Note to 2006 Music: 2007 is kicking your ass!
Our daily drug of choice…
Seattlest has been busy burning the midnight concert oil the past couple weekends and we’ve got some reporting to do. With all the great new releases already this year, the amazing shows, and intriguing spring concert schedule; 2007 looks to be Epic. Need proof?
Our noses have been stuffy and our chests congested (it is the cold & flu season); but in the past week alone we’ve managed to see the Octopus Project, Various, Tenacious D, Sparkelhorse, Camera Obscura, and most recently Grizzly Bear. How do we do it all and still function in the morning? DAYQUIL. Not the nighttime, sniffling, sneezing, coughing, so you can sleep medicine; the other stuff.
We actually started a couple weeks ago by stepping out of our comfort zone for a night with Merle Haggard and Neko Case at The Paramount and were treated to one of the best shows we’ve seen there in years. We’ve told you all about the Sasquatch Line-up (i.e. Holy Shit!), reviewed a bunch of other cool shows, listened to some hot new records and we’ve even told you how to get Killers and Police tickets. Hell people, we’re practically fucking Pitchfork.
So, what did we do this past Friday? Suck down some DAYQUIL and head to Neumo’s. If anything is going to stop the Nag Champa overload it’s a stuffy nose. In typical Seattle fashion though, we arrived just before headliners Grizzly Bear took the stage. We’ve been chewing on their latest album “Yellow House” since it came out last year and still love it – there’s a reason for all the hype besides just a high Pitchfork rating (8.7). We weren’t sure their sound would translate well in a live setting but were happy to be proved wrong. In fact, almost every song we heard (and most of the material was from the new album) sounded huge at Neumo’s. Could this be the best room in Seattle? This band is actually one of the very few that we’ve heard sound better live than in the studio and that's saying a lot. They also did a lot of re-creating onstage with the live versions of their songs and we enjoyed that part of their act the most. Their comparison to the Beach Boys obviously has more to do with their harmonizing (some of the best we've ever heard) than it does their lyrical content; these aren’t songs about girls and surfing. Did they move around a lot? No. These guys get a lot of shit about that and it was noticeable; but if you close your eyes and just listen; this is some of the dreamiest music you’ll ever hear. Nobody was there to dance anyway. They could be labeled a bit “folky” at times; but different than their album in a good way. We admittedly don’t know much about layering sounds with electronic gadgets and some of the shit they were doing, but these guys can do a hell of a lot with a recorder and a flute and any other instrument they can get their hands on. The live versions of “Knife” and “On a Neck, On a spit” were unforgettable.
If this show and the past couple weeks are any indication, we are set for one amazing year in music…
