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Saturday, November 26, 2011
The Rules on the Books
The rationale for this ban was that the band is employed by the bar while on stage, and therefore should be bound by the same rules as bartenders and wait staff... which was a fine justification for restrictive, puritanical bullshit. Remember: until 2002, Seattle actually had a poster ban justified by the danger of utility workers injuring themselves on rusty staples on utility poles (I swear, I am not making this up)-- rather than try to honestly stop posters in the city, Seattle managed to back-door-ban postering due to the danger of staples.
...but I'm straying from the point. This is a cause for celebration because, like the poster ban before it, this is another bit of unnecessary, 1950s conservative, life-choking bureaucracy just got culled from the books... not the kind of thing people associate with Seattle, but it is part of the cultural make-up here.
This is what I'm going to call a Moral Victory, simply because the "no drinks on stage" rule was almost never enforced. Pretty much every member of every band had a beer on stage and they were never held accountable unless the liquor board was on the rampage... and that only happened when the obnoxious ordnance was up for review. Even then, the worst consequence I ever saw was a sound guy yelling at the band: "Hey! No drinks on stage!"
So today is a win for yanking a useless rule off the books that 1) never made any sense and 2) was never enforced.
Monday, November 21, 2011
The Diminished Men
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There are exceptions, however-- I'm not sure how The Diminished Men's Simon Henneman tunes his six string Fender Jaguar, but as a band with drums and two guitars, there's no gaping hole in the sound. A lot of the time, that Jaguar is a strong bassline, full and musical, completely countering my argument. By my measure, The Diminished Men actually have a fuller sonic palette than lots of bands with more members and instruments; their sound comes out of a live show sounding (for lack of a better word) “produced.”
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| I wish I'd brought a camera to this show (I attended last-minute), because I can't find any photos online of The Diminished Men live at the Blue Moon |
But surf is a bit of a pigeon-hole, and The Diminished Men are well beyond that kind of easy categorization-- they evoke Ennio Morricone's audio cinemascapes as readily as they do The Ventures, and a number of horizons beyond... there are touches of heavy and progressive in the stew as well. Drummer Dave Abramson doesn't seem confined at all by arbitrary genre restrictions, tending to snake through the rhythm of a song with an artfulness unheard of in retro or genre-obsessed rhythm sections.
As a pedal geek, I couldn't help but notice Schmit used a Moog ring modulator better than I've ever heard a ring modulator used before-- when a Diminished Men song engages the ringmod, it evokes the kind of cosmic bell tones I always knew the effect was capable of, but never heard realized. I've heard ring modulators applied by many, many bands, but in a Diminished Men song, it becomes a sort of atmospheric bell chime, both extra-textual and part of the song. It is part of an amazing soundscape that's impressive, even if you never knew the names of the technology making those sounds, but it's stunning to me because I've never heard that timbre used so beautifully (not by anyone: not Brian Eno, not Devo.... and not by me; I own one myself.)
That's certainly part of my fascination with The Diminished Men: they're using a number of things I'm familiar with, but everything they're doing is surprising. I can't speak to their recordings, but the live show I saw colored way outside the lines. The bassless approach lets Henneman come up from holding a bassline and be part of the jangly guitarscape (which is an odd but effective turn, coming up from the low end), both guitarists have interesting and varied pedalboards with myriad tones available, and the songs are surprising but melodic, engaging, and fully realized.
This was my first Diminished Men show, and I found it mind-blowing. This band is immediately rocketed into my top-10 in Seattle, and I can't wait to see them again.
The Diminished Men Official Site
P.S: Apologies if I got any of the names wrong in this write-up, but I don't know The Diminished Men personally, and there doesn't seem to be a good bio/members listing online... there have been member changes, and I can't be certain I have the lineup for the show I'm reviewing. I hope I got it right; if not, let me know.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
On Stage #13 - No Cancellations Allowed
A continuing series of insights from the stage at the local club level...
13. If you book the show, play the show. Short of a band member being dead or ineligible for bail, if you said you were going to play, then play. No excuses.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
ubik. gets a nod
This is a really nice write-up of a Comet show we played with The Shitty Dudes, The Fabulous Downey Brothers, and Airpocalypse. There's even a picture of me without my standard white labcoat-- I dyed the coat Downey Blue for this show-- which is a little weird for me to see.
Many thanks, Seattle Audiophile!
Friday, November 18, 2011
On Stage #11 & #12 - The other bands on the bill
A continuing series of insights from the stage at the local club level...
