Ever since I started my journal, its title has been "This Journal Has No Title". I've been tired of that for a while, but I haven't come up with a new title for it. When I changed to a layout that allowed for subtitles, at first I was changing the subtitle every so often, but once I came up with "We Put the 'Pro' in 'Procrastination'", I've stuck with that one since. I still like that subtitle, and as it's implicitly a corporate slogan, I feel like the journal's title ought to be some kind of mock-corporate name. The subtitle and the page links at the top - Present, Past, People, Profile, and Persistence - alliterate on the letter P, so I've been thinking of something like "Paragraph" or "Pilcrow" (the name of the paragraph symbol ¶, and also the name I used for my abortive blog at 3Sharp). But I'm not sure about those either. Any thoughts or suggestions?

I am seriously behind in my music blogging! A month ago, on Saturday August 30, I went to El Corazón to see Freezepop. On the bill were no less than five bands including Freezepop, an unusually large number for such a show, and they turned out to be a very diverse bunch. My best guess was that the club figured with Bumbershoot going on, they'd throw as many different bands as possible onto the bill and someone would show up for something. I don't believe this served the bands very well, and I think that a smaller assortment of bands with more similar styles would've made for a stronger show and better attendance, but then I've never booked club shows before and it's possible with Bumbershoot also happening nothing would've made a difference. Also on the bill was The Fading Collection, Blue Light Curtain, Ambulance for Angeles, and Cursed Lullaby.

I don't have much to say for Cursed Lullaby, a female-fronted quartet that might as well be named "Metal Band™". They had adequate musical proficiency but were completely unoriginal. My friends dubbed it "angry kitten rock" and commented that they wanted to take the singer home, cuddle her, and tell her everything would be okay. I could see them appealing to teenagers but I can't imagine how anyone past their early 20s could take them seriously. If you like goth-tinged metal though, these guys are the stereotype of it so you might dig them.

Ambulance for Angeles are a duo on synths/vocals and synths/guitar/backing vocals. They played angsty midtempo electronic pop that was very earnest-sounding in that early-twenties way. I liked that they bridged the space between songs with moody bass throbs. I enjoyed them more than Cursed Lullaby and they have some potential, but I feel they need to develop some more.

Blue Light Curtain are a trio including guitar and vocals, synths/drum machine and vocals, and drums. They were perhaps the oddest band in the lineup but I liked them the most of the three I didn't know. Their music was a heavy shoegazer style, though lacking most of the guitar shimmer and feedback often present in shoegaze; in a sense they were goth without being goth. All of their songs were sort of extended chants, with some repeated verses but no actual verse/chorus structure. They introduced one song as being inspired by Twin Peaks, and that seemed to describe their sound well, weirdly ominous - I thought of it as "music to watch stormclouds roll by". Most of the songs had about the same medium tempo and I felt they could've used a little more variation, but then toward the end they played a song that was a little more upbeat, less ominous, more rocking. I enjoyed their set quite a bit and will be looking for them at other shows in the future.

The Fading Collection are often billed as an electronic band, but as they played their first heavy rock songs I was suddenly struck by their resemblance to the opening metal band - similar powerful and soaring female vocals, similar crunchy guitar riffs, although not quite as heavy. It was only as they got into their set and started bringing out the dancier songs, with more overt electronic instrumentation and samples, that they distinguished themselves from the goth metal sound. Even then, I found that I wasn't getting into the music as much as I expected; despite their enthusiastic playing, they just weren't quite bringing it. This has been my experience the previous two times I've seen them, and I'm reluctantly concluding that they may be a better studio band than they are live, but still they're not actually bad live and I can always listen to the albums.

