Recent Stories with tag showbox

I was there to review another band, but who could resist photographing Raphael Saadiq's show? Not me. For a review of the "knockout" tour opener, tune into Jonathan Zwickel's piece at Spin. Every word is true.

It's hard to upstage, in writing, how much we need music. The description isn't even an echo. If you were there, on the floor, shoulder-to-shoulder with the strangers and singing along, it might spark a memory. Or it might not. And anyway, that's not what I'm interested in here.

I was at two shows this week, the Mountain Goats at the Showbox Market, which is downtown's gritty rock palace, a sprawling, sunken main floor overlooked by terraced bars; and Faun Fables at Neumo's, along with Chop Suey the ideal of the indie Capitol Hill music club: a shoebox of a room with a concession stand of a bar at the side.

The Showbox was already full during Owen Palett's Final Fantasy set; he closed with what he said was a song by Theodor Adorno: "Independence is no solution for modern babies." Babies (read "hipsters"), we learned, just want to dance. Adorno, I have just read, was critical of the replacement of art's merit by its social value. Music becomes a fetish when you enjoy it because other people like it.

The Mountain Goats

That is not John Darnielle's problem. His album The Life of the World to Come is twelve songs all titled after Biblical verses, selections from Hebrews 11:40 to Matthew 25:21. Here's an mp3 of "Genesis 3:23," which contains the chorus, "I used to live here." It's about a return to a childhood home, and there is also a superposition of a naive Eden of faith, "creeds and prayers that he can't wholly buy into" these days. (Maybe this is also why he's at the keyboard more often on this album, which impersonates a heretic organist's hymnal.)

Darnielle is a strange apparition in concert--skipping about the stage, face contorted in a middle-schooler's rockgod transport, he can remind you of David Byrne's spasmodic too-much-coffee guy except without the cool, self-appraising distance. Between songs, he drops little drawled hints as to their inspiration in a pleasantly low-key manner that contrasts with his higher, forced-nasal singing register.

He's funny, disarming, and a master of unsettling emotional harmonics. "Thank You Mario But Our Princess Is In Another Castle" was prefaced by an explanation of his delight at unexpectedly freeing a "little dude" instead of the princess. That bright "8-bit choir" catharsis has its malevolent bass counterpart in "Hast Thou Considered The Tetrapod," as the protagonist is battered by an abusive drunk.

The new album is more reflective than entrail-spilling, and as likely to question its Biblical sources ("Romans 10:9" contrasts the redemption of confession against taking your medication before you have anything to confess) as to quote them. The religious lessons that Darnielle has learned, or found, are in his music, despite the nods to the Bible....

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The original point is provided by Travis Hay: "Maja Ivarrson is a star. The sexy Swede, who fronts The Sounds, strutted her stuff all over the Showbox’s stage Tuesday night with a charismatic presence that demanded your attention not just because of her foxy good looks but because of her impressive pipes and rock star prowess."

My counterpoint: Meh.

I was excited to hear The Sounds live for the first time, but I spent most the evening watching The Sounds live. It was like seeing a music video filmed--canned-sounding music blaring and everything big, big, big! Ivarrson was wearing unironic black leather shorts and something perilously close to a Farah 'do. She had the crowd on the floor in her hand from about five minutes in: They clapped, they sang, they pogoed on cue.

I don't know that I've ever seen a concert scripted so thoroughly. At the top of the show, Ivarrson wanted to make sure Seattle knew what a thrill it was to be here: "I have a feeling you're gonna blow our minds, Seattle!"

At the close...

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Here's your video reminder: Swedish pop group The Sounds play Tuesday night at the Showbox. I really don't think there's anything that needs to be added. Swedish. Pop. Group. Period.

As Clint mentioned earlier, Eddie Vedder popped onstage at the Showbox SoDo last night, to provide some backing vocals for Roger Daltrey. Thanks, YouTubers! Your promptness in posting is appreciated.

The last time the Pogues played Showbox SoDo, I was there and wrote up a review for Seattlest. They're playing the same venue tomorrow (sold out, even at $50 a head, and people are offering $75 and $100 on Craigslist). To save time, I'm reprinting that review as a preview. If you've got tickets, your evening should go something like this:

"Oi flimsy castle," said Shane MacGowan, 49 [50 now!], a short stovepipe hat on his head. "Frip limpid turtle song." He stopped to survey Showbox SODO's barnlike interior--people were still filing in from Hooverville across the street. Outside the bar, a phalanx of women formed around a dazed, jelly-kneed girl with a mouth rimed with spew. Then the banjo pluck and chime, the snare-drum skitter, a missing-leg march's rhythm.

One summer evening drunk to hell I sat there nearly lifeless. An old man in the corner sang Where the water lilies grow.

Inside Showbox, the crowd raised their cups and ululated with joy at seeing MacGowan take the stage under his own steam. They adored...

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It's like you're on stage! Thanks for the photo, Josh.

Would you like to be as awesome as Josh? All you need to do is add your photos to the SunBreak Flickr pool. Sound good? Get on it, pilgrim!

If (like me) you were harboring delusions of getting last-minute tickets to the Arctic Monkeys show at the Showbox on Saturday, kiss that foolhardy notion goodbye: The show sold out awhile back. Too bad, because I’d love to hear what Humbug, their beautiful mess of a third record sounds like live. For their latest, these hyper-caffeinated Limey brats grew out their hair, flew to California, and enlisted Queens of the Stone Age mastermind Josh Homme to produce. It sounds like they scored some high-quality weed in the bargain.

The rapid-fire punk-pop that dominated the Monkeys' first two discs hasn’t evaporated completely—the tempos still hit jackhammer speed on "Pretty Visitors," for one—but most of the time, they surf a heavier, trippier side of the street on Humbug. Homme puts his hammer-of-Thor production fingerprints all over, stretching Nick O’Malley’s bass like fuzzed-out taffy and encouraging Matt Helders to work the drums to a pulverizing military march when the tunes demand it. The guitars twist and squeal Queens-style instead of punching and jabbing, and the music throbs, swirls and spatters like some cannabis-hazed tryst between T. Rex and The Buzzcocks. The weird mix works, in large part because the band still knows its way around pop hooks and harmonies--they just favor stoned, insinuated sensuality over adrenalized pushiness this time out. 

Lead singer/lyricist Alex Turner remains this very terrific band’s not-so-secret weapon. His affecting voice sounds like a less-drony version of Morrissey’s, and he’s penning some of the best pop lyrics this side of Elvis Costello. On the gorgeous "Cornerstone," he nails obsessive love with Cupid’s-arrow accuracy, deliberately letting the driver take the long way ‘round during his cab ride home, drinking in the afterglow of desire ("I smelt your scent on the seatbelt and kept my shortcuts to myself").  And for much of Humbug he’s added enough surreal sexual imagery to his words to make Ziggy-era David Bowie or Marc Bolan proud.

Rumor has it that the Arctic Monkeys skew pretty close to the grand British post-punk tradition of just standing and playing live, but they're instrumentally tight, sound great, and occasionally pull out some nifty covers to boot (their work-over of the Strokes' "Take it or Leave It" does the original proud).  

Going? Let us know how it shakes down. Just don’t rub it in, already.