I remember the exact date that my history with Wilco started. It was November 3, 1997 at the Granada Theatre in Lawrence, KS. My friend (and main concert promoter in town) Jacki Becker called me up that afternoon and asked if I would mind helping work security for a Wilco concert that evening. Jacki called me somewhat often to guard doors at bigger shows, and paid me in free concerts of some of my favorite bands. In my barely-21-year-old brain at the time, Wilco was a band for post-collegiate bros with backwards baseball caps, whose taste for live music had dwindled alongside their taste for beer (I seem to remember a lot of Miller Lite hovering around that scene). I hemmed and hawed and finally agreed, mainly because I had nothing else to do that night and all of my friends were busy. If nothing else, the story about the godawful band I saw the night before would be worth retelling the next day.
My part in this crack squad of security volunteers was usually to make sure people didn't sneak backstage or climb onstage. Simple, boring, easy enough to watch the show as it was happening. This time, however, I was thrust into a different role. My job for the evening? Stand in the front row, center, directly in front of Jeff Tweedy. Keep those rowdy, husky, Miller Lite sluggin' bros off the stage. Most importantly, Jeff was to stage-dive during one song in the set, and I was instructed to leap onto the stage and make sure his guitar cable didn't get yanked on or tangled up in the mass of adoring hands. (I'm still convinced Jacki put me there to get me to fall in love with Wilco.)
I watched Jeff and the Being There-era iteration of Wilco come out onto the stage and likely grumbled under my breath about being stuck watching this alt-country band play a 75 minute set full of sleepers. Not five minutes after the first chords of "Misunderstood" were strummed, I was slackjawed (likely with a mouthful of crow) and unable to deny the perfect blend of melody and atmospherics that Wilco were perfecting on Being There. Later in the set, Tweedy crowdsurfed, I kept his guitar cable from getting stolen, and I patted his butt back onto the stage post-solo. I remember the show wrapping up with a cover of Led Zeppelin's "The Immigrant Song" complete with a deli tray full of processed meats being tossed into the crowd. I was sold.
Seeing a band that is undoubtedly hitting their creative stride is a really powerful thing. While you can't listen to Unknown Mortal Orchestra's two records and hear a band struggling with anything, their last spin through town was a bit lackluster. While the Portland trio had a small lineup change (drummer Julian Erhlich has been replaced with Riley Geare), that change (along with a year and a half of recording/touring/general band growth) has helped propel the band's live experience from hit-and-miss wallflowers to confident psychedelic shamans, capable of sudden dive-bomb instrumental passages that turn the bop-along pop compositions of their recordings into full on heady freakouts.
Describing Madonna's current tour in a set amount of words is a lot like being asked to explain your life story in detail to a total stranger in under a minute. There are so many moments of beautiful minutiae that are going to be glossed over in recapping it that it almost seems fruitless from the start. Madonna's 135 minute set was a master class in the art of professional presentation, and there wasn't a second of it that didn't feel packed to the edges with the sort of meticulous attention to detail that it feels tragic to overlook. Keeping that in mind, here I go, trying to explain what I saw in the 135 minutes I spent with Madonna at Key Arena on Tuesday night.
Madonna has always been an intense aggregator of pop culture. Some would call her a trendsetter or pioneer; others would liken her to wearing culture as a costume. Whatever side of that fence you sit on, it's impossible to deny the woman's broad grasp of influences, and seeing all of this in a concentrated, back-to-back experience was intensely inspiring and simultaneously jarring.
Less than 24 hours after seeing Jane's Addiction relive the skeezy early 90s of the Hollywood strip on the Key Arena stage, I found myself watching Tony Bennett put on a polar opposite of a set on the same stage. Argue all you will about the inconsistencies of the lineup, but that weird contrast is exactly what makes a festival like Bumbershoot special. Seeing a hushed, respectful audience fall to a dead silence mid-afternoon for a set from an 86 year old legend was reaffirming that a modern day audience can have fun and put their phones down for a second to enjoy classic moments.
Speaking of classic, let's talk about classic terrible behavior. I had a guy in front of me snapping shots of Bennett's set with his iPad. Quick rant: no one looks more ridiculous and foolish than a person at a concert holding up their iPad to take the same crappy photos that their iPhone takes. (Actually, the iPad takes 5mp photos and the iPhone takes 8mp photos, if you've got the newest stuff, which I'm sure you do.) So, c'mon people. Do every single one of us a favor and leave the iPad at home during a concert, please? Next one I see at a show, I'm "accidentally" spilling a drink on it. Knock it off.
