In Which Trespassers William Visit Chop Suey For A CD Release Party
We've been to better parties, let's just say that. For one thing, there was no cake. And our first-ever (that's a singular "our" the rest of the Seattlest club rats want you to know) trip to Chop Suey left us making invidious comparisons to San Francisco club decor. The parade-length Chinese dragon hung from the ceiling is appealing but what's with the huge splotches of peeling paint on the walls, the cheap plywood ramp to the main floor, and the grimly unpainted concrete floor? Most importantly, what's with that muddy sound coming out of your speakers? It might be time for some spring improvements, Chop Suey! However, kudos for the Guinness on tap. You're loved.
The opening acts were Lucy Bland, Rafe Pearlman and the Drive By Star, and a new band, Fair. Strangely, they finished up and handed over the stage to the headliners at about midnight, by which time the bulk of the crowd had gone home.
Lucy Bland's lead singer Cat Biell is cute and sounds a bit like Bjork. She's backed by guitar, cello, and keyboards. We were unable to decipher much of the lyrics, and it was nothing you could dance to. It wasn't anything you could coordinate any movement to, from our observation of a few false starts in the crowd. We grew weary of the few context-less statements we could make out, and longed for memorable melody. You may love them. We're just saying it wasn't a winning first impression.
So Rafe Pearlman and the Drive By Star contrasted strongly, with more hooks than the Compleat Angler. Where Lucy was down tempo, Rafe was decidedly up tempo, and people danced or ticced spasmodically. Rafe (for we'll imagine the lead singer was he) had an unusual habit of crouching down and craning his neck as if to stare up at a high note he was aiming for. Other than a moment that verged on a yodel, we liked the set. They could be the band on a Veronica Mars episode where there's a cool band and the producers don't want to pay for someone you know.
Fair was the evening's peak of vitality, lots of guitar and a drummer who seemed fresh out of the box and eager to thump on something. Their song lyrics were overcooked (for the second time that evening, a ship went down in verse) and more emotive than you'd suspect, given the thrashing guitar. It was Tenacious D-like at times, weirdly enjoyable. Partly, we suspect, because the high-energy band seemed intent on putting on a good show.
Then it was midnight and the newly Seattle-ized Trespassers William emerged to dreamily chill us out with their melancholy "psychedelic folk-pop," which is a description we find fun to say. We have discussed them before, in an angry drunken rage, and we would like to say this about them. (A caveat: some of our impression is based on listening to their albums, since Chop Suey rendered their sound swampy like the Okefenokee.)
They have two or three songs that truly stand out as songs, but much of their set seems designed to act as what we'll call a "continuous 45-minute sound-al environment." (They kept loops running between songs so there was no break, but if they noticed a song might have ended, the small crowd clapped gamely anyway.) If the concrete floor weren't so forbidding, we'd have dearly loved to lie down on our backs and gaze up at the dust-clogged dragon. They played mostly new material from their album Having, but closed with a song from Different Stars. It may have been the eponymous track itself. Lie In The Sand is probably our favorite from Different Stars, and they sang that, too. At 12:45am they stopped making music, so we left.
