Three Imaginary Girls - Velella Velella

Bobby Bare, Jr. broke my heart, and U.S.E. helped me forget all about it.

imaginary victoria — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 13:22:42 +0000

27 Mar 2009

Saturday was probably the weirdest multi-show night I've experienced in quite some time. Hopping from the Tractor to the Sunset, or catching Jon Auer, Pablo Trucker and Visqueen all in one night - that doesn't sound like it's beyond any kind of logical scope. It's just a handful of shows. But Bobby Bare, Jr. at the Sunset -- a whopping dose of brilliant, funny, melancholy singer / songwriter -- and then the U.S.E. show at the Crocodile? Seriously. Strangely enough, the shows meshed up a lot better than I realized they would, and I even had enough time in between to find good parking.

Bobby Bare, Jr. was just amazing. The Sunset was packed to the gills forty minutes before showtime -- mind you, for the early show! People had crammed in all the way up to the stage, drinks in hand, grinning ear-to-ear. Save for the track he did for one of the live KEXP compilations, I hadn't acquainted myself much with Bobby's work, except to know that I liked what I had heard so far. And when he took the stage to roaring applause and decibel-breaking whistles, it was no disappointment for this new fan -- he absolutely killed.

We were treated to a good long set of favorites and some gorgeous covers, recordings of which were available (at shows only) for ten bucks. Ten bucks! Tracks by America, and Bread, and a host of full-throttle American heartbreakers. They were sold out by the time I made my way to the back of the room, but if you happen to find yourself in Ballard tonight, you can probably pick up a copy -- an electric version of last Saturday's set is taking place with Mark Pickerel and some other local faves sitting in to kick it up a notch. It's the early show, so watch your clocks and get there in time for a good spot!

Then it was off to the Crocodile, to shake it up for U.S.E. and Velella Velella. Holy crap. From mushy-hearted funny to a full throttle dance party, in three notes or less. Just like the Sunset, I walked in to a fully packed house and wove my way up front (thanks to Laura) to catch the remainder of the show. And it was totally and completely awesome.

Velella Velella was one of those bands I knew that I knew, but couldn't think of their sound -- and what a treat it was to hear them live. Pulling off live music like theirs can be a little tricky, but they hit a homerun, and had the whole room dancing from the very start of their set. U.S.E. brought their game face to the stage shortly afterward, and proceeded to assault the crowd with a big shot of sparkly disco-ball amazingness. All sore feet and ringing ears afterwards, it's a show I'm glad I made a point of getting to.

On a side note, it's nice to see the Croc transition so well from holding full-throtte rock shows to full-force electronica night, with the lighting and sound skills to match both cases perfectly. I know I'm the new girl and all, but I'm sure glad this club is back in town.

From mushy-hearted funny to a full throttle dance party, in three notes or less.

SXSW 2006 Preview

three imaginary girls — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 08:00:00 +0000

16 Mar 2006

sxsw06mar1.jpg

The Three Imaginary Girls posse is heading south and partaking all that is South by Southwest. For years, we've heard recounts of the good times and once in a lifetime showcases. Folks, we are beyond excited to experience it for ourselves.

My head has been reeling with each 10 page highlighted print out igLiz hands me. There is so much amazingly fun stuff to do and see and I don't want to miss a minute of anything. Obviously my overachiever self will need to take a Texas-sized (veggie) chill pill in order to focus on the matter at hand: musica, musica, musica!!!

Yeah, I had a hard time figuring out what would make the list and what to prioritize. I created an indie-rock logarithm that, among other factors, weighed out the probability that a band would come to Seattle + the historical nature of their performance + the likelihood that I'll be able to get into the venue before it reaches maximum capacity (nothing like being denied and long bathroom lines to marsh the mellow). Given these factors, I found those Nordic bands rose top!

And for you non-Seattle-ites, we are proud to have a slew of our highly recommendable local bands representing there. If you aren't coming to SXSW from the Pacific Northwest, make sure to check out those fine Seattle / Portland folks! And if you really want to go where the cool kids are, make sure to stop by any one of the KEXP events taking place at the festival.

