Wednesday March 11, 2009

Oddity Faire

I recently saw Les Claypools's Oddity Fair at Mont Bleu in Stateline, NV. The lineup was Saul Williams, The Yard Dogs Road Show, and the Oddity Fair.

Before the show I found some videos on youtube which got my attention:

• Oddity Fair

• Yard Dogs Road Show

• Saul Williams

I was almost out of luck when I showed up without a ticket and the show was sold out. Fortunately there were some tickets released late and I was able to enjoy the show. It was a nice surprise to see a show like this sell out in Tahoe. Maybe Mont Bleu will go back to having more interesting events?

I missed Saul Williams. That set must have been really short.

The Yard Dogs were like a carny side show with good music and a burlesque sub theme. Sword swallowing style carny acts, weird sub themes some making fun of other music genres, a pretty cool 50s style burlesque show (cool feathers, pasties, nice bodies, good choreography, classy), and some pretty good music including various voices, guitar, bass, drums, and horns. The video about doesn't do it justice.

Oddity Faire was a percussionist (xylophone and other like instruments), trap set, cellist, and bassist (Les). On the surface that is 2.5 rhythmic instruments and one 1.5 melodic instruments (splitting the percussionist) but in reality Les pretty much plays lead and some barely bass like instruments (the single string variable tuned hammered bass for instance). I like their stuff but it can be repetitive, spacey, and dark. A pretty intense crowd down front but nothing I couldn't keep up with. Les likes to mess with peoples heads and tease songs of his that are popular. He teased Sea of Cheese and others. I like that kind of stuff and as a Claypool fan I have a hard time imagining how you couldn't at least learn to deal with it but it still seems to get his fans going. His band wore some weird masks at times but in general they were pretty vanilla. At least for what it could have been or what the Yard Dogs just had thrown at us. Les vanilla, heh, maybe not. ( Mar 11 2009, 05:58:06 AM PDT ) Permalink

Tuesday August 26, 2008

Outside Lands

I attended Outside Lands over the weekend. Overall I thought the event showed some cracks in the organization. For two of the headliners there were serious sound issues. The sounds boards on almost all of the stages were setup to block the stage from a good part of the fields. The overall bathroom situation seemed to run out of steam each night as the number of reasonable clean bathrooms approached 0 before the headliners were done. The drink options were limited and overpriced. Other things seemed to work well. Bands seemed to get on and off the stage on time and the sound besides the headliners was good. Their was a wide range of reasonable priced food options for such an event.

Friday evening:

• Beck - This was a mob scene. I came in the entrance right next to Beck and not being enough of a Beck fan kept on going. The bathrooms in the walkway between Lindley Meadow where Beck was playing and the Polo Fields was jam packed and a fence by the bathrooms had been knocked down just before I got there. It doesn't seem to me like this was well planned.

• Manu Chao - A little too mellow for me.

• The Black Keys - I like these guys. Maybe almost too unstructured for me? Is that possible? Seemed like everything started out as jam-noise and progressed from there.

• Lyrics Born - I like this guy. One of the better underground Hip-Hop/Rap types. He can turn a phrase nicely and the band he had rocked.

• Radiohead - I don't get these guys. I listened through their whole set. I guess they rocked. They dealt with the sound dropping out twice pretty well.

Saturday:

• Sparrow Quartet - I went to go see this band because of Bela Fleck but I think they all rocked. I think I would classify it as folk or old-time music although there are some bluegrass elements and they seemed to have been strongly influenced by Chinese folk music.

• Everest - eh? I don't get it. According to their bio 80's indie with some jam/prog influences. Seemed pretty generic to me.

• Galactic's Crescent City Soul Krewe - I like Galactic. This ended up being Galactic with part of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band part of the time and one of the Neville brothers the rest of the time. They are funky. They are good. They are fun. That fun aspect to live music is one thing I think some of the young bands miss.

• Steve Winwood - Nice set although he still comes off as too produced to me.

• Regina Spektor - I had my 16 year old niece pick out a few bands she would go see that I didn't know. Most of what she thought was cool were bands I'd seen and would probably pass on. But I like Regina Spektor. I couldn't get close enough to see her perform but I liked what I heard. Lost of tempo and crazy lyric changes with a lot of energy. I would have liked to see the show as it seemed like she was probably pretty entertaining. A conversation the next day on the bus confirmed that was true.

• Ben Harper and The Innocent Criminals - I almost didn't go see this. I'd heard them before but not seen them. This was another one of my niece's recommendations. I still am not entirely hot on Ben's music but he is a good showman. I'm glad I went to go see them.

