The Soft White Sixties, Sun Blood Stories and Northern Giants @ Neurolux (7/28/13)

In a way, I'd been waiting for this show for about nine months.  I'd seen the Soft White Sixties each time that they'd played Boise, and I'd walked away from each show convinced that they were a great band.  So I put this show on the schedule the second after I saw the Facebook event page for it.

I counted about forty-five people when I got to Neurolux.  When the Soft White Sixties played, I counted about eighty, sixty of whom were inside.  Part of me wondered if my little preview for this show helped bring some of these folks down, but that was probably just hubris.

Anyway, I bought a copy of the Sixties' new album Get Right as soon as I arrived.  As I took it back to my car (didn't want to risk having it stolen or damaged), I saw and heard Andy Rayborn practicing outside.

Northern Giants (formerly known as Modesto) opened the show.  At first, they sounded terrific: grinding metal, swaggering funk, terse solos, more nuanced vocals.  After a while, however, the songs started to blur together in spite of the sharp arrangements and solid chops.  I love my RAWK as much as the next guy, but this felt like a bit too much of a good thing.  Maybe these guys could vary it up some.  A couple soulful 5/6 numbers, perhaps?  Or some folky, acoustic stuff?

Sun Blood Stories played next.  I don't quite know why, but this group sounded colder, darker, more menacing here than they have in the past.  At times, I coulda almost sworn I was listening to Sabbath.  That wasn't a bad thing, I think--it could've just been a sign of how polished and confident that they've become.  In any case, Brett Hawkins added some nice little embellishments to his drum-work, and Amber Pollard showed off a pretty fearsome growl.  Meanwhile, Ben Kirby's gritty moan and yowling slide and Andy Rayborn's screeching sax sounded as strong as ever.

The Soft White Sixties's set confirmed my belief that this is one of the best modern rock bands.  While he slid all over the stage and yanked the mic stand around a la James Brown, Octavio Genera's raspy, honeyed croon evoked Al Green's sly tenderness.  Between the locked-in groove, the new guitarist's ripping solos and touches like the bass-and-drums breakdown on "Knock It Loose," Genera's bandmates sounded more than ready to play larger venues.  The band's smart blend of pop, soul and hard rock got the crowd dancing and cheering (especially the girls).

I sure will miss the days when you could see the Sixties play for $6.  There can't be many left.

You can find info on these groups on Facebook and elsewhere online.  Special thanks to Eric Gilbert and Duck Club Presents.  If you like what you've read and would like to help keep it going, click the yellow "Give" button.

Dark Dark Dark, Emily Wells and Storie Grubb and the Holy Wars @ the VAC; the Soft White Sixties @ the Red Room (10/28/12)

Sometimes you gotta make the hard decisions.  Each of the Soft White Sixties' three previous performances in Boise had kicked ass, so I had no doubt that their show at the Red Room would prove equally posterior-brutalizing.  Not only that, that bill featured two fine local acts, Brett Netson and CAMP.

And therein lay the rub: I'd already written about all three acts before (multiple times, in two cases).  So, much as it pained me to miss the Sixties, I opted to check out the show at the VaC, which featured two acts I'd never seen, Dark Dark Dark and Emily Wells.

Some chores at home kept me from getting down to the VaC until 8:30 pm.  I did a quick head count and tallied somewhere between fifty and sixty people in the crowd.  A damn good turnout for a Sunday night.  I just hoped that the Red Room's show had a comparable audience.

First up was local group Storie Grubb and the Holy Wars.  I missed the beginning of their set, but everything that I heard reconfirmed my belief that this is one of the best groups in Boise.  Storie Grubb cranked out some sharp guitar solos while his vocals caressed the tunes one moment and gave them an Indian burn the next.  Mathew Vorhies's jaunty accordion and Luna Michelle's calm harmonies added sweetening to the acerbic lyrics.  Luna Michelle's sinewy basslines grounded the music while Bruce Maurey's drums blasted it into the stratosphere.

New York-based musician Emily Wells played next.  It took barely one song for her bluesy purr-and-moan and her intricate tapestry of beats (both canned and fresh) and hooks (conjured up via synth, melodica, violin and looped vocals) to get the crowd up and dancing.  Wells responded in kind by keeping them that way right up to her set-capping art-rock reconstruction of "Fever."  Worth the price of admission and then some.  And then some more on top of that.

