Silver Jews / Monotonix
Music Hall of Williamsburg; Brooklyn, NY
David Berman was never really a quiet guy. Through The Silver Jews' 17 years of near-stage-silence, Berman always indulged the swarms of journalists eager for Jews news with lengthy interviews and thoughtful, candid answers. There wasn't much mystery: He traveled, gave readings, but never with a band. Which is why The Silver Jews' first tour in 2006 was such an unexpected treat (especially for someone who'd just discovered the literary ecstasy of Tanglewood Numbers). At London's Scala, the band was admirably shaky; David was charming and coy in his delivery, as he peered into a music stand of lyrics for the occasional assist. In all, the night was perfect.
For this follow-up tour, I inevitably had different expectations. The narrative surrounding it, following a ton of positive press for the Jews' sixth full-length, Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea, focused on Berman's recovery from depression and drug addiction and the new positive direction of his life and the band. The idea of David and wife Cassie (on bass) touring together -- with drummer, keyboard player, and good-old-boy guitarists William Tyler and Peyton Pinkerton in tow -- resounded with writers (which most Silver Jews fans invariably are, and vice versa) and readers. This lead-in for the band's second tour, while peachy-keen, put a spin on the evening, different than that first glimpse behind the SJ curtain. It was to be something more than a mere exhibition of the Silver Jews catalog done live -- a show in its own right, an event.
In that spirit, Drag City labelmates Monotonix opened with their outsider theatrics, playing, as usual, from the floor of the venue. But the party-rock parody fell flat in the awkward environs of the venue: Careening around a room of music nerds, mooning the crowd, pouring beer on each other and climbing the room's mezzanine threatening to jump made the band look more pathetic than rockin'. Worth a second look under different circumstances, perhaps.
After the floor was cleared and everyone was compensated with drink tickets, Silver Jews took the stage, emerging from a backlit-blue doorway and descending down a small back-alley staircase to their instruments. The familiar intro to "Smith & Jones Forever," a highlight from the band's best, American Water, was met with cheers as Berman grabbed the mic with confidence and maybe even a little swagger.
Berman -- oversized specs, beard as shield, donning a proper suit -- owned the stage while the Lookout Mountain songs glowed with sparkling Nashville sound. The guitarwork on tunes new and old (like classic "Dallas") cut through the club's mix with pristinely gritty solos and ringing lead lines. And the much anticipated duet of "Suffering Jukebox" made palpable Berman's much discussed spiritual and emotional recovery.
Though the novelty of seeing the Silver Jews live is wearing off (I know, fickle), the songs continue to captivate with a mixture of ambivalence and affirmation (even if their mid-tempo loll becomes more noticable in a live setting). The experience made the most sense as the night's closing phrase, "I love you to the max," repeated by crowd and band with earnestness and vigor, contradictions and all, echoed through the night.
Setlist:
Pygmalion Music Festival 2008
September 17-20, 2008;
Music festivals, for what it’s worth, are as much about music as they are about the experience, which largely explains their draw over regular summer touring schedules. It’s also one of the main reasons I found myself at Urbana-Champaign’s Pygmalion Music Festival amidst an awesome lineup of bands composed heavily of artists that I had no clue about. Even the ones I purportedly went there to see, and claim to be a fan of, I know little about: I’ve seen Dan Deacon four times now, but still have only heard one of his records. I’ve seen Headlights four times too, but only own their most recent release. So, to be unleashed on this unfamiliar wilderness of a Big Ten college town amidst a mass of musicians was simply disorienting.
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{Thursday}
My friend and I were surprised and excited to find official Pygmalion tote bags waiting for us with our wristbands. Free goodies! Festival t-shirts! Complimentary issues of Paste! Free earplugs! Unfortunately, there was no real orientation guide for us, and we got lost looking for the first venue. We finally arrived halfway through Pontiak’s set; we were blown away by the level of musicianship displayed by this trio of brothers (all of whom resemble Will Oldham to some degree). Their riff-heavy indie stoner jams are likely to please fans of Black Sabbath and Animal Collective alike, and their continued alliance with Arbouretum is no surprise.
