Tag Archives: columbia city theater

Arts & Entertainment, Music

“Swift Arrows” and Grown Up Things with Shelby Earl

Shelby Earl (Photo: Riot Act Media)

Shelby Earl’s well-received 2011 debut Burn the Boats took a year to come together, painstakingly perfected with John Roderick’s (The Long Winters) production assistance. Compare that to the process for newest release, Swift Arrows, recorded in eight days. Swift arrow, indeed. Produced by highly-regarded local singer-songwriter Damien Jurado, Shelby Earl’s latest album is a major departure from her debut in almost every way.

While Earl had greatly admired Jurado’s work, particularly his most recent album Maraqopa, their first meeting was facilitated by Twitter. Shelby nervously prepared to sell him on why she wanted him to produce her album. “I thought I was going to give a whole spiel about him producing.” Instead, Damien Jurado had a plan and he jumped right in to describe his vision for her next record.

“I was like, ‘Well, you probably want to hear the songs,’ and he was like, ‘No.’ Because this is the way HE makes records. Richard Swift produces Damien’s stuff, and what they do is, Swift doesn’t hear any of it until they get to the studio and Damien basically does a show for him. So this is what he says to me, ‘I’m going to sit in front of you and you’re going to perform that shit for me,’ Earl recalled.

Shelby was not yet confident in her guitar playing, but Damien pushed her. “He said ‘I want two dudes, or ladies, both with acoustic guitars, sitting beside you, one playing in the same register as you, the other in a different voice,’ almost like a shadow of what I was playing. ‘You guys better be really well-practiced,’ he said.”

Damien Jurado was listening to a lot of old vinyl and he wanted to bring in that same warm, full sound. He wanted a big room, because he wanted the live vibe — Shelby’s voice in a big space. They chose Columbia City Theater, the site of her upcoming album release party, July 13th at 8 p.m. (Tickets $10 advance/$12 door; 21+.)

So Shelby Earl set out and found her people: Reagan Crowe, a long-time friend, and talented local guitarist Eric Howk, formerly of The Lashes, who she’d never met, but with whom many people had told her she need to collaborate. They added a full band with Rachel Flotard (background vocals), Faustine Hudson (drums/percussion), Jacob James (piano), Earl’s frequent collaborator Anna-Lisa Notter (background vocals/ percussion), Mike Notter (trumpet), Benjamin Obee (bass/background vocals), Dylan Rieck (cello), Barry Uhl (organ/optigan/keys), and Valerie Uhl (flute). Jurado also contributed backing vocals, percussion, and piano — listen for his cameo on “Sea of Glass.”

“It all lined up and NOTHING I do in music is ever that easy,” Earl marveled. This was Jurado’s vision. “ ‘I want a big sound, I want a live sound, I want it honest, I want it to sound like old records.’ The only song that was already written that way was “The Artist.” Damien hadn’t even heard that song yet, though, when he heard “Sea of Glass.” Jurado emerged from the control room and said, ‘It’s awesome. The melody is awesome, the lyrical content is awesome. I just feel like rhythmically it needs something…dum du dum pshah dum du dum pshah.’ We tried one pass at it like that and we played it another time, and he came out and was like, ‘Done. Nailed it.’ And that’s the one that’s on the record. And almost everything we did was first or second take.”

It was a bold departure from Burn The Boats and Earl says that while it terrified her, she grew a lot from the experience. “It took a lot of faith in Damien, and the biggest revelation is learning that I’m even capable of doing that. It kicked my butt. It majorly grew me. Scary as hell and I hear all the flaws. Damien was like, ‘That’s the most honest you’re going to get so let’s keep that.’ But the good news is, if you come to my show, that’s what I sound like. It’s live and that’s what it is.”

She feels more confident now. “When I do have nervous or awkward or uncertain moments, I’m like, “Well, this is who I am, so I could sweat that right now or I could just own it. And that’s all about maturity and understanding that you’re not gonna be the other person. Ever. So you might as well own this version and know that you do have something to contribute, figuring out that it’s worth something to people. Learning that has been valuable.” As she sings on the third track on the album, “Grown Up Things,” “Look out look out look out, the shit’s getting real.”

