06/26/2008 Colourmusic, Witch's Hat, Gentleman Auction House

This was an interesting night of music featuring Colourmusic out of Oklahoma, the Local band Witch's Hat, and the late addition of Gentleman Auction House out of St. Louis. I planned to see the show based on the myspace tracks for Colourmusic, but thought the pairing of Witch's Hat with Colourmusic was a bit odd based on the Colourmusic tracks I had heard. I went to the show expecting Colourmusic to be a gentle pop band, but the first note of the first song proved that impression to be 100% wrong. I will get to that later though.
So the night started out with Gentleman Auction House, and I was very suprised by this band. First of all, I don't think I have think I have seen the stage at Mojo's stuffed with as many people before. They had two drummers, two keyboard, a bassist, an acoustic guitar guy, and a lead guitarist. However, the acoustic guy also played xylophone and did something else, the guy keyboardist also played guitar and trumpet, and the girl keyboardist also played flute. Needless to say they have a lot going on up there on stage, and the music had a very nice complexity to it while somehow having the feel of an old tent revival band. I found the music to be very entertaining and original. It had the Jam band feel based on instrumentation, without the extended instrumental noodling. If you have a chance to check this band out I would highly recommend going to the show. I would also like to note that the female keyboardist played the keys about as brutal and angry as I have ever seen the instrument played.
Next up was the ever entertaining Witch's Hat. This is my second Witch's Hat show, and it was a similar experience from the last one. Great music, entertaining stage show, and lyrics that I have a hard time getting crazy about. Don't get me wrong, the lyrics are clever and well written, I just don't get into fantasy based songs about battles and Knights etc. The highlight for the night for me was their song Lazer. For this song the lead singer uses a Bullhorn instead of the microphone (which really makes it hard to get a good live recording of the song by the way), and during the song he will jump off stage and runs through the audience while singing. He did this last time, and I still find it entertaining. I would say that everyone needs to experience a Witch's Hat show at least once in their lives, but the band is playing their last show on August 8 at Mojo's here in Columbia, MO, so I doubt most people will be able to experience greatness that is the Hat. My only downer for the night was that they didn't play Glodyany 1972, I love that Vampire song. I will say that the guys at Colourmusic loved the show, and actually begged them from the stage not to break up and come to Stillwater to play a show with them in September.
After Witch's Hat, it was Colourmusic's turn to take the stage. The band all wore matching white Clockwork orange outfits and all the instruments and amps were white. That was my first indication that perhaps they had a little more of a stage persona for the show, and that the pairing with Witch's Hat made a little more sense. They opened the show with Put In A Little Gas, and my first impression of the band was shattered. This song assaulted the ear with a tumultuous sonic blast, with the lead singer shouting his lyrics above the cacophony with a thrust of the fist to emphasize his point. This band has been described as a combination of The Flaming Lips and The Polyphonic Spree, and I would have to agree. Like these bands, they put on a show live, and Colourmusic can play the fun me low pop songs, but they have a hard complex edge to most of the music that borders on noise will not lend them to extensive radio play. However, if you are a fan of this style of music, you will love Colourmusic. They put a great show full of complex sonic combinations that ebbs and flows from quite melody to earsplitting assaults. I hope these guys hit Columbia again, because I will be there.

I got good recordings of all of these bands, and I will post set lists and links to download the show after I finish mastering them all.

06/12/2006 Loco Macheen & The DeWayn Brothers

This was a Kansas 2 for 1 show featuring Loco Macheen & The DeWayn Brothers. The great part, they are the same band, mostly. These guys obviously fit into the world of the Jam band, but had a dilemma when they wanted to start a band. What kind of Jam Band do they want to be? On the one side it is a lot of fun to plug in and go electric, but damn that Bluegrass sure is fun with all the murder and the heart ache. It was like Sophie's choice, and when you don't have to make a choice, why do it? (Being from Missouri it would be easy to make a joke about Kansans at this point, but I will digress)
Anyway, I had no idea what to expect when I went to the show. I had never heard of this group of people, but was intrigued by the description on the Mojo's website and was jonesin' for some Bluegrass. I didn't come to the show with high expectations, but I left blown away. Not by the music (though it was well played, well writen, and the show was fun), but by one of the singers. They have one of the best female leads I have had the fortune to stumble upon. Jamie Lee is a fireball with a voice that is powerful and sweet on the ears. She doesn't have what I call a pretty voice, rather it she has a soulful voice that drips emotion. These bands would be worth catching just to listen to her sing, but when you add to the mix that the songs are well writen and the musicianship is solid, you have a great night now matter who they hit the stage as that night.
Now I am not a huge fan of the Jam band scene, so I enjoyed the music of The DeWayne Brothers over Loco Macheen. However, I loved the covers of Loco Macheen, and the Loco Macheen show produced one philosophical question. Can a band cover itself? That's right, Loco Macheen played a song writen as DeWayne Brother's song. So, is this considered a cover, a new arangement, or just a song? I will leave that up to the set list philosophy majors out there to ponder.
At this time I think they are doing more DeWayne Brothers show than Loco Macheen show, at least when they come to Columbia, because they have only returned as the DeWayne Brothers. They always come to town when I can't make the show, so I am hoping that they start asking ME when a good time to come to town will be the next time they make the trip east. I have both shows posted on my site Lovin Live Music so go on over and check them out. Here are the details for both sets.

