Saturday, January 21, 2017

Rubblebucket Packs Paradise

We saw Rubblebucket in the Paradise Rock Club back in 2011 and that was pretty intense to put it mildly.  In the meantime they've been through a lot of life and success, and we've been lucky enough to see them a bunch.  But they announced they were coming back to the Paradise on Friday, 1/20 and ... though we knew it would be a late night again ... we just had to go see them in a small club.

It was s surprisingly quick drive into Brighton, but as soon as I got off Soldiers Field Road I was in the midst of a madhouse of traffic and pedestrians.  BU was in full swing, including hosting a hockey game (vs. Maine), but I was able to crawl up Comm Ave slowly and miraculously got a parking space right in front of the Paradise.

Met Sarah and Dave (who had Green Lined it up from work) at the Sunset Cantina and had a nice dinner and a few beers.  Lucky to get a table in the way back, probably as quiet a table as you could get in that packed and noisy restaurant.  Took our time eating and eventually wandered over to the Paradise at 7:30 or so, where we were about 20th in line.

They opened the doors right at 8 and let us in slowly after thorough searches.  We went right upstairs and got great standing places immediately to the right of the soundboard.  The place was sold out of course, and it was amazing to see the number of (very excited) people they shoehorned in there.  By the time the show started the entire first floor was packed so tightly that we wondered if anyone down there could breath, let alone be able to jump and dance.  Kalmia had been manning the merch table early on, and Alex took a tour upstairs (Sarah smiled at him), probably scoping it out to see if it would be appropriate for their end-of-show parade.

They finally had most of the people in the club and Joe Evian came out for the first set.  Joe was set up behind a massive control panel of mixers, switches, and who knows what else with a tiny keyboard, and had his blonde Strat.  His other guitar player had an identical Strat (also identical black leather shoes) and the bassist had a violin-bodied instrument that sounded great but was at first too loud in the mix.  They also had a drummer with a relatively small kit.

It was a very entertaining set.  Basically blues rock but with a concentration on sounding indie/unique and never too far from psychedelic meltdown.  Joe ripped off a few really good leads and the band was nice and tight.  But it was a short set and soon they had the stage set up for the main attraction.

The guys came out and lined up and we suddenly had cause to wonder about the definition of a band.  Because the only two remaining players from the first time we saw them were Kalmia and Alex!  They're the key ones I guess, to any definition of what Rubblebucket is, but we were shocked and disappointed that Adam Dotson and Ian Hersey were apparently no longer with them.  But the trombone player who replaced Dotson was (I hate to say it) probably an upgrade.  His tone and power were fantastic and his dance moves were every bit as good.  The woman guitarist (Maddie Rice) who replaced Hersey was not as good as him (who could be?) but held her own.

And another definition of Rubblebucket is diversity.  The new trombonist is black, the current drummer is Japanese (I think), and to see a young "girl" with long hair playing the lead blues guitar was great (though a pillar blocked her from my view 90% of the time ... that's what happens when you're upstairs in the Paradise).  And diversity was so important on that day.  January 20th 2017 was Inauguration Day and we should have been celebrating the first woman president of the United States.  Instead we were besieged by the institutionalization of hate.  It was very good to go out to see such a progressive band that night, it was good to hear Kalmia tell us how important it was to listen to each other and know that she was struggling along with us, and it was fantastic the next day to have millions of people march all over the world to protest what was happening in American government.

That day, Rubblebucket had released a new EP ("If U C My Enemies"), and they featured all four songs from it, which are excellent.  And wrapped around them was a setlist of your dreams, including some of the best tracks from their first records, including Shake Me Around, Silly Fathers, Pain From Love, Carousel Ride, etc.  As mentioned, the people on the floor were squished together like you wouldn't believe, but they still managed to jump and groove, though the only way they could do it was if everyone jumped on the same frequency.

Kalmia, in a sparkling leotard and psychedelic blouse, was rolling on the stage, bouncing around, tooting her sax with abandon (some of the new songs have excellent baritone sax textures), and singing like an angel.  One of the last songs of the set was Came Out Of a Lady ("for all the Moms"), which quickly degenerated into a Rubblebucket love fest.  They showered the crowd with confetti, both Alex and Kalmia crowd-surfed (Kalmia singing the chorus while she did so), and they tried a bit of a parade up the steps to the balcony, though this was soon aborted when the crowd was just too thick.

