Parenthetical Girls, With Child and Ugly Hussy @ the Flying M Concert-Garage (4/4/13)

Show me a band I've never seen who's set to play the Flying M and I'll show you a band I want to check out.  That was most of the thinking that went into my putting this concert on the calendar.  It helped too, though, that people whose taste I respect were excited about Parenthetical Girls coming to Idaho.  The presence of With Child and Ugly Hussy on the bill seemed promising as well.

I counted fourteen people or so wandering around when I got out there.  When Parenthetical Girls played, I counted about forty-five.  Not bad for a Thursday in Nampa, I suppose.

Ugly Hussy opened the night.  This gentleman seemed to have grown in confidence since I saw him back in January (playing Treefort can help with that).  He conjured up his mist of sunny tunes, chiming licks and clanging beats with impressive ease and gracefulness.  Since he only had a guitar, his music had a lighter and airier feel than that of, say, Iconoplasty.  That's not a bad thing; indeed, that just means that he has his own sound.

With Child played next.  I know it's petty, but families like the Hustons and the Redgraves frustrate me just a little.  I mean, c'mon--why they gotta hog all the talent?  Why can't they spread some of that around?  I felt a little bit of that as I listened to Noah Jensen's curling basslines, to Jeremy Jensen's clipped, elegant, melodic soloing and to Elijah Jensen's friendly croon, intriguing lyrics and mega-catchy melodies (his solos were pretty sharp too).  Good thing Ethan Smith, whose strong work behind the drumkit hammered the whole package home, isn't related.  Otherwise, it just might be more than I could bear.

Parenthetical Girls closed out the night.  Between their bouncy, shiny tunes and frontman Zac Pennington's moves like Jagger and voice like Wainwright (Rufus, that is), this Portland group probably could've done well at a place like the Knitting Factory.  Of course, if I'd seen them there, I wouldn't have seen Pennington strut among the crowd, sing while stretched out on a table, walk on the wooden wall that runs along the stage and climb up to the Flying M's mezzanine.  Besides, while their hard beats, chicken-scratch guitar and serene synthesizer would have held up fine, the wit and sass of the lyrics might have lost something in a larger venue.  The intimacy of Pennington's dry, friendly banter would have suffered too (I especially appreciated his shout-out to the late Roger Ebert).  It took the crowd a little while to loosen up (Pennington teased a particularly stoic cluster of kids seated up front), but a bunch of people were up and dancing by the end.  They also helped make sure that the mic cord didn't get tangled while Pennington was roaming around.

You can find info on these acts on Facebook and elsewhere online.

With Child, Gem State and Sleepy Seahorse @ Neurolux; The Butcher Boy and Red Hands Black Feet @ the Red Room (1/15/13)

I decided to check this show out mainly because it gave me the chance to see With Child again.  I'd heard that Elijah Jensen had added some new personnel--to wit, his brothers Jeremy and Noah along with Ethan Smith--and was curious to see how this augmented lineup would affect the music.  Also, I was curious about local musician Tim Andreae, whom I'd never encountered before and who was performing with a band under the name Gem State.

I counted about twenty-five people when I arrived at Neurolux.  Another twenty or so would show up as the evening progressed.  I took up my usual spot at the bar and listened to the Talking Heads and Pixies songs on the PA, which were selected by my friend Daphne Stanford.  She hosts The Poetry Show on Radio Boise every Tuesday at 12:30 pm.  She's a pretty good poet herself, though she might deny it.

Sleepy Seahorse opened the night.  The fan of the perverse in me kinda wished that Joey Corsentino had sung with the Jason mask on again, but that's really neither here nor there.  Corsentino's tunes sounded as warm and well-crafted as ever.  The same went for his backing tracks and lyrics.  His voice, however, was in especially fine form.  The slight whine in Corsentino's vocals felt less like a cross to bear and more like a show of empathy for all the sadsacks out there.  It seemed to say, "Look, fellas, I've been there before.  It'll be okay."

Gem State played next.  Tim Andreae's backers (which included Thomas Paul and Mostecelo/Palankeen's Rebeca Suarez) deserve the Jennifer Warnes/Sharon Robinson Award for Most Valuable Backup Singers: their witty, acerbic, angelic interjections went a long way toward making this set halfway tolerable.  Perhaps Andreae's prolix, tuneless story-songs will sound better in their proper order on the album that he said he's working on.  In this context, however, they felt mostly like in-jokes that I wasn't in on.  Even the songs whose melodies/lyrics I liked tended to hang around like a socially inept friend who won't take the hint to go home.  The reedy, slightly smug flatness of Andreae's vocals didn't do them any favors either.

