Land of Pines, Special Explosion, Peeping Tomboys and Iji at the Vera Project

Land of Pines put on an EP release show on May 4 and I signed up to steer well ahead of time. I've seen Land of Pines a few times, opening for STRFKR/Champagne Champagne (a pretty epic show) and at the CHBP on the Vera Stage in 2011 and at Reverb Fest later in 2011 as well. They're always fun to watch and listen to, so I signed up as soon as I saw they were doing the show. I bused to the Vera - the weather was nice and hot so I got a little warm lugging the tripod and cameras and laptop and dinner and all, but it was really nice getting some sun and working on that vitamin D deficiency.

We got a good crew of volunteers and they made it easy to steer - all the critical front door posts were filled, and so was concessions and roaming security, so I just had to check in periodically. I was able to get the whole show on video and take lots of pictures. First up is Iji. Iji is a local Seattle (or nearby) band that I never quite caught. They play local shows, they toured with Megabog and I saw Megabog, but not with Iji. Must have been a different tour. Anyway, I was happy I finally did manage to catch Iji. Guitar, bass, keyboards and drums, with a woman on drums. I'm not sure I'd point that out normally, but we did get a shout out form one of the bands noting that we had many great women performers playing, more than you tend to see at most rock shows.
Iji has a nice guitar driven sound with good dynamics, I enjoy the way the guitar rhythms play against the drums in this one, their final song:
The song has a nice sense of movement and development, pulling us along with it's instrumentals during the break and circling back through the lyrics, with the upper end into the falsetto drifting over lightly, slightly questioning and detached, perhaps. Nice use of song structure and tone to set a mood.

Peeping Tomboys were up next. Funny name, tomboys culturally are "girls who act like boys" and peepers are usually boys or men, so the using that name for an all girl band definitely opens up some thoughts on sexuality and sexual identity. While looking through my pictures from this show, I noticed that I have photos from Peeping Tomboys playing with Silicon Girls too (Silicon Girls was all men, so the gender identity stuff which was never an explicit topic as far as I noticed was in play there too) but that's another story. They have the same power trio lineup with the guitarist doing most of the vocals, bass and drums. Good mid range guitar sound, nicely built rhythm carrying interesting songs along and supporting the vocals. The drummer does a good job filling some of the transitions and solos too, they never have a weak or anemic sound, it's always working in the context of the song.
This one uses a descending chord progression and some fun backbeats and rhythms to build into a fun song:

Special Explosion had the penultimate slot.
Lead, rhythm and bass guitar with drums and two vocalists. The guitarist/vocalists did most of the vocals, with the bass player also contributing on occasion.
On thos one they get an angular, jangly opening into a fairly rich, complex instrumental bit before the vocals come in a bt over 90 seconds in. I love the droning sound of the vocals and the transition from the vocals back out to the jangling guitars, and the building leads coming across the vocals around 2:45 to 3:00, then the structure changes and you get some repeated almost paused tempos, the rhythm is quite complicated. I enjoy the song structure and really like the leads and the sense of anticipation as he builds that delay into his licks. Nice stuff. The second song starts about 5:25 in and has dual vocals, also worth checking out.

There are several more tracks from each of the bands on my YouTube channel like this video of Special Explosion closing out their set, so if any of these pique your interest, by all means check out their other tunes on YouTube.

Next up was Land of Pines, the headliners.
They roll with 2 guitars, bass, keyboards, and drums. They have a great sound, mixing elements from the different band members as needed, making great use of dynamics. Songs have bits where fewer instruments are playing, then the song intensifies and more instruments join in, with nice rhythm guitar hooks and the rhythm section chugging along until the final climactic breakdown.
Nice song, nice sound. It's good to see Land of Pines headlining a good loud show with some interesting attitudes and themes on display, here's to hearing the new stuff on the radio and more chances to see all of the bands again. Special Explosions in particular look poised to headline their own shows, and Land of Pines should be increasing their draw with some radio airplay and perhaps getting some larger venue gigs. These bands are all working hard and putting on good tight shows - Seattle has an embarrassment of riches with so many solid bands at every level.

Ser Punto Cero, Memento Mori and Diztorzion Paranormal at Cheves and Beer - with Mariachi!