The DeWayn Brothers
SBD + Aud Matrix
Set List
1) Intro
2) Bacon & Eggs
3) She Lies
4) The Ship
5) Ruthy Lynn
6) Come Over
7) Another Night (Alison Krauss)
8) Right Hand
9) Cousin James
10) Sam & Sal
11) Bastard Son
12) Just To Die
13) Black Eyes
14) Moonshine
15) Pigeon Stew
16) Last Danced
17) Crackhouse
18) Murder One

Loco Macheen
SBD + Aud Matrix
Set List:
1) Give It Up Or Let Me Go (Bonnie Raitt)
2) Want You Gone (DeWayn Brothers)
3) Hell (Squirel Nut Zippers)
4) Brown Water
5) Death Is No Dream
6) GTT
7) Alter Ego
8) Dogtown Grass
9) Finding Treasure
10) Try (Janis Joplin)
11) When At Home & Instrumental
12) Weaszack Crotchbottle
13) Bus Bust
14) Mahatma
15) Right Wing Pigeons (Dead Milmen) >All Day Long
16) Army Of The Ocean
17) Car Wash (Rose Royce)

06/06/2008 The Gourds & Patrick Sweany @ The Blue Note

Well it was another great night at the Blue Note to watch music when The Gourds rolled into town between stops at Twangfest in St. Louis and Wakarusa in Kansas. Opening the show was Patrick Sweany and his band, and since he is apparently from Jefferson City, it was a little like a family reunion to start the show. Patrick plays a nice brand of bar rock blues, and you could tell from his show that he was good at keeping the drinkers at the bar interested in listening to his music. During the show his stage banter was a cross between a conversation between old friends and a cheerleader keeping the crowd engaged in the show. During the show he stopped twice during a song, one to announce the new tattoo that a friend's son had just gotten, and the other to adjust his sleeves so that he still looked good for the audience. It was actually a rather entertaining show. I am not that into the blues or blues rock, so musically it wasn't my favorite show, but if you do like this style of music Patrick plays a mean guitar and puts on a great show. At the very least it is fun to sit back and have a couple of drinks with a few friends while he is playing in the back ground. The highlights of the show for me included the last song and some of the instrumentals near the middle of the show.

Set List:
1) Intro
2) Instrumental
3) Step Outside
4) Wednesday Night
5) Nobody Dance
6) Instrumental
7) Your Man
8) Instrumental
9) I Want It All
10) Instrumental
11) Instrumental
12) Bad Love
13) Think About It
14) Yeah Man

The Gourds took the stage and brought forth their brand of Americana greatness to the stage. They opened the stage with a Rockin' Do 4 U with Midnight Rider played in the middle. They then proceeded to play through a meandering set that scorched, swung, and swayed. They covered a lot of ground in the Gourds catalogue moving through accordion, key board, fiddle, lap steal, banjo, acoustic guitar, and electric guitar through out the night. I am not familiar enough with the Gourds live set to know what might be a rare track or a interesting version. They of course played Gin and Juice (which seemed to get the best crowd reaction), and part of the fun of Gin and Juice now is to see what songs they transition to in the middle of playing. For this set we go a little bit of Everyday People and Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap. For the encore Jimmy Smith put down the bass and played acoustic guitar. All in all it was a great show that any fan of the Gourds would love. I will say that highlights for me were Do 4 U, Motherless Children, Burn The Honeysuckle, Ant On The Melon, Gangster Lean, Gin & Juice, and All The Labor.

