A Hawk and a Hacksaw, Phantahex and Fleet Street Klezmer Band @ Neurolux; Sun Blood Stories @ the Crux (6/6/13)

Initially, I'd thought about covering Sun Blood Stories' fundraiser show at the Crux; they're one of my favorite local bands right now, and I wanted to support their efforts to get their new album out.  In the end, however, this Neurolux show was too intriguing to pass up.  I mean, Phantahex and Fleet Street Klezmer Band on the same bill?  I had to hear how that would play out.

I counted about twenty-five people when I got to Neurolux.  I counted over fifty when the headliner, A Hawk and a Hacksaw, played.  Half of that number chose to hang out on the patio, but that still made for a decent enough audience.

Fleet Street Klezmer Band opened the show.  I've seen this group quite a few times and enjoyed each performance, so it surprises me that I hadn't noticed before how good a singer Shlomo Kostenko is.  That may be because their Romanian/Russian/gypsy tunes tend to call for a certain amiable roughness; they work better if he sounds like some dude from your village who just got up to sing a song.  Certain moments here, however, allowed Kostenko to show the power of his baritone moan--its strength, its range, its sonorousness.  Meanwhile, the rapport between his rock-steady strumming, Victoria Kostenko's gliding violin and Matthew Vorhies's jaunty accordion felt especially strong.  Drummer Alfonso Sanchez stumbled more than a few times but generally got back on the beat quick enough.  Last but not least, Cecilia Rinn pitched in with some pleasant finger cymbal and some lissome belly-dancing.

Phantahex played next.  In with the old, in with the new.  This set featured Tristan Andreas playing a monochord again as well as a continuation of the tuneful, rhythmic bent of this duo's Red Room set back in January.  The jittery, booming beats and the spare, somber melodies made the hisses and screeches stand in sharper relief.  Grant Olsen's detached, auto-tuned vocals made the mixture even more haunting.  Abrasive yet accessible.  Both cool as in brrr and cool as in whoa.

Next up was A Hawk and a Hacksaw.  This Albuquerque duo's ersatz, postmodern mashup of various world musics--Balkan, Klezmer, Arabian, a little Buddhist chant and taiko drumming (I think)--helped the pairing of such disparate openers make a bit more sense.  I wondered at first if this was all a big hipster joke--an evocation of community and solidarity undercut by a smug, savvier-than-thou obscurantism.  Heather Trost's frantic, zipping violin and Jeremy Barnes's scurrying accordion work did little to ease my misgivings, impressive though they both were.  However, as the set progressed from a stolid anthem to some lively, buzzing, poly-rhythmic material, they started to win me over.  It was as if they wanted to take you from an institutionalized or state-imposed vision of community to the flesh-and-blood experience of it.  Or maybe I just appreciate dance-beats much more than accordions.  In any case, the crowd was with them right from the start.  By A Hawk and a Hacksaw's encore, which they played unplugged among the people on the dance floor, I was with them too.

After the Neurolux show wrapped, I swung by the Crux in time to catch the tail-end of Sun Blood Stories' set.  The place was as crowded as I'd hoped, and the performance was as ass-whomping as I'd expected.  Some psychedelic montages courtesy of Jason Willford upped the intensity level a notch.  What with all the painted faces, all the roars of applause and all the used clothes, books and tapes on a table in the back, the band hopefully made enough money to get their new album, The Electric Years, out.  But even if they did, you should go to their web store and contribute because dammit, their very presence here makes this town twice as sexy.

You can find info on these acts on Facebook and elsewhere online.  If you like what you've read and would like to help keep it going, click the yellow "Give" button and donate whatever you can.  Even $5 would help. And special thanks to Tristan Andreas for looking up A Hawk and a Hacksaw's cimbalom and stroh violin on his smartphone.

