9/7/08 - Look Mexico, Bear Colony, Criminal Shift

since saturday night turned out to be such a cluster (see below), and being as how it was sunday and all, i headed to church.

psych! it was only the prophet bar (i did read a verse written on one of the photos on the wall - does that count?). wanted to catch Bear Colony, who i'd really dug last February.

praise jeebus - one of the nice things aboot the prophet bar (in addition to a fantastic sound system) - they start shows (relatively) early - 8:00 in this case. vury nice, for us 9-5 workin folk. one of the bad things? $4.50 for a well. bastards.

another great thing, at least sunday night, was the between-set music. turns out it was the (smokin hot) bartender's ipod, and she has fantastic taste. will definitely be checking out dresden dolls.

first up was Criminal Shift, from Plano (represent!). i know, i know - you hear plano, and you see how old they are (juniors in high school!), and you expect whiny emo garbage, but these guys weren't like that at all. i was floored by what i heard. 4-man band: guitar, bass, keys, drums. dude on lead had powerful, at-times howling voice, not at all what you'd expect coming from a high school junior who seems to be going for the whole harry potter look (including a lightning bolt on his guitar strap). very nice harmonies from the keyboard player (you know i love that). thundering bass. very sophisticated songs for their age. some really fantastic high-energy, very-well executed indie pop. loved it. one slight problem - they opened with a cover of "Hey Ya" by Outkast, and I damn near walked outside to wait til their set was over. very glad i didn't. definitely want to catch them again.

Bear Colony, from Arkansas, was next. saw these guys in february (review here) and absolutely loved it, and sunday night confirmed that opinion. 5-man band, including two drummers (MATAS-style), which was awesome. unbelievably powerful, emotional, wall-of-sound, anthemic guitar pop. right in my wheelhouse. i was in heaven. didn't want the set to end. please check out this band if you get the chance.

next up was Look Mexico, and they was aight. similar in style to Bear Colony, but their sound just didn't resonate with me. lead wore strangely-creepy 70's-style wife beater and was goin for the grizzly adams look. whole band sat down on floor at one point during a song. not sure why - seemed a bit contrived. definitely a talented band, just didn't connect with me (it's hard to splain these things).

headlining was Luminate, and if you think i'm gonna hang around to listen to a goddam praise band, most of whom seemed to be wearing vests (never a good sign), you haven't been paying attention.

9/6/08 - Sean Kirkpatrick, Baboon, Red Monroe

jeezchrist what a royal clusterfuck saturday night turned out to be. pretty sure i shoulda gone to dan's instead. ya, pretty sure.

lineup at dada was supposed to be Glen Reynolds, 2/3rds of PPT, Baboon, and Red Monroe (in that order). when i showed up, beard tells me the lineup is Red Monroe first, then Baboon, Roy Ivy, Frankie 45, and PPT. wtf? crazy-ass music biz.

The Les Savy Fan came out wif his friend Scott, both mos definitely on the prowl. Amazing number of hot chicks in the crowd, like i've never seen before at dada. LSF tells me it was deceiving, tho - they were all attached (yes, he checked. yes, all of them).

first up was Red Monroe, only it wasn't. eric steele was MIA, and some dude from Mission to the Sea was in his place (which i knew in advance, thanks to josephus). Was kinda interested to hear how all my favorite RM songs would sound without Eric, but it didn't happen - i recognized one RM song (blue mountain air, one of my favorites), but the rest was i dono what. must've been a bunch of MTTS material, cuz i didn't know any of it. don't get me wrong, i actually liked it quite a bit, and i'll be checking out MTTS, but i loves me some RM, and i was really lookin forward to seein them.
next up was Baboon. they was aight, but i couldn't figure out what was up with the lead - there was definitely Something Very Wrong With His Pants, or maybe he just has Pants Issues. Either he had forgotten his belt and was grabbing his pants to keep them from falling down, or he was trying to hike them up so we could all see his perty shoes, or he was trying to bunch up the material around his package to make it look bigger. i dono, but it was very distracting, and kept the LSF and I chuckling thru the whole set. anyways, it was some pretty good high-energy, slightly-shouty post-punk. heard weezer on some songs, too.
near the end of the set, my man pete shows up and asks if i'm goin to see sean k at the lounge. now, i knew sean was playin there, but i thot i was gonna have to miss him cuz he would play the same time as Red Monroe, but now that things were all fucked up, i realized i could catch him. and so's i did. thanks, petey.

so i stumbled down to the lounge and paid my second cover of the night (so you know i must've been feelin pretty happy). it was a gutterth thing, so there was the usual gutterth trappings everywhere - tv's playing snow, projected images on a screen on the stage, and that one dude who's always front and center, rocking back and forth like he's at the wailing wall, and over-clapping like mad. nah, just kiddin, i love those gutterth guys, they do good work. sean had his full band with him (they are apparently now called "Nervous Curtains"), just like last week, and it absolutely kicked ass. they seem to be coming together more and more each week, as they fine-tune the new material. the addition of Ian's dark synths and Robert's pounding drums make sean's material come alive and kick you in the nuts. and maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed like it was definitely harder-rockin than last week. this is no namby-pamby piano pop stuff, folks, it'll kick your ass. absolutely loved the whole set (as i always do).

went back to dada, where LSF and scott were still hangin out, listening to what had to be The Worst Crap I Have Ever Heard. it was 2/3rds of PPT, plus some guy on acoustic guitar. so there were two guys hip-hoppin/rappin, plus the guy playin guitar and singing the most godawful stuff ever (mostly in falsetto, it seemed). they were tryin to get the crowd into it (throw yer hands up, etc.), but no one was buyin it. seriously, what a bizarre and unpleasant combination. maybe it was performance art of some sort? dono, but i found it unbearable. LSF and friend headed to the doublewide (where they apparently attempted to sabotage Kim Pendleton's marriage), and i went back to the lounge to catch The Great Tyrant, which i instantly regretted (a sean k reference, heh heh). i admit, i have pretty narrow taste in music, so i cannot objectively judge bands in genres i don't like (see above), but jeezchrist are you serious? i couldn't take more than one song. sorta like goth screamo death-metal? 3-man band, one goth dude in all black playin keys, plus ZZ-top wannabe on guitar, and drums. mos def not for me.all in all, a very unsatisfying night, only saved from disaster status by my man sean kirkpatrick (and band).