Band Aid

A few weeks ago, I attended a performance by a band called Might Could. This group consists of three physicists and a chemist. All are in the Ph.D. program or have completed it. They're completely instrumental. When I went to see them play it was three guitars. They interplay, exchanging who has lead.

The performance was held in Bethesda at a place called East Coast Music Production Camp, which seemed somewhat like Paul Green's School of Rock, the school featured in the documentary Rock School. One of the highlights is this kid, who's maybe 12, and is a virtuoso of guitar.

When I went to the performance, I noticed signs for a "battle of the bands" that was to be held a few weeks later, which turned out to be yesterday. The age groups range from elementary school (I think), to middle school, to high school.

I didn't expect to stay there all day. Indeed, I only went for about an hour, and paid five bucks for the privilege.

Since it wasn't that well advertised, the attendees were primarily friends and family of the performers.

Several things struck me. First, these kids are awfully young. This hurts the most in vocals. Since these aren't the next generation of Star Search kids, there isn't a Whitney Houston wannabe in the bunch. Thus, the kids who do sing, struggle to make their voices sound like their much older, more talented, more experience d counterparts.

Having said that, the kids try to take a liability and do the best they can.

Another oddity was the song lyrics. Most of the bands were performing covers of songs. These songs deal with subjects of love, which, while not foreign to kids of their age, should also be something that's they're not completely experienced with.

It reminds me a little bit of something I saw during the Wizards-Cavaliers, Game 6. These shows have a "fan" cam, where the camera roams around. One of the "highlights", if you can call it that, was this kid, who took his shirt off and began dancing. He couldn't have been much older than 10, but there he was showing all 60 pounds of him.

Later on, another kid was dancing too, and he lifted his shirt up. They went back to the first kid, who had put on his shirt, but then was going to take his shirt off again, when the camera zoomed away. What had been cute and funny at first was, I gather, seemingly exploitative.

Of course, this isn't unusual. Remember JonBenet Ramsey, the kid who was found killed? She was a beauty queen at some unusually young age. Although beauty queens are about beauty, underlying all of that is some kind of sexual tension, and to have this on young children just seems out of place, and yet, we have cheerleaders, who now learn to dance in a rather seductive manner, showing both attitude and allure.

Anyway, with these kids, there were these three girls who were screaming when a guy, who was maybe 18, was playing his guitar, and jamming with the drummer and such. This was an interlude as the teachers at this camp were playing, while the high school folks bands had yet to appear.

The middle school kids singing songs about love and such seemed oddly out of place. I know. There really aren't good songs for and about teens that are age appropriate. These bands generally have to sing songs written by and for adults.

The other thing that struck me was the noise. Bands are quite loud. I'm surprised that the kids didn't appear to be wearing any kind of ear protection, so far as I could tell.

I did notice how the kids keep performing even though there were difficulties. In particular, one kid, who played keyboards, waved to the people indicating he was having problems. As the older folks tried to fix the problem, the rest of his bandmates kept singing and playing. You could almost not tell there was a problem.

Although none of the kids were anywhere near the virtuoso level, they acquitted themselves reasonably well. I suspect these band schools, which seem really popular, are beginning to replace the traditional violin, piano lessons that kids used to take. While it may not appeal to more conservative immigrant families, it does seem to appeal to white parents.

One girl was African American, but the band members generally played rock, although there was some AC-DC, and some lighter fare as well.

After an hour or so, I left.

Later that evening, I was planning to head into DC to watch a Swedish band called The Concretes. I knew very little of this band except the one song I had heard on NPR's All Songs Considered.

The schedule said the doors would open at 7:30. I had thought this meant the first band would be ready by then. It had been so long since I had been to the 9:30 club that I had forgotten that you wait quite a while to listen to the band.

The first band wasn't scheduled to play until 8:30 or 8:45. Many regulars often skip the first band, and come in around 10:00, when the main act begins.

When I got there, there was maybe 4-5 people. I had seen another guy just ahead of me in line. When we arrived, we were just wandering, not doing a whole lot. I was wondering whether I should talk to the person, given that it was a random stranger.

Eventually, I decided to talk, and we actually had a decent conversation. It turns out that he had just quit his job as a reporter. He had wanted to do political journalism, but was unable to get that kind of a job. His boss was apparently a woman that was verbally abusive, and eventually, he quit because he felt he didn't deserve that.

This was the second concert for him at the 9:30 club. The other one he'd attended was a band called Sunvolt. Apparently, they're related to two bands called Wilco and Uncle Tupelo. One of the bands had split into two, and Sunvolt was one of the two.

I had heard of the other two bands, in fact, I had been talking to a coworker about it, so I was a little surprised to hear their names. The guy, Jeremy, had said he'd been a fan of The Concretes for a while.

I, on the other hand, had just found out about them two days earlier, while at NPR's website, then happened to check out the 9:30 club's schedule, only to notice they were performing on Sunday.

We spoke about politics, computers, and such until 9 or so (interrupted by a phone call of about twenty minutes on his part). The first act was late to get on stage.

The first act was New Buffalo. I don't know her name, but she is from Australia and is a singer-songwriter. She plays keyboards and a little guitar, and is generally good looking.

