Vote For Pedro.

Last night, I saw Dave Bazan at The Billiken Club, a cool little venue on the campus of St. Louis University. All their shows are free, too, so that's a plus. I'd seen Bazan, frontman of the now defunct Pedro The Lion, once before, also at SLU, so I had a pretty good idea of what to expect from the evening. In this case, predictability was a good thing.

The folks at the Billiken Club always book great opening bands, and last night was no exception. Via Audio, a charming band from Brooklyn kicked the show off right, with their unique brand of indie pop. I was a tad skeptical when I saw they had a female frontman...er...woman, but this girl, Jessica Martins, turned out to be quite the breath of fresh air. The music was good, and the band was clearly having just as much fun as the hundred or so in the crowd. Needless to say, I enjoyed these guys a bunch. Give them a listen at myspace.com/viaaudio or just go unpause the song at the bottom of this blog.

Dave Bazan followed with the typical Dave Bazan set. That's a good thing, trust me. Bazan does an excellent job of playing tracks from all 3 of his major projects: Pedro, Headphones (his synth based project), as well as his solo work. Also, he works in Q&A sessions in between songs. These can turn into tense political discussions or they can be about things like favorite books or bands. It makes for quite the engaging show.

Midway through his set, Bazan announced that he was in the process of mixing his first full length solo record, and that it should be out soon. Songs from that record made up the majority of his set. He also worked in a song ("Shit Talker") from the Headphones album, and confirmed that there would indeed be another Headphones record. Pedro the Lions songs played include: "Priests And Paramedics", "Options", "Transcontinental", and my favorite "When They Really Get To Know You, They Will Run". Bazan also played covers from Deerhoof and Bob Dylan. A solid set, if I do say so myself.

Christopher Michael Tucker