Solidly written, oft repetitive-chorused mountain songs point Ha Ha Tonka in a success-bound direction. “Usual Suspects” starts the album off on the wrong hoof, but if this nascent band from Southern Missouri follows the convention of memorable ballads like “Dead Man’s Hands,” they’ll indeed escape the Ozarks alive.
Reminds us of: Murder by Death | Blitzen Trapper | Winter’s Bone
http://www.melophobe.com/fifty-word-reviews/ha-ha-tonka-death-of-a-decade/
A step past perfect … like too much salt in scrambled eggs; spoiled by that last, well-intentioned pinch. Sparse but unhelpful guest vocals are that extra salt in Coming Home. Otherwise, if I could eat a sound, I’d have the raw unsalted hum of Maggie Bjorklund on pedal steel guitar.
Reminds us of: Calexico | Leonard Cohen | Richmond Fontaine
http://www.melophobe.com/fifty-word-reviews/maggie-bjorklund-coming-home/
Synths, beats, and unexpected positioning of the words “minestrone” and “medical journals” make Ventriloquizzing an intriguing mouthpiece for criticizing a pill-pushing, self-centered society. With smart, sinister humor from a slick quartet of young English gents, this album secretly invites dirty harlots and clean-shirts to the same dance floor.
Reminds us of: The Clientele | Ladytron | Kraftwerk
http://www.melophobe.com/fifty-word-reviews/fujiya-miyagi-ventriloquizzing/
Bad Blood echoes the recent-heartbreak lethargy of shoegaze garage rock, but Cohen has a charming gift for composing frank, jangly rhymes inspired by life’s low points. The lyric, “Rock bottom is the top of the world … when the world is upside down” summarizes the album’s deadpan slacker misery perfectly.
Reminds us of: Stephen Malkmus / The Eels / Lou Barlow / Lou Reed
http://www.melophobe.com/fifty-word-reviews/tim-cohen-magic-trick-bad-blood-ep/
Having been to hundreds of raves, the last thing I expected to change about the scene was the use of vinyl records and turntables. A dissenting “What the fuck?” would have been the response ten years ago if a live DJ had approached the decks with a pile of CD’s instead of a crate of records. The idea was as preposterous and laughable as taking photographs without film.
…Oh. Hm.
Okay, so it’s totally expected for DJ’s to move forward with technology, especially as part of a definitively “futuristic” subculture. I should be more surprised that the CDJ didn’t become the standard earlier. But that was the interesting thing about rave culture; it was, and still is in many ways, at once acutely primitive and fiercely progressive.
The average attendee at the Rusko show couldn’t have cared less whether the music came from an 8-track or an mp3 file, so long as it rattled the walls. And the simplicity of those expectations is admirable. They had been held captive in the front lobby and outside in the rain for over an hour before hearing anything more than the flighty conversations of the people in line next to them and security guards yelling, “Girls to the left, guys to the right!” While everyone’s drugs starting kicking in prematurely, I noticed the last decade’s progressions in raver fashion have gone from Jnco and KikGirl wide-legged pants to short-shorts and stretchy mini-skirts. Native-American style headbands, and lacy brassieres exposed beneath oversized, tattered tank-tops over tight, faded denim were the new homemade frock. White Keds lace-ups circa Jennifer-Grey-in-Dirty-Dancing splattered with day-glow paint still proved to be suitable dance footwear. And, as usual, gladly abandoned were the unfashionable pressures and expectations of the hackneyed world outside.
The music that night was far less interesting than the environment and behaviors it yielded. Sir Kutz (read: circuits) caught the first release of pent-up-crowd energy as he spun an aggressive mix of “big bassline” breakbeats, dub-step, and UK garage. Sir Kutz seemed like a good guy, but this quick assessment had a lot to do with his restrained, non-grandiose presence being further subdued by the immensity of the crowd and venue. He generously tossed out a handful of CD’s and pulled a few excited dance moves, but otherwise hid behind a flat-billed ball cap and made digital DJ-ing look duller than it already is. Fortunately there were plenty of light shows going on (see photos above).
