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