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February 28, 2005
Two Shows: Adelaide on 2/24, Hurtbird on 2/25
HUSTICIOUS:
Two shows. Two nights. Same venue: Berbati's. Could life get any better? Well maybe if I had actually seen both shows in their entirety. Alas, I did not, but saw part of each. Hopefully if I write about each part, the sum will equal one complete Team Tinnitus blog entry.
ADELAIDE'S TOUR KICK-OFF SHOW, 2/24. I walked into Berbati's extremely late, thinking I would be lucky if I caught even the tail end of Adelaide's last Portland performance before embarking on a huge tour around the country. To my surprise the supporting act, Wow and Flutter, hadn't even finished their set. What is the deal with Berbati's and its incredibly late shows? Adelaide didn't even start until after midnight. I hate to be a grandpa, but that seems awfully late to me, particularly on a weeknight. I only mention it because it's a pattern there; Thusday night was a bit extreme, but even so, a night at Berbati's is guranteed to be a late night no matter how you slice it.
So I got to see enough of Wow and Flutter to be glad I missed the rest. It was really, really loud guitar screech, with little to no melody. Not my scene at all, and a bizarre pairing with Adelaide who, as I've written before, play absolutely gorgeous fusions of live and electronic music, with found 16 mm film footage projected onto a screen behind them. They were typically pleasant to listen to tonight, and featured a new lineup of only three, as opposed to the previous lineup of five. Bassist Bob Muscarella has moved to India to study fruit bats, and drummer Mike Bao has left the band, I think to also pursue his course of study, architecture. I'm jealous of them. They each got to go on the first Adelaide tour, last fall, and now are moving on. That's my dream--to go on just one crazy-fun band tour, and then throw in the towel. The new drummer is David Casey, and he's solid. I think the bass lines have been incorporated into the prerecorded element of the show, but they sound as crisp as ever. Casey is a really skilled, spontaneous drummer who added an unpredictable element to a sound that is fairly structured. As three (plus Ryan Jeffery on films), Adelaide is leaner and tougher, though the melodies are as shimmering and elegant as ever. They may be back in a month and a half, or they may just keep on rolling, into Canada, or wherever else the day takes them. Only the Lord knows.
IAN MOORE, LOCH LOMOND, HURTBIRD, 2/25. I was already planning to see this show, but got excited when Ian Moore joined the lineup. Moore's a Seattlite singer/songwriter who writes literate, catchy folk songs and has just an amazing voice. He's kind of intense to watch because he contorts his face and tongue in crazy bouts of melodic passion, but the music is unstoppable. That said, I missed him completely because of my @#(*&ing work, and most of Loch Lomond as well, a quirky four-piece that utilizes accordions, cellos, violins, and just regular old rock instruments. LL is folky, too, but with a more archaic sound, like they're harkening back to the high hills of middle-aged Scotland. Lead singer Ritchie Young's vocals alternate between yodeling mountain man and theatrical whisper. There are richly layered stories of loss and heartbreak in LL's songs, buried in layers of sophisticated orchestration.
Then came Hurtbird, who I tried to watch in its entirety, but failed. This is a group of five white Portland dudes in tight sweaters and t-shirts doing Anticon-style hiphop with intelligent lyrics and arty, tuneless beats. We'll call it "hipster-hop," and though the words were somewhat literate and flowing, and the lead singer/rapper's delivery adequate, it didn't really work. For one thing, the group is doing hiphop with an indie rock mentality--i.e. the mentality that it's cool to just stand there and be completely un-charismatic and let the music be the entertainment. But that's not why we go to shows; if we didn't want some sort of interaction from the artist we would just stay home and listen to their album. It doesn't work in the indie rock world to be standoffish (no matter how many shivering, skinny wannabes think it does), and it works even less well in the hiphop world, a medium designed to get the party started. Hurtbird's frontman did not move one inch aside from occasional fluttery hand gestures that looked like he was making fun of himself, though I don't think he was. the other musicians sat or stood hunched over their instruments, completely ignoring everything but themselves. None of it was unwatchable; it was just so detached and soulless it was hard to feel emotionally invested at all. The most entertaining part was one of the percussionists, this really skinny, tiny blonde-haired kid with a face like a frightened mouse. He would sing backup vocals, and when he did this expression of sheer anxiety would spread across his face, and his neck would tighten with the force of his verbal outpour. My brother said he looked just like the protagonist of Edward Munch's painting "The Scream," and I couldn't have put it better myself. After the 8th song that sounded just like all the rest, we left, looking wistfully at the Souls of Mischief and Gift of Gab posters on our way out, two hiphop acts coming to Berbati's who will flex a little passion and energy.