I was much too busy bopping and singing along to Freezepop to do more than jot down a couple quick notes; needless to say, they were awesome and I had a blast. They had a fourth player this time, named Seth, on electronic drumpads, and the addition of a live percussionist freed up The Duke to play more keytar and less sequencer, as well as allowing Sean to rock out on electric guitar for Freezepop's two big Guitar Hero hits, "Brainpower" and "Get Ready 2 Rokk". Still, the QY-70 was not forgotten, and got its turn for a bow during the classic "Freezepop Forever". In fact, the show was quite heavy on the old school songs, including "Harebrained Scheme", "Science Genius Girl", "Chess King", "Summer Boy", and "Plastic Stars". But newer songs were represented too, building to the awe-inspiring "Less Talk More Rokk". Once again, despite playing late at night the day after their big show at PAX and only two days after arriving from the East Coast, Freezepop put on a fantastic fun show full of energy and (no pun intended) enthusiasm, and I've seldom seen another band match their consistency. My only regret is that one of my favorite Freezepop songs, "Tenisu No Boifurendo", isn't well-suited to these hyper shows, though perhaps they could try something like the Kodomo remix version...

As I've noted in the past, El Corazón is not friendly to my iPhone's camera, so my pictures are all kinda crappy. Still, I have a few of Blue Light Curtain, just a couple of The Fading Collection, and several of Freezepop.

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Still to do, reviews of Hotels at Nectar, TV on the Radio at the Showbox SoDo, Balkan Beat Box at Neumos, Goldfrapp also at the Showbox SoDo, and KJ Sawka at Nectar. Boy I've seen a lot lately. Looking ahead, I'm considering The Trucks and A Gun That Shoots Knives at Chop Suey on Saturday the 11th, and Fleet Foxes at The Moore Theatre on Sunday the 19th. Plus, the lovely and talented Sarah Vowell is doing a reading at the Town Hall on Monday the 13th, I need to get down to Elliott Bay Books and pick up a ticket!

Today is my dad's birthday! He is now 69 years old. Since my last post about him, his recovery from the colectomy has progressed fairly well. He spent about two weeks in Boston after the operation, and then transferred to a rehab center in Nashua, which is close to home and much easier for my mom. He's been working on building up his strength again, and although he has days when he's just very tired, he seems to be doing well and is in decent spirits.

I may not have mentioned before that my dad is a ward alderman on the city's board of aldermen. Of course, he's been unable to fulfill his duties over the past month or two, but once he returned to Nashua from Boston he started watching the aldermanic meetings on TV, which was a good sign that he was feeling better. Recently the mayor let him know that a new state law allowed for board members to vote by telephone. As a result, he was able to participate and vote through speakerphone in an important meeting last week concerning the Broad Street Parkway, a project that's been under serious consideration for at least 20 years. The Nashua Telegraph has an article about the meeting, which talks a lot about the controversy over my dad's unexpected participation, apparently almost as controversial as the parkway project itself. The opportunity to resume his duties even on a limited basis really helped cheer my dad up, and I'm glad he's able to continue doing something he's always enjoyed a lot, serving in local government. 

Over on bluishorange, Alison pointed to Shaun's post about the film High Fidelity. Something Shaun wrote jumped out at me:

The only conversations the characters care about are about music and film, solidly passive art forms. Their real thinking is limited to art criticism and introspection.

I have not actually seen the film, but I can understand that in the context of how those characters behave, "solidly passive" could be a fair description of their relationship with music. Still, my immediate reaction was to strongly object to the characterization of music as a "solidly passive" art form.

Music moves people, literally - at the least, it can make you tap your toe or nod your head or maybe even sway your body a bit. You find yourself humming the tune later on, with no particular prompting. There's interaction and feedback with the performers in a performance: at a concert, you'll applaud or yell or scream or whistle or whatever's appropriate in response. And of course, anyone can participate in the creation of the art even during a concert, just at the basic level of singing along or tapping the beat. That's not to mention learning to make music on your own, with voice or instrument or whatever's at hand. 

Yes, music can be absorbed in a passive manner, just as film (or television) or other performing arts can be. And just like film or television, mediocre music lends itself to passivity. However, I submit these are flaws not in the art forms, but in the particular instances of artwork or in the particular members of the audience. Music itself asks for your attention and evokes a response; to call music a solidly passive art form or to treat it as a solidly passive art form is to miss its entire reason for being. And in truth, it's arguable that anything worthy of being called art cannot be a solidly passive experience.

