...we've got the means to make amends. I am lost, I'm no guide, but I'm by your side. (Pearl Jam, Leash)
Friday, November 28, 2008
The slowburn of Calexico
On Monday afternoon, I called the bowling alley at Moe's BBQ, next door to the Gothic Theatre, to reserve a lane before the concert. "Big show tonight?" the man (sadly not named Moe) asked me. "Yeah, Calexico is playing next door," I replied.
Bowling Man was unfamiliar with their music and asked me to describe it. "Well ... there's a southwestern element in there, but it's not country. There are mariachi horns and steel guitar -- I guess it's indie-minded with kinda a wild desert streak." That's the best I could muster; Calexico is a difficult band to describe to someone who has never heard them because they straddle so many genres and defy easy characterization. This makes their live show stunning, an ever-shifting blend of enormous sounds and complex layers of melody. I'd never seen them live before, and I was riveted.
Here are some pictures from their gorgeous multi-hued set Monday night -- with mp3s from one of my favorite concert collaborations below:
This weekend I had my face melted (a few times actually) down at the Larimer Lounge -- most completely by the duo El Ten Eleven, who were opening for Land of Talk on Saturday night. Kristian Dunn and Tim Fogarty make mindblowing sounds using just a drum set and fretless bass/double-necked guitar.
With the help of about 27 different pedal and whirlygig deals on the floor, they loop layers of sound to create some amazing(ly fun) music. From the initial stirrings of even something like Pachelbel's "Canon in D," I've always found the slow build and denouement in any song to be fascinating, especially ones that focus on adding the layers of sound or noise and then taking them back. My brain likes appreciating each element distinctly.
The vague confusion that I felt when I first walked in on their set ("Wait -- I am hearing sounds that are not currently being played by those hands I see in front of me...") slowly melted into a hot flush of wonder. I'm a sucker for cool loops. Watching Kristian lay down one bit of melody and then another, effortlessly weaving in and out of different sounds with a flick of a finger across the strings -- it was sort of like watching a magician at work, albeit in sneakers and a striped t-shirt. Together with Tim the relentless drummer, he constructed something that was awesomely danceable but intelligently (and joyfully) composed.
WATCH: "Hot Cakes" (live in Arizona)
El Ten Eleven hails from the Silverlake neighborhood of Los Angeles (although 1/2 of the duo went to a neighboring high school from mine in the San Fran Bay Area). Their music is, hmmm . . . danceable like Justice, with pulsing basslines like Primus, and radiating sonic atmosphere like Sigur Ros. Their music darts in and out of ethereal and rocking, sublime and visceral.
These Promises Are Being Videotaped is their third album, self-released after a stint with Bar/None Records. I can't get enough of this first song, and check that Radiohead cover! The crowd packed around the stage provided the "sing-as-loud-as-you-can" vocals to their instrumental rendition.
And while you're over on their website, you can check out the sweet "Slasher Tee" I bought at the show and love because it makes me look like an Eighties guitar hero. Which is something I shall ne'er be.
GO SEE FOR YOURSELF Nov 17 - Record Bar, Kansas City, MO Nov 18 – Mojo’s, Columbia, MO Nov 19 - Canopy Club, Urbana, IL Nov 20 - Founders Brewing, Grand Rapids, MI Nov 21 - Beachland Tavern, Cleveland, OH Nov 22 - Casa Cantina, Athens, OH Nov 23 - Bug Jar, Rochester, NY Nov 25 - Cafe 9, New Haven, CT Nov 26 - The Bell House, Brooklyn, NY Nov 28 - 92Y Tribeca, New York, NY Nov 29 – Brillobox, Pittsburgh, PA Dec 1 - 816 Pint and Slice, Fort Wayne, IN Dec 2 – Schubas, Chicago, IL Dec 3 - TBA St. Louis, MO Dec 4 – Opolis, Norman, OK Dec 5 - The Cavern, Dallas, TX Dec 6 - Beauty Bar, Austin, TX Dec 10 - Hotel Cafe, Hollywood, CA Dec 19 - Hotel Monte Vista, Flagstaff, AZ Dec 20 – Plush, Tucson, AZ
"make you believe / make you forget" :: Matt Nathanson in Denver
San Francisco songwriter/rocker (and fellow covers-whore) Matt Nathanson played the Bluebird last Monday in a sold out show which, as usual, juxtaposed his own wonderful songs with a well-picked stream of covers and snippets of other tunes. I've seen Matt several times and always walk away from his shows feeling a little gutted by his songs (especially his recent output chronicling the unmagnificent relationship difficulties of adult life) and smiling from the force of his hilarious and engaging personality.