ICE GORILLA:
Some curly-haired hipster girl replies to my brother’s lack of interest in Hurtbird by telling him, “They’re just white hiphop.” Yes, the members of the band on stage who are feebly trying to bridge the presumed gap between “art” and “hiphop” are all of the Caucasian variety. Yes, the spoken lyrics and drum beat that are barely audible beneath the high-pitched wailings of a band member (I write band member because neither then nor now do I have a monkey’s testicle clue of what this character played) who resembles an Ethiopian version of Edward Munch’s famed “The Scream” painting, could be loosely described as hiphopesque. And yes, the present state of white person rap music is, sadly, lost somewhere between art-trash like this and the legions of clone soldiers who have appeared in the wake of Eminem’s massive success.
But, God help us and the children if fucking Hurtbird is an example of “just white hip-hop.”
I sat through what I thought was three of Hurtbird’s songs at Berbati’s last Friday night (the curly-haired hipster corrected my error by informing me of the indie-rap tendency to “blend” their songs) and left seven dollars poorer with somewhat of a headache.
It isn’t that Hurtbird is necessarily bad. On occasion I found myself nodding along to the boom-bapping of the drum beat. And the chorus-like chanting of some of the lyrics was kind of interesting. It’s just that Hurtbird is completely unoriginal (oh yes, speaking through a CB radio or a bullhorn in rap music is really saying “fuck you” to the norm in rap music) and irritatingly serious about what it is they’re doing.
I take back what I said, they are bad.
I think I counted six different keyboards on stage, one for each band member it seemed, but I was only able to discern one sort of long drawn out electronic drone occasionally broken up by a plinky-plink sounding piano riff. This endless drone, though supposedly equated with “white hip-hop” managed only to fuse the entire show into one mooshy ball of mediocrity.
On a good note my brother said that some of the lyrics “were kind of interesting.” I wouldn’t know; I was so annoyed by the lounge-act hand movements of Hurtbird’s lead singer that I failed to pay attention. Also, I was too busy laughing when ever “Scream-Boy” sang, he just looked so delightfully miserable, I couldn’t help myself.
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Posted by H & IG at 04:52 PM | Comments (0)
February 21, 2005
Church of Psychedelia 2: White Rainbow, Exploratory Organ Ensemble, February 20th, Berbati's Pan
So let's just get all that messy conflict of interest stuff out of the way now: I am mostly a publicist by trade and one of the places I work for is Berbati's. So that's that.
That that said (2 thats = artsy), I am really excited about this new improv/psych/weird music monthly curated by Josh Blanchard of Point Line Plane. Each night is lovingly arranged by Josh to include ornate visual projections of the brain-fried variety, DJs, and out-there musicians of the kind you'd normally only see at Dunes. Used to be you could see this kind of thing at the Blackbird, but that's gone now, and underground art-fart music in a rock venue has become something of a rare bird (PUN!).
Chantelle Hylton, who booked the Blackbird, was largely responsible for that venue's eclectic programming and she books the B.Pan now. She's been trying to work within what she thought was, and to some degree is, a more mainstream rock club format, but is starting to realize she has more freedom than she originally realized. Berbati's is run by some pretty open-minded Greeks, provided people come out and people DRINK, which hipsters do. So things like the Church of Psychedelia are permitted, and to some degree encouraged. This is exciting, and I hope to see more of it going on. We're actually working on another somewhat similar series right now, but I'm this close to advertorial mode, so I'll shut up about that.
One of the nice things about this show and the last one is how visually compelling the whole thing(s) is. This time there were three projections with two dedicated dudes manning the visuals. These were mostly melting digital shapes, forest imagery, blurred-out women walking in blinding white expanses - you know, trippy shit. Everything I saw was really beautiful and looked like it took a good amount of time to put together.
The first band was the Exploratory Organ Ensemble, a one-off improv project featuring members of Strategy (ok, THE member of Strategy), Yuma Nora, Space Hawk, and I'm sure many other Dunes-y bands. Performers were encouraged to bring along an organ of some kind, and a couple opted for accordions. They all gathered together in one big improvisatory mass, playing droney variations on one major-sounding chord. This reads like a mess but was actually really soothing and lovely. Think of the first track off Boards of Canada's Music Has the Right to Children stretched out for twenty minutes or so.
