Halloween House Show: Mauarder and Alibi, Pipe(s) of the Doctor of Witchcraft / White Manna / Starving Weirdos
Halloween House Show; Arcata, CA
By 10:45 PM, I was late, mostly because my "sensible" heels had proven to be otherwise and walking across town had left my feet blistered and swollen. Barefoot, I entered the house and was quickly swept up by a crowd populated by gynecologists, Roman gladiators, and Judas Priest fans, all here to celebrate Halloween the way citizens of Humboldt county invariably celebrate every weekend: a house show. The first two bands had already gone on -- Maurader and Alibi, an experimental soundtracking duo creating what they call "re-partitioned apocalypso instrumentation," and local group Pipe(s) of the Doctor of Witchcraft, who were also of the avant variety.
By 11 o'clock, the time for White Manna had come. The five local boys making up WM delivered what the flier had promised: an evening of house party, stoner psych rock loud enough to make your heart skip beats, and went so far as to accompany it with a midi-organ. Silhouetted against a cardboard haunted-house backdrop, paper bats swung from the ceiling and blocked the light of the projector playing segmented 8mm films on the wall. To my left, a group of five or six individuals swayed around in a cooperative slow-motion mosh pit, as the heavily distorted Telecaster made my ears throb and eyes water, blurring reality into a mess of indistinguishable waves. Nearly 30 minute passed without a pause or breath, just a constant barrage of bass and crashing cymbals or a blazing guitar solo ebbing in and out of a pacing drum beat like one long crescendo. After a while, my wandering mind drew a connection to the dissonant garage rock of the Godz, and as chance would have it, a comp entitled Eureka Freak #3 Sampler: A Tribute to the Godz, was available after the set.
A little after midnight, the dispersed crowd congealed once again into an anxious mass for the Starving Weirdos, a group of great local and even fair international renown. With many individuals sprawled supine on the carpet, the foursome ensemble began their heavy "floorcore" set, each member crouched low over a seemingly incomprehensible tangle of cords, knobs, and pedals. The first minute of sound was deafening. A man dressed as a Syrian well-digger (I had to ask to find out; he looked like a Guantanamo escapee) twiddled a knob that made a low-whine squeal launch into the ultrasonic range, as another man in a shepherd's cloak convulsed over a single button emitting a small blue light, controlling who knows which sound amongst the orchestrated cacophony.
After an epic soundscape of another 30 minutes utilizing bells, chimes, violins, shakers, and bugle horns, the discordant wails succumbed to an over-reaching beat as they crowd gave in to a synchronized head-bob, the chaos momentarily unified before it shuddered to halt. Silence hung heavy for a instant before drunken onlookers burst into congratulatory hollers and applause, lively conversation reining again. As I made my way to the door, a mime talking to a large man dressed as Elmo said precisely what was on my mind, "That was amazing. They're so in my Top 10 friends." (Which they now are.)
The time was soon 1:15 AM and Sunburned Hand of the Man, the East Coast experimental psych outfit, was yet to make their headlining appearance. The kegs were all empty (all of them), and frankly I'd boogalooed as long as I could stand. By 1:30, the audience was cleaved, the hardcore separated from the casual observers, and it was apparent that I was not of the former. I was exhausted. Dejected and ready for bed, I made my way towards the door, shoes in hand, for the long walk home. In hindsight that was lame; I probably should have stayed. Rumor has it it was a "mind-blowing set, man. Can't believe you left." Story of my life.
Dead C / Northampton Wools / Sightings / King Darves
Bowery Ballroom; New York, NY
It’s with some serendipity that New Zealand noise-rockers the Dead C would be making an appearance in New York at the same time the actual Dead Sea scrolls would be on display at the Jewish Museum in the very same city. Indeed, for both, a Manhattan appearance is equally rare. Though there exists no tour t-shirt to document the scrolls globe trekking, the band, the Dead C are on record as having only made one journey to the states before this tour, to play the Los Angeles chapter of All Tomorrow’s Parties back in 2002. Like the scrolls, the Dunedin, New Zealand band’s extensive back catalog has been ruminated over, each new release pored over for meaning and intent, and as is the case for both, new paradoxes arise out of every examination of their output.
