If you take hold of country music with your right hand, and in your left you grip punk rock, then you might call yourself Richmond Fontaine. They play country music with fuzzy-noted Telecaster chords, and they play punk rock with pedal steel. Yeah, that’s right. All at once. Of course they’re not the first to do it, and they won’t be the last. But they are, right now, the best. They do pretty and they do dirty and they do pretty dirty pretty damn good too. This is of course the kind of thing that made us all love Uncle Tupelo.

But wait just a minute. Richmond Fontaine are no Uncle Tupelo tribute act, so let’s all just shut up for a minute and listen to this music. And let’s listen to what that guy is singing. It’s Gram Parsons storytelling with a novelist’s eye for detail (now I’m cheating, because Willy Vlautin is a published novelist: http://www.willyvlautin.com/). Richmond Fontaine are a tribute act after all. They’re a tribute act to life, and their songs chart all the worst and best things about it, the beauty and frustration, and that’s what’s great about their music, and that’s what makes their music matter. Richmond Fontaine don’t play to you. They play for you. The music opens up and lets you in. It creates the shared experience in which the stage isn’t a pedestal that raises the performer above the audience, but a contact point between human beings, some of them playing guitars and drums (and pedal steel) and singing, and some of them listening and shouting out songs they want to hear and receiving apologies because their favorite song isn’t going to be played this time but it’s still the best show she’s seen this year anyway. It’s what rock ‘n’ roll does best, and right now Richmond Fontaine are doing the best live rock ‘n’ roll on planet earth. It’s not something I say lightly. They really are that good.

31Knots were the second of three bands performing at Seattle’s Paradox on December 2, 2006. The other two bands performing that night were the opener Evangelicals and headliners Menomena. The night overall was great and 31Knots seriously tore it up despite some drum monitor issues.

Vocalist/Guitarist Joe Haege often stumbled around the stage (and crowd) apparently drunk on the music—the performance was held at an all ages venue attached to a church so it definitely wasn’t alcohol. Towards the end of the set Haege changed on stage into a more uniform-ish outfit before heading into the crowd with the mic stand for the closing songs.

Following The Slats at the October 13th show at the Sunset Tavern in Seattle was Thee Emergency. Although they’re from Seattle, I wasn’t familiar with them and if you aren’t familiar with the group, let me give you some advice, check this band out NOW!

They have a few tracks posted on their website and on their MySpace Page. My favorites Revolution 1. If you have the chance, you must see them perform live. They give so much energy it’s ridiculous and just a great experience. Their album Can You Dig It? was released this past June on Blue Disguise Records.

The only non-Seattle group performing at the KEXP sponsored show at the Sunset Tavern, Minneapolis’s The Slats put on a show that certainly gained the respect of the Seattle crowd. In case you can’t tell from the photos, they really get into their performance!

For a sample of The Slats, check out “Teena” (MP3) from their album Pick It Up as well as the other MP3s on The Slats site. The tracks “Ironman” and “King of Hawaii” from their newest album Boom Patrol are posted on The Slats’s MySpace page for your listening pleasure.

On Thursday, October 12, 2006, Trentalange celebrated the release of the album Photo Album of Complex Relationships (read The PhiLL(er) Review) with a performance at Seattle’s Sunset Tavern.

Barbara Trentalange and her drummer managed to pretty well provide the same atmospheric, full sound of the album in the live performance. Although it seemed like a good amount of this was with the help of some pre-recorded/programmed segments, it seemed like she was also capturing some sound as she performend and then looping it as well. Following an opening performance on the flute, Trentalange’s performance was balanced pretty equally between the bass and keyboard. The standout song of the night for me was “Monster” (MySpace Download) which is also my favorite from the album.

Yaeka and I made it out to the What Made Milwaukee Famous, Matt and Kim, and French Kicks concert at Neumo’s here in Seattle, WA tonight thanks in large part to Barsuk Records. The concert was great with three great bands and if you have a chance to see any of these bands live I would seriously recommend it – especially Matt and Kim – they were freaking amazing.

We managed to get some almost decent images and you can see what we got in each of the individual posts we have for each band: What Made Milwaukee Famous, Matt and Kim, and French Kicks.

What Made Milwaukee Famous put on an excellent performance with a ton of energy and the crowd definitely appreciated it. I don’t think I saw the bass player stop moving once. That made it a bit difficult to get a good shot of him, but if you’re feeling it you’re feeling and he definitely was. They mentioned several times how much they liked Seattle and that they plan to be spending a bit more time up here.

continued from Niño Rojo review

Banhart took the stage at the Bowery Ballroom alone, as one might expect, and opened solo with “Little Yellow Spider.” Gesticulating with his right hand as if conducting a parade of the happy-grotesque animals catalogued in the song, the tweaks and vocal flourishes Banhart indulges made the performance of the song significantly different than the album cut.

Nothing, however, had prepared me for the hour of absolute sonorous joy that ensued. Five “friends” — electric bass and guitar players, a drummer, and an acoustic guitar player (a comrade from Banhart’s side project Vetiver) — joined him for the remainder of the show, filling out the bounce and swagger of the guitar-and-singer formula. As a result, the raucous fugue-like shuffle ending to “This Beard is for Siobhan” became an even rowdier stomp-a-long exhortation to “have a real good time, a good time, a real good time.” The additional instrumentation was wisely used not to extend the length of the songs with boring jam sessions, but instead merely added to the breadth of each song’s already finely crafted structure, and occasionally adding a decorative lick.

The set list was noticeably lacking in material from Oh Me Oh My, including only the brief instrumental “Tick Eats the Olive” and a minor-key transposition of the usually warmer tune “Michigan State” (a song boasting some of his best lyrical wordplay). Most songs were from Niño Rojo, but highlights were “Will is My Friend,” “A Sight to Behold” and a surprising but glorious cover of an old reggae tune.

Onstage, the bandmembers often embraced one another, rubbed heads, and otherwise expressed their affection. The bass player wore a crown of bright flowers. Looking around the crowd, this was definitely NOT Woodstock (I think popular culture is too self-conscious for that now), but the love onstage had an effect on the audience and the on the music, too. I was smiling the entire show; it was beyond pleasant. They had a real good time. We had a real good time. We all had a real good time.