Thursday at Parish

@G and I were at the Parish Thursday night to see a bunch of local bands. Of course she was just there to see The Story Of. I took notes (photographic evidence here) and here's what I got.

The Story Of - interesting use of the megaphone for some of the vocal parts, but borders on being too gimmicky. Amusing and strange how the bass and guitar players are jumping around in the background behind the two front guys, who have keyboards in front of them which kind of anchor them a bit--though the lead singer made his way out from behind the keyboard at times to emote. I like the courage to have octave vocal parts with one in falsetto. It's a good sound that might be thought of as cheesy by some, but I really like it. My most important observation is that I recognized a few of their songs--and since I've only heard them once before, that means that they were memorable (and in a good way).

My Education - it would be unfair to dislike this band just because they had no vocals, but after the show I have to question placing instrumental bands between non-instrumental ones. People just have a hard time adjusting to it and it makes it hard for the band and the audience. Their lineup was two electric guitars, drums, and lead violin. The electric guitars were occasionally switched out with acoustic or pedal guitar. The violin player was tearing it up, proven by his half torn out bow by the end of the show. They sounded good but I was a little bored by them. Not because of the lack of vocals, but the fact that alot of their music consisted of soloing over 8 bars of 4 chords repeated over and over again. A little too jam bandy for me.

Boxing Lesson - my second time seeing this band. I complained before that their vocals had too much echoey effects for my tastes, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I remembered this time. But, I was still bored with them for the most part. They had a lot of sweepy synth and computery stuff going on which didn't really add much to the songs. It just seemed to get in the way of them. They could've done more with the backup vocals. It has so much potential when you have one guy and one girl singer. The b/u vocal wasn't audible at times--that could've been the sound guy's fault. At one point this band had such a long intro that I wondered aloud if someone had to make an emergency trip to the can or something. "Build up" intros are great if you're a band with a big following and you're headed into one of your best songs, but when no one is paying attention it's sort of a waste of time. Man I'm harsh aren't I?

Experimental Aircraft - only stayed for half the set. Having seen them on METV I was looking forward to seeing this band. My notes are really sparse but I found their music interesting, about as interesting as The Story Of's was. Always good to have female vocals and guitars. The bass was strong and had some interesting parts. And, does every good band in Austin have a Nord? I was thinking that this year I would buy a Rhodes but maybe I should get a Nord instead.