Great Lake Swimmers @ The Troubadour (5.18.12)

Went to the Troubadour tonight to see the Great Lake Swimmers and was able to get right down front. This allowed me to get shots like this:


and this:


It's usually a crapshoot if you can bring a DSLR into the Troubadour so I was pleasantly surprised when they said "yes."

As expected the band started off the night mellow and heavy on songs from their latest album. While good, I am not a big fan of the new sound as it takes away some of what makes them unique. Too much electric, not enough banjo in this humble author's opinion.


Tony Dekker is a true singer songwriter, giving descriptions of what songs are about, and even admitting that one of the songs he played during his solo set had slowly started to change it's meaning.


I found myself expecting to hear a bunch of their upbeat songs going in. For the most part they all came in the second half during which they really started to pick up steam and rock out. While trading solos at the end I think the fiddle player really showed off her till then hidden skills. For a live show they really need to have that energy throughout, but then I suppose the audience's ears wouldn't get a chance to "bleed tears" as their very enthusiastic announcer said during the introduction.

The night concluded with an odd encore. The full band came back and played two songs. After that, the band unceremoniously walked off stage and Dekker played one more song (one of my favorites). It was kind of anti-climactic to hear it as just guitar and vox, as opposed to with the full band especially right after they walked off. It would have been better to have them all walk off and do a second encore with him alone like that. Even though it's a band built around Dekker, it would have been nice to make it seem like they all mattered.


I guess if I were to sum it up, the band really needs to think a bit on it's live show. Not so much how they play or even song choice, but more how to mix it up better. You don't want to peak too soon, but you really dont want it to be constant low with an exponential ramp at the end. It should rise and fall all the way to the climax at the end, where the audience is left wanting for more. I would suggest they take a page from high fidelity about how to make mix tapes.

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Authors Note:

Both times I have seen Badly Drawn Boy at the Troubadour he has bitched about the sound. Namely the low end. When Great Lake Swimmers took the stage, the bass was overpowering everything else, not just on the stage, but in the crowd as well. The banjo/ guitar player spent the first 10-15 minutes fighting with the sound guy to explain what the heck was wrong. Pointing and pantomiming really seems to have had little effect. It took one of the guys coming down on the stage and talking to him to understand what was wrong.


I guess BDB was vindicated, but in true Canadian style the GLS were polite about it rather than throwing a hissy fit.

Guster @ The Largo (3.16.12)

Ok, so I have seen Guster 5 or 6 times now, but Guster @ the Largo was by far THE BEST GUSTER SHOW EVER!!!

I know I wrote up their last show on this blog, but this one was so different it's worth hearing about. First of all, the venue was at most 300 seats and the entire band was seated so it had a very relaxed intimate feel. As this is their acoustic tour, they had a string section with them as well. The stage setup they all were unplugged and just had mic's around them. Whenever they played solos they just picked up their instruments to the mic and belted it out blugrass style. Given that was the case they got a pretty amazing ballance and sound on the stage.

The band played a really long set for the second show compared to the first (based on when the first show started and the second show started, twice as long). They hit so many songs that I love it's hard to list them all, but a few of the more fun moments were their 80's covers of Come on Eileen and 500 Miles. It really seemed they were just making up the parts as they went. They of course hit a few songs on the new record, like an aweseome string backed version of how it feels to have a broken heart, but they kept the selection fairly wide from all their albums. They even hit some of the old songs from their first albums like Window, Rocket Ship and The Airport Song (for the obligatory pingpong ball throw).

Sometimes you go to a show and there's a wall between you and the band. In this case, throughout the entire night they were talking to individuals, taking request, and at one point they even serenaded one of their fans with an impromptu completely acoustic version of "window." As Ryan put it "if I have to play that song again I am going to play it for you right in front of you.



An amazing moment, for one lucky fan.

At one point during the show, someone started yelling "more cowbell!" Even though they were about to play a ballad they had him come up later for a quick cover of "don't fear the reaper." The guy enthusiastically jumped on stage, did a truffle shuffle and danced around until Ryan got a bit scared the show would be stolen and finished the song. This is what I love about these guys, not only do the love their fans and have fun, they roll with what happens and embrace the crazy rather than ignoring it.

Another spontaneous moment was towards the end of the show when Ryan decided to have a bit of story time. The band slowly figured out what was going on and started "story time music." Apparently he had met Ke$sha out one day in LA and had somehow convinced her to make an appearance. Yeah, I have little clue who she is aside from knowing of her existence, but sufficed to say, she's a big poppy deal right now. In any case, he had hoped she would show up, and was looking around periodically during the show. Suddenly, he stopped the story and went to get his phone back stage (band still playing all the time). She had texted him "still in studio." He then proceeded to have the entire crowd leave her a message (singing then shouting)... Its almost more funny that she didn't show.

