Put up your ukes: Tune-yards. All photos by Jen Snyder.
By Jen Snyder
The only thing I really knew about music from Vermont before Saturday was Phish, which naturally threw a big, damp drug rug over my entire interest in seeking out and discovering new jams from the state. But about a month ago, I found out that Citay (the Guardian’s triumphant Goldie winner) was going to be playing at Amnesia with a band called Tune-yards, hailing from Vermont. A Citay band member promised, “No joke at all - this is the best music I've heard and seen in years and years. I shit you not.”
I was somewhat conflicted at first, but a post-election, Obama-esque change-is–possible wave swept over me and I decided to not judge a state I had never been to, and to check it out.
Tune-yards, which had never previously played in San Francisco, did not disappoint. The project, which consists solely of Merril Garbus and her excellent digital voice recorder, was consistently intriguing. Garbus is very self-sufficient: she loops her own vocals, drums, and chanting over what looked like a cross between a children’s fake guitar and a ukulele.
Her sweet yet powerful voice sang upbeat, primal melodies that were often in contrast with more contemporary and funny lyrics, which sometimes went vulgar. In the song “News,” Garbus repeats, “I’ve got news for you honey - I don’t need no booze to get it up in the morning.” The entire set was something like Nico meets Paul Simon’s percussion section, and was very well-received by the crowd, which dutifully rocked out to songs that only a handful had heard before.
Although at times, I did feel the Vermont-y Phish/Dave Matthews Band vibe, I was genuinely not bothered at all. Wow. Instead Tune-yards proved to be the perfect opening act for Citay, which obviously shredded.
Livin', lovin': Citay.
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Comments (3)
Hey, really enjoy Noise. I live in the SF area and thought I'd just let you guys know about this show that's coming up at Great American Music Hall. I got wind of this guy named Rodriguez recently from a friend. He's been around for a long time, but just had his first album reissued and is now touring in support of it. This dude is in his mid-60s and this is the first time he's played west of Detroit. It's weird like psych folk soul and is really pretty amazing.
He's playing in LA on the 21st at The Echo and SF on the 23rd at The Great American Music Hall (with The Entrance Band).
I don't know, I hadn't heard anything about it very many of the local blogs and thought that I'd just spread the word as I thought people would really interested in this.
Hope this gets a few more folk out at the show.
Posted by James | November 21, 2008 02:32 PM
Thanks for the kind words! Actually we covered Rodriguez this week in the paper; here's a link to the piece by contributor Todd Lavoie:
http://www.sfbg.com/entry.php?entry_id=7551&catid=107&volume_id=398&issue_id=406&volume_num=43&issue_num=08
Posted by Kimberly Chun | November 21, 2008 04:18 PM
just an fyi, I'm pretty sure that's a tenor ukulele she's playing there, as there are 4 strings and it is tuned reentrant, (the third string is lower than the fourth-top-string.) No idea what the tissue paper over the sound box is about.
Posted by tuscadero | November 22, 2008 06:59 AM