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THE DEARS @ The Nest
By Cara Ventura - Classified - 09/29/04
At 1 o'clock in the morning I entered the stairway to what would normally seem to be a fairly large loft space. 'The Nest' strongly resembled its namesake; a blistering hot incubative space compacted wall-to-wall with young things. Nestled in the centre of the Nest was the musical equipment set up in a circle facing the true centre of the room. Tall speakers that pointed outwards (in conjunction with support beams) blocked the view of no fewer than 50% of the audience – but that was not to be an issue. As we tend to forget, musicians playing infectious music can get away with an uncontrived stage performance; there were none of the usual tricks – no stage or performance-specific lighting to speak of. The round table effect would turn out to be actually quite inclusive.
The Dears took the stage and proceeded to perform their Protest EP in its entirety. The sound was perfectly entrancing. The room stood at silent attention, mesmerized by the passion and intensity coursing through our corporeal selves. From the first haunting note to the very last wavering drone, everyone seemed as a part of the music as the performers were. I must call this event a concert specifically and not a 'show' – it was worthy of an orchestra stage – Heaven Help Us is the paradigm example, as it sounds like an intense classical piece.
Each song was larger than life (and by far that room). The Dears have a unique way of combining almost every style of music that has been experimented with (dare I say) since Medieval Madrigals. One can pick out across-the-board influences including (but not limited to) religious chanting, snippets of baroque structures, romantic melodies, impressionistic dissonance, folk, shoegazer – and many more styles in-between. I honestly didn't know whether I should have begun to look for a reason to lead a revolution or to try to find some really great opium. I think it was both.
Cara V hosts Classified from Noon-2pm on Sundays. She also performs multi-instrumentalist duties in Spectator (formerly the Omar and Louis Psychadelic Experience), on both bass guitar and saxophone.
RILO KILEY + Now It's Overhead + Tilly & The Wall @ La Sala Rossa
By Alex Huynh - Losing My Edge - 10/04/04
It's not easy immediately following the Pop Montreal festival, but this bill certainly gave it a good shot and the crowd responded in kind. This was more or less a Saddle Creek show, as Now It's Overhead are currently on it; Tilly and The Wall are on its offshoot label, the unfortunately named Team Love, and headliners Rilo Kiley recorded their new album More Adventurous with Saddle Creek before issues led them to release it on their own label Brute/Beaute, which is distributed by Warner.
Tilly and The Wall are five-piece band that contains more useless members than a hermaphrodite, with two vocalists (one of them doubles as a hand percussionist), a tap dancer, a guitarist/vocalist and a keyboardist making up the roster. For the sake of eye candy (Tilly and The Wall, not the hermie), I suppose that having 2.5 cute indie girls on stage isn't the worse marketing plan ever. That aside, the music was perfectly fine Patridge Family-style pop with the occasional aping of Conor Oberst's vocal style playbook, which would normally make for a good live set if it weren't for the fact that they were unsettlingly cheery, like those overly happy characters in David Lynch movies. I haven't freshened up on my Dante's Inferno as of late to be able to distinguish exactly which level of hell this was, but I was definitely starting to freak out, especially with the Saddle Creek minions bouncing around me just as unnaturally overjoyed.
Athens, GA natives Now It's Overhead provided the perfect antidote for the last set by being criminally boring and bland (again, not sure what level that is). Disappointing, since on the strength of Blackout Curtain (download at Insound.com) and Michael Stipe's pimping, I was expecting a bit more than a flat live performance that no amount of "aw shucks, guys, thanks for coming" could save.
Finally, one of the buzz bands of the moment steps on stage and they launch into "It's a Hit" off the new album. Much has been made about frontwoman Jenny Lewis' "presence" (read: she's hot - for lonely emo kids and Robert Christgau), but more striking was her command over her vocals. Though Rilo Kiley's songs don't always call for the strongest vocal performances, it's almost impossible not to detect its potency right underneath the surface. Their country-tinged side really shines through live and they are energetic and tight enough to maintain a stranglehold on the converted. As for the disinterested observer, he simply headed for the exit.
Losing My Alex hosts Losing My Edge (Sundays from 2-4pm, Tuesdays from 8-10pm) with a neverendingly rotating cast of co-hosts. He's like the Mark E. Smith of CJLO.
HOT ROD CIRCUIT + Straylight Run @ La Sala Rosa
By: Ganit Bar-Dor - The Punk Wears Prada - 10/21/04
Sometimes you forget about certain bands just because – no particular reason – they just slip through the cracks. One of those bands is Hot Rod Circuit and as I stood there at La Sala Rosa on October 21st, I remembered that I actually really like this band. I've had the opportunity to see them on various occasions and every time I swear that I'm gonna dig up one of their CDs and I swear I will one of these days. Hot Rod Circuit delivered a great show with one their guitarists seeming out of place because of his intense enthusiasm onstage i.e. jumping around on stage as the rest of the band remained in place which was amusing to watch. Even with that little discrepancy onstage, they were tight and played some awesome Rock n Roll. Straylight Run, the co-headliners, followed Hot Rod Circuit. A little background information on Straylight Run: they formed last year when John Nolan and Shaun Cooper decided to leave their former band, Taking Back Sunday, due to personal reasons. They formed their own band with John's sister Michelle who shares piano, guitar and singing duties with John, and rounding off the group is former Breaking Pangaea drummer, Will Noon. With an album under their belt which was just released on Victory records, they rocked La Sala Rosa. They had fun on stage singing some Neil Young and joking around with the crowd. The small but intense crowd sang along to those songs that have been in rotation on The Punk Wears Prada since the winter and the band seemed happy with the response. Hopefully that these two acts come back very soon to rock out to a larger crowd and gain some well-deserved recognition.
Check out Your Name Here (Sunrise Highway) - Straylight Run from the Victory Records website.
Check out Inhabit It - Hot Rod Circuit from the Vagrant Records website.
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