Doorly, on the other hand, literally and figuratively turned the tables. It was no secret that he used CD’s (most likely recorded from vinyl), as flipping through them and using them as a bookmark in his mouth was part of the act. He experimented with the mixer, effecters, and a variety of other digital sound-making gadgets to manipulate nearly every second of music that otherwise played without his accommodation. Granted over an hour of set-time, Doorly seized every opportunity to showcase his tricks and skill with the Pioneer CDJ-2000 (or some variation of this model). He bopped and strutted, rocked and grooved, pushed buttons, switched tracks, flipped through a massive CD book, and moved so damn fast by the end I believed he was an electrician-by-day-DJ-by-night that could formulate a toaster into a television with a screwdriver and duct tape. His style of music was more akin to Rusko’s than to Sir Kutz’ and less instantly gratifying and mind numbing than the whomp-whomp-whomp of Rusko’s American-superstar-DJ counterparts Bassnectar and Skrillex. According to our friend Wikipedia, “Dubstep is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in South East London. Its overall sound has been described as ‘tightly coiled productions with overwhelming bass lines and reverberant drum patterns, clipped samples, and occasional vocals’.” The critical detail though is that dubstep demands some sophisticated footwork and body control when dancing to it and can frequently cause “dance-move-misfires” due to its erratic bass-drop fake-outs. In other words, dancers who have an advantage are the ones with a sharp memory, well attuned to the string of rhythm before the bass drops away; the ability to pull the beat along with the mind when it disappears temporarily from the sound waves is crucial (if you want to get geeky about it). This idea isn’t unique to dubstep, but the level of unpredictability lends a certain maturity to both the genre and its fans.
Our fast-handed, British dubstep friend Doorly eventually announced Rusko’s impending arrival and removed himself from the stage, allowing a sleuth of ninjas to clear unnecessary equipment and uncloak a lavish display of five ten-foot tall light-up letters that together spelled the headliner’s name. This was one of over a dozen shows comprising the Soul’d Out Music Festival, two of which were headlined respectively by super-duper-stars Ms. Lauren Hill and Ice Cube. I had to wonder, “Did they have a personal set of ten-foot-tall Light-Brights?” I had never even heard of Rusko before the festival, but I will not soon forget him; not because of his impressive resume, including collaborations with both Britney Spears and M.I.A. on their recent albums, but because the man is a grown child with a custom portable playground. Not only did Rusko leap on stage, he leaped onto his own stage on top of the original stage. Yes, that’s right: A stage upon a stage. In giant letters, his tee-shirt read: “WIDE THE FUCK AWAKE.” I can’t imagine a more fitting slogan. Despite the slow-tempo start, DJ Step-Aerobics had the balcony bouncing and vibrating so severely that drinks were shimmying off ledges, shirts were shimmying off bodies, and teenagers were convulsing like Happy Meal wind-up toys.
In other news, The Roseland security guards have been awarded an A+ rating on SitterCity.com. They gently escorted freshly ejected crowd-surfers from the stage-front back around to the dance floor, politely asked girlfriends to descend from the shoulders of boyfriends, fed thirsty dancers squirts of water, and like Herculean athletes, prevented the barrier (alternately pushed by 1,200 sweaty bodies) from sliding into the stage. They also get bonus points for hiding their amusement when one gentleman descended from a brief crowd-surf, defiantly leapt onto the stage, ran its length, attempted to slap a hi-five with Rusko (caught him off-guard and missed), and dove back into the crowd which parted red-sea style, and belly-flopped on the hard-wood beneath. No word yet on which was more painful—the concussion or his girlfriend’s sudden loss of interest.