• Primus - I've seen Primus before and really like them. Les Claypool always seems to do things I like. But this time I thought they fell flat. OTOH I was pretty tire by this time and wasn't really into it.

• Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers - Pretty standard set running through more tunes then I thought I knew of Tom Petty's. But I knew them all. Nothing over the top here. The sound dropped out twice during this set and they had to take a 5 minute break to work on the PA but it seemed like the band dealt with it well. I ended up leaving before the last few songs but the walk out was long enough that I heard the end of the set.

• The Mighty Underdogs featuring Gift of Gab, Lateef and Headnodic - I meant to start the day off with ALO but got the schedule confused. I listened to a few songs an then left. Unlike Lyrics Born this is too "rappy" for me.

• ALO - These guys hit a nice groove. They didn't blow me away but I enjoyed the part of the set I heard.

• Culver City Dub Collective - A little too ambient for me. I needed energy at this point and these guys were not providing it.

• Stars - Also too mellow for me. I did get a nice nap near the end of their set.

• Andrew Bird - This guy is cool. Very talented. I would have never guessed what a "whistler" really was until I hear him. Nice to hear the violin mixed in as he did.

• Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings - Old school fairly high energy blues was a good thing at this point. It had been a mellow morning and I needed a pick-me-up. Nice instrumentals, nice voice, nice showmanship on Sharon Jones part.

• Grace Potter and the Nocturnals - I'd hear these guys open up for Mule at the Fillmore earlier this year. I thought this set was more mellow and didn't quite meet my expectations. But they still sounded good. I didn't make much of this set as I'd heard them before.

• Widespread Panic - I first saw WSP in May '91 in LA. I've been an addict ever since. They had a 90 minute spot but they ran over by 20 minutes or so. The set is high energy from the beginning. In the middle of Henry Parson's Died is a great Green Onion's jam (Sorry to whomever I tried to convince afterwards that was a Ventures song and not Booker T. an the MGs). The later third of the set they had Ann Marie Calhoun on Violin. I thought there was some really nice interplay between Jimmy Herring an Ann Marie during several jams. WSP was the band that made me really want to come to Outside Lands and they delivered. Too bad they could only play 1/2 a show.

• Mike Gordon - Mike Gordon played a set with a keyboardist, drummer, and a guitar player. The set seemed tentative to me. But I was a little burned out from Panic an I think WSP going over might have shorted Gordon's spot (they were on opposite ends of Lindley Meadow).

• Jack Johnson - I was burned out by this point an Jack is just too mellow for me. I listened to about 1/2 of his set an then wondered on home.

Sunday January 06, 2008

memories AND adventure

There are many reasons to like music. I often see it as fleeting. As soon as a note is played it is over. A Phil Lesh quote would suggest that he and Jerry Garcia would have agreed:

Jerry put it the best, as he frequently did: ‘Let ‘em have it. When we play it, we’re done with it.’

The other day I was walking out of a Van Morrison concert at the Grand Sierra Resort talking with a friend about the show. It was the first time that either of us had see Van Morrison and while we had both enjoyed the show we were amused at the "curtness" of the show. The set started and songs came fast and furious and then Van walked off the stage with no encore. As we stood outside of the venue (inside the GSR) waiting for some friends we started chatting with another concert attendee. She was really disturbed with the show. Van hadn't played much that she had known and she had listened to all his recordings. My friend and I commiserated with her for a few moments and then moved on. At first I had been a little startled by our acquaintances reaction but then I realized that she saw live music as a way to retrieve memories where as I saw it as adventure. I have a pretty extensive collection of live and studio recordings. I see about 25 live shows a year. I don't want to hear what I can hear at home. I want/hope/expect that the band paints a sonic landscape that is another step beyond that which I've already heard.

I got a Stiletto 2 recently. That has reopened my interest in listening to varying types of music. My current presets include: 17 (Jam_ON), 19 (Classic Hard Rock), 20 (Pure Hard Rock), 27 (Heavy Metal), 28 (Faction; Punk, Hip-Hop, Hard Rock), 29 (Punk), 32 (Grateful Dead), 33 (Trance), 63 (Outlaw Country), 65 (Bluegrass), and 80 (Symphony). When I first started listening to Sirius in my car I had a limited number of presets and felt that the music silos were limiting. One of the things I liked about radio as a kid is that you were exposed to music you didn't know. Looking through this list I can see a lot of memories (I just shoveled my upper deck to 19 listening to nothing less then a decade old) but I hope I don't ever end up in my friend aboves state of never looking for the adventure in music. ( Jan 06 2008, 07:05:12 PM PST ) Permalink

