On Monday May 26th I went to see (honestly) one of my favorite electronic pop musicians, Owen Ashworth or as his despondent disciples know him, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone at the Trunkspace
Minimalist banjo-and-pedal steel splitmates Foot Foot also rocked the bill, along with local champions Small Group and Businessman’s Lunch.
Businessman’s Lunch stepped on stage adorned in hazardously achromatic pants and ironic t-shirts and backed up by their very own light showman manning a small array of desk lamps, taplights, strobes, and christmas lights. This was a special night for BML, for they decided to temporarily abandon their Flaming Lips-with-slightly-more-personal-baritone-vox sound for a drum machine driven dance party. Needless to say, it got me PUMPED.
Small Group, with one residual BML member (now in jamies) played next, filling the crowd with honest, nostalgic rock and roll. Video proof can be found on their ’space.
The adorably married Josh and Robin Brown of Foot Foot played a charming set despite being a little visibly tipsy and deprived of a vocal monitor. Robin has such a distinct harp of vocal chords that played perfectly with the four strings she plucked on her noticeably loved and worn banjo. Josh saved his stage-banter but Robin made sure to give the snug audience some entertaining background on the songs, whose novelistic lyrics are, to me, one of the best things about Foot Foot.
CTFTPA took less time than expected to set up his impressively well-organized and well-labeled rig. After sound checking on an instrumental/”can I get a little less reverb on the mic”/conventionally sung version of ‘Cold White Christmas’, Owen introduced himself and greeted everyone. His dry wit bounced off most of the crowd until a couple songs in when he touched on the possible Tuscan-Phoenix rivalry (which isn’t even a rivalry if you ask me) when the gang loosened up and started shouting song requests (aren’t set lists overrated anyway?).

click for the whole roll ^
I know I’m beginning to really look pathetic and technological lummox, but I swear I’ve just been having bad luck with my shiny little toys. This time, there was some trouble with the file transfer and I lost some pics and a sweet video of Foot Foot. Maybe I can find that black hole into which my stuff vanished… probably not.
Anyway, the show was fucking great. I really recommend seeing any of these guys again. There are some really cool shows coming up in the next few weeks (check my calendar!) so hopefully I’ll nail down a format of sorts?
hey, a girl can dream 