Roderick Romero, co-frontman of Seattle’s Sky Cries Mary has braids Willie Nelson would covet and a disheveled suit worthy of the Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne. His voice is the occasionally ferocious yin to his wife Anisa’s ethereal yang. Together they carve slices out of the sky and serve them to the audience, like lovers who brush the silverware off the table, finger-feeding each other the last bite of tiramisu.

Last night Bellingham experienced Sky Cries Mary— what Roderick coyly called his band’s style of “space rock.” Their music is so much cooler than two words can describe— or even this entry’s 514. If writing about music is like dancing about architecture, then this blog has no chance of pinning down the essence of their music. And that may be OK: nobody ever danced to pin anything down.

Last night I danced like I hoped to pluck out my own pins. The opener, “Elephant Song,” like virtually all of SCM’s music, seems to have remained largely under the radar for the past decade or three. With enough commercial appeal to grace three Hollywood films (including Higher Learning and the delightful Tank Girl), I suspect SCM’s sound is too mysterious, too rich, deep, and powerful to grab hold of the deep-pocketed, drive-thru masses that radio stations and CD hawkers are after.

[By the way, at lunch in Seattle the other day, I was telling Rivers that the film Harvest (in which SCM’s “Elephant Song” appeared), managed to triumph despite its theme of a man hunting down the people who stole his kidney. Its success for me was sprung from the relentlessly brooding mood it conjured (largely helped by the texture and angst of one of SCM’s most towering, climactic songs) along with some excellent sex scenes.]

Last night’s show had the added bonus of Manooghi Hi setting the stage. The band’s leader, lithe headbanging BombaRock diva Mehnaz Hoosein is the sort of nymph who could lure men to drop their own babies and march into mortal battle. Mortal battle, that is, of the sort that involves joyous dancing and raucous prog-rock riffs, amid unfettered cheerful enthusiasm. If you could do yoga to Iron Maiden in a Bollywood movie, Manooghi Hi might be the soundtrack.

To round out this review, Bellingham’s Wild Buffalo was the perfect intimate scene for the psychedelic transformations of SCM and Manooghi Hi. Both bands have a stage presence and wall of sound massive enough to fill stadiums, but it’s when you get up close that you see the pure passion they pour into their performances. There is even a billiards room above and behind the stage, complete with make-out couches. They don’t serve food, but you can bring in your own. The bouncer recommended the $7 (now $9) pulled pork from the Bayou Bar next door and all three of us concurred: it was a damn good sandwich sauced with plenty of fire.

SCM is playing Neumo’s in Seattle tonight. Tomorrow they play my beloved Dante’s in Portland, near the original Voodoo Doughnut. Manooghi Hi will again be providing the opening workout: don’t be late.

Thanks for reading. Cheers,

Photos by Sky Cries Mary & Manooghi Hi

“Where can I get a robot that plays Herbie Mann?” —from Kurt Catlin, written on my Facebook wall

Thank you for that little catapult ride back to my youth, Kurt. Ten words, like smells from grandma’s kitchen, like the feel of that favorite flannel, like a man on oxygen performing under a Jazz Fest tent in 2003 … The past is not as far off as we think. All it takes is a whiff or a riff.

Back when Kurt and I lived on Coachman Drive, I received a gift from my mom the teacher: 2-XL. It was an educational toy, a plastic robot that played 8-track tapes with multiple-choice adventures. I discovered it would play music as well and purchased my first-ever recording from a garage sale: Herbie Mann’s Turtle Bay.

Flash forward to Jazz Fest 2003 and you would find me leaving the rest of my buddies at the Widespread show (don’t hate me) to see Herbie Mann on the jazz stage. I walked into the tent decades the younger of everyone else already seated. Herbie made his way onstage with help, toting an oxygen tank and teetering his way precariously to a barstool centerstage. For the next hour or so I found myself near tears, so caught up in a solid performance that belied Herbie’s few remaining days on earth.

They say smell has the most powerful ability of all the other senses to transport us back to experiences of our past. But music packs an emotional punch that goes way beyond nostalgia or recollection. I sat there and realized I had listened to Turtle Bay thousands of times. It was my only music until a second garage sale turned up the soundtrack to The Wiz (complete with Diana Ross and Michael Jackson on “Ease on Down the Road”) and I loved every track. I would get sent to my room (not deliberately, I swear— and no, mom, I wasn’t being picky about dinner: I was being discerning) and there was 2-XL, Herbie Mann, and a few roundtrips through all 8 tracks, boogying to the funky jazz flute sounds of 1973.

My love for that flute, those perky rhythms, that complex musical experimentation made me a guaranteed fan the first time my brother played Jethro Tull. Another flautist, this time in a progressive rock band, and I was hooked. Luckily Ian Anderson of Tull is not on oxygen yet and I have seen him perform live ten times. I am also decades younger than the average Tull fan. But I digress.

Soaking in that Herbie Mann sound under the shaded jazz tent of pre-Katrina New Orleans, it all went in one ear and— for once— not out the other one. I saw the foundation of my musical preferences, I became living proof of the enduring power of music, and I saw how art can bridge generations. I even saw how it can cheat death. Herbie never performed again and died just two months after that performance, but I have since sought out vinyl— then, later, MP3s— of “Turtle Bay” and I continue to find “discerning” ways to get sent to my room.

Ain’t it funny how a melody can bring back a memory?
—Clint Black, “State of Mind” 1993

By the way, Kurt Catlin is a funkified musician himself. Next time you’re in Seoul, git ya Somah Dat. Thanks for reading. Cheers,

Photos by Tom Marcello (2)