{See Me River plays Bumbershoot on Saturday, September 4 at the EMP/SFM Sky Church at 6:45pm.}
See Me River didn’t start out with the ambitions it’s gone through today. At the time, Kerry Zettel was the leading the rock band Das Llamas. He told me over in an interview at a Capitol Hill bar, “ironically, it started out as a side project because I didn’t have to worry about scheduling conflicts with other band members and I could tour without worrying about schedules. I recorded that first record and realized I couldn’t play it on my own. I incorporated Joe (Arnone) and we started adding more people.”
The band fits in with the flourishing folk rock or alt-country scene in Seattle but differentiates itself with Zettel’s haunting harmonies and dark imagery he casts through his vocals and lyrics. It is one of the most compelling Northwest bands in that particular clique. Still, trying to resist labels, he told me “I liked that there’s a lot of room to move in this project. We get pigeonholed in different genres all the time, psychedelic, folk, goth, whatever. I think that whenever you need to put more than one tag on a genre, it’s kind of a moot point.”
This came as something of a shock, even though the rumor had been floating around Twitter for at least a few months. Still, it was quite a pleasant surprise to see that the hip hop duo Shabazz Palaces signed with Sub Pop. The label has gotten some criticism lately for not signing Northwest bands and late last year, co-founder Jonathan Poneman told Seattle Weeklythat there weren’t plans to add hip hop to their roster at the time because:
You know, it really comes down to relationships and being fans of a particular thing, (and) hopefully being somewhat knowledgeable about it. I love hip hop, but you know, my social and cultural understanding of it is much more limited than is the kind of music we put out on Sub Pop.
It’s an intricate balance between doing something that feels comfortable and striking out on something that is challenging. I like a challenge like everyone else does, but I would prefer to have a connection that runs deeper. If the right person came along to want to do a different kind of label, be it hip hop or whatever, then we would probably consider the relationship.
I just recently picked up the two Shabazz Palaces EPs a bit over a month ago (which is inexcusable because I was at their now-legendary show in January at Neumos) and the intricate beats over Ishmael Butler’s effortlessly cool rhythm and flow have been addictive. I can’t wait to see what this partnership brings.
The next Shabazz Palaces show is as part of The Stranger’s Genius Awards on Friday, September 17 at the Moore Theater where they’ll also receive the paper’s first Genius Award for music.
{Ted Leo and the Pharmacists play at the Vera Project on Wednesday, September 8 with Past Lives, $13, all ages.}
This video for Ted Leo’s new single “Bottled in Cork” has been making its way across the various circles I run in on the internet. It’s pretty clever, parodying Green Day taking their American Idiot album to Broadway. It was directed by the comedy writer Tom Scharpling, who told Pitchfork:
It’s $125 to get into the punk musical, first of all. I will admit that for some reason I bought like a seventh-row seat. That’s on me. I could’ve probably gotten in for $75. But still, it’s on Broadway, and it’s punk, and you get handed a thing in crazy punk lettering– as if you’re getting handed fliers at a rock show– saying, “No photos! No video! No cell phones!” It’s like, “Hey, this is all edgy! This whole thing’s punk and outrageous! This is not Les Mis across the street, guys! But seriously, don’t film it with your cell phone. It’s our intellectual property.” It’s a funny experience. We had the idea for the video, and then I went and saw it, and it was like, “OK, we have to do this.”
The whole video is quite funny, with Paul F. Tompkins insisting on taking Leo’s music to the stage, Julie Klausner (who wrote a hilarious memoir called I Don’t Care About Your Band) as a choreographer and John Hodgman as a theater critic. Anyway, it’s well-worth the five minutes it takes to watch the video.
Young Floridian’s Surfer Blood brought a taste of their laidback sunny atmosphere to a gaggle of indie fans everywhere last year with their single “Swim”, which was named 37th best track on Pitchfork’s 100 Best Songs of 2009. Previously unheard of for the most part, Surfer Blood is enjoying quite the wave of small success as of late, and released their full-length Astro Coast in January amongst very positive reviews.
“Swim” is almost a mantra, peppered with power chords and bouncy reverb, just thrashy enough to conjure Japandroids but somehow bright enough to bring on comparisons to 60s pop a la Brian Wilson. The hype has been swirling around this West Palm Beach surf pop band, but surprisingly (and most unlikely, if previous examples of much-hyped indie bands are to be the example) their album stands on it’s own two feet, even if “Swim” didn’t exist on the record.
“Floating Vibes” incorporates a Vampire Weekend-aesthetic with West African rhythms and world-ish jangly bits, but that’s where the comparison stops. This album listens like it was made it be a classic, an indie pop thrasher that you want to hate (because it sounds a bit like albums you already love: Pinkerton and Keep It Like A Secret) but end up adoring every song. Their performance promises to be chock full of fuzzy guitar feedback and larger-than-life vocal swells, while somehow managing to represent their stomping ground, embodying the epitome of their laidback south Florida roots.
{Solomon Burke plays Bumbershoot on Saturday, September 4 at 8:45 on the Starbucks Stage.}
Solomon Burke is the biggest soul singer and writer you’ve probably never heard of. He started out life as a preacher, but fortunately for his many fans and the many artists who’ve sung his songs to stardom, he later moved on to hosting a gospel show and then on to recording his own songs.
His biggest hit, “Cry to Me”, was a hit TWICE. Once in the 60’s when it was recorded, and then in the 80’s when it was the focal point of everyone’s sister’s favorite movie, Dirty Dancing. Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, The Blues Brothers and the Rolling Stones have covered his songs, among others. And in 2002 he enjoyed a revival of sorts with the release of Don’t Give Up On Me, an album of songs written for him by other top artists, like Bob Dylan, Brian Wilson and Van Morrison. The album was a Grammy award winning release, successfully melding his background of blues and gospel with heart-wrenching soul and a dash of sex, with Joe Henry at the production helm.
Solomon Burke is a big man, both in physical stature and in attitude. He’s received many accolades, and is (remarkably enough) even acquaintances with the Catholic church and the Vatican. His songs are wide-ranging, influences pulled from old southern country, wailing gospel and heartfelt blues, and are performed with immense emotive force. He’s an untraditional choice for Bumbershoot, and he WILL reign supreme. Don’t miss this out on seeing this soul legend at Bumbershoot.
After our wait reached 45 minutes, my friend Nikki pointed out something that I missed. A fan who like us, had grown inpaitient waiting for Vampire Weekend to come out on stage, shouted “Usher would have been out by now.”
It wasn’t for another 20 minutes did we find out what happened. After 65 minutes (still, I guess, preferable than the exaggerated 90 that Seattle Weekly reported, twice), some poor sap had to be the one to tell the reported crowd of 4,000 people that due to an unspecified illness, the band wouldn’t be performing that night. He didn’t say who he was or where he was from, only that the band had to regretfully cancel the show and that a makeup date would be immediately forthcoming that night and to check Twitter and Facebook for it. I still couldn’t find any statement from the band and asked their publicist for one, and will, of course, update this page when I learn more (Updated, see below).
A few thoughts:
Some people stated that some in the crowd were throwing beer at said poor sap after the announcement. I didn’t see that and tend not to believe it. While we were all pissed, this was still a Vampire Weekend show, not the Gathering of the Juggalos.
This was a particular tone-deaf way for the cancellation to be handled and the crowd shouldn’t have been kept in the dark as much as we were. Once it was official that there would be no VW, the crowd should have been told and to be kept waiting for over an hour will only build resentment. Shouting “fuck Vampire Weekend” is totally fair. Cancellations suck. Yet, can we stop the trend of taking to social media to seemingly compete with who was put out the most. It’s not exclusive to VW. Few things are sadder than taking to Facebook with outrage over what is really a minor disappointment.
Dum Dum Girls and Beach House both played good sets. I enjoyed Dum Dum Girls more but was glad to finally see Beach House live. Their stage presence demands a little more considering the attention they’ve gotten but the songs sounded nice outside in the cold, summer night.
Update: VW’s publicist returned my e-mail with a statement that the band also posted to their Facebook page. It reads:
Dear Seattle,
We are incredibly sorry about our last minute cancellation last night in Redmond – the decision wasn’t taken lightly. Ezra had some vocal issues earlier in the day, but felt like he was improving however, while he was warming up just moments prior to our set time he lost his voice completely and was unable to perform. He was then taken to the ER and diagnosed with inflamed vocal cords and the doctor ordered him to not perform for 48 hours. Even so, we still wanted to perform but by that point it was clear that any performance we could give would have been essentially instrumental and nowhere close to what we or the audience was expecting.
We know you all had to wait around for the announcement, and many of you came a long way to be there, and again – we truly apologize.
Regular readers of ARS will know that I’ve been quite taken with Letters,the debut album from Seattle electronic duo Viper Creek Club, saying they were “the Northwest’s best kept secret”. The band’s CD release show is next Thursday (September 9) at Nectar and they asked me if we would be interested in giving away a pair of tickets and a copy of the album to a reader of the site. Of course I readily agreed.
The show is at Nectar with Ladyfriend and Noddy next Thursday. If you’d like to go and skip the hassle of paying to get in, please send an e-mail to anotherrainysaturday@gmail.com before 9am on Tuesday, September 7 with “VCC” in the subject line. To get your copy of the album, should you win, please print a copy of the confirmation e-mail and trade it at the merch table for your own copy of Letters. The show is 21+ and will cost $7 otherwise.
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