Wilco played at the Paramount with White Denim on Tuesday, February 7, 2012. Photo by Laura Musselman.

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Wilco
White Denim
The Paramount
Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Through most of the early 1980's, Fernando Valenzuela was a force of nature, as well as a pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers. He had an unusually chaotic wind-up, involving his eyes rolling up toward the heavens just before releasing a pitch. Valenzuela claimed that, during this particular part of his wind-up, he was actually breathing through his eyelids, much like the fabled lava lizards of the Galapagos Islands. While the band that showed up at the Paramount on Tuesday night weren't claiming to breathe through their eyelids (although their wind-up is often equally as unique), they were doing their best from the first note to get the audience to breathe through their ears.

Oh, believe me. I know it sounds like a bunch of hyperbolic hooey. This was my 12th time to see Wilco (starting with a particular raucous, deli-tray tossing show during the Being There days), and I had an entire diatribe all sketched up in my brain about how we've seen Wilco's finest days pass, how Jeff Tweedy only writes two types of songs anymore (children's sing-alongs or meandering 9 minute long, 2-note sonic explorations that never have any thoughtful progression of them), how predictably middle-of-the-road "Dad rock" the band has become at times.

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Nada Surf played at the Tractor Tavern on Thursday, February 2, 2012. Photo by Laura Musselman.

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Nada Surf
The Tractor Tavern
Thursday, February 2, 2012

In case you were wondering, those nasty, swirling rumors are totally true; every pop song in the history of the universe has already been written. There are only so many strings and frets on a guitar, and after thousands of years of noodling, we've finally hit that point where no one can put two things together that haven't ever been heard together somewhere before. That said, there are bands that do it in a completely average way and then there are bands like Nada Surf who serve as textbook examples of the simple beauty and overpowering majesty of well-written/arranged three chord pop songs.

After years of touring as a solid-enough trio, the band has finally adopted a second guitarist (Cleveland's finest, Doug Gillard, formerly of Cobra Verde and Guided By Voices, amongst others). Over the course of the almost 90 minute show, Gillard's presence helped the band propel above singer Matthew Caws' capable strumming and into the more bombastic territory that Nada Surf songs aspire toward on album.

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Craig Robinson and the Nasty Delicious played at the Neptune Theatre on Thursday, January 12th, 2012.

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Craig Robinson and the Nasty Delicious
The Neptune Theatre
Thursday, January 12, 2012

Splicing the worlds of comedy and music together is by no means a new idea; plenty of comedians have toured with an acoustic guitar or piano as a bit in their act, but few have taken it to the level of Craig Robinson. Robinson (who you may have seen in The Office or Hot Tub Time Machine, amongst others) has upped the ante, pushing his act farther away from traditional stand-up by bringing a seven piece band (the Chicago-based Nasty Delicious) with him for the entirety of the show.

As far as raw, natural singing talent and having the sort of voice that makes heads turn...well, that's not really Robinson's strong suit. That said, Craig Robinson is a tremendous talent and a natural entertainer. After giving his band some time to warmup and show off their respective chops a bit, Robinson came out like a burly, hibernating bear just waking up and gave a loving nod to Elvis' entrances to the funked out strains of the epic "Also Sprach Zarathustra", revealing a neon green Seahawks jersey at the crescendo. Through the next two hours, Robinson led the audience through a careening succession of rapid fire bits that showed off his scattershot comedy style. Starting out by turning "If You're Happy And You Know It" into an over the top sex jam, Robinson immediately jumped into lovingly mocking R&B styles, eventually getting all of men in the audience to whisper-sing "take your panties off" (making the somewhat convincing argument that every song should have a "take your panties off" subliminally thrown in the mix).

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Leslie Feist played at the Moore Theatre on Thursday, November 17, 2011.

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Feist
The Moore Theatre
Thursday, November 17, 2011

Leslie Feist's past few years have all been about taking on challenges. Between skyrocketing fame (and the not-so-nice trappings that come with it), bad breakups and the struggle with her own creative muse, it hasn't necessarily been the smoothest sailing for the 35 year old singer. It makes perfect sense that her next greatest challenge in line would be trying to liven up a nearly comatose Seattle audience on a night where fall finally succumbs to winter.

The audience's state of slumber wasn't any fault of Ms. Feist's; winter tends to be the time when Seattle hibernates. Put a room full of us into semi-comfortable theatre seating, and we're apt to engage with what's in front of us as if it's 1080p HD entertainment. Granted, Feist's new album (Metals) is built to be enjoyed as a slow burn; it's not the effervescent showtune buzz of The Reminder, the slinky crawl of Let It Die or Monarch. It's a breakup, a death, a struggle with purpose and mortality, and an eventual rebirth, and it's meant to be observed in all of those stages.

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Kateri Town

Blitzen Trapper's Marty Marquis

​Blitzen Trapper
Dawes
The Belle Brigade
The Neptune Theatre
Friday, November 11, 2011

Co-headlining tours can be the strangest things. Two bands with separately established fan bases touring together can make for an almost unification of the bands, or quickly spiral out of control into a giant chest-puffing contest. In the case of Blitzen Trapper and Dawes, it appeared to do neither, but it did show two bands with a similar swath of influences displaying two very different schools of output.

After making what felt like a pretty brilliant recreation (and slight reimagining) of the Laurel Canyon sound on their debut LP North Hills, Dawes has progressed into much more milquetoast territory with the material on their second record (Nothing Is Wrong). Maybe it's signing with Dave Matthews' label, ATO (those are frat letters, right?), maybe it's playing backing band to Robbie Robertson, or maybe it's just spending too much time thinking instead of doing, but their new material feels a bit forced.

