Last Night: N.A.S.A., the Staxx Brothers at Nectar
The green, break-dancing alien, courtesy Kate McElwee
Since N.A.S.A.'s new album, The Spirit of Apollo, is basically a Handsome Boy Modeling School-like project featuring a boatload of famous collaborators, I wasn't sure what to expect from their live show. By and large, most of the album consists of electronica and hip hop, and I wondered: Would any of the revered artists on the record show up? How were DJ Squeak E. Clean and DJ Zegon going to entertain us? With go-go dancers, a giant visualizer screen and aliens, that's how (and if you want to see lots of Kate McElwee's photos of last night, go check out this slideshow of the party.)
The N.A.S.A. men showed up onstage in orange spacesuits (N.A.S.A. stands for North America South America, by the way, but I guess you can't avoid the space theme, so why not), and after the first few tracks, the rumored go-go dancers I'd heard about pranced onstage wearing silver bikinis, green body paint, pigtails, outrageously big boots and glitter eyeshadow. But that wasn't the best part. The aliens were the best part-- a giant eye, and a skinny green man in a suit who busted some serious moves in spite of his headgear. I think I liked the giant eye best, but his costume was bulky because its body was designed to look like a pink, floppy mess of intestines and eyes, so all he could really do was sort of bob up and down. It was adorable. Meanwhile, they had a visualizer screen going off to the left that, if you paid attention to it, corresponded with the tunes they were spinning in really interesting ways.
Though they played a few jams from their album, a lot of the music they played wasn't from the record-- or if it was, it was remixed so much as to become an entirely different animal-- but the mashups were excellent, even though they went pretty heavy on the M.I.A. (not that I mind.) I really loved the splicing of "My Girl" and "Bucky Done Gun," set to an old video of The Temptations singing their hit. And Ras Congo, the artist who sings the chorus on "Money," was there to sing; not surprisingly, David Byrne wasn't there to do his part on the track, but the crowd filled in for him quite nicely after a little bit of prodding from the Martian go-go dancers. It was a great party-- one I'll definitely attend every time they come to town in the future.
And now for a word on N.A.S.A.'s local openers, The Staxx Brothers. Basically, they're a jam band that does the things jam bands do: play repetitive, funk-inspired music that's not as dynamic or interesting as real funk, set to equally-repetitive, boring lyrics. I'm going to chalk my distaste up to the reality of the situation, which is that I pretty much universally hate jam bands and cannot, therefore, offer an unbiased opinion. Everyone else (well, mostly) seemed to be enjoying it, though.
6 comment(s)
Matisse says:
Damn fine review. You've got me seriously feeling shitty about skipping out on this show.
I figured it would just be a cool-yet-routine DJ set. Who knew they'd get all stripper galatic?
Posted On: Wednesday, Mar. 4 2009 @ 11:29AM
Lezzy says:
Awesome show! I expected it to be good but WOW! The energy was through the roof!
and who would have thought the aliens are such great dancers???
Posted On: Wednesday, Mar. 4 2009 @ 2:44PM
review er says:
Dont be fooled by the photos, the vibe at Nectar was tepid, waiting for the boys to drop the rehearsed music & video, and blast-off with their talent.
Posted On: Wednesday, Mar. 4 2009 @ 3:21PM
seattlemusic says:
wow. the reviewer hates jam bands! I wouldn't catagorize what I saw last night with The Staxx Brothers as Jam bands. How many jam bands have you seen w/ blind rapper from Detroit, amazing backline and a lead singer rocking the mic AND the harmonica?? All the stupid hipsters in the crowd fell for them hook line and sinker. They showed up that boring electronic 1993 rave show that headlined. I mean, those dancing girls were BROKE! OF course The Seattle Weekly wouldn't know good music if it slapped them in the face. Which is EXACTLY what The Staxx Brothers did last night.
Posted On: Wednesday, Mar. 4 2009 @ 3:43PM
DP Staxx says:
For the record, we didn't jam. Those are tight, orchestrated arrangements - that hew faithfully to our debut album The 12th Street Blues and our forthcoming album, produced by Scott Colburn (Arcade Fire/Animal Collective/Mudhoney) called We are The Blaxstonz. I would classify what we do as HARD ASS SOUL - calling us a jam band is kind of lazy reporting Sara. We play some mean ass country western too but I didn't think that would go over as well with The NASA crowd so we stuck to the deep cuts to keep those wonderful little hipsters dancing. Seemed to work pretty well! A lot of folks in tight jeans bought CDs - and drove away in their scions bumpin' Keep The Motor Runnin' LOL.
But thank you for your honesty. On that note - finally hearing some actual criticism was quite refreshing.
Posted On: Thursday, Mar. 5 2009 @ 6:47PM
Unison says:
Mae hkjjhk
Posted On: Sunday, Aug. 16 2009 @ 8:15PM