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Friday, July 22, 2011
On Stage #2 - Your place in the lineup
2. "Headlining," at a local level, is a nice way to say "you're going last." If everyone at the club isn't there to see your band, "headlining" means you're playing to the few remaining people who'll stick around for the last band... and your set may be interrupted by Last Call announced over the PA. If everyone at the show really is there to see you, then you are a genuine headliner: it's the honorable move for you to not make the lesser-known band play to the few remaining people who stuck around after you finished.
Even limited to my experiences, this list is nowhere near complete. I planted it as one of the first pages when I began this blog with the very first handful of points from the quickest surface skim of my gray matter. It will continue to grow.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
The Fabulous Downey Brothers
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The Fabulous Downey Brothers excel at both ends of that spectrum: song 1 was nothing like song 2, and I spent the show (the third Downey show I've seen so far, and I don't intend to miss them on their next visit) absolutely blown away. The music changes quite a bit over the course of a Fabulous Downey Brothers show, as sequencers get plugged into the PA, members change instruments, and band members come off stage for choreographed dance numbers for specific songs. I have to mention the music first (which is fun, catchy, and always given to weird shifts you didn't see coming) because, in a blog with pictures and no sound, the spectacle may threaten to overwhelm everything else. For example: the show began with the pair of lead singers faces obscured by giant, head-covering, blue cupcakes. The show pre-dates this blog and I only have photos stolen from their Facebook page, or I would provide cupcake headed photos to prove I'm not making this up, but for now, you'll just have to trust me.
I usually appreciate when a band takes the extra step, away from staring at their fretboards in jeans and T-shirts, and makes something of a stage show. Well... there are stage shows, and then there's the Downeys. This isn't just costuming: though the band is slathered in electric blue, their stage show involves audience participation, dance numbers, and one particular song when drummer Liam Downey comes forward and has a high energy freak out, stomping in circles and screaming into a mic.
Lyrically, they mix high- and low-brow so effortlessly that a songs with farts, pee-pee, and poo-poo are giddy fun instead of puerile, and songs that reference a tertiary Hamlet character aren't pretentious in the least: when they say 'Rosen,' you say 'crantz.' If you roll your eyes at pee-pee, that song's about the empty space within matter; if you don't know who Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are, the call and response comes with que cards.
The Fabulous Downey Brothers produce something I seldom see at shows-- Joy. There is a jubilant, playful, overwhelmingly fun energy that washes out over the crowd at a Downey show, from jaunty pop songs to dancey sequencers to screaminess, the show tends to have me smiling so consistently and for so long that my face hurts a bit by the time they're done.
The Fabulous Downey Brothers on Facebook
The White Rabbit
door at the High Dive. They do have rock shows at the White Rabbit, though the stage is a bit small.The place seems built for a slightly classier crowd-- the lighting is low and enhanced by candles and the drinks aren't what you'd call cheap, and a pair of single occupant unisex bathrooms don't exactly invite a crowd to have a wild and boozy time... but there's an open air back patio, and the place itself seems pleasant enough.
Even visiting on a Wednesday, I was kind of shocked at the unrestrained toolbox outside. People have complained about how "Fremont sucks now" for as long as I've lived in Seattle, but I don't recall the main drag of this neighborhood crawling with meatheads looking for fights before. I remember Fremont as being more middle-aged and hippieish... but it seems to have become a destination for a more dude-brah crowd. I didn't see that one coming.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
...in Seattle
(this post is saved as a Page in the top nav bar)
Because, as Blogger statistics inform me, not everyone who reads this is in Seattle (or even in the United States), there are a few misconceptions about this city's musical life that probably need to be rectified. First and foremost: Grunge is dead. Has been for a long time.
Because, as Blogger statistics inform me, not everyone who reads this is in Seattle (or even in the United States), there are a few misconceptions about this city's musical life that probably need to be rectified. First and foremost: Grunge is dead. Has been for a long time.I only mention this because, while Seattle has moved on from the explosion of flannel that devoured mTv, it's pretty much the only music people associate with this town. Even though that association was formed back when mTv actually featured music, it still seems to function as the world's indelible image of Seattle. Even now, an out-of-town review of a Seattle band is likely to call that band some version of grunge or compare them to Nirvana, Soundgarden, or Pearl Jam... not because of how they sound, just because they're from Seattle.
For as long as I've lived here, Seattle's local music has provided myriad examples of its variety: there are thriving scenes and cultures around metal, hip hop, garage rock, punk, electronica (everything from dubstep to IDM), funk, jazz, bluegrass, and “indie rock.” If you read Seattle press, you'd probably assume indie-pop/rock/folk (or anything else beginning with “indie”) was all this town had to offer, but the taste-makers don't control what's actually being played in the city. Almost everything is on offer in Seattle; as far as I can see, the only music not featured in Seattle is grunge.
