Meat Raffle Music Festival #5 at Uptown Bar and Café on 6/10/06

By: Kristine Lambert, Pat O'Brien

Meat Raffle organizer Christopher McGuire - Photo by Razorfist

There were to be 19 acts in four and a half hours. A sane person would look at this and deem it a recipe for disaster: the egos and the sheer volume of equipment that was coming and going through the door of the Uptown seemed like ample chaos. There were two stages set up for this night, the usual one and a smaller, intimate second stage that was created by removing the booth between the soundboard and the door to the outside patio. Host Christopher McGuire (12RODS, Kid Dakota, and a plethora of other bands) was the mastermind behind it all. When we spoke with him, he was surprisingly relaxed and confident the night would go smoothly. And McGuire was a man of his word. We imagined he was the only person in the room unsurprised that it didn’t devolve into a veritable train wreck.

The Virgin Marcus started the night off at exactly 9:00. The dinner crowd was exiting as the rock fans streamed into the bar; if you weren’t ready to rock, then you had best be on your way. The lights came down and band ripped into the first mini-set in an excellent start. The Virgin Marcus seemed like a swirling amalgam of all the best 70’s arena rock (complete with flying-V guitar). After their set, and before anyone got too comfortable, we were immediately directed to the second stage. Laura Klinkert punched out a quick, folky acoustic set in a voice that was the punk rock equivalent of Jewel. She then literally ran from her original post to the main stage in order to join West Elliot. She quickly tuned her guitar, and in a flash the music flipped to alt-rock in the vein of both The Dismemberment Plan and The Rentals. They were the first standout bright spot of the night. Questionsinletters’ Steve Siekkinen (who seemed to be everywhere) then turned in an attention-grabbing three song solo set of surreal, Mike Doughty-phrasing, meandering stories with lyrics like, “Aristotle was with a model, they were sniffing airplane glue.”

Rick McCollum - Photo by Razorfist

Suffuse followed with a near-aimless, thundering intro that recalled “Endless, Nameless,” the now-legendary hidden track on Nirvana’s Nevermind. It quickly shifted to a sound that cozied up to both Flipper and early Primus; the bass was both chunky and twisty. They turned out to be another high water mark for the evening. Next up was a respite of sorts. The three-man drum battle featured Alden Ikeda, Lester Zehner and Christopher McGuire trading jazzy beats, rhythms and cymbal crashes back and forth for about ten minutes, which brought the night’s frenetic pace down a notch – you could see the crowd’s pulse slow and everyone relax a bit. The night then slowed a bit more as Moon Maan front man Rick McCollum’s theremin/slide guitar set-up quietly seeped into the waning moments of the drum battle. The drums fell silent and McCollum kept on with an eerie and magnetic sound resembling an Afghan Whigs song that had been stretched and turned inside out. He built on the long song using a delay pedal, and it suddenly sounded like an army of guitarists were in the room.

The night started picked up pace from there: Flora and Brian Herb’s Alice In Chains-like sets both kind of melded together. It was 20 minutes of thunderous plod as the night revved up again. Faux Jean and Honey Jean next turned a two-song set of rambling, ambling folk that would have sounded right at home being played in a boxcar during the Depression. Cincinnati’s Campfire Crush followed with set that sounded like Pavement with horns and a synthesizer. “We are here to tell of lost chances and fleeting glimpses,” lead singer Danny Brook declared before one of their songs, blasting a trumpet into the mic one more time before the set – like all of their songs – ended abruptly. A 10-minute intermission followed, which allowed everyone catch their breath.

Steve Siekkinen appeared again with a quick solo acoustic intro on the second stage, and then joined the full Questionsinletters band on the main stage for a T-Rex sounding three-song set. The European Son followed with a fuzzed-out, Kinks-y set. Connie Olson’s piano-bar torch singer act was the final respite for the crowd before American Head Charge lead singer Cameron Heacock and friends took the stage. They burned through a four-song set that unfolded like a heavy metal version of Morphine, complete with an artist creating a painting on stage that evolved into a sad light bulb perched on a stack of books.

The night’s final act, Phil Solem, provided the night’s only hitch: the lights came up and the mic cut out at precisely 1:45, which was only about halfway through Solem’s second song. It was as if a timer had gone off. We were a little disappointed, but Solem wasn’t upset. He, like the rest in attendance, had been a part of something truly unique. The minor snafu was minimal compared to what could have happened, considering the magnitude of this kind of event.

Location Info: Uptown Bar and Café
Artist Info: Cameron Heacock, Connie Olson, Faux Jean, Laura Klinkert, Phil Solem, Questionsinletters, Rick McCollum, Suffuse, The Virgin Marcus, West Elliot

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