Black Pus and Aan @ Neurolux (5/14/13)

This show caught my interest when I learned that Black Pus was the solo project of Lightning Bolt's Brian Chippendale.  I'd never heard either act, but Lightning Bolt attracted a good deal of buzz when they played the Shredder last September.  It didn't hurt either that the bill included Portland band Aan, whose set at the Red Room last February I'd enjoyed greatly.

I counted sixteen or so people at Neurolux when I arrived.  When Black Pus played, about twenty people were inside watching.  Not a big crowd, but admittedly, this stuff wasn't for all tastes.

Aan opened the show.  As longtime readers have probably noticed, when a regularly returning out-of-state band returns again, I'm prone to make some crack like, "Why don't they just buy a house here?"  I'll refrain from doing that with this two-time Treefort act, however, because I like them more each time that I see them.  Their glittering, stinging guitar, their smoothly eccentric rhythms and their airy synthesizer all sounded in fine form.  So did Bud Wilson's vocals: his growl, flutter and wail proved equally skillful and enjoyable.  Neurolux's flickering lights and twirling lasers complemented Aan's thorny dreaminess very nicely.  Say, actually, why don't these guys buy a house here?

Black Pus played next.  I got the feeling that things were gonna get interesting when I saw Chippendale set up his drums on the dance floor.  I wasn't wrong.  Some people would undoubtedly have found this guy's mix of buzzing, woofing, whoomping, squeeing noises and manic, unyielding drums too friggin' weird.  Me, I found it as cleansing and invigorating as the (now sadly defunct) Finer Points of Sadism.  It helped immensely that this stuff felt genuinely inventive and experimental; I didn't know what kind of sounds were going to come at me at any given moment.  That spirit carried over into the slightly jazzy feel of Chippendale's drumming as well.  This set featured an impromptu cameo by one half of local experimental group For Fuck's Sake, who hollered into Chippendale's mic-mask during the encore while the man bashed away.

You can find info on these acts on Facebook and elsewhere online.  Special thanks to Eric Gilbert and Radio Boise.  If you like what you've read and would like to help keep it going, click the yellow "Give" button and donate whatever you can.  Even $5 could go a long way.

Thrones, Cerberus Rex, Dream Hearse and Grey Cover @ the Red Room (5/3/13)

This show interested me because it had a bunch of question marks attached to it (for me, anyway).  I knew of the other bands with whom Thrones a.k.a. Joe Preston had been involved (Earth, Sunn O))), the Melvins) but had never seen him before.  I'd seen Cerberus Rex before but not since Pat Perkins had left.  Finally, this show marked the debuts of two local groups, Dream Hearse and Grey Cover.

I counted only fifteen people when I got to the Red Room.  By the time that Thrones played, that number would build to just a little under fifty (a good chunk of whom would opt to hang out on the patio).  Far less people than I'd expected, but not too bad, I guess.

Grey Cover kicked off the night.  A few days prior, I received a message from a member of this band inviting me to cover their second show.  I still get a good chuckle out of that.  Not that I don't understand first-show trepidation, but it proved unwarranted here: their sludgy dirge-beats and doomy guitar drones went over quite well.  I couldn't really tell what Arleth Medellin was saying, but she groaned with such conviction that I took it on faith that it made sense.  Meanwhile, Ian Corrigan's sharp fills darted in here and there as Ellen Rumel slashed steadfastly onward.  And actually, the songs weren't all dirgey and doomy: you could've maybe even danced to a couple of them.  If anything, this set was too short.  Oh well.  There'll be others.

Dream Hearse played next.  Given my various disparaging remarks about bands emphasizing sound over sense, I suppose that some may consider my enjoyment of this set perverse.  What did the trick for me was how this group (whose guitar player I recognized from another noise band I was fond of, Microbabies) tickled and teased the rational mind rather than pummel it into submission (cf. Wooden Indian Burial Ground).  The frequent stop-start passages, where you think the song's over NO WAIT! okay, now it's really over NO WAIT!, exemplified this trait most clearly.  Also, as this may suggest, their songs did actually show some good construction; each one had its own distinct riff, arrangement, etc.  This helped render their incomprehensibility articulate and even witty.  A very neat trick.

