I grew up revering the local sketch comedy show “Almost Live!” It was my Seattle education before I moved into the city, and still informs much of how I view the city (for better or worse).
Two of the show’s former cast members, Joel McHale and Brooks McBeth, are returning to the Emerald City for a show tonight at the Triple Door. McBeth is taping a comedy special here.
McHale should be known to most people because of his successful TV roles like as host of “The Soup” and on “Community,” and he’s a big reason why tickets are almost gone, but I think it would be a mistake to discount McBeth. He’s always been a touring, headlining comedian since he left Seattle for LA, and has made numerous TV appearances (see two below). He’s incredibly likable, and he’s from Renton, so you can expect plenty of topical, local humor. If that’s your thing.
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.
Portland Cello Project knows how to rock. They also know how to jazz, to funk, to rap, and to classical. It seems like there isn’t a musical genre that hasn’t been lovingly remixed by this roving band of cellists. Since 2007, the dozen-or-so musicians of PCP (as they’re lovingly called by members and fans) have pursued their mission to to boldly go where no cello has gone before, from rock clubs and art galleries to sports arenas and dive bars.
The ensemble’s adventurous arrangements and cello-playing chops have won them legions of fans in the Portland area and beyond. After wowing Seattle audiences in 2013 with an eclectic mix of Beck, Bach, and Brubeck, the band returned to the Triple Door on April 20 for an Easter Sunday concert. They were joined by the Alialujah Choir, a band of fellow Portlanders who blend folk-inspired tunes with layered vocal harmonies.
Alialujah Choir (Photo: Tarina Westlund)
In true PCP spirit, Sunday’s program had something for everyone. Hits by Radiohead, Kanye West, Beck, and Fleet Foxes figured prominently, along with fallen hometown hero Elliott Smith. A nod to the cello’s classical roots came in the form of Rossini’s William Tell Overture and a tribute to British choral composer John Tavener. The ensemble’s take on Dave Brubeck’s “Blue Rondo à la Turk” was one of the most interesting arrangements of the evening, the ensemble tossing Brubeck’s energetic piano theme from cellist to cellist.
Sunday’s concert was performed by six of the ensemble’s rotating group of cellists, all fine players at the top of their game. I was impressed by the quality of PCP’s arrangements, which utilize the full range of the cello and often play with timbre in clever ways. Their arrangement of Tavener’s “The Lamb” brought a buoyant quality to the solemn choral piece, shedding a new light on the Easter-appropriate work. In contrast, the arrangement of the theme from Princess Mononoke echoed the film score to a tee, evoking the soaring string melody of the original.
The six cellists received support on some songs from a backup band of drums, bass, trumpet, and keyboard. Though the rhythm section added a lot of energy to the ensemble, the songs with drums and bass guitar sounded muddled and too busy. The reverb on the bass guitar drowned out the nuanced cello arrangements in some of the more rocking tunes like Radiohead’s “Jigsaw Falling Into Place” and Beck’s “Paper Tiger”. A jazzy cello solo in Brubeck’s “Blue Rondo à la Turk” was barely audible amidst accompaniment from the other cellists as well as the backup band.
Vocalist Patti King also joined the cellists for a few numbers. She quickly became a crowd favorite, drawing cheers for her performances of Radiohead, Beck, and her own original song, “My Arrow”. PCP and King joined forces for a couple of numbers from Beck’s Song Reader, the artist’s 2012 album that was released only in sheet music format. The wry “Last Night You Were a Dream” was full of charm, with King’s sunny vocals floating over cello harmonies.
Not surprisingly, PCP sounds best when focusing on what its members know best: The cello and its vast musical capabilities. My favorite piece of the evening was “Denmark”, an original work written for the ensemble by composer and founding member Gideon Freudmann. A tentative pizzicato phrase kicks off the tune, transforming into a countermelody as the layers of the piece slowly unfold, revealing an elegant theme that’s passed around the group. It’s a short, relatively simple little piece, but “Denmark” goes far in showcasing the range and versatility of the cello ensemble.
In the spirit of Portland-flavored DIY, Sunday’s program was a true community effort, bringing together arrangements by different members of the band. With a repertoire of over 800 songs, it’s easy to believe that no two PCP shows are alike. I appreciated the opportunity to hear from each of the six cellists during their Triple Door performance, whether it be in the form of a solo passage or through a piece they arranged.