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Rubik and Lights played at El Corazon on Thursday, November 10th, 2011.

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Rubik
Lights
El Corazon
Thursday, November 10th, 2011

Sometimes you see a bill and scratch your head and go "Huh?" While there are times where tours are actually put together because of an artist's mutual respect for one another, they're just as often likely to be put together by management, lawyers, publishing companies or random bean counters in the record label offices. The latter seemed to be the case last night at El Corazon, with pop visionaries Rubik opening up for the mall-pop emo-lite of Lights.

Rubik is a Finnish quartet who write expansive pop songs that are built on enough major key sunshine to be immediately accessible/hummable, but put just the right amount of weird textural elements atop them (horn sections, vintage science movie bleeps and bloops) and unexpected hairpin turns in them to make them seem as if they're from another world.

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Unknown Mortal Orchestra played the Crocodile on Wednesday, November 9th, 2011. Photo by Marie Langhout.

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Unknown Mortal Orchestra
Gauntlet Hair
The Crocodile
Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Every band has been there before. You're at the tail end of a long tour, and it's that middle of the week lull that happens in most cities. The room is a quarter full, and those people that are there are a bit TOO excited and have been, to put it kindly, overserved. These are the challenges facing Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Gauntlet Hair on Wednesday night at the Crocodile.

Portland's Unknown Mortal Orchestra started off their set with no announcement, no fanfare, and with a long, drawnout squall of feedback that led into a scratchy-throated version of "Little Blu House". On their self-titled record, "Little Blu House" is dreamy and delicate, gentle in all the right places; the story of a man searching for shelter from the wolves and some sense of respite. Live, it howled and yelped, less like a softly suggested "May I come in?" and more like the desperate plea of a man with nowhere else to turn frantically pulling on a door handle. Singer Ruban Nielson's delivery was almost completely disaffected, deliberately staring down the neck of the Fender Mustang that sat nearly at his collarbone rather than the audience.

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The Lemonheads played at the Triple Door on Saturday, November 5th, 2011.

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The Lemonheads
The Triple Door
Saturday, November 5th, 2011

Walking into any sort of Evan Dando-related event is as close to a corporate games-y trust fall as the indie rock circuit gets. While the man is responsible for one of the best front-to-back powerpop albums of the 90's (1992's It's A Shame About Ray), as well as a pile of underappreciated, brutally self-scrutinizing material, he's equally as notorious for his struggles with substance abuse and a track record of inconsistent/incoherent shows. Reports from shows as recently as a couple weeks ago made it seem like Dando is still as scattered as ever, but Saturday night's show at the Triple Door would show a clearer, cleaner Dando than other cities have gotten.

Touring on the nearly 20th anniversary of It's A Shame About Ray, it was easy to be skeptical that the tour was a cash grab for an artist who isn't necessarily on the tips of anyone's tongues in 2011. However, watching Dando run through an impressively titanic, well-balanced set of acoustic material and full band blastoffs, all hesitance to get onboard what was once considered a potential trainwreck was left at the station. Looking focused and healthy and his voice sounding as rich as ever, Dando engaged the sold-out crowd with a 6 song mini-set of covers and originals that he delivered with the sort of reflective clarity that his fans have been clamoring for consistently for years. Once his backing band got on stage (drummer Brian Nelson and bassist Drew Parsons, both of American Hi-Fi), Dando traded his acoustic for a Les Paul and smoked through the entirety of the Ray LP as if the past 20 years hadn't happened; "college rock" was still a genre, and Dando was still dominating 120 Minutes playlists and Sassy Magazine's Cute Band Alert.

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Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks played at the Neptune on Tuesday, October 11. Photo by Marie Langhout.

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Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks
Neptune Theatre
Tuesday, October 11, 2011

"We ate at that Cuban place (Paseo) in Fremont today. It's really good, but still tastes the same as it did in 2001. Just like this music." --Stephen Malkmus

It's hard to put a finger on exactly what was missing from former Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus' show last night. The newly remodeled Neptune was a perfect stage for the show, glowing with a subdued visual elegance and sounding completely clear and dialed-in. So maybe it was just a typical Tuesday night in any town (Tuesdays are particularly hard days to rock through), but both sides of the stage seemed to have a deep disengagement with the experience that made Malkmus' awkward charm a little less obvious.

Malkmus is at a strange point in his career; his solo career chugged along as long as Pavement was around, and it still seems like he's searching for a clear path of what he's doing. At times, it feels like the solo career is something he just fell into and figured out it worked, and he's currently shrugging his shoulders at us going "I guess this is something to do?"

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Archers of Loaf played Neumos on Friday, September 9, 2011. Photo by Sandlin Gaither.

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Neumos
Friday, September 9, 2011

In 2011, the word "legendary" really has lost all meaning. Hyperbole is becoming the only language we know how to speak in this sea of oversharing, and a band's merely showing up and turning on an amp/firing up a laptop results in a cavalcade of tweets and status updates telling us all about whatever band is totally KILLING IT in an EPIC fashion. Much like wearing a Ramones shirt, these sorts of grandiose statements become watered down to the point of being nothing more than noise for noise's sake.

Thankfully, seeing a band that existed in that magical era (before the Internet came along and ruined everything) is a reminder of a magical time where oversharing and oversaturation were easy to ignore; where we bonded with other music fans over common interests instead of living in a state of constant one-upmanship. After disbanding in 1998, Archers of Loaf's reunion at Neumos on Friday night was a grand reminder of the days where band buzz was built from college radio charts, mixtapes, and sloppily tossed-together fanzines.

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