He closed the night with this, one of the saddest songs of the year in my book:
And I had not realized how devastating (and uncomfortably close) the lyrics of "Cath" by Death Cab for Cutie are until Matt quoted a few of them at the beginning of his song "Wedding Dress."
Check out the rest of the show on the Live Music Archive, including a sweet little cover of "All I Have To Do Is Dream" by the Everly Brothers, which was a song I'd requested, and came out just lovely. Also, we rocked that singalong cover of "Take On Me" in a catharsis I wouldn't have thought possible.
try to ignore all this blood on the floor / it's just this heart on my sleeve that's bleeding
Seeing Ray LaMontagne the first time was pretty dang incredible. It was early 2005 and I had just experienced the beginnings of my slow musical rebirth (snatched from the jaws of grownup musical apathy) through his groundshaking Trouble. I listened to it non-stop, feeling like something I had been missing out of music was slowly being diffused back into me. The rough-hewn beauty of the music, the incisive daggers in his lyrics, and most of all that unbelievable voice -- it all felt so raw and beautiful. I went to see him at the Fillmore in S.F., and as I wrote:
"This skinny guy comes walking out on stage, looking as uncomfortable as all get out. Big beard. Quiet voice. Hiding behind his guitar. I almost thought he was going to bolt.
But then he opens his mouth and begins to play.
He has this vulnerable, raspy, velvety, pure voice, and he absolutely pours his soul into his music . . . He feels each word and resonates with each chord.
[One] non-album track that I remember vividly from the show is "Can I Stay." He ended with this song. The venue went still, as if we were all transfixed in the moment, like you could almost feel the song hanging there above our heads. The spotlight shone on him, with the dust motes swirling in the heavy air. Absolutely beautiful song. I almost felt like I couldn't breathe."
On Monday night, I made the long drive up to Boulder for my fourth time seeing Ray. As jaded and cynical as I sometimes worry that my little critic's heart is becoming, wouldn't you know it - it happened again for me. The chills and the lump in the throat. Several times. The potency and passion still lives in Ray's music, and I was so glad to meet up with it again.
Dressed in the same plaid shirt/jeans/workboots ensemble of his Maine roots, Ray is really hitting an amazing stride and finding his subtle confidence as a performer. Instead of feeling bad for even looking at him on-stage, as I sometimes did that first night, Ray now exhales a quiet sense of purpose, a level of comfort as he melds with his backing band, and occasionally a wickedly funny streak. (One gal in the crowd yelled out that it was her birthday, 26. Ray first claimed not to remember that long ago in his life, and then he thought for a moment and pensively but determinedly said, "Now I said I didn't know what I was doing at 26, and that's not true. I was getting stoned, that's what I was doin'").
Ray's set skillfully wove his older material together with the bigger, brighter, shiner songs from his new album Gossip In The Grain. From the robust opening notes of "You Are The Best Thing," to the rocking blues of his ode to Meg White (while the stage was saturated in a very White-Stripesy crimson light), it was exciting to see this different side of him bloom. The country flavor ran deep, with pedal steel replacing the elegant strings on songs like "Shelter." Songs were laced through with high and lonesome whistles, and harmonicas unbounded like a runaway train.
