The Antlers' "Undersea" Shines at Grog Shop Show

The Antlers took the Grog Shop stage last night with a set that spanned the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based band's full-length albums, as well as their latest EP, Undersea. Bathed in blue lights, the group began the show with "Drift Dive," the dreamlike opener from their newest release, followed by Burst Apart's "Rolled Together" and "No Widows" before returning to Undersea's 8-minute-plus "Endless Ladder."

Singer and guitarist Peter Silberman's strong voice seemed to capture the sedate but thoroughly attentive crowd, especially as the set moved into selections from the band's acclaimed 2009 concept album, Hospice, and the whisperlike vocal opening of "Kettering," followed by "Shiva" and "Silvia."

Undersea's "Chrome" and "Zelda," were other standouts in the set, illustrating the band's deliberate sound evolution from the heavy and heart-rending subject matter of their previous releases. (Check out our 5 Questions with Peter Silberman in which he discusses the shift). Undersea is rich and layered and could make some wonder how it translates to the stage, but the band delivers it flawlessly.

A two-song encore brought what are arguably the band's two most popular songs, "I Don't Want Love" and "Putting the Dog to Sleep." The latter, a pleading and powerful examination of a relationship left in ruins, ignited the crowd before sending them off into the night.

MUSIC: 5 Questions with The Antlers' Peter Silberman (@ Grog Shop 9/27)

Three years ago, The Antlers released Hospice, a bleak and delicate concept album about the relationship between a male nurse and a female patient suffering from bone cancer. Some musicians would crash and burn trying to tackle such weighty subject matter, but the 10-song collection exhibited an overt beauty that won praise from Pitchfork and NPR alike. 

The Antlers followed it by embracing an electronic edge and a bigger sound with 2011's Burst Apart (check out "I Don't Want Love" and "Putting the Dog to Sleep"), which again won praise from music writers and fans. This summer brought Undersea, a dreamy and different four-song EP that feels as whole and cohesive as anything the band has done.  

With The Antlers set to play the Grog Shop Sept. 27 (you can buy tickets here), we talked to vocalist and guitarist Peter Silberman (center of the picture above, with Michael Lerner and Darby Cicci) about the group's evolution, the new release and his take on the band's live show.

CM: Your previous two albums have dealt in various ways with the human condition — life, love and loss. Undersea has a more dreamlike quality. To what do you attribute that shift? 

PS: When we made Undersea, we were wanting to create something calming and maybe that was for other people, maybe that was just for ourselves ... But, on a whole, we approached recording it and writing it — we do both at the same time — with the idea of something really mellow in mind ... It felt like it was a bonus recording for us in a lot of ways. We were going to go in there and do it totally for fun and see what we come up with. So, that is where we ended up. Being that it was such a period of doing whatever we wanted and feeling no pressure, there didn't seem to be a need for heightened drama and fatalistic lyrics and things like that.

CM: How did you arrive at the decision to keep Undersea just four songs?

PS: We really had a defined period of time to record. We wanted to release it by summer, so in order to do that, we needed to be done by a certain day. And we had a little bit more material we were working on, but we really felt, as the recording was going on — as we were getting deeper into it — that we needed to focus and not try to produce as much as we could in a short time but really try and give a lot to those four tracks, especially because those are the four that we felt really belonged together the most. 

CM: How would you describe The Antlers' live show to someone who has never seen the band?  

PS: More than anything, it's got its own mood to it, and you feel it in the room you're in. Because sonically it's, for lack of a better word, atmospheric, and there's a looseness to it despite us being a band that I think is pretty locked in. ... It kind of takes over the room, especially with an audience that's into it. There becomes this kind of haziness about the room and we tend to play off of that and just get really into it, and I think we're in a bit of a trance when we're playing. That's what makes it fun and exciting for us — that we start a show and it feels a bit like starting up some kind of machine. ... beginning this thing that is going to move throughout the next hour and a half, that's going to travel at a certain pace and build its own momentum. 

CM: Are there any groups you've played or toured with that have had a distinct effect on you as a performer or the band as a whole? 

PS: When we toured with The National a couple years ago, that had a pretty strong musical influence on us. ... We watched pretty much their entire set every night, and we just started being able to see musically what they're doing and how precise the whole thing is. And I think there was something really inspiring about the craftmanship of it. ... I remember just watching them and thinking that we could be putting a lot of care into what we're doing in that regard, too. 

CM: What's the first album you ever bought? 

PS: I think it was The Blue Album — Weezer, their first album. That was definitely the first CD I bought. The first album I bought might have been The Offspring or Jimi Hendrix The Ultimate Experience. 

