Café DuNord Damon & Naomi 12 Galaxies April 27, 2005 Review by Meg Sharkey The first time I saw Audio Out Send, also at Café Du Nord, I thought I was coming to see The Bother, who, as it turns out, were playing at the Hemlock that night. Chagrined at my seemingly boundless ditziness, I took much comfort in the fact that Audio Out Send turned out to be a good listen. Tonight, Du Nord was mostly a dinner crowd: attentive but low-energy. Audio Out Send's dreamy songs remind me of Granddaddy's swirly synth sound combined with the vocal-driven pop sensibility of Death Cab. I liked it best when the frontman rocked out on his hollow-body and got all Sonic Youth with the feedback, even though he apologized for it afterwards. Made a change of venue after Audio Out Send over to 12 Galaxies to catch Damon & Naomi with the guitarist from Ghost, Michio Kurihara. Damon & Naomi were also joined by a guy on soprano sax, which looked like a toy version of a tenor sax. Kurihara definitely made the show for me, punctuating the slow V.U. style ballads with soaring guitar solos. They played a number of very obscure covers (a couple in Japanese, very cool, and one in Portuguese), and one Galaxie 500 song, Blue Thunder, but sadly no songs from "Damon & Naomi with Ghost", the one record of theirs I really dig. Kurihara was great live -- I would definitely check out Ghost next time they come to SF. |