Hillstomp, Sasparilla Last Night at Conor Byrne
Seattlest hit the town last night with one mission in mind: check out Hillstomp at Conor Byrne.
We were first turned onto the band by Sound's former editor a few months ago, and honestly, we just liked the name. Hills and stomping are two things we rather enjoy, so we made a mental note and moved on. Then we went down to Portland for Pickathon and saw members of this band we really dug called Sasparilla, walking around with Hillstomp t-shirts on. What was it with this band?, we wondered. They must seriously throw down. Finally, Seattlest Audrey emailed us a few weeks ago saying Hillstomp was going to be in town, and did we want to go check it out. That made three instances where people were telling us we should check them out. Okay fine, universe, you win.
Imagine our delight when we showed up at Conor Byrne last night and found none other than Sasparilla opening for these Hillstomp characters. Pint of Stella in hand, we set up shop at the end of the bar and settled in for what proved to be an excellent night for jug-band-ery.
Claiming to be Hillstomp, Sasparilla lit into their set with song after song of punk-old time fusion. There are two things, in our opinion, that make Sasparilla one of the best live bands we've seen twice this year: the hot drummer and the killer harmonica player. Unfortunately, their entire set played out like man vs. the machine, while the harmonica player blew his crazy talented face off and the CB sound guys scratched their heads and turned nobs. It was a real shame. Some of those songs are really just glorified accompaniment to a few kickass harmonica solos. Luckily, Seattlest was close enough to the stage that we could sort of hear what he was getting at. The folks in the back, though, probably just heard bass and drums. If you were there last night, standing back by the door for easy access to your smoke break, go see Sasparilla again. We swear it'll be a different experience altogether.
The hot drummer was able to deliver though, despite the sound issues. She's got a few actual drums, a couple buckets, a brake drum and a washboard that's decorated with tin cans and a "ring this bell for service" bell. "Sassy Pants" seemed to be the song everyone in the audience wanted to hear, and the band delivered it, finally, spectacularly well.
Hillstomp rocked our socks, flat out. There's a couple of guys who play horns on some songs, washboard, bass and accordion on others. There's a hard-belting diva in the front with pipes that'll blow your mind. There's a big hairy guy in a fez playing ukulele, and then there's your average everyday kickass jazz drummer. Put it all together, and it's hard for us to explain exactly what you've got. The best we can do is hyphenate a bunch of words: delta blues-polka-jazz-roots-rock. Finally, with one big indefinably kicking song, the band finished up and we headed back to the hill, stomping.