The Antlers play the Grog Shop Sept. 27 at 8 p.m. For more information or to buy tickets, visit the Grog Shop's website. Do you use Spotify? Check out our CM Music: The Antlers playlist. 

Minus the Bear celebrate Grog Shop

Minus the Bear gave the Grog Shop an anniversary gift last night worthy of the music venue’s 20-year history.  Returning to play the music club for the first time since 2008, the Seattle-hailing indie rockers are just one of the bands venturing back to Cleveland Heights this month in celebration of the establishment’s past two decades. (We spoke with Minus the Bear lead singer Jake Snider and Grog Shop owner Kathy Blackman to preview the anniversary in our September issue, available online here.)

Caspian and Cursive both opened the sold-out show, which filled up nicely before Minus the Bear took the stage at around 10:30 p.m. The group roared into a 17-song set that touched on all five of their full-length albums, opening with the haunting-yet-catchy “Steel and Blood” and thumping “Lies and Eyes,” both from the newly released Infinity Overhead, which dropped Aug. 28. They followed that with a string of past hits, starting with “The Game Needed Me” off of 2005’s Menos El Oso and “Throwin’ Shapes” from 2007’s Planet of Ice, before transitioning into “Absinthe Party at the Fly Honey Warehouse” from the band's 2002 debut, Highly Refined Pirates, and “Into the Mirror” off 2010's excellent Omni.

Minus the Bear wrapped their initial set with Omni opener (and a personal favorite) “My Time," proceeded by a spirited rendition of “Cold Company” from their newest record. Cheers of “One more song!” from the lively crowd elicited a three-track encore, though no one seemed to mind getting more than they asked for. Planet of Ice’s “Dr. L’Ling,” Infinity Overhead’s “Lonely Gun” and Pachua Sunrise from Menos El Oso closed the show, which by that point had stretched into early Thursday morning.

The band was extremely grateful to both the Grog Shop venue and Cleveland crowd throughout the evening, with Snider hollering out, “Thanks Cleveland, you guys rock,” before ducking backstage. The feeling was certainly mutual.

The Lighthouse and The Whaler pack Grog Shop

The Lighthouse and The Whaler drew a sell-out crowd to the Grog Shop on Saturday night as the Cleveland band marked the release of their second full-length album, This is an Adventure. They kicked off their fall tour with a fantastic 11-song set filled almost exclusively with material from the new release. 

The new songs are a change from the more subdued folk-pop of the band's self-titled full-length debut but are still marked by the tight constructions and rich harmonies for which The Lighthouse and The Whaler are known (Read our September 2012 Fall Arts Preview story "To The Sea"). 

The band performed the entire new album (although in a different order than the track listing — see the set list below), capping the night with "The Field Song," which frontman Michael LoPresti noted was the first song the band ever wrote. The Grog Shop performance also marked the group's last show with band co-founder Aaron Smith. This is an Adventure goes on sale tomorrow, Sept. 18.

The Lighthouse and The Whaler

9/15/2012 - Grog Shop

1. This is an Adventure

2. We've Got the Most

3. Venice

4. The Adriatic

5. Iron Door

6. Burst Apart

7. Little Vessels

8. Chromatic

9. Untitled

10. Pioneers

Encore

11. The Field Song

Cellar Door Records release party at Grog Shop

In the trippy 2001 film Donnie Darko, a school teacher remarks that "a famous linguist once said that of all the phrases in the English language, of all the endless combinations of words in all of history, that 'cellar door' is the most beautiful."

A year after that cult film, which featured a sinister bunny that predicts the end of the world and a really good music soundtrack, Justin Markert borrowed the phrase Cellar Door for his small Madison, Ohio, coffee shop. The 135-capacity room was a space for artists, too. Markert booked music acts ranging from acoustic singer-songwriters to hardcore bands. Along the way, he released a compilation featuring music from acts that played there.

The coffee shop ultimately closed, but in 2007 Markert regrouped with his former business partner, Rick Fike, to create Cellar Door Records as a way to draw attention to musicians such as the ones who played at the coffee shop. Soon after, they released Cellar Door Records Volume II. Since then, the label has released five full-length albums from artists on its roster and promoted a number of shows at local venues.

Another show arrives this Friday, March 18 at the Grog Shop (8 p.m.) to coincide with the release of Cellar Door Records Volume III. Joshua Jesty & Band, Humble Home, Rob Geer & Band and Frozen Hellsicles — four artists featured on the new compilation — will perform. It's also Markert's birthday, so stop by and say hello. The $10 admission includes a Cellar Door Records Volume III CD.