June Veracity with Ram Rams and Legion of Sparrows

We got a couple of interesting bands for the June Veracity show. One had to travel to get here and half of the other was about to travel to the other side of the US permanently so there was a random underlying theme to the show.

First up was the Ram Rams, who had a member that lived on the other side of the Puget Sound and would be commuting home by ferry after the show. They appreciated the early timing. I like the visual approach - the common color theme, each expressed individually. The women fronting the band were appealing and the placement (with the dude towards the back wearing less "dressed up" clothing) emphasized them, which was fine with me. As long as I can hear the guitar I'm OK.

Ram Rams have some songs with fantastic titles like "When You Touch Yourself the Baby Jesus Weeps" - an apparently solid bit of Catholic theology that is probably intended ironically but is done without all the ironic delivery that would have made it a less perfect song.

She really does sound concerned about the effects of your actions on the baby Jesus and I like the way that makes it ambiguous.

The music was fun with hilarious songs - the titles alone are gems, and some of the songs had the most inappropriate choruses that I immediately found myself singing even though it was so wrong - "He's a slut, he's a whore, he's the man that I adore!" It's just too catchy!

Next up was Legion of Sparrows, a duo with a guitarist vocalist and drummer. They Legion had been dancing around during the Ram Rams set and enjoying the show which I like - the more movement and the more people having a good time the better the show. They took the stage and pounded away and just obviously enjoyed the hell out of it. Loud and thrashy, messy stuff with an interesting vitality.

They brought up a backup singer and did a final song without a rhythm section. I probably should've trimmed out some of the patter but I enjoy it. This is also where they talk about the drummer going to Maryland after the show.

It was an interesting show, both bands put on engaging shows that were different in their own unique ways - I love the diversity of acts, all the different performers and bands that I'm privileged to see, and I really appreciate both bands being willing to put on a great free show for us!

The bands did get some vegan and vegetarian Mexican food for their efforts - Chipotle Mexican Grill donated 18 vegan burritos and 18 vegetarian burritos so we were able to feed the bands, the volunteers and the staff and have a few leftovers. Major props to Chipotle for supporting my favorite local non-profit!

Says the Snake at the Vera Project

I stopped by the Vera Project after work on June 6 and attended the Diversity committee meeting, then stayed and filmed a little bit of "Says the Snake."

Interesting fairly heavy rock with a woman vocalist. I've heard a mild number of loud heavy rock bands with screaming vocals but this is one of the few times I've seen a scream using vocalist who's a woman, most other bands with screaming vocals that I've listened to had a man screaming. She handles the vocals well so it sounds to me like women can scream about as well as men - a little higher in pitch but a pretty similar overall sound.

I prefer this sort of approach for screamed vocals - switching back and forth between singing and screaming - to purely screamed vocals. Screamed vocals are harder to understand, and I prefer more singing overall with a smaller amount of screaming for contrast and emphasis, which is how "Says the Snake" approaches it. Nice!

I really didn't get to see much of the show and had to leave before the next band so I missed 3 acts, but at least I saw a little live music that was fun and different. Nice way to cap off the evening at the Vera project before catching the bus home.

May Veracity with How To Operate Your Brain, Allium and Scinite

Heather helped out at the May Veracity by making the food, so I was able to see the bands a bit more and I appreciate the help. I was able to get all of the sets video taped and get a few photos too.

First up was Scinite mostly doing covers of heavy metal classics from back in my day.

I love these songs and it was fun to hear them played live. My instant reaction was "crank up those guitars" - this is music that should be painfully loud, it should force you to wear ear protection.

Next up was Allium doing original songs (or possibly obscure covers, new to me anyway). Allium is apparently latin for onion and that's an onion on the drum set. Ed the sound guy was enjoying them and so was I, fun upbeat double guitar attack with a good beat. I like the way the beat changes in the bridge maybe 2 minutes in, and the transition back out was nice too.

I enjoy the songs, they do a nice job with the intros and get quite a few different tones out of the 2 guitar approach. The double lead hook on this one is fun:
I got a couple of songs in this video including one about Bjork, apparently. I ended up with recording the whole show so there are more songs to check out on my YouTube channel.

How to Operate Your Brain played next, with a 2 guitar, bass and drums lineup. Their songs had good movement, changing quite a bit in some cases yet maintaining a good coherence in spite of the different sections. Well rehearsed, good sound:

Fun reasonably fast guitar oriented music, good stuff. The songs are dynamic, changing from section to section, and the band makes is tight on the transitions - well rehearsed, right on it, on the more complex end of the song structure approaches. I like the result, good songs with movement and an arc to them.

