« April 2006 | Main | June 2006 »
May 30, 2006
Whoa Nelly, Seagal's Gotten FAT: Steven Seagal @ Dante's 5/28
Seagal has gotten FAT. He's big, massive big. I got to the show on Sunday late and only caught the encore, but 20 minutes of fat Seagal was depressing enough for me.
The man's gone walrus on us; all he needs now is a handlebar mustache and he'll look like somebody's dad.
His blues... they were... there's no way around it, they were cheese-ball. And he didn't do much of anything but play slippery little leads, smile every 10 minutes, and squint into the audience. (Is Seagal blind now? He kinda looks it.)
The crowd was full of middleage men with ponytails doing the powerdance, just wild, arms flailing, nowhere near in time with the music, danger dancing. Danger.
Friend's role-call: Erik didn't get in. (Guest list F-up.) Chas was buried in the crowd. Scott got there late (who knew the show would be over by 10fucking30pm.) So I lone rangered it up front and watching our action hero rock out like a drunken slug. Which is a long way of saying, best show ever. Fucking Seagal, man!
Posted by Adam Gnade at 1:42 PM | Comments (9)
May 22, 2006
The Free Evil: Argumentix @ Food Hole 5/20
I don’t know if it’s kosher to review a show that your own band played, but here goes. Argumentix. This past Saturday. Food Hole. KILLED. James proved he is indeed the “boss of goth” with a wailing, ranting mini set backed by some nasty harsh beats and industrialish screamscapes. It was just him and a table of electronics on stage, and the man went wild, jumping into the crowd, flashing out his own light show, and laying down some serious NOIZE and disturbing half-sung, half-shouted vocal madness.
With a sound this discordant and evil, I realize Argumentix isn’t for everybody, but it works for me and I’m gonna preach it: check it out here, here, and here. Also, next time James plays go to the merch table and buy the collaboration CD he did with Dragging an Ox Through Water, which is like free jazz and free folk made even freer with James’ kill-the-world-with-kindnoise production, and weird, animalistic brass/horn asides. Argumentix’ next show is this coming Wednesday (May 24) at the Food Hole. Go support the local weird.
Posted by Adam Gnade at 12:55 PM | Comments (7)
May 12, 2006
Maybe, Baby: Bark Hide and Horn
I'm not sure if this is considered a "show," but Bark, Hide, and Horn's Andy Furgeson played a few songs for me yesterday and I recorded them. (You can hear them here.) I haven't seen Andy's band live yet but him playing solo was pretty damn impressive ("pretty damn" a whole lotta things, actually. The guy's talented as fuck.) So, he sung it like he meant it and played slide guitar, harmonica, tambourine on a highhat, and a suitcase kick-drum for bass. Dude was a full-on one-man-band but it wasn't a gimmick, and it wasn't anything different than his band set. He says he does the same thing live, only the rest of the band multi-tasks too. (Goddamn I fucking hate the word "multi-task.")
BHH's songs--their new ones anyway--are based around National Geographic articles. But, again, there's no gimmick involved. They feel just as tense or sad or pissed off or happy--whatever the band's trying to convey at that moment--as any "personal" song. Here's what Andy told me about that: "There are a couple of ways I come at the songs. One is that I read an article and find what I think is the most dramatic but glossed-over moment, then write a song summoning up all the emotions I think would come out of that moment. These old NGs are very rosy, you know, there's never any controversy or sense that what's going on isn't necessarily okay for everyone involved. Like I think a grizzly bear mother would be really angry if her baby was shot with a tranquilizer dart then locked in a cage and probed and tagged and shit. And the more I think about it, the more I can imagine and sing about that anger.
"The other way I approach these songs is looking for my emotions in the stories. I start singing about what I'm feeling over some guitar chords, come up with a few very general lyrics, then find an NG article that those emotions would fit in. With both methods, writing songs like this has been a refreshing experience. I don't have to rely on my emotions and experience so much, which is what I always used to do."
Posted by Adam Gnade at 4:46 PM | Comments (4)
May 11, 2006
Foot Stomps, Dear Cavemen! Jason Webley @ Red & Black Cafe 5/9
With only the best of intentions I came home two nights ago all set to go see Jason Webley at Red and Black, then hoof it 'cross town to for Argumentix, Child Pornography, et al., at the Food Hole. Only half of this happened. I got home around 6 pm dead tired, but ended up gettin' lured out to New Seasons for beer by the roommates--one of the downsides of living with six hundred thousand people--of living in a "party house." So. Got home. Drank beer. Drank wine. Practiced w/ band. Drank more wine. Fell asleep face down on the carpet like a fucking bum.
Everybody split to see Webley around 9 and I straggled out a little afterwards not totally down for live music, or for crowds--or anything really.