Alialujah Choir opened the evening with a brief set. With one band member missing due to illness, guitarist Adam Shearer and pianist Meredith Adelaide struggled to impart fullness to the group’s brand of wistful folk tunes. Their efforts were valiant indeed, with the pair’s lovely vocal harmonies floating in perfect balance with intertwining instrumentals. However, without the harmonizing power of the full band, the typically-rich songs felt a little hollow and repetitive after the first few numbers.
Keep an eye on Alialujah Choir for a chance to catch them in full force and health. They’ll be touring Oregon, Idaho, and the Southwest with Blitzen Trapper this fall.
Next week, the Triple Door hosts, for the sixth time, Lily Verlaine and Jasper McCann’s burlesque tribute to Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass. It follows the almost decade-long running production Land of the Sweets (the burlesque Nutcracker) which sells out the Triple Door for most of December.
But tackling and reinterpreting Alice in Wonderland presents a unique challenge because it’s so thoroughly embedded in our cultural memory, and has been adapted dozens of times previously. This production features Seattle burlesque royalty like Miss Indigo Blue, Inga Ingenue, Babette La Fave (Ivy St. Spectre when she’s in the Atomic Bombshells), and out-of-town ringer Ray Gunn of Chicago, recently named the King of Boylesque.
Through the Looking Glass has evolved from its first performances six years ago, and Lily Verlaine and Jasper McCann are always thinking of ways that it can evolve. This year will include even a new Alice.
Together, they make a brilliant and creative team, advancing burlesque and bringing in elements (and personnel) of classical dance and ballet. City Arts Magazine once described them as “a pair of stylized lifestyle artists dropped into the mundane conventional world.” Which seems fitting and apt.
I met Lily Verlaine and Jasper McCann at a Capitol Hill coffee shop to talk about the production and how it has evolved, and what they’re working on next.
I know you’ve been doing Through the Looking Glass for several years now, but what was it that drew you in to Alice in Wonderland and made you think it would translate to a good burlesque show?
Lily Verlaine: It was on the tail end of Land of the Sweets, which was successful right out of the gate. We were quite surprised by that. We were looking for a new concept.
Jasper McCann: This is one of our favorite stories, having to do with our career or our creative process. We had decided that we were going to take Land of the Sweets on tour. We took a five thousand-some mile road trip to the Midwest because our target city was Chicago. We had been kicking around some ideas for a new thing. We were thinking about things like “Twin Peaks,” but that was too gruesome.
L: But in the car on the way there, we were reading to each other. We read Kerouac’s On the Road, and we read…
J: Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe, and we read…
Together: Alice in Wonderland.
L: It was so amazing and we knew that was what we needed to do. The source was so incredible and the characters are amazing and it’s so famous. It was so charming and there so many twists and turns that an interpreter could take with it. You could go in a million directions.
J: That was something that was really successful with Land of the Sweets, that someone could come in with what their preconceived notions of what the Nutcracker is, and we hoped that when they arrived for the first time at the Burlesque Nutcracker, it was much different from what they had expected. The same idea was we could take Alice and make it into something that is unexpected, but still familiar. Everyone knows who the Mad Hatter is.
L: We just underlined pieces in the book that we loved. Who can turn a phrase like Carroll? It was just begging to be out in the world. And I’m not a fan of Disney in general…
J: A lot of us aren’t…
L: …Because Disney really controls the cultural conversation around all of our fairy tales, which to me is problematic because it’s a narrow perspective. I know there are some brilliant people that work there but we completely avoided anything that had to do with the Disney version (of Alice in Wonderland).
Lily Verlaine as the Caterpillar in Through the Looking Glass.
One of the reasons why Alice in Wonderland is one of my very favorite books is that it holds up amazingly well from reading it as a child to adulthood. It will always be a great book to read and you don’t really ever outgrow it.
L: It’s so flexible to interpretations. There have been so many intense interpretations of Alice. There was a porn film in the seventies. I watched it in research (laughs). It was actually really beautiful. It was the seventies and was in soft focus. It was so charming. It was like the most charming pornography you could ever imagine.
J: There was the live action version from the 1980s, which had Donald O’Connor, Sammy Davis Jr., and Carol Channing in it, which is really frightening… and weird.
L: The text lends itself to be taken in so many directions. Thank you, Lewis Carroll, for writing it.
The direction that we took is to play to the strengths of the venue, the beautiful venue, and to the strengths of Jasper, who is a lovely MC and singer, and this idea that I had with Alice and her reflection. I actually wanted six Alices but we have two.
J: It was a compromise.
L: We have Alice, and then there is looking glass reflection. There are a bunch of choreographic themes that I wanted to explore that fit in really well. Just finding dancers that are of the same stature and move in a similar way, who could do this intensely difficult choreography and be of a differentiating personae so we can show the sides of the human being: this person who is in the real world and has all of these notions of who they are, and then the reflection shows a piece of themselves they didn’t actually know existed.