In the uncluttered lexis of one smiley-faced fan wearing a dazzling sequin cap, Rusko’s music is like “Robots fighting … but so much more.”
http://www.melophobe.com/concert-reviews/rusko-doorly-sir-kutz-roseland-theater-portland-or1/
Rude Dudes were more like singular rude dude (Portland’s DJ Rad!) hidden behind a black castle of speakers and music equipment. No one in the audience knew who was performing unless they dared approach the right side of the stage in order to see a man in a ball-cap and headphones playing mad scientist behind a Macbook. The 21+ corral was packed and doused in red light while the all-ages area was wide open as a carpool lane in L.A. A small group of excitable kids danced their way to the stage, which eventually started a snowball effect, and soon the floor was blanketed with feet. The beeps and thumps of Rude Dude’s hip-hop/techno/R&B remixes droned on while a real-life rude dude screamed angrily at the stage: “Play some real MUSIC! Enough of this shit! Come on!” A few people shot evil looks in his direction, but I secretly endorsed the man’s sentiment, though my method of dissent gravitated toward quiet tolerance in the name of civility. To each their own form of futile problem solving methods.
Reporter broke the tension and weaved their first melodic utterances into Rude Dude’s last. The transition was sweet. But the sweetness was soon overcome by hypnosis. By that I mean, pure sensory domination via lasers, fog, whomp-whomp-whomp’s at regular intervals, and the silhouette of a tiny Asian dancer floating her tiny saccharine voice into a microphone. It was as if they had extracted the essence of all our techno fantasies and drank them like evil masterminds before the show. My former assessment of them still stands: If I flee the earth on a spaceship journey, I’d like to have Reporter as a soundtrack. Bear in mind that real-life-rude-dude was still shouting pearls of rudeness between each song. So the combined effect was jarring, like sailing on an ocean tide at sunset, and between the sound of the waves crashing, seagulls call a reassuring, “You SUCK!” and “Booooo!”, intermittently pulling you back to shore. Insert your own analogy.
Most importantly, Holy Ghost! had nice haircuts. They looked like nice boys. And their music was nice, like a brand new wool pea coat – fashionable and timeless, but on those first days when it’s free of loose threads and cat fur. They plowed through the tracks on their new self-titled album, sprayed (polished and calculated, of course) analog-synth disco all over the room, ended with a ten-second energetic finale, and promptly fled the scene. If you’re hip to said scene, Holy Ghost! will undoubtedly remind you of Chromeo and Phoenix. And before we go pointing fingers at who’s copying who, set your judgments aside, for they are all, like, totes BFFs. Having remixed tracks for both bands and played keys for LCD Soundsystem, Holy Ghost! are remarkably adept at creating infectious pop tunes. It was a treat to see them before they blow up.
The fourth band was called An Hour Long Intermission While We Wait for Das Racist to Show Up. They started out strong, or maybe the crowd was just still buzzing from the sugary Holy Ghost! set and high on anticipation for the headliners. Either way, the energy fizzled after a half hour. Food rations were depleting. The fries at the snack bar ran out only to be sorely substituted by school-lunch-sized bags of Fritos (Trademark). It was approaching 1am. The bathrooms were looming toward third-day Honey Bucket standards. People started losing their wits, talking about the weather and checking stock reports on their iPhones. Do we make a dash to the frites cart? But we’ll miss the show! Things were looking grim.
But just before two young mothers nearly pulverized each other over the last bag of Peanut M&Ms (Trademark) for their starving children, a thunderous roar erupted from the crowd, stopping the seething patrons dead in their tracks. Das Racist had arrived.
Das Racist are art-school comedians who use hip-hop to subvert stereotypes, to provoke thought about questionable institutions like combination Pizza Hut/Taco Bell restaurants (Trademark), and to remind us that waving our hands back and forth to Naughty By Nature’s “Hip-Hop Hooray” is frowned upon. Between songs, they don’t deliver one liners; they erupt in chatter like kindergartners who have been asked what they think of Pikachu. And just like kids, they want to show you everything that they’ve been up to lately. For Das Racist, it’s making funny faces, pushing the eagle, panther, and cougar sound effect buttons a lot, wearing ten hats at once, and making raps.
