Last Night Cave Singers @ The Crocodile
posted by on October 29 at 10:54 AM
Cave Singers? Pfft. Old news to this local music veteran.
What, a few months doesn’t qualify me for veteran status? See, while I was plotting my eventual move to Seattle, I saw the trio open for Grizzly Bear at Neumo’s back in February and thought they were a relatively pleasant opening surprise, though I didn’t realize just how new the act was at the time. I also thought that seeing Andrea Zollo hanging around at a concert (and chipping in backing vocals with Cave Singers) was a BFD, so I’m not sure what good my area music opinion was at that point. (Funny thing—later that night, I overheard her blurt out the details of PGMG’s then-unannounced breakup tour dates in China. Not to be a snoop, but it was hard to miss her assumedly drunken shouts of, “We’re going to fucking China!”)
Since then, Cave Singers have apparently become a BFD. Saturday night’s huge crowd made that apparent enough, but the trio’s confidence was far more telling, assumedly bred by a month of touring with Vancouver’s Black Mountain. Lead singer Pete Quirk has really come into his own in this band, turning down the overwrought, almost Thom Yorke-ian pleading of his previous band Hint Hint to recast himself as a creepy folk crooner, reminding me (at least in spirit) of a younger Michael Stipe. I’m not totally convinced about the act putting on a compelling live show—not without letting me sit in a chair, anyway, as the trio’s pared down sound doesn’t really compel me to stand up. But their improvement since February is obvious, and I’ve had too many out-of-town friends e-mail me in the past few weeks about seeing Cave Singers open for Black Mountain, so they’re probably on to something.
Dim video from Saturday’s show is below.
man, they sounded fucking great on friday. they played two brand new songs, both of which really focused on petes vocals, as well as some kinda cool south american percussion doodad. youre right, sam--theyre getting more confident w each gig.
i saw a couple dudes sorta pogo dancing to the cave singers, so its not entirely sit-downable.
black mountain was alright but i needed a whole lot of mushrooms to really make the music work.
Uh, anyone notice that every song sounds exactly the same? Same picking pattern/chords/mumbled singing/etc? This bothers nobody?
@2--youre not listening right.
I totally agree with Torvalds here. I saw Cave Singers at the Croc for one of those free Dewars shows back in March (along with The Can't See and Whalebones). Since that show, it is apparent that their live performance has become "tighter", but what kind of compliment is that really - especially when you take into account the snooze inducing simplicity of their compositions. Is this music for dumb people? Is it music used to sell VW's and iPods? Yes. Oh, and Black Mountain kicked all asses, hands down.
@4--right, its music for VW-driving dummies, like the entire crowd that was loving their set, not to mention black mountain, who picked them as tour mates and invited them onstage for the encore.
This is not folk music as it is lyrically vapid/sophomoric and thus communicates nothing important/meaningful to the "folk" from which that genre name is derived.
Real folk music is unadorned so it's easy to play and the lyric can be easily heard and remembered with few listens - so why is this "folk" music so sparse, considering the truly uninspired and unnoteworthy lyrics? If it's then meant to be pop music, it lacks any of the excitement and complexity that pop music implies.
This album mostly just lacks creativity.
torvalds, your argument over whats folk and what isnt is not only tired but completely misplaced. i dont even know where to begin to counter it.
"lyrically vapid?" wha? talk to me about "woke up this morning, i believe ill dust my broom"--one of the oldest lyrics around and not exactly lyrically profound. vapid just isnt the right word, torvalds, bc you could argue that a vast amount of what youd probably hold dear as "folk" is lyrically vapid. its all about the delivery, which cave singers certainly have.
besides, i think if you actually listened to/read the lyrics, youd realize theres nothing vapid about them.
the album has one of the more original sounds ive heard all year.
The only place that these dudes are a BFD is at the Stranger.
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