When: July 3
Where: Shea Stadium
How do I get so far behind on these?!
So some shoegaze bands played a show. The Vandelles played first which is weird because they never play first and are far too good to play first. So anyway, I missed their set as did most people. LAME. Anyway, some of their badassery was captured on video, which is cool but may make you (me) regret missing it all the more.
The next band to play was called Heaven. They're a sort of obscure shoegaze supergroup with a member of Ambulance Ltd and one from the Big Sleep/Snowden. Someone was telling me they had a member of Swervedriver, but I don't think that's true. It does look like two members played on Swervedriver's Adam Franklin's solo record so that's probably the origin of that story. One of them has also played with Dean & Britta (of Galaxie 500/Luna) so basically, what this means is that in their niche genre, they're about as pedigree as you can git.
They're newish and they were pretty good. Interestingly, they were by far their best when they were doing more ambient, hazy muzak than when they tried to get all songy. And this is coming from someone who has absolutely no patience with that wishy washy stuff. Which means two things: 1) they were really good at that wishy washy stuff and 2) they were really not great at more beat+plus+melody, faster paced songs.
At their subtler moments, though, the band was transcendent. Really spiritual stuff. Which is why I started like shoegaze in the first place (well, that and it's loud). It was in these moments when the not-very-groove-centric drummer was at his best, laying down massive slabs o' drum. Likewise, the vocals shined in these not-trying-to-be-catchy moments - there was something very genuine and natural about them. [video]
I wrote up Dead Leaf Echo pretty recently and I don't really have anything to add. It's just nice to finally see all their pieces fall into place. By the way, if you were wondering where the awesome bass was coming from (as the people behind me during the set were), the band is sans bassist, but their stuff sounds way better than your average prerecorded bass line. That's because they stacked several layers of properly studio-recorded bass on the track. Then, they routed the recording through a proper bass amp in addition to the PA. Which is freaking brilliant. It was, in fact, the best prerecorded bass I think I've ever heard. [video]
Of course, all of the bands were just building up to Austin-based shoegaze gods Ringo Deathstarr. This band makes me swoon. Their guitar can obliterate your speakers and ear drums. (In the best possible way.) This rich guitar, full of phantom melodies and shifting pitches, is straight out of Loveless, but the vocals are more tuneful that My Bloody Valentine's, a lot closer to the good old pop tunes of the Jesus & Mary Chain (who ripped them off the Beach Boys, but that's neither here nor there).
"Jasper" once asked an Austin shoegazer of his acquaintance about the band and was informed that everyone in Austin thought they were a joke and "that girl doesn't even play an instrument" or something like that. If that was ever true, the joke's now on him. "That girl," bassist Alex Gehring, is sick. She's an absolutely great bassist - her lines simultaneously groove deeply and punch you in the chest. As is typical in the genre, the bass carries a lot of melody while the guitar becomes sheer roar. Meanwhile, electro/dance-derived icy beats from drummer Daniel Coburn make the whole thing sound a lot like "Soon" (you know, that last song on Loveless that's everyone's favorite MBV song ever).
But what's really great about Ringo Deathstarr isn't that they write amazing songs and get mindblowing sounds out of their instruments. It's that they're genuinely insane. Cracked. Unhinged. Pure batshit out of their mind nuts. Which is what made this one of the most punk rock shoegaze shows of all time. I mean, first of all, in direct defiance of the name of the genre, guitarist Elliot Frazier at several points leapt into the audience midsong. Then at some point, they invited a bunch of people up on stage (primarily from the previous bands) and somehow things devolved such that both the guitar and drums had been seized by people who weren't in the band at all and the music fell apart in chaos. But that's not the insane part. The insane part is that after the song finally stopped breathing, Gehrig insisted that her two bandmates return to their instruments to finish the song (which had veered in the direction of crazytown before its as-recorded coda). Coburn, I believe, thought the set was over and had gone to the bathroom so the band announced that they would wait (and therefore all of us would wait) for the drummer to return to the stage. So everyone stood around awkwardly for a few minutes, and then Coburn showed up and they immediately launched into the song where they'd left off. For about twenty seconds, until the song was over.
I mean, who does that? Only a true genius. And only by accident. It was, obviously, one of the best endings to a show I've ever seen. And I've seen a lot. [video]....[more video]
Showing posts with label Live. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Live. Show all posts
Monday, July 18, 2011
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Live: Shellshag, Unstoppable Death Machines, Fiasco, Chicken & Whiskey
When: 7/2
Where: Silent Barn
There were so many things to be confused by upon walking into the latest Shellshag-curated show at Silent Barn, it's hard to know where to begin. The band playing first (mid-set when I walked in) consisted of a couple of 250 lb, heavily tattooed, heavily tanned biker-ish dudes playing a bass guitar and a keyboard respectively (and their less noticeable but similarly presented drummer). And when I say keyboard, I don't mean synthesizer. I mean electric piano. The gentleman on the bass had long hair and was wearing overalls with one side undone, and no shirt, while the keyboardist (and lead singer) sported a wife-beater and mullet.
Their small audience, who on average were about fifteen years their juniors, were jumping around enthusiastically when they suddenly plunged into a brief but surprisingly faithful cover of "A Whole New World." The song from Aladdin. Aside from the singer's gruff voice, it was pretty true to the Disney original, but somehow fit with the rest of their blue collar hair-punk (like hair-metal, get it?). The band, as it happened, were called Chicken & Whiskey and it was one of their first ever shows (or so I was told). And you know what? They were good. Everything about them was just right - their not-so-typical-for-the-Brooklyn-DIY-scene appearance, the balance of their masculine sound and look with their not-so-manly keyboard and cover song selection, effortlessly tight, effortlessly and subtly melodic.
It's no surprise that when they finished their set, the audience called out for more songs. They're exactly the kind of songs you want to hear more of when you go to a place like Silent Barn. Then several audience members began calling for the band to "freestyle." And guess what! They did, and they were good at that too. [old video]
I've seen Fiasco many times and for all the band is impressive, the most enduring impression they made on me was as being a band of unequal skill. Not unequaled, unequal. While Jonathan Edelstein and Lucian Buscemi split guitar, bass and vocal duties, Edelstein's parts always outmatched Buscemi's. The band was great but it was frustrating to think how much better they would sound with two Edelsteins.
I didn't really have that issue at Silent Barn. Silent Barn is a stageless and equipment-strapped DIY space and while there are certainly worse acoustics to be found in the city, the audio isn't exactly pristine either. As such, I couldn't hear the minutiae that revealed the band's lopsided skills and was free to simply enjoy their energy.
All that aside, Fiasco are good at what they do. And what they do is awesome. Their incredibly fast and complex parts (often involving finger-tapping on guitar) flip between time-signatures without losing their brutal force. It's not the newest trick in the book, but it's a pretty good one. And one that's beyond the technical prowess of most bands as young as Fiasco.
I've only seen Unstoppable Death Machines once, and that was also with Fiasco. They are a duo with a setting that's nearly identical to Lightning Bolt - two guys, one bass, one drum kit, an echoey mic in the mouth and a whole lot of distortion. For all that, though, they sound pretty different from Lightning Bolt, who thrive on sheer speed. UDM's songs are more like, well, songs. Their tempos are slower and their rhythms simpler. Of course, they don't have the sheer originality of Lightning Bolt, but on the other hand, their music is easier to enjoy. And regardless of who they're not, they are pretty fucking ferocious.
Amid the massive distortion and skull shattering feedback, an interesting thing happened - the audience lifted the drummer and drumkit in the air at the end of the set. The drummer hopped on someone's shoulders while various other people lifted his snare and cymbals in reach. It reminded me, oddly, of the dinosaur rock bands and their interminable drum solos, during which the drummer's platform would rise up above the stage for an unlistenable ten, fifteen or twenty minutes. But while the drummer's levitation evoked such concerts, in a strange way, it was exactly the opposite. This is DIY and it's the opposite of a Rock God solo. Not only did the bass continue in its assault, but also those drums that could not be lifted were taken over by various audience members who pounded wildly on them for a good ten minutes. While the aerial rock drummer rises above the audience a show of superiority and separation from mere mortals, UDM's altitude was a part of the absolute annihilation between performer and audience. [video of a previous show at the same venue]
Or, more to the point, it was fucking fun.
I have nothing new to say about Shellshag, having reviewed them 8,000,000 times before. If they don't make you smile, your face is broken.
Where: Silent Barn
There were so many things to be confused by upon walking into the latest Shellshag-curated show at Silent Barn, it's hard to know where to begin. The band playing first (mid-set when I walked in) consisted of a couple of 250 lb, heavily tattooed, heavily tanned biker-ish dudes playing a bass guitar and a keyboard respectively (and their less noticeable but similarly presented drummer). And when I say keyboard, I don't mean synthesizer. I mean electric piano. The gentleman on the bass had long hair and was wearing overalls with one side undone, and no shirt, while the keyboardist (and lead singer) sported a wife-beater and mullet.
Their small audience, who on average were about fifteen years their juniors, were jumping around enthusiastically when they suddenly plunged into a brief but surprisingly faithful cover of "A Whole New World." The song from Aladdin. Aside from the singer's gruff voice, it was pretty true to the Disney original, but somehow fit with the rest of their blue collar hair-punk (like hair-metal, get it?). The band, as it happened, were called Chicken & Whiskey and it was one of their first ever shows (or so I was told). And you know what? They were good. Everything about them was just right - their not-so-typical-for-the-Brooklyn-DIY-scene appearance, the balance of their masculine sound and look with their not-so-manly keyboard and cover song selection, effortlessly tight, effortlessly and subtly melodic.
It's no surprise that when they finished their set, the audience called out for more songs. They're exactly the kind of songs you want to hear more of when you go to a place like Silent Barn. Then several audience members began calling for the band to "freestyle." And guess what! They did, and they were good at that too. [old video]
I've seen Fiasco many times and for all the band is impressive, the most enduring impression they made on me was as being a band of unequal skill. Not unequaled, unequal. While Jonathan Edelstein and Lucian Buscemi split guitar, bass and vocal duties, Edelstein's parts always outmatched Buscemi's. The band was great but it was frustrating to think how much better they would sound with two Edelsteins.
I didn't really have that issue at Silent Barn. Silent Barn is a stageless and equipment-strapped DIY space and while there are certainly worse acoustics to be found in the city, the audio isn't exactly pristine either. As such, I couldn't hear the minutiae that revealed the band's lopsided skills and was free to simply enjoy their energy.
All that aside, Fiasco are good at what they do. And what they do is awesome. Their incredibly fast and complex parts (often involving finger-tapping on guitar) flip between time-signatures without losing their brutal force. It's not the newest trick in the book, but it's a pretty good one. And one that's beyond the technical prowess of most bands as young as Fiasco.
I've only seen Unstoppable Death Machines once, and that was also with Fiasco. They are a duo with a setting that's nearly identical to Lightning Bolt - two guys, one bass, one drum kit, an echoey mic in the mouth and a whole lot of distortion. For all that, though, they sound pretty different from Lightning Bolt, who thrive on sheer speed. UDM's songs are more like, well, songs. Their tempos are slower and their rhythms simpler. Of course, they don't have the sheer originality of Lightning Bolt, but on the other hand, their music is easier to enjoy. And regardless of who they're not, they are pretty fucking ferocious.
Amid the massive distortion and skull shattering feedback, an interesting thing happened - the audience lifted the drummer and drumkit in the air at the end of the set. The drummer hopped on someone's shoulders while various other people lifted his snare and cymbals in reach. It reminded me, oddly, of the dinosaur rock bands and their interminable drum solos, during which the drummer's platform would rise up above the stage for an unlistenable ten, fifteen or twenty minutes. But while the drummer's levitation evoked such concerts, in a strange way, it was exactly the opposite. This is DIY and it's the opposite of a Rock God solo. Not only did the bass continue in its assault, but also those drums that could not be lifted were taken over by various audience members who pounded wildly on them for a good ten minutes. While the aerial rock drummer rises above the audience a show of superiority and separation from mere mortals, UDM's altitude was a part of the absolute annihilation between performer and audience. [video of a previous show at the same venue]
Or, more to the point, it was fucking fun.
I have nothing new to say about Shellshag, having reviewed them 8,000,000 times before. If they don't make you smile, your face is broken.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Live: Fucked Up and Jeff the Brotherhood.
When: 6/25
Where: 285 Kent
Sadly, I missed Iceage at the Fucked Up/Jeff show. But I did catch Jeff the Brotherhood, Nashville 4realz brothers Jake and Jamin Orrall. Jeff the Brotherhood recently released their second album, an unabashed (and entirely self-aware) celebration of rock'n'roll cliches. Their riff-centric psychedelic punk is criminally catchy, with exaggerated weight, excessive effects and extreme rockstar posturing.
At 285 Kent, Jeff played a great selection songs from both albums and played them well. But somehow, I feel like Jeff are less than they once were. I don't want to be one of those resentful motherfuckers who talks about when such-and-such band used to be good, back before they were so popular. And it's an easy trap to fall into - shows are more exciting when you're lucky enough to stumble on something brilliant before anyone else notices it. It's impossible not to miss the intimacy of those tiny shows, with 15 people instead of 500.
But my excitement over Jeff isn't just losing luster out of nostalgia for ye good olde days. There are a couple of other factors at play here. One is simply that Jeff are a bit superficial. Of course, that the genius and joy of Jeff - they make rock music fun again. But like any fun music, it fades over time and you move on to the next catchy thing. Which isn't to say that Jeff's music is disposable. They aren't some one-hit wonder whose albums will show up en masse in used music shops in a year, the original owners completely forgetting the existence of the records the minute they walk out the door. No. I think people will keep Jeff's LPs and will throw them on from time to time and love them every time. But few people will return to the LPs with the sort of urgency that draws people back to the greatest of albums. That sort of emotional urgency, after all, would be a total buzzkill and ruin everything Jeff are trying to do. So it's fine. But it is the sort of infatuation that, despite what we might have thought in the heat of the moment, is far more about the thrill of discovery than it is about the potential for enduring, life-altering love.
Still, this doesn't fully explain my discontent. Yes, the sun has set on my initial crush, but the shows still seem emptier than they should. And this is why: Jeff used to be showmen. It's not that they aren't now, but they don't have the FLAIR they used to. After all, the first time I saw Jeff in a "big" (400+) venue, Jake stood atop a huge amp giving a five minute guitar intro, visible in flickers from Jamin's barebulb flashlight. Jeff still know how to build suspense and how to please a crowd, but they've scaled it back. Note: I am absolutely NOT advocating for bands to do five minute guitar intros standing atop their amps. But Jeff are different - what they do works because of their shameless willingness to revel in rock'n'roll stereotypes like a dog rolling around in dead fish. Like Queen or the Mars Volta, they are the kind of band you should be thankful exist and should be just as thankful only exist once (but not quite as extreme because if you heard another band that sounded like Jeff, it would just sound lame, not mortifying or terminally obnoxious).
So, Messrs. Orrall, what gives? Why no grandstanding? Why no crazy lighting? If you're gonna own that shit, own it. Otherwise, turn off the flange pedal. And please, don't turn off your flange pedal! You have a mission to complete and we're so close! Granted, no one who hadn't seen the band back when would know any air had gone out of the balloon - but Jake and Jamin, you and I happen to know you can do even better.
And then, Fucked Up, billed as "secret guest." What can I write about Fucked Up that I have not already? Damian "Pink Eyes" Abraham went running all the way through the crowd and out the door at one point - if I had to guess, I'd guess he was going to give hugs to the folks working the door. It was the first Fucked Up show where I heard bassist Sandy "Mustard Gas" Miranda step up to the mic, but I'm guessing it won't be the last, since extensive female vocals were needed on Fucked Up's recent rock-opera LP. She was hard to hear but otherwise excellent. There was good pit going too, if you like getting thrown around and drenched in other people's sweat - and if you don't like that, why are you in the pit? It goes without saying that the band was impeccable.
Where Jeff are a fleeting infatuation, Fucked Up are more of long-term relationship material. Theirs are the albums fans will return to with emotional urgency. They are the heralds of a new day of hXc punk rawk, the ragged band exploring new frontiers most of us never would have thought existed. Both bands are important and both have relevant - and rare - missions. Having indulgent, shameless, rock'n'roll fun is underrated and underdone and we need Jeff to remind us of that. But Fucked Up, with their boundless passion, sincerity and sense of purpose, will make the more lasting mark.
Where: 285 Kent
Sadly, I missed Iceage at the Fucked Up/Jeff show. But I did catch Jeff the Brotherhood, Nashville 4realz brothers Jake and Jamin Orrall. Jeff the Brotherhood recently released their second album, an unabashed (and entirely self-aware) celebration of rock'n'roll cliches. Their riff-centric psychedelic punk is criminally catchy, with exaggerated weight, excessive effects and extreme rockstar posturing.
At 285 Kent, Jeff played a great selection songs from both albums and played them well. But somehow, I feel like Jeff are less than they once were. I don't want to be one of those resentful motherfuckers who talks about when such-and-such band used to be good, back before they were so popular. And it's an easy trap to fall into - shows are more exciting when you're lucky enough to stumble on something brilliant before anyone else notices it. It's impossible not to miss the intimacy of those tiny shows, with 15 people instead of 500.
But my excitement over Jeff isn't just losing luster out of nostalgia for ye good olde days. There are a couple of other factors at play here. One is simply that Jeff are a bit superficial. Of course, that the genius and joy of Jeff - they make rock music fun again. But like any fun music, it fades over time and you move on to the next catchy thing. Which isn't to say that Jeff's music is disposable. They aren't some one-hit wonder whose albums will show up en masse in used music shops in a year, the original owners completely forgetting the existence of the records the minute they walk out the door. No. I think people will keep Jeff's LPs and will throw them on from time to time and love them every time. But few people will return to the LPs with the sort of urgency that draws people back to the greatest of albums. That sort of emotional urgency, after all, would be a total buzzkill and ruin everything Jeff are trying to do. So it's fine. But it is the sort of infatuation that, despite what we might have thought in the heat of the moment, is far more about the thrill of discovery than it is about the potential for enduring, life-altering love.
Still, this doesn't fully explain my discontent. Yes, the sun has set on my initial crush, but the shows still seem emptier than they should. And this is why: Jeff used to be showmen. It's not that they aren't now, but they don't have the FLAIR they used to. After all, the first time I saw Jeff in a "big" (400+) venue, Jake stood atop a huge amp giving a five minute guitar intro, visible in flickers from Jamin's barebulb flashlight. Jeff still know how to build suspense and how to please a crowd, but they've scaled it back. Note: I am absolutely NOT advocating for bands to do five minute guitar intros standing atop their amps. But Jeff are different - what they do works because of their shameless willingness to revel in rock'n'roll stereotypes like a dog rolling around in dead fish. Like Queen or the Mars Volta, they are the kind of band you should be thankful exist and should be just as thankful only exist once (but not quite as extreme because if you heard another band that sounded like Jeff, it would just sound lame, not mortifying or terminally obnoxious).
So, Messrs. Orrall, what gives? Why no grandstanding? Why no crazy lighting? If you're gonna own that shit, own it. Otherwise, turn off the flange pedal. And please, don't turn off your flange pedal! You have a mission to complete and we're so close! Granted, no one who hadn't seen the band back when would know any air had gone out of the balloon - but Jake and Jamin, you and I happen to know you can do even better.
And then, Fucked Up, billed as "secret guest." What can I write about Fucked Up that I have not already? Damian "Pink Eyes" Abraham went running all the way through the crowd and out the door at one point - if I had to guess, I'd guess he was going to give hugs to the folks working the door. It was the first Fucked Up show where I heard bassist Sandy "Mustard Gas" Miranda step up to the mic, but I'm guessing it won't be the last, since extensive female vocals were needed on Fucked Up's recent rock-opera LP. She was hard to hear but otherwise excellent. There was good pit going too, if you like getting thrown around and drenched in other people's sweat - and if you don't like that, why are you in the pit? It goes without saying that the band was impeccable.
Where Jeff are a fleeting infatuation, Fucked Up are more of long-term relationship material. Theirs are the albums fans will return to with emotional urgency. They are the heralds of a new day of hXc punk rawk, the ragged band exploring new frontiers most of us never would have thought existed. Both bands are important and both have relevant - and rare - missions. Having indulgent, shameless, rock'n'roll fun is underrated and underdone and we need Jeff to remind us of that. But Fucked Up, with their boundless passion, sincerity and sense of purpose, will make the more lasting mark.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Live: Coathangers, Friends, Bush Tetras
When: 6/24
Where: 285 Kent
Although I've loved the Coathangers for a few years now and consider them top-notch badasses, they reached a new level of badassery and awesomeness during their opening slot for Bush Tetras on Friday. The Coathangers are four attractive but intimidating ladies from Georgia. They play strange, energetic, sarcastic punk music. Their vocal styles range from gender-bending growl to possessed muppet, at times warbling, at times screeching - but somehow, there are melodies.
The Coathangers haven't changed that much since I first saw them but they have gone in a new direction on one thing: their approach to the keyboard. Once upon a time, about 90% of their keyboard playing involved randomly banging clusters of keys, but now they've moved away from that technique towards actual melodic riffs (though they still do some random pounding as well). Honestly, it's not better or worse this way - on the one hand, the music is a little less ferociously wild than it once was, but on the other, the band's songs are more distinct and more tightly constructed.
And around those melodic riffs, the band still rages like always. Seriously, don't fuck with these girls. Todd P and his sound guy tried to fuck with them by cutting the band off during one of their instrument rotations. Because their set was a little (ok, a lot) long and there were two bands yet to go, Big Brother decided to pull the plug and start blasting the Beach Boys (or something similar) through the PA, signalling the end of the set. The Coathangers ignored it and kept playing. And won. The music was shut off and the mics were turned back on. Pausing for only about two or three seconds to shout "don't turn off our mics" they launched into another song.
Twice more, the bossman tried to drown them out with shite, but the band refused to leave the stage. During one last instrument switch, someone decided enough was enough and cut off the mics for good. But did that stop our feisty foursome? Ha! They played their last song OVER the between-sets mix that was blasting out of the PA. I don't know how they managed to stay together with a whole other song going at the same time, but they pulled it off and it was awesome. True, the vocals were inaudible and although the band did what they could to encourage a shout-along, not enough people knew the words to make that effective. But even if parts of the song were lost in the cacophony, the point still got across: the Coathangers are nobody's bitch. [video (not this show)]
Granted, the Coathangers are a hard act to follow, but upon seeing Friends, I could see why the much superior Coathangers felt inspired to run over their allotment into the next set. Friends weren't all bad. But the parts that were bad were pretty awful. The band is more post-disco than post-funk, but they were a logical opener for Bush Tetras, warm but white female vocals over angular post-punk dance grooves. They were tight and some of their b-lines were pretty outstanding. Their rhythm section over all was tight and they had some good ideas. Unfortunately, they chose to use two of the most piercing and annoying sounds possible on many of their songs: wood block and claves (those two wood sticks that you click together in Latin music).
The main thing that put me out wasn't the whacking of pieces of wood together, however. It was the oversung pop singing of the frontwoman that really grated my nerves after a while. There were moments when the set was enjoyable, more than I expected, but the overarching vocals sounded a little too much like a showcase of vocal ability and not quite enough like pop hooks or genuine expression.
The band was also a bit grating on a personal level. They were informed mid-way through their set that New York had legalized gay marriage. They made several well-intentioned attempts to express their agreement with the decision but the more they tried, the more awkward and offensive their comments got. As if the vocals hadn't made me cringe enough for one night! Still, their hearts were in the right place. [video (not this show)]
The Bush Tetras closed out the night with a set that was a little too long, given the heat of the room, but they did hit most of their best songs and well, they are too awesome for words. And what words I can use for them, I just used a few days ago. [video (not this show)]
Where: 285 Kent
Although I've loved the Coathangers for a few years now and consider them top-notch badasses, they reached a new level of badassery and awesomeness during their opening slot for Bush Tetras on Friday. The Coathangers are four attractive but intimidating ladies from Georgia. They play strange, energetic, sarcastic punk music. Their vocal styles range from gender-bending growl to possessed muppet, at times warbling, at times screeching - but somehow, there are melodies.
The Coathangers haven't changed that much since I first saw them but they have gone in a new direction on one thing: their approach to the keyboard. Once upon a time, about 90% of their keyboard playing involved randomly banging clusters of keys, but now they've moved away from that technique towards actual melodic riffs (though they still do some random pounding as well). Honestly, it's not better or worse this way - on the one hand, the music is a little less ferociously wild than it once was, but on the other, the band's songs are more distinct and more tightly constructed.
And around those melodic riffs, the band still rages like always. Seriously, don't fuck with these girls. Todd P and his sound guy tried to fuck with them by cutting the band off during one of their instrument rotations. Because their set was a little (ok, a lot) long and there were two bands yet to go, Big Brother decided to pull the plug and start blasting the Beach Boys (or something similar) through the PA, signalling the end of the set. The Coathangers ignored it and kept playing. And won. The music was shut off and the mics were turned back on. Pausing for only about two or three seconds to shout "don't turn off our mics" they launched into another song.
Twice more, the bossman tried to drown them out with shite, but the band refused to leave the stage. During one last instrument switch, someone decided enough was enough and cut off the mics for good. But did that stop our feisty foursome? Ha! They played their last song OVER the between-sets mix that was blasting out of the PA. I don't know how they managed to stay together with a whole other song going at the same time, but they pulled it off and it was awesome. True, the vocals were inaudible and although the band did what they could to encourage a shout-along, not enough people knew the words to make that effective. But even if parts of the song were lost in the cacophony, the point still got across: the Coathangers are nobody's bitch. [video (not this show)]
Granted, the Coathangers are a hard act to follow, but upon seeing Friends, I could see why the much superior Coathangers felt inspired to run over their allotment into the next set. Friends weren't all bad. But the parts that were bad were pretty awful. The band is more post-disco than post-funk, but they were a logical opener for Bush Tetras, warm but white female vocals over angular post-punk dance grooves. They were tight and some of their b-lines were pretty outstanding. Their rhythm section over all was tight and they had some good ideas. Unfortunately, they chose to use two of the most piercing and annoying sounds possible on many of their songs: wood block and claves (those two wood sticks that you click together in Latin music).
The main thing that put me out wasn't the whacking of pieces of wood together, however. It was the oversung pop singing of the frontwoman that really grated my nerves after a while. There were moments when the set was enjoyable, more than I expected, but the overarching vocals sounded a little too much like a showcase of vocal ability and not quite enough like pop hooks or genuine expression.
The band was also a bit grating on a personal level. They were informed mid-way through their set that New York had legalized gay marriage. They made several well-intentioned attempts to express their agreement with the decision but the more they tried, the more awkward and offensive their comments got. As if the vocals hadn't made me cringe enough for one night! Still, their hearts were in the right place. [video (not this show)]
The Bush Tetras closed out the night with a set that was a little too long, given the heat of the room, but they did hit most of their best songs and well, they are too awesome for words. And what words I can use for them, I just used a few days ago. [video (not this show)]
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Live: Pygmy Shrews, Pop. 1280
When: 6/11
Where: Death By Audio
I've reviewed White Suns recently, so I'll skip it except to say they're rad and I enjoyed them much.
I'd really like to get more into Pop. 1280. They have a lot of elements I like - the nasty guitars and screaming of hardcore/post-hardcore and the foreboding tension of post-punk. But Pop 1280's foreboding/gothic leanings overpower their punkier aspects. Most songs are slow and drony, based around minimal, hypnotic drums and bass (or synth-generated b-lines). Murky guitar and synth textures slide sharply between the pounding rhythms and Chris Bug rants over the top.
So far so good, or so you'd think. But something is amiss. Most of their songs are so alike in tone and tempo that they blend together and well, after ten or fifteen or twenty minutes, the repetitiveness and consistency becomes monotony. Dark post-punk is often meant to be punishing, but there's a subtle difference between punishment and boredom and Pop. 1280 fall just slightly on the wrong side of that fence. And I do mean slightly - there's a lot to love about the band. If their ice stage presence doesn't warm your heart, their fat Suicide-esque synth riffs and harsh tones certainly will (if you're anything like me, anyway). It's just that the impact and enjoyment become noticeably diluted as the length of the set exceeds its content, idea-wise.
In a way, the pieces of Pop. 1280 don't quite come together. There's a disconnect between Bug, out front with the mic, and the rest of the band who are actually physically in the background. Band members don't have to present themselves uniformly but they should have a unified vision of how they want to present the band as a whole. Something about the gulf between the players and the frontman in Pop. 1280 makes it seem like you're watching two separate bands who each need the instrumentation of the other, so they tolerate (and mostly ignore) each other. Musically, it's tight and it works together on paper, but in the delivery, it just doesn't gel. [video]
Of course, the juxtaposition with the Pygmy Shrews can't help - now there's a band who gel. OK. "Gel" may be the wrong word in as much as it evokes something smooth and translucent. Pygmy Shrews are more like a blood clot, the physics remains the same - put the three shrews on a stage together and the result is monolithic. They seem to share not only a sonic technique (loud) but also a sense of humor. They're not a comedy act and they absolutely will fuck your shit up, but true to punk's dadaist roots, the Shrews know how to be fun and funny.
The Shrews are too cool for woords, but musically they are mostly "just" a punk band and their new material seems to be more straightforward than ever. Of course, Ben Greenberg's aluminum guitar gives the band's sound a corrosive post-hardcore feel and Tia Vincent-Clark's bass has a knotted complexity you won't find in your average (or even above-average) hardcore band. Greenberg has also been known to bust out a nasty, shredded solo. It's these relatively small things - along with the band's absolutely perfect attitude - that set them apart from their punky peers.
What is the perfect attitude for a band like this? Well, it's about striking a balance, caring and yet not giving a fuck, showing genuine affection for your audience while also telling them to fuck off and throwing beer cans at them (or whatever). It's expressing real and urgent rage without taking that tongue out of your check. Too many bands take themselves too seriously and too many more don't take themselves seriously enough, failing to grasp the importance of punk and everything it stands for. Pygmy Shrews are a rare breed, a band that's able to issue an equally big "fuck you" to folks on both sides.
But I doubt they'd put it quite that way. I think they just like to play. [video]
Where: Death By Audio
I've reviewed White Suns recently, so I'll skip it except to say they're rad and I enjoyed them much.
I'd really like to get more into Pop. 1280. They have a lot of elements I like - the nasty guitars and screaming of hardcore/post-hardcore and the foreboding tension of post-punk. But Pop 1280's foreboding/gothic leanings overpower their punkier aspects. Most songs are slow and drony, based around minimal, hypnotic drums and bass (or synth-generated b-lines). Murky guitar and synth textures slide sharply between the pounding rhythms and Chris Bug rants over the top.
So far so good, or so you'd think. But something is amiss. Most of their songs are so alike in tone and tempo that they blend together and well, after ten or fifteen or twenty minutes, the repetitiveness and consistency becomes monotony. Dark post-punk is often meant to be punishing, but there's a subtle difference between punishment and boredom and Pop. 1280 fall just slightly on the wrong side of that fence. And I do mean slightly - there's a lot to love about the band. If their ice stage presence doesn't warm your heart, their fat Suicide-esque synth riffs and harsh tones certainly will (if you're anything like me, anyway). It's just that the impact and enjoyment become noticeably diluted as the length of the set exceeds its content, idea-wise.
In a way, the pieces of Pop. 1280 don't quite come together. There's a disconnect between Bug, out front with the mic, and the rest of the band who are actually physically in the background. Band members don't have to present themselves uniformly but they should have a unified vision of how they want to present the band as a whole. Something about the gulf between the players and the frontman in Pop. 1280 makes it seem like you're watching two separate bands who each need the instrumentation of the other, so they tolerate (and mostly ignore) each other. Musically, it's tight and it works together on paper, but in the delivery, it just doesn't gel. [video]
Of course, the juxtaposition with the Pygmy Shrews can't help - now there's a band who gel. OK. "Gel" may be the wrong word in as much as it evokes something smooth and translucent. Pygmy Shrews are more like a blood clot, the physics remains the same - put the three shrews on a stage together and the result is monolithic. They seem to share not only a sonic technique (loud) but also a sense of humor. They're not a comedy act and they absolutely will fuck your shit up, but true to punk's dadaist roots, the Shrews know how to be fun and funny.
The Shrews are too cool for woords, but musically they are mostly "just" a punk band and their new material seems to be more straightforward than ever. Of course, Ben Greenberg's aluminum guitar gives the band's sound a corrosive post-hardcore feel and Tia Vincent-Clark's bass has a knotted complexity you won't find in your average (or even above-average) hardcore band. Greenberg has also been known to bust out a nasty, shredded solo. It's these relatively small things - along with the band's absolutely perfect attitude - that set them apart from their punky peers.
What is the perfect attitude for a band like this? Well, it's about striking a balance, caring and yet not giving a fuck, showing genuine affection for your audience while also telling them to fuck off and throwing beer cans at them (or whatever). It's expressing real and urgent rage without taking that tongue out of your check. Too many bands take themselves too seriously and too many more don't take themselves seriously enough, failing to grasp the importance of punk and everything it stands for. Pygmy Shrews are a rare breed, a band that's able to issue an equally big "fuck you" to folks on both sides.
But I doubt they'd put it quite that way. I think they just like to play. [video]
Friday, June 24, 2011
Live: Bush Tetras
When: 6/10
Where: Le Poisson Rouge
Another way overdue live review, but timely because the Bush Tetras are playing TONIGHT at 285 Kent and you should hear them.
For those who don't know who the Tetras are, here's a brief history: in New York City in the late 70's, a group of artists reacted to the commercialization of punk by making music that could never be co-opted by the record industry because it was pretty much unlistenable. That movement, dubbed "No Wave," included a broad variety of bands but all were noisy and eschewed conventional song structures and most were non-musicians. One of the main groups was the Contortions who had a guitarist named Pat Place. Once No Wavers had made their point, all the chaos started getting a little old, so they moved on to other things. Pat Place, along with a few other women from the scene, moved on to Bush Tetras, a group that took the dissonance and aggression of No Wave and channeled it into tight funk grooves that are jagged but actually danceable.
The Bush Tetras were a great band and an influential one, although they never reached massive commercial success (they weren't exactly aiming for the Top 40, obviously).
When I saw them on June 10, they had some gray hairs, but they were still as great a band as ever. They played old "hits" as well as some "newer" songs. Although original bassist Laura Kennedy is not in the mix, but Julia Murphy still bangs out some of the best b-lines I've ever heard - funky grooves but with that special angularity that sets the Tetras apart. (In case you're wondering, Kennedy hasn't played with the band in ages because of serious health problems. In fact, that was one of the major reasons for the band's 2007 reunion - she needed a liver transplant and her old band reformed to raise funds. Yes, they were successful and last we heard, she's got a new liver and is slowly rebuilding her health.)
The two most important band members are still very much in top form. They don't shy away from looking middle-aged, especially vocalist Cynthia Sley, who looks pretty much like every other artsy 50-ish woman from the Village, you know the kind of old hippie lady with the long hair and the simple, flowy clothes. Pat Place has always stood in a bit of contrast to this, with cropped hair and a tough, androgynous look. She's definitely the punk nihilist to Sley's sage flowerchild.
But Sley's lyrics are not so flowery. The band closed on their most well-known song, "Too Many Creeps," but all of their songs have a similar sense of mixed paranoia and ennui. Place's searing, discordant guitar certainly adds to the sense of claustrophobia but the entire band and their entire oeuvre seems to say "We're so bored and we're so totally screwed, but let's have fun and get down." Of course, they have some less nihilistic political points but it's all coated in the crime of New York City (and in particular the shithole that was New York City in the late 70's).
