a diverse saturday.

this past saturday i had a pretty interesting day full of free activities. the first was the red bull flugtag. i had no idea how popular that event was, apparently there was over 80,000 people there. who knew that watching people push things off a pier would draw such a crowd. jamie, her roommate jesse and i got there about half an hour after it started and it was almost hopeless to find a spot that we could see. after a little searching we found a space where we could see bits and peices of the pier and the large screen. we watched about ten or so “human powered crafts” fall into the water. mostly we were amused by the horribly stupid skits that the teams would perform before pushing their crafts into the water. after that got old and the crowd became too frustrating we left.

after leaving the flugtag we said goodbye to jesse, jamie and i hopped on the streetcar and headed down the the sw waterfront for the ten tiny dances walkabout. the ten tiny dances set up ten performances all around the sw waterfront neighborhood with each performance lasting eight minute and starting at fifteen minutes intervals.

the first one we saw was call “wet?” by POV Dance. it was alright, a little to yogaish for me. i was impressed by the strength and grace of the two performers as they dangled and lifted themselves and each other over and around the railings and small fountain that was used as their space.

after meeting up with iris and isaac we watched “finding foundation” by KO&Co. five people using a four foot cube frame to perform around. i thought that the concept was interesting and the arrangements were good, it was just a little sloppy and a bit unfocused. i’d be interested to see a longer performance from them.

we then moved into a loading dock where the hand2mouth theater was doing “project x”. this was an interesting performance that had the audience filling out a questionnaire while the troupe sort of acted like cheerleaders prompting the crowd. i thoroughly enjoyed this one; it was amusing and informative. it reminded of the vis-a-vis society performance (look here under april 9th) i saw in seattle a while back. i’m definitely going to check the full show in a couple of weeks at milepost 5.

sojourn theatre’s “built: prologue 3″ was next.  this was part of a bigger performance that was started in a workshop earlier in the week. two people acting out a courtship in the kitchen, the backyard, the wood, a fountain and several other places. it was by far the most linear performance of the day, and one i’ll remember.

we then made our way over to a large dirt lot for two performances. first was “lack of current” by hot little hands. i really appreciated that they thought about the starkness of the environment and produced a slow and pensive performance with a slow drum beat and a single woman with a unique outfit that involved a set of antlers under the skirt. i would like to see more from them.

the second lot performance was by rhiza A+D. billed as “architect’s draw”, when the performance started we were told that we about to see “telephone sketch #2″. we watched four construction workers walk across the lot where one of them strapped on a wooden frame with pink twine unfurling from the shoulder. one worker guided two other while they hammered posts and twisted the twine around them. when they were done they were left with a landscape off telephone poles with pink wires. it was certainly the most conceptual piece of the day. isaac said that it was “oddly satisfying” and i have to agree. it was the only performance that left something behind and caused the most discussion.

the final performance we saw was another one of the sojurn theatre’s “built: prologues”, i don’t remember which number it was though. this time there were four women, with one of the searching for acceptance. at home we’ve been watching mad men, and this performance reminded me of the divorced neighbor’s struggle to belong in sixties suburbia. that piece could be expanded on for a whole show about the desire to belong. something everyone can understand.

we were all performanced out by this point, and we were starving, so we went to bambuza, a vietnamese place in the sw waterfront. all off us ordered vegetarian dishes and ended up get the pork equivalents. also iris ordered her pho without cilantro, yet it came covered with it. once we all got the right dishes it was all delicious. i would totally go back for the food, i just hope the have the service issues sorted out.

thanks to jamie, jesse, iris and isaac for accompanying me on that interesting and entertaining day of free events.

everyday at 4:30.

i am kind of at a loss for words to describe last wednesday’s show by matmos and wobbly at the aladdin theater. big thanks go to jamie for being my last minute companion replacement. thankfully she enjoyed the show, as a lot of you know it can be a huge risk to go to a show with me when you have no idea what it is.

wobbly opened the show, i was pretty excited to see him. his wild why album is a masterpiece of plunderphonics, so i was hoping for some crazy sample manipulations. like most experimental electronic musicians you never get what you expect. wobbly walked out and sat behind his mixing boards, samplers, drum machine and keyboard and produced a glitch filled piece full of broken beats that were constantly teetering on the edge of being danceable. two brave souls did dance in the large open space in front of the stage, i think one of them must have been a dance student becuase he could really move to wobbly’s disjointed sounds.

