Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Working backward

I'm going to start with the most recent show I've seen, then work backward until I tire of typing.

Done!

Just kidding. Last weekend I saw Ted Leo and the Pharmacists with Hungry Ghosts and Golden Bears opening. Hungry Ghosts is a hot mess, as someone I know would say. "Hey, girl!", she'd also say. She'd then put a few dozen words into trying to convince me to do her job, while simultaneously trying to explain away why she wouldn't be there when I got there. Anyhow, this band was tight, yet all over. They were proggy, they were rock-y, they were inexplicable. Honestly, they were a great band I didn't like. You should probably go see them, and decide for yourself.

They were followed by Golden Bears. If you read back a few years, you'll find a post in which I lament the Golden Bears' horrendous, atrocious medieval folk-metal and the uncomfortable situation my attempts to evade that horrendous medieval-ness led me to. Suffice it to say that if you're ever in need, you can call the Portland Mercury something else, but it's really a maaaagaziiine......sadly, neither the Golden Bears nor the Portland Mercury has evolved beyond my poor attempt to do something more complicated than hear the band. Lose-lose.

Ted Leo was a fun pop-punk, or at times punk-pop, band. As has been the case when I've seen TL and the Pharmacists in the past, he's had interesting things to say, he's made some interesting chord changes, and he's done both things at once. Go average punk-pop-punk...whoohoo! Lots of energy, some good melody, some good beats, some unnecessary melody, and some unnecessary beats. And so on.

And some equally scintillating average music criticism to come, I promise. Yay!

Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Finding the Positive

Things that feel good this week:

Live music. Starting to garden again for the year. Someone really special to me who wants to improve my mood and yet doesn't get frustrated with me when it doesn't always work.

Two weeks ago, my department was eliminated at work. The economy? No, turns out my department made money that paid for some things that aren't going so well in a mental-health non-profit. Incompetence? No, we've got the most clinically savvy and ethically responsible mental health team in the agency. Personnel problems? Maybe...the administrative team left something to be desired. Government regulations? Also a maybe. Power play by which my agency asserts itself as a major player in influencing child and family mental health in this state? Probably. Anyhow, I'm awesome at what I do, and I'm going to be jobless...in a few weeks? A few months? Maybe I'll find a job? Whatever. I'm too tired to worry about it. Two days after that, I got on a plane to the cold, snowy midwest to pick up a large-ass luxury sedan (leather seats, sunroof, miles to the gallons-and-gallons-and-gallons) I inherited when my mom died of lung cancer at 60. Thank you, Someone Special, for embarking on that kind-of ridiculous errand with me. Five days of airplane, layover, airplane, taxi, visit the relatives, drop the bags at the rented house my dad abandoned last week, discover the heat's out, call for help, get the furnace working again, visit the relatives again, drive through Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Washington, and Oregon, sleep in motels, hope for good weather, try to see buffaloes and museums and Native American villages and state parks and whatever, find out everything's closed in the upper Midwest in the winter, have some fun anyway road trip. If you ever find yourself driving I-94, I recommend the large animal, Viking, and Paul Bunyan sculptures. And Riverfront Park in Spokane. And I recommend doing it in the summer so you can see the National Buffalo Museum and the Indian villages and the Lewis and Clark camps and the Pictograph Caves and the good parts of Yellowstone. Ultimately, there's an unbelievable amount of nothing along I-94 and I-90, and along the trip from I-90 to I-84 through Washington. But it was still kind of fun. And I am now the proud owner of an aging Mitsubishi Diamante Old Lady Car With Heated Leather Seats That Seems To Leak Antifreeze. I figure I combine that with the Even More Aged Honda Civic Hatchback Without Power Anything That Leaks Whenever It Rains and maybe I can trade in for half of a New Small, Efficient Car Without Any Problems Yet.

After I got back, there was an unbelievable amount of music I could go see. I went the jazz route. Saturday, I went to see Blue Cranes at The Cleaners at Ace Hotel. Wow. I've seen these guys a couple of times, and I'm still...oh, Wow. Bowled over. Such classic experimental jazz without misstep or dumbing-down, yet it's perfectly understandable and accessible to an indie-rock-listener crowd too. Every note is perfectly placed, yet there are clear improvisational solos. Dynamic, intelligent, hook-y, charming, powerful-as-all-hell stuff. The next night was Lindsey Stormo/Ben Darwish and Why I Must Be Careful at Rontoms, the closing after-party of the Portland Jazz Fest. Lindsey had this light, untrained showtunes-wannabe voice that warbled birdlike in the high ranges or reached desperately for blues standard sounds in her lower ranges, but consistently sounded weak and tentative in any range. Maybe, with a good voice teacher, she'd be right for the chorus of a light operetta out of the Gilbert and Sullivan catalog. Ben Darwish was simply the hired hand that comped along with her, so I didn't get to learn anything about him as a jazz pianist. Why I Must Be Careful absolutely blew me out of the water, though. Shit. I mean...shit. Pounding, experimental keyboards and drums and...holy shit. This stuff was so overwhelming, I couldn't understand it then and I can't describe it now. All I can say is, you have absolutely got to go see this shit for yourself, because it's beyond amazing. Fists flying, drumsticks everywhere, chaos and disorder to the untrained eye (ear), but yet the two of them clearly never lose each other no matter how many times they lose me, and their musical genius outstrips any band I've ever heard. Holy fucking shit. Shit.

Until I next find the stamina to write...