Sometimes a little mystery goes a long way. Enigmatic almost to a fault, Black Moth Super Rainbow exist in a very unique space that they've created and that they control. The band has performed in masks, crouched and obscured from crowd view, and purposefully avoided interviews and general limelight. Their sound is something of an old science film soundtrack (at least if you were born in the 70's; I have no idea how much science film soundtracks changed in the past couple decades) strained at times through dreamy or creepy elements. Walls of analog keyboards and singer Tobacco's constantly vocoder-ed out vocals are the foundation of the Black Moth Super Rainbow sound.
From a character standpoint, Josh Tillman's transformation from somber and quiet solo artist (and drummer of the Fleet Foxes) into the overblown braggadocio of Father John Misty is quite a stretch. On record, all of his work has some foundational similarities; with Misty, personality comes to the forefront. Assuming the role of the somewhat-fictional Father John Misty, Tillman has given himself license to be freed from the constraints of the sensitive, castrated modern day folk singer. Misty is a lascivious, cantankerous character whose debaucherous tales of womanizing and drunken blackouts are a far cry from the Fleet Foxes' plaintive cries to pick apples all the live long day. It's a bit of a Will Rogers meets Hugh Hefner character, balancing witty anecdotes on human nature with an unapologetic raging hard on.
In a world full of far too many immediate entertainment options, it's a given that some brilliance is going to fall through the cracks. Granted, the deck was a little stacked on Saturday night; Seattle snapped out of drizzly misery for a day of sunshine, and the city's concert calendar was stocked with heavyweights like Nada Surf, Of Montreal/Deerhoof, and I suppose the argument could be stretched out in En Vogue's direction (no offense, En Vogue) for stealing away some potential concertgoers. Whatever the case, Chop Suey had more than enough elbow room for a show that should've sold out a room twice that size.
Bahamas' opening set was stripped down even more than their normal guitar/backing vocals/drums setup, as drummer Jason Tait (of The Weakerthans) was back home with a newborn child. Main Bahamanian Afie Jurvanen didn't seem phased a bit by the lack of percussion, and the stark nature of Jurvanen's sparkly Silvertone guitar, soulful voice, and duo of heavenly backup singers made his songs fill every empty space in the club with warmth. While many artists present acoustic/stripped down sets that sputter from lack of driving elements, Bahamas' bare bones set showcased the no punches pulled honesty and dry wit of Jurvanen's songs.
"Oh, he's very popular. The sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, waistoids, dweebs...they all adore him. They think he's a righteous dude." - Grace the secretary, Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
If there's anyone on Earth today who embodies the "live in the moment" mentality of fun-loving pied piper Ferris Bueller, it's Andrew Wilkes Krier. Existing as one of those "so simple it's brilliant" things in life, Andrew W.K. is here to party, have fun, get wet, get wasted, and you truly have no choice as to whether you'll join this train or not.
It's hard to believe anyone would ever listen to Philadelphia sextet Dr. Dog's schizophrenic hodge-podge of a debut album (2001's Psychedelic Swamp) and have any sort of mind's-eye glimpse of the same band a decade later, functioning as a colorful, well-oiled classic pop machine and filling Seattle's Neptune Theatre on Valentine's Day. While you could definitely hear some of the band's early tendencies toward the haunting and creepy in the atmospheric corners of the mix, it was the band's propensity toward pure, unbridled sunshine that shone through and seemingly powered the Neptune.
I remember the exact date that my history with Wilco started. It was November 3, 1997 at the Granada Theatre in Lawrence, KS. My friend (and main concert promoter in town) Jacki Becker called me up that afternoon and asked if I would mind helping work security for a Wilco concert that evening. Jacki called me somewhat often to guard doors at bigger shows, and paid me in free concerts of some of my favorite bands. In my barely-21-year-old brain at the time, Wilco was a band for post-collegiate bros with backwards baseball caps, whose taste for live music had dwindled alongside their taste for beer (I seem to remember a lot of Miller Lite hovering around that scene). I hemmed and hawed and finally agreed, mainly because I had nothing else to do that night and all of my friends were busy. If nothing else, the story about the godawful band I saw the night before would be worth retelling the next day.
My part in this crack squad of security volunteers was usually to make sure people didn't sneak backstage or climb onstage. Simple, boring, easy enough to watch the show as it was happening. This time, however, I was thrust into a different role. My job for the evening? Stand in the front row, center, directly in front of Jeff Tweedy. Keep those rowdy, husky, Miller Lite sluggin' bros off the stage. Most importantly, Jeff was to stage-dive during one song in the set, and I was instructed to leap onto the stage and make sure his guitar cable didn't get yanked on or tangled up in the mass of adoring hands. (I'm still convinced Jacki put me there to get me to fall in love with Wilco.)