“So is Portland like better than Seattle? Is there a bit of a rivalry there? This is our first time to Portland but we’ve been to Seattle like twelve times we got here like forty minutes ago.” [Punctuation omitted intentionally to convey speed at which these men spoke. Unfortunately I cannot overlap the text to convey the three of them consistently overlapping each other’s sentences.] My guess is that, between the jumping, yelling, laughing, walking, swimming, dressing and un-dressing, crowd-surfing, and animal impersonating, the trio collectively burned over 5,000 calories. The performance was action-packed, every moment a high-note, and every song a crowd-pleaser, including the “fake encore,” and the last song – a recording of “The Best” by Tina Turner to which the boys wound down (i.e., stage dived) and departed, leaving a fully recovered flock of fans behind with senses of humor properly reinstalled.
http://www.melophobe.com/concert-reviews/das-racist-holy-ghost-reporter-rude-dudes-branx-portland-or/
Khaira Arby sings in three different Malian dialects: Sonrhai (her regional language), Tamashek (the Tuareg language) and Bambara (Mali’s national language), plus Arabic and French. Ali Farka Touré – perhaps the most famous Malian musician worldwide, who married into Arby’s family when she was young, was her musical mentor since her family was devoid of musicians and her father forbade her to sing. For 20 years she practiced and performed in the ancient city of Timbuktu where her followers regard her as the “Nightingale of the North.” Her recordings have only circulated via cassette tape in that region, until recently. She now has a digitally recorded album and has embarked on a US tour. Khaira’s dialects and rhythms come from a long history of Saharan caravan trade, herding, and mining. With electric guitar, hand durms, and string instruments, the sound reflects ancient Malian culture framed in rock and blues. Rarely touring outside her home country, her current band includes mostly family members. The bassist is her cousin, the drummer is her nephew, and the younger guitarist is the son of a previous guitarist who pursued other projects with Oumou Sangaré.
Singer and lead guitarist of Brooklyn’s The Sway Machinery, Jeremiah Lockwood (also of Balkan Beat Box), met Khaira Arby in Mali during the Festival Au Desert – a yearly music festival started in 2003, primarily celebrating Malian music but recently has invited groups from around the world to play. They connected on their shared affinity for familial legacy and paying cultural homage through music and decided to collaborate on both recorded songs and an international tour.
The Sway Machinery dress the ancient meditative prayer chants of Jewish cantors in swanky rhythms and danceable beats to create a sound that nods respectfully to history while presenting itself handsomely on the table of contemporary world music. The Arabic-themed décor rendered the Aladdin Theater a fitting venue for these world-music aesthetes, with the proscenium arch, tapestries, tassels, and fringe richly highlighted with splashes of teal, gold, and red. The audience scattered itself throughout the red velvet theater seating and watched intently as the band, looking dapper in their grey suits and oxfords, played their first two songs alongside Khaira. Lockwood serenaded in Hebrew with a voice and facial expressions of operatic caliber, alternating with Khaira as she juxtaposed a culture rarely heard against one we’ve all heard, yielding an impact unique to her shows outside of Mali.
Khaira wore a wispy wide-sleeved black robe decorated with shimmering embroidery, a matching scarf draped across her shoulders, and a headscarf featuring a beautiful mélange of gold coins. We couldn’t understand the words, but her face and voice so adequately expressed the joy and passion inherent in them that we didn’t have to. Middle aged men and women beamed smiles at her, and bounced and danced like children on their slice of dance floor when she sang, returning to their seats when she disappeared backstage.
Lockwood began one stand-out song by voice-acting a folk tale of sorts about finding his un-evil twin in a pool of water in the woods “once upon a time when [he] was a highway man and rode the rails…” The story ends once he is tempted with a promise of the innocent twin’s sister and is subsequently “raised up from the dead.” He delivered the story in scratchy sinister drawl, then stepped back from the microphone for a moment, grabbed his guitar and followed the band as it dived abruptly into full, fast, loud instrumentation. The trumpet player and saxophonist stood together stage left, creating an atmosphere of exoticism with their instruments, and remaining animated and self-possessed during interludes. After the last song, Lockwood gave a salutation, “We’re very blessed to be in Portland, Oregon,” and rounded up the band for a traditional theatric bow. They departed amongst applause that segued into a woman running up to stage, waving her hands back at the audience, pleading: “Don’t leave! Don’t leave! Khaira Arby is coming!” Evidently, a number of people were under the impression that Khaira and The Sway Machinery were a single act, and now, since we had seen them both perform, it was time to go. Not so.
