Bottom of the Hill
May 23, 2001
Photos
Review by Squid
Daz almost lost her mind with anticipation waiting for this show. It was her chance to see not one but two acts she absolutely adores. Califone, the band featuring members of Red Red Meat have been high on her playlist for ages. Squid for her part was interested to see how Califone's folky sounds and samples would be recreated live. There seemed to be great care given to the way the setlist progressed. It would've been easy to just lump songs with similar tempos together, but instead there was quite a bit of variation in dynamic. Matter of fact, there was even a bit of an atonal freakout toward the close of the show. "I think this is the part where we're supposed to get really high", whispered Brad in explanation. We were both thoroughly impressed and Daz would like to recommend them to any fans of David Grubbs and Sam Prekop.
Canyon, man, Canyon! What can we say? They came up on stage flying the flannel and looking like a DC hardcore take on Easy Rider. These former members of emo outfit Boys' Life performed much, much more expressively live than on their album. Squid thought was like what would happen if Flying Saucer Attack suddenly decided to go country. Daz for her part felt more secure with a Mazzy Star comparison. It was loud, echoey, borderline-psychedelic space twang that had everyone in the place nodding their heads. An impressive feat for the band that was just going to be time to kill before the headlining act. Plus, they were drunk as hell. What's not to love, really.
We missed seeing Chris Mills at SXSW, and Daz hasn't stopped regretting it since. Squid has seen her exhort the virtues of a performer, but never this enthusiastically. Mills performed his songs on an acoustic rigged up with some pedals that enabled him to get good and loud when the mood struck him. His ferocious assault on his songs very much reminded Squid of seeing Bob Mould's acoustic gigs, particularly his ragged, soul-tortured vocals. (None of this is a surprise when you consider that Mills was a bit of a speedmetal head in his youth. The old axe habits, they die hard.) Mandy won the "crucial music trivia" award of the evening by pointing out that Mills' performance of 'Crooked Vein' was in fact a cover, the original having been performed by former Sunset Valley frontman Herman Jolly. And seeing Mills backed up by members of Califone for the last few songs was nothing short of a dream collaboration for Daz. She was thrilled with this show from start to finish. We were both really pleased with the entire line-up.
Chris Mills
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Canyon
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Califone
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