photos by Kyle Johnson
review by Chris Estey

In the glory days of the Velvet Elvis, I saw a Love As Laughter show that damn near changed my life. Charged with bitterly cantankerous energy, Jayne and a couple of misfit musicians of the time (late 90s) bashed and snarled out a set that seemed like a violently dysfunctional marriage between Pussy Galore and what we now know as Jay Reatard. I don’t know, maybe it was the cough medicine I was on (I was pretty sick that Sunday afternoon, thank God for matinee shows, I was passed out in a couple hours), but it was like seeing the New York Dolls reborn, literally shoved back through a very tight birth canal. The band had formed in 1994 but I just hadn’t encountered them yet, so when I drooled all over Jayne at Bimbo’s Bitchin’ Burrito Kitchen later that week where he long-time worked as a waiter, his response was seemed an insouciant, “So fucking what? Where have YOU been? I’ve been kicking ass for awhile.” Sadly, I was not impressed with the album I picked up in spite of Jayne’s ego, “The Greks Bring Gifts” (K Records, 1996), a shitty cut-and-paste of Sonic Youth basement experiments, but later on on more pop-oriented albums like 2001’s “Sea to Shining Sea” and “Laughter’s Fifth” (both on Sub Pop) I could feel that incredible live energy that made that weird daytime set one of my very favorite of the 90s. Definitely check Sam Jayne (with Ivan Berko on bass, Zeke Howard on drums, and Andy Macleod on guitar, I believe, but who knows who’s with him now, considering his temperament and reputation for terrorizing collaborators) out live as Love As Laughter, and let me know how the new album “Holy” (made with a cameo from pal and fellow unreliable narrator Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse) sounds (on the Glacial Pace label) as I am dying to hear it.

photos by Kyle Johnson
interview by Jim Beckmann

Blind Pilot is an indie-folk duo from Portland who tours the West on bike, even hauling all their gear in tiny coffin-shaped bike trailers. The press has drawn the obvious, big name comparisons to the duo like The Shins, Bright Eyes and Neutral Milk Hotel, but like their approach to touring, there’s something more organic, down to earth, and undeniably “Portland” about the act. Whatever magical coffee bean Portland is using in their espresso to churn out bands like Blind Pilot who are at the front of the evolution of independent music — especially in their approach to touring and evading crippling gas prices — needs to be shared already.

Ron Henry

This is the week, at least for me, which makes the transition from summer into autumn. Bumbershoot was quite exhausting, yes, but confusing as to how I could have disliked Beck’s performance so much but completely enjoyed Death Cab for Cutie’s set. Fortunately, the Republican National Convention this week proved that I was not living in some bizarro world: yes, Beck was terrible and Death Cab was fantastic but Rudy Giuliani is still a patronizing asshole, Mike Huckabee is still full of shit and Sarah Palin is still unqualified to be vice president.

There is an awful lot to do this week, as there, of course, is every other week. Here are a few things that I throw my support behind:

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club at the Showbox at the Market, Sunday, September 7
With Bumbershoot 2008 now a memory, it goes into the canon of previous Bumbershoot memories. As I mentioned here last week, my favorite moment from Bumbershoot 2007 was seeing BRMC inside the KEXP Lounge (that magical, quasi-secret location where more new memories were formed, like meeting my favorite band of B’shoot 2008, Sons and Daughters). BRMC, that Sunday afternoon, played a stripped down, short, acoustic set but it was a revelation just how gorgeous the harmonies are from Peter Hayes and Robert Levon Been.

This show, presumably, will be plugged in and rocking. The garage band plays loud, reverb-heavy rock and roll, and yet has some shoegaze tendencies. They also know to make an anthem you can’t help but want to sing along to. Here’s the video to my favorite BRMC song, “Whatever Happened to My Rock and Roll?”

Common Market at Queen Anne Easy Street Records on Monday, September 8; Northgate Silver Platters on Tuesday, September 9 and Neumo’s on Thursday, September 11
Common Market is one of the best and most talented hip hop groups in the Northwest. With beats supplied by Blue Scholars’ DJ Sabzi and rhymes by RA Scion. When I saw the duo at the Capitol Hill Block Party, RA Scion rhymed over the same beat to Lil Wayne’s “A Milli” but CM was the antithesis of Weezy (who I also enjoy immensely). Common Market was tight, smart and politically aware. They were the perfect group to kick of the CHBP.

