Foreign Air 9/14/22

Going to watch a band I’ve never heard of on a school night? Yep. I had not seen my buddy Calvin for a while so when he randomly text me to see if I would be willing to go with him to check out Foreign Air I said why the hell not? The show was at Soda Bar, which I had been to exactly once when I saw Local H for the first time back in 2013.

When we walked up, there were a few people out front and one of them turned out to be the opener Anna Shoemaker. She went on about 10 minutes after we got there and it was just her and a drummer. Anna explained that she was from Philadelphia and that she had never been to California then went on to sing, bounce around and even play a little guitar on her pop flavored brand of music. She was very talented and I could see her being very successful if given the right exposure. There was a lot of sound coming from the stage because the drummer kept triggering background music from a nearby laptop before each song, which was effing with me because it was very produced (and my gummy had kicked in) so it made it easier for her to sound good. This is not a knock on her at all but rather a complement to the drummer because if he were to mess up then the whole song would have fallen apart as the background track kept playing at the right pace.

Foreign Air was up next and Calvin had mentioned to me that he could not believe they were playing a place this small. This place is indeed small but was still a lot bigger than it needed to be for the 30 or so people that were in attendance. After witnessing this band I feel special to have been one of those 30 because they were great. They are listed as a duo (Jesse Clasen and Jacob Michael) but live it was these two plus a drummer. Jesse was posted up behind a keyboard/sampler rig while he played guitar and sang while Jacob switched from bass to keyboard/samples. When my Uber driver asked me what kind of music Foreign Air played it was hard to pinpoint but Billboard Magazine once described the music as “Transcendent Indie-Rock-Meets-Electronica with a penchant for forceful guitars and haunting vocals.” Let’s go with that. Jesse was a talker and relayed that despite releasing both an LP and EP in the last couple years that this was only their fifth show since those releases due to the pandemic. One thing I know for sure is that both these artists deserve more recognition and it would not surprise me in the least if at some point they get it.

Local H 4/9/13

Soda Bar

I was sold on Local H the first time I heard “Bound for the Floor” back in 1996. So much so that I went and bought the As Good As Dead album not having heard any of the other songs. My hunch paid off as this band rocked. I was even more floored to find out that all that sound was coming from just two people. Somehow I had never seen Local H so when I saw they were coming to play a little dive called Soda Bar for $10 I convinced Bob and Tom to come see what I knew would be a great show. They were touring for the Hallelujah! I’m a Bum album released about six months before this.

Soda Bar’s capacity is listed at 230 but feels much smaller if you are in front of the stage in the corner because the bar in the middle basically splits the whole place. I was mesmerized by Scott effectively playing bass and guitar at the same time through his custom rigged Stratocaster and Brian was wailing on the drums the whole time. My favorite moment was at the end when they played “High-Fiving MF” followed by what I can only describe as “Tape Man” where Scott taped the microphone to his face with duct tape and played some dissonance right before he jumped off the stage to walk to the back of the place to man the T-Shirt sales.

Hallelujah! I'm A Bum