Fleet Foxing in Santa Cruz

Fleet Foxes got big. They went from being a band of bearded boys from Seattle to selling out every show they play. They played two shows in San Francisco, and how many of the shows did I get tickets for before they sold out? Zero. In fact the night that they were playing their first SF show at the Fillmore I was seeing Devendra Banhart at The Independent and Devendra said "Who's going to see Fleet Foxes tomorrow?" (to which a bunch of the indie crowd cheered... including myself even though I wasn't) "Me too!" said Devendra excitedly. So, not only did I miss out on seeing Fleet Foxes, but I missed out on the opportunity to see Fleet Foxes while swaying next to Devendra Banhart... the night after I saw his show. Guh.

Luckily for me, Fleet Foxes added a show in Santa Cruz the next night and did wonderfully poor publicity for it. So I got tickets. I even put off selling my car for a month so that I could ensure a trip to and from the show and wouldn't end up being the last loser indie kid on the planet to be wowed by the harmonies of Fleet Foxes. And besides I figured the Santa Cruz show would be even better because their woodsy, patchouli-smelling songs would waft right into the laid back Santa Cruz air.

Unfortunately, due to the extra 1.5 hours I had to drive to attend the show (after getting off work), we missed openers, Blizten Trapper - another band garnering a lot of much-deserved attention.

The crowd was filled with bearded, plaid-wearing, beach hipsters (as opposed to the cynical, fixed-gear, city hipster variety) and girls with long hair that swayed and may or may not have been held in place by a headband.

Despite their rise to indie stardom (measured by number of minutes it takes the show to sell out), Fleet Foxes were still milling around in the crowd before their set and setting up the stage themselves, which I am a big fan of. I identified a man that emerged from the backstage curtain as the drummer because I recognized him as the dude standing against the wall looking painfully cool and 60s in their Take Away Show (http://www.blogotheque.net/Fleet-Foxes,4521).

They took the stage to strong cheers of excitement and opened with their a capella beauty "Sun Giant", which literally brought tears to my eyes. Every member seemed so genuinely in their element singing together. What was immediately evident was the band's comfort on the stage. Perhaps it was amplified by the crowd's warm presence, but Fleet Foxes seemed at home during the whole performance.

One sign of this was how much dialogue took place throughout the set. After every song the band would makes jokes and then play off each other building the jokes into elaborate stories with multiple punchlines. The audience members got in on it too, and the band responded, which was a site I rarely see. When someone would shout something out, lead singer Robin Pecknold always responded with joviality and wit. For example, when Pecknold asked the crowd what the Santa Cruz music scene was like, one woman shouted out that Kimya Dawson would be playing at her house the following night. Pecknold followed up with lots of questions for her and eventually got her to divulge a hint about the location of her house to the crowd. Another time the band members went off on a tangent about how they were playing a "hot box tour of the West Coast"; a tour in which their songs seemed to last 5 times longer, their jokes were 5 times funnier, and everything tasted infinitely more delicious.

At the end of the night, the only thing that kept me from completely feeling like I had just watched some friends hang out, laugh, and jam was the caliber of music that they produced as a group. This is the perfect combination for Fleet Foxes, a band who rose to indie rock fame suddenly but don't seem to have realized it yet.

the intimacy of buses

Tonight on the bus home I was getting really into my music (the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs is fabulous) and bobbing my head and tapping my feet. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that the guy next to me was doing the same thing to his music. Then as the album slowed down I closed my eyes to enjoy it and might've taken a mini-nap. When I awoke I saw that the same guy next to me had dozed off too. Here we are dancing to our music and sleeping 5 inches away from each other and I don't know a thing about him.

In the front of the bus a girl was making silly faces at her boyfriend who was clearly still giddy about her. Across from them a guy was resting his head on a girl's shoulder as she talked on the phone. One man was visibly worried about something or at least had a lot on his mind.

There we all were sharing one vehicle, each distracted by our own lives, thoughts elsewhere. Sleeping, dancing, flirting, studying, worrying, laughing next to each other, letting our lives intertwine for a minute without any fuss and then going on with our evenings as usual. This is what I love about the city.