Break out the SXSW venue map, the show schedule and the cowboy hats 'cause here's our list of must sees:

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 15
Bourbon Rocks
8:00 p.m. The Carrots {Austin TX}

Buffalo Billiards
12:00 a.m. Derby {Portland OR}

Dirty Dog Bar
1:00 a.m. The Ark {Malmo SWEDEN}

Emo's Jr.
11:00 p.m. Aloha {Cleveland OH}

Emo's Main Room
9:00 p.m. Voxtrot {Austin TX}
11:00 p.m. Serena Maneesh {Oslo NORWAY}

Eternal
9:30 p.m. Jose Gonzalez {Gothenburg SWEDEN}

Flamingo Cantina
12:00 a.m. The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster {Brighton UK}

Lava Lounge Patio
12:45 a.m. Maritime {Milwaukee WI}

The Parish
8:00 p.m. Envelopes {Stockholm SWEDEN}
12:00 a.m. The Ponys {Chicago IL}
1:00 a.m. Art Brut {London UK}

THURSDAY, MARCH 16

Austin Music Hall
8:00 p.m. the Zutons {Liverpool UK}
9:45 p.m. Morrissey {Manchester UK}

The Drink
Nordic Night
8:00 p.m. Astrid Swan {Helsinki FINLAND}
9:00 p.m. Loney Dear {Stockholm SWEDEN}
10:00 p.m. The Latebirds {Helsinki FINLAND}
11:00 p.m. The Royal Highness {Copenhagen DENMARK}
12:00 a.m. Disco Ensemble {Helsinki FINLAND}
1:00 a.m. Sign {Hafnarfjord ICELAND}

Emo's Jr.
10:00 p.m. Headphones {Seattle WA}

Karma Lounge
1:00 a.m. Figurines {Copenhagen DENMARK}

Molotov Lounge
12:00 a.m. The Hidden Cameras {Toronto ON}

The Parish
8:00 p.m. smoosh {Seattle WA}
Barsuk/Saddle Creek
9:00 p.m. John Vanderslice {San Francisco CA}
10:00 p.m. The Starlight Mints {Norman OK}
11:00 p.m. Two Gallants {San Francisco CA}
12:00 a.m. Mates of State {East Haven CT}
1:00 a.m. Nada Surf {New York NY}

The Parish II
Barsuk/Saddle Creek
8:30 p.m. Detachment Kit {Brooklyn NY}
9:30 p.m. Rocky Votolato {Seattle WA}
10:30 p.m. The Long Winters {Seattle WA}
11:30 p.m. Criteria {Omaha NE}
12:30 a.m. Aqueduct {Seattle WA}

Redrum
Sidecho/Made In Mexico Showcase
8:00 p.m. The Catch {Seattle WA}
9:00 p.m. Some By Sea {Seattle WA}
10:00 p.m. The Divorce {Seattle WA}
12:00 a.m. Stars of Track and Field {Portland OR}
1:00 a.m. Damien Jurado {Seattle WA}

The Velvet Spade
8:00 p.m. Velella Velella {Seattle WA}

FRIDAY, MARCH 17

Antone's
1:00 a.m. Neko Case {Tacoma WA}

Blender Balcony at the Ritz
11:30 p.m. volcano! {Chicago IL}

Blender Bar at the Ritz
8:00 p.m. Brakes {Brighton UK}

Cedar Street Courtyard
9:30 p.m. Billy Bragg {London UK}

Dirty Dog Bar
9:00 p.m. Isobel Campbell {Glasgow UK}
10:00 p.m. The Lashes {Seattle WA}
11:00 p.m. OK GO {Chicago IL}

The Drink
Nordic Night
8:00 p.m. Ane Brun {Stockholm SWEDEN}
9:00 p.m. Real Ones {Bergen NORWAY}
10:00 p.m. Sarah Hepburn {Copenhagen DENMARK}
11:00 p.m. Animal Alpha {Oslo NORWAY}
12:00 a.m. Veto {DENMARK}
1:00 a.m. Quit Your Dayjob {Malmo SWEDEN}

Latitude 30
9:00 p.m. Tilly and the Wall {Omaha NE}
10:00 p.m. Sukpatch {Minneapolis MN}
1:00 a.m. Tapes 'N Tapes {Minneapolis MN}

La Zona Rosa
12:00 a.m. Arctic Monkeys {Sheffield UK}

Molotov Lounge
11:00 p.m. The High Violets {Portland OR}

Red Eyed Fly
8:00 p.m. The Brunettes {Auckland NEW ZEALAND}
11:00 p.m. Band of Horses {Seattle WA}

Stubb's
10:00 p.m. The Subways {Welwyn Garden City UK}

SATURDAY, MARCH 18

Antone's
11:00 p.m. Superchunk {Chapel Hill NC}
1:00 a.m Robert Pollard . {Dayton OH}

The Drink
1:00 a.m. The Village Green {Portland OR}

Emo's Annex
Secretly Canadian/Jagjaguwar
9:15 p.m. Richard Swift {Los Angeles CA}
10:15 p.m.Pink Mountaintops {Vancouver BC}
11:15 p.m. I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness {Austin TX}
12:15 a.m. Okkervil River {Austin TX}
1:15 a.m. Magnolia Electric Company {Chicago IL}

Emo's Jr.
11:45 p.m. Ester Drang {Seattle WA}
12:45 a.m. David Bazan {Seattle WA}

