Summer-Brain

It's still summer in my mind:



I felt the grass on my chest in the open field
And I knew there was nothing left for me to feel
Airplanes above cross the sky under a haze
In the morning time, we didn't think about our days

The wind was blowing through our hair as we lied down
And we could feel under our backs that the earth was round
Lazy today, lazy tonight and later on
All we had to do was nothing at all, under the sun

Lo-Fi Loud

May 11, 2012
The Electric Owl
Vancouver, British Columbia

I battled for the better part of the last month over whether I should have gotten tanked with a bunch of friends and seen Vancouver's Five Alarm Funk during their Rock the Sky album release  or seen Brooklyn's quite antithetically lo-fi, washed out Beach Fossils by myself and in all likelihood sober. Naturally, solitary tendencies aside, I chose to see Beach Fossils, mainly because a few days prior to the show, I read that Seattle's Seapony, one of my favourite bands, were opening. Not to take anything away from Five Alarm Funk, whom I'm sure were nothing short of fucking amazing, but I'm preeettyyy sure I made the right decision for me, even though Beach Fossils with Seapony wasn't exactly the dreamy, feel-good, sway-to-the-music evening I'd expected.

Unlike the first (and only) time I saw Seapony, when they played their songs pretty much the way the songs appeared on record, at the Electric Owl, Seapony rocked their songs the fuck up with solos, tremolos and faster tempos; save for maybe a couple of songs, Seapony certainly weren't as sentimental as usual. In another change of pace, just slightly more than half of Seapony's set included new songs, surprisingly leaving no room for their usual closer, a cover of the Field Mice's "Emma's House," despite Rose Melberg's presence (I saw her hanging around the bar with the band before the show). Also conspicuously absent from Seapony's set was "Always." I don't know what they have against that song, but once again, it didn't make the set. Will I ever get to hear "Always," the song that got me into Seapony, live?

Next was another surprisingly rocking band, Vancouver's Student Teacher. And not only were Student Teacher, of whom I'd never heard, surprisingly rocking: they were rocking period. How was Student Teacher surprisingly rocking, if I'd never heard of them before? Because judging by lead Student Teacher Daniel's (I can't find his last name anywhere on the 'Net) unassuming demeanor when he asked me before the show if I was in a San Fransisco shoegaze band called Permanent Collection, (well, I definitely see the resemblance between myself and Jason Henhardy .....), I did not think the utter anarchic sonic destruction that spewed from his quartet could have emanated from someone like him; never judge a book by its cover, as the age old adage goes. Ignorant me. Indeed, Student Teacher was the most melodically discordant force I'd heard since Sonic Youth - such control, although the only thing over which Student Teacher didn't have control was volume. The band was so damned picky about volume. They must have asked for more volume on the guitars and vocals and then less volume on the guitars after every song. They're lucky they're so damned good that they can afford to be so picky.

And finally, there were Beach Fossils. Usually, opening acts don't get to "outshine" headliners in terms of volume, and I didn't think loudness befitted Beach Fossils anyway, so I thought, "There's no way Beach Fossils are going to be louder than Student Teacher." And I was correct. Even though Beach Fossils were leaps and bounds beyond how fast and furious I thought they would have been, they still couldn't touch the sheer blistering volume of Student Teacher.

On record, it wouldn't be a far cry to call Beach Fossils intimate bedroom pop with a grainy texture like the damp remains of sifted detritus. Live, however, they are just an energetic indie rock band - straight-up. No bollocks. "You guys can move around more; it's okay," frontperson Dustin Payseur politely yet playfully encouraged the audience before launching into another jumpy, rousing version of a song from their self-titled debut album (their only full-length to date), swaying, spinning and kicking in jolty, erratic movements. The band rocked with such abandon that the members stumbled into each other and their equipment, specifically birthday boy Tommy Gardner's drum set. There were a few moments when I thought John Pena was going to scrape off my face with the head of his bass (which was tuned so sharply, it sounded like a third guitar) while he was spinning around onstage. Even though Beach Fossils seemed to have missed a lot of notes here and there, the energy they brought more than made up for it.

