Move over Warren Haynes, Jack White of the White Stripes and The Raconteurs is gunning for your title as The World’s Most Prolific Musician. Last night in the industrial section
Our friend Mike Sherry attended last Saturday’s Oddity Faire date in Los Angeles and has filed this report complete with his amazing photos…
[All Words and Photos by Mike Sherry]
LA’s Wiltern Theatre, an art deco icon preserved & updated for rock shows, made a perfect venue to play host to the Oddity Faire, Les Claypool’s winter tour with a rotating cast of ‘odd’ supporting acts. This stop featured Saul Williams, Yard Dogs Road Show and locally-based Mutaytor, as well as between-set carnival acts and stilt-walkers roving the lobby.
The Yard Dogs feature former Frog Brigade guitarist Enor alongside a formidable ensemble of musical & dance talent. The live band adds to the delivery as the charades range through bizarre, comic and burlesque. This made for a natural pairing with The Mutaytor, another troupe fusing unique talents into a collective artistic force. While the Yard Dogs dazzled with sword-swallowing & feather dancing, Mutaytor thrilled with high-flying acrobatics, fire spinning/hooping and a just-as-sexy brand of Drop the Laundry. Oingo Boingo bassist Johnny Avila rocks deep grooves throughout as a trio of kit drummers, more percussionists, guitar & horn section are augmented by smartly sequenced electronica. Did I mention they hail from Burning Man?
Over three hours into the night the main event commences, and all the previous pomp is replaced by a simple stage riser for drummer Paulo Baldi and percussionist Mike Dillon, a chair for cellist Sam Bass (all three sporting identical fright masks) and a microphone set. After a short vamp Les comes out to join the three, his mood hard to gauge initially from beneath the Clockwork mask, but pretty quick the sure thump on the strings through Rumble of the Diesel predicted a solid set.
READ ON for more of Mike’s review and his incredible photography…
A few weeks back, we dropped the gossipy news that singer-songwriter-blogger-novelist Ryan Adams had popped the question to former teeny-bopper pop star turned actress Mandy Moore. The odd couple didn’t
Neko Case’s acclaimed new album ‘Middle Cyclone’ (Anti- Records) has debuted at #3 on the Billboard Top 200, the highest opening to date in 2009 by an independent release on
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In February 1999, three longtime friends from West Texas went to a pizza place in Austin, Texas, for a prearranged meeting with a young man from Illinois. The Illinoisan had
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Straight out of The Breakfast Club comes The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, quite the band name/album title and one that really is apropos of the music contained within. The sound of love-longed teens lounging in their Tiger Beat pin-up covered bedroom, crossed with shaggy-haired-skinny-rockers in a garage; turning up the feedback and peppering the skins and keys with the combined angst and pressure of a first kiss. Layers of acoustic guitars and feedback build on the quick opener “The Contender” before the abrupt end, leading to the swinging catchiness of distant broken lovers in “Come Saturday,” whose ending contains a sped-up Jesus and Mary Chain “Head On”-esque riff. The hooks, dreamy voices and lovelorn lyrics would flutter away if it was not for the impressive low-end teaming of Alex Naidus on bass and Kurt Feldman on drums giving the group a power-pop-punk vibe in the vein of The Exploding Hearts. Sure, you’ve heard this all before, and at times it borders on mimicry over tribute, but tunes like “Everything With You” and “Hey Paul” are fantastic and will win you over instantly. Earnest and melodic; borrowing heavily from Black Tambourine and slightly from My Bloody Valentine, while mixing in a sunshiny-sheen on top of the playing that bursts through. Where those groups were dense and required multiple listens you GET IT upon the first run through with The Pains of Being Pure at Heart.
For the 150 fans, friends and members of the media who showed up to the small warehouse in an industrial section of Nashville were given more than a tour of
