A new obsession.

Sunday night at Wonder Ballroom: The Kingdom, Mecca Normal, Viva Voce, and Mates of State (It's this band the title of the post refers to).

I got there nice and early, thanks to local weeklies and even the ad by the local show promoters being just completely wrong. This is not uncommon, and I'm going to have to figure out a better system. So I saw all four sets beginning to end. The Kingdom gets talked up madly by the Portland Mercury, though they point out that one member writes for them. Meh. Pop songs with punk-rock musical conventions underpinning it, without exactly being pop-punk. The guy's got an interesting voice, like if Johnny Rotten had a background as a choirboy. British accent and all...but of course, not British in the least. Silly. All the songs sounded alike, so it got old quickly. Verdict: It'd be okay on a mix tape.

Mecca Normal: I feel like I'd heard this name before, but I'm not sure. They started the theme for the evening (two people, one male, one female, = whole band). They continued the theme for the weekend (More instruments in the song than were being played onstage...Helio Sequence, I'm lookin' at you!). These guys were just weird. He played guitar, she sang, and there was an invisible bass player. I don't like invisible musicians. Her lyrics were excessively detailed confessional prose (sample: "I listened to him stretch the condom...") sung without much rhythm or melody, mostly about people she did or did not sleep with, and occasionally about grocery shopping. Again, all the songs sounded alike. I'll pass.

Viva Voce: Husband and wife team, she played guitar and sang, he played drums and sang. The invisible member played bass. Same one? I couldn't tell. Sometimes it was fun, sometimes it was a little too arena-rock sounding. She had a double-neck guitar that was fun and hilarious, all rock-star-like. Maybe I just need to be more familiar with their stuff, though, since the two songs I have on PDX Pop Now! compilation discs I thought they knocked out of the park.

Last up was Mates of State. I am absolutely in love with this band. I was wary--another husband and wife duo who had a lot of space to fill with only the two of them. He played drums and sang, she played keyboards and sang. I spent a lot of time watching her hands (well, as best as I could from the balcony in an 800-person venue). Were they also using an invisible bass player? I finally decided that she was making all those sounds. Hooray! This was an amazing set. He's a great drummer, with this odd, high-pitched voice I kept confusing with hers. He also played kazoo (sorry...). She absolutely rocked the keyboards. It's completely joyous, major-key synth-pop, like The Postal Service without any of that pesky self-doubt. That sounds annoying. It wasn't. It was beautiful, and I'm in love.

hooray for multitasking. and long band names.

Wednesday night: At the Doug Fir, a benefit for Bus Project, the young-democrat politician incubator, and supposedly a celebration of congressman Earl Blumenauer's 1/3-of-a-century in public service. Blumenauer was a no-show, but the crowd was hilarious--all sorts of people in suits, the young Bus Project ones standing around head-bobbing, the older ones (including the head of the local teamster's union) drunk and dancing like they were at a wedding. Though there were the requisite bike-messenger bags and flip-flops too, because, of course, this is still Portland. People kept coming by, shaking my hand, and thanking me for coming. There were also people just there for the show, but they (we) were in the minority.

I missed the Retrofits. I was at home celebrating the 10-inning win over the Angels and K-Rod's blown save. I don't know anything about this band, so I wasn't wildly disappointed.

I got there just in time for Please Step Out of the Vehicle. These guys are awesome, and put on a great live show. Bouncy-yet-edgy indierock that's funny and a bit weird. The drummer kept getting up to play flute, and someone else would sit down at the drums. They're in the studio now, I think I've heard, recording their debut, but at another show of theirs I got a handmade CD-R for 2 bucks. I was hoping for another one, but no such luck.

Last up, Alan Singley and Pants Machine. I've seen these guys a few times. He totally played to the drunkening crowd, with shoutouts to some of the local pols, and all sorts of getting the crowd to "woot!" Probably could just as easily be described with the same words I used for PSOTV, but a little more acoustic-strummy and melodic.

I was actually going to bring my business cards with me, but I didn't have any at home. If there are going to be local political movers-'n'-shakers, I'd like to get in a plug for relief nursery funding. But I did end up talking to this guy, a staffer for Blumenauer, who gave me his card. His brother-in-law then joined the conversation, and B-I-L's wife is looking for a job. They live a few blocks from where I work, she's got the qualifications for a job that just opened up at the agency I work for. So I did get some networking done, both with Blumenauer's office and with a possible resume getting sent. Hooray for multitasking!

