Breathe Owl Breathe - Baseball Diamond

Doing something a little different today -- here's video I shot from Breathe Owl Breathe's show Thursday, April 15 at the Tractor Tavern in Ballard. It's an OWY and YouTube exclusive!



I'm sure I've championed this plucky folk band from Northern Michigan before, but last week was my first chance to see them live. They opened for Megafaun and Horse Feathers at the Tractor. (I was too lame and an old man to stay for the latter two sets, and so can't offer a report.) You'll hear some chatter through this recording, but overall the reception at the Tractor was pretty strong -- enough that they came back for an encore, a rarity for an opening band (in my experience, at least). Lead singer Micah Middaugh -- whose voice could pass for Bill Callahan on an endorphin kick -- dropped references to Shawn Kemp and Gary Payton into one of his songs, which is a thing that I can love. The show was part concert, part summer camp -- they guided us through the typical clap-and-response but also the wave and a sabertooth-tiger dance that involved sticking your hands to the sides of your face and rolling the index fingers downward to form tusks. It was silly and goofball and altogether wonderful.

I picked up their most recent album on vinyl at the show and have given it a couple playthroughs, and I'm pretty high on it. Their songs take these seemingly mundane slices of everyday life and breathe a heartwrenching honesty into them. I think that's a good way to describe them, is honest, and I would not be surprised if many of their songs were inspired by personal experience, a chance encounter or a childhood memory. And then they also have their songs about sabertooth tigers escaping from glaciers to go out dancing (which itself was probably inspired by a trip to the museum of natural history).

And what's this? A Daytrotter session from three days ago?

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Beat the Devil's Tattoo

Timing is everything with me and music. I consume styles, genres and artists in phases -- not too long ago, I listened to nothing but blues and soul. I haven't played a Dylan record in months; at times I cannot get enough of him. The last six records on my turntable have been somewhere in the Kraftwerk / Brian Eno / Talking Heads continuum. What does this have to do with anything? When Black Rebel Motorcycle Club released their third album, Howl, in 2005, I was right in between a Dylan / The Band / Tom Waits binge and a revitalized interest in new music. That album, with its stripped-down, haunting folk rock, hit a sweet spot for me. It's still one of my favorite albums of the past decade. When they released "Baby 81" a couple years later, I saw it as a return to the form of their first two albums, but with subpar results. It was a disappointing follow-up to Howl, and I sort of let them go at that point.

Until last Friday, when they played the Showbox here in Seattle. A good friend of mine has a gig writing music reviews for an online publication (when his BRMC review goes live I'll link it here); he managed to snag me a +1 and a photo pass to cover the show. I'll let Wes tell the story with his review; for me, it was a reminder of just how great BRMC are as a band. Though they've largely moved on from that Howl sound, it's hard for me to think of a better blues rock band out there today. Maybe The Black Keys. But I'll take Black Rebel against The White Stripes every single day of the week. They even have a lady drummer. A LADY DRUMMER, LIZ LEMON!



(I do have to say, though, that the stuff they played from Howl received the warmest reception of the night.)

As for the photo assignment, it was a great learning experience. I've never shot in those lighting conditions before (for the most part I was shooting with a zoom lens, sans flash, from the back of the club), so I was kind of at the will of the stage lighting. The photos you see here are my own; I've put up a small gallery here. Out of about 150 shots taken, I got maybe 20 that I'd call presentable, nine of which made it into the gallery. But it was a lot of fun, and I hope to do it again some time.



So, the music. I'll close with a couple tracks from their new album, "Beat the Devil's Tattoo," which I'm pretty high on. Here's the album opener and title track, shot live at THE VERY SHOW I WAS AT:



(The mix is terrible, and that is the Showbox's fault; here is the album version.)

And here's the album version of "The Toll," which could be an outtake from Howl:



(I told you guys Matt Bouldin looks like that dude.)

Son House - Death Letter Blues & Bonus: Tallest Man On Earth - King of Spain

First, Son House:



I saw Kristian Matsson, better known as "Tallest Man on Earth," at the Triple Door on Monday. He's short -- maybe 5-foot-8. (I'll get to Son House in a minute.) He played an electric acoustic guitar (as opposed to the acoustic guitar on the Shallow Grave LP), which was jarring at first but was appropriate for the rather spacious venue. It was an outstanding set -- we heard nearly everything from the LP plus a few new tunes, including King of Spain (taken here from a Jan. '09 show):



(For the record, the crowd at the Triple Door approved of the explicit reference to Dylan. And he really can't stand still when he's up on stage.)

He closed his encore with Death Letter Blues, played hard and fierce and, I thought, just a little ballsy for a guy who is making his way as a songwriter. It very nearly outshined his own material, which, of course, is the danger. Then he signed autographs and spoke with concert-goers by the merch table for at least a half hour after the show ended. We asked him to sign a poster and a vinyl copy of the record and talked for a little while about his tour. To everyone he spoke with he seemed gracious and humble and unassuming and really I'm just saying he's the best. Heart.

(He's playing in Chicago on April 5 at some place called Schubas, Aarons and Obles.)