Saturday at the Capitol Hill Block Party

I volunteered at the Vera booth at the Capitol Hill Block Party on Saturday. I got there way early, close to 1 so the music hadn't started yet, and my shift at the Vera booth wasn't until 3.

I helped setup by chalking out the Vera Stage schedule on the street in front of the booth, then wandered around checking out the other booths. The Washington Bus booth was giving out excellent popsicles and registering people to vote, and they've now committed to helping pass the Marriage Equality law that we'll be voting on this fall. The Bus is one of my favorite local charities; lack of voting by the young is a major problem in this country and leads to elections that don't represent the will of all of the people, only those who vote. Anything that gets the youth more involved politically and more engaged can only be helpful, as far as I'm concerned. No matter what you might think of any specific issue they take on, the result will be better if more people are involved in the decision. I know that there are explicit strategies to disenfranchise voters who won't "see it our way" but I have a real problem with that approach. Anybody advocating for disenfranchisement on specious grounds is actually afraid of democracy and the will of the people, so they're trying to tilt the ability to participate against those they oppose and that's just horrible. By engaging and registering youth and involving them in the political process the Washington Bus is helping improve the system, while make our democracy more representative and inclusive. Thanks!

Once the music started I was able to catch a few acts like Reignwolf: Reignwolf has a band now, the first few performances I saw (video taped stuff from Jet City Stream, a favorite site for local acts) he played by himself doing guitar and vocals and also using a drum with one foot hitting the pedal. I like him better as a band mostly because the low end is more full and the beat's a little more prominent, but I love his guitar shedding and sound either way.

I also saw Nightmare Fortress at Neumos doing an early set. Interesting sound, the drums are synthesized from a keyboard (at least I think they were, they may have been sequenced, it's hard to be sure), the guitar was jangly and distorted, and the fog machines were running. Good to see some heavier creepier stuff in the mix!

I dropped by the Vera Stage to catch Stephanie before going to work in the Vera booth: Nice guitar oriented sound and I like the vocals, it's a single vocalist so they must be using some echo to give it more depth, it almost sounded like somebody was singing harmonies to me.

I had a little time before my shift started so I zipped over to the mainstage and caught a bit of Absolute Monarchs, another band I've been wanting to see:

After Absolute Monarchs my shift started so I wasn't able to go see some other acts like Brent Amaker and the Rodeo, one of these days I've got to track them down!
I did manage to see the acts at the Vera Stage, since the Vera booth (tent?) was petty close to that, so I got some video of Nude: I like the sound, it's (I can't help myself) a bit stripped down with a classic 2 guitar, bass and drum lineup. The sun was pretty intense and it was fairly warm (for Seattle, anyway) and I think that contributes to the crowd moving less. I like it when the crowd moves more but that tends to happen later when the audience is in the shade and there's more people there. I suppose the bands have to pay their dues, taking early festival slots early on as they work their way up to the better slots. Gives 'em something to shoot for, anyway.

Mostly I hung out at the Vera booth telling people about the Vera Project and handing out freebies and chalking and so on. As each act started on the Vera Stage I headed over and video taped another song or two, so next up was Tropical Punk: I enjoyed their set, they got the crowd moving a little - or at least they got me moving a little. Good driving beat and nice guitar oriented sound, good vocals too.

The last band to play a set on the Vera Stage while I was volunteering was Hot Bodies In Motion: As it got later in the day the crowds slowly got larger and more active which always enhances the experience from my point of view; HBiM was able to get the audience to clap along on the video above, I'm not sure it would've worked that well with the earlier crowds.

As my shift ended I caught a bit of Tom Eddy on the Vera Stage: Nice sound, good songs, didn;t see that much of his set though, I'll have to keep an eye out for him, I'd like another chance to see a longer set.

I made it back to the main stage in time to catch a bit of what I think is Twin Shadow: The sunlight makes it hard to see the band, even the plumes of pot smoke rising from the crowd are easier to see. Sorry, got there too late to get close enough for a better video. Interesting sound for the little bit I saw, another band for the "I'd like to see a more complete set" category!

