Month: July 2013

LIVE REVIEW: Bosnian Rainbows at The Bowery Ballroom

Bosnian RainbowsThe Bowery Ballroom is a place I only remember through other people’s experiences. I’ve picked up at least two friends from the venue, each emerging from the darkness with tales of music, drink and being hit on by skinny hipsters. New York has an uncanny ability to recreate memories for you, and as I walked into the space I was immediately greeted by a few dejavu’s: the solemn look of the audience as they wait for the opener, the look of contempt from the people you share a couch with, and that beautiful look whiskey gives off…under any circumstance.

We sat in a back room with the light bulb twisted off (the overhead brights were too much to take) waiting for the opener; Rye Coalition had unexpectedly cancelled so it was up to Sacramento band Sister Crayon to bring the initial heat. Lead singer Terra Lopez’s voice cuts through ambient sounds to deliver clear, borderline operatic vocals; her dynamic with Dani Fernandez, who plays backing tracks, is arresting. Terra almost always sang in the direction of Dani, allowing the music to build seamlessly throughout the set. There isn’t a great deal of show in Sister Crayon, the feeling of watching the group ran parallel to the way they were lit: single colors, dark, unfocused; the perfect music for reflection.

The highlight of the set for me was Sister Crayon’s stellar performance of their single “Floating Heads”; the song has the right combination of the bands best traits: moody undertones, backed by the power of Lopez’s voice: “You can keep the past away. You can keep the past away. Mouthing mantras to make me calm, look at what I’ve done.” The band has gone through a lot of changes in the two years since their initial formation; Lopez and Fernandez performed as duo Silent and Clementine for the first year, before bringing in keys player Genarro Ulloa and drummer Nicholas Suhr. Lopez said of band’s name change: “I didn’t want to be shy anymore, and I wanted to have a name that was bolder, and a completely different alter ego”.

Bosnian Rainbows may relate to the feeling of changing alter egos. The band was created when ex-Mars Volta/At the Drive-In guitarist Omar Rodríguez-López invited Teri Gender Bender (Le Butcherettes), Deantoni Parks and Nicci Kasper (KUDU) to perform material off of Rodríguez-López’s Octopus Koolaid; it was during impromptu jam sessions that the group first saw the potential of starting a new band. Rodríguez-López said of the group “It’s completely different in that it’s completely collaborative. All four people are composing. We all have input on everything. A track can start from anything. It can go from a phrase that somebody likes lyrically to a track that the rest of us flesh out and flip around. The idea was to put together a group of four band leaders, four producers, four composers…Nobody has a reason to be here except wanting to serve the music”

The first time I saw Bosnian Rainbows live I watched Teri Gender Bender punch herself in the throat while singing. It is a moment that has come to epitomize the band for me: a group of artists who normally push back even in collaboration, finding a common ground to build upon. My own anticipation of their performance was apparent as I sucked down my whiskeys and talked excitedly beside dull-faced strangers.

“Eli, Eli, you can’t tell left from right
Eli, Eli, your eyes are black and white
Why, why, why, why do you smile at me?
Oh, why do you smile at me?”

In Gender Bender’s first moments on stage she stands like a rock; the music drifting around her body as she slowly bends, her voice expelling the words. The band works like a well-oiled machine: no lyric, no note out of place. The audience connects to the music through Gender Bender; it’s her hands they get to touch, her body that is flung out into the crowd, her bare feet moving lithely across the stage. “I use my body as an instrument”, she has said of her movements; indeed the way that she contorts her body throughout a performance has the power of speech. Just as she is the only band member who sings lead, she is also the only one who speaks between songs; her ‘thank yous’ are sweet and disarming, very different from her on stage persona.

The inclusive nature of the group is apparent within the scope of this debut album; it isn’t an album where one could pick out who wrote what. It has a great deal of range between singles, but the arc is decidedly spooky and popish. Bosnian Rainbow’s next project is a Spanish version of the same album. The group hopes that this will open up new doors in Latin Rock, as many concert venues in Latin America only allow acts that play in Spanish. Whether their next show is in Spanish or English, I know that I will be there.

The show was solid; entertaining; introspective and dangerous all at the same time. It’s music that forces your body to move, even though I doubt anyone would call it dance music. But I did dance. I danced to the beats of ‘Dig Right In Me’; I bounced to the hypnotic, sinister ‘I Cry For You’; I swayed to the lovelorn feel of ‘Turtleneck”.