The next band was White Rainbow, which is the solo project of Adam Forkner (VVRRZZNN, WORLD, many other little projects I'm sure). His performance took place within a giant white tent/cave, which took up the entire stage. The cave had some of the aforementioned trippy visuals projected on to it. We couldn't see what he was doing in there (deft manipulation of rockist performance expectations or just plain pretentious? you be the judge) but we could hear it through four speakers situated around the room, two of which had been brought in just for this performance (hence "full spectrum"). The music was long harmonic drones (couldn't tell what instrument was making them) which were occasionally distorted, then high planes electric guitar riffage (think Neil Young's Dead Man soundtrack). This got kind of boring after a while so we left.
OK, so the whole thing was a little pretentious, but I'll take that over predictable anyday. The Church of Psychedelia is rad; long live the Church of Psychedelia.
Drinks drunk: 4 beers
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Posted by TRMW at 01:22 AM | Comments (2)
February 17, 2005
Ted Leo + Pharmacists Feb. 15
“Should I stay or should I go?” I kept thinking to myself that idiotically indecisive Tuesday night, The Clash song of the same name not playing playfully in my head. No, this decision was serious, so serious it seemed the consequence of choosing the wrong side might be death, yes, death. So I carefully weighed out the pros and cons. I’m tired. No, I’m awake. I’m bored. You could read. I have no attention span. Christ, look at you, you’re pacing. What should I do? You could write. Don’t feel like it. How about some T.V.? Again – attention span. Alright, listen, either you stay or you go. You just can’t stand here waiting for someone else to let you know. Come on, it’s just a show. But it’s Ted Leo. I’ve seen him like, what, five times. Could be different this time? But most likely not. Fuck it. I’m tired of this shit. Let’s go. Catch the No. 20. Here comes 19th & East Burnside, ding, let me off. Step off the bus. It’s rather quiet. Hmm, that’s odd. No people outside? No noise? Slowly stepping closer as if I’m walking hesitantly into the unknown, I realize there are no people outside and…fuck, there are no people inside either. Lights are out. Doors are locked. Now what? I look over both shoulders as if someone will be standing by with an answer. I spot a Willamette Week paper box, rip out a copy and quickly flip through its pages. Damn. Bossanova. Oh well, least I’m on the right side of the river. So I tramp downhill ten or so blocks through the biting wind, stomp up the club’s creaky, old-fahioned oversized stairs and, alas, for better or worse (still can’t decide), I’m here. Grab a drink, find a small spot of bar to lean against and watch. Yep, there he is, blonde, long and lean, doing that same hyperactive head-jerking thing – tilting his head to the side and then snapping it back really fast, again and again and again like a kid with ADD – that he always does. But, hey, how can he not? His crunching Clash-inspired punk rock anthems – sounding as classic and refined as ever – can’t help but incite some rubber band action both onstage and on the floor; a floor that, tonight, is packed body-to-body. The kids love him. Hell, spotting a few middle-age folk in the crowd, so do the adults. Leo and the band race through songs both new and old. Their precise and confident playing is solid evidence that Leo and company tour often – O.K., A LOT. But being tight doesn’t mean being emotionless. Leo opens his heart with every performance, spilling out his super-charged innards without the faintest of hesitation. His singing and pleading are so strained and mighty, you know he secretly wishes the whole world were tuned in. And while it’s easy to feel one show is practically a carbon copy of another, it’s hard not to admire the endurance and heart that Leo shoves into every room, big or small, on each and every stop of what seems to be a never-ending tour. “See you all next time,” Leo said before the last song of the night. “And that’ll probably be in just a couple months,” he adds laughing. Getting home, and, yes, I did make it home, not ten blocks from there, I thought, “What’s the big deal anyway? So it wasn’t the most blow-you-away show ever, but I lost nothing by going and, look at me, I’m still alive.”
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Posted by Jenny at 04:57 PM | Comments (0)
February 16, 2005
Blind Boys of Alabama, Jay Leno, Feb. 15 2005
Okay, so I'm sick of seeing the same review up every day on this site, and, yet, I still feel too burnt out on live shows to head out to one to write about. So, with that in mind, here is a review of the Blind Boys of Alabama on Jay Leno in real time. They just won a Grammy. and their latest album is called "Atom Bomb." Shit. Who can deny 5 black men singing about nuclear weaponry?
So, the Blind Boys are singing the title track from their latest album and it just seems so strange to me that they, these 50-year-old men, are singing about nuclear war when everyone else is just obsessed with the whole war thing. Mind you that North Korea's nuclear capabilities make it all the more prescient. I wonder if they would have sung this song--a great old shuffling blues song that ends on a suspended "hit like an atom bauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmb"--if their was no North Korea. Only the blind men know.
Okay. Conan O'Brien is on.
WRITE MORE OFTEN. PLEASE.
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Posted by Mark at 12:30 AM | Comments (0)