They also had some merchandise, and so did Allium. I picked up ab "EP" - a 4 song CD - and so did Heather. Another good song, another good set, and another good Veracity. Props to Allium and H2OYB for having merchandise, they're a step further on executing on the business end than many of the Veracity bands. Props to all 3 bands for putting on a fun show for us. It'll be interesting keeping an eye to out see where these guys get booked - I friend all the Veracity bands on Facebook and bands are pretty good at posting their gigs on Facebook so I'll get to vicariously watch the band's progress and see where they play and who they play with. I wish them all well, anybody who's willing to put on a free show for us and do it well is great in my book!

4-20 LA, Knowmads, Chev and Superfire at the Vera Project

The Knowmads are one of my favorite local hip hop outfits, so when I saw they had a show coming up on short notice I volunteered. Short notice shows can be short of volunteers, and the Knowmads shows have a reputation for bringing large crowds that like to party, making security a challenge, so they could probably use me.
It turns out I was right: I was the only security volunteer. It also turns out the show was on 4-20, which I had failed to notice when I signed up. Looks like I was going to be Major Killjoy, running around telling everyone to put it out. On the other hand, I know the dudes in the Knowmads - they gave me my first interview - and they're smart and great at communicating.
I checked in with Tom Pepe and told him what was up and he offered to give us a PSA: It worked perfectly - nobody lit up in the venue at all, and working security was a pleasure. Major props to the Knowmads and Tom Pepe for guiding the crowd and giving them a great show! I got some good footage of Superfire with Rebel: SuperFire also had one number with an electric guitar: I like the sound he gets; they don't integrate the guitar into the music, rather they highlight the guitar for a bit then move back to the hip hop. Interesting, I really don't see too much live guitar at hip hop performances, although the Thermals provided a great power trio backup for some spitting at the 2011 Sasquatch Line-up announcement party. The linked blog post has a photo of the Thermals providing the groove (guitar, bass and drums) for assorted members of Das Racist and Mad Rad as they free styled, I really liked that example.
I got Saturdayzed from a hand held video recorder in the crowd while working security: ...but I mostly wasn't able to film from the crowd, I was too busy working security. I put the other camera on a tripod and turned it on when the show started, then didn't get back to it for quite a while. The result is that I ended up with a 53 minute video here that I haven't sorted out, I think it starts with Chev and then the Knowmads. I wasn't sure if YouTube took videos this long but it appears to have worked fine. I think this has the rest of the Knowmads show and then LA in a single video: I enjoyed the show, the Knowmads have several old favorites like the Boat Can Leave Now and Wildflower (this one is from the 2011 Japan benefit show; if you poke around on my YouTube channel I think I have 3 versions each of Wildflower and The Boat Can Leave Now, maybe 4 if you look hard enough) ...and Saturdayzed that I always enjoy hearing, and the new Knewbook material is growing on me - a couple more shows and the new album will be old favorites too.
The Knowmads paid for some of the costs of producing their new release the Knewbook (available for $10 on bandcamp) with a kickstarter campaign, and several of the contributors got "hang out with the band in the green room" privileges at the Vera Show and shout outs from the stage and so on which was interesting to see. The financial and marketing models used in the music industry are changing and bands like the Knowmads could make plenty of money off of purely virtual (downloaded) copies of their work without a sniff of a record company involved in the financing or delivery of their music. Not bad for a couple of 21 year old north Seattle kids, I hope they sell lots of copies of it! Their earlier "Bus Station" mix tape with 24 tracks is available free here last time I looked too, it's worth checking out!

April Veracity with Madness Becomes Method, SuperProjection, Circus Boys and Br'er Sun

We got four bands booked for the April Veracity and it ended up being the best attended show I've booked with 60 people watching a great show. I enjoyed Br'er Sun had a 4 piece lineup with keys, guitar, bass and drums with the guitarist and keyboardist doing vocals. I like the way the keys provide both the spacey filler sound and the intro tubular bells sounding riff to start this song, good guitar sound and punchy drums once it gets going: Br'er Sun wrapped up their set nicely, good job getting their social network info out while they were at it. I think the song is "So Calm" I'm not sure I have the band order recorded correctly, since some of the bands swapped positions in the lineup. Hopefully I don't mis-identify any bands, I've done that before (how embarrassing!). Circus Boys had a 2 piece keyboards and drum setup and they played fun up-tempo pop rock. Their circus trick was swapping instruments: Madness Becomes Method put on a fun energetic show and they brought the lions share of the crowd. In addition to the keys, guitar, bass, drum lineup they used a variety of instruments including an accordian and a trombone depending on the song; the crowd and the lack of any elevation make them hard to pick out in the video.

