Musical Plans

There are interesting musical options over the next few days. After some thought I'm planning an ambitious weekend, hopefully it'll work.

It starts with Friday's Out To Lunch show by the Maldives, one of my favorite local acts (I've got lots of favorites). I saw them at the first Run Vera Run event at Seward Park, at an Out To Lunch show on Harbor Steps a few years back with my daughter, and at Bumbershoot more than once. Jason Dodson also does an occasional solo bit too. Here's a photo by Joe Mabel of the Maldives at the Ballard Seafood Fest, as you can see they have a fairly large band. Fun band, well rehearsed, alt-country songs, good stuff.

The weather looks to be hot and sunny, so maybe we'll stop for a beer on the way back to the office since I'm working the regular 9 to 5 gig in the office downtown.

After work I head over to the Vera Project where I'm volunteering - running sound, so I'll plug microphones in for the Youth Speaks event. This will be poetry and spoken word with a DJ so it's probably some music to, but pre-recorded so the microphone setup isn't too complex. No band to mic, just a few mics for spoken word performers.

I'll miss the Friday night West Seattle Summerfest with Pony Time, The Shivas, La Luz, Lance Romance doing a DJ set and the Thermals headlining - solid lineup and a free show so I hate to miss it, but I still have Saturday.

The West Seattle Summerfest lineup on Saturday includes Sisters, Naked Giants, Wimps, Black Whales, S, The Fame Riot, Kithkin, Vox Mod and the Cave Singers and more. It lasts from Noon to late but I don't, so I figure my son Ben and I can go and see 2 or 3 bands. Maybe Naked Giants, Wimps and Black Whales in the late afternoon, for example. Here's a picture of Naked Giants (at least I think it's Naked Giants, it's from the EMP Sound Off! this Spring)

From here the logistics are slightly tricky. My son is 17 which is fine for West Seattle Summerfest, but the Minus 5 are playing the Tractor Tavern (21+) so my son can't go. I'll have to get him home but leave myself in Ballard. If I drive all the way home from West Seattle to drop Ben off I'm probably not going to be energetic and motivated enough to get our of the house and drive back to Seattle in the evening.

Looks like I need to have Ben head home with a sister, or put him on the bus. That way I can see the Minus 5 with McCaughey and whoever - I saw them at Bumbershoot several years back and really don't want to miss the chance to see them again. They already canceled a Tractor show to go play a show with Tweedy (it may have been a Young Fresh Fellows show that was cancelled, my memory is uncertain).

I can't find pictures from Young Fresh Fellows or Minus 5 shows I've been to, so I'll post an odd (crappy) video of Scott McCaughey doing a Minus 5 song called "Oh Sht Man." Great song, lousy video but the audio is OK. This was from a many hours long "show" with Robyn Hitchcock and other local Seattle luminaries at the Cyclops in Belltown. I think it was really more of a rehearsal than a show - they didn't charge anything and just played an insane number of songs. Hitchcock said they were auditioning the place as a hangout to work on their performance to replace an older hangout they used to use in Belltown.


West Seattle Summerfest is a personal favorite - I remember seeing Shelby Earl doing her different songs with a simple stripped down approach, her music that had something - and this was in 2010, before the albums and NPR love and Amazon's "Best Album You Might Have Missed" award. You can see some amazing, memorable bands and it's free


There's a nice circularity here - I led off with the Out To Lunch series, wandered over to Shelby Earl via West Seattle Summerfest, and now of course I can't stop until I also point out that Shelby Earl is playing a free Out To Lunch show on Wednesday August 19 at Two Union Square. It's worth checking out the web site, there are so many good bands playing like Fly Moon Royalty, Naomi Wachira, the Staxx Brothers, Craft Spells, McTuff, The Dusty 45s, Lee Oskar, Tubaluba, Bleach Bear, Vaudeville Etiquette, St. Paul De Vence, Industrial Revelation, Clinton Fearon and the Boogie Brown Band, Eldridge Gravy and the Court Supreme and more.

Here's the overall West Seattle Summerfest schedule, this is a great lineup of local talent for free. I may miss most of it but I encourage anybody who has the time to see as many bands as possible.

