|
Summer at Shatter Creek / Ill Lit Hemlock Tavern January 24, 2003 Review by Jake Thomas I guess I might be a little biased, but these monthly Playing in Fog showcases at The Hemlock just keep getting better and better. This show was a little different though - instead of featuring great local talent as it has usually done in the past, this time it featured two out of town bands that have new releases on local labels (Ill Lit on Badman, Summer at Shatter Creek on Absolutely Kosher). I had only heard one song by either of these bands going in, but I really liked what I had heard; and if the rest of their songs are even close to as good, I was in for a great night of music. The opener was Ill Lit, are from LA I believe (I'll try not to hold that against them). They play an interesting hybrid of country, pop, and electronic music - some people might refer to it as folktronica, but I always thought that was a silly moniker. Anyways, I thought they were pretty damn good. The only part of the music that I wasn't particularly crazy about was that the keyboards came off sounding a little cheesy at times, but most of the time they were fine. Regardless of that, the singer's voice was so good that it would offset any other bad spots in the music. It had just the right amount of country warble to bring goose bumps to my skin (if they would have only had a pedal steel, it might have been damn near perfect). The bottom line - they're opening for the Mountain Goats in a few weeks, and I'm going to try and get there early to see them again. Next up was Summer at Shatter Creek. I was absolutely blown away by the song that was on the Absolutely Kosher sampler, possibly even to the point that I was expecting too much from this show. I would play that song over and over and over...I'm sure we've all done that at some point. But of all my expectations, the one that blew me away the most was the fact that the band was really only one guy. This is particularly impressive considering how layered the music is - he seemed to have a sampler with some parts pre-programmed, but he would also play bits and pieces live, have them loop, and add more and more until you nearly end up with the musical equivalent of a one man symphony. Add to that 'the voice of an angel' as I heard one person refer to it; quite simply, one of the best falsetto voices I've heard in some time. My only complaint is with the bar, in that he was playing so quietly that the noise from the bar outside was almost overwhelming the sound coming from him. At least the people actually in the band room were relatively quiet, which can't always be said of The Hemlock. Hopefully he'll come back and play again soon...and I need to start saving my money, I got a couple of CDs to buy. --- Click here to go to our Presents page for MP3s and more info on these bands. ©2003 playinginfog.com |