Fun band with a good party vibe with the crowd it largely brought. This number has a reggae flavored rhythm guitar, and a trombone. Nice! SuperProjection was another 2 piece, this time with guitar and drums, and the guitarist sang. Good musicians, nice songs that were totally their own like this one: They also did a cover of "What A Wonderful Life" which was very nice. This is one of my top 10 songs all time, so I'm always happy to hear someone playing it. The April Veracity show was fun and went off well, but for some reason I hardly sold a taco even though the crowd was large. I sell more if some appealing young kid is sitting at the table with the $1 sign displayed prominently, not really surprising when you think about it. The bands ate plenty, the volunteers (and I) had a few, and eventually I went ahead and gave 10 or 12 away, I think only 1 got purchased. More leftovers than usual this month, anyway.

K Sera, From Indian Lakes, Freighms and Fit For Hounds at the Vera Project

Blayne, the half brother of a friend of the family was visiting, a young man in the Navy who would be heading to Japan in a few days on his last bit of leave. I asked him what kind of music he liked, what concerts he had enjoyed.

"I've never been to a live show" he said. He was under 21 so I could understand not getting into clubs, but no live shows at all? Dang, that seemed tragic somehow.

I checked and the Vera Project had a great lineup the next night, so I got my son and his buddy to volunteer (they ran concessions) and filmed the show while Blayne and Carina and I watched four great bands. Excellent choice for a first live concert experience, although I wish we'd had ten times as many people; as good as the bands were, they deserved a big crowd.

First up was Fit For Hounds, a band I mistakenly thought I had seen before, turns out that was Hounds of the Wild Hunt; I had to look it up in my blog. So this was the first time I've seen Fit For Hounds, as far as I know.


Guitar, bass, drums, 2 or 3 vocals, and occasional keys. Nice sound, good songs, Stalactite was nice, simple sound that builds in waves, slightly angular rhythm during the peaks, then back to the soothing groove again.

Out of My System and Glass Icicles were instant favorites.

I got the whole show up on youtube, poke around there (search for "virtualsoundnw fit for hounds" and you should get all 6 videos, 26 or 28 minutes of music).

Next up was Freighms, another local band. Two guitars, bass, drums and keyboards. Frieghms made heavier use of the keys than Fit For Hounds, giving them a nice piano driven approach on some numbers. On other songs it was more guitar and drums driving things like this:
The piano adds some color and becomes more prominent as the song unfolds. Nice sound, good dynamics.


Next up was From Indian Lakes.
Similar lineup with 2 guitars, bass, keys and drums. Slightly harder/more urgent approach, nicely crafted songs with a good range and dynamics.
This next song starts out quietly then builds nicely as the jangly guitars and synths kick in.
The transitions into the quieter portions with vocals, then back to more of a grinding guitar sound are interesting. Nice lead (in the older sense) guitar, not a solo, just a solid lead that holds portions of the song together. Tasty!

K Sera took the stage for the headlining set. Based on a quick listen on YouTube I thought they'd be soft and poppy, but they weren't. They had a tight, mildly hard sound, not too pop, more mainstream guitar oriented rock with good harmonies and intricate songs.
I enjoyed the lighting effects on that one too, nice combination of fast changing beats and sounds with the lights setting it off well.
This next one has a very nice simple guitar opening, then builds to a more complex sound with the drums, then drops to a simpler backing sound for the vocals, nice range of contrasts in a single song.


Four excellent bands doing interesting songs, well written and performed in tight arrangements, we definitely got our friend some nice music to listen to for his first concert experience. The attendance was a bit light - not unusual for a Sunday - but I wish we'd had a bigger sweatier crowd. The bands were good enough to deserve it and that would have been the icing on the cake for our buddy's first show. We just had to be satisfied by 4 creative bands putting on an excellent show; I can live with that.

Oh well, maybe next time he makes it to Seattle we can get him to some sweaty mosh pit...

