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Bumbershoot Day 2: Masta Swagga

Seattle By Jonathan Zwickel August 31, 2008 | 6:46 PM Categories: Festivals, Live

The presence of His Royal Highness T.I. may be responsible for the pomp and circumstance that a lot of today's bands have achieved. It could also be the weather--the sun is defying predictions of cold temps and rain. Whatever it is, performances have been uniformly strong so far.

IMG_3863.JPGNine-piece L.A. band Orgone opened the indoor KEXP stage with feel-good afro-disco funk, a potent eye-opener for Bumbershoot's hump day. Driven by percussionist Stewart Killen on timbales and conga, they were strongest as an instrumental ensemble. Their female vocalist hit all the right notes and certainly writhed the part but inevitably grounded music that yearned to fly.

IMG_4010.JPGSeattle mutton-chop rockers Shim leveled the massive stage within the Paul Allen-owned Experience Music Project. Unironically named the Electric Skychurch (tm) and backdropped by a super-mega-JumboTron screen, the venue is usually a difficult for bands to fill. Shim, however, were up to the task, semi-seriously channeling equal parts Spinal Tap and Steel Dragon. From the first note the packed room reeked of smoke machine smoke and testosterone, and the band's Muppet-like hairdos were an appropriate counterpoint to the pyrotechnics. "This next song is called 'You Walked in Like You Own the Place but You Don't'," singer Ragan Crowe (possibly not his real name) crowed. "I'd like to not dedicate it to Paul Allen."

IMG_4106.JPGSurprise of The Day came from a band called Manhoogi Hi, a genre-bending group of Seattle locals plus a key import. With a name that screams "avoid me" (and is apparently a Hindi nonsense word), they played to a meager crowd at the Fisher Green stage, but man, what a fascinating sound. Imagine the emotional grandeur and dramatic composition of Wolf Parade fronted by a female Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. I know I'm treading all over the proper ethnicity of singer Mehnaz, who is apparently a former teen pop queen from Mumbai, India; she sang in English and Hindi, in a style called tabla boli, a scatlike patter that imitates the sound of tabla rhythms. The fact that she's playing with a crack indie trance-rock jam band from Seattle is dizzying.

Listening to Manooghi Hi's MySpace--like Shim, they're unsigned and have nothing up on Rhap--reveals a difficult truth: This music can go either way. In a sunny festival setting, drawing in a first-time listener from across the Fisher Green lawn, it was exotic and potent. At the same time the potential for swishy, hula-hoop-happy noodliness is perilously great.

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