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...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead - Mississippi Studios, Portland OR - January 22, 2020
[from Austin, TX] This band and
I are on weird terms. I never seek them out but when I hear them I’m
overwhelmed with nostalgia, and comfort. I couldn’t even remember if I’d ever
seen them before but my log tells me I have, several times. They don’t stay in
my head. The thing with this band is that they represent my earliest days in
Austin, when I was just a wet-eared tail-wagging kid, trying to make my way in
the world, trying to make sense of things. I fell in with a band of miscreants
and had great times. Messy times. I had just started teaching middle school, in
a neighborhood way down south, way down east, and I was barely surviving. Every
day, as far as I remember, I’d trek from West Campus after work to my friends’
duplex in Hyde Park to hang out in Austin’s version of a front lawn: clovers.
There was the guy trying to make it as a nurse and rocker. He asked me to send
photos of his band to his no-good dad. And then he sort of disappeared after he
woke up one morning with no eyebrows. He’d hung out with a different crowd the
night before and it hadn’t gone well. There was the guy who’d just been
released from jail for selling pot – he worked on an organic farm on the
borders of Austin and would make it there each day despite no car. He was
serious and intense, with economical movement and a bald head. I always felt
inferior, because he was more mature and more ethical than the rest of
us silly kids. I’d get over-excited when he’d finally smile. I’m pretty sure
he’s the source of this band as well as bands that shaped me like Godspeed You
Black Emperor and Tia Carrera. His ex-girl friend was always on the periphery,
a girl drunk beyond her age, and unhappily wise beyond her age. She was beloved
and protected in the circle. And then there was ThePreacher. We were tight and
I loved him fiercely and long. He’s ThePreacher because, despite being quiet
and unassuming at first impression, he’s actually an inexhaustible supply of
quiet steady long-windedness. He’s still and always in my holy hall. Although
his official youthful tag was probably Deadhead, the times I remember are him
bouncing irrepressibly in some jeepish car to Public Enemy and us sitting under
a southern porch and unceasing Texas rain listening to Manu Chao. We connected
over pop culture, people, ideas. The book I’ll write will document the people
of my life in accordance with the music they taught me. So I came to this
concert with low and high expectations. The crowd shifted from sparse to dense.
The crowd shifted – girls with bands, guys with jaunty handkerchiefs around
their necks, eyeglasses with clear frames, more self-conscious stocking caps. Their
entrance was dramatic and flamboyant with a swell of music. The two original
members are clear –there’s a grunge intellectual on lead vocals and a jolly guy
(a member of a low-end frat if I were to stereotype) on drums. The newest
member of the band was clear – a “they” – with one cross earring and swift
guitar moves. There were also people on the ends of the stage on guitar and
keyboards – never paid them mind. They are pleasing – bombastic, meditative,
pretty. The main vocalist’s voice is straight bad but still comforting – maybe
its average man quality is what makes it likeable. The drummer (the jolly one)
sang some songs too, alone or playing off the other guy. The jolly one
introduced his first singing song as “Into the Godless Void” and the grunge
intellectual kidded him about remembering the name of it. I owe it to “all the
acid” he said. I kept trying to genre them and failing. Noise rock, psych. There’s
something shoegaze. But so much more pop sensibility than the last band. Then
they’d go into groove thrash – some Modest Mouse moments. Some songs were 90s,
classic rock, even classical. They reported they’ve put out ten albums! The
only song I recognized was “one of their old songs,” that they described as
being about an artist named Maxwell Parish that they discovered when they were
hanging out at Portland’s notorious bookstore Powell’s. And he made some
comment about ‘we are all an effective team’ and laughed about it being a movie
reference no one would recognize. The jolly one threw metal horns after this
song. He caught himself and said “I did that in jest.” Just as I was thinking
“No you didn’t,” he said with humorous defeat “but not.” Grunge intellectual
kidded with him about getting into uncomfortable intimate moments with crowd.
All this to say, they’re smart, they’re funny, they’re not pretentious. And I
started waxing fond on Austin as I’m wont to do. Austin is, if you haven’t
heard me say it before, the mecca of all things creative, intelligent, and fun.
The crowd was largely stoic, excepting, EXCEPTING the fool next to me who was
either their number one fan or their drunkest fan. My therapist couldn’t help
me with my mind so as of Feb 24, 2020: adidak.