The entire night felt like a bunch of guys just hanging having a few beers singing some songs and making each other laugh... Much like my crew of friends do when we get together. After the show we ran into Brian and were able to talk with him for a bit. We then ended up at the local hole in the wall and lo and behold they were there! As a result I was able to meet the entire band! Brian even came back and chatted with my gregarious concert co-conspirator and I for a while. There are few people and groups that I consider to have had a heavy influence on my music growing up, but I have to say these guys are one. Having finally gotten to meet them it was amazing!

Anamanaguchi @ The Troubadour (10.28.11)

For all you peeps thinking I just go see folk bands and listen to old sad bastard music, I have one reply, ANAMANAGUCHI. What's that you say? You too only listen to old sad bastard music from Norway and Scotland? Anamanaguchi is an 8bit chiptune band. Essentially they compose songs using the synth (modeled or extracted) from an NES system (the original none of this SNES BS).

Having heard a few assorted tracks I was curious how these guys were going to pull it off live. Hear that guitar in the background? Yeah that was what was live at the show. The synths were all presequenced, but it doesn't really matter it was still an awsome show!

They started the evening tossing a box full of glowsticks into the crowd and then all hell broke loose. The photo above is the only one I managed to snap off before the troubadour turned into a pit as I was barely able to hold onto the camera. After that the night was a blur of lights, synths, guitars and bodies flying around. I am writing this a bit belatedly, so unfortunately I can't say much more than that. I highly recommend checking them out.

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Authors Note: Over the last few years I have become a bit perterbed with how teritorial CA concert goers are. From people blocking large areas in front of the stage for missing friends coming back to rail whores etc... On this particular night there was a girl leaning against the wall in the back. I walked up and was standing about 2-3 meters in front... "Hey man, you're in my way" to which I responded "It's a concert." Considering where the evening went that comment is even more amusing.

Laura Marling @ The Troubadour (9.20.11)

Finally! I have been to a show at the Troubadour without drama! Laura Marling and Alessi's Ark were both polite, happy to be there, an appreciative of their audience. Either that or they were just British. In any case a thoroughly enjoyable show.



Miss Marling is a performer that has interested me ever since I heard her singing backup on Noah and the Whale's first album. When you hear a voice like her's singing backup it just feels like a crime. Fortunately she also does her own music.



Personality wise I would say she is soft spoken, kinda perma-high and floats around on the ether around her. This kind of toasty chill puts the audience at ease. She speaks very little directly to the audience, but it is enough to keep them engaged.

One interesting concept is that Laura Marling does not do encores on principal.



When I was her age I decided I no longer needed to write with punctuation etc so every message I sent to my genius, cute, hippy (and most important patient) girlfriend at the time read like a bad ee cummings stream of consciousness. Eventually I got over it and accepted the need for proper punctuation. In any case, that she is doing things like that means that she is a) running the show and b) experimenting. I have really been rooting for her to find herself, because the raw talent is behind her, but she has been molded too much by others around her/ dating her.



Some of her new songs were very riffy and more jazz like than folk. While its not something that appealed to me as much, it means that she is really starting to find her own way. The issue with riffy was that it kinda didn't feel like the riffs went anywhere or that they had any relevance to the song. Instead they were distracting from the song.

Other than that she had some great material that she played. The full band setup included cello, uke, upright bass, guitars of all sorts, drums, banjo, mando, keys, and what I am going to guess was a tenor horn. Almost all of those were active at the same time which lead to a nice full sound.

Badly Drawn Boy @ The Troubadour (12.15.10)

So a bit behind on this blog but I did want to talk about the Badly Drawn Boy show at the Troubadour I went to December 15th. It was night 1 of 2 and was quite an interesting show... You could tell he was having a tough night and was getting a bit frazzled by the sound and the crowd. This was the night before his on stage c-bomb laden meltdown. Won't link to that but its easy enough to find. Most of his complaints were about on stage sound. Now I have seen the guy 4 times. Twice at the troubadour, and at two other venues. What is interesting is that the only time I have heard him bitch about sound was at the troubadour... By the end of the night (when I shot the video below) I was standing next to the PA and I can vouch for the fact that the sound was shit. That said, I also can vouch for the fact that I have personally played through worse, no problem.

One of the nuances about Damon that makes him so interesting and fun to see is his neurotic perfectionism. It causes him to repeatedly start and stop songs to get the tuning right or to redo a loop. It also causes him to flat out just change his mind on what he wants to play halfway through. For a long time fan, this is part of the fun, for someone unfamiliar with this, it can be... well... a bit stressful and frustrating. I can see how a few ignorant noobs might start talkin crap when he's doing this. The night I saw him he was realy in rare form. Several times during the show he cycled intros of 5-6 songs either trying to remember them or testing how he felt about them. Now, I might do this when I'm nervously trying to impress a girl at a party, but for a guy whos been doing this for 10 years you have to wonder what was up...

That all said, I highly encourage people to go see this guy! Going to a show is a bit of a gamble, as you never quite know who is going to show up. I've seen him do good, bad, and meh. The one thing I've never seen him do is boring!