By Taylor Jones
taylorjones9393@gmail.com
Nearing the shadows of this cold, autumn night, I gratefully enter the warmth of the Alternative Café, a welcoming venue that I feel more and more compelled to attend after every show I see here. As I set my glass of water down on the circular, mosaic table, I start a conversation with tonight’s featured act, Zoe Boekbinder. While we discuss the release of her new album Darling Specimens, she tells me of the success she celebrated at her CD Release Party at Viracocha in San Francisco. Born in a farmhouse in Ontario, Canada, Boekbinder spent parts of her youth in California and became interested in pursuing music during her last year of high school, encouraged by a friend in her theatre group. Starting in 2004, she spent five years touring with her sister in their duo called Vermillion Lies, achieving success with their circus and cabaret theme on stage. In 2009, Boekbinder began to pursue a solo project with a sound she describes as “ragtime pop,” and continues the adventure tonight by performing at the Alternative Café. As we talk, her touring partner Alexander Thompson, playing under the alias The Alexanders, sits down and joins the conversation. Amongst discussing our favorite music and rap artists like Odd Future, Thompson explains to me how he recorded his new album Western Medicine over the past year in his hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Thompson plays guitar, trumpet, and sings, and is preparing to perform his rockabilly folk music tonight. Boekbinder and Thompson met through a similar booking agent when they played a show together in Athens, Georgia, where they exchanged CDs and hit it off, resulting in their current tour together.
Once again enjoying the comfort of the front row leather couch, I notice the room is filling up earlier than usual and I have a good feeling about the show. Before Boekbinder and The Alexanders are set to go on, an opening rock band from Oakland called Warbler takes the stage. Starting off their set with a chilled-out sound of ambient keyboards and electric guitar plucking, they progress into a heavier, indie rock riff that turns them into a mix of the raw element of Dawes and the electric element of Phoenix. The intro of their next song begins in a similar mood, leaving the drums out in order to sustain the mellow scene. However, the drummer should turn his snare off since vibrations from the amplifiers are causing his drum to rattle and take away from the energy of the performance. As I watch the keyboardist, I admire the clear plastic back of his setup, allowing the audience to look inside and see all of the synthesizers and mechanisms he uses. On one song, he uses these synths in cooperation with various foot pedals to create a soul-powered organ. While the bass player plucks a wild west sounding line on his five-stringed Yamaha, the singer/guitarist stomps his foot pedals for live looping and effects including distortion, reverb and delay, an effect much loved by Brent Smith, the guitarist in my band Mozzo Kush. Warbler has definitely worked on live transitioning in their set, for after the end of the previous song, the drummer starts playing a floor tom and rim pattern that leads into a precise entrance of the other instruments. Although these musicians blend together to create their own sound, that sound often just gets too loud and repetitive. As Scott Grover, owner of the café, once told me, you have to “play to the room,” and in this case that means don’t play so loud that all the sound is going to echo off the walls and feedback directly into the mics. Overall, Warbler has a distinct sound, but does not vary their style enough to keep the audiences’ interest.
Sitting down on a wooden chair, Alexander Thompson of the one-man-band The Alexanders presents himself in a blue and yellow striped sweater over a collared shirt, looking through hip, dark rimmed glasses that almost scream “indie musician!” Kicking off his set with a song called “Big Boy,” Thompson surprises me with a soothing voice that has some pop influence, with lyrical schemes like Feist and Brit-pop artist Kate Nash, but keeps the music indie by incorporating his folk guitar melodies. On another song called “Gay Friends and Sugar Cookies,” Thompson explains how the title didn’t win him many fans throughout the Midwest, so he’s been more open to playing it in California. After this happy song that displays his soft sound and voice, he changes the mood by playing “Misery,” a tune that reflects the story-telling songwriting style of Paul McCartney. While playing “Jesus Plays Roulette With the Sun,” Thompson plays a bass line on the low E string and strums the rest of the chords to accompany himself like Jimi Hendrix did before Noel Redding joined the band. Thompson owns his folk-pop sound and compliments his touring partner very well.
When featured act Zoe Boekbinder steps on stage in her rose covered jacket, she debuts not only her new CD, but a wide smile and a welcoming presence that makes the audience temporarily fall in love with her. Boekbinder is well known for her Boss loop machine, which she uses to harmonize with herself as well as to launch drumbeats and other pre-record patterns. In order to do this, she needs two mics, one to record her live loops and another to sing overtop of them. Her “ragtime pop” sound resembles the vibrato of Shenandoah Davis, who coincidentally produced her latest album Darling Specimens. With Davis, Boekbinder searched through her house for objects to hit with drumsticks, including lawn mowers, glass, pianos, and even recorded the crunch of chewing celery. After obtaining these samples they sent them off to various electronic beat makers to produce some very interesting loops, resulting in a song called “Artichoke.” The song “Salt Water” also incorporates a lot of these out-of-the-ordinary sounds for percussion instruments, while Boekbinder plays guitar and sings over them. Although the beats are intricate and innovative ideas, the artificial aspect of the pre-recorded beats interferes with the natural flow of the music at times. She shows on songs like “Just Because” and “Sour Lemons” that when she plays all live, with just vocals and guitar, the songs come out much more gripping. On the next song, which she is yet to title, she explains how she had taught loop machine classes at New Folsom Prison and asked inmates to write words for her melody. As a result, Boekbinder transposed these hip-hop lines to fit her song, a folk adventure with questioning lyrics like “where would I be without my hook and verse?” After leaving the stage temporarily, she teases the encore-pleading audience by waving her hand in and out from backstage. Following this toying, she takes the stage again to end with her own, comical version of “Single Ladies” by Beyoncé. Since she starts the loop really fast, she commits to the beat and tries to sing the song at an incredible pace, engaging the audience in belting the chorus and giving everyone a heartfelt last laugh. Once she finishes, the appreciative spectators line up to buy her new CD Darling Specimens as well as The Alexanders Western Medicine.
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