Khaira Arby appeared onstage with her family-band of men in traditional Malian black headscarves, loose-fitting shirts, trousers, and . . . rock-n-roll instruments. The boys’ blues-rock musicianship looked strange but sounded impressive. Led Zeppelin-esque solos spilled from the guitarist as naturally as his breathing, and Khaira sang and played hand drums with a mesmerizing coolness and command of her craft. Occasionally she would pour water on the hand-drum for special effect. The drummer maintained a smooth groovy beat for each song, essentially providing a steady platform for Khaira to improvise and wind her vocals around.
A few avid fans requested songs, offered their hands up for shakes and kisses, and even handed her dollar bills. The experience of these two acts was humbling to say the least. Each of them unearths an ancient culture and mythology through contemporary music with a depth that I can only attempt to wrap meaningful words around. I hope sincerely to hear the world through their music again soon.
http://www.melophobe.com/concert-reviews/khaira-arby-the-sway-machinery-aladdin-theater-portland-or/
Yann Tiersen may have been just another boy who turned his back on Mozart and Satie to make friends with Iggy Pop and Mick Jagger. Maybe he listened to the Stooges and Joy Division between violin and piano lessons, so by the time he was a teenager (to his parent’s horror, I imagine) he was playing guitar in a punk band.
But Tiersen is all grown up now, and his resumé stands out from the average punk rocker, having composed soundtracks for major films like Goodbye, Lenin! and Amelie. The classical training, it turns out, served him well. And the punk thing lended a dynamism that made a whole lot more sense mixed with classical music than one would have thought.
Currently, the most substantial text on Yann Tiersen’s website is a single, telling quote: “Let’s live in an enormous world of sound we can use randomly, with no rules at all. Let’s play with sound, forget all the knowledge and instrumental skills, and just use instinct – the same way punk did.” And it’s true that when you know the rules well enough, it’s permissible to break them. Tiersen’s first extensive tour in the States does just that—pulling together acoustic instrumentation, electronica, and rock to create a genre-bending performance.
The band of six began the set with a constant string of high-then-low ambient keyboard melodies while Yann frantically strummed a mandolin, switching quickly to violin once the drums and bass kicked in. The effect was theatric – profound, arresting, and pregnant with significance beyond musical experimentation. The first song blended seamlessly into the second, the title track from his new album, Dust Lane. A robotic female voice uttered fragments through the speakers, “…skyline…on dust lane…again and again…walking…time…talking to many people…on…dust lane.”
The group did not give a “Yann and His Band” impression with Tierson in the spotlight and the rest as passive support with heads down and hands glued to instruments. Rather, it felt like a genuinely collaborative, synergistic effort. Each member had something unique to offer. The bassist switched from (bass) guitar to bass clarinet midway through “Dust Lane,” then followed Yann’s lead with a melodica for an intermittent solo before a very rock-n-roll jam session. The drummer was barefoot. And the keyboard/soundboard guy was involved in a near-constant non-verbal dialogue with Yann.
One distinct characteristic of Tiersen’s latest compositions is an unbroken string of melody produced either by keys or melodica that changes pitch slowly like long rolling hills, as opposed to short, choppy tones – think hummmmmhummmmmhummmmm as opposed to huh-hum-huh-hum-huh-hum. There are were exceptions, of course, as the band proceeded in unpredictable fits and starts, first with a quiet mandolin, violin, or piano solo, then without warning or conventional crescendo they collapsed into a calculated flurry of noise.
If there were lyrics, I couldn’t decipher them, especially about six songs deep when Andrea from Breathe Owl Breathe sang a number – or rather, chanted, screamed, hummed, and shouted a series of ohhh-eeee-yaaah’s with a spiritual intensity that moved me but perhaps would have been more effective had I been able to hear the subtleties of her voice.
