Jason Lytle at Al's Den, Portland, OR 5/4/12

Nada Surf at Wonder Ballroom, Portland, OR 3/23/12

Trapping Foxes

Fleet Foxes/Blitzen Trapper
Crystal Ballroom
April 12

"The sun it rises..." goes an ethereal harmony from Fleet Foxes, and it couldn't have been more apt on this Easter Sunday. With heavenly voices and often forceful purpose, the Seattle longhairs faithfully recreated nearly all of their breakthrough, self-titled debut, along with music from their first EP. And while this concert fell just short of the religious experience it might have been, there was still plenty of spiritual uplift and exquisite folk-rock songwriting to marvel at.



For an act so road-tested and showered with international accolades (the esteemed Pitchfork's 2008 album of the year was theirs, and the tastemaking British, they love'em), Fleet Foxes are an almost frustratingly modest crew. Arrogance is never advisable, but a bit more confidence and showmanship, especially between songs, should be almost second-nature after over a year of touring the world and playing such high-profile gigs as "Saturday Night Live." Bandleader/top Fox Robin Pecknold sang and strummed to potent effect, and his four bandmates are well rehearsed, but the prolonged silences between songs as they geared up to play their next piece constantly killed momentum and left Pecknold, and by extension, the audience, feeling a bit awkward, like a couple on a first date that are struggling for a conversation item. This situation did find Pecknold openly mentioning at one point how vulnerable he felt, which was admirable in its candor, but thanking your opening band at two different points during the show and begging the audience for its patience with new songs is not expected or warranted behavior from an outfit that has the world fawning at them right now.

Gaps between songs aside, the quintet otherwise delivered a lush, frequently magical 75 minutes of music, churning out and harmonizing on the operatic "He Doesn't Know Why," their solemn, eccentric single "White Winter Hymnal," three promising new tunes, and several other numbers using such gravitas-instilling Biblical language as "my brother" and "your protector." Meanwhile, the climactic reading of "Mykonos" had an epic scope, and its skyward incantations were genuinely powerful. On this, the holiest of Christian holidays, Stumptown's indie rock disciples had their own sort of Easter service - a late-night revival administered by guys that looked suspiciously like JC himself but better yet, sang like angels.

Opening up the evening were the Portland's current favorite sons Blitzen Trapper, who, with a winning, well-paced set, nearly gave the Seattle headliners a run for their money. Here's a gang of individually unremarkable dudes that fast exceed the sum of their parts as soon as they play together. With three sets of keyboards onstage, inventive percussion instruments (water-bird whistle, anyone?) and an overall layered sound, the group dished out a sharp, infectious batch of post-hippie rock that was organic, surprising and at times in line with such power-pop outfits as Squeeze and The Knack, if those acts wore flannel and sprang from the Pacific Northwest. Armed with rockers, ballads and singalong choruses rooted in folk, blues and jammy psychedelia, Blitzen Trapper nonetheless kept the songs compact and the instrumentation neat. The Foxes still beat the Trapper on this night, but it was a close one.

Archive CD Review, 2002 - Guided by Voices, "Universal Truths and Cycles"

Guided by Voices
Universal Truths
and Cycles
Matador

It's a fact of life – you have to overcome emotional barriers before you can move on. On Guided by Voices' last album, Isolation Drills, bandleader/indie rock poet laureate Bob Pollard, fresh from a failed marriage, relayed his inner turmoil with some of his most revealing and tender songs to date. Now that he's got that off his beer-soaked chest, it's time for this Dayton, Ohio-hailing troupe to return to what they do best: be America's top purveyors of immediate, completely alive rock 'n' roll.

Enter Universal Truths and Cycles, which handily reconciles GBV's lo-fi garage roots with the high-gloss approach they've adopted in recent years. There's the swaggering, noisy "Skin Parade," brief acoustic fugues ("Zap," "The Weeping Bogeyman"), and urgently melodic gems spiked with Pollard's famously obtuse wordplay ("Christian Animation Torch Carriers"). It's hard to pick out a clunker anywhere on this disc; "Cheyenne" annoys at first with Pollard's maudlin falsetto, but then it somehow grows on you.

Similarly, given the consistent quality of these 19 tracks, it's tough to single out highlights, but I submit the anthemic, staccato-riffing "Back to the Lake," the cascading "Storm Vibrations," the scrappy "Everywhere With Helicopter" and "Eureka Signs," a revved-up chunk of resplendence and grit.

For all their singularity, GBV isn't immune to betraying their influences. The folky "Factory of Raw Essentials" sounds like Pollard channeling Gordon Lightfoot, and "Wings of Thorn," with its percussive guitar strumming, could be sandwiched into every future pressing of the Who's Tommy and no one would notice. Nevertheless, as Cycles thrashes and jangles to a close, all that is great about this thing called rock seems gloriously distilled. Grade: A

E-Rock Archives: A Chat with Luke Steele of The Sleepy Jackson, circa 2006

Waking up with Luke Steele, the musical mastermind of The Sleepy Jackson

It’s 7 a.m. on a Monday morning, so what better time to be talking to a guy who works under the moniker the Sleepy Jackson. Aussie rock visionary Luke Steele is wide awake, but then again he’s in a different time zone — New York City, where he’s enjoying a view of the Big Apple skyline while promoting his ambitious new effort "Personality – One Was a Spider, One Was a Bird."

As the album’s title suggests, Steele’s psyche is no stranger to conflict, and neither is his band. The Sleepy Jackson’s history is a troubled one, blighted by alcohol, drugs, and more fired musicians than Guns N’ Roses. But a new dawn is breaking for Steele and company, a real sense of starting over. With its wall-of-sound production, confessional lyrics and kaleidoscopic pop beauty, "Personality" is a bold statement, and to hear Steele tell it, he and his mates are on a mission. “We’re ready to rock,” he says without a trace of irony. “It’s really stepped up to a right sharp level now, it’s quite serious. It’s really make or break time for the band.”

The lush "Personality," which betrays Steele’s love of ’70s vinyl classics such as Carole King’s "Tapestry" and ELO’s "Time," is the successor to the Sleepy Jackson’s 2003 debut "Lovers", an acclaimed, genre-defying fantasia that impressed even the most jaded critics and music fans. And while the disc was a rush for the listener, Steele and his players found their own thrills on tour, where indulgences are unavoidable. “It’s a war,” he admits. “You’re up against a lot of big guns, like lust and temptation.”

Those crazy nights on the road are the polar opposite of Steele’s isolated hometown of Perth, Australia, which provided the ideal back-to-business environment for recording his latest song suite. “It’s quite calm at night, there are no cars on the road,” he says. “Perth can make you feel like a professor. You can feel like what you’re doing is real significant and definitive and special.”

If Perth sounds like a place frozen in time, that would seem to suit Steele just fine. Like many an artist, he was probably born in the wrong era. In fact, his father, a policeman, introduced him to music at an impossibly young age. “Apparently I was conceived a Tom Petty show,” Steele laughs.