Habana Calle 6 Patio
7:30 p.m. Dressy Bessy Denver CO
8:30 p.m. Bedroom Walls {Highland Park CA}
Magic Marker Records
9:30 p.m. The Galactic Heroes {Portland OR}
10:30 p.m. The Owls {Minneapolis MN}
11:30 p.m. Tullycraft {Seattle WA}
12:45 a.m. The Bats {Christchurch NEW ZEALAND}

The Hideout
10:00 p.m. Instruments {Athens GA}
11:00 p.m. Gerbils {Athens GA}

The Jackalope
1:00 a.m. The Spits {Seattle WA}

Maggie Mae's
10:00 p.m. The Joggers {Portland OR}
1:00 a.m. Plan B {London UK}

Our recommendations for SXSW 2006 can't-miss shows.

Best Northwest Releases of 2005: Top 100 Readers' Poll Winners

three imaginary girls — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 08:00:00 +0000

You voted, we tabulated. Here's a print-ready list of the top 100 Pacific Northwest releases of the year for your post-holiday-gift-certificate shopping pleasure...

{50-41} * {40-31} * {30-21} * {20-11} * {10-1}
{top 100} * {imaginary picks}

Death Cab for Cutie — Plans {review}
Tullycraft — Disenchanted Hearts Unite {review}
The Decemberists — Picaresque {review}
Slender Means — Neon & Ruin {review}
Stars Of Track & Field — You Came Here For Sunset Last Year {review}
Blue Scholars — The Long March {review}
Buttersprites — Buttersprites {review}
Sleater Kinney — The Woods {review}
Mon Frere — Real Vampires {review}
Harvey Danger — Little By Little {review}
The Hot Rollers — Got Your Number {review}
The Long Winters — Ultimatum {review}
Daylight Basement — Any Kind of Pretty {review}
Tea For Julie — Division {review}
The Divorce — The Gifted Program {review}
The Purrs — The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of {review}
New Pornographers — Twin Cinema {review}
Schoolyard Heroes — Fantastic Wounds {review}
The Pale Pacific — Urgency {review}
Math and Physics Club — Weekends Away {review}
In Praise of Folly — Means/Ends {review}
Luke Temple — Hold a Match for a Gasoline World {review}
Some By Sea — The Saddest Christmas {review}
Speaker Speaker — Again & Again & Again {review}
Mono in VCF — The Voltage Control EP {review}
The Withholders — Stay in My Corner {review}
The Pharmacy — B.F.F. {review}
The Elephants — The Elephants {review}
Minus the Bear — Menos El Oso {review}
M. Ward — Transistor Radio
Crystal Skulls — Blocked Numbers {review}
Crown Aruba — alotisalot {review}
Kelli Hanson — Lullaby for an Astronaut {review}
Tim Seely — Tim Seely's Funeral Music {review}
The Emergency — Far Out
Laura Veirs — Year of Meteors
Aqueduct — I Sold Gold {review}
Fruit Bats — Spelled in Bones {review}
Matthew Shaw — Convenience
Vendetta Red — Sisters of the Red Death
Kinski — Alpine Static {review}
The Valley — The Valley {review}
Paris Spleen — The Gentleman's Club EP {review}
The Cloves — Waiting for the World To Be
Key Note Speaker — Fiction
Tennis Pro — Cassie's Junior Varsity Make-Out Squad {review}
Boat — Life is a Shipwreck, We Must Remember to Sing in the Lifeboats {review}
Degenerate Art Ensemble — The Bastress {interview}
The Catch — Get Cool {review}
Common Market — Common Market
Pistol for a Paycheck — Cult Culture
The Village Green — The Village Green {review}
The Cops — Get Good Or Stay Bad {review}
Elite Stranger — Something To Fall Back On
Gary Reynolds & the Brides of Obscurity — Instant Happiness {review}
The Nevvers — Influencing Friends and Making People
Damien Jurado — On My Way To Absence {review}
The Hope — In the Deep {review}
Space Cretins — Rocket Role
Jimmy Flame & the SexXy Boys — It's After Sick
Crooked Fingers — Dignity & Shame
Infomatik — Technologies
A Frames — Black Forest
Voyager One — Dissolver
ManPlus — You Smell Pretty When You Stop Yelling
Romance — When Things Are Better {review}
Dear Darling — Songs of Friends and Family
Sameer Shukla — There's Only One Side Tonight {review}
Headphones — Headphones
Half Acre Day — Half Acre Day
The Melody Unit — Songs for the New American Century
Dolour — A Matter of Time
The Ruby Doe — Always With Wings {review}
The Briefs — Steal Yer Heart
Velella Velella — The Bay of Biscay {interview}
Black Mountain — Black Mountain
Daphne Loves Derby — On the Strength of All Convinced
Umber Sleeping — Psychedelic Sci-Fi New Wave Fusion Band Volume 1
Fall of Troy — Doppelganger
The Western States — Trouble in the Union
Boyd Reno Is John Center — Soul Explosions
Kate Tucker — Eros Turannos
Kuma — Fast Colliding
Holy Ghost Revival — Bleeding Light
Kane Hodder — The Pleasure To Remain So Heartless
Rosie Thomas — If Songs Could Be Held {review}
Charming Snakes — Ammunition
Derby — This Is The New You {review}
The Joggers — With a Cape and a Cane
Menomena — Under An Hour-Songs For Modern Dance
Brandi Carlile — Brandi Carlile
The Posies — Every Kind of Light
The Beautiful Mothers — Half American Serviceman
The Saturday Knights — The Saturday Knights
The Small Change — The Small Change {review}
31 Knots — Talk Like Blood {review}
Explone — Crooks
The Blow — Poor Aim: Love Songs
The Stares — Spine to Sea {review}
Awesome — Delaware {review}

