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Bottom of the Hill July 17, 2002 Review by Squid "You know what I love about them?", Squid screamed at Soundman Extraordinaire, John. "Their sound is so warm. Every song has this warmth! Their music glows!" "That's a good way to put it..." murmured John, twiddling knobs and adjusting levels. "Why, thank you." She paused. "And you wanna know why it glows?", Squid demanded, tapping her pint glass expectantly. He tweaked, twiddled and eventually nodded in her general direction. "It's the marimba! It has to be. How many other bands have incorporated a bloody marimba into their stage reperatoire?!" John snapped out of his sonic reverie and looked up sharply. One brow arched with uncontrollable amusement. "It's not marimba. Those are vibes. Marimba's got a completely different tone." "Whatever!", Squid pouted, "you know what I mean!" Indeed. John knew exactly what Squid was talking about, and that's why he had consented to do the entire West Coast leg of what was rumoured to be the last American Analog Set tour...ever. We never received confirmation on that. It was just as insanely packed as the last time we saw them, so we kept to the back, drinking beers to keep cool in the indie sauna and reveling in the...the...glow that is AmAnSet. There were several allusions to their latest album, Know By Heart, especially Daz' favorite, 'We're Computerizing and We Just Don't Need You Anymore', which makes her go weak in the knees with the drone of syrup covered keyboards. Another album track, 'The Postman' sparked a great story about lead singer Andrew Kinney getting approached by a girl after one of their shows. "She said, 'I hear you're The Postman', and I said, 'You're damn right I am!" She did in fact give him a love letter...too bad it was for another guy. Quoth John, "The entire tour, the guy's been carrying this letter around, and he's so cool that every night, he goes onstage and tells this story." As luck would have it, that letter ended up being for one of the door guys at our own Bottom of the Hill. And so Long-Distance-Love, hushed guitars, vibes (not marimbas) and The American Analog Set went the distance, folks. Like their button says: "Mellow up your ass" --- See photos from AmAnSet's August 31, 2001 show |