#then again i lived in seattle where we let no music fly under the radar. we were an advanced civilisation

[bloomfish]

I'm not even a particular kendrick fan i just recognise his sheer talent, as anyone would, so I'm shocked and appalled. he did not pimp that butterfly almost ten years ago to have completely passed under the radar of this virgin website

[thenaivereview]

Katherine Collins One Afternoon

About a year after U.S. politics ate my interest in comic books, I found myself sitting outside Vancouver Comic Arts Festival, studying a Ben Sears print. It had been the longest, shittiest winter in a hundred years and now I was in the sun, staring at a picture like a child.

I had decamped that morning from Seattle to Vancouver, which is both foreign to me and closer to my original home in Alaska. Trump had decamped to Saudi Arabia. Between the two, my constant IV drip of political news had dried up. My phone didn’t work that well in Canada, so I couldn’t even text anyone for a secondhand hit. The Asian stock markets wouldn’t re-open for another 24 hours. No information was coming in except the colorful details of the Ben Sears print in my hands.

Being in an unfamiliar place in new sandals gave me a feeling from childhood that I’d forgotten. There’s liking yourself, and there’s being all right with the world. As adults we try to do both those things and be reasonably happy. But sometimes when you’re a little kid you have this sensation of liking yourself in the world. Liking the places where you and the world touch.

So that’s where I was, with the sun warming my back and bright artwork in my eyes, when my boyfriend tapped my shoulder and said, “We have to go to this panel—not enough people are showing up!”

I hurried inside with him, out of the sunlight and into a small, dark auditorium. In a pool of light, a woman my mother’s age and a man about my age sat at a table. The woman was Katherine Collins, and the man was Brandon Graham. He was interviewing her about her life and career, and her return to actively working as a cartoonist. A collection of her Neil the Horse stories was being republished in a thick volume after a long hiatus. She held her Neil the Horse book parallel to the table and let it drop with a thud. “That’s my favorite thing about this book,” she said. She had a deep, wry voice and as soon as she spoke, I wondered if she had worked in radio.

The conversation started with her youth and her cartooning inspirations. I didn’t get the cartooning references, but I liked that she set workmanlike goals for herself when she was 9 years old. I liked that she was competitive and bluffed her way into a radio gig even though she didn’t have experience at the time. Among many other things, Katherine adapted old comic strips to radio skits. She said, “All the other people in the skits were much better than me, but I didn’t care. Because I wrote them.”

I didn’t know what Katherine and Brandon were talking about half the time, about cartooning and the CBC, and the scene in Vancouver and Toronto. It was like listening to BBC World Service when you can’t sleep, and letting the enjoyably unfamiliar flow past you. They talk about cricket and you stare at the ceiling knowing nothing about cricket, clenching and unclenching your toes.

When I was a kid, I tried to hear BBC English as a foreign language, reduced to the aesthetics of sounds bumping up against each other, and the texture of voices. We only got one FM station up and down the radio dial—it was static soft and hard everywhere else. That was the local community radio station, relayed by receivers on mountain tops to tiny logging camps and roadless fishing villages. There was also one station on the AM dial—a rightwing commercial Christian radio station.

At night I’d troll slowly through the static on both dials, listening for changes, trying to sift voices out of the noise. Once in a while, if conditions were just right, the CBC came in from somewhere. It was as if aliens made contact, me cross-legged on my bed in the dark, absorbing wisdom from another culture. But the next night, and the nights after that—no more CBC. Just fuzz.

Katherine said, “I’ve always had a great capacity for ignoring things I’m not interested in. It’s called being a snob.” This is the sort of bitchily quotable thing my Grandma Ann was always saying. She had a presence and a deep voice like Katherine. She even had a similar handsome look, with a strong nose and pleasing facial planes.

Ann was big-chested and rangy at the same time. From my bedroom perch, I watched her loping up and down the cannery dock throughout the 1980s. She was a jack of no trades. She did all right as a housewife but wasn’t into it. She was a little disorganized. She helped with her husband’s business and she raised three kids as well as her personality would allow. She liked her grandkids, but not excessively. She scribbled in notebooks. She liked novels, the newspaper, baseball on television when she could get it. She liked playing cards. She was sardonic and opinionated and mellow and mirthful. She walked her dog, admired her cat, and knew the names of wildflowers. She was probably depressed. She was hard on herself in a way that cut other people down too. Ann’s potential was unfulfilled, like everyone else’s I knew, but she had an air of just being and that seemed like more than enough at the time. Nobody at her memorial suggested that she’d been kind, and I was glad they didn't lie just because she was dead.