You voted, we tabulated. Here's a print-ready list of the top 100 Pacific Northwest releases of the year for your post-holiday-gift-certificate shopping pleasure...

The Imaginary Live Show Rundown

three imaginary girls — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 07:00:00 +0000

14 Sep 2005

Featuring Kayne West, Izabelle, Augustus Sweetheart, The Vera Project's 'Cut-Out' Fundraiser, Hattie's Hat, Jared Clifton, stellastarr, and more.* {as of September 14, 2005}

Like most of the country, I've been listening to the new Kanye West album and heralding it (and the political musings of the artist) nonstop. I apologize for hipster-izing him or coming off like a fair-weather hip-hop for the masses fan — but his sentence-following uhs, his eloquent use of "digga" — I'm loving my most recent dabbling in hip-hop 101! Viva Kanye!

Surely you've all heard by now about the "George Bush hates black people" refreshingly honest speech he gave at a live Katrina benefit show on NBC {that they subsequently censored before airing the reply on the west coast. I'm not even going to use this fun-loving column to vent about how terrifying that concept is...}

Just in case you haven't seen it, go watch Kayne be awesome.

We are so excited to have finally seen Augustus Sweetheart and Banner Barbados! On Tuesday night, they played on the bill with Boat at the Crocodile, and it was a surprise treat to catch these two up and comers. Augustus Sweetheart filled the stage with three guitars, a bass guitar, keyboard and drums. Although this shouldn't be noteworthy it is — the band boasts the cutest of female drummers that totally held her own amongst the legion of guitar / keyboard wielding boys lining the stage in front of her. They supplied concentrated guitar choruses without letting testosterone get the best of them. The outcome is a batch of songs that are both friendly and feisty.

Last Saturday night I had the honor of assisting the lovely Miss Anna Banana of Pretty Parlor during the Habitude fashion show. Specifically, we assisted Glam Garb by Gunlis, an amazing line of hand-dyed vintage slips that paired beautifully with vintage wear from Pretty Parlor. Here's what I learned:

It's hard to dress other people, especially when they are gorgeous, skinny models who are in a big hurry.

Slips make fabulous clothing.

I heart Anna Banana.

It might not have been indie-rock, but it wasn't a bad way to spend a Saturday night. Another perk was seeing the recent line by Tes de Luna of Zuzupop, who dazzled the crowd with at least 30-40 gorgeous and original outfits, as well as with stunningly stoic models who strolled the runway to amazing tunes by Interpol and Bjork. What an amazing and talented local artist! You can find Glam Garb and Zuzupop fashions at both Pretty Parlor (in Phinney Ridge) or Velouria (next to Sonic Boom in Ballard).

But enough blathering. Let's talk about up-coming shows!

The thing I've been most looking forward for the past few weeks is the stellastarr* show at Chop Suey on Saturday {September 17, 2005}. I've only heard selected tracks from their new album, Harmonies for the Haunted, but already know that it is a natural follow-up to their 2003 self-titled album. They continue to make music that has goth-undertones yet remains catchy. The Cure-esque song structure, David Byrne style'd vocals and Pixies guitar rifts are still bound by NYC panache.

Live, I promise stellastarr* will not disappoint. The last time they were in town (remember when the Killers opened up for them in April 2004 at the Crocodile?) I was so impressed I roadtripped it to Portland to see them the following night. (What? Me, moved to the point of superfandom and extreme-adulation over a band?) To hear their songs through club PAs, any perceived over-calculation of their songs is replaced with 'back of the cha cha' grit. Their show on Saturday at Chop Suey will surely be a hipsters delight.

Ahh, stellastarr*. Sweet asterisk how I love stellastarr*. In fact, I've found a new-to-me band that sounds a bit like stellastarr* hopped up on no-doz. They're from Denmark, they're called Tiger Tunes. Give their mp3s a listen. Angry kids of the world... UNITE!