The next song started me thinking that Tiersen was laying the framework of a story right in front of us. He sang about something which, again, I could not understand. But the odd thing was it had no major emotional crux. Until that point, the songs had been erratic and blustery – screeching high, thundering low, and then stopping dead in their tracks before any patterns could be recognized. This song, in its tedium and lack of highs and lows, highlighted the brilliance of the rest. Appropriately, a gentleman standing in front of me was “Shazamming” each song (iPhone/Pad’s answer to “Googling” songs without typing. Just record, send, and shazam! the artist name, song, and album appear on the screen within seconds.), only to be given an error message each time. Whether this is an unfortunate distraction or a totally awesome gadget depends on how you’ve interacted with it (i.e. guy at concert keeps blinding you with it vs you use it to win a $5 bet that the song playing on repeat in the Target pharmacy is indeed Starfucker). The point is that the songs sounded improvised, which renders these things useless, and I think Shazam! would agree with me. I have to admit I kind of like that, because sometimes just the weird, pattern-less, mysterious experience of something is more virtuous than a distilled explanation of it.
http://www.melophobe.com/concert-reviews/yann-tiersen-wonder-ballroom-portland-or/
It was nearly the coldest night in Portland this year, second only to the night before. And the next day, The Concretes would be exploring our little town for the first time, zipped up in the big jackets and waterproof shoes with which they came equipped all the way from Sweden – where low temperatures monopolize thermostats, and getting around in nasty weather is no big whoop. They asked the crowd for suggestions on where to explore on their day-long hiatus: “Seattle or Portland?” The biased crowd voted in favor of the current locale, of course, and when the band asked about the legendary Rose Garden, an anonymous person replied, “IT’S FROZEN!” Undeterred, The Concretes asked politely that alternate recommendations be submitted after the show.
Lisa Milberg emerged from what must have been her personal backstage beauty salon because behind the microphone she stood looking like a Swedish Barbarella, casting a shadow that stripped the five other members significantly of visual appeal. About four years ago, Milberg took Victoria Bergsman’s place as lead vocalist, but only avid listeners would notice the difference (Bergman is now pursuing Taken By Trees full-time). Both have a delicate, feminine, and at-times crackly voice touched with, I can’t help but say, an adorable Swedish accent. Both ladies are nearly expressionless while singing but the elegance and cavalier attitude with which they subtly move seems a thing only years of charm school could produce. Veteran Concretes fans may find that Milberg doesn’t bring the charisma to the stage that Bergsman did, and though difficult to admit, The Concretes may just as well have broken up after her initial split. And those who hold this opinion probably make up the majority of Portland Concretes fans, who apparently refused to attend. The venue, host to a most popular fifteen-year-old Swedish indie band, was nowhere near capacity. Nonetheless, new leaves will be turned. Introverted blonde bombshells will replace introverted brunette geniuses, and so on.
Milberg tentatively introduced each song with a soft-spoken summary: “This is a very old song that maybe some of you know…”, and “This is called ‘I Wish We Never Met’ … It has nothing to do with you,” referring to the audience, who, barely amused by her simple performer-to-audience joke, were visibly mesmerized by her mere presence. The ease with which the band floated through their set seemed to condense time. The songs came and went, the next just like the last; upbeat, controlled, full, polished love ballads that evoked both the tired cycles of love lost and love regained, and the fresh energy of leisure. It ended before we had gotten to know each other, but fortunately, a few brave souls were so saddened by the band’s premature departure they demanded an encore. Armed with tight-lipped smiles and gratitude, The Concretes said goodbye with two sweet, albeit brief, final songs.
Two opening bands played earlier in the night, and though I missed the first one, Scars on 45, Millionyoung improperly set the tone for The Concretes with a spacey, high-momentum nod to 80’s new wave (nowadays we call this chillwave). Ascending melodies trailed behind Mike Diaz’s echo-soaked vocals and a rainbow constellation of lights pulsed around the band like a pinball machine. The music was energizing and groovy, but lacked the maturity one would expect from The Concretes’ opening act. Alas, we must all start, or start over, somewhere.
http://www.melophobe.com/concert-reviews/the-concretes-million-young-scars-on-45-doug-fir-lounge-portland-or/
Technically, DJ Anjali was the first opener. But since there were a total of fifteen people in the room at the time—due to Roseland’s website listing the show start-time at 9:00 instead of 8:00—she was more or less a face to ascribe to the background music. The monthly dance parties she and The Incredible Kid headline at Rotture are more typical of what her shows look like; packed, sweaty, and pulsing. Regardless of the tame environs, she stood behind the decks bobbing her head cheerfully and mixed her famed blend of vintage Bollywood and Raga with brick-splitting techno beats.