I watched Jeff and the Being There-era iteration of Wilco come out onto the stage and likely grumbled under my breath about being stuck watching this alt-country band play a 75 minute set full of sleepers. Not five minutes after the first chords of "Misunderstood" were strummed, I was slackjawed (likely with a mouthful of crow) and unable to deny the perfect blend of melody and atmospherics that Wilco were perfecting on Being There. Later in the set, Tweedy crowdsurfed, I kept his guitar cable from getting stolen, and I patted his butt back onto the stage post-solo. I remember the show wrapping up with a cover of Led Zeppelin's "The Immigrant Song" complete with a deli tray full of processed meats being tossed into the crowd. I was sold.
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Seeing a band that is undoubtedly hitting their creative stride is a really powerful thing. While you can't listen to Unknown Mortal Orchestra's two records and hear a band struggling with anything, their last spin through town was a bit lackluster. While the Portland trio had a small lineup change (drummer Julian Erhlich has been replaced with Riley Geare), that change (along with a year and a half of recording/touring/general band growth) has helped propel the band's live experience from hit-and-miss wallflowers to confident psychedelic shamans, capable of sudden dive-bomb instrumental passages that turn the bop-along pop compositions of their recordings into full on heady freakouts.
Read More
Describing Madonna's current tour in a set amount of words is a lot like being asked to explain your life story in detail to a total stranger in under a minute. There are so many moments of beautiful minutiae that are going to be glossed over in recapping it that it almost seems fruitless from the start. Madonna's 135 minute set was a master class in the art of professional presentation, and there wasn't a second of it that didn't feel packed to the edges with the sort of meticulous attention to detail that it feels tragic to overlook. Keeping that in mind, here I go, trying to explain what I saw in the 135 minutes I spent with Madonna at Key Arena on Tuesday night.
Madonna has always been an intense aggregator of pop culture. Some would call her a trendsetter or pioneer; others would liken her to wearing culture as a costume. Whatever side of that fence you sit on, it's impossible to deny the woman's broad grasp of influences, and seeing all of this in a concentrated, back-to-back experience was intensely inspiring and simultaneously jarring.
Read More
Less than 24 hours after seeing Jane's Addiction relive the skeezy early 90s of the Hollywood strip on the Key Arena stage, I found myself watching Tony Bennett put on a polar opposite of a set on the same stage. Argue all you will about the inconsistencies of the lineup, but that weird contrast is exactly what makes a festival like Bumbershoot special. Seeing a hushed, respectful audience fall to a dead silence mid-afternoon for a set from an 86 year old legend was reaffirming that a modern day audience can have fun and put their phones down for a second to enjoy classic moments.
Speaking of classic, let's talk about classic terrible behavior. I had a guy in front of me snapping shots of Bennett's set with his iPad. Quick rant: no one looks more ridiculous and foolish than a person at a concert holding up their iPad to take the same crappy photos that their iPhone takes. (Actually, the iPad takes 5mp photos and the iPhone takes 8mp photos, if you've got the newest stuff, which I'm sure you do.) So, c'mon people. Do every single one of us a favor and leave the iPad at home during a concert, please? Next one I see at a show, I'm "accidentally" spilling a drink on it. Knock it off.
Read More
Sometimes a little mystery goes a long way. Enigmatic almost to a fault, Black Moth Super Rainbow exist in a very unique space that they've created and that they control. The band has performed in masks, crouched and obscured from crowd view, and purposefully avoided interviews and general limelight. Their sound is something of an old science film soundtrack (at least if you were born in the 70's; I have no idea how much science film soundtracks changed in the past couple decades) strained at times through dreamy or creepy elements. Walls of analog keyboards and singer Tobacco's constantly vocoder-ed out vocals are the foundation of the Black Moth Super Rainbow sound.
Read More
From a character standpoint, Josh Tillman's transformation from somber and quiet solo artist (and drummer of the Fleet Foxes) into the overblown braggadocio of Father John Misty is quite a stretch. On record, all of his work has some foundational similarities; with Misty, personality comes to the forefront. Assuming the role of the somewhat-fictional Father John Misty, Tillman has given himself license to be freed from the constraints of the sensitive, castrated modern day folk singer. Misty is a lascivious, cantankerous character whose debaucherous tales of womanizing and drunken blackouts are a far cry from the Fleet Foxes' plaintive cries to pick apples all the live long day. It's a bit of a Will Rogers meets Hugh Hefner character, balancing witty anecdotes on human nature with an unapologetic raging hard on.
