Playlist

Live

October 26, 2012
Sound Effects Coffee House, Seattle

Beast of the Sky
The Hunting Club
Black Plastic Clouds
Your Mother Should Know

The band names increased in length by letter count and layout, but were arranged symmetrically by word count 4 3 3 4. Sorry, it's the sort of thing I notice.

Sound Effects Coffee House Stage

Sound Effects is a barely reconfigured commercial/light industrial space in Lower Queen Anne, used for rehearsal space upstairs, and for coffee shop and music venue downstairs. It is unfinished in fact as well as, or if, by design. But the music sounds pretty good, the stage is big and there is a lot of room to move around, sit around, hang around. Intimate in a friendly way, like Gallery 1412, but more open ended.

This was Beast of the Sky's first outing. They played a short energetic set dominated by their drummer, who seemed equal parts Moon, Animal, and Ramone. The Roar-core vocalist was not unappealing, though not exactly my cup of tea, either. A little goes a long way here, and it would be interesting if he were to wander more widely among the possibilities.

The Hunting Club participates fully in the mix-and-match of the local scene: the drummer is also the drummer with Peterman, and the bass player is the drummer with Red Ribbon and Charms. And that's just my limited connectional knowledge. They have a lot going for them instrumentally, the rhythm section is solid, and between the duo vocals, the keyboards, and the old-fashioned song-writing I kept getting earwhiffs from all over - from Paul Revere and the Raiders or Buddy Holly or ? and the Mysterians, to The True Bugs or The Humidiflyers.

No Cats Were Harmed

Black Plastic Clouds - what can one say? Horns on wheels, Paul Bunyan vocals and Blue Ox drums. I look forward to hearing them again.

The DIY sound committee did a tremendous job and Your Mother Should Know sounded 100% better and more balanced than they have anywhere else. Their set has been whittled and honed and tightened. They played well and I was proud of them. Good time to take a break and learn some new material.

Recorded

October 21, 2012
Concerto No. 5 in E-flat - Beethoven - Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa, Rudolf Serkin

All the ways a single force can morph into multiples. This is at least a triple concerto.

12 Waltzes - Schubert - Vladimir Ashkenzay

October 23, 2012
Sonata No. 30 in E - Beethoven - Rudolf Serkin

Never has this piece sounded so fragmented, so partial, so unfinished. Quite stunning.

October 25, 2012
Symphonie Fantastique - Berlioz - BBC Symphony Orchestra, Andrew Davis

A live recording : an oxymoron : the quintessential oxymoron of concert music in the recorded era : the artifice, the contraptual nature of music : page turns and podium creaks lovingly recorded and reproduced by the electo-magnetic manipulation of concerted diaphragms : The historical birth of not just the modern orchestra, but of the symphony orchestra as a theater of itself.

Liederkreis Op. 39 - Schumann - Ian Partridge, Jennifer Partridge

The song-ness intrudes as rudely into the piano solo-ness as the piano solo-ness intimates itself subtly into the song-ness.


In Session at The Tintinabulary

October 22, 2012
Banned Rehearsal 823 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Meyer

Hey guys, this is starting to sound remarkably good.