Next I was too late to see Reignwolf's set at Neumos, good thing I saw the earlier set!

I was winding down, showing up to late to see most acts and my feet were starting to hurt. I made it down to listen to Pony Time, but once again I was too late to get close enough to see anything; at least I could hear it:

I headed back to the Vera Stage and caught some of the Night Beats, the audience was in the shade (finally!) so it was much more pleasant, but by then I was getting dehydrated from the beer and heat and lack of water. Did I mention there was no public watering station? That's unfortunate, I brought a water bottle in thought I'd be able to refill it once I drank it, but that did't end up being the case. Memo to the CHBP operation: a water station is pretty much a needed item when July gets hot at a festival.

At that point I called it a night and headed out. I wish I'd been able to stay, I would've enjoyed seeing Space Needles and Lemolo again, and the mainstage acts looked interesting, but I was just running out of gas and getting to the shows too late, and I didn't have enough energy to hang out at a venue like the Cha Cha for 40 minutes to make sure I had a good spot; if I start hanging out in lounges I tend to drink more, and that won't lead to more energy or good videos anyway.

So that's a wrap, I headed out and caught the bus home. Ten bands, lots of fun, hours spent talking about the Vera Project, a little more beer than is good for me, pork pulled sandwiches and pizza eaten, enjoyed the heck out of it. I wish I was in better shape so I could've caught a few more acts, but there's always next year.

Thee Oh Sees CHBP kick-off at All Saints

I follow the Stranger and the Capitol Hill Block Party on Facebook, and they both mentioned a free "Capitol Hill Block Party Launch" show featuring Thee Oh Sees playing at the downtown All Saints store. I was working at the office downtown anyway, so after work I walked over and got in line.

All Saints is a clothing store and they have an interesting antique sewing machine theme, I suppose it's sorta steam punk-ish or something. Steam punk doesn't particularly grab me, but antique sewing machines do. Many of my clothes as a kid were sewed by my grandma on a sewing machine just like those at All Saints, and I used it myself a few times.

First time I've attended a show in a clothing store, and with all the exposed brick and metal I had to wonder how good the sound was going to be. Sailor Jerry was a sponsor, so they were handing out free drinks too, which was sweet! Free drinks and a free show from a band I like is a nice way to end a work day, so I can't really complain even if the sound is poor. Turned out the sound was fine, but the video was shaky. A couple of stiff rum drinks and a rocking band and I can't hold still, no surprise there. As I've mentioned before, it's Dave's inverse rule of great shows vs. great videos. When using a hand held camera, the better the show is the worse the video is, I just can't stop bouncing and moving. Sorry! Well, not really, I'd rather see an excellent show and get shaky video pretty much every time, the real solution is to use a tripod but that doesn't work in the mosh pit! Lots of great music, hmm, the above video is shaky even before they start playing, maybe that rum was more potent than I realized!

I saw a bit of Thee Oh Sees at Bumbershoot last year and I'm glad I finally got to see a whole set, I enjoy the rocking out guitars and the doubled vocals between the guitarist (male) and keyboards (female), they get some cool yips and a male falsetto doubled with a woman's voice, somewhat unusual to have vocals this tricky for a fast and thrashy sounding band, I think it works extremely well.

I didn't get to see them perform at the CHBP on Friday, but judging from the tweets and Facebook comments they put on a great performance, wish I could've been there. I do get to go (tonight) to the Saturday CHBP since I'm volunteering at the Vera Project booth, so I'll have plenty more videos to post shortly. I enjoy Summer in Seattle, and the music is a big part of why: outdoor festivals, free shows, fewer schedule difficulties with the kids out of school, Summer tends to have lots of memorable musical moments.

2011 In Review

My December Retrospective also turned into a look back at the first few months of 2011 up to Sasquatch. That was a great start to the year, and the rate of shows shot up as festival season arrived. CHBP was awesome, so many bands!
Ra Ra Riot was good, I downloaded a sampler of their music in 2010 that I enjoyed and the live show was solid fun.