Most reunited bands are lucky if they don't look ridiculous doing what they do (the same could be said of bands that just never break up, amiright Mr. Jagger?) but the Tetras are miles beyond that. Maybe because they're so sincere, maybe because they're having so much fun, maybe because they never had a whole lot of glory in the first place so they haven't got some youthful folly they're trying to reclaim, they are as cool as they ever were. Maybe even more so. Yeah, they are who they are - it's not perfect - but they play tighter and rock harder than most of the wussy youngsters making indie "rock" today. So kids, take notes - this is how it's done.
Where: Le Poisson Rouge
Another way overdue live review, but timely because the Bush Tetras are playing TONIGHT at 285 Kent and you should hear them.
For those who don't know who the Tetras are, here's a brief history: in New York City in the late 70's, a group of artists reacted to the commercialization of punk by making music that could never be co-opted by the record industry because it was pretty much unlistenable. That movement, dubbed "No Wave," included a broad variety of bands but all were noisy and eschewed conventional song structures and most were non-musicians. One of the main groups was the Contortions who had a guitarist named Pat Place. Once No Wavers had made their point, all the chaos started getting a little old, so they moved on to other things. Pat Place, along with a few other women from the scene, moved on to Bush Tetras, a group that took the dissonance and aggression of No Wave and channeled it into tight funk grooves that are jagged but actually danceable.
The Bush Tetras were a great band and an influential one, although they never reached massive commercial success (they weren't exactly aiming for the Top 40, obviously).
When I saw them on June 10, they had some gray hairs, but they were still as great a band as ever. They played old "hits" as well as some "newer" songs. Although original bassist Laura Kennedy is not in the mix, but Julia Murphy still bangs out some of the best b-lines I've ever heard - funky grooves but with that special angularity that sets the Tetras apart. (In case you're wondering, Kennedy hasn't played with the band in ages because of serious health problems. In fact, that was one of the major reasons for the band's 2007 reunion - she needed a liver transplant and her old band reformed to raise funds. Yes, they were successful and last we heard, she's got a new liver and is slowly rebuilding her health.)
The two most important band members are still very much in top form. They don't shy away from looking middle-aged, especially vocalist Cynthia Sley, who looks pretty much like every other artsy 50-ish woman from the Village, you know the kind of old hippie lady with the long hair and the simple, flowy clothes. Pat Place has always stood in a bit of contrast to this, with cropped hair and a tough, androgynous look. She's definitely the punk nihilist to Sley's sage flowerchild.
But Sley's lyrics are not so flowery. The band closed on their most well-known song, "Too Many Creeps," but all of their songs have a similar sense of mixed paranoia and ennui. Place's searing, discordant guitar certainly adds to the sense of claustrophobia but the entire band and their entire oeuvre seems to say "We're so bored and we're so totally screwed, but let's have fun and get down." Of course, they have some less nihilistic political points but it's all coated in the crime of New York City (and in particular the shithole that was New York City in the late 70's).
Most reunited bands are lucky if they don't look ridiculous doing what they do (the same could be said of bands that just never break up, amiright Mr. Jagger?) but the Tetras are miles beyond that. Maybe because they're so sincere, maybe because they're having so much fun, maybe because they never had a whole lot of glory in the first place so they haven't got some youthful folly they're trying to reclaim, they are as cool as they ever were. Maybe even more so. Yeah, they are who they are - it's not perfect - but they play tighter and rock harder than most of the wussy youngsters making indie "rock" today. So kids, take notes - this is how it's done.
Friday, June 10, 2011
Live: Pterodactyl, Screens, Keepaway
When: 5/27
Where: Death By Audio
Another shamefully overdue review, but a couple of weeks ago, I caught Screens and Pterodactyl at Death By Audio. I missed Zulus, who played first, but I did catch the second opener, Keepaway.
Keepaway is one of those bands that's so bad it transfixes you. I couldn't look away. If you are ever making a funny movie and you need a band to parody the worst side of parochial pop, Keepaway are the guys you want. When the band started with their cheesy, tacky, unartful electronica, all over the worst canned beats imaginable, it was jawdropping. "Jasper" theorized that they were the guys who got rejected by the Animal Collective cover band. My own assessment was similar, but rather more harsh.
Unfortunately, as the set went on, the music got slightly better, which ruined the band's only appeal - the sheer awesomeness of how terrible it was. If they'd managed to stay godawful the whole time, they'd be more worthy of note, but as their music reached regularly-crappy levels, they became less and less interesting.
However, one part never ceased to horrify - the lyrics. It was like poetry by a 13-year-old. A melodramatic and not very bright 13-year-old. I cannot get over how bad these lyrics were. It was PAINFUL to listen to. Of course, it was made more painful by the nearly tone-deaf "singer." You could tell there were supposed to be melodies, but his attempts at executing them were grating.
If the band didn't seem to take themselves seriously, I might be interested in them as a sort of "meta" critique. But everything about how they conducted themselves indicated that they actually think this music is good. They didn't even seem to be having that much fun, they just did a generic indie rock performance, head nodding to the rhythms, their "drummer" randomly tapping along to the programed rhythms like a talentless four-year-old. The whole thing was self-indulgent, boring and embarrassing. Please stop. ["jam session" video]
Screens played next. There was a time I was super excited about Screens and thought they were the second coming but I've been a bit disappointed with the band. The problem with them is that they are tantalizingly close to something awesome, but they just keep missing the mark. Their largely synth-driven music is fresh and smart, sheets of noise and danceable beats pasted together like a carefully crafted collage. Their music stutters and veers but never at random - everything that's placed together in a song belongs together.
However, there are some very poor decisions in the mix. Most glaringly, the vocals are laden with effects. Most songs feature tremendous delay on the vocals, so every shout or scream is repeated in full several times after it's uttered. Added to that is a gratuitous amount of reverb and often distortion. There's absolutely no substance to the vocals themselves - they're entirely effects. The band would be better off without vocals at all. But better than that, even would be if the band could learn to use vocals as effectively as they use the other elements of their music.
The effects on the vocals thing would be silly regardless, especially given current trends towards doing this, it also has the effect of making the band sound generic. The frontman is enthusiastic, but he seems a little disconnected from the band as well, both because he's sonically superfluous and because he doesn't seem to engage them or vice versa. If the band learns how to incorporate its members with the same fluidity as they incorporate the components of their songs, they'll be genius. But as it stands, they're frustrating.
I've seen Pterodactyl a bazillion times and reviewed them almost as many times. The last two, they were a quartet, but at this show, they were back down to their core trio and it was the best set of theirs I've seen in a long time. Perhaps it was the comfort of being a trio and on something close to home turf. Their frenetic noise-rock folded more smoothly into their new, slower, syncopated sound. Matt Marlin really is an outstanding drummer and really holds the reigns - with a flick of his wrist, he can quickly change a song from breakneck punk to relaxed calypso to deep blues and back.
There's not much else I can say without repeating my other reviews. The band is exceptionally tight and their sound is bold, original and buoyant, bubbling with genuine joy. So, basically, they still got it. [old ptero video]
Where: Death By Audio
Another shamefully overdue review, but a couple of weeks ago, I caught Screens and Pterodactyl at Death By Audio. I missed Zulus, who played first, but I did catch the second opener, Keepaway.
Keepaway is one of those bands that's so bad it transfixes you. I couldn't look away. If you are ever making a funny movie and you need a band to parody the worst side of parochial pop, Keepaway are the guys you want. When the band started with their cheesy, tacky, unartful electronica, all over the worst canned beats imaginable, it was jawdropping. "Jasper" theorized that they were the guys who got rejected by the Animal Collective cover band. My own assessment was similar, but rather more harsh.
Unfortunately, as the set went on, the music got slightly better, which ruined the band's only appeal - the sheer awesomeness of how terrible it was. If they'd managed to stay godawful the whole time, they'd be more worthy of note, but as their music reached regularly-crappy levels, they became less and less interesting.
However, one part never ceased to horrify - the lyrics. It was like poetry by a 13-year-old. A melodramatic and not very bright 13-year-old. I cannot get over how bad these lyrics were. It was PAINFUL to listen to. Of course, it was made more painful by the nearly tone-deaf "singer." You could tell there were supposed to be melodies, but his attempts at executing them were grating.
If the band didn't seem to take themselves seriously, I might be interested in them as a sort of "meta" critique. But everything about how they conducted themselves indicated that they actually think this music is good. They didn't even seem to be having that much fun, they just did a generic indie rock performance, head nodding to the rhythms, their "drummer" randomly tapping along to the programed rhythms like a talentless four-year-old. The whole thing was self-indulgent, boring and embarrassing. Please stop. ["jam session" video]
Screens played next. There was a time I was super excited about Screens and thought they were the second coming but I've been a bit disappointed with the band. The problem with them is that they are tantalizingly close to something awesome, but they just keep missing the mark. Their largely synth-driven music is fresh and smart, sheets of noise and danceable beats pasted together like a carefully crafted collage. Their music stutters and veers but never at random - everything that's placed together in a song belongs together.
However, there are some very poor decisions in the mix. Most glaringly, the vocals are laden with effects. Most songs feature tremendous delay on the vocals, so every shout or scream is repeated in full several times after it's uttered. Added to that is a gratuitous amount of reverb and often distortion. There's absolutely no substance to the vocals themselves - they're entirely effects. The band would be better off without vocals at all. But better than that, even would be if the band could learn to use vocals as effectively as they use the other elements of their music.
The effects on the vocals thing would be silly regardless, especially given current trends towards doing this, it also has the effect of making the band sound generic. The frontman is enthusiastic, but he seems a little disconnected from the band as well, both because he's sonically superfluous and because he doesn't seem to engage them or vice versa. If the band learns how to incorporate its members with the same fluidity as they incorporate the components of their songs, they'll be genius. But as it stands, they're frustrating.
I've seen Pterodactyl a bazillion times and reviewed them almost as many times. The last two, they were a quartet, but at this show, they were back down to their core trio and it was the best set of theirs I've seen in a long time. Perhaps it was the comfort of being a trio and on something close to home turf. Their frenetic noise-rock folded more smoothly into their new, slower, syncopated sound. Matt Marlin really is an outstanding drummer and really holds the reigns - with a flick of his wrist, he can quickly change a song from breakneck punk to relaxed calypso to deep blues and back.
There's not much else I can say without repeating my other reviews. The band is exceptionally tight and their sound is bold, original and buoyant, bubbling with genuine joy. So, basically, they still got it. [old ptero video]
Friday, May 27, 2011
Live: S.V.B., Panda Riot, Electric Djinn
When: 5/20
Where: Studio Maya
This has got to be one of the strangest shows I've ever been to. Organized by experimental psychedelic shoegaze band So L'il (aka Gracefully), the show was in a well-lit studio space in Prospect Heights that I'd never seen or heard of before.
So L'il took the stage first but joined forces with R&B/hip-hop trio Booboniks for form a new group, Solilian von Boobonika, a.k.a. S.V.B. I wasn't sure if they'd be able to pull it off, but they did and it was awesome. So L'il played their usual layered, ambient psychedelia, and somehow it meshed perfectly with Precious's soulful singing and Booboniks' slick hip-hop beats to form some of the most innovative music I've heard in quite a while.
The only weakness in the performance was the contrast between the two vocal styles - So L'il's Sharon's dreamy, reverbed vocals were too far afield from the forceful R&B pipes on Booboniks' Precious. There were a few moments where it worked, but the jarring difference between the two women's voices was mostly just awkward. Regardless, it's impossible to deny the amount of talent in S.V.B. See for yourself: here's a video from the show.
I've wanted to see Chicago shoegazers Panda Riot for years, but they don't come to town very often. The group's very gazy-gauzy guitars blend with electronica and it's all held together by the dreamy indie-pop vocals of Rebecca Scott (who also plays keys and guitar). Across from her, guitarist/founding member Brian Cook and bassist Justin Cheng stood awkwardly close to each other and while they did seem to spend a lot of time admiring their own feet (as the genre's name would imply), they also moved a lot. Center stage, the more manic Jose Rodriguez supplemented the band's drum machine beats with a snare, tom and cymbal. Although his stage presence was the most energetic, all four pandas seemed to be having a blast.
It's impossible to say what makes this band great. Each element just works: Cook's pitch-bending wall of guitar sound, Cheng's dry, trip-hoppy bass lines, Scott's spacey, melodic singing, the drum machine's slick, trip-hoppy beats and Rodriguez's more earthy drumming. The band played many of my favorite songs of theirs and plenty I didn't recognize, all gorgeous, electrogaze dream-pop numbers played with joy and care. Here's a live video from a different show.
The third band of the night was one Electric Djinn, which featured primarily members of the long inactive band Lumipad. They are an odd odd odd band. The members, who skew considerably older than the other bands, seem genuinely insane. The front person (who was not standing in the front) was a striking woman behind a keyboard who less sang than melodically incanted. Indeed, it felt more like performance or even ritual than simply a concert.
There was one woman dressed in black, seated in a folding chair and facing perpendicular to the audience. She was adjusting a small electronic device throughout the performance (it looked like a wireless router) but seemed entirely disengaged from the band. It was as though she'd been sitting on the chair playing with this device forever and when a band just happened to set itself up around her, they were invisible to her (and her to them). It was cool, but weird.
Musically, the band combined a wealth of obscure influences. There was some free jazz, especially via a trombone, ambient electronica, psychedelia to the point of prog rock (if not in sound, then in attitude) and abstracted krautrock. Reference points could include Art Bears/Henry Cow, Red Crayola, King Crimson, Zappa, Neu!, Brian Eno, John Cage, Albert Ayler....well, if you know those bands, you get the drift. If you don't, just think head(y) avant-garde, psychedelic electronica meets LSD-decimated performance art. In a good way.
I missed the last band cause I weren't feelin well. Sorry Season Finale....
Where: Studio Maya
This has got to be one of the strangest shows I've ever been to. Organized by experimental psychedelic shoegaze band So L'il (aka Gracefully), the show was in a well-lit studio space in Prospect Heights that I'd never seen or heard of before.
So L'il took the stage first but joined forces with R&B/hip-hop trio Booboniks for form a new group, Solilian von Boobonika, a.k.a. S.V.B. I wasn't sure if they'd be able to pull it off, but they did and it was awesome. So L'il played their usual layered, ambient psychedelia, and somehow it meshed perfectly with Precious's soulful singing and Booboniks' slick hip-hop beats to form some of the most innovative music I've heard in quite a while.
The only weakness in the performance was the contrast between the two vocal styles - So L'il's Sharon's dreamy, reverbed vocals were too far afield from the forceful R&B pipes on Booboniks' Precious. There were a few moments where it worked, but the jarring difference between the two women's voices was mostly just awkward. Regardless, it's impossible to deny the amount of talent in S.V.B. See for yourself: here's a video from the show.
I've wanted to see Chicago shoegazers Panda Riot for years, but they don't come to town very often. The group's very gazy-gauzy guitars blend with electronica and it's all held together by the dreamy indie-pop vocals of Rebecca Scott (who also plays keys and guitar). Across from her, guitarist/founding member Brian Cook and bassist Justin Cheng stood awkwardly close to each other and while they did seem to spend a lot of time admiring their own feet (as the genre's name would imply), they also moved a lot. Center stage, the more manic Jose Rodriguez supplemented the band's drum machine beats with a snare, tom and cymbal. Although his stage presence was the most energetic, all four pandas seemed to be having a blast.
It's impossible to say what makes this band great. Each element just works: Cook's pitch-bending wall of guitar sound, Cheng's dry, trip-hoppy bass lines, Scott's spacey, melodic singing, the drum machine's slick, trip-hoppy beats and Rodriguez's more earthy drumming. The band played many of my favorite songs of theirs and plenty I didn't recognize, all gorgeous, electrogaze dream-pop numbers played with joy and care. Here's a live video from a different show.
The third band of the night was one Electric Djinn, which featured primarily members of the long inactive band Lumipad. They are an odd odd odd band. The members, who skew considerably older than the other bands, seem genuinely insane. The front person (who was not standing in the front) was a striking woman behind a keyboard who less sang than melodically incanted. Indeed, it felt more like performance or even ritual than simply a concert.
There was one woman dressed in black, seated in a folding chair and facing perpendicular to the audience. She was adjusting a small electronic device throughout the performance (it looked like a wireless router) but seemed entirely disengaged from the band. It was as though she'd been sitting on the chair playing with this device forever and when a band just happened to set itself up around her, they were invisible to her (and her to them). It was cool, but weird.
Musically, the band combined a wealth of obscure influences. There was some free jazz, especially via a trombone, ambient electronica, psychedelia to the point of prog rock (if not in sound, then in attitude) and abstracted krautrock. Reference points could include Art Bears/Henry Cow, Red Crayola, King Crimson, Zappa, Neu!, Brian Eno, John Cage, Albert Ayler....well, if you know those bands, you get the drift. If you don't, just think head(y) avant-garde, psychedelic electronica meets LSD-decimated performance art. In a good way.
I missed the last band cause I weren't feelin well. Sorry Season Finale....
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Album + Live: Her Vanished Grace
Album: See the Moon
Athame Music, 2011
Rating: ******* (7/10)
I've more or less retired from reviewing local shoegaze and shoegaze-affiliated bands for a number of reasons, but against my better judgment, I'm temporarily suspending the moratorium to do a couple of reviews.
First against the wall is Her Vanished Grace, who are not really a shoegaze band but are a part of that scene. Their music is dream pop - a style that takes the processed layers of shoegaze but tones them down enough to make audible their concisely-written indieish pop tunes. At times, HVG sounds more like U2 than they do My Bloody Valentine.
Her Vanished Grace have been making music in NYC for about twenty years now. The core of the band are married couple Nance and Charlie Nieland who both play guitar and trade lead vocal roles. For quite a while now, the duo has been joined by a rhythm section of Maria Theodosiadou (bass) and Billy Loose (drums). The quartet cranks out a new album every year or two and despite the volume of output (it adds up after this many years), the quality of the band's LPs is impressively consistent.
