Rustee Pace

This week we present you with another great performance from KEXP’s broadcast from the Bumbershoot Music Lounge. San Francisco based duo Two Gallants played a captivating and memorable set comprised of songs from their last three releases plus a new, as yet untitled song. It’s hard to describe the combined power of Adam Stephens (vocals, guitar) and Tyson Vogel (drums, guitar) on stage. The sum is far greater than the parts and must be witnessed to be fully appreciated.

Fortunately for you, Two Gallants will be here in Seattle this Friday for our annual John in the Morning at Night event. Head down to Neumo’s on Friday, October 3, 2008 (doors at 8PM, show at 9PM). Joining them will be Portland’s Blue Giant (featuring Kevin and Anita Robinson from Viva Voce), Harvey Danger (acoustic set), and Seattle’s own electro-rockers Head Like a Kite.

Tickets are available at Ticketswest or Neumo’s Box Office

Seems Like Home To Me:

Despite What You’ve Been Told:

untitled new song:

Fly Low Carrion Crow:

Waves Of Grain:

Dan Muller

Possibly the loudest and by far the most theatrical performance at the Bumbershoot Music Lounge this year, where KEXP was broadcasting from the festival grounds, was Black Eyes & Neckties. The Bellingham band specialize in horror-influenced, punk-infused rock, and band members Ryan Cadaver (guitar), Davey Crypt (drums), Josh Homicide (guitar), and The Fist (bass) thrash about the stage in makeup to look like the decomposing dead. Add to this, lead singer Bradley Horror rolling around stage in wheelchair, thanks to a recent leg fracture, yet still able to kick over amps and somehow seduce the electrifyingly vampy keyboardist Brenda Grimm. You can read an exclusive interview with Josh Homicide here, and witness the slaughter here:

New Womb:

Grace Note:

Tonight Death Soars:

Barnacles:

Jim Bennett

Many, many great bands visited KEXP and performed in the Bumbershoot Music Lounge this year, bands as diverse as Forro in the Dark, Black Eyes and Neckties, Asylum Street Spankers, !!!, and Orgone. We were fortunate to film nearly all of them, and we’ll be rolling out footage as quickly as we can. First up, though, are KEXP favorites Nada Surf.

This summer, Matthew Caws and Ira Elliot were forced to tour without Daniel Lorca, who injured his knee, for the first time in something like 14 years! Though dread-less, the band soldiered on while Daniel convalesced and brought along their friend Jose Galvez (Ozma) to fill in on bass. On stage, the three performed as if they’d played the songs together for years. Sticking to a more stripped down arrangement — Ira on his drum box rather than behind the kit and Matthew strapped to his acoustic — Nada Surf performed for a full-capacity crowd one of the most memorable sets all weekend. Enjoy these two songs from the session and go back and read an exclusive interview with the band after the set:

What Is Your Secret

Weightless

by Corbett Cummins
photos by Heather Christianson

If you were paying attention to the comedy line up at Bumbershoot you may have been aware that there was a bit of a mystery surrounding the final show at the Intiman Theater. The theater was supposed to host a series of highly anticipated shows featuring Zach Galifianakis and Michelle Buteau. For reasons so mysterious that 5 minutes of Googling could not unearth them, Zach Galifianakis had to drop out all of them. This left three wholes in the schedule. On Saturday it was announced that David Cross fill the spot. On Sunday it was Jenean Garafalo. But even at this late date the web site still says Michelle Buteau and special guest. It wasn’t until we were actually heading over to stage that we caught wind that Aziz Ansari from Human Giant and local star Nick Thune would take Zach’s spot on the final night.

The show was hosted again by the ever personable Pete Holmes who warmed up the audience the way a stove top takes to a tea pot. He made particularly good friends with a person in the front row named Boyd who was wearing a “pot-shirt”. When he introduced Aziz Ansari, he added “and fucking Boyd is here” and the audience roared like he had just said Jon Stewart.

In 2005, Aziz made it on Rolling Stones Hot List as a Hot Comic. Since then, he has been on Flight of the Conchordes, the movie The Rocker with Rainn Wilson.

Aziz just before running to the other side of the festival

What most people didn’t realize was that Human Giant (starring Aziz) was scheduled to start in the middle of the Intiman show. This meant that the instant Aziz left the stage, he had to run across the Seattle center to the Charlotte Martin Theatre. Despite this, his set was smooth and unhurried.