Good call Char! I've been singing that "Kirsten is a f***-machine" song in my head since you had me listen to it multiple times in a row last time I was in your car.

Looking for more new music? Or even looking to fill in the cracks of your prize-worthy collection? Get thee to the Mirabeau Room this coming Sunday {September 18, 2005} for "Cut-Out" — a fundraiser for the Vera Project.

Simply put, it is a sale of promo and demo albums pitting all the clubs, papers, djs, radio stations and collectors against each other to see who can raise the most money with the sales of their cd, vinyl & promo item donations. The group with the most popular collection of music (i.e. the most sales) wins the super special 'platinum' trophy!

There will also be drink specials, dj's, projections, and food — it will be a an all day music party. Let your music geek side SHINE!

My recommended show of the week is the Izabelle CD release show at the all-ages Paradox on Saturday {also with Some By Sea, The Broadcast Debut, Hypatia Lake, and Ambulance For Angeles — now that's a lotta bang for your eight bucks!}. While I haven't seen Izabelle live yet, their MySpace recordings have the slightly theatrical vocals of an indie-rock Rufus Wainright, blended with showy Britpop instrumentation flavored like one of those nice UK bands with boy names (James, Travis, Keane). They have a nice edgy grit to their guitars too, to keep things interesting.

If you'd like to see them while inebriated (who could blame you?), they have a show at the High Dive on October 22 with the likewise Brit-poppy local band Mono in VCF.

Looking for something to do early next week that will give you cocktail conversation fodder for months? On Tuesday {September 20, 2005}, you should check out the hottest French export since Air. Nouvelle Vague will be headlining the night at Chop Suey and filling the place with lounge-y takes of early eighties classics {from Joy Division to XTC}. More than just a novelty, Nouvelle Vague will leave you feeling smart, cultured and giddy. Also on the bill is Lushy and Velella Velella.

But don't stay up too late, you must save some of yourself for the next night {Wednesday, September 21} for the Death Cab/Harvey Danger Hurricane Katrina Benefit at the Showbox. It's home grown turned international indie pop rock for a good cause. There's no better reason to go into work hung over on a Thursday. Tell your boss you did it for charity.

Oh, and before we sign off — thanks to all those who came out to our guest-bartending shift at Hattie's Hat! It was nice to see some long lost souls in the booths and those folks at Hattie's are so nice!

I learned that bartending is hard, so we ended up spending most of our time on our typical side of the bar than behind it.

It was especially nice to see our pal Jared Clifton from Radio Nationals there. In case you haven't heard, Radio Nationals is about to be no more. So while we're giving shoutouts about future shows, make sure you mark your calendars for their final show ever, on October 21, 2005 at the Tractor Tavern (with I Can Lick Any SOB in the House).

Oh! And before we go, remember how last week I told you that our favorite coffee shop {Top Pot Doughnuts} was going to be opening in the north-end of Seattle {Wedgwood} this week? Well hold onto your creamer, friends — looks like the opening will be delayed by a week. Sorry to get your hopes up for one of those mouth-watering soy lattes {and old fashioned cinnamon sugar doughnuts, OMG}. We'll keep you posted on the date...

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We saw some great shows, and we have loads of great shows to tell you about, including Augustus Sweetheart, Izabelle, Nouvelle Vague, and loads more.

Velella Velella

Chris Estey — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 07:00:00 +0000

Velella Velella literally brings the party: Last night they came over to my underground basement apartment with a burn-off of the new album, plus two large Pagliacci's pies (veggie and Canadian Bacon and pineapple), two six packs of Dos Equis and Fat Tire, and their gentle and engaging personalities, so we could relax and hang out — and talk about all 59:55 recorded minutes of The Bay of Biscay's deep and squiggly goodness.

I got this idea of going over every song with a musician or a band on a new release from my favorite British music magazines, which actually got it from the American jazz fanzine Downbeat, which conducted such an interview every issue — and makes sense as VV has more than a little dalliance with jazz idioms.

Made up of three people entangled in the music and arts scene in Spokane, who ended up in Seattle separately and then reuniting (literally, living in the same house), VV has also added Sylvia Chen of the Long Ranger. People familiar with Chen's band (disco-wave dazzle pop she makes with her brother Ted) might have caught the bands playing in the same line up at Chop Suey a few months back. VV leader Andrew Means (bass, drums, keys, vocals, et al) dug the Long Ranger's shared aesthetic about music as transcendent pleasure, and the two hooked up in more ways than one.

The new album was recorded by Means and his longtime musical savant friend Michael Burton — one of those guys who apparently can pick up an instrument and learn to play it fairly quickly. Jeremy Hadley is the band's manager and now will be helping Means, Chen, and Burton perform the material live — trading off on various instruments, mostly of the pre-recorded variety.

