Danava. What do you know about them? Here’s what I know:

1. 1. They have 3 full-length albums (that I can find).
2. 2. They’re from Portland.

That’s it. Not even sure how to say their name. I assumed it was duh-NAH-vuh, but then I heard Kadavar refer to them as DAH-nah-vuh, which I’d be happy to take as the final word except it was spoken hesitantly and in a German accent. This probably makes me a terrible racist. We all have our quirks.

There’s this thing I do to help me separate the delicious, distorted wheat from the overproduced, boring chaff in my music library: download everything that seems remotely interesting on my trusty Xbox Music Pass of Doom* (hey, I’m not opposed to technology. The phonograph comes later, when I’ve paid for the LP), put it all on random, and when something comes up that strikes my fancy I go see what it is. Danava has consistently been a fancy-striker for me, to the point where before I was able to identify their sound (eventually, I pegged it as something along the lines of a more accessible Mars Volta), I just started assuming that if I heard something that I liked it was probably them.

Here are the things about them that catch my ear: mildly spacey but still driving; great riffs with basslines that occasionally diverge to counter and support them rather than mimic them; kind of proggy, but not in an off-putting way. COME ON, I’m not being anti-prog; you know what I mean. Some bands just smugly throw weird time signatures and out chord changes into the mix in a way that seems more like a personality flaw than a reflection of musicianship. Like instead of the musicians actually finding the changes appropriate for the song, it’s just that the drummer didn’t get enough validation from his dad when he was in third grade and is now overcompensating by proving how many polyrhythms he can fit into each piece. Yeah, I said the drummer; wanna fight about it? THE POINT IS: Danava do not do that. They change things up a bit to keep things interesting, but not in a self-conscious way- there’s a good balance between their building-block hooky bits and the more abstract passages where they toss in an extra measure free of charge. The vox might be a little high for some, but it’s nothing any Rush fan can’t handle.

Unfortunately for yours truly, there have been two opportunities in recent memory to see them live, and I missed both. Probably for unforgivable reasons. NOT ONLY THAT, but the last time I just got there late and was still determined to come home a few bucks lighter and a few LPs richer, but they packed up all their merch and split before the end of the night. DANAVA! How can I support you if you’re playing hard to get like that? I had to order your shiz through Amazon. That’s embarrassing. And now I still don’t have one of your shirts, or even know if they exist. I know YOU exist, though, which is reassuring.

This video for “Where Beauty and Terror Dance” is creepy as fuck and I love it- especially the part about how the singer looks like the template for the Derek Smalls character:

*I think it’s technically called Groove now? The same service has been rebranded several times since I’ve been using it, with no apparent change to the level of quality or service. It’s like someone choosing a new nickname for themselves at the beginning of each year of highschool in hopes it’ll finally win them popularity, but everyone knows they’re still full of Zune on the inside.

Hey, chums. Can we talk about Carrie Brownstein for a sec? I just read her book, Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl, and it literally kept me up at night thinking about how much I related to her experiences with trying to find her place as a musician. I was never into Sleater-Kinney in their heyday, but they were one of those rare bands which I was still able to hold in high regard- the old pretentious chestnut “I don’t like them, but I respect them” applied for me. I liked what they stood for- when I was old enough to understand it, anyway; I was several years too young for the Riot Grrl deal- and appreciate the doors they kicked down in the service of dropping the “women” qualifier from “women musicians.” And I really liked what Carrie and Corin did outside of Sleater-Kinney -Wild Flag and the Corin Tucker Band, respectively- both of which efforts felt more fleshed out to me (so sue me, I’m a bassist. I like my bands to include bass). But honestly, my biggest connection to S-K itself came not from listening to their music, but from the fact that my grandma lived in Lacey and would proudly send me newspaper clippings about her hometown heroes as a way to relate to her music-obsessed grandkid.

Despite that lukewarm background, I still was eager to read about how Carrie characterized her experiences before, during, and after S-K. I look to biographies for a blueprint for life and for reassurance: that successful, biography-worthy people failed before succeeding and thus it’s okay for me to fail too; that I have things in common with people I admire. On an insecure day I look for evidence that I’m doing better than the subject was at my age. I want an existing story to measure myself against. Maybe it was because she’s a PNW native that I was especially intrigued by this book- would I care as much if she name-checked venues she’d frequented as a teenager in Detroit? Likely not; I love a story set in my own backyard. And maybe it was because of that familiarity that although we were separated by the better part of a decade, I was primed to feel personally connected to what might otherwise be an unremarkable journey. I just know that I found some sense of comfort in her tales of trying to come into her own as a guitarist, and the attendant feeling of not knowing what the fuck she was doing but seeing a community and wanting to be a part of it.