Bosnian Rainbows doesn’t do encores. And as far as I can tell, there is no need for them to start. By the end of a Bosnian Rainbow show the audience is exhausted, drunk from the performance as well as the whiskey gingers.

LIVE REVIEW: Low and Mike Doughty @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

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Mike Doughty has been through a lot in his musical career.  He divorced his commercially successful band Soul Coughing, which he considered a “dark, abusive marriage”, was dropped from Warner record label, and battled it out with a drug addiction.  Through his struggle, he’s grown into a grounded solo artist who makes music with simplicity, sincerity and wisdom.  This June 19th he brought his stripped down singer-songwriter act to Music Hall of Williamsburg, and shared the headline with Low, another Americana inspired band.  Doughty’s mischievous demeanor and catchy singer songwriter style balanced Low’s emotionally drenched slowcore approach.

Doughty’s songs revolve around poetic storytelling.  Doughty recently released a book of poetry entitled Slanky, and uses this brand of poetic wordplay and fantastic imagery in his lyrics.  The lyrics are heady yet relatable and touch on classic folk and americana themes of love, leaving and emotional journey.  With only guitar and drums on stage, the vocals are exposed; thus his strong lyric writing abilities carry the songs.

“Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well” is Doughty’s most commercially successful song, and was created out of literary inspiration from Haruki Murakami’s novel Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.  On stage, Doughty quips “Sandra Oh made out to this song in an elevator once.”  The hit song was indeed featured in an episode of Gray’s Anatomy, as well as on Veronica Mars and on David Letterman.  Doughty also draws inspiration from John Denver, and his latest album The Flip Is Another Honey includes several covers.  “Sunshine on My Shoulders” is a cover of Denver’s “Sunshine”, and unexpectedly incorporates rapping.  The impetus for this style mash-up, Doughty explains, is that he needed to impress his rapper girlfriend.

Doughty’s music is best live, as he inserts amusing tidbits of his musical journey and colorful past.  Doughty quickly lets the audience in, shares his secrets and disarms the crowd.  His guitar playing is not virtuosic, nor does it need to be.  He plays with unique flare, as though his guitar is nearly too hot to touch, and keeps an upbeat rhythmic style coursing throughout.  He pokes and prods drummer Pete “Pancho” Wilhoit, as Wilhoit has quite the serious attitude in relation to Doughty.  The exchanges between the two were entertaining, partly because Doughty’s musical background sounds more instinctual than technical, and can be a challenge for a technically minded drummer to follow.

Dave Matthews is a professed fan of Mike Doughty, and it’s no wonder; they sound quite similar at times.  Just add a soulful saxophone solo to Doughty’s “Looking at the World…”, and the Matthews songwriting formula is captured.  Doughty’s signature vocal lilt and low bluesy rasp, folk rock/blues influenced range compares closely with his American rock contemporary.  Yet Doughty diverges from Matthews in his stripped down performance style and ability to catch his audience off guard.

Mike Doughty has released five solo albums and is currently in the process of reworking some of his older Soul Coughing songs.  His music connects to emotional depth and honesty, but keeps it light all the same.  He’s a singer songwriter who boldly shares his wisdom from mistakes and struggles, all with a twinkle in his eye.

Low has made a career of slowcore, which is a feat to sustain over the course of their lengthy run as a band.  The slowcore genre envelops listeners with minimalist melodies, downbeat tempos and emotionally vulnerable vocals.  Low embodies this genre, and rarely diverges from the melancholy mood they create onstage.

The band is based out of Duluth, Minnesota.  In my college years at the University of Minnesota Duluth, Low was an unforgettable musical discovery.  In 2009 I saw them perform on a small stage of Teatro Zuccone, and I was electrified by their ability to shift the mood of the entire theater, hush and lull the crowd, and create a beautifully vulnerable performance.  Now, seeing Low again after all these years, I was elated to hear the band stay true to their roots and the sound they crafted years ago.

Low played plenty of crowd pleasing hits from their catalog, including “Violent Past”, “Monkey”, and “Dragonfly”, but also languished in their newest album The Invisible Way.  This album breaks a bit from their traditional sound, as the music focuses more on drummer Mimi Parker’s vocals.  She sings with a rich, dark , trembling tone, and her vocals are thick with expressiveness and a hint of sadness.  Parker typically sings harmony to Alan Sparhawk’s lead vocals, so this shift added greater variety to their sound as a band.