shortly after wobbly left the lights dimmed leaving only a bright flashing blue light. a theremin like sound seemed to be coming from somewhere. i heard some rustling in the crowd and noticed that m.c. schmidt and drew daniel, the adorable couple that make up matmos, were coming down the aisles with flashlights and laser pointers. they were shining the flashlights and pointers all over the crowd and the stage, after some study i realized that the flashing blue light was some kind of sensor and they were manipulated the sounds by hitting the blue light with varying degrees of lights. i knew we were in for something interesting.

when they made it to the stage they were joined by the honorary third matmos member (and a talented electronic manipulator in his own right) j lesser. together they performed matmos’s unique brand of electronic noise.  they played for a little over and hour with only two songs coming from their latest album, supreme balloon, including a slightly edited version of the 20+ minute title track. the highlight for me (and jamie) was a song off of the west, for which m.c.  and j lesser donned guitars and did some live sampling. also the version of “semen song for james bidgood”, off of the rose has teeth in the mouth of a beast, was amazing, they tweaked it just enough.

m.c. schmidt also handled all the video manipulations, i should say that they weren’t handled live, he made it no secret that he was popping in a different dvd for each piece. he approaches his videos with the same sampling and collage work that is used in the music. an interest he explores further with his (far noisier and abrasive) phase chancellor side project.

after their set was over they came back on stage for an encore this time accompanied by wobbly. this made me happy because their live album wide open spaces, made with wobbly, is one of my favorites. this improv was far too short though, i feel like they were just getting into it when suddenly it was all over.

i have only seen matmos once before and that was in seattle at the detestable venue the triple door. that was more of a pop structured show. this time it was more out there, seemingly trying to eschew traditional song structure. this was an amazingly satisfying show, reminding me why i like electronic music.

if you’re not for good then you’re for some bullsh*t.

two weeks ago i had a great little getaway that included two shows by the fantastic erykah badu. the first show was at marymoor park in redmond washington, just outside of seattle. i always get a little disappointed when artists i like play these silly temporary summer venues. the sound is never right and the crowd is generally there to hang out. i was still excited though, it was erykah badu after all. the group for the show gathered at rachelle’s house and we split into two cars, juan and i with status, and rachelle and bianca with loren. we had plans to meet up at a pub near the park that loren and status knew of, when we got there i was excited to find out that it was called the celtic bayou. i was endlessly amused by their concept of irish cajun food, or cairish as we deemed it. i ordered the northwest salad with cranberry dressing, no one makes a northwest salad like the cairish, juan also really liked his cairish pasta. don’t even get me started on their cairish nachos or veggie burger. i can’t wait till i get the chance to go back.

after the ironically delicious meal we headed off to the park. we claimed a space on the lawn right behind the chairs. the seated area was empty. we had about an hour to kill before the show, so we plopped down and relaxed. by the time the roots came on to open the show, there was still barely anyone there, including about three people in the seated area in front of the stage. one of those people was former american idol person, blake lewis, who was strangely by himself. that didn’t stop him from being the only one excited about the roots. this was the second time i’ve seen the roots, the first time also happened to be with erykah badu. i got the same impression from them, they seriously lack energy, you think that with a live band it would be easy. the band didn’t really gel, the members just played a loop for a while and seemed a bit bored. despite the best efforts by black thought and ?uestlove they just fell flat.

status and i before the show.

during the roots’ set the seated area filled up and the crowd moved in on us. we were all pretty giddy and were more than a bit antsy for erykah to come on. when the p.a. silenced and the band and back up singers came on we couldn’t have been happier. erykah came on wearing her huge afro and a red flannel suit, she was very small to us since we were behind the seating area. even with the distance i still felt that she had our full attention. the setlist focused mostly on new amerykah and worldwide underground, we heard “my people”, “amerykahn promise”, “soldier”, (a dangerless) “danger”, “times a wastin” were just part of the two hour setlist. of course she played on & on, but the highlight of the show was a fantastic afroacidhouse version of apple tree. every one was blown away by it. the song was twice the speed and had a killer drum loop that erykah produced on her drum machine. she pulled off an amazing show, her voice was top notch and the crowd loved her.

