Geographer, On An On and Hollow Wood @ Neurolux (1/16/13)

Up until this show, I'd never heard of Geographer or On An On.  Also, I remember that Hollow Wood played Neurolux last August on my birthday, but... Well, let's just say that I wasn't able to make a proper assessment at that time.  Anyway, these two facts gave me sufficient reason to check out this show.

I got down to the Neurolux late, but happily, quite a few others didn't.  I counted over ninety people, half of whom were up close to the stage.

Hollow Wood opened the show.  I only caught the last few songs of this local folk-ish group's set, unfortunately, but what I heard didn't sound bad at all: yearning melodies, gorgeous harmonies, intriguing lyrics, pretty good beats (courtesy of Lyndsay Wright and Shelby Juri), welcoming vibe.  Lead singer Adam Stip sounded a little hoarse at a couple of points, but judging from the band's recordings, he may have just been a little under the weather.  In any case, he still pulled out a pretty sweet falsetto here and there.

On An On played next.  This Chicago group's dreamy vocals, supple basslines, post-punk dance beats and synths of many colors washed over the crowd.  The geometric shapes, whorls and spirals projected on the wall behind them augmented the hallucinatory feel of the music.  I know that it's pretty damn lame to say that I wished that this set could've gone on an on, but... well, there's just no way around it.  The rest of the crowd seemed to feel the same: I saw the people closest to the stage do some swaying and bouncing.

Geographer closed out the night.  I'll admit that I feared the worst when I saw this San Francisco-based band set up their electric cello.  However, they won me over well before they broke out some charmingly cheesy 80's synth riffs and hip-hop beats.  Mike Deni's gliding, souful croon combined with Brian Ostreicher's lithely pounding drums and Nathan Blaz's moaning cello and beguiling synthesizer tracks to create a sound that was at once massive, dramatic, playful and strangely wistful.  Atmospherics weren't all that they had going for them either: their quirky songwriting showed as much pop savvy as any group I've heard in the past few months.  And boy, they sure knew how to work the crowd.  People were doing plenty of dancing and clapping to the beat on their own, but between his bouncing around the stage, crowd-surfing and hopping down to sing among the audience, Mike Deni had them eating out of the palm of his hand.

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

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.

Grandma Kelsey, Gregory Rawlins and Chris Jennings @ the Crux; Rose's Pawn Shop @ Neurolux (1/13/13)

Last Sunday, I violated one of the standing orders of this blog: I chose a show composed entirely of acts I'd already seen over one featuring groups I hadn't encountered before.  In my defense, I should explain that I'd listened to a few songs by Rose's Pawn Shop, the headlining act at Neurolux, and been left unimpressed.  They just felt too slick, too facile--the work of guys who reckoned that alt-country/Americana was the surest way to a guy's wallet and a girl's pants.  I like my indie-roots stuff with a little more spunk, a little more warmth, a little more idiosyncrasy.

So, yeah--Grandma Kelsey and Gregory Rawlins.

When I arrived at the Crux, I counted a little over forty people there.  The crowd looked composed mainly of twenty-somethings with a few folks in their thirties and forties sprinkled around.

I was a little late getting down there, so I only caught the last three songs of Chris Jennings's opening set.  From what I heard, however, the guy seems to be coming along pretty well.  Both his singing and his guitar playing sounded more assured.  His "He Stopped Loving Her Today" cover still sounded a little awkward, but hey, it took the Possum himself a while to nail that one.

Gregory Rawlins played next.  His clean, firm tenor and well-schooled country-blues tunes sounded as good as they did at the Red Room's Eastern Oregon Invasion if not better.  Not only that, the crowd's respectful silence enabled me to hear more of Rawlins's well-observed, well-phrased lyrics this time around.  Personal favorites included one number about wanting to romance a lady dishwasher and "Going to Bed Sober," a portrait of the artist as a young screw-up.

Grandma Kelsey closed out the night at the Crux.  Seeing her here, I was struck again by just how fine a balance her music strikes.  Push it a little this way or that and it could turn smug or cloying or maudlin.  As they stand, however, her evergreen melodies, ruminative lyrics and modest yet transported vocals are utterly disarming.  By just strumming her guitar and singing, Grandma Kelsey managed to seal every pair of lips and draw all eyes and ears to her.  A truly unique talent.

I'd planned to head down to Nocturnum at the Red Room after the Crux show, but a gentleman whose taste I respect persuaded me to stop by Neurolux first and check out the last forty minutes of Rose's Pawn Shop's set.  This Los Angeles-based group clearly had talent to spare.  Their honey-drawl vocals, sharp guitar solos, soaring violin, swift basswork and high-octane drumming whipped the surprisingly large crowd into an impressive frenzy.  They tangoed smoothly through Tom Waits's "Jockey Full of Bourbon" and ripped up Woody Guthrie's "Do Re Mi" but good.  Their most telling cover, however, was their finale: Phil Collins's "In the Air Tonight."  That textbook guilty pleasure seemed to encapsulate this band's music: it was polished and fun but too bland for regular listening.