Constant Lovers were good

Lisa Dank was fun

My Goodness!

Spaceneedles

TacocaT! finally saw them, I knew they were going to be good because their name is a palindrome. Sure enough, they were awesome.

and that's only a fraction of the fun music and talent at the Capitol Hill Block Party.

We ended the Summer with Bumbershoot. Once again, almost too much good music.
Brite Futures ruled stadium shows, who knew? I'd seen them at the Vera in the Spring, now they had a 10,000+ person dance party in the Key.

Kris Orloski ruled

Champagne Champagne was one of the year's consistently good hip-hop outfits.

PUSA!

Also, check out about :30 into this one

Dave's principle of lousy videos for great shows: the best shows make me bounce in spite of myself and the videos end up shakey and hard to take. I'd say sorry, except I'm not, I'll take a lousy video because the band was busy kicking my butt into frantic dancing any day, those are the shows you remember most fondly. OK, that's some of the fun stuff from the first day.

Next day had so much good music


Mad Rad killed all year on 2 numbers: Life On Part Mountain

...and You Only Live Once, worth the hall of fame for the air piano alone, and the song is a kick.











Words fail me, I saw a boatload of great music in 2011 and had a great time doing it.

Next up I give some love to local acts and I've still got to do my Top 10 Lists blog.

Summer Update

I was trying to do monthly retrospectives to review what I've seen and look forward a bit. Due to circumstances beyond my control (a death in the family) that plan went off the rails for a couple months.

I finally got caught back up on the Capitol Hill Block Party (except my pix from Saturday have disappeared for now) so it's time to catch up with another retrospective.

All kinds of awesome music related performance since my May retrospective and a few sad musical experiences too. The songs you hear while a loved one is passing away will take on an amazing (and somewhat painful) poignancy, at least for me. I love remembering my parents, even if it makes me cry, so in an odd way I celebrate the painfulness of hearing those songs again. More than anything else I love passion in music, and passionate performances knock me out.


Passion can be up or down - passionately angry and amazingly passionate depression are both common in some of my favorite songs. The upside of human emotion is well represented too, thank goodness. In some cases we bring our own passion and meaning to songs based on associations with events in our lives that we feel passionate about, and that's also another beautiful element of music.

I saw an amazing amount of good music over the last two and a half months, even though I was somewhat missing in action for a fair amount of it. As the saying goes, life is what happens to us while we're making other plans.

The free Veracity shows kept me supplied with some music when I wasn't really able to spend much effort on it.


I got to check out a new (to me) venue called Luther's Table and listen to a free show - somebody in the band was a friend of a friend's fiancee's kid or something like that, good enough excuse for me to check it out. I'm pretty sure Luther's Table is run as an outreach for the Lutheran Church and I think that's pretty darn cool. There are many ways to witness for your faith and reach out to those willing to listen, and I think music is one of the better ways. I know it's central to my faith.


Perhaps that's enough about death, faith and philosophy, at least until next month. Partying is pretty darn fun too! The Capitol Hill Block Party kicked ass like it always does, one monster hedonistic jam with lots of cheap beer if you know where to look. I heard a pile of new (to me) bands like Fucked Up:

Ra Ra Riot:

Spaceneedles (love the name):

Campfire OK:

I finally saw TacocaT!

I also got to hear some old favorites like the Head and the Heart and Grynch:


I also heard some music in India while I was there on a business trip (the soud is somewhat drowned out by the fountain, too bad):


Let's see, through May I saw 157 bands, 136 for the first time. In the last two and a half months I saw 73 more so the total now stand at 230 performances, 203 for the first time.

I didn't make it to Hempfest - too jet lagged and tired, I got back late Saturday and took it easy Sunday. There's an interesting festival next weekend called the Northwest Love Fest I'd like to see but I'm not sure if I'll make it. Seattle Peace concerts coming up too, I may get to one of those.

