For the second night in a row, I went to Lestat's. Daye was sitting on the side of the stage, so I joined him, said hig to Chris Karn and Jesse of the band and chatted for a couple minutes and then they played. History of this band for me: Chris was the singer for a band called Sonichrome that I loved. They played at the Casbah back when I had my fake ID. A few years ago, I heard a song called "Belong" on my digital cable radio station that I listen to and I instantly recognized the voice, jotted down the name of the band and then did my internet research to find that in fact, it was the same voice. I emailed Chris and he sent me a 4 or 5 song advance CD but then the full release lagged...they got dumped by their label and had to put it out themselves. I had even asked the band to play my high school reunion in Sep 94 at the Ken Club but one of the guys was getting married the same weekend.
So I've tracked the band and got the album, befriended them on myspace, etc. This summer they played with several other bands at the Soma sidestage and I actually went. The show started at 7 (gasp!) and I left as soon as they were done with their mini set of like 4 or 5 songs. The full band played that show.
This show at Lestat's was just Jesse on Keys and Chris on guitar. Chris has this amazing voice that still kinda fucks with my head everytime I hear it. Especially in a hushed room playing acoustic... They played Belong, Battle of Life, Shallow, Release, Father, String Song and a few others. I will do a better job at paying attention to song titles when I listen to music. Chris talked about how the full album was written in a time of his life when he was going through a lot of major events, namely the birth of his daughter and the death of his father, and a whole bunch of other stuff that just added to a rough time (which he acknowledged happens to everyone, but this album was his release) From that, he played Battle of Life and Father and I'm sure there were a couple sniffles in the crowd. I was getting shifty trying not to lose it myself.
I learned from the night before that a night out seeing live music in a coffee shop can feel like a long night, so I smuggled some rum and coke and sipped on it while they played. After they played, they talked to some friends and I enjoyed some of my smuggled hooch while I eavesdropped on kids talking about their role playing games and legend of zelda and computer hard drives and one guy talking about his emergency room visit after he and a friend were "messing around" showing each other "how to take someone down" and how his medical didn't cover the ER. Neat.
Eventually Chris and Jesse came over and we talked. I was talking about all the cool venues here, how on any given night there are 2 or 3 worthy shows to go to during the busy touring season (though Nov and Dec slow down a whole bunch), blogging (further inspiring this blog), getting more involved in the music industry, and just general chat about them. Chris talked about all his personal ups and downs with labels. It was just really interesting talking to them. Eventually, though, they went back in to see whomever it was that they had opened for, and I left to try and catch Long and Short of It at the Ken Club.
L&SoI had already played and Earthless, the band with the sausage fest draw was playing, so I just stayed on the bar side of the venue. I am not into 20 minutes all guitar/bass/drums and no lyrics. Ouch.
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