[liff] The Friction Brothers and Our First Patron Saint

853 I, as many people whose lives are small and desperate enough that they think they should blog bout it to a bunch of people who they'll never see, have prattled on about music. Essentially my opinion is that decent popular music died in about 1990; almost all my favorites either date from the 80's or are extension of 80's style.

There is one local act that I'm actually interested in, though. A cow-orker introduced me to the music of the Friction Brothers, a local quartet that plays what they term "Indie/Rock/Folk Rock" (at least that's what thier MySpace page is notated) There's some samples of thier music there, and d'you know what–it's quite listenable and not at all hard on the ears.

Two of the group (dubbing themselves the Friction Twins) are having an acoustic (The Friction Brothers-Unplugged) show this coming Thursday, 5th July, at The Red Room at 2530 NE 82nd Ave. It sounds like its going to be like the last time we saw Celtic folk songs live except there are two dudes and they're singing modern music.

But it seriously sounds different enough to be a whole lot of fun, and hey, it's free–what's not to like about the price?

If I didn't have a drudge job to go to that evening, I'd sure go.

A New Face

Viewing the sidebar, we might notice a face in that assemblage–we decided it was high time that this 'blog has a face, and since, in our opinion, our face could stop an 8-day clock, we decided that we should name a patron saint–a person who, if we could recombine our genes, we'd remake ourselves at. And, since we admire musicians, we've decided to go with a musician for now...From the Aussie band Icehouse, we give you the current Patron Saint of ZKT, Iva Davies:


This might be recognized as a shot from a video posted on MySpace (since removed, no doubt due to copyright concerns) of thier 1987 international hit "Electric Blue" (from the album Man of Colours). This was thier only American success, which from this continent makes them look like one-hit-wonders, but Icehouse are one of the quintessential Aussie bands, hugely popular Down Under, with Iva a constant draw in his native land (and with musical credits such as the soundtrack to Master and Commander, in demand internationally in scoring and production).

We specify at this time the mid-80's Iva, with the black-leather-and-mullet look. There was a time when mullets were considered high fashion and this was the thick of that time; I am of the opinion that Iva pretty much rocked the mid-'80's mullet, big-time.

All that, and Icehouse were (and are–Iva makes records as Icehouse still) one of the great overlooked bands of the 80's, at least here in 'Merrica.

Business up front (music business, not shirt-and-tie, in this case) and party in the back. Word.

All hands up for Iva Davies, The ZehnKatzen Times' new patron saint, who shall not use his powers for good, but for awesome.

Tags: The Friction Brothers, Icehouse, Iva Davies, 80's Music, PDX Music