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![[ dandy warhols - photo by mark teppo ]](images/dandywarhols.jpg)
photo by mark teppo Dandy Warhols
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It's been getting on a decade since I've been to the Pine Street Theater in Portland; last time I visited this club, it was called La Luna and I had come with the woman I was dating to see her favorite band: Mazzy Star. Eight years later, the personalized intimacy of La Luna has been re-envisioned by an interior decorator who has a penchant for the burned out husks of industrial warehouses and the OSLC hasn't deigned to give the owners a liquor license. In the interval between the opening of the doors and the Dandy Warhols hitting the stage, we went down the street to the Galaxy Lounge and had a few while perusing the karaoke books and pretending we could remember more than just the chorus of a lot of songs--an exercise which put us in a pretty good mood by the time we returned for the Dandy's warm up show for their next tour.
We caught them late last year in Seattle as they were returning to their hometown of Portland, Oregon. They had been on the road a long time and their show was a streamlined two hours of intense music and, being one night away from being home, they tore through the set with a earnest abandon that made the night even more energetic and captivating. This time 'round, they're gearing up to play Down Under and, taking advantage of the adoring relationship they have with their home crowd, spent this evening getting back into the groove of playing live. In introducing "Bohemian Like You," Lead singer Courtney Taylor said that they needed to reconnect to certain songs for them to work, and that while they had once been the "junkie band," they were now the "I like you" band. An explanation, I suppose, for the inclusion of the requisite hit in the set, and the band gamely tried to find the groove, but sputtered out after the second verse with a mumbled, "Something like that." That's not to say that there weren't captivating moments which reminds us why we (along with the rest of the audience) adore the Dandy Warhols. The compressed strobe-driven version of "A 15-minute Rave-Up with the Dandy Warhols" stormed the room and the western-themed psychedelic improvisational piece that dominated the latter half of their set definitely has promise. And there are certain songs of their oeuvre that are clearly live favorites for the band: "Godless," "Boys Better," "Minnesoter," and an elegiacally contemplative "Green." Keyboardist Zia McCabe offered up one of her Basic Laws during a inter-song discussion with the audience: "Candy is for movies; liquor is for rock." Courtney had been offered a lifesaver by an audience member and mentioned that it had made his mouth sort of gummy. But, really, they sort of showed up in that mood that night--a little lethargic, a little like a slumbering bear that has just been woken from winter hibernation. The woman I had been dating eight years ago when we had come to see Mazzy Star is now my wife and the Dandy Warhols are now her favorite band. There is a certain cyclical nature to all things--ups and downs, highs and lows--and there is a sense of closure in seeing this show at this venue at this time in my life. Yeah, so the Dandies were a little rusty and had some trouble getting into the touring groove. Yeah, and I burned breakfast and wasted the heating element in an espresso machine the next morning.. We all have off days. -Mark Teppo
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![[ Guided by Voices ]](images/gbv.jpg)
Guided by Voices @ The Showbox March 30, 2001 Seattle, WA Links:
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There's few things in life you shouldn't try to best. Robert Pollard's ability to rock it straight and hard for more than three hours on a near- nightly basis is near the top of that list. Christ, just look at the set list below. Count 'em: 53 songs. Uncle Bob and his musical collective known as Guided by Voices are on a revivalist rock 'n' roll crusade, and they're not going to stop until you're a believer. Funny things is, they never let up steam and there's not a dud in the whole lot. The more they play, the higher they get. And I've never seen a more lively, enraptured sharing of energy between crowd and performer. Repent and believe, you are about to be baptized.
