It’s a Sunday night, so of course I hop a bus downtown to catch All the Apparatus at Someday Lounge, nestled off Panhandler’s Row between the indie Backspace and the tony Pearl District, at the edge of Portland’s surviving Chinatown, such as it is. The infamous Voodoo Doughnuts is within spitting distance, as is Dante’s perhaps even more infamous regular Sunday night Sinferno Cabaret. I’m not super-shocked to see a crowd at Backspace so massive, it’s spilling out onto 5th Avenue, catcalling and clapping and hooting with delight. What is surprising is that the event inspiring such a scene is a poetry slam. I love this town.
Apparently so does 11-piece band-of-all-trades, All the Apparatus, billed as “part circus sideshow, part bourbon-soaked blues, and part enchanting musical ruckus.” The band migrated to Portland from Honolulu, hitting these considerably more humble — or at least less exotic — shores in January of 2010. But maybe Honolulu’s shores are less exotic than I think, my impressions of the lush Hawaiian Isles formed from a melding of lavish midcentury musicals and only dimly recalled Hawaii Five-O reruns from my childhood.
I’ve never been to Someday Lounge. The space itself is attractive in that bordello-meets-warehouse sort of way that has its unique urban appeal. There’s enough punk rock styling in the bare cement, the grotty washrooms, the drunk dude sprawled on the sidewalk near the entrance to inspire a certain nostalgia, while acres of luxe red velvet curtains and wrought iron railings so new you can still smell the Rustoleum appeal to the slumming-it urban hipster secretly residing in every SE Portlander.
Several problems manifest over the next few hours: the waaaaay overlong soundcheck continuing well past the posted beginning time for the show; the two wholly unannounced acts (including the Glue Horses, who have some member crossover with All the Apparatus); the insane volume level bands almost universally delude themselves into thinking translates into audience enjoyment, mistaking the reverb potential of the inside an all-cement box room with that of the open air or a, you know, considerably larger venue…
I’ve given up hoping bands will get real with the volume of live shows in small spaces (’cause it falls on deaf ears?), but maybe someone will get real about bloated lineups. Seriously, it’s hard to sustain enthusiasm for the headliner while sitting through an hour of sound check and another three hours of Other People Playing.
But All the Apparatus has an undeniable energy, an excitement and verve. Their live street gigs can be found all over Youtube, captured on cellphones and pocket cameras with a delightful grassroots subversivity. My favorites of these clips are rough, handheld, jostled, as they best capture the impromptu joie de vivre of the band’s live performances. There’s something thrilling in the look-ma-no-hands circuspunk aesthetic and demeanor. It’s all very Portland; I can see why this town appeals to such a group. And there’s a diversity within the music, within each song itself, an unapologetic mashing of styles and influences all boiling together in a pithy soup. The self-titled full-length release, All the Apparatus, reflects this colorful mélange, not so much a blend of musical stylings and eras as an 11-member roadside pileup that sometimes works amazingly well, sometimes skids over icy patches, sometimes just careens full-tilt downhill into a ditch.
So what did the early 2011 studio sessions with producer David Eaton (Polyphonic Spree, Dynamite Hack) bring to this sophomore, self-titled album? Ultimately, it comes across like a series of ultra high-energy mashups that could spring only from a band claiming to have honed its skills busking “at the beachside walks of Waikiki, in front of junkies, prostitutes, and angry basketball men.”
A track by track breakdown of All The Apparatus, mash-up style:
- “Hat Trick”: The Asylum Street Spankers meets Bonzo Dog meets Ride of the Valkyries meets . . . Mary Poppins in pirate drag?
- “Go Ride Bikes” (mp3): Polyphonic Spree meets high school marching band meets Sex Pistols meets Melanie
- “Aeronaut”: Ziggy Stardust meets Abba meets Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
- “The Valley”: Mexican polka meets Ennio Morricone meets “The Fishin’ Hole” meets The Violent Femmes
- “Chains of Damnation”: Tom Waits meets Screamin’ Jay Hawkins meets good ol’ fashioned revival tent
- “Wolf Song” : Zamfir, Master of the Pan Flute meets Riverdance meets that boy-meets-girl movie you can never remember the name of
- “Worm”: The Ventures meets Motörhead meets nearly every punk band I saw as a teenager. . . now with more kazoos, and reverb funk! A short track but a goodie.
- Human Being: Billy Brag meets the Bee Gees meets the Ramones meets Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem (of the Muppets)
- Portland Rose: (mp3) The Decemberists meets college football band meets Red Hot Chili Peppers — one of my favorites on the entire CD
- “Dance Hit”: could be called Gypsy punk disco electronica rap mayhem
- “Great Whale” (another fave): They Might Be Giants meets Barenaked Ladies meets R.E.M. (RIP)
- “Pancho Villa”: the Mexican hat dance meets Gogol Bordello meets Cirque du Soleil meets the fabulous Verka Serduchka
One safe thing to say about All the Apparatus: they do not bore. Find them on Twitter @AllTheApparatus.
All the Apparatus self-titled CD release show, September 4, 2011 at Someday Lounge in Portland, Oregon.
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