Incredible talent, incredible songs, and a great show!  I have to say again that Kalmia was singing better than I've ever heard her.  There was a short break before everyone came back out for a long encore, including a brilliant Triangular Daisies and finally a successful parade through the crowd, ending with a tribal circle-groove with the entire band in front of the merch table.  That was a lot of fun!

Waited a bit and then were able to push out onto the sidewalk and it was earlier than we expected, just 12:15 or so.  The car was right in front and after dancing through a bevy of Ubers we got out of there and had a quick drive home.

Wednesday, January 11, 2017

Lee, Steve, and Meg at The Armory

Scott got several of us motivated to go hear Lee Ranaldo and Steve Gunn at the Armory in Somerville on Tuesday night, 1/10.  I'd never seen either play, though of course I'd heard of Ranaldo.  Besides being 3 days younger than me, he's always been known as one of the best guitarists around.

And we'd never been to the Armory, though we'd been tempted by other events in their Arts At the Armory series over the past few years.  They were playing that night with Meg Baird opening, and we waffled a bit, but then got tickets.  Why not, this should be great!

And it was great.  I was delayed at work (ho hum, we got acquired by D&B), but finally hit the road and amazingly got to deepest darkest Somerville in time to meet Sarah at Highland Kitchen and have a quick dinner before the show.  It was one of those suddenly warm, rainy, and sloppy early Winter nights in the Boston area where the snow turns to slush and everything is damp or just plain wet.

We made it the few blocks up to the Armory (where I'd parked), and our friends were just then arriving after their walk from Davis!  Hilarity ensued, we got beers and nice seats in the middle, though Meg had already started her set.  Only heard a few songs from Meg, but she was wonderful when I got the chance to sit down and listen to her.  A classical voice, songs featuring subtle intonations, and a lovely sounding guitar (no electric guitars from any of the three last night).

The Armory impressed me right away.  It's a surprisingly big space (with two bars) and could easily seat a lot more people than the two hundred or so who crammed into their shitty plastic chairs that night, especially if they opened the balcony area.  They also could fit three or four youth basketball games if they tried.  If you took away the curtained-off green rooms, it's a very large rectangle a few city houses wide and deep, and is just as high, way up to a complicated ceiling with exposed insulation and ventilation.  The sound in there was fantastic and all three performers rocked it.

Ranaldo was in the back thumbing his phone during Baird's set and came on soon thereafter with a rack of four very similar guitars (one of which was obviously his favorite but had an E-string that went out of tune regularly).  His style involves playing on the drama of the sound he's making and he started off well by shaking a few chimes and getting some droning sounds melding around.  But then his main guitar switch fucked up on him and he had to crawl on all fours to get it right.  Hey, maybe that was part of the drama!?!

But anyway, he rebounded soon, cranked up the volume, and blew our minds.  His technique was fascinating, including playing bar chords with his thumb.  I loved his voice and many of his originals (he's recently put out a new record and concentrated on that) featured neat word puzzles and twists.  But the sonic tapestry he wove was the best part of his set, sometimes getting alarmingly close to runaway feedback or guitar angst, but always veering back into his control.

The funniest thing about the night was the crowd in the Armory.  It was like an early Joan Baez concert in there or something.  Everyone was as quiet as a church mouse during the songs, and there was a loud but short round of polite applause after every number.  When you whispered during a song you were invariably met with "hushes" from the surrounding rows (though most people were on both ends of this).  I let out a "woohoo" after a particularly good song and several others showed some psych too, but it was mostly a coffee-house kind of crowd.

Lee was fantastic and then Steve Gunn came on, another excellent solo guitarist.  As Tristan said after a few songs, it would have helped to have been high for his set.  Not that he was bad at all ... he was excellent.  But his pace was at times a little slow for later in the evening, and you had to stay with his songs for them to develop.  The careful listener was rewarded though and you soon found your consciousness going up and down with his baroque stylings.  Great stuff!

Well, that was it.  No encores for any of the three and little stage chatter.  This was the start of their "tour" and I think it likely the three of them will vary the format of their set as they go along.

Gave our three friends a ride back to Alewife so they didn't have to navigate the sloppy slush and rain, and still made it back home in plenty of time for bed.