I Put the Ass in Compassion

Give me some love, do it yourself attitude of the underground rock scene! Let’s hear you raise your voice, lo-fi indie rock! Leave all your reservations at the door, kids hungry for a nice little house show! Here we have it, all of it, a tiny, cramped, studio apartment converted for this show. On a byway off I-5 The Tree House was ready, to find it you have to pay attention and read the aptly placed signs asking you to bang on the window. That’s the first sign of a good show, hidden in plain view and a passerby is always invited. The bed had been flipped up against the wall and as everyone got acquainted as we sat around the room munching on fantastic burritos and a raw pumpkin seed, cashew, raisin trail mix. The sun was setting, and we were only obstentially aware as Jesie announced the show was starting. ‘You mean get off the stage?’ Johnny D asked, as we removed ourselves from two ‘seventies, poly-vinyl, tan-mustard, flower print chairs. I traded my green tea in for beer as World History handed out the peripheral instrument that denote a D.I.T. show. Neal T Campau and Jesie E Menzel have a great take on ‘lover’s in arms’ minimal indie sound-scape while Neal plays and sing his songs and Jessie wailes on the chair legs and any guitar case in her reach. After the first couple songs she realized it wasn’t their guitar case, but that adds more to this feel, even other guitar case souls are not free of feeling it all. Next up, he put down the guitar for the auto-harp and she picked up the flute to play some jams that are common for the Massachusetts lo-fi scene, but new to the Seattle area. As we all rattled our tambourine pieces and egg’ed our egg shakers, we bonded, all of us, we might have well drunk the Kool-aid right then and there, cause we’re all on this ride together. It was a great way to kick off a show, and they ended on a rousing Paula Abdul cover that left us all talking about pop-up video, the necessary nostalgia reference of the night. Only Johnny D of Tin Tree Factory was able to make it, but as a trouper he engaged, mono-y-solo. He set up his full, beat inducing tambourine on the ground, and played us a storyteller, country, finger-picking flare heavy set of his songs. A song about a pen-pal friend who makes the best vegan buckwheat pancakes and how they got kicked out of a bar for being to smelly. You can relate right? You know the rule, to be vegan, you have to be smelly, it’s in the handbook. Trust me. A song about waiting around to go on tour, prompted by an article about musicians waiting. A requested, BA, jam ‘Goddamn Condo’s,’ and some others and he played a good set in a white thermal marked with dinosaurs. I went outside to smoke some cig’s and walked right in on Insomniac Folklore, Tyler Hentschel’s project coming at us from California, or did he say Oregon? But his myspace now say Washington? Is he working up to Alaska? Or is he just going to call ’er quits in Vancouver? I’m not here to answer these questions, I’m here to talk about the songs. So, so far it’s been an acoustic only show, and that’s cool, cause I’m a sucker, but these were not quite full songs, they we’re four chords, with The Crash Test Dummies on top. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking the guy, he’s trying, but the place he played did nothing to help. He’s a very awkward individual, and he did a show and tell section that he even noted was a little to long, and most definitely separated the show into two separate entities. He decided to try to get us back, by ending his show with a couple proclaimed ‘silly’ songs. The final being a nice little sing along called, ‘It’s Only Folk Music if the Folk’s Sing Along.’ Right? Yeah. Close, but a little more time friend, it’ll get there. There was a lot of ‘O’ shaped mouth ‘ohhhh’s’ and stomping, but it will get there, as soon as he adopts his home. One of the guys we all took a shine too as he talked about volunteering at a book fair, was Spencer Sult. He scored a sweet copy of Kelsey Grammer’s memoirs, ‘He pretended he was from Seattle, so it’s gotta’ be a good read.’ He played under his Generifus moniker, a set he pontificated with a ‘I feel bad, following a lighthearted set with songs about the human condition,’ and such, but he wasn’t kidding. He played with sparse strumming of his drop D guitar, some banging on the body, and just some well thought out cuts from a young kid. A kid with promise, highlighted by the fact that he’s opening up the Why? and Mt Eerrie show latter this week. His songs lived in the soft rock of one of the people he looks up too, Phil Elvrum, with the quaking, wavering vocals of Chris Simpson or any Kinsella act. At his young age he’s clearly uncomfortable in his own skin, but as his songs continued he was gaining his steam, and loosening up to show us he knows how to put together some songs. We all had to take some time after his set, but it was mainly to let Eli Damm set up for some electrics. Gazelle was the last act of the night, and well worth the wait. “I’ve been really interested in shoe-gazers, as of recently, and I think this set will highlight that,” Eli was telling me before the show ever got started, I didn’t know if he meant more soft drone of the early double-ots , or basement art-core that Mr. Moore spooges over. Boy, was I in for a shock, Gazelle’s shoe-gazing antics is all London, the M83 vein, but Eli’s incredible mouth talents made this work. I don’t mean vocal’s, but real human beat boxing, and this made it some form of tunes I have never seen before. The really cold, epic, ominous space rock coupled with grounding, grating, miraculous, beat-boxing. It always begs the questions: “how does he think so fast?” “Can he keep that up for a whole set?” “Why am I falling in love with this man?” Answers are as follows: Stoic concentration, yes, and cause he just rocked your world. He played some songs with an old friend, Ross from Beestings, and finished up the set with David Byrne gone shoe-gaze, screamey sing along. You try to stay sober after that; Jesi, Neal, some other attendees and I had to get some wxy on top of all this. Let it all sink in with some good mash. A drink with it’s own direction, for a night that took us everywhere.