Everything Margo Timmins does is with pure elegance. The way she glides on stage, after the rest of her band has taken their places. The way she tells stories in between songs. The way she finds a pair of eyes in the audience and sings to them. They way she sips her tea and admires her flowers. The way she smiles while singing words her brother wrote.
What is it about festivals these days? How come every-time I visit a music related blog that’s not hyping Vampire Weekend, they are announcing another festival whose lineup card is bragging “my lineup can kick your lineup’s ass.” And more likely than a $5 bottle of Aquafina, that lineup will include Flaming Lips, NIN and Wilco.
In a modern musical landscape littered with genres and sub-genres, Hot Chip provides a counterexample; a band that can’t be pigeonholed into one style. This fact was quite evident at their performance at The Fillmore in San Francisco on Thursday, April 24th, as they used their electro-pop foundation as a launching pad to improvise and explore diverse musical feels, providing the capacity audience with a legitimate dance party.
Morcheeba ruled a certain chunk of the mid-late 90’s. They had the English trip-hop/rocker/rave thing down to a radio-friendly 3-4 minutes (though, of course, there were the remixes…), “Trigger Hippy” perhaps foremost among them. And then they were gone, sort of…
Higher Ground certainly deserved to commemorate their anniversary April 15th. The Burlington area Vermont venue, originally housed in a former Denny’s in Winooski strip mall and now in a former movie theater a couple miles away in South Burlington, has made a name for itself over the last decade, alternately nurturing up and coming talent (Derek Trucks, Soulive), welcoming established acts (Gov’t Mule, The Black Crowes, Sonic Youth, Wilco, John Mayer, Modest Mouse) while providing a regular tourstop for musicians as wide-ranging in style as Charlie Hunter and Hot Tuna.
Back from a brief hiatus, Surprise Me Mr. Davis, comprised of prolific songwriter Nathan Moore and the members of The Slip, made a triumphant return at South Burlington’s Higher Ground.
The Greyboy Allstars tend to exist where the musical culmination of funk, soul, jazz, groove and rock converge. This eclectic musical mish-mosh is in the midst of a national tour that brought them through Portland Oregon’s Roseland Theater on Friday March 28th. As always they were greeted with much of the famed Pacific Northwest hospitality, and as the night progressed it once again became clear that we love the Allstars here in Oregon.
Hearing the two play back-to-back one hour sets of Murder by Death and O'Death in the murky lair of the Middle East, well… all that was missing were seance candles and two men with handlebar moustaches declaring a duel after too much whiskey down the gullet.
If it’s true absence that makes the heart grow fonder, it may also be true that absence makes the band grow stronger. Judging by Vorcza’s second set at Burlington Vermont’s Red Square March 28th, that would seem to be the case.
Chinese Bookie is Viola Keeton and it seems whomever she can get of friends or audience members that want to dance backup for her. Dressed in her dapper style with just a white guitar, she starts by singing acoustic for a few songs with lyrics like, “hope I don’t have to have another near death experience just to feel alive.”