His comedy was a combination of fictional and real scenarios, from a homophobic cell phone to his little cousin Harris and even programs that share airwaves with him on MTV like “Next” to which he said, “If anybody here has ever been a contestant on Next, do me a favor and go away and die. You are a horrible person and I don’t want comedy bringing any kind of enjoyment into your horrible existence.”

He was followed by Michelle Buteau. Michelle has a spot on Comedy Central’s Premium Blend and recently won New York’s Underground Comedy Festival’s New Comics Award. She was easily the most charming performer to grace the stage all weekend.

She had an infectious smile that illuminated the room before she was even in front of the mic stand. Her comedy was cute, smart, mean and slutty. She had an ability to say anything and have it come off sweet and nice and she used it to skewer everything from from Seattle’s lilly white-ness(“No I love it, I feel exoootic”) to New Yorks hyper diversity (“Whenever I leave Manhattan and go the rest of the country, if I don’t see black people or gay people or smell piss I get nervous”) and made everybody part of the joke.

Michelle assumes the position, but not the one you think

The final comedian was Nick Thune. Nick is a Seattle comedy alum who currently lives in L.A. He has been on the Jay Leno show, he has a half hour comedy showcase on Comedy Central and a series of videos on iTunes called iThunes. Nick has a smart, self deprecating and slightly snarky sense of humor. He is very good at delicately setting up the audiences expectations and then smashing them.

Nick gives a multimedia performance

Nick opened by strumming his guitar along with his jokes.
“I love taking pictures of people with my cell phone. There’s no camera on it, but, nobody knows that. Its just 45 seconds people awkwardly posing for pictures… while I check my text messages (strum),

“Yogurt drinks are so good, unless you’re thirsty.” (strum!)

After that, he walked up into the audience.
“Would you play truth or dare with me? (no answer) I’ll take that as a yes. What’s your favorite anti drug campaign, Truth or D.A.R.E?”

For his finale, he went back to stage and invited a friend out to play the six string electric slide and concluded the show with a two guitar song about doing a back flip along side of Cuba Gooding Jr and saving a baby.

With his back flipped, the baby saved and the music over Nick stepped off of the stage to an ecstatic audience and closed down the comedy portion of our Bumbershoot experience.

This is what a song about a backflip looks like

by Corbett Cummins and Heather Christianson
Video by Johnny Member

While we were picking up the pieces from the cluster bomb that was Bumbershoot, we came upon this recording of me attempting an interview with members of the Peoples Republic of Komedy.

I will warn you: the footage is not pretty. Still, it gives you a rare glimpse into the heart of the comedy community.

interview by Jim Beckmann
photos by Dan Muller

In 1997, Beck Hansen last played Seattle’s Bumbershoot Music and Arts Festival. Back then, in the time before mainstage wristbands, thousands of fans flooded into the Memorial Stadium, packing it so tightly that many of us stragglers were unable to squeeze in. Fortunately, since then Beck has played several different venues in the Seattle area — sometimes with marionettes — and has released six more full-length albums, from the frenetic Midnight Vultures to the twangy Sea Change. This summer, he released his eighth studio album, Modern Guilt, produced by Danger Mouse, which he is currently supporting with a world-wide tour.

Beck has also been busy with his family. On the continuing leg of his US tour, he will perform at the Hollywood Bowl in a couple of weeks, reportedly playing his biggest hometown headline show ever. More importantly, though, he’ll be joined by his dad, David Campbell, who will conduct the accompanying orchestra. Additionally, for the 2008 Fall Collection by Whitley Kros, a label co-owned by his actress/designer wife, Marissa Ribisi, Beck played DJ and later created a mix now playing on the label’s website. Somehow, on top of everything he’s been doing, he managed to find the time to father two children of his own.

Needless to say, Beck has given his fans plenty to be satiated with. Still, his return to Bumbershoot after just over a decade definitely felt like a homecoming to those of us in Seattle, regardless of Beck’s long-time residence in Los Angeles. In fact, as I discovered in my conversation with him behind the Mainstage, where he would finally perform again, it truly was a return, at least to his extended family, several of whom arrived to meet him at the same time as our interview. A short while later, in the relative quiet of his tour bus, Beck affably apologized for the delay.

Jim: I was actually meaning to ask if you have a lot of family in Seattle or the Seattle area.

Beck: Yeah, pretty much my whole family is in Seattle. And in Vancouver.

Jim: A while back, I heard a story that your grandmother was here at Bumbershoot for your show eleven years ago.