[from Austin, TX] This band and
I are on weird terms. I never seek them out but when I hear them I’m
overwhelmed with nostalgia, and comfort. I couldn’t even remember if I’d ever
seen them before but my log tells me I have, several times. They don’t stay in
my head. The thing with this band is that they represent my earliest days in
Austin, when I was just a wet-eared tail-wagging kid, trying to make my way in
the world, trying to make sense of things. I fell in with a band of miscreants
and had great times. Messy times. I had just started teaching middle school, in
a neighborhood way down south, way down east, and I was barely surviving. Every
day, as far as I remember, I’d trek from West Campus after work to my friends’
duplex in Hyde Park to hang out in Austin’s version of a front lawn: clovers.
There was the guy trying to make it as a nurse and rocker. He asked me to send
photos of his band to his no-good dad. And then he sort of disappeared after he
woke up one morning with no eyebrows. He’d hung out with a different crowd the
night before and it hadn’t gone well. There was the guy who’d just been
released from jail for selling pot – he worked on an organic farm on the
borders of Austin and would make it there each day despite no car. He was
serious and intense, with economical movement and a bald head. I always felt
inferior, because he was more mature and more ethical than the rest of
us silly kids. I’d get over-excited when he’d finally smile. I’m pretty sure
he’s the source of this band as well as bands that shaped me like Godspeed You
Black Emperor and Tia Carrera. His ex-girl friend was always on the periphery,
a girl drunk beyond her age, and unhappily wise beyond her age. She was beloved
and protected in the circle. And then there was ThePreacher. We were tight and
I loved him fiercely and long. He’s ThePreacher because, despite being quiet
and unassuming at first impression, he’s actually an inexhaustible supply of
quiet steady long-windedness. He’s still and always in my holy hall. Although
his official youthful tag was probably Deadhead, the times I remember are him
bouncing irrepressibly in some jeepish car to Public Enemy and us sitting under
a southern porch and unceasing Texas rain listening to Manu Chao. We connected
over pop culture, people, ideas. The book I’ll write will document the people
of my life in accordance with the music they taught me. So I came to this
concert with low and high expectations. The crowd shifted from sparse to dense.
The crowd shifted – girls with bands, guys with jaunty handkerchiefs around
their necks, eyeglasses with clear frames, more self-conscious stocking caps. Their
entrance was dramatic and flamboyant with a swell of music. The two original
members are clear –there’s a grunge intellectual on lead vocals and a jolly guy
(a member of a low-end frat if I were to stereotype) on drums. The newest
member of the band was clear – a “they” – with one cross earring and swift
guitar moves. There were also people on the ends of the stage on guitar and
keyboards – never paid them mind. They are pleasing – bombastic, meditative,
pretty. The main vocalist’s voice is straight bad but still comforting – maybe
its average man quality is what makes it likeable. The drummer (the jolly one)
sang some songs too, alone or playing off the other guy. The jolly one
introduced his first singing song as “Into the Godless Void” and the grunge
intellectual kidded him about remembering the name of it. I owe it to “all the
acid” he said. I kept trying to genre them and failing. Noise rock, psych. There’s
something shoegaze. But so much more pop sensibility than the last band. Then
they’d go into groove thrash – some Modest Mouse moments. Some songs were 90s,
classic rock, even classical. They reported they’ve put out ten albums! The
only song I recognized was “one of their old songs,” that they described as
being about an artist named Maxwell Parish that they discovered when they were
hanging out at Portland’s notorious bookstore Powell’s. And he made some
comment about ‘we are all an effective team’ and laughed about it being a movie
reference no one would recognize. The jolly one threw metal horns after this
song. He caught himself and said “I did that in jest.” Just as I was thinking
“No you didn’t,” he said with humorous defeat “but not.” Grunge intellectual
kidded with him about getting into uncomfortable intimate moments with crowd.
All this to say, they’re smart, they’re funny, they’re not pretentious. And I
started waxing fond on Austin as I’m wont to do. Austin is, if you haven’t
heard me say it before, the mecca of all things creative, intelligent, and fun.
The crowd was largely stoic, excepting, EXCEPTING the fool next to me who was
either their number one fan or their drunkest fan. My therapist couldn’t help
me with my mind so as of Feb 24, 2020: adidak.
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