J: Or a piece of what they’re looking for.
L: Those themes are present in the text as well. Some people think Alice is a story of the journey of self, and that interpretation lends itself to the interpretation that we have, as well. I wouldn’t say the book is about that, but it is one thing.
And Alice in Wonderland is a book that you can ask twenty different people what it’s about and get twenty different answers.
L: Agreed, completely agreed. One of the cool things is that as the show has evolved over the last five years, we’ve been able to pull in more and more of those themes as our understanding what the show we created is about, or our interpretation of the text widens.
J: And we continue to develop deeper philosophical themes, which you might think is funny for a burlesque show but the more and more we talk about, to use a cliché, the deeper down the rabbit hole we go. It’s exciting to look at the way that characters are interacting with one another and the manner in which the story is progressing. It has a lot more layers as we’ve grown as artists. This year is even a great departure from years before.
My understanding is that there will be a lot of changes this year from years past.
J: Yes. There are major, major changes.
L: I need to acknowledge the audiences in Seattle sticking with us. One thing I appreciate so much is that we’ll put an idea out the first year and they’ll believe in it and tell their friends and they’ll come back. One thing we seek to do is grow with the audience. As the audience helps us grow, we like to grow with the audience.
We have quite a few re-casts this year. I’m seeing some existing choreography with new artists is deepening my understanding of what the choreography is, even though I created it.
J: In the past, we’ve shied away from anything that could be considered grotesque. Not in a vulgar way, but in a gruesome way or anything that might be scary or dark. I think now we’re at the point where we can talk about because it’s part of the story. It’s really exciting to see the way that we have progressed in this way.
To speak to what Lily was saying, the Queen of Hearts has become much more violent, or gruesome.
L: The Queen of Hearts has become a bit more complicated. I’ve been reading about societal power and how it can corrupt. What interested me about the Queen of Hearts is not who she is, but how did she become that? How did she become that bloodthirsty? How did she become interested in taking people’s heads off?
One of the great gifts to us is in Inga Ingenue because she’s exactly five feet tall. We could have this Napoleon complex theme. When she enters the room, everyone has to shrink because no one can be taller than her. That’s one reason. Another reason is that Alice beheaded Jabberwocky in the book. Our question is: what if Alice became the Queen of Hearts? Now we have a new Alice coming in.
J: It’s also self-referential because Inga, in the last iteration of the show, was Alice. We essentially are telling the story of the Alice that came into the looking glass the first time, defeated the original Queen of Hearts, and has become corrupted by the same power. But a new Alice has arrived, so it’s, if you will, this revolving door of self-reference and the nonsensical idea behind Carroll’s world.
Jasper McCann as the White Rabbit in Through the Looking Glass.
Can you talk a little bit about what goes into putting on a show like this, or Land of the Sweets? I know it’s a ton of work…
L: What I do in our process is find the talent, schedule the talent, I connect with amazing costumers. This year, we’re working with Eric Andor, who is awesome. He’s done some work with Madonna but he’s local and just amazing. He’s redesigning the costumes. That’s my role: doing the choreography, finding the talent, learning what their skills are, finding out the best way to paint them, and figuring out the best way to bring them into our production with the skillsets they offer. At the very last minute, I work on my act and realize I don’t have a costume or choreography. (laughs)
J: The way that we start is that usually there are drinks involved and then we go back and forth of what we want the idea to be. Then Lily does all of her things and I source the music, I do all of the editing, I do most of the writing. We have the privilege of knowing each other well enough that we enough that we can edit each other on occasion.
I do all of the stuff that has to do with music editing. I design the lighting, although I don’t hang the instruments. I work a composer to write original music. I do a lot of PR and business management.
L: Paul Strong at the Triple Door has been a tremendous asset to us. He does all of the lighting at the Triple Door. He is rebuilding one of our props this year and always puts us in touch with the right source at the right time. He’s kind of a miracle. The venue has been very supportive. Part of the creative process, we really need to mention the Triple Door because they give so many dates, they give great exposure, they give us a great venue to work in.
J: And they give us a lot of technical and production support. The guys who work there are real professionals.
When it comes to casting, how do you find people, besides being in particular circles in Seattle burlesque?
