“I kicked my guitarist out of the band like, two days ago… so f*** it! Let’s do it,” lead vocalist Lindsay Jordan cracked before her set. “And I got a new guitar! All for you guys.” She flashed her Fender with a glossy wood body.

After playing two familiar tracks, “Heatwave” and “Ben Franklin”, she remarked that she “felt like [she] was just in Iowa, [but] it’s been 2.5 years!” After a couple of slight hiccups, the band reached their full stride. Jordan kicked, shimmied, and grooved around the stage, interacting with bandmates, but always making it back to the mic on cue for her next line.

“This one is brand new, you haven’t heard this before,” Jordan quipped before starting the riff to “Thinning”. Her guitar strap snapped during the song. She continued to play the riff with no interruption someone from Englert’s production team swiftly replaced it. The audience cheered at the feat. The guitarist was without her strap for a few seconds, but when something goes wrong at a show, each second matters. Jordan and the stagehand’s combined experience ensured the show went on without interruption.

Banter was common between songs. After “Sailing (Forever)”, an eagle-eyed fan noticed the keyboardist using a banana as a shaker. Jordan squinted at the patron’s phone. “Guy… banana?” She asked. The audience member replied, “Nice banana!” The keyboardist told Jordan that “They’re talking about me.” “Oh,” Jordan replied dryly. “They’re talking about you at my show?” Laughter rippled through the audience. Jordan continued. “[The keyboardist] is my friend now. He didn’t used to be, but this next track is about him.” The song “Full Control” played next.

The keyboardist kept up. After the track, he challenged Jordan. “She can’t do pushups.” Jordan shook her head. “That’s bullshit. You wanna see?” Led by the keyboardist, the crowd counted as Jordan did ten pushups.

After playing “Headlock”, Jordan added a new twist to “Valentine”. Her pedal effect on the guitarist had a slashing sound to it reminiscent of the questioning chorus. Then they left the stage, never to be seen again.

A lone barstool stood on stage when Lindsay Jordan returned for the encore. “This is a song about friendship,” she said. “I rewrote this, like, 40 times so sometimes I don’t remember the right lyrics.” Her solo rendition of “c. et. al.” was a somber reflection embedded in a lively set. After the song, her backing band returned and unleashed a double track of “Dirt” and “Slug”, seamlessly connecting the songs into each other. To end the show, she played the crowd-pleasing “Pristine”. Unlike the lyrics, “It just feels like / The same party every weekend”, Snail Mail mixed up the city’s routine with a late-night concert at the Englert.

The stage is a playground for Lindsay Jordan of Snail Mail. She radiates an infectious bubbly energy that won over the audience during Mission Creek. Problems sprouted during the show, but the group was able to roll through them and connect with the audience. The group ran with the buzz Sudan Archives created for an impressive double feature Friday night.

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Snail Mail’s 2018 release “Lush” is a great listen as spring slowly blossoms into summer. Jordan’s crisp yet thoughtful guitar rings through the album over bittersweet lyrics. Lines like “The morning bleeds into golden dream / Just like before” from the song “Golden Dream” wash over listeners like a cool night breeze over sunburnt shoulders from the beach. Tracks from “Lush” evoke a sense of nostalgia in listeners. Jordan writes with a clarity that evokes memories of late summer nights and lost love.

Armed with a jangling guitar in her first two albums, Jordan’s sound matured into a darker blend of synths, keyboards, and strings in her 2021 release “Valentine”. This shifted her from the Liz Phair comparisons but added depth to her songs. Intricate layering caused attentive listeners to pick up on new touches on tracks. On “Headlock”, synths emit a ghostly woo during the chorus. This project switches between songs adjacent to dream pop rooted with a driving guitar (“Valentine”, “Glory”) and somber reflective songs (“Mia”, “c. et. al.”) without compromise.

The “Valentine” music video depicts a queer revenge story set in a Victorian-era setting. The chorus “Why’d you wanna erase me?” soars over the track. Jordan gorges on cake to defy stuffy socialites and ends the video in a bloodbath reminiscent of “Carrie”. A golden retriever puppy steals the show in the “Ben Franklin” music video set in a New England home that matches the brighter poppy sounds of the track.

If you enjoyed Soccer Mommy’s set at last year’s Mission Creek, or artists such as boygenius and Japanese Breakfast, check out Snail Mail’s set. Artists bring an extra burst of energy on the start of their tours. Snail Mail performs on Friday, April 7^th at the Englert Theatre. See Mission Creek’s website for tickets, schedules, and more.

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In the midst of the holiday season, I thought it was appropriate to pick a semi-festive instrument for December’s installment.

Have you ever learned how to make a sound by running your finger along the rim of a wine glass? As a kid, I was pretty impressed with a few of my relatives who could work together to make a sort of song. The glass armonica is a large scale, mechanical method of playing the rims of many wine glasses.

Benjamin Franklin invented the glass armonica in 1761 after attending a glass harp concert performance in England. The glass harp is an arrangement of wine glasses filled with various amounts of water. The more water in the glass, the lower the tone.

Franklin was enthralled by the sound of the glass harp, but thought the tuning process and the effort it took to move from glass to glass was far too cumbersome. Therefore, he came up with a better system with practically the same sound: the glass armonica.

Glass bowls are arranged on an iron spindle; accidentals (or, the black keys of a piano) are generally rimmed in gold. The size of bowls range from a shot glass (highest tone) to a moderate mixing bowl (lowest tone). The spindle is attached to a foot pedal to allow the operator to spin the glass. Players must keep their fingers wet to produce sound, so they place small bowls of water between them and the instrument for frequent re-wetting.

The word “armonica” is inspired by the Italian word “armonia,” meaning harmony. Franklin named the glass armonica before the well-known mouth organ “harmonica” was invented in Germany in 1821. Although glass armonica is the intended name, it is also known as glass harmonica, bowl organ, and hydrocrystalophone.

The glass armonica was never a widely used instrument, although it gained enough popularity to interest composers Mozart and Beethoven. Each composer wrote pieces specifically for the glass armonica. Below is an excerpt of Mozart’s Adagio and Rondo played by French artist Thomas Bloch.

Since there was no good way to amplify the instrument in the 18th century, popularity declined as symphony orchestras and concert halls became prominent in the world of music. Beyond the practical reasons for leaving the glass armonica behind, there were rumors that the instrument was dangerous to one’s health.

Some believed that players contracted lead poisoning from the coating of the glass bowls. Others were afraid that the instrument’s timbre caused nerve damage. In 1798, a man named Friedrich Rochlitz wrote, “[the glass armonica] plunges the player into a nagging depression and hence into a dark and melancholy mood, that it is an apt method for slow self-annihilation.”
To this day, there are only ten or twelve skilled glass armonica players in the world. The notes are laid out similar to a piano, but the technique is much more challenging. The instruments are also rare, so they are not widely available for people to use.

Personally, I find that this version of Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy from “The Nutcracker” puts me in the opposite of a dark and melancholy mood. And William Zeitler, a modern glass armonica player, seems perfectly happy in his Ben Franklin-impersonator garb. Take that, Friedrich Rochlitz.

If you happen to have a wide array of wine glasses and glass dishes at your holiday gatherings, try making your own version of a glass armonica! If not, just add Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy to your holiday playlist.

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