By committing to this  mood influenced style, Low limits their musical range.  The band rarely performs upbeat music, although they do have the ability to uplift their listeners or bring them to a sad melancholy state.  Their vocal harmonizing melts the heart, and Steve Garrington expertly upholds the melody on piano and bass.  Parker’s drum playing is extremely simple and straight forward, and serves as the heart beat of the band.

“On My Own” was a weak spot in the set.  The song is off the latest album, and falls flat on stage.  Sparhawk sings the words “happy birthday” over and over until he begins to sound like a broken record.  Possibly the intention was to transport the audience through repetition, but to where, it was unclear.  Low closed with the song “Canada”, which has a driving drum beat and an uplifting mood, and showed off the band’s emotional range.

The set at Music Hall of Williamsburg was pretty, emotionally wrought, exposed, dark, sad, gentle and intense.  Low captures so many nuances in their songs, and continues to grow and deepen as a band.  If you’ve been a longtime fan, or are hearing them for the first time, you’ll hear a sound that is current and familiar all at once.

LIVE REVIEW: The National @ Barclays

The NationalFive years ago I was depressed. I was going through my first real breakup, I was drinking too much (the kind of drinking where you justify having vodka with breakfast) and I was taking a lot of two-hour long walks. It was during those walks along Lake Superior that I first fell in love with The National. Matt Berninger’s forlorn voice was the perfect companion for my sorry state; he didn’t judge me as I drank by myself watching ‘How I met Your Mother’, he sat right along side me, laughing with that gravely voice of his.

When I imagined seeing The National live, I pictured sitting next to Berninger at Club Saratoga (a strip club/music venue in Duluth) while he serenaded me sweetly across glasses of whiskey & rye. Instead I entered the belly of Barclays center, clutching my Stella as I looked around the auditorium thinking, “Is this really where I want to see The National?” The arena seemed imposing and the stage looked liked a child’s dollhouse in comparison; the amount of sound & stage presence needed to fill such a venue was not something that I would normally attribute to The National.

Opening act, Youth Lagoon, seemed determined to prepare the audience for the night’s melancholy orgy. Standing in a straight line across the stage, the bands music as well as its style was strangely uniform. It took me a good four songs to figure out who was the lead singer, and by that point my beer glass was empty so I quickly vacated to the booze line. Overall, the Boise, Idaho band, fronted by singer Trevor Powers, gives off the feeling of listening to music under water: pleasant, calming, easy to ignore.

The National, from the moment they stepped on stage, gave off the confidence of a band well seasoned. “This is where it all started. We’re so happy to be back at Barclays, “ Berninger quipped with an uncomfortable laugh. “Don’t Swallow the Cap”, from their most recent album Trouble Will Find Me, lead off the night, but the third song “Mistaken for Strangers” was what got audience attention. The most interesting part of the night was watching the band’s nervous, excited energy shift throughout their set as they reacted to the crowd. The audience was practically a member of the band: encouraging, singing backup, quick to clap at the slightest inference of a beat.

“We know this song better than any of our other songs right now. We’re well rehearsed,” Berninger joked of the song “Sorrow” from 2010’s High Violet, which the band recently performed at MoMa Ps1. Created by Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson, the installation was titled “A lot of Sorrow”; the band performed the song for six hours, a total of 105 times. The joke was lost on me at the time, but after the show I was able to watch the exhausting repetition. Similar to their Barclay show, fans drove the music, raising their voices in unison to the memorized words.

St. Vincent’s Annie Clarke joined them on stage for their performance of ‘This is the Last Time’; her voice was airy and barely floated in the background. It would have been an interesting song to do a different take on, but as it was, it felt like Clarke wasn’t even there. Another aspect that didn’t quite hit was the inclusion of stock video in the background; it wasn’t until I saw video of smoke billowing up behind a tree line that I once again became aware of my lack of beer.

While I would still have preferred to sit close up at a bar or a tavern, breathing in the moody gloom, I was duly impressed with the energy The National conveyed on stage; the space they were able to easily fill. After a three-song encore, the band played an unamplified performance of “Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks,” from 2011’s High Violet; the performance was sparse, raw. As my date for the night noted, “I think that was the most honest moment of this whole show”.