Monday October 08, 2007

Panic Welcome I saw the 9/27-9/29 concerts at the Paramount in Oakland, CA. The Paramount is a beautiful venue and Panic turned out 3 different but very good shows. Given the recent changes in the band I was worried that the shows wouldn't have the typical panic variety but there were no overlaps between the three setlists. Hopefully Jimmy's comments are good for a while because I think this form of the band could become ever better as they spend more time playing together. I started seeing Widespread Panic on 9/20/91. They have often been the then song in the back of my mind that kept me sane during the tough moments. ( Oct 08 2007, 11:01:36 AM PDT ) Permalink

Friday April 08, 2005

Yonder

We've had a very nice run of shows lately in Lake Tahoe. Last week it was SCI, last night it was Yonder Mountain String Band, and next weeks its moe. Additionally Railroad Earth is playing on the other side of the lake this coming Tuesday and Umphrey's McGree is playing next month on the north shore.

This is my second Yonder show. The band is a foursome made up of a banjo player, a guitarist, a mandolin player, and a bass player. The mandolin player carries most of the vocal duty although they all sing. The show was opened by Shawn Camp who also played a lot of fiddle with Younder throughout the evening. The Younder crowd is made up of many of the same types as would go to jamband shows (like the SCI show) but also another demographic would could be described as bluegrass enthusiasts. This makes for a little bit of cultural conflict¹, but generally works out with the "kids" (roughly jamband fans) going to the front part of the auditorium and dancing and the other fans rocking out in their seats. This might also explain why the Tahoe Tribune didn't feel the need to write two article for the front page attempting to describe the social fabric of the fanbase.

I loved the show. If there was any critical comment I'd make it was that when Yonder are doing songs with lots of vocals that tends to get in the way of their incredible intense jamming. Hopefully we get to see these guys on a regular basis.

¹During the opener I was standing in front of a booth the group of people I was with had reserved. The people behind complained such that a friend heard. He told them he would tell me but that once Yonder went on it was likely there would be a lot more people standing. I choose to sit down and to go to the front when Yonder was on. ( Apr 08 2005, 11:07:49 AM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]

Thursday March 31, 2005

All that matters is the music

Before the SCI show tonight while moaning about the silly articles in the Tahoe Tribune a friend noted nicely that "All that matters is the music". And he is right. That reminded me of a closet deadhead podcast. In podcast 6 an interviewee makes the same statement with respect to peoples assumptions (like the Tribune writer) that its more about the drugs and social structure then anything else. He makes some very cogent statements about how that assumption probably comes about.

The show tonight was very different from last night. Instead of driving intense focus it was varied with whacked out jams, drumz, slow songs, and some very hard rocking. I had a feeling the whole first set as if the band was playing at some experiment that we all were suppose to figure out. Thats one of the aspects of jam band shows that I really enjoy! ( Mar 31 2005, 01:35:33 AM PST ) Permalink Comments [0]

Wednesday March 30, 2005

a good time was had by those who attended

I ventured out last night to hear String Cheese Incident at Caesars Tahoe. I was busy all day and into the evening and just had enough time to get to the venue and meet up with some other tahoe jam band fans. The show started off with a very intense Just One Story and maintained intense focus through a very strong encore. This was definitely a show that will have to live in my mp3 player for a while.

I didn't hang out in the orchestra pit but instead was up one level. The sound was the clearest I've heard at the venue. I'm going to have to spend some time next time around experimenting to see if that was my physical placement or better technology used by the band/venue.

The local paper ran a couple of articles about the show on the front page. It was strange that the author of both of those articles attempted to make connections between the shows, hippies, and the lack of money but then had to mention that the marketing manager at Caesars would have been happy to have them back anytime as they filled up the hotel. I suspect the author stated off with a preconceived notion that he couldn't quite break down. Years ago when the Grateful Dead were playing in Las Vegas a city official made the very insightful comment in a Las Vegas newspaper that the deadheads were our most colorful convention goers.

I noticed an announcement by the dead that they were offering a lot of music for download. Some of it is free and some of it is for purchase (via their portal or iTunes). At the SCI show I noticed that they had a similar setup at livecheese. This is something that has been available in the jam band community in an ad hoc manner for some time as the bands generally allow taping. When I was in college we would use the postal system to trade tapes. ( Mar 30 2005, 11:13:55 AM PST ) Permalink Comments [0]

