Playlist

Live

August 16, 2012
Turandot - Puccini
Seattle Opera - McCaw Hall, Seattle

Claudio Arrau

I know it's a fairy tale, but I can't help wondering about the morning after, when the confederated armies of the kings whose sons had been cruelly slain attack the city and slaughter all, including the happy couple. The set was colorful and brave, especially since all those hoops could be mistaken for all sorts of things: cheerios, pineapple slices, or even (given the configuration) a certain common household plumbing fixture, complete with a gong where the handle would be. The music was performed fabulously. I just have a hard time taking the enterprise seriously.

Recorded

August 21, 2012
Fantasie-Impromptu Op. 66 - Chopin - Arrau

Polychronality.

Hal Kemp

Them There Eyes - Hal Kemp [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]
Klavierstück VI - Stockhausen - Kontarsky

Karlheinz Stockhausen

Plates of stone stacked: imaged in terms of the relative persistence of pitch classes in registral space. The pacing of texture to texture gives it the affectual characteristics of a classical theme & variations.


Upcoming

Thursday October 4, 2012
Your Mother Should Know at Blue Moon, Seattle

Saturday October 20, 2012 concert begins at 8:00 PM
Keith Eisenbrey - piano recital at The Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle
Preludes in Seattle Part 4: Preludes by Ken Benshoof, Keith Eisenbrey, Lockrem Johnson, and Greg Short

Playlist

Live

August 11, 2012

Neal Meyer - the memorizist

Writing For The Second Time Through Finnegans Wake - John Cage

Neal Meyer, voice; Jake Thompson, sound design
Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

Theater, poetry, hilarity, darkness, terror. Not only soggy with the greater, outer, sound-world, but also the time-theater of performance is interpermeate with the time-theater of solar-terrestrial interaction. Cosmic to the gut. Gesamtkunstwerk for real.

Recorded

August 12, 2012
Somebody Stole My Gal - Frankie Franko [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]
Klavierstück V - Stockhausen - Kontarsky

Every gesture pulls back. It would be interesting to re-listen to this in terms of just how far and in what way each gesture pulls back.

Boys - Shirelles [from The Shirelles Anthology, Rhino Records]

To the adolescent, the other is a commodity.

My Girl - The Temptations [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

To the adult, the other is a person.

Lenox - Tickanetley Primitive Baptist Church [from Art Rosenbaum's The Art of Field Recording volume 1]
Banned Rehearsal 31 (May 1985 - Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Neal Meyer)
When The Lights Go Out - Bruce Springsteen [from Tracks]

Advice from the next bar stool.

Banned Rehearsal 585 (September 2000 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Aaron Keyt, Neal Meyer)

A short session, delicate with bells and drums.

August 14, 2012
Beware Of The Fox (album) - Antique Scream

Every inch a studio-sound album with fairly strong song-writing and detailed arrangements. It partakes of a wide range aural depth, from full bodied rock & roll to heard over a tinny radio acoustic demo. The vocal lines throughout seem to harp on a just-off-key lower neighbor note about which I was undecided as to whether it was a compositional trope that worked or a modest annoyance. I couldn't help thinking it sounded like as if Pink Floyd had sprung forth in late '90s Seattle, instead of late '60s London. The final, 13+ minute cut contains, in its center, a long long stretch of digital silence - a good 7 minutes at least. A gimmick to be sure, but kind of stunning in a way.

August 15-16, 2012
Wet With Sweat (album) - Antique Scream

 A few years later and up to some of the same shenanigans studio-wise. But the vocalist has expanded his repertoire, occasionally exuding a bit of Bowie from his Tin Machine days. The songs have also branched out a little, showing a psychedelic side of neo-vaudeville. These are both smart, capable albums, nicely arranged to be listenable as a thing. Neither is necessarily an obvious Concept Album, but they take from that ilk a sense of how songs can fit together, and a freedom to take all the time necessary.

In Session at The Tintinabulary

August 13, 2012
Banned Rehearsal 819 - Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Steve Kennedy, Aaron Keyt, Neal Meyer


Warm day, so we played on the porch crepuscular.


