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Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Review: Ratatat at Stubb’s
In a city where fans of indie rock generally meet live music with little more than approving head nods, it can be hard for bands to get crowds to actually dance.
But the instrumental outfit Ratatat did just that Monday night at Stubb’s. Usually a duo, guitarist Mike Stroud and multi-instrumentalist Evan Mast were joined by a keyboardist for 15 rounds of searing prog riffs backed by face-shaking hip-hop beats that had the sold-out crowd waving their hands, jumping and moving without shame to the music.
In Ratatat fashion, the entertainment didn’t come solely from the sounds produced by the band. The visual sequences projected on a screen behind the band were genuinely bizarre — one showed Buddhist monks with iridescent blocks of light shielding their eyes while they clutched ropes between their praying hands and Hebraic texts scrolled on the walls around them.
But from the set-opener to the encore it was clear that the images were carefully chosen and flawlessly synced. The tropical sounding “Brulee” was backed by flowing waves, while more aggressive numbers featured explosions typical of action movies. In every case, the movement on the screen punctuated the hard-hitting moments in the songs.
The music alone would have made Ratatat’s performance memorable. The harmonized notes of Stroud’s solos glided through each number with grace and a sense of metal melody, while the thundering bass of the backing samples pulsed with an energy that is hard to match on a home stereo. On fan favorites like “Wildcat” and “Seventeen Years,” many audience members were too busy dancing to watch the displays anyway.
Mixing and matching musical genres and live performance techniques is disastrous for many bands, but Ratatat does it well.
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Hayes Carll “devastated” by Ike damage
Hayes Carll, who spent four years honing his songwriting in the bars of Crystal Beach, is currently in England where, manager Mike Crowley says, “he’s devastated about the complete destruction of Crystal Beach.” Crowley says Carll is writing something that he’ll post soon on his web site. We’ll publish it here when it’s available.
“It’s all gone,” Crowley says of the working class town on Galveston Bay’s Bolivar Peninsula. “I’ve seen the footage and it looks like a tornado hit. It’s just concrete slabs.”
Carll hosts the Stingaree Music Festival on Crystal Beach each April. His Highway 87 label is named after the road that takes you to the seaside town, “where the cops all know your number and the bars all know your name.” Carll’s three albums are inhabited by the roughhewn characters, the shrimpers and oil workers and beach bums he met while playing at places like Bob’s, which are no longer there.
Now, virtually all that’s left of Crystal Beach are those songs.
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Guitars & Saxes reschedules
This Sunday’s Guitars & Saxes shows at the One World Theater have been moved to October 23. “Because of the devastation of Hurricane Ike, Guitars & Saxes will be unable to complete the Houston/Austin part of their tour,” said a press release from the venue.
The shows on Oct. 23 will be at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.
Those unable to attend the new date can either exchange their tickets for another show or receive a refund. Refunds and exchanges can be made by calling the One World Theatre box office at 512.32.WORLD (512.329.6753).
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ACL to move to early October in 2009?
So here’s the UT football schedule for 2009:
9/5 Louisiana-Monroe
9/12 at Wyoming
9/19 Central Florida
9/26 UTEP
10/10 Colorado
10/17 Oklahoma
(Dallas)
10/24 at Missouri
10/31 at Oklahoma State
11/7 Texas Tech
11/14 at Baylor
11/21 Kansas
11/26 at Texas A&M
You’ll notice that UT is away Sept. 12 and there’s no game at all Oct. 3. Sept. 12 is usually awfully hot in Austin. How about moving ACL Fest to Oct. 3?
C3 Presents principal Charles Attal said it’s a distinct possibility. “Nothing is set in stone yet, but because of the football schedule, we are looking at that weekend,” he said Tuesday.
Imagine there’s no sweating, it’s easy if you try. Imagine all the people, standing in a breeze.
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