Katherine isn’t like Ann at all. Besides being a generation younger, she had and has direction, and passion, and ambition. She made Neil the Horse, and she interviewed comic book and cartooning greats on national radio. She wrote songs for a musical version of Neil the Horse that she produced. She was and is the voice of Neil the Horse. And then she'd been sidelined from that by life, circumstances, the publishing world, animation studios. In the early 1990s, when she was in her early 40s, she said she could no longer get published. Katherine said, “It’s kind of sad and ironic and irritating that I was stopped doing my work back when I had momentum."

I’m going on 40 and I feel like I haven’t worked up that initial head of steam yet. I’m low energy and inefficient, I lack confidence and am an all-around foot-shooter. If I were in Alaska, it would matter less. If I were fifty years ago, I would have had a family along the way. I could have been like my grandmother but I was trying to be like Katherine, and falling through the gap between them.

Katherine is trying to get that productive part of her life back, but has less energy and more health problems now. She’d just been granted a big award in Toronto. She said, “Now I have to come alive again and do the work I’d hoped to do.” She said she might only have about fifteen minutes before she keeled over. She was joking, sort of, but she’d been sick and the people in her family tend to get Alzheimer’s and check out by 80.

A man in the audience asked her what she’d done since the 1990s. Even if she didn’t get published, was she still working—did she have a backlog of work to bring to light? She had an answer about a half-finished graphic novel but I understood that she had just been living life and sometimes that’s the thing that takes you away from your work. Meanwhile, you watch people fall off the edge of the world and disappear, and you feel yourself getting older and closer to the edge.

When Katherine said, “The next thing is to see if I can actually do it,” it bolsters me. I need to see other people lack confidence so I know to muddle on despite my own lack of confidence.

She’s going to do more Neil the Horse, but she talked about the contrast between a singing, dancing horse and the state of the world. “The human race is exhibiting the worst characteristics all over the place,” she said. She wants a different point of view than before. “I don’t want it to be somber, but I want it to be a little more aware of what’s happening in the world.”

I don’t want to be somber either, but every day I’m shellacked. All day I feel the fact that we’re living through a national emergency. I listen to political podcasts, show up to marches, attend meetings, and shell out more than I can afford for human rights and life on earth. At night I religiously blog the headlines and the press briefings in a hit and miss, scrapbooky way. I keep this blog under the radar because I work with Republicans in a conservative industry. Still, every few nights a maudlin personal essay finds its way in. I’m flying off the handle and white American men will feel the heat of my scorn.

What I haven’t done is anything else. No Wednesday trips to my local comic book shop. No reading floppies on the bus ride home. No reading comics on a bench by the lake and scribbling notes. No reviewing, no blogging, no musings about comics.

Katherine reminded me of something I did know before—anything you want to say about the world you can say in a cartoon, even one featuring a singing, dancing horse. And more than that, writing about comics was never just an escape for me. Anything I wanted to say about the world, I could say it in essays about comics. Not in a direct, social justicey way. But just about these lives we lead and the things that hit our eyes on the way down.

(P.S. I learned later that night that Katherine Collins is a transwoman who previously published under the name Arn Saba. Although this information did round out my understanding of her childhood and the first part of her career, this essay is just about my experience of watching her and listening to her that afternoon when I didn't know.)

[jdubfromthehub]

Is it too late to tell you about 2016?

I’ve written this list in my head every year for the last 3 or 4. This year I’m finally committing it to pixels. You can read my thoughts on new music discovery here and here (I hid it as best I could). I point that out, because this isn’t your typical ‘top 10’ or ‘best of’ list. In two parts, it’s about discovery & experience - and the primary audience is me. Nevertheless, I thought I’d share it with you as well.