Earl knows that fans of the first album may be surprised by the change in direction on the new release — far from the spare singer-songwriter beauty of her first album, Swift Arrows is big, bold, and, well, grown-up. The first two songs, “Swift Arrows” and “Sea of Glass”, bring a ’60s girl group sound that will have you rethinking the Ronettes. “I wrote “Swift Arrows” last. It’s about going through all of that and at the end of it, realizing I’m a warrior now. None of that took me down. I’m all in.”

It’s clear that Shelby Earl is going big places. Rolling Stone recently suggested her song “Everyone Belongs to Someone” (Burn the Boats) for the soundtrack of Zach Braff’s Kickstarter-funded Garden State sequel, while the Weekly just named Shelby Earl one of the 50 women who rock Seattle. Find out for yourself what the buzz is all about at the Swift Arrows release party next month at Columbia City Theater.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Golden Gardens Bring Lovestruck ‘Narcissus’ to Columbia City

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[Tonight, indie label Neon Sigh hosts Golden Gardens, Toykoidaho and Kelli Francis Corrado at  Columbia City Theater, 4916 Rainier Ave S. Doors at 8 p.m. Tickets, $8 at the door, are still available.]

Golden Gardens capture the flush of first love with their shoe gazing pop, complete with fluttering tummy butterflies and tingling in your toes. Tonight, they’ll be unveiling four new songs from Narcissus, their EP due out on June 11th, and fans should be tickled dream-pop pink.

With their first two records, vocalist Aubrey Violet Rachel Bramble and instrumentalist Greg Alexander Joseph Neville established their sound as a slow-cadenced alchemy of seraphic layered vocals on soothing volume, wrapped in gossamer guitar and percussion (think lovechild of Cocteau Twins, Massive Attack, Blonde Redhead, and Washed Out). The duo’s new tracks showcase their maturity and progression, but the creative combination is just as glimmery as before.

Aubrey Violet Rachel Bramble of Golden Gardens. (photo by Odawni AJ Palmer)

“My Viridescent Heart” births the EP with a resplendent ambient breeze, and the next two tracks are metered by a mesh of percussive textures. The closing track, “Blue Eyes Of a Broken Doll,” launches with a cascade of plucky strings — something new to the band’s sound — and it ends with Bramble’s celestial professions of breathtaking love swallowed in a wash of woolly distortion.

Like GG’s earlier work, Narcissus traverses the cycle of infatuation both lyrically and sonically: Bramble and Neville create an infinite soundspace that’s almost impossible not to fall into. But Bramble’s vocals are louder and self-assured on the new material, not the distant echoey layered vocals from previous records. Her words are crisp but just as lollipop-sweet as before, the clarity adding a layer of intimacy and sopranic charm. Neville expands the instrument-osphere with transportive musicianship, using strings as percussion and dropping in new fuzzy sounds as well.

SPIN dubbed Columbia City Theater “The city’s finest sounding room,” and it should be a perfect setting for all the atmospherics.

Arts & Entertainment, Music, Theatre

Vespertine Opera’s Playful Les Mamelles de Tirésias at Columbia City Theater

Vespertine Opera Ensemble in Les Mamelles de Tirésias (Photo: Dan Miller)

Tess Altiveros as Thérèse in Les Mamelles de Tirésias (Photo: Dan Miller)

Tess Altiveros as Tirésias, José Rubio as The Husband in Les Mamelles de Tirésias (Photo: Dan Miller)

The anti-childbearing army in Les Mamelles de Tirésias (Photo: Dan Miller)

José Rubio as The Husband in Les Mamelles de Tirésias (Photo: Dan Miller)

José Rubio as The Husband after a night of childbirth in Les Mamelles de Tirésias (Photo: Dan Miller)

Tess Altiveros as Thérèse in Les Mamelles de Tirésias (Photo: Marnie Cumings)

Tess Altiveros as Thérèse and her impressive mammaries in Les Mamelles de Tirésias (Photo: Marnie Cumings)

José Rubio as The Husband and Daniel Oakden as The Gendarme in Les Mamelles de Tirésias (Photo: Marnie Cumings)

Vespertine Opera Ensemble in Les Mamelles de Tirésias (Photo: Marnie Cumings)

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For many of us, opera can be a somewhat remote experience. We sit far away from the singers in a large hall, and while we can hear every emotion in their voices, we sometimes have a hard time seeing emotional nuances in their faces. But Vespertine Opera Theater’s production of Les Mamelles de Tirésias (The Breasts of Tirésias)  is up close and visceral at Columbia City Theater (last show tonight at 8 p.m.).