"Late for the Interurban"

I've been running around a lot lately, going to a bunch of shows, and hosting my brother on his first visit to Seattle. I still have several shows to write up and the rest of my photos from Jeremy's visit to upload. I have some work to do, I have to update my resume, and I have to get busy making new contacts for work. I have to go shopping for some new clothes and new boots. I still have a few minor things I want to do around my condo. I really do want to pull out my violin and do some playing. I have some games to read, a D&D adventure to plan out, an AGON Shadowrun draft to finish writing up. No doubt a bunch of other things to do as well.

Why do I find it so hard to stop running around like a clown, sabotaging my own efforts? Why do I let time slip away? Why can't I keep better track of time?

Perhaps this has something to do with it:

I had a pretty good time at Bumbershoot this year. I was going to do a single post about it, because I thought I could keep it short, but of course it's just gotten longer and longer as I write. So, I'm going to do separate posts for each day after all. All of my photos can be found in my Bumbershoot 2008 set on Flickr.

Read about Saturday at Bumbershoot 2008.

Read about Sunday at Bumbershoot 2008.

Monday

Monday I made it down to Bumbershoot toward the later half of the afternoon. I had no plans before seeing Battles at 7:45, so I wandered about for a while. I stopped to watch some of Strange Fruit, a sort of mime theater performance done by two couples atop tall flexible poles. It was indeed strange, but also funny and cool. I hung out by the Du Pont Fountain for a while, hoping to catch another performance of the Bottled Operas that I saw on Saturday, but they did not come by before I had to head across the Center for the Battles set. However, while I was there, a couple people came by and asked to take my picture with their friend, Little Roy the Corduroy Boy; you can see the photo of us here. (I didn't realize at the time that Little Roy's appearances were actually officially scheduled events.) [Strange Fruit photos start here.]

Battles were hands-down the best act I saw at Bumbershoot this year, and no question gave one of the best performances out of all the acts. Drummer John Stanier reminded me of Animal from the Muppets, flailing fast and furiously at his drums, although with a precision and control Animal could never match. I almost expected Stanier to explode Muppets-style with a flash and bang, leaving nothing behind but a wisp of smoke. The rest of the band were slightly more restrained but no less enthusiastic, and together they roared through a thunderous set of instrumental, highly-danceable art rock. The first part of the set, from the opening bass loops of "Race: Out", was a continuous half-hour of music, and they barely paused later to do more than say hi to the crowd while setting up the next song. I didn't recognize all of the music, so some of the first half may have been new, but they definitely finished with the two singles "Tonto" and "Atlas", followed by an extended "Race: In". They led into "Atlas" just with a very simple sampled beat, a steady tik, tik, tik, tik, for a good two minutes while they were adjusting other equipment, but that simple beat was enough to get the audience clapping along in anticipation. When they finally broke into the song, a bunch of kids surged forward and nearly started a full-fledged mosh pit, causing a Bumbershoot staff member to wade in to the crowd and warn them to simmer down a bit. Battles played a full hour of exciting and vital rock that ought to kill the label "math rock", and I can't wait for their next show. [Battles photos start here.]

After that set, pretty much anything was likely to be a bit of a let-down. Still, I went to see Mike Doughty, since my sister said I should introduce myself to her friend Andrew "Scrap" Livingston, who was playing bass for Doughty. As a solo artist, Doughty's gone the singer-songwriter route, playing folk-tinged rock à la Dave Matthews, and frankly I just didn't find it that interesting, even when he covered his own Soul Coughing song "Circles". After listening for a few songs, I wandered off in search of ice cream and then went to hear the first couple songs by Minus the Bear. I returned for the end of Doughty's set, waited around for about 15 minutes until Doughty came out from backstage briefly, and managed to catch him before he disappeared again just to ask him if he could get the bassist for me, which I thought was a little funny. After chatting briefly with Livingston, I went back to hear the last 20 minutes of Minus the Bear, who sounded all right and finished with "Knights", the single I recognized from airplay on KEXP. Although the high point of Bumbershoot had passed already for me and the final acts weren't so great, I still left feeling quite satisfied with the evening and Bumbershoot in general. [A few Mike Doughty photos start here.]

