Last Night
Last Night: People Get Ready
I found myself at a Capitol Hill mansion over the Thanksgiving holidays, snacking on salmon spanokopita and sugar-and-orange-peel-infused muddled wine (it was concocted over a full flame in the foyer before our eyes).
The random assortment of Microsoft cash outcasts, Fred Hutch IT guys, journalists, and musicians were lucky guests of a well-to-do older fellow in a suit who seemed to enjoy the company of younger folks. He gathered us in his posh red velvet living room among the clocks, mirrors, and map books to watch a couple of rock bands play.
The first band, Vishnu's Secret—electric guitar, cello, and a light-opera vocalist in a Renaissance-Faire frock—had a dark sound that strained to become catchy (Dimanda- Galas-doesn't-quite-meet-the-Cocteau-Twins)—which gave me the creepy feeling I might have unwittingly been invited to a "lifestyle" party. (One guest was wearing a black corset over her red dress.)
The night took a turn for awesome, though, when the next band, The Witness, took over the round living room. They specialized in early and mid-'60s soul—Curtis Mayfield's Impressions, Motown, Mary Wells—with a dynamic and jagged electric guitar player, a groovy bass player sitting back in the window seat, and a bombastic Mick Jagger/Jim Morrison/Eric Burdon frontman who did a sweet job with the white-guy-singing-black-guy-music schtick.
Afterward, the bassist told me they usually play with a drummer, which seems like a mistake to me because it would bury the well-calibrated dynamic these guys found in that split-second-of-a-genre (1964-65 soul). Motown pop is about as hard to revive in earnest as 1979-era B-52s would be to revive in earnest. And this was truly in earnest.
The random assortment of Microsoft cash outcasts, Fred Hutch IT guys, journalists, and musicians were lucky guests of a well-to-do older fellow in a suit who seemed to enjoy the company of younger folks. He gathered us in his posh red velvet living room among the clocks, mirrors, and map books to watch a couple of rock bands play.
The first band, Vishnu's Secret—electric guitar, cello, and a light-opera vocalist in a Renaissance-Faire frock—had a dark sound that strained to become catchy (Dimanda- Galas-doesn't-quite-meet-the-Cocteau-Twins)—which gave me the creepy feeling I might have unwittingly been invited to a "lifestyle" party. (One guest was wearing a black corset over her red dress.)
The night took a turn for awesome, though, when the next band, The Witness, took over the round living room. They specialized in early and mid-'60s soul—Curtis Mayfield's Impressions, Motown, Mary Wells—with a dynamic and jagged electric guitar player, a groovy bass player sitting back in the window seat, and a bombastic Mick Jagger/Jim Morrison/Eric Burdon frontman who did a sweet job with the white-guy-singing-black-guy-music schtick.
Afterward, the bassist told me they usually play with a drummer, which seems like a mistake to me because it would bury the well-calibrated dynamic these guys found in that split-second-of-a-genre (1964-65 soul). Motown pop is about as hard to revive in earnest as 1979-era B-52s would be to revive in earnest. And this was truly in earnest.