New York City parking regulations had me circling the Bowery Ballroom 20 or 30 times before settling upon a viable spot to stash my ride. Unfortunately, I had already missed openers King Darves. Bummer. So it would be Northampton Wools that would whet my live music whistle for the night. The guitar mangling duo of Thurston Moore and Bill Nace invoked the spirit of Derek Bailey, as the two started out with spacious, delicate amblings only to build towards further rupture and the all-out guitar squall Thurston has manifested in over a bazillion projects. In a particularly pleasing moment (after several awkward silences), Thurston, in a fit of fury, slammed a file against the strings and continued to absolutely maul the guitar that sat torturously, crying out for help upon his lap.
Sightings continued the guitar abuse with their skronk ‘n’ pummel routine. Rich Hoffman provided plenty of dyspeptic “bass face,” switching from slinky-snake charming riffs to retard rumble, while Mark Morgan danced around the stage doing a hybrid Russian folk dance mixed with a modified version of the limbo. The synth pad/actual drum drumming of Jon Lockie further accentuated Sightings half-man/half-machine hybrid attack. The whole Sightings package kind of sounds like what Einstürzende Neubauten would if they were around in the late-’60s -- call it industrial-edelia if that suits you (it shouldn’t). Not recognizing this song cycle from their latest Through the Panama, it stands to reason these new jams are to be featured on some sort of new album, which has me atwitter with schoolgirl-like excitement.
Dead C took the stage last and culminated a night of discordance. Mike Morley’s lethargic drawl wove a dream-time musical language with Bruce Russell’s guitar noisiness. Russell, in a perpetual Quasimoto slump, leaned over his guitar, not necessarily playing it, but maybe exploiting it, inserting a small metal strip between the fretboard and strings and producing a steady stream of feedback from the small amp he had in front of him. The drumming of Robbie Yeats was impressive; holding together amorphous rock tendencies can’t be easy, but he pulled it off. Their set was full of peaks and valleys, build-ups and let-downs, while an underscore of atonality held it all together. The performance for the most part lacked the energy of some past recorded shows (gotta love that video of them on New Zealand television) and opted for more unilateral unfoldings and subtle crescendos. Although the sheets of sound built up by the C reached some transcendent heights, I felt, overall, they kept it mired in a sort of cosmic funeral dirge. Dead C have to be commended for their unique vision, their disregard of convention, and the sheer influence they have bequeathed, which makes it tough to decry such a seminal and legendary band for being “boring.” To save face, I’ll revert back to that old axiom about Wagner’s music and say that, like the German composer, Dead C are better than they sound.
of Montreal / Love Is All
Roseland Ballroom; New York, NY
Oh, Kevin Barnes.
You’ve really stepped it up since I saw you on the Sunlandic Twins tour. Sure, then you were decked out in a wedding dress and asking the audience to marry you. Yes, you got nearly naked and twisted across the stage. But this time was just...
Well, for one, you sang from atop a white stallion during Skeletal Lamping’s “St. Exquisite’s Confessions.” I mean, what can I say to that?
That’s the only feat that might have PETA knocking at the door of your tour bus, but it was by no means the only over-the-top aspect of your performance at Roseland Ballroom. While you and your crew churned out the majority of Skeletal Lamping along with some choice cuts from the three previous LPs, a cast of nimble performers swarmed on and off the stage, swapping out costume after costume to transform themselves into cowboys, guerrillas, nuns, birds, giraffes, satyrs and other vague, indistinguishable creatures. You yourself played the priest, roller disco king, centaur, condemned man (who was actually hanged on stage), and shaving cream-covered corpse, to name a few.
Georgie Fruit, your burgeoning alter ego, was there, too, but it seems that, like the turn-on-a-dime sonic multiplicity that Skeletal Lamping embraces, Monsieur Fruit is less a concrete, knowable character than a chaotic pastiche of every fanciful notion that floats into your kaleidoscopic viewfinder. Fruit is you sporting a Technicolor sombrero, the teenage girls screaming when you stripped to your loincloth skivvies, the beaming-faced front-row fans that you smeared with shaving cream, and the hundreds of camera flashes that tried to capture the stream of rich, absurd images that you paraded forth.
I’m sure the fact that Roseland is just a few steps from Broadway theatre district was not lost on you. While your cascading stage show might have been out of place in the bare bones, DIY-minded enclaves of Brooklyn, everything seemed quite at home on the balcony-flanked ballroom soundstage. The showbiz people probably didn’t even look at you funny when you ordered up that pristine white equine.
My mind was beginning to wander towards the end of the nearly two-hour set, not because your music or performance was starting to bore me, but because you kept reminding me of so many different things, from the ’60s comedy hour “Laugh-In” and ridiculous Olivia-Newton John musical Xanadu to Bowie, Prince, Sparks, and Sly Stone.
