Music Seen: The Dooryard, August 4, 2008
By SONYA TOMLINSON | August 5, 2008
A focused and slightly nervous one-man band, Cerf-Volantes opened a large bill at the Dooryard this past Monday evening. But it didn’t take long for sole member Andrew Frederick to get his footing back on stage after a two-year hiatus.
Looping and adding effects with two foot pedals, Frederick opened his set with a multi-layered guitar track that gradually unfolded into a lovely and atmospheric crescendo that then broke itself down the same way it built itself up.
After the show, Frederick told us that he was used to playing each guitar part separately and had discovered a way to get that full sound for a live show with those pedals just two days earlier. Hesitant with the new technique at first, he grew confident as the set progressed. From the crowd, you felt you were hearing the songs take shape in just the way he intended.
Transitioning from slow and sweet melodies reminiscent of Elliott Smith to playful and more forceful projections, Frederick’s vocal shifts were matched by impressive switches in guitar style, making for an unpredictable set that held the audience captive.
Waiting for his last song, “Me and the Wolf,” to show us all that he was made of, Frederick’s heart-tugging lyrics contradicted a pleasant riff as he began, “I live in a small world./It’s just me and the wolf./He says you better watch your back./I tell him there’s nothing he can do to make me feel afraid/’Cause I have lost what meant the most to me.” At its climax, those emotions were fully realized as Frederick broke into a three-part harmony, nearly screaming repeatedly, “Ready or not.” We’re ready for the full-length CD. Visithttp://www.myspace.com/flyingdeers.
Related:
Music Seen: Dead of Winter, Manufactured landscapes, Back to school, More 
- Music Seen: Dead of Winter
Peaks and valleys are the name of the game with any showcase of too many songwriters that too many people attend, but by and large, Dead of Winter retains its status as a premier night of homegrown entertainment.
- Manufactured landscapes
Depending on our mood, most of us seek out albums that coddle our hopes, fears, and concerns; failing that, we want escapism, foreign environments that either take us where we want to be or startle us with the thrill of the new.
- Back to school
Some of us know (or think we know) our paths from a young age. We follow those trails through 12 years of school, and then four (plus) more. Some of us don't. We flounder, we search, we know what we want but we don't know how to achieve it. The crucial component in all these scenarios? Education.
- Review: Out on the town
Bars and clubs everywhere, 2009
- So you think you can dance?
One of the few things that heats up a winter's night more than a dance party? A dance competition . Yes, you heard right.
- So wrong they're Righteous
Less than two years into their existence, the Self-Righteous Brothers already have a press kit worth of raves.
- Amy Winehouse
I saw at least a dozen people I knew from Portland at the Amy Winehouse show at The Avalon in Boston earlier this month.
- Found sounds
It may be a relief for long-time fans of Belle and Sebastian to hear nothing but the subtle click of rimshot snare, light piano chordings, and strummy guitar at the start of the band’s new The Life Pursuit (Matador).
- Funny business
“Ashlee Simpson’s new album sold so poorly,” snorted the headline on Yahoo! this past week, that “it was beaten by a comedy album.”
- This way out
This week, we study the Portland diaspora, and Hudson Eakin has gone to Worcester, of all places. Isn't that like all the worst parts of Maine and none of the best?
- Music seen: Tony McNaboe
By the time you, dear reader, lay eyes on this, you will have one last opportunity to catch Tony McNaboe's month-long Tuesday-night residency at the Big Easy, which — according to his prediction on week two — is "only going to get better."
- Less
Topics:
Live Reviews
, Elliott Smith, Sonya Tomlinson, Andrew Frederick