I was nothing short of captivated, that he could still move those puzzle pieces around inside me. In a moment, Ray's music conjures up a hard-working world of faded wood cabins on the plain, country dresses, and going home at night exhausted to someone who really loves you. There may be some cornbread involved, maybe a passel of children. All that flashed through my mind (and I thought about various Steinbeck books I've read) in the way he sang the line from Empty about, "kiss me with that country mouth so plain." Overactive constructs, perhaps, but I loved it nonetheless in its simplicity, and in his absolute gut-wrenching conviction. He still doesn't sing songs as much as they are yanked out from his insides.
Since you all already know that I'm a sap sometimes, I'll totally cop to crying on his solo acoustic version of "Burn." I didn't expect that. It was very much like this video from a few days prior, and just bleeding raw and damn gorgeous:
A guy in the balcony said it best when he yelled out during one of the many quiet moments of guitar tuning between songs: "You sound good, Ray!"
And good it was. Very good.
SETLIST You Are The Best Thing Hold You In My Arms Let It Be Me I Still Care For You (with Leona Naess) Empty Henry Nearly Killed Me (It's A Shame) Narrow Escape Meg White Burn (solo acoustic) Winter Birds (solo acoustic) Hey Me, Hey Mama You Can Bring Me Flowers Shelter Trouble
--Encore-- 3 More Days Jolene Gossip In The Grain (with Leona Naess)
Kings of Leon / We Are Scientists / The Stills @ Fillmore Denver
[Keith Murray of opening band We Are Scientists]
On Thursday night, the prodigal sons of preacher Leon were out in fine form at the Fillmore in Denver. Playing to a sold-out crowd, Kings of Leon opened with their current steamy single "Sex on Fire" and pushed through the early technical difficulties with the swagger of "My Party."
Minus the long hair and cleaned up like school photo day, the clan kept it tight through through pent-up rockers like "Four Kicks" (which always makes me feel like I want to, well, kick somebody) and my favorite song off Because Of The Times, "Fans" (to my unbridled delight). Some of their newer material felt a little sludgy but definitely hit a high point with "Use Somebody," which is a fantastic song and sounds epic live. Although for me they never quite hit the same sweaty frenzy of the last time I saw them at the smaller Ogden Theater, they --and possibly their sex, although this is unverified at press time-- were still on fire.
Off Canada's Arts & Crafts label, The Stills opened the night (always the bridesmaids, never the brides -- although they totally could bring it as headliners themselves) followed by New York's We Are Scientists. The Gigbot photo booth was also out to capture all the fine looking hipsters in the crowd, and then there was me and Julio.
Friday night: Mountain Goats with Kaki King in Denver
There's a scene in Elf where Will Ferrell's character, as naive and untainted by the world as he is, falls for Zooey Deschanel's shopgirl character. He stretches out his arms wide and yells, "I'm in LOVE! And I don't care who knows it!!"
As I stood four feet from John Darnielle and his rotating crew of Mountain Goatsat a sold-out show at the Bluebird on Friday night, I found myself thinking the same thing, with almost that same embarrassingly unabashed fervor.
Darnielle is not hip. He is too vulnerable and transparent, too honest in his lyrics and unselfconscious in his delivery to be cool. Combine that with the potent gut-punch of the songs and you've got a memorable evening. Amidst exuberantly lame dance moves (me too John! Me too) he spat out lyrics of hope and despair, and rocked and tore through an amazing range of intelligent and gorgeous songs from his catalog. As Rob Sheffield wrote about Pavement in the awesome Love Is A Mix Tape, "The songs were all either fast or sad, because all songs should either be fast or sad. Some of the fast ones were sad, too." For being as obviously intelligent and well-read as Darnielle is, he hasn't forgotten how to rock, and rock loud.
In addition to new songs off Heretic Pride and the Satanic Messiah EP, they also played some rare back-catalog tunes ("Genesis 19:1-2"), and closed the main set with "This Year." Those final moments with the whole crowd yelling along were among my cathartic concert highlights of this entire year. It was, for me, transcendent and very timely.