There is a parallel consistency between the tracks of their latest release, See the Moon. None of the record's eleven tracks sound like filler; each seems to have been given the same level of attention. Rather than looking for a way to fill up 45 minutes, the band seems to have waited until they had 45 minutes of material, then released their record.
Just because the songs are given equal attention doesn't mean they are equally successful. There are some standout moments, like the second track, "Passenger," and the album's lush centerpiece "Beauty Lingers." There are some awesome bass lines ("Make It Lighter" is the best example of many) and strong melodies and drumming throughout.
If you have low tolerance for sappy pop cliches, there are plenty of points where this album will put you off, but that's the nature of the genre. The album is genuine and for music so "dreamy," it's strikingly down-to-earth. Although the sound is beautiful, the transitions can be charmingly un-smooth, a reminder that this band is indeed just regular folk in a modest Brooklyn studio, great soundsmiths and great songwriters but neither aloof nor pretentious. Even the processing on some of the vocals and all of the guitars reminds us of the music's humanity even as it gives aural polish.
Live
When: May 19
Where: Pianos
I love seeing HVG live mainly because the band loves playing live. Many bands are so mired in ambition, whether it be for major label deals or hipster cred or artistic revolution, that they seem to forget why most of us got into playing in the first place - it's fun. But every time they take the stage, HVG seem delighted just to play their songs for their friends and whoever happens to want to listen . That's not to say the band is without ambition - but whatever hopes they may have for their music, they enjoy the moment for what it is.
On stage, Charlie and Nance are one of those adorable couples that seems to still really, really like each other even though they've been together quite a while as bandmates and spouses, stealing admiring glances at each other across the stage. Meanwhile, unassuming badass Theodosiadou rocks out over on stage left, her face seldom visible from behind a curtain of hair. And Loose manages to find a technique that's surprisingly interesting for an oppressively mid-tempo, 4/4 genre, filling the sound with swelling fills and crashing cymbals without once overplaying.
HVG aren't out to shatter preconceived notions about art. They aren't out to be cooler than you or to get rich. They're day-job types who have spent years making music they love. And their sincerity (and no small amount of talent) makes them a refreshing, compelling and relevant band that will outlast trend and whim alike.
I also want to make a quick note about the other band I saw at Pianos on Thursday, one Dead Leaf Echo who, unlike HVG, are pretty clearly a shoegaze band. I shouldn't review them - after all, I quit reviewing shoegaze bands for a lot of reasons. Not the least of these reasons was that my general philosophy of supporting bands and scenes through criticism seemed to be in direct conflict with a prevalent attitude shoegaze circles which sees criticism (even its positive elements) as counterproductive and antithetical to the creation of music. There's validity in both viewpoints and not any chance of coming to a compromise, so I thought it best to bow out. (The other reason I stopped writing about shoegaze is that my own tastes shifted, but I never stopped loving the genre even as I came to love other styles more.)
So, allow me to keep this note very brief. To avoid any confusion, this is a positive review. The last time I reviewed DLE was ages ago and I panned them pretty severely for a lack of songwriting and momentum. But based on the show Thursday, it's a totally different story now. It was never in question that DLE could create beautiful layers of sound, but in their latest songs, they've sculpted those layers into exciting songs full of energy and momentum. It's not a matter of conforming to conventional pop structures, it's just a matter of crafting a musical arc instead of a stagnant pool of sound. And DLE have honed this skill in recent years. Their new material still has moments of sound collage, as it should, but they don't overstay their welcome, and there are moments where the band truly rocks a la kindred neo-psychedelics BRMC and A Place to Bury Strangers.
The band has forgone a live bassist and shockingly, doesn't seem to suffer one bit from the shift to prerecorded b-lines. Frontman Lloyd Galyon is now joined by Ana Breton (formerly of Mahogany) and Christo Buffam (of the Vandelles), both of whom complement Galyon's scintillating 12-string ambiance, Breton with thick, dreamy textures and Buffam with sheets of white noise. The greater contrast in textures actually makes the music more coherent - and more memorable - than ever before. Galyon's obvious talent for soundmaking is finally articulated in these new songs and lives up to its potential at last. Whether that's the new band members, personal evolution as a musician or most likely a combination of the two, DLE are out of a rut and on a roll. Check out their new EP, Verisimilitude, out now.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Live: Total Slacker, Weekends, Selebrities, Beast Make Bomb
When: 5/13
Where: Monster Island Basement
The first band I caught at Monster Island Basement last weekend was Beast Make Bomb. They are a pop-punk (heavy on the pop) sort of band with a moderate feminist bent. The band is fronted by two women and backed by two men on bass and drums respectively. The main singer and rhythm guitarist isn't afraid to dance, which was kind of awkward but definitely a good thing anyway. The most impressive member of the band, though, is the androgynous lead guitarist. She's not Hendrix or anything, but she knows what she's doing and got a tasty overdriven sound out of her hollow-body guitar. Her backing vocals were low enough to be gender-bending. Meanwhile, the bassist spent a lot of time way up on the neck, well into guitar range. This gave the music a certain exuberant energy.
Ultimately, the band was kind of generic. They're fun and they're good at what they do, but they are one of those bands that so adheres to tried and tested formulas that their songs sound familiar the first time you hear them. I don't mean that they are ripping anyone off or that they are boring - just don't expect them to revolutionize your understanding of popular music.
The next band, Selebrities, made a deeper impression. I couldn't look away, but I'm not sure if that was out of horror or love. It depends on the band's intentions.
Selebrities play a synth-driven post-punk that recalls late Joy Division more than it does New Order. What immediately caught my attention was that out of the dozens upon dozens of bands I've heard rip off Joy Division, this was the first to have a female vocalist. I'm sure they aren't the only one, but they're the first I've encountered. But as their set wore on, their focus on synths and heavily processed guitar pointed more towards the Human League, Soft Cell, Erasure and their ilk, the futurist bands of yesteryear that now sound so very dated. And like those bands, Selebrities' songs were cheesy and overstated. There was little in the way of subtlety and nuance.
But before writing off Selebrities as a cheesy throwback, several things gave me pause. One is simply something I read about French-Swiss filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard recently. Godard was a critic before he was a filmmaker and I read a quote where he said he considered his films to BE criticism. Could Selebrities be offering something similar, musically?
Other than my pure good-hearted desire to give the band the benefit of the doubt (HA HA yeah right), the main indicator that Selebrities might have something beneath the surface is the singing. Singer Maria Usbeck was terrible. I hope to god she knows that, and if not, I hope she doesn't read it here, because that's the kind of thing that can screw up a young musician. But honestly, she didn't hit a right note once in the set. She was close enough that you knew exactly what the melody was meant to be, but she never got on pitch. And this was the band's main redeeming factor - in simple, cheesy 80's synthpop, the vocalist's correct delivery of the melody is simply a given. But this is different, and that interests me.
As I see it, there are two possibilities here. Either the band knows exactly what they are doing - artless, synthshit throwback - or they have no idea and just really like that genre and want to play it. If the former is true, they are amazing, providing a keen critique of the state of popular music. If the latter is true, they are awful. And honestly, that's the more likely option. Still, I'm going to give the band the benefit of the doubt for now. If nothing else, they have some courage to get up and play when they are so very bad. Which may sound like a backhanded insult, but I really mean it - I respect any band that puts themselves out there in way so vulnerable to derisive criticism (like this).
The highlight of the night, and the reason for my attendance, was of course Total Slacker. Total Slacker are so fucking cool. There's something about the tall, hunched guitar madness of Tucker (I dunno his last name) that recalls a young Thurston Moore, and indeed, with her frosty stoicism, bassist Emily (I don't know her last name) could be his own Kim Gordon. The band don't sound like Sonic Youth at all, but they have a similar wild energy, endlessly creative but never taking things too seriously.
Total Slacker play songs that suit their name, sloppy, out of tune songs about "taco people" and being freaked out by cops. I found it somewhat ironic that the band should spend ten minutes tuning (or playing "The Tuning Song," as they called it) when everything they play sounds blatantly out of tune. But of course, the secret to Total Slacker is that their chaos is controlled. It's genuine in their attitude, but as musicians, they know exactly what they're doing.
In fact, Tucker is a guitar hero on par with any of his contemporaries. He can shred solos with his guitar behind his head and when the solos sound like all wrong notes, it's because he knows which notes will sound wrong in the right way. Emily, for her part, is a mean bassist. She doesn't overplay and is willing to repeat the same damn riff for fifteen minutes if that's what's called for. But her succinct lines are near-perfect and nasty. Emily and Tucker share vocals that are as skillfully detuned as their guitars. Tucker is particularly sloppy, seeming to forget half the time that he needs to be near the mic. Which is, of course, perfect.
The musical chemistry also extends to drummer Ross (I dunno his last name) and all three seem to read each other's minds, anchoring their fuck-all-cares chaos to their satisfying and actually carefully written songs - nearly every one a gem in its own right.
The set ended in chaos, but not with the destruction of a guitar, which makes this the first Total Slacker show in which an ax wasn't axed. The band is heading out on tour so maybe they realized they can't keep up smashing their shit and lighting it on fire indefinitely. I knew (or hoped) they weren't going to destroy their guitar when Tucker didn't change instruments for the final song, instead staying on his absolutely gorgeous 70's Fender Stratocaster. I may not have the most acute ear for the nuances of guitar sound, but with that one, I could hear the difference. And although the band's deconstruction of popular music didn't extend this time to the physical deconstruction of a guitar, Tucker was all over the place with wild energy, running to the back of the room with his guitar on the final song, while Ross stacked and then toppled his drum kit amid the feedback and disintegration of the closer.
Total Slacker may be my favorite Brooklyn band right now; they are certainly the most fun to watch. Words can't do them justice - you'll have to check them out yourself. Maybe on their tour.
Weekends closed out the night. An energetic art-punk duo in the vein of No Age (and also comparable to their Baltimore kin Ponytail, duos Japanther and Lightning Bolt and kindred spirits Pterodactyl), Weekends play noise pop, feeding guitar through layers of distortion and delay and playing drums noisy and fast, which is the best way to play drums. The two members switch places behind guitar and drums. They jump around a lot and knock things over. Brendan Sullivan, who played the guitar first, cut his thumb wide open on a falling cymbal, so the guitar neck was covered in blood for the rest of the set.
Although they were infectiously energetic, there was something missing. The band has all the right ingredients but seems unsure how to make the soup. They also drenched the vocals in completely superfluous amounts of reverb and delay. Lightning Bolt does this, but their vocals are so minimal and ancillary, it makes sense. When Weekends did it, they just sounded rudderless. Maybe 25% of the time, the effects made sense, but the rest kind of seemed like the band was trying to disguise their lack of singing abilities (c'mon guys, who cares! none of the other bands who played friday could sing!). Maybe they just thought the vocals would work better with the effect-laden guitar that way, but if so, they were mistaken. The songs would have been more enjoyable if there'd been a vocal line to grab onto. Without that sort of melodic (or even anti-melodic) spine, the songs sounded amorphous and samey.
Weekends are great, but the whole is less than the sum of the parts. Although they've been around a few years, they're a fairly young band so I'm hoping it's only a matter of time until they figure out what they're trying to do and fuckin do it. When they do, they'll be one of the best bands around.
Where: Monster Island Basement
The first band I caught at Monster Island Basement last weekend was Beast Make Bomb. They are a pop-punk (heavy on the pop) sort of band with a moderate feminist bent. The band is fronted by two women and backed by two men on bass and drums respectively. The main singer and rhythm guitarist isn't afraid to dance, which was kind of awkward but definitely a good thing anyway. The most impressive member of the band, though, is the androgynous lead guitarist. She's not Hendrix or anything, but she knows what she's doing and got a tasty overdriven sound out of her hollow-body guitar. Her backing vocals were low enough to be gender-bending. Meanwhile, the bassist spent a lot of time way up on the neck, well into guitar range. This gave the music a certain exuberant energy.
Ultimately, the band was kind of generic. They're fun and they're good at what they do, but they are one of those bands that so adheres to tried and tested formulas that their songs sound familiar the first time you hear them. I don't mean that they are ripping anyone off or that they are boring - just don't expect them to revolutionize your understanding of popular music.
The next band, Selebrities, made a deeper impression. I couldn't look away, but I'm not sure if that was out of horror or love. It depends on the band's intentions.
Selebrities play a synth-driven post-punk that recalls late Joy Division more than it does New Order. What immediately caught my attention was that out of the dozens upon dozens of bands I've heard rip off Joy Division, this was the first to have a female vocalist. I'm sure they aren't the only one, but they're the first I've encountered. But as their set wore on, their focus on synths and heavily processed guitar pointed more towards the Human League, Soft Cell, Erasure and their ilk, the futurist bands of yesteryear that now sound so very dated. And like those bands, Selebrities' songs were cheesy and overstated. There was little in the way of subtlety and nuance.
But before writing off Selebrities as a cheesy throwback, several things gave me pause. One is simply something I read about French-Swiss filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard recently. Godard was a critic before he was a filmmaker and I read a quote where he said he considered his films to BE criticism. Could Selebrities be offering something similar, musically?
Other than my pure good-hearted desire to give the band the benefit of the doubt (HA HA yeah right), the main indicator that Selebrities might have something beneath the surface is the singing. Singer Maria Usbeck was terrible. I hope to god she knows that, and if not, I hope she doesn't read it here, because that's the kind of thing that can screw up a young musician. But honestly, she didn't hit a right note once in the set. She was close enough that you knew exactly what the melody was meant to be, but she never got on pitch. And this was the band's main redeeming factor - in simple, cheesy 80's synthpop, the vocalist's correct delivery of the melody is simply a given. But this is different, and that interests me.
As I see it, there are two possibilities here. Either the band knows exactly what they are doing - artless, synthshit throwback - or they have no idea and just really like that genre and want to play it. If the former is true, they are amazing, providing a keen critique of the state of popular music. If the latter is true, they are awful. And honestly, that's the more likely option. Still, I'm going to give the band the benefit of the doubt for now. If nothing else, they have some courage to get up and play when they are so very bad. Which may sound like a backhanded insult, but I really mean it - I respect any band that puts themselves out there in way so vulnerable to derisive criticism (like this).
The highlight of the night, and the reason for my attendance, was of course Total Slacker. Total Slacker are so fucking cool. There's something about the tall, hunched guitar madness of Tucker (I dunno his last name) that recalls a young Thurston Moore, and indeed, with her frosty stoicism, bassist Emily (I don't know her last name) could be his own Kim Gordon. The band don't sound like Sonic Youth at all, but they have a similar wild energy, endlessly creative but never taking things too seriously.
Total Slacker play songs that suit their name, sloppy, out of tune songs about "taco people" and being freaked out by cops. I found it somewhat ironic that the band should spend ten minutes tuning (or playing "The Tuning Song," as they called it) when everything they play sounds blatantly out of tune. But of course, the secret to Total Slacker is that their chaos is controlled. It's genuine in their attitude, but as musicians, they know exactly what they're doing.
In fact, Tucker is a guitar hero on par with any of his contemporaries. He can shred solos with his guitar behind his head and when the solos sound like all wrong notes, it's because he knows which notes will sound wrong in the right way. Emily, for her part, is a mean bassist. She doesn't overplay and is willing to repeat the same damn riff for fifteen minutes if that's what's called for. But her succinct lines are near-perfect and nasty. Emily and Tucker share vocals that are as skillfully detuned as their guitars. Tucker is particularly sloppy, seeming to forget half the time that he needs to be near the mic. Which is, of course, perfect.
The musical chemistry also extends to drummer Ross (I dunno his last name) and all three seem to read each other's minds, anchoring their fuck-all-cares chaos to their satisfying and actually carefully written songs - nearly every one a gem in its own right.
The set ended in chaos, but not with the destruction of a guitar, which makes this the first Total Slacker show in which an ax wasn't axed. The band is heading out on tour so maybe they realized they can't keep up smashing their shit and lighting it on fire indefinitely. I knew (or hoped) they weren't going to destroy their guitar when Tucker didn't change instruments for the final song, instead staying on his absolutely gorgeous 70's Fender Stratocaster. I may not have the most acute ear for the nuances of guitar sound, but with that one, I could hear the difference. And although the band's deconstruction of popular music didn't extend this time to the physical deconstruction of a guitar, Tucker was all over the place with wild energy, running to the back of the room with his guitar on the final song, while Ross stacked and then toppled his drum kit amid the feedback and disintegration of the closer.
Total Slacker may be my favorite Brooklyn band right now; they are certainly the most fun to watch. Words can't do them justice - you'll have to check them out yourself. Maybe on their tour.
Weekends closed out the night. An energetic art-punk duo in the vein of No Age (and also comparable to their Baltimore kin Ponytail, duos Japanther and Lightning Bolt and kindred spirits Pterodactyl), Weekends play noise pop, feeding guitar through layers of distortion and delay and playing drums noisy and fast, which is the best way to play drums. The two members switch places behind guitar and drums. They jump around a lot and knock things over. Brendan Sullivan, who played the guitar first, cut his thumb wide open on a falling cymbal, so the guitar neck was covered in blood for the rest of the set.
Although they were infectiously energetic, there was something missing. The band has all the right ingredients but seems unsure how to make the soup. They also drenched the vocals in completely superfluous amounts of reverb and delay. Lightning Bolt does this, but their vocals are so minimal and ancillary, it makes sense. When Weekends did it, they just sounded rudderless. Maybe 25% of the time, the effects made sense, but the rest kind of seemed like the band was trying to disguise their lack of singing abilities (c'mon guys, who cares! none of the other bands who played friday could sing!). Maybe they just thought the vocals would work better with the effect-laden guitar that way, but if so, they were mistaken. The songs would have been more enjoyable if there'd been a vocal line to grab onto. Without that sort of melodic (or even anti-melodic) spine, the songs sounded amorphous and samey.