11.Watch at least part of the other bands' sets; if you're sharing a stage with them that night, you should at least give them a look. If you check them out and they're not to your taste (or not very good...), sure, retreat to the bar, but not caring about, looking at, or listening to any band other than your own pretty clearly makes you an asshole. At least give them a song or two to see what these other bands are like; it's common courtesy.
12. Similarly, if you do skip out on another band's set, it's seriously bad form to come back in after they've finished and tell them how great they were. It seems ridiculous to even type that, but I'm amazed by how often it happens: someone returns from the bar down the street, not having heard a single note of the set, and begins heaping insincere praise on the members of the band they didn't see. It only ever works for about five minutes, too-- someone who saw them walk in after the music stops always calls these people out, forever to be branded as shallow phoneys around the local music scene.
12. Similarly, if you do skip out on another band's set, it's seriously bad form to come back in after they've finished and tell them how great they were. It seems ridiculous to even type that, but I'm amazed by how often it happens: someone returns from the bar down the street, not having heard a single note of the set, and begins heaping insincere praise on the members of the band they didn't see. It only ever works for about five minutes, too-- someone who saw them walk in after the music stops always calls these people out, forever to be branded as shallow phoneys around the local music scene.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
This explains the Billboard charts, eh?
Anyway, that inspires a long quote from a much more talented writer than m'self:Does anybody really listen to that shitty music they play on the radio? FM radio music... What's it called- adult contemporary? classic rock? urban R&B? You know what the official business term for that shit is: Corporate Standardized Programming. Just what an art form needs... corporate standardized programming, derived from scientific surveys, conducted by soulless businessmen.
Here's how bad it is: one nationwide chain that owns over a thousand radio stations conducts weekly telephone polls asking listeners their opinions on 25-30 song hooks they play over the phone, hooks that the radio people have already selected ("hooks" are short, repeated parts of pop songs that people remember easily). Depending on these polls, the radio chain decides which songs to place on their stations' playlists. Weeks later, they record the hooks of all the songs they're currently playing on their stations across the country, label them by title and artist, and sell that information to record companies to help create more of the same, bad music. They also sell the information to competing radio stations that want to play what the big chain is playing.
All of this is done to prevent the possibility of original thinking somehow creeping into the system.
Let me tell you something-- In the first place, listening to music someone else has picked out is not my idea of a good time. Second, and more important, the fact that a lot of people in America actually like the music automatically means it sucks... especially since the people who like it have been told in advance by businessmen what it is they're supposed to like.
Please save me from people who've been told what to like, and then like it. In my opinion, if you're over six years of age and you're still getting your music from the radio, something is desperately wrong with you.
I can only hope that somehow MP3 players and file sharing will destroy FM radio the way they're destroying record companies. Then, even though the air will probably never be safe to breathe again, maybe it will be safer to listen to.
--George Carlin
(man, I miss that guy)
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
The Blue Moon
styles of music on the Blue Moon stage, the shows will always have a back bench of grizzled old timers who (in my experience) responded well, once, to a band that sounded kind of like Hendrix.My introduction to the Blue Moon was back when they had free shows... and that's a couple years gone now. Currently, it's usually $5 at the door, which is reasonable, but I do miss having a reliable free venue in town. The bar used to be cash-only back in the free show days, but has evolved to take credit/debit cards, which is an appreciated update for anyone wanting to start a tab at the beginning of their night.
The stage is decent, but the PA can't keep up with a loud band; turning up the vocals usually mean splatty distortion on the house speakers, and the monitor situation is just this side of a disaster. My best experiences with seeing bands at The Blue Moon are instrumental groups... maybe a little kick drum on the PA, but the sound is always better if the house doesn't have to cover vocals. The sound guy's disdain for the bands who play there used to be the main component of the Blue Moon's MySpace blog... but no one uses MySpace anymore.
The Blue Moon on Wordpress
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
On Stage #10 - Containers
A continuing series of insights from the stage at the local club level...
10. Beyond what fits in my instrument case, there's a handful of accessories that come with me to every show (cables, a stand, spare tremolo arms, capos) as well as some random tools (tape, a screwdriver, pliers, hex wrenches)-- I highly recommend carrying these kind of items in some kind of case, possibly labeled with your band name. For quite some time, I carried this stuff to and from shows in a backpack... until I realized that there's nothing conspicuous about someone wandering away from a show carrying a backpack. After replacing all the gear that walked out of a gig without me (cables ain't cheap), I now carry these items in an aluminum case with our band name on it.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Phalgeron
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Phalgeron have deep roots in the post-British Invasion, Power Metal genres, but aren't constrained by them-- for anyone not interested in vocals that wail or ramp up to a flamboyant falsetto, that may be their greatest strength. They can march out covers of Mercyful Fate (with growls and roars replacing King Diamond's trademark shrieks) and Suffocation with equal panache, both made more impressive for Phalgeron being a guitar/bass/drum power trio.