The shows this week are to celebrate the release of their brand new album, Tobacco Road. Here’s a clip of what to expect this week (this is the duo performing the title track at the Vera Project earlier in the year):

See you out and about,
Chris Burlingame
*Three Imaginary Girls*

High iPod rotation:
Cars Can Be Blue
The Broken Letters
Old 97s

(Three Imaginary Girls is a Seattle-based website that showcases the great music of the Northwest and beyond to music lovers worldwide. We post a Seattle live show calendar to help you fill your day-planner with loads of great shows, as well as record reviews, live show reviews, and an imagi-blog to entertain you throughout the day.)

Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJs think you should hear. Every Friday, the Song of the Day podcast spotlights local musicians. Today’s featured selection, chosen by Morning Show Host John Richards, is “The Jig is Up” by The Tasteful Nudes from their 2008 album The Soul of the New Machines available through Forced Perspective Collective. 

This Portland-to-Seattle five piece specializes in instrumental noise rock though they do touch on ambient ballads and even include some forays into disco.  They spent over a year working on the tracks for their second album The Soul of the New Machines in the studio focusing more heavily on the craft of each song than on past efforts.  The album is available for download here where they ask for a donation to the band to help cover expenses.  The album was released (via Creative Commons) through Forced Perspective Collective which is a group of musicians and artists in Portland & Vancouver B.C. as well as Seattle.  Earlier this year, The Tasteful Nudes participated in the 2008 RPM Challenge where bands across North America were given 29 days to conceptualize and record an entire album.  The Tasteful Nudes did it in just one weekend improvising much of their songs.  The result Disguise the Limit is also available for download here. Check out their MySpace page to keep up with the band.

photos by Kyle Johnson
interview by Jim Beckmann

Brooklyn’s Oxford Collapse takes the stage at Musicfest NW in Portland on tonight at 9:00 PM at Holocene. The band started as a joke (although it’s hard to figure out the joke, exactly) and in 2006, Sub Pop first released the full-length album Remember the Night Parties. The band is now on its fourth release, Bits, for which they wrote an astounding 30 songs. In the end, they drew directly from their influences rather than over-thinking the song-writing process and stayed true to their 80’s college rock core sound and nerd-boy playfulness.

After the performance, Jim sat down with Oxford Collapse — i.e. guitarist Mike Pace, bassist Adam Rize, and drummer Dan Fetherston — along with Susan Busch and Mona Dehghan from Sub Pop. The following is probably what everyone said, but it was hard to hear through the laughter. They could have been talking about something else entirely:

Jim: You guys are a Brooklyn band, is that correct?

Dan: Not anymore. Mike’s moving to Austin, Adam’s moving to Pittsburgh, and maybe I’m moving to Mississippi.

Jim: So that’s the end of the band?

Mike: We’ll be in satellite cities. We’ll practice on iChat.

Jim: So then why did you guys end up on Sub Pop?

Dan: I have no idea!

Mike: Sue lost a bet.

All laugh.

Mike: The story goes that Sue contacted us, kind of out of the blue.

Dan: No, we were on tour with the Constantines.

Mike: Mine’s more romantic.

Jim: I prefer “lost a bet.”

Mike: We did two records with Kanine in New York. But we were essential done with that contract and we were looking for a new label. We made a list.

Jim: Where was Sub Pop?

Mike: They weren’t even on the list. It didn’t seem like it was fathomable. But then Sue started a dialog with us. The timing was great.

Jim: What have you guys been up to lately, touring?

Mike: We were on tour. We just came from…

Dan: Grants Pass.

Mike: We played in San Francisco the other night and we had a day off yesterday, so we drove to Grants Pass, Oregon, and watched Tropic Thunder.

Jim: Thumbs up or thumbs down.

Mike: It served its purpose for being a movie.

Dan: Wait for video.

Jim: And you’re playing here at Musicfest tonight?

Mike: At Holocene.

Jim: What’s next?

Mike: Seattle.

Jim: Oh yeah. At the Sunset. See, I did my research.

Mike: I should have actually said that we’re going to Burger King tonight. We got these Burger King Crown cards. One of the guys in Love As Laughter… actually, this is a funny story. After we played in Los Angeles earlier this week, we went to this party that was at the guitar player from Tool’s house.

Jim: Nice.

Mike: He wasn’t home. But we were with Kevin, who directed the Tool “Sober” video. So he gave the guy from Love As Laughter all of these Burger King Crown cards that are essentially $5 credit cards for Burger King. We try to avoid Burger King whenever possible, but they hooked us up, and you know, late night in Grants Pass the options are kind of limited.

Jim: What’s cool about Grants Pass?

Dan: There was a giant video store, but it wasn’t Blockbuster. It is called Video World.

Mike: With VHS.