Based on the surrealist play of the same name by Guillaume Apollinaire, the opera takes place in the fictional town of Zanzibar, in the south of France. A woman named Thérèse, fed up with her husband and womanly expectations, finds that she’s turning into a man (Tirésias). She becomes a famous general and leads a charge against childbirth and children. Meanwhile, her husband decides that since his wife has become a man, c’est logique that he must be a woman, and proceeds to birth over 1,000 children in a single afternoon.

Full of double entendres, word play (the relationship and translation between French and English is a fertile field), and a playful disregard of logic and sense, the story will amuse you. The singing will also please you; the small cast is full of young rising singers. José Rubio, The Husband, has quite a powerful voice – at times in that small space it was like he was standing right next to me, singing in my ear. He also has a marvelously elastic face, making the more ridiculous moments hilariously funny.

Tess Altiveros, as Thérèse/Tirésias, also did a fabulous job. She handled the non-linear and wide-ranging part with finesse, and her voice warmed in Act II. As The Director/The Gendarme, Daniel Oakden did a fine job (he, too, is blessed with an expressive face). They were supported by a superb chorus, some of whom stand out for named roles or a few lines sung from the audience.

Dan Wallace Miller’s direction is apparent in every scene. He does a great job of emphasizing the farce without going over the top, allowing the music and the libretto their fullest expression. Playing a part in the music’s expression are co-music directors and pianists Dean Williamson and David McDade, who took turns conducting at key moments from the pianos. They played seamlessly together, as well as supporting and balancing the singers.

Lighting and co-set designer Marnie Cumings lit the stage and the rest of the house (when the singers were in it, that is) with precision. Sets, co-designed with Miller, were minimal but expressive of the setting – metal palm trees and a backdrop by Christopher Mumaw made the small theater feel fairly tropical.

Geoff Rozmyn created three witty posters for Tirésias’s campaign against childbirth and children, rich and cartoonish and big audience favorites. Costume designer Savannah Baltazar presented a cohesive palate of color and era, and facilitated a few witty costume changes on stage. Also impressive was her design of Thérèse’s dress, which accommodated both natural and huge (unnatural, ballooning) breasts.

This production is a historical one, as this is its U.S. premiere. In 1956, Benjamin Britten became a big fan of the French opera, and discussed with Poulenc the possibility of performing it at the Aldeburgh Festival (co-founded by Britten). To suit the space, Britten and long-term collaborator Viola Tunnard arranged the opera for voice and two pianos. Tenor Peter Pears, stage director Colin Graham, and choreographer John Cranko produced an English libretto, and it was performed in June of 1958. It then disappeared, resurfacing only in 2011.

Edited by Emily Hindrichs, it was performed again in the UK in October of 2012, over half a century from its first performance. That version premiered here Tuesday night, and will be reprised tonight, Thursday.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Seattle’s Music Community Celebrates Big Sexy Man Jake Hemming

Full disclosure time: Big Sur singer/guitarist/songwriter Jake Hemming gives the greatest bear hugs in Seattle (and I’ve been the fortunate recipient of a few), so pardon the sentimentality over the next three paragraphs.

I first met Jake in August 2011 at that year’s Doe Bay Fest. It was 11:00 on a Wednesday night, pitch-black, and I was fumbling pathetically to assemble my tent. Inside of two minutes, Hemming–then a stranger–came to my rescue, providing a literal beacon and helping me construct my makeshift shelter in record time.

During some downtime the next morning I wandered through the resort’s trailways, mesmerized by Doe Bay’s verdant lushness. Somewhere in my reverie, music–sung with rough-hewn beauty and strummed out on a lone acoustic guitar–floated from one of the path’s detours. Inside of two minutes, the tune–melancholy yet tinctured with a core of hope–ensnared me. Sure enough, the amiable bear of a guy who’d given me a hand the previous night was standing at the Doe Bay busking station, pouring his heart out musically.

