Fences:
About a year ago at a fancy sit-down venue in Seattle, I saw Fences, which, at the time, was just Chris Mansfield and a drummer. Mansfield faced away from the audience and the two of them turned out these impossibly melancholy songs at a super-slow tempo, magnifying the sadness to the point where it was inescapable. It was music that seemed to be both created and meant to be listened to alone in the dark.
Now, with a full band, a Fences show is a completely different experience. The songs move more swiftly than before without losing any of their emotional heft. Instead, the quicker pace adds a layer of subtlety, making the music more real, round, and relatable. Standing in front of me, the coolest nine-year-old in the world made the observation that they sound like Bright Eyes, which is an astute judgment for a fourth grader, though Mansfield’s voice is certainly stronger than Conor Oberst’s and his songs are more streamlined.
Fences are currently not signed to a label, but I don’t anticipate that will last long. This is powerful music.
Aziz Ansari:
Though Sasquatch! has featured a bunch of great comedians, I hadn’t ventured into the comedy tent until this year. Maybe it was Aziz Ansari’s role in Parks and Recreation, or the popularity of Human Giant, or maybe it was just the right time to escape the sun, but there were a ridiculous amount of people trying to get in to see this dude. The entire tent was packed and there were still several rows of people spilling outside of it at every opening. Those who got close enough to hear caught Ansari keeping it on the music tip, telling stories about Kanye West and R. Kelly which I will not repeat out of respect for comedy and general public safety. I wanted to stick around to catch Zach Galifianakis, but fire hazard-based anxiety and ready availability of other shows prompted me to hightail it the f-word out of there as soon as I could, though not before I caught some comedy Ansari wrote for a character he’s playing in Judd Apatow’s forthcoming Funny People.
– Jeff Reguilon
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