Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Os Mutantes - Diva -- 9:30 Club - Nov 11 2010

Diva - A tall woman hits the stage, picks up a bass, starts some recordings and plucks and sings. Spacey, bubbly sounds come out along with rudimentary bass lines and somewhat harsh singing. This was a double booked evening at the club, so this was to start late and did start even later than the posted time at 10:15pm. I was not too thrilled that a third act was on this bill for such a late start and it did not help this act, that there was likely no sound check or a rudimentary one at best. Her bass wasn't coming through and some of the harsh singing was due to the PA as the reverb was pretty massive making her patter almost painful to listen to. There were a few nice things within, so there is something to work with here. But a late night, bad sound and very quiet audience did not help matters much. Perhaps another time at the Red Palace would be worth a listen.

Os Mutantes - This band was my show of the year last year. You can read about my reaction right here. It looked a lot like the same band with the founder (Sergio Dias Baptista) and long-time drummer leading a full band with extra guitars, bass, flutes and keyboards. They have newer music which blended perfectly with their older classics. Dias did a cover of the Beatles' "Michelle" which makes sense as this band did a lot to bring in Beatles pop and Brit-American rock and psyche style to Brazil in the sixties. Michelle quickly morphed into a full-band Brazilian rocker. "2001" was a nice snappy number and the whole set was filled with their usual blend of sounds covering various continents and decades (at least three each). And Dias can still shred with the best of them. They were strong tonight and the crowd was into it. This was considered a joint headline show from what I could figure out. This band is what brought me out tonight and I was very happy to catch them again.

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - I was talking to someone prior to this set who told me Ariel Pink reminded him of AM radio. That was interesting description, so I was curious to see where I would place this tricky artist. The first song was very much AM radio with plenty of pop melodies. He had drums, bass, and two keyboardists for that song, although the keyboardists ended up playing guitar as much or more as the set went on. And as the guitars came in, they sort of went over to FM radio with a more "album oriented" approach. I was hearing all kinds of classic pop rock sounds from the Bee Gees to Genesis. The rhythms and creative sounds even produced a krautrock experience a few times which was great as far as I was concerned. Truth be told, I was getting worn down due to the starting time of just before 1am, but the the band was keeping my mind active with plenty of interesting and catchy music. There is plenty going on, yet the crowd was into it and the attendance was still pretty strong even late into the night (the stage was pushed forward and there was breathing room, but it was full enough). As tempting as it was to leave early, I am happy to have caught this band.

Quote of the Night: From Sergio Dias "...we did an album... uh, sometime ago, September whatever last year was... I'm fried, but not that much."