Pontiak was the first great revelation of the weekend, but unfortunately things went downhill from there. We saw Evangelicals stone-sober in the lobby of the University art museum, which was just plain weird. The normally effusive creators of this year’s sublime The Evening Descends were lacking in both energy and stage presence. They ran through that record like it was a hits compilation, with “Paperback Suicide” and “Midnight Vignette” sounding particularly good but overall flat.
We mistakenly missed the opportunity to see Murder By Death in lieu of the allure of beer at the Canopy Club. We ravenously attacked the $2 High Life specials (thank you, corporate sponsorship!) and then witnessed the rock ‘n’ roll swindle that is Monotonix – a really great guitar player, a shit-ton of stupid antics, and little-to-no substance. I’ve seen them twice now, and I never want or need to see them again. This must have been the evening of Spectacle.
The awful taste in my mouth left by Monotonix gave way to the blissful noise of Dark Meat. Taking the stage with something like 12 members, including 2 drummers, Dark Meat seemed to have the most fun of any band that night. They were also the loudest, just about destroying the already sub-standard sound at the Canopy Club, leaving us to revel in their wall of sound. Even if the intricacies of their sound were indiscernible, they were a blast two witness live.
The evening closed with the aforementioned Dan Deacon Fiasco. With the sound all but gone, Deacon’s music was reduced to static and a modest beat, while a host of hipsters danced to nothing. Inviting the audience onto the stage caused it to collapse. Still, the party persisted in the audience, at least until some fan got kicked in the face by a crowd-surfer and the plug on the night was pulled. It would have been unfortunate under normal conditions, except that I couldn’t help but feel that we had been spared actually having to wait through Deacon’s entire performance. It was pitiful and unfortunate, showing that a Dan Deacon show can’t be a perfect party every night.
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{Friday }
With Thursday night marking the low-point of the festival, we turned to a long night of music Friday to set things right. We started off with our friends The Lonelyhearts, a duo who write lengthy narrative songs on the sparse landscape of 12-string guitar and a lone synthesizer. Their new record, Disaster Footage at Night, is one of the year’s unheralded gems, so I was among the privileged few who got to see them at their last live show of 2008. We then caught Owen at the aforementioned art museum, whose one-man confessional act was far more appropriate for the museum, balancing his acrid, stinging lyrics with an ability to make his acoustic guitar fill the room. The lineage from American Football is present and visible, and he was one of the surprise highlights of the festival.
We stuck around for Santa, the band who so graciously hosted us for the weekend, and enjoyed their manic yet pleasing indie pop. Clearly bringing out heads with their considerable undergrad following, the energy in the art museum was palpable. We booked it back to the Canopy after their performance and were delightfully greeted by the next big revelation: Titus Andronicus. Their triple-barreled guitar assault recalled the power-pop of The Thermals born out of the swamps of New Jersey. This band is seriously tremendous live. Black Mountain was next. They sounded great, but they've made little impact on my life, even after seeing their live show -- the perpetual “not my thing” band. We stumbled out into the night with the mash-ups of the Hood Internet playing behind us, more interested in carousing with bands in the downstairs VIP area than joining the crowd they attracted.
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{Saturday}
This final day of the festival presented the Yo La Tengo quandary; is it essential to go see them just because they are a legendary indie rock band? Turns out it was and it wasn’t. They played in the massive Krannert Center for Performing Arts, worlds away from the beer and atmosphere of the Canopy Club. Twenty-five minutes of their set was all I needed, and I ducked out the back. Seeing indie rock in a concert hall like that is always a little weird. To their credit, they tore it up, but they felt so distant and, to some degree, scripted. There were clearly a ton of people who were very excited about the show, but I took my chances and bailed.
High Places provided an appropriate substitute. The band has been hyped like few others in 2008, but I must admit that the buzz is justified. Their tropical-influenced take on modest pop is infectious, and the drumming is mesmerizing. They were one of the only bands I could describe as danceable, which was a good break from a lot of loud noise.
The Canopy Club provided the grand finale of the weekend with the Polyvinyl Records showcase. The M's were uninspiring and drab, but Headlights and Asobi Seksu were so impressive that the weekend ended on an unexpected high note. The lack of critical attention for Headlights' 2008 album Some Racing, Some Stopping is confounding; meanwhile, their live show keeps getting better every time I see them. It's like witnessing the reunion of old friends, with all kinds of energy and smiles and good vibes. But what really counts is how good they make these songs sound live. The translation of "So Much For the Afternoon" from slow jam to full-on pop stomp is impressive.