Of course, there's a couple of important things we've forgotten to mention here. Cigarettes. And alcohol. Lots of alcohol. Things start off with the neon sign behind Joe McCann's drums flickering on to announce: The Club Is Open. The crowd hollers in agreement as the band takes the stage, arms laden with as much alcohol as they can carry and, I believe, a cooler of beer in tow to boot. Guitars flung over shoulders, smokes lit, beers cracked, they launch into "Titus and Strident Wet Nurse," and the rest of the night is a long series of beautifully short songs, long cigarettes. And alcohol. Lots of alcohol. Guitarist Nate Farley announces that because of an incident last time GBV played the Showbox band members are no longer allowed to have whiskey or glass bottles of beer onstage. The crowd boos. Pollard just shrugs and unscrews the cap off another plastic bottle of cheap American beer, tosses several full ones into the audience, and continues on with the sermon unperturbed. It doesn't even dent the music. The more they play and the more they drink, the tighter--the higher--the music gets. The set is interspersed with tracks off GBV's new release, Isolation Drills. Songs like "Chasing Heather Crazy," "Pivotal Film" and "Glad Girls" go down exceptionally well. And even the fans who had doubted GBV with their last release, Do the Collapse, are singing along to the chorus: "Hey, glad girls / only want to get you high." Farley and Doug Gillard weave their guitars in and out of each other. McCann holds the beat straight and narrow while bassist Tim Tobias lays down frenetic grooves. Up front Uncle Bob, cigarette in mouth and beer in hand, is twirling his microphone and high kicking it à la Roger Daltry during his better years. Near the end of their first set of encores (around song 40-something) as I'm about to comment to my female accomplice that GBV just might have the swagger and bravado worthy of The Who, Gillard begins picking away at the opening lines of "Baba O'Reilly." Farley spreads his legs, raises his arm, and comes crashing down onto the song's opening chords as Pollard screams "yeah!" Or maybe it was me who screamed "yeah!" Because by the time the song's refrain rolls 'round the whole club is singing along. "Don't cry / don't raise your eye / it's only teenage wasteland." Yeah! Oh, hell yeah! Any disbelievers have been cleansed of their sins as we all dip our glass into the sacramental music of Guided by Voices to share a communal drink. The band leave the stage (why, I don't know...to drink or something?) and return for a second encore of songs that ends with "Smothered in Hugs." By the time I leave the Showbox I'm covered in sweat, my ears are ringing, and I think the bump on my head is from one of the plastic bottles of beers Pollard tossed out into the crowd. What more could I ask for? It was the perfect sermon and I have been baptized. Have mercy! Guided by Voice's setlist:
Encore 1:
Encore 2:
-Craig Young
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![[ jim white - photo by steven white ]](images/jimwhite.jpg)
photo by steven white Jim White
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Unlike other such arch music Cuisinartists as Beck or Badly Drawn Boy, Jim White seems to avoid the trap of
coming off too smug, clever, or ironic. His latest album, No Such Place, is a glorious mix of acoustic
folk, beats and samples, cocktail jazz, and general otherworldly ambiance; however, the man onstage is a
tall, goofily handsome, earnest--in fact, almost apologetic--presence in a large straw cowboy hat. A quiet tuning session with his four-piece band slowly eases into the opening number without formality or
announcement. White's tentative strums on his Telecaster intermingle with bar noise (mostly the
sprightly chatter of 20- and 30-something industry types) for a spell before he hunkers down on
his mic and begins to mutter forebodingly about the "body of a drowned girl" just beneath the surface of
"cool brown water." Even in a profession littered with enigmatic characters, White is a genuine curiosity--as much a contemporary folk artist as a piece of new millenium folk art himself.
The man raised in a deeply Pentecostal community in Florida has allegedly been a fashion model, surfer, film school student, New York cab driver, and maimed his hand in a band saw accident. And, while his persona can't help but bear the weight of that history as he stands on a stage flooded with colored lights, even more striking is his lyrical imagery, which places him comfortably amidst Southern gothics like William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor. White's is a desolate, rural world cluttered with computer-age detritus, ghosts, and occasional flashes of potential violence. As for his music, he may wear a cowboy hat, but he's a far cry from the decade-long tangle of alt-country artists strewn behind him. In fact, in a fairly symbolic gesture, he removes his trademark headgear at the beginning of the second song, "A Perfect Day to Chase Tornadoes"--a jazzy, mellow number far left of Americana--and never puts it back on. The hushed anguish of "Corvair" provides one of the more startling moments of the evening, with White's wavering vocals ("Got a Corvair in my yard / It hasn't run in fifteen years / It's a home for the birds now / It's more than a car) upheld by soft washes of sound. The plaintive, Will Oldham-like howl he adopts for this number is only one of the deceivingly versatile vocalist's guises; he also moves through a Quiet Storm purr, carnivalesque Southern narration, and ghostly crowing. The four-piece band behind him impressively fleshes out his songs -- no