Weekends are great, but the whole is less than the sum of the parts. Although they've been around a few years, they're a fairly young band so I'm hoping it's only a matter of time until they figure out what they're trying to do and fuckin do it. When they do, they'll be one of the best bands around.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Live: Songs for Moms, Future Virgins, Landlords
When: April 29
Where: Silent Barn
Another very tardy live review (and now several days more tardy thanks to Blogger's disappearing act last week). There was a showcase of sorts for Shellshag's Starcleaner Records at Silent Barn a couple of weeks ago. Shellshag canceled their own set at the last minute, but the rest of the bands were plenty to carry the show.
Landlords had played energetic punk that was just a bit country-influenced. Honestly, I don't have that much to say about it (I know!). It was very enjoyable.
Future Virgins were even better. They started their set at full tilt and hit that perfect balance of hardcore and pop (perfect balance is not the same as an equal balance - they are way more hardcore than pop). They were tight, they were aggressive and they were fun. This is one of the best punk bands I've seen in a long time. They're fairly traditional, but they've got their own voice
Of course, the highlight of the night was Songs for Moms, a trio of ladies from California. They've got this feminist cow punk thing going on that, while maybe not musically revolutionary, sounds very fresh. There is a country twang in all of their songs, but the cues they take from country are the genre's greatest strengths, often overlooked by rockists who like "everything except country." Country music has a long history of powerful women with powerful voices and it's an appropriate reference point for the tough wail of SFM's two frontwomen.
The band is more punk than country, though. Their songs are loud, aggressive and often shouted. There's a lot of anger in their music (several songs are about the band's personal experiences with rape and sexual assault) but also a lot of compassion and depth. Their lyrics on their album We Used To Believe In the West are some of the best I've heard in recent years - courageous, personal, insightful, simple yet oblique enough to leave them open to interpretation.
The band is tight. Although their music is purposefully simple - SFM don't need any trickery - their arrangements are deceptively difficult. The band has an exceptional ear for songwriting and arrangement, with instruments dropping in and out, answering back to the vocals, breaking into split seconds of silence, cutting or doubling tempos and cutting through some breakneck licks without ever making a big deal of it. Their melodies are also consistently excellent, very catchy but still interesting.
My only disappointment with the show is just that the band didn't play many songs off We Used to Believe. I love that album and there's not a song on there I wouldn't like to hear live. But the band hit a few of them and their other songs, both older and newer, were of equal caliber.
Songs For Moms aren't cutting edge in sonic experimentation or anything like that - that's not what they're about. They're about seeing how they can carve a space for a new voice using traditional country and punk frameworks. And while they aren't off exploring music's frontiers, they don't sound quite like anyone else I've ever heard. They are a group of rare talent and rare heart. [myspace]
##
Where: Silent Barn
Another very tardy live review (and now several days more tardy thanks to Blogger's disappearing act last week). There was a showcase of sorts for Shellshag's Starcleaner Records at Silent Barn a couple of weeks ago. Shellshag canceled their own set at the last minute, but the rest of the bands were plenty to carry the show.
Landlords had played energetic punk that was just a bit country-influenced. Honestly, I don't have that much to say about it (I know!). It was very enjoyable.
Future Virgins were even better. They started their set at full tilt and hit that perfect balance of hardcore and pop (perfect balance is not the same as an equal balance - they are way more hardcore than pop). They were tight, they were aggressive and they were fun. This is one of the best punk bands I've seen in a long time. They're fairly traditional, but they've got their own voice
Of course, the highlight of the night was Songs for Moms, a trio of ladies from California. They've got this feminist cow punk thing going on that, while maybe not musically revolutionary, sounds very fresh. There is a country twang in all of their songs, but the cues they take from country are the genre's greatest strengths, often overlooked by rockists who like "everything except country." Country music has a long history of powerful women with powerful voices and it's an appropriate reference point for the tough wail of SFM's two frontwomen.
The band is more punk than country, though. Their songs are loud, aggressive and often shouted. There's a lot of anger in their music (several songs are about the band's personal experiences with rape and sexual assault) but also a lot of compassion and depth. Their lyrics on their album We Used To Believe In the West are some of the best I've heard in recent years - courageous, personal, insightful, simple yet oblique enough to leave them open to interpretation.
The band is tight. Although their music is purposefully simple - SFM don't need any trickery - their arrangements are deceptively difficult. The band has an exceptional ear for songwriting and arrangement, with instruments dropping in and out, answering back to the vocals, breaking into split seconds of silence, cutting or doubling tempos and cutting through some breakneck licks without ever making a big deal of it. Their melodies are also consistently excellent, very catchy but still interesting.
My only disappointment with the show is just that the band didn't play many songs off We Used to Believe. I love that album and there's not a song on there I wouldn't like to hear live. But the band hit a few of them and their other songs, both older and newer, were of equal caliber.
Songs For Moms aren't cutting edge in sonic experimentation or anything like that - that's not what they're about. They're about seeing how they can carve a space for a new voice using traditional country and punk frameworks. And while they aren't off exploring music's frontiers, they don't sound quite like anyone else I've ever heard. They are a group of rare talent and rare heart. [myspace]
##
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Live: Pterodactyl, Lightning Bolt
When: 4/28
Where: Le Poisson Rouge
Pterodactyl opened for Lightning Bolt, which makes sense because even though Pterodactyl are less brutal than Lightning Bolt, they play guitars the way Brian Gibson plays his bass. It's more than just pure speed, although that's a lot of it; it's got something to do with the guitar lines being somewhere between melody and arpeggio. Pterodactyl has long been one of my favorite NYC bands and I was interested to see them on a big (or medium-sized) stage. The band is fairly recently returned from a tour with another kindred band (and another favorite of mine), Parts & Labor. Prior to the tour, Pterodactyl were already moving in vastly different directions, but nevertheless, it's hard not to see some of their recent changes as being at least partly influenced by their tourmates.
First and most noticeably, the band has added a fourth member. Last time I saw them, they were also a quartet, with one of the members of Parts & Labor jumping in. However, the fourth 'dactyl doesn't play synths and samplers like the guy from Parts & Labor did, he plays guitar (and occasionally bass). Where keyboards were needed, Joe Kremer would set aside his guitar and whip out an amazing keyboard that folds in half so two people can play it. (He said what it was called but the name is escaping me right now.) As for the new guitarist, well, he plays well. It's hard to jump into a band that's been around a while and not cramp their style, but he pulled it off. On stage, though, he looked sullen and detached, even bored at times, which doesn't mesh well with the jumpy enthusiasm of the rest of the band.
Pterodactyl are also continuing to slow down their songs and play more with traditional rock and pop songforms. ("More" is a relative term, they're still out there, just more focused on vocal melody.) I like their old stuff better, but that's just inevitable when you like a band and then they change. Pterodactyl's new stuff is actually pretty rad, and it's great that they are pushing their boundaries instead of just making the same songs over and over again - which honestly, as much as I loved their old stuff, was on the brink of happening already. Drummer Matt Marlin has changed his style and while his versatility is very impressive, there were times when he seemed to take a page from Parts & Labor's book and it didn't translate quite right. Some of his big, building parts in the new songs just seemed to weigh down the guitars a bit and he overplayed at times. Drummers, take note: never underestimate the value of simplicity. Still, when he was on, he was amazing, with some jazzed up, chilled out polyrhythmic beats that the band's earlier breakneck pace didn't allow. The band's first two albums showed Marlin to be a drummer of remarkable skill and control, but only now are we beginning to glimpse his full range.
I don't think the show went very well for the band though. There were some problems with the sound on stage and off. Le Poisson Rouge seems to like to pan the hell out of everything to create a nice stereo effect, which is cool up to a point, but if you are standing far to one side, as I was, you might only be able to hear half the band. I could only hear the new guitarist and bassist/guitarist Jesse Hodges (and their vocals). It did get better as the show went on, but it's frustrating that only a third of the audience could really hear the whole band in any sort of balance. On stage, there were clearly issues as well, but the band held it together, playing tightly even in moments when they seemed unable to hear each other. Their performance was a bit stiff though. The band seemed to be struggling, but I think they hid it well (or I imagined it) because Jasper, who's as big a fan as I am didn't seem to notice them having much difficulty, and he was standing right next to me.
The band's new slower songs groove more and several feature more prominent vocals from Hodges. (All members do vocals but Kremer has usually had the lead in the past.) Hodges seemed unsteady in his singing at LPR, but I know he's got it in him. I think it was just not an "on" night for the band. At the beginning and end of their set, they hit some of their old high-speed songs like "First Daze," "Share the Shade" and "One with Everyone." The band ultimately succeeded as much as anyone could reasonably hope to impress a 21+ audience of Lightning Bolt fans. But because they're just not as brutal as Lightning Bolt, the band couldn't have won over that many people in the audience - not because they failed in any way but because certain fans of music like Lightning Bolt can be rather closeminded when it comes to anything that isn't, well, Lightning Bolt.
And what can I say about Lightning Bolt? They are awesome. Their avant-thrash noise is simultaneously heavier and faster than black metal - they are simply beyond comparison. They never seem to miss a note, and they play a LOT of notes.
Where: Le Poisson Rouge
Pterodactyl opened for Lightning Bolt, which makes sense because even though Pterodactyl are less brutal than Lightning Bolt, they play guitars the way Brian Gibson plays his bass. It's more than just pure speed, although that's a lot of it; it's got something to do with the guitar lines being somewhere between melody and arpeggio. Pterodactyl has long been one of my favorite NYC bands and I was interested to see them on a big (or medium-sized) stage. The band is fairly recently returned from a tour with another kindred band (and another favorite of mine), Parts & Labor. Prior to the tour, Pterodactyl were already moving in vastly different directions, but nevertheless, it's hard not to see some of their recent changes as being at least partly influenced by their tourmates.
First and most noticeably, the band has added a fourth member. Last time I saw them, they were also a quartet, with one of the members of Parts & Labor jumping in. However, the fourth 'dactyl doesn't play synths and samplers like the guy from Parts & Labor did, he plays guitar (and occasionally bass). Where keyboards were needed, Joe Kremer would set aside his guitar and whip out an amazing keyboard that folds in half so two people can play it. (He said what it was called but the name is escaping me right now.) As for the new guitarist, well, he plays well. It's hard to jump into a band that's been around a while and not cramp their style, but he pulled it off. On stage, though, he looked sullen and detached, even bored at times, which doesn't mesh well with the jumpy enthusiasm of the rest of the band.
Pterodactyl are also continuing to slow down their songs and play more with traditional rock and pop songforms. ("More" is a relative term, they're still out there, just more focused on vocal melody.) I like their old stuff better, but that's just inevitable when you like a band and then they change. Pterodactyl's new stuff is actually pretty rad, and it's great that they are pushing their boundaries instead of just making the same songs over and over again - which honestly, as much as I loved their old stuff, was on the brink of happening already. Drummer Matt Marlin has changed his style and while his versatility is very impressive, there were times when he seemed to take a page from Parts & Labor's book and it didn't translate quite right. Some of his big, building parts in the new songs just seemed to weigh down the guitars a bit and he overplayed at times. Drummers, take note: never underestimate the value of simplicity. Still, when he was on, he was amazing, with some jazzed up, chilled out polyrhythmic beats that the band's earlier breakneck pace didn't allow. The band's first two albums showed Marlin to be a drummer of remarkable skill and control, but only now are we beginning to glimpse his full range.
I don't think the show went very well for the band though. There were some problems with the sound on stage and off. Le Poisson Rouge seems to like to pan the hell out of everything to create a nice stereo effect, which is cool up to a point, but if you are standing far to one side, as I was, you might only be able to hear half the band. I could only hear the new guitarist and bassist/guitarist Jesse Hodges (and their vocals). It did get better as the show went on, but it's frustrating that only a third of the audience could really hear the whole band in any sort of balance. On stage, there were clearly issues as well, but the band held it together, playing tightly even in moments when they seemed unable to hear each other. Their performance was a bit stiff though. The band seemed to be struggling, but I think they hid it well (or I imagined it) because Jasper, who's as big a fan as I am didn't seem to notice them having much difficulty, and he was standing right next to me.
The band's new slower songs groove more and several feature more prominent vocals from Hodges. (All members do vocals but Kremer has usually had the lead in the past.) Hodges seemed unsteady in his singing at LPR, but I know he's got it in him. I think it was just not an "on" night for the band. At the beginning and end of their set, they hit some of their old high-speed songs like "First Daze," "Share the Shade" and "One with Everyone." The band ultimately succeeded as much as anyone could reasonably hope to impress a 21+ audience of Lightning Bolt fans. But because they're just not as brutal as Lightning Bolt, the band couldn't have won over that many people in the audience - not because they failed in any way but because certain fans of music like Lightning Bolt can be rather closeminded when it comes to anything that isn't, well, Lightning Bolt.
And what can I say about Lightning Bolt? They are awesome. Their avant-thrash noise is simultaneously heavier and faster than black metal - they are simply beyond comparison. They never seem to miss a note, and they play a LOT of notes.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Live: Grass Widow
This review is late. It was supposed to be up early last week, but, ya know.
So Grass Widow. Everybody's nuts for these three girls from Oakland, CA, and the other weekend was the first time I'd seen them live.
Basically: yes, the live up to the hype. It looked like about every decent musician in Brooklyn had turned out to see them at one of their two DIY shows. I caught up with them at Death By Audio.
Grass Widow's greatest strength is melody, and it translates well live. All three members of Grass Widow sing on pretty much every song, weaving melodies and harmonies deftly. And their melodies are great - sticky sweet but always just a little strange and off-centered. While many bands who seem to receive praise for their melodies actually fail to generate the momentum that comes with melodic arcs (rather than just three notes repeated, cough cough), Grass Widow's songs don't drag.
But the melodies alone aren't what makes this band so charming. It's that their tunes are so unpolished. The singing is decidedly amateur in sound and the instruments are equally raw - but that's not to say the band is unpracticed. Having three melodic lines in addition to three instruments would pose a challenge to incompetent musicians, but these three ladies are locked in as tightly as I've heard any band in quite a while.
The band's ramshackle pop does have moments where vulnerability seems teeter on the brink of wimpiness, but there are also moments of pure bravery - such as a long section entirely unaccompanied by instruments. That's no small thing, dropping the sound out of your band to the point where you can hear exactly what proportion of the audience is bored and has turned to their friends for a chat. In this case, though, most of the audience was rapt.
The set was concise, ending quickly but not flagging for a minute. And any doubts I had about the group's musical sincerity were assuaged by the bands they played with - experimental, feminist noise like Talk Normal and Broken Water (at Death By Audio) and K-Holes (at Glasslands). Grass Widow are the real thing - a band with true talent and true inspiration. Believe the hype. [myspace]
##
So Grass Widow. Everybody's nuts for these three girls from Oakland, CA, and the other weekend was the first time I'd seen them live.
Basically: yes, the live up to the hype. It looked like about every decent musician in Brooklyn had turned out to see them at one of their two DIY shows. I caught up with them at Death By Audio.
Grass Widow's greatest strength is melody, and it translates well live. All three members of Grass Widow sing on pretty much every song, weaving melodies and harmonies deftly. And their melodies are great - sticky sweet but always just a little strange and off-centered. While many bands who seem to receive praise for their melodies actually fail to generate the momentum that comes with melodic arcs (rather than just three notes repeated, cough cough), Grass Widow's songs don't drag.
But the melodies alone aren't what makes this band so charming. It's that their tunes are so unpolished. The singing is decidedly amateur in sound and the instruments are equally raw - but that's not to say the band is unpracticed. Having three melodic lines in addition to three instruments would pose a challenge to incompetent musicians, but these three ladies are locked in as tightly as I've heard any band in quite a while.
The band's ramshackle pop does have moments where vulnerability seems teeter on the brink of wimpiness, but there are also moments of pure bravery - such as a long section entirely unaccompanied by instruments. That's no small thing, dropping the sound out of your band to the point where you can hear exactly what proportion of the audience is bored and has turned to their friends for a chat. In this case, though, most of the audience was rapt.
The set was concise, ending quickly but not flagging for a minute. And any doubts I had about the group's musical sincerity were assuaged by the bands they played with - experimental, feminist noise like Talk Normal and Broken Water (at Death By Audio) and K-Holes (at Glasslands). Grass Widow are the real thing - a band with true talent and true inspiration. Believe the hype. [myspace]
##
Friday, April 22, 2011
Live: AIDS Wolf, Captain Ahab, White Suns
When: 4/16
Where: Death By Audio
Pepe says Controlled Bleeding were badass, but I missed it.
The first band I saw was White Suns, who I've seen before, also set up on the floor of Death By Audio. White Suns are a hardcore-informed noise group who use electronics and effects but still achieve very satisfying (deafening) lo-fi white noise. There are ways in which the noise genre is played out and I can't say White Suns add much that's new. But they do it well, with deafening roars and screaming but also with some more haunting, hushed moments. Each song is carefully structured and even if they sound chaotic most of the time, sharp dynamic transitions reveal them to be a pretty tight act. [myspace]
Captain Ahab played next. They were a sort of gay club outfit complete with a fellah in underwear dancing. It was definitely way more dark and way more raw than your average gay club music, and very arty, complete with projections. But ultimately it was more fun than it was interesting. And since I hate fun, I was kind of bored. But for people who don't hate fun, I suppose it was a good show. [myspace]
Of course, the highlight of the night was AIDS Wolf, a band who prove that there still are new directions for noise. AIDS Wolf's asymmetrical, harsh rhythmic pulse propels a screeching swarm of noise forward, while the hot but somewhat terrifying "Special Delux" (a.k.a. Chloe Lum) screams and performs fellatio on the microphone. I don't have anything new to say about this show, since I've reviewed the band before. Recorded, the band is an alluring, psychotic, skull-splintering assault, but their live performance still surpasses their records - confrontational, fascinating and grotesque, AIDS Wolf are one of the few contemporary bands giving hope for new directions in a world of recycled, nostalgic indie rock. [myspace]
#
Where: Death By Audio
Pepe says Controlled Bleeding were badass, but I missed it.