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

John Cazan, Coleman & Reed and Sam Lay @ the Gamekeeper Lounge (1/12/13)

Picking which shows to review on this blog can be hard sometimes.  Saturday night was a case in point: not only did Neurolux host its Sun Blood Stories/Iconoplasty/Phantahex bill, the Van Allen Belt/Hey V Kay/Dirty Moogs show at the Red Room seemed equally promising.  In the end, though, I opted for this Idaho Songwriters' Association gig, which featured three local acts I'd never encountered before.

The crowd numbered fifteen people when I got down to the Gamekeeper Lounge and stayed at about that number for the rest of the night.  Richard O'Hara, one of the two head organizers of the ISA, speculated that the Packers/49ers game sucked up most of the audience for this show.  He may have been right, although I imagine that the crappy weather and the plethora of other shows happening this same night were factors as well.

Local musician John Cazan opened the show.  My ears perked up when the emcee announced that Cazan had played gigs with the Coasters, the Drifters and Little Anthony and the Imperials.  For the most part, this set didn't let me down.  While some of his backing tracks tended a little towards the elevator-jazzy side, Cazan's smooth, finely aged croon went down nicely.  Even better, his fluid, elegant guitar soloing called to mind Nils Lofgren or maybe Stevie Ray Vaughan at his most lyrical ("Lenny," "Little Wing").  As a nice little bonus, the man sure did love dogs: he played two songs that were inspired by his pet pooches.

Michelle Coleman, Daniel Reed and Dominique Tardif from the local Americana group Shakin' Not Stirred played next.  Tardif's terse mandolin solos, Coleman's straight-ahead guitar strumming and Reed's sly basswork fell into such an easy, seemingly effortless groove that they made younger indie-folk groups sound insufferably tight-assed by comparison.  The same went for their insouciant between-song banter and lyrics about dancing outside naked in the middle of the night, neighbors be damned.  Their gorgeous three-part harmonies were no joke, however.  Neither was Coleman's loving, precisely crafted song about her father's passing.

Sam Lay closed out the night.  "You may be watching history tonight," the emcee told the crowd during his introduction.  I don't know about that, but Lay's breathy tenor, nimble strumming and soloing, well-crafted tunes and funny, self-deprecating banter all showed a maturity well beyond his seventeen years.  Show me a teenager who writes lyrics about living in a "gullible theocracy" and I'll show you a songwriter to keep an eye and ear on.  His dad played guitar and harmonica on one song, and local singer-songwriter Gayle Chapman chipped in with some keyboard and harmonies on another.  Lay's mom sat at the front and filmed part of the set.  She must be very proud.

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

Treefort 2013 Lineup Announcement (Round 2)

As some of you undoubtedly know already, the good people at Treefort Music Fest rolled out their second set of confirmed acts today.  You can click here for all the artists announced so far.  Here are some of the ones I'm interested in:

Artists I've Seen:

Emily Wells--Out of all the acts I've seen before, I'm most excited about this lady returning.  She blew the roof off the VAC at the Dark Dark Dark show last year with just her voice and some drums, loops and synths.  God only knows what's gonna happen when you put her in a venue filled to absolute capacity.

Pickwick--Their Treefort 2012 set impressed me enough to earn them a spot on my Top 10 list.  Their Neurolux show a few months later was possibly even better.  I'm hearing the wonder of creation that is Galen Disston's voice in my head right now.

JamesPlaneWreck--I've sung this local group's praises often enough that I probably don't need to add more here.  I'll just say this: it's gonna be a blast seeing these guys play to a full house.

Ugly Hussy--This lad did well for himself at the Radio Boise Tuesday show last week.  Guess it's time to throw him off the cliff and see if he can fly.

Bad Weather California--I saw these guys open for the Meat Puppets at Neurolux a couple years ago.  That should give you an idea of how good they are.

Delicate Steve--Are these guys still based in New Jersey?  Cuz they play here often enough that I could swear they live here now.  But seriously, I have fond enough memories of their VAC show last year that I'm almost willing to forgive keyboardist Mikey Sanchez for his professed goal "to make people hate Bruce Springsteen."

Youth Lagoon--Honestly, I'm not excited about this act in itself.  As some readers know, I am decidedly NOT the biggest Youth Lagoon fan.  I'd go into more detail for those of you who don't know, but I fear that I might turn all green and muscular and start smashing stuff around my house.  In any case, the fact that this group has deigned to grace us with their/his presence will no doubt attract a lot of eyes and ears to Treefort 2013.  Also, their/his main stage performance (educated guess) may help clear up congestion at other venues, which could make it easier for me to cover acts... more to my taste, shall we say.

Artists I Haven't Seen Yet:

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings--I've been playing James Brown's Star Time more or less non-stop for the past year.  I was actually bumping the Superfly soundtrack earlier today.  I think of Memphis and Mussel Shoals in the same way that others may think of Mecca.  In short, the question isn't whether or not I want to see this act.  It's whether or not anything can stop me from seeing them.

