Show Review: Katie Herzig and Butterfly Boucher @ Johnny Brenda’s 11/16
Katie Herzig and Butterfly Boucher rocked out at Johnny Brenda’s Wednesday night, in celebration of Herzig’s latest release, The Waking Sleep, and prematurely celebrating Butterfly’s upcoming album, due out some time in March of next year. The two gals even played together a bit- Herzig hopped on stage on vocals and keys for Butterfly’s last number, who in tern played bass in Herzig’s band.
The sound of the 6-piece band nearly floored me- the bass prominently vibrating in my chest as they started playing the first tune of the evening- “Shovel”, which had a bit of an Edith Piaf or Jacques Brassens sound due to the cello, played by Claire Indie, as well as accordion from Jordan Hamlin (who played guitar for the majority of the set, but also busted out a clarinet and French horn for a song or two.)
“Lost and Found”, from Herzig’s latest record, second song in, is built on simple yet present percussion, vast “ooh”s from the background-singing band members, and gently plunking pizzicato from the cellist. The red gleam of the beaded curtain stage lights and the glinting of the disco ball were dimly glowing visual companions to Herzig’s band, which was like a deluge of texturally and harmonically diverse jams (though there was little about her style that was jam-driven.)
On the above subject of instruments out of the ordinary, a ukulele was brought into the mix (literally) for “Make a Noise. That was just one component of a very clingy break down that swung on staggered string-plinking, which created a “marbles dropping” effect. The plinking eventually resolved back to straight-forward guitar strumming, as if all the marbles were swiftly gathered up, or the pixels having suddenly converged to form a high-res image, so to speak.
About half way into the mid-evening serenade (perhaps to be followed by the “Midnight” serenade, a track off the new record…) Herzig asked the crowd “How many of you listened to the new album?” After some substantial applause, she continued by saying “Good, ‘cause we are playing it.” Not long after that, or perhaps right after, the band played the crowd-pleasing “Free My Mind”, kicked off by a heavily thumping kick drum, which unraveled to showcase major background vox. It was a pretty true rendition of the album’s production- full, bumping and reverby, Herzig’s vocals just a touch hot in the main speakers, but I almost didn’t mind. The whole song was off the hook.
The song “Hey Na Na” came right after “Free My Mind”, prefaced with some stage banter involving Hamlin’s new pedal that gave the voice a dark, creepy, almost monster-like effect… She joked to the cellist, [“Claire likes dark-sounding things…”]. She used the effect in the song for the spoken interludes “Hey Mr. Love, Mr. big love…” which was a deliciously ominous icing on the speak-sing interjection cake. After the song, Indie admitted “I’m really happy you [did it], even though it’s creepy.”
To introduce the title track of the album, Herzig offered some background on her writing process: [“In sitting down writing and recording,] I locked myself in a bedroom and turned off all the lights so nothing would distract me. This was the first song that came out. It’s called “The Waking Sleep.” She then introduced Cason Cooley, who produced the album along with Herzig herself. The song’s texture, created partially by synthesized tones and tremolo from the cello, in tandem with the lyrics, formed an ambiguity- entrancingly lullaby-esque, though simultaneously hopeful, dawn-like… fitting for the steadily maturing nighttime. This is when Hamlin pulled out the clarinet and the horn.
Toward the end of the night, sometime before “Way to the Future” and “Wish You Well”, the band pulled an unexpected throwback to a children’s nursery rhyme when they played “Oh Little Playmate”. Its bow-on-string pluckiness meshed very well with Herzig’s overall sound, as well as her lyrical themes. To accentuate the very rhythmic orientation of “Way to the Future”, Katie pounded on a floor tom with two mallets, which made the percussion resonate even louder in JB’s multi-level room. The cello and keyboard’s rhythmic arpeggiation brought out the 6/8 (or ¾?) feel to the song.
The whole album, tunes of which comprised a substantial portion of the set, seemed to have been unified by lush background singing, string-heavy arrangements, tight-knit musicianship, and lyrical honesty.
Katie Herzig’s album, The Waking Sleep, is available on iTunes. Check out her music, tour dates, and videos at www.katieherzig.com For the latest on Butterfly Boucher, visit www.butterflyboucher.com
Katie Herzig, “Free My Mind”
Butterfly Boucher, “I Found Out”
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