I realized at some point on Tuesday that I was looking forward to dinner at the Bite Cafe almost as much as I was looking forward to the show. If it's not too late, a show at the Empty Bottle should always be preceded by dinner at the Bite. The place is small and looks pretty exactly like the inside of the venue next door, except with tables, and the menu is very vegetarian-friendly (yippee!) and pretty delicious. I had a bowl of wonderfully savory tomato-garlic soup, peppery and with coarsely-chopped veggies that gave it almost the consistency of gazpacho, followed by a jerk seitan sandwich that was vinegary enough to give it a tang but not enough to give me all kinds of acid reflux. I never know how to pronounce "seitan."
I had called ahead to find out the night's schedule, and was told that the first band went on at 8:30. I finished my dinner and hurried next door at 8:40, all worried that I was late. I found myself in an empty house. When I expressed my surprise to the doorman, he told me that the first band didn't go on until 9:45. Luckily, I had a book in my bag, so I sat down on the couch in the Empty Bottle's entranceway, pulled up my hood, and started to read.
Before long, I had company. A sleek black cat prowled up to the base of the couch, paused, and then hopped up to join me. After a moment's hesitation, he stepped carefully onto my lap, eased himself down to prone, and curled up. His name was Radley, I learned, and he's been a part of the Empty Bottle for almost as long as there's been an Empty Bottle. More than once, I had people walk up to me and say, “Oh my God, he's so cute! Can I pet your cat?”
"He's not mine,” I would reply. “So, yeah, I guess.”
He took well to human attention, which I suppose a bar cat must.
Rather promptly at 9:45, Nouns quietly took the stage and the self-described dream-pop duo of Chase Johnson and Anthony Iamurri plugged in and tuned up.
The pair has some very real skills. They both play like they've had jazz training at some point in the past, but they bring that skill set to bear to create a decidedly unique final product: delicate keyboard loops that ebb and flow behind soft vocal harmonies, and drums that exploit a pretty wide dynamic range, alternately rolling gently and sinking into thick grooves. Chase's pleasingly jangly guitar chords, strummed on a black Rickenbacker just like Johnny Marr's, have the biggest part in lending the music its distinctive texture. “Imaginary Economics," in my opinion the highlight of their set, was full of beautiful atmospherics grounded by a drum line that was practically all fills.
The Interiors, next in the night's lineup, was the kind of straight-ahead rock band I would expect to have come up in the early part of the decade. They played songs with a bit of post-punk and a dash of blues, but mostly just rock; the vocals sounded like Julian Casablancas with more of a rock-star wail. "Shooting Off," made out of fast, urgent 2/4 and rhythm guitar strummed on the up beat, was the last (and best) song in their set.
Mt. St. Helens was the evening's headliner, and their playing showed the most experience-polished performance acumen. Their sound wasn't anything new or revolutionary, but it defied pigeonholing just the same. Their songs were dancey, but not dancey enough to be called post-New-Wave; jerky, but not jerky enough to be punk; and poppy, but too gritty to be pop. Yet, somehow, they escaped sounding generic the way Interiors occasionally sounded (dare I say?) generic. Um, go listen to them.
Above all, from a music nerd's perspective, they were a testament to the textures that can be created with two SG's and a 335 over a J-bass. They were a tremendously fun act to attend; I'd definitely see them again given the chance.
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