Kaki King at the BrooklynVegan showcase

After getting turned away[1] from the BrooklynVegan showcase where we[2] had hoped to see Deer Tick, we decided to head back to friends, where the Misra showcase would be (but wasn’t on yet).

RadioRadio came on. Their sound was ready for the…what’s the word? It’s at the tip of my tongue. I…just…can’t. Oh yeah, it’s “radio”. Their sound is ready for the radio. And wasn’t to my liking. We went and hung out outside the venue after a few songs.

After the Low Lows played a couple songs, which weren’t bad but weren’t exciting either, we decided to head back to the Brooklynvegan showcase and see if we would have more luck.

We did.

Jeffrey Lewis & the Jitters was on. They were doing a long song that seemed to be a rewrite of one of the Kimya Dawson Juno songs (”I like Giants”?) that was about questioning music as a career path and meeting Will Oldham on the subway. This set the tone for the set. Cute pop is in right now and JL&tJ did it well (they also did some stuff boarding on fun punk), but I’m not a bit fan of all of that music. In that sense, this band’s timing is very good in that regard (being a cute pop band when it gets big), though. They did some quirky and cute things like have “movies” (hand drawn illustrations of a song about a creeping brain, which was called “Creeping Brain”) and sell comic books. It passed the time nicely, I guess.

Kaki King was up next. She’s a highly talented guitarist and her band is tight. Some of her songs were pretty jammy and instrumental and others were more straight songwriting. It was a fun and exciting set, though she may have the same problem as St. Vincent: great live show, okay records. Kaki also had a German girl who’s in the Bubonics(?) sing one song and she was pretty intense about it.

We trucked it back to Friends and the Misra showcase.

Southeast Engine was on when we got their. They played upbeat, acoustic-based rock, sort of reminiscent of Dylan and a variety of 70s influences. It passed the time, but I can’t say a lot more about it.

Centro-matic, who I’d planned the whole night around and whose Misra show was their only one for SxSW, was up next. I’d really enjoyed Fort Recovery. Their live set delivered. It seemed to start slowly, but as the set went on more heads were moving and more hands were thrust into the air. There were some old school fans there singing along and some new fans just into the tunes. Will Johnson’s banter was somewhat minimal but quite entertaining. I really liked the set and I’ll go to see Centro-matic again.

All in all, a mixed bag for the evening, but still a positive experience.

[1] We’re eschewing badges, so single event tickets is what we’re doing.

[2] I say ‘we’ because I’m here with a friend, Dave.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 13th, 2008 at 8:50 am Posted by adrian in SF bay area, blogs, live review, photos. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.