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Sweany's Passionate Song
06/10/2010
Patrick Sweany is a man of fearsome talent. I wish this recording were of a little higher quality.
Sweany wails with such passionate, soulful panache. He broadcasts emotion like radiating light. His fingers nimbly play over the guitar neck. He showcases intimate knowledge of every note and subtle tone his axe can make.
And the tone he gets is pure and sweet. A soulful late 50s barroom romp.
I highly recommend the album Every Hour Is A Dollar Gone. Particular favorites are "Them Shoes," "From Orange to Pink" and "Hotel Women."
It's simple and it's driven and it's drenched with sweet soul.
Posted by Krister
Honey Clouds - Cover The Forest
06/04/2010
Two listens and I'm hooked.
Lately I've been listening to a lot of simple acoustic music. Lots of old country, old folk. So when you put Cover the Forest in your CD player and Fever Rabbit kicks in with this loopy, demented circus music... and then a heavily distorted guitar starts to climb up over it... it's breaking up because of the excessive fuzz... then there's this jangly twang and Honey Clouds collect themselves and crash all over the circus music... it lingers in the background for a moment and then a bird call spirits it away.
And you're left with a buzzy energetic frenzy.
It was a change of pace for my ears, but man was it a good choice. That's all I'm trying to say.
The album is high energy. 12 tracks and clocks in at just under 40 minutes. It bounces from track to track and tempo to tempo with focused intensity. Creates a diverse landscape of sonic fun.
The jump kick of Fever Rabbit gives way to a soupier Kites and Balloons. It pulses and sways on a dreamy organ while Trey Hughes recounts a winter evening in his unpolished, high-in-the-throat voice.
And then it's back to a twangy mesh of twisted poppy goodness with Nester. The album travels over a wide range of tempos and sensibilities with a sort of organic suddenness. Often in the same song.
It was around the point that the horns kick in on Crumble On the Shore that I realize this is a giddy beach-pop album twisted in a funhouse mirror. In songs like Still As You, what could be a ho-hum post-punk anthem is made compelling and sticky by these crazy lead guitar riffs that stretch over the chord progression like stringy cobwebs.
Ron Harrity starts off Lazy Smoke with simple noodling on his trebled up guitar, Trey steps in with his voice but it's not until Mandy Wheeler's bass and Sean Wilkinson's drums hit your ears that you realize this could be a 60s soul number. There's something about the way songs like this explore dynamic range that sends chills down my spines. I love when the chorus hits and you want to swell up along with the band.
Harrity produced Cover the Forest with wonderful clarity. The tracks are all distinct and easily identifiable but each song is greater than the sum of its parts. I especially love the tone he gets in his guitar. It's bright with a (forgive me) peapod snap to it.
Honey Clouds songs seem to have movements to them. Take Sugar, for instance, it bounces along like some saccharine cartoon and then you hit a - it's not a slump - but there're repeated moments in the song when it feels like those butterfly moments as you're driving a car, when you go over a hill with too much speed. And the second movement, a chorus, I suppose, moves along dreamily and then the song struts back up to the uptempo bounce-along of the verse.
It's fun stuff.
Stormy Roux was instantly one of my favorite tracks. There's this hooky trampoline bounce between the chords that leads to a tremendously danceable - or at least get-down-toable - chorus. The song feels like a top-down convertible ride and the final minute is full of the kind of wonderful, infectious energy that makes me want to stomp on the gas and blast off.
Despite the overwhelming good, there are two flaws for me. One is that, at less than 40 minutes, it's too short. That's not a huge problem, and easily fixed by just listening to it again.
And the track Even In A Scrawl doesn't do much for me. While most of the album feels like it's saying something about fun poppy music with a twisted, post-punk production, Even In A Scrawl just feels flat. It's still got a lot of energy and I'm sure that to see it live would still get me rocking along with the band, but I think it lives in the shadow of the clever and towering tracks around it.
Cover the Forest is a great way to get psyched up for summer. Take it to the beach, frolic on the prom with it. Dose yourself with some Honey Clouds verve.
Posted by Krister
Man Have Things Changed...
05/20/2010
It was October, I think, when we met Christian Cuff at North Star Cafe. He had seen our Lady Lamb The Beekeeper video and loved the emotions we had captured, and knew we should be the people to bring his video project to light over the next seven months.
Now as I'm sitting down to edit this documentary (probably a month later than I should be, but it's coming along quite nicely) I can't help but reflect on where we've come in the last seven months. Not only are we busier than we've ever been before, but we have a couple awards under our arms to boot.