Headlights were followed by Asobi Seksu, the final band of the weekend. I thought about skipping them, but I couldn't resist sticking around for one last performance. Luckily, they didn't disappoint. I had always thought of them as primarily steeped in shoegaze, but their indulgences in pure pop tendencies combined with their big sound (the Canopy finally got its sound right) was a delight, a perfect way to end the weekend.
Pygmalion 2008 was long, loud, and flawed. But like any good festival, I found some new bands to fawn over. Some aspects of the festival were unwieldy and inconvenient -- it's really spread out, and the lack of alcohol at some of the venues was unfortunate -- but in offering a small, local, and cutting-edge festival, Pygmalion succeeds on the whole. Although I didn't get to see everyone, and although I didn't like everyone I saw, it was a very successful weekend of live music. When I got home, I was ready to rest, which in this case was a good sign.
Treasure Island Music Festival 2008
September 20-21, 2008;
{Day 1}
A bus with beautiful leather seats delivers us across the great silver highway in the sky to Treasure Island, a man-made island just off the coast of San Francisco, originally built for the 1939 San Francisco World's Fair. Since then, this island has housed the military, the projects, and now the Treasure Island Music Festival.
"Where are the people?" says Robyn the Photographer. Militaristic buildings and an eerie emptiness make Treasure Island feel like the North/South Korean DMZ. Or a ’70s sci-fi thriller. The strange quiet — even though people do live here — only lasts until we reach the bayside pasture where the TIMF is already alive with bright young stars.
The mechanism in place to check papers and provide infrastructure is impressive and well-organized. As I walk in, Heineken serves samples of beer in tiny plastic cups.
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- {Aesop Rock}
2:06 PM: As much in support of turntablism as he is in support of rap, Aesop Rock spins, pops, and scratches out a dignified opening for this festival, which in that moment has the flavor of an MTV Spring Break party — and I mean that in a good way!
Aesop Rock announces himself as, "One of the only hip-hop acts here." He is supported by DJ Big Whiz, an astonishing turntablist.
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- {Nortec Collective}
A blend of Norteno and techno, Nortec Collective is like listening to Mexican radio on ecstasy. Cheesy, high trumpet, cloying 2-beat sizzles spicily along with psychedelic echoes and bassy beats. The DJ looks like Yul Brenner in Westworld with his 10-gallon hat, western jacket, cowboy boots, and bolo tie jangling as he rocks the block with laptop and sampler.
Nortec Collective is weird, but beautifully ass-kicking. I pass someone with a vintage NES controller for a belt buckle. Another girl sits bug-eyed and nervous like it's her first time on acid. Is this the feeling of "indie"? Contradicting systems and references swirl around me.
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- {Antibalas}
A 10-piece with horns, bongos, afro-cuban grooves, Maynard Ferguson screaming jazz flamboyance, and the requisite nerdy, bearded, 4-eyed frontman, Antibalas is an exercise in polyrhythm. The frontman asks the audience to chant a counter rhythm, and they do, while the horn section kicks and punches a little booty shakin' out of this slightly sluggish afternoon crowd.
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- {Hot Chip}
Some independent thinkers bought Erasure albums in the ’80s.
Hot Chip's harmonies are as beautiful and well-executed live as they are on the album. Gentle synthesizers and heavily-delayed guitars dance and bobble around me like so many barely-legal strumpets in hot pants. Fueled by a second or third afternoon beer, a little ironic disco bumping and grinding commences in the crowd.
These guys are awesome. Long live synth pop! Someone yells.
Someone who sounded like Ringo Starr introduced Hot Chip as having come from "all the way across the pond." And now, this is finally a party.
Eventually, Hot Chip covers "Nothing Compares to You" and the crowd sways, the mood is dreamy. Life seems beautiful.
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- {Amon Tobin}
At last, an electronic music legend, my IDM hero, my MySpace friend: Amon Tobin quietly takes the stage. Echoes and burbling, watery tones (tones that sound like they are submerged in water) swirl from speaker to speaker. Random screams bubble up from the crowd. They're eager for the beat to drop.