Discovery

This is the part I’ve been writing in my mind the past few years. Each year, I pick 3 new (to me) artists and officially add them to the pantheon of my favorites. Just by chance, all three acts happen to be female. In keeping with the this-is-not-necessarily-a-best-of list, they’re listed in chronological order (of discovery), rather than any implicit ranking.

Jill Andrews (via Daytrotter) One of my favorite podcasters used to say, “every day someone is born who hasn’t seen the Flintstones.” That is, many of us were born after The Beatles, or Led Zeppelin were still together, but we discover these bands at different times. Apparently Jill Andrews has been around for many years, just out of my earshot. However, once I heard her sing “My Love is For”, she had my full attention.

Jill Andrews - "My Love is For" - YouTube

I quickly had to dig into her back catalog. Jill was in a band for many years with Sam Quinn called The Everybodyfields, and she recently recorded a duet with Seth Avett.

I'm so in Love with You- Jill Andrews (feat. Seth Avett) - YouTube

Jill is the only artist on this list that I didn’t see live this year. I’m hoping that can be remedied in 2017.

The Wild Reeds (via Daytrotter) Let No Grief was one of my anthems of 2016. There’s a repeating lyric in the chorus, “now I have to sing something louder than I ever have before - so I can escape this overwhelming pain and never hurt no more.”

The Wild Reeds - Let No Grief - NPR Tiny Desk Concert Contest ...

Okay, I said this was an all female list, but there are two dudes in this band. They just happen to be led be a trio of gals with beautifully powerful voices. I caught these gals at the Sunset in November. I love how the shortest of the three gals seems to lose all self awareness while singing, and is utterly transported to another realm where she stores these deep emotions that are conveyed through song.

The Wild Reeds on Audiotree Live (Full Session) - YouTube

**My Bubba **(via Daytrotter) If you know me, and you’ve seen me in the past 2 months, I’ve probably already shown you this video.

My Bubba: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert - YouTube

Simply enchanting.

My bubba - Full Performance (Live on KEXP) - YouTube

I have more to say about them, because they made my list of top experiences of the year as well.

Experience

Say what you will about 2016, but I went to more shows in the last year than I have any other year of my life. I went to 137 concerts at 24 different venues in 2016. That works out to about a show every two-and-a-half days. There were only 9 weeks of the year (that is to say, a seven-day interval) where I didn’t see any shows. I never went as long as 2 weeks without seeing a show (11 days was the max). The longest stretch of at-least-a-show-a-day was just 5 days. Several bands I saw more than once; I saw Rabbit Wilde, Bob Mould, Lemolo, Fly Moon Royalty, Thunderpussy, and Naked Giants three times each - and Grace Love I saw 4x. Those are just numbers. The quantity isn’t in question. What about the quality?

I can’t remember who, but I heard someone say, “when you take a photograph, you’re not actually trying to capture a place, but a feeling.” Feelings are hard to capture on film (or in pixels), so I’ve taken fewer pictures & videos at shows this year - and instead have tried to be more immersed in the moment and the experience. To that end, here are (in chronological order) six experiences that I expect will stay with me for years to come.

Black Sabbath A dream come true for my fourteen-year-old self. It was the single most expensive concert ticket I’ve ever purchased, at a venue that I would ordinarily avoid (Tacoma Dome). Despite the hype/scale/setting, my expectations were exceeded. It’s risky to see an artist you love in their twilight years. I was worried they wouldn’t be able to live up to my memories, but they performed as though they were all in their 20s (yet sober). Ozzy paced manically across the stage as I recollect from all the concert footage I saw from the 80s. Tommy made me remember why every young boy who falls in love with guitar rock/heavy metal starts by learning a Black Sabbath song. The crowd was not as aged as I might have expected, and it was a great example of what a love about live music, in general: a large-scale, communal, joyful & celebratory experience. If you’re wondering, “yeah, but did they play ’x’?” here’s the set list from the night.

Dan Mangan Dan is a bigger deal in his native Canada, than he is down here. Back home, Dan no longer plays in rooms as small as the Sunset Tavern. That was a big part of what made the evening special. He didn’t play with a band - it was just him with his voice and guitar. The show wasn’t sold out, so in a room that small, it really felt special and intimate. One thing that can add to that whole ‘communal’ experience I mentioned, is a good ol’ sing-a-long. He closed the show by coming out into the middle of the audience, standing on a chair, and asking us to join him in the final song of the night. You’ll have to pardon the visual quality of this video, but I think it does a pretty good job of capturing ‘the feeling’ of the night.