My night with them at the Galway was not my first time with them-- I've known this band since they were called Phlagathon, I've seen them a number of times, got a ride home with them from a too-long-to-walk-home-from show in the south of Seattle, played with them at Beer Metal Summer Camp.... I've known this band for a while, and I've always liked them.
So I don't want this review to fall on deaf ears just because I was a bit out of m'self. I've dug this band since well before I started this blog.
That said, my Phalgeron eureka moment occurred maybe six hours after ubik.frontwoman Michelle and I got slightly out-of-our-heads (some substances stay potent, wrapped in foil in a ziplock bag in my fridge, for five years. Who knew?) We did enjoy our time in odd places before the show, but it's fair to say we both breathed a sigh of relief when we took our seats at the Galway: safe haven. Home base.
Watching good, national bands (Phalgeron was the only local band of the night) tune up on a small stage at a local bar was a bit of a godsend to me at the moment: I've been in Seattle long enough that I'm not sure I ever appreciated how far removed I am from my 16-year-old self, someone who listened to tapes of obscure bands I never thought I'd see live. Shows like this are a candyland my teenage self never dreamed of, but they've become a normal part of my everyday life.
Just sayin'... this is good fortune.
Though the bill featured a good band from Utah and a cheesily flamboyant band from L.A. (a contest between the two guitarists determining who was the better wanky lead player? Seriously?), Phalgeron were the highlight of the night. Again, this isn't preferential treatment to a local band, because I truly had an epiphany with them that night: I'd always liked them, but I'm still kicking myself... I ought to have loved them well before this specific night.
Phalgeron are almost perfectly my kind of metal. They're technical and articulate, but not cheesy or overly flamboyant about it. They mine heavy, heavy grooves, too, and have a tight, true-to-death metal moshability. Finally, they're metal as metal can be, but their stage presence plays massive pronouncements and edicts delivered from God-On-Stage as profoundly silly... which is to say, Phalgeron are fun to see, a million miles removed from the pompous asses that can pop up on metal stages. Phalgeron aren't just better than the egotists that populated the Candlemass stage, they're the antidote to it.
That kind of fun-and-loose personality only boosts the stunning gestalt of the music. Guitarist Tyler and bassist Lane have a kind of Jeff Walker/Bill Steer interplay on their dual vocals, and Lane will often hold down the groove while Tyler's guitar hits the British Invasion/power metal technical top end. The songs will evolve and change, find different riffs, different grooves... interact, react, and play off one another... the highlights of what intelligent metal riffing is capable of.
This doesn't even mention how Michelle and I spent our night: watching Ian, Phalgeron's drummer. The drums in Phalgeron don't have any limits: Ian blends easily from the hardcore influenced drumming of early thrash to the double-kick drumming that dominated the Slayer era of metal to modern blast beats. Big, rolling fills come in where the songs peak and hit their harder corners, but, like the rest of Phalgeron, the drums are exactly as flashy as they need to be... the fills and rolls fit the songs and work within the songs themselves. The drumming is massive, technical, and executed with exactly as much panache as fits the songs... but isn't a show-off session. Everything is dexterous; nothing is in excess.
All things considered, I consider Phalgeron one of the absolute best metal bands in Seattle-- I haven't reviewed any of their contemporaries (yet), but I see them as Top 5 (probably Top 3... I can only think of two other metal bands in Seattle I like nearly as much as them), and I tend not to mention bands I can't link to.
By my measure this is a world-class metal band, exactly the kind of group I used to listen to obsessively before I moved to a city where I could see Phalgeron every other month or so. I am lucky to have them, and so is Seattle... and if you're not in the Pacific Northwest, then buying their record puts you in the shoes I was in when I was listening to Carcass tapes all those years ago.
Phalgeron on Facebook
Friday, November 4, 2011
On Stage #9 - Road-tested
A continuing series of insights from the stage at the local club level...
9. Some folks will tell you not to play a song on stage until it's perfect... not me. As far as I can tell, you can practice a song for months and it's always going to be unfired clay. Until it's in your setlist, until you've fucked it up in front of people a couple times, until you figure out how it works (or doesn't) at a show, until you've fired it in the kiln of the public for a while, the song isn't actually done. You have to take it out of rehearsals eventually.
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