VV is an interesting band in that eighty per cent of the material is actually played out in the studio, but then electronically delivered in public performance. They are also potentially a difficult band for rock writers to scribe about — they're not controversial people, being very positive and the opposite of the surly snobs who incessantly make the Pitchfork news section. Plus, their music is primarily instrumental, and reviewers usually dwell on the lyrics of records for the substance of their coverage.

+++

Before we got into the album track by track, I showed them copies of the new Ramones and Rolling Stones editions of the Continuum Books' 33 1/3 series, in which someone picks an album that was very important to them, and writes an entire little book on it. Some of the volumes are very personal — Colin Meloy of the Decembrists' picked the Replacements' Let It Be, and the Seattle Weekly's Michaelangelo Matos handled Prince's Sign O' The Times, whilst Franklin Bruno got all academic with Armed Forces.

I figured asking Andrew, Sylvia, Jeremy, and Michael what albums they would write a book about was a little better than asking for their musical inspirations — but I wanted you, the reader, to know what albums compelled and drives them to create music themselves. Here are their responses:

Michael Burton (24):
Jason Anderson, New England
Mad Libs, Shades of Blue
Stereolab, Dots and Loops

Jeremy Hadley (32):
Pavement, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain ("Released when grunge was saturating everything")
Allman Brothers, Eat A Peach
Silver Jews, The Natural Bridge ("Really influences me as a writer, even though Velella Velella isn't much about words")

Sylvia Chen (23):
Bjork, Debut
Best of Glenn Miller
Erik Satie, Gymnopedes
("All of them work in specific genres, but add so much more to them.")

Andrew Means (26):
Mulatu of Ethiopia ("unbelievable Ethiopian funk-jazz")
Yesterday's New Quintet, Angles Without Edges ("Mad Lib taking on jazz personae")
Miles Davis, Get Up With It ("little known dirty funk double album masterpiece")

+++

Instructions:

Come see Velella Velella on August 25th.

Be prepared to dance.

Buy the record.

Then come back and read the following: The Bay of Biscay song by song, described and discussed by the band itself.

1.) "Do Not Fold / Do Not Bend"
{listen}

Andrew: The recording started out with this little piano thing. Usually I start songs out by recording with drum patterns.

Sylvia: This track builds and builds and then stops on this groove.

TIG: The lyric chants: "A kiss for everyone moving / a kiss for everyone inside."

Michael: The amount of vocals on this song would be more than the entire (debut). Our first album had no vocals whatsoever. Which is cool, because the complaints of our first album is stuff without vocals loses people.

Jeremy: Which IS cool because you don't have to add that many vocals. It seemed so different when Andrew had written it with vocals. It seemed really weird.

Andrew: The first song we ever wrote vocals for was "Nothing But A Bunch of Empty Sunglass Cases" on our first album.

Michael: I remember during that song people just went nuts for it.

Jeremy: We had the wiggly sound in that song. It was like when I bought the first NWA album. I love it, "This is so tough, like NWA!"

Andrew: It's called the wiggly worm. This opens the record because we had the most fun with it.

Michael: It's accessible.

Andrew: There's all this jazzy beat stuff, but it's got this Roots-style bedroom hip-hop jazz stuff as well. I have been drawing inspiration from Parliament/Funkadelic, trying to get people into a space where they're not trying to manage people's perceptions of them.

TIG: Wow, that's a perfect manifesto for your band.

Jeremy: This is a party track hands down. You got drunk people singing at the end of the track.

TIG: They were a little freaked out they'd been recorded for it, right?

Andrew: This record is a culmination of a year and a half of our last record affecting people. Just how wonderful it is to have people together in a space. This is why Michael and I are so inspired by Jason Anderson (Wolf Colonel) — we saw him in Spokane, and he was singing, "Spokane — you CAN!" It's got jazz and hip hop and beats, but also community and space.

Jeremy: There's nothing ironic about this band.

2.) "The Bread Is Hard As Crackers"
{listen}

M: This is one of the few ones that didn't start off with the drums, it started off with the Farfisa. Two days after we bought that organ.

TIG: How long had you been playing flute before recording this?

M: Four or five months. I play drums on it too.

J: A lot of the vocals are Michael and Andrew, but it's hard to guess the vocal lines.

M: This is one of the few ones we added harmonies to.

S: When I first heard this I thought, 'This is 'The Price is Right' but so much better."

(Laughter.)

3.) "Man, What A Stupid Slogan"

J: This is very different.

S: Yes, this is very stark, before that you get the idea of the band, it's got a groove, dance hip-hop party, but this is very driven — it keeps you on your toes.

