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The Sea and Cake with Califone | The Fillmore | San Francisco, CA | 3.14.03
I rushed my ass into The Fillmore as fast as a jackrabbit being chased by a mean golfer to catch tonight's opener, Califone. I knew this band and didn't want to miss this rare opportunity to see them out here on the West Coast. Last year I took a seat at random without any preconceptions, and listened to this band in Royce Hall at UCLA as part of the All Tomorrow's Parties festivities. I was blown away and fell deeply into their abyss of Americana. Like Wilco, Califone has taken the roots of American music (country, bluegrass, blues, etc.) and displaced the traditional song formats with something more open and adventuresome. They can be in the middle of a bluesy chord progression or a country ballad and break into a crescendo of static noise. The heart of the sound is the melancholy voice and imaginative stories of Tim Rutili. When placed in the mix with some of Chicago's best avante/roots/jazz musicians, the music stretches way beyond the heartland past.
Tonight the live show was rounded out with Jim Becker on guitars, banjo, etc.; Ben Massarella on percussion; and Joe Adamik on everything else. From subtle acoustic guitar strumming, to odd-tempered banjo licks, creative touches of percussion to cool hints of electricity, Califone used its entire spectrum of dynamic range. This band is really adept to building tension and slowly cooking up a storm. Beginning with the guitar and voice of Rutili, the band slowly added bits of salt and sugar, little hints of the country blues, or bluegrass, as the music gently rolled into a massive rock furor. But where most bands who master the quiet to loud song progression, from the Kinks to Nirvana, release and fire into a burnout, Califone pauses and catalyzes a fresh open preserve for the music to soar. Never closing their options, they frequently amass a daunting wall of sound, and just when things take a predictable course, they flip the switch and turn the beast around as we fall away.
It was a tough act to follow, even with ninety percent of the crowd in attendance to hear you play. I got the sense from the opening number of the Sea and Cake's set that they were a bit tired or feeling off. Sam Prekop went to great lengths to disclaim the "postage stamp" size backdrop dwarfed by the large stage, recalling the Stonehenge props on This is Spinal Tap. The band didn't get any help from the sound engineers, the levels of the two electric guitars completely killing the dynamic for the first half of the show, and leaving the synth/electronics pilot in the dust. However, with all that said, percussion and production whiz John McEntire played his ass-off from the go. This is the third time, twice with Tortoise, I've seen this cat play and he is always rocking like it's the end of the world. It's a real joy to see a musician with this level of dedication and enjoyment. Sam Prekop, the singer/songwriter, has a penchant for new age/post punk sound, and his off-beat storytelling fuses well with Archer Prewitt's laconic and sometime slinky lead guitar, and Eric Claridge's tumbling bass. According to Prekop, his lyrics "most often rely on accidental combinations, or lyrical dissonance," and with songs like "The Tear Gears," the stories alliterated interesting and odd reflections on love and life. On "Shoulder Length" a phased synthesizer layered beneath a Joe Strummer like romp, the three minute song took a killer turn on Prewitt's anthemic guitar chord solo.
Things picked up during the second half of the show and the band started to lay on the juice. The guitar's played in and out of each others ideas recalling some of Television's best work, freely transgressing a powerful rhythm section. The Sea and Cake translate best when they take things down a notch, allowing the amazing musicians room to travel, and by the end of the show, the band members were obviously able to hear each other. In my favorite performance tonight, the beginning burned slow with a steady, heavy, thundering beat played on the floor tom, the guitars playing a percussive and cascading rhythm before kicking into gear and releasing into a synth driven rock song. McEntire got his rock off whirling Keith Moon-like drum fills spewing sweat on Prewitt, and just when the thing looked ready to explode, the band stopped on a dime and the sound faded into a pulsing sound of chaos and feedback. Not to be left for the dead, the drummer restarted the song with a manic salvo of drum fills recalling the coda to the Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" and the Sea and Cake blasted off one last time before running down the tune. Echoing in a broad dynamic range, lifting the sound from the floor to ceiling, slowing things down and speeding up, the Sea and Cake went out like bad asses, rock and roll style.
The Bob
JamBase | Bay Area
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