Band	Day	2015 Set time
Gibraltar	FRIDAY	3:00
Evening Bell	FRIDAY	4:00
Pony Time	FRIDAY	5:00
Deep Creep	FRIDAY	6:00
The Shivas	FRIDAY	7:00
La Luz	FRIDAY	8:00
DJ Lance Romance	FRIDAY	9:00
The Thermals	FRIDAY	9:30
Sisters	SATURDAY	11:00
Pig Snout	SATURDAY	12:00
Navvi	SATURDAY	1:00
Timbre Barons	SATURDAY	2:00
Naked Giants	SATURDAY	3:00
Wimps	SATURDAY	4:00
Black Whales	SATURDAY	5:00
S	SATURDAY	6:00
The Fame Riot	SATURDAY	7:00
Kithkin	SATURDAY	8:00
Vox Mod	SATURDAY	9:00
The Cave Singers	SATURDAY	9:30
The Solvents	SUNDAY	1:00
Memphis Radio Kings	SUNDAY	2:00
Stereo Embers	SUNDAY	3:00
Sick Sad World	SUNDAY	4:00

Tom Brosseau, Shelby Earl and Jon Sands at the Fremont Abbey

I've heard good things about the Fremont Abbey, but I had never managed to catch a show there. Then I saw that Shelby Earl was playing there with Tom Brosseau. Tickets were $10, or $12 for the second row, or $14 for the first row. I got the last 3 tickets in the first row. Time to check the venue out!

After work I caught the 5 from the office to Fremont and wandered around until I figured out where the Fremont Abbey is. It's in a building that looks like a church, or an abbey I suppose. Brilliant insight there! I had visions of a large open space, but it was actually in the bottom floor in a fairly small room. Dana drove the car down and joined me for the show.

Jon Sands, a poet from New York city, led things off. Seattle is probably one of the more poet friendly towns around, and Fremont is even more poet friendly than the Seattle norm, so it was a really friendly crowd. Sands liked the attention and feedback and kept us amused and occupied. Sands did a bit of verbal riffing and poetry, and Shelby Earl came out and played a guitar backing for one poem, and Sands went about (as he put it) spreading magic. He told stories and blushed at the racier bits of his own poems (those front row seats are nice!), and obviously was thrilled by the audience's positive reaction. He had fun with the single folks in a crowd participation bit and worked well both in the intro and between acts. In the small scale venue with a couple of very folky/singer songwriter acts Sands was a good fit and added entertainment and kept us engaged.

Next Shelby Earl took the stage with Anna-Lisa Notter. Shelby sings leads and pays guitar and Anna-Lisa sings backup, sometimes a separate line or repeat but more often a harmony with Shelby's voice.

"Everyone Belongs to Someone" is one of my favorites, Shelby's and Anna-Lisa's voices play off of each other wonderfully, giving the titular vocal an aching quality - you know it's a lament well before it circles to the ultimate "who belongs to me?" This is one of my favorite songs, it's beautiful in the intimate stripped down version at the abbey and it's beautiful in the full band version at the Sunset. Shelby is the master of the slower tempos, her songs build over the longer slower measures to a powerful impact. They resonate and you still hear and feel them long after the show is over.


Shelby played some new stuff & "James" was great, a complex love song with another one of those classic heartbreaking Shelby Earl endings. Her voice was excellent all night, and when she and Anna-Lisa hit some of the sadder intervals it just does something to your heart and soul. The best songs leaves me somewhat breathless because I forget to breath while they hit the peaks and valleys of emotion. We're right next to the stage on one side and the audience is very quiet and attentive, focused on the performance. Sea of Glass is another great song. I keep thinking that - Swift Arrows is an another great song. The mics and amplification and speakers are all working perfectly well and the abbey is a fairly small short space (more wide than deep) so it doesn't need all that much amplification or volume. The full version of Burn the Boats (not yet released) is another great song. Shelby's acoustic guitar and the vocals and Anna-Lisa came through very clean and clear in the mix. Shelby's songs are heartrending and moving and her performance is beautiful both technically and lyrically. She has still more songs she's working on and the taste we got made us hungry for more. She's managed to get good coverage more than once from NPR., her songs and albums are awesome and her performances are great. Keep an eye out for her shows, they're always worth seeing and she may not be playing small venues for too long.

Next we got a passionate reading from Jon Sands, dedicated to his older brother that Jon wrote for his brother's wedding. It was a good romantic reading and prepped us nicely for Tom Brosseau.

