Ryan ChartrandSo, last column for the year and I’m worn out. Really worn out. It’s been a long year, and I thought I would do the simple thing here and give you a list of music highlights of music in San Luis Obispo.
“Van Helsing Boombox” by Man Man: I think I wore this song out while delivering Chinese food the week before this show only to learn that they don’t really play it anymore. It was the first major show of the school year and I think that gave everyone I knew enough reason to get drunk in the middle of the week at Downtown Brewing Co. They had a successful show and then they encored with this song and just slammed the beginning of the concert season into amazing.
“Jeanne, If You’re Ever in Portland” by Casiotone for the Painfully Alone: My first show through Pocket Productions with what was my favorite band at that point. He performed this song live with members of The Dead Science and the Papercuts. It was pretty amazing at the time to have that full band. In retrospect, it was even more amazing as all of those bands became bigger and bigger.
“Context Ender” by BARR: The song pulls the ends of his latest album together nicely. And his live performance is an awkward mess of awesomeness just like his album. So, yeah, that at the end stood out as one of the key highlights. Especially with him labeling the song afterwards as one of his best accomplishments.
In addition, later in an interview he describes the bands that opened for him at this local show as inspiring. “Let the Hate In (I Won’t)” by Lee Bob Watson: Lee Bob surprised me midway through spring break with this song during the Grass Roots Record Revue Tour. Everyone on the tour played back up. This song has been on repeat ever since.
“I Woke Up Today” by Port O’Brien: I’ve seen this song live dozens of times this year. The last time, though, they played it twice. Once to slowly open the show, and once at a fast pace to finish it. To be honest, it felt like a band realizing that they’re good enough where that would actually affect everyone. It smelled of bigger and better things.
So, yeah, there’s a taste of the highlights. Sorry, but it’s been slow going here in the musical world of San Luis Obispo as everything begins to ramp down for the summer. It’s OK though it will all be back soon enough.
Show tip: Lucky Dragons will be playing with Bobby Birdman and Powdered Wigs at the Steynberg Gallery on Saturday at 8 p.m. Lucky Dragons plays some really great electronic music and I’m personally extremely excited to just meet him. He’s mildly famous for an art project he did that involved touching an electronically-enhanced rug and then touching other people to generate patterns of music. Real cool.