My daughters know the guitarist in Ser Punta Cero (which I mangled into Ser.0, oops), so I booked them for a Veracity show and enjoyed getting to see them play. I friended the band members on Facebook and heard they were playing a Spring show locally put on by the Seattle Latin Collective. I've seen some great videos of SLC shows posted by Omar Taboada (they are worth checking out) which made me want to check one out for myself, so I had the perfect opportunity.
Seattle's Latin music scene doesn't get much attention in the press, which is unfortunate. From the videos I've seen there are plenty of talented local Latin bands, and local live talent is one of my favorite things.
The first band up was Diztorzion Paranormal out of Yakima. They had 2 guitarists and a drummer, slightly unusual instrument combination, the vocalist tended to play low end parts on his guitar so he was almost playing bass parts. Fast, slightly thrashy rough rock and roll, nice stuff. The drummer is very active on this song, filling the low end nicely:
I enjoy good rock music, even when I don't understand the language - the emotion still comes through, and the backbeat makes you move.
One of the bands had to cancel, so they had a Mariachi band fill in. One of our friends at the table (they mostly spoke the language, I was the only mono-lingual person at the table) told me they were going to have Mariachi Karaoke and asked me if I was going to go up and sing. That made me laugh, and if I had known just how amazing the actual Mariachi Karaoke performers were going to be, I'd have laughed even harder.

The band had a deep catalog of fast intricate music, with horns and violins/fiddles and guitars and lots of vocals. Several members shared vocals, then they had guest vocalists from the audience sing songs too. This was the Karaoke aspect. The singers from the audience were all impressive, with powerful voices and a good command of vibrato.
Wonderful stuff, and they played a good solid set of moving, powerful songs.
The karaoke wrapped up and Ser Punto Cera took the stage for the headlining set.
Ser Punto Cera has a classic power trio lineup and gets a good guitar oriented sound, a little more on the spacey/droney side in this example:
On this one they drive the drone more to an interesting edgy, agitated sound.
For a dive bar rock and roll experience, this one stands out a bit. Notice in the Ser Punto Cera videos they have each of the 3 "home locations" for the musicians covered with bright lights that they switch on and off. They have a fairly careful placement of lights to enhance the stage performance, and they also put some effort into the look and are developing a more consistent sound. Perhaps consistent isn't quite the right word, since they change the sound from song to song. They're developing their own sound, which has an interesting range.

Good loud rock music and Mariachi Karaoke - the Seattle Latin Collective delivered a fun Spring experience, with the music in Spanish and the beer in two languages to start the Spring music season off right.

The Men, Dude York, CCR Headcleaner and Big Eyes at the Vera Project

After attending the pop conference at the EMP Saturday morning and afternoon I headed over to the Vera Project and set the tripod up for the show. I was there pretty early so I got to listen to the sound checks and hang around a while, then Big Eyes took the stage right on time at 8:30. Big Eyes has a power trio lineup with the guitarist also singing. Good guitar oriented sound, nicely active high end from the drummer and a good solid low end from the bass, nice guitar riffs driving the songs along, good vocal hook too on the first song here. I also enjoyed the solo about 2:20 in, a good contained solo, old school sort of stuff that stays within the song structure and adds nicely to the song - tasty. Fun set, and we were just getting started.

Next up was CCR Heacleaner. In a musical context, when I see CCR I think of Credence Clearwater Revival. I can't say the music sounded like it was inspired by that CCR or anything along those lines. They had 3 guitars, bass and drums. They play songs with unconventional structures, sections of slower tempo building and ebbing, multiple vocals on occasion, and fairly complex song structures. They were working out some different sounding approaches, definitely doing and creating their own thing.

Up next was Dude York. I hadn't heard them before, but the bass player was in Natalie Portman's Shaved Head/Brite Futures so I'd seen her quite a few times and was looking forward to seeing her new band.
Dude York had a power trio lineup as well. The first song on this video has pretty aggressive, driving beat and a more angular sound than Big Eyes, the earlier power trio. They cranked out some edgy tunes, more from the punk side of the spectrum perhaps - powerful fast songs, not too long. I was happy to hear old friends in new sounding bands I've been seeing Dude York getting booked quite bit locally, so it looks like they're doing pretty well which is even better.

The Men took the stage for their headlining set. The had 3 guitars, an acoustic and two electric, along with the bass and drums. The acoustic guitar player also played  keyboards on occasion.

I like the way the meld the guitars together in this one. Nice beat and prominent guitar placement in the turnarounds, good vocals that are easy to pick out, nice song structure. Interesting music, fairly uptempo, I even enjoy the "la la la la-la la" bit towards the end of the song. Goof stuff!

The transition from song to song is also reasonably brisk, so they packed quite a bit of music into a moderate sized set. I didn't get to stay to the end of their set, since I had to catch the bus (which got stuck in traffic so I missed the transfer and got stuck downtown, but that's a different story). I enjoyed what I saw, and it was nice seeing Claire's new gig in Dude York and hearing 4 bands that are new to me that all are doing interesting things is always fun.