Wednesday November 17, 2004

Reno Philharmonic One of the downsides to living in Lake Tahoe is that some of the finer aspects of culture are hard to access in person. Sure, its only 4 hours to the Bay Area or an hour to get to Reno and another hour or so to much of the western US, but that takes planning. Recently I've been looking to the Reno Philharmonic, the Reno Chamber Orchestra, and other events at the Pioneer Center to fill my needs. The Reno Philharmonic concert last sunday was made up of 3 pieces: a work by a young american composer whose work I didn't know, a cello concerto by Elgar which I was faintly aware of, and Ravel's orchestration of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" which its hard not to be very aware of. I wasn't sure what to expect from the Reno Philharmonic but I was very happy with the results. The music director gave a talk beforehand about the program. His enthusiasm for the music and especially for the first work made it easier for me to approach a work I hadn't heard before. He furthered that during the concert by pulling the work apart and having parts of the orchestra play important pieces before they performed all of it. This made detail that might be missed especially on a first hearing easier to appreciate. The Elgar concerto was very enjoyable and the Ravel made a prefect last piece as it was very familiar and is easy to listen to. ( Nov 17 2004, 01:03:03 PM PST ) Permalink Comments [1]

Monday November 01, 2004

Dick Dale I went to see Dick Dale at the Crystal Bay Casino on Friday evening. Unfortunately I failed to cross check the time listed on Dick Dale's website and showed up halfway through the show. Additionally the crowd was half old fans and half very your typical casino crowd. That is they came because they were in the casino and needed something else to feed their ADD. Since I was late I was closer to the back of the set aside area with a higher percentage of the later type who didn't seem to be unable to keep their comments to themselves. Oh well, after years of going to live music I still manage to mangle a nice opportunity to see an interesting artist every once in a while. What I heard of the music was good. Dick puts on a good show. ( Nov 01 2004, 12:00:26 PM PST ) Permalink

Tuesday October 26, 2004

Megadeth I havn't been to a speed metal (or whatever its called these days) show in some time. So I grabbed Dave's latest CD and checked out Megadeth at the Reno Hilton. Besides being overly enamored by the fact that a seat in the poker room was less then 50 yards away from my seat in the theatre I really enjoyed the show. The opener (earshout?) was boring. They seemed to be preping for some 80s big arena show after having skipped being even close to interesting but Dave and current hirees were great. Compared to shows I remember from the mid 90s the energy of the show was high but not quite as edgy. Thats possible because this was the first stop on their tour. Several times during the show all the members of the band disappeared off stage for what seemed like a quick conferece. But all in all very enjoyable. I was suprised that Dave didn't get on his horse about election issues eventhough he came close several times.

Security at venues like this never seem to get it. They attempted to apply very silly techniques for controlling the crowd. Don't they ever do research? ( Oct 26 2004, 12:17:50 PM PDT ) Permalink Comments [2]

Thursday September 09, 2004

Galactic at the Mystic I checked out a fun show by Galactic at McNear's Mystic theatre in Petaluma last Friday (September 3, 2004). When I first got to Petaluma I checked into my room at the Metro. The Metro was a nice base to investigate Petaluma from as it was a short walk to downtown and the area where the Mystic is. After wandering around for a while I decided to eat at the Thai Issan. I had seen reviews for this restaurant on the web and received positive comments about it at the Metro. I had a nice meal which segued after a short stop in a local watering hole to the show at the Mystic. Galactic is an interesting funky jam band. There were really at their best when they were being more funky but had some very fun long jams. I didn't think the vocals really added much to their music. I've heard the vocalist won't be on the next tour. Considering everything I prefer WSP/SCI style bands more but had a very enjoyable evening. The Mystic is a very nice small venue. I won't hesitate to go to another show there. ( Sep 09 2004, 08:56:32 AM PDT ) Permalink

Wednesday July 21, 2004

String Cheese Indicent String Cheese Incident played the other night at Caesars Tahoe. I hadn't seen SCI before but I have seen a fair number of like bands. These guys definitely put on a very good show. The energy from the band resonates very nicely with the crowd to produce and wonderful environment for a great jam band. They are more high energy then WSP or Yonder in my limited experience. If you get a chance check these guys out! ( Jul 21 2004, 02:39:56 PM PDT ) Permalink

Tuesday June 08, 2004

Jam Bands I hadn't seen many bands in a while but within the last few months I've seen Blues Traveler, Younder Mountain String Band, moe., and Los Lobos as Caesar's Tahoe (promoted by renegade). I'd seen Blues Traveler before. For the first few songs I thought they were going to break down. The band just didn't seem to be communicating. But as the show progressed they jelled and put on a very good show. The other bands were all new experiences for me and real treats. Younder and moe. are excellent jam bands that turned out excellent second sets. In both cases I thought the first sets were a little weak. Los Lobos was just a party! What a great band. ( Jun 08 2004, 04:29:14 PM PDT ) Permalink Comments [2]