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Upcoming Shows
Birds on a Wire
FRIDAY & SATURDAY, March 26 & 27
PULLMAN
$35 Adv./$45 Door
$25 Group Rate of 10
Shearwater
w/the Hospital Ships & Wye Oak
FRIDAY, Apr. 30 8PM
@ The BellTower
PULLMAN
$12 Adv./$15 Door
Roadside Graves
w/TBD
THURSDAY, Aug. 5
@ TBA -
Stereopathic on Hypem
Apr
16
In Javier Suarez, the clean-cut upbeat Paul McCartney of Ed Sullivan and the First American Tour rides again. Tyler Armour has a darker turn of mind. He appreciates paradox and coincidence, he reads Vonnegut and Kafka, he plays a dark-skinned and hypnotic guitar. True to stereotype, Armour is bearded. I didn’t ask about chest hair. Tim Meinig wears a black baseball cap; he has a golden voice, when he will use it. In former days, Meinig drummed for Band of Horses; these days, he is depressed by his job as a local broadcaster feeding negative economic predictions and sordid crimes to the public on behalf of the Pullman NPR. Ted Powers has the heart – and the hair – of a lion, a brilliant lion. He beats with the panache of a Ringo Starr, he holds the keys to the Wazoo radio station. These artists have divergent interests, but they drew together as Yarn Owl through serendipity.
“Basically, the radio station is the catalyst,” says Suarez. After high school, Suarez had spent a year in Liverpool, England getting a degree from The Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts, whose graduates include Paul McCartney and George Harrison, and, following this adventure, he was tempted to join the hive of musicians in Seattle. A revelation at a Greyhound Bus station changed his mind. “It was kind of dingy and kind of sketchy,” he recounts. “I had this epiphany: Oh man, maybe I should go to college!” He joined his friend Powers back in Pullman at WSU and they piano-rocked with the Spokane group Ether Hour until its mutual dissolution. In the fall of 2007, the radio station connected them with the post-rock/ambient-loving Meinig and Armour, and the foursome formed Yarn Owl.
Their music is not really comparable to anything that might play on a pop radio station, thanks again to their involvement with the local radio. Reflecting on the mainstream favs, Suarez says that “we hear a lot of songs that sound a lot of samey-same, so we like to be a little different.”
Plaiting Abbey-Road whimsy with the post-rock momentum and pressure of Austin’s Explosions in the Sky, Yarn Owl weaves chime-like strings with Suarez’s clear-water calling and asymmetrical lyrics over a subtle and potent drum. Meinig’s bass extends and gathers momentum long before hitting a peak and releasing. Armour’s guitar draws your ear like a snake-charmer. This attention to detail creates a tie-dyed underbrush that is dense enough to float Suarez’ vocals while smoothly streaming with his “poppy tendencies,” producing a sound that avoids the regretfully-forgettable tendencies of bubble-gum pop though still yet quite as lickable as a lollypop.
And yes, indeed, Javier Suarez has shaken the hand of Paul McCartney.
Next Sighting
: 23 April, 2009, 7:00 p.m. Cub Senior Ballroom, WSU. Pullman, WA.
Molly is a freelance journalist and a senior at New St. Andrew’s College with a special interest in postcards and goldfish. She writes for The Loop 21 and keeps the blog A New Amsterdam.
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