Beck: It was on her birthday, her 80th birthday. She was on stage.

Jim: It seems like this year you’ve done a lot with your family. You’re about to perform with your father on stage. Have you performed with him before?

Beck: I haven’t, no. But he’s done arranging for me on my records, but onstage this will be the first time.

Jim: How did that come about?

Beck: We’re playing the Hollywood Bowl. Half of the times I’ve been there have been with an orchestra. I did a show with Air years ago when they played and I sang with them. There are enough orchestral things on my various records to warrant it.

Jim: Also, recently on the website for your wife’s fashion label Whitney Kros, there’s a great set of music that you mixed.

Beck: Oh yeah, and I performed one of her shows (as a DJ for the 2008 Fall Collection).

Jim: What about your children, do they listen to music? Do they go to your shows or are they old enough to be appreciating anything?

Beck: Oh yes, absolutely. It’s like any child, when they hear, they start moving.

Jim: Do they have any preferences when they listen to your music?

Beck: My daughter doesn’t really speak enough to know, but if she likes it, you’ll see her moving.

Jim: Does being a dad change the way you write music?

Beck: I don’t think so. It changes things about your life but not far as writing songs.

Jim: But does any of that filter into the new album?

Beck: No, I’m not writing about being a father. I maybe haven’t done it long enough to really be able to have a complete insight into it or have anything original to say in a song, but it does affect your view of things in certain ways.

Jim: Speaking of that, a lot of people have been saying that the new album seems like your darkest yet. I have read it like every time. How do you feel about that?

Beck: I think that it’s an angle. I think the album just doesn’t have those two other funky songs that the other records have. We just took those off. And if you leave them on, then they cast all the rest of the songs in this light of being slightly ironic or not completely sincere. I thought, “What if we just take these couple songs off?” If you go out to the other records, even Odelay, and read the lyrics, like in “Devil’s Haircut” and “Ramshackle,” they’re not always bright and happy. They’re kind of dark. But at the same time, I listen to Leonard Cohen, Nick Drake, Radiohead, Nick Cave, Tom Waits — that’s dark. You know, what I’m doing is pretty lightweight in comparison to what I listen to. It’s like I was removing some of the colors, trying to get the simplicity and make it a little more monochromatic.

Jim: It seems like this album is much more focused. At 33 minutes, it’s a short album. I’m sure that someone as prolific as you had plenty more songs you could have easily put on it. What made you think to keep it very narrow?

Beck: I actually have more ideas than I can use and I tend to go into the studio and pursue a million different directions at once and sort of cobble it together as a final piece at the end. This time, I decided to really discipline myself and just try to control it. I purposefully not let myself do certain things and really tried to steer it to something. That said, I still think I keep a pretty open mind when I’m working. I do let a lot of different things happen, things I wasn’t planning on doing. I think some people go to make a record with a really specific mission in mind and would cut themselves off from any happy accidents or things they stumble on. I was still letting that happen, but I was definitely controlling it.

Jim: You worked with Danger Mouse this time. Did you choose him to help get that influence in there, to get a different sort of vision?

Beck: No, that was something I had already been planning for the last few years. I thought the next record would be 30 minutes, 10 songs, and that it would be very concise and the melodies to be memorable — the kind of record you’d want to listen to more than a few times.

Jim: Sometimes you forget when you’ve heard a really long album.

Beck: Yeah, and it sort of washes out. The last record was going to be a double record and we ended up cutting it down to 15 songs, which was still pretty sprawling. There are so many records I love that have that kind of economy.

Jim: Those old Leonard Cohen albums were usually about 30 minutes or so.

Beck: Like many of the great albums from the album-making era — the mid-60’s up through probably the late 70’s. In that era, people were thinking in terms of that kind of economy.

Jim: You’ve always had a lot of creative freedom, but I read that your term with Universal is coming up. I’m sure you’ve been asked this before, but with all these bands that are going off on their own, I wonder if you have thought about that at all.

Beck: I don’t know who’s really going off on their own because Radiohead ended up going with a label as well. I think people are using the internet but they are also bound to circumstances. Maybe the music business is still changing, but the record companies still own those channels. I guess it will evolve into something different, but at this point, I don’t think you can completely go out on your own. But I think I will be using the internet to do certain things. I have other records that I’ve made, things that are sitting around, things that have been sitting around for years, and I think that’s a good place to be able to give music that maybe my label wouldn’t want to put out or wouldn’t be worth their time, but it doesn’t negate that maybe some fans might be interested in it. I might fill out the picture of what I’m playing and how one gets from A to B to C. There are all of these things in between all these records. I’m constantly recording, so there might be some outlets for that. There is a whole body of acoustic songs that I haven’t released much of, so maybe that stuff could come out.