The first band I saw was White Suns, who I've seen before, also set up on the floor of Death By Audio. White Suns are a hardcore-informed noise group who use electronics and effects but still achieve very satisfying (deafening) lo-fi white noise. There are ways in which the noise genre is played out and I can't say White Suns add much that's new. But they do it well, with deafening roars and screaming but also with some more haunting, hushed moments. Each song is carefully structured and even if they sound chaotic most of the time, sharp dynamic transitions reveal them to be a pretty tight act. [myspace]
Captain Ahab played next. They were a sort of gay club outfit complete with a fellah in underwear dancing. It was definitely way more dark and way more raw than your average gay club music, and very arty, complete with projections. But ultimately it was more fun than it was interesting. And since I hate fun, I was kind of bored. But for people who don't hate fun, I suppose it was a good show. [myspace]
Of course, the highlight of the night was AIDS Wolf, a band who prove that there still are new directions for noise. AIDS Wolf's asymmetrical, harsh rhythmic pulse propels a screeching swarm of noise forward, while the hot but somewhat terrifying "Special Delux" (a.k.a. Chloe Lum) screams and performs fellatio on the microphone. I don't have anything new to say about this show, since I've reviewed the band before. Recorded, the band is an alluring, psychotic, skull-splintering assault, but their live performance still surpasses their records - confrontational, fascinating and grotesque, AIDS Wolf are one of the few contemporary bands giving hope for new directions in a world of recycled, nostalgic indie rock. [myspace]
#
Monday, April 18, 2011
Live: Dinowalrus, Mr. Dream, Flotilla
When: April 9
Where: Shea Stadium
So Shea Stadium had some big festivally sort of thing a week ago and thoughtfully listed the bands on the flyer in a completely random order that had nothing to do with the order in which the bands played. Honestly, that's a pretty rude move - whether it was just laziness and disorganization or whether it was some hippy-dippy idea about people being exposed to new bands, let's just be realistic here, no one is going to sit through twelve hours of music. (Granted, set times were apparently listed on Facebook just before the show, but that was too little too late.)
However, missing the bands I'd made the trek to see does give me some fresh blood to suck the life out of. So cheers!
The first band playing when I got to the venue was actually the one I had gone to see, Dinowalrus. Frontman Pete Feigenbaum was singularly unenthused when I told him a few weeks ago that I was probably going to start blogging again, so of course, I had to make his project a top priority. (Being obnoxious is a hobby of mine.) However, I hadn't seen the band in ages and it's changed dramatically in the year or so of my absence.
First, the only remaining member of the band I last saw was Feigenbaum himself. I had heard through the rumor mill that they had a new drummer a while, but at the show at Shea, they had a new new drummer making his live debut with the band. There is no way the band could replace their former drummer Josh Da Costa (do I have that right?), a rare talent and one of the best drummers I've ever heard, but the new drummer didn't seek to imitate Da Costa - which could have only ended badly - but rather put his own stamp on the band's music. I used to periodically use the word "mathy" to describe Dinowalrus, but when Feigenbaum called me out on it and asked to point to anything that was not a steady 4/4 in pretty much their entire set, I had to admit I was wrong in my terminology. But the absence of Da Costa has finally helped me figure out why I used the adjective "mathy" in the first place - while Dinowalrus is not mathy, Da Costa's syncopated, polyrhythmic style gave the music a feel of shifting rhythm, especially in comparison to most of Brooklyn's current rhythm-challenged indie bands. Mystery solved!
In contrast, the newest drummer's beats fall within a much more straightforward four-by-four structure. While he's far less interesting than Da Costa, those are impossible shoes to fill and he is nevertheless a superb drummer. His commanding style meshed well with the more straightforward approach of new bassist/synthist Liam Andrew. Andrew's predecessor, Kyle Warren (who was in the audience), played the roll of mad scientist, his performance always coming across as an experiment, the stage a laboratory. Andrew's playing, while not texturally vastly different from the spacey concoctions of Warren, felt more concrete and surehanded.
While I can't say the net change for Dinowalrus is positive - Da Costa's shapeshifting polyrhythms and Warren's quirky sonic chemistry are sorely missed - the damage is not as bad as one would expect from a 67% personnel change. The band's trippy, spacey textures and pop sensibilities have been recombined and what's lost in subtlety is made up for in pop appeal. Dinowalrus was always dancey (in a heavily drugged-out post-rave trip-hop psych-punk way) but their experimentalism did soften the impact of their songs. Now, with more heavy-handed backing, Fiegenbaum's songs finally live up to their crowd-pleasing potential, leading numerous people in the audience in earshot of me remark something along the lines of "wow, these guys are tight!"
The next band to play was Mr. Dream, a band that confused me greatly in as much as I could not immediately sort out my ambivalent reaction to the music. There were some good aspects, some great aspects even - the band was tight, noisy enough, aggressive, skilled at their instruments and sufficiently catchy. But yet something was deeply off-putting: the sense that everything in the band had been too carefully calculated. There was something excessively deliberate about Mr. Dream; they not only wore their influences (Pixies, Velvets) on their sleeve, they seemed studied. Rather than simply looking to their sources as a model for attitude or an unconscious source for sloppy rip-offs, Mr. Dream sounded like they had distilled a formula of chord progressions, bridges, choruses, solos and the like. Although it's hard to say exactly what blew their cover, something about the band's compositions seemed stale, mechanical and overly academic (even if the academic study was how to make non-academic sounding pop).
The band's live performance didn't help matters. While it's hard not to commend the band for their effort - and they certainly were lively - there was still the stink of something disingenuous. That's not to say the band was overly aloof or were not really having fun. Yet there was a lack of spontaneity. Even the band's seemingly in-the-moment gestures seemed calculated, planned, studied and manufactured. Although the band was not a carbon copy of anyone in particular (bass lines and guitar tones evoked the Pixies, while the vocals were distinctly 90's alt), they seemed somehow phenomenally unoriginal and vapid.
Closing out the lineup was Flotilla, a band that certainly lived up to its name's promise of wussiness. However, the band did surprise me - I was expecting bland but instead got painful. I really do salute singer Veronica Charnley for having the balls to take the mic with absolutely sincerity and uncouched in aloofness, irony or studied flawfulness, but I fled the room after only seconds. Her shrill voice fell right in that window where the singer has too much technique for the genre and yet not enough technique to hide her technique - she's either had too many or too few voice lessons (or does a good impression of someone who has). Replete with a grating vibrato, Charnley's vocalizations were admirable for their courage but ultimately intolerable, at least in the context of the band's music, which was more subtly but ultimately even more offensive. Ultra-wimpy without being cute, the band falls squarely in line with the horrible post-2000 wave of baroque pop movement led by such shameful antirockists as St Vincent and Grizzly Bear.
This entire approach to music nauseates me to such a point that I can't even begin to explore whether Flotilla succeeded in their attempts - although I'd venture a guess at "no" based on Charnley's awkward vocal tone. But to be honest, I can't assess the band's merit within their own terms because their own terms make my stomach turn. With all the softened, variegated textures and stale-sour odors of vomit, rococo pop like this is an acid eroding every edge from pop and indie music. There is no merit to be found in this sort of polished wimpiness - not in today's musical/social/political climate - except, I suppose, a dire warning of the dangerously watered-down state of contemporary music.
But even setting politics aside, Flotilla is at once painful and bland. I'm sure they're lovely people and a damn sight less offensive than bands like Dirty Projectors or Freelance Whales, but still worth standing outside in the rain to miss. (Sorry.)
Where: Shea Stadium
So Shea Stadium had some big festivally sort of thing a week ago and thoughtfully listed the bands on the flyer in a completely random order that had nothing to do with the order in which the bands played. Honestly, that's a pretty rude move - whether it was just laziness and disorganization or whether it was some hippy-dippy idea about people being exposed to new bands, let's just be realistic here, no one is going to sit through twelve hours of music. (Granted, set times were apparently listed on Facebook just before the show, but that was too little too late.)
However, missing the bands I'd made the trek to see does give me some fresh blood to suck the life out of. So cheers!
The first band playing when I got to the venue was actually the one I had gone to see, Dinowalrus. Frontman Pete Feigenbaum was singularly unenthused when I told him a few weeks ago that I was probably going to start blogging again, so of course, I had to make his project a top priority. (Being obnoxious is a hobby of mine.) However, I hadn't seen the band in ages and it's changed dramatically in the year or so of my absence.
First, the only remaining member of the band I last saw was Feigenbaum himself. I had heard through the rumor mill that they had a new drummer a while, but at the show at Shea, they had a new new drummer making his live debut with the band. There is no way the band could replace their former drummer Josh Da Costa (do I have that right?), a rare talent and one of the best drummers I've ever heard, but the new drummer didn't seek to imitate Da Costa - which could have only ended badly - but rather put his own stamp on the band's music. I used to periodically use the word "mathy" to describe Dinowalrus, but when Feigenbaum called me out on it and asked to point to anything that was not a steady 4/4 in pretty much their entire set, I had to admit I was wrong in my terminology. But the absence of Da Costa has finally helped me figure out why I used the adjective "mathy" in the first place - while Dinowalrus is not mathy, Da Costa's syncopated, polyrhythmic style gave the music a feel of shifting rhythm, especially in comparison to most of Brooklyn's current rhythm-challenged indie bands. Mystery solved!
In contrast, the newest drummer's beats fall within a much more straightforward four-by-four structure. While he's far less interesting than Da Costa, those are impossible shoes to fill and he is nevertheless a superb drummer. His commanding style meshed well with the more straightforward approach of new bassist/synthist Liam Andrew. Andrew's predecessor, Kyle Warren (who was in the audience), played the roll of mad scientist, his performance always coming across as an experiment, the stage a laboratory. Andrew's playing, while not texturally vastly different from the spacey concoctions of Warren, felt more concrete and surehanded.
While I can't say the net change for Dinowalrus is positive - Da Costa's shapeshifting polyrhythms and Warren's quirky sonic chemistry are sorely missed - the damage is not as bad as one would expect from a 67% personnel change. The band's trippy, spacey textures and pop sensibilities have been recombined and what's lost in subtlety is made up for in pop appeal. Dinowalrus was always dancey (in a heavily drugged-out post-rave trip-hop psych-punk way) but their experimentalism did soften the impact of their songs. Now, with more heavy-handed backing, Fiegenbaum's songs finally live up to their crowd-pleasing potential, leading numerous people in the audience in earshot of me remark something along the lines of "wow, these guys are tight!"
The next band to play was Mr. Dream, a band that confused me greatly in as much as I could not immediately sort out my ambivalent reaction to the music. There were some good aspects, some great aspects even - the band was tight, noisy enough, aggressive, skilled at their instruments and sufficiently catchy. But yet something was deeply off-putting: the sense that everything in the band had been too carefully calculated. There was something excessively deliberate about Mr. Dream; they not only wore their influences (Pixies, Velvets) on their sleeve, they seemed studied. Rather than simply looking to their sources as a model for attitude or an unconscious source for sloppy rip-offs, Mr. Dream sounded like they had distilled a formula of chord progressions, bridges, choruses, solos and the like. Although it's hard to say exactly what blew their cover, something about the band's compositions seemed stale, mechanical and overly academic (even if the academic study was how to make non-academic sounding pop).
The band's live performance didn't help matters. While it's hard not to commend the band for their effort - and they certainly were lively - there was still the stink of something disingenuous. That's not to say the band was overly aloof or were not really having fun. Yet there was a lack of spontaneity. Even the band's seemingly in-the-moment gestures seemed calculated, planned, studied and manufactured. Although the band was not a carbon copy of anyone in particular (bass lines and guitar tones evoked the Pixies, while the vocals were distinctly 90's alt), they seemed somehow phenomenally unoriginal and vapid.
Closing out the lineup was Flotilla, a band that certainly lived up to its name's promise of wussiness. However, the band did surprise me - I was expecting bland but instead got painful. I really do salute singer Veronica Charnley for having the balls to take the mic with absolutely sincerity and uncouched in aloofness, irony or studied flawfulness, but I fled the room after only seconds. Her shrill voice fell right in that window where the singer has too much technique for the genre and yet not enough technique to hide her technique - she's either had too many or too few voice lessons (or does a good impression of someone who has). Replete with a grating vibrato, Charnley's vocalizations were admirable for their courage but ultimately intolerable, at least in the context of the band's music, which was more subtly but ultimately even more offensive. Ultra-wimpy without being cute, the band falls squarely in line with the horrible post-2000 wave of baroque pop movement led by such shameful antirockists as St Vincent and Grizzly Bear.
This entire approach to music nauseates me to such a point that I can't even begin to explore whether Flotilla succeeded in their attempts - although I'd venture a guess at "no" based on Charnley's awkward vocal tone. But to be honest, I can't assess the band's merit within their own terms because their own terms make my stomach turn. With all the softened, variegated textures and stale-sour odors of vomit, rococo pop like this is an acid eroding every edge from pop and indie music. There is no merit to be found in this sort of polished wimpiness - not in today's musical/social/political climate - except, I suppose, a dire warning of the dangerously watered-down state of contemporary music.
But even setting politics aside, Flotilla is at once painful and bland. I'm sure they're lovely people and a damn sight less offensive than bands like Dirty Projectors or Freelance Whales, but still worth standing outside in the rain to miss. (Sorry.)
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Live: Parts and Labor, Zulus, Hunters
When: April 8
Where: Cake Shop
Although many of my favorite NYC bands have gone belly up or at least M.I.A. in the last year, one of the groups still giving me hope is Hunters, an experimental quartet who look like a cool band if you run into them on the street (as I recently did). They've got "the look" in that slightly scary post-punk mad-scientist-meets-futuristic-slick way, minus all the post-glam trappings of the 1980's British scene. There's nothing put on about the way Hunters look - they don't seem like one of those bands that sits down to discuss their "image." They just look cool because they are cool.
Of course, looking edgy, or even looking cohesive, does not make or break a band. Or at least it shouldn't. But it can help set the stage for an edgy sound, and that's what Hunters have. Their music is contradictory: turbid and murky, but somehow not at all muddy; at once stagnant and anarchic. There is a sort of gothic bleakness about the band, but the music itself is a breakneck jumble of noise. Live, the band seems a bit standoffish but also driven with an intensity that inevitably sets co-fronters Isabel Ibsen and Derek Watson rolling on the floor in a pseudo-sexual, violent mass of body and guitar.
But at Cake Shop, what caught my attention most was not the band's frenzy (which I've come to expect) but their pop appeal. The last song of the set was a hooky sing-along, albeit enmeshed in No Wave-inflected chaos and noise. The genuineness with which the band merges these two conflicting impulses - the catchy, spirited pop and the arty noise freakout - shows a band on the edge of something original and important. I don't think they're there yet; there's still something unfocused and unarticulated in Hunters' post-post-post-post-post-punk set. But if they keep moving, they just might end up making music that really matters. [myspace]
Zulus played next. The band's overall sound was very appealing - massively loud guitars, heavy but with tempos fast enough to keep them from feeling bogged down. However, with no open space for their songs to breathe, the constant guitar and samey tempos made it hard to disinguish one song from the next after a little while. Moreover, the band's vocals all sounded like an afterthought, tacked on at the last minute out of deference to convention. If the band learns to shift their vocals more towards the core of their songwriting and branches out in terms of tempo, they could very easily become an exciting band. But as of now, they are just "okay." [myspace]
I missed the next band, Puffy Areolas and I kind of regret that, because I am curious about them. However, the so-so-picky Pepe, who stayed for their set, gave them a non-verbal review of "Eh" and a shrug. Take that as you will.
While these opening bands don't seem the most obvious picks to open for headliners Parts and Labor, the unifying theme of the night seemed to be sheer volume, and that actually worked to give the line-up so coherence (especially in Cake Shop, which boasts a P.A. powerful enough to cram the basement bar with as much sound as it could possibly hold).
Unlike the previous bands, Parts and Labor are all about cheesy mid-tempo pop songs, with soaring, emotion-laden melodies. But Parts and Labor doesn't just sound like cheesy love songs, they sound like cheesy love songs with a GIANT ROBOT destroying a major city in the background. You can hear skyscrapers' steel girders twisting and buildings shattering over concrete. This post-human aesthetic comes primarily from the electronic wizardry of Dan Friel, a tall bloke with sunny ginger curls and a perpetual smile, who is also responsible for half the band's lead vocals. New guitarist Tom Martin, a pretty-boy if ever there was one, held his own in his first show with the group, lacing the band's sound with an appropriately processed sheen.
But against this electronic, mechanical atmosphere, drummer Joe Wong (who looks deceptively like a fifth grader with his comb-down haircut and thin-rimmed glasses) adds a far more organic quality to the music. While the other instruments conjure the man-made structures of urban modernity, the drums evoke an expansive mountain range, with peaks of fills and erupting cymbals over an earthy mantle of deep bass drum and toms. While unassuming, Wong is one of the best drummers in New York City right now, providing a muscular base for the band's massive sound. But muscular doesn't mean overly weighty - despite the sheer power of his playing, Wong's fills are lightning quick and his rhythms are in dynamic conversation with the rest of the band, responding to every shift in sound.
The gap between the sci-fi electronics and earthy drums is bridged by B. J. Warshaw, whose bass lines dive as low as music can go - although I cannot figure out if this is accomplished with an octave pedal or if the richness of the tone alone makes the bass sound so deep. Emerging behind a frizzy beard and thick glasses, Warshaw's vocals are of that strained timbre that's so in vogue in post-2000 indie music. But in vogue doesn't mean bad, quite the contrary in this case - Warshaw pulls off the slightly high, slightly thin sounding style just as it should be pulled off, creating a sense of vulnerability without resorting to untunefulness.
