Seattle Subsonic

CHBP Saturday: Blood Red Dancers

July 26th, 2010

One of the first things I overheard after Blood Red Dancers began their Saturday set in the crimson confines of the Cha Cha was, “they’re like the Doors, except good”. With all due respect to BRD—and I have to assume they’d agree with me on this one—the local bass/drum/keyboard trio are NOT better than the Doors. I’m sorry, I just can’t get on board with that particular sentiment. The Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek-led blues-rock band is one of the premier American outfits to rock the 60s and knock on the individual doors of our slithering souls. EVER. So I’m a big fan of the Doors; big deal. My reaction to an anonymous quote has more to do with the Dancers’ sonic inconsistency than any tardy accolades I can hastily bestow on a defunct, idolized band led by a self-destructive poetic gigolo.

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That’s not to say I don’t enjoy, or appreciate, what BRD bring to the table. Their thirst for gravebound, jazzed out pauper rock is certainly going upstream from the rest of the “underground” music world currently swimming in the good-time vibes. And it’s not to say they don’t share some commonalities with the darker recesses of Morrison’s mad/genius drunken ruminations: a guiltless methomania from singer/bassist Aaron Poppick goes a long way in quenching those comparisons. (Ditto with death-obsessed, whiskey-swiller extraordinaire Tom Waits.) Keyboardist Julian Thomas is, for my pennies, the key to this band’s success. Unfortunately, the sassy Brit is too often obscured in their songs. His wily, downright tuneful electric piano arpeggios are a welcome inverse to the singular rhythmus often employed by Poppick and his bass. I really need a mix up in the cadence before I can let them cut me in the breadline.

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