The Best Show You Didn’t See Last Week

By: Ashley Heeney

East 156th Street looked like a ghost town the evening of Oct. 25, save for the neon lit “Tavern” above the Beachland Ballroom’s door and a hipster dude smoking outside.

Maybe that’s because it was a Sunday night in Cleveland. Or maybe what was going on inside the Tavern – Cleveland’s pop trio The Muttering Retreats and the Pacific Northwest’s groovy indie acts LAKE/Karl Blau – wasn’t promoted enough by local media.

Or maybe not everybody felt as comfortable going to the show half-asleep like the door guy who laid down across the bar stools mid-way through Blau’s set?

Whatever the reason for a turnout of just over two dozen, it didn’t seem to phase Blau, or LAKE. They were still buzzing from the encore given to them by fans after their show at Schuba’s in Chicago – by singing a single note from a song on their new album Let’s Build a Roof.

Their Olympia, Washington label mates K Records, whose early releases included Beck and Modest Mouse, released the band’s second album, which Blau produced.

“What’s different about them from other K Records bands is that they can actually sing,” said a guy in sitting at the bar. 

They can also play. LAKE’s six members routinely switched instruments for each song.

They were groovy about it, too. Founding member Ashley Eriksson (she’s the “A” in LAKE) donned her coffee colored 70’s shades to play the keys, horn, drums and guitar and with a big smile, led the band on lead vocals to ‘Christmas Island,’ an inviting and smooth pop sing-a-long. The Cleveland audience was the lucky first on the tour to hear ‘Island’ performed live.

Eriksson’s beau and fellow founding member Elijah Moore (the "E"), said the band formed with Lindsay Schief (“L”) and Kenny somebody (the “K” - no longer with them) in 2005.

“We have songs that, intuitively, me and Ashley write,” Moore said. They are happy, melodic, full of harmonies and clever lyrics. We try as hard as we can, but we don’t have a million dollar recording budget -- probably a good thing.”

For a long time LAKE has collaborated with singer/songwriter Blau, but this tour is their first together and a chance to peddle their wares. Blau's “Zebra” was released the very same day as “Let’s Build A Roof.”

“We’ve been fantasizing about this,” Blau said of the tour when he took the stage with LAKE backing him up.

Known as having a “Do-It-Yourself” approach, Blau did something totally DIY when he asked Cari Thornton of The Muttering Retreats on stage to play flute with LAKE on a song that he composed while hunched at a booth in the Tavern during LAKE’s set. The word on the street is that he pulls the same music-teacher kind of exercise before every show.

His set, mostly selections from Zebra is a new direction for Blau, a prolific singer/songwriter has a ton of folk and experimental folk releases.

Zebra, on which he plays guitar and sings as usual, is a mix of styles with a ton of visual movement. Blau’s live performance of the album connected to the music of Caribbean islands to the Sahara desert to Chicago’s jazz district and to electro clubs in Holland and Berlin.

Eclectic jazz piano in particular is prominent on the album with standout songs for sure.

“Goodbye Little Song” is a solemn, but hopeful and pretty, reggae-like tune.

And the jazzy track “Dark Sedan” is definitely a lite booty shaker.

Blau said he ultimately wants to make dance music. Around the Beachland Tavern, a few feet were at least tapping during the show.

A unique aspect of Blau’s set was, that not one, but two people from LAKE played percussion at the same time.

“There’s so much room to do something new and so much access to great music,” Blau said before the show about the Internet being a musical porthole to countries across the world and styles of music bouncing back and forth between them.

“The music environment in the U.S. is very cold, you know, it’s harsh. But this entire tour has been positive throughout. It’s very Zen.”

His "all come together now" mentality is definitely reflective in Zebra, which is truly a quality album on recording and as it was performed live -- in what the band members said is their favorite “tavern/bar” in the U.S.