TIG: What's the percentage of instrumentals on this album?

A: Fifty.

M: There's also a lot of really short tracks.

A: We started with two hours and forty-five minutes with of unreleased songs, and then of those, ideas and so like — "This idea's too good not to use on the album, so on a lot of these tracks we have this little beat, this little groove."

M: Kind of like that Mad Lib album, he has this songs, then 30 seconds between the songs of a completely different groove.

4.) "If You Can't Figure Out How To Work It Maybe You Don't Need Another Drink"

A: This song was influenced by 60s and 70s jazz like Cal Tjader, maybe some Chick Corea.

TIG: I have lived long enough that Chick Corea is cool now.

(Laughter.)

That sample about Superman sounds really good — very rhythmic with the music.

J: I hate samples. I have a major issue with DJ culture in general. Songs don't usually seem built around samples. This one, for example, they work together.

5.) "Telephone Poles For Sale"

M: This is actually my favorite one to play live. This has been our show ender for three months now. The crowd really gets into this one, too.

J: When I came into playing with the band, I got into the subtle composition — some lines six year old children could play. It's really simple, no overplaying. That one part Sylvia and I play is day one of piano practice.

S: When I saw the band live first, it was so intense: There was this constant escalation — "When is this going to stop?" Now I'm playing it with you guys.

A: This would probably would be a single. The first song would be a single, too. And "Hunter" coming up. "But they're all hits! Every record's a gem!" A club in Santa Cruz and said they were playing this. one of the only gay club in Santa Cruz.

S: THE gay bar.

A: It's like the Re-Bar of Santa Cruz.

6.) "Hard Egg Timer"

TIG: Stupid rock critics are going to ask you about your song titles for the next twenty years. Might as well start with this one.

M: I'm pretty sure that it came from Andrew and my ex-girlfriend were cooking eggs, and they had nothing to time it.

A: You actually remember that happening?

J: This is one of those tracks that's like. It's not fair to parallel it to DJ Shadow, and you're like the least stoner ever, Andrew. But it's got that total opium vibe.

A: There's a lot of money in drugs. This is one of my favorite songs on the records.

S: They're all my favorite songs.

7.) "A Bit Of The Whirlwind, Buddy"

M: This is the Home Movie sample.

A: Hasn't been approved yet, officially.

M: (Home Movie creator/animator) Brendan Small loved it though.

J: We'd watch Home Movies when Andrew and I worked at a newspaper together in Spokane, delirious and exhausted at midnight. And it'd be like watching a movie you're not supposed to. I remember crying.

A: I started this off with the beat, then the bass-line, then solo with the vibes over the top for a while. layer on these kids of things, and kind of react to whatever I laid down the last time. It's kind of what Mad Lib does. He's such a huge inspiration. It's like live jazz, but he did each one of the tracks himself.

J: That's one of the things about it too — not only is there the 'electronic band thing' that it's all machines, that it's robots instead of humans. You say you're a jazz band, you're these improvisational musicians. We're a jam band in the recording phase, and then live we stick right to the record.

M: There's been times when we change up a song. Like when we played '3 to the 6 to the Oh' last night. Or there won't be any more parts to the record, so we'll write a vibes part.

J: We're going, 'What's my part?" Which is not jazz at all.

8.) "3 to the 6 to the Oh"

M: This is the first track Andrew did in Seattle. And I came over for a weekend, and he played it for me, and I thought this was awesome. And he had grown tired of it. So I brought it back to Spokane with James Singleton (our drummer in the band we had over there) to listen to, and so when I moved back to Seattle. I didn't know Andrew had gotten tired of it. I was like, "We need to work on this one."

A: We totally changed this ending.

J: The keyboard line has roller rink Michael Jackson — disco-y sound. "I just want to hold someone's hand!" We need to play a roller rink. That is totally what we're about.

A: We ran this whole track into an MS-20 at the end, and used the filters on it to completely mess it up.

9.) "Hunter"
{listen}

TIG: This is the hit. It's like "Once In A Lifetime" on Remain in Light by the Talking Heads.

J: This is the opening track for a lot of our sets. It's different, because it's so focused. This shows you how retarded you can become when you sing and use a shaker at the same time.

S: I told Andrew we needed to have something go all the way through and not changing.

M: This was a breakthrough for us, to work on songs at the same time too, because our schedules were really different. It was fun (working separately) — Andrew would be working on them, then I'd come home and I'd mess around with it all a little bit. But either of us weren't able to communicate directly about it. So we had stopped being creative. This broke that dry spell again.

("All the kids play on the Interstate / Two bed times / Interstate")

TIG: Are those lyrics about your schedules?

J: Yes! (laughter)

A: The voice for me is just another instrument. At least on this song, it's like the way you play a guitar. The rhythm, the intonation, the semblance. Any set of syllables or sound would work just as well.

