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On Friday night Dan Deacon curated a night of Baltimore musicians playing in a round robin at (le) Poisson Rouge. What does that mean? It means there were a bunch of stages set up around the perimeter of the room and the audience was in the middle. Each of the 13 bands would play one song in one location and then the next band would immediately follow with another song.
There were three rounds, meaning each band played three songs. It was a great, unique way to see a concert, and it really exposed the Baltimore bands to a wider audience. The theme Friday night was “eyes night” which meant more atmospheric, thinking-type music. This translated into four types of music: Really great, weird but great, so-so, and weird and bad.
Really great:
Beach House: One of the better-known bands that played who have two excellent albums under their belt. For more Beach House pics see next post.
Jana Hunter: Beautiful songstress with thoughtful lyrics and great guitar.
Lesser Gonzalez Alvarez: Plays with Jana Hunter often, nice singer songwriter.
Teeth Mountain: Awesome drum-focused instrumentals, very tribal, lots of energy.
Weird but good:
The Creepers: Two dudes singing, one playing keyboard. Hilarious lyrics like “Adult behavior is where it’s at. Responsibility!”
Santa Dads: One of the guys from the Creepers puts on a tiger costume and does back-up vocals/plays horn to a guy in a dress with an electric ukelele. Also there is a girl in the back dancing with a giant stuffed octopus.
Snowbeast/Showbeast: Only did one performance, which involved leading the audience in breathing exercises/chants with the names of Simpsons characters. Then showed a video with music.
So-So:
Thank You: These guys sounded god but I was in the back for their songs. I would definitely check them out and give them another listen.
Nautical Almanac: Played behind a white sheet with interesting projections. Music was very atmospheric.
WZT Hearts: I can’t really remember much about them so…yeah.Although to be fiar I was in the back of the room for their songs.
Marc Brown: Interesting video artist (only showed one video) playing to a Growing song.
Weird and bad:
Ed Schrader: One guy singing a cappella. Not horribly painful, but not good.
Lexie Mountain Boys: Five girls wearing bizarre costumes (hats with stacks of doll heads or long white bears and men’s underwear) chanting a cappella and banging on the floor. Very cultish.
Blue Leader: Guy in a blue costume narrating some sort of video game playing in the background. Painful to listen to, especially the first song which was waaaay too long.
More pictures after the jump.
All photos permission: Devorah Klein
