Sunday, March 13, 2011

Live: Samiam with I Hate Our Freedom @ Santos Party House 3.12.11

I like me some Samiam. A lot. To the point where it was getting to be a little bit absurd that I'd never seen them live. Sadly, as of late the JS-NYC travel budget has precluded travel to Brazil or Germany, the two places Samiam play with any regularity in this epoch, and frankly the last show was pretty shitty, so I played the scene card and Sergie threw me on the list.

Santos is weird. After a search that left me pretty sure I was dating the security guy afterward the first time I went, I got a cursory search and walked in without passing a ticket person or security or anything. I Hate Our Freedom were up in short order. IHOF have grown on me a bunch over the last six months or so. They have been on the lions share of the decent bills around town of late, to the point where I'm pretty sure I've seen them six times now without ever intending to. I wasn't crazy about them at first, but they have really grown on me. I think this may have been kind of the release party for their debut, Seriously and it was a pretty good showing. The record's good too.

As much I enjoyed I Hate Our Freedom, Samiam were the reason for the evening. I was really hoping for a marked improvement (read: lower blood alcohol level in Jason) in the set and was pretty pleased. Man, do Samiam have songs. They've got enough records that cherry-picking from them makes for one hell of a set. Jason was in better form, although the second show I've seen from the Samiam made obvious the fact that in addition to being time keeper, a big part of Charlie's gig is to start the songs when Jason starts talking for more that ten or fifteen seconds between songs. As Jason seems prone to spouting inappropriate Asberger-isms given any opportunity, the set moved along pretty quickly but still garnered us a solid eighteen quality songs before things shut down for a disco party. Evidently the gents are playing a couple shows to get some cash together to cover overhead for a songwriting session for a new record. Don't recall hearing any new tracks, but stay tuned to JS-NYC for info on the new record as it arises.

Santos is a good place to see a show. If you have the chance, budget extra time for the strip search and see a show there. Thanks to Sergie and Tony from Southern Lovin' for making the guest list happen.

R

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