I had a pretty good time at Bumbershoot this year. I was going to do a single post about it, because I thought I could keep it short, but of course it's just gotten longer and longer as I write. So, I'm going to do separate posts for each day after all. All of my photos can be found in my Bumbershoot 2008 set on Flickr.

Read about Saturday at Bumbershoot 2008.

Read about Monday at Bumbershoot 2008.

Sunday

Sunday afternoon I stayed at home to do housework, but I made sure to get down to Bumbershoot in time for Sons and Daughters. I didn't recognize many of the songs and I expect they were mostly from the latest album, This Gift, but they did play "Rama Lama" and "Dance Me In" along with a few other older songs. The band was clearly having a great time, with singer Adele Bethel and guitarist/singer Scott Paterson both avowing several times that they loved Seattle, and the audience loudly returned their love. I'd still like to hear them mix in the acoustic sound of their previous album rather than play all electric, but I enjoyed the performance very much. [Sons and Daughters photos start here.]

Afterward, following my sister's directive to "find out if he's any good for real for real," I headed over to see Final Fantasy, the solo project of violinist Owen Pallett. Although his MySpace page lists his genre simply as "pop", his music had little in common with the conventions of modern pop or rock. Rather, he essentially plays baroque fugues, building the songs by sampling himself playing short parts and looping the samples one on top of the next. I thought of this as "techno-baroque", although using "techno" may be misleading as it had nothing in common with the electronic genre of dance music. He occasionally used a keyboard to create loops as well, tapped on the violin for sound effects, and also sang lyrics. I noted that he held his bow baroque-style, a little higher than the modern style, and also mostly held the violin baroque-style in front of him; this style seemed to facilitate the other performance elements (pizzicato, tapping, and singing). Pallett certainly was a skilled violinist with good tone and vibrato, switching smoothly between plucking and bowing the strings, and just as smoothly picking up a complicated part from a loop and playing it live again. He did play one song "acoustic" as he called it, using no sampling or loops, which helped me assess his talent. I was also quite impressed that he could keep track of all the different parts at once from memory, adding and dropping loops throughout each song. Lyrically, the songs did not seem to be geek-heavy despite his video-game-inspired name; what I picked out sounded more like typical themes of relationships and modern life. After hearing Final Fantasy, I have to say that he is indeed quite good for real for real... but I'm still not sure how much I actually enjoy his music. I have had a few bits of his songs stuck in my head since then, so I think I need to pick up one of his albums to consider it some more. [Just two photos of Final Fantasy, here and here.]

I had a pretty good time at Bumbershoot this year. I was going to do a single post about it, because I thought I could keep it short, but of course it's just gotten longer and longer as I write. So, I'm going to do separate posts for each day after all. All of my photos can be found in my Bumbershoot 2008 set on Flickr.

Read about Sunday at Bumbershoot 2008.

Read about Monday at Bumbershoot 2008.

Saturday

Beehive had an unenviable slot, opening Bumbershoot at noon on Saturday, and a difficult space, being on the smallest stage, tucked away in a corner of the Seattle Center out of sight or even hearing from most of the festival. So I was concerned whether they'd have much of an audience, but fortunately the seats were mostly full by the time they started, and stayed that way through the set with additional people wandering up too. Beehive went for a heavier rock sound to start and covered Queen's "We Will Rock You" as well as the Beatles' "Helter Skelter", presumably to help warm up a crowd unfamiliar with their work. They've been playing "Helter Skelter" for a while and bring their own sound to it, but I felt "We Will Rock You" didn't fit so well with the rest of their songs. Still, it was a good set overall and they definitely won over some new fans. [Beehive photos start here.]