mean feat considering the wealth of producing talent recruited for No Such Place (Morcheeba, former Yellow Magic Orchestra member Sohichiro Suzuki, and Sade keyboardist Andrew Hale). Many of White's tracks seem to occupy a near dream-state, on the edge between the conscious and subconscious, and deep in the night's set seems thing to drift a bit. This leaves one yearning for more punctuations of energy like the sly bouncing hick-hop of "Handcuffed to a Fence in Mississippi" (which turned up early in the set and offered the recurring Eastern-Philosophy-meets-rural-sensibility sentiment "things is always better than they seem"). It's a small trespass, however, for White casts a unique and compelling shadow on the music scene. The full-capacity Village Underground crowd seems to sense this, as does White's label boss, ex-Talking Head David Byrne, who is prominently on hand. So who this Jim White, who bears a faceless moniker, mosaic past and impossible-to-brand collision of musical elements? Towards the end of the show, he's a man alone with a guitar telling the crowd that his family is here tonight--and that that means a lot to him. He then breaks into a simple song in which he offers all up for grabs--"You can take my name...Paris, France," etc.--because he only yearns for "a beautiful land called home." Jim White, stripped of everything by show's end, seems like the wisest of Stoics; a man who has seen so much and lived so much only to realize the wisdom of simplicity (albeit a surreal one). Or maybe he's just a nice guy. -Erik Hage
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![[ leslie west - photo by dan cullity ]](images/lesliewest.jpg)
photo by dan cullity Leslie West
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Still squeezing thick, greasy riffs out of his guitar and calling on a throaty, leonine growl, Leslie West revived the Mountain catalog, breaking out the seminal hard rock band's big hits with a bit of the fire of yesteryear. A long and well-traveled road stretches out behind the noble axeman, who in 1969 left the Long Island R&B band The Vagrants to record a solo album with Cream producer Felix Pappalard--a pairing that spawned Mountain. In the early '70s, West and Pappalardi made it big with a mix of ballsy, jamming blues rock and dynamic balladry, literally cutting their live teeth at Woodstock.
After Mountain's fire burned out, West found another Cream connection, locking horns with the indomitable Jack Bruce on two studio albums. It's true that West was in the rock spotlight for only a handful of years, but to only scratch the surface of his and Mountain's work by acknowledging the rightfully praised "Mississippi Queen" as his and their only triumph would be a mistake. "Mississippi Queen," conceived in 1970, was a blueprint for the rich, crunchy distorted guitar tone that has prevailed in hard rock for years. Unfortunately, the barn-burner is such an immediately recognizable, overshadowing hit, that most of today's audience remains unaware of the short, sweet career of Mountain and the underrated contributions Leslie West has made to the world of rock guitar. Though not quite the boisterous bear of a man he once was, and left with only a graying shadow of the unruly jungle of black hair that defied gravity during the post-Hendrix '70s, West is still a more than adequate showman. When a fan who likely has the original vinyl Nantucket Sleighride LP tucked away in his den screamed out "You still got it Leslie!" the guitarist replied in a froggy bellow "Yeah, I just wish I could get rid of it." Over the years West has amassed quite a rig, complete with myriad guitar effects, and like any unbridled electric guitar nut, promptly got lost in some experimental tinkering on more than one occasion. During the songs though, that familiar West crunch and squeal was at the forefront once again. He treated the mostly middle-aged audience to emotional retellings of "For Yasgur's Farm" and "Theme for an Imaginary Western," and vigorous versions of "Never in My Life," "Nantucket Sleighride," Robert Johnson's "Crossroads," and, of course, the curtain closer "Mississippi Queen." During a short break in the set, West took center stage with only his electric guitar and told the tale of an inmate at San Quentin, locked up for accidentally killing someone, who had written to him about life on the inside. Skillfully fingering his way through a flowing chord progression, the suddenly somber guitarist delivered a song called "Cell 65," written with thoughts of the inmate indelibly stamped upon his brain. It was at this moment that West seemed most alive in the spirit of his craft. Sure the Mountain revival was a trip and it was what the fans came to see; but for this man, passing into another stage of life, it's still the pure creative gift of a song like "Cell 65" that keeps him up on a stage, instead of on a beach somewhere waiting for the royalty checks to clear. -Dan Cullity
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![[ low ]](images/low.jpg)
Low/Danielson Famile @ Great American Music Hall April 18, 2001 San Francisco, CA Links:
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"Quite an odd pairing," I'd thought. I had seen Danielson play a couple years ago at New York's CMJ music festival. I was totally blown away by the Clarksboro, New Jersey's twisted take on rock and roll. I had heard them before and a bit about their "shtick." Well, as I found out, shtick it was not! For those unfamiliar, the Danielson Famile are evangelical Christians. When I hear of outwardly religious bands, I generally avoid them like the plague (I definitely blame Stryper for this).