Darnielle has Wilco-like fans in their rabidity. Whenever I go to a show of an artist I've not seen live before, and the fans are like that, I pay extra close attention to the proceedings so I can investigate catching whatever fever led them to be foaming at the mouth in the first place. In between a crazy variety of song names being shouted as requests, the range of hardcore fans was noteworthy. I saw everyone from early high-schoolers (I think it was an all-ages show) singing along at the top of their innocent hearts, to burly biker dudes and everyone in-between.
I missed opener Kaki King because I was hauling heavy things onto moving trucks, but she came out and joined Darnielle for a good chunk of the set on her guitar, alternating between acoustic and electric and even playing some slide guitar down on the floor. She is the guest guitarist on that eloquent instrumental ballad from the latest Foo Fighters' album, "The Ballad of the Beaconsfield Miners," as well as a collaborator with Tegan & Sara. Her distinctive style can also be heard on the new EP collaboration with Darnielle, the Black Pear Tree EP (she wrote music, he wrote lyrics). They performed "Mosquito Repellent" from that EP together, wide smiles across their faces.
The show ended too soon and left my cheeks flushed. Somewhere in these lyrics Darnielle sang, the night remains suspended:
Do what you have to do Go where you have to go When the time comes to loosen up your grip, you'll know
Called my friend in New York, 3000 miles away Halfway through her metamorphosis, nothing I could say Hoard my small resentments Like rare and priceless gems Hang on to your dreams until there's nothing left of them
Dr. Dog at Denver's Hi-Dive on Saturday (with Delta Spirit and Hacienda)
Saturday night was a fantastic night for shows in Denver. I split my time equally between the Hi-Dive and the Gothic and caught a few superb and passionate performances.
First up, Haciendaopened the night at the Hi-Dive, in a sold out show with Dr. Dog and Delta Spirit. I didn't know what to expect from this band of Mexican-American brothers (+1 cousin) from San Antonio, Texas, but their sound fit in nicely with the serrated retro vibes of their tourmates. Their 6-song demo landed in the hands of Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys (who is quite the producer lately), and their debut album was recorded in his Akron, Ohio studio with members of Dr. Dog. Loud Is The Night is out now on Bomp Records.
Finally . . . I left. No, really. Not out of spite for the wonderful Dr. Dog from Philly, but because the Dandy Warhols were taking the stage over at the Gothic. That's a story for another day. Luckily, I stumbled across a wonderful local taper who recorded the Dr. Dog set! If I close my eyes, spill a beer on my foot, and turn up the heater it's almost like being there.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds bring fire, brimstone and rock 'n' roll to Denver
Friday night around 2am I was having a conversation out in a dark alley, next to broken-out windows and dumpsters, with a fellow who told me that Nick Cave saved his life.
Back in high school he listened to punk and often felt alienated from the other kids, from the metalhead contingent, the popular rock and the hair bands. Discovering music like Nick Cave's work with The Birthday Party, and then his early albums with the Bad Seeds in the mid-'80s, had opened up whole new worlds of literate music to him that intelligently and ferociously reached across all boundaries and grabbed hold of him.
As we loitered in the darkness waiting for Nick Cave to emerge from the bowels of the Ogden Theatre after a mindblowingly amazing show, he told me how much Cave had resonated with him over the years. Standing there with his girlfriend, he held a copy of the 1985 album The Firstborn Is Dead to his chest, and in twenty minutes he would be walking away with Nick's writing across the front, lyrics to "A Train Long-Suffering" written in silver ink still wet around his picture on the black cover. As I touched his shoulder to say bye, he was shaking like a leaf.
I am a latecomer to the cult of Cave, but after Friday night's sold-out and powerful show, count me as a convert. Apocalyptic and spiritual metaphors are the strongest that come up after you are baptized by fire into a Nick Cave show. As he dances, stomps, writhes and howls onstage, slim and strong in his suit, sweating through his clothes, you feel like you are seeing some sort of punk-rock preacher come to save us from our sins (and planting ideas about a few new ones while he's at it).
It's not a gimmick nor a schtick like some Reverends in the rock world, but just the force of his personality, his intense band (with two drummers!!) and the raging quality of his songs. To get some idea of what the entire night was like, watch my favorite video of the year:
DIG, LAZARUS DIG!!!