Read More
In a world full of far too many immediate entertainment options, it's a given that some brilliance is going to fall through the cracks. Granted, the deck was a little stacked on Saturday night; Seattle snapped out of drizzly misery for a day of sunshine, and the city's concert calendar was stocked with heavyweights like Nada Surf, Of Montreal/Deerhoof, and I suppose the argument could be stretched out in En Vogue's direction (no offense, En Vogue) for stealing away some potential concertgoers. Whatever the case, Chop Suey had more than enough elbow room for a show that should've sold out a room twice that size.
Bahamas' opening set was stripped down even more than their normal guitar/backing vocals/drums setup, as drummer Jason Tait (of The Weakerthans) was back home with a newborn child. Main Bahamanian Afie Jurvanen didn't seem phased a bit by the lack of percussion, and the stark nature of Jurvanen's sparkly Silvertone guitar, soulful voice, and duo of heavenly backup singers made his songs fill every empty space in the club with warmth. While many artists present acoustic/stripped down sets that sputter from lack of driving elements, Bahamas' bare bones set showcased the no punches pulled honesty and dry wit of Jurvanen's songs.
Read More
"Oh, he's very popular. The sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, waistoids, dweebs...they all adore him. They think he's a righteous dude." - Grace the secretary, Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
If there's anyone on Earth today who embodies the "live in the moment" mentality of fun-loving pied piper Ferris Bueller, it's Andrew Wilkes Krier. Existing as one of those "so simple it's brilliant" things in life, Andrew W.K. is here to party, have fun, get wet, get wasted, and you truly have no choice as to whether you'll join this train or not.
Read More
It's hard to believe anyone would ever listen to Philadelphia sextet Dr. Dog's schizophrenic hodge-podge of a debut album (2001's Psychedelic Swamp) and have any sort of mind's-eye glimpse of the same band a decade later, functioning as a colorful, well-oiled classic pop machine and filling Seattle's Neptune Theatre on Valentine's Day. While you could definitely hear some of the band's early tendencies toward the haunting and creepy in the atmospheric corners of the mix, it was the band's propensity toward pure, unbridled sunshine that shone through and seemingly powered the Neptune.
Read More
Through most of the early 1980's, Fernando Valenzuela was a force of nature, as well as a pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers. He had an unusually chaotic wind-up, involving his eyes rolling up toward the heavens just before releasing a pitch. Valenzuela claimed that, during this particular part of his wind-up, he was actually breathing through his eyelids, much like the fabled lava lizards of the Galapagos Islands. While the band that showed up at the Paramount on Tuesday night weren't claiming to breathe through their eyelids (although their wind-up is often equally as unique), they were doing their best from the first note to get the audience to breathe through their ears.
Oh, believe me. I know it sounds like a bunch of hyperbolic hooey. This was my 12th time to see Wilco (starting with a particular raucous, deli-tray tossing show during the Being There days), and I had an entire diatribe all sketched up in my brain about how we've seen Wilco's finest days pass, how Jeff Tweedy only writes two types of songs anymore (children's sing-alongs or meandering 9 minute long, 2-note sonic explorations that never have any thoughtful progression of them), how predictably middle-of-the-road "Dad rock" the band has become at times.
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In case you were wondering, those nasty, swirling rumors are totally true; every pop song in the history of the universe has already been written. There are only so many strings and frets on a guitar, and after thousands of years of noodling, we've finally hit that point where no one can put two things together that haven't ever been heard together somewhere before. That said, there are bands that do it in a completely average way and then there are bands like Nada Surf who serve as textbook examples of the simple beauty and overpowering majesty of well-written/arranged three chord pop songs.
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Splicing the worlds of comedy and music together is by no means a new idea; plenty of comedians have toured with an acoustic guitar or piano as a bit in their act, but few have taken it to the level of Craig Robinson. Robinson (who you may have seen in The Office or Hot Tub Time Machine, amongst others) has upped the ante, pushing his act farther away from traditional stand-up by bringing a seven piece band (the Chicago-based Nasty Delicious) with him for the entirety of the show.
As far as raw, natural singing talent and having the sort of voice that makes heads turn...well, that's not really Robinson's strong suit. That said, Craig Robinson is a tremendous talent and a natural entertainer. After giving his band some time to warmup and show off their respective chops a bit, Robinson came out like a burly, hibernating bear just waking up and gave a loving nod to Elvis' entrances to the funked out strains of the epic "Also Sprach Zarathustra", revealing a neon green Seahawks jersey at the crescendo.