Clean Crack Pipe

On the bus on my way home from work Friday evening, a slightly cracked-out looking woman got on and demanded a seat. Someone got up, so she sat in front of me. After a few minutes, she pulled out what looked like a little bundle of copper thread wire, stuck it on the end of a coffee stir stick, and proceeded to light it on fire. As the metallic fumes wafted all around, the woman next to her gave a disturbed look, but as their eyes met she smiled. The cracked out woman continued to do this for some time. Then, out of her pocket she retrieved her crack pipe! She took that little bundle of burnt wire and used it to clean out her crack pipe on the crowded bus. Haha!

After about 10 minutes of cleaning, a couple boarded the bus. Crack lady appeared to know them, and started chatting them up. I got the impression that the couple were possibly former crack heads too and they had been friends from the streets before. Crack lady kept telling the other woman "Damn, you gained hella weight! You got hella big!" Over and over. But in crack land, maybe getting "hella big" is a good thing and this was meant as a compliment. When crack lady found out that the couple was going out to eat at a restaurant she exclaimed "Daaaamn!"
I guess being able to eat at the local chinese food joint showed just how far they had come. Good for them.

Oh, and she also was talking to her friends about someone they all knew who had apparently been killed. Crack lady said "It was an open casket funeral. She looked good. Especially for having been shot in the head". Good lord.

small (strange) world

While waiting for my bus the other night the guy next to me struck up a conversation. It was one of those situations where I'm not sure how it came about, but before I knew it we were deep in discussion. Turns out he went to my same university. Same university, and same bus stop on the same random Wednesday night, but our lives were pretty vastly different. He told me he loved the bay area but was happier with his daughter. He showed me pictures of the adorable little girl. He went on to tell me that his daughter's mother is about to marry his brother. Apparently there was some confusion about who the father even was, but a paternity test revealed that it was his.

You just never know what people's lives are like until you chat with them a bit.

music on the bus

Twice lately I've noticed people listening to music on the bus without head phones... just listening to a little stereo. The first time was an old man listening to some jazz and there was a little bearded hipster sitting a few seats down totally getting into it.
Then a few days ago there was a middle-aged man listening to some awesome classic rock and just really feeling it. Eyes closed, knees bouncing, head swaying, hands drumming. I decided to turn off my own music and just listen to his and be entertained by his enjoyment.

Mindfucked by Ratatat

Last week I headed to the Fillmore to catch Brooklyn duo, Ratatat... also the band with the funnest name to type. Upon arriving, I got into ready position to absorb the rays of electro-fantastic-instrumental goodness.

The first band to take the stage was Think About Life. I don't know that they really inspired me to follow the instructions of their name, but it was danceable. At some points TAL brought to mind The Clash, at other times The Rapture, and Bloc Party. Just as I was getting into the singer's hyperactive energy he proclaimed "Sorry guys, I'm just not feelin' it tonight". From that point on it seemed that after every song he either apologized for sucking or deflated into a look of defeat. What a buzz kill. Though I must admit, seeing the nerdy little drummer stand up and do a solo dance gave them a few bonus points in my memory.

Next was white boy rapper, Despot. He emerged and set up a music stand on which he placed a notebook with a drawing of a person constructed out of penises. Granted, that made my expectations relatively low, but I was still awe-struck at just how bad it was. Despot rapped over lackluster beats not unlike what you might hear if you pounded repeatedly on a wall. And he couldn't even remember his own lyrics. Hence, the penis notebook. In between songs he blabbed drunkenly about the journey of making his raps and tried to get the crowd to do aerobics. I found myself hard pressed to locate more than a handful of people in the entire venue that appeared to be enjoying the performance. Yikes.

So, after two somewhat disappointing openers, I needed a big boost from the boys of Ratatat. Luckily, when I heard the opening notes of Shiller (and I have a weak spot for shows that open with the opening track of their album) radiate off the stage in unison with hot yellow lights, I got excited. They jammed through their latest songs in front of a psychedelic film reel displaying shifting shapes, colors, and multiplying animal heads. It seemed to settle right in to the San Francisco crowd. However, somehow in spite of the psychedelic video show, the long haired band members, and the overall trippy musical journey, I underestimated just how much of a bro-crowd the band would attract. Thus, I was caught off guard by the number of college stoners pumping their fists and yelling "YEEE-AH!" and "This is SO TIGHT!" But hey, who's to say they weren't just as mindfucked by Shempi as I was. In fact, they were probably more so.
After a brief encore, Ratatat returned for a few more tracks, closing with their initial fish hook, Seventeen Years, during which a cannon of silver confetti exploded. Fuck yeah, bro. Fuck yeah.