little erykah.

the next day rachelle, juan and i scooted up to vancouver to catch erykah at the commodore ballroom. we were all really looking forward to this show, it was indoors and a small venue. on the way up rachelle mentioned that she got an email that erykah added a second show after the one that we had tickets to and we decided that since we were driving all the way up there that we were going to try to go to that show too. we figured we would be able to ticket from a scalpler, more on that later.

before the show we hit the hotel’s bar, o’douls. for some reason i have a romantic notion about hotel bars, i blame movies and tv for making them look so alluring, when in reality they are full of drinking ugly tourists. after a drink we took our space in line outside the commodore. we only had to wait about half an hour for the doors to open, once inside we found the perfect spot, center stage about two feet back. thankfully there wasn’t an opening act, and the crowd was in great spirits. when the curtain opened we could hardly contain ourselves. the band and her (so over it) back up singers entered, followed quickly by miss badu. strangely she was wearing the same outfit as the night before in redmond. not only that but we got almost the same setlist, this time she added “tyrone” and “bag lady”. this was still a totally different show though, being inside and three feet from her made it an almost supernatural experience. she has a magnetism and charm that if it could be bottled would cost millions. she spent a bit of time mugging for the cameras, she seemed to love posing. miss badu was in amazing form, she just blew us away. you could tell she was having a blast, and loved every moment. at one point she pulled a girl up from the front and the girl spit us a few lines. she was pretty good, and had erykah impressed. miss badu played for two of the quickest hours of my life. looking back, it was some of the most fun i’ve had in a long time. the show was supposed to end at 9:30, she ended at eleven, i think she would have played for us all night long. once outside we discussed our plan to go to the second show, we all had brought extra money and knew our limit. we decided that we really didn’t want to go, we were completely satisfied.

rachelle and juan in line before the show.

miss badu.

i do have two small gripes though. i think that she needs to lose a few members of the live band. she is such a dynamic artist and i don’t think that a live band can match her. she needs to get herself a good live producer. her back up singers were so done being there. they looked bored and pissed the whole time. it was so obvious that i thought they might have been playing characters. if so, why?

we walked back to our hotel, to hit the bar. we were all in such great moods that we even tried to chat up the waitress, she wasn’t having it though. she gave us the cold shoulder several times and  didn’t want any of our gum. after a few drinks, we headed up to our hotel room and watched crappy canadian hotel cable till we all passed out.

i would like to thank juan for coming out.

i would like to thank rachelle for motivating this musical adventure.

i would like to thank erykah badu for being an amazing performer.

music to riot by.

this should have been up earlier in the week, morgan and i went to the m.i.a. show over a week ago. it has been delayed because (1) i went to seattle for the weekend, (2) i was really lazy on memorial day, and (3) i cut my finger and thumb on a broken glass at work on tuesday. the cuts would open up every time i started typing, they are much better now.

last friday we walked down to the roseland for the m.i.a. show. we wanted to get there a little early so we could get some good seats in the balcony. we were suprised that the place was already full when we got there a little after nine. the balcony of the roseland is also the 21and over section, and was already filled so we had to wait in a line while they let one person up for every one that came down. it’s a good thing that the bathrooms were downstairs or we never would of gotten up. morgan got up first and went to scope out the seats, i met up with him soon and we found the perfect seats in the front row on the right side. even thought the balcony was “full” the was really no one in the seats.

the opening dj, whose name i forget or never knew, did a great job of getting the crowd warmed up. the crowd was dancing, screaming and generally having a great time. then glass candy came on for their set. i have been a fan of glass candy since they still had the shattered theater with them. over the years they have evolved into a duo that focuses more on disco than garage rock. this was my first time seeing them, and i have to say i wasn’t that impressed. i enjoyed the songs, although it would of been nice to hear some of the older material. unfortunately their stage presence leaves something to be desired, which might be the answer to my question of why they aren’t bigger. they tried to keep the energy going but they just kind of fell a bit flat. being a local band they seemed to have a huge amount of fans in the crowd, so that helped them a bit, mainly though the crowd kind of stood there. i still am a fan of them, but i doubt i will go out of my way to see them again.

they made a huge mistake after glass candy ended, they left the crowd standing for almost an hour, listening to some sort of prerecorded mix or hidden dj. the mix of music lacked the punch of the opening dj’s set, even if it did contain several of my favorite diplo mixes. the crowd quickly got reckless. they should of saved the dj for that time.

all was forgiven when the lights dimmed and m.i.a.’s mao-esque revolutionary intro started. once that ended the (unfortunately close) strobe light started up and m.i.a. took the stage with “bamboo banga”, which i have to say is just the best first song ever written. it is also the first song on kala, it really sets a tone and the slow build up gets you ready for anything. joined on stage by the opening dj, one hype gal, and a male dancer, m.i.a. spent an hour and a half ripping through her set never stopping for a moment. my only regret of her performance was the jimmy was shortened and mixed into another song. other than that i would tell everyone that they need to see m.i.a., do not let a chance pass you by. she connects with a crowd like few artists can, and she can get you all sorts of riled up.

due to the almost constant strobe, this was the best picture i could get. m.i.a. is the sparkly blur.

a sea of nodding heads.

on sunday morgan and made our way to the doug fir to see clinic. we were pleasantly surprised by how much we both enjoyed the opening act, shearwater. they have been around for a few years now and i have never payed attention to them, i kind of regret that now. they kind of have a scott walker/leonard cohen/nick cave sound. and they did the (almost) impossible and got me not to hate a song with a banjo. also their drummer can do some interesting things with a bow and a xylophone. i’m gonna have to pick up their new album when it comes out next month.

one of the reasons i like the doug fir as a venue is their punctuality, clinic came promptly at 10:30. they told us they were going to do two sets, the first with songs from the new album do it, the second with songs from the first five albums. i am well aware that clinic is one of those bands that really only have one song, sometimes played faster than other times, but i am a big fan of that one song. on the new album they added a bit of reggae and free jazz influence to their krautrockish protopunk. the songs off the new album really shined live. the second set contained a couple of songs off each of the older albums, including their “hit” “walking with thee”. clinic is a great live band, bringing a lot of energy to the show. i miss the scrubs though, i’m not quite feeling the hawiiaan shirts.

one night in wales.

audrey and her girlfriend erica came down to rainy chilly portland for the weekend. i think they wanted a break from rainy chilly seattle, also audrey was my guest for rufus wainwright’s solo performance at the newmark theater in downtown portland. they got to our place just in time for us to grab a quick slice of pizza, and get to the show.

the newmark is a very small theater in the portland center for the performing arts. we only had to wait about five minutes for rufus to come out and start the show. he said he was a little groggy from just waking up ten minutes before the show, and it showed a little. rufus is still an entertainer and he delivered a fantastic show. we got songs from all of his albums, including a few from is first, which is still my favorite. thankfully he didn’t focus to much on release the stars, and sadly we didn’t get any of his judy material. of course he also told amusing stories involving crack addled couples fighting, and scolded people for ripping him off on the internet. he knew this because many people already knew his newest song “zebulon”. the best part of the show for me was when he played rebel prince, which he said was writted about said crack couple having an argument in a hotel here in portland. but while he was fumbling through the unrehearsed song he had to apologize for changing it to los angeles. he put on a wonderful show that was unfortunately too short.

setlist.
Grey Gardens
Maker Makes
Beauty Mark (so nice)
Sanssoucie
In My Arms
California
Going to a Town
Matinee Idol
Nobody’s Off the Hook
Gay Messiah
Rebel Prince
Not Ready To Love
April Fools
Little Sister
Zebulon
Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk

encore
Art Teacher
Dinner At Eight

after the show audrey and i met up with erica who was hanging out with her cousin james. we met his wife, baby and friends. strangely spent a bit of time checking out sky mall and suprisingly conservative international male sites. not really what i would of expected to be doing if i ever met the lead singer of the shins, but hey, what can you do.

daylight savings, wtf?

this weekend i went up to seattle for a little trip home and to see the magnetic fields and xiu xiu. i drove up on thursday and met up with rachelle for a delightful lunch at our favorite restaurant luisas. luisas is one of the places in seattle i miss the most, rachelle and i have spent a lot of time there. their vegetarian chimichanga is the best thing in the world.