A beautiful girl smiles at me (or maybe someone right behind me). Her shirt caresses my arm, and I am struck by the sensuality of Amon Tobin, whose swirling echoes give birth to hip hop beats. "His secret is a combination of audiophile-approved blips and beeps, art-o-phile-approved post-structural order-from-chaos-style sound-collage, and hot-girl-approved dark-eyed smoldering Brazilian sexy man-ness" (Igloo Magazine 05.25.07). It's the kind of music that makes hips circle slowly left, then right. Unlike anyone I've seen here yet, Amon is alone on stage — a gaggle of photographers crowd below, eager to click the man who made IDM sexy.
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- {The Portapotty}
Long lines. Really long lines. A girl in line who happens to be holding the same mid-size bottle of Jameson that I am tells me about a recently discovered city hidden beneath Machu Picchu, thousands of years older than the ruins there now. We talk about Graham Hancock and the 2012 apocalypse as I awkwardly dance the pee dance — from one foot to another — until we pee at last. We are pee at last! Let freedom ring.
I emerge and Amon Tobin has switched to drum and bass.
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- {Goldfrapp}
The band wears all white. Goldfrapp are dreamy, heroin shimmers. There's a harp on stage. The bassist's guitar is transparent. Blond and dreamy, Mrs. Goldfrapp wails a haunting falsetto, and I'm transported to Merlin's England where dragon's breath hangs over a magical wood.
I share a joint with a wood sprite.
The instruments blow like so many rivers to a sea of soft, elegant, radiant dream pop. They're something like the Cocteau Twins, but not as weird. Does Mrs. Goldfrapp even know Esperanto? In the early ’80s, I think Goldfrapp bought Blondie's Autoamerican and The Cocteau Twins Garlands and listened to them at the same time.
Alison Goldfrapp asks the audience, "Are you okay?" Everyone says, "Yeah!" And she sings, "You're my number one…" Somehow, I feel like she is singing directly to me, as I wander away from the stage to the perimeter of the festival grounds.
Resourceful kids sit on the rocky rim of Treasure Island, outside the fence. Security guards scowl and yell things at them. I sit.
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- {Mike Relm}
Earlier, I was lucky enough to interview Mike for three and a quarter minutes:
In his mashup set, Mike mixes Linus and Lucy with Rage Against the Machine's "Killing in the Name," which he mutes on the chorus so the crowd can chime in with "Now go do what they told ya!" so enthusiastically, like they'd been expecting and practicing their part.
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- {TV On The Radio}
"Thank you for your time." Drums, horns, fuzzy guitar pours like honey into a cup of tea, or over an eager audience. I am immediately aware that TV On The Radio is on a different level, a higher level of talent and experience than the other groups here. They've come all the way from the East Coast to educate these kids who are picking up the indie rock torch that TV On The Radio helped to light. The last time I saw them, they were reminiscing with the audience about SF experimental rock groups of the early ’90s. Yesterday, I read a story about them in the New York Times about their über-cool Williamsburg studio. So it goes. Good for them.
These songs are always running as fast as they can possibly go. The tempo pushes and shoves ahead not like fast music, but like a volcano. Kids keep shoving past me, toward the front, eager to leap and burn in TV On The Radio's molten sonic goo. Members of Antibalas play horns with them on a few songs.
"This is a song for San Francisco!" the heroic singer says before playing "Wolf Like Me." "We have a new record coming out on... Tuesday," he says. TV On The Radio is, as always, so good I don't know what to do. I just stand in awe. They talk about how good the other bands have been, and I'm charmed. They're right. Everyone here has been amazing.
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- {Robyn the Photographer}
Robyn the Photographer has managed to get another gentle photog uproariously drunk on the absinthe she brought in a thermos. I offer him a sip of my Jameson bottle: "Hell yeah, my nigga!" he says. Familiar systems of reference are disrupted, and I experience bliss.
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- {CSS (Cansei de ser Sexy) – at last.}
The photogs argue: Who is better: Justice or CSS? I assert that my respect is with Justice, but my heart is with CSS — who are beginning now.
Lovefoxxx releases a huge bunch of balloons into the air, and the show begins. Known for outrageous outfits, Lovefoxxx does not disappoint: thousands of ridiculous curly tubes hang from her body. Her hair is like Evita.