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Leslie Feist's past few years have all been about taking on challenges. Between skyrocketing fame (and the not-so-nice trappings that come with it), bad breakups and the struggle with her own creative muse, it hasn't necessarily been the smoothest sailing for the 35 year old singer. It makes perfect sense that her next greatest challenge in line would be trying to liven up a nearly comatose Seattle audience on a night where fall finally succumbs to winter.
The audience's state of slumber wasn't any fault of Ms. Feist's; winter tends to be the time when Seattle hibernates. Put a room full of us into semi-comfortable theatre seating, and we're apt to engage with what's in front of us as if it's 1080p HD entertainment.
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Co-headlining tours can be the strangest things. Two bands with separately established fan bases touring together can make for an almost unification of the bands, or quickly spiral out of control into a giant chest-puffing contest. In the case of Blitzen Trapper and Dawes, it appeared to do neither, but it did show two bands with a similar swath of influences displaying two very different schools of output.
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Sometimes you see a bill and scratch your head and go "Huh?" While there are times where tours are actually put together because of an artist's mutual respect for one another, they're just as often likely to be put together by management, lawyers, publishing companies or random bean counters in the record label offices. The latter seemed to be the case last night at El Corazon, with pop visionaries Rubik opening up for the mall-pop emo-lite of Lights.
Rubik is a Finnish quartet who write expansive pop songs that are built on enough major key sunshine to be immediately accessible/hummable, but put just the right amount of weird textural elements atop them (horn sections, vintage science movie bleeps and bloops) and unexpected hairpin turns in them to make them seem as if they're from another world.
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Every band has been there before. You're at the tail end of a long tour, and it's that middle of the week lull that happens in most cities. The room is a quarter full, and those people that are there are a bit TOO excited and have been, to put it kindly, overserved. These are the challenges facing Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Gauntlet Hair on Wednesday night at the Crocodile.
Portland's Unknown Mortal Orchestra started off their set with no announcement, no fanfare, and with a long, drawnout squall of feedback that led into a scratchy-throated version of "Little Blu House". On their self-titled record, "Little Blu House" is dreamy and delicate, gentle in all the right places; the story of a man searching for shelter from the wolves and some sense of respite. Live, it howled and yelped, less like a softly suggested "May I come in?" and more like the desperate plea of a man with nowhere else to turn frantically pulling on a door handle. Singer Ruban Nielson's delivery was almost completely disaffected, deliberately staring down the neck of the Fender Mustang that sat nearly at his collarbone rather than the audience.
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Walking into any sort of Evan Dando-related event is as close to a corporate games-y trust fall as the indie rock circuit gets. While the man is responsible for one of the best front-to-back powerpop albums of the 90's (1992's It's A Shame About Ray), as well as a pile of underappreciated, brutally self-scrutinizing material, he's equally as notorious for his struggles with substance abuse and a track record of inconsistent/incoherent shows. Reports from shows as recently as a couple weeks ago made it seem like Dando is still as scattered as ever, but Saturday night's show at the Triple Door would show a clearer, cleaner Dando than other cities have gotten.
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"We ate at that Cuban place (Paseo) in Fremont today. It's really good, but still tastes the same as it did in 2001. Just like this music." --Stephen Malkmus
It's hard to put a finger on exactly what was missing from former Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus' show last night. The newly remodeled Neptune was a perfect stage for the show, glowing with a subdued visual elegance and sounding completely clear and dialed-in. So maybe it was just a typical Tuesday night in any town (Tuesdays are particularly hard days to rock through), but both sides of the stage seemed to have a deep disengagement with the experience that made Malkmus' awkward charm a little less obvious.
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In 2011, the word "legendary" really has lost all meaning. Hyperbole is becoming the only language we know how to speak in this sea of oversharing, and a band's merely showing up and turning on an amp/firing up a laptop results in a cavalcade of tweets and status updates telling us all about whatever band is totally KILLING IT in an EPIC fashion. Much like wearing a Ramones shirt, these sorts of grandiose statements become watered down to the point of being nothing more than noise for noise's sake.
Thankfully, seeing a band that existed in that magical era (before the Internet came along and ruined everything) is a reminder of a magical time where oversharing and oversaturation were easy to ignore; where we bonded with other music fans over common interests instead of living in a state of constant one-upmanship. After disbanding in 1998, Archers of Loaf's reunion at Neumos on Friday night was a grand reminder of the days where band buzz was built from college radio charts, mixtapes, and sloppily tossed-together fanzines.
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