Tuesday, April 15, 2008

We Get Out: Matt, Colin and honeyhoney

This entry will be a combo platter of recent concerts seen and CDs obtained in relation to same.

Sunday night found Sally (stalwart musical companion and neighbor) at the 930 Club for a solo set by The Decemberists' Colin Meloy. In preparation for the event, I purchased his new CD:
1.COLIN MELOY – Sings Live! (Kill Rock Stars)
direct from the KRS website, and the nice people at the label sent it with all sorts of cool extras – a Meloy bookmark, tour poster and postcard and even a bonus CD by a band I know nothing about:
2. COMET GAIN – City Fallen Leaves (Kill Rock Stars)

The show was all I hope it would be. Meloy seemed in fine spirits, joking with the crowd, encouraging a camp fire sing-along vibe and - oh, happy day - performing the two songs I had on my Please Play list - "The Bagman's Gambit" (You Tube has an epic version performed with a symphony at the Hollywood Bowl) and "Red Right Ankle," the latter a tune I have always loved and never heard live. The fact that Meloy fumbled on the last, most poignant verse, didn't so much take away from the moment as make it more ephemeral.


I had no photo pass and was using an old camera that I hadn't played with in ages, the controls so foreign to me that I had no idea what I was doing (even more so than usual). I got only the one previous shot that came even close to being clear and a whole bunch that I kinda like as studies for color abstract paintings.

We caught only a few songs by opener Laura Gibson and that was fine by me. Though she appeared to have a lovely rapport with the crowd, the songs I heard were simple to the point of simplistic. Her talents were better shown as she came out to sing harmony with Meloy on "Cupid," one of the tracks on the merch table CD, which I purchased that night:
3. COLIN MELOY – Sings Sam Cooke (tour only CD)
Five tracks for $10 (the package deal was $20 for this and the "Sings Live!" set) - a nice compliment to the "Sings Morrissey" set I got at the last solo gig I saw, at IOTA. (There's also "Sings Shirley Collins," but I missed that tour.)

Earlier this month, the label behind the new duo Honeyhoney reached out to promote the band's 930 Club show opening for Lifehouse (yawn) and Matt Nathanson (a young god in our household), so High School Girl and I went to the show. I had a photo pass, and a little better luck with my camera.

Honeyhoney's Ben Jaffe


Honeyhoney's Suzanne Santos


The rep had sent the CD a few days before the show:
4.HONEYHONEY - Loose Boots (Ironworks Music)
This 5-track EP is the fourth release from Jude Cole and Kiefer Sutherland’s O&O indie label.It's a bright, poppy set with dark undercurrents, apparent immediately in the catchy and slightly creepy (in a good way) opener, "Little Toy Gun." And "Thursday Night," is an upbeat number about screwing that if sung in another language, you could play for your mom and she’d tap her foot and say, “that’s catchy.”
Live, it's clear that this isn't one of those He Does The Musical Heavy Lifting While She Just Sings couples. Santos plays a mean fiddle.
From the duo’s self-penned press bio: “if you buy/illegally download one EP this year, let it be ours.” (Cue the sound of record company reps fainting.)

HSG, who has no vested interest, said she also liked them, but to be perfectly honest, we were there for the inimitable Matt Nathanson, whose recorded works to date (except for the "At the Point" live set) can't begin to express his impish potty-mouth humor and sweet charm.

He seemed genuinely surprised and pleased at the number of people who made it clear they had come for him, not Lifehouse, and won over many of the others with his intensity and goofball penchant for dropping fun covers ("Jesse's Girl," "Kids In America") into his own material. Can't wait for him to come around again soon - as headliner.

I would have stayed for a few Lifehouse songs (three-song rule) just to see if they were any more interesting than I remember them from an HFS Nutcracker show long ago, but HSG was tired, so we split. I was also a little wary of the Lifehouse crowd - an older crowd than I would have expected, with more artificially enhanced boobage than I've seen in ages.

I'll finish off with one more 930 memory, from some weeks ago. HSG and I caught OK Go, again thanks to the opening act, a horn-driven band called Bonerama, at a benefit for New Orleans relief. I don't have any of my Bonerama shots handy, though here's one when a few of the guys from the band came out to play with OK Go:


At the show, I picked up:
5. OK GO – Oh No Deluxe Edition (Capitol)
I’ve wanted this for a long time, since the second disc has all the videos, including the glorious treadmill dance for "Here It Goes Again." And, at $15, it was a good deal for concert pricing.


I also recently purchased a signed (by Damian Kulash) copy of the book, "Lessons I've Learned From Women Who've Dumped Me" from the OK Go web site, and picked up another CD on the way:
6. OK GO – Pink EP (Okgo.net)
This 3-track CD includes “Hello, My Treacherous Friends,” “What to Do” and – the reason I bought it – “Antmusic.” Nifty letterpress cardboard sleeve, too.
The puffy envelope it came in had the return address "OK Go Loves You." Ahhhh....

Year to Date O/CD Tally: 53

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