Twin Sister, Ava Luna and Lemolo at the Vera Project

On a Tuesday in early February I dropped by the Vera Project after work for the Programming Committee meeting and ended up volunteering to stay to work "Lead Front Door" (basically selling tickets) for the Twin Sisters, Ava Luna and Lemolo show later that night. I'd heard good things about Lemolo, a local band, although I'd never actually heard them. Twin Sister and Ava Luna were new to me which is cool, I like hearing bands I know nothing about.

I set my video camera up on the catwalk and snuck into the venue on occasion to take pictures. First up was Lemolo, a duo with two women, one mostly playing drums and the other trading off between guitar and keyboards and singing.

They had a nice full sound which can be a little challenging for a duo and played fun upbeat songs that were catchy.

The audience turned out early for the local band which was a little unusual, they usually trickle in more for the later bands. Apparently Lemolo is popular locally, which makes sense - I'd heard of them before I actually ever heard them play and it's usually the other way round.

Next up was Ava Luna. They had six performers on stage playing guitar, bass, drums, a couple of keyboards, and a vocalist. More than one of them sang so they were able to get some interesting harmonies and vary their sound by using different lead vocalists.

They tended towards a more deliberate pacing and a surprisingly stripped down sound for having so many instruments. The dynamics in this one are interesting, with the beat on the drums always present and the other instruments joining in and then dropping back out repeatedly, isolating the vocals and drums on occasion.

I enjoyed their set, and their thoughtful, introspective approach. The sound had more variety and dynamics than most bands use, which was a nice change of pace.

Twin Sister took the stage for the headlining set. Unfortunately I was only able to see a short bit of the set, since I had to catch the last bus home. What I did see was interesting; they had 5 people on stage playing drums, bass, guitar and keyboards with a woman doing lead vocals.

For this song (the only one I managed to get) they have an interesting spacey synthesizer driven opening (the guitarist plays some synth during the opening too) that builds and swells, then fades into the background a it as the vocals and drums carry the middle section. The video goes wonky half way through - a wooden panel fell over onto my tripod and broke it (dang!) so there's no visual, but you can still hear the est of the song.

So I got to see a fun show, although I had to leave too soon to see the last act, and losing my tripod was a bit of a bummer. Considering how many times I've taken multiple cameras into mosh pits I guess I have to consider myself pretty lucky, this is the fist time I've lost any equipment and I've got a spare tripod so it's not that big of a deal.

Sleeper Agent and Us On Roofs at the Vera Project

I steered the Sleeper Agent/Us On Roofs show at the Vera Project this Sunday. We had a good crew show up, enough volunteers to handle front door and concessions, plus a shadow (she's learning to steer, so she "shadows" me, the regular steering guy). Having a shadow means I get to have her do some of the steering overhead so I can watch more of the show and it's easier to film and take pictures.

I got the video camera setup and filmed Us On Roofs's fun tight set, these guys rock out! Double guitars, bass and drums with nicely complex music very well performed.
The camera on the catwalk gives a more stable but less intimate view:

Sleeper Agent was quite appealing visually and their music kicked ass.

I also got a huge amount of video of Sleeper Agent. In addition to a tripod mounted Flip on the catwalk filming just about all of the set I filmed 3 songs with the DSLR and another couple with a hand-held Flip on the floor, so several songs are recorded twice from different POV.
Sleeper Agent had 2 guitars, bass, keyboards, female lead vocalist, and drums. One of the guitarist was a co-lead vocalist to some degree, and the drummer and bass player and keys all had mics too, I think.
Here's a tighter shot of the 2 "co-lead" vocalists, they're the focus during the performance, mostly.

The red headed red bearded bass player drew attention both for his appearance (loved the red!) and his excellent bass skills, most of their music had that driving bass powered feel that just gets you bouncing and sweating, this is not music that lets you hold still!

The lead guitarist was pretty talented too, but he was very quiet about it, mostly strumming and picking away but not moving much.
The keyboard player was kind of back and to the side, a little hard to see, but he actually was pretty lively during the performance.
The drummer was fun, kinetic, and a little loud, perfect in a drummer. He was also hairy and a bit messy, which also is pretty much perfect in a drummer. You get a pretty good look at him here, along with a good view of the singer in motion:


Here's the hand held POV fairly up close, I manage to cut out the keyboard and the lead guitarist pretty consistently.
Nice sound, great preformance. Here's another great Sleeper Agent song:

There's quite a bit more video on youtube, and I still have more to process and upload. Fun show, two excellent bands!