Dorian Electra, Mood Killer & Youryoungbody at The Vera Project 10.22.19

Dorian Electra & co. performed to a sold-out crowd at the always-all-ages venue The Vera Project, on October 22, 2019, which celebrated the release of their debut LP, Flamboyant.

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Dorian Electra

Following a handful of one-off singles and an appearance on "Femmebot" from Charli XCX's Pop 2, Dorian Electra truly puts themselves on the map with their debut Flamboyant. Being completely honest, I fall under the camp who was not only introduced to Electra, but a handful of others from Charli XCX's collaborative projects. This has led me becoming fans of many new musicians, and with "Femmebot" being one my favorite tracks off of Charli XCX's projects, I took a fast interest in Electra and their own work.  I'm so glad I did, as they have a sever uniqueness in their productions which is only further complemented by their obvious love for pop music. The result is a BOP of an album.  Live, Dorian Electra's music is even more powerful, as the sold-out Vera Project saw for itself last Tuesday evening.

Electra emerged on stage to their debut LP's title track "Flamboyant" in a wave of blue lights and projected graphics, along with two very expressive backing dancers.  The crowd grew closer to the stage, with the anticipation of Electra’s arrival finally over. Fans holding out their hands were met with embraces from Electra, and to cap off the finale of the first song, Electra smashed a glass on their forehead, an iconic move that can be found in many of their music videos.

The audience went wild for Electra & co. after that.  They made their way through their LP's entire catalog, including a bonus track that can only be found on their vinyl, and their single "VIP".  Each performed track was specifically choreographed, with explosive visuals or props.  For "Live By The Sword," Electra's backing dancers each had swords that they utilized in their dance moves and highlighted Electra with, before promptly giving them out to the crowd at the peak of the song. 

It would be a disservice at this point to not address the weight Dorian Electra holds in the LGBTQ+ community – many people who attended the show had vocally expressed their excitement leading up to Electra's arrival on stage, as they related with others in the audience about Electra’s powerful messages.  Electra not only provides enjoyable pop dance-a-longs, but lyrically the songs are often essentially queer power anthems, exploding with positive themes. In the song "Adam & Steve," Electra boasts "And god made me (and he loves me, and he loves me)….God made me and Adam and Steve."  In "Man to Man," one of my personal favorites from Electra, they challenge masculinity norms with their lyrics "Are you man enough to soften up? Are you tough enough to open up?" The power and confidence form Electra on stage transcended to their audience at the Vera Project, and that energy was fed right back, for an incredibly uplifting set.

Towards the end of the night, Dorian crowd-surfed the audience, and wrapped up their performance.  Fans obviously were wanting more, but they had performed most of their tracks, so what would their encore be?…a cover? Well, only moments after leaving the stage, Dorian & co. ran back out to the beat of "Femmebot" and I felt myself erupt with another level of excitement.  I freaking love this song, and it's what got me into Dorian Electra in the first place.  They performed their verse and chorus from the Charli XCX track, and invited the crowd to join them on stage.  It was one of the most triumphant and inviting finishes to a live show I have ever seen.  It felt like family.  Which only Dorian Electra and the Vera Project could probably pull off with such genuineness and inclusivity.

Watch a video I took of “Live By The Sword” from Dorian Electra’s show below:

Mood Killer

Opening for Dorian Electra was the perfect complement, Mood Killer. Their name is ironic as their performance truly has the opposite effect – Mood Killer's charismatic attitude had audience members bopping and smiling from ear to ear their entire set long.

Mood Killer's bigger-than-life personality was also surprisingly inviting.  They appropriately asked the audience to go hard during their song "Go Hard" off their debut Liquify EP, while simultaneously jumping into the crowd to dance.  At one point, Mood Killer lost their strap-on to the crowd floor, which we spotted right by my foot.  The fan next to me picked it up and offered it back to Mood Killer who eagerly accepted it back, after first finishing their song while singing into it.

Energy from a one-person show has never come off so strong.  I've haven't listened to Mood Killer before and didn't know what to expect from them, but now have an immense respect for their live set.  They brought positive hype to the crowd to set everyone off in celebration for the rest of the evening.

Youryoungbody

To start out the night, locals Youryoungbody performed first, and I couldn't have felt luckier. As one of my favorite Seattle acts (maybe my absolute favorite?) I was recently lamenting over the fact that I haven't caught them live in the past few months and wished that had been able to make it. When I found out a few days before attending this show that they would be the first performance of the night I was floored!

You see, ever since shooting the band's first KEXP performance back in 2013, I have really loved catching this band whenever I can. Their mixture of just enough mystery and spook, with just the right amount of pop/electronic is what I am all about. Add in singer Duh Cripe's crooning vocals and the music takes off. 

The duo pumped through their alluring beats off of their Devotion LP, bringing me back to some Eiffel 65 and "Sandstorm" nostalgic feelings, but in a moodier way.  This is the darker 90s and 00s resurgence of dance tracks we need! I know I bounced around while Duh Cripe danced towards the crowd and Killian Brom bopped with his electronic drum set.  I was too in the moment to take note of how the rest of the crowd responded to their set until afterwards when I heard newcomers say "I was really feeling that" to their friends.  Of course, I was really feeling it, too.

Watch a video I took of “OD” by Youryoungbody from their set below:

Weyes Blood Concerts & KEXP Instudio 2019

Newly signed Sub Pop artist Weyes Blood is anything but new. She has been forging her unique-yet-nostalgic sound across multiple albums over the years, but on her latest offering Titanic Rising, her magic has been truly revealed.

I had a chance to see Weyes Blood & co. perform 3 times so far this year, and here’s my take:

The Tractor Tavern - May 2019

To a sold out crowd earlier this year at the Tractor Tavern, Seattle was washed in the spell of Weyes Blood’s intricate melodies of this new album (and a few old songs as well). It’s true that the song structures are works of art in their own right, but Natalie Mering’s (aka Weyes Blood) voice is the true stunner of her sets.

The thing about nostalgia is it’s relative to each person. Weyes Blood’s voice and melodies likely sound familiar to me because I was an 80s baby, with parents who were listening music akin to The Carpenters and Fleetwood Mac. Those are the sounds that remind me of my childhood, as a result. Weyes Blood channels much of the energy and harmonies from both outfits, but weaves some modern technology into the mix of her work as well.

KEXP instudio - May 2019

The stark white suit Weyes Blood wears is an iconic piece of this tour. I was told as much, as she warmed up her vocals at the KEXP instudio I photographed - she asked me to please wait to document with photos until after she had changed into the stylish number.

It makes sense, the crisp, pure suit absorbs what is cast onto it. For her song “Movies,” a projection of blue and green lights are displayed boldly across the white fabric.

KEXP’s DJ Abbie.

Likely custom made, the intricate bead detailing in off white is stunning. Specifically, the slit along each elbow is highly stylized.

Check out the full performance on KEXP, here (you might even spot me in the wide shots!):

Concerts at the Mural - August 2019

Each August, KEXP teams up with the Seattle Center to put on the Concerts at the Mural series, where curated free performances appear in front of the large mural next to the Space Needle on Fridays. I was delighted to hear I’d be getting to see Weyes Blood live again so soon - who played almost a full set, sitting at about 12 different songs.

All of the hits from Titanic Rising made an appearance at the mural set. In contrast to her show at the Tractor Tavern, she did treat us to a new cover. This time, she shared her rendition of “A Whiter Shade of Pale” of Procol Harum fame. Back in May, Weyes Blood had brought a cover of “God Only Knows” by the Beach Boys.

Of course, the Seattle Center performance included “Movies,” the song I just cannot get enough of. Even in the daylight, the projector truly danced atop her staple white outfit. This song is my summer song, my song of the year, and could be the song of my decade. Again, nostalgia is subjective, and so is preference, but the album Titanic Rising, and the song “Movies” has touched me in the depths of my subconscious. It’s the song I didn’t know I needed.

I implore you to do everything you can to see Weyes Blood’s music live!

Better Oblivion Community Center at KEXP 3.17.19

Last Sunday morning, March 17, 2019, many folks were crowding around the Seattle Center fountain in spandex, ready for their St. Patrick’s Day run. I was there too, but I was getting ready for one of the most memorable KEXP instudios I will ever experience - Phoebe Bridgers and Conor Oberst, aka Better Oblivion Community Center, a new band that combines my current tastes with the old.

