saturday

I got to see three incredible shows this week. Two of which were desert island top five favorites. Angeline had sent me a dcist link about upcoming shows of the week, which included Aimee Mann at the Birchmere in Alexandria, VA. Which I might have originally overlooked due to price and due to the fact that its OUT IN Virginia. But here’s a lesson, if you learn about a show two days before hand, you’ll have a different instinct. Which is to drop everything you’re doing at work to go see Aimee Mann, in the flesh. She is a bad ass, beautiful musician dressed like a rock star. Black leather riding boots and jacket with long blond hair and black horn-rimmed glasses (that looked thick even from where I was sitting.) She played a lot of new stuff, including songs written to compliment the maybe upcoming musical adaptation to her very under-played record The Forgotten Arm - a concept album about a boxer, John, his addictions and his lover, Caroline. She played my favorite, Guys Like Me and the songs you want to hear live like Save Me. Mann was chatty and funny and had the support of her bassist and key player – fender rhodes and baby grand. And, like she always does, she played her own high hat. Overall I was ecstatic to see a hero in person. And even more excited to hear that when she returned to LA she will be recording more. As much as @#%&*! Smilers was weak, I have enough hope that she’ll go back to her poetic storytelling ways, leave behind the repetitive choruses and bring back the verses full of intelligentsia.

Thursday’s show was a treck to a new place. Underestimated distance from the train, and with no lights on my bike I didn’t want to ride into the dark unknown. Ended up walking four miles that night, but it was very worth it. When I asked Nate if he liked Toro Y Moi, and told him that I was seeing him, he told me ”urban outfitters is so gay for him”. While hipsters have united over this guy, I was surprised when the crowd was full of bros drinking can beer, wearing pastel dress shirts and trying to feel OK dancing. I snuck in front of 100 or so people, passed the folks grinding on each other- which was strangely bothersome at this show - and  and found kids wearing flannel, sweating and singing along. It was a strange crowd and the closer I got to the stage the more surprised I was of who I found. Overall the show was tight, the band played well together like they had for years and the lights made your mind wander. They were color blobs in a rotating petri dish – or what looked like one – on an overhead projector. The walls were a bit uneven, a nice touch. The light design and construction reminded me of the shows Tom Wolfe wrote about. Toro Y Moi is the brains of Chazwick Bundick, and this is just his sophomore album. Just now is the circut noticing him. When I first heard it, it was great to hear something so fresh that knew where it came from. The remnants of funk and jazz fushion while remaining entirely psychedelic, tied with vocal filters and synth drone provided a retro sound that everyone fails at recreating. The record, Underneath The Pine, is complimented with a weird photoshopped up-close of his mouth and, I believe, some grape fruit? (See above.)  But if you give it time and put it down while you still love it, the next time you pick it up- he’ll surprise you again. Its one of those you have to just let play all the way through. Best for train and car rides, check it out.

CAKE exceeded my high expectations. John McCrea was energetic. He sang with his hands like Craig Finn, only with large encompassing gestures to accompany his story like lyrics. The crowd was a combination of young teens and moms & dads with everyone in between. At moments in Italian Leather Sofa and The Distance, we sang louder than they did. McCrea only encouraged it. (At one point he split the audience in two and mandated us lines from Sick Of You, like the quintessential Ben Folds live version of Army, only WAY better.)  We heard beauties like Mexico and cuts from the new album, Showroom Of Compassion, that were once overlooked and now stuck in my head. John McCrea is into farming, reminding the crowd that we exist without facebook and that – I’m not kidding here – one day we’ll all die. Which got a huge laugh. It was an evening with CAKE meaning they played two sets. We were all close, sweating, and shouting at the top of our lungs. The bassist played even better than he does on the record and their trumpet player has the chops of a veteran jazz soloist. While the electric guitar ripped, McCrea strummed and beat on his acoustic. I’ve never seen a band love their music so much. They’ve been together since 1991 and their first record came out in ’94.  They’ve rumoured that they won’t continue on much longer, so catching the third of three sold out shows seemed like the best way to go. I’d hate living without ever seeing this band live again, but as McCrea told us, everything must come to an end. So instead, I got a tee shirt.