Saturday, November 16, 2013

Genders (ex-Forest Park members band, Portland, OR)

11/16/13 1:45PM

edit:
Well they are in town tonight 11/16/13 playing at the Kitty Cat Klub with Aaron & the Sea, UMAMI and 1 other group. I probably could clarify 1 thing though: Katherine Paul, Genders Drummer/Vocalist may be the only member from Forest Park in Genders. For some reason I thought another 1 or 2 other members of FP were in Genders as well, but o well. But in FP she played guitar and sang, whereas in Genders she's a drummer and sings.

I dunno, if I am able to chat with her and the other members of Genders tonight, some of those details could be more clear to me. It does make me wonder a bit still on what the other Forest Park members are doing now (like I wonder about some of the ex-members of Margot & the Nuclear So & So's of course, whose fans introduced me to Typhoon to originally. Funny how these connections all come full circle/X-degrees of, etc, lol).



11/3/13 10:32PM

For those who may not be familiar with the Portland, Oregon-based band Forest Park I was totally blown away in 2012, and then included their debut EP rather high on my year-end list. And I think I did post something about their ending/demise/breakup. At least a couple of the members of that great yet maybe not highly committed group, were part of this group called Genders.

Now I recall 1st hearing about Forest Park per Typhoon's Facebook in 2012 I think, and came to believe 1 or 2 of the members of Typhoon were part of Forest Park. As it turned out, I was partially right, LIVE I guess. If I am remembering correctly, Alex Fitch, 1 of Typhoon's drummers played with Forest Park LIVE, but not on the EP.

edit: I spoke to Katherine tonight (11/16/13), and I guess Shannon Steele (violin) and Ryan McAlphin (trumpet) of Typhoon are on the FP EP as guests.

Anyway, I got to hang with many of the members of Typhoon at their show back in September at the Cedar Cultural Center and among the other Portland bands I started talking to them about, Forest Park came up and if I remember, Alex told me a lot about their situation and this band Genders.

I came to learn about Genders around the time of learning last year of Forest Park's breakup, and I even *liked* them on Facebook, but their music, from memory, didn't remind me all that much of FP or didn't do as much for me.

Well, but Alex I recall told me their newer stuff was more in the FP vein if I recall. So I just noticed Genders posted a new single on their Bandcamp earlier, and while it's not as layered or having the use of trumpet I loved in FP, it does have that dreamy post-rock style with the female vocals that I love.

If I recall, Alex may have mentioned they are looking to release a full-length soon; likely in 2014. They have from looking at their rateyourmusic.com recorded 3 Demos/EPs of sorts over the last couple of years. But this new single "Something to Get You By" (from the album Get Lost due out December 8th) maybe has more of my attention than some of the stuff I checked out way back when I 1st heard about them. The crescendo is tremendous at the end.

It kind of reminds me of Warpaint, which being highly original or not, if the songwriting is good to me I often don't care.



http://genderspdx.bandcamp.com/