Moritat

I was really happy when I saw Moritat on The Whistler schedule with Julie Meckler. More on her later. Moritat stayed in my mind in large part because of the CD with the song Yellow House. That song just would not leave me alone. Or I could not leave it alone, and it was the one song that I could recall easily. A part of my mind knew to get the free Yellow House demo CD after that first time at Quenchers and hear it in the car on the way back. I missed them a bunch of times since and then I finally saw them again at Cole's on Milwaukee Ave, just north of Whistler. There is something to like now and something to love later. The piano part just reminded me of the theme to The Peanuts, and then you have Ms Venus' voice on top of that. It's like Schroeder and Lucy had themselves a jam session with everyone. I know that's not what it actually is or what actually inspired the song. It's just my own neurons trying to explain to the world what they beheld. It's like I walked in with the classic Charlie brown shirt on my forehead. Anyway, off I go to Whistler with my sister and her husband.

My mission was to finally buy the CD and support this local band that I like and identify with. Yet this whole time I was too shy to actually meet them. I could have at Cole's but my timid nature puts an awkward moat to cross, takes all the smart words from my vocabulary and reduces me to being this deer-in-the-headlights. I'll get the shirt later. Now the band actually saw my entry about them on my blog. All kinds of questions crash all around me.....did they like it? Did they dislike it....Really? Oh, my God. Just as I was ok being this little mouse about it. I think we arrive at Whistler on time 'cause Moritat was already playing. I don't remember the order of the songs but I do recall hearing Yellow House at some point. I believe I recall Pregnant Ladies as well. Hearing these songs live is awesome 'cause they renew themselves and makes you like the captured work even more. You just notice things in the live breathing performance that you will look for when you're hearing it in the car later.

Yellow House is really relaxed and kind of starry-eyed on CD, and that works. In this song they are closer to a happy Portishead, no delicate tension, but wonder. What I mean is that it draws one's attention without seeming to want it. In the Yellow House Venus is in no rush, but we are relaxed with the wonder of what she describes, or at least in how she describes. I'm not diving deep into the lyrics at this point. All that deeper reading will occur on its own, unless things really jump out. Well perhaps that Peanuts theme comparison didn't really explain them as well as my own neurons at the time of seeing the band. You don't think that live it will make a different imprint. You almost don't consider how loud and powerful and urgent it will sound live. There is muscle where you didn't know they had.

Ah yes, Pregnant Ladies. I like it 'cause of the unexpected turns it makes. Perhaps as I get more familiar with them the more comfortable I feel in going on about them. Pregnant Ladies starts off with the guitar front and center and the whole band chiming in with Venus. They chant their words like slogans at a rally. I'm struck by the wonder of how the lyrics are said. This is just as I'm identifying them in my mind as a keyboard driven band. In mid thought this band changes and as they do, so must my words to describe them. The song goes along in this sweet way and then left turn now. It does that a few times and that's on top of everyone singing in this one. I only highlighted two songs here 'cause this post will never be if I go on and on about the rest. I love this band and I'm glad they live here. They renew this civic Chicago pride.

Zig

Natalie Grace Alford

So I saw Ms Natalie Grace this Monday 16 August at Reggies. She has a thing for wigs and so I go to see which one she wears, and she busts out a full band, and the new wig. And all these songs that are grand as they are, were given complexity that was suggested in the subtext of it's minimalism. I got her demo of some of her songs and they have her mostly with the keyboard. Now live and with the full band she is free to flap her arms and really drive her songs with her performance. My first time seeing her, it was just her taking on the tasks of many band members. Ms Natalie was not waiting for anyone to join. There are few performers I can think of that sound great with other musicians and as solo artists. Like Katie Jane Garside/Queen Adreena/Ruby Throat. And Katie Jane is a good loose comparison to Natalie Grace. Katie Jane can command your attention with just her voice and acoustic guitar. There is something very compelling about her. It's the same with Ms Nat. Careless and effortless is her stage presence. She can and has gone it alone and held attention that way. When you see her with a band, her songs finally can fully express their interior. Each instrument, each musician, removes a task that she would have to do, almost. With the band she is unchained. Free to pour it out. I can just tell how each performance will differ from the next. The songs talk back to her and then she talks back to you. Her voice is deep and womanly. You got to see how she bosses her band around. They play this messy kind of jazz that fit her songs nicely. The drummer plays a beat and she instructs him to play it faster. She clearly runs the band. Here and there she has to dig in the spurs to make the horse trot a little more elegantly. You got to send the message that you run the show even in mid performance. I can see her shows being real different every time. Ms Natalie is one to observe closely. Ms Nat is a bold performer. Her music has more to reveal, more breaths to take. If we as local Chicago natives are privileged enough to have this artist here, observe we should because it is a mirror to us. It's really fun to observe the different lives her songs have with each new performance. Everyone should absolutely stop observing Amy Winewhoo, I mean look at who we got here damn it!

Forget Cassettes

It was a Free Monday at Empty Bottle when I saw Forget Cassettes, for the second time. That's when you know you like it. That first time, I bought the CD but I still remember almost not buying it. A misguided frugal inner voice nearly convinced me. I know just five dollars but I was broke. Anyway, I really liked the performance with that intensity that races ahead and then stops suddenly and then on again. Ms Beth just had that control. The audience would sometimes clap thinking they just abruptly finished the song and then off they go again in the same song. Forget Cassettes just turn the corner on you really fast like that on more than one occasion.

It was hard to figure out how many people on both occasions that I saw FG were feeling about them. A reserved but observant crowd with some people genuinely enjoying them. The songs are roller coasters of hard abrasive expression. It sounds like that even before you know what Beth Cameron says. She can go from this fragile lilt barely holding her heavy words to these vicious vocal shreds. It's always the sense of wonder that ok's the spending, hell it's what made me go to Empty Bottle in the first place. Anyway, I was really taken with the live performance, and I like what I've been hearing ever since. Indeed I feel fortunate for the chain of events that lead me to seeing Forget Cassettes. And what an interesting name. The cassette tape being this relic and icon for its time. Icons are hard to forget even when they are in disuse.

This band will have staying power that can survive the mediums it currently uses. They got this cool, angry intensity that is articulate when you read the lyrics. But you feel it first, when you hear it. I still marvel at how minimal they are (Beth Cameron on guitar and vocal and Jay Leo on drums live). The most resonant example I can think of for comparison is early PJ Harvey. Fondness follows the trail familiarity leaves with the CD "Salt". What does not catch on immediately does so later. "Quiero, Quieres" interested me because of the use of spanish. Something is happening when you speak in tongues . There is something curious about why she uses it. Beth ends it "Quiereme o me muero!"...love me or I die. A desperate end to a song that boldly asserts in the beginning that she's nobody's number 2. Phrases catch my attention like headlines. "Lonely Does It" has a lot of these and they hit the liver with a boxer's precision. You feel all this when you read the lyrics and then you go and see them again with the full knowledge of what you beheld live. This whole CD strikes me as coming from the mindset of a wounded animal, dangerous and venomous. So there is nothing sappy about this. The songs don't seem to wallow in sadness, instead it writhes and convulses in righteous anger.

Zig