Filmed from a foot away...

Youth Rescue Mission, Daniel Blue When presented with more or less equivalent music options, I will almost always choose smaller: Crocodile or Neumos over the Neptune Theatre; the Sunset over the Tractor Tavern; Fremont Abbey over most anywhere else, etc. I mention that to say that there’s a reason you’re not very likely to run into me at Sasquatch or Bumbershoot (or Coachella, or ACL, or Bonnaroo, or…). However, there have been 3 smaller festivals (Doe Bay, Pickathon, Timber) on my radar for a few years. I finally managed to make it up to the picturesque San Juan Islands for the (penultimate?) Doe Bay Festival. I doubt I will ever miss again. There were many amazing experiences in this amazing atmosphere of beautiful scenery, music, and camaraderie. At maximum, there are never more than a thousand folks present for the two days of official programming (Friday & Saturday). However, folks often come early (Wednesday or Thursday) and stay late (Monday) to experience the ‘unofficial’ showcases on Thursday and Sunday. Folks gather around camp fires and under apple trees and impromptu busking stages to jam. On Sunday, there was a mash-up of 3 acts (Whitney Lyman, Gabriel Wolfchild & The Northern Light, and Youth Rescue Mission) that gave the performance of the afternoon. It was a pied-piper kind of situation as folks flocked to the Yoga Studio to see who was making such sweet sounds. Though it was a mash-up of several acts, they were primarily playing the music of a sibling-anchored band called Youth Rescue Mission. Towards the end of their set, they mentioned that they’d be performing a couple house shows the following week in Seattle. I already had plans for one of those nights, so I made plans to see the other. The setting was a modest back yard at a private residence on Capitol Hill. It was a late-summer potluck dinner. The homeowner (that very day) had built a small stage (with an eye toward future shows) and put out an open call for any musicians/artists/poets present to get up and take the mic before the main attraction. A young gal recited a poem or two, then this guy (I had no idea who he was at the time) pulls out a crazy 3-stringed-guitar and proceeds to blow my mind with some amazing sounds. He was followed by a smaller-than-Doe-Bay-lineup of Youth Rescue Mission. You get the picture…or not…that is to say, the whole journey to and from Doe Bay to a back yard in the city was an utterly singular experience. Songs were sung around a campfire well into the night. We were never a terribly boisterous crowd, but I’ve still got to give props to the understanding neighbors.

From the fire...

My Bubba Utterly enchanting. I find it impossible to accurately describe these gals without using that word. It was one of only a handful of seated shows I’ve ever seen at the Tractor Tavern. Tragically, the venue was onlly half-full - but those of us that were gathered got to witness a magical evening. I listen to a wide variety of musical styles and artists, and I seldom listen to the same thing more than once a quarter…yet I can’t seem to help myself with these two lovely ladies. Something about their sparse/minimalist/indie-art-folk speaks deeply to me. This show left a mark on me that won’t wash away anytime soon. If you see me in the next few weeks and I’m staring longingly into the distance, I’m probably thinking about My Bubba. Enchanting.

Temple of the Dog What Black Sabbath was to my fourteen-year-old self, Temple of the Dog was to my nineteen-year-old self. If you know me well, and we share a mutual love of music, you may have heard my epic MLB/TotD/PJ story. If you haven’t heard it, I only tell it in person. I’ve seen both Soundgarden separately, and on the same bill. When I saw them play in Austin, TX in April of 1992, one of the first things Eddie Vedder said when he took the stage was, “no Temple show tonight.” Temple had never toured before this year - but this summer they announced a 5 city tour that culminated in their collective hometown of Seattle. After the tickets sold out in minutes, a few extra shows were added - so 8 shows in 5 cities. I caught what may well be the 2nd-to-last TotD show ever. So you can appreciate that it would be difficult to modulate my expectations for a show like this. I’m pleased to report, as in with the Sabbath show, my expectations were met and exceeded. Not only did they play every single track off their only record, they played a half-dozen or so Mother Love Bone songs, some Pink Floyd, Bowie, and The Cure. I had literal goosebumps many times throughout the show, none more than when I heard the open licks to Stardog Champion - a song I never thought I’d hear performed (well) by (most of) the original members of the band. It was an epic night. I didn’t go to the final show because I had a business trip to Denver. However, I must confess that, as is often the case in Seattle, that I would have been posed with a very difficult decision that night: see the 2nd Temple show, or catch Seu George perform the songs of David Bowie at Benaroya Hall. First world problems…

