|
Words by: Dennis Cook | Images by: Josh Miller & Dave Vann
Blue Turtle Seduction/The New Up/Blue Rabbits :: 05.23.09 :: The Independent :: San Francisco, CA
 The New Up :: 05.23 by Miller |
The vintage posters that line the walls of The Fillmore in San Francisco boast wild combinations of sounds offered in a single evening – The Who sharing the stage with the Cannonball Adderley Quintet, a jug band and a surf music combo. The beautiful incongruity of these lineups speaks to an egalitarian perspective, where one assumes good music, of whatever stripe, can snuggle up to other good music to produce positive friction. A similar divergence lovin' gusto permeated this Saturday night triple bill at The Independent dubbed "The Blue Up Ball", which offered three very different, very interesting takes on what constitutes modern rock.
Up first was Blue Rabbit, a hometown force to be reckoned with, packed with three comely, hugely talented female lead singers, cello, harp (yes, like orchestra's have!), violin, keyboards and a healthy rhythm section. By turns ethereal and frighteningly muscular, their music kept stopping people in their tracks, perhaps snared by something Bjork-ian but quickly tossed into passages that beat with tribal thickness or the bright interplay of Phil Spector's Wall of Sound. There's a powerful internal logic to Blue Rabbit that allows very poppy aspects to mingle with quite adventurous experimentation, all tied together by real dedication to their craft. There's too many twists and turns for any of this to be accidental, yet they delivered the lot with nostril-flaring immediacy. A ball to watch with constantly engaging material, Blue Rabbit made more than a few new fans in one fell swoop. A happy reminder why one should always show up early enough to catch an unknown opener.
 Blue Rabbit :: 05.23 by Vann |
For my money, The New Up is one of the best contemporary rock acts out there. It wasn't two minutes into their middle slot before I felt my skin twitch, electrified by some strange current pouring from the stage, a pineal gland boner rising in the presence of these sweaty, hungry animals. They play with a gorgeous, truth digging ferocity that keeps evolving, adding more pronounced fuzz and bass complication this evening and tweaking every lil' thing until it doinked us right in the ear like a welcome Wet Willy. In the past I've compared them to the likes of Patti Smith, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Gang of Four (all still apt touchstones) but couldn't help noticing at this set how they keep putting greater and great obfuscation between themselves and their inspirations on their quest for a truly 21st century noise all their own.
Lead singer-rhythm guitarist E.S. Pitcher again proved an irresistible lightning rod, pulling down crackling energies from somewhere outside the room and unleashing it with Olympian-ian force. Okay, maybe a touch corny but the best lead vocalists have shaman-like qualities and Pitcher is a sorcerer true. Or perhaps a fire goddess, a multi-limbed siren channeling elemental forces. Whatever metaphor works for you she's also a damn fine singer who recalls Missing Persons' Dale Bozzio, Siouxsie Sioux and dear Patti, yet never seems to be channeling anything other than some powerful inner voice that needs to pour out of her or she will simply burst. And this night a similar level of possession held the rest of the band, whose bodies shook with purpose and intensity throughout a set that never let the rush drop for a moment.
 The New Up :: 05.23 by Miller |
We got to hear almost the entirety of their new Better Off EP (a concise snapshot of a band really hitting their stride) as well as an inspired and ridiculously well executed cover of U2's "Bullet The Blue Sky." I was struck by how The New Up is actually funky. Not "white" funky but greasy-stuff-on-their-thang funky. When Pitcher leapt off the stage to work the mic and her backside in the crowd, I could see where Prince could fall madly for her in an instant and maybe take the whole damn band to his purple chalet to make them his freaks of the week. Rock so often forgets it has hips and dips but not this bunch.
Dark and timely, their songs caught the room's mood, giving us food for thought and a nice warm glow. Sexy and thoroughly modern, The New Up seem just one or two lucky breaks away from becoming a national presence. Inviting and anthemic, personal and wildly perceptive, their music is just what's needed to clear out some of the dumbness running rampant on the charts. Watching the uninitiated take them in, perhaps a bit surprised by how tough and animated they are live, I could see their natural charms begin to seep in. They aren't hard to like and then when you dig deeper there's rewards aplenty waiting. If this band scores a cherry opening slot on a national tour with the right band (the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Franz Ferdinand and The Strokes would be copacetic pairings) then it won't take a hot minute for the world to know their name. For now, we get the chance to watch them evolve in more intimate quarters.
 Blue Turtle Seduction :: 05.23 by Miller |
Finishing the night with eclectic charm was Blue Turtle Seduction. They began their set like the score of a silent film, visions of tightrope walkers filling our brains before they plunged into a full-on psych-trance stream. Incongruity and bold juxtapositions defined the parameters of BTS' set, and in lesser hands the almost willful diversity wouldn't fly. But the Turtles have a way of making strange bedfellows get down. From tune to tune they might have been a different band, yet each band was technically dazzling and appealing in their own way. Yes, I've experienced more cohesive BTS shows, but rarely have I seen them show off so many of their sides in one sitting.
Electric guitarist-vocalist Jay Seals, suffering from a nasty cold, sang with the clipped bite of The Clash's Mick Jones, driving the audience and his fellow rabble rousers to chant, "Hell yeah, here I am!" It's pub-ready moments like this that make me think this band is Lake Tahoe's answer to The Pogues or The Waterboys, pint emptying gold stoked by Christian Zupancic's wild ass fiddle and Glenn Stewart's softly brilliant harmonica interjections. That they worked in hip-hop elements, reggae intonation, punk blast, folkie lilt and oodles more over the course of a single show speaks to their capacity for inclusion and great skill as musicians. You try to make Bob Marley shuffle with a sea shanty and see how far you get!
Blue Turtle was joined late in the show by E.S. Pitcher and guitarist-singer Noah Reid (also of The New Up) for a cover of the Scissor Sisters' "Take Your Mama." It was an odd choice but a fitting one. Full of stale cologne and end of the dance fatigue after its initial boisterousness, the song is also by a band that made their bones covering a classic ancestor in a very modern way (i.e. the Sisters' international hit version of Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb"). The pathway to the future lies by way of the past, and these three groups all know that and have some fun playing cut-n-splice with the vast reservoir of precedent available to them. That they do so in highly creative and alluring ways is what makes them such a blast. And despite being quite different from one another in style, tone and texture, the bill ultimately developed a fine resonance that elevated each part by the presence of the others. As Pitcher remarked during the Up's set, "Give it up for diversity, baby!"
JamBase | Pointing Forward
Go See Live Music!
|
