Well if you could graph the music last night at Rudz it would stay pretty high throughout the night and then take an almost straight drop at about 1am.
OK well first let’s talk about the good stuff. After hearing her on myspace, I finally got so see Hearts of Animals live. You’d think that since she runs so much of her accompanying music via a Mac that live it’d be kind of dull but surprisingly it’s not. Somehow her echo bathed vocals and her guitar add enough atop of the prerecorded material to make it sound more alive and engaging that her recorded work. That’s not saying anything against her recorded material but more a compliment to her simple and understated performance. Personally, I preferred the songs where she finger-picked simple melodies from the chords that played off her vocals. My one complaint? Too short. Just when you were getting into the whole set she quietly turns all her equipment off. I could personally have gone for a set twice the length and it seems so did everyone else.
San Francisco’s Numbers also put on a sweet set. The things that grabs you with this band is the keyboards. Moog Opus 3 and whatever the fuck the other one was. The dude was getting some sweet Warm Jets Eno tones out of those things. Listen to the opening of Hey Hey Dream or New Life on the new album and you’ll see what I mean. The guitarist played with a percussive Gang-of-Four post punk aggression which worked beautifully. Numbers’ one problem is that the vocals aren’t particularly strong which is distracting on the one hand but somewhat endearing on the other. But while Numbers may suffer in the vocal department, the songs and energy are enough to overcome that weakness and enough people left with with a smile on their face. Hey that’s good enough for me.
Indian Jewelry. Well let’s just say I’ve seen them before and they put on an incredible show so I know this is not typical – even the best bands have an off night time and again. Still 20 minutes of false starts and arguments with the soundguy really don’t make for a good show. If Domokos is smiling and in his “Everything is cool” damage control mode, you know it’s not a good night. By the time the band did forgo the PA , it was too late; half the audience had left and at least for me it was too little too late. The bad vibes had overcome Domoko’s best efforts and sleep seemed a much better option. As I left I ran onto Joe Mathlete who was explaining to the Dimes how this was not any show by which to judge Indian Jewelry. I couldn’t have agreed more.
i really wished i could capture the emotion of a hearts of animals set in words. it’s hard huh? but yeah, strange how loops guitar and voice can be so warm and pulsing. she’s my heart. i’m glad you got to see her live.
i hope indian jewelry doesn’t sweat it. it’s hard to relaunch the boat once it’s left port.
btw while you were gone i saw this cool movie called “jaguar man”. great shots. makes me wanna go back to albuquerque.
Yeah if I hadn’t seen them before I likely would have written them off – they were that shockingly awful. Lucky for me, I’ve seen them play excellent shows before.