Parts & Labor's weak spot is always their melodies, and last weekend's show proved no different. While the band embraces the dramatic open melodies of midtempo pop, their attempts are hit and miss. When they're on, as with their crowning pop achievement "Nowheres Nigh," which closed the Cake Shop set, they're very, very on. The melody's simplicity is compelling, but many of the bands' other songs sound adrift and fail to hook the ear. Of course, if the band always hit the mark, they might become too sappy to bear, but many of their weaker melodies sound more accidentally limp than purposefully slack.
Despite that gaping hole (or at least inconsistency) in their songwriting, Parts & Labor continues to impress. Part of that undoubtedly comes from the band's own conviction - there is nothing aloof about their delivery. Each line and each chord sounds deeply felt and that alone draws in the audience in the moment. Meanwhile, the band's unique sonic landscape, a sort of warm-blooded machine that always seems to be the music's textural protagonist, sets them apart from other heartfelt indie rockers, pushing them from just being moving to being lasting. [myspace]
Where: Cake Shop
Although many of my favorite NYC bands have gone belly up or at least M.I.A. in the last year, one of the groups still giving me hope is Hunters, an experimental quartet who look like a cool band if you run into them on the street (as I recently did). They've got "the look" in that slightly scary post-punk mad-scientist-meets-futuristic-slick way, minus all the post-glam trappings of the 1980's British scene. There's nothing put on about the way Hunters look - they don't seem like one of those bands that sits down to discuss their "image." They just look cool because they are cool.
Of course, looking edgy, or even looking cohesive, does not make or break a band. Or at least it shouldn't. But it can help set the stage for an edgy sound, and that's what Hunters have. Their music is contradictory: turbid and murky, but somehow not at all muddy; at once stagnant and anarchic. There is a sort of gothic bleakness about the band, but the music itself is a breakneck jumble of noise. Live, the band seems a bit standoffish but also driven with an intensity that inevitably sets co-fronters Isabel Ibsen and Derek Watson rolling on the floor in a pseudo-sexual, violent mass of body and guitar.
But at Cake Shop, what caught my attention most was not the band's frenzy (which I've come to expect) but their pop appeal. The last song of the set was a hooky sing-along, albeit enmeshed in No Wave-inflected chaos and noise. The genuineness with which the band merges these two conflicting impulses - the catchy, spirited pop and the arty noise freakout - shows a band on the edge of something original and important. I don't think they're there yet; there's still something unfocused and unarticulated in Hunters' post-post-post-post-post-punk set. But if they keep moving, they just might end up making music that really matters. [myspace]
Zulus played next. The band's overall sound was very appealing - massively loud guitars, heavy but with tempos fast enough to keep them from feeling bogged down. However, with no open space for their songs to breathe, the constant guitar and samey tempos made it hard to disinguish one song from the next after a little while. Moreover, the band's vocals all sounded like an afterthought, tacked on at the last minute out of deference to convention. If the band learns to shift their vocals more towards the core of their songwriting and branches out in terms of tempo, they could very easily become an exciting band. But as of now, they are just "okay." [myspace]
I missed the next band, Puffy Areolas and I kind of regret that, because I am curious about them. However, the so-so-picky Pepe, who stayed for their set, gave them a non-verbal review of "Eh" and a shrug. Take that as you will.
While these opening bands don't seem the most obvious picks to open for headliners Parts and Labor, the unifying theme of the night seemed to be sheer volume, and that actually worked to give the line-up so coherence (especially in Cake Shop, which boasts a P.A. powerful enough to cram the basement bar with as much sound as it could possibly hold).
Unlike the previous bands, Parts and Labor are all about cheesy mid-tempo pop songs, with soaring, emotion-laden melodies. But Parts and Labor doesn't just sound like cheesy love songs, they sound like cheesy love songs with a GIANT ROBOT destroying a major city in the background. You can hear skyscrapers' steel girders twisting and buildings shattering over concrete. This post-human aesthetic comes primarily from the electronic wizardry of Dan Friel, a tall bloke with sunny ginger curls and a perpetual smile, who is also responsible for half the band's lead vocals. New guitarist Tom Martin, a pretty-boy if ever there was one, held his own in his first show with the group, lacing the band's sound with an appropriately processed sheen.
But against this electronic, mechanical atmosphere, drummer Joe Wong (who looks deceptively like a fifth grader with his comb-down haircut and thin-rimmed glasses) adds a far more organic quality to the music. While the other instruments conjure the man-made structures of urban modernity, the drums evoke an expansive mountain range, with peaks of fills and erupting cymbals over an earthy mantle of deep bass drum and toms. While unassuming, Wong is one of the best drummers in New York City right now, providing a muscular base for the band's massive sound. But muscular doesn't mean overly weighty - despite the sheer power of his playing, Wong's fills are lightning quick and his rhythms are in dynamic conversation with the rest of the band, responding to every shift in sound.
The gap between the sci-fi electronics and earthy drums is bridged by B. J. Warshaw, whose bass lines dive as low as music can go - although I cannot figure out if this is accomplished with an octave pedal or if the richness of the tone alone makes the bass sound so deep. Emerging behind a frizzy beard and thick glasses, Warshaw's vocals are of that strained timbre that's so in vogue in post-2000 indie music. But in vogue doesn't mean bad, quite the contrary in this case - Warshaw pulls off the slightly high, slightly thin sounding style just as it should be pulled off, creating a sense of vulnerability without resorting to untunefulness.
Parts & Labor's weak spot is always their melodies, and last weekend's show proved no different. While the band embraces the dramatic open melodies of midtempo pop, their attempts are hit and miss. When they're on, as with their crowning pop achievement "Nowheres Nigh," which closed the Cake Shop set, they're very, very on. The melody's simplicity is compelling, but many of the bands' other songs sound adrift and fail to hook the ear. Of course, if the band always hit the mark, they might become too sappy to bear, but many of their weaker melodies sound more accidentally limp than purposefully slack.
Despite that gaping hole (or at least inconsistency) in their songwriting, Parts & Labor continues to impress. Part of that undoubtedly comes from the band's own conviction - there is nothing aloof about their delivery. Each line and each chord sounds deeply felt and that alone draws in the audience in the moment. Meanwhile, the band's unique sonic landscape, a sort of warm-blooded machine that always seems to be the music's textural protagonist, sets them apart from other heartfelt indie rockers, pushing them from just being moving to being lasting. [myspace]
Monday, April 11, 2011
Live: Jeff the Brotherhood, Heavy Cream, Hell Beach + more
When: April 2, 2011
Where: Death By Audio
When I went to Death By Audio last weekend, I will admit I was not really in the mood for the music of the night - namely slightly southern-fried, post-ironic-hipster-idol-y, 60's-inflected indie rock. But that doesn't change the fact that nearly the entire show was a disappointment.
When I arrived, Colleen Green was on stage. The band is made up of two affected, Ray-Ban sporting women playing guitar and bass over a cheesy drum machine. That's a setup that could go either way, but in this case, it went in a bad way. The music was terrible, but that wasn't really the problem - in fact, that provided the only point on which you could argue the band had some merit. My friend Pepe (thanks, random name generator) thought that the band members were courageous to take the stage even though they were so astoundingly bad. However, I had the distinct feeling that this wasn't a brave presentation of incompetence in the populist tradition that runs from punk and No Wave through Beat Happening up to contemporary vanguard of bands that at least (sometimes) fake inability to play their instruments (e.g. Stupid Party, Total Slacker).
But Colleen Green is of a different tribe. To me, their performance reeked of cowardice. Their incompetence seemed distinctly calculated to allow them to take the stage without threatening insecure men. This is one of the most disturbing faces of the nostalgia that has overwhelmed indie music and alternative youth culture in recent years - the relegation of women to a sort of Trix Rabbit role (silly girls, guitars are for men). It's been difficult for me to put my finger on what separates the anti-feminist backlash of bands like Best Coast and Colleen Green from distinctly empowering female figures like Alexis Krauss of Sleigh Bells (who, after all, does not write the band's music or play an instrument, but whose ditsy bimbo character who thought she forgot her sunglasses is delivered with ambiguous derision and balanced with massive, nasty sound and one uncurbed scream). Not every female in music has to be a bra-burning Riot Grrrl, but if you are female and playing rock or pop music, you are making a statement on feminism, whether you like it or not. This isn't about what's fair, it's about reality, and in reality, Colleen Green says loud and clear that "girl bands" are a novelty. We ladies of the music scene are good for a laugh, but let's leave the real music to the men.
Colleen Green were followed by X-Ray Eyeballs, an ultimately forgettable act of two and three chord songs. I'd give them another chance, but their performance at DBA was not exactly something to write home about.
I wish Hell Beach was as forgettable as X-Ray Eyeballs, but unfortunately, the opening of their set, a song charmingly entitled "Dead Friends" is still seared in my memory. The lyrics, which you can read for yourself here, are a tasteless, artless attempt to be edgy. Or maybe it's an attempt to parody edgy rock lyrics. Whatever they were attempting, they failed. Actually, I should say vocalist Susan Tinsley failed. The other two members of the band were pretty alright, with drummer Jolene Boyce having exactly the edge that Colleen Green was lacking. Brad Holland managed to wrangle some nasty snarls out of his guitar - cliched snarls, but in a way that's more art-smart referential than uncreative.
The band is clearly going for some sort of goth punk or goth grunge. Don't get me wrong, goth is all about having a sense of humor (a dimension of the genre missed by an entire generation of Hot Topic customers and sickly-looking gloomsters). Goth's seminal single, "Bela Lugosi's Dead," is one of the of the funniest songs in pop history. But that song was both lyrically clever and sonically creative. "Dead Friends," on the other hand, is so obvious that you can actually feel yourself getting stupider as you listen - and not in a fun way. I mean, c'mon Tinsley, how old are you?
The only band of the night that really did meet my expectations was Heavy Cream. Part of the reason the band met my expectations is that those expectations had been lowered when I saw Heavy Cream at Union Pool (if I remember correctly) and found them to be nothing more than good Nashville-inflected garage rock. I had hyped them up in my own mind to be the greatest thing since half-and-half (sorry) but this time, I approached the group with more reasonable expectations.
Nashville-inflected garage rock definitely still summarizes the band's sound. However, there was something far more punk rock about their performance at DBA. Part of it wasn't musical at all. When guitarist Mimi Galbierz broke a string soon after the band took the stage, the set was stalled while the band tried to find a guitar to borrow. (Jake's guitar, "Jamin," was suggested until the band remembered that guitar would only have three strings to their current five.) While the band awkwardly pleaded with the audience to supply them a guitar, singer Jessica McFarland began berating the audience for their lack of creative contributions in the downtime. Whether tongue-in-cheek or serious, McFarland's obvious contempt for the audience brought the show to a new level. The band's frustration at being plagued with technical difficulties (the guitar being just one of several mishaps) was channeled into their music, giving it a harder edge. McFarland can be compared to that other blond singer of the young Nashville scene, Jemina Pearl, in as much as both possess the stage with delightful arrogance and a sort of icy sexuality. But McFarland's presentation is far more mature than Pearl's petulant (if captivating) behavior.
After the venomous performance by Heavy Cream, headliners Jeff the Brotherhood failed to impress. I mean, they failed to impress me. The audience seemed to dig it, moshing violently from Jake's first note on. But the crowd at Jeff shows seems increasingly dominated by the kind of people who use the mosh pit as an outlet for macho aggression. The pit is all about violence, which is obviously kinda the point. But every scene where slam dancing dominates eventually seems to draw out a more bullying element, the meatheads who have ruined countless hardcore shows from the early 80's onward. To be clear, these sort of meatheads didn't dominate the Jeff show - but I can feel a slide in that direction in the increasing roughness and decreasing fun of the audience. People are starting to come not for the music but because they like to shove other people around.
But that's not the Orrall brothers' fault and it wasn't what made the show such a disappointment. What ultimately ruined the set was simply the band's straightforward delivery. The reason Jeff the Brotherhood shows have always excited me is Jake's ridiculous rockstar posturing, his command of the stage and piercing comprehension of rock'n'roll showmanship. But last weekend, the band just played their songs. They played well and with enthusiasm, but a spark was missing. Whether the band is burning out, growing lazy or was just having a weary night remains to be seen, but whatever the reason, the band was simply not compelling or commanding. Of course, in saying this, I am only comparing the band to themselves, their past performances. Compared with the vast majority of acts out there, they are still one of the meanest live shows of 2011. But for longtime fans, their current presentation seems distinctly uninspired.
Let's hope it was just an off night and not the start of the decline of indie's rockingest band.
Where: Death By Audio
When I went to Death By Audio last weekend, I will admit I was not really in the mood for the music of the night - namely slightly southern-fried, post-ironic-hipster-idol-y, 60's-inflected indie rock. But that doesn't change the fact that nearly the entire show was a disappointment.
When I arrived, Colleen Green was on stage. The band is made up of two affected, Ray-Ban sporting women playing guitar and bass over a cheesy drum machine. That's a setup that could go either way, but in this case, it went in a bad way. The music was terrible, but that wasn't really the problem - in fact, that provided the only point on which you could argue the band had some merit. My friend Pepe (thanks, random name generator) thought that the band members were courageous to take the stage even though they were so astoundingly bad. However, I had the distinct feeling that this wasn't a brave presentation of incompetence in the populist tradition that runs from punk and No Wave through Beat Happening up to contemporary vanguard of bands that at least (sometimes) fake inability to play their instruments (e.g. Stupid Party, Total Slacker).
But Colleen Green is of a different tribe. To me, their performance reeked of cowardice. Their incompetence seemed distinctly calculated to allow them to take the stage without threatening insecure men. This is one of the most disturbing faces of the nostalgia that has overwhelmed indie music and alternative youth culture in recent years - the relegation of women to a sort of Trix Rabbit role (silly girls, guitars are for men). It's been difficult for me to put my finger on what separates the anti-feminist backlash of bands like Best Coast and Colleen Green from distinctly empowering female figures like Alexis Krauss of Sleigh Bells (who, after all, does not write the band's music or play an instrument, but whose ditsy bimbo character who thought she forgot her sunglasses is delivered with ambiguous derision and balanced with massive, nasty sound and one uncurbed scream). Not every female in music has to be a bra-burning Riot Grrrl, but if you are female and playing rock or pop music, you are making a statement on feminism, whether you like it or not. This isn't about what's fair, it's about reality, and in reality, Colleen Green says loud and clear that "girl bands" are a novelty. We ladies of the music scene are good for a laugh, but let's leave the real music to the men.
Colleen Green were followed by X-Ray Eyeballs, an ultimately forgettable act of two and three chord songs. I'd give them another chance, but their performance at DBA was not exactly something to write home about.
I wish Hell Beach was as forgettable as X-Ray Eyeballs, but unfortunately, the opening of their set, a song charmingly entitled "Dead Friends" is still seared in my memory. The lyrics, which you can read for yourself here, are a tasteless, artless attempt to be edgy. Or maybe it's an attempt to parody edgy rock lyrics. Whatever they were attempting, they failed. Actually, I should say vocalist Susan Tinsley failed. The other two members of the band were pretty alright, with drummer Jolene Boyce having exactly the edge that Colleen Green was lacking. Brad Holland managed to wrangle some nasty snarls out of his guitar - cliched snarls, but in a way that's more art-smart referential than uncreative.
The band is clearly going for some sort of goth punk or goth grunge. Don't get me wrong, goth is all about having a sense of humor (a dimension of the genre missed by an entire generation of Hot Topic customers and sickly-looking gloomsters). Goth's seminal single, "Bela Lugosi's Dead," is one of the of the funniest songs in pop history. But that song was both lyrically clever and sonically creative. "Dead Friends," on the other hand, is so obvious that you can actually feel yourself getting stupider as you listen - and not in a fun way. I mean, c'mon Tinsley, how old are you?
The only band of the night that really did meet my expectations was Heavy Cream. Part of the reason the band met my expectations is that those expectations had been lowered when I saw Heavy Cream at Union Pool (if I remember correctly) and found them to be nothing more than good Nashville-inflected garage rock. I had hyped them up in my own mind to be the greatest thing since half-and-half (sorry) but this time, I approached the group with more reasonable expectations.
Nashville-inflected garage rock definitely still summarizes the band's sound. However, there was something far more punk rock about their performance at DBA. Part of it wasn't musical at all. When guitarist Mimi Galbierz broke a string soon after the band took the stage, the set was stalled while the band tried to find a guitar to borrow. (Jake's guitar, "Jamin," was suggested until the band remembered that guitar would only have three strings to their current five.) While the band awkwardly pleaded with the audience to supply them a guitar, singer Jessica McFarland began berating the audience for their lack of creative contributions in the downtime. Whether tongue-in-cheek or serious, McFarland's obvious contempt for the audience brought the show to a new level. The band's frustration at being plagued with technical difficulties (the guitar being just one of several mishaps) was channeled into their music, giving it a harder edge. McFarland can be compared to that other blond singer of the young Nashville scene, Jemina Pearl, in as much as both possess the stage with delightful arrogance and a sort of icy sexuality. But McFarland's presentation is far more mature than Pearl's petulant (if captivating) behavior.
After the venomous performance by Heavy Cream, headliners Jeff the Brotherhood failed to impress. I mean, they failed to impress me. The audience seemed to dig it, moshing violently from Jake's first note on. But the crowd at Jeff shows seems increasingly dominated by the kind of people who use the mosh pit as an outlet for macho aggression. The pit is all about violence, which is obviously kinda the point. But every scene where slam dancing dominates eventually seems to draw out a more bullying element, the meatheads who have ruined countless hardcore shows from the early 80's onward. To be clear, these sort of meatheads didn't dominate the Jeff show - but I can feel a slide in that direction in the increasing roughness and decreasing fun of the audience. People are starting to come not for the music but because they like to shove other people around.
But that's not the Orrall brothers' fault and it wasn't what made the show such a disappointment. What ultimately ruined the set was simply the band's straightforward delivery. The reason Jeff the Brotherhood shows have always excited me is Jake's ridiculous rockstar posturing, his command of the stage and piercing comprehension of rock'n'roll showmanship. But last weekend, the band just played their songs. They played well and with enthusiasm, but a spark was missing. Whether the band is burning out, growing lazy or was just having a weary night remains to be seen, but whatever the reason, the band was simply not compelling or commanding. Of course, in saying this, I am only comparing the band to themselves, their past performances. Compared with the vast majority of acts out there, they are still one of the meanest live shows of 2011. But for longtime fans, their current presentation seems distinctly uninspired.