By the end of that weekend, Jake Hemming was greeting me like a decades-long friend, freely bear-hugging me with the the unreserved genuineness of a cherished brother. Even in a music community rife with communal warmth, his friendship and instantaneous goodwill took me by surprise. Scores of Jake’s friends, however, could tell you similar stories, so it’s not surprising that a small army of musicians have his back the way he’s often had theirs.

Jake underwent extensive back surgery to correct a debilitating herniated disc last fall. The condition had spawned nerve pain so acute that it made most tasks, even playing music, physically agonizing. Happily, he came out of the risky procedure (which involved the removal of his larynx and voicebox so a cadaver bone could be inserted to repair the condition) with flying colors. In recent weeks he’s even resumed performing his trademark stable of richly-rendered songs live. All told, he’s speeding towards a full recovery…in every way but financially.

To combat the monetary duress, Columbia City Theater‘s putting on a Celebration and Tribute show for Jake Hemming Saturday night. Tickets ($10 a pop) are an absolute steal, independent of the cause.

Not surprisingly, the line-up boasts some of Seattle’s finest purveyors of roots and folk songwriting, including Kevin Sur of Indian Valley Line, Kevin Long, and Ethan Jennings. But Whitney Ballen‘s dreamy cabaret folk, Invisible Shivers‘ danceable and infectious new-new wave, the gorgeous roadhouse soul-pop of Smokey Brights, and a solo set by Jonny Henningson (guitarist/singer on one of 2012’s best regional releases, Hounds of the Wild Hunt’s El Mago) demonstrate the breadth of Jake Hemming’s influence as a musician–and as good people.

As befits the loose-limbed, easygoing nature of the get-together, CCT promises ‘Super Secret Special Guests,’ an especially promising prospect given Jake’s beloved place in the local music scene. Musical collection plates don’t come more melodic or well-deserved: Here’s hoping said platter overflows tomorrow night.

 

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Unsung Seattle Rock Heroes Play Columbia City on Black Friday

Love Battery, Truly, and Rusty Willoughby play the Columbia City Theater on Friday, November 23. $6 advance, $8 at the door. Show at 9pm.

Love Battery, architects of the Seattle rock classic Dayglo, hit the stage at Columbia City Theater Friday night.

Back in the 1990s, while the media was busy straitjacketing this town in frayed flannel and embracing the arena-ready yarl, a slew of great bands dwelt in the periphery. Not all of them fit neatly into the Grunge pigeonhole, but they accumulated loyal followings, bashing away in local clubs and in some cases even garnering major label attention before imploding or getting dumped by those same attention-deficient majors.

Friday sees three outfits from that era resurface at Columbia City Theater. For Seattleites in the right age bracket, it’ll provide a serious nostalgia trip. For everyone else, it’ll provide a window into how much great rock and roll fell through the cracks during those halcyon days.

The night’s headliners, Love Battery, stood near the top of the heap at Sub Pop during the label’s formative years. Lead singer/guitarist Ron Nine’s and guitarist Kevin Whitworth’s dueling string work favored delay, echo, and trippy flourishes as much as overdriven volume, and that psychedelic bent set them apart from their peers. But like a lot of great bands at the time, Love Battery wasn’t as easily-marketable to a fickle public as Pearl Jam (or Nirvana, for that matter), and in the pre-internet days that meant the kiss of death despite attention from a major label (in this case, PolyGram Records subsidiary Atlas). Continue reading Unsung Seattle Rock Heroes Play Columbia City on Black Friday →

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Your Live Music Bets for the Weekend of October 5th to the 7th

There’s so much good live music hitting Seattle venues in the next three weeks, it’s scary. That’s as close to a Halloween pun as you’ll get. Carry on.

Tonight (Friday, October 5):

Walking Papers, A Leaf, Dylan Trees @ Barboza. $8 day of show. Show at 7pm.

If you’ve read Clint Brownlee’s exhaustive SunBreak interview with Walking Papers (go here and here, respectively, to catch up), you know that the band’s rock pedigree couldn’t be more solid. Yes, ex-Guns ‘N Roses bassist Duff McKagan and ex-Screaming Trees drummer Barrett Martin form a rhythm section that grooves as readily as it pummels, but Jeff Angell’s growling vocals and Jimmy Page-flavored guitar licks make for some great frosting on this rock cake. You also know to get there really damned early. Lucky for you, your time waiting for the headliners will be well-served by Tacoma/Seattle quintet A Leaf, whose lush and gorgeous Beatles-cum-Shins pop makes for an incongruous but arresting warm-up.