Brosseau has a wonderful voice, a tenor that was very nuanced in the clean sound of the abbey. He can sound old and weary when he wants, young and energetic too. Mostly he just sounds very wise. That voice is gorgeous and the patter was interesting, including a bit of a road story.
After a few songs Brosseau announced a sepecial guest - Mark Pickerel. Mark's a local celebrity from Ellensburg who played in Screaming Trees 3 decades ago (my how time flies) and is a fixture on the local scene, frequently playing as Mark Pickerel and His Praying Hands and occasionally - like now - solo with a guitar. He basically pwned Brosseau and Earl in 2 sentences with one of the most efficient bits of patter I've ever heard, then kicked into an inspired "I Study Horses" that Mark says Brosseau had requested. Inspired choice, it's a great song and showcases Pickerel's baritone voice. I didn't get video, but KEXP has a nice full band version I'll embed.
Tasty, brilliant performance of a powerful song that worked extremely well done solo with acoustic guitar.

Finally Brosseau came back on and finished his set with beautiful songs and a voice that you can't help falling in love with. Since I didn't record anything I'll embed this KEXP video of Brosseau. After a couple songs for an encore the show ended with the crowd sharing a glow and huge smiles. The performers hung around to sell & sign merch so we got to hang & visit and enjoy the afterglow together for a while longer. Pretty amazing talent and a moving show, Wednesday ended up going extremely well, even better than I expected. Mark Pickerel as a guest star is going to enhance any show, and the quality of the performers, performances, and venue sound were nothing short of amazing.

Who's Next?

One of my favorite sports is rooting for local bands and artists to have their careers take off and get huge. Heart, Sir Mixalot, The Presidents of the USA, Nirvana, Pearl Jam & Alice in Chains all made it.

I got a thrill out of Macklemore & Ryan Lewis blowing up, as if I had something to do with it beyond clapping and screaming at the top of my lungs at their shows a couple times. Pretty similar to the feeling I get when the Seahawks do well.

So who locally looks like they're ready to blow up? Perhaps the question is who sounds like they're ready to blow up? We have an awesome regional music scene in the NW, so which bands/artists are sufficiently talented, hardworking, and lucky enough to break out from regional success to national?

Are we going to see another hip hop act explode, like Kung Fu Grip or Don't Talk to the Cops? Has Thee Satisfaction already blown up? If not, they’ve got to be close!

Maybe a singer/songwriter? Amazon.com named Shelby Earl's prior album the "#1 Outstanding 2011 Album You Might Have Missed," and her new one is better. I suspect she’s already– as ZZ Top Said – nationwide.Damien Jurado produced Shelby Earl's latest, and he blew me away with Marqopa and has been getting some love and attention for his latest album too. Will he finally get some recognition proportional to his talent?

Many other bands have knocked me out at live shows, maybe it’s one of these next: Deep Sea Diver? Sera Cahoone? Lonely Forest? Star Anna? TacocaT? Crimson Wave was fun and the video had crabs and octopuses. Wait, Brandi Carlile – with that voice and talent, she ought to have a strong national following, I suppose she’s already nationwide? Bret Amaker and the Rodeo? Fly Moon Royalty is doing a West coast tour, it wouldn't take much for them to break nationally too.

You can probably tell I don’t have that great a handle on who is or isn't already past the regional stage. That doesn't bother me much, I’ll just keep rooting for all of them and see them live every chance I get.

Lavender Diamond and Shelby Earl at the Sunset Tavern

I've been a fan of Shelby Earl since seeing her at West Seattle Summer Fest in 2010, and she sounded great at an early afternoon set at Bumbershoot that I caught for a little bit, so I was looking forward to seeing he in a nice small scale setting at the Sunset Tavern.

Shelby opened for Lavender Diamond, an unknown band for me. Jaime posted about Lavender Diamond on Facebook and was looking forward to seeing her, and Jaime's recommendations have always been solid.

I got there early, took a seat with a good location in the bar and had a beer. The location gave me a good intimate view of the stage. Shelby and her band came out, fairly classic lineup with Shelby singing leads and playing acoustic guitar, a hollow body electric, a stand-up bass, and a drum kit. They had a back-up vocalist who occasionally sang some leads, and the hollow body electric guitarist and bass player also added tasty backing vocals on occasion. Shelby has some great songs, "Under Evergreen" is already a favorite after a few listens:

She does some down-tempo romantic, sad songs that make my heart ache at the same time as they put a smile on my face, songs like "Everyone Belongs to Someone:"

Lavender Diamond was new to me, she performed with a small group that played a pretty stripped down music and added an occasional tasty backing vocal. Once the music starts her vocals are the focus. Another example of a fairly slow tempo, unusually slow for modern music, but wonderfully apt for this beautiful, soaring song. As she hits some of the higher notes with those clear clean vowels, just nailing the note no matter where it is - I get goose bumps. I love that - her performance is disarming, communicating directly to my emotions, making it hard to remember to keep the camera framing her properly as I lose myself in aching beauty.