Let's hope it was just an off night and not the start of the decline of indie's rockingest band.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Live: Deerhoof & Xiu Xiu (a really long time ago)
Alright, time to get the blood flowing again. Here's an old review I never ran of a live show that happened a long time ago but is still worth writing about.
When: July something
Where: Williamsburg Waterfront
Even thought of someone covering Unknown Pleasures makes me seethe. It's my favorite album ever of all time and anyone who thinks they are worthy of going NEAR it has as good as committed blasphemy in my mind. Part of me knows Ian Curtis was just a guy and deifying Joy Division is not exactly rational. But still, on an emotional level, Unknown Pleasures is sacred ground to me, and it's off limits for any mortal.
But, if I were going to pick two bands worthy of attempting to cover the album, Xiu Xiu and Deerhoof would surely not be far down the list. Two of the boldest, most innovative and most sincere bands to emerge in the last decade, Xiu Xiu and Deerhoof might have earned their chance to attempt this show. In some ways, that just raised the stakes, though, because if these bands couldn't pull of the seemingly impossible, it might ruin both for me forever.
But as soon as they started playing, my doubt melted away. The first notes switched on a magnet that pulled me towards the stage with a force I couldn't resist. The album opens with my single favorite song of all time, "Disorder." And as the harshest critic you could probably find, I have to say, they pulled it off.
Throughout the show, the band did justice to Joy Division's first masterpiece. Xiu Xiu's Jamie Stewart certainly embraces the spirit of Ian Curtis in his work, but he doesn't imitate him. Stewart's link to Curtis is not a put-on; he's genuinely a messed up individual with nervous, despairing, captivating energy. He constantly seems on the verge of breaking. That feeling of sickening tension is exactly what makes Joy Division such a riveting listen. It's a hard thing to capture genuinely, and most bands who try (Interpol, Crystal Stilts) come off (to me) as glorified cover bands.
The backing instruments matched Stewart's emotional, edgy performance, staying true to the spirit of the music and not rewriting anything. But despite their loyalty to the structure of each song, they did make the music their own, draping the skeleton of each track with their own layers of noise and sonic experimentation. Some songs, like "Disorder," stayed close to the original on every level, while at other times (e.g. "Day of the Lords," "New Dawn Fades"), the musicians on stage filled in their own interpretation of the original clouds of sound that fill the album.
Unknown Pleasures speaks to me in a way no other album ever has. Xiu Xiu and Deerhoof's performance didn't come close to that level of affecting, but their performance was still powerful and heartfelt. I never thought I'd admit anyone was worthy of playing a show like this but I have to say, it was a great concert that only increased my love for both these bands and for the original album as well.
By the way, Fang Island and Why? opened. Fang Island is a lot of guys playing crazy-ass guitar stuff, some hybrid of post-rock and metal. On each song, the guitars and synth built on one another to make a huge, heavy and surprisingly emotive sound. At times, the band seemed to tug at the heartstrings a little too much - the drama because an overdone trick. But overall, the complex, intertwining lines of guitars and synth were a good listen and the anthemic, booming songs rocked for real. Not really thing I'd write home about, but definitely a talented and enjoyable band.
Why? is pretty rad. Straddling indie rap and indie rock, the band uses big, open hip-hop beats and rhythmic vocals, but with a good deal of singing and rock instrumentation. I was surprised by the number of people in the touring band the extent to which Why?'s sound was created live, rather than with samples and electronics as with most rap acts. To be totally honest, all those musicians kind of made the band less cool. Vocalist Yoni Wolfe's brother Josiah on drums is pretty amazing to watch: he's added a vibraphone (essentially a metal xylophone) to the standard kit, and it's got to take tremendous skill to play melodies on that while also taking care of all the drumming. Yoni Wolfe himself is fun to watch. His songs are humorous and clever but with passion and a fair amount of self-deprecation. His live performance lived up to (but did not surprise) his recorded work - emotional, honest and smart. Still, I wouldn't say seeing Why? live is essential for casual fans. It's just about what you'd expect.
When: July something
Where: Williamsburg Waterfront
Even thought of someone covering Unknown Pleasures makes me seethe. It's my favorite album ever of all time and anyone who thinks they are worthy of going NEAR it has as good as committed blasphemy in my mind. Part of me knows Ian Curtis was just a guy and deifying Joy Division is not exactly rational. But still, on an emotional level, Unknown Pleasures is sacred ground to me, and it's off limits for any mortal.
But, if I were going to pick two bands worthy of attempting to cover the album, Xiu Xiu and Deerhoof would surely not be far down the list. Two of the boldest, most innovative and most sincere bands to emerge in the last decade, Xiu Xiu and Deerhoof might have earned their chance to attempt this show. In some ways, that just raised the stakes, though, because if these bands couldn't pull of the seemingly impossible, it might ruin both for me forever.
But as soon as they started playing, my doubt melted away. The first notes switched on a magnet that pulled me towards the stage with a force I couldn't resist. The album opens with my single favorite song of all time, "Disorder." And as the harshest critic you could probably find, I have to say, they pulled it off.
Throughout the show, the band did justice to Joy Division's first masterpiece. Xiu Xiu's Jamie Stewart certainly embraces the spirit of Ian Curtis in his work, but he doesn't imitate him. Stewart's link to Curtis is not a put-on; he's genuinely a messed up individual with nervous, despairing, captivating energy. He constantly seems on the verge of breaking. That feeling of sickening tension is exactly what makes Joy Division such a riveting listen. It's a hard thing to capture genuinely, and most bands who try (Interpol, Crystal Stilts) come off (to me) as glorified cover bands.
The backing instruments matched Stewart's emotional, edgy performance, staying true to the spirit of the music and not rewriting anything. But despite their loyalty to the structure of each song, they did make the music their own, draping the skeleton of each track with their own layers of noise and sonic experimentation. Some songs, like "Disorder," stayed close to the original on every level, while at other times (e.g. "Day of the Lords," "New Dawn Fades"), the musicians on stage filled in their own interpretation of the original clouds of sound that fill the album.
Unknown Pleasures speaks to me in a way no other album ever has. Xiu Xiu and Deerhoof's performance didn't come close to that level of affecting, but their performance was still powerful and heartfelt. I never thought I'd admit anyone was worthy of playing a show like this but I have to say, it was a great concert that only increased my love for both these bands and for the original album as well.
By the way, Fang Island and Why? opened. Fang Island is a lot of guys playing crazy-ass guitar stuff, some hybrid of post-rock and metal. On each song, the guitars and synth built on one another to make a huge, heavy and surprisingly emotive sound. At times, the band seemed to tug at the heartstrings a little too much - the drama because an overdone trick. But overall, the complex, intertwining lines of guitars and synth were a good listen and the anthemic, booming songs rocked for real. Not really thing I'd write home about, but definitely a talented and enjoyable band.
Why? is pretty rad. Straddling indie rap and indie rock, the band uses big, open hip-hop beats and rhythmic vocals, but with a good deal of singing and rock instrumentation. I was surprised by the number of people in the touring band the extent to which Why?'s sound was created live, rather than with samples and electronics as with most rap acts. To be totally honest, all those musicians kind of made the band less cool. Vocalist Yoni Wolfe's brother Josiah on drums is pretty amazing to watch: he's added a vibraphone (essentially a metal xylophone) to the standard kit, and it's got to take tremendous skill to play melodies on that while also taking care of all the drumming. Yoni Wolfe himself is fun to watch. His songs are humorous and clever but with passion and a fair amount of self-deprecation. His live performance lived up to (but did not surprise) his recorded work - emotional, honest and smart. Still, I wouldn't say seeing Why? live is essential for casual fans. It's just about what you'd expect.
Monday, February 7, 2011
In Defense of the Black Eyed Peas
I would not have guessed in a million years that it would be the Black Eyed Peas that would inspire me to start blogging again. But here goes.
After last night's appalling superbowl halftime performance, the Peas have been getting a lot of flack. But before you jump on the bandwagon, how about giving the Peas the benefit of the doubt?
It's a music snob's most innate instinct to scoff at any Top-40 puke like the Peas, but a music snob also knows that the general population is usually going to have pretty poor taste in music (the lowest common denominator) and in fact, the music snob's very identity is dependent on that fact. Accept it - horrible music is going to exist for mass consumption as long as there's any money to be made in the music industry. And occasionally, no matter how much we try, we are going to have to hear some of it - even if just when pulling off our noise-canceling headphones to hear what the pharmacy cashier is trying to tell us. Ranting against the existence of such music is like ranting against the existence of the gravity. No matter what you say, it's not going to stop.
So granted, there's going to be bad music that is consumed en masse, mostly by impressionable young people. Currently, the best charting group in the country is the cast of Glee. In a decade that started with Britney Spears and 'N Sync and ended with Katy Perry and Glee, the 2000's were certainly a dark time for mainstream pop. In this universe of high-grossing crap, I will support the lesser of the evils, not because I enjoy listening to any of it, but because if kids are going to insist on listening to crap, I'd rather it be Black Eyed Peas than Katy Perry or the cast of Glee any day.
First of all, Black Eyed Peas are self-made. True, they're heavily produced, but they did start as a group of b-boys from the hood and they frequently demonstrate how close they hold their b-boy roots to the heart of their current identity as megastars. The Peas still write their own material and write it collectively as a group. Many pop stars are simply instruments - good looking faces with decent voices, programmed to wail out "songs" their producers, managers and labels made in five minutes using a tried and tested Top 40 template. That's not to say the Peas aren't formulaic and that their songs don't sound the same as one another and as everything else on mainstream radio - but at least the members of the band are smart enough to use the formula themselves. Like it or not, the Peas are musicians, at least compared to packaged products like Justin Timberlake and the Jonas Brothers.
Moreover, the Peas seem to be at least loosely aware of their sociohistorical context and they do have a message. Not really in their lyrics, but in their general existence, in their interviews and how they present themselves. The message is pretty stupid: "let's all have a party and get along with each other." But at least it's a message, and a socially responsible one at that. Compare that to the ambiguously homophobic messages of "artists" like Katy Perry or the anti-messages of stars like Kelly Clarkson, Timberlake or Spears.
On the other side of the coin, the Peas are willing to embrace and epitomize the worst of pop as evidenced by their hit single "My Humps." "My Humps" is spectacularly bad, in fact called "transcendentally bad" by Slate. How many pop stars have made something that can truthfully called "transcendental" in any sense in the last 10 or 20 years? Blatantly sexual in content and yet profoundly unsexy, "My Humps" is one of the single worst songs in human history. And that's what I admire about the Peas - they have reached an extreme. The song renders all discussion of meaning and pop-music-as-art a colossal joke. It's the same thing that made T-Rex and MGMT great, but pushed to an even worse extreme: the creation of pop music that's intentionally pure garbage, meant to be consumed and discarded. No matter the Peas intentions with the song, its success in itself serves as a much-needed mocking critique of contemporary pop.
To put in another way, if you're going to make horrible, meritless pop music, go all the way. Don't hold back. Strip every hint of merit out of your music. And sell it for millions of dollars. That's called gaming the system and it's bad-ass and worthy of serious props.
"My Humps" is the ultimate guilty pleasure song. It's the ultimate statement of an era of 30 second fame and flash-in-the-pan pop shit, the ultimate reduction of decades of increasingly blatant, tawdry, artless lyrics. Say what you will, but no group has had the inspiration or balls to make quite such a indisputably, unmistakably BAD song, possibly ever. At least not that's had the bullshitting skill to bring it to the Top 10 Chart.
As for the Superbowl performance itself, it was unlistenable. But the issue was entirely with the mix. The backing track was barely audible, leaving the vocals naked. Some of the singing, granted, was not great, but given how bad the sound quality was on broadcast, it's hard to imagine how much worse it undoubtedly sounded in the stadium. Although I'm sure the Peas were wearing ear pieces, I'm also sure that didn't completely solve the problem that the music was entirely inaudible. Performing in a huge sports arena is a hellish challenge, acoustically. Performing on live TV is just as hellish and neither are helped by an audience who isn't actually there to hear you perform.
Yes, I would rather be repeatedly run over by a bus than have to listen to a Black Eyed Peas album, but so much better them than so many of the megastar options for the show. The trainwreck that was their halftime set was the fault of phenomenally incompetent mixing and I say props to the group for continuing to sing and dance with full enthusiasm even knowing how bad they sounded (although they likely didn't know exactly how bad they sounded until after the show). It's a tough gig, probably one of the toughest a band could face and even for a band as seasoned as the Peas now are, it's got to a difficult task.
There's no way the band can be faulted for the unbelievably awful mixing. They can only be faulted for making throw-away pop, and fault them all you like, but if you had the opportunity and the talent to make millions selling something you basically pulled out of your ass, wouldn't you do it?
After last night's appalling superbowl halftime performance, the Peas have been getting a lot of flack. But before you jump on the bandwagon, how about giving the Peas the benefit of the doubt?
It's a music snob's most innate instinct to scoff at any Top-40 puke like the Peas, but a music snob also knows that the general population is usually going to have pretty poor taste in music (the lowest common denominator) and in fact, the music snob's very identity is dependent on that fact. Accept it - horrible music is going to exist for mass consumption as long as there's any money to be made in the music industry. And occasionally, no matter how much we try, we are going to have to hear some of it - even if just when pulling off our noise-canceling headphones to hear what the pharmacy cashier is trying to tell us. Ranting against the existence of such music is like ranting against the existence of the gravity. No matter what you say, it's not going to stop.
So granted, there's going to be bad music that is consumed en masse, mostly by impressionable young people. Currently, the best charting group in the country is the cast of Glee. In a decade that started with Britney Spears and 'N Sync and ended with Katy Perry and Glee, the 2000's were certainly a dark time for mainstream pop. In this universe of high-grossing crap, I will support the lesser of the evils, not because I enjoy listening to any of it, but because if kids are going to insist on listening to crap, I'd rather it be Black Eyed Peas than Katy Perry or the cast of Glee any day.
First of all, Black Eyed Peas are self-made. True, they're heavily produced, but they did start as a group of b-boys from the hood and they frequently demonstrate how close they hold their b-boy roots to the heart of their current identity as megastars. The Peas still write their own material and write it collectively as a group. Many pop stars are simply instruments - good looking faces with decent voices, programmed to wail out "songs" their producers, managers and labels made in five minutes using a tried and tested Top 40 template. That's not to say the Peas aren't formulaic and that their songs don't sound the same as one another and as everything else on mainstream radio - but at least the members of the band are smart enough to use the formula themselves. Like it or not, the Peas are musicians, at least compared to packaged products like Justin Timberlake and the Jonas Brothers.
Moreover, the Peas seem to be at least loosely aware of their sociohistorical context and they do have a message. Not really in their lyrics, but in their general existence, in their interviews and how they present themselves. The message is pretty stupid: "let's all have a party and get along with each other." But at least it's a message, and a socially responsible one at that. Compare that to the ambiguously homophobic messages of "artists" like Katy Perry or the anti-messages of stars like Kelly Clarkson, Timberlake or Spears.
On the other side of the coin, the Peas are willing to embrace and epitomize the worst of pop as evidenced by their hit single "My Humps." "My Humps" is spectacularly bad, in fact called "transcendentally bad" by Slate. How many pop stars have made something that can truthfully called "transcendental" in any sense in the last 10 or 20 years? Blatantly sexual in content and yet profoundly unsexy, "My Humps" is one of the single worst songs in human history. And that's what I admire about the Peas - they have reached an extreme. The song renders all discussion of meaning and pop-music-as-art a colossal joke. It's the same thing that made T-Rex and MGMT great, but pushed to an even worse extreme: the creation of pop music that's intentionally pure garbage, meant to be consumed and discarded. No matter the Peas intentions with the song, its success in itself serves as a much-needed mocking critique of contemporary pop.
To put in another way, if you're going to make horrible, meritless pop music, go all the way. Don't hold back. Strip every hint of merit out of your music. And sell it for millions of dollars. That's called gaming the system and it's bad-ass and worthy of serious props.
"My Humps" is the ultimate guilty pleasure song. It's the ultimate statement of an era of 30 second fame and flash-in-the-pan pop shit, the ultimate reduction of decades of increasingly blatant, tawdry, artless lyrics. Say what you will, but no group has had the inspiration or balls to make quite such a indisputably, unmistakably BAD song, possibly ever. At least not that's had the bullshitting skill to bring it to the Top 10 Chart.
As for the Superbowl performance itself, it was unlistenable. But the issue was entirely with the mix. The backing track was barely audible, leaving the vocals naked. Some of the singing, granted, was not great, but given how bad the sound quality was on broadcast, it's hard to imagine how much worse it undoubtedly sounded in the stadium. Although I'm sure the Peas were wearing ear pieces, I'm also sure that didn't completely solve the problem that the music was entirely inaudible. Performing in a huge sports arena is a hellish challenge, acoustically. Performing on live TV is just as hellish and neither are helped by an audience who isn't actually there to hear you perform.
Yes, I would rather be repeatedly run over by a bus than have to listen to a Black Eyed Peas album, but so much better them than so many of the megastar options for the show. The trainwreck that was their halftime set was the fault of phenomenally incompetent mixing and I say props to the group for continuing to sing and dance with full enthusiasm even knowing how bad they sounded (although they likely didn't know exactly how bad they sounded until after the show). It's a tough gig, probably one of the toughest a band could face and even for a band as seasoned as the Peas now are, it's got to a difficult task.
There's no way the band can be faulted for the unbelievably awful mixing. They can only be faulted for making throw-away pop, and fault them all you like, but if you had the opportunity and the talent to make millions selling something you basically pulled out of your ass, wouldn't you do it?
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