Honorable Mentions/Miscellany

Ben Ottewell Truth: I had this in the list above until I realized I had six in the list, where I’d intended to constrain myself to five. Now you see how I deal with constraints. I’ve been a Gomez fan (not nearly as rabid as my friend Alisa) since 1998, but this was my first exposure to any of the band’s various side projects. This show had several things in its favor: 5pm show on a Sunday at a small venue. The artist was a talented, witty, articulate Brit (why do we like the way they talk) that not only gave a solid performance, managed the crowd well. I have seen a wide variety of audiences in the same venues. I have seen artists I love suffer through poorly behaved, rude & talkative audiences. I’ve seen a lot of those shows at the Tractor (and the Neptune, and…), but Ben did a masterful job of guiding the audience without being heavy-handed. He reminded them why they were there without pouting or sulking, and the crowd responded in kind. Whether or not you’re a fan of Gomez, I highly recommend you check out Ben’s solo work.

Boss Hogg I attended 34 live performances at KEXP this year, 8 of those in the Live Room at their New Home. My favorite of the lot was this performance from Boss Hogg, which clocks in at just over 16 minutes (the last two minutes are pure gold).

Heligoats: Back to the Lake Remember Clem Snide, and their lead singer Eef Barzelay? Well this is the band that came after. Heligoats have released 12 records to-date, and it warrants an honorable mention here because it is uncommonly good. As I’m writing this, I’ve found that no Heligoats page even exists on Wikipedia. How can this be?! With all of the amazing releases that came out this year, there’s not a one that eclipses this one for me. This is noteworthy because…it’s the 12th release from an artist that has been working in the trenches for decades now, and you almost certainly haven’t heard it - and that’s a travesty. You should really do something about that. Right now.

Penny & Sparrow Let me just get it off my chest: if you show up late to a show, or if you hang out in the bar until the headliner is on their 2nd or 3rd song, you’re not just behaving badly, you’re likely a bad person, as well. There, I’ve said it. Now you know how important I think it is to show up early enough to give the opener a fair listen. Given that I went to 137 shows, (understatement alert —>) I saw a lot of opening acts (<—understatement alert). Quite simply, these guys stole the show. Don’t get me wrong, I was really looking forward to seeing Johnnyswim a second time, but these guys owned the crowd from the acapella opening song. I’ll also give credit where it’s due: this was one of the best crowds I’ve encountered at the Neptune Theatre. They were quiet, respectful, and attentive - even for the opener.

Thunderpussy As I type this, a few days after their NYE Eve (not a typo) show at Neumos, my calves still ache from jumping up and down like a kid in the mosh pit. Best punk show (with Wild Powwers & Naked Giants) that I’ve seen in ages. You may have noticed that I’ve seen these guys (okay, gals) 3x this year, but they don’t have a record out yet. If you don’t live in the Seattle area, you have been warned: Thunderpussy is coming.

Sunset Tavern I went to 8 shows there this year, and I think it may be my favorite venue in the city (at the moment). Small, intimate, simple dive bar - where they make great drinks at a fair price. One of the many gems in Ballard’s crown.

In Memoriam I’m grateful to have seen both of these artists perform during 2016, the year they left us:

Sharon Jones Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings - Full Performance (Live on KEXP ...

Leon Russell Elton John and Leon Russell - If It Wasn't For Bad (LIVE) - Beacon ...

Here’s a quote from an article I read recently: “there is a way in which sadness frees up vulnerable thoughts, and I'm not sure we've ever had a better year for memorial essays and other reminders to appreciate the artists you love as loudly and unreservedly as you can.”

Here’s to the experiences yet to come in 2017