"San Francisco is the home of beaches and gays... and gay beaches... and bitchin' gays!" Lovefoxxx is so adorable, so endearing. She entreats the crowd with a sweet, girlish voice, making little quips between songs. And during the songs, she dances like Tina Turner.
"This next song is called ‘We like Obama.’ It's called ‘We cannot vote but if we could we would vote for Obama,’" and they play "Music is My Hot, Hot Sex." She walks atop the crowd like Jesus on water, and a halo of digital viewscreens surround her. She is pure goddess, pure holy power, pure good, pure evil. She speaks, my heart skips, I gasp. The power of Lovefoxxx compels me.
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- {Justice}
Two angels grab my hand and scream, "Justice!!!" and I'm whisked away from CSS to the front of the Justice stage moments before they begin. Writing is difficult here, dear reader, but I press on for you.
Justice are surrounded by Marshall cabinets, nine stacked on each side, with their signature glowing cross in the middle. The bass is so powerful that it rattles my insides and threatens my ear drums. Justice is the Guns and Roses of electronic dance music. They are like Daft Punk, but with penis and testicles.
Like Daft Punk, this is minimal house, with the emphasis on making their simple basslines the biggest, most destructive, disembodying, divine sound of all time. The audience shrieks with glee, and a thousand digital viewscreens elevate in front of me.
There's really no way to describe the bass — so huge, so immersive. Like enormous, blubberous whales falling from the sky; thousands of them cascading down on so many holy, hopeful, tiny dancers. We drown in bass, we are redeemed in bass. I soak in bass and my wounds are healed. Suddenly the Marshall cabs burst in light! They're lit from the inside!! Everyone goes crazy. The shadows of a thousand hands dance on the white gauze stage curtains.
"We…are…your friends, you'll…never be along again, so c'mon..." Then synth sizzles, guitar strums, and magnanimous bass erupts to free the slaves, give birth to the soul, and enlighten the masses in holy, holy vibrations.
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{Day 2}
Hungover and tired, I had the foresight to bring two flasks today. I start the day exploring the myriad of booths. The Treasure Island Music Festival celebrates independently produced music as well as independently produced art, writing, crafts, and even education via Dave Egger's own 826 Valencia, who have a booth there, too.
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- {Okkervil River}
So much guitar! Okkervil River seem like they're having fun. Will Sheff does that thing that The Killers (and many others) singer does where he opens his mouth real wide when he sings his vowels: "She can't hi(iiioooiiiiyyyeee)de!" Everything sounds like a sensitive "Oiyeee!"
They're interactive. Singer encourages audience to clap, sing along:
"C'mon! It's early in the day. You've still got a lot of energy to clap! I know you have the energy deep inside you to clap! I want to see all of your hands!!" (Sheff's candor is actually really endearing.)
I, for one, don't clap. Day one was electric and exciting. Day 2 starts as a chore. This will not be helped by the fact that today's pastiche of bands are largely indie rock, so therefore they emphasize irony and sadness (which makes me feel self-conscious), while yesterday's more electronic dance-oriented groups emphasized dancing (which makes me want to live, love, be free).
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- {Fleet Foxes}
A strange cacophony of beautiful (and well-executed) harmonies. At the beginning, they are The Doobie Brothers, but then they turn into dreamy, droney, echo-driven post-rock.
And then they turn into Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. They are perfect Sunday afternoon music: gentle, delicate, undistorted, with locomotive shuffle snare and golden cymbals to emphasize the golden harmonies. Like so many of these classic rock-inspired indie rock bands, you think you're getting soft rock radio, until they do something weird. The irony is subtle. It never breaks a smile.
The band pauses between songs to argue about what genre they are.
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- {Vampire Weekend}
Darlings of indie pop, Vampire Weekend draws the first big crowd of the day. Photog is unable to get into the pit to click Vampire Weekend. Their managers are fussy. They take themselves very seriously, it turns out.
Wow, Vampire Weekend play these songs really well. They are pure honey-sweet bouncing afro-pop — just like on the album. Self-importance hangs over the stage like a whiny storm. But this is kind of their shtick, right? Snotty, preppy, Upper East Side kids? Life imitates art and art follows suit.
The fan kids have the fancy jeans, and even though it's windy, girls are wearing skirts. From where I sit, tired and beer-scented on the grass, I can see up their skirts.
