Tag Archives: fleet foxes

Music

Live Show Review: Hamilton Leithauser at the Triple Door

When my favorite bands break up, I feel a small pang, quickly followed by the thought “but that’s it?” as if they’ve somehow slighted me by not consulting with me first on the matter. Fifteen minutes ago I learned that The Walkmen essentially broke up (“extended hiatus”) on November 29, 2013. Learning of this band’s breakup was different from the previous times I can remember hearing this type of news. If it weren’t for the fact that the band’s lead singer, Hamilton Leithauser, had recently released a much-worthy follow-up to the band’s last three absolutely amazing albums, I might actually have felt that pang, that sense of longing. Instead, I can move on, happy in the thought that we’ll still get to hear great music led by this great crooner.

Leithauser came through town with the current iteration of his backing band this past Tuesday night, playing what would prove to be the perfect venue for his sound: The Triple Door. This man was built for dinner theater. Tilting the mic this way and that, evoking thoughts of Elvis as he swayed with his guitar, and belting the shit out of the songs in his unmistakably Hamilton Leithauser way. He is a tall, closely-shaved, clean cut and sharp-suited man, producing a slightly gravel-filled voice that can go very nicely low and high at whim.

Joining Leithauser on stage were a couple of Fleet Foxes: Skyler Skjelset on bass and Morgan Henderson on percussion. This was in addition to Paul Maroon (also of The Walkmen) on guitar, and Richard Swift (I think? I couldn’t find 100% confirmation on this one point) on drums. Together, the five men played an impassioned set of songs, all from Leithauser’s fantastic solo debut, Black Hours. The set started out with the high-energy “I Don’t Need Anyone” — a paean to breaking up that could easily be about The Walkmen as much as it’s about a girlfriend. “I’m the last man running,” belted a few times throughout the chorus, is Leithauser’s call to his former band — he’ll keep moving forward without them.

The momentum kept up, with “11 O’Clock Friday Night” and then the album’s first single, “Alexandra,” a rock and roll anthem about love and longing. Seven songs in, the set calmed down, with most of the band exiting the stage, leaving Leithauser and Maroon on piano, for a few quieter songs that are found only on the Deluxe version of Black Hours. The band came back out for a couple more rocking songs, along with a brief 2-song encore to wrap up the evening. It was a near-perfect set of music.

Tuesday night’s performance felt very much like a full Walkmen show. Leithauser, always the showman, commands attention with the charisma of a standing US President. Add in a stellar backing band he can do no wrong. Maybe the fame that I always expected The Walkmen to have will come around to Leithauser. Part of me selfishly hopes not, wanting Leithauser to continue playing these smaller venues. Just so long as he doesn’t stop singing, I’ll be happy. I’m anxious to see where he goes running next.

Arts & Entertainment, Music

Bill Patton Gets Nocturnal with his Latest Record

It’s totally apropos that I first listened to A New Kind of Man, the latest solo release from Bill Patton, walking alone at night through downtown Seattle. The record possesses a slow-smoldering nocturnal vibe–the perfect soundtrack for night owls shambling home under rain-pelted streetlights.

Most of the 11 songs on A New Kind of Man move at a down-tempo shuffle, and Patton’s voice–a smoky, weary croon that cracks at the drop of a wool cap– reinforces that flavor of nighttime, almost without trying. Sonically, the music cross-pollinates Nick Drake’s dark folk with hints of country troubadour Gram Parsons at his most downcast.

The influences make sense: Patton’s built a considerable rep for himself as a pedal steel, lap steel, and standard acoustic/electric guitar player for Fleet Foxes, Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter, J. Tillman, and other artists plying similar roots. Tillman (AKA Father John Misty) even sings backing vocals on a song or two. But while there’s a superficial resemblance to Tillman’s pre-Father John Misty material, beneath the surface of Bill Patton’s work dwells a unique, more complicated animal.

For one thing, Patton’s second full-length (the first, Gets it On, came out back in 2006) fairly wallows in atmosphere. The production seasons country and folk trappings with moans and squalls of treated guitar, and almost subliminal keyboard textures whirr beneath the slow tempos, lending a dreamlike quality throughout. Patton also sports a sense of humor forsaken by most alt-folk/Americana musicians, from his portrait on the sleeve (it took me several seconds to catch how goofy the damned thing was) to a wry re-imagining of J-Lo’s “Jenny from the Block” as a Tom Waits-style jazz shuffle.

Patton also knows to ease off on the arch wit when it’s necessary. His cover of The Beatles‘ “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” converts the exultant ardor of the original to a waltz-time dirge: His reading of the familiar lyric, “It’s such a feeling, my love, I can’t hide,” sounds like an opium addict giving into waves of narcosis.

It’s a testament to Patton’s songwriting that his originals stand admirably alongside the covers, and that they do so much to maintain the atmosphere. “Worrying” and “If I Had a Home” are sandy, winning country-rock songs (the former adding a sweet lilt in contrast to the latter’s weariness), and he subtly tweaks his sonic palate with a loping bass line and gentle psychedelic touches on “Om.” The album’s masterstroke for my money, though, is “I Don’t Blame You.” Patton’s rasp, filtered until it almost sounds serpentine, dives headlong into the darkness, with guitars that shift from pensive trebly echoes into crushing monster chords. Sometimes, Patton seems to be saying, you just have to stand in the dark and let the rain fall on you, no matter how hard it’s coming down.

Arts & Entertainment, Music, Visual Arts

“The Shrine / An Argument” Video from the Fleet Foxes

Sean Pecknold is listed as the director and animator (with Britta Johnson) for this video of “The Shrine / An Argument,” off the Fleet Foxes‘ Helplessness Blues album, but the character illustrations are by Stacey Rozich, the Seattle illustrator and graphic designer who says of herself: “[m]ost days she can be found watching 30 Rock and daydreaming about cats.” If you went to see The Mormon Bird Play at Washington Ensemble Theatre, then you may have enjoyed her art on display in their lobby.