But then, to kick off the encore, you did what seemed like the only thing left to be done: You brought up It-boy Andrew VanWyngarden of MGMT and busted out a straight-up cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” As teenagers who could barely talk when that gritty anthem was released sang along, word for word, suddenly the peak spectacle of that white stallion was trampled by a stampede of raw communal energy.
The only downside was that this supreme moment of the night put a shadow on another fun cover: opening band Love Is All’s version of “Run (So Far Away)” by Flock of Seagulls. In fact, I felt roundly sorry for Love Is All, because those punchy Swedes laid down a fantastic opening set of new and old songs that could have blown the roof off of a smaller venue. But in the caverns of Roseland, your kingdom for the night, they just couldn’t compete.
I’m not criticizing you for that, Mr. Barnes. You made your wild vision a tangible and dazzling reality, and it was well worth it. People leaving your concerts will not quickly forget the experience. Few of us will probably ever see another show quite like this, and I don’t anticipate hearing such a spirited and fitting version of a Nirvana song again without the aid of a time machine. So, Mr. Barnes — or Georgie Fruit, if you’d like — thanks go out to you and your band. You really did the title of that instrumental track from The Sunlandic Twins justice: With you and of Montreal, “October Is Eternal.”
Setlist:
[Photo: Patrick Heagney]
Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band
The Warfield; San Francisco, CA
Oscar Wilde said a few centuries ago that "All of us are in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." This idea is consoling to those of us who are frustrated by the impasse between what is and what could be, echoed in Bright Eyes' infamous "Road To Joy" line, "No one ever plans to wake up in the gutter/ Sometimes that's just the most comfortable place."
Conor Oberst’s songwriting no longer seems informed or, better, made necessary by the kind of suffering that renders spooning a sewage drain attractive. He has broken away from Bright Eyes to form Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band, and with this change has comes music that abandons high-stake confessionalism for a safer brand of rock. If that gutter quote from It's Morning, I'm Wide Awake (2005) epitomizes Bright Eyes, more relevant to Conor’s solo work are lyrics from his new limited edition EP: Gentelman's Pact: "Life's not fair/ I tried to die young with my true love/ Ended up a millionaire."
This shift to the middle is omnipresent at The Warfield on October 24. The effect of this change from the tortured king of emo to "the Paul Simon of indie rock" (we'll get to that later) has been to create more mainstream fans — at the price of estranging his loyal core of followers.
With $9 Fernet shots and limited ins-and-outs for smokers, my crew and I are a little put-off at the outset of the show. I am with Alexandra Vesalga, a 27-year-old and 8-year fan; Alison Burke, a 19-year-old and 6-year fan; and Mike Rowell, a music writer for the SF Weekly.
All Smiles opens the show, followed by the all-girl trio The Like. Vesalga compares these openers with past choices, saying that "I have seen Her Space Holiday and The Faint open for Bright Eyes. On the Cassadaga tour, Jim James opened with a solo performance. Those three artists are definitely on par musically with Bright Eyes. The Like was pretty good, but I find it interesting that he picked bands so obviously not on that level of musical ingenuity with his past openers. It's kind of a mainstream band move, like how you don't want an artist to open with a set as good as yours."
Oberst's set is a hybrid of classic rock and alt-country, with only undertones of the deathly eloquent songwriting that put him in the club with other starry-eyed gutter punks. Alison Burke says that her favorite songs of the night are "Eagle on a Pole" and "Milk Thistle," the two that most channel the Bright Eyes style. "I thought the other songs were regressing back to the ’70s, like ripping off past music phases. Aside from that, I just didn't really feel the connection that I felt with his music in the past. I didn't leave feeling the same way at all."
Mike Rowell (the music writer in tote) says that "The songs weren't bad, but they didn't move me the way older Bright Eyes stuff has, and they smacked of generic rockism. Whether he's deliberately shooting for wider appeal with his classic retro-rock stylings, who knows."
Rowell tells me that, when they met around 2002, Oberst said he had taken up smoking so that his voice would be more gravelly. Gravelly it may be, but not muddled. It drives a clear yet rough cut through the instrumentation, and you can tell that the songs have been written in a way that keeps the lyrics front-and-center. "I thought the music was orchestrated well,” Vesalga says. “Nate Walcott does all the horns, strings and keys and he's a genius. But I think since his old producer Mike Mogis left, the band has lacked an experimental side. It's been really regimented. There is a classically-trained element driving it."
This control aspect spills into the songwriting, too. "He's abandoning the way he writes, which has always been a huge quality that people commended him for," Burke says. "He's not singing about himself anymore, and he's being very influenced by other artists — people like Tom Petty and Bob Dylan. He's trying to go down that road instead of the one he created for himself 14 years ago."
Vesalga also comments on this turning-outward. "Some of his songs are still really good, but it seems that he's trying to appeal more to a mass audience so there are very few of those songs that feel true and are really moving. Bright Eyes was always a very introspective songwriting outfit that showed the most extreme ugly and beautiful sides of the world from one person's perspective. It was very relatable; I think a lot of people identified with it. Likewise, I think many people hated it because it was so extreme."
"I did think the cover of Paul Simon's ‘Kodachrome’ was telling," Rowell says. "It seems he's a younger guy rediscovering the ’70s, and everything old is new again. Unfortunately, while ‘Kodachrome’ is an admittedly catchy song, I was never that hot on it, even back in the day. If Conor wants to be the modern-day Paul Simon, that's fine, but don't expect me to be too enthusiastic about it."
"It's hard for me to say whether I will see him again," Burke says. "I'm such a huge Bright Eyes fan, and I've loved him for years. If he were with Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band, I don't know if I would — unless the next album was more genuine."
I ask Vesalga what she would say if he were right in front of her and asked her opinion of the show. "I would hope that I would say I'm really disappointed in his choices," she answers. "But I don't know if I could even speak."
They Might Be Giants
(Le) Poisson Rouge; New York, NY
I grew up listening to They Might Be Giants with my band nerd friends in high school. And I am willing to admit that most of my useless trivia knowledge comes from their extensive song library. We all know that old New York was once New Amsterdam for a reason, but did anyone appreciate our 11th president (James K. Polk) until 1996? I didn't think so; the man seized the whole southwest from Mexico!
Upon entering (Le) Poisson Rouge, I realized that the crowd was much older than I expected. Many of those in attendance probably saw They Might Be Giants when they broke in the early-’90s, and they keep coming back. The band has one of the most dedicated fanbases out there. They have brilliantly maintained an aging base while developing a younger one by releasing two children's albums. As the show progressed, at least four people surrounding me were keeping track of the 41-song setlist.
The venue is smaller than I would have expected. (Le) Poisson Rouge touts itself as being able to hold up to and over 800 people, but it didn't feel like it. Rouge has a very intimate feeling. These guys could be doing decent-sized venues across the countries, but have chosen to put on several smaller shows in New York City from late-2008 through early-2009. Each NYC show had an overall theme to the night, and I attended the playing of Flood, the band's 1990 major label release. It was this album, with tracks like "Birdhouse in your Soul" and "Particle Man," that really transitioned them from college rock staples to alternative gods.
Bathed in fuchsia and turquoise, the band ascended the three steps that caused them to tower over the crowd. Surrounded by horns to their left and a seasoned gig band to their backs John Linnell and John Flansburgh launched into the album's first track, "Theme From Flood." The "hardest working band still taking the L train" would play the entirety of Flood for their first set and then take a quick break and return for a second set.
Its interesting to see Linnell and Flansburgh interacting on stage together. While Flansburgh flails around and is full of energy, Linnell remains stoic, playing the keyboard or accordion with very small but deliberate movements. From the start, you can tell this is a band that has been playing together for a very long time. Throughout Flood, the band remained traditionalists and tried to recreate what they recorded in 1990, even going so far as listening to their own album to figure out how "Istanbul" was executed.
As the set break came and went, the band transformed. I was impressed by the first set, but it didn't feel quite like a show -- it was as if they were going through the motions so they could get to the second set quickly. When that time came, the band became far more animated. These were the hits that we all know and love. Not to diminish Flood, I just couldn't wait to hear "S-E-X-X-Y" any longer.
The second set featured too many gems to mention. One of the best parts was the inclusion of the new song, "Why Does the Sun Really Shine? (The Sun is a Miasma of Incandescent Plasma)," a response to "Why Does The Sun Shine?" Turns out their explanation of how the sun functions was incorrect -- it isn't a mass of incandescent gas; it involves a fourth state of matter, plasma. Throughout the show, there was a quiet echo of people singing every word to every song. This was only evident when the band would switch something up or slow down the tempo, revealing the audience's conditioning to their favorite songs.