Cave is one of the most intelligent songwriters I know of, not afraid to mix the sacred and the profane to illustrate new meanings with a punch, or to take on old stories like the closing "Stagger Lee" and make it his own with lyrics I nearly blush to repeat. The music was potent, the performance pure undiluted rock 'n' roll. Cave performed everything from the title track from his latest album with aplomb (second in the set), to the earliest songs like "Tupelo" as well as beloved favorites like "Red Right Hand" and "The Mercy Seat." They held the stage for more than two visceral hours with no signs of letting up until the bitter end.
Setlist: Night of the Lotus Eaters / Dig Lazarus Dig!!! / Tupelo / Today's Lesson / The Weeping Song / Red Right Hand / Love Letter / Hold on to Yourself / The Mercy Seat / Moonland / Midnight Man / Deanna / We Call Upon the Author / Hard On For Love / Papa Won't Leave you, Henry ==encore== Wanted Man / Lyre of Orpheus / Stagger Lee
Friday night was one of the best shows I have seen in many moons, as I told Cave after the show. He replied that it had been his favorite of the tour as well despite some sound problems that plagued the beginning, leading to a hapless broken keyboard getting kicked off its stand by the towering Cave and his solid boots. Like everything else about the night, he was unrelenting.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds play Chicago tomorrow night, then a quick lap into Canada, and back to NYC and DC before heading back to Europe.
Last night :: Spiritualized and N.E.R.D. (no, not together)
Last night I had high aspirations of a rare two-show/one-night venture. I went to the Fillmore to see Chester French, but they played earlier than quoted and I missed the set. I was confused when I got there and asked the older black security guard if anyone had played yet and he sniffed, "A few skinny white boys. They was good." I found this amusing, and frustrating that I didn't get to see them myself. I had time and stayed for N.E.R.D., then headed to the loud, uplifting rock-and-gospel sounds of Spiritualized. It was quite the head-swirling show.
The Foo Fighters at Red Rocks were loud last night -- some of the highest decibel levels I've heard in a while (I'm not complaining, I just can't hear you).
It's obvious to anyone who has seen these guys that Dave Grohl simply adores being a frontman, and has found his calling in life. His affability greased the wheels of the show and trickled into everything they performed -- it was such a fun night. Musically it was a treat to watch Taylor Hawkins (the man, the myth, the machine) and Pat Smear (formerly of The Germs) play, as well as the two kickass women on their impressive stringed instruments (a cello and a violin methinks, but I was never an orchestra kid so it could be, like, a viola or something).
you make me perfect :: Nine Inch Nails at Red Rocks last night
A lot of sentiments seem to diminish and dissipate through daily life as we grow up into adults who hold jobs, buy groceries and maybe even do responsible things like invest a fraction of our paychecks into some Orange ING account somewhere.
Me, I was once 15 and I once listened to a lot of Nine Inch Nails. Whole worlds of emotion, rage, angst, sex, God, fear and doubt all unveiled themselves to me through albums like Pretty Hate Machine and The Downward Spiral. And now I'm 29 with a whole lot more living behind me, and even as life looks so different, there's still something in me that is drawn to the stuff Trent Reznor is creating. I was surprised by that last night, in the unseasonably crisp night air of Red Rocks.
Nine Inch Nails has not gone anywhere, I am very aware of that, and of all the inventive and intelligent music that Reznor continues to produce (even bucking the commercial norms by releasing his latest album The Slip for absolute free). But I will admit that my affinity for regularly listening to him has waned, partly in the face of so much other new music and also partly because I'm occupied with things like acoustic singer-songwriters with soaring harmonies. I have, in a word, gone a bit soft.
Reznor is not only a sonic genius, but he is a man who scribes some of the most ragingly incisive and achingly honest lyrics of anyone out there. At last night's sold-out show, NIN absolutely blew me away with a dazzling, LOUD, intense performance. My friend Adam saw them last month; it was his 22nd show and he'd place it in the top 3. This was my first actual Nine Inch Nails show (saw Trent acoustic in 2006), so count my face as summarily melted -- definitely one of the best rock shows I've seen in years.
