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Rainer Maria, Engine Down, The Album Leaf, These Arms Are Snakes, Matson Jones, Atlas, Kill Fix
December 31, 2004
by Joe Younglove
For New Year’s 2005, I drove to Denver to see a show at the Adam’s Mark Hotel. What sold me on it was that Pinback was scheduled to play. Their newest album, Summer in Abaddon, is absolutely marvelous. It floats into your ears like a blue breeze entering your room. So what do you know? Pinback isn’t on the lineup list when I enter the Grand Ballroom for the show. I began watching one of seven bands I knew next to nothing about, save for The Album Leaf, which has been played lovingly on Lincoln’s college radio station. However, The Album Leaf is so ambient and wordless that hearing their songs live would undoubtedly be unfamiliar.
Kill Fix had already started their set when I walked in. I decided to sit cross-legged in the middle of the gigantic room, near a scant amount of others. Kill Fix was two guys playing guitars and singing with atmospheric synth. It seemed as if they played the same song over and over, but it was relaxing and out of the ordinary. I think they must be new because they would sing off-key periodically, and there were no elements of surprise. They were generous enough to hand out CDs to everyone after the show, but they screwed up the track listing in the liner notes, and I could only get through one song without skipping to the next track.
With two stages setup, the wait between bands was virtually eliminated, save for bands that wanted people to get drunker for their set. The second act was Atlas, who started out with promise, but drifted into boredom because of their lack of originality. It was like “we’re playing this part, then this, now this, and then this.” It was loud and the singer screamed a lot, but they lacked emotion. Plus, the bassist reminded me of one of those toys where you press the bottom and it collapses the rubber strings inside of some sort of figurine, like a horse or a dog. Three of the four members had the floppy-straight-black-hair-slightly-covering-the-eyes look. The most fascinating band of the evening, Matson Jones, played next.
Hailing from Fort Collins, the group featured two female cellists who traded off vocals, an upright male bassist, and a male drummer. The cello work consisted mostly of eighth and sixteenth notes, making for the most energetic and brisk music I’ve heard from a string-dominant band. The smaller cellist sang through an attachment to her microphone that distorted her voice into an intercom sound. Her companion cellist sang angelically, sans intercom device. The only other band I can think of for comparison is Rasputina, because they have multiple females and cellos. Like Rasputina, Matson Jones projected a historic style. The intercom cellist had a massive bouffant hairdo reminiscent of the 1950s, and their CD cover features a handbag from the same era. Their music is quite explosive live, thanks in large part to the drummer, whose unrelenting energy enhanced the racing cello work.
The next band was These Arms Are Snakes, a Jade Tree Records group featuring ex-members of Botch and Kill Sadie. The only detriment to their set was the phlegm-emitting vocalist, who wasn’t a very good singer and was constantly spitting throaty goo. The guitarist was innovative. At one point he played along with two guitar lines he looped during a song, making it sound as if there was three of him playing simultaneously. The singer seemed quite enamored with the Jumbotron screen showing various angles of the band’s performance. The screen gave each band a chance to feel like U2 for an hour. These Arms Are Snakes were definitely original, and although they recently toured with Isis, the two bands have little in common. Isis’ music is more expansive and less sexy.
The Album Leaf settled things down with some beautiful keyboard/electronic violin-driven ambience and/or ambiance. The music was accompanied by a giant stage backdrop projection featuring lightning, red rain, an airplane in flight played in reverse, telephone line diagrams, and an internal ear diagram. Jimmy Lavalle, The Album Leaf mastermind who used to be in Tristeza, was drinking a beer (Amstel Light) even though a guy in the corner told him not to. Maybe some bands have stipulations in their contracts that prevent them from playing sloppy drunk shows. Of course, some bands have stipulations requiring them to be sloppy drunk, i.e. The Reverend Horton Heat or Nashville Pussy. The Album Leaf’s music is evergreen and cleansing. Although largely electronic, it feels warm like The Flaming Lips. At one point I nearly fell asleep.
The sixth band was Engine Down, whose members drove 14 hours to Denver because they missed their flight. Unfortunately, they cut their set one song short due to a lack of technical cooperation from the Adam’s Mark stage crew. Engine Down started well, playing some tight melodic rock with heartfelt vocal phrasing. But then the vocals started to cut in and out, and the singer eventually knocked his mic stand over and used the bassist’s mic. A crew guy replaced the supposedly faulty mic cord, but alas, the vocals still sounded like shit, and Engine Down probably wished they stayed home.
Rainer Maria (pronounced Rye-ner) closed the evening on a much more positive note. The three-piece are something of college rock legend. Knowing how long they’ve been around (almost 10 years) I was surprised at how energetic and overjoyed they looked on stage. I’ve seen new bands that don’t come close to the animated gestures of Rainer Maria. The guitarist leaped from an amp to the ground, providing an excellent photo opportunity for a fan in a hat. The vocalist and bassist, Caithlin De Marrais, let forth a voice equating logically with her physical beauty. She had small hands with bright red fingernails, and I wondered how she pulled off all those basslines. She had short red hair and did quite a few dance moves where she would jump and twist with this scissor-kick move. I tried to buy a CD after the show, but the merch table was vacant. I picked up their second album, Look Now Look Again, at Homer’s. I think the band has taken leaps, and arguably bounds, beyond their pre-21st century work. At the show they played songs from their forthcoming album, which should sprinkle homemade glitter on your heart and soul.
The snack tables at the show were unsatisfying, with the only warm selection being jalapeño poppers, later replaced with chicken drummies. However, there was a basket filled with what appeared to be chopsticks, but were actually a crunchy bread product, akin to those sesame seed-laden sticks you often get with soups and salads.
It was a very awkward process attending a concert at an upscale hotel. I bought my ticket for $38 at an adjacent Adam’s Mark wing across the street, from a girl with an unknown accent at a skirted table. She had me sign this little agreement (I, Joe Younglove, am going to this show…) and then put my ticket in an envelope. I then removed the ticket from the envelope and walked back to the building housing the ballroom. There was a little strip of the ballroom velvet-roped off for 21 and older people to drink. It was an absolutely enormous room with a little cluster of drunks.
The event’s title, “Bring Down the House 2005,” was ironic in that audience was virtually motionless for every act. I felt odd traveling seven hours to watch seven bands I hadn’t seen before, but as we all know, the last New Year’s must always be outdone. I got tired of watching that damn ball drop when I was like 15.