Magma Fest at the Vera Project

Haether and I volunteered at Magma Fest at the Vera Project on Friday. Magma Fest is put on by Hollow Earth Radio, an internet "radio station" - they don't actually broadcast a radio signal, they stream audio over the internet, but they feature a lineup of DJs and show more or less like a regular radio station, except without commercials. They have all kinds of interesting and odd programs and are worth checking out.

Magma Fest is held every March and they kicked this year's fest off with a show at the Vera Project. They frequently table at the Vera, so I've had the opportunity to meet a few of their volunteers and chat during shows.

PWRFL Power kicked off this years show and he was the main reason I wanted to go. I saw a bit about him on the Seattle Channel a couple years back and enjoyed his playing - he plays electric guitar and sings mostly his own songs. I got to see him at the EMP Sky Church during Bumbershoot and really enjoyed his songs and his patter between songs. He hasn't played around town much the last year or two that I've noticed; someone told me he was in Japan for a while, but I'm not sure if that's true. It was good to see him back on stage. I like the way this one starts simpler and then builds:

Most of his songs back at Bumbershoot were introverted and fairly gentle, but he went a harder and more bluesy at the Magma Fest show this year.


Next up was Spurm with a completely different approach.

I like the sax, I think it's a great rock and roll instrument, but you don't see very many bands using it.

I got a brief bit of video here, mildly lousy filming on my part but it gives you a taste of their approach. The lead vocalist was interesting to watch - tall and lanky, odd moves, no fear at all - nice combination. Notice the dude on the screen behind him, that's R. Stevie Moore, more on him later.


Next up was R. Stevie Moore doing a "Skype In" - he performed from somewhere else, I suspect it was from his home. He referred to it a couple of times as being from "South by South East" - a play on SXSW and I assume a reference to his performance from the SE US. He was using Skype to make a video call to a laptop at the Vera Project which was hooked up to the new large screen and projector that the Vera Project recently installed. The visual quality was so-so, when he moved quickly it tended to break up, but the audio was pretty good. I wouldn't want to watch whole shows over Skype all that often, but it was an interesting use of the technology. I filmed some here:


Next up was Kristin Allen Zito performing solo with an acoustic guitar. Her guitar playing was nice, and her voice was beautiful.

I filmed her setting the audience up to do a sing-along, I'm not sure how well the sing along worked but I liked the song. Since I only got 90 seconds it may not show that much of the song, but you get the idea:

I like figuring out the theme, or at least "a" theme for shows I attend, but the Magma Fest acts were all over the place. I suppose that's a theme in a backwards way, and it fits Hollow Earth Radio: radically different types and styles of music, reflecting the variety fo programming on Hollow Earth Radio. The headlining act was Tender Forever, a women performing solo and playing keyboards. She mentioned France and had a bit of an accent, so I assume she's French. THe crowd definitely enjoyed her set, I suspect most of the crowd came out specifically to see her.

At one point I distinctly heard backing vocals, but there was no backing vocalist - it took me a moment to realize she was playing samples of vocals (it sounded like her voice) on the keyboard. Interesting effect for a solo show, it gave her a more complex sound. In the picture above you can see a plastic device hanging from the keyboard by a wire, there was one of these on each side of the keyboard and eventually she picked them up and shook them - I guess they're electric maraccas, I'd never seen those before. She had a bit to say about some political and gender issues; eventually she took her coat off revealing her "Fuck Justin Beber" t-shirt. She mentioned some issues around Beber but didn't go into detail until the audience egged her on, then she talked about problems she had with Beber. I don't know much about Justin Beber and was unaware of the interview she mentioned, but if she reported it accurately then he at least said some unfortunate things without thinking them through, or perhaps he's just a complete prick. I'm not sure, and I didn't check on her quotes, but I have no reason to doubt what she said. She had an interesting style, using tech (sampled vocals, electric maraccas, drum machine and synth) to get a surprisingly full sound for a solo performance, and her singing style is kind of breathy and very intense. I like her approach and her unapologetic politics, cool stuff.

Interesting combination of performers, quite different in their approaches and music, and all worth seeing. If you can't make it to any of the Magma Fest shows this week then check out Hollow Earth Radio, they have an amaxing variety of shows and music all for free. Check it out!

Lonely Forest, The Oregon Donor and The Violins at the Vera Project 3-3-11 - Anacortes Invasion!

I had a great time at the Lonely Forest show at the Vera Project on Thursday. I volunteered, but since there were plenty of volunteers (9, a little unusual for a weekday show) I ended up signing up to take out the trash. Since you don't take out the trash until the show is pretty much over, you get to watch the show and maybe help out here and there, but mostly just watch the show. That worked out well, because it was a great show.