Well, I don't want to dwell on the subject, but their music does chime of God and Christ. Their performance that night in New York and tonight's performance were downright magical. Mostly related with a few childhood friends, the Famile wear doctor and nurse uniforms, hearts on their sleeves (and shoes) and names hand-stitched on their chest. The music is very low-fi sounding with pretty intricate parts. Much of the played material was from their recent Secretly Canadian release Fetch The Compass Kids (the label has since re-released their back catalog). As the sermon/mass/party was ending, I got back to thinking of the oddity of the show line up. The crowd was all worked up, I started to worry. Some years back I was in Los Angeles for Halloween with some friends. We went down just for fun (now that's an oxymoron), no real plans, and looked in the paper to see if anything was going on. Low was playing. Low on Halloween? "Nah" we decided, we're in a party mood and we went off and did something else that was nothing spectacular, and surely not as unforgettable as that Low show must have been to the people in attendance that night. Because afterwards I found out Low had done their normal set of songs, and then...and then came out with devil locks and make-up and played Low songs Misfits-style. Holy shit! On their website are photos, reviews, and a recording of the event. This changed my whole idea of them as a band. I've always thought of them as this great dynamically quiet band. I guess I just fell into the trap of, "Quiet bands listen to quiet music, loud bands..." I've always loved Low but I had never seen them play before. San Francisco crowds have a bit of a hard time keeping their "yaps" shut. This is quite annoying. The band came out and just floored the place--I mean, they commanded the stage and there was nothing but mesmerized looks on peoples faces. Most of the evening's set was from their recent release on Kranky, Things We Lost In The Fire. The trio was augmented at times by a local keyboardist, who also participated on the record. He joined them on stage a couple times, Most notably on "Dinosaur Act," one of the standout tracks on the album. I was taken back by the density of the music live. It sounded as great, if not better, than their records. The soundman is always the forgotten un-member of the band; producers and engineers get plenty of credit, but never the soundman. Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker's vocal interplay was fantastically beautiful. Their harmonies are unparalleled in today's rock. Zack Sally provided most of the movement visually and musically. He couldn't seem to keep still. Not that he should, but it's another supposed role quiet bands play. Quite an amazing bassist, tactful and tasteful. I was hoping for more from their previous record, Secret Name, but that's what I get for not seeing them before. The new album is just as great as the rest, I feel it's a bit more uplifting, and the live show is a must see. Don't miss out. -Tiber Scheer
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![[ primal fear - photo by sabrina haines ]](images/mm3.jpg)
photo by sabrina haines Metal Meltdown III
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First off, Metal Meltdown III (MM3) was my first music festival and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Asbury Park is very economically depressed, and the area was bereft of people except metalheads, so it almost seemed surreal at times with all the parades of t-shirts, leather, spikes and denim. Everyone was moderately friendly and the bands were ready to play and willing to accommodate any fan with conversation, autographs or photos. Beer wasn't sold in the building, so if you wanted a brew you had to cross the street to the Berkeley-Carteret Hotel lounge. As you can imagine the crowd was split. There were several patrons that couldn't cross the street and one passed out in the pond, so you had to watch where you walked. The impromptu wrestling in the audience kept me entertained when waiting for bands, and I bet someone needed a few extra aspirins in the morning.
The main complaint that I had about the MM3 is that they needed to keep the bands on schedule. Some bands played forever while others barely got to play four songs. The main stage was three to four hours behind by Saturday evening. Electric Wizard was scheduled to play and ready to go, but because of the late hour they were not allowed to play. This caused a lot of grumbling in the crowd and a few innocent tables were split apart by grapplers trying to please the angry mob. It was a shame to see a perfectly great event marred by sloppy scheduling. The Digital Metal stage had great sound the first day and it was abysmal the next. The Snake Net Radio stage was muffled the first night and perfect the next. The Relapse stage was in the middle of the vendors and always had consistently good sound. I don't expect the sound to be perfect, but I felt terribly sorry for the bands who played the Digital Metal stage on Saturday. Most sounded a little flat despite their best efforts. Bands that were no-shows were most notably Napalm Death, Enter Self (excused for a car accident), Natron, Anwyl, Zao and Disinter. Almost all of these bands I was looking forward to watching. Enough of this, on with the show and its three stages of metal. I was darting between stages trying to see a little bit of everyone. My deepest regrets to Rain Fell Within, whose set was scheduled during the press conference. I would love to name every band