brazzaville review

so, last week, fresno famous was advertising the chance to win tickets to a concert on saturday night. brazzaville, an internationally known group, was coming to fresno and playing w/3 local acts. it was a fundraiser for 90.7, kfsr. kfsr is the local college station, and has been a source of tremendously great & diverse music in my life. my brother used to record music from there, which in turn exposed me to lots of new stuff. anyway, back to my story. basically, i'd never heard of brazzaville. but, one of the local acts (el olio wolof) is a favorite of mine, so i wanted to go to the show just to see them. so, when i saw the contest, i started entering. the contest was to create a snazzy tag line for their evening eclectic show. i bombarded them with slogans. shoot, i wouldn't be surprised if i won based on the amount of entries i had.

i had sort of forgotten about the contest, and hadn't been on the computer in two days. while i watched ucla lose in the final four (dang), i decided to check my email, blogs, fresno famous, etc. and what do i see? i won tickets for two. sadly, i couldn't give the other ticket away. it seems that people had other plans, were out of town, or not interested. and, i couldn't think of who else to invite. so, i went alone. but, i was armed with my trusty camera, a pen, and a piece of paper. i figured, hey, i'm going because of fresno famous, i might as well review the show for them as well. granted, these aren't the longest or most in depth reviews, but whatever. and, i've got videos! (speaking of which, i apologize in advance for the shaky camera work and the poor sound quality at times. it was louder than my camera wanted to accommodate.)

first up was patrick contreras. i'd never heard him, but there's been a lot of buzz going around about the rock and roll violinist. it was dang good music. i preferred the instrumentals to the songs with vocals, but maybe that's just me. this guy has spunk, and his band is fun to watch, too. patrick ended w/a led zepplin song that was really well done.
patrick contreras video

(on a side note, how do drink prices go up during a show? i don't think i arrived during a happy hour, when i came at 8:20ish. but, the price of the drink i had started @ $3.50. i think i was charged $5 the second time, a bit later and slightly after the show started. the rest of the night i think they charged my $4 for it. wha?)

next on tap was el olio wolof. as i mentioned before, i've seen them before, i really enjoy their music, and pretty much went to the show to see them and to hear brazzaville. el olio didn't disappoint. they're always great. el olio reminds me of a pentecostal tim burton carnival, whatever that means. i highly recommend that you go see them @ the undercurrent benefit show on sunday april 29th @ club fred (hey, you should subscribe to undercurrent as well. so should i.)
el olio wolof 1
el olio wolof 2
el olio wolof 3
el olio wolof 4
el olio wolof 5

third on the bill was the same shape. the same shape reminded me of early radiohead, and i mean that in a good way. i really like radiohead, so i'd take this as a compliment. i don't thing they're trying to bite their sound though. they also had some tunes that reminded me of cream. good stuff, and they played well to the crowd.
the same shape 1
the same shape 2
the same shape 3

(i should mention that the sound guys seemed very helpful to all of the bands. and, i thought that the overall sound quality of the venue was good. always nice when a venue actually has good sound.)

finally, we get to the headliner. i didn't know much about brazzaville before the show. all i had heard was that they were from spain. and that they were good. since the show, i've done a little reading up on them. anyway, they more than lived up to the simple billing that i heard. (and their name is not brazilville, like this doofus next to me kept telling people around him.) brazzaville's sound reminded me of david bowie, and a tad bit of pete yorn. mostly, it was mellow but highly entertaining. these guys were definitely professional, but they were also quite personable. they didn't have "rock star" attitudes on stage. i would recommend them to anyone that likes music.
brazzaville 1
brazzaville 2
brazzaville 3
brazzaville 4
brazzaville 5
brazzaville 6

*disclosure, i'm posting this on my blogspot blog as well as on my fresno famous blog. i hope a lot of people read my meager review, and are influenced to check out & patronize all of the musicians. oh yeah, and listen to 90.7 kfsr. heck, email them and let them know that people want more shows, and more of evening eclectic. i know, i know, people like jazz and it's good that we have a quality station playing diverse jazz. but dammit, i want more "college" radio as well.