Sweatin' To Velella Velella's Electronifunkaliciousness
Idly we wondered, "Move on up where?" as we listened to Velella Velella shake the Sunset Tavern into percussed splinters of funk. But it seemed better not to ask questions. Velella Velella (named for a jellyfish) are Andrew Means, Michael Burton, Jeremy Hadley, Bethany Petersen, and Johanna Kunin, and we'd been meaning to check them out ever since we ran into Andrew at a party and he knew what Zork was. "Gonna move on up," the chant from "Do Not Fold / Do Not Bend," could be a band mantra. Up tempo, upbeat, they took us up where we belong--their enthusiasm is as infectious as the Santa's sack of hooks they're carrying around. They have a whole two albums out now: their Flight Cub EP and Bay of Biscay LP, but they played until they were short on material. The encore was just one song. Imagine a crowd of white Seattle hipsters wanting more dancetime. It could have gotten ugly, but Velella Velella is not about ugly--they are about a profusion of happy non sequiturs and a rock flute and a bunch of piledriving beats on an recalcitrant iPod. (Andrew was fiddling with it, Jeremy said, "iPods! What are ya gonna do?" and either new member Bethany or new member Johanna piped up with, "Buy a Zune!") If you're into it, you can jump down the rabbit hole of musical sources and influences (Curtis Mayfield, DJ Shadow, Timbaland), but the band's appeal is equally the five live people beaming with sweaty pleasure and the keyboards, bass lines, and that classic Fender sound, all producing a (mostly) irony-free, joy-filled groove that you're an equally sweaty party to. Crazy kids.
Velella Velella's Jeremy Hadley had booked the first two acts of the Sunset night, both emphatically not electronica or funk, but as Andrew said, bands that believe in "feeling it." These United States (Jesse Elliott, J. Tom Hnatow, David Strackany, Mark Charles, Robby Cosenza, Justin Craig, Winston Yu, Josh Read) are a band that joins Lexington, KY, and Washington, D.C. Their new album is Crimes, and features a motoric, illicit roots rock with some gut-clenching despair-ballads thrown in for good measure. Check out "West Won" or "Get Yourself Home" on the YouTube to get an idea of what we're talking about. There's something subversive about the way their foursquare rhythms and country-fried guitar persuade you that all is well in the holler, while closer listening to the lyrics reveals a postmodern discombobulation in their stories. Here we're thinking of Samuel Clemens being threatened at knifepoint in "Honor Amongst Thieves," which doesn't evidence all that much honor in fact.
Another delight was the first band on the bill, Vandaveer, also from Washington, D.C., a coincidence largely due to lead singer Mark Charles also being in These United States. Vandaveer has produced some alt-folk that someday Bob Dylan's ghost will able to cackle proudly and say, "I did that!" about. Which we mean in a good way, for the record. It's just what hits you first about "However Many Takes It Takes," the first track on their second album, Grace & Speed. It's hardly one-note music, though--it's lyrically complex and of shifting moods, sometimes rootsy, sometimes bluesy. A murder ballad is followed by a song of troubled romance that asks, plaintively, "Why can't we just have fun?" against a backdrop of steady acoustic strumming. It turns out that this is music that goes great with beers at the Sunset Tavern on an October night.
