Line Out Music & the City at Night

Slog

News & Arts

@SEAshows
Twitter feed of Seattle shows on sale now

« This Jim James Solo Record Will Be… | Video Time Lapse: Closing day Of Ea… »

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Tonight Lasers and Cornfields: Psych-Blues Septet Rose Windows Open Doors to the Unknown

Posted by Dave Segal on Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 10:45 AM

Strange things happen at Rose Windows shows—really strange things. Old men and young women pass out. Disheveled mystical-voodoo ladies ask for the mic in order to babble crackhead gibberish. And then this happened at a pickup show at a San Francisco Mexican restaurant, according to vocalist Rabia Qazi.

"We were playing 'Walkin' with a Woman' [a slow-burning psych-blues ballad off the Seattle group's album The Sun Dogs], and this guy was way too into it—headbanging in a small area. He got really close to my mic and slammed into it, and it slammed into my face. I spit my tooth out into my hand and gave it to him. I was like, 'Fuck you!' It hurt really bad. I was in the middle of singing, too, so it was very abrupt. But I didn't stop singing."

Then there was the weird house party show in Portland where nobody in the audience would accept the smoke Rose Windows offered and nearly everybody exited the room while they played. So all the members faced one another and played to themselves. Afterward, two girls approached Qazi. "One of them said the most beautiful thing anyone's ever said to me in my life: 'You made me feel like I was dying and going to hell.' I said, 'Thank you so much.' She said she didn't mean it as a compliment, but I told her that's exactly what I'm going for: invoking hell for you. That made me want to continue singing, for sure."

Rose Windows open for Father John Misty at the Neptune Theater tonight.