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| Pearl Jam at the Key Arena, Seattle, in 2009. As relevant musicians in Seattle as Christopher Cross concerts are to musicians in San Antonio |
Of course, there are arena and reunion shows: if you want to drop $60 or more to see Pearl Jam in an arena, that's an option open to you... but that doesn't have anything to do with musicians in Seattle. Paying big stadium prices for a band that got famous 20 years ago will absolutely get you into a massive show populated by the well financed and middle aged, just like seeing Neil Diamond or Metallica. If you want music that actually has something to do with Seattle musicians (ones that don't live in mansions), just spend $5 at The Comet.
Monday, July 18, 2011
On Stage #1 - First things first
1. Have fun up there. Nothing loses a crowd faster than a band that wishes they were somewhere else, except maybe a band that contemptuously looks down on the audience and other bands at the show.
Even limited to my experiences, this list is nowhere near complete. I planted it as one of the first pages when I began this blog with the very first handful of points from the quickest surface skim of my gray matter. It will continue to grow.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Burning of I
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I've been itching to add live shows and bands to the gearpage at roughly the same time I thought to switch over to blog format. For the most part, I want to snap pictures of pedalboards and write about gear-- I want to let SeattleAudiophile actually review the shows... but I was at this one so I'm feeing the need to step up.
Gearwise, there's little to shoot. Many, many metal bands don't need much more than their amps, and there's not a lot of footwoork on display at a Burning of I show-- guitarist/vocalist Jacob Weatherspoon stepped on a Morley wah occasionally, but mostly was defined by a Genz Benz head. Matt Finse rocked a VHT, and Jesse Brasch's bass was fed by the ultimate in heavy bass standards: an Ampeg tube head. I don't really speak drum, but for the Paiste cymbals alone, Tory McKeag's drums are intimidating (nothing sounds like a Paiste ride; you don't have to play drums to know that ping.)
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Gearpage work done, this was a stunning band playing an amazing show. I'm easily bored by bands that fall into rote patterns, even if they're patterns I like (the only band I want to sound like Entombed is Entombed, thank you very much), and Burning of I established themselves within their first song as being complex and original. They're heavy, sure, but also atmospheric and textural, claiming Neurosis in their influences... their thrash is thrash and their black metal is black metal (sort of: no matter how their picking goes, Burning of I's sound is rich and articulate, and even if the riffing goes Black Metal, they never have a "bee in a tin can" black metal sound.) Though I can't define this (or most other bands I like) by a list of comparisons, personally, I hit a lot of metal shows like a wine taster... It's got a Neurosis body, with a Mastadon nose, and a kind of Gojira mouthfeel.
The band truly covers a lot of ground, with Finse (chunkier and more scooped) and Weatherspoon (bigger mids) both being tonally seperate.. but I was wearing earplugs, so don't beat me up if their EQs aren't how I describe them-- the two guitars sidestepped the biggest problem in two-guitar bands and complimented each other instead of fighting one another. Even then, when something went wrong (as Jacob assured us is normal at Burning of I shows), Matt did all of the guitar work alone, and the song still came off assuredly. As an uninitiated bystander, I thought Jacob putting down his guitar and picking up the mic was simply part of the song.
Being a bassist myself, I spend a lot of time noticing bass, especially in metal bands-- there's a fine line between a joke in Metalocalypse ("why don't you act like a bassist and be inaudible?) and show-stealing flash. There are a lot of complex and interesting guitar chords in Burning of I, so there's a lot of room for Jesse to shine-- stunningly heavy and articulate low end, and (maybe this is the way the band writes, maybe it was Wes from Nekro Morphosis running live sound, maybe both) the bass and guitars were well defined without one instrument drowning out the others. Regardless, this is the kind of band where the bass is a live, moving, real part of the mix, and that always pushes a band forward for me-- I need more bass. They all gang up for heavy chunka chunka lows, but the guitars spend lots of time selling atmospheric top, so the bass (played fingered, not picked) gets to be the heaviness a lot of the time.Finally, the whole machine is complex-- I bounced across the club to call out a riff in 7/8 to a bandmate, only to return to my post and have a friend inform me the riff was in thirteen: it was alternating sixes and sevens. I always love the off-kilter grooves, especially when they sound right-- this is a band that sees the complicated through the head-bobbing and relatable, and they're great riffs first and complicated second... theses aren't the kind of songs where you can see everyone counting time in their heads, they're great, interesting, complex grooves.
I haven't heard any recordings yet, but the live show was a knockout... I do intend to do more Gearpage-y show writing, snapping pictures of pedalboards, but for the launch, Burning of I were too good not to write about.
...end transposition. I've seen Burning of I since April, and will give them a proper write up without the trappings of the Gear Page, but this seemed a fine enough place to start.
Burning of I on Facebook
The 2 Bit Saloon
and a continuing Metal Mondays makes the 2 Bit Saloon a solid destination on Monday nights...With two separate rooms, the bar is split off from the stage area, and while it's not what you'd call isolated, the bar stools are pretty well populated by regulars even on show nights. A side door from the stage/show area leads out to a patio for smoking and a gate for bands to load gear in and out. The show room is fairly small, comfortable, and fills up pretty easily-- for the size of the space, the sound system can easily keep up with volume coming off the stage.
In my opinion, the 2 Bit is a pretty great little bar-- the staff is easy to get along with, the drinks aren't too expensive, and the shows usually run around $5.00.
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