging each other constantly as they leap into each other’s space, to question whether the drummer’s or your heart will pop first.
Maybe that vitality, that energy spoiled me but Black Francis’s performance at Dante’s just felt lackluster and dull. The Pixies frontman was performing a solo set with just himself and his electric guitar and though this may sound obvious it just seemed like something was missing. Francis was fine, and the takes on Pixies classics as well as his own solo material were interesting, but they just didn’t move me, not the same way finally seeing the Pixies on their first reunion tour did, or even the times I’ve seen him perform with The Catholics. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, it merely existed.
Funnily enough, we left Black Francis deciding to just catch an early night and let the festivities end. But we wound up stumbling into Someday on a whim after hearing what turned out to be a joint performance with Josh Martinez and Sleep. Josh Martinez is a Vancouver-based MC who is as notable for his singing voice as his flow, but Sleep was unknown to me, though he wound up stealing the show. Based out of Portland itself, Sleep is an MC who has both a phenomenal speed to his flow but also a near perfect knack for the rhythms of language. The duo were flanked by a live drummer and a DJ who spent the entire evening dressed in a business suit and pig mask.
Between Sleep’s finesse on the mic and the drummer’s mind blowing virtuosity, the set was one of the best of the festival, even though it was sadly sparsely attended. It helped that Someday had someone on the mixing board who perfectly understood how to mix hip-hop, just the right amount of low end rumble but with clarity on the vocals and samples. But it really all came down to the intense understanding every single one of the performers on stage had of how to interest a crowd. Martinez and Sleep seemed to have a telepathic connection to each other that was enthralling, and their rhythm section were pouring their very life essence into the music. Afterwards I found out the four had formed a supergroup of sorts called Chicharones and if their new album is even half as passionate as their performance was, they may very well be the hip-hop crew of the year.
I let my MFNW experience end there, skipping the Modest Mouse/Love As Laughter double bill happening the next day. I’m still not entirely sure I understand what MFNW’s role is, since it lacks the industry culture and focus on new artists that SXSW does or the epic scope of Sasquatch, but there was something about freely roaming a city and occasionally stumbling into something like the Chicharones set, something that felt worthwhile and inspiring. It was an exhausting week, with not too many surprises and less confirmations, and the hefty price tag for weeklong entry seems both counterintuitive and intimidating. But with even Sasquatch invaded by the unwashed masses now, maybe there’s something to be said for an event that brings live music back to where it really matters, the small, local venues and promoters. MusicfestNW would do well to focus on that aspect of itself, shedding the Crystal Ballrooms and Nike-tagged debacles and getting back to its roots and limiting the parts of its bills that don’t even fit that NW descriptor anyway. Until then, it’s just a slightly better than average event trying to stand out in a sea of them.
-Review and photos by Morgan Davis
September 28, 2009
Check out the CDs we got in the office today
Highway Ghosts - After All This Time
Hawnay Troof - Daggers at the Moon
One Eskimo - One Eskimo
Lissie - Why You Runnin’
Roy G Biv & the Mnemonic Devices - Blue Orange
Luego – Taped-Together Stories
Pink Noise – Pink Noise
Nathan Sexton – Grave
Hyim – Sex in the Morning
Sidewalk Driver – For All the Boys and Girls
Geisha Hit Squad – A Stolen Moment
Bobby Birdman – New Moods
Yo Mama’s Big Fat Booty Band – Greatest Hips Volume II
Mikal – Only Enemies Tell the Truth… Friends and Lovers Lie Endlessly
The Swimmers – People Are Soft
Hawnay Troof - Daggers at the Moon
One Eskimo - One Eskimo
Lissie - Why You Runnin’
Roy G Biv & the Mnemonic Devices - Blue Orange
Luego – Taped-Together Stories
Pink Noise – Pink Noise
Nathan Sexton – Grave
Hyim – Sex in the Morning
Sidewalk Driver – For All the Boys and Girls
Geisha Hit Squad – A Stolen Moment
Bobby Birdman – New Moods
Yo Mama’s Big Fat Booty Band – Greatest Hips Volume II
Mikal – Only Enemies Tell the Truth… Friends and Lovers Lie Endlessly
The Swimmers – People Are Soft
Live Review: Saint Motel
Chapman University // Sept. 18, 2009
For those who did not attend Chapman University’s Friday’s frat party, probably attended the free show
Chapman film school alumni Saint Motel's free show was complete with matching white School of Rock button-ups and mini palm tree decor against the backdrop of Chapman’s grandiose library. In the midst of hysterical sorority girls breaking their heels to catch the last party bus, I manage to park next to Saint Motel’s van: a humble black vehicle holding the weight of three guitars, drums and on-stage Motel flare. Out pop four young men who introduce themselves to me and invite me to Spaceland, an elite L.A. bar where they have a residency.
Saint Motel opened the quaint show with their first single, “Dear Dictator,” a song from their newly released EP, ForPlay, that has been prevalent on L.A.’s KROQ radio. I’ve been trying to pinpoint who exactly Saint Motel sounds like, and I was convinced that it was The Strokes. However, though both American bands balance their rock with a shot of pop and share similarly friendly, light vocals, Saint Motel prove themselves to be a truly unique L.A. indie band. Songs such as “Dear Dictator” and crowd-favorite “Pity Party” provide an underlying political theme that acts as a catalyst for audience reaction: “Nobody has ever seen his face/but there it smiles. They will drink your blood just for the taste.” These “us vs. them” lyrics successfully riled up the crowd and everyone danced with their fists in the air.
Saint Motel’s motives are to connect their listeners to their ideas presented through song, and they do so every single time they perform. The crowd latches on and never seems to let go. And they ended their encore with “Do Everything Now,” a command that fans didn’t mind obliging.
-Review and photo by Gina Vaynshteyn
www.myspace.com/saintmotel
Live Review: The Happy Hollows
Gibson Showroom // Beverly Hills, CA // Sept. 15, 2009
On Tuesday, Sept. 15, L.A.-based The Happy Hollows played an intimate 10-song set to a small crowd at the Gibson Showroom in Beverly Hills. The band to played a set in the performance room, to promote their new album, Spells, which should be released in October. For such a small crowd and venue, the band certainly filed the room with as much energy as it would take to play a stadium. The set was tight and well-rehearsed, and the band played most of the songs from Spells, introducing their new music to the eager audience. Sarah Negahdari, the energetic front woman, clearly stole the show with her experimental, shouted vocals and heavy-duty guitar shredding. In each song she took a guitar solo, dropping to her knees or humping around stage, bumping into bassist Charlie Mahoney, who does his fair share of head banging and body lunges. Chris Hernandez, the drummer, masters his primal drumbeats and centers the band’s sound, which is close to chaotic, yet prominent in rhythm. The trio brilliantly works together to put on a show that you can’t tear your eyes from, and their noise-pop, almost punk-sounding music accompanies their unique performance.
-Review by Sasha Patpatia
myspace.com/thehappyhollows
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