Red and Black was packed with hippies and punks and old people and some kind of post-Suicide Girl/hippy hybrid that a friend was calling "Hippy Longstockings." Was not feeling it. Was not into it. But here's where everything flopped over and where the night became a great spinning globe of white light and fun and excitement and all-out unabashed love for life and music and sweaty strangers: foot stomps. Foot stomps. There's a lot you can do to get a crowd riled up but foot stomping--for whatever reason; I'm thinking some kinda primal, atavistic caveman beat throwback vibe--trumps 'em all. You can have the killerest drummer, the best drum machine, bassist, DJ, whatever, but you put a guy up on stage (hollow stage, wooden, works best) who knows the finer sides of stomping out a beat vis-a-vis singing and people go delirious. People lose their shit and inhibitions and GET HAPPY.
I've heard it said that it's a white people thing. That white people react strongly/stronger to simple, basic beats, beats they "can understand"--the tub thump of a jig band (a la Pogues, Rag and Bone Men), the easy hick boogie of bluegrass or old '50s rock 'n' roll--but that's reductive, a little racist, and... maybe it's true. Who am I to say? I've only met .00000000000000001327 percent of white people and most of 'em have struck me as cold and bitter and too tense. (Everywhere you go, white people walk around in public like they're either afraid of getting shat upon by birds, or have just gotten shat on, cleaned up in the Wendy's bathroom, and are now pissed at life in general.)
But JASON WEBLEY. He stomped. He played accordion gravediggers blues. He shook a plastic bottle of change and sung a capella. He made the crowd lock arms--the ENTIRE CROWD, no shit--and sway side-to-side, German drinking table style.
Last time I saw Jason Webley was in San Diego w/ the Faint and Now it's Overhead. This was five years ago. Couple weeks after 9/11. People, even at a leftist/leftish collective like the Che, were--understandably--a little bruised and shaken. But he stood on tables and channeled old dead buskers and shouted good and gravely about music that "tears itself apart" and saints being "taken out and shot" and all sorts of things that made these Che kids, these self-conscious, painfully shy kids DANCE; he made them sing along, dance, pogo, take up cans of pennies and shake them like they were resurrecting lost joy--some old secret joy they never knew they had but goddamnit they brought it back to life!
So, Red and Black was no different. Okay, some differences: he talked to the crowd more (he's been playing the same venue here in Portland for five years now), accordion'd out some fragments of songs off the Footloose soundtrack, and did this great trick that made us all suddenly piss drunk w/out touching a drop. (I'm not going to tell you how he did this; I don't wanna spoil anything. But suffice it to say, it was magic.)
But what I want to talk about here is crowd reaction. They loved it. Room vibe was a little clammy when I first got there--mixed audience, lots of strangers--but he brought them all in, pulled them up close then turned them into screaming, smiling, sweaty beasts.
I heard some mumbling in the crowd, words like "Tom Waits," "pirate songs," but none of it was said w/ any negativity/bad vibes. People seemed intent on explaining what they were seeing, either to friends--or more so--to themselves, so's they could wrap it up all tidy and have a nice compartmentalized package for themselves. I guess we need to define to help us deal w/ things like danger and reality and art (all kinda unknowable, right?) But I'm not going to do anything of the sort. Foot stomps. Foot stomps. Foot stomps. I can still feel it--if I'm quiet enough, and if I listen close to some ancient ache and need in my heart, the need for relatable rhythms, the ache for movement, and for shaking out doldrums like toast crumbs from bed sheets. Foot stomps. Foot STOMPS.
Posted by Adam Gnade at 10:47 AM | Comments (0)
May 9, 2006
Hi My Name Is:
So Jenna and Matt gave me my Team Tinnitus password like 6 million years ago and I've been too busy to do anything about it. BUT nevermore. Neverfuckingmore. I plan on throwing some righteous shit down here--mostly about nasty, dark, greeeasy noise shows and fucked-in-the-head, weird folk, but whatever, I promise to keep it un-insidery, sincere, and not get all esoteric and geeky lame.
There are so many good local shows I should've taken the chance to spill words/blood about--Dirty Projectors (see below) with Dark Yoga, Mates of State, Scout Niblett's last couple dates, Macaw, Morbid Angel, the Better to See You With--but I'm gonna wait 'til something fresh (as in new, because fuck ironic slang) comes along.
Tonight I'm gonna go see Jason Webley at Red & Black, then--if I can get a ride--later on, Argumentix with Mattress (they're releasing a split CD-R), Child Pornography, and Erebus NYX & STYX at Food Hole. Did I mention I love Food Hole? I didn't. But I do. One of my favorite venues. People can talk shit about "oh it's so small" and "oh hipster this, hipster that" but fuck 'em. It's the perfect size, shape, smell, everything.
So maybe I'll write up one of those. I'm pretty posi-core, so I generally won't be writing about shit I hate. Love's so much better. Which is to say, Hi. Hello. My name's Adam and I'm gonna be typing here in the near future.
Posted by Adam Gnade at 2:23 PM | Comments (2)