Finally Quasi

Well, we might as well start somewhere, mightn't we? This is reposted from the Batcave (see my links), so if something doesn't make sense, go ahead and ask me about it. It could be some sort of joke. I could just have forgotten to explain myself.

Okay, so last night's show at the wonder ballroom:

Pan Tourismos. I'd heard the name once or twice, knew nothing about them, skipped them to listen to the end of the Twins-f'in &%^kees game. Twins won, and it was so worth it! Sorry, Pan Tourismos.

The Minders: I was looking forward to these guys, I'd heard of them repeatedly and expected to enjoy them. There was nothing wrong with them, but they didn't sound like anything but a bunch of other bands. "What do you do for a living?" "I have Robert Pollard's voice." So they sounded remarkably like Guided by Voices, but sober, and perhaps with a lobotomy (none of the weird, bizarre, fun aspects of GBV). And I spent much of their set thinking, "Oh! This bit reminds me of....oh, crap. Who is that?" Here's the partial list I came up with: Elvis Costello, The Waterboys, The Pixies (I wondered, "did they have to pay Frank Black to use that guitar line?"), every generic '60's garage pop band, and the obligatory nod to the Velvet Underground. The one band these guys didn't sound like were The Minders. There was no there there.

Finally, Quasi: I made it. I finally saw Quasi. And...um...I don't know what to say. It's like the complete opposite of the previous band. I simply can't come up with any rational comparisons, or any descriptions, or any words at all. But you know me, I'll keep talking anyway. I don't even know whether I liked them or not. Janet Weiss of Sleater-Kinney on drums. Imagine her given total free rein...holy hell. I can't imagine how she keeps from putting the drumsticks right through the drum heads. She's all power, and I swear to you, her biceps could rival the Doctor's. She's utterly amazing, and she drove the songs. She's the third voice in S-K, so it was interesting to see her voice get more prominence. Her ex-husband, Sam Coomes, heads another local band, Blues Goblin. He's a f'ing hippie. I hate f'ing hippies. But he plays crazy-ass keyboards, sometimes pounding out stride-piano blues lines with the keyboard set to what I can only imagine is "piano dropped from a great height," sometimes just pounding on the keyboard with his fists. And sometimes you can't tell which is which. At times it was fascinating and engaging, bordering on melodic, at other times it was just about to derail into experimental mess. Frequently I was sure it had derailed, but after a minute or two, Janet's drums would reassert a dominant beat, and hey, it's a song again! Coomes' voice sounds remarkably like Weiss', and the off-kilter harmonies were very fun when they were on (and unintelligible screeching when they weren't). Oh--and there was a bass player. Overall, it was incredibly loud, and powerful, and overwhelming, and interesting. Remind me never to see them in a space smaller than the Wonder Ballroom. I'd just end up a huddled mass on the floor, bleeding from the ears.

Crazy, Isn't It?

This blog is in existence not to bring my off-kilter descriptions of bands and live shows to a wider audience, but to find a nice, secluded corner of the web to shelve these opinions, so the people I normally foist this stuff on can move on to more important topics. Like whether Francisco Liriano's going to make it into the starting rotation this year, and what they've had for lunch.

Now, I can't promise I'll stick to music here. Largely because I have no talent for keeping my big mouth shut. Expect to hear about baseball, beer, politics, psychology, good food, Portland, mid-century modernism, video games from my childhood, anime, day trips around the pacific northwest, things that are lime green, and the occasional foray into network television. Topics I promise to leave to the more knowledgeable: Any other sports besides baseball, and...uh oh. Help! Can anyone help me think of some other things I don't have opinions about? You won't hear much about classical music. Or....um...nuclear physics, most of the time. Pop stars, like Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson, are unlikely to get mentioned here. There will be no recipes for french onion soup. And I promise not to engage in lengthy debates about comparitive ornithology or biochemical engineering. For those of you who want less, you'll have to find it somewhere else, I guess. Bring it on, blogosphere. I've got my dukes up, and I'm ready for you.