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Caught in a Trance

February 12, 2009 at 9:48 am | In Gigs, Music, Seattle, Triple Door, mp3 | Leave a Comment
Tags: Juana Molina

Juana Molina at the Triple Door, Seattle | 10 February 2009

Juana Molina at the Triple Door, Seattle

This show was being billed as the first time Argentinian actor turned maestro, Juana Molina was visiting with a band in tow. Truth be told, she doesn’t need a band, she is a band. Her rig was set up on stage right with a drum machine, keyboards, looping pedals, as well as various other pedals, knobs and wires. She was accompanied by bass and drums played by two fellows she had only met four days prior. Most of the evening you had to strain to hear the live bass and drums. She may have a band with her this time, but the show is entirely Juana Molina as she clearly demonstrated when her band left the stage mid-set allowing her to go it alone for ¿Quién? (Suite) .

She appeared on stage with a slight smile and immediately started weaving her electronic magic with the title track to her latest album Un Dia which transitioned into the album’s second song Vive Solo. Watching Ms. Molina concoct her trance inducing cornucopias of sound is truly a wonder to behold. She makes it look like she’s just tossing it off, a little guitar loop to start, programming in a drum beat, then looping a couple vocal tracks on top. I’ve seen this done before, but she pulled if off with aplomb. Even when she didn’t, like on the encore, where she messed up one of the loops, she started singing improvised lyrics about how she screwed up the track, and having to fix it. I’m not sure how many people noticed the loop error, her improvised lyric, or her quick fix, but she did it all without ever stopping the song.

Just watching her at work like some kind of mad scientist might have in and of itself been entertainment for some, but the layered and textured songs that she create went above and beyond what you hear on her records. On cd, many of the songs have a minimalist feel to them leaving space for the listener, last night with the help of the Triple Door’s excellent acoustics, she filled the room with a mind altering melange of sound. Songs would take on lives of their own, some even inducing trance-like states in the audience. Parts would remind me of Stereolab, Astrud Gilberto, Samba, and then Acid House, or Goa Trance. Molina creates a mood and altered state of being with her voice, guitar and loop pedals. That mood or altered state is not all together very different from what shoegaze bands like Deerhunter/Atlas Sound, My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive have done with guitars and effects pedals, but no one is doing this kind of thing employing the tools that she does.

My only quip about the gig, was that after a while, I wanted her to play the guitar riff for the entire song, to see where she might take it. This is where a she could really improvise with a full band playing everything live and off of one another. That is a very minor complaint, though. Juana Molina is clearly a master a creating sound collages on the spot, with ease and to amazing effect!

mp3: Juana Molina – Los Hongos De Marosa (from Un Dia)

There are more photos from the night over at my Flickr. The Stranger was also there. Last but not least, here are the remaining Juana Molina dates in the US, don’t miss her if she’s near you.
13-Feb-09 San Francisco GAMH
14-Feb-09 Santa Cruz Rio Theatre
15-Feb-09 Santa Barbara Soho
16-Feb-09 Costa Mesa, CA Detroit Bar
17-Feb-09 Los Angeles Troubadour
20-Feb-09 Minneapolis Whole Music Club
21-Feb-09 Madison Der Rathskellar
22-Feb-09 Chicago Morse
23-Feb-09 Cincinnati / Newport KY Southgate House
24-Feb-09 Cleveland The Grog Shop
26-Feb-09 Boston Brattle Theatre
27-Feb-09 NYC Le Poisson Rouge
28-Feb-09 Washington DC (solo) IOTA
1-Mar-09 Philadelphia (solo) World Café Live

Paul Kelly at the Triple Door

March 22, 2008 at 10:40 pm | In Australia, Gigs, Music, Seattle, Triple Door | Leave a Comment
Tags: Paul Kelly

Paul Kelly at the Triple Door, Seattle | 21 March 2008

What better place to spend a Friday night, but at the Triple Door with my wife and some friends watching an Australian legend. Paul Kelly’s sojourns to the US are few and far between, which is understandable because though he is a house hold name down under, here he claims merely a devoted cult following. In his late fifties, he still writes provocative songs, and seems to push himself artistically, and he can still put on a pretty darn good gig.

