I went to the Sunset Tavern in Ballard last night to watch Motorist, a rock band that includes musicians Jared Borkowski, Chris Icasiano, and Luke Bergman, who I met at the University of Washington, and Garrett Sand, who I met through the guys more recently, as well as frontman Robert Dale. I really enjoyed the music and grabbed a free CD that I’m still listening to right now.
All of these people I met playing bebop-oriented jazz music, but that seems so long ago now, after watching them move on to play rock, as in last night, or more improvisatory music, as I’ve seen them recently do at the Racer Sessions.
It’s exciting and encouraging to know that there are cultural circles in this town that insist on taking in music from all sorts of different categories, no matter where it comes from, and I’m not just talking about musicians. No matter what the style, no matter how popular it is or how far it is from the mainstream, people can recognize good music, and I think all of us, as performers, can take comfort in that.
I noticed last Friday when we were checking out some funk bands at ToST how diverse a crowed was out. I thought it was interesting how many stereotypical frat boys were getting down, right next to dreaded hippies, to a dope Fela Kuti cover.
Interestingly I feel like rock is the deadest genre in Seattle right now. As i think i’ve mentioned in comments on your blog before it’s Hip-hop that seems to be both winning the mindshare of the public and doing the most innovation. The massive amount of collaboration that local hip hop acts take part in are fueling a highly diggable fire. Speaking of which, any chance you’ll be checking out Head Like an Espresso Truck on friday?
Argh I wish I could, I love Truckasaurus especially! I’m playing at the Musiquarium that night.
Thanks for the post, I realize that I’m familiar with a tiny bit more local hip hop than I am rock, but I’d like to change that. Would you say the rock scene is dead or just saturated? It seems like Seattle bands like Fleet Foxes or Minus the Bear get some national exposure, but they don’t play in town very often, kind of the opposite phenomenon from local hip hop: http://www.seattleweekly.com/2010-01-06/music/206-hip-hop-still-about-to-be-big