Culture Fiend

Four Concerts to Catch This Weekend

Two CD release parties, one rock orchestra, and the return of G. Love and Special Sauce.

Posted by: Laura Dannen on Feb 29, 2012 at 01:00PM 0 Comments

The Lonely Forest

Despite being a bit bummed that all three nights of the Cold War Kids at Columbia City Theater have sold out, there are other ways to get a live music fix this weekend.

G. Love and Special Sauce
Mar 2, Showbox at the Market, 8pm
The bluesy hip-hop band provided the soundtrack to many lazy days—a commitment to “just sitting around strummin’ guitar/wasting time.” But on their 11th album, they drop the hop and retreat to covers of time-honored blues. $25.

Vagabond Opera CD Release Party
Mar 2, The Triple Door, 7 & 10pm
Portland’s “bohemian steampunk operatic cabaret” delivers comedy, Balkan belly dancing, and gypsy-jazz odes to Marlene Dietrich—complete with an accordion solo by a man with the slickest of ’staches. $18-$28.

Grynch: Perspective Album Release
Mar 2, Neumos, doors at 8pm
Seattle hip hop is one of the strongest scenes in the city thanks to acts like Macklemore, Blue Scholars, Shabazz Palaces, THEESatisfaction, and rising star Grynch, a 21-year-old MC whose new album of party tracks drops Friday. $10, all ages.

The Lonely Forest with Seattle Rock Orchestra
Mar 3, Neptune Theatre. Special guest: Black Whales, 9pm
The Anacortes-born indie rockers play behind 2011’s Arrows, their debut on Trans Records (the label imprint of Death Cab guitarist Chris Walla); they’re backed by the city’s only orchestra that prefers Beck to Bach. $15–$17.

Add a Comment »

Tags: Concert, Triple Door, Neptune Theatre, Neumos, Showbox at the Market

Today’s Met Pick: The Civil Wars

Rising Nashville folk duo settles in for a two-night stand at the Triple Door.

Posted by: Seattle Met staff on Jun 22, 2011 at 09:35AM 0 Comments

The haunting folk melodies of the Civil Wars have been praised by everyone from T. Swift to Adele; likened to Alison Krauss-Robert Plant duets; and—of course—featured on Grey’s Anatomy, now a rite of passage for any indie band. Hear the Nashville duo before they get too big for cozy venues. They play two nights at the Triple Door, tonight and Thursday; shows start at 7:30, and tickets ($15) are selling quickly.

Add a Comment »

Tags: Concert, Triple Door, The Civil Wars

The Sound of Paint Sizzling: Matt Jorgensen’s ‘Tattooed by Passion’

Abstract art meets its musical match in a local composer’s inspired new album.

Posted by: Eric Scigliano on Oct 28, 2010 at 01:00PM 0 Comments

Tattooed by Passion, the painting (minus a few colors) and the tune.
Eric Scigliano

Painters from Vermeer to Picasso have celebrated music-making. Abstract expressionism is jazz played with a brush; Mondrian made boogie woogie out of squares and stripes. But musical homages to painting are much rarer. Pictures at an Exhibition, of course. Dave Brubeck’s Miro Reflections and all those paintings on his album covers. Donny McLean’s little paean to Van Gogh. And…?

Seattle drummer/composer Matt Jorgensen helps even the exchange with his new album Tattooed by Passion, which debuted Tuesday at the Triple Door as part of the Earshot Jazz Festival, and will tour next year. “Music inspired by the paintings of Dale Chisman,” reads the subtitle, and familial affection suffuses the project: The late Chisman, who made his mark in New York and then returned to his native Colorado and led an abstract-painting renaissance there, was Jorgensen’s father-in-law.

But Tattooed by Passion is much more than an homage; it’s a collaboration-beyond-the-grave, uncovering surprising correspondences between sound and image. Like much of Chisman’s work, the title painting juxtaposes giddy swirling lines and solid geometric shapes. An enigmatic red object—an upside-down neckless viola?—floats in an indigo rectangle on a lilac field beside a pastel swirl of what might be dancing DNA or treble clefs gone mad. Jorgensen and combo match this: the rhythm section builds the geometric structure while Mark Taylor’s sax twines it with arpeggios. On other pieces the instruments trade places. In “The Armory"(see below), played against photos from Chisman’s studio, Dave Captein’s bass probes and pushes against an insistent Philip Glass-like plinking that seems to express all the tedium and anxiety of trying to make art when inspiration doesn’t strike. Then Corey Christiansen breaks in with keening, bluesy guitar licks—the feeling’s back!

All this and strings, something that usually seems to me leaden baggage (sorry, Kronos) in jazz and rock. Half the Tattooed suite includes an able quartet that actually swings and even, on “Quiet Silence,” matches Capstein and Christiansen in a slashing showdown. The result: a textural richness surpassing even Chisum’s paintings. On “Primal Scrip” Christiansen, an amazingly versatile guitarist from Salt Lake City, broke into King Crimson-style power chords:

And I realized what all this sight-and-sound harkened back to: psychedelic light shows, back before laser and video effects drove visual artistry off the concert stage. And I wondered: Couldn’t more performers meld images with their music?

On the way out, an answer came. The Triple Door’s Musicqaurium was hosting the last of its “Speakeasy” movie Tuesdays. The very funky Vunt Foom quintet and a couple rappers accompanied a 1952 French classic, Jacques Becker’s Casque d’Or. It worked.

Tattooed by Passion, from Origin Records.