I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: September 26, 2019] Bitchin Bajas

I was super excited to see that Stereolab was touring again for the first time in over a decade.  I wondered who they would have open for them.

I never imagined it would be a band called Bitchin Bajas, of whom I had never heard.

The band is a three-piece and is a side-project of Cooper Crane from the band Cave (who I also don’t know).

With a name like Bitchin Bajas, I assumed they’d be a kind of desert punk band, but boy was I wrong about that.

When I walked in, the stage was set with three keyboards.  The band came out rather quietly with little fanfare and sat down.

Cooper Crain and Dan Quinlivan faced each other and began creating a quiet “spacey” sound.  I’m not sure who was doing what, but they were both fiddling around with knobs and keys.  Rob Frye sat to my left also playing around with switches and pedals.

After six or seven minutes Frye picked up his saxophone and played quietly along with it.  And then the song faded.

Then they played another song quite similar to it.  And for a couple of songs, Frye played the flute.

It was pretty mesmerizing.  These songs were all around 8 minutes long with the repeating synth patterns oscillating around a similar pattern but slowing morphing throughout the whole song.  There was really nothing to see, just three guys sitting at keyboards.  So when Frye did play some interesting stuff on the flute, it was fun to be able to see him do it.

After the third or fourth song, Frye told us that the song was a cover of “Angels and Demons at Play” by Sun Ra.

Up until this point I wasn’t entirely sure if they were improving these songs or if they had been recorded somewhere. I’m still not entirely sure, although saying that song was a cover and seeing that that cover appears on their album Bajas Fresh, I’m going to assume the other songs were previously composed.

I feel like everything I’ve said so far makes it seem like I didn’t enjoy it.  But I did.  Quite a lot.

The band played for forty-five minutes and I enjoyed every minute of it.  I hate to make it sound like it was a chill-out new age session, because it wasn’t.  This type of music could be very boring, but the band kept everything fresh.  The loops were constantly evolving and it was cool to hear them unfold.

The occasional percussion also added a whole new texture to the songs.

I’ve never been to a live show like this before.  I imagine if I was seated I might have fallen asleep to it because I was happy to close my eyes and let the music wash over me.

So I’m glad I was standing and I’m glad Bitchin Bajas opened.