I stew while Vampire Weekend performs certainly and elegantly — just like on their album. So, it's a good show, but they don't want my love like Okkervil River did. So, maybe something is lost. But maybe I'm just not a teen excited about my jeans anymore.
"Vibrations straight from fingertips to larynx and out the nether chakras," says Robyn the Photographer.
Where's the balls? Where's the sex? Where's the transcendence?! Where's the sheer, childlike beauty? They left it in the studio. I become distracted. The audience is entertained, but not inspired, lulled but not moved; except for the pack of douchebags nearby, who are eager to sing the album word for word, right along with the band.
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- {Dr. Dog}
Dr. Dog was gracious enough to give me 7 minutes of their time for an interview earlier:
Dr. Dog played like warrior poets: beautiful, dreamy, Beatlemania.
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- {Tegan & Sara}
Even though they can't be more than 11 or 12 years old (j/k!), I get the feeling that Tegan & Sara are part of the old guard here. They're sweet and sentimental. They are bright and brilliant, and they push the tempo like the Indigo Girls do when they play live, with harmonies quavering like Liz Frazier.
Next, on Bridge Stage, is The Kills. I'm wondering if it might be better to skip them so that I can get to the front of The Raconteurs show.
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- {The Kills}
I decide to forgo The Kills show. Robyn the Photographer goes. They ruled, apparently:
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- {The Raconteurs}
I'm finally here: crowded at the front with the other folks who have forsaken The Kills to cram up to the holy Jack White pulpit. We cram up there for an hour-and-fifteen minutes.
Suburban mom rubs against my left side. I offer her some whiskey. She accepts. We share a nice moment. And then she tells me that this is her daughter's (15) and nephew's (14) first concert. They turn out to be crammed in right behind me. Her husband is crammed behind them. It's a family affair.
And after a school of attentive roadies have turned every nob just so, The Raconteurs take the stage. Cherry chapsticked mouths squeal, pimpled faces light up, bright eyes open wide.
Jack White is like Robert Plant: he wails, ladies swoon. No matter what the publicist says, Jack White is the front man of The Raconteurs. This is his band.
Anyone can see why Jack White has chosen these extraordinary players. They possess the extraordinary talent and disciplined musicianship that Jack White has been longing for.
Brandon says, "We're The Raconteurs from Nashville, Tennessee," and I'm confused. I thought Jack White was from Detroit. They must be trying to be cute. Fucking clever steam punks.
At times, they are corny classic rock, but in spite of it all, they are just so fucking good. These are the best musicians in rock today, and they are all here to prop up the master: Jack White. Jack White who bleeds like Jesus, Jack White who hunts the great white whale, Jack White who entreats all the girls in the audience to come on over get some Coca-Cola. And he tells the boys in the audience to put on a collar, a tie, and to pray.
Holy gospel pours from beautiful harmonies and elegant rhythms. Power from electricity, power from sex, power from the pure joy of rock ‘n’ roll. Jack White might be better than any human has ever been on that guitar of his. (It's called "hyperbole")
"Though I always seem to win, I always play to lose," he sings. "That's why I think I've got the rich kid's blues."
As their momentum builds, they start to sound a bit like MC5 — but the way MC5 always wanted to sound.
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- {The End}
I'm tired, but I go home electrified. Thanks, Treasure Island Music Festival! I love you!! An exercise in creative contradictions and wholesome, shameless talent, the Treasure Island Music Festival charms the pants off of even the bitterest and hippest of the bunch. I can't wait to see what these kids cook up next year.
[Photo: Robyn Johnson]
Sunset Rubdown
Empty Bottle; Chicago, IL
“Looks like it’s gonna be FULL Bottle tonight.” This barely clever but totally correct statement was made as I stood in line outside the Empty Bottle in Chicago. Hearing it made me excited. It may just be my own perception, but I always thought Sunset Rubdown have never received the full acclaim that their music warrants (despite consistently appearing on year-end lists), so I was ecstatic to see the strong turnout. In fact, I was especially excited to share the Spencer Krug Experience in a venue that seemed tailor made for them. The Empty Bottle is easily one of my favorite places in the Windy City: cozy, inviting, and intimate, in a way that most venues fail to even approximate. There is nary a bad seat in the house.