Her patter brings the mood back to Earth, she's a bit of a nut, but so am I and she's mostly my kind of nut. The stuff about holograms is classic, she's on to a solid metaphor: each bit of the hologram encodes part of the whole, so if you remove a bit of the hologram, no single object or detail drops out, instead the overall detail diminishes a bit. The patter is fun if a little scattered, and the songs are wonderful.

She has an amazing voice with a great range and precise control of pitch, tone, and volume. Her microphone control is also impressive as she smoothly moves back away and turns a little while cranking intensity up, wailing away without overwhelming the mic or the sound system, then moves back in for a quieter breathier section, carefully keeping her voice balanced in the mix without overly "playing to the mic" - check the bit around 4:20, for example. Lavender Diamond petty much relies on the frontwoman's voice and personality: she's the show, the other musician's are her backing group. From where I sat and stood, that works well. Lavender Diamond takes a powerful voice used beautifully and expressively and showcases it in quiet yet emotional songs that sneak up on you and get inside your heart. She takes you on an emotional spiritual journey for 4 minutes or so, then brings you back to what passes for Earth in the Northwest with patter about holograms and rain from hotel windows and creative blockakge, followed by another 4+ minute song soaring off into the ether...
Somehow her songs mend my heart on a level that I hadn't even noticed was hurting.

Saturday at Folk Life Fest

Dana and I went to Folk Life Fest on Saturday and it was hot, fun, and crowded. We were lucky enough to catch some Shelby Earl, I haven't seen her since West Seattle Fest a couple years ago. I really should pay more attention and catch her full act again, she's got a gorgeous sound and a fun presence and her songs made me happy. We also saw an amazing variety and quantity of pick-up bands busking all over the place, pretty much wall to wall music in little micro-climates.
Kids playing at the Mural Amphitheater:
Buskers! All over the place bands pick out little patches of space and start playing for tips and for the sheer fun of playing in public. Constellations of listeners gather round the better groups and you can hear an amazing variety of music with a different band every 20 or 30 feet.
Shortly after recording this I misplaced my camera, so that's it for video.

I heard some great twangy sounding stuff from bands on the main stage while Dana and I were over in the crowds in the vendor area, great music even though you couldn't see the band.
The Sun got hot and the crowds got larger.

If you stayed away from the food areas it wasn't as crowded, and for all the crowding it was pretty mellow. We took the dog and things were fine.

It got hot and sunny enough that I took the dog down through the fountain, cooling off with a blast of cold water as I ran through the bottom area with all the kids. You can see the damp spots on my clothes, and the pants and shoes were good and wet too. It made me feel much cooler and the dog liked it too.

There were some human statues and some other odds and ends in terms of street performers sprinkled in here and there too:

I managed to catch some additional good music, even if I didn't get any video.  NighTraiN at the Vera had an excellent groove going.
I think they played a Veracity gig at the Vera a year or more back, and I saw them at Reverb Fest too, I enjoy their shows.

As I said, there were all kinds of bands and buskers all over the grounds. I liked the drums in this one man band setup, he had one for each foot with a clever mechanism to hold the two drums and play them, one for each foot.

We also checked out many of the vendors which adds a visual element to the afternoon's entertainment. Dana really liked the Faerie wings and had me get a photo, and there many stalls with interesting crafts and arts. 

You know you got lucky on the weather when both fountains are packed and you're glad they're available.  

I was glad to see they had the Broad Street lawn set up as a stage, along with the Mural and the Fountain lawn and the Northwest Courts - 4 stages up there, two outside

...and the EMP Sky Church and the Center House (I didn't actually see any acts at the Sky Church or Center House though) so that's at least 9 official "programmed" stages and 50 or 60 unofficial busker locations all going at the same time. I'm pretty sure I'm leaving out additional programmed stages for dance music in the Exhibition Hall and other events in the various playhouses and stages and performance spaces around the Seattle Center.