Phoebe Bridgers has been popping up everywhere lately, her album Stranger in the Alps (originally released in 2017) has the incredibly catchy single “Motion Sickness” which was a go-to for me in the past couple of years. Her voice is a true one-of-a-kind. There is a lulling mourn in her sound. The harmonies Bridgers creates (she typically will have two vocals of here own layered on top of each other) evoke a story even without the meaning behind the lyrics themselves. She isn’t a tragic soul, but there is certainly a depth and pain in her background. Even in moments that would standardly feel lackluster if they were executed by another artist, the monotony of her sound becomes riveting in its lingering.

Conor Oberst has been around for a very long time - creating music even earlier than when he burst onto the indie/emo scene in ‘95 as Bright Eyes. At his core, Oberst was always a simple sounding singer, but a complex songwriter. His vocals are unmistakable as well, sometimes he sounds like he just having a conversation with someone else, often with a vulnerability as if there’s a tear to fall following his message.

Bridgers and Oberst have another thing in common as well, they both have their own solo projects but collaborate often. Oberst was recently involved in a resurgence of the post-punk outfit, Desaparecidos, which was one of the first live shows I ever photographed for KEXP back in the fall of 2012. Bridgers is also a part of the supergroup boygenius, which is made up of singers Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus as well. All of this culminates in 2019, when Bridgers and Oberst announced their own collaborative effort, Better Oblivion Community Center.

Oberst had previously had Bridgers open for him on another tour, and really appreciated the sad music she was making. He said he believed her music would help people feel better - explaining that it, at least, made him feel better.

The two had been crafting songs here and there together, not sure about whose albums the songs would end up on in the future, when eventually they began to realize the songs sort of belonged together as their own standalone thing. Now we’ve got a mouthful-of-a-band-name an a full LP via Dead Oceans.

The result is much of what you might expect, melodic and somber harmonizations with detailed lyrics. A song titled “Dylan Thomas” speaks of dying on the bathroom floor as a result of a seizure, something that specifically terrorizes me to my core. Such specific story-telling can alienate some listeners, but for me, I feel closer to the artists behind the work if what they have to share isn’t generic.

With all of this being said, I was completely floored to shoot the Better Oblivion Community Center performance at KEXP last week. Both performers were incredibly humble, as expected, yet still I had nerves creeping up on me because both musicians were so big to me for different reasons. Phoebe Bridgers probably is my favorite female vocalist at the moment, and Conor Oberst brings me back to an age where I was discovering music for myself for the first time - truly discovering it, as the internet was ever powerful and relatively new at the time of my teens.

Both Bridgers/Oberst and co. were perfectionists. The session started a bit late as all of the technical details were sorted and made just right. Once all was ready to go, the band ran through “Dylan Thomas”, “Didn’t Know What I Was In For”, “Little Trouble” (a new song that the duo jut released) and “Easy / Lucky / Free”, a Bright Eyes cover, which the group recorded twice to get just perfect. Bridgers opted for a mic only for this song, and got closer to her counterpart by offering her mic to him while he tended to the guitar work.

Conor Oberst and Phoebe Bridgers with Jim Beckmann and Cheryl Waters of KEXP.

After the session, I was able to grab a few portraits for the station and got to talk a bit about Seattle and our music scene state right now with the duo. Bridgers reminisced about past years spent at the Bumbershoot music festival at the Seattle Center. Oberst asked for me to mimic a dramatic fish-eye portrait of them (at the top of this entry) as he had been really loving the fish-eye look his friend had been using in their press shots that were recently taken. I gave it a try and he gave me a hair flip.

Phoebe and Conor were two of the sweetest musicians I’ve ever gotten to shoot. Their album (that I’ve currently listened to more times than my favorite band’s recently released album) is going to be a classic among the 2019 releases. I’m really hoping there is much more to come from this pairing, and it’s not a one-off thing - they both have so many projects, but there is something special about this combo and the eloquent, sad songs they have created together.

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Check out the entire performance from KEXP below (you may spot me in the wide shots of the full studio doing my thing!):