Last night he appeared solo on stage in a black jacket dinner jacket and looking significantly older than the last time I saw him, which was nearly ten years ago. After two songs one of which was an old favorite I Can’t Believe We Were Married, he was joined by his nephew Dan Kelly. Dan contributed mostly electric guitar, but he also busted out a mandolin and provided some excellent harmonies and pretty falsetto on Careless. The single electric guitar accompanying Paul’s acoustic brought a sound to the show that was reminiscent to Kelly’s early albums like Post or even the very under produced (but still amazing) Gossip.

Being a long time fan, I was partial to the older songs that he plucked from his back catalog and so it seemed was the rest of the audience. During Dumb Things, his guitar flaked out and he had to quickly switch guitars mid-song, the audience took care of the lyrics for him with the entire room singing “In the middle, In the middle, In the middle of a dream, I lost my shirt I pawned my rings, I’ve done all the dumb things”. The surprise of the night for me was Don’t Harm the Messenger. He introduced the song saying, “This is an old one. When we recorded it Grant McLennan did the speaking part, tonight Dan’s gonna do it. This one’s for you GW”. Before they even started playing it I had tingles going up my spine. The minimalist rendition of the song reminded me of the version on Gossip, and Dan’s narration was just fine. Of course there were shouts for old many favorites like Bradman, Adelaide, and Darling It Hurts which Kelly politely ignored. He played a good helping of his songs from his latest Stolen Apples which has been out in Australia since last year and will get issued here next month. But old fans couldn’t really complain, since he peppered the set with songs from his entire career. He even took a break midshow to give his nephew the spotlight for one song. Dan has a career down under as a solo artist and is in the band the Alpha Males.

Paul Kelly has a rare ability to develop characters and create a story in a three minute song, painting characters with few words, yet grabbing the listener either with his economical use of language or a melody. So when he named an album after a Raymond Carver story back on 1989’s So Much Water So Close To Home he turned me on to the great American short story writer. Across the Sound in Port Angeles is where Carver called home. In his introduction to Everything’s Turning to White, Kelly noted that every time he’s in Seattle he was reminded of Carver. He ended the evening with an old favorite, To Her Door. It’s a classic Paul Kelly story song, a story of a relationship that hits the skids set to rousing chorus all done in three minutes, Carver would have approved. This of course left all of us wanting more, I guess we’ll have to wait a few more years.

mp3: Paul Kelly and the Messengers – Don’t Harm the Messenger (from Gossip)

The setlist, at least from what I can remember. The order is incorrect but these are the songs (I think).
Won’t You Come Around(?) / Just About to break / I Can’t Believe We Were Married /Don’t Harm the Messenger / You’re 39, You’re Beautiful and You’re Mine / Careless /Keep on Driving / The Foggy Fields of France / Dumb Things / The Oldest Story in the Book / Stolen Apples Taste the Sweetest / So Much Water So Close To Home / To Be Good Takes a Long Time / Please Leave Your Light on / God Told Me To / How to Make Gravy / You Broke a beautiful Thing(?)
Encore: Right Outta My Head / To Her Door

Kay Kay, Up from the Underground and On Stage

February 19, 2008 at 10:49 pm | In Gigs, Seattle, Triple Door | Leave a Comment
Tags: Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground

Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground at the Triple Door, Seattle | 18 February 2008

The stage was adorned with plastic sheep and horses, man-made foliage and flowers and lots of men with mustaches. Sounding and looking like no band at the moment in Seattle, or anywhere for that matter, Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground presented their new album in it’s entirety last night at the Triple Door. Front man, Kirk Huffman decked out in his best Kevin Rowland duds, seemed genuinely surprised at the turnout for the show (it was sold out), remarking that it was the best night of his life. The band numbered 11 strong and were a pleasure to look at, reminding me of a bunch of actors still in costume just deciding to be in a rock band and go do a gig.

As has always been the case with shows at the Triple Door, the sound was excellent and the band with their two violins, trumpet, french horn, piano, accordion, and excellent harmonies came across like pros. Every song was just an pure aural pleasure, with Thomas Hunter’s guitar flourishes warming the room and the two violins adding a ton of depth to the sound. The strings juxtaposed with the tin pan alley horns, to me define the sound of these guys, giving them that baroque tin pan alley feel that at times has a classical feel, but can quickly change to om-pa like carnival feel with dexterous piano of Kyle O’Quin. But really it’s all window dressing if you don’t have the songs, and Kay Kay have the songs. If you’re a fan of 60’s Kinks, the Zombies, Harry Nilson and the Beatles, or of the excellent and underrated Jellyfish who updated the sound of those 60’s icons in the 90’s, then Kay Kay is your scene, in spades! Right now there is no cd release for their album, but you can get it as a digital download over at emusic, or you can order the heavy double vinyl edition which comes with a digital download. Your choice, but you really should make the choice to procure this record, it’s a breath of fresh air.