this was found at the qfc near rachelle’s house. finally an apple and a grape at the same time. sorry about the cropping, i don’t know how to fix it and morgan isn’t home to help me.

i developed a kitty shaped tumor on my leg.

thurday and friday night were two nights of the magnetic fields at town hall. i found town hall to be a torturous venue with uncomfortable padded pews, and no circulation or air conditioning. opening for the m.fs. was the interstellar radio company, a sound play group, that act out stories in an old style radio manner. one person did all the voices, one played musical accompaniment, and the third provided the sound effects. the first night they did a short story by robert sheckley, which was alright. the story was just a little too complicated, and all the characters voices were too similar. the second night we got edgar allan poe’s the tell-tale heart. maybe it had something to do with it being a more familiar story, but it was a much more successful. they were really an interesting way to open a show.

the magnetic fields themselves were, sadly i would say, just okay. between both nights we got songs from all over the stephin merrit songbook. the highlights for me the first night being “all my little words” sung by claudia, and “smoke and mirrors” from my favorite the m.fs. album get lost. the second night’s highlights were “adandoned castle of my soul” from one of the gothic archies albums, the claudia and stephin duet “yeah, oh yeah”, and “what a fucking lovely day” from the showtunes album. both night we got a healthy dose of the new album distortion. which i am happy to say are much better live.

the bad part of the show was how bratty stephin merrit was. i have seen the m.fs. several times, i totally understand his shtick. he likes to be the miserable yet lighthearted schlep, usually, he comes off as a charming, shy person. this time he was just annoying. he seemed bored and that he was being forced to be there. his usually entertaining banter with claudia was mostly incoherent, seeming to even confuse the rest of the band. his attitude put a huge damper on the shows. during the second set on the second night he did seem to relax a little, for which i think, we can thank the big glass of wine he was drinking, he almost became what i remember him being like in shows past.

stephin getting mad at me for the flashing light on my camera.

best partner ever.

saturday night i went over to my friends janet and josh’s house to visit with them and their adorable baby ben. ben is growing into a mash up of josh and janet, he definably inherited janet beautiful eyes. i haven’t seen them in a while so it was great to see them and just catch up. then i met up with audrey, rachelle, erika, and loren for a late dinner of uber modern noodle soup on capital hill. my mushroom soba came with a parmesan crisp, something that i found quite disturbing, but it had the most delicious broth. after saying good bye to the gang i headed off to chop suey for the xiu xiu show.

i hate chop suey, the redness of the lights and walls give me a headache, the sound system is horrible and the patrons always treat it more of a social event than a show, but i love xiu xiu so i went. i got there right as the second band, thao with the get down stay down, started. while not really my thing, kind of like cat power mixed with the replacments with a dash of jam band, they were fine. xiu xiu were great, dispite the flaws in the sound system. jamie stewart and company played a short set that focused mainly on women as lover, with a few classics mixed in for variety. i really like the new four member lineup. i thought i would miss the diy sampling of the original x.x. live lineup, thanks to the creativeness of the drummer and the bassist that wasn’t the case. xiu xiu really is jamie stewart, someone morgan should be worried about. he puts just as much soul and emotion into his live performance that is humanly possible.

jamie stewart, my not so secret man-crush.

while i was up in seattle i also spent three days working some shifts at the dish. it was nice to work at the dish again. also there was the benefit of working with all my friends barb, rachel, mandy, andres, silvestre, olga, janet and elena. all people i like and should really spend more non-work related time with. the weekend was very busy, i kind of forgot how painful line work can be, my body is so sore.

barb in action on the line, she’s going to kill me for posting this.

i only realized friday that it was daylight saving time this weekend. that meant that saturday night when i got back to audrey’s after the xiu xiu show, it was one a.m., i had to bump the clock up an hour to two a.m. and set the alarm to go off at five fifteen a.m. so i could get to the dish in time to set up for sunday’s service. so i got a listless three hour nap, i kept waking up to check the time, worried i might oversleep. then i worked ten hours at the dish, went back to audrey’s, showered, visited audrey at work to give her the key back, then left for portland at five fifteen. i was so exhausted that i had to stop and get a red bull, my second one ever, so that i wouldn’t fall asleep. i made it to portland around eight thirty. thus ending my mini break.