Jim: Didn’t I read that you were recently going through some old tapes of things you recorded over time?

Beck: Sure, yeah, I have a lot of old tapes. Boxes of them. There’s a record I did called One Foot in the Grave on K Records. We did a follow up record as well that was never finished and is sitting in a vault.

Jim: Do you think you’d maybe work with some other labels like that again?

Beck: Yeah, I started my own label. I was actually free from my old record deal two records ago, but the last one I just gave to my record company anyway, and I’m selling it in Europe with XL.

Jim: I do have one more question: how’s your progress on the Becktionary coming along? Any new additions?

Beck: No, I’ve let it slide. I’ve been trying to use standard English as it is spoken on the last record.

Beck - live on the Mainstage of Bumbershoot 8/30/08
photos by Jim Bennett

DJ Sharlese interviews Trent Moorman of Head like a Kite at the 2008 Bumbershoot music festival in Seattle

Jonathan Zwickel interviews Two Gallants:

by Corbett Cummins
photos by Heather Christianson

If there is one thing Bumbershoot is good at, its delivering unique experiences for audiences and performers alike. And for an up and coming comedian, playing to a packed audience at an early show during a huge festival definitely counts as unique. This is why we began the final Bumber-stretch with an early morning show (this weekend 1:15 pm is early morning) at the Vera Project Stage called the Fresh Faces showcase. As the name implies the comedians at this show were all newcomers to the stage. Several of them had only been performing for a year or so and most of them had never performed at Bumbershoot. And yes, the room was packed, at 1:15 pm, a magical trick that only Bumbershoot could conjure.

The show was hosted by local comic, Jake Merriman a talented, high energy performer who also lends his voice as an announcer for the Rat City Rollers girls and his hard core band My Bones and Organs. His set was like a really fun cup of scalding coffee, it woke up everybody up and burned just a little bit. Nothing was safe from his gaze, not even festival itself.

“I love Bumbershoot I love it. It’s a great place to go have white people teach you traditional African dance, white people make you a sarong, white people prepare you falafel. It’s a great place for white people to come together and celebrate diversity.”

^{Jake makes a dramatic statement}

Each of the comedians he introduced demonstrated their individual voice and took command of the room. As a result the audience was treated to wide variety of comedic styles, from the impenetrable dead pan of Ross Parsons, to James Parkinson’s impersonation of a Tyrannosaurus Rex: divorce attorney. The variety of styles and quality of the performances made the show an experience as unique for the audience as it was the performers.

Here is a quick rundown of the fresh faces in order of appearance. Please keep in mind that this information has been abbreviated for your convenience:

Name: Daniel Radford
Affiliation: Get Loaded (Staff Writer)
Quote for the day: “Yea my family owns a pool but I am so broke that my credit score is not even a number its just a dude who hits you in the face for asking.”

Name: James Parkinson
Affiliation: Laff Hole
Quote of the day: “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, if you could. Please raise your arms for me. My vision is based on movement.”

Name: Soloman Georgio
Affiliation: Cracked Up, Peoples Republic of Komedy
Quote of the day: “I saw a police officer on a Segway. Have you seen these things. These electronic pogo sticks on wheels? You spend $ 50,000 to get a piggy back ride from your fat cousin.”

Name: Ross Parsons
Awards: Second Place in the American Eagles Campus Comedy Challenge.
Claim to Fame: Serenaded by Robin Williams on 21st Birthday.
Quote of the day: “I get into a lot of knife fights. The element of knife fighting is the element of surprise. Often times my opponents are unarmed and unaware that they are in a knife fight.”

Name: Brett Hamil
Nickname: Hambone
Affiliation: Joke Tellers Union, McCleod Residence.
Quote of the day: “I got woke up by one of these assholes with a gas powered leaf blower…. Terrible way to wake up. So I rolled onto the grass.”

Name: Brian Boushes
Last big show: Bite of Seattle
Quote of the day: “I can’t get a tattoo on my chest. It would look like a scene from that book Pet the Bunny.”