Upcoming

Saturday October 20, 2012 concert begins at 8:00 PM
Keith Eisenbrey - piano recital at The Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle
Preludes in Seattle Part 4: Preludes by Ken Benshoof, Keith Eisenbrey, Lockrem Johnson, and Greg Short

Playlist

Live

August 9, 2012
Andrew James Robison, Your Mother Should Know, The Ancients, Tyrannosaurus Grace
Rat and Raven, Seattle

Andrew played a solo set, mixing original songs with creditable covers of Springsteen, The Replacements, and others, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar. His voice hovers in the upper region of baritone, tempering an americana yawp with a smooth slipcover of headvoice. The original material is lyrically dense, like Springsteen or Dylan, though not heavyhanded or uncomfortably maudlin. His stage presence is a familiar Seattle trope: just one of y'all, but completely confident to be on stage singing. He was joined in the last song by Neal Meyer, of YMSK.

Your Mother Should Know at the Comet

Anyone following this blog is aware that Your Mother Should Know consists of my long-time collaborator Neal Meyer on vocals & guitar, and my lovely spouse Karen, Neal's sister, on drums & occasional vocal. They played a slightly curtailed version of the set from their last gig, which was at the Comet on July 29th. Being involved with the band, I will forbear from public commentary other than to say their garage punk style was a good contrast with the other bands on the bill.

The Ancients

The Ancients is a five-piece band from Ellensburg playing some sub-genre or other of Heavy Metal. The singer has all his stagy compulsories down pat: hammily conducting the band with biceps and pecs and arms aloft in glory triumphant. They'd fit right in with Spinal Tap or with Jack Black in School of Rock, and it didn't seem the humor of it all was lost on them at all. Unfortunately I kept flashing on Leonard Bernstein at his most egregious, giving the whole affair a patina of icky horror. Nevertheless, their sound was capable and tight, well worth a listen if not (for some of us) a look.

After a quick switch of an awful lot of equipment another Ellensburg hailing five-piece, Tyrannosaurus Grace, brought in a lively set with an attractive variety of vocal sound. The drummer, playing on a nicely tuned Gretsch set, mugs a goofy grin that brought to mind The Young Fresh Fellows. Two singers, a male and a female, trade off the lead spot and sing harmony. X meets Betty Boop meets Ramones. Lots of fun and energy, and no slouches on their instruments either.

Recorded

August 7, 2012
Banned Rehearsal 584 (September 2000, Isaac Eisenbrey, John Eisenbrey, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Anna K, Aaron Keyt, Jay Loucks, Neal Meyer)

Opening with a nearly trite gesture we are invited to be discomfited. We settle in a pit and slowly rise out, like a vapor, co-opting higher spheres with tactics of permeation.

August 8, 2012
Banned Rehearsal 687 (August 2005, Karen Eisenbrey, Keith Eisenbrey, Neal Meyer)
BF Vocals & Tongue Drum/Tub Drum/Twang/Wood Drum Choruses - Keith Eisenbrey

Upcoming

Saturday October 20, 2012 concert begins at 8:00 PM
Keith Eisenbrey - piano recital at The Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle
Preludes in Seattle Part 4: Preludes by Ken Benshoof, Keith Eisenbrey, Lockrem Johnson, and Greg Short

Playlist

Karen at The Comet Tavern

Your Mother Should Know
with Andrew James Robison and Tyrranosaurus Grace and possibly more!
at Rat and Raven, 5260 University Way Northeast, Seattle
Thursday August 9, 2012 doors open at 8

Live

July 28, 2012
John Teske, Neil Welch, and Natalie Hall
In a grove of red alder by a little creek in Ravenna Park, Seattle

Walking down 20th Avenue Northeast toward Ravenna Park we overheard a live band at a house party doing a more than passable cover of Walk, Don't Run (I think) by the venerable local band The Ventures. A good omen. Descending 50 feet below the urban surface into the cool of a wooded ravine didn't so much leave the noise of the world behind as left it hanging, always present but vertically removed. The burbling creek provided the fourth for a quartet with bass, cello, and sax, improvising in the shady dusk. We sat on logs. Very friendly!