It was a smorgasboard of music, walk from live act to live act, drinking in the music and performance, once you're satisfied with enough of this, wander over and get some of that. Hundreds of buskers going at any one time, perhaps more than a thousand over the 4 days of the festival, and it's mostly spontaneous and self organizing. I wish I had more time and energy, and maybe a team, so we could go in and record 10 or 20 acts at a time and get 100 or more hours of video a day and actually semi-document what is going on in all it's variety and spontaneity. Nice fantasy, mostly caused by a desire to actually get to see more of the performances. At best I'll see a handful and just on the day I go, so inevitably I'll miss all kinds of good live music. At least I didn't miss it all!

Prepping for Bumbershoot

Bumbershoot is next weekend and I've started preparing my devices and planning my strategy. I've got a new 2 hour Flip so I can record 168 minutes of video plus whatever I add with my digital SLR. The SLR does nice HD videos but the sound fails badly when recording anything that's loud so the Flip produces usable video, SLR mostly does photos.

I'll try my new Flip out tonight at the Vera Project with Braille, Theory Hazit and Knowmads. I may borrow or purchase a field recorder too.

I'll do a few Wii Fit yoga and exercise workouts this week to keep my back limber and my strength up, and we'll pay attention to hydration and good food choices at Bumbershoot and hope things go well. No major physical trauma heading in this year, but my neck and shoulders are still out of sorts from my epic unpleasant trip back from India.

Plotting out Bumbershoot bands, why did they have to have Shelby Earl and the Presidents of the USA at the same time? Brite Futures and Craft Spells too, and Nice Nice vs. PS I Love You, tough choices, that plus Shabazz Palaces and it isn't even 6PM on the first day yet. I count 38 bands I wouldn't mind seeing, if I can get to 20 of those that's better than 50%, anyway. Saturday is shaping up to be a good day, both of my daughters and my son will be going with me. This will be the 4th or 5th time I've seen the PUSA, my daughters have seen 3 or 4 I think, and this will be Ben's 3rd at least. They're definitely a family favorite, always put on a hot energetic fun show. STRFKR, Lawnchair Generals, Meklit Hadero, Ray LaMontagne and Mavis Staples and others I've never heard of. Awesome lineup for the first night!

I should be able to get some good videos, here's a favorite from last year's Bumbershoot:

This performance is on the Broad Street stage, they aren't using that stage this year. and they also aren't using Memorial Stadium as the main stage. They are using 2 stages in the EMP, the Key Arena as the main stage, and an additional fountain stage, so the venue lineup is a little different.

Sunday kicks off with Sol, local reggae, Lonely Forest and Whalebones at the same time, Mad Rad and Massey Ferguson at the same time, No Means No overlapping with Broken Social Scene, Thee Oh Sees, DaM FunK + Master Blazter, Atari Teenage Riot, Com Truise, Das Racist, Anti-Flag, Warpaint, Butthole Surfers and Leon Russel at the same time, with Macklemore and Ryan Lewis 30 minutes later, Tori Y Moi, The Kills, Joe Pug, Whiz Khalifa and more. Sunday's lineup looks excellent.



Monday has Motopony and the Horde and the Harem at the same time, a stretch of unfamiliar (to me) bands: Legendary Oaks, Fly Moon Royalty, Quadron, Curtains For You, Kendric Lamar and DJ Introcut. Finally bands I recognize: My Goodness, Head Like A Kire, Grand Hallway, Big Boi, YACHT, WD4D, MASH HALL, Ill Cosby, LAKE, Sharon Van Etten, Vendetta Red, Urge Overkill, Ravenna Woods, Fitz and the Tantrums, Phantogram, Truckasaurus, The Reverend Horton Heat, Hall & Oates, Grant Lee Buffalo. Other new to me bands like Sallie Ford & the Sound Outside, SPLATINUM, Over the Rhine, 214, Eisley,
Charles Bradly, and Greensky Bluegrass. Quite a lineup, I hope I can do it justice!

I'll bring 2 Flips and my digital SLR and (hopefully) a field recorder. I try to get a video of a song and some photos from each band, with favorite bands (PUSA) getting several songs.

Even 168 minutes of Flip will get used up pretty quickly and I can be pretty picture happy with the SLR. I'm trying to arrange a spot for my laptop so I can download videos wile recharging the Flips and download my photos and recharge the SLR batteries too. A 45 minute pause to get downloaded and recharged (overlapped with food and water and cleanup etc.) could double the daily capacity!