I've seen Sunset Rubdown a handful of times now, and I've concluded that, for them, the bigger the venue, the less interesting the show. This show did not break that mold. This time, I was close enough to keep my eyes locked on Krug’s eyes the whole show, which created a tension and connection that only venues like the Empty Bottle could recreate. I felt as if he was singing right to me, which, despite the cliché of that statement, is indicative of how engaging the performance was. The inherent nature of his songs almost necessitates this kind of intimacy. One of the highlights of the evening occurred when, after a guitar string broke, Krug played a slowed-down, quiet version of "I’ll Believe in Anything" -- a Wolf Parade song that was originally intended for Sunset Rubdown -- as the crowd sand along with every word. This moment would have been lost in any other venue.
The majority of the set was built around a handful of new songs, but despite the unfamiliarity, they managed to get the audience moving. Although the new songs replicate the elements that make Sunset Rubdown interesting in the first place, they also push their sound into interesting and exciting new territory. The band played them with the pride seen in a new mother’s eyes, yet there was also a nervous energy present: you could tell the band enjoyed playing the new songs, and they hoped you liked hearing them, too.
The remainder of the set was a showcase for the songs that we, as fans, have come to wholeheartedly embrace. "Mending of the Gown" was played with the reckless abandon that it deserves, while "Up on Your Leopard, Upon the End of Your Feral Days" was presented with the peculiar beauty that most of Krug’s songs possess. However, anticipation had built for a pair of songs that were continually being requested throughout the night: "Stadiums and Shrines II" and "Us Ones In Between." When these songs were finally played, the whole crowd breathed a sigh of relief. They were glorious, nakedly elegant, and gorgeously played. The whole venue shook with drums, rang with guitars, and overflowed with voices. Indeed, this was a good show, loud and raucous, and, unlike so many shows where the audience and artist are clearly distanced, this show felt unmistakably connected.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Crystal Ballroom; Portland, OR
It took four songs for Nick Cave to acknowledge the repeated calls of “Happy birthday.” Appearing with the Bad Seeds for the first time on a North American tour since 2003, Cave showed up ready to kill. Up to that point, Cave and his six-piece band had barreled their way through three cuts off their newest album, “Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!, as well as the Bad Seed classic “Tupelo.” “Yeah, that’s right, it’s my motherfucking birthday,” Cave, who turned 51 that evening, said. “I’m disgracefully old.” The band then launched into “The Weeping Song,” where Cave did double vocal duty to cover for the departed Blixa Bargeld.
I decided to get to the show early and settle into a good spot up front. I had seen Nick Cave many times before, and I knew that his style of visceral and confrontational rock is best experienced up close. Cave’s fans are hardcore. Black clothes aside, I saw more than few fans with Cave-related tattoos. They were ready to see their idol, who despite touring and recording non-stop, has not played on these shores with the Bad Seeds in a long time.
At least he did not disappoint. Dressed in a black suit, receding hairline, and porn mustache dyed ebony, Cave pulled his microphone stand to the edge of the stage and immediately burst into kicks and contortions over the drone of “Night of the Lotus Eaters.” With his shirt unbuttoned and a necklace of beads jangling against his hairless chest, Cave prowled the stage, reaching and pointing to the audience. The crowd pressed forward to touch Cave, a facsimile of the Christ that haunts his songwriting.
Cave is such a dynamic performer that it is easy to ignore the six other members of the band. Longtime partner Mick Harvey and Dirty Three virtuoso Warren Ellis led the tight Bad Seeds, a perfect complement to Cave’s ragged fury. After a period of writing stately ballads and ghostly love songs, this incarnation of the Bad Seeds did nothing short of piss fire. After last year’s garage rock side project Grinderman, Cave has been revisited by the anger and flames that occupied his earliest records. Before Grinderman, Cave either performed without an instrument or played the occasional piano. But for a few songs at this show, Cave played the guitar. No virtuoso by any means, Cave provided blasts of noise that filled in the atmospheric web created by the Bad Seeds.
The 19-song set featured a mix from Lazarus and the “hits” Cave aficionados would expect. But the newfound aggression that seethes in the latest tracks found its way into the older tunes. “The Mercy Seat,” always a slow-burner, crackled with terror, and the obligatory “Red Right Hand” sounded fresher than it has in years. Cave’s intensity hit a critical peak on “We Call Upon the Author,” where he paced the stage admonishing the audience about the end of the times. Though cliché, the mad preacher image is apropos.