July 29, 2012
Peterman, The Belmont Whips, Charms, Your Mother Should Know
Comet Tavern, Seattle

Neal at The Comet Tavern

Quite a nice night at the Comet with the windows propped open to the heart and heat of urban Seattle. I was sitting toward the back until YMSK came on, but I think the first three bands were all three piece outfits. Peterman was playing their very first show, so they had a short but fabulous set distinguished by a contrasting pair of vocal styles: one shred and raw, the other sung and lyric. The Belmont Whips were playing a deep rhythmic game that had me puzzled for their first two songs, flat square and almost bland, but in the third song and thereafter colliding recklessly in the closest thing I've heard in a live rock show to poly-temporal punk. All that and a couple of wicked covers: Ramones and Replacements, if memory serves. Charms was a personable group of kids, eminently enjoyable, but relying too much (to my ear) on a particular effect plug-in on the vocal (a long delay or echo, I think). My advice, for what it's worth: mix it up, go ahead and sing straight now and then, or even mostly. Being married to the drummer I'm too close to Your Mother Should Know to comment, but I was proud of both Neal and Karen. I'm starting to get less nervous about a major disaster (my problem, not theirs), and Neal's song-writing is getting stronger and stronger.

August 3, 2012
Mark Paschen
Corner of 4th & Pearl, Ellensburg

The reason this blog is a day late is because K & I took the weekend off for a wine-run to the Rattlesnake Hills. We got as far as E-burg Friday night and had a fabulous dinner at The Valley Cafe, which, by the by, I would recommend to anyone anytime. If you can't make it for dinner it's worth the two hour drive just to have lunch. Best grilled cheese sandwich on the planet - no lie. After dinner we thought we'd wander around to see if we could find a club with some live music. Instead, a block away, we heard a busker, sitting on a trashcancover, playing his heart out to nobody at all. Up for anything and enjoying the rare stillness (Ellensburg is notoriously windy) of the evening, we leaned up against a lamppost and listened. After introductions, Mark played us some of his own songs and some covers of old stuff (the Ink Spots!). He plays a lovely Fender acoustic, with a story to go with it, a kazoo where the harmonica would be, and subtly heels a backbeat on the trashcancover. All that and his dog (Charlotte) has got her own busker routine, begging for by-stoppers to toss her rubberducky in the air for athletic twisty catches. I'm not often overly impressed by buskers, but coming across Mark had a time-travelly hit about it. Even his original songs have a depression era feel to them, with completely believable tropes of freight trains and go-it-alone independence. Mark: I hope you catch this post. If you're ever in Seattle I would love to record some of your original songs. Keep in touch!

 Recorded

July 31, 2012
That Too, Do - Bennie Moten [from Allen Lowe's That Devilin' Tune]
Autumn Leaves - Art Pepper [from The Way It Was]
Mr. Tambourine Man - The Byrds [collected from Dave Marsh's The Heart of Rock & Soul]

Even without the actual tambourine track, the drum track manages to evoke the image of tambourineness. This is a more interesting performance than I gave it credit for at first.

An Address To All - Tickanetley Primitive Baptist Church [from Art Rosenbaum's The Art of Field Recording volume 1]

PBC singing always, always, stops me cold. Much like late Beethoven, it's difficult to think of anything else in its aftermath. Grand. Strange. Seering.

August 1, 2012
Banned Couple 7

August 2, 2012
My Lover Man - Bruce Springsteen [from Tracks]

In Session at the Tintinabulary

August 2, 2012
Your Mother Should Know
I Don't Know - Neal lays down a demo of a new song.

Upcoming

Thursday August 9, 2012 Confirmed!!
Your Mother Should Know
Rat And Raven, Seattle, 8:00PM

Saturday October 20, 2012 concert begins at 8:00 PM
Keith Eisenbrey - piano recital at The Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle
Preludes in Seattle Part 4: Preludes by Ken Benshoof, Keith Eisenbrey, Lockrem Johnson, and Greg Short