So I'm going through a major life change that will impact Volume Knob very slightly, and that is I'm moving from Olympia, WA to Buffalo, NY this week. This means our "base of operations," mailing address and such things will change. As soon as I get a new mail box address, you'll see it on the side bar.
This also means that we will sadly no longer be on three different oceans (tear!) but um... hey, how 'bout that Niagara Falls? Also, I might be a bit sketchy in posting as all my worldly belongings are going to have to fit into a single suitcase as I uproot from the home of K records to the Church of Ani land of Righteous Babe records.
Just got back from vacation, but while in Washington I saw an actual treehouse on the Evergreen campus. Just marvel at its awesomeness while you listen to these songs:
In honor of Jess' first-ever visit to the left west coast, I offer up some of the choices tracks about the jewel of the pacific. Sadly, some much-needed key songs about Seattle are missing (by Anti-Flag or Jeffrey Lewis, for example), so if any of you have these, feel free to share the love. Songs about Seattle (and her neighbors):
via Jess, a little Sunday-night bubblegum for the brain...
This video is entertaining for several reasons: 1. A short spoken/sung piece on K recs (shout out to Olympia and The Evergreen State College!) 2. It's Jeffrey Lewis - most of his songs are weird, silly mostly spoken-word pieces. 3. He's performing in front of Noyes! My dorm and home for three years at Vassar. Yes, it really is that ugly (ugly and awesome and I wouldn't have wanted to live anywhere else):
I was in NY with Jess the past two weeks, spending most of the time complaining about how great bands--or, really, all bands--always pass Olympia up. The day I get back home I hear from my catsitter that Bright Eyes is performing that night here in Oly. What? Really??
I'll spare you the gruesome details of trying to get tickets. I got in the door just before 8, sporting my I Hate Children frock and already scowling when I realized this was an all-ages show. "All Ages" meaning, of course, "15-20."
I maneuvered my way up front, surrounded on all sides by squeaky high school girls. It was virtually a total clambake* up there. Kimya Dawson was up first. The K-recs star and Oly native twittered through several songs about farts and drinking, and mentioned hanging out at the Co-Op several times. (Sorry, I'm just not a Kimya fan.)
She was followed by the unimpressive Nik Freitas. The crowd was politely quiet, perhaps too much so. Between songs, I was thinking I'd been to livlier funerals. Things didn't pick up much until Bright Eyes joined Nik for a final song which woke the crowd up.
Sometime after 9:30 Bright Eyes came on, and the mass of people crowded tightly rushed the stage, creating an uncomfortable sardine/mosh pit situation. There were guys with cameras begging the people up front to get closer ("I'll, like, put my soul in a little jar for you!") and other guys without cameras simply begging, met with rude replies ("No way man, I waited in line for 7 hours, there's no way you're getting up here!")
Conor was noticibly beginning to pause between songs to listen to all this. He finally broke tension with "Hey you guys, be nice to each other. You're giving me flashbacks of high school." And, later: "You know, it's not like at home. We can hear everything you guys are saying up here."
The crowd pathetically panned the indie superstar regardless, with multiple thanks for coming to Oly, and other desperate Oly shoutouts: "How do you like it here on Olympia, Conor?" "Hey Conor, are you drinking Olympia beer?"
Wow, people. Just wow. See, this is where I should be talking about the music and how awesome the setlist was, and how hard they rocked, but really, It was one of the best shows I'd seen simultaneously occurring on one of the worst settings I'd been to. The crowd was almost too distracting to really enjoy the show, which was a tragedy.
At one point the crowd wave had thrown me so far forward I found myself almost flopped up on stage. I was grabbing onto something for support, realizing a moment later it was Conor's cowboy-boot-clad foot. Whoops. As Jess said, "between that and Andrew Bird's socks, we're pretty much covered the indie foot fetish market."
Perhaps now I know why artists don't come here more often: we're so excited we wet ourselves and then throw ourselves at the feet of whomever we're seeing en masse. Imagine a large, urine-soaked throng of girls who all resemble that one girl on American Idol who was crying for Sanjaya. Yeeeeech.
In addition, it was obvious Conor was suffering a pretty bad cold. Throughout the set, he alternated swigs of Tecate (always a wise choice when you're ill), honey, and that throat spray stuff. Now, I've never seen Bright Eyes before, so perhaps he's just a particularly phlegm-y singer, but one or two people actually told him he'd spit into their mouths. Probably an exaggeration, but I'd safely venture that most in the first row or two in front on him were covered with a thin slime by the end of the night (self included).
Again, yeeech. What that supposed to be a brag? Seriously, fellow Olympians, you're making the rest of us look bad here. And don't even get me started on the girls who were hitting on the slide guitarist the entire time.
Horrifically distracting crowd aside, the show rocked too much for one hand. The untitled new song they cranked out at the end had everyone worth their rocksalt headbanging and jumping like it was Nirvana. I guess, in our own way, it really was a kind of Nirvana. The last song, especially.
Today I spent my lunch touring the innards of my favorite local label, K Recs here in Olympia, WA. Yep, that's it above--finding a home in an old Synagogue. Established by artist Calvin Johnson in 1982 (almost as old as I am!), K recs is one of the many indie labels to call the GPNW home.
I've never visited a label before, but I thought, what the hell--they're right here in town, and I love 'em. And, I can talk to someone who will know for SURE when the new Mirah album is coming out.
IT was pretty interesting to someone who's not in the biz (although, it looks tremendously similar to where Lizzie works). I saw the shelves full of stock and went downstairs to the recording studio "where the magic happens." Sadly, Calvin was out for the day. Yesterday, Karl Blau was in the house recording some material. (Shhhhh!)
Anyway, I was happy to chat up the staff and nab a vinyl copy of Mirah's Joyride:Remixes album. But why keep it all to myself? Here's some tracks from my favorite K Recs artists:
If you'll allow a bit of self-indulgence here, I'm feeling frisky because it's finally June, my namesake month. The weather clears, the summer starts, my birthday is coming up soon. Here are some songs I love simply for some gratuitous June namedropping:
Bright Eyes - June on the West Coast ...on the outskirts of Olympia, where the forest and the water become one..." It's true! I am June, and I am on the west coast, and the forests and the water here in Oly really do become one:
Pedro the Lion - June 18, 1976 I was not born on this date, but how cool would it be if I was? This is David Bazan's piece about a girl born on the date of Gerald Ford's cabinet meeting announcing the evacuation of Americans from Lebanon. So maybe it's not a party song, but it's a great tune nonetheless. Buy it on the Progress EP.
Sufjan Stevens - Jupiter Bad June It's probably redundant to mention I creamed myself five times over the first time I heard The Soof croon out my name in a languishing, baroque-esque way. The Osso String quartet is highlighted here, with a gorgeous string arrangement carrying us out. This is a live song debuted at the MusicNow Festival in Cincinnati earlier this spring.
Polyesthereogen - June June June June This songs was actually written for and about me! The a capella intro slows down after the first verse for some synthesized 3/4 time with lovely harmonization.
