I have no formal training in music. Or writing, really, for that matter. But I can distinguish the feeling I get betweenmusic that I like and music that could transform how I feel about… well… music.
And as an outsider to the music community, I’m sure to have certain perspective that people imbedded within the community do not have. If your ears are trained to hear all the wonderful intricacies of a complicated violin concerto, then you may have passed the point of enjoying a mediocre cover band. If you understand every snap and crackle and vibration of a perfectly strummed guitar string, you may get soured by one note gone wrong on an otherwise other-wordly guitar solo most of us couldn’t even think of playing in our dreams’ dreams.
So basically, what I’m saying is:
I judge music on how it makes me feel, whether or not it makes a lasting impression, and whether or not I’d pay to hear it live or seeping through my Sennheisers.
So flash back to October, me walking through a Halloween house party, dressed like so…
… looking for my two buddies, and I got stopped in my boots mid-journey by an incredible sound of rock fury emitting from the back corner of the house’s living room.
“No,” meet “fucking way.”
I stopped caring about my friends. I stopped caring about scantily clad nurses and Pokemon (yes ladies, of course you looked wonderful), and I just melted into the collective sea of bobbling heads.
There, over the droopy shoulders of goblins and ghouls and ex-Presidents, was a magnificent trio of a rockband, playing something along the lines of so…
The above was shot at the 2010 version of mentioned Halloween party.
And fuck yeah people, rock and roll is not dead yet.
Also, any socks, I, or anyone within a 147 mile radius for that matter, happened to be wearing that night, were most definitely knocked off. But the cops busted the party early and a graveyard of socks was all that was left at the murderous scene of rock.
I left giddy, but had no idea who they were or when I could see them again, like that opening scene to a romantic comedy, where guy sees girl, but girl’s on train, guy attempts to jump on train, but doors shut and train starts moving, and guy starts running with train, and their hands press against the window together, and then train and girl escape into the darkest of tunnel.
Only this is not a movie, and it’s not 1994, so I hopped on the internet machine. After some perusing and researching, I found my train girl, and she went by the name of Otis Heat.
And I hadn’t gotten a chance to see them play since then, until recently. I watched them rock the Ella Street Social Club on February 4th, but in my excited and imbibed state, I just lived. I didn’t take notes. I didn’t write. Just plain livin’. And no, I didn’t regret it. Sometimes you just gotta forget your art and let got for a while.
But this time around, on the 17th, I wasn’t going to just live. I was going to lose the beers and grab my ink, because the feelings I got in my eardrums from these fine fellows was not to go unnoticed by the potential liquidity of my wordplay. Yes, of course, I’d still enjoy the show, but I would also be that nerd in the corner, jotting scribbles and raising brows.
So let us begin by beginning at the beginning.
The beginning of when the first person that greeted me through the door of Slim’s was none other than Sean, the lead singer and bassist himself.
And this was no head nod. Full on hug and unexpected name-rememberance (we had talked for a bit on the 4th).
Prior to this whole evening, I was a little unsettled on going out. I had a long week. My partner in crime, Amy of the Brookland, was sharing my lameness. It took a passion-infused sing-along of Adele’s “Someone Like You” (no shame) on the ride over and this initial interaction with Sean to erase all doubts of us coming out.
A couple minutes later, the band found their stage and got settled. As they started to jam, I immediately noticed the magnitude of Sean’s stance. I’m 5’9″, and he’s definitely shorter than I, but when he rears back into the heels of his worn cowboy boots, he’s 8’11″, towering, but not over-powering, the stage and his minimalist axe-bass, which is exactamundo like so:
(Disclaimer: I had no pictures from the current show, so I scrapped some up off their site. Thanks guys. And if that’s not cool… rock and roll! Right?)
Now as opposed to playing tall, the guitarist, Mike, actually is tall. And his lanky legs, mojoing back and forth, knees caving and opening while gracefully flamingo-ing, are as big a part of his act as anything.
Oh, right, that is until you hear him play a solo and decide that his hands do the actual work.
And during the song with the lyric “On my knees begging ya,” (I’ll explain my lack of specific song knowledge later) he plays this ascending guitar bridge that gives you this intensely weird anxiety of, “What the fuck will happen next? Where are you taking me? Did I remember to lock my car?”
But since you’re in the hands of the Heat, you get this funny little feeling of trust and decide to let go.
And speaking of transitions, Otis sees themselves as a rock and roll band. And I never really gave “roll” a thought untilthis performance, because the band is an equal opportunity entertainer. And I also know there’s been countless times when I’ve called a group a “rock” band, and not even really given second thought to the “roll” part.
But when listening to Otis’ jams, I can almost picture one of those old school scales, the one’s with the fulcrums… from physics class, yeah, that one, with rock on one side and roll on the other, dangling saucers tipping from side to side, giving this woooaaaaahhhhhhh feeling of almost toppling too far over one edge, maybe losing a few unprepared souls over a brim, but then bringing all back to equilibrium by songs end. And some jams send those scales so out of whack that they end with “roll” hanging by his fingertips on the edge of his cup, amplifying one’s want, hope, and need for more “rock” to even everything back out.
Like I said earlier, it’s an anxiety. Mike and Sean rip you to shreds.
But then, my friends, we get to the musical constant and true fulcrum of the bunch, Buddy. Buddy’s the drummer, and he also happens to be the new guy. Mike explains that the Buddy-era is “phase three” of Otis Heat, with two drummers prior separating from the band. Why anybody would want to leave this group, I’m slightly dumbfounded, but I guess I can’t judge unless I were fortuned a test-drive in those past drummers’ shoes.
In which I wouldn’t care about leaving or staying… I’d probably just call Mike and Sean and go rock (and roll).
Anyway, back to Buddy. Mike and Sean have been constants as far as band members go, but Buddy is the steadfast glue as far as my ears are concerned. As we learned in last year’s NBA Finals, you can’t win with all flash. You need balance. Mike and Sean bounce to a unEarthly frequency. They’ve been together the longest. This is their third drummer. But like anybody thrown into a dynamic team (it’s Buddy’s second live show with the band), you don’t wanna fuck up the awesome, but you do want to bring your own fire. Buddy successfully, dare I say unshakably, pulls this very quality off nicely. I wish I could comment more on his actual skill as a drummer, because I’m sure it’s there, but about the drums I know the very least. Drums to me sound like one of three ways:
- Shitty
- Like they bring everything together and keep the beat
- Or fucking incredible and unexplainable
Buddy hovers between the second two categories, which I would imagine is exactly the fine equilibrium of a place where drummers tend to want to land. He’s an awesome juxtaposition to the other two.
Just then, Mike breaks into a Pink Floydian riff, mixed in-between weird, Portland-esque lyricism from Sean. The lyrics and their delivery is, shall I say, different, because one of their goals as a group, is to make crowd-dwellers definitely feel weird. It’s the Portland dynamic, even though the guys originally aren’t from PDX.
This is best felt during this song that had the word “empire” in the lyrics (What? Yeah, I know, again with the vanilla song specifics. I don’t have a damn set list, brah.) when Sean’s haunting lyrics mold to Mike’s hard riffs, which makes you feel like you’re doing something extra wrong or badass or even illegal. And it definitely sounded like a deep and dark relationship song, which obviously brings everyone’s pain levels to new highs or new lows, depending on how closely removed you are from your most recent lover-gone-wrong.
After taking another look around at the bar’s inhabitants, this band needs a bouncy dance floor, with everyone’s feet thumping and necks Gumbying. Buddy’s magic makes people stomp in unison. It’s incredible. And it’s almost as if he holds his breathe for entire songs at a time, making sure that every ounce of his energy is channeled into the drums.
“There is no air. There is just drums.”
“There is no bar. There is just drums.”
“There is no drums. There is just drums.”
It’s super rad, and I don’t know a lick about his practice habits and techniques, but with a gun to my head, I’d assume that they’re pretty rigid. He doesn’t want to suck. Tim-Duncan-Fundamental-esque.
I esque a lot.
Then, Otis WHeat, the band’s country alter ego, makes a quick appearance. They drop a funky, dark re-make of Tim McGraw’s “Real Good Man.” My buddy Chad describes this part of the show best:
“I haven’t even heard the original, but this is way better.”
After listening to 22 second of the original, yeah, Chad, you’re right.
Which is interesting to me that they re-make a country song, because when I hear them, I feel like I’m rediscovering the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, but in the midst of them recording an album for an old school Clint Eastwood Western.
So picture with me, if you will, the lyrics from Devil Went Down to Georgia:
And the instrumental of “Give it Away”:
… combined into one track. So yes, it’s stupid cool.
Then, Otis breaks into a song which opens up with the subtle lyric “You remind me of the guy who fucked my wife.”
…
And Sean doesn’t just say this line. He slowly spills the words, like a serial killer drinking molasses, telling you to brace yourself, because you’re in his playground now. It’s eery. A gloomy festival of a track, to say the least.
Then, they drop “Wellington,” which, right after I initially hugged Sean, I had requested.
“Yeah, of course we take requests.” Of course.
Now “Wellington” is definitely one of their most impressive of songs, and I’m 98.7% positive it was already on the set list, but telling a person you barely know, a guy no less, that sure, we’ll play that track for you most definitely, sets a solid tone of humble awesome. I don’t care if it was already on the menu, it made me feel like the chef personally catered to my musical dietary needs.
And oh yeah, they killed the song. Knocked it out of the park so hard that it went around the world, back into the park, and then they knocked it out again.
Mike grooves his head side to side during most of their tracks, but especially this one, and it’s like he’s trying to pull, summon even, the riff out from his guitar. It looks like he’s tasting a fantastic clam chowder. ”Mm,” his expression says. ”Mm mm mm.” He works and works and works, and you want him so badly to do it, to pull it off, and he’s doing it, really pulling it off, and then after he destroys an insanely tough finger transition, his face is satisfaction. And so is the crowds. Bowl, empty.
“Hell yeah that was delicious guitar solo. I’m satisfied with the one, but I’d gladly take another, thank you.”
(And side-note: THIS exact reaction is Portland. Louie C.K. has this bit about going to a local coffee shop, rather than a Starbucks, and after ordering a cappuccino, the man-barista reacts like “Oh my god, yeah man. I can totally do that for you. No problem. Of course. I have the ingredients right here!” Like he thought maybe that Louie would walk in, he’d order, and he wouldn’t have the exact ingredients for a cappuchino? In a coffee shop?)
Mike plays with this aura of respect for his guitar. He knows that it’s a complicated beast, but if he strums just right, which he always does, he owns the room. It puts smiles on faces. And his face always looks like he’s searching, looking for the right sound, hoping for the right notes, and when his riff is complete, he smiles. It’s fucking awesome.
Then, amongst Buddy’s lightspeed stick work, Sean starts pressing “Why do you want something baaaaaad?” And this lyric, really, is the epitome of an Otis Heat line. It’s vague enough, so that you can apply it to anything in your life (who doesn’t want something bad?), but it’s passionately sung in a way that finds the one thing in your life, and in this case, what you really want badly, which for me, is to envoke passion with written word, and he hits that bone in your body with unmatched accuracy, like an archer whose arrows seek your inner-most passion. And yes, of course that’s a dorky analogy. But it’s a true analogy.
So why do I want writing so bad? Because that’s Sean’s question, of course.
My short answer: because it makes me feel incredible. As does listening to these jams.
And they keep getting better as they play, as they warm up. Which is interesting, because I noticed this the last time I saw them play, but I was, how do you say, inebriated, so I figured in my fucked-up-end-ness, my endorphins were firing at higher and higher rates after every beer.
But no. I was 100% sober for this show. And it happened again. They were cool at the start. Definitely good. I dug them. But as the night went on, they went from “good” to “destroying all other thoughts of life outside the bar.” And this may be a problem for someone who shows up for solely the first part of the set… or just the end. Because their whole show is an experience. Which might be why the recorded stuff just doesn’t suck me in like the live stuff does. It also might mean that they’re just killer performers.
But their live sounds are mesmerizing. They do an incredible job of pushing the right sounds at the right time. When Sean’s lyrics are flowing, it’s intoxicating, and the rest of the band follows. When Mike’s guitar takes over with a killer solo… the other two push him to new levels. They take turns, organically switching the lead dog at a moments notice. None of them cares who’s on top during whatever part of the show. They’re a team. They know that, yeah sure, separate, they’re all fine musicians, but together, they have something that transcends three guys hanging out, simultaneously playing instruments. Who cares who’s on top when they’re all killing it and the crowd’s feeling it?
Their music is super unpredictable too. When you expect a riff, there might be an absence, or the song might just end. When you expect a song to end, sometimes they just transfer into an entirely different sound, taking you for a little journey that makes you feel more like how it felt to trek the Oregon Trail (shout out!) rather than listening to some jams at a bar.
Which is why it was so hard for me to keep track of what song was playing when. ”Song names? Writing down lyrics? Ha! They’re going all Lewis and Clark on my ear drums here, so get off my face with names… of things… man…”
And really, in the end, does it matter? Does it matter if it’s this song or that song? It might make my column a smoother read, but they’re so good that it doesn’t really matter if I know what song they’re playing. They just play and make me feel good.
Another big reason why I so like their jams, is because they remind me of my favorite wordsmith, a Mr. Ernest Hemingway, in that these songs say so much, yet are generally lyrically terse. Sometimes, the chorus is just a guitar whammying. And yeah, I have no idea if I’m using the word “whammy” properly, but the way that the “whammy” “whammies,” the way that the bass rumbles along and the way the drums snap a crack whap to my dome, they sometimes tell a story that would be ruined by even a single word.
Next, comes their newest jam, “Soul Buyer,” which literally, brought the Heat (I had to.). It also answered my question of “Can these guys make music that’s newer than their old but also keeps their old awesomeness intact?”
Y. E. S.
The song’s got insane lyrics. Once again, couldn’t write them down. I just ate them with my ear-spfork. I got lost in a nasty guitar solo engineered by Mike, and then as soon as I came to and tried writing down a note or three about it, Buddy rips the roof off Slim’s with a nasty percussionary session of doom that practically makes me drop my pen, paper, and pants. He was so solid all show, so patient all show, accompanying the duo of Sean and Mike, keeping their old-school physics class scale from spilling it’s rocky-rolly guts, and when he was finally unleashed from his drum-encased cage, he Innagadadavida-ed the shit out of everything that is good and evil in this world.
EVERYONE went wild after that. And honestly, every part of the show was my favorite part, but that may have been my favorite favorite.
After the drum solo, for some reason, I thought about serial killers again, maybe even becoming one. That’s what this music does to you. I picture Michael Fassbender in an eery flick, building a choking contraption with twine and two pieces of wood as handles. Sick, yes, I know, but this band had my evils flowing.
And at this point, Sean’s bass takes over. And he plays the damn thing like he’s being blown away by the sickness of his consequences, his sound. And not in a condesending way either… in a respectful way. Like he’s reigning back the saddle of a wild stallion, with calm, squinted eyes, front hooves fluttering in mid-air, sending deep bass waves through the floor, into my feet, and out of my eye sockets.
Even the smokers outside were dancing in the rain-soaked streets of Northern Portlandia.
And then, as if things couldn’t get any better, out of nowhere, the “Finicky” solo happened.
Holy shit.
This three minutes of guitar dances with your soul like a first sip of whiskey, expanding and slithering down the throat, coating, and then warming, your empty stomach, melting away thoughts of yesterday and today, placing you presently, and making you crack yourself an ice, cold smile.
Life is good.
Life is grand.
My brain is off.
Riffs, take my hand.
You wanna close your eyes and float, but you can’t take your eyes off the genius of Mike.
Even Sean was looking at Mike during this solo. He gave him the “I know I’ve seen you do this a million fucking times man, but shit, you are one talented mother fucker” look.
Everyone else had the same look as well. What a solid jam.
And just like that, post solo and “Finicky,” the show was done.
Just kidding. The crowd wanted more.
So Sean goes, “Well ok, a couple more then… I mean you wanna, like, keep rocking out?”
C’mon Sean. Like you had to ask.
Then Chad, in the moment of crowd silence, sang/requested Montel Jordan’s “This is How We Do It.” Sean smiled, gave Chad a low five and then transitioned into more Otis jammage.
Yes.
During this three-ish song encore, Mike’s lanky legged base and his ridiculous guitar plick-pluckery took over. He bounced tiny little guitar rips, “solos” in many people’s eyes, “just hanging out” in Mike’s, against solo snippets of Sean’s unique vocals. They were speaking to one another, having a highly sophisticated conversation.
Sean’s vocals, meet Mike’s riffs. Mike’s riffs, Sean’s vocals.
And all this time Buddy kept the beat going, letting us know exactly how to stomp to their intertwining word- and instrumental- play.