Animal Collective--I may go see them just so people WILL STOP TELLING ME THAT I NEED TO LISTEN TO ANIMAL COLLECTIVE.

Sage Francis--A "forefather of indie-hop" who's signed to Epitaph?  Sold!  Also, I take his dying wish "for his beard to grow so long that he can f*ck it" as a promising sign.

The Heligoats--These folks have played here a few times, but I've never seen them.  Might need to remedy that...

That's all for now.  For info on other acts, go to treefortmusicfest.com.  Stay tuned for further announcements!

Cloud/Splitter and Phantahex @ the Red Room (1/10/13)

Last Thursday was a good news/bad news day for me.  Bad news: I got laid off from my day job.  Good news: I won't need to get up at 5:30 a.m. anymore, I'll get to focus more on developing content for this blog (reviews, interviews, etc.) and I'll have more time to write non-blog-related stuff (stories, essays, etc.).  So really, I suppose that the good news far outweighs the bad.  Y'know, aside from that whole lack-of-steady-income thing...

Anyway, this show caught my interest because it featured Cloud/Splitter, a new local electronica group whose music I had checked out on ReverbNation and liked very much.  I'd missed their Liquid show on December 21st--and, judging from the pictures that the band has on their Facebook page, that gig was really something--so I didn't want to let this opportunity pass by.

I counted about thirteen people when I got down to the Red Room.  The crowd would build to about twenty by the time that Cloud/Splitter played.  Modest, but not too bad when one considers the crapload of snow that got dumped on Boise earlier in the day.

Local experimental duo Phantahex kicked off the night's music.  This set showed off some new wrinkles to this group's sound.  Gone was Tristan Andreas's monochord; in were some slinky, steady-grooving beats.  In addition to these change-ups, Andreas and partner Grant Olsen harnessed their blaring, droning, wailing synthesizers to material far more pop-like than I'd heard from them in the past.  Their haunting, otherworldly tunes called to mind Brian Eno at times, Tangerine Dream at others, Gary Numan and Trent Reznor at others.  No matter how disquieting the music became, however, Andreas and Olsen still managed to work in a light, playful touch.  Substantially more interesting and pleasurable than Blurred-Vision.

Cloud/Splitter played next and lived up to the promise of their recordings.  Ashley Rose Smith's bewitching wail led the listener into the waves of driving, funky beats, mind-warping synthesizer sounds (courtesy of Malik Knoll) and elegant, chiming guitar (courtesy of Krispen Hartung).  When paired with some projections of wavy, translucent lines and shapes, the sensuousness of the music was overpowering--kinda like Collide but not nearly as corny.  Happily, the Red Room received an influx of twenty-somethings during this set who were more than willing to get their groove on.

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

CAMP, Lucid Aisle and Ugly Hussy @ Neurolux (1/8/13)

I decided to check this show out because it was the first time that CAMP would play a Radio Boise gig.  Actually, as far as I know, this was the first time that CAMP would play a show at Neurolux.  Anyway, this show also gave me the chance to see Lucid Aisle, whose set at the MV & EE show had impressed me greatly, and Ugly Hussy, an act I'd never heard of before.

I counted twenty people when I arrived at Neurolux.  The crowd would double by the time that Lucid Aisle played.  Not bad for the first Radio Boise Tuesday of the year.  Also, I saw among the audience Cameron Andreas's bandmates from the new Green Jello: Dustin Jones, Geno Lopez, even Bill Manspeaker.  Wow, guy must really dig this town...

Ugly Hussy opened the show.  With just a Fender guitar and some looping pedals, this local musician conjured up a dense fog of chiming riffs and licks, clanging beats and ethereal tunes.  He got some much-earned whoops and cheers, and not just from the friends/family (I'm guessing) who moved up front to take pictures with their smartphones.  If someone's looking to fill a bill with Iconoplasty, this guy would fit nicely.

Lucid Aisle played next.  About midway through this set, I started feeling kinda sorry for CAMP.  If I were in a rock band, no way in hell would I ever want to follow a performance like this.  Between their muscular drums, their coursing basslines and their carpet-bombing guitar, this trio called to mind Brett Netson and Snakes but with better tunes and stronger vocals.  The audience's reaction was much less subdued here than it was at the Red Room back in November: they whistled and cheered as if this was the headlining act (I also saw one gentleman hold up his lighter).  Just a matter of time, I expect...

Lucid Aisle may have stolen some of their thunder, but CAMP's set was still worthy of its live broadcast on Radio Boise.  Pops Miranda's nimble drumming, Aaron Ajeti's rumbling bass and Cameron Andreas's screeching guitar bounced and surged and skanked together in fine style.  Cameron Andreas's croon sounded in good form, and he tossed in some pleasantly weird synthesizer noise as well.  This performance received some warm applause as well as some dancing from Geno Lopez and an unidentified lady.  The dancing was pretty adorable, I must admit.

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