 

Dark Dark Dark closed out the night at the VaC.  Part of me wants to say that this Minneapolis group combined the glum atmospherics of Desertshore with the gleaming tunecraft of Chelsea Girl, but comparisons with Nico don't quite fit.  Rather than a hopeless stare into the abyss, their jazzy mixture of solemn keyboard, tidy trumpet, soothing accordion and fluid drumming felt more like a warm blanket on a solitary winter night.  When they put a bit more oomph into the music, it was like walking arm in arm with your girlfriend/boyfriend on an autumn afternoon.  Whether dropping standard show patter ("What's up, Boise?") in a guileless monotone or recounting how the band discovered a bunch of deer skeletons along the Salmon River (her main memory of Boise, she said), leader Nona Marie Invie's awkward stage presence proved endearing almost in spite of itself.  The crowd didn't really dance, but a handful of folks swayed appreciatively.

A prudent man would've gone straight home after the VaC show so he'd get enough sleep to function properly at work the next morning.  I, on the other hand, am not one to let concerns over my financial, physical or mental well-being get in the way of seeing a great band.  So, I headed over to the Red Room and arrived just in time to catch the entirety of the Soft White Sixties' set.  The San Francisco group looked just a little tired--this was the last gig of a two-week cross-country tour--but sounded in fine form nonetheless.  In fact, they fell into such a strong, seemingly effortless groove that I was willing to overlook their shout-out to the Giants for winning the World Series (I'm a lifelong Dodgers fan).  Happily, over fifty people got to hear and dance to Josh Cook and Aaron Eisenberg's fiery guitars, Ryan Noble's liquid bass, Joey Bustos's bedrock drumming and Octavio Genera's soaring, soulful vocals.

Four for four.  Come to think of it, that kinda makes 'em like the Giants, doesn't it?  Crap.

You can find info on these acts on Facebook and elsewhere online.  Special thanks to Eric Gilbert and Duck Club Presents.

The Soft White Sixties, Tropical Punk and Lakefriend @ Neurolux; The First Borns @ the Red Room (7/17/12)

As soon as I learned about this show, I put it down on my schedule.  I've been a fan of The Soft White Sixties since I saw their first show in Boise last December.  That was one wild time--people dancing, screaming, climbing onto the Red Room's stage, hopping around and slapping the band members' butts.  Then came the Sixties' Treefort set, by the end of which their lead singer, Octavio Genera, was literally swinging from the rafters before an ecstatic capacity crowd at, once again, the Red Room.  Considering the much higher ceiling at Neurolux, I doubted that Genera could pull off that stunt again--though if he did, that would really have been something--but no way was I gonna miss this San Francisco band's third go-round.

First up this evening was Caldwell-based group Lakefriend, who delivered a much stronger performance than they did at the Red Room last month.  Their sunny guitars, straight-ahead basslines and hyperkinetic drumming zoomed, swooped and soared as one.  Their predominantly instrumental music sounded far less dark and brooding than my beloved Red Hands Black Feet, and I considered that a good thing; as with a number of the other Caldwell bands that I've seen, they seemed to revel in the simple joy of being young and healthy.  The occasional rough patch in their playing only accentuated that feeling.

After Lakefriend came the Nashville-based garage-rock quartet Tropical Punk.  Their lead singer's sneering, Dylanesque sprechgesang started to wear thin as the set progressed, but their poppy tunes, humourously blunt lyrics, harsh guitars, grounding basslines and lean, mean drumming more than compensated.  Besides, if I'd wanted something gentle and sensitive, I'd have stayed at home and played my Nick Drake albums.

The Soft White Sixties took the stage next.  The energy level of this night's show didn't hit the 10 or 11 of the previous two, but the slyly intricate arrangements and the superior songcraft pushed it to a good solid 8 or maybe 9.  The way that Aaron Eisenberg and Joshua Cook's guitars, Ryan Noble's bass and Joey Bustos's drums weaved and flowed together called to my mind the Rolling Stones at their slickest and sharpest ("Start Me Up," "Miss You," "Beast of Burden," like that).  At the head of it all rode Octavio Genera, who crooned, drawled, purred and belted the songs masterfully.  Nearly everyone in the audience moved close to the stage and stayed there for the duration of the set.  One of the guys in the band called this show a "redemption" for them (they'd had some trouble on the road before arriving here).  For me and the other folks in the crowd, it almost felt like a benediction.

A gentleman I spoke with recently said he thought that The Soft White Sixties had what it took to be huge.  I agree completely.

After the Sixties finished, I walked over to the Red Room in time to catch a set by local trio The First Borns.  Their trancey music provided a nice coda to my night.  The gentle, detached singing rendered the simple tunes even more haunting, and both found support in the high-pitched, distorted bass parts, the droning guitar and the effectively spare drumming.  This was my idea of good late-night music.

You can find info on these groups on Facebook and elsewhere online.  Special thanks to Eric Gilbert and Radio Boise.