In two weekends Bumbershoot is here, and I have tickets for all 3 days. Here's one of my favorite performances from last year's Bumbershoot with Hey Marseilles covering Love Insurgent:

I should see 60 or so bands Bumbershoot weekend alone, which will put me very close to 300 for the year. Looking forward to more good music, and with my second Flip I can get even more video per show!

Capitol Hill Block Party: Friday

I'm very late getting material from the Capitol Hill Block Party posted, sorry about that. It was a great festival/party and I saw many good bands, but I didn't do a very good job getting videos and photos.

On Friday I took my nice digital SLR, but not my Flip video camera. The digital SLR takes great pictures and good videos, except that the mic does NOT handle loud music well. as a result some of the videos can be pretty much un-listenable.

I'll go ahead and run through what I saw and use the material I ended up with, anyway.

I saw (or mostly heard) Grave Babies and Boat playing on the Vera stage while I was working at the Vera Project booth, so I didn't get any video or photos, but I enjoyed both bands.

The first band I recorded was Fucked Up (that's the bands name, not a description).

Here's a video of them doing Crooked Head:

They use a triple guitar, bass and drums lineup. The vocals are pretty much screamed over the top, resulting in a loud and obnoxious sound that I enjoyed. The audio distorts to some degree, but you can sorta hear what it was like. Nice energetic set, had the crowd moving.

I managed to catch Skarp on the Vera Stage, they were enjoyable and loud.

Unfortunately the video is pretty much unlistenable. Too bad!


I saw Craft Spells, second time I've seen them, they're getting more attention & seem to be blowing up to some degree. Didn't manage to get any video, just photos for them.


We did manage to save Metro, so I'll post this photo in honor of that accomplishment:


Somewhere in there I saw the Yarn Owls and the Wheelies, liked them both, especially the Wheelies. I was to late getting into the venue and it's a small flat space, so the photos aren't very good. For example, I'm not even sure who this is:

No video either.

Back at the Vera booth, the kids were digging the bubbles and chalk:



Thurston Moore played on the mainstage, interesting sound. He played an acoustic guitar and they had a fiddle player too.


Ra Ra Riot played the mainstage, interesting sound with a violin and a cello on top of the usual guitar and drums.


I caught Sol on the Vera Stage, solid hip hop with nice backing musicians on bass and vocals.

Short video from his performance, he really works the crowd:


The Constant Lovers were one of the few bands I got close enough to at the Cha Cha to actually get some good photos:

I enjoyed the Constant Lovers, they were loud, distorted and fairly fast with a heavy beat. The video of their performance sounds better than most, they didn't quite overdrive the bass as much.


Caught a bit of the Head and the Heart on the mainstage, here's a brief video:

I've seen the Head and the Heart several times now, they sure blew up quickly!

Shad put on an excellent set at the Vera Stage:

I think this is Shad playing guitar too:


The last band I "saw" at the Capitol Hill Block Party on Friday was Absolute Monarchs, I like their sound. Loud, beat heavy, distorted guitars, lyrics that you can almost make out. Good stuff!

Once again, getting to the Cha Cha stage late means I can't see the band much, I could here them though.

The music wasn't over for the night, though. I had to leave a little early (missed Ghostland Observatory and THEESatisfaction, too bad, but I had to catch a bus home) and there was a full brass band playing on the sidewalk outside the block party. I've always been a sucker for brass music (Tower of Power kicks ass!) and these guys were playing complex arrangements with many instruments, pretty cool for a free street performance. Their sign says they're "The Ten Man Brass Band"


Further down Pine (or was it Pike?) there was a dude playing acoustic guitar and singing, I shot a bit of him playing too:


Quite a bit of interesting music for one day at the block party, wish I had better video for more of them but I sure enjoyed the performances.

By my count that's 16 bands in one day. Hopefully I learned a few lessons: always bring my Flip, it consistently does a better job capturing audio. Also, blog about shows quickly afterwards, or I'll forget stuff. I enjoyed many of the bands, but a month later the details are fuzzy. I probably saw another band or two, but if I didn't get a photo or video then I'm not sure I'll remember who I saw.