we witnessed over the two days, but my editor would have a heart attack. So instead, we will have to hit the highlights. Overall, the best band at the show was Pain with Peter Tagtgren (Hypocrisy). I wished the pictures turned out, but I guess there was too much fog and light. Tagtgren ruled the stage the second he strutted out in a long black leather duster, blonde hair flowing in the wind and lungs bellowing quite tunefully. I have only witnessed a frontman this impressive a few times in my life, and Tagtgren is definitely in the top three. If you ever miss a chance to see Hypocrisy or Pain, you should be publicly flogged. The most disappointing band of the show was Opeth. The sound wasn't very good, and they were complaining. Moreover, having a little guy run out and scream "All the other bands are shit, here's Opeth!" prior to their entrance only elevated my expectations beyond their performance that night. In their defense, the sound wasn't great, but they were out of tune and it was very late (already behind schedule a couple of hours). Bands playing for the first time in America were Einherjer (fantastic Norwegian Viking metal), Primal Fear (bombastic Germanic power metal) and Centinex (Swedish gods of death metal). Jason's favorite band was Guardians of the Flame who are former members of Virgin Steele. They lost their singer on the way to the show and a guy just hooked up with them and sang his heart out. I missed this because it was during a press conference, but he duly impressed both parties. The most popular band among the metalheads attending was definitely Shadow's Fall. I missed them to see Pain, but friends told me that they just tore up the Digital Metal stage along with Diecast and God Forbid. Knowing these other two bands, I just bet Shadow's Fall did. Afternoon highlights on Friday were the powerful Bludgeon (Chicago death metal), Perserverance (a large band that played almost a pancultural, ethnic metal that was spellbinding), Chamber Seven (groove metal) and Myself Am Hell (bitching blackish death metal) who's name caught our attention because it reminded us of an XFL jersey, "He Hate Me." Theatre of the Macabre kicked off the evening with a fantastic set of theatrical (probably more so at a longer show) black metal. Deceased rocked the relapse stage with their burning brand of death metal. Monstrosity showed the NJ crowd how to play Florida death metal. Vintersorg illuminated the snake net stage with their fantastic, new Cosmic Genesis material. Pain was a showstopper with Tagtgren plus Horgh of Immortal on drums. Opeth were a little disappointing, but I'm sure that they would be better in different circumstances. The last band I could make it through was Centinex playing their brutal brand of "dark Swedish death." I could not stay awake for Amorphis as I had been up since 5am and was exhausted. Unintentionally, I slept through most of the morning bands on Saturday. Once up, I darted over to catch Hatred's heavy, burning death metal. Then, Impaler floored me with their horror show set. Impaler combines the best of shock rock, the Ramones (R.I.P. Joey) and death metal. Loaded with costumes, blood and guts, these guys know entertainment. Relapse's Mastodon surprised me with their devastatingly heavy set. Berzerker from Australia via Earache delivered a noisy, but powerful set that had the kids tearing each other apart in the pit. Einherjer came all the way from Norway to stun the crowd with their pagan Viking metal. Covered in blood and playing like Vikings possessed, they more than pleased their rabid fans. Pessimist was the unfortunate victim of flat sound, but they dug their spikes in and demolished a few eardrums with their brutal death metal. Avulsed Records exceeded their reputation for brutality and absolutely annihilated the stage. Dave Rotten and the boys were available for fans throughout the entire festival. Diabolic tried to one up Monstrosity in the Florida death metal category, and I think they tied. Diabolic pulled no punches with their "Supremely Evil" set. Somnus managed to get halfway decent sound out of the digital metal stage so that their symphonic, pagan metal could weave it's spell over the crowd. After a steady stream of passe, out-dated NWOBHM (New Wave of British Heavy Metal) bands extended the schedule a few extra hours, they finally got to Warhorse. Warhorse may not have the strongest stage presence but they sure are heavy, heavy doom. The walls were reverberating with their powerful bass. Gorguts distracted me from the main stage to catch their frenzied, ferocious death metal. Gorguts' new material is just as good as Obscura, so be prepared to be blown apart by the power. Finally Lee Dorrian and Cathedral usurped the stage. Unfortunately they only got to play about six songs before their night was over. I have a feeling they were just getting warmed up. Dorrian was electric--shaking and strutting all over the stage and belting out his rocking doom opuses with extreme prejudice. Leo Smee's bass was reverberating all over the building. I had to keep watching the nets on the ceiling, collecting the falling chunks of aged plaster. Just as Cathedral had us whipped into a frenzy, the lights popped on and the roadies started dismantling the equipment. Electric Wizard would not play tonight. The crowd that had stayed till the wee hours was very disappointed. Even though there were disappointments, the good outweighed the bad by a ton, and I know this won't be my last metalfest. -Sabrina Haines
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