Straight to Video
Rock Art Rock
See more in the Rock Art Rock gallery.
polls
Loading ...
The Shaky Hands
The Shaky Hands
Lunglight
(Kill Rock Stars, 2008)
The Shaky Hands are five guys from Portland, Oregon, and they represent what currently seems to be the trend in that rainy Northwest city: Putting out music that is jangly, earthy, and freewheeling—earnest and rootsy at its greatest moments, a bit overplayed and distracting at its weaker ones, but forgivingly so. Adopting a tribalist sort of sound through their use of rackety hand percussion and loose melodies, there are definitely more hits than misses on their full- length debut album, Lunglight, but this would be a much stronger collection of songs if the editing process was taken a step further, with a few of the weaker tracks omitted altogether. As is, though, there are some gems to be extracted here, and a warm, overall sense of good natured fun (while lyrically acknowledging some darker realisms) that puts the Shaky Hands on a long list of bands that best represents indie rock’s young, expressive, and emerging talent.
The Shaky Hands are very likeable, embracing a free stylin’ looseness that seems to come easily to the quintet. They are not overstepping their comfort zones, nor are they discernibly self-conscious—rather they seem fulfilled working within their parameters. Lunglight is music they could easily have recorded in their garage, honed in the backyard of a Portland beer bust, and polished and executed before a thousand-person audience in the hipper clubs of Brooklyn. They are a band that is easy to identify with and root for, and as their songwriting evolves, they will likely secure a spot among the top contenders for contemporary Portland’s most definitive bands. They hold tight to a sense of musical regionalism that is fast defining that town, and so long as they continue to churn out material and take it to the road, they will only further enhance the city’s burgeoning reputation.
Shelley Short Rides the Heart of Tomorrow
Shelley Short is calling from behind the wheel of her car. As we’re chatting, I imagine it’s a tiny, fuel-efficient compact, zipping through the Pacific Northwest to the first show of her tour. On this night she’s playing in the quaint community of Cottage Grove, Oregon. Given Short’s sugar-sweet folk style, it’s easy to imagine her finding a receptive audience in a place called Cottage Grove.
Her answers employ precious brevity. She seems to eagerly await the next question, although her responses themselves are small: “I’ve never been to Cottage Grove,” she tells me, adding, “I’m really excited!” Short is once again calling Portland, Oregon her rainy home since moving back from Chicago where she’d been living for a few years, and her personality is very much what seems to be the Portland ideal: Enthusiastic realism. Short is simultaneously youthful and wise, both in person and in her songs—a bewitching mix of simplicity and eccentricity.
Since she grew up in Oregon, the move back was seamless, and Short had no problems acclimating to the music scene there; almost immediately her band was rebuilt. “The Chicago music scene was very exciting. It’s such a big city and it was very welcoming, but the Portland music scene is great,” she tells me. “There’s a lot of people who play a similar kind of music and the label I’m on, Hush, has a lot of really nice people on it.” To create her signature sound of old-timey folk, Short has recently employed Portland bassist Nate Query and Desert City Soundtrack trumpet player Cory Gray to accentuate her gently plucked guitars, lap steel, and lilting soprano.
Amelia: A Band, Not a Person, About a Person
by: j. poet
“The thing that gets lost in all the labels [critics attach to our style] is that we write pop songs,” said Scott Weddle, one of the band’s three songwriters and Amelia’s lead guitar player. “We do have folk and country roots, but all of our songs, no matter how they sound after they’re arranged, have lyrical and melodic hooks. The upside and downside of our sound is that we don’t fit into any classification. We just play the best songs we have and don’t worry about how people are going to classify us. We’ve been at it long enough to know who the Amelia character is and what kind of songs she can sing.”
The job of bringing Amelia, the character, to life falls to lead singer and songwriter Teisha Helgerson. Her smoky, world-weary voice is a perfect instrument for the band’s finely wrought tales of love and loss. She delivers the lyrics with just enough ironic humor to keep listeners slightly off balance, guessing about the real meaning. “I sing from an instinctual, gut place and don’t think about it too much,” Helgerson said. “I try to get into the feeling of a song and convey those feelings. I used to imitate the singers I liked, but when I started working with Scott, he asked me to sing like myself, which was frightening and naked, but it made me a better singer.”
read more
by: j. poet
published: December 3, 2008
in column: Introducing
no comments yet
Tags: