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Dancing About Architecture, Vol. XVI

2008-03-16T22:21:00.000-07:00

Vol. XVI

Tonight’s Episode: Tizmorim

March 7, 2008, Tifereth Israel Synagogue, Del Cerro, CA

I am now done. I sang like the fat lady, as they say in the ad biz. In the past several days I have bought a house in Philadelphia, sold my apartment in San Diego, and played what was therefore my last gig in this ole town, at least as a resident. Oh no, wait…there’s one more month to go! I forgot! OK, so let’s say I played my second-to-last gig here. I suppose I’ll be playing again on the first Friday next month, my little swan song, right after walking out for the last time from the job I’ve had for the last 8 ½ years. Hooboy.

This past Friday I played for the synagogue’s monthly Simcha Shabbat service. It’s supposed to be for families, kid-friendly and all, which means it is designed to be brief. It always goes by rather quickly for me at least, because I am standing up on the raised bimah in front of everybody, playing music for most of the time. This month it was just me on clarinet and Sandy on piano; guitarist Ted was MIA. The crowd was of a respectable size, maybe 75 people or so, many of whom I didn’t recognize. Our rabbi leads the service, typically from a podium placed on the floor level in front of the seats or strolling down the center aisle as he deems fit. As usual, he had to come over to the piano to yank Sandy out of his private reverie and make him stop playing some jazz standard so we could start.

The rabbi got things going with a little nign, a wordless melody. This one in particular is at an andante pace, and it’s lilting and pretty except for the bridge which I don’t really like, and it also serves as the tune for one of the prayers in the service. If it were up to me, though, I’d introduce a new nign every week, or at least rotate through a collection of them. We Jews know a good tune when we hear one and it’s sort of part of the Jewish experience to be open to learning new ones, or pulling old ones out of the armoire. Consider Shlomo Carlebach, the superstar Hasidic singer/songwriter, said to have written a nign on his way to every single concert. Either way you approach it, the point here is you’re supposed to sing something. Done right, a nign can provide the foundation for reaching a kind of ecstasy. You sing it as a group over and over again, and each time each singer can find some new part of the melody to shift, expand, alter, or otherwise develop, so that with every iteration the spontaneous melody-harmonization gets more complex and intricate, and usually more beautiful. However, standing up there removed from the vox populi, it’s often hard for me to tell from that vantage point and over the rabbi’s mic-ed voice whether or not people are singing, or just moving their lips and breathing softly. Whichever it was, the congregation was certainly not reaching towards ecstasy. That’s the trouble with American Conservative Jews – we don’t know how to be spiritual. Even though we went through the tune several times, the singing never changed. Everyone just sat there sort of half-singing, some just moaning. So it was, as usual, up to Sandy and I to swirl it upwards to a climax before a soft dénouement. We did a fair job of this, but we did not reach near the heights we can get when Ted is also playing. There are two reasons for this: 1) Sandy has a great ear for tone but he does not ever, ever listen to what’s going on around him, and 2) my powers of musical expansion are limited. Not zero, mind you, but I listen to enough music to know how much farther I could go in this regard. This nign made a decent intro to the service, but it wasn’t too special.

We really raced through most of the rest of the service. Even though this is about the only real synagogue service I’m attending these days – I haven’t been on a Saturday morning for many moons – these Simcha Shabbats are not spiritual experiences for me. It’s Friday night and I have to leave work super early and deal with about 30 miles of traffic to get home, pick up the family and get all the way out to shul, so I’m usually not in the most meditative mood. That’s why I like Saturday morning services: at three hours in length, it’s just the right amount of time for me to get my pray on and stay in that groove for a while. These Friday night jobs are just that: jobs. This perspective is enhanced by the nature of the service, too, besides its brevity. Before each prayer the rabbi will curtly describe in English the main punchline of the Hebrew text, as in, “We welcome Shabbat into our lives as though we are welcoming a bride,” and then Sandy and I launch into L’cha Dodi. And so on. That prayer in particular has a variety of very beautiful tunes to sing it, but we always use the same one every time. Part of the fun of this gig for me is supposed to be that I can get into these tunes and find new modes of expression, in front of a friendly audience. So I do appreciate the opportunity to play tunes like this over and over, but novelty every once in a while would be welcome, too.

Actually this time there were two breaks from routine. For Oseh Shalom, we went back to a more traditional melody, which I really like, instead of this modern one by Debbie Friedman that has a bridge I just can’t wrap myself around. This was a relief also because without Ted on guitar, it’s hard to build the Friedman tune to a big sound, which the rabbi always motions for us to do and it’s apparently why he likes the tune. And we sang the Shehechiyanu prayer, which we normally skip, using this ole chestnut melody that I think every Jewish kid learns in summer camp. Sandy didn’t know it (he’s a Republican – probably never went to summer camp) but he picked it up right away, mostly I believe from following me, and it came out pretty good. One other nice part of the service was when everyone with a birthday or anniversary or whatever in the coming month came up and stood under the chuppah for a blessing and a chorus of “Happy Birthday”, Rachel and Jackie came up so Rachel could announce her step-mother’s 30^th birthday, which is actually today, as I write this.

I’m starting to get a tad sad over leaving this place, even though I basically hate living here. And I’m looking forward to the next, and my last, Simcha Shabbat next month. But maybe I’ll find someplace to play in Philly. Stay tuned for more tunes, mayn Yidelech!

Dancing About Architecture, Vol. XV

2008-03-04T23:59:00.000-08:00

Tonight’s Episode: Nothing New Under the Sun

March 4, 2008

Last week was a big musical disappointment. I mean, it was a big disappointment, musically speaking. “Musicals”, as a general rule, are not disappointing to me, because I hold very low expectations for them, and those expectations are, as a general rule, met smack on the button. So it is deeply and bitterly ironic that one of the two disappointing events in my music life this week involved the discrediting in part of a musical I actually liked. Now I can only trod heavily along the topsy-turvy Mobius Strip of Uncertainty, not knowing whether I like anything or love everything or dislike nothing or have no opinion at all.

From the point of view of anyone else, it’s all because of a small thing, really. A trifle. ‘See, back in the halcyon days of my youth, everything right was wrong. I’m referring to the 1990s, when everything was as it should have been and yet that was most definitively my worst decade yet. For most of it we had a good, smart, dedicated and basically sensible President, the economy was healthy, I was in college and then married and then a new father, and was in and out of grad school – these features stand in sharp contrast to the state of the world during the rest of my life so far, which has always been characterized by bad, idiotic, careless and destructive Presidents, anemic economies, and other shit stains like junior high school and being a post-doc. So relatively speaking, the 1990s should have been a boondoggle for me. But I was, through it all, just a big fucking idiot. Then too, popular music suffered badly under the crushing blows of mass media juggernaut excesses, FCC deregulation and Kurt Cobain’s suicide. This was countered in small but tangible part by the blossoming of avant-garde, post jazz, whateveryoucallit weird wild artistic ugly-beautiful music, mostly coming out of New York, and mostly following the baton of Mr. John Zorn. He is the subject of the second disappointment for this week, but later. Now, the first disappointment reaches back to those stupid ‘90s when I actually, honestly LIKED Disney movie musicals. And this is now my problem.

For a while there, Disney was doing great with their animated movie musicals. They had a terrific songwriting team, the animation was fresh, the stories were interesting enough – in short, these movies actually had some soul. My favorite of these was, and I suppose still is, “Beauty and the Beast”. The songs were catchy and the lyrics sublimely crafty, the pacing was tight, and the writers had enough stuffing actually to work in conventions like foreshadowing which rarely seem worth Disney’s time or effort anymore. I was also in love with Belle, the heroine, and I’m proud to say that my wife – the current and future, wonderful one, not the one from the ‘90s when I was the big fucking idiot – embodies that character’s most adorable features. But the real meat of it, the stuff that propelled this musical onto Broadway, was the collection of winning songs by Alan Mencken coupled with unflaggingly delightful lyrics from the late, great Howard Ashman. As a college student, I actually spent many slackful hours watching this movie. I love particularly the opening scene during which David Ogden Steirs (sp?) narrates in his deep British voice the back story against stained glass animation, dissolving into a gorgeous panorama of primavera spring forest, waterfall and castle, then sweeping right into the opening number. The incidental music for this expository scene I know very well. So imagine my surprise and delight in hearing that music played over the classical radio station as I was taking my daughter to school! Wow – it’s the opening music from “Beauty and the Beast” – this is what I said to my daughter.

But NO! It wasn’t that at all! It was CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALS by Camille Saint-Saens!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We’re not talking, like, a borrowed theme here. This was, note for note, matched arrangement, the exact same music. OK, OK, maybe it’s a mistake. Maybe Saint-Saens is credited in the film and Mencken was only responsible for writing the rest of the music. This is possible and I haven’t checked to see if that’s the case. But certainly Mencken is given long shrift for writing all the music for this movie. And he stole this music from someone else! Just lifted it right off the pages and gave it to musicians and they recorded it and it was put into the film. It made me sad. And it gave me to wonder – how often does this kind of public domain plagiarism (if that’s what really happened here) occur? I can think of another example off the top of my head: the theme from “Knight Rider” I heard once as a two-bar phrase in a baroque trumpet concerto. But this was bigger. An irony can be found here in knowing that Saint-Saens was a staunch conservative when it came to Western art music, believing that it had reached its peak of necessary innovation and that “originality in music is fatal.” Well who’s dying now, Cammy? It’s just upsetting. Sure, I’d expect this sort of cheap pickpocketing from the likes of Andrew Lloyd Weber or James Newton Howard, but I like to think my Bernard Herrmanns and Franz Waxmans and, yes, Alan Menckens are above all that. Alas.

That’s all there is to say about it, really. It just made me a little sad, and I lost a little something. The second disappointment, completely disconnected from the first, is that while in Philadelphia last weekend looking for a house I got caught up in my mission and missed an opportunity to see John Zorn play, which I haven’t done since, well, the 1990s. Perhaps it’s time for a good President again.

Dancing About Architecture, Vol. XIV

2008-02-24T14:48:00.000-08:00

Tonight’s Episode: Punkt Azoy at Tifereth Israel Synagogue, Del Cerro, California

February 2, 2008

It’s a perfectly dreary Sunday morning and I’m writing a post to pass the time until our open house starts this afternoon, probably with no people. I can’t begin to count how many appointments have been canceled on me here because the other party is afraid to venture out into a light rain. We watched a great old movie last night, “Sorry, Wrong Number”, with Barbara Stanwyck and Burt Lancaster, during which I enjoyed my extra-large gimlet a bit too much, and I’m paying for it a little now. The secret, if you must know, is simple syrup and a fresh lime. Sweet and sour, just like I like my femme fatales.

Going a bit out of order here. A rundown of this little gig I played at the beginning of the month, certain to be my penultimate performance in San Diego before the big move East, ought to be shared with the world, I guess. Probably more people will read this than actually heard us play. This thing got set up following a cold call from someone at my synagogue who was in charge of running a gala event honoring the 20^th anniversary of our rabbi’s tenure there. The gala was shaping up to be a big deal, with a stand-up comedian, jazz band, catered dinner (kosher, = expensive), and lots of special guest speakers. The guy certainly deserved it, as he is universally loved for being the real heart, mind and soul of the place. The organizer wanted to have klezmer music played during the cocktail hour, and had heard Risa and I play once a few years ago for a little free concert we did as part of a Tuesday night Jewish culture series. I was really honored that he remembered and thought well enough of us to ask us to participate in the event.

I met Risa about eight years ago by pure serendipity. I was new to San Diego and floundering about looking for other musicians with whom to play klezmer music. It may surprise you, but this can be rather a difficult task. Like anything else, to do something well requires study, dedication and a lot of practice. Now I can’t say I’m a great klezmer clarinetist, but I’ve worked hard at it and I am good enough to know how much I don’t know. This state of being is deceptively hard to achieve, as is evident by the music of Against Me! and other derivative bands of their ilk. Anyhoops, adverts in the local papers for klezmer musicians had turned up only a few people, mostly Irish fiddlers and such who, however well-versed they may have been in this or that style, were novices at klezmer music and though I respected their interested that wasn’t what I was looking for. Somehow I found out about this concert of Hungarian Gypsy music which was to feature cimbalom virtuoso Kalman Balogh, who had recently gone on a duo tour with my former klezmer clarinet teacher. When I called for tickets, the woman on the other end was very chatty and, after extracting from me my interest in klezmer music, promised to introduce me to her friend Risa who played the accordion and who was also going to the concert. I attended with my musician pal Bill, the concert was amazing, and Risa and I were thereby introduced. We started jamming together and eventually decided to call ourselves a band, onto which I imposed the name Punkt Azoy (Yiddish for “just so” – hey, I like the sound of it).

Over these years we’ve played a handful of gigs at libraries, weddings, schools, festivals, etc. Neither of us has put much effort into advertising, and as for me I am happy most of the time to just get together to play music, especially since I rarely take the time otherwise to practice. Risa is particularly good at looking at a piece of music with just the melody, and picking out the chords on the accordion while sight reading. I’m a little less good at that. I’m better at learning tunes from recordings, which is really the best way to learn these songs, whereas Risa struggles more with this. So I transcribed a lot of tunes from recordings. We complement each other somewhat and we’ve built up a pretty solid and extensive repertoire. She is sometimes inclined to bring in other East European folk tunes, and at other times we play baroque duets (me on clarinet, she on flute – she’s pretty good). So we are essentially like an Old Country kapelye (klezmer band), who would also play regional tunes, popular tunes and classical music in addition to the Jewish repertoire. I’ve always wished we had a fidl (violin), but it’s never really worked out. Still, we hold our own pretty well.

We started preparing specifically for this gig back in November, picking tunes and hashing them out. As it was going to be a full hour of solid music and as my lip has the stamina of a fat giraffe with broken knee caps, we put an accordion duet and an accordion/dumbek piece in the middle of the set list, which totaled about 15 tunes. So we showed up at the appointed time and were directed to the outdoor patio, where the cocktail hour was to be held. I had not known we were going to be playing outdoors, and this caused us some consternation. For one, it was a cold night. Nothing like the frigid football games of my high school and college marching band days when your lips froze to the mouthpiece, but cold enough to slow down my circulation so my fingers felt like gummy worms. Moreover, it’s a lot harder to project without amplification when there are no walls, particularly for the accordion. But we hijacked one of those outdoor space heaters and set up camp under the tent roof, me with my two clarinets (C and B flat) and accordion, Risa with her accordion and dumbek, and all our music stands and crap. As it turned out we were also next to a meat carving table, so we were assaulted with the delicious aroma of roasted mammal that we didn’t have time to eat, besides which I don’t like to get little bits of roasted mammal lodged in my clarinets. In case you were wondering, “What kinds of food, indeed roasted food, doesn’t he like to get lodged in his clarinets?”

At this point I realize that the meat of this review, so to speak, is going to be sliced wafer thin. There’s really not too much to say about our performance, not that this has ever stopped me before. We played our hearts out and we were good. It got really packed so that the only people who probably could hear us were those within about 15 feet or so, including the mammal carvers. The previous evening I had played for our monthly Simcha Shabbat service (explained in an earlier DAA) and this guy had come up afterwards to introduce himself as a fellow clarinet player. He was present at this gig and kept trying to talk to me between tunes about clarinet stuff, like the nature of my hand-made C clarinet, which I must say is damn cool. Yes, clarinets are VERY cool! Anyway, he seemed to dig us, even though I had to keep blowing him off. The crowd in our immediate vicinity kept shifting, and we managed to garner enthusiastic applause from most of them, some more than others. Susy and Ira, who are big supporters of both Jackie and I for some reason (they LOVE hearing about and attending Jackie’s plays), were the most vocal with their appreciation. I love them. In particular, we play this kolemeyke (a Ukrainian/Jewish dance named after the region of its origin) that is a pretty good crowd pleaser. It’s fast and involves a rhapsodic series of 8-bar call-and-response melodies that keep changing key and mode, which makes it continually interesting. We added this arrangement at the end where we stop – break – and then resume with a super-slow-mo repeat of the final theme, which gradually quickens up to Ludicrous Speed and ends with a bang, if I do say so meeself. At this moment Susy and Co. yelled out “Yeah!” It felt good.

When the hour was up we grabbed all our shkoyre (merchandise/stuff/pile of crap – Yiddish is so deliciously flexible) and ran inside and onto the stage facing 40 or so round tables; the place was set up something like an American wedding reception. Noah and Perry, our two lay congregants with good voices and a lot of know-how who lead the singing in most of our services since our Cantor quit a few years ago, led everyone in singing Havdalah, the wrap-up on Saturday night that marks the end of Shabbat and transition back to the drab old week. We played along with the tunes, which somehow made the unchecked sound system scream in feedback agony, forcing us to keep backing away from the microphones until we nearly hit the jazz band’s instruments behind us. But the tunes are pretty and everyone was singing while the only light in the room was given by the triple-braided candle customary for this tradition. It was, for me, a pleasant dénouement to an enjoyable gig. I ended up staying for the balance of the event, during which the comedian occasionally made me chuckle (I have a problem with vicarious embarrassment in the presence of stand-up comedians, funny or no), dinner was decent and the Rabbi was appropriately and thoroughly honored. I spent much of that time thinking about the things I’ll miss about this place, and the opportunities for new musical experiences that await in the next digs. It’s already shaping up to be more interesting than here: during our house-hunting trip next weekend, I’m going to see longtime hero John Zorn and a dozen other great NY musicians play genre-mortar-and-pestling avant-garde tornado music! Till then,

Zay gezunt!

Dancing About Architecture, Vol. XIII

2008-02-22T10:49:00.000-08:00

Vol. XIII

Tonight’s Episode: Vinyl is Better, Part I

February 21, 2008

Those of you who know me, which is likely all of you, know of my love affair with vinyl recordings. The home collection is just over 600 (12”, plus a handful of 45s) and always growing, although in spurts. This love affair stems from such a deep-rooted part of me that I can barely scratch (ha!) the surface of how this affectation fits into my overall sense of self. Since this is not my diary, I will not ask you to care. Suffice it to say that growing up in my grandfather’s record store (an official Rhode Island state landmark in Providence, though defunct since ’88) set my pulse to 33 1/3 rpm probably forever. That’s right, my blood spins.

It’s not that I dislike other forms of music media. I also have a ton of CDs and, like everyone else, a big dusty pile of old cassettes. I’m just as likely to buy music on a CD as on a record. Well, almost as likely, and I’ve come here today to tell you one of the reasons vinyl is (usually) better:

You can buy 21 records for $21.

Obviously, I just made this happen. Last weekend I walked up to the tiny public library for their monthly book sale, and in addition to an armful of books for a total of $5, I carried home 21 records sold for $1 each. The lady didn’t even count them, so I could have lied and gotten them for $18, but I was good. So now, er, make it two reasons:

There are innumerable recordings on vinyl which are not now, and may never be, converted to digital format.

I call these special finds “needles”. You gotta flip through a LOT of Bette Midler, Dan Fogelberg, Al Hirt, “A Peoria Christmas with the Peoria Children’s Choir” and the like to get to the good stuff. But still, these two aspects of vinyl combine to fuel my addiction. Here’s a sampling of some of this excursion’s needlestack:

Chubby Checker – “For Twisters Only” [sic]. This record was pressed when he was 19 years old, and it’s an original. Yow town! I also love the copy on the back: “On meeting him, his warmth and personality compel one to relax and just thoroughly enjoy him for the person he is…No performer in recent years has created the ‘light and obvious pleasure’ that appears in the faces of the teenagers above.” How great is this?!

Janos Zerkula and Regina Fiko – Este a Gyimesbe Jartam (Csango Folk Music of Gyimes). As a dedicated after-hours student of Eastern European musics, I will generally pick it up when I find new recordings. This one is a particularly sharp needle. The Gyimes are an ethnic Hungarian people I never even knew about. Zerkula plays hegedu (fiddle) and sings, and Fiko plays utogardon (translated as ‘gardon’). What the flipside is a gardon? Well, back in them olden times, Hungarian gentry decided that percussion instruments were crass, and effectively banned them by refusing to engage groups that included any drums. So musicians got around this silliness by building large, boxy cello-like instruments, strings and all. The player whaps the string with the bow, producing a slap bass-like drone note, and then struts out her elbow so the bow hits the wooden body of the instrument. The effect is a rhythmic “book-chk”, and is usually done in a straight 1-chk-2-chk-3-chk-4-chk rhythm, but sometimes like boom-boom-boom-chk-2-ck-3-ck-4-chk. One of the best nights of my life was six years ago in Budapest, when a musician friend who lives there took my pal Bill and I to a hard-to-find bar/dance hall that was contiguous with the finest little CD store in all the land. If only I’d had more forints! The traditional band played all night long, and included an old blind lady who whacked the gardon like it was her daughter who was refusing to eat her peas. The music, the dancing, the feathered hats, the Unicum (delicious herbal liquor) – splendid. This record is on Hungaraton Records – there’s no way there’s a CD of this stuff. So it’s based on the national style, but with local ethnic flavor. Plus, there’s a huge insert with a lengthy essay on the history of the music in both Hungarian and English.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks – Soundtrack. This is one of those movies I missed as a kid; Jenny introduced it to me just a few years ago. She is absolutely correct: it is delightful. This record is mainly for the benefit of my daughter (and my wife), and it’s complete with an insert with pictures from the movie and a full-length cartoon storybook.

The Boxtops – Nonstop. My first introduction to bandleader Alex Chilton was through The Replacements’ homage hit song entitled, eh, “Alex Chilton”. I then learned a little of the subject’s involvement with The Inkspots and with this band, and how he wrote a lot of the doowop and Motown hits. On this record he and the other four are dressed in matching mod blue suits and are standing on a train engine, and they look like The Monkees. The inside flap has a paragraph about each dude next to a smiling headshot. But lo, the music is amazingly soulful, so much so that I forgot I was listening to a mid-‘60s boy band. Now I know why “I’m in love/what’s that song?/Yeah, I’m in love/with that song.” This is probably on CD, but not for $1!

Memphis Horns – Band II. Funkeh! Featuring guest appearances by Quincy Jones AND Michael MacDonald! Who could ask for anything more?

Staple Singers – Be What You Are. Another great gospel album from 1973, the year of my birth.

Lots of classical, including: Heifetz playing J.S. Bach’s Sonata #2 and Partita #3 for Unaccompanied Violin. I could listen to this all day. Perlman, age 20, playing Paganini’s 24 Caprices. Varese and Stravinsky, two of my 20^th century faves. Vaughn Williams, Janacek, Hindemith. I have a lot of classical records.

The Jam – Sound Affects. You may remember The Jam’s “That’s Entertainment” from DAA Vol. XII. Well, this is the album from whence it comes. Thing is, I already had it. But it was there in the bin, and it’s got a cool cover, and it was only $1! Odder thing is, the back cover of this new one is identical to the back cover of the record sleeve on my older copy, and vice versa. So I picked it up with the intention to give it to someone else, but now I’m holding on to it as a collector’s item. This is in part a self-fulfilling prophecy, because nobody I’d want to give this to has a record player. Oh wait – Brian…? You want it?

Now you begin to see from whence the addiction springs. For a music-lover, it’s impossible to ignore the draw of such great and varied stuff for such a low low price. Anybody wants can come over and listen. Someday I’m going to convert this all to digital anyway. Ciao for now!

Vol. XII update

2008-02-14T14:22:00.000-08:00

As expected, the response to DAA Vol. XII has been tremendous. 30% of the 15 people to whom I sent the last link wrote to me privately of their own thoughts and experiences with musical remakes. A few quick notes:
Brian Y. sent me a remake of "Beast of Burden". Remember, I do not care for the Rolling Stones. And this particular song is one of my least favorite, not only by them, but by anyone, ever. So I was quite impressed that this remake by Buckwheat Zydeco actually makes the song decent. Email me if you want to know more.
Jon suggested Jeff Buckley's take on Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah". Both of those artists are completely outside my sphere of musical experience, akin to Metallica and Ani DeFranco. So I can't comment except to say that Jon is smart and trustworthy. He also noted Ray Charles' "Yesterday" - specifically, it's "honey on my ears." This facial accoutrement has never held special appeal to me, but to each their own. Although Jon is smart and trustworthy, he is apparently also one sick mama jama. But it reminded me of Ray Charles' wonderful 1962 album "Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music", which contains a soulful version of "Bye Bye Love".
Dave likes Nirvana's remake of Bowie's "The Man Who Sold the World" better.

Also, a mistake. Here's the link for Camper van Beethoven's remake of "Pictures of Matchstick Men". http://youtube.com/watch?v=WyKDRE2yGR4

Dancing About Architecture, Vol. XII

2008-02-13T13:26:00.000-08:00

Like Dancing About Architecture

Vol. XII

Tonight’s Episode: A Dozen Great Remakes You Probably Should Have Heard By Now By Popular Artists

February 12, 2008

I really am not sure what’s about to happen here. I suppose that is always true of all of us all the time, but in this case I mean I’m not sure what I’m doing now with this “blog”. That word is in scare quotes because there hasn’t been an entry here since last October. Sadly, I still haven’t seen any live music since then, although I’ve played a couple times and maybe I’ll get around to blogging that, if I decide you should care. So I'm in a blogging state of mind, and today Nima (equinox-of-insanity.com) finally put the fear of godlessness into me that a world without my blogging is a sad world indeed. This is to say nothing of the state of the world containing said blogging. Sound and fury, baby.

For quite a while, as in at least 15 years, I’ve mulled over the question of musical covers. Every band does them, so we can’t ignore them and lean on our ignorance to deny their existence like that whack job who claims there are no homosexuals in Iran. We might as well face up to them, and as the great Jewish philosopher Hillel famously said of facing up to musical covers, “if not now, when?” They are a curious element in the rock culture universe, and I like things that are “curious”, “elements”, “culture”, I like rocks, and I usually like the universe. So let’s dive in (two paragraphs later, which is as fast as I go.)

First I must make a crucial distinction, that between “covers” and “remakes”. Every band, every one, plays covers. That is, they play other people’s songs because they are good songs, they’re fun to play, and best of all they’ve already been written by someone else. Its part of keeping up your chops, and gives the band something to do when you’ve only got a dozen of your own songs and/or you’re still trying to find your style. There is no reason to ever stop playing covers for their own sake. Bands spend a lot of time messing around, you know. That said, there is no inherent reason why anyone else should have to listen to your cover. If you’re recreating someone else’s work, I don’t need to hear it unless you’ve added something that merits being added. This axiom leads to the Law of Remakes, which separates clearly remakes from covers.

The Law of Remakes:

Do not remake a song unless you have a damn good reason.

In other words, if you and your band decide you are going to re-MAKE someone else’s song, and then expect me to listen to it, your job is to find something in the song that inspires you to make something new to add to it, and this new thing or things must serve the dual purpose of respecting the integrity of the song while simultaneously enhancing it. The listener needs a reason to choose your version over the original. This simple rule is so often ignored or confused. As creatures of habit living in the age of recorded music, we simply love to hear the same recording of a familiar song over and over and over again, even and especially once we know every nuance and further listening will add nothing to our understanding or appreciation of the song (for me, the Police song “Roxanne” is the flagship piece in this category. I never need to hear that song again). This often leads to the misconception that just because someone else records a given song, with a different voice and different production values and different drum beat from the version with which you are intimately familiar, that this new version is somehow creative, when it’s simply reproductive. I generally love people, but when people fall into this trap I hate people. At least, I hate that we do that.

There are, though, many remakes that deserve some props. A select few remakes – I choose my words carefully here – can be said to have followed the Law of Remakes so adroitly, went above and beyond the requirements, you might say, that they actually are better than the original. This rare breed is worth closer inspection, and so I’ve listed a dozen here in no particular order. This list includes a few I’d placed into this elite category, in my mind, years ago, which have waited patiently for revelation. Some others came to me more recently as I was thinking about this blog. Some are obvious; I also considered many obscure ones that might also be great, but for now we’ll limit ourselves here to remakes by more or less “popular” bands.

All Along the Watchtower – Jimi Hendrix. http://youtube.com/watch?v=RD7s4i_X-p0. Yes, this is a big fat obvious one. Everybody carries with them the secret special knowledge that this Hendrix powerhouse hit was originally an earthier folk blues by Bob Dylan. Everybody also agrees that, although Dylan’s version is great and he in fact wrote it, Hendrix took this tune, as Jake mentioned earlier today, to another level. He obeyed the Law by upholding the power of the song’s timeless poetry and he superseded this minimum requirement by playing it in the way only Hendrix can play. The only reservation here is that I’ve heard it so much I could use another remake. This leads us to the corollary:

1b. All Along the Watchtower – XTC. (YouTube only has a live BBC session: http://youtube.com/watch?v=hjTSZmDdJdw.) This 1978 version from their terrific pre-Andy Partridge-nervous-breakdown album “White Music” starts with the foundation that Hendrix’ rock-out had already been done and was the more familiar version to most people than Dylan’s. Here Colin Moulding, one of the most adept rock bassists when it comes to rhythmic, melodic and harmonic counterpoint, pulls apart the descending-ascending chord structure like shredded beef and rips out a bass line that jumps all over the scale. You wouldn’t know the song until the lyrics kick in. When Partridge comes in with his (at that time) octave-hopping raving lunatic voice, the lyrics take on a whole new flavor. The opening and finale with the long clamped organ/harmonica chords assures that this version is nothing like the original, and also awesome.

Higher Ground – The Red Hot Chili Peppers. http://youtube.com/watch?v=WZat5TbRO3A. Back when this band was following on the heels of The Minutemen and had some good ideas, they recorded several fine remakes, which also include Hendrix’ “Fire” (and the Great Wheel turns). Remakes often diverge from the original in one of two ways, either “turning it up” or “turning it down”. Usually this is all that is done by way of adaptation, making it more of a cover, as in the seemingly endless string of bad punk remakes like Social D’s “Ring of Fire”. But this here was when the Peppers were comfortable with their brand of funk-punk fusion, so it was a perfectly natural step to take Stevie Wonder’s funk classic and add the speedball punk element, without removing the funk within. I just decided that “The Funk Within” is, well I don’t know what it is, but I hope I possess it. And no, you may not have any.
I Fought The Law – The Clash. http://youtube.com/watch?v=MBeT4ptY9sY. Apparently the order in this list is quasi more-to-less obvious. Social Distortion or their frontman also released a version of this song, and somebody really needs to tell them to just cut it out. The only band that ever really mattered (who said that? Was it Lester Bangs? I can’t remember) took this good song and made it fantastic. Certainly The Clash admired Bobby Fuller’s punk cred before the term “punk” came to mean something other than “cretin”, but the truth is that they were just too damn good for their own good. The monotone guitar solo (aforementioned in DAA Vol. IX) has so much stronger gravity with the amplified upper octave electric guitar. It’s like the waft of perfume that drags Pepe LePew into a zombie trance. The “six-gun” snare drum double triplet thing is perfect. This is the definitive version, hands down.
Satisfaction - Devo. http://youtube.com/watch?v=CvcuaJy9OwI. The Rolling Stones are associated in my mind with The Phantom of the Opera. Everybody loves the shit out of each of them and I just don’t understand what’s so fucking great about either one. I guess the Stones can be proud of making a buttload of cash by making great black music friendly for white audiences, or something. But I do appreciate why this particular track is my dad’s favorite from “the acid rock era”. This from the man who drove across New York state with my mother, twice I think, to see The Doors in 1968. I love that. But back to the remake. Devo is (I think I can still use the present tense) composed of some severely repressed but remarkably creative individuals. Somewhat akin to XTC’s remake described above, which I’m actually listening to right now, this take (a year earlier from the XTC song, in 1977) keeps the song structure but completely rewrites all the parts. There’s a lot more going on here at any given moment than the comparatively primitive arena-rock guitar in the Stones’ original. Plus, Mark Mothersbaugh’s geekified voice is so much more convincing. We all know Mick got plenty of satisfaction.
Take Me To The River – Talking Heads. http://youtube.com/watch?v=G2BpsCwUa2I. Let’s start with the foundation that Talking Heads is, if I had to choose, like totally my favorite rock band (1989’s “Naked” notwithstanding). They did things nobody had done before or since, and all of it brilliant. I believe this is the only cover they recorded, and I love it because I learned only much later that it’s originally by the Reverend Al Green. It was a dirty gospel song ironic in its silky delivery. This band turned it into a pumping new wave concert closer with all the intricate and infectious arrangements for which they long ago earned my eternal respect and admiration. To say this version is better than the original is really to say that I simply prefer the style here better, but they did it so well you can’t really fault me for it.
Twist ‘n’ Shout – The Beatles. http://youtube.com/watch?v=faVTixv81IQ. Yes, the bloody Beatles. I know, including them in any discourse on pop music is worn, cliché, even tacky. But look, when The Isley Brothers recorded this, they might as well have recorded it as “Stroll and Saunter”. It’s nice and all and it makes me want to throw twigs in a brook from a footbridge. The Beatles saw what this song was really supposed to be, and they were still young and innocent enough that their explosive verve is all genuine. John used to blow his voice out in concerts on this one, not that the hordes of screaming girls really cared.
Ball of Confusion – Love and Rockets. http://youtube.com/watch?v=-ALRLZQf42s. How Daniel Ash heard the Temptations’ 1970 Motown hit and imagined its reincarnation as a bass-heavy goth rock song is something I can’t even begin to surmise, but that's part of why I love this band. Several aspects of this remake I find particularly striking. First, Ash’s straight-ahead, deep vocals infect the lyrics with a world-weathered wisdom, whereas the original comes off sounding naïve, even if we know outside of the song that the Temptations certainly had with them the wisdom of their age and experience. The “hey, hey” from Ash just seems more wan. Second, David J.’s driving bass line pushes the song ever forward, where the original seems flat to me. Third, the lyrics which in 1970 may have referred to the ills of the Vietnam war and entrenched racism in America took on a new meaning in the late 1980s – it was as though in remaking the song it became more about the persistence of stupidity in human politics.
Kiss – Prince. (Sorry, no link for this one.) I don’t own any Prince albums even though I know the guy’s good. I can’t explain that state of affairs. Especially since the stripped down elemental funk guitar in his version of “Kiss” makes the song so much sexier. The original, by Tom Jones and the Art of Noise, suffered principally because it was by Tom Jones and the Art of Noise. That Tom Jones ever achieved sufficient fame and recognition for me to have heard him is a great example of why every decision made in the 1970s was bad (the main exception being the flowering of the punk/new wave counter-culture that shone like a lighthouse beacon in the thickest fog. Also, I was born in the 1970s). Even if you haven’t heard the original, you know Prince’s remake is so, so much better. It just has to be.
Lake of Fire – Nirvana. http://youtube.com/watch?v=7oVvkNp4GdA. Despite the fact that Nirvana was and is still so popular, they actually kinda deserve it. I like them in part because it makes me feel smart and manly when I can trace a band’s major influences all by myself, which I have done for Nirvana. Two bands: Meat Puppets and Pixies. I mean, the very same dang monkey from Pixies’ “Doolittle” album cover is on the back of “Nevermind”. How much more can they spell it out? So it always seemed appropriate to me that Nirvana remade Meat Puppets’ “Lake of Fire”, because it was like them showing us where they came from and how they got to where they were at that time. I really like the original, which is on an incredibly varied double album, but I have to admit it’s one of the more difficult tracks to listen to. Nirvana (probably, to be more precise, Kurt) clearly recognized the song’s potential and it was best realized through their lens.
Swan Lake – Madness. http://youtube.com/watch?v=eKwOn5erl1k (live take here). Yet another track from that magical era between 1976 and 1980 when creativity abounded below the pop culture radar in so many spheres that there are few eras which can soundly compete in quantity or breadth. The beauty of this particular remake might simply be in the selection of the tune. This most familiar sweeping melody from Tchaikovsky’s ballet stands in perfect rhythmic counterpoint to the ska backbeat applied by Madness. They further accentuate this effect by cutting the sustained notes in the melody short with the substitution of an un-pedaled piano for the original violins.
Pictures of Matchstick Men – Camper van Beethoven. http://youtube.com/watch?v=eKwOn5erl1k. I don’t know who did the original and I don’t care (Actually, I believe it was Status Quo). CVB’s special brand of wiry, scratchy absurdist country-folk rock rarely let me down before and it keeps its promise in this tune. The sudden break in sound at the end of a cadence that is carried forward only by the upper octave violin through a simple little interlude melody always catches me. Then when the band kicks back in, it’s so heavy underneath the violin and vocals, it makes me want to cry.
That’s Entertainment – Morrissey. (No link again). About two years ago flipping through a pop station I landed on a cover of the Smiths’ “Girlfriend in a Coma” by some eunuch emo band. The lingering, bitter aftertaste of my reaction at that moment is one of the driving forces behind this over-long essay. You can’t remake that song! You blasted fool! Now I’m not quite a Smiths fanatic, but that song is perfect as it is, one of the few truly perfect pop songs. At exactly two minutes in length, it gets everything exactly right. Trying to remake it is like remaking the film “Psycho”. What is wrong with you?! Anyway, I like ex-Smiths Morrissey’s remake of this already terrific song by The Jam (http://youtube.com/watch?v=CcfEXeNzgdI) not because it’s musically so divergent – it follows the “turn-it-down” path – but because Morrissey rewrote many of the lyrics. His most outstanding talent of lyric-writing was half of what made the Smiths so great (Johnny Marr’s song-craft and guitar work being the other), and so he uses that talent here to subtle but valuable effect. The replacement lyrics are so similar in tone with Paul Weller’s that Morrissey succeeds in painting almost the same picture but with a slightly different hue.

That reminds me: The Jam’s version of the Batman Theme (1977) (http://youtube.com/watch?v=d1yPoW6hsy8) is also wonderful. I guess it stands to reason that great bands will, if they so choose, be in the best position to create great remakes. The lesson here is: play to your strengths. They Might Be Giants should get a runner-up prize for “Why Does the Sun Shine?” (http://youtube.com/watch?v=lwwlK7eCCsk) if only because they are the only ones who could take an insipid but somehow clever 1950s school-reel song and turn it into something transcendent. Second runner-up could be R.E.M.’s 1987 B-side version of the Velvet Underground’s “Pale Blue Eyes” (http://youtube.com/watch?v=nQiJZgsGFfU). Their aesthetic at that time gave this song what it was missing 20 years earlier, primarily not having Nico sing it. It’s just that EVERYbody covers VU songs; it’s like a right of passage for any indie band worth its salt (remember the Cowboy Junkies’ biggest radio hit? It was a turn-it-down version of “Sweet Jane”), but I do like this one. And I’m sure anyone reading this (is there?) would come up with a different dozen remakes that are all great, too. Well, happy listening! YouTube is your friend.

Dancing About Architecture, Vol. XI

2007-10-07T19:46:00.000-07:00

Tonight’s Episode: the Tifereth Israel Ad Hoc Polyphonic Klezmer Orchestra and Tizmorim

October 4 and 5, 2007, Tifereth Israel Synagogue, Del Cerro, CA

This was supposed to be a four-parter. We had planned to go see Metric at the House of Blues on Wednesday, and then go back on Thursday for They Might Be Giants. It promised to be a veritable orgy of our favorite recording artists and performers doing what so few others can do, and nobody can do as well. Sadly, scheduling issues and stomachaches (what a funny lookin’ word that is) kept us away. So I am in no position to describe these fantastic performances, as they must surely have been. To make it up to you, I now offer you a deal you can’t lose: go to iTunes right now and download Metric’s song “Empty”. Do it. It’ll cost a buck. Listen to the whole thing, and if you don’t enjoy it, or remain unmoved that this is the sort of song that could launch one of the most compelling and tightly drawn rock concept albums of the decade, I will refund your money. That’s right, folks: if you don’t like it, I will send you one shiny silver dollar, no questions asked. You wanna download a Coldplay track instead, knock yourself out.

And if you haven’t been listening to They Might Be Giants over the last twenty-five years, I can only say I’m sorry for your loss. Get to it! Your life will be appreciably better for it, I promise.

Now to parts three and four, which will feature…me. See, about five years ago my synagogue somehow discovered that I play clarinet, mostly Jewish music even, so someone had the idea to enhance their “family” Shabbat services, the first Friday of each month, with instrumental music. This sort of thing is maybe a California thing, as synagogue services are generally a capella, and strictly speaking there shouldn’t be musical instruments besides voice on the Sabbath (Friday dusk till Saturday dusk). Anyway, I think this place might have already had a piano player doing this, but I got incorporated into the scheme along with a few other congregants, and after a year or so of shuffling through iterations, we’ve settled to me on clarinet, Sandy on piano, and Ted on bass. For a while Ted’s teenage son Ethan was using the venue to beef up his acoustic guitar skills, too, but recently dropped the gig, to our detriment. So now we are a trio; the Rabbi calls us the Tizmorim (song-players).

The gig typically goes like this: I sit in Friday afternoon traffic for an hour or so to get to the other side of Creation on time, and we mess around on our instruments while families with young kids and various congregants who go for this sort of thing file in. The “audience” consists of anywhere from a dozen people to a full house of a hundred-ish; usually it’s somewhere in the middle. We start at precisely Jewish Standard Time of 15 minutes late with the Rabbi leading off with a nigun (a typically wordless melody, e.g. “lai dai dai”) and we pick it up. He then leads through the series of prayers in the service, for which we play whatever melody for the congregation to join in singing, hopefully. Now, Jewish liturgical music is an enormous, chaotic, expanding universe: prayerbooks have text only, and for any piece of text there are a hundred melodies, such that each congregation the world over chooses which tune they dig and sometimes will try out new ones. So in the early days, it was a crapshoot for us because we never knew which melody the Rabbi would start on, or in which key, and we’d have to land on both pretty fast. Now we’ve settled on a routine set of melodies and generally the Rabbi (who always leads off the singing since we have no Cantor) gets pretty close to the key we like, and more importantly, a key he can handle. The installment of such a routine has good and bad sides for me. On the plus side, since I know the tunes now I can experiment in front of a friendly audience (they ain’t payin’ us!), and stretch my pathetically limited range just a little bit. On the minus side, changing the melodies up some could aid in that effort even more. Sometimes now I feel like I’m just calling it in.

Let’s discuss this past Friday’s gig. A little on the light side numbers-wise, but given an artificial boost by the extended family who I’d never seen before but for their new girl’s baby naming (it’s a thing we do for gals in place of the more direct branding thing we do for guys). One of the grandfathers wore a tie with a red blinking light in it. Really put me in the mood for introspective prayer. It was otherwise a pretty typical run. Most of the prayers we play along with happen to be frontloaded, so the first half of the service requires the most intense concentration and effort as we jump from one tune to the next. Both Sandy and Ted have great ears, and can always find the chords, even any tricky transitional ones, so they make it easy for me. All I have to do is play the melody and, depending on the tune, stretch it out and play countermelodies. In general the tunes are pretty simple anyway. Sandy has this tendency to get engrossed in his own noodling at the expense of listening. He’s quite good at it, the noodling, and it can add a lot to the overall sound, but it drives me nuts sometimes, too. It drives me nuts because I have the exact same tendency. It’s like a debilitating seizure that takes over when I sit in front of a piano. There are just so many keys to press! Whee!! This time, though, we all kept it together pretty well. It’s not unfair to say we’re pretty tight now. Some of the tunes are lovely, some are raucous, and some build up. Some are cloying, ugly and tiresome. It’s these last ones that are the biggest challenge for me, because I don’t know how to make them more enjoyable. I am constantly feeling like my playing is just making a bad thing worse.

We had some decent moments this time, but nothing superlative. “L’cha Dodi” offers me an opportunity to do a lot of note-bending and the rhythm section a chance to pump up the volume. We did an OK job on it, but didn’t reach heights we’ve approached a few times before. For “Oseh Shalom”, instead of using the old chestnut melody, we use this modern Debbie Friedman melody I could take or leave, although it is a builder. The trouble I have is that the bridge is awkward because it has a lot of open space, so it sounds lame if I don’t fill it in with a lot of movement. Often I forget the chord progression here, so I am usually shy to bust open for fear of hitting a honker and killing the moment. This time my approach was simply to go up an octave and play LOUDER. Safe, but still I can’t wrap myself around that one. We threw in “Sim’n Tov” for the baby naming, and I can’t say it was the most inspired version we’ve ever done, but the red blinking light was sucking my inspiration, not unlike HAL. After the service we retired to the usual Oneg in the Social Hall (bread, wine, cookies, coffee), and as usual I didn’t really talk to anyone but then that guy that looks like Eisenhower didn’t come tell me I sounded “a little flat” again, so I can’t complain.

Part four of this overlong chapter shall cover the night before the so-called Simcha Shabbat, Thursday night’s observance of Simchat Torah (Simcha means happy – get it?) The latter holiday falls at the end of a series of autumn observances which begin with the very solemn High Holidays and continue with more holidays of diminishing solemnity, so this ending is intended to be a real celebration. Our version involves a short, utterly irreverent service that involves the Rabbi picking on everything and everybody; to our fortune he has a pretty endearing and smart sense of humor. This is followed by a series of seven hakafot (processions) in the Social Hall, in which the Torahs (we have seven, I think) are paraded around by congregants and music is played and dancing is encouraged. This is maybe the fourth year where we’ve added an “Ad Hoc Polyphonic Klezmer Orchestra” to enhance the festivities. I’d say the first two terms in that title are accurate, polyphonic and orchestra are redundant although one would have to concede that those apply, however there is little resembling klezmer music here. It always bothers me when Jews, who might know better, lump Jewish musical styles together even if they have little to do with one another. As Americans we don’t confuse Christian rock with country line dance music, but there you have it. Our Orchestra, then, consisted of Sandy and I, Ted brought his violin, Ethan on bass, our esteemed lay congregant-cum-de facto Cantor Noah singing, and Al and the Rabbi on accordions; the latter led the singing. We played a standard hakafa melody, the Torahs were passed around, and then the Rabbi yelled out song numbers from this nice little Jewish fakebook they put together a few years ago for this event. These were your typical Jewish Hebrew numbers, zmirot (songs, usually sung around the Shabbat table or by kids or whenever, but not liturgical texts) – the same root word as found in Tizmorim and Klezmer. It took about an hour to get through all seven hakafot.

The night was, as ever, a perfect example of the strange middle ground occupied by the Conservative Jewish movement in the realm of religious celebration. The Reform movement (“lazy”), mostly probably don’t show up for this holiday; their take is generally more inclined to the spiritual. On the other end of the spectrum, the Orthodox (“crazy”) and all related stripes (e.g., Hasidic…particularly Hasidic) will party like its 1999! On Simchat Torah it is commanded that one get completely shikker. Commanded! The Orthodox and company take their celebrations seriously, so this holiday to them means not just lots of drinking, but dancing – real, hearty dancing on into the night and clapping and stomping and singing, simchat – the genuine article. Then there’s us (“hazy”). We show up for the holiday, and we try to celebrate. But we’re too uptight to take off the reins and let loose, and we’re too Americanized even to know how. I’m not saying booze has to be a part of it, but it does have its place on the mantle of proper celebration. So instead of a little schnapps and some ecstatic dancing, people were instead divided into five groups: the poor saps marching around more or less alone in the center of the hall carrying the Torahs, kids running around everywhere (that was a good start!), adults standing around the periphery engaged in soccermom chatter, us playing in a line up front, and the alter kochers sitting in chairs to one side. Three of these groups were having fun. We were, I think, although it’s so much more fun to play for people who are dancing; the kids were enjoying themselves, and the alter kochers seemed to be happy actually listening to us play. We could tell because every time we started up a new tune that was familiar to them (as they all would have been), they rocked in their chairs and added enthusiasm to their endless clapping that, I’m sorry, reminded me of somebody holding and clapping the paws of their adorable puppy – meta-clapping for the misguided. One old boy actually got up and danced around in the back with a big grin on his face. I wanted to hug him, he looked so happy. We ended with, dear me, Hava Nagila, and I felt like a goyishe band playing for Jews. But the smaller crowd still remaining got into it and danced, a little. And so the celebration ended, and the two fingers of whiskey I had at home later didn’t really satisfy. They say if you can reach one person in the audience you should leave feeling as though you’ve accomplished something. I can only say that after two consecutive nights of playing for this crowd, watching that one alter bocher dancing in the back made it all worthwhile.

Dancing About Architecture, Vol. X

2007-09-03T17:17:00.000-07:00

Tonight’s Episode: Zap Mama with Deep Rooted and someone we missed

August 26, 2007, The Belly Up, Solana Beach, CA

Back in college, I had this a capella quartet, The Suspenders. I don’t sing, mind you, outside of the confines of my car or shower, but nonetheless I supported this conceit because I had friends who could sing. This was the early ‘90s, when it seemed every decent college or university had at least three student a capella groups, whereas ours had none, and these groups at these other places clearly played an important role in student life, of which our place also had none. So I convinced four of my talented pals to be in this group where I would arrange the music and they would do the real work and perform wearing suspenders. They also wore other clothes. We had a great time at it, played around campus and had a few local “hits”, so to speak; they even sang at my first wedding. It continued for a while after we graduated with some new blood, Menudo-style, and eventually faded away, Menudo-style.

The irony of all this is that in general, a capella music does little for me, and in many cases is irksome. In part, my tastes have changed since then (or congealed, I’m never quite sure), and the novelty of translating pop tunes, jazz standards and silly joke songs into this format has dissipated. In another part, I have difficulty appreciating the nuances of musicality in human voices, as compared to other instruments, because I am an instrumentalist and not a singer. A friend recently remarked that she feels “vicarious embarrassment” when witnessing a soloist in an a capella outfit step out and try to imitate another instrument. I had to agree, and also grimace a little remembering that at one time I had made my good friend Jon (who’s having a baby! Yay!) bust out with a “harmonica” solo, although to be fair he did it so well that many people noted at the time that they thought he was actually playing a harmonica inside his cupped hands. In any case, a capella music rarely enters into my musical experience these days. But when Zap Mama was coming to town, inspiration was renewed in me, and I made short work of convincing Art and Vera to join me to see them perform the all-female world-beat a capella stylings for which they have garnered so much acclaim.

After the requisite pre-show dinner and delicious pitcher of micro-brew at the particularly and wonderfully Southern Californian establishment Pizza Port, we sauntered towards the club. On the way, we passed a group consisting of several middle-aged couples, from whence the word “botox” was clearly spoken. As we passed, we all heard one woman plainly tell the others, “My doctor told me I wouldn’t be happy unless I did my whole forehead.” OK! I don’t know if they went to the show, but when we walked in the crowd was of a composition I wasn’t quite expecting. There was a noticeable concentration of middle-aged, wealthy-looking, Del Mar-ish khaki pants- and Hawaiian shirt-wearing, putative KCRW subscribers. KCRW, perhaps the only truly honest thing ever produced in Los Angeles, sponsored the show, so I might have altered my expectations had I considered this fact. I’d say the three of us instantly appreciated the change of pace, as we often end up at shows with a lot of black-clads, so it was a nice break to be in a more diverse audience. The peculiar juxtaposition stood out nonetheless, when a straight-up hip-hop group (local, I think) called Deep Rooted (I think) took the stage. The turntablist/computer operator was followed by a man and then a woman with the biggest ‘fro I’d seen in some time, and they both started undulating to the sparse clap-beat the computer got going. They were soon joined by a strikingly tall and thin woman in suspenders and a fedora, and two male MCs. The first two after the turntablist danced around the stage for the entire set, which consisted principally of the tall woman singing alternately between the energetic rapping of the two MCs, over the nearly empty and infectious beat. Each song ended with the rhythm fading out and the woman’s voice trailing off later, which was about the only time when we could hear that the voice was rather a powerful, soulful one. There were to be sound problems all night. For this reason, I guess, it was impossible to discern the rapper’s words, which is most frustrating since the force of rap is, above all else, to be found in the actual words. And they were trying so hard, too. What we did hear was something this rare listener of hip-hop has noticed lately in some of those rare listenings: namely, the beat was so syncopated that the actual beat disappeared beneath the syncopation. The singer did this a lot, going, “eh, eh, eh” to an angular melody and punctuated with a shoulder strut, such that each utterance fell just slightly after the downbeat. It’s like hearing the second clop of the horse’s hoof and only barely catching the first one. This technique always holds my attention because I have to struggle to keep the beat in register. We were standing towards the back at this point, and mostly it was fun watching people in the crowd try to dance to this.

During the break we found our way up to the right side of the stage, finally planting ourselves just so, within a few feet of the right edge of the stage, next to the sound board. A drummer (dude) took the stage, and a bass player (chick) and a guitarist (dude again) and a turntablist/percussionist (dude once more), all clad in stark white but each to their own style. We wondered who this other opening band was, as their dress and demeanor suggested they were quite comfortable playing for medium-large crowds. Presently two tall women took the stage, each in white, and each to a standing microphone on either side of center stage. The band kicked up a tight Afro-pop rhythm section, and the two singers got things going with some back-up vocals. But back-up to what? Then, then we heard the cheering. The Del Mar-ites saw something emerge stage left that was somehow exciting! What could it be? Is this band another local favorite that we might see every Saturday at Croce’s downtown after the lobster bisque? Suddenly the mystery was resolved: it was none other than Marie Daulne herself, the queen bee of Zap Mama, making the slow, self-assured entrance befitting a true queen. Against the backdrop of the band dressed in only white, Daulne was resplendent in a flowing, layered red dress, her ears, wrists, ankles and forehead bejeweled. She soaked up the adoration of the crowd like potato bread in so much chowder. With her arms up and hands rotating figure-eights, hips meaning business and bare feet stomping, she was radiant as ever enjoying the spoils of fifteen years of leading this group. From stage right we had a good view of the crowd up front, and one could almost see Daulne’s smile reflecting in each of their own. There was a lot of love flowing back and forth.

But…it wasn’t a capella! It was capella! We came to hear all-female world beat a capella, not another pop group! Well, what could we do? They’ll do some a capella somewhere, I’m sure. Let’s just wait it out.

These thoughts took about 17 seconds to run through my brain before I drank them down with the last of my drink. For an a capella group with instruments, this band was great! We stood just next to the bass player, which was a lucky break because I thoroughly enjoyed watching her fingers glide over the strings like the ribbon of an old dot-matrix printer, only smoother. The guitarist at the other end looked not unlike a young Bootsy Collins, and I’ll be damned if he didn’t play like him, too. This analogy led me next to think of the bass player as a female Catfish Collins, and I realized then that this band was incredibly tight. Everyone in it was top-flight, and the funk just rolled out like a lazy ocean wave. To put that in your ear, they played an extended mid-set tune which could best be described as a funkier, Afro-popier, Zap Mama gumbo-ier, less stupid version of “Hot, Hot, Hot!” This is not to say that Zap Mama had some loftier goal in this performance than Buster Poindexter ever did; tonight was all about smilin’ and havin’ fun! And they certainly gave that to us, enhanced with some minimalist but still joyful choreography. Oh, and there was actually a keyboard player right behind the bass player that had heretofore gone un-noticed, whose fingers were moving fast but to little effect, since the monitors kept clipping and the sound guy kept potchky-ing with the sound board and the musicians kept getting his attention to point to each other and then either up or down and we couldn’t really hear the keyboards or the two other singers and this was not great.

The encore/second set did feature a few seconds of a capella (the bass player sang, too, making it a quartet), which was fun while it lasted. They sang a major chord, and then the root moved up to the seventh, and then the third moved up to the ninth, and then the fifth up to the eleventh, resulting in the creation of a new chord (e.g. a D chord sung over a C chord). These sorts of gimmicks always sound better when done with human voices, perhaps because we are tuned that way, but in any event these singers have good ears. They added some rhythmic counterpoint (it’s world beat! Whateverthehell that is) and I liked it. Then the band kicked in again and I liked that, too. After all, Zap Mama is on David Byrne’s Luaka Bop label, so they best be good. I was remiss, though, at feeling a little cheated from what I came for, even if the ensemble was so solid. The crowd seemed to love every bit of it.

We left, and I still don’t have any Zap Mama albums. A capella recordings usually are unable to provide that magical sound given by live human voices braiding together, so what’s the use? We didn’t get that this evening, but we got our world-beat funk on and got to see Daulne do a backflip. What more could we ask for? Thanks, KCRW!

Dancing About Architecture, Vol. IX

2007-06-03T23:52:00.000-07:00

Tonight’s Episode: The Pastafarians

June 3, 2007, Second Wind, Santee, CA

First off: apologies to the female singers from Blonde Redhead and Enon for equating them. They are, in fact, different people. The shame of my error has tormented me all these long months.

So my friend Jaap plays in this cover band, The Pastafarians. Jaap is, like me, an old postdoc for whom postdoc life had long ago lost any romantic aspirations with which it may have once been imbued. So, like me, he looked outside the Science part of his brain and sought out other amateur musicians in a desperate attempt to water the wilting potted plants decaying in the Artistic hemisphere of his brain. I do not know if, like me, his actual potted plants always die no matter how scrupulously he remembers to water them. I mean, what more do they want from me? I’m so good to them, I give them love, and still, they die. Why?

Sorry – hm - Pastafarians. Jaap plays what he calls “guitar” and what I call “lead guitar” with this ragtag group of bored scientists, venture capitalists and whatnot. As Jaap will soon be moving to France, tonight’s performance was billed as his farewell swan song. I was more than happy to go, for these reasons: 1) he is my pal and that is what you do; 2) I have talked with him about his music but never really heard it, so better late than never; 3) he and Chloe came to hear me play at least once, and if I remember this one time correctly our set was the first up in this sort of variety show that was so painfully awful it is now catalogued in my memory bank under “Utter crap not recognized as such by makers of said crap” (a category so large it requires its own rented storage unit) – and they sat through the whole horrible vicariously embarrassing thing; 4) I expected it would be fun (it was).

The band consisted of a drummer, two female singers, and three guitar/bass players. I say Jaap was on lead because while the others sometimes played along with the lead, they also switched off playing bass, which Jaap did not do. These are the songs they played which I can remember:

“Hit Me with Your Best Shot” by Pat Benatar

“I Fought the Law” by the Bobby Fuller Four, as funneled through The Clash

“You Shook Me All Night Long” by AC/DC

“One” by U2

“Red House” by Jimi Hendrix

“[that one song that probably gets played on adult pop stations a lot]” by Fastball

“Ball and Chain” by Social Distortion

“Beautiful Wreck” by Sean (sp?) Mullins

“Back on the Chain Gang” by The Pretenders

I love going to bars to hear cover bands, because they make me like songs I didn’t think I liked, or at least not so much. These are the songs, for the most part, that we have to hear all the time because the people who infuse our daily soundscape are not very creative, don’t listen to music, and know that the more familiar the song, the more they can sell to us. But when a cover band (NOT to be confused with tribute bands, which also belong in the same category as that variety show) takes on these popular favorites, I sometimes see, hear and feel them in new ways. I like to watch and listen to the lead guitar and drums in particular, because it is largely up to them to recreate for each song its unique tone which we would recognize immediately. This band did a fine job of that, and everything else for me is gravy. For my money, The Clash’s version of “I Fought the Law” is the definitive one, in that rare echelon where the cover is actually better than the original. Jaap got the yanking pulse of that monotone lead guitar line just right, and the drummer hit the double triplet for the “robbin’ people with a six gun” lyric, which always brings a smile to my face. Jaap’s blues scale solos were quite nice, and clearly better than the others’. I loved that they played “Red House” – not exactly a standard even for Hendrix-fawning rawk stations – and I really felt a fresh breath of life in it that everyone seemed to enjoy. Sure, the two lead singers had intonation problems, but that goes along with bar bands like a lime with a Corona. However, I must take umbrage with one of the singers playing the tambourine on her hip on 1 and 3. It’s 2 and 4! It’s called a backbeat, lady! She did a decent Chrissy Hynde, though.

The band was obviously in it to have a good time and they seem to be achieving that. I had to leave after the first set. They may still be playing at this very moment. I hope so. I hope Jaap can find a rock band in Nice. I hope I can someday go to Nice. I hope the Kansas state school board pulls their dinosaur-brained heads out of their asses and recognizes that the world was created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Dancing About Architecture, Vol. VIII

2007-01-25T20:13:00.000-08:00

Like Dancing About Architecture

Tonight’s Episode: Woody Allen’s New Orleans Dixieland Jazz Band

December 19, 2006 at Copley Symphony Hall, San Diego, CA

When I was about ten years old, I cut out a full-page photo portrait of Woody Allen from TIME magazine and propped it on my easel in the corner of my room. He was seated, casually leaning on his elbows, supporting his clarinet and looking directly at the camera. I had been learning the clarinet for about a year, and drawing a lot, hence the easel. The portrait appealed to me on two levels. I liked that a nerdy Jewish guy was able to be seen in public sporting a clarinet and apparently feel self-assured at the same time. And I liked the look on his face, which I interpreted to mean, “I’m more than who you think I am, in case you were wondering.” I was already a fan of the few films of his I had seen by then, and I knew he was a clarinet player on the side. The picture transformed him for me from just an auteur into something multi-dimensional and therefore much more interesting. That magazine page is either long-gone or buried in my old closet, but the impression has stayed with me. Since then I’d always wanted to hear him play at his weekly spot at the Carlyle Club, but how often do I get to Manhattan?

All these years later, and he’s still playing, only now he’s taken his group out of New York and on the road. So Jackie got us tickets and we drove downtown and paid a bundle for parking and climbed up to the mezzanine in the great hall and sat amongst San Diego’s patrons of the arts, such as can be found in these parts, and waited for the fulfillment of a two-plus decade-long dream.

The stage was minimal: four chairs in front facing the audience with a grand piano stage right, and a slightly raised stage behind with a small trap kit and a double bass. The band and its star walked on in no apparent order and sat down without so much as acknowledging there was an audience. This was the first of many indications from the performance that clarified what might have been an open question for many: this is a hobby for Mr. Allen – no more, no less. The pianist started a gentle, easy riff, and eventually Allen put the clarinet he brought on with him to his lips. Out came a puttering of short, tight, high E’s – close to the upper range of the instrument. So tight as to give him plenty of room to grow, suggesting he was building up to broader strokes. To his left the guitar-banjo player, the supposed band leader, picked up the rhythm, followed by the bass and drums, and eventually trumpet and trombone. It was straight-up Dixieland and everyone played inside, with nobody really stretching out.

After the introductory tune Allen stood up to speak, and pretty well told us they were just there to do what they enjoy doing, “…and afterwards…we’ll…evaluate.” (And here we are.) Over the next 90 minutes they covered a litany of Dixieland favorites, and the tenor didn’t rise too much. The piano player, when given the chance, showed he had some powerful chops, and the trumpet and trombone players were fine but nothing stellar. The guitar-banjoist has obviously been playing rhythm for Dixieland jazz for decades, and his solos were little more than rhythm strumming, but with feeling. The drummer was asleep. We could hardly hear the bassist, although what we heard made up for the soporific drumming but he still looked bored by the whole affair.

But what about Woody Allen? I think he’s getting exactly what he wants out of it. He’s self-taught, and is playing the music he’s passionate about. I was too far away to tell whether he was playing an Alberts system clarinet. This is an older, French style clarinet that was completely replaced by the German Boehm system everybody plays now. The former has some slight alterations in the key configuration and therefore different fingerings, but was favored by a lot of early jazz clarinetists, in part for its chipper, lighter sound. In any event, his tone remained tight, pinched and thin, to my chagrin. Several years ago I got a C clarinet, smaller in size and pitched a whole step higher than the standard Bb variety, to get that light sound, as opposed to the full bell tone you might want for classical music. Nice to get if you can work it. But Allen’s tone was so pinched it never really sang. This was frustrating to observe.

As for his actual playing, he kept up with the tunes well enough, but his fingers weren’t as nimble as I had hoped given how long he’s been playing this stuff. This is a musical style that is 90% chord- and short chord progression-based improvisation, where the melody instruments all riff on the lead melody simultaneously, weaving together a sort of melody-harmony. He just never built up to the broad strokes we were waiting for. Neither Allen, nor the trumpeter nor the trombonist, seemed able or willing to step out and make it their own. In other words, it was a rare moment when any of them hit a run that caught our attention, much less our breath. The trombonist and guitar-banjoist each took a turn singing, too (crooning, rather), which broke the monotony of a music not expressly meant to be performed in a concert venue. But by the end, some of the audience had left, and we were feeling the bass player’s boredom. So imagine my surprise when Allen ended the pre-encore (ALWAYS an encore. What’s the point?) by introducing the musicians, and revealed the bassist to be none other than Greg Cohen, of Masada fame and glory. No wonder he was bored – he’s been so far ahead of this music, it must feel like a primer to a novelist. Guess he needs the money.

They got a standing ovation, of course. In the 7 ½ years I have lived here, I have only been to two performances of any sort which have not incurred this response from the audience. Two. And those were very, very bad performances. Audiences here are so under-stimulated, each performance must feel like the best thing they’ve ever seen. Either that, or they just don’t know what else to do. To Allen and his band’s credit, they didn’t claim to be doing anything more than playing for their own amusement, and it means something to an audience when the musicians are enjoying themselves. It would probably be more fun to hear them at the Carlyle Club. And hearing Woody Allen play early jazz because he loves it brings the music he uses in his films – mostly early jazz – closer to the film, as though he wished he were not just screenwriting and directing and maybe acting, but also playing the soundtrack. In that case, though, it might be best that he isn’t.

Like Dancing About Architecture

2006-10-22T17:59:00.000-07:00

Like Dancing About Architecture, Vol. VII

Tonight’s Episode: Ladytron with CSS

October 18, 2006, The BellyUp, Solana Beach, CA

It’s been a long, long time since the last entry. I dropped the ball on the second Metric show we saw at House of Blues back in January, and the TV On The Radio show at the Casbah in the spring. Nothing said, but not much to say, either. And I haven’t been to see live music since, because I am lame.

Tonight’s episode was brought to us care of YouTube. I am usually the last to get on board with these internet innovations, and so just discovered this site about a month ago. It’s awesome and a bit unsettling to be able to reach back and relive any life you want. I’m at Talking Heads live in 1978! I’m on the Anarchy in the U.K. tour with the Buzzcocks! It’s Sleater-Kinney on Letterman. Yowzah! In just such a fit of voyeurism I noticed a sidebar item I couldn’t resist: a music video by some band called CSS, doing the song “Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death From Above.” Who could say no to such a request? One click and I was sucked in to a simple, jouncy contrapuntal guitar rhythm against a sparse beat, watching a bunch of tiny Brazilian women and one mustachioed Brazilian man bump their shoulders up and down while dancing with a stick puppet of a bedsheet ghost. I watched it again. It was sweet. I wanted to make love and listen to Death From Above 1979, those fantastic hardcore mavens who sound nothing like this band. I wanted to see what CSS was all about, which predicated this trip to the BellyUp with Art, Vera and Jackie to see them open for Ladytron.

CSS, or Cansei de Ser Sexy (apparently = “Tired of being sexy” in Portuguese), seems to have been plucked from the Sao Paolo party band scene by SubPop records to balance their otherwise retro-chic angry white boy pop line-up. There are six: two guitars, bass, drums, synth/guitar, and lead singer Ladyfoxx. They were all packed in to a slice of downstage, as there was a second drum kit on a raised platform upstage which must have been verboten. I was surprised to see Moustache Man open on drums, since in the video he was playing guitar, but my curiosity was later resolved because they SWITCH instruments! Gee wow. We were lucky enough to grab some actual seats, with a table even, in a raised separated area stage left which I always thought was reserved for VIPs, so we watched the proceedings directly from the side. This turned out to be a good thing, because the place filled up and there was no need to stand in the crowd for this show. All of the songs could be described like this: chunga-chunga-chunga-chunga. For her part, Ladyfoxx did her best to hop around and engage the audience, even body surfing at one point, despite an alleged illness. She doesn’t sing so much as chant, but is so affable that it makes you want to like this otherwise unimpressive band. As a whole, they came across like a fun party band that has been given a boost above their station before they’re really ready. Frankly, I like that she calls herself “Ladyfoxx” even though she looks just like a normal person. They saved their break-out hit till the end, and the live version stuck to the party band feel, which was unfortunate. The guitars and drums were mixed so high that the sweetness was gone. What had been a cute, pokey little number became another rocknroll hairball coughed up for the bouncing hordes. I still like the video, though.

Now…behold! Ladytron! The most accurately-named band since Musical Youth and the Average White Band! Ladytron’s recordings sound exactly like a band named Ladytron should sound: part Lady, part Tron. They are, on paper, a boy-girl quartet from Liverpool comprising at least one person from Milan and one from Sofia. On stage they added a bass player and a drummer, and everyone wore black. All black, like the Spinal Tap album cover. For their set the CSS gear was removed and replaced with at least four Korg synthesizers upstage, wrapped around the aforementioned raised drum kit. Downstage was occupied by the Bulgarian synth player with $80 peyes, and the Lady herself – I guess their tour is all about the Ladies, the Ladies. I had hoped to feel a connection with this band live, at least because we all belong to the Society of Anachronistic, Asymmetrical Haircuts. The Liverpudlian synth/guitar player was a dead ringer for my cousin Fred in his 1976 wedding photo. Sadly, the band did not connect with the audience at all. In interviews one of them has pointed to Krautrock bands like Neu! and Can as major influences, because they like the idea of the listener being unable to identify the source of synthetic sounds as you would with traditional instruments. This idea comes out in their recordings – that’s the Tron part, and it adds the most interest to their sound. They work as a studio band because the Lady part fits with this Tron part. It worked for the old Krautrockers because that top-of-the-throat Teutonic voice sounded electronic. Same goes for Devo. With Ladytron, the unwavering, emotionless drive of her echoed voice glides above the techtonic Korg sound. This droll technique is an ironic setting for topics of the heart, but they’ve applied it to a whole cannon of songs about the sadness and loneliness that lies at the heart of promiscuity. You can even hear it in the titles, like “Playgirl”, “Jet Age”, “He Took Her To a Movie”, and “Another Breakfast With You”. Yeah, the songs all sound the same after a while, but it’s more like a motif. So with all this, I wanted them to reach out to us in performance. Instead we got an hour of bland stoicism. The Lady herself, looking like a short-cropped Morticia Addams, could be a powerful performer. Watching her from her left shoulder, she might have had the bottled intensity of a richly painted hieroglyph. But like a painting, she didn’t actually move. It seemed silly that CSS, with all of Ladyfoxx’s energy, was cramped into this space, now wide open, of which Ladytron made such poor use. She barely looked at the audience most of the time, deciding instead to study the rafters above us. The Korg players stayed put, and the bassist looked bored out of her skull. The rear projection video, sometimes of the Lady in quasi-simultaneous slo-mo, was fine but only accentuated the lackluster performance. They also had a smoke machine and strobe lights (which, being on the side of the stage, we got right in the eye). For reals. These are the trappings of electronic bands, obsessed with inventing sounds above music and performance. Art pointed out that he knows of one such band who met over their shared interest in collecting synthesizers. And so it seemed for this band. The new songs sounded just like the old ones, and all of them sounded bland here, due in part to the mixing, which brought out the drums but drowned out any subtleties in the other instruments, if they were even there. If I squinted real hard and focused on the bassist’s fingers, I could sometimes make out the lines. And, you know, there are many ways to turn recorded tracks into performance pieces, but look, turning up the sirens on your synthesizer for a minute-and-a-half of wall-of-sound drum fill-ins at the end of the tune does not count as expanding the song, even if it elevates all present to a state of rapture/deafness. Most of the audience was enrapt most of the time, particularly the huge bear of a man in front of us who looked like he misread the location for the Motorhead show. During breaks his arms shot out in a giant Y so he could yell “DESTROY!!!!!” But he stayed in his seat because, as he told Vera, he didn’t want to block our view. When it was over he gave us all high tens, and the band left for just enough time for one round of the Hokey Pokey before returning for the obligatory encore. The first song in this set, “Send Me a Postcard” from 2003’s “Softcore Jukebox” album, was terrific live. It drove like a train engine and had great hooks, and for once Lady sang and danced to the audience like she really meant it. I do wish there had been more of that. In the end, the tenor was best summed up by three quotes from my companions:

Vera: “What’s with all the strobe lights?” Indeed.

Jackie: “So they’re like Metric, but less interesting.” Check.

Art: “I’m really sick of pop music.” Here, here.

It’s time to get back to music, folks. I’m taking a hiatus from pop, too. We all want inspiration. SubPop gave it to us long ago with Nirvana, and this is what they’re giving us now. It will come again, from some un-glamorous corner of the world. Until then, we have to bounce.

Dancing About Architecture, Vol. VI

2006-02-09T22:13:00.000-08:00

October 25, 2005

Tonight’s Episode: Metric

October 25, 2005 at The Casbah, San Diego, CA

I love New Wave! I LOVE New Wave! I’ve always loved New Wave. And you all mocked me and poked me with forks and called me “dorkus” and “moleface” and “new wave lover”. But who’s mocking now, hmn? If it hadn’t been for New Wave, we would still be rockin’ out to Styx and Genesis. And we wouldn’t have Metric.

Now here’s a band that is taking us where we need to go. Did I not say that Metric would fucking ROCK?! I believe I said that. And damn, I was spot on this time, yesSIR! They came to San Diego just as I was getting up on them, so it’s fair to admit that I was inclined to like the show. It would also be fair to say that I tend to go see bands I know something about and expect to like, so it’s likely that I should write a favorable review. Nonetheless, there’s good, and then there’s something even better. This show was, like, better.

Jackie and I met Art and Vera at the Casbah just after the second opening act, which A & V said were actually pretty good. The Lovely Simpletons or some such. Chris and Suzanne miraculously made it coming straight from the airport, so we had our own little IloveMetric micro-posse. The band walked on stage and made an instant impression just by their look: guitarist Jimmy Shaw and bassist Joshua Winstead in sharp shirt and tie (the latter sporting a tote cap), drummer Joules Scott Key in t-shirt and jeans, and singer/keyboardist/lyricist Emily Haines in a fitted black dress. This is a look which says, ‘we are punk but we are also more than that.’ What is so fetching about this band is that everything about them says they’re trying to tell us something about us, which sounds bad but really isn’t so bad because we all kind of knew that stuff already but couldn’t quite codify it. ‘Cept they don’t overdo it and get all pretentious on us. The lyrics seem so despondent at first, but the more you wrap yourself up in them, the more comforting they get. The band began with “Empty”, the first song off their new sophomore album. I guess starting the show with the first song off the album you’re promoting isn’t so unusual after all. So she started singing, “There’s no way out/the only way out is to give in”. And I felt sad. And happy. Because there was this woman who looks exactly like Uma Thurman except of normal height and only slightly less-than-normal weight, replete with “Kill Bill” haircut and serious eyes, holding the microphone stand out to us at arms length and shaking her head fiercely back and forth in time with the beat, telling us how life is rough. And when we heard “Poster Of A Girl”, we understood perfectly well that even if you’re a young, thin, attractive, smart, talented blonde middle class woman from a wealthy country, it can still be hard to find your place in the world. And I thought, this must have been what it was like to see Blondie at CBGB’s.

Yeah. ‘cause here was this smart woman fronting a band of regular guys, using her striking looks not to promote any sexual politics but to affect a performing style that grabs our attention and keeps it suspended until she’s said what she wants to say. She was all over the stage, throwing out her free arm with splayed fingers, or leaning as far out over the sold-out crowd as possible, or casually resting against a pole in the back corner. At times she climbed down to the floor and sang in the middle of the front row, and Winstead followed suit. Shaw is a confident guitarist, who on one particular song was strumming chords so fast and for so long that his entire body shook like it was being electrocuted. They weren’t just playing their songs and taking our cover charge. This is a band in the sweet spot of their ascendancy, when word-of-mouth has made them underground stars, and they clearly are relishing the moment. Haines spent song breaks in chat mode with the audience (it’s an intimate club anyway), and whether or not it was affected, they obviously appreciate the attention they’re getting, particularly in lame towns like this one.

Shaw and Haines also played synthesizer keyboards…which brings us back to new wave. Metric’s first album was solid, formalized new wave, and it’s a lovely and thoughtful album. This new one, though, is a delicious mix of the ol’ N.W. with some punk and alterno-rockin’. Of course, that’s when new wave is at its best. There’s the story of the Seymour Stein, the legendary head of Sire Records, marketing The Ramones as new wave because the term “punk” had a bad rap. Anyhooch, this stuff is captivating on the record and was even more so on the stage. The keyboards, voice and synth weave in and out of the melody so craftily you’re never exactly sure what’s coming next. Haines has said she was thinking a lot of Pink Floyd while they were making this record. Makes sense: there are some moments of quiet, pulsating sound that suddenly explode with power chords, in a spacey sorta way. I even heard that four note bit that comes out of nowhere in “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” in there somewhere. But unlike the Floyd, there’s no lassitude here. There was a sweet moment toward the end of the show when they were expanding on the coda and slowly brought the sound down to a tense murmur, with synth bleeps and guitar whimpering, and held it there, just long enough. Then it started rising again, with each band member slowly swirling sound upward until it finally blew the roof off. There’s the adage for musicians which says if your audience is losing interest, play softly. These kids knew what they were doing, because by the end, they had us in the palms of their hands. In the end, the live show took us from the low-grade depression we thought the songs were about, to the real message as expressed in the album title itself: Live It Out.

So buy the record. See the show. Take out a ruler or graduated cylinder and measure something in any country but the U.S., because “British base-12 system” is a stupid, stupid name for a band. Crikey, the bloody Brits don’t even use it any more.

Dancing About Architecture, Vol. V

2006-02-09T22:12:00.000-08:00

September 30, 2005

Tonight’s Episode: The New Pornographers with guests Destroyer and some band we missed

September 30, 2005 at The Belly Up, Solana Beach, CA

The last and first time I saw The New Pornographers play, it was at the Casbah here in San Diego, when they were on tour for their sophomore album, “Electric Version”. That was before I was wasting my time and yours writing these reviews, alas. But I’m excited to write this one, because this second viewing was a great show, although different in some interesting ways from the first one. First, though, we must cover the opening bands.

The first opening band, Immaculate Spongeheads or something like that, sucked. Actually, I have no idea whether or not they sucked, because I didn’t pick up Art and Vera until too late by Swiss non-rock-‘n’-roll standards, and by the time we got there we missed the first band. Judging from the lack of promotional material at the goodies table as well as a lack of overheard conversations dealing with them, I’d guess they weren’t that special. No love lost.

We did get there just in time for Destroyer. This is the side project of New Pornographers co-songwriter and backup singer, Dan Bejar. Or Destroyer is his main project, and the NPs are an aside. Arthur, a veritable expert on all things Destroyer by virtue of having heard of them and actually owning an album or two, wasn’t sure where Bejar’s priorities lay. In any case, this is the guy who sings the lead on “Jackie”, which I believe he wrote, and a few other NP songs – you know the voice. Now imagine that voice singing roughly eight songs in a row, over a droning indie power pop standard four-piece, songs which sound like pastiches of NP clips strung together at roughly the same tempo. That’s more or less the Destroyer experience. My friend Dave (who, incidentally, introduced me to the NPs by randomly sending me their first CD some years ago, and hence opened my eyes to the burgeoning new world of serious power pop) has claimed that the NPs’ songs are so good because of Bejar’s songwriting contributions, such that front man A.C. Newman gets more credit than he perhaps deserves. If that were true, than Destroyer’s songs ought to be so sublimely crafted that they would seem as if they had always existed as natural and true as mathematics and were just waiting for the first capable medium to coalescence them out of the ether. That’s probably too much to ask. What Destroyer’s songs really sound like are the little bits of pop hooks you sometimes come up with on your way to work, but lack the will or, let’s face it, the talent to expand into full-fledged songs. That said, there’s nothing to dislike about Destroyer’s songs; they just aren’t as cohesive as POP songs, which is what they seem to be trying for. “Mayor of Simpleton” by XTC: that’s a perfect pop song in large part because it’s got an A section, a bridge, and a chorus, and they are pieced together not only seamlessly, but also in the exact order you expect and therefore want them to be. The audience seemed to like Destroyer, though. I would argue that Bejar’s talent is in taking those pop elements he seems so good at crafting, and putting them together in a way that feels novel and disjointed only because the song structures aren’t as formulaic as you expect them. So this is a different kind of power pop approach: the disengaging kind. The actual performance was mostly boring. When I say “standard four-piece”, I mean that none of the musicians, including Bejar on rhythm guitar, played anything that stood out in any way, just banged out the chords. The last song had some time changes which, in tried and true fashion, added some interest to an otherwise mediocre melody. As an opening band, Destroyer was good at getting us in the mood for the main event, but I wouldn’t go specifically to see them.

When after a short break the New Pornographers came on stage, they came in waves – they’re a fairly large band now. In the first wave was a young woman who is not Neko Case (who is, in fact, Newman’s niece), and it may be taken as a curious note on the crowd that many exclamations of “We want Neko” and the like were heard; this could also be interpreted as evidence for Neko’s current status as indie rock diva (sic, Art). The band, on this tour, consists of Newman up front on voice and his indispensable Sears-issue guitar, Neko to his right on voice and her equally indispensable tambourine (much cheering, “We love you Neko”, etc.), a lead guitarist who was new around the time of “Electric Version”, whose name I don’t know and who stood towards the back, Blane Thurier on keys, Kurt Dahle on drums, big John Collins on bass (he also doubled as the bassist for Destroyer), and the niece Kathryn something on keys and voice. Why two keyboard players? Anyway, the band opened with the title track, side 1/track 1 of their new album, “Twin Cinema”. I’ve never known a band to open a show with the first song off the album they are promoting on the tour, but what the hell? It’s a catchy song that works well in both contexts and got everyone immediately bouncing.

They then played probably all the good songs from the new album, which I know now is all of side one and half of side two, interspersed with the best songs from “E.V.” and some of our old favorites from their debut, “Mass Romantic”. I provide this obvious and nondescript summary to introduce what I found interesting about a good band touring for their third album. The first album, well, it was so stunning that “E.V.” could hardly surpass it. There are great songs on that second record, and we heard them played live last Saturday, but there are some middlin ones, too (and we did hear one of those, the only dull moment of the whole show). So this band should, by album three, return in high stride with either a return to form or, a la Radiohead, a totally different tack which usually means a depressing album. This band accomplished the former, mostly by continuing to make really good choices about how to distribute their assets. One of the NPs’ greatest strengths is that everyone can be playing or singing as loudly as possible, and it sounds great. Both Newman and Bejar can write songs like that. But they have some other aces: they can start with a beautiful stripped down melody (generally sung by Neko), and build on it until it’s blaring but still beautiful. There’s one new song that starts, sweartogod, like a troubadour ballad by Donovan, but builds by turns until reaching the never-ending chorus of “Hey la” that is so joyous it makes you want to dance unashamed with your best friends in the middle of a remote field at two in the morning. Another song had Neko on lead vocal, but it was so obviously penned by Newman that I heard his voice instead. But if she weren’t there wailing like a Siren, the vocals would be all Newman and Bejar, whose voices could never divert sailors to the rocky shore. So what makes the New Pornographers better than Destroyer is in part the players, but also the fact that they have two great songwriters who contribute distinct styles. Newman is straight, formulaic and economical, whereas Bejar is rhapsodic and expansive. Individually they may be repetitive, but together they give us a balanced approach with a broad range.

The band’s live shows have been criticized for being a little off, with harmonies and audience interaction and so on, but at this show those criticisms could only be lobbed at Bejar, and it wasn’t his fault, exactly. He only came on stage for a few of the songs, and from the start, he was completely drunk. It can be tiresome watching drunk musicians, or anybody for that matter, try to overcompensate by fiercely focusing their concentration on the task at hand, to the point of distraction for everyone else. Every time Bejar was on stage, he had a different bottle of beer. He sang OK drunk, but, ya know. A sweet moment in the show came when he bumped into Newman’s guitar, and Newman gave him a friendly, tolerant smile that put it all together for me: NP live shows are, now, like watching an uninterrupted re-recording session of their greatest hits and new stuff. They don’t expand, contract, revamp, or alter their songs in any way, just play them straight up. So it will be mostly solid, but one of the band members will of course show up to the session drunk and they’ll have to fix it all in post-production. I felt like we were all in the studio with them while they layed down some tracks, and that’s fun. The minimal interaction certainly was a contrast with the last time I saw them, in a smaller club where all the band members, including the daft drummer Dahle, chatted with the audience like we were all sharing beers. This time, it was a bigger venue with a high stage and lots more people – a more diverse crowd, too, a sign of spreading popularity. So we got the occasional comments defending Canada and making fun of the sound guy – it was like WE were the sound guy catching all the bloopers between takes. We left the show feeling great about ourselves and about Canada and about the future of accessible rock music. And, let’s be frank, we like the idea of Neko Case being associated with the word “pornography”. It’s not even that she’s all that good-looking, but then, it didn’t matter with the Sirens either.

Dancing About Architecture, Vol. IV

2006-02-09T22:11:00.000-08:00

June 24, 2005

Tonight’s Episode: Enon with guests Sparrow and Thunderbirds Are Now!

June 21, 2005 at The Casbah, San Diego

Before seeing this show, I already had two Enon albums and had been enjoying them, because it took me a while to ‘get’ them, if I have ‘got’ them even, and I dig that. So when they came to town, it seemed I had to go. Besides, I was under the impression that the Japanese female singer was one and the same as the singer from Blonde Redhead. Worth ten bucks just for that alone, nu?

The two opening bands were on tour with Enon. First, Sparrow, who I wasn’t really listening to at first; actually, I wasn’t even in the room. We finally wandered in, and I was surprised by the size of the band, given what had been coming into my ears through the walls. The singer sat center stage at his Yamaha keyboard. To his right was a backup singer with a tambourine, and to the right were two women seated with violins. The drummer was seated. The guitarist was seated, behind the violinists. It was a subdued look, and it seemed to fit them because it made me expect a subdued sound, which gave them room for upward mobility. The sound was more like – what did Chris call it? – Belle & Sebastian meets Quasi. I would add a New Pornographers pounding-quarter-note approach. But unlike the NPs, Sparrow lacked range. Every song was the same tempo, similar chord changes, and started and ended at exactly the same volume and intensity. It was obvious that the keyboardist/singer wrote all the songs, and was a talented guy with a limited set of songwriting ideas. This was obvious because I can relate. I could feel those songs being written, like sitting in front of the keyboard banging out chord changes, and thinking, I’m so hung up on the damn chords! Always looking for that elusive set of changes that packs one helluva hook. Look at Funkadelic; look at Talking Heads or the Beta Band or any walking blues: great songs with one goddamn chord. This guy, he had the catchy chords; problem was, they could have done more with them. And that’s just the songwriting. Look, if I had TWO violinists at my disposal, I’d do more than have them play UNISON WHOLE NOTES all the time! I’ve always had a liking towards complexity in arrangements. But this wasn’t just about being sparse, which I can get behind in a lot of cases, because the sound here was loud and full. It was just bland. I liked listening to this band; I even went home and picked out one of the catchier bits on my keyboard. A whole album, though, I imagine would be monotonous.

Between sets we went to the anterooms and were hanging out, expecting a long delay. But these bands – all three of them – were on top of things and didn’t keep us waiting more than a few minutes. So there we are, hanging out, and the next band starts out. We slowly wander in, and it’s loud as fuck. This must be the other band, Thunderbirds Are Now! [sic] There’s this short, slightly chubby blonde kid with big glasses playing guitar and singing, a tall Asian bass player, a drummer, and what the hell…? There’s this other guy with a keyboard and large setup of sequencers and samplers, throwing around a tambourine and his own body like he’d glued his feet to the blades of a giant blender on “whip”, or possibly “grind”. This dude had more energy than I had seen on the stage in a long time. He jumped down onto the floor, and jumped back onto the stage. He pulled the bottom of his shirt front over his face and sang through the shirt. He grabbed the mic stand and hopped up on the cabinets at the back of the stage and sang to the upper back corner of the stage. He tossed his head around like a salad. After taking that in I turned my attention back to the little frontman, and realized he, too, was flailing around like crazy. He put down his guitar, grabbed a pair of maracas and jumped up on some monitors and shook them at the ceiling. Check out the drummer – he’s covered in sweat. And the bassist, he was no slacker either. Damn, it was loud. It was around this time that I started to actually listen to what they were playing, and it was moments later when I realized we were in the presence of a band KICKING ASS! They were friggin’ great. I listened to the guitarist – he was damn good. Any sucker can strum; this dude was playing that thing like mad. I doubt he played in first position at all. It was all up on the upper frets, and tight and staccato with counter-melodies interwoven all the time. The bassist’s fingers were flying, too. Running, rhythmically counterpuntal bass lines. And crazy boy, in between the flailing he was hitting those sequencer knobs and his synth countermelodies, and his vocal harmonies were dead-on. The band is on French Kiss Records, which also boast Brooklyn luminaries Ex Models. On the website, they describe this band’s resurrection of ‘70s and ‘80s punk, and compare Thunderbirds’ sound to Pixies, which is an accessible comparison and in some ways accurate, particularly in the way the guitarist had that high, tight sound like Joey Santiago. But me, I thought I was watching a combo of The Ex and my favorite old DC band, Nation of Ulysses. A particular brand of ‘70s and ‘80s punk, that would be. The really odd thing was, when I went to buy the album and talked to crazy boy and the frontman, they were both these really low-key, even slightly effeminate guys with high speaking voices. I knew the album could never capture the intensity of a live set, but the fact that you can play it below 200 dB, if you want, allows the subtlies of their songs to come through. Not to mention the lyrics, which are actually pretty decent. These guys are for real.

By the time Enon came on, I felt like I’d gotten the shit kicked out of me. Enon played to their albums, at least the stuff I recognized. The trio are all veterans and played like it. First the singer (yes, from Blonde Redhead – I forget her name), controlled the samples while the other dude, John Schmersal or something, covered guitar and they both sang. She later switched to bass, while he switched between guitar and sampler and sequencer. This band has always been a disciple of Sonic Youth, and their new stuff stays in that vein. It makes sense, this three band tour. Enon has two personalities: the Sonic Youth avant-rock persona, obviously the brainchild of Schmersal, and the Japanese New Wave pop persona, which comes from the other band leader. Their songs generally fall neatly into one of those two categories, and the opening bands kinda fit that (Sonic Youth, faithful disciples of The Ex…and so the Great Wheel turns). What keeps this band interesting is that each of their songs seems to come from something you’re very familiar with, but has gone in a weirder, more twisted direction. Again with the Sonic Youth. They did a twisted New Order song, a twisted Nirvana song, and a twisted BeeGees song. They just know how to take those foundations and bring them to places you never thought they would go. Her Tokyopop voice sometimes cracked on stage whereas it’s straight in recordings, and Schmersal’s voice was a little less polished, too. But I wanted a shot of Enon, and I got it. They played a fairly short set, even with the encore (why do we have obligatory encores now? Just play a longer set!). I haven’t picked up their new album yet, although the new songs sounded interesting enough to make me want to.

It was one hell of a Tuesday night at the Casbah. If this tour comes your way, check it totally out!

Dancing About Architecture, Vol. III

2006-02-09T22:09:00.000-08:00

June 18, 2005

Tonight’s Episode: Anya Marina and guests. Saturday, June 12, 2005, Lestat’s, San Diego.

Been a while since I’ve been to see live music, ‘sides classical. Anyway, Vera, Chris and I went to Lestat’s coffee house last Saturday to see the widely, at least locally, adored Anya Marina do her singer-songwriter-cheeky goofball shtick. It was, to put it mildly, a night of contrasts.

Lestat’s was the perfect locale for this stuff, being a local-run coffee house on one side and a quiet, dark, quasi-cabaret atmosphere with a stage on the other. We got there early enough to get a tiny table with our very own colorful candle holder. We waited a long time (Vera: “Um, why isn’t someone performing…?”) for the first act, a young, boyish lesbian Bostonian named Sara Wolfe, who sang to her acoustic guitar sometimes funny, mostly cloying songs about being a young, boyish lesbian. Her first number was a blues called, I guess, “Eat Shit and Die”. Hard not to like, if only for its straightforward approach to angst. Her songs were either about being dumped, ala “Merit” named for her last girlfriend who said their relationship lacked that particular quality, or about being mistaken for a boy or just plain shat on for being a lesbian. I kinda liked her amateur style, like shoving way too many syllables into a refrain (“and realize we’re doin’ fine” don’t make it into four quarter notes, not easily), but mostly I liked the story, put into a song, about two old ladies who freaked at a department store when Wolfe headed for the ladies room, told her, “the little boys’ room is over there, sonny”, and got summarily flashed a boyish lesbian boob.

After this short set of straight-up coffee house fodder, we were treated… no…. more like… subjected….to Il Bambino. From the moment this perspicacious duo took the stage, we knew we were in for something surreal, but oh! how little we knew. One in a black suit, the other a white one, both wearing fedoras and enormous fake moustaches, they came bouncing onto the stage like bats out of an Italian tourist cruiseship hell, with Whitesuit shouting, “’Allo! ‘allo, ever-y-bo-dy! Ha-ha-ha-ha! We are Il-a Bambino” in a ridiculously affected Italian accent, whilst taking un-aimed Polariod pictures of the audience and tossing them over his shoulder. Blacksuit remained stolid throughout the performance, and led the musical numbers (I guess you could call them) as he was clearly the only one who knew how to sing and play instruments. They started with what remains my favorite piece of theirs, with Blacksuit standing in the back, looking solemnly down over his autoharp hugged to his chest, singing in alternating I-IV chords, “Doo-doo-doo do you have-a the moustache?” in a quiet durge; meanwhile Whitesuit worked the audience yelling the refrain, asking people in the front row that question and giving them the microphone. It was damn funny, actually. Kinda like watching your old Bar Mitzvah video is funny. Squirmy, surreally funny. Whitesuit was a sort of Chico/Groucho hybrid who “interpreted” Blacksuit’s Italian crooning over his accordion (did Blacksuit actually study Italian folk songs in college?) – every so often White hit a joke with that. They also did “Autobahn, Autobahn” chanted over bongos, and some other crap with Black playing the banjo. White must have felt he was losing steam with us, so he traipsed out into the audience, wrapped himself around randoms and took their Polaroid together. The real highlight, of course, was when he came by OUR table (NO! Yes! Please don’t come here! Oh, I HOPE he comes over HERE!) and took a Polaroid with his arm around Chris (and me in the background). Chris, I hope you kept it. It’s probably the only thing you’ll remember in the long run about that night. All in all, it was an act so overtly offensive in so many ways, we had to laugh, but it was hard to tell if we were laughing for the reasons they wanted us to or not. The whole thing clearly was conceived at 3:00am after lots of illicit substances had been consumed. So kids, next time someone offers you drugs, remember Il Bambino. Think about this little story. THIS could happen to you!

Change gears. No, change planets. Up come Jane Lui to the stage, settling the question of who the hell that is on the meticulously designed postcards left meaningfully on our little table at the start of the evening. Ms. Lui is a tall, self-consciously cute Asian woman whose onstage persona is at once appealing but also a little tiresome if you try to imagine being her friend. She had a Yamaha keyboard which was set to sound like a piano on reverb, and after the first chords instantly we were out of whatever the hell came before and into a completely new universe. This universe was one where someone, having taken lots of piano lessons and forced to practice a lot, and having a good amount of talent and is also blessed with a natural pop diva voice to boot, writes Celine Dion songs. But somehow, they were better than that. She had a great command of the keyboard and had written lots of songs with unusual structures and resolutions, and weren’t so self-absorbed as they could be. One song was about a fantasy book she liked. Lui has a beautiful voice and a refined understanding of how to use both it and the piano to evoke emotion. She even worked in a strutting blues for part of a tune, and made it work with her pop voice without sounding corny, because she wasn’t even trying to be Bessie Smith. After a while, though, I got bored, maybe because the songs mostly lacked heavy hooks, or because that style of singing is just too much for me, or maybe I was just tired. It was like, I’d buy your CD because you’re very talented, but I can’t imagine listening to it more than once. Chris summed it up just right, when she was done, with “Kate Bush just left the stage”. So I didn’t buy the CD.

Finally, Anya Marina. For those of you not in San Diego, she’s a tiny blonde DJ on the alternative rock station here, who has become a sort of folk hero among the smart, cheeky and haughty Gen-Xers because she’s smart and cheeky without seeming haughty, commodities which that group (yeah, me included, yeah) considers undervalued in this corner of the world. I’d heard her album, and seen her play a few songs once before. This time she was accompanied, besides herself on guitar, by the drummer from Reeve Oliver, a so-so local band she’s plugged relentlessly on her radio show, or at least she did until my car radio died. His set was appropriately minimal, just a box which he sat on and played, a hi-hat, and a snare. Anya probably played a total of eight songs in her forty-five or so minutes on stage, due to the constant banter going on between her and drummer boy. Not just him, but another keyboard player came on and off stage a few times, over which a great deal of witty banter was also traded. Jane Lui came on for one or two songs as well – clearly, she and Anya knew each other well, or at least wanted us to know that each thought the other was either “so hot” or “so cute”, meaning they are good friends and respect each other’s work as well as hotness/cuteness. Lui showed off in her own cute Asian way (is it an affectation? Hard to say) her homemade marimba mallets with faces on them: one is Zorro and one is Jewish. Zorro made sense, because he was wrapped mostly in black, but from my vantage point I couldn’t tell what made the other one Jewish. Don’t misunderstand, the witty banter was hugely fun, partly because it really was fun, and partly because of aforementioned consideration of the dearth (or at least, elusiveness) of such wittiness outside my own circle of friends. As for the songs themselves, they’re better than they seemed (not my joke). Her wispy voice is well-matched for her sometimes clever, ironic lyrics (“I love you baby/I hope you choke” in a song about desperate love) and the songs have lots of those hooks I’d been waitin’ on. The drums worked great, especially on her CD’s title track “Miss Halfway”, which is hooky indeed. She tried out a new song, “Reno”, which met those criteria but was also genuinely a bit sadder than the other tongue-in-cheek fare, even if she had a little trouble hitting the high notes. She did a pleasant version of the “Three’s Company” theme song – more Gen-X pandering, but who cares – although the slow take on “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” was a foray into maudlin I could have done without. But all the players in Anya’s bag of smartees were decent musicians and each funny in their own way, which made all that came before it worth the wait, and the $6 cover worth the cost. It was exactly, maybe a little bit more than, what I would want out of a Saturday night at a coffee house. A special thanks goes out to Il Bambino for being so fuckin’ weird.

Dancing About Architecture, Vol. II

2006-02-09T22:07:00.000-08:00

February 7, 2005

Tonight’s episode: Luna with Midnight Movies

A few months ago, Dave went to see Prince and later wrote a long and detailed review of the show and sent it around. I loved it, so when I saw Neko Case with The Sadies I decided I’d do the same thing. I sent my review to some of you and got mostly positive feedback, so now I’m feeling inspired to write a review for yet another show. If you weren’t there, it may not have that much value since you can’t hear the music, and if you were, you already know what happened, so read at your own risk. In any case, here is the second installment:

Luna played their “farewell” show last Thursday night at the Casbah here in San Diego, with Midnight Movies opening. Many of you were there, and it wasn’t planned that way, so that was way cool. I expected a third act as an opener, but it was just the two bands. I had heard Midnight Movies on iTunes and liked them, so I was looking forward particularly to their set. In fact, they turned out to be more interesting than I anticipated. The recordings I had heard sounded like a kinder, gentler version of Throwing Muses with a little synth and eerier, spacier melodies. Turns out they’re a trio, and I’ve got a special place in my heart for good rock trios. Everyone has to work extra hard to make it work. In this case, the girl drummer was also the lead singer, and for my money she gets the MVP award for the evening. Unlike lesser drummer/singers (Don Henley, the dude from the Romantics), Gena Olivier didn’t settle for a standard trap set, but had several additional floor toms, riding tams and other accessories I couldn’t see, and played more complex rhythms than I could ever do while singing, despite lots of practice on the steering wheel. She also closed her eyes while playing, which is something I also do as a concentration thing. But what impressed me was that on top of this she had a good ear: the songs often hit unexpected and sudden chord changes and her voice was right there. The keyboard player spent about half the time on rhythm guitar, and I was glad to see the lead guitar player only switch to bass for some of that time. This meant several songs with two guitars and no bass, and the lead guitarist deftly filled in both top and bottom. I still felt something was missing without the bass, but the swift drumming and spacey vocals kept my mind more focused in the midrange, where all the sound was concentrated. It helped that the singer’s voice is a low alto. Some of their songs led well into expanded jam endings, sometimes on one chord, which ain’t easy – they played these for exactly as long as was necessary, possibly due more to time constraints than musical considerations, but OK either way. The lead guitar/bassist often applied the old Joy Division trick of intensifying the jam by bringing the drone bass line up an octave. Unfortunately, they played a short set – maybe 30 minutes at most – and I would have liked to hear them more. The tunes were creepy but not slow, and the odd melodies and chord and tempo changes helped to make them an interesting live act. But they played the part of the good opener, and were off the stage as quickly as they had come on to make room for the big kids.

The word for Luna’s set, at least the first half, is “restraint”. They’ve been around for like twelve years and I don’t think I had ever heard them before. One of those bands that just slipped through the cracks while I was paying attention to other things. The show was sold out, which is not too surprising if they really are the indie rock darlings they seem to be. They came on with a solid, well-balanced 4-piece indie rock sound that rivals anyone’s. What they lacked was verve. There are probably scores of hardcore Luna fans out there in grad student pubs and New York coffee shops who would defend them tooth and nail, and I can understand why. Take smarty poetic lyrics and sing them in a low deadpan voice that sounds like Jeff Tweedy from Wilco (minus emotion) and play some major chords like you mean it - but with a heavy dose of angst – and you’ve got a formula for popularity among the over-educated. I would bet their albums are…nice. Steady, predictable, and understated, so you can put it on later in the evening when you want something to read a book to, or play it for your friends and they nod approvingly but never say “Damn, that’s cool”. But this does not a live show make. The compositions and the delivery just were not interesting enough. It was like Guided By Voices, but with less compelling songwriting and not enough, hmm, vitamins in their diet maybe? It seemed the band was either bored or tired (drove up that day from Tuscon, which may have been the only thing the lead singer said). They didn’t bother to establish a rapport with the audience, which might be the prerogative of a band on a farewell tour but is still something I like to have. Occasionally the lead guitarist uttered non-sensical inanities into his mic and chuckled quietly, and the biggest fans let themselves in on the joke. It was lost on me. They did have some catchy moments: I enjoyed their rendering of Edward Lear’s 19^th century poem-story “The Owl and the Pussycat” (I have it in a children’s book – that’s how I know), and a song about the Bonnies and Clydes of the world was fun. Like their predecessors, in the second half of their set they ended most songs with a jam, although in every case I can remember it was a I-IV-I-IV chord thing (think “Bad” by U2) – no other variations. Fine, fine. Just not that exciting. And when the sexy bassist (who was the only one I could see, when I could see anything, thanks to the two tallest motherfuckers in California) and lead guitar sang backup, the vocals did sound sweeter. I bet there’s more of that on their albums. Nothing too risky, though. None of the bass-playing, drumming, strumming or singing really stood out, not that they were trying. They have their mid-nineties indie sound and they stick with it. I never once thought “Whoah!”, but more often was thinking “yup”. It was a little like living in San Diego. There was nothing offensive, really, but by the end I was terribly bored. So here’s my formula:

((Wilco + Guided By Voices)/Poster Children) – Enthusiasm = Luna

If it hadn’t been at my favorite club, with some of my favorite people in the audience, it would have been a tough show. Next time, more Midnight Movies, more moxie, less tall motherfuckers. I’m serious: that one dude must have been 6’9”. Asshole.

-Larry

Dancing About Architecture, Vol. I

2006-02-09T22:00:00.000-08:00

December 7, 2004

Jackie and I went to see Neko Case Saturday night at the El Rey Theater, about three blocks from Jackie’s place in LA. Here’s my report on that show:

First of all, the fact that we could actually walk to an event in LA was in itself quite surreal. There was a long line, and even though the theater is pretty big, it was really crowded even early. It was a pretty nice venue: a converted old theater with a lowered center area, round booths and couches along either side and a three-sided bar at the back, big chandeliers and a raised stage. When we got there, the first opener was playing, a guy named Dexter Romweber. He sang and played guitar, and had an upright bass and drums. He was horrible. I mean, really awful. It always amazes me when a good headliner has a lousy opening act. He was exactly what you would expect to see in a dingy bar outside of Akron, Ohio. He was a beer-bellied, slovenly looking guy with a messy pompadour. He tried very hard to sound like Elvis, but his voice was painfully flat (really, it was like bad karaoke) and gross, his guitar playing was crass and the songs were stupid. They were also all rip-offs. One song was the exact copy of the old blues song “Sittin’ On Top of the World”, but with different, dumber lyrics. Another was a copy of a Howlin’ Wolf song, and although he tried to sing like Mr. Wolf, it was embarrassingly bad. We hung out in the back waiting for him to finish before moving onto the floor. The thing that was really so bad about this guy was that he went on forever. The show was supposed to start at 8, and although I don’t know when he actually started, he didn’t quit until at least 9:30.

Alright, enough about that. We moved up towards the front of the floor for the second act, The Sadies. I had heard of them, knew they’d been around a few years, but didn’t know much else. They’re a quartet from Toronto, although I think some members are from different parts of Ontario. The band is fronted by Dallas Good on guitar and vocals, and his brother Travis (twin?) on same, plus violin. They also used an upright bass and the drummer had a standard kit. This band was terrific. The Goods switched between lead and backup vocals, and lead and rhythm guitar, often in the same song so smoothly you didn’t even notice. Both had a tendency to pull away from the front of the stage and even turn around while they were playing some of their more interesting guitar lines, which had the effect of forcing you to just take in all of the sound. They started out sounding like a rockabilly band. Their second song sounded like a spaghetti western theme song. Dallas is a laid-back indie rock-looking type whose lips seem to ripple in a circle when he sings, while his brother looked more like a cross between Slash and Neil Young. During the spaghetti western tune, Dallas sang in a high falsetto with his eyes closed, and Travis made all these ridiculous heavy metal wailing grimaces up against the microphone, even though he wasn’t singing at all. It was pretty funny to watch, a cute gag, and got the audience really into their style. Their set just got more and more interesting, as they played a mix of bluegrass, rockabilly, garage rock, country and Chicago blues, often within the same song. It was a rare case of sounding very familiar while really being a unique sound, kind of like Camper van Beethoven although less cheeky. One song started as speed rock, then shifted into bluegrass, and ended up as a doo-wop blues where the lyrics “Baby, baby, shoop shoop” didn’t sound ridiculous at all. And they had great chops, too. Some of their songs were instrumentals, and they did one sort of Turkey in the Straw breakdown that featured Travis on lead. After the first 32-bar iteration, Jackie said to me, “That’s some good guitar playing”. But then they picked it up and played it again faster. Very nice. Then they did it again, faster. Impressive. Then again, very very fast. Damn. The song ended, and then just when the audience was about to applaud, they picked it up and did it one last time at breakneck speed. It may not have been the fastest guitar playing I’ve ever heard, but it was pretty damn close. The cool thing was Dallas was also playing a combo of lead and rhythm, and so for many of their songs there was some really beautiful counter-melodic layering. They also did an old spiritual called “Higher Power” as a rockabilly song, and pulled it off well. Travis played fiddle for about a third of the tunes, and was not quite as impressive as on guitar, but still very good. He had the bigger, stronger voice, although Dallas’ bass baritone worked in a Johnny Cash sort of way. I imagine they get better audience responses elsewhere; the LA crowd seemed too cool to really get into anything.

OK, so finally Neko came on. Last time I saw her (aside from with the New Pornographers), she had a slide guitarist and an upright bass player with her, sans percussion except for an anklet tambourine. This time, she came out, and her back up band was The Sadies! For this set, Travis played the same guitar but played it primarily in slide guitar style (but held over his shoulder), which somehow involved twisting his right wrist as he strummed (Dave? Does that make sense?). She started playing solo with a creepy country waltz off one of her older albums, which I like and was a good intro. She played a few upbeat tunes, including a hot Loretta Lynn song that I didn’t know, but Jackie insisted she sounded just like Lynn, so OK. I thought it was pretty good, but mostly because the back up band was dead on. However, Neko played almost no other old stuff of hers; in fact, I can’t think of any others I recognized. It was all off the new album, I guess. Next to us was a young woman with Arista (I think) records, who apparently just signed Neko and so a lot of record label people were there. She was talking to a middle-aged man who apparently had directed the movie “Rock and Roll High School”. Weird. Anyway, perhaps Neko had to play mostly new album songs as part of the record deal or something. They were nice songs. But they were almost all sad country waltzes. In fact, she kept introducing songs as, “this is a sad song about X”. There were a few songs that she wrote with The Sadies, which didn’t fall into that category and were less depressing. But overall, it was too much of the same thing. Her voice sounded as good as always, but the lack of variety made her set pale in comparison to the previous one. Towards the end of the set (which wasn’t very long, probably because the first opener went on for so damn long), Dexter Roundblubber came out and “sang” with the band, with Neko as an additional rhythm guitar. He literally just growled unintelligibly into the microphone. I just didn’t get why anyone put up with this guy. For a few songs Neko played a small acoustic that was only slightly bigger than a ukulele. They did do a 5 or 6 song encore, which partially made up for the shorter set. Maybe the venue was just too big for her songs, which are small and intimate. But in the end, the night was all about The Sadies. I bought Neko’s new album – haven’t listened to it yet – but I think I’m more excited to hear the Sadies’ CD that Jackie picked up.

So there you have it. I couldn’t tell you what make of guitar or whatever everybody played (sorry, Dave – not as thorough as your Prince review). If Neko comes to town where you are, I’d go see her, but make sure you get there in time for the touring band.

-Larry