L: One of the cooler things that has happened is that our show started in 2006 and we were working with all burlesque talent. I come from a classical background and my secret hope was that people in the classical world would be interested in working in this type of show. On my end, being a classical dancer is like dance rehab. I love modern dance, I love ballet, I’m a subscriber at the Ballet, I do not behoove those wonderful music options. Normally I don’t have any issue with where I came from, but the lifestyle we have is very different from the lifestyle that those guys have. Around 2010, we started to attract classical dancers. The first one being Isaiah Sumler, who was this gorgeous male. He was hired to work in a children’s ballet I was choreographing in Tacoma. When I met him, I was expecting this scrawny blonde kid, but it was a god who was in front of me. He’s since gone to the Rock School, which is a prestigious classical dance school and has gotten a job with Company C in San Francisco. He has a very bright future ahead of him.
Once he came, all kinds of interesting classical people started to show up. Scott Bartell, who unfortunately passed away last year, worked with us. Donald Byrd is such a magnet for talent in this town. A lot of the dancers he has attracted are dancing for us in their off-time.
One of the mission statements I’ve been tossing around lately is that there are a lot of talented people in this city, and I’d like to give them enough employment that they stay. That is one of my current driving forces.
J: At this rate, we’re slated to do fifty performances between our three shows. A number of the people who perform in Through the Looking Glass also perform in Burlesco DiVino and Land of the Sweets, as well. We’ve gotten to the point where we’re full time or part-time employing a huge portion of the people we work with, which is super-exciting.
L: We created a product that was attractive enough that people started to find us.
L: Oh and we have a special guest for Through the Looking Glass! His name is Ray Gunn. He is from Chicago and is a member of the Stage Door Johnnies. He is the current reigning King of Boylesque. He won a very stiff competition, with Waxie (Moon), Paris (Original), and Mr. Gorgeous from New York. He was awarded the crown. It’s very excited to have him. Waxie is teaching at Cornish this semester.
J: There was an academic conflict.
L: [Ray]’s a classical dancer, so his interpretation of the Cheshire Cat is very different from Waxie’s.
J: For the record, Waxie Moon is not being replaced.
L: It takes the King of Boylesque to stand in for Waxie Moon.
Last question, but what are you working on next that you can talk about?
L: Directly after Through the Looking Glass, we created an event in Walla Walla called Hotel Notel.
J: It’s a smaller format show that we developed for a friend of ours that has an event space. The venue that it is in is formerly the oldest hotel in the Washington territory. It was opened in like 1870. We started this project in March.
Then we’ll be returning to the Triple Door in the early part of October to remount Burlesco DiVino: Wine in Rome, which is very exciting.
{Through the Looking Glass is at the Triple Door Wednesday, April 16 through Saturday, April 19, with two shows nightly. Tickets and more information can be found here.}
Spring is in full bloom around Seattle, from the University of Washington’s famed cherry trees to the patches of tulips poking up in home gardens around town. With these seasonal transitions come musical changes as well; local ensembles and concert venues look towards warmer weather this month with music of growth, rebirth, and summer sunshine.
April 8 — Trio con Brio Copenhagen performs as part of the UW World Series. Comprised of two Korean sisters and a Danish pianist, the ensemble performs classics by Beethoven and Mendelssohn as well as a piece by Danish composer Per Nørgård.
April 11 – 19 — Pacific Northwest Ballet‘s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream combines Mendelssohn’s beloved score with gorgeous choreography by 20th century master George Balanchine. PNB completes the magic with whimsical pastel-hued sets and costumes.
April 12 — A Russian composer of Jewish heritage, Maximilian Steinberg completed his 1927 choral masterpiece Passion Week just before Stalin’s ban on religious music went into effect. As a result, the piece was never performed. Choral ensemble Cappella Romana sheds light on this lost work with world premiere performances in Portland (April 11) and Seattle (April 12).
April 20 — Portland Cello Project rolls into town with the folk singers of the Alialujah Choir, a fellow Oregonian ensemble. The cellists and vocalists bring an eclectic mix of tunes to the stage at the Triple Door.
April 22 — Cellist Joshua Roman is back in town with a new program of musical gems for Town Hall audiences. The Town Music series artistic director is joined by Lithuanian pianist Andrius Zlabys for music by Stravinsky, Schnittke, and others.
April 24 & 26 — Seattle Symphony concertmaster Alexander Velinzon takes the stage for Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D Major. Afterwards, the spotlight shifts to the symphony in Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra.
April 26 — Guest harpsichordist Alexander Weimann leads the Seattle Baroque Orchestra in “Delirio Amoroso”, a program that explores George Frideric Handel’s visit to Rome. Hear Italian music of the early 18th century alongside pieces the young Handel composed during his stay in the capitol.