However, she did some rather uncomfortable on stage, even though she didn't sound uncomfortable. She seems reasonably talented on the keyboard, and a good singer. Her ability on the guitar was minimal, but she wasn't trying to play anything too fancy, and it seemed to fit with her minimalist style.

Since she was by herself, if she needed accompaniment, she would turn on her IPod, and play the background music for her songs. I suppose she could have had her own band, but maybe she wasn't ready to lead a band, or couldn't afford the cost of touring with anyone besides herself.

She finished just before 10. I had feared that The Concretes would run really late, and I'd have to leave early to catch the Metro. I had expected to leave by 11:30.

Fortunately, they were ready to come on stage after about 10-15 minutes.

After being on our feet for an hour, Jeremy and I walked to the back, where there were seats, and understood why people went to the second floor, where they could sit and watch the band.

I mentioned the other bands I had seen at the 9:30 club: Norah Jones with warmup band, The Gabe Dixon Band, They Might Be Giants, and Sigur Ros. He was surprised I had heard them there, since he had heard they were at larger venues. Clearly, he knew a lot of music, more than I did. I've relied on Phil to help me pick music, and so my tastes only seem that much more erudite among the cognoscenti.

Sitting was a nice break from all that standing, but when the band was ready to come out, we headed back to the front. It still wasn't all that crowded, but then it was a Sunday night.

The Concretes are a huge band. Apparently, they started off as a girl band. The lead singer, plus a guitarist and the drummer are all women. The remaining five are guys. Two of the guys play one of many brass instruments.

One guy played one of two trumpets and a tuba, sometimes in the same song. The other guy played the saxophone, but it looked like he could play clarinet, flute, and keyboard. The other keyboard was also playing xylophone. One of the women would play guitar, but sometimes bass.

With 8 members playing upwards of 12 or more instruments at different times, there's a hugely creative ensemble. Even though their sound is quite pop, it's quite enjoyable too. If you have a pop tune that's overlayed with tuba or saxophone or trumpet, it seems that much more OK to be that pop.

The band's first song was Fiction, which was the song I heard at the NPR site. If you read this more than a week after I post it, that episode may be archived. In that case, go into the archives, and locate episode 110. That song turned out to be one of the best they performed, although I was fond of the third song in their encore performance.

If you hadn't told me the band was Swedish, I might have pegged them as German. Many blonds.

For the first time being at the 9:30 club, I stood very close to the stage. Normally, I stand further back, partly because it can get very crowded, partly because it's so loud. Maybe it was me going deaf from the performances in the afternoon. Maybe it was because The Concretes simply aren't a loud band, either way, I could be that close and not have my eardrums blown out.

The lead singer was actually brunette, with broken English. The entire band were dressed in what appeared to be 60s clothing. The music even vaguely sounded like lighter fare from the 70s, like maybe Barry Manilow or Elton John. The women wore these dresses that seemed oddly fashioned, though recognizable. The guys looked like they were from the 60s as well. Maybe it's fashionable in Sweden, or maybe they just like that period of time.

The Concretes are very pop. Songs are sugary sweet, without being completely annoying. They know how to stand just on the edge, and make the performances quite enjoyable. I have to credit the multitude of instruments for pushing it beyond just ordinary.

I decided to order their new CD, which is titled something like In Colour. It appeared to be selling at Amazon for $24, which is really pricey. I should have realized something was wrong when I saw (IMPORT) since I've seen that elsewhere, and it usually translates to "expensive", and there's usually a cheaper (well, more reasonable) priced CD.

For some reason, I began to look at third party sellers, and then decided to buy it at NPR. It was only after I paid nearly $20 for the NPR music shop that I discovered there was indeed a $14 CD of the same album at Amazon, which I could have gotten both cheaper and quicker, since I have Amazon Prime. Oh well, I suppose I can feel good about helping out the NPR music store.

If you don't mind having your music a bit pop and sweet, I recommend The Concretes. You can listen to samples of their music at their website.

I had decided to buy a t-shirt and a CD of the band, shortly after I arrived around 7:30. This meant I was holding onto a t-shirt and CD for most of the evening, which is awkward. Jeremy bought some pins and a CD as well.

The performance was relatively quick. They were done around 11:20, so they were on stage maybe an hour. Still, for fifteen bucks, a short performance was fine. I decided I wanted to head back to the Metro. My feet were tired.

Jeremy, who thought the lead singer was cute, wanted to hang out afterwards to get autographs. I took a picture of him in front of the stage, because I figured there was a chance we wouldn't meet again, and this was one way to capture the moment.

Then, I headed to the Metro. Alas, the 9:30 club doesn't look like the most pleasant of neighborhoods, but I suspect it's mostly just panhandlers, and hopefully nothing worse. Indeed, just as I left a guy wanted some money, but I just kept walking.

When I got to the Metro, it turned out that I shouldn't have been concerned about being in a hurry. The train wasn't scheduled to show up for over 6 minutes, and another would have shown up in 15 or so minutes. So I sat, glad to get off my feet.

Just a moment before my train showed up, Jeremy dropped by to tell me that he hadn't seen the band members. His train had shown up too, heading in the opposite directions, so we said bye.

Fortunately, I'm only six stops or so from my stop, so soon enough, I was back at College Park. I dropped by the 7-11 to get a snack, then headed back home, to try to get to sleep and head into work.

All in all, a full day of music. Not bad. Not bad at all.