I think all 3 bands are from Anacortes, and at least the Lonely Forest is. Anacortes is a smallish town up North about 10 miles South of Bellingham, on the mainland at the North end of Whidbey Island. It's on the salt water and has beatiful views of Padilla Bay and the San Juan Islands. Consequences of Sound has a nice post that includes the Lonely Forest doing "Turn Off This Song and Go Outside" and Anacortes is featured prominently. They also note that the Lonely Forest won the Sound Off contest at the EMP in 2006, I hadn't realized that. I enjoy the Sound Off, although I haven't made it in the last few years.

Apparently the Lonely Forest was recording the show for a live video and they encouraged the audience to record it and share their videos with the band so that they can use those in their video - a crowd sourced live video, I love it! I'll have to participate, I got nearly 50 minutes of footage of Lonely Forest at the show. I'll also have to keep an eye out for the results.

First up was the Violins, who've renamed themselves from Caulfield and His Magic Violin. Certianly easier to remember and type the new name, anyway.

They pounded out some fun catchy rock, not sure what the violin has to do with anything though. They did some interesting things with changing tempos and dynamics, here's 90 seconds from one of their early songs that does a sudden half speed change towards the end:


The audience was large for a weekday, with around 300 attending. One of the volnteers who went to high school in Anacortes said that a large contingent of kids from AHS were attending the show, and I can believe it. The audience knew most of the material and really enjoyed the acts.

The next band up was The Oregon Donor - I enjoy the silly play on words in the band title. Once again I'm not sure what it has to do with anything, but it's certainly memorable.


The guy in black in the middle with the back strat did most of the singing, although they also included fairly long instrumental bits in songs like this:

The 90 second clip just barely gets to the beginning of the vocals. I liked the interplay of rhythm between the guitars and bass, solid and interesting grooves and beats on many songs. These guys put on a good show and had me swaeting a bit - I kept bouncing up and down. Good performances do that to me.

Next the headlining Lonely Forest took the stage.

As you can probably guess from the arrangment, the lead vocalist/guitarist in the middle also played some keyboards, and he also played the floor tom you can see behind him while the drummer pounded out a beat for an intro, giving them a bass/beat/rhthm heavy sound for the intro.

They had the crowd into it, dancing (well, quietly dancing, for some reason modern hipster crowds listening to indie acts rarely seem to really get dancing all that hard - pet peeve of mine) and even singing along a bit.

Their songs tended to be longer, 5-7 minutes, and mildly complex. Time changes, dynamics both up and done, sudden and slow, coordinated pauses, different movements, not just simple verse choruse verse approach of mainstream pop - not that they're far out of the mainstream or anything, they just craft slightly more complex songs. Unfortunately that means that my recordings are mostly too long to even post onto flickr, so I only have one available. I could go through and pick a 90 second section from one of the interesting longer songs, or even several consecutive 90 second sections, but I'm much too lazy to bother. So here's a 90 second bit from the only Lonely Forest song I managed to upload to Flickr:

They definitely know their audience and it's young - they thanked us for coming out to the show late on a school night, not a work night, and the crowd ate it up. The crowd knew them as well, occasionally cheering when favorite songs started. They also had one technique down that I've noticed on occasion: they start the next song and play an intro while one band member tunes their guitar quickly, then joins in as the song gets going. I like the way that avoids long boring pauses for tuning that break the momentum of the show and distract you. Nice technique!

I enjoyed the songs and the patter, I'll definitely keep my eye out for more opportunities to see these guys, they put on a fun show!

I had to sneak out in the middle of the show to make a business call to India (the middle of the night is the beginning of the day for India) and I also had to get up early the morning after, so I ended up pretty tired today, but it was well worth it. Hopefully the Magma Fest show tonight will be rocking out hard enough to keep me awake. We'll see...

Upcoming shows in March

I'm not sure how many shows I'll make it to this month since it's a big birthday month for my family (3 of 5 family members have birthdays in less than 20 days) which always keeps us a little busy.

I think I'll do pretty well, though. Already I plan on seeing The Lonely Forest, The Oregon Donor and The Violins tonight and then the Magma Fest show tomorrow night with Tender Forever, Spurm, PWRFL Power and several other bands, and Marnie Stearns with Tera Melos later in the month.

There's another Smoke Wreck Kings show I'd like to make it to, and I'm sure I'll pick up a few more shows by the end of the month. I probably won't get to all that many, though, as things will probably be too busy.

My scheme to get into Sasquatch Fest (all 4 days! Reggie Watts, Death Cab, and on and on) is coming together, but that won;t pay of for a couple of months, so the rate should really start picking up by May and through the Summer.