So, I didn't get the show I expected, but every part of it was great. Okay, as usual, I do have at least one minor complaint: Both Student Teacher and Beach Fossils stopped at least one song because they screwed up. In all the shows I've seen, this was the only time I could ever remember a band restarting a song. It doesn't seem particularly rock 'n' roll to restart a song instead of just covering or rolling with the mistake. But then, "I'm not a musician or performer, so what do I know?" Right?

Closing note: I bring elastic bands to shows now. It just makes snatching and carrying set lists easier. How rock 'n' roll is that? And here I am complaining about bands restarting songs. And I brought exactly enough elastic bands to Beach Fossils/Seapony/Student Teacher: two. I'm two-for-two for Seapony set lists. My set list wall just grows and grows with every show. ROCK! \m/

Post-Punk/Twee-Pop/New Wave For Life

May 8, 2012
The Venue
Vancouver, British Columbia

I made a new life rule after I saw the Drums with Craft Spells two nights ago: Go to every slightly post-punk, New Wave and twee show, dreamy or not, I can find. Craft Spells and the Drums were probably the closest I'll ever get to seeing a band like so many of my favourite 80s groups including Orange Juice and Modern English - maybe not ever but definitely for a long time - so I can't afford to pass up seeing similar bands. Luckily for me, I'm seeing Seapony again on Friday when they open for Beach Fossils at the Electric Owl.

Craft Spells alone, of whom I'd never heard before the show, totally made the one-and-a-half-hour wait before showtime worthwhile (Part Time, the second opening band, couldn't make it that night. Problems with customs, I assume, hence the prolonged wait). However, I didn't move much during Craft Spells, despite how much I wanted to. I mean, the band was fantastic, but that long wait, which didn't factor in the time I spent in transit or in line outside the Venue, on top of having worked at 6:30 that morning and until 9:30 the night before that, almost sucked the life out of me. Plus, I was on my feet for almost two hours straight before the show began, so by the time the Drums started playing, my legs and back had gotten pretty tired; my legs felt like tree trunks with roots that ran to China.

As soon as the Drums hit the stage, though, they lit me right up. I couldn't stop moving when they came on, they were so fun. They even made the slightly plaintive "Days" danceable. It's interesting how quickly great music - pleasurable stimulation of the mind that gets those that serotonin flowing - can make the body forget how tired and even sore it is.

Front-person Jonathan Pierce's live off-kilter singing was the main reason why I passed on seeing the Drums last October (if you want to hear why it bugs me, just YouTube pretty much any live videos of the Drums, although I did recently find a few videos in which I could not only tolerate Jon's singing but enjoy it as well). But I had absolutely no complaints about his singing when I saw them, even though it was still more affected than on record.

At one point during the show, Jonathan apologized for not having had his dancing shoes with him because they got held up at customs. But even while sporting his Chucks, he was able to sway and swing and shake his hips with so much swagger that I didn't notice his alleged handicap. And danced Jonathan did through the Drums' pretty lengthy set: sixteen songs, according to the set list I snagged, which included all of their hits with "Let's Go Surfing" saved as the final encore.

All in all, a fantastic show. Both bands sounded great, especially Craft Spells who totally blew me away; I'd never heard of them before, but that night, I could hear every part of them: every note and every reverberation. I also got their set list. Schwing! And as far as my promise to myself goes, you can bet I'm never missing a Drums show again. And Craft Spells are from Seattle, so I have a feeling I haven't seen the last of them.

Random final note: While there was an average number of guys at the show, not a lot of fellas dig dancing to the Drums, it seemed ... In fact, one of the guys who stood next to me looked like he was going to fall asleep on his feet at any minute, his eyes half-closed every time I saw him.