The one thing I didn't expect was how I felt a churning, pent-up intensity building somewhere in my gut throughout the show -- a simultaneous tension and physical catharsis, a release. There's something irreplicable about yelling along with 10,000 people to lyrics like, "I wanna break it up, I wanna smash it up, I wanna fuck it up, I wanna watch it go down" (when seriously the last thing I broke was a favorite pint glass, on accident). I didn't expect it to all feel so real.
The current band lineup (Freese, Finck, Meldal-Johnson, Cortini) helps Trent make some of the most blistering industrial rock music you can see in concert these days. They also did it while looking damn amazing. The light show aspect of the night was nothing short of breathtaking -- between shimmering LED curtains of white that repelled away from Trent's body and he moved closer, to sound bars of blue that rose and fell across the front of the stage through Trent's taunts of "Hey pig piggie pig..." -- it was unparalleled. We felt like kids, the way my friend and I kept oohing and aahing whenever the display made our jaws drop once again.
If the groundbreaking Pretty Hate Machine was released in 1989, that means next year it will be 20. But even stretching back to the beginning, the songs that NIN performed from that record last night sounded as vital and current to me as anything I hear on the radio -- nay, more vital, more current. I have always appreciated Trent's vulnerability in his lyrics, and going live through the ebb and flow of spiritual questioning with him on songs like "Terrible Lie" still got me. For all the hatred and anger in that song ("You made me throw it all away, my morals left to decay..." ) he then flips immediately to a childlike pleading, "I want so much to believe." It was something of a masterpiece then and it still felt that way last night.
Check out this mysterious video that just surfaced of "Down In It" into "Head Like A Hole" - no lie, I just got goosebumps watching it again:
There was an oasis in the middle of the set where the band recreated the spectral sonic landscapes of the Ghosts I-IV instrumental album and got all prog-rock with ukeleles, marimbas and heaving symphonies of string instruments. Some would call it indulgent, but I thought it fascinating. Now if only they'd found a way to put "The Perfect Drug" (possibly my favorite NIN song) somewhere in the set...
NINE INCH NAILS RED ROCKS SETLIST, SEPT 2, 2008 999,999 1,000,000 Letting You Discipline March Of The Pigs Head Down The Frail Closer Gave Up Me, I'm Not Vessel The Great Destroyer 5 Ghosts III 6 Ghosts II 19 Ghosts III Piggy (Ghosts remake) The Greater Good Pinion Wish Terrible Lie Survivalism 31 Ghosts IV Only Down In It Head Like A Hole Reptile God Given Hurt In This Twilight
In the closing moments of the show, after Trent talked about both how much he loves playing Red Rocks ("Tonight, I can see every single one of your faces") and how unseasonably cold it was ("I don't even know if I match, I just put on everything I own"), NIN stripped it all back and the almost-hesitant opening notes of "Hurt" floated over the sea of people.
So maybe it was just me, and the very specific and personal things about my night last night, but I don't want to forget sentiments like the beautifully sad ones that Trent surgically excises. For as many times as I've heard "Hurt" on the radio, I felt such a huge and surprising resonance as Trent and then the whole crowd passionately swore, "If I could start again, a million miles away, I would keep myself, I would find a way."
Location: Colorado, originally by way of California, United States
FUEL/FRIENDS HAS MOVED! Please visit http://fuelfriendsblog.com...
"I love the relationship that anyone has with music: because there’s something in us that is beyond the reach of words, something that eludes and defies our best attempts to spit it out. It’s the best part of us, probably, the richest and strangest part...."
-Nick Hornby, Songbook -
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On Monday afternoon, I called the bowling alley at Moe's BBQ, next door to the Gothic Theatre, to reserve a lane before the concert. "Big show tonight?" the man (sadly not named Moe) asked me. "Yeah, Calexico is playing next door," I replied.
Calexico's new album Carried To Dust is out now on Touch and Go Records.
with aplomb (second in the set), to the earliest songs like 