With Child's set threw me for a loop.  Having seen/heard the Jensen boys in various capacities last year, I expected that the tunes would be as solid as rock candy.  I was completely unprepared, however, for  Jeremy Jensen's piercing solos, for Noah Jensen's fluid, melodic basslines and for Ethan Smith's propulsive drumming.  As for Elijah Jensen, he seemed to be in a particularly rowdy mood: he flipped off his trademark mesh cap, got some sharp interplay going with Jeremy and put some extra lung power into his charming croon.  He also dropped the F-bomb a few times, which apparently caused the live broadcast of the show to get cut off.  Personally, I gotta give the man props: that was easily the most punk rock thing that has happened at any Radio Boise Tuesday show.  It was just too fuckin' bad that the folks at home probably didn't hear the part where Elijah Jensen got everyone to shout, "I LOVE YOU!" or the ten-minute-plus jangle/Spector/surf/disco mash-up finale.  Wrote it for his mom, Elijah Jensen said.  She should be proud.

One upside to being unemployed right now: I can see a show at Neurolux and then swing by the Red Room without having to worry about getting up the next morning.  That's exactly what I did this night after With Child wrapped.

I arrived in time to catch the tail end of the Butcher Boy's set.  Between this Maine band's obnoxiously flat vocals, dirge-y guitar riffs and toy xylophone, however, I might have been better off hanging out at Neurolux for just a little longer.  Their music was clearly well-crafted and not quite as insular as Gem State's, but it still got pretty annoying.  Maybe if I'd seen the whole set...  Then again, maybe not.

Red Hands Black Feet closed out the Red Room's show with a typically solid performance.  They brooded their way through their newest song, made "Django's Last Ride" yowl and shriek and stretched out the intro to "This is What You Get When You Befriend a Stranger in the Alps" like they were pulling taffy.  The fifty-plus people in the crowd whooped and hollered it up.  A fine way to end the night.  I kinda missed "Sink the Bismarck," but I imagine that I'll hear it again sometime soon (and not just because I picked up a copy of their album, which is also available on Bandcamp now).

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

Dear Rabbit, With Child and Bonefish Sam @ the Red Room (7/3/12)

I had no illusions: THE show of this evening was gonna be Radio Boise's Youth Lagoon concert at the Reef.  Not only was the most popular group from Boise (aside from Built to Spill, maybe) headlining, they would be supported by Mozam, whose recent set at the Flying M impressed me greatly, and Teens, a local punk group who's been generating one hell of a buzz around town (their Treefort set was reportedly the stuff of legend).  In spite of all this, I opted to check out the Red Room's Atypical Tuesday because 1) aside from Grandma Kelsey, its bill was comprised entirely of acts I hadn't seen or written about before, 2) I worried that no one else would show up, and 3) ... Well, let me just put it this way: if you love Youth Lagoon, God bless you--clearly, you hear something that I can't.

Happily, my concerns about poor attendance for the Red Room's show proved unfounded.  Not only that, the crowd seemed genuinely receptive to the music as well.  Unfortunately, circumstances prevented me from arriving in time to catch Grandma Kelsey's set.  I'm sure that I'll write about her another time.

First up this night was Dear Rabbit a.k.a. Colorado-based musician Rence Liam, whose cabaret/gypsy-folk-infused music, broad singing and guilefully guileless stage act was one part Tom Waits and one part Jonathan Richman.  He worked hard to make it look like he didn't know what he was doing: he swigged beer (if that's what it was) periodically and dropped banter like "I don't have a title for this song yet.  I don't sing it often, so I probably forgot it."  However, his funny, well-crafted songs, his skillful looping and his ability to play the trumpet and the accordion at the same time gave the lie to that.

Next up was With Child a.k.a. Nampa-based musician Elijah Jensen.  If Dear Rabbit drew upon Jonathan Richman's chutzpah, With Child's serenely urgent, endearingly straightforward tunes drew upon his disarming melodiousness.  Jensen's steady picking and strumming kept the songs moving along nicely, and the moments when his singing didn't quite hit the right notes only added to the brief set's general feeling of unguarded lyricism.

Local experimental musician Bonefish Sam closed out the night's show with the help of Elijah Jensen on guitar and synth and The Very Most's Jeremy Jensen on bass.  I heard quite a bit in this tuneful, spacey, polyrhytmic, politely funky music--some African music and early 70's Miles Davis fusion here, some dub and trip-hop there.  Bonefish Sam squeezed all manner of wonderful noises out of his electronics set-up.  Jeremy Jensen's warm, liquid bass runs showed that, should The Very Most ever break up (God forbid), he could maybe pick up a gig subbing for Fernando Saunders in Lou Reed's band.  Elijah Jensen's clean electric guitar fills and synth parts gave the music some extra bite.  I only wish that I could've picked up a CD or something.  It might've made a fine companion piece to In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew.

You can find info about all these groups on Facebook and elsewhere online.  For info on upcoming Atypical Tuesdays and more, you can look up The Evil Wine Show on Facebook or go to www.evilwine.com.