Cerberus Rex played next.  I never thought that I'd live to say/write that I was disappointed to hear a band's vocals better.  No dis on Josh Galloway's bellow or lyrics, both of which sounded fine; it's just that I missed hearing Pat Perkins snarl and weave.  Since this band continued to showcase one of the best guitar players in town, however, I couldn't complain too much.  Also, the reduction in sonic density allowed me to perceive better the solid craftsmanship of the songs as well as the strong rapport between Galloway's fluid basslines, Z.V. House's gargantuan riffs and raw solos and Jake Hite's tank-like drums.  A notch less roiling but still plenty powerful.

Thrones closed out the night.  I got the feeling that this guy was gonna be okay when he kicked off his set with a charmingly half-hearted merch pitch.  The rest of Joe Preston's set proved me right.  A playful, tongue-in-cheek quality pervaded his guttural vocals, grinding basslines and recordings of booming drums and whirring, whining synth.  This came through most clearly in his samples from The Exorcist and live shows ("Are you having a good time!?  Have you had enough to drink tonight!?").  Preston didn't goof around too much, however: he kept the music intricate and pulverizing enough to satisfy any metalheads in the crowd.  All in all, good fun.

You can find info on Cerberus Rex and Thrones 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 and donate whatever you can.  Even $5 can go a long way.

Angel Olsen, Villages and There Is No Mountain @ Neurolux (4/16/13)

I was curious about Angel Olsen, but what really attracted me to this show was There Is No Mountain, a Portland-based group formerly known as the Ascetic Junkies.  I caught their show at the Flying M last July and liked them very much.  Since then, I'd listened to their recordings, and my fondness had only deepened.

I counted a little over thirty people at Neurolux when I arrived.  The audience would grow to about thirty-six or thirty-seven over the course of the evening.  Fairly typical for a Radio Boise Tuesday.  I did appreciate, though, that most of the crowd chose to sit or stand close to the stage.

There Is No Mountain opened the show.  I'll admit that their name change made me sad at first (seriously, just take a moment and think about the brilliant irony of the name "Ascetic Junkies").  Anyway, since they sounded every bit as sweet and smart as they did back in July, I got over my grief pretty quickly.  What's more, thanks to the stomping beats and nimble, good-enough-for-metal riffing of their newer material, they rocked harder.  Matt Harmon's gliding, Michael Buble-esque croon complemented Kali Giaritta's clean, strong, subtly sultry voice like Tracy and Hepburn.  Also, I'm more than ever convinced that "Good News" is one of the greatest songs I've heard in my life.  I could explain why here, but I think I'll save that for my review of their new album, which will be coming soon.

Up next was experimental group Villages.  From Tracy and Hepburn to David Lynch: this Asheville, NC act's waves of drones, tinkles, hisses and whooshes was by turns ominous, soothing and overpowering.  The audience's attention wavered during this set, but a handful of folks kept their eyes and/or ears locked on the stage.

Angel Olsen closed out the night.  This Chicago musician and her backing band made me think of a group I've always wanted to like more, the Cowboy Junkies.  Everything I've heard by them (the Junkies, that is) has sounded real purty, and I do like my moody, rootsy stuff, but yeesh--would it kill them to lighten up a little?  I mean, for crying out loud, even Townes Van Zandt cracked his fair share of jokes.

Anyway, with her resolutely blank expression and suppressed-sob singing, Olsen came off as a touch or three too solemn and self-serious for my taste.  Still, she did sound real purty.  So did her band's jangling riffs, serene cello, stately beats and dash of Velvet Underground drone.  Also, when Olsen turned up the heat a little on her vocals, she got a nice Dusty-in-Nashville feel going.  And I'll note for the record that the crowd's appreciation seemed much more unequivocal than mine: about twenty people lined up along the edge of the dance floor and hung on Olsen's every sigh.

