Treva Jackson, Tea for Julie, and Alan Singley and Pants Machine
Posted by: Greg | From: July 30, 2006
Just got downstairs from a great set that made it totally easy to make it through the middle of the day and into the homestretch. First off was Treva Jackson. Her song, "Drive", a catchy buzzy throwback to the halcyon days of the birth of indie rock, was one of my favorites on this year's comp and this set didn't disappoint. Jackson is part Mary Timony and part ethnic pixie and at their best her songs have the effect of those early Sebadoh and Helium efforts of making relatively straightforward heartfelt pop sound fresh and exciting.
Tea For Julie features PDX Pop's own Michael Deresh and so it's hard for me to be objective. I can say that since their appearance at the first year of the festival, they've significantly matured. They play tighter and their songs seem to derive from more diverse sources: there was a lot of The Cure in this set, a surprising and satisfying ingeredient to hear from a band that I've previously thought of as cast solely from the U2, anthemic stadium rock mold.
The block closed down with a terrific set from Alan Singley and Pants Machine. Since playing the festival last year, the Pants Machine have put out by far their best record, Lovingkindness, on the newly transported to Portland label Slow January. Alan is a really fun combination of Burt Bacharach and a crazy little kid. His songs are intricate, harmonically dense, and catchy as hell.
During the set, most of the upstairs filled up with people and by the end just about all of them were singing along to Highways of Your Mind, the leadoff track from Lovingkindness. Afterwards, there was fairly a stampede downstairs and a feeding frenzy at the merch table. In fact, Mike Fuchs, our Merch Master just told me that Lovingkindness is on the verge of selling out. Pants Machine: this year's breakout hit?
Post a comment:
