10.12.09
Thursday, December 10th, 2009
Layne Garrett, Haves& Thirds, Suicidal Tenderness, Gringos de Zapatas and Breatheasy
WMNF 88.5 fm's Cafe Hey Concert Series #5
<>@ Cafe Hey
1540 North Franklin Street
Downtown Tampa, Florida
8pm

This marked the full five fingers in this ongoing series of monthly shows at Cafe Hey.  Time flies when things are fun and even with that said it's still somewhat of surprise that these things have gotten so far that they've already started to move on to the second hand.  What can, only in Florida, be called a cold front, had come around earlier in the week along with some rain, the rain held off tonight but the sub-zero cold had hung out, most likely just so it could catch this gig before moving on I'd like to think.  A blazing trash can out on the sidewalk set up to gather around for warmth wouldn't have gone unappreciated but it would have been pushing it.  An unannounced 'till the night itself set from the legendary Gringos de Zapatas started things off.  Besides having always blown my mind and filled my heart with an overflowing joy and giddiness I've never gotten much further in figuring out just where this band or their - it's in real time or it's not our time - tunes come from.  Even if I knew precisely who and what influences them I still couldn't figure out how they manage to come up with what they do.  Tonight's set featured the signature humming birdlike key fluttering of Gringo #1, the physically driven and pushed pass the edge of crash, snare, tom and bass of Gringo #2 and the (electrically amplified!) pulls and strokes of the bow over the length of Gringo #3's violin.  That combination all turned into a blurry of a flurry of audible movements, three tunes so original that they even made the Gringos themselves wonder just what was what and where it was coming from.  Glad they ended up turning up I was for sure.  An opportunity to relish in or try and avoid the chill outside came up until it was time for Breatheasy to lay out what seemed like a way too short set of beats that rolled around with bubbles of static both and all of which were punctuated with pulsing passages of key pounding paths.  Whatever it is that runs through Breatheasy's veins is a self created compound of secret ingredients that flows through no one else.  If I could rewind time I'd have done it then and there just to hear that set in person all over again.  Third on the bill tonight was Layne Garrett, a one-man with a seemingly random plan whose base mission seems to be to start somewhere and then conduct his newfound musical train of thought on it's own set of tracks to unknown destinations.  Using hand made instruments that resemble known instruments in only a vague visual sense and by manipulating a combination of fingerwired electronics and found objects he created a sub conversational level of audible consciousness that had the room in a prolonged state of self imposed rapt attention for it's duration.  The paths he created forged on with a dedicated journey into the mysterious land of what can happen.  Had he taken the time to drop a pin from waist height onto the floor you'd of been able to have heard it like it was a burst of thunder, closing this set out with a steel guitar strung with strummed strings of liquid rubber he let on with the repeated phrase of "I don't believe a word you say.", that can't have been true because he got nothing but heartfelt exclamations of thanks when it had all come to an end.  I don't think I've ever seen Haves& Thirds wrap up a night's bill, get in early, get it on and get it off is usually how he plays it but tonight he ended up bringing it all down with a tripped out synthed out beated out blast followed up with an overlayed guitar that sounded like it looks when the fading embers of long off fireworks fall from the sky and disappear one by one into the night.   Turn up at Cafe Hey at a yet undecided specific date and time sometime in January of the new year and catch the sixth installment of this concert series.  Thanks to everyone whose attendance and participation made this night a reality.  Personal thanks go out to Zack tonight for passing me the new Neon Blud cassette, "Whipps".  I popped it in my tape deck on my ride home, it started off by kicking me square in the face and I had no other course of action after that than to let the first side beat me up and down until about halfway thru it when my batteries went into a involuntary heavy drain and the tape slowed down to a low warble.  The sudden decrease from it's real speed and fury almost took me off the road, I let it roll on in the slowdown mode until it came to a complete stop, had to wait until I got home to rewind it back to the start and listen to it proper and a proper listen it's turning out to be.