More pictures from the night over at my Flickr page.

Hichtcock at the Triple Door

November 30, 2007 at 10:30 pm | In Gigs, Music, Robyn Hitchcock, Triple Door, Venus 3 | 2 Comments

Robyn Hitchcock at the Triple Door, Seattle | 29 November 2007

This was the second night of Robyn Hitchcock’s two night stand at the Triple Door. Since he seems to spend a lot of time in Seattle we Seattelites have quite a few opportunities to see him live. In fact it was nearly a year to the day that I saw him at the Crocodile, and I think he’s played a time or two in between. We’ve got it good here, and I certainly don’t take it for granted, so I showed up for night number two at the swanky, dinner theatre-ish Triple Door.

Hitchcock is like the Gary Larson of alternative rock, weird references to avocados, chick peas and bringing a miniature penguin on stage don’t even begin to describe this man’s oddish sense of humor. He was in a very talkative mood this night, going into silly, non-sequitur monologues that had me laughing. Robyn Hitchcock, like Billy Bragg, can be just as engaging singing or talking.

The show started with Hitchcock appearing solo on stage and launching into a Dylan cover (I think it was Dylan, anybody know the name of the song?). Sean Nelson then joined him for a beautiful acoustic version of Queen Elvis, and then the rest of the band strolled out.

His band being the Venus 3, Peter Buck, Scott Scott McCaughey, and Bill Rieflin along with Sean Nelson providing harmonies, are as you might have guessed no slouches. Buck alternated between a 12 sting and 6 string throughout the night, sticking mostly with the 12 to provide that Byrdsian (they covered 8 Miles High for the encore) sound so many of Hitchcock’s songs tend to have. I was surprised at how different the set was since the last time I saw him, since the guys in his band all have ‘day’ jobs in other bands, I figured we would hear a lot from Ole Tarantula and the same older songs I’d heard a year ago. Not the case, we got songs from Black Snake, Respect, Globe of Frogs, Jules for Sophia, they even did the Soft Boys‘ Kingdom of Love, which was a real treat.

It’s always a pleasure to see a show at the triple door, it’s so un-rock, but in a good way. Having the opportunity to See Robyn Hitchcock in this setting was not lost on me and I don’t think anyone else in the packed house. After the show, both Pete Buck and Hitchcock showed up at the merch table to sign cd’s and just hang out. Besides the usual cd’s for sale, he was also selling t-shirts he designed himself, so maybe he is thinking of taking over where Larson left off. I picked up the shirt with the running bananas on it.

Ted Leo for Lunch

April 19, 2007 at 9:46 pm | In Gigs, KEXP, Music, Seattle, Ted Leo, Triple Door | Leave a Comment

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists at the Triple Door, Seattle

Photo from KEXP Live Flickr photo stream

I swear, we’ve got it so good in Seattle and we don’t even know it. Where else can you go down the street at lunch time and see a killer 45 minute show and then go back to the office (with your ears ringing, mind you)? Not many places, I’m betting. Usually these shows are only made available to the big KEXP donners, but for some reason I got invited. Could they be having trouble getting people to these afternoon shows? I got an invite to the Dean & Britta show last week as well, but couldn’t go because I was out of town.

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists could be the rockinest band that have ever set foot on stage at the Triple Door. It certainly felt weird sitting down for the entire thing. I kept feeling the need to get up and start pogoing, and it seeming like I was not the only one. I spied a lot of people rocking in their chairs. Every time I’ve seen Ted Leo, whether it was in Chisel, solo or with the Pharmacists, he totally plays with a conviction and energy that is contagious and this afternoon was no exception. It was a machine gun like effect of songs coming at us one after the other, with Leo saying that he was gonna play as many as he could within the 45 minute allotment. Bassist Dave Learner is the Pharmacists’ secret weapon giving the songs some space and adding a dubby sound that offsets the manic vocal and guitar of Leo. My favorites from the set were Where Have all the Rude Boys Gone from Hearts of Oak and dub-reggae influenced The Unwanted Things from his new record Living With the Living.

And it was over as quick as it began. I finished my sandwich, cleaned up my crumbs and headed back to the office.