Portland has been an extremely welcoming city, and while I feel like the videos you have been seeing for over a year now have been good, I can't wait for you to see what we have in store for everyone in 2010. Our videos will be more and more polished as the months progress, and you may even find some actual movies (as in, with actors, and a script, and maybe even a storyline) cropping up this year as well.
The Christian Cuff documentary has allowed us to fine tune our craft even further, and I'm excited to share this with the city May 29th at Space Gallery.
Posted by Nick
Building of Song Festival seeking vendors
05/19/2010
The Building of Song Festival will showcase Portland area talent - both artsy and musical - on July 3rd.
You may recall the Tower of Song Festival last year was a huge success at blasting music into Congress Square and featuring a number of crafts tables outside.
Music will be performed live not only in Congress Square, but it'll be blasting out of that building that houses the State Theater and bouncing around Congress and High streets.
If you want to get in on the craft/art fair action you have until May 31st to apply. The application is free but if you're accepted it's $60 to register. Head over to Eternal Otter to download an application and return the completed forms to theottersden@gmail.com
The festival is sponsored by the good folks over at Eternal Otter Records. For tickling your earholes, Will and Alicia have lined up The Lucid, Johnny Fountain, Lady Lamb the Beekeeper, Jesse Pilgrim, Dead Man's Clothes and - tantalyzingly - "more!"
If you've got wares to peddle, sign yo'self up!
Posted by Krister
Crooks
05/18/2010
This week marks the 218th anniversary of the New York Stock Exchange. It also is the 37th anniversary of the start of the Senate hearings on the Watergate scandal. This week in 1896 the Supreme Court endorsed the concept of 'Separate But Equal.' Anne Boleyn was decapitated this week in 1536 and Dan White was convicted of killing Harvey Milk in 1971.
So this playlist is all about crooks.
Frankie & Albert - Mississippi Joe Callicot
Legendary for his pickin', this version is a little rough. Sounds like it was recorded on the porch of Mississippi John's shack. You can hear his long fingers playing across the strings, his thumb pulsing to the bass line as he tells the story of Frankie and her cheatin' man, Albert and the desperate straits his infidelity takes her to. I have a hell of a time understanding him over his southern drawl -- I thought he was saying "grandma" and not "bartender" for months -- but there's a certain pain in his voice that makes the intention of the song explicit.
A word on the link: You'll only hear about 30 seconds when you click that play button on Last... but they're among the most important 30 in the whole of the song
Staggolee - Pacific Gas & Electric
Stack Lee, Stagger Lee, Staggolee, Stack, Stag.... he has many names but it's the same legend. Stack Lee shot Billy Lyons, a bartender at a saloon. Nick Cave's version has him a bloodthirsty sociopath, The Black Keys make him a violent scumsucker. I like this version, you might recognize it from Quentin Tarantino's Deathproof. While it's fun and poppy, it also paints Staggolee as the mythical man he has become. He's so bad he can take on the devil. That only happens in stories of legend. PG&E revels in it. They celebrate the legend of Stack Lee with this bouncy piece of Americana.
Killing - Moses Atwood
I think that learning to think in Shades of Gray is one of the more important things you can do with your life. Moses proves he can do that by telling the story of a sympathetic killer. Everyone has a price and as times get more desperate, that price drops. The 'hero' of this story doesn't repent, he knows he's done wrong. He's just asking that you understand. That you acknowledge that if you were in his shoes, you'd be a killer, too. I hear one Ms. Aly Spaltro does a fairly brillig cover.
Crooks - D. Gross
Last fall, as the health insurance reform debate loomed and banks were collapsing like houses made of cards (or perhaps matchsticks), Dana introduced this song one Thursday night with a little preface about how disgusted he was by the nation's highest paid business leaders. That intro stuck with me and made me listen to Crooks in a wholly different way. I hear that there's condemnation but there's more. There's an attempt to understand the Crooks. That's what's intriguing. Dana can't let them not be human, there's got to be something human about them and he's trying to find it.
The Big Three Killed My Baby - The White Stripes
Frustrated rage at the company that both made and destroyed entire generations. Entire cities. Look at Detroit now, killed because of The Big Three. About eight or nine months ago while Ford, GM and Chrysler were all struggling with the losses they were suffering and stomping all over their employees - they only people who would conceivably support them in face of their massive greed - I couldn't help but think of this song. Predating the automotive collapse by nearly a decade, it seems prophetic until you look at Detroit and the history of the working man in these companies. The energy, the rawness and the distortion capture a lot of anger and frustration. It's an emotional testament to the end of an era in American automotives.
Posted by Krister
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