Set List
1) intro
2) Do 4 U (Midnight Rider middle)
3) Motherless Children
4) LGO
5) Right In The Head
6) Blankets
7) Burn The Honeysuckle
8) Ant On The Melon
9) Big Santiago Bust
10) Illegal Oyster
11) Red Letter Day
12) Bug Blues
13) Shake The Chandelier
14) Mister Betty
15) A Few Extra Kilos
16) Flavor On Yer Tung
17) Collections
18) My Name is Jorge
19) Gangster Lean
20) Gin & Juice (Everyday People & Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheep)
Encore:
21) Plaid Coat
22) All The Labor

I got pretty good recordings of both bands and they are posted on my site Lovin Live Music for download in MP3 or SHN formats.

05/31/2008 Death Cab For Cutie & Rouge Wave

Well to start out with this show was great. Both bands played great sets, and if Rouge Wave make it back to Columbia, MO I will not miss the show. Now for the bitching. It rained a lot right before doors of this outdoor show, so when I got in line at 6 when the rain was starting to die down, I didn't know I would be waiting until 7:45 for the doors to open. It understandable, but it sucked that I called to make sure the show would still go on, and was told that the show would start as normal. I would have waited quite a bit longer to drag myself downtown for the show if I had known. I also didn't get to record the show, which sucked, but with the rain and everything everyone was a little on edge and i didn't want to push my luck. Anyway, Rogue Wave was really good, but I don't know enough about their music to comment on the set list. Death Cab played all the hits, and the best moment (at least the one that the crowd seemed to pay the most attention to) was I will Follow You Into The Dark. The whole crowd sang from start to finish for this song, and really was the moment of the show. During most of the rest of the show a lot of the crowd seemed indifferent to the fact that Death Cab was on stage playing great music.

05/09/08 Blue Bird Benefit Set Lists

Well I have finished editing the Casey Reeves & Wes Wingate, Ryan Groff, and Witch's Hat shows, and they are now up on my site for download. Here are the links:
Casey Reeves & Wes Wingate
Ryan Groff
Witch's Hat
I am still working on the King Thief show, so it will be some time still before I have a set list or can post the show on my site. I will keep you posted on my progress. I have to that the Ryan Groff show was surprisingly good, and that I liked Witch's Hat more after I edited the show.

Here are the set lists for the night:
Ryan Groff
Set List:
1) Intro
2) Wooden Houses
3) Lake Water
4) Landlocked
5) Lines

Casey Reeves & Wes Wingate
Set List:
1) Intro
2) Radio King (Golden Smog)
3) Blood On Your Hands
4) 2:45 A.M.(Eliot Smith)
5) You Ain't Goin' Nowhere (Bob Dylan)
6) ?
7) Carolina
8) Late Greats (Wilco)
9) ?

Witch's Hat
Set List:
1) Intro
2) Bomb Squad
3) Tizona
4) Behold
5) Tuning filler Song
6) Tonight
7) Popsicles
8) Dance Machine
9) ?
10) ?
11) ?
12) Glodyany 1972

05/09/2008 The Bluebird Music Festival Benefit Show at Mojo’s

This show was a benefit for the Bluebird Music Festival that they are trying to start here in good old Columbia, MO. It appears to be a SXSW style fest that will include many local and regional acts and occurring in multiple venues around Columbia. Since I liked to idea of supporting a new vehicle for getting good acts in Columbia, and I wanted to catch Casey Reeves, I decided to hit the show. It was a very interesting and diverse line up for the show. The order of the show was Ryan Groff from Elsinore (Champaign, IL), Casey Reeves and Wes Wingate (Columbia, MO), King Thief (St. Louis, MO), and finally Witches Hat (Columbia, MO). The first two acts were singer/song writer solo style shows and were nice and mellow. Then the night took a turn to the rock with King Thief and Witches Hat, but I will get into that in a minute.

The night started out interesting for me. I walk into Mojo’s, and they have a “new” board. It is actually the old monitor board for the Blue Note, but it was a step up from what they used to have. Of course, the problem with a new board is that I have to figure out how to pull the best feed. Since I was the first person trying to record from the board, it took a little doing to figure that out, and I don’t think it was the best option that was settled on in the end. I took what was apparently a tape out feed, but I got clipping out of that feed, so I am going to have to adjust the levels down or try to get the matrix out feeds to work the next time I record at the venue. Also, one final note for anyone that is recording multitrack out of the SBD, the direct out for input 14 does not work. So keep that in mind if you happen to be recording at Mojo’s.

