Tortoise - @ Neumos - Seattle - 6.26.07
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Artist:
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Track:Stretch (You Are All Right)
I made it down to seattle for the "Tortoise":http://www.trts.com/site.html show this past tuesday. Definitely worth the trek. I have listened Tortoise for a while now but never seen them live. The heavily percussive element of their music was brought to full force in a live setting. Especially notable for me were the dual drumsets. The drummers (Dan Bitney, John McEntire, & John Herndon) who changed throughout the night, sat facing one another and clearly fed off each other. As musicians they are fairly versatile, swapping instruments multiple times, from keys, to vibes, drums and bass.I can't recall a complete set list, but they ended with glass museum off of millions... and Seneca off of standards, which brought an enthusiastic response from the crowd.Highly recommended.Sorry I don't have my own photo, this one is from the same tour in LA by Akmal Naim from "Pitchfork":http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/page/news/43805-photos-tortoise-los-angeles-ca-062107 
As an aside, the original opening band, Georgia Anne Muldrow and Dudley Perkins, canceled so instead we were treated to the "Yellow Swans":http://www.jyrk.com/yellowswans/who I think could not have been more different. YS are two guys (Pete Swanson and Gabriel Mindel Saloman), who laid out on a table in front of two massive speakers an extensive amount of mostly analog gear: an old spring reverb, analog tape delay, various stomp boxes, a step sequencer, mixers, etc, with an insane amount of cords snaking to and fro. I was initially very intrigued as I am interested in anything audio/noise making related so I planted myself front and center. One guy plugged his guitar in and the other held a mic in one hand and some other apparatus in the other. It started out with slow rising wall of ambient noise and guitar plucks. For the first three to four minutes I was quite enjoying it. Not really a song, more a sound collage. Unfortunately enjoyment soon began to fade rapidly as the volume continued to increase, and increase, and increase, until it was actually physically painful for me to be standing right in front of them. I mean I felt like I wanted to jump out of my skin. The guy standing next to me later said it felt like he had been aurally raped.Needless to say, I made my exit to the hall way and watched as every single person coming out the door after me had their hands to their ears. Maybe on CD, where I have control of the volume I would find that interesting, but live, I value my hearing too much.
As an aside, the original opening band, Georgia Anne Muldrow and Dudley Perkins, canceled so instead we were treated to the "Yellow Swans":http://www.jyrk.com/yellowswans/who I think could not have been more different. YS are two guys (Pete Swanson and Gabriel Mindel Saloman), who laid out on a table in front of two massive speakers an extensive amount of mostly analog gear: an old spring reverb, analog tape delay, various stomp boxes, a step sequencer, mixers, etc, with an insane amount of cords snaking to and fro. I was initially very intrigued as I am interested in anything audio/noise making related so I planted myself front and center. One guy plugged his guitar in and the other held a mic in one hand and some other apparatus in the other. It started out with slow rising wall of ambient noise and guitar plucks. For the first three to four minutes I was quite enjoying it. Not really a song, more a sound collage. Unfortunately enjoyment soon began to fade rapidly as the volume continued to increase, and increase, and increase, until it was actually physically painful for me to be standing right in front of them. I mean I felt like I wanted to jump out of my skin. The guy standing next to me later said it felt like he had been aurally raped.Needless to say, I made my exit to the hall way and watched as every single person coming out the door after me had their hands to their ears. Maybe on CD, where I have control of the volume I would find that interesting, but live, I value my hearing too much.
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