M: The vocals have theme, but we wanted them to sound like. A certain rhythm.

A: The song is always about the rhythm of the music, not the lyrics.

J: You can't deduct what a song is going to be about with "Hard Egg Timer." Listeners are going to deduce what a song is about for themselves. I've really warmed up to that.

10.) "Sharpie"

S: This is the movie soundtrack.

(A soundtrack for what kind of movie?)

S: Something Bond-like about computers in the 80s.

J: There's definitely a crime being committed there.

M: This is Pink Panther.

11.) "We Should Outsource This To Those Kids Over There"

A: This is the only appearance of that Juno 60. People get so excited about my having a Juno 60, but I got bored with it after a couple months.

J: You didn't say you were bored with it when you sold it to me!

S: This song is like, I don't know — (nervously) it's a make-out song. There's no shaker, the bass-line is really taking its time.

A: The vocals whisper in your ear.

TIG: What the hell: What are the vocals saying anyways?

A: What's more important is the guitar line. When I recorded it. Then later on at a show it took us an hour to figure out the guitar line again. When we're recording, it's like whatever works. But a lot times we have been recording what comes to mind. We've forgotten how we've recorded a certain thing. Give me a second to figure it out again.

M: This is not the one that made it into the album. The first we did with flute. This is the same line, but we re-recorded it for this, as it originally sounded like a shit sandwich.

12.) "So Much For What's His Face"

M: We played that opening on a pipe organ.

S: It totally doesn't sound like it.

M: We hadn't written for a long time. Everything we were writing we weren't feeling, so then we just jammed for five minutes straight, and then in the last two minutes we came up with the loop that we used. Andrew's just blasting the shit out of his guitar in frustration.

S: The vocals are a sample. This is the song that really hooked me into it when I saw you guys play live. The tambourine right on the snare beats.

M: The drums on this song. Andrew started getting into mixing up the drums a little. Drums that are played, versus a twenty second loop — the hits are different.

13.) "That's A Terrible Name For A Song"

J: Inspired by many songs.

A: I asked my friend what to name this song, and he came up with a terrible name, so this became "That's A Terrible Name For A Song."

M: This is one of those much looser songs.

TIG: When would this come into a set?

A: Hasn't made it into a set yet.

J: It would be more of a segue. The songs are really built on anticipation of changes, but this one doesn't do that. It's not as if you're building. You're sitting in the moment of the song. It actually builds up to the next song.

14.) "Let's Launch Over It"

S: I could see M.I.A. doing this.

J: Oh God, I'd love that. If M.I.A. reads this, I'd like her to know I'm single.

S: It's another case of me loving everything on here . This was such a long period you recorded this album in, you have such a sense of purpose throughout, but it's like a snapshot.

J: I remember when Andrew was writing these, and I can easier say I love them because I'm not on them yet.

M: It's so interesting the way this turned out too, because the way the vocals were put on it. They were originally terrible.

A: It takes sifting. What feels good stays, what doesn't goes.

M: A lot of fighting (in the meantime).

15.) "Charlie And The Great Friday Sailing Adventure"

J: This reminds me of when we were all indie kids listening to indie rock. It was that Flaming Lips show or record, those beats and acoustic guitars; it was before this band even started at the lake cabin my family has. It's got all those indie rock undertones that keep me really engaged.

M: I get that feeling of that year, it's become this huge anthem. It feels like when we would play at that lake cabin.

J: We'd bring the vibes and just jam.

TIG: That ends beautifully. This was magnificent.

M: We started off with the second half of the song, and then it morphed. Andrew and I got this feeling that we wanted to convey. It's like an orphan who escapes from an orphanage, and is running towards a bay that his adopted parents, to sail away with his new family. And people are like cheering him on, everyone is so happy for him. A complete anthem. And we started it off with something really like minor, a minor key, sad, to build up to this great feeling. We came up with ten versions of the beginning that didn't do that. They weren't good. And then I ripped off "Pure Imagination" from "Charlie & the Chocolate Factory." 'Come with me, and you'll see.' Completely blatant.

(We re-listen. He's right.)

TIG: Why doesn't this end the record?

A: It does. The next track is, basically, 'Thanks for listening.'

16.) "Casio"

A: This is pretty much the credits, two minutes of a Casio keyboard, the preprogrammed beats ran into a filter. It would only be played live for a sound check.

TIG: Anything else you want to say about the record?

J: It's $10.99.

A: I would like to say that the album wouldn't have happened, if it wasn't for my Aunt Margaret, who asked how much it would cost to put this out, and wrote me a check for it. Props to my Aunt Margaret. She's a very benevolent aunt.

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Velella Velella record preview, show preview, and imaginary interview (aka: The Bay of Biscay, track by track with the band).