KEXP presents Part 1 of the Music Lounge interviews at the 2008 Bumbershoot Music & Arts Festival with DJ Sharlese:

Thanks to Scott Holpainen, Ryan Enkema, Travis Baer, and everyone who tolerated us filming them.

by Corbett Cummins
photos by Heather Christianson

For the second day of Bumbershoot we went back to the Intiman Stage to see Tig Notarro and Greg Behrendt and then returned to the Vera Project to see the Dartmondo show.

Pete Holmes, was doing introductions again along with Doug Benson who could not even get through the pre-show speech thanking the sponsors and the volunteers without sending the audience into hysterics.

Pete came out and immediately fixated on two audience members who were trying to put a magazine back in their bag. He spun the minor situation so out of control that when one of the people tried to just put the magazine down on their lap, Pete turned into some an implication that they were living out some sort of sexual fantasy.

He actually yelled the phrase “Beck, you headline my pants!” without seeming mean. It was a sight to behold and set the stage for the two comics.

^{Tig gives her kill face}

Tig Notarro opened the show with her trademark high energy dead pan. According to her web site, Tig Notarro’s career began after the success of her production company Tignation led her to Los Angles. She has been featured on Comedy Central, American Movie Classics and also partnered with Sam Raimi (who made Evil Dead and Spider-Man) to make her own film company “ZeroDollarsAndZeroSenseProductions.” She currently has DVD out called “Have TIG at your party” which is a big infomercial starring Zach Galflanakias, Nick Swaranson (Reno 911) and others talking about how great it is to have Tig at your party.

Tig can hold a comedic note longer than anybody. At one point she moved her mic stand up past the 10 row of seats, and said “my comedy is gigantic, its not safe to have this on stage.” She then had an audience member hold the mic stand in his crotch, and when he didn’t do it right, she corrected him like and angry librarian. “Sir, your crotch.”

^Going…

^Going…

^{In your crotch, sir}

The whole joke was about a minute and a half of silence with just those few words. But the audience was so primed that they exploded when she said them. She kept the same comedic tension throughout her entire act, weather she was talking about operating the emergency hatch on an airplane or meeting rude people on the street.

^{Greg’s got stories}

The headliner was Greg Berhendt who is currently on top of the world. He has two certified best sellers: “He’s Just Not That Into You” and “It’s Called a Break-Up Because It’s Broken.” In 2005 the success of his comedy DVD Uncool put him on Variety Magazines top 10 comics to watch. And before that, he was a writer for a small underground HBO comedy called Sex in the City. He is also married, in a band, has an undying love of rock and roll and claims to have spent a decade engaged in activities that often led to him waking up in Mexico before getting sober.

^{Greg risks it all to show us his McConaughey}

Greg Behrendt put all of those things on stage so fast that it was hard to keep up. You could hear the Sex in the City writer when he talked about how in long term relationships guys must be allowed to look at other hot people (because we’re gonna forget about it in a second anyway). You could hear his maturity as a comedian when talked about slipping in his shower after trying to imitate Matthew McConaughey. And you could hear them all when he talked about all of the hard questions he has had to answer as a husband. Questions like “Why, why is there a burrito in the babies crib?” The answers, were of course, hilarious.

After that, we ran over to the 4:45 showing of Dartmondo. The Dartmondo is a unique performance that combines the precision of stand up and the immediacy of improv. The show was conceived of by local improv actor, comedian and producer Dartanion London when he was part of the improv company Wing-It productions. Since then, it has grown into its own entity and played all over Seattle.

^{Amanda Williams, in the hotseat}

The improv was provided by the cast of local improv actors: Ian Schempp, John Faga, Mike Murphy and Amanda Lee Williams. All of the stand up was provided by Dartanion London, Graham Clark and Hannibal Burress.

The show went as such. A comedian like Graham Clark would come on the stage, and do a full set, including a few jokes about people in Canada who don’t believe in global warming.

^{Graham Clark delivers comedy raw materials}

“I didn’t think that that was an option anymore” he said “that’s like not believing in the circulatory system.”

^{Dartanion gets a angry dose of funny from Mike Murphy}

After his set, the improvisers came on and did sketches based on his jokes. So in response to his joke about global warming they did a sketch in which Ian Schemp denied every human act, from science to babies as nothing more than an act of God. Then, Hannibal Buress, came on and joked about how he hates Seattle weather and how he shot his Grand Theft Auto date for making fun of his clothes.

In turn, the improvisers did a sketch where a kid shot his mom with a video game gun for asking him to wear warmer clothes because the weather was bad. By the end of the show, all of the jokes melted into one hilarious comedic mess that filled the entire stage.