Last night, I went to see two bands at 21 Grand<\/a>. My primary motivation for picking this venue was that it’s a lot closer than the other two that were having shows. And it was awesome, so it was a good choice. Concert Review Last night, I went to see two bands at 21 Grand. My primary motivation for picking this venue was that it’s a lot closer than the other two that were having shows. And it was awesome, so it was a good choice. The first band was called Glass Bead Game. They’re a female-fronted … Continue reading <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[76,114,22],"class_list":["post-1790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised","tag-celesteh","tag-concert","tag-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1790"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4042,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1790\/revisions\/4042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celesteh.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThe first band was called Glass Bead Game<\/b>. They’re a female-fronted quartet. the female front sings and plays guitar. Her male backband is drums, standup bass and a guy that doubles on violin and alto clarinet. Their songs are pop-y, but with definite new music influence. there was a high level of musicianship and the singer has a strong voice. some of the best playing came from the bassist who did some arco lines here and there. some of his bowings got didgeridu-like sounds and nice drones. the whole band had a nice improvisational feel, which may be because, as the singer explained, thay haven’t practiced together in a long time and not everyone knew all the songs. They were very entertaining and had good stage presence and banter. anyway, I would go see this band again. And I’m glad I saw them this time, since I was one of five people in the audience and I think christi and I were the only ones not personally known by anyone in the band.
\nThe headline act was Peoples Bizarre<\/b><\/a>. They play tunes based on Balkans and Eastern European folk songs. They have a stand up bass, a drum kit, an accordian, a cello, a violin and a guy that doubles on clarinet and bass clarinet. The clarinetest looks disturbing like The Onion columnist Jim Anchower<\/a>, but played really well and wrote at least one of the songs, a nice mellow piece that mostly showcased the strings. the band was solidly good throughout, playing songs they composed. When they talked about the songs, they had a tendency to become academic, describing pentatonic patterns used in Albanian songs, for example. I appreciated the infomration, personally. They finished the set with a cover, which I thought was especially brilliant. The stock surf song that all surf bands play is actually a Hungarian folk song. So on their last piece, which had a section that either was that song or was very similar to it, their drummer switched over to a surf beat. It was awesome. I would definitely see this band again. In fact, I’m on their mailing list and I bought their record.
\nSo I think I ought to strive to see a show (that I’m not playing in) at least once a week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"