April 29 — Intrepid violinist Hilary Hahn has covered vast musical territory in her career, from Baroque sonatas to contemporary composers. HerUW World Series solo recital features a medley of works by Mozart, Schubert, Schoenberg, Telemann, and others.
Midday Veil, one of several psych-rock acts expanding minds at the Triple Door this weekend. (Photo: Tony Kay)
Somewhere around the 1980s, when Baby Boomers began graying and the musical rebel cries of their youth settled into rose-tinted memory, the word psychedelic morphed from its original pharmaceutical context into quaint semaphore for anything with bright colors, or any band that exhibited even the faintest pinch of a ‘60s influence.
But psychedelic music’s about much more than meandering Granola blues riffs à la Canned Heat or The Grateful Dead, or a tie-dyed T-shirt. In the most ideal iteration of the term, psych-rock should be barrier-breaking, strange, exotic, outside-the-box, and informed by an altered state of being (and no, you don’t have to literally be on psychedelics to create or appreciate it).
Thank God there are a few bands out there looking to reclaim psychedelic music by doing their own thing. And this weekend, the Triple Door offers several hits of the best psych-rock out there with the Hypnotikon Seattle Psych Rock Fest.
Spurred by similar musical festivals in Austin and LA, Hypnotikon showcases nearly every bastard offspring of psychedelic music, from swoony shoegazer pop to the metronomic Cinemascope dissonance of krautrock. Both Friday and Saturday night feature local and national psych-rock acts, and at $25 per night (or $40 for both days), it’s a sensory feast at a reasonable price (check out the Triple Door website for all the deets). Here’s how the line-up for both nights stacks up.
Friday:
Fungal Abyss, Friday’s opening band, formed as a side project for Seattle prog-metal titans Lesbian, but FA’s grown into its own distinctive animal. Their long, often-improvised tracks unspool with a well-honed sense of sonic atmosphere and a backbeat that goes from jazzy to seismic in an instant.
Midday Veil, another Seattle-based project, provided Bumbershoot’s most headily-delicious hour this last Labor Day Weekend, and their Hypnotikon set will likely follow suit. Emily Pothast’s rich dark-chocolate chant of a voice gives the band’s wildly-experimental sonics (Indian Raga meets experimental electronic by way of Pink Floyd?) an exotic and mesmerizing center.
Bay area band Lumerians, by contrast, creates a dense, danceable drone that spikes traditional psychedelic rock tropes like trippy guitars and mind-expanding lyrics with stuttering percussion and fuzzed-out keyboards.
Chicago band Cave should make for a great capper to the evening: Sweaty rock energy runs roughshod alongside raga-like repetition, funk grooves, and caterwauling synths, and they’re reportedly as forceful as they are forward-thinking, live.
Saturday:
Seattle’s Jetman Jet Team open Day Two of Hypnotikon with a lovely, textbook example of psychedelia’s romantic kid sibling, shoegazer music. That translates to lush, tuneful, British-sounding pop songs wrapped in a blanket of symphonic guitar pings and whooshes. It’s a familiar formula that’s easy to take for granted, but Jetman do it to the swirly, fetching hilt.
Night Beats moved from Texas to Seattle a few years ago, chewing on the hallucinogenic roots of old-school psych-rock hellions like the 13th Floor Elevators the whole way. Like their psychedelic forebears, Night Beats play straight-ahead garage rock songs with the kind of ferocious live presentation that blows all notions of simple revivalism out of the water. If they’re not the most potently-rocking act all Hypnotikon, I’ll eat both of the hats I own.
Cloudland Canyon contrast Night Beats’ guitar-based sound with a heavily-synthesized style — monolithic, buzzing keyboards, walls of restless electronic percussion, and disembodied vocals that lend a trippy but distinctively human quality to the music.
It wouldn’t be a proper psych-rock fest, however, without at least one rediscovered act from psychedelia’s early days, and Hypnotikon closes out with a doozy.
New York duo Silver Apples began playing in the late 1960s, creating their own mini-universe of strange noises with vocalist/keyboardist Simeon’s handmade synthesizers and wraithlike voice, and Danny Taylor’s pulsing drums. The resulting sounds proved too damned weird even for the drug-fueled Sixties, but the metronomic drive and eccentricity of their catalog presaged current electronic dance music in a big way. Taylor passed away in 2005, so Simeon has carried on Silver Apples solo, partly utilizing the modern technology that his music helped shape in the first place. And hearing this 75-year-old guy creating alien sounds that still sound ahead of their time could turn out to be the most transcendent portion of the whole weekend.