Throughout the show, Cave came perilously close to the audience. At one point, a dude, obviously tripping, came flailing up to the front. He bumped off the people around me like a mad hatter, receiving blows and pushes from the fairly restrained group. As the song ended, Cave leapt forward, balancing on the rail between the stage and the crowd to signal security to get the man out. When the man refused to go, Cave tried to reason with him, offering him a seat (“a stool” or “a toadstool”) for him to sit upon on the side of the stage. When security finally dragged the guy out, Cave graciously leaned over the stage and patted him on the chest.
After putting an end to a blistering first set with “No News From Nowhere,” the Bad Seeds began the encore with “Love Letter.” This was the first actual ballad of the evening, and as Cave took his place behind the piano, the band reverted back to the torch-song reveries that filled albums like The Boatman’s Call and No More Shall We Part. But the respite was brief, and Cave soon asked the audience to join the call-and-response of “The Lyre of Orpheus.” At this moment, Cave reached into the audience (and I know I sound like a douche bag) and grasped my hand, intertwining his fingers with mine. The people around me seemed to love it as much as I did. They patted me on the back and shook my hand. The energy exchange for me was intense, but what an ego Cave must have with throngs of people just wanting to touch him.
The Bad Seeds finished off the show with the notorious “Stagger Lee” (it features one of rock’s most cringe-worthy lyrics -- see the video below). As Cave sang of rape and murder, the band thundered around him. And then the song ended. Cave, drenched in sweat, thanked the audience and rushed off the stage to celebrate his motherfucking birthday on his own terms.
Setlist:
The Builders & The Butchers
Mercury Lounge; New York, NY
The Builders & The Butchers' sound is hard to peg down. Portland's Willamette Week called them, "A demon-possessed Southern Baptist preacher leading a requiem at a swamp-set, barn-burning hoedown." I'm not quite sure that description does them justice, but my own came up short with "Americana Punk."
Waiting for the show to begin, I began to notice the deliberate lack of electric instruments. It looks as if they could play without amplifiers if not for the light conversation running throughout the crowd. But with the simple sentence "Hi, we're the Builders & The Butchers," the humble band that seemed subdued only seconds earlier explodes into a torrent of movement and sound.
Frontman Ryan Sollee has a John Darnielle-sque quality to him, in that each lyric belongs to a story of a distant place and time, but he still seems pained to sing them. His face contorts, as if the sweat dripping from his forehead is burning his eyes. His feet stomp, guitar slung high across his chest; Sollee is a man possessed, . The entire band is possessed; the audience is possessed. Sollee's like a caricature of Leadbelly crossed with Bon Jovi. One second he is intently focused on the microphone in front of him, aching to get the words out, and the next guitars become axes and are being held high against one another for dramatic effect.
There is constant movement all around the stage. Not only from Sollee, but from the rest of the band. Two percussionists surrounded by a staircase of bass drums leading up to a snare -- always in motion. Their arms are flailing, feet stomping, various smaller percussion filling in gaps left by the drums. Tambourines snap back and fourth. Banjo/Mandolin to stage left, an acoustic bass player (who looks strangely like Harry Shearer's Derek Smalls from This Is Spinal Tap) on stage right.
This show should have been played on a street corner in the 1930s, not the Lower East Side of New York City. Each song sounds like it was written by someone who has been sitting in a library too long, reading tales of deception and hardships from long ago. The Builders' "Red Hands" repeats, "When you take a man's life you fall down/ You fall from the grace of god," while song titles range from "The Gallows" to "Bottom of the Lake."
Once told by the sound tech that they only had two songs left, Sollee began to hand out tambourines to several members of the audience. For the next five minutes, the audience was a flurry of noise. I had never seen a band take such great care of an audience before. They have mastered the give-and-take that is the relationship between band and crowd. As much as we were pumping along, the band pushed us even harder, trying to get that much more out of us.
In the interest of full disclosure, both Sollee and I went to the same school in Alaska and worked at the same college radio station (albeit at different times). Refreshingly, I can still hear a bit of the openness of Alaska in his songs.
.JPG)