So cool. So funky. Storying-telling music.
Then Sean goes, “One more… we’re rocking pretty hard tonight, but that’s ok.” Yeah, read that again, because he said it like it was a bad thing. Sarcastically, of course. But I kinda felt like it was a bad thing. Their sound is clean, but their vibe is not. This must be what it felt like for my parents to sneak out of the house and listen to Hendrix.
Because their music invades the soul and turns it black. A jet black, of course, and as soon as you start to char, start to burn, they bring you back out to reality to chill for a little, almost as if to say “Relax crowd, we won’t let you fall.” A break from the ROCK!, into the r o l l, if you will.
After the show, I talked to all three guys. All cool people.
As Sean and I talked about their new track “Soul Buyer” and the intricacies of online dating, Buddy walked up, and I brought up the drum solo.
And he kinda had no idea what I was talking about.
I’m paraphrasing, but he said something along the lines of “I dunno man. I just played. Sometimes we throw in some crazy improv. I couldn’t really tell you whenever that happened.”
In other words, ladies and gentlemen, Buddy was in “the zone.”
And, really, that’s what you look for in a performance. You don’t want someone who’s thinking too much about about what they’re doing while they’re doing it. Then, they aren’t truly present. But seasoned musicians, and in this case Heat, make it look effortless, because they are so good at what they do, that they don’t really need to over-think. They just go. Buddy is
A) in the band, but
B) he had no idea what song I was talking about. And everybody went nuts after his solo.
!
But really, just like the song names… who cares? I don’t need him to know stuff. I just need him to play. And play he did.
“There is no song title. There is just drums.”
And after 78 favorite moments, I’d say the part that left the biggest impression on me was talking to Mike when Buddy left. After congratulating him on successfully launching my spleen out of my backside with his crisp and refreshing slices of guitar notery, I got some insight into his musical mind.
“I feel like you’re a little Chilli Peppery, in the way that it’s kind hard to classify your jams,” I said.
“Yeah, we feel the same way. And it’s definitely rock, mixed with a little funk. But we want to be known as a rock band,” he said.
Then, a guy from the crowd came up and congratulated both of us on a well played show.
Yeah, so he thought I was Sean. And he thought Mike played the drums. But it was a sincere, as well as highly-repetitive, thank you that was super cool to hear first hand. A random guy, who had no idea Otis would be playing at Slim’s that night, enjoyed what he heard, stayed ’til the encore dissolved, and let them know afterwards that they were “different,” as well as “awesome.”
“Must feel good to have random people approach you like that,” I said.
“Oh yeah. We’d like to think we make music for everybody,” replied Mike.
“So how about this Southerny Western twang you guys go going on?” I had to inject my Clint Eastwood Old Western soundtrack theory.
“Well we all like country, and have a background in country,” he said, which surprised me again, because this music IS NOT country… but then I thought about it a little more, and it started to really make sense. Country is simple and dark and twangy… very much so like Otis Heat’s repertoire.
He also explained that their jams have “pop sensibilities.”
“Um, what?” I asked.
He laughed. ”What I mean by that, is that we’re definitely influenced by the Beatles, and their mastery of structure. We all have different ideas and backgrounds, and after Sean, who does most of our initial structuring, puts together the frame of a track, we all intertwine our own stuff into the songs to make them complete.”
So after going into the night thinking “They’re a Chilli Pepperian-esque group writing an album for an old school Clint Eastwood Western,” I guess I turned out kinda right.
Maybe I do know a thing or two about music. And after launching out almost 4,500 words about my love for this local band, hopefully I know a thing or two about writing as well, because if you’re still with me here, may the gods bless your face.
And I guess some musical critique should be interjected in here as well. I can’t just gush, right?
Or maybe I can? I did preface this with “I don’t know shit about music,” so really, do I have the credentials to call anybody out?
…
Hm. Really tough to find faults with these three…
Alright, I got one:
Hey Sean, coming from someone who spent a summer in Barca, how about you learn to roll out your “Que Serrrrra.”
That’ll do.
21 words of criticism, 4,409 words of praise. In conclusion, go see them. Immediately.
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To check out more of the Otis, visit www.otisheat.com, or follow their twittervomit here. They’ve got an upcoming St. Patrick’s Day show at The GoodFoot, and a U.S. summer tour as well.