Since the first time I heard "Particle Man" on Tiny Tunes Adventures and growing up with Apollo 18 in my head, I had wanted to see TMBG. It was an incredible show if only for the versatility alone. After 20+ years of being strange guys, The Johns are comfortable with their career, and I don't see TMBG slowing down anytime soon.
Setlist:
Sunn O))): Grimmrobe Demo 10th Anniversary Show
Thou / Tony Conrad / Sunn O))) @ Knitting Factory; New York, NY
It was in eager, nerve-tingling anticipation that I approached SunnO)))’s first New York appearance in roughly two years. A special four date scuttlebutt (two shows on the East Coast, two on the West) would see the band without a new album to promote, instead celebrating the ten year anniversary of the now legendary Grimm Robe Demos, their first recorded output. Like that demo, the initial testament to their unending down-tuned drone worship, their performance at the Knit was filled with intestine-churning glory. Though more recent SunnO))) live shows have hosted up to seven members on stage, they began with just two robed specters, Southern Lord label-head Greg Anderson and the inimitable Steven O’Malley (KTL, Burning Witch). That’s how it would also be this night, and in the end, less was indeed more.
I entered the club and Baton Rouge natives Thou were on stage. Their website explicitly pleads “Stop Comparing Us to Eyehategod,” and I would’ve, had I not read that. Their metallic sludge-core conjured other doom and gloomers like Cavity and Buzzoven, and though their sound was in a lot of ways familiar, they had a certain knack for crossing genres, mixing in flourishes of psychedelic black-metal of the Nachtmystium sort, while never taking the edge off their particularly misanthropic metal-core. Their singer spewed forth vile with throat lacerating vocals, condemning life in all its horrid splendor. He seemed very angry, in that jaded suburbanite hardcore kind of way, and muttered something before the last song about how life was pointless. Their myspace page also displays teenage angst edicts like “Go outside and burn the world to the ground” and "Give up on life as a bad mistake." Bravo boys. Also, they were selling patches, something I don’t think I’ve experienced since 1998.
The 68 year old Tony Conrad would take the stage next and was a little more contemporary. I’d seen Tony twice in the past year or so but both times he was accompanied, once by the foxy MV Carbon of Metalux, the other trading bowed barbs with C. Spencer Yeh. Though there were similar elements in all three performances, there was something deeply satisfying about seeing Conrad up there on his own, perilously bowing his violin, looping drones and noodling atonally over them with a piece of string. His resonating drones were reminiscent of his work with Lamonte Young and John Cale in the old Theater of Eternal Music days, but it was his economic shtick that really stole the show. In an act that is still confounding me, Tony actually managed to bow -- and get some pretty good sounds -- out of a tightly clamped 50 dollar bill while offering some thoughts on the current economic crisis; “Wall Street’s not too far from here” he grunted like a pirate into the mic; “They’ve been playing with our money.” The financial fluxus piece didn’t end there, as Tony bowed a gold chain while urging people to invest in precious metals. Looping violin goodness, classic authentic minimalism and fluxus foundations all made for an all-out great performance.
I decided to make a move after Conrad’s set to purchase the lusciously beautiful 3xlp Grimm Robe picture disc reissue, which, upon further inspection, glaringly exceeds the dwindling worth of the forty federal reserve notes it took to exchange for it. By that point I had already been boxed out of my original spot, and I noticed the room really starting to fill up. Luckily, I found a gap to the right of the stage, and after waiting for what seemed like one full Paleolithic era for them to come out (I think they were waiting for their industrial fog machine to fill the room), the robed duo finally emerged from the netherworld. I had an excellent vantage point of Greg Anderson, but O'Malley was completely out of my purview. Looking back, I saw the room packed to the gills, but eventually moved more towards the middle in a painfully tight trek. Here I could both performers in all their fist-raising, wine-imbibing glory. Holding their guitars to the heavens and playing one impossibly long note after another, SunnO))) were mightier than the cosmos themselves.
I was convinced there was some divine intervention afoot when O'Malley precariously dangled his guitar on a piece of Styrofoam soundproofing dangling from the ceiling. A collective gasp came from the crowd when he let go, sure it would plummet 10-15 feet to its death, but by God’s hand, it remained there for a good couple of minutes, resonating and hanging high from the ceiling. It was a beautiful thing. The two plodded away for over an hour, each stroke of their guitars endlessly enveloping and extended into a bubbling Chernobyl. Overall, an amazing night from which my body is still vibrating.