(Sidenote: I just listened to a song off the Cowboy Junkies' latest album entitled "F*ck, I Hate the Cold."  Its lyrics live up to its title.  Guess there's hope for everybody...)

You can find info on these acts on Facebook and elsewhere online.  Special thanks to Eric Gilbert and Radio Boise.  If you like what you've read and would like to help keep it going, click the yellow "Give" button in the upper right-hand corner and donate whatever you can.  Even $5 can go a long way.

The Boise Creative and Improvised Music Festival @ the VaC; The Matildas and Pacific Pride @ the Chamber of Death (3/1/13)

A friend of mine sent me a Facebook invite for this VaC show, and I grew intrigued.  Admittedly, I'm no expert on experimental music or highfalutin' avant-garde stuff, so I wasn't sure how I'd write about this.  That uncertainty gave me a powerful incentive to check this deal out.

I only counted about fifteen people when I arrived at the VaC.  That number included a fair amount of the participants in the evening's activities.  By my count, not much more than twenty civilians showed up while I was there.

As the Boise Creative and Improvised Music Festival progressed, I encountered something humbler and more generous than I'd anticipated.  Some people, I imagine, might have considered it unbearably pretentious.  They'd be wrong.  "Pretentious" implies some lofty intent or ambition.  Conversely, I heard more than one person involved with the project say, "We don't know what we're doing."  That was the point of the show: to throw caution to the wind, try something out and see where the moment took you.  In other words, to have fun.

Musicians who participated this night included Krispen Hartung, Tristan Andreas, Ashley Rose Smith, cellist Melissa Wilson, guitarist Ted Killian and saxophonist/College of Southern Idaho professor Brent Jensen (as well as, in an impromptu cameo, Sam Stimpert on horn).  They tossed back and forth bumps, coos, honks, bleats, squeals, whistles, rattles, groans, chirps and any other kind of noise that they could squeeze out of their respective instruments.  A very pleasant ebb and flow developed as the two acts I saw unfolded.  At one moment, everything would coalesce and sound like something that Tom Ze, John Zorn or Ennio Morricone in his more eccentric moments might come up with.  At the next, it would dissolve into a glorious mess of noise.

Meanwhile, a group of dancers that included Kyle Johnson, Heidi Kraay and my friend Daphne Stanford writhed, shook their hands in the air, scooted across the stage on their butts and basically did anything that the situation seemed to call for.  This included spouting the occasional non sequitur--one especially enjoyable passage involved knocking the word "sh*t" about like a shuttlecock.  The visual component of the show also included a strobelight, the VaC's disco ball and some trippy montages courtesy of Yurek Hansen and Jason Willford.

It really was too bad that more people didn't show up for this.  Hopefully, the following night's show was better attended.

I watched two acts of the BCIMF and then headed out.  I would've liked to have stayed for the finale, but I wanted to catch at least part of the show at the Chamber of Death, a new Boise house venue and sister of sorts to Caldwell's Manor.

I found something sad in the fact that more people crammed into two modest apartments than went down to the VaC.  I estimated that there were about thirty people at the Chamber of Death, and that number could have been low.

I arrived just in time to catch the two sets by a quartet of Denver musicians, who played alternately under the names Pacific Pride and the Matildas.  The Pacific Pride material was your standard jittery surf/garage-punk: manic drumming, tuneful basslines, droning riffs, eerie keyboard.  Nothing I haven't heard two billion times before, and nothing I'd mind hearing again.

The Matildas' material proved more distinctive.  This was thanks in part to the alternating male-female vocals and thanks in part to the slight old-school Ramones feel to their pop-tunes and jangly guitars.  The lyrics weren't too shabby either--sweet, sassy, grounded.  The crowd grinned, jostled each other playfully and clapped to the beat.  I wanted to get a picture of the crowd-surfing, but I was too slow on the draw.

You can find info on these groups and the Boise Creative and Improvised Music Festival on Facebook and elsewhere online.