After Beehive, I wandered a bit, running into the dance troupe acornDance doing a funny performance, until I met up with my friend Gina, and we went to see Barcelona. Quite simply, Barcelona sounded like they heard Jeff Buckley's song "The Last Goodbye" and said, "Let's make a band!" Sure, they picked a good song to emulate, but... they needed a little more than that. Gina and I wandered around for a while after that, and stumbled across a performance of Byron Au Yong's "Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas", which involved musicians playing percussion in the Du Pont Fountain pool and playing the water itself as a percussion instrument. That was pretty cool, and I wish I'd seen more of it or caught another performance later in the weekend. However, Gina and I both wanted to get some food and try to catch Nada Surf in the secret KEXP Lounge, so we didn't stick around for the whole thing. While we were eating, we missed out on getting spare tickets into the Nada Surf show, which perhaps is poetic justice. [Photos of acornDance start here and photos of "Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas" start here.]

Gina had to leave early, and after hanging out with David and Alethea of Beehive for a while, it was time for me to catch Mono in VCF. Despite spending at least 10-15 minutes on a sound check before their set started, the band suffered from feedback problems for the first half of their set. Several of the songs also sounded a bit rushed, as though they just wanted to get through as many songs as they could, which was unfortunate as their lush, expansive music needs space to breathe to achieve its full effect. On the positive side, the EMP's SkyChurch performance hall is well-suited to their sound and image, and undoubtedly they made a better impression on new listeners because of it than they would have on one of the outdoor stages. They played a couple new songs and brought out Mark Pickerel as a guest vocalist to sing a duet with Kim Miller, the Lee Hazelwood song "Some Velvet Morning". It was a good set, but I've heard them play better, and much as I love their debut I'm still eagerly awaiting more new music from them. [Just three photos of Mono in VCF, starting here.]

After Mono in VCF, I left Bumbershoot for the day, as I already had plans to go see Freezepop at El Corazón. I'll write up that show once I've finished the rest of the Bumbershoot reports.

My sister Andrea and her partner Jen came for a visit:


Andrea played in an improvised music concert led by Bob Marsh:


We went out to dinner a lot, sometimes with Jen's family or my friends:


We toured the Theo Chocolate factory in Fremont, visited Discovery Park at sunset, and the Olympic Sculpture Park:


We visited Jen's aunt's cabin on Marrowstone Island, where it was rather grey, cold, and rainy:


Nimiel was nervous about the visitors for the better part of the first week, but eventually grew to love them... or at least to love Jen's hair:

and the shopping bags:


See all of the photos in the set "Andrea & Jen visit 2008".

The ups and downs of my dad's health have hit a new low: the antibiotic treatment he was on for his knee apparently reduced other, good bacteria in his digestive system, resulting in him developing colitis - infection of the colon by the C-diff bacteria that live there. Last week the doctors determined that his knee infection was cleared up, and took him off the antibiotics; however, the C-diff bacteria weren't under control, as it turned out on Saturday when he fell violently ill and had to go to the hospital. Although the doctors put him on new medications, they determined that the best way to end the problem would be to remove the colon, which they did in surgery last night. The word from my mom this evening is that he's recovering well, even laughing when he mistakenly said "Hi Phil" to my younger brother as he often does even in normal circumstances. 

Hopefully once he's recovered from this operation, he'll be able to get back to a somewhat normal life and be free of further infections and complications for a while. It's difficult because, after so many years taking anti-rejection medication for his heart, his body is very weak against any kind of infection. On his fifteenth rebirthday - the anniversary of his transplant - this year, I expressed the hope that he'll see another fifteen years, which aside from his heart issue would be reasonable for someone from his long-lived family. Now, his 69th birthday is coming up at the end of September, and although I expect he'll see that, I worry about how he'll be by the time his 70th comes around next year. Still, the semicolon is a pause, not a full stop, and I can hope my Dad's got a lot left to say after this pause.