Polvism

Went to see the surprisingly reunited Polvo play at Bimbo's in the citay on Tuesday. Trans Am opened. When I arrived, the crowd was surprisingly thin at the front, so I got good viewing position. Trans Am played their crazy indie-synth-prog with a smile. The drummer played powerfully on those strange bodyless '80s style toms. The look of the band vaguely reminded me of the Police for some reason. Dude on left played bass and keys (possibly a Nord?), dude on right played guitar and keys (a Roland Juno 60, I'm guessing). His guitar, a sunburst Gibson Les Paul Special, looked just like one of mine, except he had a Bigsby on it. He also pulled out a Fender Stratocaster 12-string electric at one point, which was cool. Trans Am often have such a full-on saturated sound on record, it's hard to match the sonics in a live situation, but they made an admirable attempt and were a lot of fun.

I spent most of Polvo watching Ash Bowie's amazing guitar work. He mostly played on a couple Strat clones. Given their penchant for alternate tunings, I was surprised they were able to pull it off with so few guitars. Seems like one or a couple strings were fairly detuned, allowing those strange bends. One weird thing about standing so close to the stage, particularly when you're also really tired, is you tend to forget where you are, or that you're in public and not watching the show in your mind or on TV. It can be dangerous, but I didn't try to change the channel. Also, you can't take in the entire scene without moving your head around, so it's obvious to the band members who you're looking at. I try to look at each of them a bit, so no one feels left out, but the majority of the time I'm looking at the guitarists' fretwork.

I dig Polvo but haven't listened to their records to the point of having the song titles memorized, so can't give you a report on that. Suffice it to say they played some of the classics, some I didn't recognize, and some that they said were new ones, which sounded pretty good. They did play their killer cover of "Mexican Radio". Midway through the encore I thought I was going to pass out from heat and exhaustion, so went to the very back for some water. This also made for an easy exit from the venue when the show was over. Walking outside the venue, I noticed an alley that appeared to have a stairway at its end, heading in the direction of my car. After hesitating a moment, I took this route, then did a double-take when I saw someone standing against the wall to the left. Is that Ash Bowie? I told him "you guys were great" or "really great show" or something as I passed by, and he said "thanks for coming!", perhaps relieved that I wasn't an alley stalking psycho killer.

I'm having trouble finding appropriate YouTube clips that sound decent, but these will have to do for the time being:

Trans Am


Polvo

A Day in a Month

Hi there, my name is Conor, and I'll be your guest NAPster for today while Doug is away, no doubt cavorting with an assortment of mermaids on some sort of enchanted isle somewhere, lured by their irresistible siren song. I'm extremely adept at the fine art of procrastination in all its various manifestations, and thus am writing to you while on a road trip en route to SXSW and fine friends along the way and back, rather than in advance, as would've been more sensible. Just though I'd take this opportunity to resolve another item of procrastination by writing up a little bit of documentation concerning the time I spent in Chicago in July 2006, and the music I did hear there. This trip was aided by the generous support of the Kilian & Tricia Sweeney Foundation, viewers like you, and, of course, the Chubb Group. Webster's dictionary defines July 2006 in Chicago as:

2006-07-04 Tue : Ray Davies, My Morning Jacket @ Grant Park, Chicago, IL

This was part of the multimillionperson madness that is "Taste of Chicago". Despite indications in print about the scope of the mayhem, I was unprepared for the reality of a million billion Sagan-trillion sweaty people all walking down the same street. All of them somehow managed to get in my way at the same time; quite a feat. Anyway, I eventually made my way to the band shell where the music was going down. Unfortunately, even though there seemed to be room, the designated authority types weren't letting any more people into the fenced-off area wherein the white seats sat. I sat outside the fence on the grass, along with the rest of the plebes, where I faced a dilemma. Either I could gaze toward the stage, and see small stick figures presumably playing music, or I could direct my vision toward a huge TV screen behind the fence, where I could see close-up views of the musicians, but at the cost of feeling like I was merely watching TV outdoors. I went back and forth on this issue, but probably watched the screen more often than not.

I only got to see a few songs by My Morning Jacket. I dig their stuff, but have to admit that it's something of a weird hybrid. They've got the whole southern-rock thing happening, but with the reverbed vocals and certain other elements, there's a Coldplay vibe that tempers the Skynyrd action. Ignoring the "you put your chutney in my brain taco" sonic taste sensation implied by the previous statement, I though they were pretty rockin'.

Ray Davies. The man. The legend. The Kinks... were not there, but head Kink Ray (announced to the crowd by some jerk-off as "Ray Davis") was. A bit weird having this quintessential Brit up on stage on our nation's holiest holiday, but I guess he's lived in New Orleans long enough for it to be okay. For some reason, though, he felt compelled to wear a red velvet jacket in the eXtreme swelter of the Chicago heat. He took it off for a song or two to display an English soccer jersey, in support of his country's World Cup hopes. This is all if memory serves, of course; I could've been violently hallucinating from heat exhaustion, who knows. I thought, "how sensible", but then he donned the red velvet once again. Brother Dave Davies was unfortunately not in tow, having suffered a stroke some time previous. And, being that the brothers are well known for their frequent mutual antipathy, and that this show was part of Ray's tour in support of his first ever solo album, he might not have been there anyway. Ray gave a somewhat muted shout out to his missing brother at one point, after introducing his band. Instead, there was a guy with super bright red curly hair playing guitar. I was initially pretty worried that his tone was too high-gain for my taste, but for the most part he avoided the guitar center excess I had feared, and was even quite good on several songs. I can't remember the full set list; I think they started with "Low Budget". You got your "Waterloo Sunset", your "Dedicated Follower of Fashion", and of course your "You Really Got Me", along with some I didn't recognize and a few mediocre, but not bad, songs from Ray's solo album. Ray seemed like a cool guy, but just in the way he talked and acted there was a definite sense of lingering self-obsession and self-importance that I found slightly disturbing, but also amusing and ultimately a little sad, albeit in an endearing sort of way, if that makes any sense whatsoever, which I have no doubt it does not. Toward the end, he invited the crowd to join him after the show at a typical American BBQ, saying that just because he's a vegetarian doesn't mean he can't enjoy BBQ parties. Instead, I watched fireworks explode and smoke drift over the L tracks on the way home, a nice way to end a good day.

[Okay, I was originally going to write about several more shows I went to, but it's going to have to wait because I'm literally about to collapse. To make up for it, I'll get you started on a comment war. Hmm, how about who's the better band, Kinks vs. Beatles. Or better yet, with apologies to AP in SF, who would you rather be, David Bowie or Freddie Mercury (keeping in mind that Freddie Mercury was born in Zanzibar). Definitely not a question I would've ever thought of in a million years...]