Dan: And it was still open late at night. And like Mike said, Grants Pass looks like the town that Marty McFly would have lived in.

Mike: Not only that, we were listening to Late Nights with Alice Cooper, which apparently you can only get out west. You can’t get it in New York. Sadly. So we listening to Alice Cooper, driving around, doing donuts in the JC Penny parking lot, and at 11:30 going to Burger King. It was great.

Jim: Okay. Any last corporate sponsors you want to thank?

Mike: We’re doing another festival in a few weeks, and Adam’s getting a haircut from Vidal Sasoon.

Jim: That’s good to know.

Mike: Don’t want to bite the had that feeds. Shoes too. Saucony, Keds, (points to ketchup bottle on table)… Hines…

photos by Kyle Johnson

From our second performance at the Doug Fir during Musicfest NW: Nick Jaina and six other outstanding musicians make up the Nick Jaina Band.

review by Chris Estey

Nick Jaina reissued a 2006 album on the beautifully boutique label Hush last spring that has been in steady rotation in my life ever since. Though he says he hates writing, The 7 Stations is a successfully ambitious acoustic-meets-ambient musical diary that contains some elementally wonderful art-folk songs that are as breathlessly catchy as they are extremely well-played. It features many great Portland musicians on it, whom Jaina has befriended since coming out to the romantic city since 2001. As the Seattle Weekly describes his sound, “The blend of clarinets, accordion, violin, keyboards, random percussion, and guitar sounds like the anthems made for the most glorious hobo nation on earth.” (I couldn’t really write that any better, thanks, SW.) I don’t remember the Binary Dolls too much, Jaina’s first band, but since then he has played out with a legion of also-brilliant songwriters and performers. Rumored to be composed on Elliott Smith’s old piano, the small, alarming masterpieces like “Maybe Cocaine” devastate audiences live.

interview by Jim Beckmann

Jim: How long have you been living in Portland?

Nick: I’ve been living here for seven years. I’m originally from Sacramento, CA, and spent some time in New Orleans.

Jim: What did you do in New Orleans. I read something about a job you had.

Nick: I worked in a restaurant as a busser, but I also painted faces during Mardi Gras. I went out on the street and painted faces on people.

Jim: Did you perform at all when you were there?

Nick: Not really. I listened to music, but I was a little intimidated by the institution of New Orleans jazz. It felt like it was hard as a 20-year old white kid to go in and do something that anyone would care about, so I kind of just sat on my hands and listened. I didn’t think that it really influenced my music, but in retrospect I guess it has to some degree.

Jim: I think a lot! But how about the Portland scene. How does that compare? You seem to play with a lot of musicians in town.

Nick: I wouldn’t say one is better or worse, but here it’s more current. Music as an art form is still being created. It’s not beholden to the past sounds of decades ago. There has been music developed in Portland in past decades, but what’s happening now is really new and people are really excited about it, and people are coming here from all over the country to form bands here and play music. Here you’re free to invent things and be creative. It’s a very different and open thing. Everybody shares band members and everybody shares shows and collaborates on other people’s albums.

Jim: That’s apparent just looking at the bands you list on MySpace, like Loch Lomond and Laura Gibson. So how did you get the band members for this group? Does it change?

Nick: It does change a little bit, but it’s getting more and more solid. The reason why the band is just called my name is because it started with me and it’s revolving. People have wanted to join, and they join, and they stick around as much as they want. And if they can’t make a show, they can’t make a show. It’s sort of a low pressure band in that way. They don’t have to sign a commitment or anything.

Jim: You do the majority of the songwriting, right?

Nick: The songs are all mine. Ideally, they’re songs I could play on my own if it comes to that. But it’s always more fun to play with people, with as many people as possible.

Jim: You do play alone sometimes, don’t you?

Nick: Occasionally. I went to Finland last year and played alone and went to Alaska and played alone. Just for economic or situational reasons. Less and less now. We’re going out on an around the country tour in a week and it’s going to be fun.

Jim: And you have two albums out this year?

Nick: Wool came out in the spring, and A Narrow Way comes out next month. So yeah, that’s two.

Jim: How did you come up with that many songs. Were there like two batches of songs that you thought would make different albums?

Nick: Wool was very much mellow solo piano lullabies that were created away from the rest of the band, in a separate space. The new album is very much the band songs that we’ve been playing for a couple of years on the road and honing those. Wool is almost a side project and more solo than this. The new album is very much what we sound like live and the new songs are the ones we’ve been playing and are used to. It’s more of a document of our live show.

Jim: What are you doing for Musicfest NW? When are you playing?

Nick: Tomorrow night at Berbati’s.