Anyway, as I said the first two acts for the night were solo type performances, and I have to say that I didn’t get to focus on these to acts as much as I would have liked because I was trouble shooting the recording process and adjusting to the new board. However, what I heard of both Ryan Groff from Elsinore and the Casey Reeves and Wes Wingate shows were very interesting. For those of you who don’t know Casey used to be a member of the band Caulfield and The Magic, and Wes has been in The Doxies and The Stingrays. During the set Wes played both guitar and keyboards, and they played a nice set of covers and originals from both singers. When I get done mixing the recording and give the shows a better listen I will comment on the songs etc. I will say that during the set a beer dropped of the amp Casey was using and spilled on the guitar peddles that the guitarist for King Thief used, apparently rendering many of them inoperable. So, I am not to sure how happy King Thief was with the organizers of the evening.

After the quiet part of the show King Thief took the stage. I have never heard of the band, and I am pretty sure that would be because I don’t listen to their style of music much any more. If I had heard them during my early 20’s I would have loved them, and I have a feeling they would have been one of my favorite regional bands. They play a lush and complex brand of hard rock, not fast and furious like metal, but rather a controlled sonic attack. It’s hard to comment on the lyrics at a truly rocking show when you are not familiar with the music already, but what I heard was intriguing, and would have been inspiring to my younger self. I will say that despite the fact that I didn’t enjoy the music, and will more than likely not go to another show, they put on a DAMN good show. The band look, for this night at least, reminded me of mid 80’s era punk/new wave band, and Brooks Bracken, lead singer and song writer, sported a smallish Mohawk that fit in well with the look of the band. The majority of the crowd at the show was there for King Thief, and they played to their fans very well. There were a couple of songs that had crowd interactions involved that the crowd did not require the prompting of the lead singer to perform on cue. The Brooks moved around the stage like a hard rockin veteran working the music and the crowd all at the same time. He had all the poses and moves down, but I am happy to say that it felt neither tired nor contrived the entire time. He walk the fine line between true show man and wanna be rocker very well, and delivered his vocals with style. I was also pleased that the lyrics and the music worked well together. It is hard to listen to hard rock when the lyrics do not interplay with the music at all. Side not from this part of the show, there was this old drunk guy (no not me), who was a little obnoxious and started monopolizing the front stage area (dancing with people he didn’t know etc.), and by the end of the show I think that Brooks was feed up with the guy, because he stood next to him on the speakers that are in front of the stage and then pushed him away from the stage with a kick. The old guy was escorted from the venue after that little incident.

After King Thief left the stage, I think they took all the sincerity with them before Witches Hat took the stage. Now I think they are truly a serious band, but I am not sure much of the act is tongue in cheek. I have a hard time believing that a band playing hard rocking songs about knights and castles and other stereotypical “hard rock” imagery that has been satirized for years by the likes of Spinal Tap and Tenacious D, are not themselves having a laugh in the process. Add to the fact that the lead singer does a great impersonation of Jack Black on stage, and they didn’t appear to be taking themselves seriously the entire time they were on stage, and I have to conclude that they may not be as serious about the music as some other bands. I will say that the show was fun, but for totally different reasons as King Thief. The Withes Hat show had a lot more laugh out loud moments than I was expecting. My favorite moment was when the lead singer, while singing through a bull horn, ran off stage and started singing to the people out on the Mojo’s deck outside the venue. That is just genius.

I am currently working on fixing the shows and will post set lists and links to download the shows as I get them done.

06/03/2006 Cary Hudson at Mojo's

I have posted this classic show on my site for download. This was a great set of music from Cary Hudson. It had a nice mix of new songs, classic Blue Mountain songs, covers, and great Cary Hudson solo material. This set includes two songs I had not heard before, the cover of Freight Train that Cary had done for a tribute album, as well as Just stuff which was a song he wrote in response to hurricane Katrina's devistation of Mississippi. The great thing about seeing Cary solo is that his guitar work is just amazing. He makes the rocking songs like Bloody 98 and 900 miles sound as full and vibrant as when he plays with a full band. Further, I really think that his improvisations solo bring the songs to life.

Set List:
1) Cool Breeze
2) Free State Of Jones
3) Freight Train (Elizabeth Cotton)
4) Things Ain't What They Used To Be
5) What The Old Man Told Me
6) Pray For Peace
7) Poppa
8) Epitaph
9) Bloody 98
10) Little Darlin'
11) Jelly Roll
12) ZZQ
13) Snow In Mississippi
14) Blue Canoe
15) Just Stuff
16) Passin By
17) Rye Whiskey
18) 900 Miles
19) Banks of The Pontchartrain
20) Oh La La (Ronnie Lane)