Arriving in Santa Cruz early, we stopped in at a coffee shop to get drinks and change for the meter. Why can’t a quarter get you a half hour of meter time everywhere? Then, with time to kill, we wound our way through a thrift store and then on to Logos books before showtime rolled around.
The 418 Project proved to be a large, brick walled dance studio space behind a smallish Asian restaurant. The promoters of the gig promised that a tree would be planted for each ticket purchased. Cool! The start time had been pushed back by half an hour, but before too long music happened.
Tether Horse started things off with some pleasant folky americana featuring guitar,bass, drums, tambourine, and occasional violin and mandolin. The vocalist had one instrument that looked like somebody had mashed a banjo into the body of a guitar (would that be a guanjo or a batar?). I liked the dual male/female vocals and the crisp, crunchy electric guitar.
Helado Negro proved to be entirely different, consisting of drums and two small tables full of electronic equipment – effects boxes, loop generators, and the like. Musically, they seemed like a cross between electronica and reggae. They had a relaxing “don’t worry, be happy – everything is mellow” sort of vibe. Not my cup of tea at all. Both knob twiddlers sang, and the drummer’s beats sometimes seemed lost beneath the electronic ones. My lower back started hurting from standing still, so as the set ended, Jeanine and I sank to the wooden floor.
Based on overheard conversations and a proliferation of shirts and patches, I noticed that a lot of people seemed to be at the gig to see Blackbird Raum. As we continued sitting, the majority of the crowd, who had all been hanging toward the back of the space for the first two bands, pushed in around us, crowding the area in front of the “stage” (in quotes because there actually wasn’t a stage – just an area bordered by monitors and other equipment). Between people’s mostly black clad legs, we watched the band set up. A wash basin bass appeared. So did a crusty looking guy with an accordion, a banjo player, and a diminutive woman with a mandolin. A tall guy in a Bad Brains shirt hung a washboard over his shoulders. Based on this alone, I knew this was going to be a good set. We stood up in anticipation. When the band was finally ready, the banjo player launched into a slow Clive Palmer-esque riff for a few beats before the band erupted into a whiplash frenzy of folk punk, sounding like deranged gypsy squatters busking desperately in a storm. The audience similarly erupted, and all of a sudden I felt like we were standing at the edge of a metal pit at Ruthie’s Inn, circa 1985, back before the whole crossover thing happened and metalheads started thrashing around in neat little counterclockwise circles like the punks do. All band members seemed to sing, belting out lyrics in rough-edged voices, although the two most prominent voices seemed to belong to the mandolin and accordion players. The washboard seemed to provide most of the forward momentum, with the wash basin bass booming along underneath. In the chaos, it was sometimes hard to hear all of the instruments properly, and the band itself was lost beyond the crazed audience. I found myself wishing that there was a better sound mix, since I had to strain to hear all of the instruments over the multiple vocalists. Blissful crowd surfers floated above the morass for a time, and at one point, the upright piano near us was rolled forward and pushed into the pit for a few moments before somebody rescued it and wheeled it back to its starting point. As the set continued, the venue started smelling like sweaty hippie and the temperature ratcheted up 20 degrees. Towards the end of the set, it was announced that this was the washboard player’s last gig with the band, and that there was now a Kickstarter page set up to help fund their upcoming European tour. After the set ended, I went and bought a CD from their bass player. I’m definitely a convert.
It seems like it has been a few years since O’death were last in the Bay Area. The last time I saw them was at the Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco, and this gig was the first time they’d ever played in Santa Cruz. I was hoping that their sound wouldn’t be as muddied as Blackbird Raum’s was, and I was not disappointed. O’death has always impressed me with their frenetic approach to folk music, and tonight was no exception. Fiddler Bob Pycior and drummer David Rogers-Berry formed a frantic, skittery backbone for the rest of the band – guitarist/vocalist Greg Jamie, banjo/ukelele player Gabe Darling, and bassist Jesse Newman. The songs have finely crafted melodies, even when barreling along at 100mph, and the band was obviously having a good time, despite the fact that the audience seemed to have thinned out a bit after the conclusion of Blackbird Raum’s set. They played songs from all three of their releases, including Down to Rest and Adelita from “Head Home”, Low Tide, Fire on Peshtigo, and Mountain Shifts from “Broken Hymns, Limbs, and Skin”, and some songs from their new CD, “Outside” (which is scheduled for release next month, but was available at the show). The people who stuck around for their set were bouncing around and having a fine old time. The new songs are excellent, despite being slightly more restrained and polished sounding that the older material. This is a band that just keeps getting better.
There was once encore, during which Pycior, with fiddle blazing, ran into the surging crowd like a lunatic.
O’death is playing tonight at The Independent in San Francisco. Go see them!
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