SFist Reviews: Thao with the Get Down Stay Down @ the Independent
by Moses Namkung
There are bands that look like they're having a blast on stage and there are bands that turn into dried fecal matter once they hit the floorboards. We remember the first time we saw Built to Spill when we were barely out of high school. Frontman Doug Martsch, like, stood there. The entire time. He looked as engaging as an Excel monkey trapped in a cubicle on cold Monday.
But Thao Nguyen, leader of Thao with the Get Down Stay Down (... TwtGDSD? Er.... scratch that, we'll just go with Thao et. al), what with her rocking out, whimsical audience interaction, and cowboy boots, enjoys performing in front of a crowd. Really, she loves an audience. At one point, during her last song before the encore, she invited fans onto the stage, resulting in fifteen or so audience members joining Thao et. al to play instruments, sing, or bang a couple of drumsticks together.
At the Independent on Thursday, she was on home turf (Thao et. al are based in SF now), full of nifty SF factoids. (I.e., "Did you guys know Party of Five was set in San Francisco?" and "Thanks to the Independent... they gave us blackberries... they're the only venue in the world that does that.") But how does she sound, you ask? Well, KEXP writes, "For those of who enjoy comparisons, I looked around and found everyone from Cat Power (often) to Laura Veirs (almost as often) to Grant Lee Philips, Beth Orton and Carole King."
Carole King? Not so much.
Anyway, Thao et. al's latest, We Brave Bee Stings And All, their first album off of Kill Rock Stars and second overall, is a big bag of fun to hear live. (Thao sort of explains what the album title means. More or less, it's about an instance when bees flew up her butt. Ta-da.) While Thao's up/down/all-over-the-place vocals don't always translate well in-person, we dig her spirit and emotion. The more notable moments of the night? Her rendition of "Swimming Pools," an especially good song, and when she beatboxed a mini-cover of Salt-N-Pepa's "Push It". Atta girl.
P.S. If you want to read the writing of somebody who really digs Thao's clavicle, check out Daytrotter.