Kultur Shock, Kinski @ Chop Suey. $12 at the door. Show at 9pm.

Kultur Shock start their sixteenth year as a unit behind a great new EP, Tales of Granpa Guru, Vol. 1. It throws elements of prog-rock conceptual density and dance music into this wonderful punk/metal/gypsy polyglot ‘s potent stew, and as we’ve repeatedly emphasized time and again, they’re an utterly lethal live act. The presence of Seattle avant-rock ensemble Kinski on the bill makes early arrival a necessity: They extract magic, horror, and beauty from a wall of feedback and atmosphere–all without a singer to harsh your head trip.

Piss Drunks, Midnight Idols, Three-Legged Dog @ Slim’s Last Chance Chili Shack and Watering Hole. $12 at the door. Show at 9:00pm.

With a name like Piss Drunks, you know not to expect introspective beardies with mandolins simpering about unrequited love in a forest. Seattle’s hellzapoppin’ hardcore vets (nearly twenty years of active duty) deliver short and to-the-point blasts of punk, and no one in town does it better.

Saturday, October 6:

Seattle Weekly’s Reverb Local Music Festival @ Various Ballard Venues. $5-$15 advance, $15 day of show. Shows begin at 4:30pm.

Nestled between some of this town’s bigger music festivals (late September’s Decibel Fest and the upcoming City Arts Fest, respectively), Reverb can be easy to neglect. But it presents 50 different local bands in 8 Ballard venues, all in one night for one impossibly cheap price. There’s an obscene amount of good stuff at your disposal with your admission, but we’re extra-psyched about the Hilliard’s Brewery line-up (prime horn-fueled vintage funk legislators Soul Senate, space-age hip-hop/ambient wizard OCnotes, and mindfuck drum/synth outfit Brain Fruit, among others); the Tractor Tavern’s alloy of roots (Americana supergroup Cosmic Panther Land Band) and balls-out Seattle rawk (veteran Seattle survivors Sweet Water); and the Sunset’s indie-rock cornucopia capped off by Erik Blood’s sleek shoegazing paeans to porn.

The Psychedelic Furs, The Chevin @ Showbox at the Market. $21.50 advance, $25 day of show. Show at 8pm.

For about three years running in the early 1980s, The Psychedelic Furs were the greatest band of the new wave era. Singer Richard Butler’s magnificant rasp of a voice epitomized wounded romance, and the band’s mixture of scruffy post-punk guitar and sixties melodies led to three incredible records–1980’s eponymous debut, 1981’s Talk Talk Talk, and 1982’s Forever Now. They haven’t recorded a new record since Clinton first took office, but who the hell cares? The band sounded aces at Red Hook Brewery’s 30th Anniversary show last year, and Butler’s sandpaper croon and serpentine cool remain ageless.

Sunday, October 7:

Thee Oh Sees, Sic Alps @ The Neptune. $15 advance. Show at 7pm.

Thank you, San Francisco, for unleashing more bat-shit crazy psych-rock/garage rock bands on an unsuspecting world than you can shake a delay pedal at. And thank you especially for Thee Oh Sees, whose shambling and sexy surf-rock-on-heavy-duty-hallucinogens live shows officially make life worth living. Someone make a John Dwyer action figure, stat: I’d buy it.

not an Airplane, Zoe Boekbinder @ Columbia City Theater. $5 day of show. Doors at 7pm, show at 8pm.

not an Airplane (no, that’s not a typo) play solid Americana, largely distinguished by lead singer/songwriter Nick Shattell’s nervy decision to build his band’s latest album, It Could Just Be This Place, out of two fifteen-minute roots operettas (Rolling Stone liked it lots). Zoe Boekbinder, meantime, is a whole ‘nother animal. The Canadian expat possesses a throaty, odd voice that she loops over itself, singing songs that combine folk, cabaret, and electronica in a head-scratching but strangely magical swirl.