I could access that feeling easily because it still drives me: the desire to be a bigger presence, to be inside an important movement, to mean as much to others as they’ve meant to me. The desire to be recognized and not just be a bystander, which is especially difficult for someone not inclined to jump into the fray. Carrie characterized herself as shy and I’m similarly introverted and reserved, but the difference is that she still didn’t seem to have trouble throwing herself shamelessly into the community she sought. I, on the other hand, feel uncomfortable imposing on anyone and will wait for an invitation (this hasn’t proven to be a winning strategy, and I recognize that most of my biggest accomplishments happen when I can throw off the shackles of potential embarrassment and be bolder, but it doesn’t come easily).

I too saw the community that I wanted to be part of when I was 13, 14, 15, but didn’t know how to access it; I was too young to go to clubs, too young even to drive myself out of the neighborhood to seek out other environs where I might encounter the people I was looking for. The kids around me who clearly branded themselves as fellow music fans and musicians mostly worshipped the Dead Kennedys, whose anger I didn’t connect with at all, or Iron Maiden, which was beyond me technically. There wasn’t a clear path from playing along to Gruntruck and Hammerbox alone in my bedroom to finding like-minded, like-aged people to share these obsessions, to learn and grow with. I’m always envious of those who had friends who shared these interests early on- the musician friends I had weren’t interested in doing White Zombie covers with me, and the White Zombie fan friends I had weren’t musicians.  And so when she wrote about the isolation of being a burgeoning musician without an outlet, I could recall those attempts at connection via classifieds in the Stranger which never went anywhere. When she wrote about the frustration of feeling like the awkward kid knocking on the door of her chosen community hoping there’s room for her despite having little to offer but enthusiasm, I recognized that desperation and felt gratified that someone else had experienced that same headspace. That it wasn’t always as easy as just answering an ad in the LA Recycler, as so many other origin stories begin. Really, that many of us are still struggling to find the space for ourselves that we envision, and though it brings insecurity and discomfort, it’s the search itself that connects those of us who reject giving up or surrendering to complacency. And it’s in sharing our stories that we help each other build our own new communities from the ground up.

Children! Have you gotten hip to the new swingin’ sounds of All Them Witches? Lend me a moment to bend your ear about them. They first came into my sphere of consciousness with a press release announcing the release of their live album. Now I’m no slouch in keeping up with what the kids these days are into, and having never heard of these gentlemen before, I found a live album release perhaps a bit presumptuous. It was, of course, explained as them being “a live band” needing to “capture our energetic performance.”

Being that only band this has ever truly been the case for is The Who, I was dubious. And yet I am a sucker for Witch bands- the very inclusion of that word in a band name seems to be a not-so-secret code for Band That I Will Like: Witch, Witchburn, Witchfinder General, Witchcraft, Witch Mountain, Bell Witch, Skeletonwitch. All in heavy rotation on my Phonograph of Doom. I will not say I was blown away by what I heard, but I was compelled to keep them on my radar.

Well. When I got a hold of 2014’s “Lightning At The Door,” I understood what the fuss was about, and forgave them the (perhaps) premature making of a live album. I still decline to agree that they’re primarily a live band, as their studio output more than adequately demonstrates their considerable talents, but that’s coming from someone who has not yet seen them live in person- just in video. Maybe there’s truly something I’m missing there which puts them over the top. Regardless, their recordings leave me plenty satisfied.

The drums, dry as a septuagenarian’s love socket in the Arizona summer, seem to be transmitted from the inside of a large, empty, wooden crate- and impart the kind of loneliness and desolation one would no doubt experience if one were to find themselves inside said crate. I don’t mean to imply that any one instrument here is more critical to the sound than another, but the drumming is what keeps the songs on the highway and away from the exit for Another Run-of-the-Mill Psych-Blues Jamville. It churns along under the fuzzing and sliding, jazzy fills supporting the sonic interest of the leads. Guitars, though nothing to scoff at when it comes to what they say, speak in familiar voices: there’s no reinvention of tone here; no trademark character. However, in the spirit of “if it ain’t broke…,” sometimes it’s more pleasant to encounter a well-loved old friend than make a new one just for newness’ sake. The unique sonic imprint here comes more from the interplay of instruments and, to a lesser extent, the unpolished vocals- this is not a singer who is concerned with completing each phrase in affected, trained tones. The hard r’s and brittle vowels impart authenticity, as though his natural speaking voice is filtering through. And when employed on a track which is recited more than sung, it brings to mind an infinitely less pretentious version of The Doors’ “The End.”

It is not ground-breaking; this is true. But all the same, it’s worth giving a turn for well-crafted, evocative songs that employ both blues and psychedelic tropes with ample enough forward momentum to keep them from sounding stale.

ETA: I caught these guys live last week, and I can now confirm that there’s nothing about them live that would convince someone on the fence about their recordings to call themselves a fan. I mean, there was nothing wrong with the performance, it just didn’t inspire anything in me that I didn’t already get from the album- it wasn’t like the difference between a GWAR album and a live show, fer sure. Also, they have a new release that I haven’t heard yet because they didn’t have it on vinyl, but I have high hopes for it.