BUDDYHEAD's HOLIDAY PARTY @ HOTEL CAFE DECEMBER 21st 2008

It was great seeing a lot of short acoustic performances packed into one night. Hotel Cafe is really tiny and somehow they managed to fit in a huge list of musicians (and one "poet" though he seemed more like a comedian) onto the small stage. They didn't manage to get all the people who bought tickets in, but I was lucky enough to get in because me and my friend Joyce got there fairly early (7:30-ish).

Some of the acts that started the set included an Elvis-like crooner, a band of girls singing acoustic songs starting with a cover of "Wild Horses," a bass heavy Kills-like band (with a male singer and female bassist) complete with scantily clad dancing girl, more acoustic stuff by Dios Malos (who I kind of recognized from a Cafe du Nord show a long time ago), a singer named Sean Williams who had a sparkly jacket and a guitar/banjo player backing him, and a thin red haired female singer, who the audience wouldn't shut up for.

The talking audience became an especially big problem during Nick Jago's set because he really noticed it enough to stop playing "Under A Veil" after starting it twice. He started his set with a Spanish song which he dedicated to Argentina, Mexico, Chile, and El Salvador. His songs were pretty good folky tunes, with some nice hooks to them. He was being kind of sarcastic to the audience by saying how he loved hearing them talk and half joked that the whole performance would be recorded and on YouTube... and it turns out someone from the BRMC forum recorded most of the set and put it there:

Nick stopping his song

Nick stopping his song again

Nick's new song

another new song

Suede cover of Asphalt World

Nick's cover of Suede's "Asphalt World" was a nice addition to the set, he said he wished he could sing like David Bowie or Brett Anderson before he sang it. Here's the video I took of the end of the song:



Not long after Nick's set was an amazing 12 string guitarist named Alain Johannes. He is formerly of QOTSA, now with Spinnerette or Eleven. He totally captured the audience's attention with no words at all, just some fantastic guitar playing. I think everyone was pretty much blown away by his performance, which also made me think how lucky Nick was to go on before him. Jason from Dead Meadow went on after with just an acoustic guitar and a harmonium player backing him. He was pretty good, I'm used to seeing him with lots of effects and his band. Without them, his songs were still pretty good.

In addition to the music, there was some artwork (photos and paintings) displayed on the walls of the venue. It was very cool to see some nice artwork to accompany all the good music that was played that night. Despite the Duke Spirit and Josh Homme not playing the show, it was still cool to see a lot of talented musicians performing. I did feel bad for Nick about the rude audience, but he responded with a pretty bad attitude and didn't seem to make a good impression. Aside from that, his music was pretty good. Here's a link to the pictures I took on Flickr. It's mostly Nick and a couple other acts.