Famous for their wild house parties, Soulico is well established in Tel Aviv, Israel. The four Jewish boys who make up the troupe are long-time vinyl collectors, collaborating on remixes and original productions made from samples of rare vintage Middle Eastern folk and disco and their own beat tracks. One would assume that the natural progression of a group of young music-loving men would be to form a band and bring their music to the rest of the world, right? Yes, of course, but it’s not always the best idea. Soulico’s talent lies in their good taste and discretion in mixing American hip-hop with Middle Eastern melodies and not in their ability to perform. The main MC was self-consciously enthusiastic, waving his hands in the air, hopping around the stage, and prematurely demanding that the crowd do the same. His inability to keep his body movements in sync with the music was endearing, like watching a child’s dance recital, but mostly awkward coming from an adult. This man’s sole purpose was to excite the crowd and dub (read: yell) over the lyrics already taken care of by the recorded tracks being played by the DJs . . . or, rather, the laptop operators. No doubt it got the crowd moving, but it felt forced. And there’s something profoundly uninteresting about seeing a live disk jockey without any disks. The mixing took place before the performance so all the artists had left to do on stage is push buttons from behind an army of laptops and let their MC run around like a hyper puppy broken free from its leash. Nevertheless, their albums are solid, and it is a compliment to be a musician deemed better heard and not seen.
On that note, cover your face in shame if you have never seen Balkan Beat Box play live. What a turnaround it was for these guys to take Soulico’s place onstage. Maybe it’s my fascination with the arts and music of the Middle East and Mediterranean that biases me (though the Balkans are in Southeastern Europe, Balkan Beat Box are from Israel, and are currently stationed in New York), but I was literally drop-jawed for their entire performance. There were no fancy lights, visual projections, choreographed dances, props, costumes, or theatrics; just really, really fucking good music. The DJ was hidden off stage-right [Editor’s note: DJ-style sounds are actually handled by Tamir through the use of an on-stage lap top] while two saxophonists, two guitarists, and two drummers spread themselves across the stage in palindrome fashion. The personalities of the individual musicians were apparent and varied, displayed through constant eye contact between members, smiles, laughing and intensity all at the right moments, and the frequent switching of instruments. BBB co-founder, MC, and drummer Tomer Yosef marched back and forth between singing both reggae and hip-hop style from center stage and wailing on the right-side drum set in tandem with drummer Tamir Muskat opposite him. One guitarist was having way too much fun rocking out in his smokin’ hot grey and burgundy dress-suit ensemble, occasionally posing with a leg up on a speaker at the edge of the stage. They combine all the right elements: passion, humor, worldliness, positivity, self-possession, energy, sexiness, danceability, and organic charisma, all apparent in their live show as well as their recorded material. There is nothing else in my rotation of music that resembles Balkan Beat Box other than a few Asha Bhosle records and some raga mixes that have gotten me some weird looks from friends, so falling so hard in love with these guys upon first sight is a testament to their power and ability to reach a broad audience without compromising their roots or confusing people with too many disparate influences.
I have to commend the audience of this show, too, for offering some of the most lovely dance moves I’ve seen at the Roseland. More accurately, thank goodness for belly dancers! Thank goodness for ample hip movement! And thank goodness for jingly coin-wrap hip skirts! Even the lady checking ID’s for the bar donned a flashy pink chiffon scarf for the occasion.
Admittedly, it’s no big thing to do a little dancing at a show; it’s another thing to dance spiritedly in the center of the crowd for the entire performance and then head to the after party for more dancing until 2am, which is what this shy music reviewer did, and would be thrilled to do again next time.
http://www.melophobe.com/concert-reviews/balkan-beat-box-soulico-dj-anjali-roseland-theater-portland-or/
