The Internet: Bringing Musicians TogetherThe Internet: Bringing Musicians Together
So I checked out the RELOAD event at the DNA Lounge in San Francisco last week. You may recall from a prior post that this show--a concert streamed real-time over the Internet on both Second Life and the venue's site--was borne of a podcasters' meeting, of all places. The acts made for a most diverse show. Refreshing, since San Fran (readers, correct me if I'm wrong) seems to be awfully segregated by genre and/or friends. That's too bad--the best shows are when you have, say, a punk band followed by an acoustic piano act followed by an indie rock group followed by some weird purveyor of electronica. And everyone makes friends.
The RELOAD show included couple of DJs, one soloist, and two bands who couldn't have been more different unless one of them had aggressive guitars (the latter of which I'm still trying to find amongst local musicians around here, BTW).
As I was busy interviewing people and missed much of the DJs' sets, I'll focus on the evening's two ensembles.
The headliners of the evening was Halou, whose members hail from both San Fran and Santa Cruz. With that pedigree, I thought these guys would be too hippie to bear, but instead they were a live electronic act that rocked more than they, er, rolled (!). There was kind of an alt-grrl quality to Halou, fronted by a singer who succeeded in what I suspect Bjork tries to be--with vocals that are pretty, compelling, and only appropriately disburbing. "Albatross," the lead track on the group's brand-new five-song iTunes-exclusive EP, was both uplifting and sobering--evoking the creature of the title, a strong-flying bird that nevertheless is a metaphor for a burden. Impressively, all Halou's members were multi-instrumentalists, as adept at switching weapons as they were at mixing hi-tech with analog goodness. The "thump-thump" of some songs came from a bonafide upright bass, not beat machine. The music ranged from dreamy electronica to a hybrid of "grunge" with guitars that reminded me of the Pumpkins, but whose deliberate sense of recalcitrance kept it classy, not crazed.
On the other hand, Black Fiction (photo above) took their hippie heritage to a whole new level. Now, I've gone full-circle in my musical tastes, and used to love anything that smacked of California in 1967, but through the years I've gotten almost Eric Cartman-like in my disdain for Dead wannabes and drum circles. When these San Franciscans first hit the stage, I groaned inwardly: You never saw so many percussionists who weren't part of some awful circle. But these guys come off as both ethereal and hard-hitting, and though they sounded nothing like Cake, I can envision those two complementing each other in some future show. I probably can only take these guys in moderate doses, but at least that night they saved the best tune for last--an upbeat song that reminded me of the Jonathan Richman, but dreamier.
And I gotta give props to Zoe, the Northern Californian cellist who played just before Halou's set and joined that band onstage. WIth her adept use at software to make herself sound like an army of one, she'd kick Yo-Yo Ma's ass anytime.
Does this review make you sorry you missed the show? No worries--it'll be available in podcast form. Check out www.halou.com or www.dnalounge.com.
