It's a crazy busy few weeks for shows. Marvelousness everywhere. A little over a week ago, it was Alan Singley & Pants Machine, World's Greatest Ghosts, and Point Juncture, WA at the brand-spankin'-new Mississippi Studios. First, the venue: They've salvaged a lot of wood out of the old place. The big ceiling beams might be salvaged, the door frames and the stairs certainly are. They did some of their shopping down the street at The Rebuilding Center (love) and some at Rejuvenation (repro for suburbanites). There's a marvelous garage door that was closed at the beginning of the evening, then opened to allow access to the bar. And they're doing nearly-weekly movie nights that I totally wanna be there for.
Singley's gotten all orchestral. They were a five-piece tonight, with Alan on keys and/or guitar and vox, Gus Elg, Leb Borgerson (these have always been the core three), plus sax-and-porkpie-hat, and violin. Amanda Spring joined them for a song or two. They're always a sprawling mess, though with five or six it seems to get more out of hand. Though maybe it's that Alan isn't writing such tight, adorable gems. The older, cuter songs I knew well seemed on par. As always, they split the difference between rocking out and goofing off. There were late-nite talk-show band bits, and some post-prime-time soft-core cop show theme song bits, but overall, it was total punk showtunes.
I don't think I've seen World's Greatest Ghosts before. I either missed them at PDX Pop Now! 2008, or I saw them in the midst of total overwhelm, and I'm too lazy to look back and figure out which. I loved 'em. Exuberant, with some punk and some geek and some melodic pop. A five-piece with keys, two guitars, bass, and drums (and at least four people who sang at various times). Some rhythmic oddities that were fun, and a good amount of squealing distortion. For the geek-punk-pop axis in town, the Jad Fair quotient was a surprisingly modest 22.1%.
PJWA started out with some complex rhythmic songs that were almost un-head-bobbable. Though I did my best. As they get more rock without losing their chamber/choral/fuzz (and totally anti-portland) sound, I hear a good bit of Low in what they do. The Boyfriend, who doesn't know Low, heard Radiohead. I know where he's coming from, but that didn't seem like quite as good a fit to me.
Next, I went to Explode Into Colors, Parenthetical Girls, and The Thermals at Wonder Ballroom. First up, The Boyfriend embarassed me by telling someone who knows stuff about music that I write about music. Shit, this isn't writing! Writing involves editing. I rant, or occasionally rave, about music. I go on for pages at a time. And the crucial piece here, what makes writing writing, is that others read it. If people read this shit, I'd stop doing it. I figure the internet is the perfect place to hide. It's safer than a diary under my bed. Anyhow, Explode Into Colors was like a very young, early Sleater-Kinney doing super-weird beats. A drummer, a percussionist (drummer and multi-instrumentalist, including harmonium and lots and lots of cowbell), and a vocalist/six-string-bassist. All female. I walked in to drums and vocal yips. That was probably the most minimalist, though there were plenty of bits that were just percussion and wordless vox. There were a few songs with words, but most involved two-part harmony wordlessness. "This one's about my friend Amy, who moved to Jamaica." The words? Aaaaah...ooooohhhh. Aaaaahhh. I just don't know how I feel about the conceit that that song was about something. The Boyfriend: "It's like a Rothko being about something." No, he'd say the paintings were about color. Maybe emotion. But he wouldn't say, "this is a picture of my dog." Overall, primal and tribal, booming, interesting and engaging. I'm not sure I love 'em, but the worst I can offer (except when they're making that vocal yipping noise) is the occasional raised eyebrow.
Parenthetical Girls: The Boyfriend said about 296034671 times, "I want to know what you think about this band." But I already knew he hated them, which changed my lens a bit. 30 seconds in, my interpretation was, "I see why you hate them, but I think I might really like this." But five minutes in, it had shot over the top without any indication it would ever come back down. Imagine Morrissey's personality disorder filtered through Colin Meloy's theatricality. Maybe a shot of Alan Singley's joyful exuberance. And then some nods to light operetta. I kept expecting the lead singer to break out into a cockney accent. It was occasionally funny, but so stagey. The one chick was in a Dorothy in Oz dress, and may have been wearing red shoes. The keyboardist looked like a zombie, as if he were playing from beyond the grave. And the vocalist postured and danced and gestured. Far too much.
The Thermals are just The Thermals. Perfect punk-rock. Kathy is gorgeous, which doesn't hurt matters, and her hair was described as "mesmerizing". I'd call them an amazing live band, but their recorded stuff sounds just like this. The one complaint I'd have is how alike their songs sound. I think at the beginning of every song, "Do I know this one?" I'm never sure. They had a couple of more down-tempo ones that must be from the new disc. The Nirvana cover (Sappy...I had to google the lyrics..."you're in a laundry room...") was spot-on yet still sounded exactly, exactly like The Thermals. Are they a closet grunge band?
Tonight was Blitzen Trapper and Fleet Foxes at the Crystal. It was the ultimate bill for those of us who grew up in the 1970s. Blitzen Trapper took the schtick to the extreme, with the shoulder-length hair, bellies, and beards. I found them amusing, though not necessarily awesome. The Boyfriend wondered why I like them if I hate the Grateful Dead. Shudder. The only answer is that this is deliberate schtick. It was total prog-folk weirdness. There was a "this is going to be a Billy Joel song...oh, nope, twangy Eagles ballad!" bit that probably explained everything perfectly.
Then Fleet Foxes. Perfect for Easter: Medieval (pagan?) folk-madrigal without the fat chicks with tattoos who call themselves "wench". I don't get why my indie-alt people like this stuff. I know it calls to that last hidden, un-cynical bit of me. It's there, it really is, but it's tiny. The folk-with-no-twang just warms me and makes me happy. Nick Jaina once described some stuff of his as "sleepytime music," and that descriptor totally fits here. The Boyfriend and I argued over whether it was more like Carole King or Joni Mitchell (okay, it's not Court and Spark, but neither is most of Joni Mitchell's stuff, so there!). Plus some Cat Stevens, and Bridge- and Bookends-era Simon and Garfunkel--I so wanted them to cover Save The Life Of My Child! Oh, yeah, and House-at-Pooh-Corner-like Loggins and Messina, but that was the charming stuff, right? Again, it makes me want to be a preschooler sitting on the speaker while my dad spins records trying to get me to sleep. I went home happy.
More to come, I've got tix stacked to the ceiling. It's apparently music season!
